Tag Archives: trust

Soul Rest in a Restless Time

by Christina Fox, in category Rest

As Covid-19 continues its march across our globe, through our land, into our homes, conforming our lives to its harsh realities, I’m learning where I choose to allow my mind to rest is the only place to find soul rest as well.

In March when stay-@-home became the new reality, we received a letter referencing that popular phrase from a few years ago, What would Jesus do? The writer suggested changing it to, What is Jesus doing – in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Many good things were happening. Jesus was at work. Our governors made decisions to protect their citizens. Companies offered to retrofit their plants to manufacture ventilators and protective gear for our hospitals. Volunteers across America sewed masks. People bought groceries and ran errands for those at-risk.

Caring and kindnesses were happening— and still are.

The question morphed in my mind: What should I be doing? How can I help?

In March, God led me to five answers, five ways to experience soul rest. As the restrictions of stay-@-home were relaxed (in Colorado, our governor is now saying safer-@-home), God continues to define how I think about my question. Now my answers, although similar, are not the same as in March…

Hope in Our Covenant Keeping God

by Christina Fox, in category God's Word

It’s been several weeks of caution and seclusion. Our churches are livestreamed, our fellowship times are in digital halls, and our Bible studies are framed by computer or phone screens. There is a new normal that is still unfamiliar and uncomfortable, and we don’t know how long this altered existence will last.

Scripture is full of exhortations about waiting on the Lord (Is. 25:9; Ps. 37:7; Lam. 3:26), having patience (Gal. 5:22; Col. 1:11; Jm. 5:7), and God’s care in the midst of hard times (2 Sam. 22:31; Ps. 36:7, 46:1, 62:8). But there is one page of the Bible that I’m finding unconventionally encouraging in these unconventional times. Unfortunately, if you use an electronic version of the Bible, you probably won’t notice it. Go grab a physical copy of the God’s Word and turn to Malachi 4. Now, turn the page.

It’s blank, isn’t it? There’s a blank page, followed by a page introducing the New Testament. That blank page represents over 400 years of silence, uncertainty, and waiting.

If you’re still holding a copy of the Bible, your left hand is holding around 1,500 years of covenant history. I say “covenant” history because the Bible is full of covenants that God makes with his people. Throughout that history, God kept his covenant to preserve and bless his people, even though his people disobeyed the covenant conditions. The Old Testament is an ongoing story of how God committed to his people, his people disobeying, God reestablishing the covenant, and sending covenant messengers (aka prophets) to remind his people of the terms of the covenant. There are robust themes of God’s faithfulness despite his people’s sin..

Seeking Rest in the Time of Corona

by Christina Fox, in category Rest

I spend most of my life in a decade old minivan that has seen better days. The calendar is normally crammed-full of activities for my four children, ages 7-12, and we are constantly running from one thing to the next. At the end of the school day, I work to get everyone fed and off to baseball, soccer, dance, therapy, etc. (On the days I work as a substitute teacher at their school, the chaos only multiplies.) I often feel like one of those hamsters running around the wheel and getting nowhere.

This was our reality until we were told to stay home. I know that we are not alone in having our lives turned upside down due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Our family is practicing social distancing, and almost overnight I have turned into a homeschool mom of four. Games and practices are cancelled. Our reality has rapidly changed. It’s like a record spinning around and around and someone takes the needle off, causing the music to come to a screeching halt.

It’s quiet. I don’t mean volume wise—there are four extroverted children living here—but activity-wise, it is quiet. We don’t have anywhere to be and nothing on the to-do list but thick packets full of school-work. It’s an alternate reality. My head is less full of schedules, and to be honest, it’s been nice.

My pastor-husband recorded a Facebook Live for our congregation asking us to consider a question that has resonated with my heart: How we can invest our time of social distancing instead of just biding our time? I have prayerfully considered how the Lord wants me to spend this time with Him. God has us in a season very different than our usual, so what can I learn from this time?..

A Certain God for Uncertain Times

by Christina Fox, in category Encouragement

Uncertainty. Just that word can make our stomachs churn, our hearts pound faster, and our minds race. Everyone is dealing with uncertainty right now due to the upheaval of the Coronavirus—whether it be your travel, work, schedule, group meetings, church, school, childcare, etc. It all boils down to our PLANS becoming uncertain. Less fixed. Less known. We are used to booking our schedules weeks or months in advance, always having what we need (or want) in the stores, and rarely inconvenienced in a way that technology or a little willpower won’t “fix.”

The Illusion of Control

But it’s all an illusion. Your well laid plans, your schedule, your “tap of the iPhone and ___ happens” gives you and me a sense of control. But it’s not actual control. Times like this really drive that home.

I don’t know about you, but I really like to be in control or to have systems in place that make me feel like I am in control. My planner, schedule, timelines, phone, etc., while all God-given tools that can and should be used to serve Him and others, are often more about my own little kingdom than about His. This really points to the pride of my heart that the Lord graciously peels back in times like this.

Scripture speaks to this concept over and over:

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil'” (James 4:13-17).

“The heart of a man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9)…

Prayer While Waiting on the Lord

by Christina Fox, in category Prayer

“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”  Psalm 27:14

There’s a lot of waiting that goes on in our house.

One teenager waits to see if he’ll be accepted into a technical program that will greatly alter his remaining high school years and give him practical skills and knowledge that he feels are relevant to his life now and in the future.

Another teenager waits to see if she’ll get a resident tutoring position at college that will greatly affect her financial situation, her commitment to living on campus, and future professional and academic possibilities.

My advice to both of them is about the same: Do what you can to achieve this goal, don’t miss any deadlines, and then wait patiently. And remember that no matter what the result, God knows what’s best for you. Even if the outcome isn’t what you would have wanted right now, it’s amazing how God works behind the scenes in our lives and we sometimes realize only years later that he did, in fact, work everything for our good.

They nod and say “I know.” I believe they really do know. I think they understand (as much as any of us can understand) that sometimes getting our heart’s desire at any given moment isn’t always what’s best for us in the long term, and often it’s only God who can see that distinction.

But the teenagers aren’t the only ones who are waiting. I’ve been waiting, too. I’ve had some healthcare decisions to make that were unexpected and emotionally difficult. My doctor subtly encouraged a certain decision but ultimately left it up to me. I struggled and prayed and yes, Googled. Through all of this, I was leaning a certain way (not my doctor’s way), but what I was really doing was waiting. Not for the “right” decision to be revealed to me, not for an expert to come along and tell me what to do, not even for a friend to step in and give me decision-making advice or wisdom.

What I was waiting for—what I was praying for—was peace…

When God Says “No”

by Christina Fox, in category Prayer, Uncategorized

I had a Cabbage Patch doll when I was young, and it was by far my favorite toy. From the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep, I kept a routine of caring for this doll. During Sunday school one week, we learned about Hannah in the Bible, and I remember our teacher explaining that God heard Hannah’s prayer for a child, and God answered her prayer. I’m sure she further expounded, but what I walked away believing was, If God hears me, He will say ‘yes.’

So, that night I put my Cabbage Patch to bed and prayed that God would make her real the next morning. I went to bed with tremendous anticipation as to what the doll was going to be like as a real baby. When I woke and discovered the same old stuffed doll, I was incredibly disappointed, and wondered if God didn’t hear me.

I decided to pray again that evening. Louder.

While my understanding of the ways in which God answers the prayers of His children has grown (thankfully), the difficulty in accepting God’s ‘no’ has, in many ways, remained the same. I felt a new depth of pain as a young woman when God answered ‘no’ to my pleading to keep my father alive after he was diagnosed with cancer. I felt a wave of confusion after praying persistently that the lump found on my thirty-year-old sister would not be cancer, and God said, ‘No.’ And I felt tremendous grief when God said ‘no’ to the prayer that the strange side-affects my mom was experiencing would be nothing of significance.

When God Says ‘No,’ He Understands Our Grief

Grief and confusion are natural reactions to God saying ‘no’ to our wants. These emotions are not wrong, but as believers, we should grieve knowing that we are not relenting our desires to an emotionless God who cannot identify with our pain. The incarnation is profound precisely because it reminds us that when God came into this world, he entered the human experience and knew sadness, death, and suffering.

God understands our grief.

 One of the most beautiful passages in the Bible is John 11. Mary’s brother, Lazarus, was deathly ill and eventually died. Before Jesus raised him to life again, He visited the family and saw Mary weep over the loss of her brother. Verse 33 says that Jesus was “deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.” And then he wept. He didn’t just shed a few tears; he didn’t tell them to put smiles on their faces because Lazarus was about to be raised. No. Jesus wept. He was grieved by a world tainted with sin. When God says ‘no,’ trust that His gentle hand is holding you fast through the waves of the unknown, and he is bottling up every tear with unconditional love…

The Very Near Word in our Wilderness Sufferings

by Christina Fox, in category Suffering

And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 8:3)

“I cried myself to sleep every night with the Psalms.”

Mrs. Sarah, who shared these words with our Bible study group, knows what it looks like to spend an unexpected season in the wilderness of suffering. Not long after World War II, when she was a young mother with two young children, Mrs. Sarah needed to return to school to finish her teaching certificate so that she could help support her family. She packed her bag and moved eighty miles away from home and family to complete her final year of college. In this lonely and difficult season, Mrs. Sarah turned to the nourishment she knew she needed, God’s Word.

Anyone who has spent much time in the wilderness of suffering knows the humbling that comes during crisis. Stripped of the familiarities on which we often depend for comfort, we learn that we do not, in fact, live by bread alone. Deuteronomy 8 reminds us that in the wilderness, God did not merely humble his people, he also fed them. He fed them physically with something called manna, a word that in the original Hebrew literally means, “What’s this?” It was a food unlike anything the Israelites had ever heard of, seen, or tasted. It fell from the sky, and it looked something like flaky frosty cereal but was a lot more nutritious!

God fed his people physically with this strange food, and he fed them spiritually with his Word. In our own wilderness of suffering, we are humbled, and our hunger and thirst for good news intensifies. More powerfully than any IV fluid, God’s Word drips into our hearts and minds to energize us with the faith, hope, and love we desperately need.

Faith is strengthened by Scripture’s true redemption stories…

The Secret to Contentment

by Christina Fox, in category Thought Life

My sister sent me pictures of her family’s new house. This was the first time they were home-owners, and I was ecstatic for them. As I scrolled through photos, I was astonished at the great work they did remodeling, decorating, and making the house their home. I was thankful with my sister for such a great blessing.

Until I saw her sink.

When I saw her sink, something happened inside of me. It was a large, farmhouse sink, and I found myself spending an excessive amount of time on the picture of the sink. I enlarged the sink; I looked at all of the sink’s details apparent in the photo; I drooled over the sink, and then I promptly texted my husband and informed him that we needed a new sink.

“Why? Our sink is perfectly fine.”

“Because. We need a new one.”

“What kind of sink?”

“A farmhouse one. I’ll send you a picture…”

I literally pulled out the measuring tape and began measuring the countertops to see how complicated it was going to be to install my new sink. It wasn’t until later that evening, after googling over an hour “how to install a farmhouse sink,” that I had a convicting realization: I’m being ridiculous.

But envy does this. It sneaks in deceptively, though often quickly, and entices us to want what we don’t have. Whether or not we actually need it becomes a moot point because our desire to have better – to have more – overtakes our ability to be content with what is right in front of us. It’s a beast that is difficult to overcome, but if we don’t fight against it, we hold contentment at bay and settle for a spirit of dissatisfaction…

Small but Mighty: God’s Work in the Life of Gideon and In Us

by Christina Fox, in category Faith

Have you ever considered yourself small, weak, and insufficient? In our human eyes, we often view our smallness as negative and limiting, but if we look closely, we see that our God-given limits can be the means for us to grow in our faith and dependence upon God.In the book of Judges, Gideon referred to himself as the “least” in his family. Gideon might have felt small, but God referred to him as a “mighty warrior” and he is listed alongside other men and women of faith in Hebrews 11.

God’s Work Through Gideon

In Judges 6-8, consider the following scene: Fearing the Midianites, Gideon is afraid to winnow his wheat out in the open air, where the breeze catches the grain and separates it from the chaff. He is afraid of doing that and becoming too visible to enemy eyes. As a result, we find Gideon crouching down, trying to thresh his wheat in the pit of a winepress.

Suddenly an angel speaks to him. I imagine this encounter probably made him jump out of his skin! Gideon referred to himself as “the least” likely, which meant that Gideon was economically and/or socially one of the poorest members in his tribe. Judges paints a picture of Gideon as shy and reserved. He also seems quite unassertive in the way he asks God to show him some unusual signals and signs. In his book Judges for You, Tim Keller expands our thinking with a different perspective. He believes Gideon’s response came from an earnest, humble heart seeking God’s direction. Keller sees Gideon teaching us how we need to press in and ask God to give us a big picture of who He is.[1]

We Will Not Be Mocked {By God}

by Christina Fox, in category Encouragement

The cancer is spreading rapidly. I have to find a way to fly back for a visit, to say goodbye.

We just lost Grandpa at the end of last year. His decline was slow, methodical and I was able to say goodbye the last time I was in the States, a full year before his death. Grandma had been so busy caring for him, then grieving for her husband, that she failed to notice the signs of disease spreading in her.Mom coaxed her to get it checked. The doctors found a small tumor, easily removable. The surgery revealed an aggressive cancer, spanning itself around my grandma’s organs. Treatment plans were plotted out, family was called, and I pleaded with God for a way to get there.

Waiting for a Visa

The government of the Asian country where I live has been withholding our visa extension for 7 months. Our application is valid. We have followed every law, yet it seems our paperwork is lost in endless bureaucracy. So, I literally cannot leave. We need a visa not only to stay here with certainty, but also to leave the country (and enter my own).A week after Grandma started radiation, I got a text from Mom, “Please pray, I think Grandma is dying.” I spoke on the phone later that night for the last time with her, this straight-forward confident woman now reduced to slurred stutters. She wants to stop treatment and to be put in hospice. The doctors are predicting a few weeks. I sobbed into my pillow continents away…