The Lord Will Indeed Give What Is Good

This will be a long one, because I have a lot of quoting to do.

Well, the proposal/vision/lease for the Harlem House for next year has more or less fallen apart. We weren't able to get enough housemates to commit to shoulder the financial burden, and our landlord wasn't pleased with the ministry output of the house this year, so the combination of those two things essentially led to a breakdown in our agreement. The net of this situation is that I no longer have a place to live starting July 31st. There are several reasons why this is good. By July 31st, I am confident that my time in the Harlem House will more than have served its purpose in terms of establishing close relationships that I can maintain throughout my time in the city. My two closest friends in the house were both planning to move out anyway, and if we all move out it will be less hard for me when they do. Debby has a very loud bird named Bob, and we weren't sure how we were going to rectify that situation. I'm paying $900 a month right now, and my budget would not protest a lower amount. It would be nice to have my own room somewhere.

All that to say, I was really excited about living here. As I said, I feel like living here was more than worth it for the short time that I did because of the friendships I formed, but I know new people would've come in and it just would've been nice to stay here longer and see what the house could be as a community and as a ministry. It's definitely a letdown to think that it never reached its potential. Mostly I'm now plagued with the logistical details of yet ANOTHER move. I've got to find a new place, most likely buy furniture I don't have extra money for right now, and then get all my stuff to the new place. I'm not really that stressed about finding one, mostly because I feel like I have a lot of options. My church's website has a classifieds section that has so far been infinitely valuable to me, because it was through that that I found both my current house and my current job. I'm already chasing a couple of housing leads that I recently discovered there. Also, all my housemates are now looking for new places, so I may try to live with Laura, or with Deven and Diva. We're all considering the possible combinations in light of what might be available in July. Finally, I could get a studio in or near the neighborhood I'm in now for a little bit less than what I've been paying. It might be a little lonely to have my own place at this stage in the game, but I'm definitely not opposed. And I should be able to nail that down pretty quickly since it would be just me, so if all else fails that's a good last minute option.

The other frustration is not even knowing where I'll be working. The principal I most want to work for and with whom I interviewed twice back in March and who basically offered me a job has been almost impossible to get in contact with. I'm going to a citywide career fair next Tuesday, and hopefully she will be there. If not, I'm looking to sign a contract just about anywhere in upper Manhattan at this point. The amount of red tape I've had to go through just to get the right people on the phone has been more work than it's worth. And since I don't know where I'll be teaching yet, I'm less firm on the exact place that I want to live. I know that I want to teach in Washington Heights, ideally, and the Harlem House is perfectly situated for that. I really do love this area, so I'm hoping to find a place pretty near here, but if I can't, or I end up getting a job in a very different location, that could cause me problems.

It's good to know that God is in control of all these things. I feel like I'm a completely different person than I was a year ago in terms of waiting on the Lord and being willing to accept whatever He deals. He's forced me into that place by not revealing the details to me until I absolutely need to know them, and by working things out behind my back when I didn't even know anything was happening. I know He wants me in New York City, and I know He wants me teaching here. So, I can rest in that knowledge and believe He'll provide both a place to live and a school to work at. However, this makes a lot more sense in theory than it does in practice, and my penchant for panic doesn't seem to have diminished. I need prayer that I will continuously focus on the truth that He is in control, moving in the direction I think that I'm supposed to go, but being willing to turn at any given moment if He wills it. It's exciting to think that in three months I will be in that place to live, and I'll be teaching in that school, and I'll look back at this time and know that He was faithful to what He promised.

Today my quiet time was all about this. God is so good and always provides the word I need when I need it. I read Psalm 85 and in some ways felt like it applied directly to our house. My suspicions about that were more or less confirmed due to a conversation I had later on ... I'd rather not say more here just because details are still under wraps, but it may be that the house for next year is not totally out of the question for me. But the verse I can definitively claim here is verse 12: "The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest." I love meditating on the Lord's goodness, just because it's something I forget or deny very easily. But this verse affirms, He will INDEED give what is good. In the previous Psalm, verse 11 states the same: "no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless." I am blameless before Him because of Christ's work on my behalf, and therefore I can be confident that He has withheld no good thing. That's so encouraging to me when I look at my life and wish for something I don't have. I can say with authority that if that thing was good for me, I would have it. God knows best, and His best is always better than mine.

I always read My Utmost For His Highest after I read Scripture, and I'm just going to quote today's whole entry because it was so good:

"In the matter of determination. The Spirit of Jesus is put into me by way of the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I then have to build my thinking patiently to bring it into perfect harmony with my Lord. God will not make me think like Jesus - I have to do it myself. I have to bring 'every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ' (2 Corinthians 10:5). 'Abide in Me' - in intellectual matters, in money matters, in every one of the matters that make human life what it is. Our lives are not made up of only one neatly confined area.

"Am I preventing God from doing things in my circumstances by saying that it will only serve to hinder my fellowship with Him? How irrelevant and disrespectful that is! It does not matter what my circumstances are. I can be as much assured of abiding in Jesus in any one of them as I am in any prayer meeting. It is unnecessary to change and arrange my circumstances myself. Our Lord's inner abiding was pure and unblemished. He was at home with God wherever His body was. He never chose His own circumstances, but was meek, submitting to His Father's plans and directions for Him. Just think of how amazingly relaxed our Lord's life was! But we tend to keep God at a fever pitch in our lives. We have none of the serenity of the life which is 'hidden with Christ in God' (Colossians 3:3).

"Think of the things that take you out of the position of abiding in Christ. You say, 'Yes, Lord, just a minute - I still have this to do. Yes, I will abide as soon as this is finished, or as soon as this week is over. It will be all right, Lord. I will abide then.' Get moving - begin to abide now. In the initial stages it will be a continual effort to abide, but as you continue, it will become so much a part of your life that you will abide in Him without any conscious effort. Make the determination to abide in Jesus wherever you are now or wherever you may be placed in the future."

Just reading this and realizing that Jesus was abiding NO MATTER WHERE HIS BODY WAS -I can do the same. Even if I literally don't know where my body will be tomorrow night, I can abide in spite of that. Way easier said than done, but not impossible. Or rather - impossible with man, but all things are possible with God. The other thing that hit me about this was my tendency to say that I'll abide later. Lord, right now I have to worry about all these details and look at apartments and try to build up credit really fast and go to career fairs and go bed shopping. And He's saying, abide in Me NOW. Abide in Me in the midst of those things. It's a bit foreign to me on a practical level, but I'm learning.

Ok, last thing, I promise. My good friend Kathryn gave me a book called The Valley of Vision last year. It's a book of Puritan prayers and it's so poetic. I love reading it every morning along with my Bible. Today's prayer was called "Need of Jesus" and it completely applied to everything that's happening:

"Lord Jesus,
I am blind, be thou my light,
ignorant, be thou my wisdom,
self-willed, be thou my mind.
Open my ear to grasp quickly thy Spirit's voice,
and delightfully run after his beckoning hand;
Melt my conscience that no hardness remain,
make it alive to evil's slightest touch;
When Satan approaches may I flee to thy wounds,
and there cease to tremble at all alarms.
Be my good shepherd to lead me into the green pastures of thy Word,
and cause me to lie down beside the rivers of its comforts.
Fill me with peace, that no disquieting worldly gales
may ruffle the calm surface of my soul.
Thy cross was upraised to be my refuge,
Thy blood streamed forth to wash me clean,
Thy death occurred to give me a surety,
Thy name is my property to save me,
By thee all heaven is poured into my heart,
but it is too narrow to comprehend thy love.
I was a stranger, an outcast, a slave, a rebel,
but thy cross has brought me near,
has softened my heart,
has made me thy Father's child,
has admitted me to thy family,
has made me joint-heir with thyself.
O that I may love thee as thou lovest me,
that I may walk worth of thee, my Lord,
that I may reflect the image of heaven's first-born.
May I always see thy beauty with the clear eye of faith,
and feel the power of thy Spirit in my heart,
for unless he move mightily in me
no inward fire will be kindled."

He is good, and He will indeed give what is good.

Song In My Head: "Imagination" - Bethany Dillon - so poetic, and exactly what I'm feeling right now.