Karen Rabbitt

Unforeclosable House

“As we were praying, I got an image of a house of forgiveness,” I said to the small group, sitting on comfortable chairs at the leader’s house. After discussing the nature of sin, we’d finished small group with a brief prayer time. As we had explored some of the ways we miss God’s mark, a couple of people had questioned God’s forgiveness. Smiling, I continued, “It is a house God has provided for us. We can eat and sleep and rest in it, almost with a sense of taking it for granted.”

The leader looked thoughtful. “Good image.” We left then, gathering our coats against the cold night.    

Later, snuggling under my down comforter, I thought, “taking for granted” isn’t quite the right phrase, but it’s close. Forgiveness is the house a Christian lives in. When we turn toward him, away from sin, Jesus gives us the keys to the house he’s purchased for us. We can count on its solidity. 

It’s a slate-roofed brick house with a poured cement foundation that extends beyond the frost line. Overstuffed recliners hold us. The winds of guilt and fear may rattle the windows, but they will not blow the house down. Within these walls, we are safe.    

In addition, we needn’t fear foreclosure. Some, though, with oversensitive hearts, may wander the streets, thinking they’ve been forced out. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? How does a house without a mortgage get put in foreclosure? And yet, some of us easily believe God to be mad at us, even foreclosing on a house he’s already paid for.    

Father, Son, Spirit. Again, we thank you for your precious blood-bought forgiveness. Without forgetting that price, may we relax in its shelter.

 

 

Pure Motives?

The other day my husband told me about a man who traded in his hybrid Honda Civic for a Prius, the Toyota hybrid. The Civic looked too much like a traditional car and he wanted the attention the Prius drew. In some quarters of American society, there’s a new kind of “green conspicuous consumption.” We brag about our gas mileage, we buy carbon offsets for our plane trips, and we are snapping up books on how to build and buy “green.” Do we really care about the poisoning of the earth or do we want the attention we get for going green? Hard to tell. The fellow who traded cars because he wanted the attention makes me wonder. Could be that he just wanted the opportunity to spread the gospel of green.

Someone once said a freeing thing to me: “No one has pure motives.” I’d been moaning to him that I’d wanted attention; that’s why I’d given a communion meditation in service that day. The thought was freeing because, like all perfectionism, purity was unobtainable. I could confess my impurity and ask God to purify my motivation, certainly, but I didn’t need to mope around, punishing myself for my mixed motives.

Only God, who has absorbed our guilt into his vast heart, is pure. He is working toward a glorious future that we can all be part of. He acts, not for selfish attention, but for selfless good. Actually, I can hardly imagine that kind of selflessness. I must confess, mostly I just like attention for my own good deeds, green or otherwise. Maybe you understand that. 

Oh, Lord, reorient our hearts, away from attention-seeking, toward your good purposes.

Filling God's Heart

 

One morning, when my daughter was young, I turned to her as she played with her dolly on the kitchen floor and said, “There’s a Jenny Rabbitt-shaped place in God’s heart that only you can fill.” She wasn’t particularly impressed. 

But for me, it was one of those utterances that felt like the Holy Spirit himself. I must have been pondering Pascal’s famous line about there being a “God-shaped space” in our hearts. But that spontaneous sentence was a new perspective. 

If God has a special place for each of us in his heart, we are each special. And how much we long to be special to someone! We want one person to reach out their hand toward us. We want one person to hold us against their beating heart. We want one person so close that we can finish each other’s sentences. 

Many of us do not have a human being that close and on this Valentine’s Day, perhaps we especially long for someone. Jesus, too, longs for someone close. Though in his vast heart he has already made room for millions, he has reserved a space made especially for you. On this Valentine’s Day, may we sense his longing for us to move into that space. 

Jesus, please draw us more deeply into your great heart, where you have made a special space, just for us.

 

 

On a Cloudy Day

The sky is white today in Illinois. On these cloudy days, we must remember the still-burning sun. Here, clouds often obscure the light, but the sun always shines. A sunny winter day, even inside, can flood our faces with warm sunshine. Today, though, as I write near a south window, only light passes through. It illumines but does not warm. These sensory experiences are not the whole story. Our physical senses only partially testify to reality.

Similarly, God always loves us but we don’t always sense his warmth. Do we miss it because it’s not true or because clouds obscure the shining? Just like clouds block sunshine, we carry around emotional and spiritual obstacles that block our awareness of his goodness.

So many of these clouds arise from early experience. Was your mother a screamer? Do you sometimes feel God screams at you? Do you have a vague sense of God’s frown? How did your big brother look at you? Was it hard to get your father’s attention? Do you walk around feeling alone, like God is off on a business trip? Were you treated like a slave growing up? Do you cringe when people talk about God “using” us to accomplish his purposes?

God, please expose our clouds. Please burn off the haze that blocks your warm light.