shake down

Oh Jenga… I really wanted to be good at this game when I was growing up. I don’t know why exactly… but it seemed to me that if I could be good at jenga that would somehow speak to my inner strength of character. Okay, probably I wasn’t exactly thinking that as a child, but I think it now…

But alas, I was not good at Jenga. I have shaky hands.. just check any of our home videos of babies etc; super shaky when mommy was the one recording. I also never chose the right piece to remove and was regularly disappointed when the blocks came tumbling down.

The whole premise of this wily game of stacked blocks is that some of the blocks can be removed without the whole thing crashing down… but which blocks are vital and which are… not? In the midst of heart wrenching situations in a several different areas of life, I’m wondering about the interdependence of the blocks that make up who we are, and also the actual solidity of what we base ourselves upon.

At the heart of these questions I know that Jesus tells us he is true. And when other parts of life are shaking or crumbling, the assurance that we have as Jesus people is that he will never be shaken. He will never be not enough.

We are able to hold on to certainty and confidence because of who God is and because of who he says we are. So many other pieces in the tower can fall, but the truth of Jesus will not be moved.

At the same time, though, if we are present to our lives we will also need to hold the hard questions, and the heart-breaking consequences of many, many other things shaking down. The undoing of many pieces that we thought were sure will lead to broken bodies, broken hearts, and broken trust.

How then do we hold well these two realities? How do we balance the real truth that Jesus is sure and constant, with the lived experiences of pain, unanswered questions, relational fallout, and pieces that we thought were solid now laying scattered in a heap of dust?

How do we hold both faith and hurt with honesty and grace?

Because we need to do both. It is no good to simply express a faith that says all things will work for the good of those who love Jesus. Though these words hold truth, they will also ring hollow in the midst of suffering, betrayal, or abuse. And likewise, we do not want to surrender to despair, hopelessness or bitterness, because while these emotions are understandable, they do not reflect the truth of what we know as followers of Jesus.

We need to acknowledge the darkness, so that we see our need for the light. And we need to be certain of our grounded-ness in Christ, so that we can rest in knowing the shake down only goes so far.

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies. - 2 Corinthians 4:6-10

And truly friends, when I think about when it means to continue forward holding both of these things well, I am immediately overwhelmed by how to figure out the way to balance both and to not just give up and hide away from the hard things. Thank goodness we don’t need to find the way forward on our own.

In another moment of prayer and crying out to God to bring clarity and peace, I was reminded of these verses from John 14:

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me…
And you know the way to where I am going.”
”No, we don’t know, Lord.” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (I completely love Thomas for this question!)
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

Jesus is the way. Jesus is the way.
Jesus is the solid foundation that will never be shaken. Jesus is the promise that there will always be life after death, and hope that is sure in the middle of every brutal circumstance.
It’s not a platitude; it is a solid foundation that we can truly build our lives and ourselves upon.

Don’t be afraid of the shaking, beloved ones. Or of losing at Jenga :)
The way forward will not be easy; for a good holding of hard things requires action and presence in the middle of pain.
But Jesus will be the way forward, and it will be very good xo