It’s so easy in these days of instagram, facebook and
twitter to make our little worlds (and yes, we all think we live in our own
little worlds) look really good. You put up the good pictures, the faces you
like to see day after day, the smiles and fun times. We can forget—or even
worse, never address—the real issues in our families, at our workplaces, the
real brokenness. After all, if our life sucks (or is even just unpleasant) it
doesn’t take much to phase out of it and pretend its not happening. If my
family member is being truly annoying, all I have to do to ignore them and
avoid our issues is whip out my phone and look up crazy cat pictures. Wha-la!
All that anyone knows about my day today on facebook is that I found a really
funny picture of a cat with his head stuck in a jar.
But what if that cat is me? What if I am walking around with
a jar on my head, insulating me, yes, from all my problems, but also slowly
choking the life out of me? Wouldn’t you want to be warned about that danger?
Wouldn’t you like to take your head out of the jar and breath deeply again,
because it will give you life, even if it seems like you’re not protected
anymore?
By the way, our devices and methods for staying protected
are also a sham. Have you seen a human lately? It’s a wonder we don’t fall
apart as we’re headed out the door, walking to our cars. There is nothing about
these wobbly, two-legged beings that has any true defense. I mean, think about
it, if evolution were true, we would have been the first ones eaten. Don’t give
me that sham about how we have superior intelligence and build shelters. We
should have all been eaten by bears and tigers long ago (in whatever form they
were in back then…). Genesis 9:2-3 gives the only reason for our continued
existence…so if we can’t protect ourselves and our families and our little worlds
are falling apart at the seams, and we see but don’t even know how it happened
or where to go from here…but wait, you can’t face that reality. It’s too
drastic, too real and you don’t have any solutions…
Let me tell you, I did, and hard. No crazy cat pictures for
me, God put my face in the stinky mess that was my family and He pushed down,
hard. It was “uncover-all-your-shit-and-deal-with-it” year at the Dailey’s
(pardon, the language, just describing it accurately). We were gross. We had to
pick our way through years of garbage (I literally did that my first few months
home, cleaning out my little brother’s room), unpack things we had just let be
buried and fester, and start the really gross process of cleaning up house.
I’ve never seen anything like what my family had to go
through this year. It was like we were being ripped apart from the inside as
God just radically altered the way we saw each other and chose to interact. It
was really painful at times, I just shut the door to my room after being a part
of or just witnessing interactions with my family and just cried out! So
painful…my closest friends (who are super prayer warriors) got texts from me
all the time just asking for prayer. I knew we needed breakthrough and I knew
it was not going to happen unless God intervened. There was no more hiding
behind pretty pictures and dancing around reality—it was getting real!
It was a weird year—I kept saying, “It can’t get any worse”
in this hopeful tone and then it would get worse and I just wondered, “When in
the %@*$ will this end?” I’m so glad for my community. I just wouldn’t have
been able to keep existing without them.
Finally, it got bad, really bad, like awful. Everything that
had been sort of functioning shut down all at once: my parent’s marriage, my
little sister, my brother in his group home—nowhere that I looked in my family
could I see any sign of hope—not a whiff. But the weird, crazy, sustaining
thing was that it didn’t phase me. I didn’t go off the deep end, even though
they all were. I even had joy and peace in the middle of the chaos. The Lord
had taught me His nearness and His abiding in such a deep way that it just
didn’t matter what came against me anymore—my hope was in Him and that’s where
it stayed. And He was never shaken throughout this whole process, so I wasn’t
either. Sure, I cried a lot and prayed and called other friends to lift certain
situations up to Jesus—but He never let me give way completely: He was always
my protection, my shield.
Now, looking back, all I know is that He is good. My parents
had it out with each other—but finally saying the things that had been burning
in them (in a bad way) cleared the air: they were able to act married again
(actually happy) after being really raw and honest with each other. My little sister
had to literally leave us behind to find healing—but find it she did and she is
working hard with SO MUCH GRACE on her life to find out who she is in Him,
restore her relationship with her parents and be a light to her high school
friends. (Watching her is like watching every impossible prayer I prayed for
the last year over that little girl come to life—literally miraculous. And I
know it’s not an act this time, because you can just see Jesus shining out of
her eyes. She’s the epitome of Colossians 1:13.) Darien is still a little
nutty—but God’s got His work going on there too. This little bro of mine has
been through a lot, but I know that above and beyond that the Lord has
protected him from much—still praying.
I say all of this to say that when you finally get what God
can do for you, you can’t help but want all of Him, all the time. I keep
singing “You won’t relent until you have it all/ My heart is Yours” (that song
has been so powerful in my life lately—lots of chains broken as I’ve sung it and
last night singing it…I don’t even know what happened!) and right on the heels
of that song comes this one: “It’s a relentless pursuit/ Relentless pursuit/ I
will not stop/ Chasing after You”.
I believe we cannot have one without the other—and by that I
mean, once you realize just how relentlessly the Lord is pursuing—once you sing
that song and really mean it—you can’t help but reciprocate with the same kind
of relentless abandon as you follow after God. I think that anyone who thinks
they are pursuing God but don’t have a true “spiritual” knowledge (much
different from the world’s knowledge) of just how relentless He is pursuing you
are really missing it. I want you to drop your instagram, your Twitter, all
your facebook friends and take a real look at reality—what the Lord is doing in
your life, how He follows you, how He speaks to you even in the middle of your
dirtiest, worst places. If He would follow me and my family all through this
awful, stinking year—watching us, interceding for us, being good to us even
when we didn’t deserve it, encouraging and sustaining us—if that is true—AND IT
IS, we can stand before you more whole and healed than we ever were—if that is
true-then NOTHING is IMPOSSIBLE in your life. He’ll follow you to the ends of
the earth and beyond to satisfy your deepest needs and keep you from the hurt
you would cause to yourself—it’s a relentless pursuit. And once you get that,
once you understand on this new level how much love is offered to you—man,
you’re never going to be the same.
I’ll see you on the other side.
Inspired by Mark 6: 53b-56:
“When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret
and moored to the shore.
And when they got out of the boat, the people
immediately recognized Him and ran about the whole region and began to bring
the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard He was.
And wherever He
came, in villages, cities or countryside, they laid the sick in the
marketplaces and implored Him that they might touch even the fringe of His garment.
And as many as touched it were made well.”
