Don't Forget the Things Your Eyes Have Seen

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I was in a foreign land thirty-eight years ago when doctors discovered a sarcoma in me the size of a grapefruit. That is a big tumour for a slip of a girl about to celebrate her third birthday. My dad and grandfather rushed me to the emergency room because I had popped a penny in my mouth and swallowed it and it lodged in my esophagus.

When they scanned for the penny on the x-ray, they found more than they ever imagined. They left me in the hospital that night and carried the bad news back to my mom.

I don’t remember swallowing the penny or spending the night alone in the hospital in England. I don’t remember flying home to Canada or meeting all the doctors that poked and prodded. I don’t remember being admitted to the Hospital for SickKids on that day in September.

I don’t remember the surgery that couldn’t get all the cancer.



I do remember lying very still on a hard, cold table while the doctors blasted me with radiation. I remember months and months of chemotherapy.

No one could say if all the treatment would even kill the cancer; a type of cancer that was so rare to even be found in a child. They drew up a plan for a three year old that was as aggressive as if they were treating an adult with a sarcoma.

My mom, she refused to take me down for my first day of radiation, just weeks after my surgery. I can’t blame her. I’m not sure if I could have subjected any of my three year olds to everything my body has had to endure.

My doctor called her on the phone and told her, if she did not bring me down to Toronto, I would not live. But, she had already been warned of the horrors of all the side effects. How do parents make a heart-wrenching choice like that?

Doomed if you do, but dead if you don’t.

That first appointment was rescheduled. And every weekday for the next five weeks they put me on that cold table in a large room with a big machine killing things I knew nothing about.

I still tremble when I think about that table.

For two years, my fight with cancer continued.

For the next thirty-six years, I have pressed on and I look back lest I forget what my eyes have seen.



No one knew back in 1979 that the radiotherapy they blasted at me as a 3 year old child would send me into advanced heart failure as a 37 year old mom of three young children.

It had already destroyed a lung and so the open-heart surgery I needed was risky business.

How can a body with 30% lung capacity manage on a heart-lung machine for over six hours? No one knew if it could.

Stepping up on to that operating table was a step of faith.

Faith perseveres by seeing “Him who is invisible” we are told in Hebrews 11:27.

My eyes have never seen God. I have never stood before a burning bush or stood at the foot of a mountain and see it burn with fire or heard the voice of God. But, I have seen His wonders; I have seen His glory displayed in my life. I have known the truth He has revealed in His Word.

I will give thanks to God for the great things He has done.



In Deuteronomy, Moses exhorts the children of Israel to not forget what the Lord God has done for them. They are once again on the eastern border of the Promised Land. Moses was forbidden to enter the land and he would die in the land of Moab before God would tell Joshua to cross over the Jordan and take possession of the land He was giving the children of Israel.

They have wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. And now, before Moses dies, he urges the people, with a series of sermons and prophecies, to obey the Lord God who is faithful, unchanging, and full of grace and mercy. God had demonstrated His power and love over and over and yet, it keeps slipping from their mind that He alone is God.

What slips from our mind can never lead to gratitude in our hearts. You forget his wonders, and next you will be forgetting God.



In Deuteronomy 4:9, Moses tells this generation of Israelites: 

“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children.”

Don’t forget! Don’t forget what you have seen God do. Don’t let it slip from your memory. Tell it over and over to your children. Don’t give any room for any idols in your heart. God is good and faithful. God is just and holy. He alone is God. Do you know it?



John Calvin, in his commentary on Deuteronomy, wrote:

“the people must beware of shutting their eyes against the clear revelation of God's power, and therefore urges them to keep it in memory, because man's ingratitude is but too prone to forgetfulness."

We don’t know what we may have to face tomorrow.

We don’t know what the road will look like. It may look like the impossible. It may look like cancer or some other sickness, or a costly sacrifice, or persecution, or reproach.

It may look like the Red Sea, or the wilderness, or the Jordan River. It may part and you will step out in faith on the dry ground able to endure because you are relying on God’s promises.



Thirty-eight years ago the doctors found a sarcoma right beside my heart. Three years ago doctors rebuilt my heart, but they didn’t think I would wake up that night after the surgery.

For three years now my heart ticks loud like a clock in my chest. I can hear it keep time with a steady beat as if to remind me every moment of the day.

Before God had created the world, He knew my every heartbeat. He knows my days. By grace, He has brought me back to Himself and with His steadfast love will lead me all the days of my life.

I have seen God do great things. He alone is God. I will not forget.

I will tell them to my children and if it is God’s will, to their children.

Held in the Storm

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It is after the storm passes. When the howling wind that pierced the heart hushes. The surging waves that smashed life to bits become still. And you realize you made it; you lived through it all. You survived. You are still standing.

That is when it hit me. Before the wild storm I thought I had living figured out--until life was almost snuffed out.

I fought and thrashed and floundered. Fought to live for my husband. Fought to live for my children. But when I had fought long and hard enough to keep on living, the frailty of life was too real and I became lost. Lost in the land of the living.

That is when I became afraid to live and scared to suffer anymore.





They say open-heart surgery can send you straight into depression. I fell hard. Into the darkness. Alone. I sunk to a seemingly bottomless pit.

I lost my way.

I lost my words.

I lost the wonder of life.

I became numb. Numb to the very thing I loved to proclaim: the goodness of God.

His grace was blazing like the sunshine splashing gold through the winter branches outside my window, but my eyes focused on the barrenness instead of the Light.

“My hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus Christ, my righteousness;

I dare not trust the sweetest frame,

But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.”

And, looking away from the shining radiance, I began to sink, like Peter out on the turbulent sea.

Fear held me hostage. Fear does that. It will hold you back and make you withdraw. And you may wonder why God seems so silent.

When Peter stepped out of the boat and fixed his eyes on Jesus he walked on the water. When he saw the wind, he was afraid. When he looked away from the Lord, he tried to flee the danger and ended up withdrawing from the very One who would reach out to help him. And he began to sink.

It is faith that looks to Jesus. Peter had faith. And yes, Jesus reprimanded him for his “little faith”, but not until after He had reached out His hand and took hold of Peter. He held him secure and helped him to trust Him more.

He had already told Peter not to be afraid. He had already told him to: “Take heart, it is I”. He had already bid him to “come”. He had already told him to walk out amidst the storm and trust him. And after Peter falters and flails around in the sea, after Peter looks to the waves and begins to sink, Jesus reaches out his hand and takes hold of Peter and they get back into the boat and the wind ceased.

His anchor held him--through the storm and after the storm.

"When darkness veils His lovely face,

I rest on His unchanging grace;

In every high and stormy gale,

My anchor holds within the veil."

So, when fear grips us and we begin to sink, the Anchor holds us. He has gone before us. He will not let go.

“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever.” (Hebrews 6:20-21)

My eyes looked away. Depression clouded my sight. Fear crept in and all I could think to do was to flee, to withdraw. And I began to sink.

I cried out for help, like Peter floundering in the sea.

And when I looked up away from my troubles and fixed my gaze on Jesus, I knew He never let go. He reached out and He took hold of me. The winds ceased. Life sails on. And, it is not a matter of if God is silent.

He has spoken:

“ . . . in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high . . .” (Hebrews 1:1-3)

The storms, they come. We have been battered and beaten. But, we have been held. He reaches out His hand and takes hold and gently nudges, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Don’t look to the waves. Look to the One who made the seas and who has power over the waves.

“His oath, His covenant, His blood,

Support me in the whelming flood;

When all around my soul gives way,

He then is all my hope and stay.”

And after the storm you realize, yes, you made it. And through it your faith is strengthened and your joy is sweeter. Fear turns to awe. The glimpse of the glory you saw, you can’t gaze on it, but you look to the King of grace.

The wonder of His sovereign grace opens your eyes to see His goodness, the display of His righteous power stirs words of praise, and the eternal hope found in Him leads you home.

“When He shall come with trumpet sound,

Oh, may I then in Him be found;

In Him, my righteousness, alone,

Faultless to stand before the throne.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;

All other ground is sinking sand.”

Learning From the Life of Hannah: A Woman with Serious Problems {Part 5}

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{This is Part 5 in a series on the Life of Hannah.

Click here for Part 1.}

For the last four weeks we have been examining the life of Hannah as told in 1 Samuel. As we come to the end of Hannah’s story today, we know God will be Eternally Glorified and we see that Hannah Erupts in Praise to the Supreme Ruler.

The God who Sovereignly Governs over all, Providentially Guides all circumstances, Graciously Gives all things is Eternally Glorified and “we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

“I consider that the sufferings of this present time”, Paul said to the Romans, “are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Oh, He is worthy of our praise.

In Romans, Paul said: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”





Hannah knows the goodness of God in her life and understood that there is no one like our God who will graciously give us all things.

Hannah’s heart erupts in praise to the Lord. She takes what has happened in her life and she breaks forth in magnificent descriptions of the character and goodness of God.

Her joy is in the Giver, not the gift.



In 1 Samuel chapter two, we read Hannah’s prayer.

In her prayer, Hannah meditates on the extraordinary goodness of God to her with all of who she is, she rejoices in the strength His gives. Her heart leaps for joy at his salvation; his deliverance.

She proclaims his absolute holiness, and acknowledges there is none like Him. He is above all.

Hannah uses the metaphor of the “rock” and speaks of his majesty and might. She knows He is the safe dwelling place for his people.

She speaks of His omniscience, His sovereignty, His omnipotence and His power over life and death. Hannah declares He is Creator and Sustainer of all. That He upholds all things and directs all things.

He knows all things: He knows our heart, our thoughts, our actions.

He is the Supreme Ruler. His plans will come to pass.

She knows He is Just and merciful, gracious and faithful in His promises.

She tells of the promised Messiah.

These are the things Hannah’s heart knows. Do you know God like this? Does your heart leap for joy the way Hannah’s did?





Hannah’s tune changes from weeping over her problems with sorrow to rejoicing in the Lord with this song of praise.

The book of Samuel begins with Hannah praying for the son that God would use to lead the nation of Israel from the time of the judges to establish the Davidic monarchy. God promised a Messiah through the line of David and to establish David’s throne forever. Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah, our Redeemer will reign forever.

Nothing can frustrate God’s plan.

Jesus Christ is the perfect substitutionary sacrifice and He bore the wrath of God for our sin that He might bring us to God.

The Supreme Ruler who Sovereignly Governs, Providentially Guides, and Graciously Gives, provides Hannah with three more sons and two daughters. Her future is secure.

In every way His will must prevail.





You may be women with serious problems, but we have a God who is Supreme over all. Because of His love He will graciously give you all things to conform you into the likeness of His Son to the praise of His glory.

With all your afflictions, sorrows, and anxieties find your joy in the Lord.

God Sovereignly Governs, Providentially Guides, Graciously Gives, and is Eternally Glorified.

Like Hannah, will you endure your problems, earnestly pour out your soul, entrust your Provider with all that He gives you and erupt in praise to your Saviour?

We have looked to the life of a woman with serious problems whose joy was ultimately in the Lord. We will conclude with these words Joseph Addison wrote in his hymn:

“Ten thousand thousand precious gifts

My daily thanks employ;

Nor is the least a cheerful heart

That tastes those gifts with joy.

Through every period of my life

Thy goodness I’ll pursue

And after death, in distant worlds,

The glorious theme renew.

Through all eternity to Thee

A joyful song I’ll raise;

For, oh, eternity’s too short

To utter all Thy praise!”

What Motherhood Has Taught Me: When You Doubt There is any Purpose to all Your Pain

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You may call it crazy. I prefer to call it curious.

While anticipating the birth of my firstborn I was eager to fully know what it would be like to deliver the baby who had been formed in my womb. I was determined I would not dull the pain with medication during the blessed, rip-roaring event. I wanted a natural childbirth as far as I was able. I knew it wouldn’t last forever. And, besides, I have a strong aversion to needles. I’ll take a bit of pain over a poke.

But, here's the curious thing: I wanted to feel the pain of childbirth. I preferred to go through the whole labour and deliver and experience the excruciating pain and the exhilarating joy.

So, yeah, I guess you could say ‘crazy’.

Maybe the stranger thing is when I was in the family way for the second time, and I was fully aware of the pain that was ahead of me, but I was curious to know if it would be as intense as the first time round.

And by the time I was expecting my third child, you would think I would not need to wonder any longer, but my curiosity got the better of me. For the third time, I accepted the multiplied pain of childbearing that God spoke of to Eve back in the Garden of Eden.

I consider that bearing and bringing forth a child is a privilege and a blessing. Without any pain management medication, I breathed resolutely through clenched teeth and grasped the sheer strength and endurance needed to bring forth life.

It really was an exhilarating kind of pain. It's true when they say you somehow forget the pain in those first moments when you embrace the invigorating joy of seven pounds of new life placed in your arms.





It’s also true: we are often fearful of pain and suffering. If we can avoid it, we will. And I'm not talking about the punishment of pain in childbirth, but all suffering we endure for the sake of Christ.

What does it look like to embrace suffering for the sake of Christ?

I've always been struck with Paul's longing that he expressed in his letter he penned while suffering in prison.

"that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."

His goal and aim in life was to know Christ in an intimate and personal relationship. The great apostle knew that to know the power of new life, he would have to taste suffering and become like Christ in His death.

Paul knew it's the one who suffers much that experiences the all-sufficient grace of God.





In suffering we will experience the exhilarating joy of God's power at work in us.

In the storms of life we will see the lighthouse that stands firm.

In pain our purpose is made clear.

A life without suffering lacks the need to look unto Jesus, the One "who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame" and was raised to heights of Glory at the right hand of the throne of God.

Resist suffering and you resist seeing God's powerful hand at work in your life.

Gratefully accept the thorns, the tremulous times, the troubles, and trials and God's power will rest upon those who gladly boast in their weakness.

Suffer for Christ’s sake and you will know a Power that brings forth new life.

This suffering brings us low. It hurts our self-glorification. The thorns press in and sting, but that is when God says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

In our weaknesses, the power of Christ rests upon us.





Oh, we're not just talking about crazy or curious speculations in life, but the whole purpose of suffering in your life.

“The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Paul said. The one who was shown he was chosen to suffer greatly for the sake of Christ. He was the one who learned to be content in whatever circumstance He was in.

It was Paul who said, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

Dare I say, 'bring on the pain'?

The Question We are All Asking: Where on Earth is the Love?

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There are an abundance of messages of peace and happiness amidst the roar of hostility and discord today.

Here we are at the end of the month in which we have a day to celebrate love with chocolates and flowers and another whole day to be intentional about spending time with family. Obviously, we all know, relationships matter. Although a scroll through social media or a glance at the headlines and a skim through online conversations and a lack of meaningful connections in real life, we could quite easily come to the very opposite conclusion.

We “bite and devour one another” in order for our own opinion to be voiced. How often we feed the flesh rather than starve our pride and stoop to serve one another in love.

There is no shortage of chocolate and roses—of that we can be sure—and they can be a fine, albeit, small expression of your love. But, relationships don’t thrive on boxes of smooth chocolate and bouquets of red roses.

In a world shouting for peace, where on earth is the love? 

Handing out peace without the hope of God will only seduce and deceive.

We are, by nature, a people motivated by fear, hunting for own happiness, pursuing passing pleasures and driven by our flesh.

We crank up the volume of the messages that pat our egos and tell us to do whatever it is that makes us feel good, insisting that whatever feels good is the right thing.

We turn inward and excel at the study of self. Often our expressions of love are even motivated by selfish desires.

We are pretty good at giving bits of ourselves to people in our lives that we enjoy and appreciate or even pity, but how many of us will go out of our way to give of ourselves to people who betray us, snub us, or are even out to destroy us.

We decide that is a whole different kettle of fish and we convince ourselves that we shouldn’t have to go out of our way to others who are so underserving or our time, attention, resources or safety.

Peace and comfort isn’t about us all feeling good about ourselves. Real joy does not come by seeking temporary happiness and fleeting pleasure.

Jesus Christ came to give us abundant life. The life we enter when we know Christ is far more than pursuing fading pleasure, but one that is being poured out for His glory and found in enjoying Him forever.

Far worse than being broken, is becoming unbreakable. Love is willing to be broken wide-open, love is willing to risk, love is willing to prefer others and it isn’t always going to feel good, but it is always a fruit of faith, by believing in God, who is love. 

C. S. Lewis warns what it costs to pursue happiness instead of love:

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one . . . Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable . . . Christ did not teach and suffer that we might become . . . more careful of our own happiness.”

Since when has our happiness become more important than love?

Love is not being more concerned about our own feelings, rights, privileges, or safety.

In the name of peace and comfort we have determined the problems of this world are problems of pain and suffering, but the root of the problems in this world is sin and the essence of sin is preferring something more than God.

Our fundamental need is peace with God, to know God, to be known by God.

John told his readers “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God . . . God is love.” {1 John 4:7,8b}

Knowing about God is not enough. Knowing God is ultimately—and completely by God’s mercy and grace—being restored into a right relationship with God by faith.

We’ve been winding our way down this path of true love to grasp the glorious truth of the gospel:

In believing that Jesus is the Son of God who was “sent to be the propitiation for our sins”, we enter into this newness of life, and this is eternal life—to know the only true God and Jesus Christ.

We are first made new creatures and given new hearts and by God’s Spirit faith is inwrought in us.

This faith precedes love. Faith, it has been said, is a working grace.

This faith that leads to life, effectually, by the work of the Spirit, removes the greed, fear and pride in our hearts that craves our own happiness and it produces a perfect love that makes the desire of our heart the absolute delight of the Lord.

In a world that is satisfied by temporary pleasures, we need to look to Jesus who endured the cross for eternal joy. Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of our faith, He is our life and the love of Christ controls us that we “no longer live for [ourselves] but for him who for [our] sake died and was raised.”

Love begins with the love of God. Love is laying yourself down and taking up your cross. 



In a world crying for peace, we need perfect love.

“Perfect love casts out fear.” John Piper has said, “perfected love”is the love of God expressing itself in our love to each other. 

Faith produces love. Paul said, “ . . . whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”

A true saving faith will produce love for God and from this love will pour forth a love for others. This faith is from God and it will give you the desire, even power {Ephesians 3:16-19} to go lower, to stoop down and serve others, even the unlovable.

Faith looks to our Great Substitute as our life, our abiding hope, our unending joy and without this faith, Hebrews 11:6 says “it is impossible to please God.”

As we wend our way on the path of hesed love we will see what the Lord requires, as the prophet Micah questioned the people of Israel “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness [or hesed], and to walk humbly with your God?”

Our souls have been made to find rest in God. Our fundamental need is to be brought back to God. Our ultimate joy is to know the all-sufficiency of Christ. Our peace is Christ Jesus.

The chief end of man is not to pursue our own happiness, but “to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”

Praise God that in Christ there is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” and that “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” {Romans 8:1,39}

Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, that he has delivered us from a life dominated by sin and set us free to love him and one another.

This is the message that graciously holds truth and love together and that results in lasting peace and eternal joy as it is anchored in the God of hope as we continue to have faith in Him.

When You Follow the Path of Love You Have to Stoop Down

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When he proclaimed his love for me out there on the top of the 'Anne' bridge at the peak of winter it didn’t much matter that is was way below freezing and the river had frozen over.

When he let his innermost thoughts fall on my ears, that it was his desire for me to be his wife, he slipped a diamond on my finger and the sun dropped behind our backs and left us standing in the stark cold, flushed with a longing for life together. We ran off the bridge and rushed into our future.

Winter faded into spring flowers, which ushered in a busy, blistering summer and we were married on the rainiest fall day in the history of ever afters. No one could have prepared us for what was to come.

You could say, we started off well-watered for all the pruning that would come into our lives and into our marriage.

We were young and had carefully guarded our hearts. We looked forward with honorable intentions and stood before God and made solemn vows to one another.

Somewhere in our house are copies of the vows we spoke. We committed them to memory, and boldly they soared from our lips and every day since then we have been committed to live them out. We’ve learned a lot about love since that frigid day on the 'Anne' bridge. We’ve still got more to learn than we know. 

It’s a lot easier to speak a vow that to live one.

To say you will love and cherish someone all of their life, all of their days is rather simple, especially if there is any affection or attraction to that person.

But, what happens when the hard part of the vows knocks on our door?

Love faithfully prefers the other even when the happily ever-after becomes sorrowfully exhausting and brutally demanding right now and from this day forward.

When life twists and turns, when loss heaves and health fails, then love risks and keeps on risking. And I’m not only talking about love within marriage now. We have been commanded to love our neighbor, love one another, and Christ went so far to call us to love our enemies.

Love reaches far. Love goes low.

The path of love is humility. Lowliness. Servanthood.

This truth is either falling on deaf ears and hard hearts and is slandered and spurned or is landing on ears that hear and it is sown in the chambers of contrite hearts ready to follow the glorious example of Christ.

Do you hear this? God has demonstrated his love toward us and we are to walk this very same path of love, dying to self, taking up our cross.



The only way to be delivered from the bondage of self-centredness, is to walk in the freedom of humility.

Humility sets us free from the idol of self, slays the pride of our souls and releases us to value others above ourselves, and to consider the interests of others.

Humility and love must go hand in hand; they are inseparable. Humility is our friend, pride is our foe.

C. S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity explained:

Pride . . . is the complete anti-God state of mind . . . As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

Lewis continued “Pride is a spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love or contentment or even common sense.”

No small wonder Solomon wrote: “Pride goes before destruction.”

Humility is the opposite of pride. Clothe yourself with humility.

Humility allows you to love others not only if and when they are worthy of the love, but because in humility, whether they are lovable or not, you have regarded them to be worthy to be loved. In humility, you have considered them worthy for you to serve them.

In stooping low, you esteem them worthy of being lifted up, encouraged, built up. 

Look to the example of Christ and as Paul gently appealed in Philippians 2:5-8:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather,
he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

Consider the descent of Christ’s humility.

Christ Jesus, who was with God in the beginning and was God and who is God eternal, never ceased to be God when He climbed down from the glories of heaven, curled Himself up in a cramped womb, unfurled Himself as a baby in Bethlehem. From the heights of heaven to a lowly manger.

The Son of God who is “ . . . the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature . . .”, the shining of the shining, made himself nothing by taking on the nature of a servant, the likeness of man. There we see the nature of God and the nature of man in one Person; the climbing down of Deity to be garbed in humanity.

He descended lower.

He stooped to serve. He healed lepers, he washed dirty feet, He bent down and wrote on the ground, He allowed the betrayer’s kiss.

He descended lower.

He humbled himself to the point of death. He who is life, the author, agent, and sustainer of life, became obedient to death.

He descended lower.

He endured exceeding sorrow, was covered in horrific shame in the sight of God, and suffered great contempt and God’s wrath on a cross.

This is the attitude we are to have toward one another. Go lower and lower and even lower still. That is where you will find love rising higher and higher.



Love doesn’t live in fairy tales. Love abides in Christ and is poured into our hearts.

Love shows up when you stoop low.

When you reach out to the hurting, when you sit with the sick, when you welcome the outsider, when you are the hands and feet to the least, the lost, the lonely, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked and serve them, giving of yourself, thinking of others as better than yourself, then love flows over.

Love increases when self decreases.

Love grows when by the power of God, you set aside your life to care for a sick child or spouse or aging parent, you sacrifice your status to serve the body, you lay down your rights to honour those above you, and you strip away your entitlements and do all that you can to live peaceably with all.

Love takes the lower place.

When you see yourself for what you really are: one guilty of sin, but by grace you have been saved through faith by the atoning work of Christ and raised in Him and called His Beloved, you will stay at the foot of the cross.

At the cross, you see that Christ is all-sufficient and you don’t need to pamper your own happiness and stoke your own identity, because your aim is Christ, your pleasure is to delight in God’s pleasure, and your joy will be full in Christ.

At the cross, we look up to Jesus, follow after Him and go low. At the foot of the cross, we lay our selves down, and take up our cross as we walk the path of love clothed in humility, and we rejoice that in life and in death our hope is secure and our future is bright.