Blog - Cody Andras: Recent Episodes
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The Lord has been highlighting to me the difference between resting “from” and resting “in.” It Is not always possible to rest “from” our lives. It is always possible to rest “in” the Lord.
It is hard to experience the presence of an invisible God. It is hard to hear the inaudible voice of our Father. But it doesn’t have to be impossible.
I promised you we would get practical, and that’s what we’re doing today. Today, we will consider one practice that I believe will position us to more readily recognize and experience the presence of God in our actual lives. That practice is what I call “telling God the whole truth,” which is based off of an encounter recorded in Mark 5: 25-34, where a woman who had been suffering for twelve years experiences the healing power of Jesus and in response “tells Him the whole truth” about what she had been through.
Every single time I’ve turned around, I’ve found myself face-to-face with Him. Right there. He has taken the 10 or the 1000 steps right alongside me, never leaving simply because I failed to see Him. My failure to remember His presence didn’t make Him any less present. My lack of faith didn’t make Him any less faithful.
For so many years, I read the parable of the sower as a description of how other people were going to respond to my words. I read it with the understanding that you and I are called to share the word of God, and I found it a reassurance that I was only responsible for sharing the word—for sowing the seed. I was not responsible for the way that it was received.
And maybe that’s a good reminder, but I no longer think that was the primary intention of the gospel writers as they wrote about the soil.
I asked a question on Instagram the other day about why y’all think you feel more distant from the Lord in this season. The overwhelming majority said that it was because you “lack discipline” in seeking to spend time with Him. I would definitely put myself in that category.
But the thing is, I don’t think we lack discipline just because we are lazy. What if we lack it because we don’t see the value of something? What if we don’t see the worth?
What if we have learned the price of the plowing but forgotten its profit?
The Lord planted a garden and He placed the man in it. And then God told Adam, long before sin slinked in, to work the ground and tend the garden.
The invitation remains. Work the field. Tend the garden. Till the soil and prepare this land for life again.
I’m old enough not to be surprised that 2021 hasn’t brought the magic cure for 2020, but perhaps I’m still young enough to believe that this year and the last could press us closer to the presence of God in a way that steadies our feet and strengthens our feeble knees for the long-haul of life.
Twenty years ago on December 28, 2000, as a 14 year old high school freshman, I sat at Carrabba’s across from a 24 year old Young Life leader (who I thought was a lifetime ahead of me), and I told her, in halting and hesitant but holy words, that I’d decided to “give my life to Christ” and that I just wanted her to know.
If production is our only measure, we’ll believe we have nothing to show for a season of stillness. But if we’ll let the Lord have His way in these moments, perhaps we’ll know another side of Him. We thought He only came to harvest the fruit. But here He is—He has come to us when all we have to show is a few miraculously green, unwithering leaves.
He hasn’t moved. He hasn’t changed. He hasn’t shifted with the shadows.
We don’t have to go back to find Him where we knew Him.
We turn around to remember His faithfulness to us years ago, and we worry that we cannot climb back in time. We want to return to days when we were more faithful.
But as we turn to look back, a strange thing happens: we find ourselves face to face with the God who has faithfully stuck beside us. We expected to look back in time, but surprisingly, we looked back to Jesus.
Jesus gave this little girl miraculous life. Fresh breath filled her lungs. A once-stilled heart beat again, warming her hands and flushing her cheeks. But even with that new life, she could have stayed in bed for fear the fever might return. She could have sat up slowly, cautiously, knowing now the perils of life in this world. And so can we. We can protect ourselves right out of our healing. We can worry ourselves right back into our shame. We can miss our whole lives for fear of death. But we don’t have to!
With Him. That is what I want to be.
Even when it doesn’t look the way that I expected. Even when it’s hard. Even when it’s boring. Even when it’s awkward. Even when it means confessing to the throngs of people that I’d lost Him for a moment, that I couldn’t find Him, that I thought He might have gone.
Because I love the face of the God-Man who looks up with that half smile when I find Him again. The One who says, did you not know I was here? The One I want to hug and hold and also pummel because He knew I couldn’t find Him, because He’s the One who allowed the search.
When they first tell you to give God your all? When they encourage you not to hold anything back? When they beckon you to go all in? It sounds exhilarating. It sounds like adventure. And that first handful of faith feels like courage. The second handful feels like fearless obedience. The third handful. The fourth. There is a swelling excitement.
But when you’re down to those last two copper coins that together only make a penny? When you’ve reached the bottom of your treasure? When the last little bits of faith click together in that sticky palm and mock what’s left of belief? When you wonder if you’ve made the whole thing up? Then? In that moment?
Giving God your all loses all its glamour.
We can lean back loved, and find our worth in the steady rhythm of our Father’s heart.
Every Martha can drop to her knees beside our sister and enjoy the company of the One that we invited in.
We find that He didn’t only come for the meal we promised Him.
We find that He enjoys our presence just as much as we enjoy His.
We find that He loves us every bit as much as He loves our sister.
We find that when we sit down to listen, He will never stand to leave.
We find that it was never our distance that was keeping Him near.
I don't come to you presuming to have any answers or solutions. Instead, I'm coming to you as one desperate to hear the voice of God above all the other voices vying for our ears. I come as one bent-over by the world but longing to stand in the presence of our Lord.
Long years of faithful moments had tendered Anna’s heart to recognize the face of her God. She had known He would come.
And so do we:
The angels told Jesus’ followers, as He ascended to the right hand of the Father: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into Heaven.” (Acts 1:11)
What if these mundane moments taught us to search for Him, positioned us to see Him, grew in us the perseverance we will need for lives lived longing for His return?
As we come to Easter every year, I am struck by something in the resurrection story. It is the exchange between Jesus and Mary Magdalene outside of the empty tomb. It is Jesus’ words to Mary: “Do not cling to Me” (John 20:17).
Mary, the mother of Jesus, beheld the face of God in a way that no one else ever will. She looked into the puckered lips of her newborn, and she saw the mouth that had spoken the world into being. She wiped the blood that would be shed for us from the skinned knee of her toddler. He spoke His first, rambling words, and Mary heard the voice of God. She held the hands that hold the world.
She ducked as she slipped through the crowd. An elbow grazed her ear. A man stepped back and knocked her forward. A child’s foot danced over hers, but nothing deterred her. In fact, the opportunity for anonymity spurred her on. By Jewish Law and societal pressures, this woman’s condition would have forced her to live an isolated life. Physical contact with her would render another ceremonially unclean. Those around her had learned to keep their distance, and she had learned to stay away. In their own excited frenzy, this crowd of people surrounding Christ provided the cover she needed to approach the Man who embodied her only remaining hope.
Seeking the Savior | Week 1: We will open the Scriptures together over these next weeks to peer into the lives of these ancient women. I invite you to chase them into the presence of God. We will watch the Man of Christ move among them that we might better recognize His Spirit as He moves among us.
Beginning on March 24, each Tuesday, I’ll send a short, written devotional along with a video-message about one of the women in the gospels who encountered the Man of Christ. Included in that devotional will be several reflection/discussion questions. Each week’s lesson will also include a prayer prompt or activity to encourage us to actually practice posturing ourselves to more quickly recognize and respond to the promptings of the Lord.
Recently, my friend Lindsee has been consistently reminding me to “keep my hands to the plow” — to keep my hands on the work in front of me, to keep my eyes on the Lord beside me rather than be distracted by the works going on around me.
And I’ve been failing. But I realized something.
I told her earlier this week that I’ve been hearing her all wrong. Every time she’s said plow, I’ve pictured a lawn mower. I’ve pictured my hands on a gas-powered machine, leveling the ground in front of me. And it’s felt overwhelming and exhausting and quite frankly, impossible, because every other yard looks much more manicured than the unmanageable grass beneath my imagined mower.
And I’ve been distracted and discouraged. It’s really hard to stop comparing manicured lawns.
Today, I thought I’d share with you a little bit of what is on my heart and mind as we get ready for Bible study! (For those of you who know me, you know I’m more comfortable with the written word, but for you audio/video-people out there, I figured out how to use my phone on a tripod to share a little video with you! You’re welcome.)