Thank You

So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. (1 Thessalonians 2:8)

Abba Father,

My heart may echo a million things tonight, but the gospel at work within the deepest places of me screams “thank you” for who You are and all you have done. Thank you for not being the “god” I so often demand you to be. Thank you for not being the god I would have chosen. Thank you that in your infinite love you cannot cease to be Creator God in all your perfect attributes. I thank you that You are love. You are righteousness. You are perfect justice. You are holy. You are GOOD. You are pure. You are Light. You are Truth. You never change. You never fail. Every word you have said will come to pass is 110% guaranteed to happen. I cannot thank you enough that you are a God who is constantly pursuing your glory and our good. I thank you that you are a God who is reconciling all things to Yourself. I thank You that you are a God of order, and that someday very soon you will come and put together once and for all- all that has been devastated by sin. I thank You that you are a God who has come down to broken, messed up, sinful people like me. I thank You that you have not asked us to come climb the tower to get to you- no you have come to us!

Father, I thank you for 22 beautiful years in Eureka. I thank you that in your incredible grace you have allowed me to grow up and be discipled in a home with two parents who passionately love the Lord. I thank you that you have given our family the incredible blessing of all six of us children following after You. I do not take that lightly. Father thank You that you have brought salvation to the Gerbers. You have brought each of us wayward children home. Thank you for parents who prayed their guts out for that to happen. Father, I thank you that my brothers love You more than they love our family. I thank You that they have listened and obeyed the call and have gone even to the “ends of the earth” to proclaim the gospel. I praise You that each of my nieces and nephews are growing up in homes where Jesus is Lord. I thank You for parents who have willingly released their children to the work of You and where You have called each of us. I thank you that when You have said “Go”, their prayers and responses have always been “Go” as well. Father, I plead for protection over my family members against attacks from the enemy. Against complacency and settling, against lies, against self. I pray for the salvation of my beautiful nieces and nephews- that You would raise them up to be godly men and women who love you and serve you passionately with all of their lives. I pray that out of this family You would raise up more missionaries, pastors, godly mentors to others. Father, send them out into this broken and dying world to proclaim the gospel.

Father, I thank you for the incredible community of believers You have blessed me with these past few years. For all of those who have spoken much truth into my life and pointed my eyes back to Jesus.

I thank You for those who have become second family to me. Who have graciously given me an open door policy and have invited me to become part of their community. For the countless hours of prayer around the tables, for being able to worship with them in song, for the long conversations about life and how to follow after You. For all of the encouragement, support, and challenges they have given me. I thank You for all of those within my church family who have sharpened me. For the amazing opportunities You have blessed me with to be a part of Biblical counseling, small groups, Sunday school, and a part of the body of Christ. For all the times I wanted to quit and someone whispered “Gerb, keep going.” Thank you for the deep, rich, countless friendships with those I love so dearly. For every single person You have sovereignly placed in my life, that we would make much of You.

I pray Father for unity among the believers in this community. I pray that the gospel would continue to be boldly proclaimed in every corner of Eureka, that the church would be a place that glorifies and worships Jesus Christ alone. I pray for each of the believers You have allowed me to do life with- Father sanctify them. Purify them. Make them to resonate more and more of Your glory! Send them out! Prepare them to do your will. Make them ready instruments for kingdom work. Strengthen the weary hands. Pursue their hearts. Be glorified in their lives. May they always be able to say to others “Follow me as I follow Jesus.”

Father….

I confess this next is the hardest to pray for. I confess to You my unbelief and doubt and fears of whether or not You can do this. But You can. And it’s not too hard for You. It’s not too far.

Oh God, please save them. You know every name that breaks my heart. You know every person I long to see walking in the light. You know every cycle, every addiction, every chain, all of the pain and brokenness. And I believe that as You did for me- You can reach down into this and save them all. Father, I pray and plead and beg with You that You would bring salvation to the homes and those I have been praying for. I pray that You would raise up others to go and continue speaking truth into their lives. Continue raising up other laborers for this great harvest. In Your great mercy, please open eyes! Cause the blind to see! It’s not too hard for you. No, not too hard at all. I trust You with the results Lord. I pray in Heaven very soon, I would get the joy of worshipping next to many of these people I love so much. I pray that through them- their families, their children, future generations would be impacted by the gospel and that many others would be brought into the family of God.

And lastly,

I thank You that you aren’t done with me yet. That You will get me through this transition, through this change, through every single goodbye. You will get me through Chicago and the next __ years beyond. I thank You for the incredible gospel platform You have blessed me with the past few years. I pray I would have many more of those over my lifetime. I pray that You would continue to sanctify and change me, make me new, and create in me a deeper love and reveling for You. Father I want to know You so badly. I want You to be the greatest pearl in the field that I find. I want to risk it all for your beautiful name. No sacrifice is too great. Help me to understand deeper all You have done for me.

Father, I love you. But oh, how I want to love You and know You more.

Thank You for the work of Jesus Christ. For His perfect blood that covers all of my sin.

May my life constantly scream the gospel and reveal the glory of You and Your name alone.

Thank you for all of those You have given me the opportunity to share the gospel and do life with.

I love them so much. But You love them so much more.

May my life be poured out for Your glory alone.

It’s in your beautiful name I pray,

Amen.

Broken walls

Sometimes people get to be the Nehemiah’s of their day. These beautiful saints stand before a broken down wall, devastated and in ruins, and are given the task of building it back up again. Like Nehemiah, they weep and mourn over the destruction, fasting and praying to the God of heaven.

These people focus and labor at the task at hand- and eventually, (perhaps after long years of toil and struggle), stand before a finished wall and rejoice. Their purpose complete. The wall has been built! After days, months, maybe years of working, they get the joy of seeing their job completed.

I always wanted to be the Nehemiah’s.

And sometimes people get to be the Moses’. These saints get to see a broken down wall as well. Their walls are devastated and in ruins similar to Nehemiah’s, and they are given the same task of building it back up again. They too weep and mourn over the destruction, fasting and praying to the God of Heaven. But even as they focus and labor at the task at hand, after days, months, years of labor- they never get to see the wall rebuilt.

I really, really don’t want to be a Moses.

To be honest, I have always really struggled with the story of Moses. I have wrestled the most with the ending of his life as the Lord takes him up on Mount Nebo in Deuteronomy 34, and tells him he can look at the Promised Land, but he will not be allowed to enter it. His eyes can see a small glimpse of the fulfillment of the journey, but he will not taste it. He will not dwell there. His feet will not touch that soil. After years of laboring with a stubborn, rebellious group of complainers (a ministry I doubt few of us desire to sign up for any time soon) in a wilderness, his final steps take him to see just a glimpse of all he has fought so hard for- but not to taste it. Not to see all of the fruit.

I read the stories of missionaries who have labored 40+ years in countries who have seen very little fruit.

I hear personally the stories from my brother overseas who has worked many years and still has very little fruit to be shown for his efforts.

And yet I read the stories of pastors whose churches are blowing up and expanded as thousands are being saved.

I won’t pretend I understand for a second how the Lord determines where fruit will bear and where it will be slow. I won’t pretend I get why some people labor for so long and are not allowed to see any of the results in this life, while others are seemingly blown away as they observe all the Lord is doing. The purpose of this very messy blog isn’t even to attempt to understand how the Lord works in His sovereignty.

As I look ahead to the upcoming week- my last week here in Eureka and prepare to say goodbyes to a lot of people I love very dearly, I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on my years in this town. I’ve been thinking of the many people the Lord has blessed me with the opportunity of doing life with. As I’ve already started to say some very messy and hard goodbyes this past week, I’ve been getting a new glimpse into who the Lord is.

I was reminded by a friend today, “He isn’t a God who transitions. We might be transitioning, things might be changing, but God hasn’t changed. He isn’t leaving or moving. He stays the same.”

There’s some goodbyes where I feel like Nehemiah. Standing before a completed wall saying “Yes, this is done! I did everything I possibly know how and believe the Lord has totally finished rebuilding the wall here.” Goodbye’s I can leave in a lot of peace that the work has been done and the walls have been built. Where it is “easy” to raise my hands and say “God you are good!”

And there are some goodbyes I feel like Moses. Standing before a wall still in ruins and devastated, my hands yet very messy from trying to hurriedly put stones in places as He is bidding me to leave and pleading with Jesus “please finish the wall before I leave! Please let the work get done!”

And some days, he has to take my dirty, muddy hands stained with so much sin…he takes all of my very messy longings to see the work done…and gently, but firmly speaks into my life “Emily, this is MY WORK. I will finish what I started. I can finish the wall if I decide that will be the best thing. But it’s time for you to put down your shovel and go.”

I really, really want to see Jesus finish some things in these last 7 days before I leave. There’s still a lot of people on my wall I’ve been praying for over the years that He still hasn’t saved yet, and I’d love to see Him save them in the next 7 days. Many homes I’ve been pleading with Him to claim and redeem and rescue. I’d love to get some phone calls this week where someone says “Hey Emily, I’m returning to the Lord.” And oh- how I long, and plead, and desire to see the walls built in this town.

But then I heard someone say today “What if it’s not about the walls getting built?”

What if the main purpose, isn’t that the walls get completed, the “work done?”

What if the main goal in all of this- in the Nehemiah’s and the Moses’ was that God get the maximum glory regardless of what the “finished product” looked like?

What if the point of it all, was that God’s name was proclaimed, His reputation made known, His renown spread throughout all of Eureka?

I believe sometimes the Lord lets people get to see the walls rebuilt. And I think sometimes He calls us on before they do. And maybe I don’t get to decide which finished product I get to see- I just have to trust that God is good, regardless of the outcome.

Nehemiah writes “Our God will fight for us.”

Yes, my Jesus fights for me. He is constantly pursuing and fighting for my heart, bringing me to a deeper place of understanding His grace, His mercy, His ferocious love, His tender arms, the beauty of His truth. And while this chapter in Eureka may be coming to a close, He gently hands me a shovel and says “Glorify me daughter, in Chicago.”

A very, very wise mentor reminds me every week “God is up to two things. Your good and His glory. He never does one at the expense of the other.”

He is still good. And He will still be good no matter what the walls look like when I leave soon.

Regardless of the outcome of our work for the King, may our hearts be drawn to pursue and fight for His glory.

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” Lamentations 3:25-26

Silence

Romans 7:24: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

There’s something in me that’s haunted by silence. Being influenced by a culture that is so anti-silence probably plays a large role, but honestly I think it’s more than that. I don’t know about you, but crazy things can happen when it gets really quiet.

Take Ezekiel for instance. You find him sitting in silence and worship when the word of the Lord appears to him and says “Hey, go preach to this rebellious people group. They won’t listen to you, and you’re going to have to do some really crazy things to get their attention. By the way, you’re going to lose the person you love the most (your wife) in this process and the people still won’t listen to you. But I want you to take this message to them.” (major paraphrase of the book of Ezekiel.)

Jeremiah is just as bad, if not worse. The Word of the Lord comes to him and he gets a similar message. “Hey go preach to this really rebellious house of people. They are going to hate you, they will beat you and throw you into prison again and again, and you are going to watch the people you love be carried off into exile. All for My Name.”

Over and over are stories of people going on with their lives when the Word of the Lord comes to them (or for the disciples literally shows up in front of them as Jesus comes to earth), and tells them they’re going to have to do some really strange, hard things. I just haven’t read an account in the Scriptures yet, where anyone got a message and their response was, “Wow Lord, that’s the same plan I had come up with for my life! Glad we’re on the same program here!” So maybe there’s part of us that is afraid that if we honestly quieted our hearts before Him, He would tell us to do something insanely crazy. Something so far out of our normal box of comfort. And maybe He would.

But I think it’s something deeper than that.

I think it’s something Jeremiah figured out. I think Ezekiel got it. I think Peter understood it at the end of his life. I’m convinced John the Baptist, Moses, David, Isaiah, and Paul knew it well and knew it deeply.

Jeremiah writes in 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick. Who can understand it?”

Call me crazy, but when silence comes, so do the voices. The deepest parts of our hearts start to cry out. If you sit in silence for about 30 seconds the voices are quiet, small, and barely audible as they start their cries. When we hear them, most of us start running immediately. Turning on music, looking at our calendars, checking the computer, our phones, even thinking about “what I need to do for ministry today.” Anything to stop the voices that have begun in the darkest places of our inner being.

If you sit there for 2 minutes, for 5, they grow louder. More desperate. More haunting. By 10 minutes (for the few who have not yet run from them), you can clearly hear their message.

It’s in the silence when the voices inside each of us begin screaming of the disease that is eating us alive. They cry out in pain, begging us to quit numbing them with our business and the things of life.

They scream in agony for healing. They begin exposing all of our deepest, darkest sins. The lies come pouring out. The rationalizations. The indifference and complacency. The hate, the lack of love and compassion. The hypocrisy and people pleasing. The pretending and false charades. The love of the things of this world. “Oh to silence them!” we begin to cry out. We beg them to stop. We plead with them to go back in their corners and quit speaking. Sometimes we beat them. Sometimes we quickly run to whatever will most quickly numb, most quickly forget. We desperately stuff them back into their boxes and vow it will be a long, long time before we ever have a weak moment and let the lid off of that Pandora’s box again. We wish them gone so badly.

And then the most haunting voice of all- the one we cannot quiet or stuff back or numb away, quietly echoes. Over and over and over.
“I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give ever man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

“Nooooooo…..anything but that!”

“No, Jesus don’t come look into my Pandora box.”

“No Lord, how about you come back tomorrow when I’ve memorized my verses and have done my Bible study and have prayed over my list. How about we do the check up then?”

“How about after you have gone and talked to ___? You can check mine after you look at theirs.”

In the silence. When the hidden places of our sick hearts are opened, a myriad of excuses can start to pour out. Terrified of the perfect, righteous, Holy God coming in and looking at my junk, my mess, my doubts, my unbelief, my fear…everything “hidden”, is enough to cause me to fall and tremble and beg Him to come back another day.

See there’s this part of me that wants Him to let me numb it. That wants Him to walk away. That wants Him to not make me deal with it. Part of me that doesn’t want to get or understand His holiness. Because in this silly, limited view of time I have, it looks easier that way.

Oh wretched man that I am….PRAISE JESUS FOR THE GOSPEL.

“God came.” (Habakkuk 3:3)

Everything changed as the God of the Universe came down in the form of human flesh. Everything changed during those 3 hours He hung on the Cross. Everything changed as He beat and conquered death and put to shame the principalities and demons of this world. Everything changed as the vail was torn, everything changed as He sent His Holy Spirit and promised He would complete the work He started. Everything changed as this God reconciled all things to Himself.

Before the foundations of the world were laid, this same God looked through eons of time and said “Emily Gerber. I’m going to choose her, and love her, and free her, and save her, and heal her. She’s Mine. I love her.”

I won’t pretend I get that. I don’t at all. I don’t think I’m ever going to fully get that until I enter His glory in eternity.

Because God came- a way was made for people like me. People dying to the voices inside of them and feeling conquered by sin. A way to the Cross was made to that we might be free and be made new. A way was made so that Pandora ’s Box could be opened- and Someone was big enough, powerful enough, righteous enough, and good enough to Conquer and pay for all of that.

I think that’s what Jeremiah came to know and understand…What Ezekiel, John, Paul, David, and countless others knew- how desperately wicked they were in the deepest places of the heart, of the greatness and the holiness of an Almighty God- and how incredibly big the gospel was.

And with all they had- they threw their arms around the work of Jesus Christ and embraced that with everything they had in them.

They understood they couldn’t be good enough.

They understood they couldn’t fix it.

They understood they couldn’t earn in.

They understood nothing they did could numb it.

They KNEW and embraced with all of their lives the impact behind the words “God came.”

Perhaps what I’m most afraid of in the silence- is the pursuit of God Himself after my heart.

That God sees all my junk and loves me anyway and has committed Himself to me.

That God is way more concerned with eternity than my lousy five minute plan.

Oh, but if you listen long enough, you’ll hear Him. You have to be quiet, or you might just miss it. You have to be willing to stay awhile or you’ll bypass the best part.

“Repent. Turn to me. Confess your sin and let me heal you! Come to the Cross! Lay down all your junk at my feet! I PAID FOR IT ALL. IN FULL.”

God came. And everything changed. For me. For you.