May 17, 2012 Hungry?

Would I have enough to offer myself as food for thought?

Settle yourself in your room at a moment when you have nothing else to do. Say, "I am now with myself," and just sit with yourself. After an amazingly short time you will most likely feel bored. This teaches us one very useful thing. It gives us insight into the fact that if after ten minutes of being alone with ourselves we feel like that, it is no wonder that others should feel equally bored! Why is this so? It is because we have so little to offer to our own selves as food for thought, for emotion and for life. If you watch your life carefully you will discover quite soon that we hardly ever live from within outwards; instead we respond to incitement, to excitement. In other words, we live by reflection, by reaction...We are completely empty, we do not act from within ourselves but accept as our life a life which is actually fed in from outside...Anthony Bloom in Beginning to Pray

What a thought! We spend more time waiting for something to respond to than we do filling up with meat so that when the incident happens that we must respond to, we too quickly find ourselves malnourished. I think of how much of our entertainment requires only watching.  Then I was thinking about how much of what we read requires little more than the ability to decipher letters and words and punctuation....not much being required of reasoning nor much reason to work at remembering what we read.

Bring back the memory verse competitions. Bring back real "quiet time," not the fifteen minute devotions but the Sunday long periods met for stillness and perhaps an intake of what is virtuous. I fear that we are a starving obese nation - full of physical food and starving for the kind of spiritual food, the kind of thought-provoking meat, that grants real life, and we don't even notice it.

I remember a bright young woman saying to me, "I don't like to think; it's too hard."  I wonder if whatever she had was contagious, and we would all rather be entertained than we would do the kind of thinking that requires choices and action.

Am I full of cotton candy,

or is there some meat in there, some 12 grain bread?

May 14, 2012 To Listen is better than to sacrifice

I Samuel 15:22 Samuel replied, "What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to His voice? Obedience is far better than sacrifice. Listening to him is much better than offering the fat of rams."

I guess I didn't get the listening thing all that well because last week God slowed me to a stop. Periodically I get muscle spasms in my back, and the only cure is a heating pad, a recliner, and muscle relaxants. Last week was one of those times when God yanked my chain, and for three days I did not get far from my chair.

As I sat there, too miserable to even watch TV or read, I did have plenty of time to listen and to talk to God. If I learned one thing it was how hard it is to listen to and for God. I confess, my prayer time is over way too quickly, and then I am off to what needs to be done...a real mess that is, because what really needs to be done is for me to be still and listen.

In the moments that I was able to listen, God made a connection for me. I am working on a writing project, one which requires me to immerse myself in another woman's journey through cancer. As I waited for the next spasm to strike, God reminded me of what suffering could be. I knew eventually the medicine and the heat and rest would kick in, and my pain would be over.

My friend, as I have come to call her, had no such assurance. She hoped and trusted God for healing, but her everyday normal was pain, and active nausea and endless suffering. Throughout her journey, she never lost faith, and I am reminded how quickly I lose patience. And I call out to God to take the pain away.

In truth my prayer should be, "help me to be still and listen" because I do not want to miss anything, and the pain or confusion or conflict can mask the best of God's Words.

My friend brought great glory to God over the nearly two years before her home going, but she never stopped listening. As I rehearsed all of these things, I confessed to God that I was sorry that it took this kind of thing, my muscle spasms, to cause me to listen for Him. I confessed that I was sorry I had to grieve Him because He does not rejoice in our suffering. Even though He longs for us to rejoice, He does know that listening will bring the greater blessing, so He allows the suffering.

I would not for a moment want anyone to think my friend's suffering was because she needed to suffer to get quiet, to listen. I believe her suffering was a trust. God knew He could trust her to glorify Him through this nightmare, and take it from me, who has been immersed in her journals, she glorified Him all the way to the door of heaven.

May 8, 2012 Can you hear me now?

I Samuel 3: 9 He told Samuel, :Go and lie down. If he calls you, say, "Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening." So Samuel went and lay down in his place.


Psalm 143:8 Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk for I lift up my soul unto thee.

I had visions of what I was going to do after school was out, after graduation - not of what I would do at school, but at home in the evening. No more papers to grade. No more classes to prepare for. No more research to do for whatever issue was most pressing. Only dinner to prepare for and clean up after, and the usual chores, but domestic, not related to my academic life.

Oh, the books I would read. The hours available to sit on the deck and think. Oh the fool that I am!! I forgot for a moment the enemy who would fill our hours up with what appear to be good things, but which may not be the best.

God wants us to be listening for Him, and then to Him. He wants us to hear His loving kindness in the morning, but too often our mornings are spent trying to play catch up to all the chores waiting. We think technology simplifies our lives - almost instant coffee through our fancy coffee makers, crockpots to fill for the evening, facebook to catch up with our friends, email to wade through for our job and personal lives, load the dishwasher or empty it, and the clothes washer, and...count the outlets you have something plugged into. And the ear buds or pandora or kindle or phone or ipad or Galaxy in my case, that is never far from us....

Just tell me, how on earth could we hear the voice of God in all that mess? I am beginning to think we have allowed technology and everything else to set our agenda and to make so much noise that we have a way harder time listening for or hearing the voice of God that Samuel ever did.

So what is the solution? Dare I say, making a real effort at going unplugged? at least for a while? After all, can't most of it wait? And I am certainly speaking to myself here. Any thoughts?

May 3, 2012 Hospitality - making who feel at home?

Luke 1: 35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

John 14: 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him; but ye know him; for he dwells with you and shall be in you...23 Jesus answered and said unto him, IF a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him.

I was talking to a student about making choices, (hers and it wasn’t all that great a choice) and trying to get her to see that we are constantly speaking to all those around us by every choice that we make. Our actions sometimes speak more loudly than our words, and that message communicated by our actions often lingers far longer in someone’s mind than any words we might speak.

I shared with her the reality that we take God everywhere we go, and not only is He a witness to everything we say and do, everything we say and do says something about our relationship with Him.

After she left, the above Scripture came to mind, the idea that Mary indeed carried the physical body of Jesus for a time – making a home for Him inside of her. Then the Scripture in John came to mind: the idea that the Spirit of God, God Himself, dwells or abides or makes His home inside of me, and not just for a while, but as long as I live.

Mary knew, as far as a human mind could comprehend it, that she was carrying the Messiah. And if you have ever been pregnant, you know that reality is never far from your mind. I remember that I worked extra hard about being careful to eat the foods right for my baby, and to avoid the foods that might harm my child. I avoided risky behaviors and embraced anything that would increase the likelihood that my baby would be born healthy. All of that to say, I would bet you money that Mary did the same thing, at least as far as she knew to do.

Taking that one step further, if you are a believer in Jesus, you carry the Spirit of God around with you every moment of every day. The issue or the challenge is, are you as hospitable to Him as you might be to a human child. And for the record, I have to admit right here, I have certainly not been as hospitable to the Spirit of God all the time as I wanted to be or could have been.

I remember talking to my little unborn child, telling her or him that I loved her (two times) and him (one time), not that I only did it a total of three times, but I did only have three children. The point is do I talk to God as much as I talked to my unborn children or talked to God about them, and is He as at home in my body as they were.

May 1, 2012 Where has the time gone?

Ecclesiastes 3: To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven.

You might not think it so, but April is one of the busiest months for me, and perhaps for most people who work in my field - college education.  It is a month of tying up loose ends, of grading final projects and exams and trying to figure out semester averages. It is also the month when stuff comes out of the woodwork, or so it seems.  Hidden sin refuses to remain hidden.  Students who have tried to minister to other students seek help; students who have seen others hide sin fear the consequences of that sin unaddressed, call out for help. And I don't know about you dear reader, but this crazy weather, or at least we blame it on the weather, has brought about all manner of bugs across our campus, and not just in the dorms.

BUT, for me, this month has brought also dessert!  At least that is what I call the few days I spent in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the Festival of Faith and Writing that takes place every two years on the campus of Calvin College.  This year I joined 2000 other lovers of reading and writing, and it was like being back in school, only by choice.  Classes started around 8:30am and ended at about 9:00pm - with classes that ran through lunch if you wanted to balance a sandwich with the opportunity to squeeze in one more session with experienced and published writers and teachers...which I did.

I came back from the conference exhausted (I am not as young as I used to be), exhilarated, and encouraged, six new poems in my notebook.  I was reminded again of both God's call in my life as a writer and of the reality of the enemy who would keep me from writing and who would keep feeling me a failure if I don't publish as others have.

One lesson I ask God to help me remember is this: He is the only one that matters.  He loves me.  He has called me to give back what He has given me, and it doesn't matter who reads what I write, or who buys what I write.  It matters only that I write because that is who He made me to be.

In this stolen moment in the busy finals week at school, I am reminded that I must watch out for the evil one who, like a lion, seeks to devour the very words God has entrusted to me. This is a season and a time for me to write, perhaps for you to write, or sing, or sew, or teach, or parent.  This season is a gift, and God calls us to enjoy it, to savor it....and we have to watch out for whatever the evil one would put in our path to discourage us or to cause us to doubt that call.

April 5, 2012 Should do it or Want to do it?

John 14: 9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you and yet has thou not known me Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

John 14:21 He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.

I've been hanging out with John, the beloved, this Holy Season, and just lately spending time in the chapters where John recorded the events of Holy Week. As I read chapter 14, I was overcome again with what Jesus was feeling in these final days as He anticipated the cross. He knew the agony that awaited Him, and even in that foreknowledge could experience in anticipation the horrors of taking our sin upon Himself. Then, after John records in chapter 13, that Jesus was troubled in Spirit, we hear again an exchange that must have brought Him further pain.

Think about those words in verse 9 - "Have I been so long time with you?" I can imagine the frustration Jesus was experiencing. For three years these men had been scarcely an arm's length away from Him, and yet they appeared not to have gotten it, to have heard and understood His Words. Scarcely hours before this scene, Jesus said, " He that seeth me seeth Him that sent me." And somehow Philip either didn't hear, or notice or remember those words. And patiently, Jesus goes through it once more, ending that dialogue reminding Philip that "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him," v. 21.

All of that takes me to the questions in the title: Should do it or Want to do it? How much of our faith is about what we should do and how much is it about what we want to do - to love God back? Are we very different from Philip, having heard over and over the Great Commandments: Love God and love one another, having heard that God loved us so much that He gave His only begotten Son to pay our sin debt? Has it become a list of words arranged in a certain way that we acknowledge? Has our Christian life become filled with things we do because we should, like going to church or having our devotions or reading our Bible, because we should...or it has become our thoughtless habit?

I wonder how like Philip we have become - having heard it all, but not having allowed it to penetrate very deeply?

Jesus was a Person who lived, and walked, and talked, and grieved and got frustrated, but He finished well because He was motivated by a love we cannot understand. He cares only about what we do as a way of loving Him back, of the pages of Scripture we devour because we long to hear from Him, of the minutes we spend in prayer, because we long to be in His company, to talk to Him. He cares about our awareness that He is constantly showering us with His unconditional love for us, love that He demonstrated some two thousand years ago when He walked the steps to Golgotha for me, and for you.

Oh Holy Father, Holy Savior, I thank you for what you did for me, and what you do for me every minute of every day. I kneel at your feet in gratitude and peace and joy, and I thank you for one more Holy Week we call it, a time of reminding ourselves of the reality of your gift to us.

April 3, 2012 Looking Ahead

John 12:25-27 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and that where I am, there shall my servant be: if any man serve me him will my Father honor. Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.

I have settled into the book of John this Easter season, spending a couple of weeks at the end of John. Did you ever notice the difference between the way John ends his book, his gospel and the way Matthew, Mark and Luke do? John ends his with words about Jesus, his beloved friend. I think the others end theirs more impersonally, about Christ's words to them and about them.

Anyway, I decided this week, the Holy Week, as it is often called, I would go back to that week in John are reread the events as John recorded them. First I was surprised to notice that of the 21 chapters in the book, just under half of the chapters are about the final week.  It must have been so fresh in John's mind, still so powerful, that when he wrote his gospel although he had year's worth of events to write about, these events were most important.

Chapter 12 begins with the dating of the chapter - six days before the Passover. Six days before the crucifixion. It appears that Christ was crucified on the Passover, a fulfillment of what the Passover symbolized, the value of a blood sacrific to covwer sin, to redeem God's chosen people. But think about Him that day, waking up and knowing what was ahead. The parade, the palm leaves,   the knowledge of the shallowness and the brevity of that worship. He knew it all. He felt it all, just as we feel the pain of something ahead that we know will hurt.

As He says these words that John hears and records for us, Jesus knew experientially the truth of every phrase He uttered. He knew that loving His own life and well-being could cost not only His life, but our lives. I've been thinking a lot about how we mentor and disciple without any kind of formal relationship. How there are people all around us watching how we do it, so they can learn how to do, or perhaps not to do something. So Christ shows us here how to hate our lives, how to serve God rather than self.

But this morning, maybe three days before the anniversary of the crucifixion, I think about how Jesus was troubled. He knew all about the horrors soon to be visited upon Him for you and for me. And He wrestled with it, bringing to mind Hebrews 4: 15, But we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities; but which was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

And I am both comforted and challenged by His prayer here in John. He was tempted in a way I never will be, and He turned to the Father, and in honesty expressed His need. And then He went out and did it. So I need to pour out my heart in honesty, express all of my need, and then live life in absolute confidence that God will not allow me more than He and I can experience, yet without sin.