bible

Always Beside Me

/ Morgan Grace Hart / 1 Comment

The cross I’m meant to carry everyday is, in a way, crafted for me by the one who loves me most. That there’s a lot of crosses in the world, just as there’s a lot of deaths… but that only one is meant for me. It can be really hard to explain what it’s like to suffer for loving someone, and I’m not able to explain it in more than a visceral response. More eloquent people than me have described it as “fear”, or have said that “He disciplines those whom He loves”. Paul said that God placed a sharp piece of wood — a thorn, in many translations — into his flesh, and when Paul asked God to remove it, His answer was no, that “my grace is sufficient for you.” When Job worshipped God, he said, “though He slay me, yet will I praise Him,” and Jesus prayed, “Your will be done,” fully knowing God’s good and perfect Will was that Jesus should suffer terribly from that point; in the Father’s own words, “Awake, sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is close to me! […] Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered” (see https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/zechariah-13/ for a very good discussion of this quote). So, I know that from the outside, that it all sounds like craziness. I’m sure it sounds abusive and one-sided. All I can tell you, though, is it’s not one-sided. If anyone is abused in this process, it’s God Himself. It’s strengthening and freeing and it feels good in a way that’s hard to explain. To step up and start is such an absolute rejection of human nature, you could’ve more readily convinced me to drink poison than to follow a God who promises suffering and persecution. So I’ve got no “Ah ha!” moment to give you in here, no “Pikachu, I choose YOU!” to shout across the hilltops.

All I can say is, I’ve seen God, and He’s GOOD, and He’s worth following. 

Amen. 

Jesus Calling

/ Morgan Grace Hart / 1 Comment

After the popularity of books like Jesus Calling, there’ve been a lot of things written in Christ’s voice. It’s a slippery slope – and I don’t blame those who consider it blasphemous – but, just like trying to walk a mile in another person’s shoes, you can realize surprising things about Jesus by attempting to view the world from His perspective. 

Without further ado…

They usually don’t see me. All they have – and even this varies from person to person – is a gift of knowing I am present, as I sit patiently on the floor in front of them. The moment they give themselves to me is an unbelievable moment of joy, tinted and brought into even better focus by the memory of when I suffered for them. Countless people have come to me now, but the intensity never diminishes. And there I am, a weeping mess as I hold them, a mom told that her stillborn child is no longer dead, and she can bring the baby home now.

Even with all the waiting and worrying until then, sometimes the process is as sweet as the reward. There is no sweeter love.  Everybody gets to form their own relationship with God, and every single one of those unions is unique. The months – and sometimes years – of turn-taking between us can be especially sweet in the way it builds on itself. Like dripping water in a quiet cave creating stalactite and stalagmite alike, we build the beauty of love one little piece at a time. I bless them, they decide to entrust something new to me and let my blessing take hold, and that blessing leads to a new blessing, and a new piece of their trust. And by the time the building is done, and they have entrusted everything to me and have nothing left to hide, then the connection is a strong pillar of stone, beautiful and made to last. Or in another way, it’s like taking turns digging a tunnel through stone with just one small tool. We take turns chipping a little bit away, slowly but surely, until we dig the tunnel all the way through the stone and arrive at the center of my Loved one’s heart, where we can be together, miles away from the surface world, looking at one another, our eyes growing accustomed to the light. 

When salvation is preceded by suffering on my loved one’s part, I’m even more moved, even prouder… There is nothing in the world like having someone who had been abused, who is filled with reluctance to ever be vulnerable again, yet open their arms to me, and place their life in my Hands. Or when a woman who’s suffered rape, who’s become wary of all men, is yet willing to sit alone with me – a man – and let me carry her heart in my Hands.

This kind of courage moves me to the very marrow.  Love is unspeakably beautiful, but the process of getting there is slow, and the journey is unsightly and fragmented. My blood is the only trail marker.

Much like a Jewish couple breaks a glass at a wedding ceremony to commemorate the end of the temple, every joyful event in my life is woven closely into how I suffered as a person. I was crucified for you. I want you to always remember that. Not to shame you, but to lift you out of your shame. Whatever you have done, remember that as you are right now, sinful and hurting, I was willing to die for you. 

There’s a misconception some people have that somehow I hate them because I suffered for them. But the opposite is true. My labor was long and painful, and you — right here as you are, this very moment — are the newborn infant I hold to my chest. I could not love you more!  

Putting broken things back together is the joy of my life. 

scriptures:

Deuteronomy 4:29

James 5:8

Acts 17:27

Adorning the Dark

/ Morgan Grace Hart / Leave a comment

Excerpt from Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson: B&H Publishing, 2019.

“The first few times I was in a position of leadership at a retreat or conference I was so nervous I could hardly speak. When my dear friend Kenny Woodhull asked me to co-lead a retreat with Michael Card about fifteen years ago, I declined. Putting on a concert is one thing; I could do that. But teaching? Speaking? Leading? Clearly Kenny had the wrong guy. But he talked me into it. At the first session of that retreat, after Michael gave his brilliant introductory thoughts, it was my turn to say a few words. I stammered as I told them that I felt unqualified, but that I had to trust something George Macdonald once wrote about the inner chamber of God’s heart: 


‘As the fir-tree lifts up itself with a far different need from the need of the palm-tree, so does each man stand before God, and lift up a different humanity to the common Father. And for each God has a different response. With every man he has a secret—the secret of the new name. In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter . . . a chamber into which no brother, nay, no sister can come. From this it follows that there is a chamber also—(O God, humble and accept my speech)—a chamber in God himself, into which none can enter but the one, the individual, the peculiar man—out of which chamber that man has to bring revelation and strength for his brethren. This is that for which he was made—to reveal the secret things of the Father.’


That is to say, you know and understand things about the heart of God that only you can teach. Once I was in a counseling session with my dear friend Al Andrews, working through a painful season of my childhood. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I said with a sniffle. “My brother and sisters don’t seem to carry this same pain, and we were all there at the same time, in the same house.” Al said, “If I were to interview four siblings about their childhoods, they would each describe a completely different family.” Your story, then, is yours and no one else’s. Each sunset is different, depending on where you stand. So when the voices in my head tell me I have nothing to offer, nothing interesting to say, I fight back with George MacDonald. 

Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms” (John 14:2). Could it be that those rooms are inner chambers in the heart of God, each of which has an individual’s name on it? If this is true, and I’d like to believe it is, then all I have to do is tell about my Lord and my God. Because I know him intimately, uniquely, it may be a revelation, in a sense, of the secret things of the Father. This is part of my calling—to make known the heart of God. And because he holds a special place in his heart for me and me alone (just as he holds a special place for you), my story stands a chance to be edifying to my sisters and brothers, just as your story, your insight, your revelation of God’s heart, is something the rest of us need.”

Thank you, and have a wonderful weekend. 

With Love,
Morgan Hart