christ

Present!

/ Morgan Grace Hart / 1 Comment

I just had this amazing realization today. It is one of those things you grow up hearing since childhood, but seldom let sink in…

God is HERE! 

He’s not:

  • Somebody from a story I like to daydream about
  • Someone that’s so far away I don’t even get to be with Him until I’m dead
  • Only present when I notice His Presence
  • Somebody who has to leave the room occasionally
  • Someone I can only experience in visions or dreams 

I mean, He’s HERE! He’s not Harry Potter or Peter Pan, someone compelling who we really, really WANT to believe is real. He’s not some **anime character** that we write fanfics about ( ok, well, some of us do…)

God bless you, and have a good weekend.

The Patience of Jesus Christ

/ Morgan Grace Hart / 1 Comment

Once, I had a dream that Jesus was with me, and though it’s a bit hard to explain, He was basically doing a blood transfusion with me. Blood was being drained from Him, enough to replace all the blood in my own contaminated body. He appeared to be in agony, the process slowly wrenching from Him one painful drop at a time. I became aware, for the first time, what kind of astounding patience He had. In the midst of all that pain, He wouldn’t speed it up to get it out of the way faster, or slow it down to make the pain less intense, or say, “you’re at 90%, that’s good enough, let me stop now.” Until the very last drop had been bled, at the exact rate and amount of pain that God had determined was perfect, that’s what Jesus went with. His hand at the controls, able to tap out at any time, He didn’t stop til it was completed. 

Jesus showed this dedication multiple times in His own, very real, death. When offered something to dull His pain, He refused (Matthew 27:33-34). When given an opportunity to fight and escape when the soldiers came to arrest Him, He refused (Matthew 26:50-54). When given a chance to use His proven eloquence and reasoning to talk His way out of being condemned, He refused (John 19:9-10, Mark 15:3-5). The Greek word often translated “completed” also translates as “perfected.” Stubborn as a mule and patient as a mountain, our Lord Jesus cut no corners, accepted no easier substitute, and resisted, at all costs, the temptation to speed up or dial down the suffering. Unlike the person who, at the end of a long exercise routine, promised themselves to do 10 reps but instead does only 9 because it is “close enough,” Jesus did not stop short. I would personally be contented if He had earned for me 99% of the blessings He has given me, but He would not. He would not stop until it was complete. If He was to do this thing, He would see it perfected. 

“Dear Jesus, thank You for going to the Cross for me. Thank you for letting nails be driven into Your very Body for my sake, for having the patience to wait it all out over the course of many hours, for the patience to carry that awful knowledge for many years, and for Your utter commitment to bringing absolutely everything into my life that God had dreamed for me, at whatever personal cost to Yourself. Amen”

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