Something About The Joy

Where is My Faith?

2012-01-28T02:06:00.000-08:00

I’m still ruminating on the thought in my last post that I might be missing things God is saying because I’m not listening, or I’m not listening right. Maybe His words are blocked out by my preconceived ideas, or my lack of faith keeps me from tuning into the proper channels.

Lack of faith could be a huge block to my hearing from God.

Today I read the story, in Luke 8:22-25, of Jesus calming the storm. The disciples are with Jesus on the lake in a boat they’re used to sailing by themselves. But on this day a storm comes up—something they can’t handle.

This is a serious problem. The Bible says they were “in great danger.” But in this account they don’t even ask Jesus to help. Maybe it hasn’t occurred to them yet that He could do anything about the situation. They just tell Him, “We’re going to drown.”

He calms the storm, and then he asks, “Where is your Faith?”

I’ve always assumed He was just asking why they doubted, and Mark's gospel account of the story supports that idea. But what if this isn’t a rhetorical question? What if He really wants them to think about the answer-—to consider where they're placing their faith?

I recently read A. J. Jacob’s book, The Year of Living Biblically. In it he recounts a story from Jewish oral tradition. According to the legend, the Red Sea didn’t part when Moses held out his staff over the water. It didn’t part until some relatively unknown Israelite stepped into the sea. Not until he walked in ankle deep, then knee deep, then waist deep, then shoulder deep, then neck deep.

Then God parted the water.

This isn’t actually how it happened. I doubt there was an Israelite among them who had that much faith, for one thing. And, according to the Bible, the waters were pushed back all night long by a strong wind. But the story still illustrates a great truth, supported by other stories of faith in the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments.

I’m working toward a theology of faith in my walk with the Lord. Maybe the things I want to see God doing, in my life and in the lives of people I pray for—-things I know are in His will—-require acts, or steps of faith on my part. I’m not sure what that looks like. Faith steps will probably look different for every request. But the idea excites me.

In verse 25, the disciples ask their own question: “Who is this?” they say.

I think the answer to both questions-—the one Jesus asks, and the one they are asking-—should be the same.

Being Dumb about Being Deaf

2012-01-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

I’ve been reading in Luke during my times with Jesus these days, seeing lots of things I never noticed before, some significant and some just interesting. I’ve decided, as part of my new years’ plan to blog more regularly, that I will share random thoughts from my devotional journal in this blog.

So here goes. My first random devotional thought of the New Year,
from Luke 1:57-66.
It's in the "Interesting" category.

Did you ever notice that when Zechariah was unable to speak for those months before John was born, his neighbors thought he couldn’t hear either? When John was born, and they were discussing what to name the new baby, “they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child.”

So why didn’t they just ask him?

Dumbness is normally caused by a person’s inability to hear spoken words. Zechariah’s friends had probably never met a dumb person who was not also deaf.

This is a great big LOL for me. I can just see Zechariah scribbling messages, time after time during those months while John was growing in the womb:

I AM NOT DEAF. I JUST CAN’T TALK. STOP YELLING IN MY EAR AND QUIT THE SIGN LANGUAGE ALREADY!

But when John was born, they were still communicating with him as if he were deaf. He had probably given up convincing them by this time. Meanwhile, imagine all the secrets he overheard.

Simon would say, “Shh. Watch what what you say about old lady Elizabeth. Zechariah is standing next to you.” And Perez would say, “Doesn’t matter. He can’t hear anything anyway.”

It’s kind of ironic. Who’s really deaf in this little story? And who’s really dumb?

So is there a significant point to this observation for me?

Maybe it’s that I need to recognize my very human tendency to just not “get it.” I wonder how many assumptions I make that are not true? Am I so sure I’m right about things that I never even hear someone when they tell me the truth? Maybe I think someone else is deaf, when it’s really me.

Are there any things I simply assume are true that even God couldn’t talk me out of?

How many notes will he have to write to me before I figure it out?

How Long Since You Asked?

2012-01-06T07:17:00.000-08:00

I just finished re-reading This Present Darkness, by Frank Peretti. He has angels prompting people to pray when the spiritual battle becomes hot and heavy. It reminded me of times in the past when God's people have been wakened in the night to pray for someone far away who is in need of prayer at that moment. It happened frequently with saints who've gone before us.

I believe it's the Holy Spirit, not angels, who does the prompting, but it seems like a long time since I've felt that nudge. It bothered me, and I asked the Lord why.

He said, "How long has it been since you asked how to pray?"

How Silently

2011-12-11T14:05:00.000-08:00

It’s strange how one little phrase of a song, touched with God’s grace, can open up a new understanding, almost on a subliminal level. I had an experience like that in church this morning.

“How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift was given.”

As I sang those words, I had a vision. I was up in the sky above Bethlehem, looking down at a small stable, surrounded by the darkness of a quiet night. Then, suddenly, a feeble cry wafted up through the dark quietness. It came from an animal feeding trough.

Was it a feeble cry? Quite possibly. It makes sense, from God’s perspective. The perspective that is opposite of ours.

God became feeble, helpless, vulnerable. He became a small thing, for us.

Jesus

2011-11-23T07:24:00.000-08:00

In the Daily Light devotional reading for this morning:

"Jesus spoke to them, saying, 'Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid'."
Matthew 14:26

A comforting reassurance is at the beginning and the end of that simple statement, because in the middle is Jesus.

Any difficulty that comes to us is Jesus coming, in whatever form it takes. We can rest in whatever storms are confronting us today, because Jesus is in our midst.

"Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today."
Exodus 14:13

No But's

2011-11-21T07:28:00.000-08:00

Janet, in her God With Us: Finding Joy post yesterday, reminded us that we need to listen to God. Charles Stanley says we need to come to God with expectancy--assuming that He will speak to us when we listen.

This morning I come expectantly to listen, asking Him what He wants to say to me. He says the same He always says: "I love you."

"Anything else?" I ask.

"No. That's all."

When God says "I love you," (and He's always saying it, constantly, over and over again), that's all He says. He never says, "I love you, but. . ."

Hardheartedness

2011-11-15T18:34:00.000-08:00

On Sunday our pastor taught us about Pharoah, his hardhearted refusal to bow to the will of the Creator. And about the Israelites, their hardheated refusal to trust that God would care for them, and lead them into the wealthy land He had promised to give them. And then he reminded us of the warning to all of us, in Hebrews, that we need to keep our hearts soft toward God.

Hard-heartedness can take different forms. We usually think of hardheartedness as being rebellion against God, a stubborn obstinacy, a refusal to submit. But for most of us Christians, hard-heartedness is simply an unwillingness--a seeming inability--to fully trust in God and abandon ourselves to Him.

All of Hebrews is a defense of the trust-truth, the fact that we can do nothing to save ourselves, and simply need to trust in all that Jesus did.

The Jewish people prided themselves in the law and their love for doing the right things. They were hard-hearted in their righteousness, and they believed they were God’s gift to the world. The writer of the Hebrews tells us there is nothing we can do to make ourselves worthy, or to produce deeds that are of eternal value.

Hebrews says we are totally dependent on God, and the writer challenges us to hold firmly to the realization of this truth.

This doesn’t mean we should do nothing good, or that we shouldn’t work to accomplish what God wants us to do. In fact, the truth that God is in control, and that He wants to work on our behalf, demands even more of us. If we trust God fully, He will call us to greater works than any we could attempt to accomplish on our own.

The hardness comes in the shape of our unwillingness to believe Him for larger things.

God says, “Do you believe my grace is sufficient to cover your sins—that I can forgive you and wash you clean?” “Do you believe I can take this terrible situation you are in and bring good out of it?” “Do you believe I have the power to defeat the evil one in your life—to release you from bondage to the sin that keeps you from the joy and freedom I want you to have?” “Do you believe I can give you the resources you need to do this eternally significant task I have put before you?”

Often our answer, in spite of our deep desire to believe, is “No.” We say, “I don’t feel forgiven, and blessings seem to come and go for no apparent reason. I cannot imagine it might be possible for you to do all these things.”

And as long as we persist in that hardheartedness, that refusal to believe, it will be true. God cannot do all these wonderful things for us unless we step out in faith to receive them from His hand.

See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. Hebrews 3:15

The ultimate sin, the only unforgiveable one, is unbelief. But God is waiting eagerly to help us overcome that sinful hard-heartedness.

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:16

He wants us to run to Him without hesitation, with abandon, even, no matter what our spiritual state. That's the characteristic of a soft heart--a heart that's willing to risk everything on the hope that God's love will always be there, unconditionally. And He will welcome us with open arms every time we take that risk.

God help us to pray this prayer of abandonment, with David Livingstone:

“God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours.”

Seminal Truths

2011-10-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to pass on someone else's post.

If we followed Michael Hyatt's advice in "The Four Disciplines of the Heart," our lives would be truly successful by all important measures.

His ideas aren't original ones. Many popular writers today would agree with his general premise, including people like Eckhart Tolle. But what makes Hyatt's message worthwhile is the specific Judeo-Christian slant. The grounding of his suggestions in the truths of the Bible gives them power that Eckhart Tolle's words will never have.

It's the Truth behind, and around, Hyatt's instructions for life that make them doable and rewarding. The same instructions without the biblical basis would be empty and useless.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. For through wisdom your days will be many, and years will be added to your life. Proverbs 9:10.

Four Things About God That Make Life So Much Easier

2011-09-30T13:36:00.000-07:00

There are four things about God I wish I’d learned a lot earlier in life. Life became so much more fun when I finally discovered these truths.

Maybe it took so long because I had to grow in my willingness to be totally sold out to Him. These four truths are only useful to us if we’ve come to that place of total surrender and trust. I think I’ve gotten there, now, after all these years. At least I’ve gotten far enough down this road to discover how delightful it is to walk with God the way He always meant for me to.

Those four things are:

1.) God is prepared to take total responsibility for the life that is totally yielded to him.

If we choose to indenture ourselves to Him, we can relax about our ministry and let Him lead us here and there, moment by moment, year by year.

Jesus lived that way. He just walked, step by step with God, and trusted His Father to put Him where He was supposed to be.

At times He obviously had specific guidance—a “Word from the Lord,” you might say. He knew they needed to go through Samaria. He knew that they needed to get to Jerusalem. In those instances, He probably got that specific information during one of his midnight visits with His Father. Other than that, He didn’t worry about what He should be doing. He just trusted God was leading Him to the right place at the right time.

It’s so much easier when we don't have to take the ultimate responsibility for our lives. We take responsibility for being available to Him, and we choose, moment by moment, to be instantly obedient. That’s all.

2) God is never in a hurry.

When He acts, He might act quickly, but getting to that moment of instant action usually takes more time than we expect it should. Often it takes a lot more time. But that means if we are totally available and obedient to Him, we don’t need to worry about what time it is.

When we read about how Jesus walked on earth, we never see him rushing to get anywhere or do anything. Once, his slowing down cost a child her life. On his way to heal the deathly ill child, He stopped to minister to the woman with the issue of blood. By the time he got to the child’s home, she was dead. But it didn’t matter that He was “late.” He healed her anyway. God’s will was done.

It’s so much easier when we don’t have to look at the clock all the time.

3) God only has one place for me to be at a time, and He allows travel time.

If I give my day to Him, and obey Him instantly—If I get up when the alarm goes off instead of punching the snooze button! If I don’t load a bunch of stuff into my daily schedule that He doesn’t want there—I will always be right on time for whatever He wants me to do.

So if I get stuck in traffic on the way to a meeting, I assume I'm where He means me to be and He will take care of the meeting until I get there, ready to take over ;-)

It’s so much easier than trying to manipulate my schedule and make sure I get where I’m going, come hell or high water.

4) God gives us R&R when we need it.

He remembers we are dust, and He knows when we need a break. When we are sold out to Him, 24/7, He schedules in vacation time for us, and it turns out to be exactly when and where we need it.

He may have us very busy for a period of time, then an opportunity will come up for us to refresh and renew, and we know it’s from God. It’s not a vacation FROM Him, of course. It’s a vacation WITH Him. It might be doing a different kind of ministry; or it might be a time of spiritual retreat; or it might just simply be having fun doing something we like to do with Him. Sometimes it’s a time of doing nothing.

In any case, when we walk with the Lord, we come to recognize when God is giving us these times, and because He’s doing it, we can be totally free to enjoy the rest, with no feeling we should be “doing” something else.

Jesus did this too. He had fun at weddings. He spent time alone with His Father. He slept in the bottom of the boat so deeply and restfully He didn’t even notice a storm come up. He sat with children on His knee, ignoring the more demanding “ministry” his disciples thought He should be doing. He had important work to do, but He recognized times of rest His Father gave Him along the way, and He took them.

It’s so much more fun going on R&R with God when He arranges it for us.

Jesus was first and foremost just being what God wanted him to be. The doing, and the talking--the ministry--came out of his relationship with his Father very easily and naturally. He lived moment-by-moment in dependence on the Holy Spirit. In that respect, He was being a model for us.

Someone has said that “Power comes from just receiving God’s love. Not doing. Friendship with God has to come first.” When I remember to let the Holy Spirit guide my activities, set my pace, put me where He wants me to be, and give me rest when I need it, walking with God becomes a joy and a delight. Being totally His is so easy.

The Only Thing That Matters

2011-09-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

Power comes from just receiving God's love.

What an amazing statement. Can it be true? I've been pondering this for a while, and something about it really resonates with me at a deep level.

It makes sense. Because He is an out-pouring God. Everything comes from Him. We can't give Him anything that hasn't come from Him. Everything comes out of His love.

Wayne Jacobsen says, in the wonderful book, He Loves Me, that "[God] is not interested in your service or sacrifice. He only wants you to know how much you are loved."

That doesn't mean we don't give service to Him, or ever sacrifice anything. Service and sacrifice come out of us as a natural response to knowing--really knowing, deep down--that we are loved, deeply and unconditionally, by Him.

I have decided that my relationship with God is not the most important thing in my life. It's the ONLY important thing. Everything else that matters flows naturally out of my walk with the Lord.

What an easy yoke it is!

The Mystery of Free Forgiveness

2011-09-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

After this morning's post, I continued doing the final proofread of my book manuscript, and I came across this scene. It seemed to fit with what I'd posted about, so I'll do another posting. Two in one day! Hmm. Maybe it will help with the not-posting-guilt thing.

Anyway, here's a conversation from my novel, Zinovy's Journey, between the main character and his spiritual counselor, on the topic of redemption.
________________________________________

“Zinovy, forgive my intrusion. I know your desire for privacy. If you tell me to leave, I will go. But I want, first, to let you know there is an escape from the darkness that enshrouds you.”

Elan waited. Zinovy felt his patient presence, soft as a quiet spring, gently expectant, like a dew-drenched meadow anticipating the coming of the morning sun. Gradually, only slightly against his will, Zinovy relaxed. He knew Elan would take his silence as consent, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to close this door.

“You can’t go back, Zinovy,” Elan said. “You can’t revise, or recreate the past, but it can be redeemed.”

Still Zinovy sat in silence—helpless, now, before the light that intruded into his soul. As he sat, his mind went back, once again, into his past. He saw his childhood—not just the pain, but his reactions to the pain. His anger. His hatred. His determined scrabbling for peace and pleasure at the expense of everything else—of everyone else in his life. His years in the military and beyond—his FSB activities—the heartless cruelty of his profession and the satisfaction it gave him to vent his spleen on human beings he didn’t know and didn’t care about. He saw the selfishness of his independence—his not caring—his lofty isolation from the rest of the world.

The light continued to probe—pressing into the dark places of his spirit, opening every sealed chamber, revealing, dispelling, then flooding each empty cavity with its warm brightness.

“How can this be?” Zinovy finally asked, his voice a whisper. “This redemption?”

“The gift of redemption was made possible at great cost, Zinovy. It is freely offered to us, but it cost God his life.”

“And it is free? It costs us nothing? That’s not right.”

Elan smiled. “It is free,” he repeated. “But to receive the gift you will have to give up everything.”

Zinovy gaped at Elan. “Then it’s not free.”

Elan threw his head back and laughed—a deep, rich, rolling laugh that hit Zinovy like a slap in the face. He stared at the bright one, open-mouthed.

Then Elan turned to him and his expression softened. “It’s a mystery, Zinovy—a mystery that you won’t understand until you decide to accept it.”

Zinovy gazed back into those eyes, still shimmering with the afterglow of his laughter, and wilted. It was impossible to understand this man’s philosophy.

Quietly, Elan went on. “Remember when I told your crew, in the beginning, that you needed to leave the place where you had landed? You asked me why, then, and I said I could not tell you. You had to make the choice to leave without knowing the whole. When you had made that choice, then you were ready to learn more.”

Elan waited until Zinovy nodded, half reluctantly, before he continued. “So it is with this mystery,” he said. “You have to choose to receive the gift before you can understand it. When you decide to do that, the mystery will become clear—not to your head, but to your heart.”

And once more he was gone.

A No-Guilt Relationship

2011-09-13T10:07:00.000-07:00

Hey there! All who are thirsty, come to the water! Are you penniless? Come anyway—buy and eat! Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk. Buy without money—everything’s free!
Isaiah 55:1 from The Message.

I’ve recently discovered a surprising truth. The truth is, God wants us to take His love for granted.

“Ah,” you say, “we can’t do that. Taking His love for granted is a sin. It’s ingratitude. We need to be thankful for His love.”

Well, you’re right. We should be thankful for His love. But the truth (again) is that He loves us regardless of whether or not we are thankful, and He always will, completely, joyfully, with no restrictions. He gives His love, and the blessings that come with it, extravagantly, without expecting anything in return, even our gratitude.

We cannot “pay” for our blessings with thanksgiving. Gratitude is not a penance. Everything good we receive from God’s hand—and it’s all good—is given freely, without a thought on God’s part of charging a thanksgiving fee.

God knows us so well. He knows we’re never going to be grateful to the extent we have been blessed by Him. We can’t be. He does things for us every day that we're totally oblivious of, and always will be. He doesn’t say, “They don’t even notice when I kill those cancer cells in their lungs before they have a chance to develop, so I’m going to quit doing it.” He just goes on loving and blessing, day after day, and will do so for eternity, without regret or second thoughts, or raised eyebrows over our oblivion to His love. Just because He loves us.

Now, that doesn’t mean He won’t withhold blessings sometimes for our good. If we aren’t thankful, we suffer, and His biggest blessing—the happiest one—is actually our awareness of His blessing. So, because He loves us, He may chasten us to bring us to a place where we can appreciate His love more fully. But NEVER does He do that because we aren’t paying our dues. He ALWAYS does it because He wants us to know the unique delight of living consciously in His love.

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing. Ephesians 2:8-10 from The Message

When we come to the place in our relationship with God where we realize our salvation is totally his business

—when we never worry about losing His favor

—when we throw ourselves GLEEFULLY on His mercy every day,

Then we are freed up to care about other things.

—important things

—things of the Kingdom.

We are able to focus on doing the good works we were created to do in Christ Jesus.

Now if I could just figure out how to quit feeling guilty for not posting more often. That’s my next project.

Count the Ways

2011-08-09T10:52:00.000-07:00

I can’t sit down for a moment without my little granddaughter coming to me with a picture book in her hand.

It never occurs to her that I might have better things to do, or that I might be tired, or thinking about something important. She just assumes I’m there to read to her, and that I’m as interested as she is in the dog who is bigger than a house, or the cat that wears boots and a plumed hat, or the elephant who learns he can fly. I am sitting there purely for her pleasure, and she takes my availability as her right, every time.

I love that.

And of course I read to her. I don’t care about the content of the book. I just love the feel of her little body nestled in beside me, the smell of her hair after a day’s play in the sun, the feel of her breath on my cheek, the look of concentration in her eye as she digests the fact that the elephant’s mother has to stay in the prison car because she tried to protect her baby. The look of the dimples on her fingers as she finally turns the page almost brings tears to my eyes, and the way she pronounces the word “park” makes me smile behind my hand.

I could go on and on.

Today I got an e-mail message from a friend. She said,

I’ve loved God since the day I was born, and accepted him as my savior at nine years old. I will always love God, but, I have a really hard time believing that he loves me. My Grandma used to tell me that God loves everyone but me. Of course I believed her and it still sticks.

My heart aches for her. I can only imagine how much God’s heart aches. He longs to take her in His arms and comfort her. I’m praying He will do just that.

Does God love her? The very ache in her heart is proof that He does. It's the pull of his arms on her spirit. His death on the cross, and the place He's preparing in heaven for her, everything points to the fact that He loves her.

He loves every one of us.

So why is it hard to believe? Even for those of us who have walked with Him for years, received blessing upon blessing from His hand? It's certainly not for lack of evidence, even when hard things have come into our lives.

I believe it's often the Devil who gets in the way of the feeling we are loved by God. He hates that God loves us. He hates for us to believe it. Because believing God loves us, completely, unconditionally, and freely because of Jesus' death on the cross, empowers us. When we are able to rest in God's love, we are free to live in the light of eternity. We are able to bring God's Kingdom to the people who live around us. That kind of freedom and power scares the Devil. He will do everything in his power to keep us from having it.

God's heart swells with joy when we run to his arms, jump up onto his lap, and put our arms around His neck. He loves when we take his face in our hands, look Him in the eye, and say, “You have to love me. You promised.” Such "great faith" is a delight to Him, and He responds to it eagerly with answers to our prayers, and blessings in our lives.

We can take His love for granted. It is constant, unchanging, unfailing, unconditional. If we take hold of it by faith, because Jesus' death has cancelled anything in our lives that might separate us from Him, we can experience the joy and security He longs for us to know.

In countless ways.

Come

2011-07-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes one simple word will capture my heart and lead it along a quiet, contemplative path for days.

The other morning I read Revelation 22:17. This verse comes at the very end of the Bible, where God sums up the message of his written revelation to the people he has created and dearly loves.

To us.

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!”
And let those who hear say, “Come!”
Let those who are thirsty come;
and let all who wish take the free gift of the water of life.

The word “come” is used three times in this verse. Twice it is followed by an exclamation point—a rare occurrence in the Bible. And each time it comes from a slightly different direction.

The first “come” is an excited plea/command spoken by God’s Spirit and the Bride of Jesus—those who have accepted his offer of redemption and restoration into the family of God. They’re asking Jesus to return to earth a second time. They want him to fulfill the promise of the angels at his first coming—the promise that his coming would bring peace to the earth, in God’s time and in his way. This “come” is an invitation to Jesus.

The second “come” expresses a desire that people who have not yet become part of God’s family—people who hear this message—would join the rest of God’s people in the invitation to Jesus to return.

But the third “come” reverses the direction of the invitation. This time, Jesus is saying “Come.” He’s saying, “Before I come back to establish my Kingdom on earth, I want you to come to me. I want you to take the free gift of life I offer.”

We are invited to come to Him, so that He can come to us, in all the fullness of joy He wants to share with us in His glory at the end of the age.

On Sunday, in worship, we sang three songs with the word “come” in them. I couldn’t help but notice. Here are my favorite electronic versions of those songs.

Come Thou Fount

Come, Now is the Time to Worship

Come and Listen

A Sad Thing

2011-07-20T13:56:00.000-07:00

A sad thing happened after all my blog-talk about listening for God’s voice. Things went well for a while. God and I were chatting every day.

Then I got busy and forgot to listen.

Maybe that’s why I haven’t had much to write about lately.

A few days ago I began to notice something was wrong, and I got lonesome. I decided to ask Him to speak to me, and made a decision, again, to listen for his response.

I don’t think He’s quit speaking. All the little serendipitous blessings—the coincidences of thought and circumstance that just “happen”—the inspiration and gentle nudges to do this or that activity—all these things point to His continued intimate involvement in my life. But it’s all happened so quietly I’ve failed to notice the source of the little miracles.

I’ve continued to walk the path of life, choosing directions at crossroads, negotiating the curves, and enjoying the beauty, as if I were alone. I’ve missed the joy of companionship. I’ve missed out on the best part.

His companionship means more to me than anything. So why is it so easy to forget Him?

I think there are at least three reasons. First, I’ve noticed that when I’m enjoying my visible world it’s much easier to get distracted, so that the reality of the invisible world fades into the background. When things are difficult in this visible world, it’s easier to turn to the invisible one for help.

Also, the visible world is so much more in-my-face. It's more demanding. Awareness of the spiritual realm, where God lives and moves and speaks, gets lost in the noisy business of living in the material world. I need to work at living in the light of His love, in the reality that is eternal.

Which brings me to the final reason I forget: I am lazy. I avoid working at anything that forces me to swim against the stream of the cultural whirlpool/cesspool I find myself dogpaddling around in. Asking Him to speak and listening for His voice needs to become a habit, so it happens without conscious decision on my part, and developing good habits always takes work.

The spiritual discipline of “practicing the Presence of God” is basic to the Christian walk. It should be the first one we develop when we start deliberately walking with God.

So here I go again, starting from the beginning.

And it’s not as hard as it might seem. The day after my new beginning, I went out early to a local river canyon looking for one more photoshoot spot, being careful to keep my ears open for more than the sound of the early morning birds.

For the novel I'm publishing, we need a scene by a river where Zinovy can kneel down and give his life to God. I found a spot that might work, but it wasn’t ideal. I turned to go back to the car, but the still, small Voice told me to continue farther down the path instead. So I turned again, and went farther down the trail, where I came out onto a wide, pebble beach along a stretch of the river that will work much better for our pictures.

When I turned back in response to His prompt, the picture at the top of this post is what I saw. And I’m sure I heard Him say, “I’m walking along this writing path, with you, remember?”

I do need to remember. That’s all I have to do, in fact. As long as I remember, consciously, every day, everything else will fall into place. I know that, by personal experience.

Prayer is a dialogue between two persons who love each other.

I just need to develop the habit of listening to His side of the conversation.

The Rapture in the News

2011-05-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

This past week The Rapture made headlines. All of North America was talking about it. And laughing about it. Christians joked about the idea that someone could actually predict when the Rapture would happen, or thought they could. People who don’t know Jesus scoffed at the idea that it would happen at all.

Many Christians were perturbed and embarrassed. Understandably so. They worried about the bad press the Rapture was getting, for Jesus’ sake. But I don’t think Jesus was perturbed.

God is never perturbed or embarrassed. He has no reason to be, even when we do silly things, or evil things, that reflect on Him. He’s used to getting bad press because of us, and He’s really good at taking our negative words and actions and turning them into something that brings good to us, and glory to Himself, where it belongs.

He did it when people scoffed at the prophets He sent in the Old Testament. He did it when people stood at the foot of the cross and mocked Him. He does it still, in these “last days,” when “scoffers will come.” (2 Peter 3:3)

He knew this silly man was going to make this silly mistake. He could have prevented it. But He chose not to.

So how can He bring good out of this fiasco?

Maybe He is using the publicity to wake people up.

Last week, the world learned a new vocabulary word. An important one. And in spite of all the silliness fluttering around the discussions, people were actually talking about Jesus’ return—and a day of reckoning.

Sure, they were scoffing, but underneath all the laughter ran a current of unease—almost awe. One radio announcer, in the midst of the banter back and forth between her and her partner, wondered if it were quite safe to joke about the Rapture. She had a point.

The talk about the rapture fuelled scoffing, but it also directed the world’s attention to the possibility of judgement. People laughed about being “left behind,” but behind the laughter was a hint of sobering fear.

What if?

The question will linger in the back of people’s minds, even after the joke has been lost in other news of the day.

Because of one man’s thoughtless blunder, everyone heard about the possibility that the world was coming to an end. He got the timing wrong, but the central idea is true. The world as we know it will end one day. Many of us think it will happen soon, though we don’t know exactly when. He will come quickly, when we least expect it.

The world needs to be ready. We Christians need to be ready.

What should we do about the end of the world as we know it? Peter tells us how to live:

Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: Be holy, because I am holy. (I Peter 1:13-16)

Holy living. Wise living. Incarnational living.

Living in quiet confidence that God is in control, no matter what happens, and being ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope that is in us.

I want Jesus to find me living this way when He comes back, or when He takes me home, whichever comes first.

God's Working, In and Around

2011-03-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

This morning I’m pondering the great mystery of how God’s sovereignty works in and around our personal choices to fulfil His gracious plan in our lives and in the world.

This thought comes to me as I open my Bible and flip past the page that lists all the books that tell of Israel’s history.

Joshua, Judges, Ruth.
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.

Stories rich with evidence of God’s compassionate determination to work salvation for us “in and around” our circumstances, our mistakes, our evil inclinations.

My heart swells with praise.

It occurs to me, as I prepare to write today, that more of those kinds of stories need to be told, so that others can come to know this wonderful Creator. I turn to the Psalms, with a sense that God will lead me to a passage that relates to the thoughts I suspect He has just placed in my mind.

My eyes fall on Psalm 77. It begins with lament. “I cried out to God for help, I cried out to God to hear me.”

The Psalmist then asks himself some really hard questions. You can hear the moan behind them.

Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?
Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?
Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?

Through the moaning pain of Asaph, God leads us to the truth:

The Lord will never reject us.
He shows his favor, over and over and over again.
His love is unfailing. It cannot vanish. Ever.
His promises will be fulfilled—all of them, gloriously.
He will never forget to be merciful.
He will pour out his compassion on us forever.

I’m surprised this Psalm doesn’t talk about proclaiming His goodness to others. I’d half expected it to, considering the thoughts I’d had before reading it. I reach for the page, to turn back to the beginning, to read again, and Psalm 78 catches my eye.

I will open my mouth with a parable; I will teach you lessons from the past—things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done.

So I begin my writing today, telling more of the Zinovy parable, trusting that Zinovy’s God will take my ideas and weave them into another story of His mercy and compassion. A story future generations will read. A story of the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power and the wonders he has done.

Yes, Zinovy's story is fiction, and it's set in the future, not the past, but it's full of truth about God's unfailing love. Zinovy's story demonstrates how God, in his sovereignty, works in and around our circumstances and our choices, to fulfil His loving purposes.

God's Splendid Obsession

2011-02-26T09:33:00.000-08:00

This morning's reading in the Daily Light begins with Lamentations 3:40:

Let us examine and probe our ways, and let us return to the Lord.

I've been going through difficulties this past week that have forced me to probe my ways, and I’ve been feeling a heavy weight of guilt for what I'm discovering. I can't find any sins that are terribly uncivilized, but I am finding spiritual sins--the sins of pride--the worst kind. Pride is the great sin of the Devil. The sin that says, "I am God."

The world doesn’t find pride sinful. This past week, in a mythology class, I had to teach high school students that the story of Adam and Eve is a story of the coming of age of human beings. God created them, then put a serpent in the garden to “tempt” them to grow up, to become adults, to leave the nest. Then God was angry, like a bad parent, when they chose to go their own way—to become their own persons.

This interpretation is a doctrine of the ancient religion of paganism. We now call that religion secular humanism. According to our evolved social mores, we should not “probe our ways and return to the Lord.” That would be like crawling back into the womb. And if we’re tempted to do that, it’s only because God’s anger has put a heavy burden of false guilt and shame on us.

So I was supposed to teach these students, by implication, that their task is to throw off this weight of guilt, to become fully human, to live their own lives to the fullest as seems best to them. Oh, and also, the book implied we are all to try to do a better job of parenting our children than God did His.

I taught the lesson, but I also told the students the other, more traditional interpretation of the myth of Adam and Eve. I said the story is also considered an explanation of how evil came into the world. I had to add that interpretation. It wasn't in the text. It’s interesting that modern mythology textbooks would teach a pagan interpretation for a Jewish myth, without any mention of the interpretation Jewish scholars have given it down through the years.

But I digress. My own guilt. I feel the weight of it. The guilt is real and justified. And it’s a hard thing to make myself recognize what I’m doing wrong and correct it.

Then I made a glorious discovery: though the guilt is justified, the weight doesn’t have to be there. I don’t have to work at realizing my guilt and repenting and confessing.

John G. Elliott's devotional reading for today has given me a whole new perspective on my malady. John speaks of God's refining fire.

It is God who does the work of refining. We don't have to do anything but surrender. To put ourselves in his hands. He does the rest. It’s a task He does very carefully, because He loves us so much.

John G. Elliott says:

To Him we are of infinite value - - - even in our raw condition. We are the ore that is largely composed of “earth” - - - the “world”. These anti-Kingdom motives, values and desires loom larger in us than we are aware. But He sees the gold deposited in the mix and undertakes a life-long process of “un-earthing” the ore where it is lodged deep within. The filtering process for a small amount of gold is time consuming and costly - - - for Him and for the disciple. But He has never doubted His objective. His love is determined concerning us- - - to the point of splendid obsession. It would seem that the more a disciple yields to this process the more times the furnace is heated up for yet another round of purification.

Ouch. Another round? Not fun. But it is such a relief to know He is responsible for the purification, not me. I will never be “adult” enough to do that task for myself, and I’m happy to leave Him to it.

My New Year's Resolution--to Pedal

2011-01-11T12:51:00.000-08:00

My New Year’s resolution for my walk (ride?) with the Lord in 2011 is to charge boldly into the new year, embracing the Gulp and Whee mentality I first discovered in the last part of 2010. (For a more detailed definition of "Gulp and Whee," see the post by that title in my writing blog.)

The G and W mentality is perfectly exemplified in this anonymously written poem that inspires me again every time I read it. I hope it challenges and encourages you in your own spiritual journey.

The Road of Life

At first I saw God as my observer, my judge,
Keeping track of the things I did wrong,
So as to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die.
He was out there sort of like a president.
I recognised His picture when I saw it, but I really didn’t know Him.

But later on when I met Christ,
It seemed as though life were rather like a bike ride,
But it was a tandem bike, and I noticed that Christ was in the back,
Helping me pedal.

I don’t know when it was that He suggested we change places,
But life has not been the same since.

When I had control, I knew the way.
It was rather boring, but predictable. . .
It was the shortest distance between two points.

But when He took the lead,
He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains,
and through rocky places at breakneck speeds.
It was all I could do to hang on!
Even though it looked like madness,
He said, “Pedal!”

I worried and was anxious and asked, “Where are you taking me?”
He laughed and didn’t answer, and I started to learn to trust.

I forgot my boring life and entered into the adventure.
And when I’d say, “I’m scared,” He’d lean back and touch my hand.

He took me to people with gifts I needed,
Gifts of healing, acceptance, and joy.
They gave me gifts to take on my journey,
My Lord’s and mine.

And we were off again.
He said, “Give the gifts away; they’re extra baggage.
Too much weight.”
So I did, to people we met, and I found that in giving
I received, and still our burden was light.

I did not trust Him at first, in control of my life.
I thought He’d wreck it.
But He knows bike secrets, knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners,
Knows how to jump to clear high rocks,
Knows how to fly to shorten scary passages.

And I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places,
And I’m beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze in my face
With my delightful, constant companion, Jesus Christ.

And when I’m sure I just can’t do any more
He just smiles and says. . . “Pedal!”

Author unknown

May the coming year be one of sweet, exciting surprises for you in your journey with the Lord.

My Gift at the Manger

2010-12-27T21:11:00.000-08:00

We were on our way to the Christmas morning worship service and I was not in the mood to worship. I could trace the problem to its source. The grumpiness had started on December 22nd, when I first heard a Christmas song on the radio that had the Baby Jesus saying “Ho, ho, ho.”

Bah, humbug.

The racoon who ate the pumpkin pie off my back deck during the Christmas Eve service didn’t help any. Nor did the discovery, later in the evening, that my jar of poultry seasoning was empty. It could have been on my fruitless pilgrimage around town that night, looking for an open grocery store, that I lost the right front hubcap off my new volkswagon.

So, driving to church on Christmas morning, listening to my husband’s idle musings about which of the three curbs I had bumped in the last four days might have dealt the death knell to my hubcap, I was in full grinch form.

“Merry Christmas,” I said (pointedly) to him in the middle of his one-sided discussion of the missing hubcap. Being, as he is, consistently oblivious to subtle hints regarding proper topics of conversation when I am in a funk, he continued the conversation until I told him, without subtle nuances or vague metaphorical references, that I needed a few minutes of peace and quiet “because I am not in the mood to worship and it’s being very hard for me to get myself there.”

During the next few minutes of brooding silence, I dragged my reluctant heart to Jesus, laid my insignificant frustrations at His feet and pried my heartstrings away from the bitterness trying to take root in my spirit.

I came close to tears when I realized, once again, after all these years of basking in the light of His unconditional love, that I still have nothing worthwhile to leave at the manger on Christmas morning.

At church, the pastor told us the true story of the little church in a small town that decided to take a chance and bring real animals to its Christmas Eve service. A local farmer lent them a cow, a sheep and a goat, and the animal rescue facility down the road sent them a donkey.

It seemed to be working. The animals, and the people, were behaving well. Just as on that famous night, all was calm. Until the donkey got too close to the empty baptistry and fell in.

Finding himself trapped in the unfamiliar “stall”, the poor beast flailed and brayed until the pastor gave up on his message and called the care giver from the animal rescue facility. The man came, took off his shoes, got into the tub, covered the donkey’s head with his coat, whispered sweet comfort into his ear, and finally crouched down on all fours so the donkey could use him as a stepstool to climb out.

“It’s a perfect metaphor,” the pastor explained. “That’s why Jesus came.”

My mind wandered now and then. I was still trying to find a worthy gift for the baby in the manger. Maybe the prayer I prayed in church last Sunday. Several people said they were touched by it. Or the Tim Horton’s card I gave to my lonely friend. Or the time I spent talking about the Bible with the sweet young woman who had just become a Christian. Those things would be good gifts for Jesus.

“No.” I heard Him say, distinctly. “The first gift you gave me—that’s all I want.”

A broken and contrite heart.

The only gift a sinner has to offer a holy Saviour.

Yes, Christmas is about giving. But it’s not about our giving. It’s about God’s giving. I knelt at the manger that morning and received His gift—the true peace of Christmas—with a heart open and subdued.

Then I went home to subdue the five grandchildren who were running around our house, high on Christmas candy, and the thirty-pound turkey I’d wrestled into the oven that morning.

Significant Trivia

2010-12-10T21:00:00.001-08:00

When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.'"
Matthew 2:3-6

A bit of shepherd trivia.

Shepherds, in Jesus' day, were considered one of the lowest classes of people. They were so suspect as liars and thieves that their testimonies were not accepted in a court of law. Yet they were the ones to whom the angels first announced the birth of Jesus, and were probably the first to begin spreading the word to others.

Shepherding was the chief industry of the little town of Bethlehem. The animals were raised to be sold in Jerusalem, to pilgrims who needed them for sacrifices in their religious ceremonies. Lambs were killed to atone for the sins of the people who gave them at the temple for sacrifice.

So this little town is where the Lamb of God was "produced"--the lamb whose sacrificial death on the cross was pre-ordained to "take away the sin of the world." (John 1:29)

With the destruction of the Jewish temple in 60 A.D., the practice of animal sacrifice was discontinued, and has not been re-instituted.

I love Christmas!

A Whisper in the Wind

2010-11-19T13:45:00.000-08:00

This discussion on hearing from God has raised a raft of questions for me. I’m shy about sharing some of them, because I’m not sure they even make sense. Both the questions and the answers are still incubating. But Jenifer’s comment on my November 18th post, interestingly enough, speaks to the first of my questions, recorded in my journal on November 15th.

Jenifer says: “God is always speaking to us. Sometimes it is in the big things and sometimes it is a whisper in the wind. The more aware we are of Christ in our daily activities, the more we will notice when He speaks to us.”

My November 15th journal entry asks this question: Does God speak specifically to me every day, or are there only some times when I need to hear specific words? Are there some days when we just walk together in companionable silence?

Jenifer’s statement is obviously true, and I want to especially note her reminder that “the more aware we are of Christ in our daily activities, the more we will notice when He speaks to us.” But how does God speak? Is it always specific?

So here’s my mind trying to work out this truth:

God speaks all the time.

I know He does. He thunders on the mountaintops and he whispers in the wind. But what does that mean? Does He speak specific words in those sounds? Or does he just give us an intuitive sense of who He is—a majestic, powerful God, or an infinitely gentle One?

Psalm 19:2 says that the heavens declare the glory of God, day after day and night after night. God speaks to us constantly through the natural world.

He speaks constantly through His written word too. Every time we open the Book we read God speaking, even if nothing we read connects specifically with where our minds are at the moment.

And I’ve also come to believe that He is constantly whispering “I love you” in our hearts, as if those words are constantly being broadcast on some kind of spiritual airwave. Whenever we happen to tune into that station, we hear them.

But the kind of speaking I’m trying to listen to right now is more personal, more specific. How often does God want to take one of His eternal truths and apply it to my life, for a specific reason, at a point in time? How often does God want me to experience this kind of realization of Him?

God also speaks specifically at particular points in time and space.

One day when I was walking alone along a forest trail, He pointed out a flower that He said He’d put there just for me. I needed a flower that day, but I didn’t want to pick it because then it wouldn’t be there for someone else. He said, “It’s yours. Pick it. I can make more.”

When I was in agony over some things that were happening, or NOT happening, in my church, I wondered if God’s Spirit had departed from us—given up on ever being able to use us again. I picked up the Bible and read Haggai 2:5: “Be strong, and work, for My Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.”

And every time I ask Him for a random word, for no specific reason except to be reassured He is there, I hear an instant response: “I love you.” I know that’s true, but for some reason it surprises me again every time He says it.

So maybe my question about how often He speaks specifically is nonsense. Maybe I just need to keep my ears tuned, as Jenifer has said, and let Him speak however He wants.

Maybe I need to hear His voice in the thunder, the wind, the giggles of my grandchildren, the sigh of a friend, but also make my ears available for a specific word that says, “This is the way. Walk in it.” when I turn from the left to the right.

Thanks, Jenifer, for stimulating my thinking about this.

And, Kristen, God does use you. Keep up the good work.

An Amazing Truth!

2010-11-18T10:01:00.000-08:00

The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them. Psalm 25:14

God confides in us. That's amazing!

One more blog post from my personal journal, to show how God has spoken specifically to me in the last week:

I think I’m getting more of a sense of God’s urgings, in even the littlest things. I may be wrong about these urges, but I don’t think it will hurt anything if I step out on faith, as if they are from God. This morning I picked up my Bible from the nightstand and Prison to Praise was under it. I felt I needed to pick it up too, as if God might want to say something to me from it.

I always think it’s best to read my Bible first, before any other book in my quiet time, but this time as I asked God where I should read I felt Him say to read the book first. I turned to my bookmark and started reading [the author's] chapter on the power of praise—really the heart of his message. It was a powerful read, and again I sensed the urging of the Spirit to blog a passage from the book. So I got up and did it, afraid if I didn’t obey immediately it might get lost somewhere in the shuffle.

My blog posts are coming so much easier and more frequently since I relinquished my right to play Spider Solitaire! I’m convinced I can’t develop the discipline to do what God wants me to do until I exercize the discipline to quit doing the other things that get in the way. So I wonder if that blog post has a specific purpose in God’s Kingdom, since it seemed so specifically inspired? I might never know, and that’s all right.

Later I added this:

I said above that I might never know if the posting of this blog was God’s idea, but in the depth of my spirit I asked God for some kind of confirmation. A little while later I checked my e-mail messages and got this message from Lisa:

“I really enjoy reading your blog. In fact, I sent part of it to a friend who is feeling overwhelmed today. Thank you for posting this! I want to always bring the sacrifice of my praise to Jesus.”

I learned several things from this experience:

I was reassured that God does speak to us specifically if we make the effort to ask Him for specific wisdom AND if we take the time to listen for Him to speak. He spoke to me in prompting that blog post. He spoke to Lisa, asking her to send it to her friend, and He spoke encouragement to Lisa’s friend through her obedient action.

I realized that when we feel God’s prompting, we need to obey instantly. If I had waited to write that blog post, it might never have happened. I know, because I’ve lost good ideas like that before. The idea comes, and I think I’ll do it later, and it never goes any farther.

If Lisa had not responded immediately to send the message to her friend, she might never have done it, and her friend would have missed that blessing.

Lisa was doubly obedient to God’s prompting. Her encouraging message to me had impact because she sent it right away. If she had waited a day or two, I would not have had the specific confirmation I asked God for.

I also saw a demonstration of God’s love here. God went out of His way to encourage Lisa’s friend. He prompted me to write the blog post. He prompted Lisa to read it, and then to send it on to her. When God goes to a lot of trouble to say, “I love you,” the message is powerful. This friend of Lisa’s must be greatly loved by God, and He wants her to know that.

Next post will move away from these personal experiences. I want to talk about three other ideas before I leave this subject. I want to discuss how God speaks, what kinds of things He says, and I want to ponder the “sound” of His voice. I hope those discussions will help answer the question, “Is it really God speaking to me?”

I love the comments I’m getting. If you have something you’d like to share with others, please e-mail me (see the sidebar for my address). I can then include your comments in the body of the blog posts.

It's Not About Sofas

2010-11-17T14:37:00.000-08:00

So I’m having fun with the current topic of hearing from God. I think I'll post some examples of the experiences I'm having. Here's one from a week or so ago:

I am looking on Craig’s List for furniture for our front room. I find an ad that looks promising, contact the person who is selling, and make arrangements to go see it tonight. She is leaving town in the morning for ten days and has to get rid of her things before she moves permanently at the end of the month.

On the way to her house, I begin to wonder if God might have a greater purpose in the encounter. I ask God to guide and use the situation for His purposes.

We meet, and I look at the furniture. It’s not what we’re looking for, but my spiritual eyes have been moved to a bigger goal than finding a sofa.

I ask her if her move is a happy one. She says yes, that she travels a lot with her work and she’s hoping to settle in this new city. I tell her I will pray for her on her trip, that God is going with her and that He loves her. She receives the message with a smile.

For the next several days I find myself praying for Jill (not her real name). I feel this contact is definitely of the Lord, probably just for the prayer and the word God wanted her to have.

I love this new awareness that God wants to be intimately involved in my life, speaking to me and letting me hear Him, using me for His purposes.

Every day, not just now and then when I remember to ask Him if there’s anything I can do.

Every contact we have with anyone, God is there, and we need to be alert to it.

Now, I need to see if I can remember this the next time I get a phone call from a telemarketer. I wonder if anyone ever tells them that Jesus loves them?

Even in the Silence

2010-11-13T12:46:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, after posting the Praise Power message, I opened the novel I’m reading (Yes, I’m one of those confused, neurotic people who have at least five books on the go at once.), and found the following passage. It seemed to fit so well with yesterday’s post, I thought I’d quote it for you.

While We’re Far Apart, by Lynn Austin, is set in WWII, so it made good reading over the Remembrance Day holiday. I recommend it for the picture it gives of life in the U.S. during WWII, for both Jews and Gentiles, and also for its honest examination of the age-old question, “Why Did God Let This Happen?”

From Chapter 23, pp204-206:

“Do you think it does any good to pray, Mr. Mendel?”

The truth was that he was still too angry with Hashem to pray. But just as his newspaper photos had fueled Esther’s fear, he saw that his lack of faith would have an influence on her, too. It would be very wrong to lead these children into the dark, hopeless world where he lived. Should he tell them not to come anymore? No, Jacob had grown very fond of them. They were the only bright spot in his life right now. He groped for a reply.

“Sometimes, Esther, it is wrong to judge the effectiveness of prayer by looking at the immediate results. Do you know the story of Joseph from the Bible?”

She looked thoughtful for a moment, “You mean the boy with the coat of many colors?“

“Yes. Exactly so. In the story, everything looked very bad for Joseph—sold as a slave by his own brothers, living far from home. He was even locked in prison for a while, falsely accused of a crime he did not commit. His father feared he was dead.” Jacob had to pause as grief strangled him. He closed his eyes, thinking of his son and the cart full of Jewish corpses, thinking of the detectives who had come to his apartment making false accusations. The police wanted to put Jacob into prison, too, for a crime he did not commit.

“All that time,” he said when he could speak, “all that time Joseph prayed, and it must have seemed like Hashem wasn’t listening.”

“Is that God’s name, Hashem?”

“No, Hashem means ‘The Name.’ One of the Ten Commandments says it is wrong to take His name in vain. We believe that His name is so holy that we must never speak it. Instead, we say Hashem—The Name.”

“So, Joseph prayed to Hashem?” Esther asked.

“Yes, I am sure that he prayed something like, ‘Get me out of this prison! Get me back home to my family!’ Hashem may not have answered Joseph’s prayers the way that Joseph wanted Him to, but it turned out that Hashem had a very good reason for keeping him in Egypt. Of course, Joseph could not see how it was good until many years had passed. But Hashem was at work all that time, raising Joseph up to become a leader in Egypt. And when famine came to the land of Israel, Joseph’s family came to him there and were rescued.”

Peter wrote something on his piece of paper and pushed it across the table for Jacob to read: Mama used to tell us that story. Jacob thought of Rachel Shaffer and his own Miriam Shoshanna, and several moments passed before he could speak.

“Hashem may not answer our prayers the way we want Him to,” he said, clearing his throat. “He did not deliver Joseph from prison right away. But Hashem was there with Joseph, even in the silence.”

“Is that true, Mr. Mendel? Does God—Hashem—really hear our prayers?”

Esther and Peter were looking to him for answers. And for hope. He felt none. Why had he ever opened his door to them? Should he lie?

“’The righteous shall live by faith,’” Jacob finally said, remembering the rebbe’s words. “Faith is believing, even when you cannot see it. Like Joseph did. He never stopped believing in Hashem. And in time, his prayers were answered in ways he never could have foreseen.”

Do you see how this fits with the Praise Power idea? Or is it just me?

Praise Power

2010-11-12T09:35:00.000-08:00

I've been re-reading an old book called Prison to Praise, by Chaplain Merlin Carothers. He is reminding me of a great truth I need to hear repeated again and again. He says:

Jesus didn't promise to change the circumstances around us, but He did promise great peace and pure joy to those who would learn to believe that God actually controls all things.

The very act of praise releases the power of God into a set of circumstances and enables God to change them if this is His design. Very often it is our attitudes that hinder the solution of a problem. God is sovereign and could certainly cut across our wrong thought patterns and attitudes. But His perfect plan is to bring each of us into fellowship and communion with Him, and so He allows circumstances and incidents which will bring our wrong attitudes to our attention.

I have come to believe that the prayer of praise is the highest form of communion with God, and one that always releases a great deal of power into our lives. Praising Him is not something we do because we feel good; rather it is an act of obedience. Often the prayer of praise is done in sheer teeth-gritting willpower; yet when we persist in it, somehow the power of God is released into us and into the situation, first in a trickle perhaps, but later in [a] growing stream that finally floods us and washes away the old hurts and scars.

Philippians 4:6 says: Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.

Ephesians 5:19-20 says: Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-19 says: Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit.

Do I really believe these truths?

How often do I quench the Spirit by my lack of vision and lack of faith?

My Approval Ratings

2010-11-07T17:26:00.000-08:00

I’m in an introspective mood. Maybe it’s the influence of what I’m reading. John Eldredge’s book, Walking With God, journals his experience of listening to God and walking with Him on a daily basis for one year.

I can only take so much of this kind of navel gazing before I get bored, or uneasy. If I were John Eldredge I’d be wondering why that’s true. He’d probably say I’m afraid to look under the hood (see page 60, “Being Willing to Have a Look”), so, before I give up on this approach, I probably need to look at a few things.

The thing I notice right now is that I am constantly trying to impress myself. Or impress others with myself. Wanting them to know how witty I am, or how inteligent, or good, or clever, or right, or even how beautiful. If there’s a group picture, I look for myself first. I want to know how good I look. I’m usually disappointed. I keep expecting that someone as special as I am should look more beautiful than I do.

There’s something wrong with living this way. It’s not how Jesus lived.

Jesus never tried to impress anyone. Why? Because He knew who He was. He had this quiet, sure confidence about His identity from the beginning. You see it when he was 12 years old, in the forthright and matter-of-fact way He asked and answered the questions of the religious rulers in the temple. You see it, especially, in the way he responded to His “parents” when they asked where He had been. “Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" (Luke 2:49)

Jesus was God’s son, and as such he had His Father's approval. He needed no other affirmation than that.

Because of Jesus, I am God’s child too. That’s my identity. That’s the reality of who I am. I am accepted in the Beloved. When I live in this reality, the affirmation of others, or even of myself, is not necessary.

There is no room for pride in that vision, or insecurity, or guilt. It’s just the way it is. Everything I am and have comes from Him and belongs to Him, and that’s enough.

I want to live in that reality.

A Pastor Who Scolds

2010-10-28T19:24:00.001-07:00

Last week my Pastor scolded me.

I had sent him one of those funny e-mail jokes. Where on earth I came up with the brilliant idea that the other deacons in my church and the pastors would enjoy an internet joke that involved Jesus, I’ll never know. My pastor gets so much electronic mail he hates messages anyway. I knew that. It was just one of those sloppy, brain-dead moments when you snatch a glance at something someone’s spammed you with and immediately, without sober second thought, spam it forward, to a group list, no less, of the most spiritually sensitive people in your church.

In all fairness, my pastor didn’t know he’d scolded me. I had to tell him about it later, after the scolding had done its redemptive readjustment of my internet priorities. He was surprised, and pleased, to find out God had used him to discipline me, but he had no idea his question, “Why on earth do you read this stuff?!” would sound like a reprimand.

He was probably just curious, but it sounded like a rhetorical question to me. You know, like the ones Jesus used to ask his disciples: “How long must I put up with you?” That kind of thing. But it’s hard to interpret e-mails because you don’t get the body language. Anyway, the e-mail had obviously caught him at a bad time. He’d probably just come out of an hour-long meeting with Jesus where they’d been discussing matters involving the Kingdom of God, or something equally significant. Naturally, in that case, he could have missed the humor in the joke.

I replied to his reprimand, asking him if the joke was sacrilegious or something. He said, “No, just profoundly ignorant.” That didn’t sound much better than sacrilege to me. I thought about pointing out to him that “profoundly ignorant” was an oxymoron, but decided I’d better not push my luck, especially since I’d not seemed to have much of it so far anyway in this conversation.

But the end result of the whole thing was amazing. For weeks before this I’d been in a spiritual slump. I had no appetite for reading the Bible. I had no faith in prayer, and even the little arrow prayers and praises that used to add salt and pepper to my spiritual life were missing.

My pastor’s response to the spam changed all that. I have no idea why. Maybe because it shed a new, strong light on the influence the internet has in my life. I realized that spam in and spam out had become a regular, unconscious part of my psyche. I began to be aware, not only of what I read every day, but what I, in turn, clutter my friends’ mailboxes with.

So the reprimand has changed me. I’ve decided there are enough frivolous words floating around out there in cyberspace, and I’m determined not to contribute any more to the flotsam and jetsam. I’m using the delete key more often, and sooner—before I read, instead of after—and I’ve slowed down my reaction time before hitting the “forward to” key.

And, glory be!, my taste for the Word of God has revived. I find myself eagerly going to quiet times every morning and every night. The prayers and praises have returned, as well as beautiful calls to intercession resulting in some powerful, eternity-changing conversations with Jesus.

I love it that my pastor isn’t afraid to chide me. We need that kind of pastor. October is pastor appreciation month, and before the month went by, I wanted to say that I thank God for my pastor. He’s a gem, and his sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, in this case, has rekindled my spiritual life. It has cleared the junk off the sofa in my heart so there’s room, again, for Jesus to come in and sit down.

Thank you, God, for pastors who aren’t afraid to lecture us.

Control

2010-09-21T05:24:00.000-07:00

I don't want the kind of peace that comes from feeling like I have everything under control. I want the peace that comes from knowing God is sovereign, even though I'm not in control.

Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

Philippians 4:6-8 (The Message)

Losing Heart

2010-09-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

I struggle, today, with the disappointment of unanswered prayer. Why does it seem, so often, as if my prayers make no difference? Does prayer really change things, as the plaque on the wall in my bedroom states?

I know the answer to that question with my mind. God often says “wait” when we ask for something, and His timing is perfect. And when He says “no,” it's always so He can give us something better instead. But in the moment it's heart-breaking to feel the door shut in my face.

So what do I do in the midst of my disappointment?

Do I give up on God and decide my walk with Him is all a waste of time? I can't do that. There's too much richness in that walk—too much truth and grace. I can't deny His faithfulness in the past.

Do I wallow in self-pity and self-doubt, wondering if I've done something that keeps God from answering my prayers? It's not a bad idea to ask God to examine my attitude and my motivations, but if nothing comes to mind, I can't stay in that place. It's depressing and counterproductive.

Do I quit asking God for things, or at least quit expecting He will answer if I do? I could just say “Thy will be done,” and leave it at that—no specifics. That way I will avoid the hurt of disappointment. But then why pray at all? Why ask God for something He will do anyway? Where is the intimacy of communion, or even the delight of communication in that kind of prayer?

No, I have to avoid all those solutions. They're not solutions. They're coping mechanisms, and coping mechanisms don't belong in healthy relationships. I want a healthy relationship with my God.

So I go to the Word.

I read about people like Joseph, who spent years in prison for something he didn't do, only to be released at the right time to fulfill God's purposes of salvation, for Egypt, and Israel, and ultimately the whole world. People like Moses, who labored for years in the wilderness tending his father-in-law's sheep before God sent him to deliver the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt. Daniel, the captured slave of a pagan king, who remained faithful to God and so influenced the history of the world during two great secular empires.

I hear Job say, Though he slay me, yet will I trust him, and Habakkuk declare, Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

I read Paul's words in 2 Corinthians: We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned, struck down, but not destroyed.

Why was Paul not defeated by his disappointments? Because we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Cor 4:18.

My vision is so incomplete. I cannot afford to lose heart just because I can't see far enough ahead. I will not harden my heart. I will keep pressing into His side. I will keep presenting my requests to Him and allowing the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, to guard my heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7. I will not lose my heart.

Surrender

2010-09-05T08:12:00.000-07:00

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

"Our Lord makes a disciple His own possession, He becomes responsible for him. 'Ye shall be witnesses unto Me.' The spirit that comes in is not that of doing anything for Jesus, but of being a perfect delight to Him. The secret of the missionary is--I am His, and He is carrying out His enterprises through me. Be entirely His." Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, September 4 reading.

God calls for complete surrender of our lives to Him.

Some things we lay on the altar He will burn up, because they aren't good for us and never will be.

Other things He will purify, and sanctify, and give back to us. But we have to let go of everything.

God is good and He is sovereign. We have to trust Him, and we can trust Him.

Shift

2010-08-16T23:31:00.000-07:00

in my thinking. .

About things—not what I can get, but how simply I can live.

About leisure—not escape from something, but entering into something.

About food—not what I have to give up, but what is good for my health.

About tithe—not what I lose, but what God's Kingdom gains.

About vacation—not doing whatever I want, but changing my pace.

About time—not immediate and urgent, but restful and trusting.

About God—not far away, but up close; not condemning, but loving; not emotionally distant, but relational.

About salvation—not my doing, but His.

About being loved—not getting hugs, but giving them.

About church—not what I get out of it, but what I put into it.

About life—not down here and short, but up there and eternal.

Something Went Terribly Wrong Here

2010-08-08T17:29:00.001-07:00

The view from below:

Mark 15:1-15 (around 30 AD)

Early the next morning the chief priests, the nation's leaders, and the teachers of the Law of Moses met together with the whole Jewish council. They tied up Jesus and led him off to Pilate.

He asked Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews?"

"Those are your words," Jesus answered.

The chief priests brought many charges against Jesus. Then Pilate questioned him again, "Don't you have anything to say? Don't you hear what crimes they say you have done?" But Jesus did not answer, and Pilate was amazed.

During Passover, Pilate always freed one prisoner chosen by the people. And at that time there was a prisoner named Barabbas. He and some others had been arrested for murder during a riot. The crowd now came and asked Pilate to set a prisoner free, just as he usually did.

Pilate asked them, "Do you want me to free the king of the Jews?"

Pilate knew that the chief priests had brought Jesus to him because they were jealous.

But the chief priests told the crowd to ask Pilate to free Barabbas.

Then Pilate asked the crowd, "What do you want me to do with this man you say is the king of the Jews?"

They yelled, "Nail him to a cross!"

Pilate asked, "But what crime has he done?"

"Nail him to a cross!" they yelled even louder.

Pilate wanted to please the crowd. So he set Barabbas free. Then he ordered his soldiers to beat Jesus with a whip and nail him to a cross.

Something went terribly wrong here.

The view from above:

Isaiah 53:5-12 (800 years before Christ was born)

He was wounded and crushed because of our sins; by taking our punishment, he made us completely well.

All of us were like sheep that had wandered off. We had each gone our own way, but the LORD gave him the punishment we deserved.

He was painfully abused, but he did not complain. He was silent like a lamb being led to the butcher, as quiet as a sheep having its wool cut off.

He was condemned to death without a fair trial. Who could have imagined what would happen to him? His life was taken away because of the sinful things my people had done.

He wasn't dishonest or violent, but he was buried in a tomb of cruel and rich people.

The LORD decided his servant would suffer as a sacrifice to take away the sin and guilt of others. Now the servant will live to see his own descendants. He did everything the LORD had planned. By suffering, the servant will learn the true meaning of obeying the LORD.

Although he is innocent, he will take the punishment for the sins of others, so that many of them will no longer be guilty.

The LORD will reward him with honor and power for sacrificing his life. Others thought he was a sinner, but he suffered for our sins and asked God to forgive us.

Lord, remind me, when things go terribly wrong in my life, to ask for the view from above.

Scriptures taken from the Contemporary English Version of the Bible

Always Temporary

2010-08-07T23:00:00.001-07:00

Belonging to Jesus doesn't mean nothing terrible will ever happen to you. It just means terrible things are temporary.

That's enough.

Revelation 21:4

Not Jonathan Livingston

2010-08-05T16:07:00.000-07:00

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. Isaiah 64:6

I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. Romans 7:18

You were washed. . .you were sanctified. . .you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God. I Corinthians 6:11

Perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you, declares the Lord God. Ezekiel 16:14

I'm so proud of this photo, even if it was an accident. I just wanted a picture of a sea gull, and I grabbed it, not knowing if the bird was even in my sights at the time.

I love what was caught by my camera lens in that fraction of a second.

Yes, it is just a seagull. That unimpressive, annoying bird who struts awkwardly up and down the beach, looking at you out of the corner of his eye with that half defiant, half apologetic expression, as if he knows you don't like him and are about to shoo him away.

The one who scuttles up to steal from your chip bag when you aren't looking, then scurries off, leaving his dirty germs behind.

But in the air, soaring toward the light, against the blue, blue sky, he's beautiful.

I think it's a metaphor.

Disclaimer: This bird is not related to Jonathan Livingston Seagull, who was created to explain (and does so very aptly) the christological doctrine of the Mormon faith.

A Simple Cure

2010-08-03T15:40:00.000-07:00

Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. . . (Psalm 37:3-7)

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. (1 Timothy 6:17)

I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destry; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (Jesus, in John 10:9-10)

I hate when people tell me what's wrong with my life but don't tell me how to fix it. Yesterday I talked about what was wrong. Today I want to suggest a way to fix it. It may not be difficult. Most of our idols, at least as Christians, are not intrisically bad things. They're just good things in the wrong place.

“God gives us, richly, all things to enjoy.” This is a glorious truth we can embrace wholeheartedly. We can embrace His gifts as well. We just have to make sure we don't squeeze too tightly, and, even more importantly, we have to remember where the gifts come from. Repenting from idolatry may be as simple as rearranging our priorities. We need to make sure the gifts come below the Giver in the hierarchy that governs our lives.

Too often, in our lives as broken human beings, the gift slips into the place of the Giver. The means to joy becomes the end instead of just a stepping stone to the real destination. Jesus is the “end” of all true joy—the apex, the final resting place. That's why, when our focus slips down to the gift, we live with the vague uneasiness that something is wrong. It is wrong. It's not the gift that's wrong, it's just that the gift is out of place.

When I spend time on my computer, it needs to be for the right purpose. When Jesus is looking over my shoulder, participating in my activity, it's holy, whether it's writing a blog post, or editing my novel, or playing Spider Solitaire. But when any of those activities becomes the focus, rather than the presence of Jesus in them, they become idols.

Does the presence of Jesus always have to be conscious? I don't think so. But I find when I stray too far from that conscious awareness, I begin to feel antsy. That's when my life seems formless and void. It's then I need to take some time to be still before Him.

It happens at least once a day for me.

Life worshipping the One True God is gloriously exciting. When He fills my vision, I am on top of the world. It doesn't take much to give me that joy, but it also doesn't take much to spoil it.

My prayer is that I will be so sensitive to His presence in my life, and so eager for His blessing, that I can't stray a millimeter away without recognizing the presence of a thief in the sheepfold.

Jeremiah Was Not a Bullfrog

2010-08-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, all you clans of the house of Israel. This is what the Lord says: “What fault did your fathers find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. They did not ask, 'Where is the Lord, who brought us up out of Egypt and led us through the barren wilderness. . .' The prophets prophesied by Baal, following worthless idols.” (Jeremiah 2:4-6, 8)

Lately I've been wondering if Jeremiah's prophecy against the children of Israel might also be for me—for us as Christians in North America especially. I don't want to think so. How can it be? We love Jesus; We cry out to Him every day; We want Him to be our only God.

But so did the Israelites. God said, “I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert.” (Jeremiah 2:2) This describes me. If this prophecy is still in the Bible, and the Bible describes the human condition, and human beings are still human, maybe I need to consider if this book of Jeremiah has something to say to me today.

I often feel lost, spiritually. I feel like the culture around me has absorbed my spirit, has robbed me of my confidence in God's victory over evil, has immobilized me. So much of the time I don't feel on top of my life, free and full of the joy of the Lord. I wonder if the idolatry Jeremiah speaks of might be my affliction as well?

An idol is anything I trust in other than the Lord. What I worship is the thing that captivates me, that occupies most of my thought and my time. It's what I spend the most money on. It's the screen saver, or the desktop background of my mind. Is that, for me, the One True God, the God of Israel, or is it something else?

I'm not sure. It's so easy for me to trust in my own ability or power or inclinations. So hard to relinquish that control, turn it over to God.

What occupies most of my thought and time? These days, it's the computer, and not always the kind of soul searching I'm doing on it at the moment.

What do I spend the most money on? I use money to buy “things” that will make life more comfortable, more interesting—things to distract me from the vague sense that there might be something missing in my life.

Where does my mind wander when the mental demands of living relax a little bit? Usually to the next thing I should be “doing,” which leads to my “to do” list. It's on my desktop, and it lists everything except the most important thing.

The most important thing is spending time with the One True God. Time reading the Bible, not just a verse snatched here and there but a chapter, or even a book now and then without interruption. Time sitting and meditating on what I read. Time quietly listening, in case there's a specific application the Holy Spirit wants to make to my life. It's important that I pray with a focus on the One who is listening instead of on the tangled messes I'm bringing before Him to unravel. I need to take time to be still.

I don't like Jeremiah. I'd rather read the Psalms. Or the Gospels, though even they are sometimes a little unsettling; Jesus sounded a lot like Jeremiah in some places. I really only want to hear things that make me comfortable. But Jeremiah was not a bullfrog. He was a bull horn. He shouted God's message loud and clear. I think I need to listen, whether I want to or not.

God's Love is Not Soft

2010-07-30T08:09:00.000-07:00

We can never overestimate how much God loves us, but we can, and often do, misunderstand how His love operates in our lives.

My grandaughter is nearly three and she runs all the time. Consequently, she falls lots. Every day she gets a new bruise or cut on her shins. And when it happens, you'd think the world was ending.

She screams and holds the affected limb in both arms protectively. No adult is allowed to get near the injury and, to listen to her howl, you'd think there would never be a cure for what ails her. She absolutely refuses to let anyone wash away the dirt, because that will make it hurt worse, and it's all about the pain, after all.

We smile, but we're often like that in our own lives. God, in his love, lets us romp around, knowing full well we're going to get some scrapes and bruises as a result of our wholehearted enthusiasm about whatever we're doing. He loves to see us run. When we fall, He wants to pick us up and treat the injury, but we yell and scream, as if it's the end of the world, and we won't let Him touch it.

In his book, War Child, Emmanuel Jal says that we, in North America, have a romanticized view of children. Though he wishes every child could be free of pain and suffering, he realizes that the circumstances of life sometimes prevent that from happening. He prays and works for peace in the world, but he doesn't waste time lamenting his own pain as a child of war.

We North Americans have a romanticized view of pain in general. Our wealth gives us the means to control the amount of pain that enters our lives, so when something hurtful worms its way into our comfortable world, we are shocked, offended, as if it had no right.

But pain happens as a natural part of a healthy life in this unhealthy world we have created. The pain is part of what God uses to grow us and stretch our spiritual wings. God's love is not soft. It is not sentimental. That doesn't mean He won't happily take us on his lap and hold us when we need it. He does that whenever we let him. But His love doesn't protect us from all pain and suffering.

I've heard people say they could never believe in a God who lets bad things happen to good people. What they're really saying is that they can't believe in a God who would allow people the freedom to live their lives according to their own choices. These people want a God who legislates love.

The real God is above that. The real God allows his creatures to make evil choices, and He will not negate the results of those choices. But he died to give us the freedom to repent of those choices if we choose, and He will redeem the evil as it affects our lives if we let him. Often, however, we are too busy screaming and protecting our wounds to let him.

Knowing the Unknowable

2010-07-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

We can never overestimate how much God loves us. His love is boundless.

We can do nothing to make His love for us bigger or smaller. We can receive His love or reject it; we can give Him praise for it or take it for granted; we can use or abuse it. Through everything the love stays the same. He loves us no less or no more when we do all those things.

We are free to walk away from God's love, but when we turn back, it's always there, just behind us, waiting for the turnaround.

Amazing. Incomprehensible.

Paul writes, “...And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17-19, emphasis mine).

There's a kind of “knowing” that leaves us awash with the love of God. That knowing goes beyond mind and words. It's a knowing that takes our breath away, like jumping off a mountaintop wrapped in a paraglider.

The kind of knowing God wants us to experience demands that kind of breathless risk-taking. He dares us to take advantage, to test the limits, to find the love limitless, and to rest against it.

I want to receive that love. I want to be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. I want that love to wash out over the whole world.

God. . .Vulnerable?

2010-06-14T09:37:00.001-07:00

I had a strange experience the other day. We were sitting in a meeting, quietly waiting on God in prayer. At first, as I was listening for God's voice, I heard nothing. Then one word began impressing itself on me, the word "Father."

I had been thinking recently of my human father, who was killed when I was a child, but this "Father" seemed to refer to God instead. As the repetition of the word became more insistent, I saw a figure that was God, standing at a distance. He began moving closer to me and as He came, I felt our relationship changing, becoming more intimate. He became for me more familiar as He drew nearer, and more vulnerable.

That's the strange thought. That God would be vulnerable.

Is He?

I think so. Love makes a person vulnerable because love involves risk. Love is dangerous to the lover. At least the kind of love God has for us—free and unconditional. He takes a chance that we will not respond to His love. He risks being hurt, deeply. The deeper the love, the deeper the potential hurt, and the greater the risk he takes.

A vulnerable God. An awesome thought.

Is this a model for the way we should love? Are we willing to give our love wholeheartedly, unconditionally to another, aware of the risk, and willing to take it, for the sake of love? For the sake of the loved one?

A Vulnerable God

2010-06-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

Everything I Need to Know About God I Learned in Sunday School

2010-06-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

Jesus love me, this I know.
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong.
They are weak but He is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus love me.
The Bible tells me so.

Jesus loves me when I'm good.
When I do the things I should.
Jesus loves me when I'm bad.
Though it makes Him very sad.

Jesus loves me, He who died,
Heaven's gates to open wide.
He will wash away my sin.
Let His little child come in.

Yes! Jesus loves me.
Yes! Jesus loves me.
Yes! Jesus loves me.
The Bible tells me so.

Jesus Love Me

Zinovy at the Cross

2010-04-03T16:15:00.000-07:00

Today, it seemed appropriate to post an excerpt from my novel, "Something About The Joy." Zinovy is reading from the little red book his colleagues have been studying in the evenings as they rest from their travels. The book has become a dangerous distraction, slowing their progress toward their destination. Zinovy decides to see what all the fuss is about:

Zinovy didn't know where his reading left off and the vision began. He saw the man hanging on a rough wooden cross, the man who had been called God's 'Passover Lamb' at the beginning of the book. The 'Lamb' was hanging by his wrists.

He was fastened to the cross by large metal spikes that had been driven through the arms just at the base of the hands, where they would hook on the bones, preventing the flesh from ripping further and the body from falling.A small wooden platform about sixty inches above the base of the upright beam supported the feet, which were crossed at the ankle and secured with one large metal spike that had been driven through them both.

The man was nearly naked. Zinovy could see the skeleton of the ribs standing out from the quivering flesh. The joints connecting the limbs were enlarged and grotesquely twisted, the bones pulled out of their sockets by the weight of the body as the cross had been dropped into its seating in the hard ground. The head was bowed over the chest. A crown of twigs circled the brow. Large thorns protruded from the wreath, the ones on the inside pushing into the scalp.

But the most mesmerizing sight to Zinovy was the blood. Bright red and dripping, it was everywhere. It percolated around the spikes in the wrists and the feet, dropping below to form dark pools on the ground beneath the cross. It trickled from jagged punctures on chest and abdomen where lashes from a cat-o-nine-tails had left the marks of a recent beating. It seeped from the head wounds, coming from behind the thorns, running down the face in rivulets, dropping from the chin onto the heaving chest below.

The man was innocent. According to the book, he had miraculously healed the sick, opened the eyes of the blind and brought dead people back to life. He had scolded the religious leaders, and spoken gently to the poor and the weak. He had told his followers that the Creator loved them, and that love was the most important thing.

And now he was dying, almost gone, nailed to a cross by men who stood below mocking him, gambling to see who would win the robe they had taken from his body before they had impaled it.

Zinovy closed his eyes, shutting out the sight, but the blood remained. It seeped into his memory and mingled with the blood on the path he had stumbled over after his mother's death. It mingled with the innocent blood of the baby chicks he had loved as a child, and with the blood of the dead lions they had found on the trail.

He opened his eyes once more and, for the first time, he looked into the face of the man on the cross. Into those other eyes. Anguished, yet piercing, they returned his look. Sheer agony was reflected in every drop of blood and sweat that dripped from his chin.

But it was something else that horrified Zinovy. In that brief instant he recognized the face. It was the face of the stranger, a face streaked with tears at Zinovy's grief over the memory of his mother, a face distorted in anguish at the memory of the girls Zinovy had taken. A face, now he remembered, a face from long ago, that had looked on him in love over his mother's shoulder as she explained to him the meaning of his name.

Now that face was distorted, not from the pain of the torn flesh of his hands and his feet, or the rough wood against the lacerated back. Zinovy knew the look of physical pain on a human face and this was not it. And not from fear either. Zinovy knew that look as well. The eyes were filled, instead, with a grief that went clear to the man's soul. Something like horror, a deep revulsion, drew ragged lines around the mouth.

A heartbroken resignation, a resolute determination, and a deep, deep loneliness pierced straight as a sword into Zinovy's own soul, because he had seen that look before.

He had caused that look.

Zinovy's heart melted. It ran onto the ground before him, mingled with the blood from the cross, and was lost in the dark pools of the dying man's sorrow.

"Zinovy" is a Russian name that means, "Walking with God."

A Very Good Friday

2010-04-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

I had plans for this day. Yesterday I'd looked through the newspaper flyers and found a sale on a little children's picnic table I'd been wanting to get for my grandchildren. At a very good price.

"Sale starts Friday," the flyer said. Good Friday.

This was a store famous for running out of sale items ten minutes after the store opened on sale day, so I made my plans: wake up early and head for the store before someone else gets my picnic table.

I woke up this morning, happy about my day. Several items I needed were on sale, and I was going to get some good deals. I had a bite to eat and sat down for a sweet quiet time with the Lord.

Reading in John 17:19-20, I was touched by his prayers for us: "I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine." Then, in the garden, his prayers for Himself: "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." (Luke 22:42). Then, he left the garden for the cross. Not his chosen plan for the day, for sure.

By the time I had left that amazing world of Jesus' life and death, my shopping trip seemed out of place. Incongruous, somehow. On that first Good Friday, I'm sure many people went shopping. They wandered among the booths in downtown Jerusalem, squeezing the fruit, haggling over prices, then plunking their treasures in their baskets and heading home, satisfied with their bargains. It would have been business as usual for many of them.

But others didn't go shopping. Instead, they followed a bleeding man, who walked up a hill, stumbling under the weight of a heavy wooden cross. Those people missed all the bargains that day, but they ended up being eye-witnesses to the most incredible, the most significant event in the history of the world.

I pondered the loss of what I would miss if I didn't go shopping. Maybe the picnic table would still be there on Monday. It didn't really matter. I'd lost my taste for sales today. I put my list away and turned to other things.

* * *

In a few minutes my five-year-old grandson comes up from his family's apartment downstairs. We sit down to open up, once again, the carton of plastic Resurrection eggs I'd found at our Christian bookstore earlier in the week. Our grandchildren delight in this little, newly discovered, Easter ritual.

Each egg holds a small treasure. The first, a tiny donkey, a symbol of Jesus' ride into Jerusalem. The second, a few silver coins, the price Judas received in exchange for Jesus' life. (A real bargain, as it turned out.) The third, a cup, representing the one Jesus had asked his Father to take away, but had ended up drinking instead.

The next egg, the praying hands, represents Jesus' prayer in the garden.

"Wait," my grandson says, "If Jesus is God, how can he pray to God?" Good question. So begins a little discussion on the nature of the Trinity, at a five-year-old level. (This is, of course, the level at which we all carry on this particular discussion.)

"It's a mystery," I explain. "God didn't give us heads big enough to understand how he can be one God and three persons at the same time. We just have to trust Him."

The little face looks up at me, eyes bright with the wisdom only a child possesses, a small smile on his face. "Maybe when we get to heaven we'll have heads big enough to understand," he says.

I didn't go shopping today. I walked up Calvary's hill instead, hand in hand with my grandson. I tremble to think what I would have missed if I'd been in the store this morning. God had a much greater gift in mind for my grandchildren than the one I had my eye on. A much greater gift for me.

It's been a very Good Friday.

Pushing God Too Far

2010-03-12T17:40:00.000-08:00

I've been enjoying some light, kinda fun bedtime reading that's also challenging and encouraging. It's the book, The Deliverer, by Linda Rios Brook.

The book claims (all right, pretends) to be the diary of a demon who's been assigned to observe Moses in the wilderness and report back to Satan, so Satan can find out something about what God might be up to with the Israelites.

The demon has just watched the terrible anger of God spill out over the Israelite camp, killing thousands of people, and now he's watching Moses deal with the aftermath of their great sin of worshipping the golden calf.

Moses has roundly scolded everyone over the incident, and they're trying to work out how to bury their dead, but now Aaron and Hur have come to Moses anxious that he do something. They are afraid the low morale of the people is leaving them vulnerable to attack by their enemies. They plead with Moses to plead with God for his forgiveness and deliverance in this situation.

The story continues as follows:
__________________________

Moses told Joshua to follow him at a distance as he trudged up the mountain in search of God. He wasn't hard to find. The mountain still manifested the glory of God as the fire and smoke billowed upward. Moses went to the last place he had been when God talked to him, sat down on a rock, and waited. It wasn't long before God revealed Himself and spoke to Moses.

"They are a rebellious people."

"Don't I know it?" Moses stood up and paced back and forth with his hands on his hips. "This is terrible. They have sinned an enormous sin! There's no excuse for it. It was the mixed people (Egyptians who came along into the Wilderness) who made the god of gold for them, but Your people are responsible for their willingness to worship it."

"Aaron is also responsible."

"Yes, I know, and believe me, he feels horrible about it. He's admitted his fault and has asked for forgiveness."

God did not respond. Moses waited a few minutes and then tried to move the conversation along.

"And now, if You will only forgive their sin."

"I will not," God interrupted.

Moses dropped to his knees with desperation written all over his face as he tried to persuade God to forgive.

"If you cannot forgive them, then erase me as well out of the Book of Life You've written."

"I'll only erase from My book those who sin against Me."

"If you don't forgive them, then I have failed You. My sin is greater than theirs, for I have been with You."

God remained silent. Moses closed his eyes and rocked back and forth on his knees, determined to wait for God to speak. After five minutes, he couldn't stand it. He opened one eye and whispered.

"Are You thinking it over?"

"All right. For now, lead the people to where I told you. My angel is going ahead of you. On the day, though, when I settle accounts, their sins will certainly be part of the settlement."

Moses nodded eagerly as if in total agreement.

"Now go. Get on your way from here, you and the people you brought up from the land of Egypt. Head for the land that I promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will send an angel ahead of you to the land flowing with milk and honey, and I'll drive out the Canaanites and the rest of your enemies before you. But I Myself will not go with you. They are such a stubborn, hardheaded people; I might destroy them on the journey."

(the demon speaks here) I was mesmerized. God spoke to Moses the way neighbors talk to each other over the backyard fence.

But Moses wouldn't quit. He kept right on pleading with God, just exactly as I'd told Satan he would.

"Lord, first You tell me, 'Lead this people,' and now You've changed Your mind and aren't going with us? You don't even let me know whom You're going to send with me. An angel? It's not the same. And it's not what we agreed to. You tell me, 'I know you well, and you are special to Me.' If I'm so special to You, let me in on Your plans. Don't send me where You won't go. How can I know You're still pleased with me if You make me go on without You? Don't forget; this is Your people, Your responsibility. I never wanted this job in the first place."

"Whoa there, Moses," I almost said out loud. "Take a good look at who you're talking to."

Moses didn’t' seem to be worried about pushing God too far. He paused for a moment and then kept right on going.

"If Your presence doesn't take the lead here, and if You won't go with us, let's call this trip off right now. How else will it be known that You're with me in this, with me and Your people"

He paused again, waiting for God to respond. When He didn't Moses just kept pushing. I wondered how far this might go before God had enough.

"Well, what's Your answer? Are You traveling with us or not? How else will we know that we're special among all other people on earth?"

I began to get nervous when God didn't say anything. I was afraid He might have left. From the beads of sweat on his upper lip, I knew Moses feared the same thing. After another unnerving minute, God finally spoke.

"All right. Just as you say; this also I will do, for I know you well, and you are special to Me. I know you by name, and I will go with you."

Moses clasped his hands together and waved them at God.

"Thank You, O Lord, for You are great and mighty and faithful to Your word."

Doesn't that beat all? God agreed to forgive the grievous sin of the people because Moses interceded for them. Isn't that just what I told Satan would happen? I was right; I didn't think it was fair, but I was right.
_________________________________
Intriguing. I wonder, is it possible to push God too far?

Is it possible for us to NOT push Him far enough?

Good questions. I'm going to ruminate and post more on this topic. Meanwhile, comments, anyone?

A Podium for God

2010-03-11T18:40:00.000-08:00

I know I've blogged about this topic before, but it keeps coming up in my life. A recurring theme, it seems.

Today, my daughter and I were talking about how we hear from God. In our post-modern age, even in terms of our faith, we lean more and more toward listening to God in a mystical sense. We tune our ears to what the Bible calls God's still, small voice, rather than simply paying attention to what He says directly to our eyes in Scripture.

That may be okay. What God wants to say to us is certainly not limited to the written Word. It is still true that the written Word is the only reliable Word of God. Still, small voices can come from other sources, and what we hear from them must be tested against the Truth of Scripture. But, having said that, God does speak to us from inside our minds and hearts.

So why don't I hear from Him that way more often?

One reason may be that my life is so full of intruding distractions that He can't get a word in edgewise. I need to prepare a place for Him in my mind. I need to provide Him with a podium, and give Him an attentive audience.

In practical terms, what does that mean? It means I need to spend time apart from the distractions. I need to turn off the TV. Sit down with my Bible instead of watching a video. Abstain, for a period of time, from computer games. Or put away my list of things to do for a while.

I'm not good at this. Distractions fill my life. I go from one to another of them. I feel uncomfortable without them. I have to be doing all the time. Absorbed in something, even if it's the most meaningless occupation.

So if God wanted to speak to me, how would He have to go about it?

He might have to send me an e-mail. Or write something on my wall in Facebook. I check both of those communication channels obsessively.

He's certainly capable of doing that, but I suspect it's not His preferred modus operendi. He prefers the still, small voice, I'm sure. To hear it, I must be still. The other noises in my life must become small. This is still a growing edge for me.

Lord, help me to continually obey the command in your Word to be still, and know that You are God.

Re-turning Every Day

2010-02-27T08:24:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling spiritually "off" lately. Lost the spark. In the doldrums. Stuck inside my own skin and not liking the company in there. So last night I finally sighed, closed the Scrabble game I was playing on FB (after playing a Bingo worth 74 points, ahem), and opened my Bible.

Randomly. (Nothing is random.)

To Hosea. That ugly/beautiful story of God's unconditional, redeeming love. At the end of the book are scribbled sermon notes from a message Barb Mutch gave at our women's retreat last year:

"Daily returning. Not a big deal but the biggest deal in the world. Allow God to change us. A lifetime of turning. Daily disciplined work of spirituality. Connecting ourselves to God every day. Show up, each day, for God. Re-turn over and over."

I have re-turned, again. I plan to re-turn tomorrow too. I am amazed at how easy it is, how well it works, to simply hold my cold, blackened wick up to the fire for even a minute.

Hosea says, Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words with you and return to the Lord.

The Lord says, I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them. I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily. Like a cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots; his young shoots will grow. His splendor will be like an olive tree, his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon. People will dwell again in his shade. He will flourish like the grain. He will blossom like a vine, and his fame will be like the wine from Lebanon.

Risky Business

2010-02-24T12:53:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning wondering what would happen if God managed to goad me into doing something before I had a chance to put up all the security checks and safety nets around it.

He'd have to act pretty darn fast.

About Yesterday's Post

2010-02-13T08:52:00.000-08:00

"A Thin Place" was an entry in an essay-writing contest I discovered yesterday. We were to write about a situation in our lives where the veil between heaven and earth was so thin that we seemed able to touch heaven in almost a tangible way. My grandmother's death was an incident like that.

Those incidents are more common than we realize. My mother experienced one when my father was killed at his workplace when I was a child. They brought her to the hospital and into the room where my father's body lay. She bent over to cry, but heaven spoke into her tear-filled heart: "Why are you standing here crying? The angels are singing."

She straightened up and turned to repeat the message to the doctor she supposed was still in the room. The doctor had left, but when she turned, the room was full of a light brighter than anything she had ever seen. That place was so thin that the glory of heaven shone through, erasing the tears for the moment, even though there would be more later on.

Heaven is so near. Joy is just around the corner for all of us. I look forward to the day there will be nothing between my grandmother, my father, my mother and myself.

Can you remember a thin place in your life? Will you comment about it?

You can read about the contest here: http://wannabepublished.blogspot.com/

A Thin Place

2010-02-12T17:31:00.000-08:00

I hold her hand. It’s my turn. We do it in shifts. We know she is going soon.

“Walter came to me last night,” she said last week. My father, her first child and her only son, is already there, on the other side of the thinness, waiting. I have grown used to living without him. The grief has subsided into a gentle loneliness. But I still miss him, especially when the veil seems so paper-thin.

Subdued noises filter through the doorway from the living room. From the room where the living wait. My grandmother is not aware. Or is she? Do we know what people hear when they’re hovering between these two worlds? Perhaps she hears more than I do. Perhaps she hears things on both sides of the thinness.

I hear a sob. It’s my aunt Mary Ann. This is hardest on her, because she believes it is the end. I know it’s not. So does my grandmother. She settled her future years ago and now approaches it with anticipation. The real living will begin for her when she is gone from this place.

I look once more at her quiet face. I wonder if each breath will be her last.

One inhaled breath. Before it leaves her body, a vibrating hum sings from her hand into mine. I know, before it’s time, that the next breath will not come.

My father has taken her other hand. I feel his life flowing through her, touching me, loving me. Through the thinness I feel the touch of eternity.

Only One Life

2010-01-04T09:28:00.000-08:00

“Only one life, ‘twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

I grew up hearing this truism. Eventually it became a trite statement. People rolled their eyes when it was quoted. Too bad how ideas that are good and true, and important to remember, become relegated to the Sally Ann box in our minds, just because we hear them often.

It’s probably because I’m getting older, but lately I find myself dragging things out of the Sally Ann box and putting them back into my life. As I look back at the old year, and ahead to the new one, I wonder how many things I have done, or will do, are things that will last.

Jesus tells us we should lay up treasures in heaven, where moths don’t eat and rust doesn’t corrode. I am shocked when I think how many things I concern myself with every day will be eaten or corroded by this time next year.

What can I do this year that will last?

The only eternally significant things we deal with in this life are not things. They are people. That means anything I do to contribute to the eternal well-being of others will last. Everything else will not.

Does this mean I have to do great and mighty things every day of my life? No. Human beings are not blessed by great and mighty things. They are blessed by small, loving words and actions that, little by little, stretch out their souls to make room for God.

They are blessed by little prayers, spoken as I wash dishes, or mark papers, or drive to the grocery store—prayers that, without my awareness, are storming the gates of hell, and opening the gates of heaven so that people can enter into God’s joy-filled presence. God’s presence is where things last.

The Apostle Paul says we are to set our minds on things above, not on things that are on the earth. He doesn’t mean we are to neglect the things of this life. We have to function here. We have to be responsible in how we use our bodies and the material world God has created for us to live in. But we are not to set our minds on these temporal things. We need to look beyond them to eternity.

I want to be mindful, as I go into this new year, of what I am creating that will last. I want to do every earthly activity with a heavenly purpose. I want everything I do to be for Christ.

Scriptures from Matthew 6 and Colossians 3.

The Joy Set Before Us

2009-12-22T11:04:00.000-08:00

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

I remember when joy finally unpacked its bags and settled down to become a permanent resident in my heart. It was a major milestone along the road on my spiritual journey. (Hmm. Mixed metaphor. How to fix? Okay, pretend I live in an RV.)

Before then, joy came and went, staying overnight, or for a few weeks at a time. And even when it was here, the delight was always overshadowed by the spectre of death and pain that haunts our earthly existence—the threat of happenings in my life that could send it packing, or even destroy it altogether.

Then one day it came to stay, with little fanfare, bringing its friend peace with it. I don’t remember the date, or the circumstances, just the quiet coming into the depths of my being in a way I knew was forever.

Joy moved in when I finally got a good glimpse of the end of the journey. When eternity finally became more real me to me than this present mortal life. I caught sight of the joy set before me, and everything between here and there faded into relative insignificance.

There is no such thing as an unhappy ending for one who belongs to Jesus. For one who has put their trust in Him, pain will always be temporary. Joy will be eternal. That’s why the Christmas bells peal wide and deep. The width and depth of God’s grace and love have swallowed up death and pain forever.

We have to wait a while. But only a while. One day God will wipe away the tears. When that truth really dawns in our hearts, joy will find an eternal home there.

This post is in memory of my father, who went to heaven on December 22, 1953.

Christmas is About the Joy

2009-12-19T09:16:00.001-08:00

My friend, Diane, shared with me a story I’d like to pass along here.

As she was driving one day, she heard this live report on the radio. A CBC reporter (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) was traveling on a commuter train in Quebec and interviewing passengers at random. He came across a priest who was visiting people in the parishes along the way. The priest answered the reporter’s standard questions – “Why are you using the train? Where are you going?” etc. Then, in a very impromptu manner, the reporter said that he didn’t often get a chance to talk privately with a priest, and he had a question that he’d been curious about:

“Do you ever wonder if all this stuff about God is true? Do you have moments of doubt?”

The priest thought for a moment, then answered “Yes. In the middle of the night I wake up and wonder if it’s all a fantastic hoax. But I get up the next morning and I can’t explain the JOY any other way.”

That’s why Christmas is so wonderful. It’s the promise of joy. Eternal joy.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat, of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come, the belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head: "There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men."

Till, ringing singing, on its way, the world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime, of peace on earth, good will to men!
(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), 1867)

May the Reason for the season fill your heart with quiet joy this Christmas and throughout the New Year.

How God Loves Us

2009-11-29T18:56:00.000-08:00

Hesed.

The Hebrew word is used in the Old Testament to represent the kind of faithful, covenant love between God and His chosen people.

A Hasidic Jewish commentator defines hesed as:

“a consistent,ever-faithful,relentless,constantly-pursuing,lavish,extravagant,unrestrained,furious love.”

How awesome.

I want to embrace all this entails.

To Fix or Not to Fix: That is the Question

2009-11-21T08:55:00.000-08:00

Our church is going through a difficult time. Actually, that’s an understatement. Everything that could go wrong in the process of transitioning from one pastor to another has happened to us. About the time we think we’ve weathered the worst of the storm, another huge wave breaks over our heads and more people are slammed down into the surf and come up spitting sand out of their teeth.

I am a deacon, and I assumed, when this all began, that my job was to fix things. That’s what deacons do, right? So I spent my time frantically running from one chaotic situation to another, trying to right all the wrongs.

But before I could accomplish much, I distinctly heard God say, “Ginny, I want you to quit trying to fix things. I’m not finished un-fixing things, and you’re just getting in my way.”

Well. That was a surprise. Wasn’t God supposed to fix thing? To right wrongs? I’d always supposed so. But I was sure God had spoken, so I stepped back to reconnoitre. I began observing God at work among us, and before long I came to the reluctant conclusion that it was actually He who was stirring the pot.

I’ve said this to some of my friends, and it’s resulted in a lively debate about whether or not God causes wrong things to happen. That’s an interesting subject. Maybe one we should talk about in another blog post. But for now, all I can say is I felt I saw God nodding, as if everything were working together for good, every time someone said something hurtful and someone else said a hurtful thing back. I cannot explain this, but I know God is here, and He has not been fixing things. Yet.

Last week our Care Group studied John 11. In this story, Jesus deliberately delayed “fixing” Lazarus. He heard his friend was sick, and so he stayed where he was for four days. Apparently, in the Jewish tradition, a person is not officially dead until he has not breathed for three days. Lazarus was officially dead when Jesus came to visit.

Jesus could have fixed this situation before it became so impossible. He could have saved people he loved a lot of grief. Yet He didn’t. Instead he let Lazarus die, and when He finally arrived on the scene, he cried with the mourners.

Why? It’s an easy question to ask when we’re in the midst of the pain. But God tells us why in this case, and it’s the same answer He gives us when we anguish over unanswered prayer.

He wants to teach us something about Himself that we can only learn when things are impossibly miserable.

He wants us to learn that nothing is too hard for Him.

He wants us to discover the depths of our need, and to realize that death is the ultimate end of all the world’s brokenness.

He wants to reveal that He has planned all along to bring life out of our death-ness, and nothing will stop Him from doing it. Not stones in front of tombs; not binding grave-clothes; not sceptical observers; not conniving religious leaders who will kill Him for what He has done.

So what have I learned? I’ve learned not to try to fix things. I’ve learned to observe God at work. I’ve learned to trust Him at work in my own pain and to rest in His hesed love.

The interesting thing is that nothing has changed about what I do. I still cry with people, comfort them, direct them toward different thinking, admonish and chide gently. But I do it differently now. I cry without desperation; my comfort is not sentimental; my admonitions have become simply loving suggestions and my chiding is less frantic and dictatorial.

Why? Because I know God is in charge. He is doing something. He knows what He’s doing, and it is good. I’ve learned to trust. To be restfully available and instantly obedient. It’s so much more satisfying than trying to fix everything, and it works better too.

A Follow Up to the Petals Post

2009-10-12T15:12:00.000-07:00

Today I found an article in Christianity Today that contritutes more to my thinking on the Petals topic. Somehow it's related. Not sure how yet. Something about trusting instead of fixing. Believing instead of doing. Check it out if you like.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/october/22.60.html

Dang. I keep forgetting how to put web addresses in so you can access them directly. Help?

Cleaning up the Dead Petals

2009-10-10T15:08:00.001-07:00

I’m sitting on the back deck having some quiet time with the Lord. Beautiful sunshine! One of the many things I have to be thankful for this Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.

But thanks is not uppermost in my mind. As we begin to talk (or as I begin to talk) I notice the petunia needs pruning. So many dead leaves and blossoms. So I start pulling them off as I mutter. “God, please help my dear ones. You know how long and hard I’ve prayed for them and yet nothing has happened. Can’t you do something? I’ve invested so much in them you must know how important this is. They need your healing in their lives so badly. It seems to me like you should be doing something about this.”

I mutter away, out loud, which means I can hear how it sounds, so I end up doing quite a bit of repenting: for my impatience with God, for my self-pity, for my lack of faith.

Then all of a sudden I’m in tears. From out of nowhere. God, you know how much I love these people. It’s because I love them. I know you love them too. Please help them.

I sob and pray for a while, then I wipe my eyes and pick up My Utmost for His Highest from the bench beside me. I open to today’s date. The heading is "Pull Yourself Together." Hmm. Sounds suspiciously like a Word from the Lord, considering the circumstances.

Oswald Chambers says: “Yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.” Romans 6:13-22 is the passage it’s from.

I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot atone for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot make right what is wrong, pure what is impure, holy what is unholy. That is all the sovereign work of God. Have I faith in what Jesus Christ has done? He has made a perfect Atonement, am I in the habit of constantly realizing it? The great need is not to do things, but to believe things. The Redemption of Christ is not an experience, it is the great act of God which He has performed through Christ, and I have to build my faith upon it.

Yup. There’s a message here for me.

I’m relieved, actually. I don’t have to fix things or worry how God is doing it. I’m sure He’s up to something and I’m sure it’s good. It might even work better if He fixes it than if I try.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and depart from evil.
Proverbs 3:5-7

The next verse says, in the King James, it will be health to thy navel. Not too sure what that means but a healthy navel can't be a bad thing.

Now I need to get out the sweeper and suck up the dead petals on the deck floor.

When it Comes to Eternity, Timing Might be Everything

2009-10-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

It may be my imagination, but it seems lately I’ve become aware of the quiet moving of God in my life in a new way. I don’t know if He’s moving in a new way, or I’m just becoming aware of it. But it’s intriguing, and something I want to follow up on.

Often, these days, when I’m working at the computer, or out and about around town, I get a sudden, sweet urge to go to prayer in a more focused way.

The kind of prayer I’m drawn to in these moments is different than the more or less continual chatter I bombard Him with all day long—the kind that often degrades into self-talk, because I’ve become more focused on my problems than the One I’m talking to about them.

These moments are delicate, so fleeting that they’re gone almost as soon as I realize they’ve come. Kind of like butterflies landing on your shoulder. And I’ve found they totally evaporate when they come and I think to myself, “Hmm. That’s nice. I’m going to go to prayer as soon as I finish this article, or when I get home from the store.” When the article is finished, or the groceries are in the fridge, I don’t feel the same sweet urgency, and my prayer times, when I manage to fit them into my schedule, become life-less.

Why is this? Maybe, in these brief, sweet times, I’m catching the crest of the wave of a kairos moment—a spiritually significant, eternal “moment” (there are no moments in eternity but I have no other words to express it), and if I don’t hop on the surfboard and get on top of that wave I’ll miss the excitement, and the spiritual benefits, of an exhilarating experience with God.

Even more sobering, I might miss a chance to create, in prayer, a spiritually significant moment in the life (or the eternity) of someone for whom God is asking me to intercede.

I’ve decided I’m not satisfied with lifeless prayer times any more—the kind that feel like I’ve called the meeting, and God is taking His time showing up. And I’m realizing something new about obedience: it needs to be instant. I need to be instant in my response to these brief promptings or they will go away.

For some time now God has been teaching me that I need to be restfully available to Him, and instantly obedient. The first part of that admonition is easier for me now. I’ve learned to relax and let Him guide and prompt. But I’m slower on the uptake of the prompts. This is (yet another) growing edge for me.

Another Granddaughter's Birthday, October 4, 2009!

2009-10-03T20:20:00.001-07:00

A Sonnet to
Sophia Marie Jessie Mohr
written the day she was born,
October 4, 2007
by Grandma Jaques

The rain-bowed clouds embrace your birth today.
They promise grace for sunny skies and dim.
Life spreads her wings to start you on your way,
God takes your hand to lead your heart toward Him.

Through your dear body run the threads of life
That join us all in common ancestry.
And through your spirit, as you’re led by Christ,
Those threads will lead into eternity.

The gracious plans the Master has for you
Are mirrored in the glowing rainbow skies.
We see them faintly veiled from earthly view
As we look down into your misty eyes.

T-R-U-S-T

2009-09-29T10:29:00.000-07:00

There are two kinds of people in the world.

I love those general statements! They open you up to challenges on every side. Of course there are more than two kinds of people, but comparisons between two extremes sometimes help us see ourselves more clearly.

This summer I presented a two-part sermon series to my church on trust. The messages were based on Jeremiah 2:13, where God accuses Israel of committing two sins:

They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

The imagery God uses here is powerful. He is an Artesian Spring, spurting out an abundant supply of clean, fresh water (representing life) constantly, forever. But Israel prefers to dig empty holes in the ground, with cracks in the bottom, and trust the rains will come once in a while to fill them up.

If you walked for miles in a dry desert and came across a fountain of water spurting into the air and splashing down on the parched ground beneath, what would you do?

I have friends who would immediately shed their clothes and go for a swim. They are one kind of person.

I am another.

I am a container person. When I see water spurting up all over, my first inclination is to grab as many containers as I can find and fill them. I want the security of contained water, a water supply I have some kind of control over. This sheer abandonment, this splashing all over the place, it makes me nervous. I am a broken cistern person by nature.

But sheer abandonment is what God calls us to. It’s the only thing He asks of us, in fact, because it’s the only thing we are capable of giving Him. Sheer abandonment opens us up to receive everything He wants to give us. And He’s all about giving.

I have no problem with partial trust. I know He’s the Spring of Living Water and I am more than willing to dip into it now and then, but I'd like a couple of cisterns dug nearby as well, for a back up supply.

It’s the carefree splashing I have trouble with. The total abandonment, full of delight, without any back up system, as if the water will always be there and always be all I need. What a concept.

So, there are two kinds of people in the world. There are those who splash in the fountain and there are those who scurry around looking for something to put water in. I am a scurrier by nature. I have to work hard at splashing. I have to work hard at trusting.

How to do that? Here’s a suggestion. Five steps to joyful abandonment:

Tune in to Him.
Get His perspective. Our trust has to start with Him and who He is.

Rest in His victory.
His victory is real and eternal and it began, for us, the minute we gave ourselves to Him the first time.

Understand the final end.
Heaven awaits. All else is temporal and relatively unimportant. Trust requires us to be forward-looking.

Stand firm in faith.
Though we’re to rest in His victory, that doesn’t mean we are to act like wimps. The enemy will fight against our abandonment to the Fountain. We need to equip ourselves like soldiers (I Corinthians 16:13) and take our stand in His victory.

Thank Him for who He is and for all He has provided.
Trust automatically results in praise and thanksgiving. Lack of thankfulness is unbelief. And, when we find it hard to trust, the opposite also works. Thanksgiving will create trust because it puts us back at the beginning of this process.

It’s pouring rain outside. My shoulders are wet because I just had to sprint to get the garbage out. The truck was already roaring down my street.

I think I’ll wear the clothes for a while, as a reminder that "wet all over" is not always a bad thing.

Ah-choo! Or maybe not.

For Zouxi

2009-09-28T13:29:00.001-07:00

Today is my little Zouxi's third birthday. She lives in the Dominican Republic with her Mama, Eridania, Dad, Andy, and brothers, Alex and baby Rowan.

I still feel the same as I did when she was born and I wrote this poem:

It’s hard to be a grandma
Who lives so far away,
When you’d love to give her kisses
At least five times a day.

It’s hard to wake up worried
In the middle of the night,
When you can’t go in and check her,
To see if she’s all right.

It’s hard to think she’s crying
In someone else’s arms,
When your arms long to hold her
And soothe her baby storms.

You’d so much love to tell her
In words her heart could hear,
That Jesus wants to be her friend
And He is always near.

But you have to make adjustments, so,
To calm your fears and cares,
If you can’t hold her in your arms
You hold her in your prayers.

You know that you can trust Him
To watch her day by day.
He loves her more than you do
And He’s not too far away.

And so I’ll be a grandma
Who lives too far away,
And spoil her when she visits
And when she’s gone, I’ll pray.

Godly Imagination

2009-09-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

We traditionally (at least in this culture) perceive imagination as being a method for creating ideas or things that have no foundation in reality. Things that are “imaginary” are not real. Novels are imagined. They are fictional. Children’s fantasies are shadows of reality, practices designed to prepare them to function in the “real” world.

Often this is the case. Novels certainly are imagined, and child’s play is pretend. But I’m becoming convinced that this limited perception of imagination might be short-changing us. What if imagination is actually a gift from God, designed to allow us to “see” the unseen. To “see” Him? What if we were designed to use our imaginations to picture and better understand (and more readily believe in) unseen realities?

There are dangers here, of course. It’s very possible to imagine things that do not exist. Relying on my imagination as a revelation of truth could put me out of touch with reality. And I’m leery of believing you can create reality by wishing it into existence. But at the same time, I wonder if we miss the wonders of the unseen world by not wondering imaginatively more often. (Don't you love that sentence?!)

So how might this godly imagination work? Yesterday I was picturing my current spiritual state, framing my feelings about my walk with the Lord in a visual image. I saw myself, a small sheep, hunkered down on the side of a lonely, grassy hill, all by myself, lost, no landmarks, no way of knowing where I should be going.

That’s an accurate picture of how I’m feeling right now. I’m not afraid or frustrated. God has instructed me not to fear or be dismayed. He’s told me that He is my God. He’s promised to strengthen me and help me. He’s said He will uphold me with his righteous right hand. But I am confused. Not sure where to go from here in my life.

Today I realized that, though this image is an accurate picture of how I feel, it’s not a totally accurate picture of reality. Psalm 142:3 says “When my spirit grows faint within me, it is You who knows my way.” When I discovered that verse in my quiet time this morning I added some new elements to my “lost-on-the-lonely-hill” image. Today I pictured (accurately) a tall, gentle Shepherd standing on the hill beside me. He’s got a little lamb in his arms (a picture of some of my loved ones who need to be carried right now), and He’s walking beside me, step by step. Not pointing in any direction, but leading. His walking appears aimless but I know it’s not. He knows where we’re going.

Some years ago, on a rainy, dreary Vancouver day, I was sitting in my car at an intersection waiting for a red light to turn green. As I waited, a ray of sun broke through the clouds and a beam of warmth fell through the window onto my arm. I said to myself, “I’m going to imagine that warm beam of light is God touching me.” Before I could finish the thought, a more powerful one interrupted to say, “It’s not your imagination.”

Unseen realities are all around us. It takes imagination to believe that. Imagining is a risky business. We could make mistakes. But maybe we need to take some risks. Imaginings that are based on Biblical truth will lead us into realities that could revolutionize our lives. Today I will quit hunkering. I will imagine that the Shepherd is by my side and I will step out in faith, confidently, knowing that the rod and staff are in place if I turn in a wrong direction.

My Sins

2009-09-15T10:49:00.000-07:00

Ha! I knew that title would get your attention. You want to know what my sins are, don’t you?

Well, I might tell you. I don’t know yet. My sins are pretty personal and blogs are not. But I have been thinking about my sins this morning, with questions.

The first question is, what are sins? I know what the “big” ones are—the ones the Ten Commandments tell us NOT to do. It’s pretty easy for me to avoid them. I currently have no thoughts of murder. I don’t even hate anyone, which Jesus says is the same thing. And in the forty years I’ve been married to my husband I’ve never even been tempted to commit adultery.

Bearing false witness is definitely a no-no. Truth is too important to me. I can remember the two deliberate lies I told in my youth and the consequences were so excruciatingly painful I’ve been afraid to tell a lie since. At least not with malice and aforethought.

Hmm. I’ve probably told some without noticing, or some that I’ve rationalized away before they could be labelled as lies in my conscious mind. The heart is deceitful, God says. I know I’ve told lies to myself, and this is probably one of them.

Oops. I’ve done it. I’m slipping into confession mode here. I’d better be careful.

The reading in my daily devo this morning, Daily Light, (published by Moody Press) is about sin. It begins with the verse, “Sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.” (Romans 6:14). It says, “Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” (John 8:34). And ends with Galatians 5:1: “Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”

Hmm again. I think maybe “sin” in my life can be identified in this way. How about saying that anything that enslaves me is sin? It is wrong for me to be enslaved to anything except Christ.

And why is slavery to other things so wrong? Because it keeps me from doing what I should do.

Ah, those niggling sins of omission!

Slavery to Christ demands that I GO and DO. In Luke 9:60, Jesus says to those who are thinking of following Him (some day): “Follow me first. Let the dead bury their own dead.” In other words, he’s saying we should prioritize. It’s only the things we put FIRST on our “to do” list that get done. Instead of burying our dead, we need to be proclaiming the Kingdom of God.

Could it be that it’s a sin for me to spend the money God gives us on a new kitchen BEFORE we give to that organization that sends the Gospel over radio waves into Russia? (Elaine, you’re to blame for this jab at my conscience. Thanks a lot!) The struggle is real. Am I a slave to material things? Is that slavery keeping me from doing what is right?

When I struggle to sit down at the computer and open a new Word document and start writing—when my fingers stray, instead, to a solitaire game or my Facebook site—is that sin? Am I enslaved to intellectual/spiritual apathy and laziness?

James 4:17 says: “to those who know to do good and don’t do it, to them it is sin.” The paraphrase that makes me squirm is, “if she knows how to write and doesn’t do it, it’s sin.” (Elaine and Connie, both of you have squirmed me on this one.)

God, help me to see how You view these sins in my life. How You view the world full of needs that I have been equipped to go and do something about and have not done it. How You anguish over all the undone deeds of righteousness around me. Fill me with your motivating love and power. Help me to follow You FIRST, and then go bury my relatives.

So I will go out today and find something to do that is of eternal value. It feels good. This slavery to Christ is such a freeing thing!

(I wish I could remember stuff like this every day. Maybe I need to make a deliberate commitment to it? Hmm once again.)

The Lions Today

2009-08-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

The clouds will lift. The mountains behind them will stand.

I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.

Psalm 40:1-3

Small Things

2009-07-04T00:31:00.000-07:00

Who hath despised the day of small things? Zechariah 4:10

Today I post to my blog again in response to a small sermon I heard in a small church, in a small town this last Sunday. The pastor, Harold Gott, has faithfully served the Christian Church in Grangeville, Idaho, for many years. He spends time listening to God, then preaches the meat and potatoes of the Gospel to his parishioners. His messages are sprinkled with the salt of his down-home, apt illustrations and peppered with his own unique brand of humor. His people are heartened and encouraged and challenged to go out into their community and do good—to love people into God’s Kingdom.

Last Sunday his sermon was about Dorcas—a small town woman in a small country who did a small thing faithfully. She sewed clothing for the poor widows in Israel. She “was always doing good,” and two thousand years later people are still reading her story. Harold pointed out that only three of Jesus’ disciples are even mentioned in the book of Acts, yet the story of Dorcas receives 28 lines of text in the New Testament.

The terms “big” and “small” are meaningless in God’s realm. God isn’t bounded by space or time. What Dorcas did may seem small to us, but in God’s economy it’s not. No act done out of love and obedience to God is a small thing.

God takes one sermon in a small town in Idaho and uses it to bless individuals who will in turn go out to do their own small things in God’s Kingdom. One will take a pot of stew to a neighbour who is ill; one will speak a word of encouragement to a friend who worries over the waywardness of a son or daughter; one will take her grandchildren to Sunday School faithfully, week after week; one will pray for a small child in Uganda who lives in terror with a parent who is dying of aids. All these are small things that add up to a huge sum of goodness on God’s calculator.

Zechariah goes on to speak of God’s eyes, “which range throughout the earth.” God is watching the small things, the attempts of each of his children to make a small difference in the world, and in His history book they are all recorded. This blog post will probably only be read by three or four people, but each of those people will do their own small things that will make a difference in the Kingdom of God.

This post is my small thing. It is done with gratitude to the One who does not despise the day of small things—the One who takes small loaves and fishes and uses them to feed a multitude.

That's About the Size. . .Where You Put Your Eyes

2009-05-12T11:13:00.000-07:00

I’ve caught myself moaning to God throughout the day lately: “God, I need you.”

I need Him to lift my spirits when I look at what’s happening in the world around me. I need Him for encouragement when people I’m praying for show no sign of responding to Him. I need Him for guidance as I make plans for my life.

The niggling anxiety that drives me to cry out to Him in this way is probably part of creation’s groaning as we all wait together for His promised, final redemption. It’s a temporary necessity. But I’m realizing I don’t have to stay in the groaning state. The groans lead me to Him for a reason. He supplies all my need. He is all I need. So why do the groans keep coming?

This morning I woke with a new revelation—a truth I “knew” all along but one that has not penetrated past the moan-center of my brain in a while. The truth is this: if I stay focused on the need, the plea is not answered. But if I shift my focus to His over-abundant grace and power, my heart finds rest. Every time. Instant peace comes when I look at His face, because I know He is more than able to supply all my need. He’s promised to do that and my experience has proven that He does, every time. The peace leaves when I look away from His face. It’s that simple.

Duh! When did I lose that perspective?

There’s an old Sesame Street song, sung by Kermit, I believe. I can only remember the first three lines, but they’ve stuck with me since my kids’ toddler years: “That’s about the size. . where you put your eyes. . .that’s about the size of it.”

That’s about the size of it. If I keep my eyes on Jesus, the grace that comes from His Holy Spirit will wash over every element of my day—every unsettling piece of news, every frustrated attempt to accomplish something lasting, every mundane chore I do that will need doing again tomorrow, every disappointment, sorrow, fear. All will be covered and conquered.

I want to remember this song until the habit of turning my eyes toward Him becomes ingrained in my spirit.

Praying Slowly

2009-03-11T12:11:00.001-07:00

If prayer is talking with God, and God dwells in eternity, why do I feel I have to talk so fast? Why do I feel too rushed to listen for a while?

I’ll tell you why. It’s not because God is looking at his watch. It’s because I’m looking at mine.

How can I focus on what I’m saying, or, more importantly, on God, when I’m racing through my prayers to get past them to. . . . to what? What could be more important than spending time with my Creator?

I know the right answer to that question: Nothing is more important. Spending “time” with the “eternal” God puts my life in perspective, connects me with my purpose, grounds me in the security of eternal realities. It puts me in a position to live an abundant life, in triumph over all the petty interruptions and disturbances of a broken world that is ruled by a God-defying being who would love to see me hurry through my times with God.

That particular God-defying fallen angel is in a hurry, by the way. He knows his time is short. His reign is ending soon. He hurries to accomplish all the destruction he can before D-day. And, if I’m not careful, I can get swept along in his agenda, running at breakneck, devil-speed toward his goals, fulfilling his purposes, and missing out on God’s quiet, determined, creatively purposeful kingdom-plans.

I will not do that. I cannot do that. The cost is too dear. I will determine to approach my “times” with God reverently, with shoes removed, stepping quietly out of chronos time into God’s eternal kairos realm. I will allow time to stand still while I talk to time’s Creator.

Will someone hold me to this promise? I can forget so easily.

Preparing for Easter

2009-02-20T11:49:00.000-08:00

I have great cousins. Another one put this youtube video on his Facebook site. When I viewed it, the Easter season was ushered in for me. Hope you enjoy it too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FQND5YFIqA

P.S. to Heights of Delight

2009-02-11T13:15:00.000-08:00

Just after posting Heights of Delight I opened my e-mail and found a message from my cousin with the following website. I listened and experienced the conscious presence of God. It brought tears of true worship to my eyes.

http://pjcockrell.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/amazing-grace-just-the-black-note

Enjoy!

Heights of Delight

2009-02-11T11:53:00.000-08:00

In Heights of Delight, Dick Eastman describes three levels of awareness of the presence of God. The first, which he calls “God’s intellectual presence,” is simply the logical recognition that God is omnipresent, and therefore He is here. Though this awareness depends on faith, the faith is in factual claims and the faith, itself, is simply an unemotional acknowledgement of the facts.

The second, “God’s conscious presence,” has the added impact of a sense, or a feeling of God’s presence. It may come out of a conscious intellectual recognition of the fact of God’s omnipresence, but it also involves the emotions and a spiritual, almost mystical discernment of some kind.

The third is “God’s manifest presence,” which Eastman says is “far more intense,” and often results in an obvious movement of God’s Spirit and observable transformations in the lives of many individuals. He cites the miraculous movement of God’s Holy Spirit over cities and nations at the beginning of spiritual awakenings as an example of the manifest presence of God.

The intellectual awareness of God’s presence produces worship through gritted teeth. “Lord, I don’t sense your presence but I choose to worship you because I know you are real and I know you are here, intellectually.” Job’s declaration of faith in God’s goodness is an example of this level of awareness.

The manifest presence of God happens in snippets in our daily lives, interrupting the more mundane intellectual awareness with hiccups and burps that are sometimes so brief we fail to appreciate them. I know I’ve seen the manifest presence of God in the classroom, when the door suddenly opens to a subject of discussion and I can almost see God walk in and sit down on the edge of the desk beside me. For a few moments I’m able to lead kids into that God-space, sometimes with no direct mention of Him, and I know He is doing things of eternal value on some level in their lives.

But the awareness level I long for the most is the conscious presence of God. I remember a time when it came regularly, in my quiet time or in worship on Sunday mornings. It often brought tears to my eyes and my heart soared with love for Him. I haven’t felt that lately. I’m not sure why, but I want it back. That hunger is what has driven me on this journey toward spiritual renewal.

Tozer regularly experienced worship at this conscious level of awareness of God. For Tozer, to worship was

. . . to be filled with moral excitement. To be captivated and charmed and entranced with who God is, and struck with astonished wonder at the inconceivable elevation and magnitude and splendour of Almighty God. . .To love God with fear and wonder and yearning and awe.

In fact, Tozer defines worship much more narrowly than I did in my previous post. According to Tozer, worship cannot happen at the intellectual level of awareness of God’s presence.

I want to define worship, and here is where I want to be dogmatic. Worship means “to feel in the heart.” A person that merely goes through the form and does not feel anything is not worshipping.

Hmm. Is he right? If so, then Job’s declarations of faith through gritted teeth would not be considered worship, even though they were highly appropriate recognitions of the greatness and sovereignty of God.

Dick Eastman says of Tozer that “worship was his life.” Tozer is an expert. I have to take his strong statements about worship seriously. So I am driven on in my sense that something is still missing in my experience of God.

This post completes my series on spiritual renewal. I haven’t arrived at the end of my journey but I feel I need to move ahead, away from the process of renewal and closer to the Object of worship. I end here with the following determinations:

1) I will focus, from here on out, on God, the true means and end of renewal;
2) I will wait patiently for worship to happen in my heart. I will not attempt to contort myself into a worshipful attitude or manufacture it synthetically, but will trust God to move me into this level of awareness of His presence and the true worship that must surely come as a result.
3) I will assume this hunger has been put into my heart by God, Himself, and therefore I will expect Him to satisfy it in His own time and way.

Thank you for being with me on this journey. It’s strange, but I’ve been comforted to feel that some of you are listening and that my yearnings have been resonating with you. It has made the journey feel less lonely, and it has also given me a kind of sounding board for my thoughts that I wouldn’t have had if this had been only a personal journal. So you, whoever you are, wherever you are, have been a blessing to me. May God bless you in return.

I promised you a list of the sources of the Tozer quotes I’ve been using. You’ll find them in the side bar to the left. Many of them are probably out of print but might be researchable if you want to explore them further.

I will be posting again if you’d like to stick around. I’m just not too sure which fork of the road ahead I’ll follow. I don’t think I’m entirely through with Tozer. I’ve run into some hard sayings of his that I want to wrestle with a bit. I’d also like to express some thoughts on the Bible, the ultimate source of our knowledge of God.

I might go down both forks, since the journey is probably at least as important as arriving at the destination in good time. At any rate, your company will always be welcome, wherever I go.

Worship Through Gritted Teeth

2009-02-02T14:15:00.000-08:00

I’ve said that worship comes naturally if we’re in the conscious presence of God. But what if it doesn’t? What if we go through all the steps, from submission to obedience, and we still don’t “feel” worship? Is something wrong? Is worship a feeling? Or is it, like love, sometimes simply a choice or an act?

Could the process of drawing near to God, itself, be worship? Maybe we’ve already been doing it? I want the feelings. I want joy alongside the worship. But maybe it doesn’t always have to be there. Some of the most moving expressions of worship in the Bible are spoken out of great trial. In the midst of his suffering, Job says of God: Though he slay me, yet will I hope in Him.* He had to have been saying that through gritted teeth. He was in pain.

The pain that might have robbed his worship of joy came from three sources, and we experience the same in our lives.

First, Job suffered physical pain. When our bodies are afflicted, pain demands our attention. God knows what that’s like. When Christ was on the cross, bewilderment overcame Him and He cried out to God. The cry wasn’t worship. If we are physically or emotionally ailing, we won’t necessarily feel joy, and acute pain can rob us of the ability to worship for a time. That’s okay. We’re allowed to be human. The good thing about acute pain is that it won’t last. Both joy and worship will.

Job’s pain also came from the Enemy. Satan afflicted Him. We often underestimate Satan’s involvement in our lives. He is the great joy-robber. If our hearts are right with God and yet we feel oppressed with a heaviness that keeps us from delighting in God’s goodness, we need to suspect Satan’s involvement. He uses oppression to immobilize us. But Satan’s affliction is also always temporary. The cross was Satan’s plan to defeat the Creator, but God turned the plan around and used it to destroy the Enemy. He will do the same in our lives if we trust Him.

Perhaps the hardest source of pain to understand is God, Himself. Job’s pain was allowed by God, and God did nothing to make it easier on him. Is God good? Yes. All the time. Pain is like fire. It can do good things to us. God can use it, as He did with Job, to stretch our faith, to develop our longing, and to lead us into a deeper understanding of Himself. God brings great good out of our pain when we submit to Him in it.

So what do we do when pain robs us of joy in worship?

It’s fine to seek relief from physical pain, if we can get it. Pain relievers are God’s buffers to keep the pain from being more than we can bear. But sometimes we just need to let it happen and wait for it to pass.

If the pain is demonically inspired, we need to speak out against it in Jesus’ Name and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Exercising authority over Satan by faith in Jesus’ Name sometimes dispels the darkness immediately, and joy rushes in to fill the void it has left.

If God has brought the pain, the only answer is to wait for His deliverance. It will come. He does not leave us in pain longer than we can bear, and the pain He allows always refines us.

But no matter how we deal with the pain, we need to determine, like Job, to remain committed to worship. Through gritted teeth if necessary. The joy will come, in the end—joy much larger than the size of the grief. God always rewards abundantly when we suffer in submission to Him.

The Psalmist says: Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.** Knowing this should help me worship with an open mouth instead of through gritted teeth.

We can afford to suffer now; we'll have a long eternity to enjoy ourselves.
A.W.Tozer

* Job 13:15
** Psalm 30:5

My Heroic Quest

2009-01-30T15:49:00.000-08:00

Finally, after a couple of little detour posts, we’re here, at the heart of renewal. For me, the heart of renewal is worship, and at the heart of worship is God, Himself. I’ve been eagerly waiting to get to this place, where the focus begins to shift from me and my stumbling efforts to the majesty of who He is.

Renewal brings us into the conscious presence of God, and that’s where worship happens. Worship happens there naturally, because it’s the right and healthy response to being in the presence of our Good Creator.

But here’s a hiccup in our journey: Is God really good? If He is good, why does he demand worship? Is he greedy for admiration and affirmation? Does He need us to inflate his ego? Sounds so selfish. Can God be selfish? Is it really all about Him? How can that be good?

There are probably lots of good definitions of worship, but I like this one:

The chief end of man is to love God and to enjoy Him forever.

To love and enjoy. To take pleasure in God.

It’s true that our worship brings God pleasure, but His pleasure and ours are inseparable. His call to worship is a call to take part in His joy. We are confused about His motives because we are inward focused beings. Our world is all about us, and we’re all our world is about. But God is outward focused, so when it’s about God, it’s about all of us too. His goodness does not stand apart from our good. His goodness engulfs us.

This concept of God’s outwardness does not come naturally to us because of our brokenness. We are inward-bent beings and we can’t imagine anything else. We were created to be outward focused beings, like God. That’s part of what it means to be created in His image. It’s as if God created us with a silver cord that ran from our hearts to His. The cord drew us outward to Him and held us there, in perfect relationship, and joy ran back and forth between us along this cord like melody on a violin string.

When God told Adam and Eve that disobedience would bring them death, He was talking about the breaking of this cord. They sinned. The cord broke. And the whole human race curled up on itself like the released coil of a spring. No attachment to anything or anyone. No purpose or foundation or security. No focus but inward on itself. No vision of goodness except the slowly fading shadow of its original soul-filling view of the Creator’s face.

Yesterday I was subbing in a Grade 11 English class. The kids were studying myths, specifically the mythic theme of the heroic journey. In this public high school, the curriculum invited me to teach the students about the ultimate mythic journey—a person’s search for attachment to something—his search for purpose, for the foundation, for the security that was lost with the Fall.

I was able to tell the students that each of them will face, at some point in their lives, the hero’s challenge. They’ll have to decide whether or not to “answer the call.” To leave the comfort and safety of their known world and embark on the ultimate journey. To turn from their inwardness and seek something greater than themselves to worship.

Joseph Campbell, the myth expert they were studying, says if a person refuses this “summons” to a greater life—if he chooses to make himself his god instead—His flowering world becomes a wasteland of dry stones and his life feels meaningless. . .Whatever house he builds, it will be a house of death. . .All he can do is create new problems for himself and await the gradual approach of his disintegration. In other words, he will curl up on himself and die.

Sadly, Campbell’s view of God is a hideous one. He speaks of a selfish god, much like the fickle, foolish gods the Greeks and Romans worshiped—a God who would demand worship for His own selfish sake. Campbell's god--the god who calls to the heroic journey--is an enemy who has to be overcome in the process.

But our God is different. When we turned away from Him and curled up into our lonely selves, He missed us. He missed us so much that He did something to make possible the reconnection between His heart and ours. Instead of fighting against us as our enemy, He enabled our journey.

This enabling is the ultimate Story. It’s the redemptive Story ancient myths are made of. It’s the old, old story the Church has been telling for two thousand years. We’ve told it so often we’ve lost the wonder of it. But the wonder of the gospel—God’s good, outward focus—His dying so we could live—that’s what makes Him worthy of our worship, and our recognizing that goodness is what starts the melody running up and down the cord again.

I'm not sure I’m there yet. I hear strains of the melody now and then. I think I used to hear it more clearly. I want to get back to that place and move beyond it. I want to sit in the orchestra pit and let the sound reverberate around me. I want worship to become as natural again as breathing. I want to become a part of the music. To lose myself in it. That’s the ultimate goal of my journey to renewal. The goal of my heroic quest.

Mind Games

2009-01-25T19:43:00.001-08:00

That does it. The Spider Solitaire has got to go.

I went to bed last night secure in the belief that God was my screensaver. My default mode. My desktop background. I was sure that any time my conscious mind was at rest it would revert to thoughts of Him.

Well, I was right. This morning I woke up praying. That's right. I was already praying when I woke up. The problem is, I was asking Him to help me decide which of the three eights I should move to the nine.

Don't Follow Me

2009-01-24T11:28:00.001-08:00

Don't follow me. I get lost in the bathtub. If you don't believe me, just ask my husband. It's so bad that if I think I should turn right I turn left, since well over 50%of my judgements about which is the right direction are wrong.

Hmmm. This might not be adding to my credibility, which is not a good thing since I want you to keep reading my blog.

Let's just say my bad sense of direction is only geographical. I'm always right about everything else. Does that help?

So don't follow me, but I'd love for you to follow my blog. I've just added a "Followers" application. (See lower lefthand column.) If you're a regular reader and are willing to admit it, why not sign in? It would be fun for me to see you there.

Oops. This sign just fell off the wall. Do you think it's a message from God?

Obedience: An Easy Difficulty

2009-01-24T10:12:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I’m a little embarrassed about last night’s entry. I should probably never post my midnight musings. They tend to be a little too intimate and it makes me feel vulnerable. So we’ll leave that little spurt of quandrying behind. (Yes, you English buffs out there, I know quandrying is not a word.)

I’d like to say two more things about obedience before we move on to the heart of this whole renewal topic:
First, obedience is not as difficult as it might seem.
And second, it is more difficult.

Obedience is not difficult if we’ve prepared our hearts for renewal. Hearts softened and open toward Jesus will tend to obey instinctively. It’s a natural outcome, almost like breathing.

Someone has said that living the Christian life is simply being “restfully available, and instantly obedient.”

Being restfully available is the same as abiding* in Him. Abiding is the breathing in. And, although instant obedience does require an act of our will, when we make ourselves available, there is momentum built up in the direction of obedience. Obedience is as natural as breathing out, when we’ve already breathed in. There’s a blissful rhythm to it. When that rhythm is broken, as it was when I balked at obeying in the shopping mall that day, it needs to be re-established by confession and repentance. Then the natural process is again in place.

I’ve called it a “natural” process, but it’s really “supernatural.” God is involved in every aspect. It just feels natural when we belong to Him.

The hard thing about obedience is that it needs to be a continuous process, and continuing in anything is difficult. Discipline is involved. Unlike breathing, resting and obeying is not completely antonomic. (Yes, this one is a word. Means “acting independently of volition.”)

Kevin Cram’s blog, http://www.alongobedience.blogspot.com/ quotes Friedrich Nietzsche:

The essential thing in 'heaven and earth' is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.

Although Nietzsche is not my favorite theologian, I like this statement. Obedience needs to be long, and it needs to be in the same direction.**

Sometimes this kind of obedience becomes plodding, and that’s okay. Plodding is the nature of persistence and God says persistence is a good thing. But it’s good because it is a temporary condition. Persistence leads us through the difficult part into the glorious results—that thing “which has made life worth living.”

As Christians we know the only thing that makes life worth living is abiding in and obeying our Creator. And that worthwhile life is eternal. How delightful!

To know God is at once the easiest and the most difficult thing in the world. It is easy because the knowledge is not won by hard mental toil, but is something freely given. As sunlight falls on the open field, so the knowledge of the holy God is a free gift to (persons) who are open to receive it. But this knowledge is difficult because there are conditions to be met and the obstinate nature of fallen man does not take kindly to them.
A.W. Tozer

*Some translations say “remain in Him.” I like that rendering. It’s as if we’re already there and we just need to stay put.

** I’d just like to add the disclaimer, which I’m sure Nietzsche took for granted, that the obedience needs to be to God. Otherwise the “same” direction would not be a good one. Hitler, who greatly admired Nietzsche, practiced a long obedience in the same direction, and it was disastrous, because he was obeying the wrong supernatural being.

God is my Screensaver

2009-01-23T23:30:00.000-08:00

We are called to an everlasting preoccupation with God.
A.W. Tozer

Is this true?
If it is, am I preoccupied with Him?
Is his image my desktop background?
My screensaver?
Does my heart automatically rebound to His face when my busy life is still for a minute?

I think so. But does that count as being preoccupied with Him?

Lately I seem to be obsessed with God.
Is that a good thing?
Or is it a weakness—an imbalance?

Where will it lead?
Where do I go with it from here?

I don’t know,
But I have a peace about it.

The "O" Word

2009-01-19T09:39:00.000-08:00

Have you noticed that in our North American culture “obedience” has become a bad word? In a secular society, where God is no longer in charge, words like “authority,” “obedience” and “command” are evil. Without the rule of God, every person is his or her own authority. No one has a right to tell anyone else what to do. Even in elementary school, children are not taught to obey their parents. They are told, instead, to find their own way, create their own truth, and live their own lives.

But when we, as Christians, dedicate our lives to God, we choose to come under His authority. We choose to obey His commands. We are not justified by our “good works,” but obedience is a natural outworking of our submission to Him. In the Jewish tradition, faith and action were the same thing. We tend to separate them out in our worldview, and because of that the desire of our heart to follow the Lord does not always lead to the actual following.

Obedience puts feet to our decision to submit to God, and it activates the renewal we long for. Do we still feel dry, even after a spiritual recommitment to the Lord? Sometimes one small act of obedience opens the floodgates of God’s blessing in our lives.

I don’t know about you, but I find it easier to obey God’s rules than His orders. I have no problem avoiding adultery or murder or idolatry (in its literal form, at least). All I have to do is refrain from doing wrong things. But God doesn’t want us just to avoid disobedience. He wants us to be proactive. He wants us to DO good. This takes initiative on my part. It takes stepping out in faith. It requires me to listen for His orders and then do what he commands.

So how do we take this step from commitment to obedience? How do we know what God wants us to do?

It’s not as hard as it seems to know what God wants us to do. His word is full of His orders—specific ones—all of them involving love, and all of them involving other people. If we want to activate His rule in our lives, all we have to do is look for one of His commands and then go out and do it. When we obey, we are blessed and other people are blessed, and God is glorified. When we don’t look for good things to do and do them, the blessing is missed. It’s that simple.

Active obedience is sometimes hard for me because it involves risk. I risk being misjudged, being embarrassed, or being taken advantage of. If I do a random act of kindness for a total stranger, they might think I’m weird or that I’ve got an ulterior motive. I’m too embarrassed to stand up in church and tell people about an answer to prayer because others might think it’s not such a big deal. I won’t offer to teach Sunday School because it might turn into a huge responsibility and put some of my free time at risk. And I’d never think of bringing a street person into my home because they might steal something.

Active obedience costs. But the cost is an investment. Active obedience reaps eternal rewards, for us as well as for the people God wants to bless through us.

One day I was out shopping when God pointed to a young clerk in the store and said, “I want you to go up to her and tell her that I’m with her and I love her and am taking care of her.” I groaned. This happens to me every once in a while and it always puts me in an awkward position. I don’t like to do it. Usually I give in and get it over with and the person God has sent me to is blessed. Never has anyone actually scowled at me and said, “You’re a crazy lady. Get away from me.” But this time I just couldn’t work up the nerve. I hung around for a while, trying to obey, then I left with the thought that I’d just pray for her.

For a week God leaned on me about this failure to actively obey. For a week I prayed for her, but it wasn’t enough. Finally, I gave up. I went back to the store to find her. It wasn’t easy. I had to talk to the manager and find out who had been working that day. He had to talk to the other clerk so they could figure it out. They had to find her in the store, and then I had to go to her and confess the whole story—that God had told me to speak to her, that I had disobeyed, and that God had hounded me until I came back to do what He’d told me to do in the first place.

I asked her if she could think of any reason why God would say this to her. She said, “Well, I don’t know. I’ve recently moved here and I don’t know anybody.” She heard me out, thanked me, and turned and hurried into the back room of the store. I'm sure she was crying.

In this case God redeemed my disobedience. But I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had not eventually obeyed. The thought of the blessing that might have been missed should be enough to goad me into active obedience in the future.

But I also wonder how many opportunities for active obedience I’ve missed because I just wasn’t listening. I suspect there are lots of people around me every day who need to hear the simple message that God loves them. It’s easy not to hear orders that make me uncomfortable, or that would require me to go out of my way, or that would actually cost me something if I obeyed.

I wonder if part of the dryness I’m experiencing might be because I’ve been failing to act on orders God has been whispering in my ear.

Today's to do list:

1) Decide that I want to obey God, even if it costs.
2) Tell Him of my decision.
3) Listen for the still, small voice and expect to hear it.
4) Read His word, searching specifically for a command I can obey.
5) Go out and do it.

How good it would be if we could learn that God is easy to live with. A.W. Tozer

What Does Spiritual Receptivity Look Like?

2009-01-14T20:58:00.000-08:00

From man’s standpoint the most tragic loss suffered in the Fall was the vacating of [his spirit] by the Spirit of God. There God planned to rest and glow with moral and spiritual fire. Man by his sin forfeited this indescribably wonderful privilege and must now dwell there alone.

By the mysterious operation of the Spirit in the new birth, that which is called by Peter “the divine nature” enters the deep-in core of the believer’s heart and establishes residence there. Such a one is a true Christian, and only such. A.W. Tozer

In today’s post, I’d like to pursue the idea of spiritual receptivity a bit more, since it seems so important in renewing and maintaining a right relationship with God.

If you’ve read this far, there’s a good chance you are spiritually receptive. If you weren’t you’d have gotten bored and left the blog long ago. But if you want reassurance in this area, there’s an easy test.

I love my old King James Bible. My mother gave it to me when I graduated from high school, so it’s very OLD!! It’s falling apart, the language is archaic, and good old Scofield has fallen from his pedestal in these modern times, but he has some great teaching notes that will help us define spiritual receptivity.

Jesus says, in John 15:4:

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me.

Abiding is the state of being right with God. It involves being in fellowship with Him and being filled with His spirit, and Jesus says we can’t bear fruit if we’re not doing it. So all the ways we speak of right relationship with God, and all the ways we glorify Him, are wrapped up in this business of abiding. Spiritual receptivity leads us into this state of abiding. In fact, a continual state of spiritual receptivity could almost be said to be the same thing.

So what does it mean to abide in Him?

Scofield gives us a description of the state of abiding.

He says: To abide in Christ is, on the one hand, to have no known sin unjudged and unconfessed, no interest into which He is not brought, no life which He cannot share.

If these three things can be said of our lives, we are abiding in Christ: our lives are spiritually receptive.

Are you spiritually receptive? Do you want to take the test? Let’s look at each one of the three more carefully:

1) No known sin. A known sin involves deliberate disobedience. I’m glad Scofield says the sin has to be known. I’m sure there are sins in my life the Lord is still preparing me to recognize, but as long as I’m willing for Him to do that, I’m only accountable for the known ones. Sometimes the “knowing” begins as a niggling at the back of my conscience. When it grows from a niggle to a nudge, it’s God’s judgment, and I need to confess it—agree with Him that it’s wrong—and turn from it. If I don’t, God will turn the nudge into a sharp rap on the noggin. That rap on the noggin may be a severe dryness that is designed to drive me toward renewal. But if I know of no unconfessed sin in my life, I’ve taken the first step toward being spiritually receptive.

2) No interest into which He is not brought. Is there a room in my heart that I’ve locked Him out of? Or, more likely, is there any aspect of my life that I’ve forgotten to bring Him into? Any relationship? Any activity? Any goal or dream I’m pursuing? If He isn’t present in every component of my life, I’m not abiding in Him. A regular examination of my life in these three areas—relationships, activities, goals/dreams—cannot help but strengthen my sense of His presence and bring a fruitful, thirst-quenching satisfaction into my spiritual life.

3) No life which He cannot share. This third condition is a combination of the previous two. The only life God cannot share is one that is unholy, or unconsecrated. If there is something in my life that dishonors Him, I cannot abide in Him and He cannot abide in me. It’s as simple as that. I may belong to Him, but I cannot abide—settle down and feel at home—in Him, and He can’t in me.

Any one of these conditions could change in a day so it’s good to test ourselves on a regular basis. When this kind of self-examination becomes a habit, we won’t have to be so deliberate about it. Our hearts will automatically signal us if our receptivity needs refreshing.

As Tozer says, God planned to “rest and glow” in us—to establish the residence of His Spirit in our spirits. Abiding in Him and allowing Him to abide in us is what we were made for, and once we’ve experienced the abiding presence of Jesus, we’ll never be satisfied with anything less. We’ll have a taste of what it’s like and if it’s missing, we’ll feel dry.

When we abide in Christ, the dryness goes away. It has to. Jesus is the fountain of living water and when we plunge in, our sins are washed away, our interests are saturated with His love and our lives are filled to overflowing with His joy. This is the blessing renewal brings.

But forgiveness, love and joy will lead us into another important aspect of walking with God. This requirement of the Christian life is downplayed in our culture--even our Christian culture--and its neglect, I believe, is responsible for much of the stagnation we see in our North American churches, and much dryness in our personal lives. I've seen it in mine. We'll tackle that subject next blog.

Are you hanging in there with me? I'd love your feedback--either positive or negative about all this. Please feel free to comment.

Buttprints

2009-01-12T14:18:00.000-08:00

Okay, time for a lighter moment again. A friend sent me this poem a while back and I think it's fits (loosely) into the current renewal idea.

One night I had a wondrous dream,
One set of footprints there was seen,
The footprints of my precious Lord,
But mine were not along the shore.

But then some strange prints appeared,
And I asked the Lord, "What have we here?"
Those prints are large and round and neat,
"But Lord, they are too big for feet."

"My child," He said in somber tones,
"For miles I carried you along.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
But you refused and made me wait."

"You disobeyed, you would not grow,
The walk of faith, you would not know,
So I got tired, I got fed up,
And there I dropped you on your butt."

"Because in life, there comes a time,
When one must fight, and one must climb,
When one must rise and take a stand,
Or leave their butt prints in the sand."

-- author unknown

My apologies to Margaret Fishback Powers, author of the emotionally powerful poem, "Footprints," for promoting this (almost)tongue-in-cheek, and not so well written parody. Margaret Powers' poem expresses a wonderful truth about walking with Jesus but this version is instructive as well, I think.

A note of trivia: Margaret has legally established her claim to authorship of the poem after a confusing and contradictory controversy that cast a shadow over the ministry of the poem for years. She's recently written a devotional book on the "Footprints" theme, published by Harper Collins. She lives in our part of the world. She and her husband, Paul, have conducted an evangelism ministry for years.

Now I'm going to get off my butt and do something.

A Great Gulf Fixed

2009-01-09T11:04:00.001-08:00

If you’re like me, you’ll find there’s a great gulf fixed between number one on our list of ways to prepare for renewal—relinquishment and recommitment—and number two—spending time with God. I always seem to get stuck on the far side of this chasm. It’s a puzzle. I really do believe I want God to be number one in my life, but I have a hard time actually making it happen. Making it happen is where the rubber hits the road, and I have to be careful at this point or I may find myself just adding pavement to the road to hell.

Tozer discusses this issue: Why do some persons “find” God in a way that others do not? He has no favourites within His household. The difference lies not with God but with us.

I venture to suggest that the one vital quality which the great saints had in common was spiritual receptivity. They differed from the average person in that when they felt the inward longing they did something about it. They acquired the lifelong habit of spiritual response.

Receptivity can be present in degrees, depending upon the individual. It may be increased by exercise or destroyed by neglect. It is not a sovereign and irresistible force which comes upon us as a seizure from above. It is a gift of God, indeed, but one which must be recognized and cultivated.

So why don’t we “find” God? Why don’t we find time for Him? How can we recognize and cultivate this gift?

I’ve done some pondering about this and I’d like to share my thoughts. Please be patient with this post. We won’t be sprinting or skipping through the process, we’ll be plodding, but stick with me. Plodding is good for us; it will develop patience and patience is needed on our journey.

I’ve decided I have difficulty putting feet to my faith in this area because I have been duped into believing four myths about walking with God. Maybe you can identify. What do you think? Please feel free to comment at the end of this post if you have further (or contradictory) thoughts on these ideas:

Myth #1: Once we give ourselves to God, the hard part is over. If we are fully dedicated, spending meaningful times with the Lord will come naturally.

Reality: Spending meaningful time with the Lord on a regular basis is a habit. Habits have to be developed. Developing habits involves discipline. Discipline, by its nature, is difficult. We have to dig a new groove across the grain of all the other grooves in our lives. It will take effort and it will involve a certain amount of pain.

Underlying this myth are two others, more deeply imbedded in our psyche, that must be dispelled if we’re going to be successful at developing any good habit:

Myth # 2: People always do what they really want to do.

Reality: There is an element of truth to this myth. That’s why it’s so devious. It’s true that motivation drives our actions. But the problem is that we are a hodgepodge of mixed desires and motivations, and they are often contradictory. One moment we are motivated to lose weight. The next moment we are motivated to eat a big piece of chocolate cake. One moment we are motivated to keep our lives pure and the next we are motivated to relax in front of a slutty video. When we’re sitting in church, feeling close to God, we are motivated to spend more quality time with Him, but when we get home, we are motivated to “accomplish something,” and spending time with God doesn’t seem like it’s accomplishing anything. (This secondary myth—that spending time with God isn’t accomplishing anything—is addressed at the end of this post!)

The next myth is even more subtle. It’s so hidden you might be tempted to deny it’s there, but I bet it operates in your life.

Myth # 3: We won’t have to give up anything to make time for God. We can have our Kate and Edith too.

Reality: This lie is akin to the one that says, “This piece of cake doesn’t have any calories.” The truth is, we cannot eat cake and lose weight at the same time, at least not without killing ourselves with leg-lifts and stair-steps while we’re eating it. We cannot keep our minds pure and watch trash on TV, though I’ve heard that argument: “Oh it doesn’t affect me. I just ignore those parts.” And we cannot spend time with the Lord without giving up something else that we would normally spend time on.

Living a disciplined life (walking with God) requires that we become aware of our conflicting motivations, that we set priorities, and that we consistently, deliberately put high priority desires ahead of the others. Doing what we REALLY want is hard work.

Which brings us to the last myth:

Myth #4: If we have to work at it, it can’t be meaningful. Shouldn’t worship come naturally? If it doesn’t, how can it be pleasing to God?

Reality: Nothing good comes easily. Think about it. Even love, the best thing in the world, is hard. Between the initial blush of infatuation and the deep satisfaction of a committed relationship comes years of determination and hard work. Again, maybe it wouldn’t have been this way if we hadn’t given our joy away in the first place. But the hard truth is, in this imperfect world, living in these imperfect bodies, the process of establishing a deep relationship with God is going to feel more like a battle than a party.

(For a while. The victory party will come later.)

Yes, it is a battle. It sometimes seems like just a battle between the good and the best, but it’s always also a battle between you and the one who does not want you to have a deep relationship with your Creator. The more serious we become about this business of walking closely with God, the more flak we’re going to get from God’s enemy and ours. Satan will try his best to keep our times with the Lord from happening, because he knows they threaten his kingdom. When we spend time in focused worship and prayer, we rattle cages in the heavenlies. (Here’s the other myth-buster: time with God accomplishes eternal good; no accomplishment on earth is of greater value.)

When I remember this truth I want to run to my quiet place with God. When we’re on our knees we’re winning the battle—God’s battle. We’re participating in His victory. We’re winning freedom, not just for ourselves, but for His other loved ones as well. And we’re bringing great joy to His heart. This is all strong motivation. When we falter along this journey, it’s because we’ve taken our eyes off the destination. We’re forgetting about the victory party. We’re losing sight of the view from the top of the hill.

God help us to keep our eyes on the destination!

What's In It For Me?

2009-01-07T10:54:00.000-08:00

The last two posts (not counting yesterday’s coffee break) have been heavy. I think that’s partly why I needed a break. All that business about dying to yourself—it’s kind of depressing, at least until you get past it to the peace part. So today I thought I’d climb up on a hill and look over all the humps in the road ahead and try to get a glimpse of the end of renewal. Yes, I know renewal won’t end in this life, but I need to know that things will get better, or at least that trudging along after renewal has its perks along the way.

I am a selfish person. I never do anything unless there’s SOMETHING in it for me. Even praying for the salvation of other people has a selfish motive. I love the rush I get when someone comes to know Jesus. It feels so good.

I’ve tried to fix this problem of selfishness, but so far I haven’t been able to. I’m sixty-two years old and I figure if it were fixable I’d have found the solution by now, so I’m about ready to give up. But this morning I woke up with a new, intriguing thought. Maybe selfishness is not always a bad thing. Maybe it comes from a good place and only becomes bad when it’s turned back on itself.

Maybe God wants to satisfy our “selfish” desires. I can’t think of anything He’s ever asked us to do that doesn’t have its reward. He says if we lose our lives we will find them, as if finding our lives is a great thing that He wants us to do. Maybe He wants joy for us more than we want it for ourselves. Maybe there is a good selfishness, and this deep longing in the pit of my soul is a part of that.

Remember how much God loved Jacob? One of the things He seemed to love was the grasping character of this funny little man. Jacob wanted something badly and he went after it. He went after all the wrong things in all the wrong ways, but underneath God may have seen a huge selfishness that pleased Him. Jacob’s grasping was like the cry of a hungry lamb for its mother’s milk, and in the end he took hold of God and would not let go until he’d gotten his selfish desire—God’s blessing.

I sense God’s great joy in seeing us grasp after Him. It’s like the joy on my son-in-law’s face as he wrestles on the floor with his little boy. He’s loving the closeness. The intimacy. The excuse for hugging.

I see that joy on God’s face as I write these words and it brings tears to my eyes. This is what’s in it for me.

Why do we have to experience the longing? Why can’t we just skip right over to the joy? I guess it’s because of the Fall. When Adam and Eve sinned, they gave our joy to the Devil and we’ve spent the last four or six thousand years struggling to get it back. In the end, Jesus died to get it back for us, because He loves us, and the joy is something He meant for us to have all along.

Sigh. That was a nice glimpse of the end of renewal. I think I’ll trudge back down the hill now and get on with the journey. Next post we'll continue the gruelling process, talking about the great chasm that often opens up between rededication and the actual work of putting it into practice.

P.S. My friend Camille http://www.camillecannon.blogspot.com/ posted a fun message yesterday, talking about a word contest from the Washington Post. You take any word and add or change one letter and give it a new definition. I created a new term, based on my experience yesterday. I told her I was blogged down in my writing. Cute, eh? Check out the article and try a word yourself. She’d love to have new vocabulary show up in her “comments.”

A Note to Those of You Who are Following this Blog Post Series

2009-01-06T16:56:00.000-08:00

Whew! This blogging business has plunked me down onto a steep learning curve. The first thing I’ve discovered is that it takes much time, sweat and prayer to post every day. Too much. I already feel pressured to “produce” by my own self-imposed schedule of daily posting, and the pressure is going to tempt me to splash thoughtless (and prayer-less) drivel all over the place if I try to keep up with that rigorous a schedule.

I don’t want to do that. I’m humbled to think that anyone is reading this. I know how busy you are. I’m determined to make it worth your while. So, here’s the plan: I will only post when I’m ready to pass on something I think will be valuable to you.

I sent some of you an e-mail with instructions on how to know (without looking) when there’s a new post. I told you to go to the orange “feed” icon at the top of the blog and sign up for it—that it would e-mail you when there’s something new. That bit of information was thoughtless drivel. It doesn’t work. I didn’t know what I was talking about when I sent it. I’ve come up with a better idea (which is not saying much, I know) so if you do want to follow the blog, try this:

Go to Feedblitz.com on the internet. Scroll down and click on the green box on the left that says “Subscribe to Anything!” Type “something-about-the-joy.blogspot.com” in the box (or you can copy and paste it from this site if you want). Then follow the instructions to complete the subscription.

Don’t let the word, “account” scare you. You’re not signing on to pay for anything. This service is easy, safe and free. You can use it to send any blog or website you want to check regularly directly to your mail box.

Thanks for reading. I'll post again asap.

The ox is slow, but the earth has time.
Old Chinese Proverb

Relinquishment

2009-01-05T21:30:00.000-08:00

Every journey begins with one step. The first step in preparing our hearts for renewal seems simple. “You must Choose. Make a decision to rededicate your life to God.”

Easy, right? Not necessarily. When you really think about what it means to “dedicate your life to God,” it becomes harder to take that first step. There is a cost involved and the cost is high. Jesus says choosing to give our hearts to God (he calls it becoming a disciple) will cost us everything we are and have. He says it means losing your life--dying to yourself. Dedicating our lives to God involves relinquishing things, and even if we’ve made the initial decision before, every time we renew it there will be new things in our lives to relinquish.

Jesus urges us to count the cost of discipleship before we decide to follow him (Luke 14:26-33), and A.W. Tozer challenges us to do that by asking a number of sobering questions. He speaks of being filled with the Spirit, which is another aspect, or way of talking about surrender to God:

Before you can be filled with the Spirit you must desire to be filled. Are you sure that you want to be possessed by a Spirit other than your own? That Spirit, if He ever possesses you, will be the Lord of your Life! Do you want to hand the keys of your soul over to the Holy Spirit? . . .Again, are you sure that you need to be filled? Can’t you get along the way you are?. . .Are you ready to present your body with all of its functions and all that it contains—your mind, your personality, your spirit, your love, your ambitions, your all?

That’s heavy. What if you give your all to God and he takes you at your word? What if He takes something away that’s very important to you? What if He takes the thing you love the most?

The sobering truth is, He will. Because it’s the thing you love the most that will come between you and God, and if there’s anything between you and God, he is not Lord of your life. You have to give up everything if you want to dedicate your life to God. “If He is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all.”

If that’s the case, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would do it. Why wouldn’t you just go on as you were, following Christ at a comfortable distance, keeping the things you don’t want to give up close to your heart?

For some reason, God doesn’t allow us to do that if we truly belong to him. He nudges us. He makes us “feel things” in our hearts. Tozer says: But maybe you feel in your heart that you just can’t go on as you are. If you feel that there are levels of spirituality, mystic deeps and heights of spiritual communion, purity and power that you have never known, that there is fruit which you know you should bear and do not, victory which you know you should have and have not—I would say, “come on,” because God has something for you.

God does have something for us—something wonderful. Relinquishment is just the first step. When we give him our all, he takes it, sanctifies it (sets it apart for holy use), and gives it back for us to use for His glory and our good. Tozer says that what God gives us back is . . .a full and wonderful and completely satisfying anointing with the Holy Ghost. It’s this full anointing, coming only after a full surrender, that opens the door to spiritual blessings in our lives that will overflow to bless the world around us with eternal good.

That’s strong motivation. The farther I go in my walk with the Lord, the more terrified I become of missing, because of my selfish refusal to relinquish something to God, the full ETERNAL blessing of fulfilling his ETERNAL good purposes for the ETERNAL lives of people in the world around me. The stakes are high. If we decide not to sell out totally, we are sacrificing eternal blessings for temporary ones, not just in our lives, but in the lives of people God longs to bless through us.

Tozer says, For every one that actually crosses over into the Promised Land there are many who stand for a while and look longingly across the river and then turn back to the comparative safety of the sandy wastes of the old life.

How tragic. Lord, I do choose, once again, to give myself totally to you. Thank you for giving me that choice.

Beginning a Journey Toward Spiritual Renewal

2009-01-04T16:17:00.000-08:00

Ten Ways to Prepare your Heart for Renewal began a series of regular postings on this topic I plan to publish over the next few weeks. In a blind leap of faith, I’m going to suggest that some of the words I write will not be FROM me. They will be THROUGH me—and TO me, as well. I’m determined to be painfully honest as I share my own faltering, hesitant steps on this journey toward personal spiritual renewal. It’s so easy to become stale and stagnant. I’m a beginner, again, after all my years of walking with Jesus. It’s a new year, and I’m making a new start at personal renewal.

I trust you will be able to discern the difference between my words and His as you visit this site. Expressions of my faltering walk are my own. Any words that ring with a greater Truth are from God, to all of us. So let’s travel together on this path toward a deeper relationship with Him. I’d love to have you comment on posts, adding your own insights and encouragements—your own words from the Lord—for the edification of all of us.

My words: Yesterday I took one small step along this path to renewal. The seventh way to prepare your heart, according to Thursday’s post, is to listen to worship music, so I spent all day cleaning my office for the sole purpose of making a place near my mini-boom box for my worship tapes. Aren’t you impressed? Finally, in the evening, I sat down and listened to one of those tapes and got a brief, refreshing taste of the fruit of the Spirit. A great supply of tapes are now sitting over there against the wall waiting for my next visit.

But this morning I forgot all about asking God’s blessing on our worship before I went to church. I was too busy thinking up blog post ideas ABOUT renewal to ask for it. Thankfully, our worship leader led us all into God’s presence at the beginning of the service and I was blessed in spite of myself.

God’s words: In cleaning out my office I uncovered, dusted off, and opened up a little book that immediately rattled the foundations of my already shaky spiritual complacency. It’s called, Gems From Tozer, and I’m going to share some of those gems with you over the next few weeks. These words are truly from God. A. W. Tozer (1897-1963) has been called “a 20th Century Prophet” but his words ring truer today than they did when they were written in the 1900’s.

I have to warn you, as with most prophecies, these gems don’t just sparkle, they’ve got very sharp edges. I can already feel them cutting through my phony self-righteousness and exposing my spiritual poverty. Hmm. This renewal business might just have to start with repentance. I hadn’t figured on that.

Oh well. If I have to go there I won’t go alone. I’m dragging you with me. We’ll start, tomorrow, with Tozer’s thoughts on the first step in opening our hearts to renewal. Please don’t run away. Once we get through this “repentance” business we’ll begin to get to the “joy” part. I’m pretty sure of it. So please come back. I need your companionship on this journey.

Almost every day of my life I am praying that “a jubilant pining and longing for God” might come back on the evangelical churches. We don’t need to have our doctrine straightened out; we are as orthodox as the Pharisees of old. But this longing for God that brings spiritual torrents and whirlwinds of seeking and self-denial—this is almost gone from our midst.

A.W. Tozer

Ten Ways to Open Your Heart to Renewal

2009-01-01T19:01:00.000-08:00

The beginning of a new year is a natural time for thinking about renewal. We say good-bye to an old, tired year and look with hope and expectation to a new one. A clean page. A fresh chance. A time to think about how to make our future better--more productive, more significant, more successful, more joy-filled.

For Christians, thoughts of renewal usually revolve around God. We belong to Him forever, but we are vacillating human beings, and our relationship with Him can easily stagnate. We need times of refreshing. We need to come again to the fountain of living water. We need to long for Him so deeply that it drives us back into His presence. Thankfully, God prompts that longing. He never forces Himself back into our lives, but the restlessness we feel without Him invariably draws us.

So what to do when we feel the restlessness? When we become aware that something's not right in our spirits? God is the One who must rescue us from the doldrums of spiritual lethargy, but there are steps we can take to make ourselves available to Him again. If you are feeling this restlessness today, here are ten ways you can prepare your heart to receive Him anew in this new year:

1) You must choose. Make a decision to re-dedicate your life to God. Pray a prayer of submission to Him. Affirm your commitment to His lordship in your life. Give Him permission to touch you in a fresh way. Choose to die to your own agenda for your life. Mark this recommitment decision in your journal.

2) Time is of the essence. Follow up your decision with determined action: choose to spend time with Him. Not just a few moments at the beginning or the end of your day, but an extended time, over a period of time. This will require a measure of sacrifice. You’ll have to make the time or it won’t happen. The sacrifice might involve some kind of fast—giving up food, or a particular pleasurable activity you habitually enjoy (coffee time), or a time-waster you’re used to indulging in (TV or computer games). As you choose to remove something from your schedule, deliberately decide to put Him in its place. Spend the time you would normally be indulging in your sacrificed activities in quiet prayer in His presence. Ask Him to lead you in this process.

3) If you build it, He will come. But be prepared to wait. He might not meet you powerfully in the beginning. He sometimes has to test our commitment, not to find out how committed we are—He already knows that—but to strengthen our hunger for Him. Trust Him with the process. Just continue your discipline of spending time with Him, approaching Him on each occasion with the expectation that He may be ready to announce Himself to you in some new way. If he doesn’t, go away with anticipation that the next time He might. Let Him come in His own time.

4) Take encouragement from others. To jump-start your time of renewal, you might want to read an inspiring or challenging Christian book. Check out the church library. Go in and look around, asking the Lord to put your hand on a book that He wants to meet you in. Then browse until one strikes you as being valuable.

5) Promote a spirit of worship. That’s what this whole process is about. It’s not about personal discipline. It’s not about coming out of the doldrums in your life. It’s not even about intercession or evangelism. It’s about worship. Totally. All other benefits will come as a by-product of your focus on Him. How do you promote a spirit of worship? . . . . .

6) Focus on His attributes. You will find them in the Bible. Nowhere else do we learn what He is like. Make a list of His attributes. Rearrange the items on the list, from the most important (to you) to the least. Look up each attribute in a Bible concordance and write the Scripture references beside each. Read the references, looking for the one you connect with the most for each attribute. Memorize at least one sentence from the passage you have chosen for each attribute. Repeat the sentence off and on during your day, until it becomes a permanent fixture on the screen-saver of your mind. Note: The Psalms are great places to find such passages.

7) Listen to worship music. Find songs or a style or an artist you like—one that moves you toward worship—and play the music as you begin your time with Him. Sing the words to Him as you listen.

8) Don't miss worship time at your church on Sunday mornings. Note: This activity will not be useful to you unless you take time to pray before you come to church, asking God to touch you in the service and to bless others with His presence. It will also not be useful to you if you are not willing to let go of your irritation about any of the following: 1) the style of worship; 2) the selection of songs; 3) the loudness of the music; 4) the repetition of what might seem, at first glance, to be shallow messages. There is only one thing that can ever ruin worship, and that’s your attitude toward it. God doesn’t care how loud the music is, or who’s singing, or even what the words are. He cares only about the heart attitude and focus of the worshippers. Determine to look beyond anything that would distract you from loving God. Focus on the truth in the worship songs and love the people around you, for Jesus’s sake.

9) Let worship lead you into intercession. Intercession--praying for the needs of others--will lift you out of your stale mindset and put you down in a wider space. It will also place you right where the heart of God is. When you begin interceding for others from a place of worship, you will pray with strong faith and great authority, because the greatness and goodness of the One you’re petitioning is right before your eyes. You will have no doubts about his ability or willingness to answer your prayers. Praying with your eyes on God will also put you in a place of hearing from Him about how to pray. Ask God to bring specific people to your mind and show you specifically what to pray for, then pray for them that way. If appropriate, call or e-mail those people and tell them how you’ve felt led to pray for them. They will be encouraged that God brought them to your mind, and you may be encouraged to discover how appropriate the specific thing you asked for was.

10) Share your experience of renewed fellowship with God with others. Renewal must spread past the realm of individual experience before it can accomplish God’s complete purpose, and nothing is more stimulating for corporate renewal than hearing how God is working in individual lives. God’s desire is that His Church be renewed and that the world be blessed through His Church. Renewal must start with each individual—with a fresh commitment to Jesus as Lord and a leap of faith that leads to an expectation that He will meet us in a significant way. But when we come to him as individuals, and share our experiences, the fire spreads. God’s Church is revived and the world is redeemed.

Let’s pray together that God will pour out a spirit of repentance, of renewal and of hope on each of us as we move into this new year.

End of Year Reflection

2008-12-31T12:06:00.000-08:00

So I end 2008 eating chocolate for breakfast, spending the morning playing on the computer, and putting off my quiet time until noon. Does not augur well. Lots of fodder for New Year's resolutions here, but I probably won't make any. My dreams for the new year are always pretty much the same: to see Him more clearly, to love Him more dearly, and to follow Him more nearly, day by day.

I see little progress from year to year. Maybe it's there but just invisible to the naked eye. I hope so. But it is good to stop now and then and give the Lord a chance to lead me into more of what He wants so I will do that for a moment now. I suspect He wants to do more than I can imagine. My heart longs for Him. I want to reach out for that "more."

So if I were to pick a keyword for my goals for the coming year it would be TRUST. I want to consistently, joyfully, confidently trust Him with things I can see and those I can't. To trust that He remains unchanging and faithful, that His love endures forever, that I am His forever. I want to trust Him for blessings I can't even imagine, to step out into the unknown courageously, to fling myself into His arms the way a trusting child would reach for a good Father.

That probably involves putting away the chocolate and opening my Bible every day before I turn on my computer. For starters. I think I'll try that.

Deep POV and Real Life

2008-11-05T13:14:00.000-08:00

Thinking about deep POV (see http://www.something-about-the-writing-journey.blogspot.com/) has drawn me into a deeper contemplation of my own life, and the way we human beings view ourselves and our world, and even--or especially--how we view God.

In writing, "deep POV" is point-of-view, or perspective, written from deep inside the POV character. It gives readers a view, not only of the character's thoughts, but of his emotions and his physical sensations—what he sees through his eyes, hears through his ears, and feels in his body. It brings readers as close into the character's reality as the character is. Readers become the character while they are reading.

But it's possible for a writer to write from a character's POV and still keep readers at arms length. The character's thoughts are expressed, but the reader (and the writer) are viewing the character from outside his skin. They're reading his mind, but not fully sharing his experience. That's a shallow POV. Deep POV takes the reader closer into the experience of the character.

This distinction applies to life on a broader scale. It has occurred to me that I often view my own life from this "arms-length" perspective. I watch my life as an outsider. I live analytically, thinking about life more often than living it, detaching myself from my world and thus never deeply experiencing it. Does this make sense? Even when I go for a walk by a river, I'm sometimes not there. I'm thinking, not feeling--thinking about things outside my body, things in other places or other times--past or future. I'm not living in the present, feeling the warm air on my skin, hearing the birds chirping, smelling the pungent scent of sun-warmed pine trees.

I don't think I'm the only one who lives this way. I have a friend who is going through a great hardship right now. She feels, rightly, I believe, that distancing from yourself is sometimes a necessary coping mechanism. When life is too painful, we have to detach to survive. But as the pain begins to heal, we need to make sure we don't remain in this detached state. We have to move back into the experience of life. Often the move has to be deliberate. Otherwise the coping mechanisms become castles with high stone walls that keep out, not only the pain, but the joy of life.

Zinovy, the main character in my novel, lives in this kind of castle. The pain of seeing his mother brutally murdered when he was five, spending his childhood in an abusive foster home, and growing up as a teen in a Russian military orphan camp has driven him deep into an analytical mindset and locked out the possibility of all emotional involvement with the world around him. There is no room in his worldview for non-rational reality or for personal, subjective experience. His redemption from this self-imposed prison/fortress constitutes the main theme of the book.

In my own experience, I wonder where this tendency comes from. I think much of it is in my genes. I'm naturally an analytical person. But the deep pain of losing my father when I was seven definitely drove me more deeply in this direction. I remember moving out of my body when the grief was too hard to bear, and I lived that way for years. Even as the intensity of the grief softened, I don't think I softened. The coping mechanism had become a part of who I was, and it has only been recently, in my old age (!), that I feel I'm finally able to recognize the problem and overcome the tendency.

My deep personal relationship with God was a part of the healing process. But even so, I know I've done this kind of withdrawing from God, too. I read the Bible and learn about him. I think about him. But I suspect my analytical approach often gets in the way of my actually experiencing him. God doesn't want to be simply thought about. He wasn't meant to be known analytically. The purpose of thinking about God is to bring us into relationship with him--to bring us to the point of experiencing him.

Experiencing God, I am learning, can even be wordless. That realization is a shock to my system. I'm a writer. Words are important to me. But more and more I'm discovering the limitation of words, particularly in growing deeper in my relationship with God. Yes, words are necessary in our understanding of who God is and who He isn't. There are proper limitations. He is Good. He is not bad. He is Eternal. He does not change. He is Faithful. He does not abandon us. He is Righteous. He is never unholy. I'm glad those words about Him are in my mind. But I want, more and more, to be able to sit in His presence, letting the knowledge of who He is penetrate beyond my mind into my heart--letting myself feel his love around me, hear the whisper of his truth brush past my mind and into my spirit.

I think we're all on the same journey as Zinovy. We all begin at different places, and the path is more difficult for some than for others, but God's purpose in life is to move each one of us toward a full and deep and glorious experience of Him—of His truth and his love.

It's a wonderful journey. I'm glad I'm on it. But I long for the destination. I know the end will be pure joy. Yes, I’m into happy endings. I believe in them. Whoever said the truth had to be miserable? That just doesn’t make sense. What's good makes sense. This is where the analytical and the experiential come together: God is Good. This is the rational reality. But I want to know that truth on a continuously deeper level. So the journey continues, and I'm glad the Good God goes with me.

Inspired Writing

2008-08-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

God's purpose for inspired writing is not to inform us but to change us.

The Road of Life

2008-08-12T08:12:00.000-07:00

At first I saw God as my observer, my judge,
Keeping track of the things I did wrong,
So as to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die.
He was out there sort of like a president.
I recognised His picture when I saw it, but I really didn’t know Him.
But later on when I met Christ,
It seemed as though life were rather like a bike ride,
But it was a tandem bike, and I noticed that Christ was in the back,
Helping me pedal.
I don’t know when it was that He suggested we change places,
But life has not been the same since.
When I had control, I knew the way.
It was rather boring, but predictable. . .
It was the shortest distance between two points.
But when He took the lead,
He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains,
and through rocky places at breakneck speeds.
It was all I could do to hang on!
Even though it looked like madness,
He said, "Pedal!"
I worried and was anxious and asked, "Where are you taking me?"
He laughed and didn’t answer, and I started to learn to trust.
I forgot my boring life and entered into the adventure.
And when I’d say, "I’m scared," He’d lean back and touch my hand.
He took me to people with gifts I needed,
Gifts of healing, acceptance, and joy.
They gave me gifts to take on my journey,
My Lord’s and mine.
And we were off again.
He said, "Give the gifts away; they’re extra baggage.
Too much weight."
So I did, to people we met, and I found that in giving
I received, and still our burden was light.
I did not trust Him at first, in control of my life.
I thought He’d wreck it.
But He knows bike secrets, knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners,
Knows how to jump to clear high rocks,
Knows how to fly to shorten scary passages.
And I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places,
And I’m beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze in my face
With my delightful, constant companion, Jesus Christ.
And when I’m sure I just can’t do any more
He just smiles and says. . . "Pedal!"

Author unknown

Stormy Weather

2008-07-30T11:48:00.000-07:00

I'm struggling right now. Are you? It seems every time I turn around I find others who are perplexed also--dealing with excruciatingly painful and unsolvable problems. It causes me angst. I'd like to fix everything, in my life and in the lives of people I love. But I'm learning something through this difficult time.

Oswald Chambers says it well:

"We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process God calls the end. . . .His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. . .that I see him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea. . . .God's end is to enable me to see that He can walk on the chaos of my life just now." (July 28 reading from My Utmost For His Highest)

This realization doesn't make me feel any better. I still want everything to be fixed, right now. But I think God is working on that in me. I have to get over my idealistic preoccupation with "happily ever after." That "happily" will come, in the end, but for now, God has other plans for me, and for my loved ones. They are good plans, but they aren't always easy or comfortable.

I am choosing to submit to those "higher" plans--to let go of my selfish desire for immediate gratification. I still groan, and my stomach often clenches, but little by little my spirit is being lifted. My eyes are moving from the turbulent waves to the One who walks in triumph on top of them. I'm still too timid to step out of the boat and join him, but it's a comfort to see Him out there, and a small joy is beginning at the bottom of my heart.

Today I want to visualize Jesus walking serenely on the waves and rest in that vision.

God's Whisper

2008-05-21T19:07:00.000-07:00

I used to think that conversation was all about talking. To "con-verse" means "to speak words with." Two people speak words with each other, and that’s conversation. Some time ago it began to dawn on me that if two people did nothing more than speak words with each other, there might not be a lot of communication going on. Someone needs to be on the receiving end of the words.
And so I grew to understand that conversation was made up of two parts: speaking and listening. Ideally, each participant in the dialogue would do both. Give and take, fifty-fifty, like in a good marriage. I learned this important truth, but it took me a while longer to put it into practice.
In conversations with friends, though I was careful not to talk more than my fifty percent, I wasn’t so good about listening the other fifty. I’d be making eye contact and nodding intelligently but my mind was usually on the future—what I was preparing to say during my upcoming 50% talk time. I’m a slow learner, but eventually I realised something might be wrong with this picture. The technique wasn’t working. Conversation was stressful, and it wasn’t very rewarding either.
I remember the exact moment when the light dawned. I was talking with a friend about religion, and I was beginning to think the dialogue wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe we should just agree to disagree and leave it at that. Then another participant entered the discussion, whispering in my ear—in a deep place where I sometimes hear God’s voice. The input came in the form of a question, as God’s input often does. He said, "Are you hearing what Simon is saying to you?"
I began to listen, and a strange thing happened. I discovered we were talking about some of the same things and we agreed on many of them. I was able to take ideas he was giving and hand them back in a meaningful way—a way that was a blessing for both of us. I had a sense I was entering into his heart and finding treasures that I wouldn't have discovered anywhere else. Our conversation became rich, refreshing and enjoyable.
Since that day my conversations with others have changed dramatically. I sometimes even abandon the 50/50 ratio and listen 90% of the time. Consequently, I’ve learned so much. I’ve had the opportunity to get out of myself more often and into others, and my world is now that much bigger.
My current challenge is to apply this life lesson to my relationship with God. I’m reading a great book called The Papa Prayer, by Larry Crabb. He says what’s important about prayer is not getting what we ask for but relating to the One we’re speaking to, and relating is more about listening than talking. In fact, I’ve decided listening is so important that if I don’t have time to both listen and talk to God I’m going to leave out the talking part. His whisper in my ear is always life-changing. I want to hear it more often.

On My Personal Library

2008-05-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

I'm coming to believe that culling books from your library is like losing weight. You want to do it but you don't want to give up anything.

On Death and Joy

2008-04-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Karin,
We got your note yesterday, with the news you’d already given us by phone of the return of your cancer. I’ve been praying for you since you called. I’m encouraged, as I always have been, by your strength (even when you feel weak), and courage (even when you feel afraid), and optimism (even when there are things in your life that might make others with less character see only gloom and despair). I know you will probably have your times of feeling all of those negative things, but I also know you will face them and overcome them.
I love the questions you ask! I know the hunger for God that drove you to ask those questions has made it possible for Him to stretch you and grow your faith. I’ve seen that growth happening in the questions, and the decisions you have made, especially lately, about how you will live your life.
I love that your main question in all this is how you can serve God and fulfil whatever purposes He has for you. Your heart is so much in the right place. God delights in you—in your desire to know Him and your constant questioning and reaching out to Him, even when it feels like you’ve been groping in the dark. This world is a dark place sometimes, but you are a bright shining star in that darkness and my prayer is that you will keep shining here for many years to come, for the world’s sake.
But I also know that sometimes God’s best for the ones we love is higher and more glorious than the things we ask for them. We long for present happiness and health, but God sees above our shallow desires. He has plans for eternal joy and delight—freedom from pain and grief—the wiping away of all tears, past, present and future. It may be that God has these higher blessings in mind for you at this stage of your life. He may be preparing to take you home more quickly than we would like to let you go.
You asked if we could give you any words of hope. Words are so inadequate, but I do know that there is great hope for you. Your future, no matter what, is going to be full of exciting wonders and great joy. It may be the exciting wonder of experiencing God’s miraculous touch in physical healing. If so, we will rejoice with you and thank God. But it may be the wonder and joy He plans for you is in heaven. If it is, that future is unbelievably and unimaginably wonderful.
This kind of hope is not wishful thinking. It’s joyful anticipation. I often think of heaven as being like that good book I have on my bedside table. Every day I look forward to nighttime when I can read some more. I have the same feeling (on a larger scale!) about heaven. Our unimaginably wonderful future is a firm and settled fact because of Jesus, and we can count on it. It’s waiting on the bedside table for us.
I am especially comforted to know that I will be sharing that future with you. It’s very possible that I will get to heaven before you do. We never know when God plans to take any of us home. But it doesn’t really matter, because once we’re all there it will be one great eternal party and the fears and pains we experienced down here will be absorbed in the joy. There are some days when the anticipation of heaven’s joy is the greatest hope-producer in my life! I so look forward to it—maybe because the older I get the more friends and family gather there. I have a whole stack of good books on that heavenly bedside table by now!
I know the doctor has not given you much hope, but doctors are in the business of looking for disease, not miracles. I’m praying, first of all, for a miracle of physical healing for you—for God’s special touch on your body that will free you from this awful disease. That’s my heart wish. But if He takes you home sooner than I would like, I KNOW, with all my heart, that it will be better for YOU than if He leaves you with us longer.

I am so convinced that we have nothing to fear and everything to hope for when God takes us home. I know I will have feelings of fear when the time comes for me (if I have any warning at all!), but it will be the kind of fear I feel at the top of a very large roller coaster just before my car starts down the highest hill! It’s going to be the most amazing ride ever. I would be really afraid if I didn’t believe the Lord was going to be sitting beside me in that car, but I’m sure He will be.
He's with us both, in this life, and the next, and it's so comforting. I pray that comfort will be with you every day as you continue to walk with Him.

I love you.