September 28, 2012 Thoughts about burden-bearing!

Matt. 23:37  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the propets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not.

Luke 19:41 And when he was come near, he beheld the city and wept over it.

I have been studying the prayers of Jesus, and I encourage you to take a look at them as well.  You can find a good study guide at http://www.askpastor.org/prayers.html

As I read the verses above, I was impressed with the  idea that I have my own Jerusalem - this campus here at BBC, and with the idea that I have always said that this was my calling, as much as it was to go to Africa years ago.  With all my heart, I believed God had appointed us to the ministry at BBC.

Anyway, as I was thinking through all of this, I felt the weight of the burdens people at BBC are carrying: family loss, impending family loss, the burden of caring for parents, the burdens students are carrying from parental struggles with cancer, suicide of family or friends, physical needs, family and friends who do not know or embrace Christ, and a myriad of other burdens. 

This last week a couple of students came to me about starting a support group for abused women.  Can you imagine that?  Having experienced sexual abuse of some kind, and trying to look normal and be a college woman with that hovering around the edges of every day?  One student told me she cried when she found the other woman who shared that in her past and how comforting it was to know she was not alone.

I guess today my heart is just very heavy, feeling the pain of my students and colleagues.  And I think that is the way it should be; it is pretty hard to minister genuinely if you never enter into the suffering of others.  The challenge is to not allow their suffering to overwhelm and discourage you. 

Jesus wept, but he talked to the Father and he kept at it - getting up a great while before day to spend time in God's presence without distractions, and from that place, doing great things.

September 14, 2012 On Listening to God

John 10:3 To him the porter opens: and the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out

I used to get so frustrated with these words, "Just read your Bible and pray." Those words were somehow supposed to be the solution to every problem, the prescription for spiritual growth, and the recipe for devotions.

But it didn't work! I came to understand that these words as advice for building a relationship with God were a lot like telling a young woman that all she had to do to develop a relationship with her husband was read his old letters and talk to him. That wouldn't work either. A relationship, by definition, requires two people to share, to communicate meaningfully, a listening and replying with the other's values in mind.

So when I think about having a relationship with God, there has to be some listening on my part as well as the listening I assume He is doing in response to my prayers. The problem is we don't do all that much paying attention to what He might be trying to say to us.

James Martin says the "Emotions are a key way that God speaks in prayer. You might be praying about a favorite Bible passage, and suddenly you feel happiness over being closer to God, or anger over how Jesus or the prophets were mistreated, or sorrow over the plight of the poor. God may be speaking to you through the emotions...These invitations to listen can be easily overlooked because they are often fleeting. If we're not careful, we'll miss them."

As I read this, I thought about how little time I give to paying attention to what is happening when I pray. Too often, I think we go to prayer with our list in mind, and then we sort of pay attention to other things God brings to mind.  However, I am not sure that we are listening or paying attention to how He might be guiding our response to our prayers or anticipating His desire to guide us in life.

I am not sure we even expect to feel all that much when we pray. Oh, certainly we feel when we pray out of desperation we are feeling and hoping for something, but how many of our prayers are uttered out of desperation. Even then, in our desperation, do we listen for God to respond?...or do we just feel better because we have gotten our pain off our chest?

I guess I am concerned about how real we are when we pray - we expect to feel something when we talk to a human. I expect to feel loved when my husband listens to me and responds with caring gestures and words. I want that, and I look for or anticipate it. I expect to feel grief and loss when I talk to someone about a death in their family or friend circle. I am just not sure that we go to prayer anticipating that we might recognize God's communication to us, and feel something. And as I feel affection for my husband when he listens carefully to me, I want to love him back in some way meaningful to him to show him my appreciation. Do we return God's love that way?

Well, now I am rambling, but this is what I have been thinking about.

September 12, 2012 Because He Loves You

I John 3:1 Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God, therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not. KJV

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ESV

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. NIV

What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it - we're called children of God! That's who we really are. But that's also why the world doesn't recognize us or take us seriously, because it has no idea who he is or what he's up to. The Message

I love it how things come together when you are loving God back. I am leading a Bible study on prayer here at the college...and as I think about prayer, I think of it as one part of any relationship - communication. When you love a human, you want to hang around them and with them and you sure do want to communicate with them - in lots of ways. And since God loves us and desires our love - that means a lot of communication should be taking place.  So all of that has been perking around in my mind.

Then, I am always on the look out for resources, books and articles, that will be helpful in my own spiritual journey. Some time ago I came across The Jesuit Guide to (almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life. I have to say it was the last few words that caught my attention, and as I stood there in the store browsing through the book, I found more and more in it that spoke to my desire for another voice in my growth. Not that the Bible was not enough, nor the dozens of believers that surround me at work every day, but I'm always open to more somehow.

Please don't stop reading, just because it is a Jesuit guide. I believe that God does give us discernment, so I read and process in light of what I know the Bible says. And this book, read slowly and not straight through, has been a blessing in my life, especially right now as I have been studying prayer.

Let me share a few things that caught my attention this week. In the chapter on Friendship with God, the writer speaks to ways God responds to or communicates with us. I am going to list them because it is way too much to tackle in depth today. He suggests that emotions are a way that God speaks in prayer. Insights and memories that float to the surface during prayer are also tools God uses. Feelings, both emotional and physical are also ways that God communicates with us. As we pray, God responds and in that stillness, I do believe God's Spirit moves...

I will talk more about this another day, but I wonder what you think.

Aug. 31, 2012 How Awesome is That?

II Cor. 4:17-18 Our present troubles are quite small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever! So we don't look at troubles we can see right now; rather, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever.

In light of eternity, our present troubles are indeed small and of short duration, and we have to do the work of reminding ourselves of that reality.Sometimes that is not as easy as other times.  Yet, the brevity of that time of challenge and pain bears fruit that lasts forever - an immeasurably great glory and joys that will last for eternity.

I cannot tell you how many times I have read this passage, almost flippantly, to get to the rest of the story, but this morning, these few words caused me to stop in my tracks at this astonishing truth. My challenges, trusted to me by God, somehow, in ways my mind is too small to grasp, they produce glory and joy - and if I don't see it now, I will understand it later.

It's funny how you can look at someone else, like Joni Erickson Tada, and say that you can see how that is true. Paralyzed, living her life in a wheel chair, yet serving God by writing and speaking, Tada has glorified God in the present and certainly deserves a glory and joy-filled life in eternity. But it is much harder to conceive of that for us.

I am so grateful that God is not in the comparison business. He has sifted the challenges we face, allowing only those into our lives that we and He together can endure in a way that honors Him. It may be as little as conquering a temptation to sexual sinful thoughts or as great a trust as living with chronic pain or in a prison cell for your faith. But, those challenges, those trials are temporary, a few years, and God uses them, like rain on thirsty ground, to produce the fruit of glory and joy.

I am sure I still don't grasp it all. but what a thrill just to think about this reality, this hope.

August 28, 2012 And why should I be discouraged?

Psalm 42: 1-3 and 11  As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you O God.  I thirst for God, the living God.  When can I come and stand before him?  Day and night I have only tears for my food while my enemies continually taunt me saying, "Where is this God of yours?..."  Why am I discouraged?  Why so sad?  I will put my hope in God!  I will praise him again - my Savior and my God.

As I was reading this, it suddenly made a new kind of sense.  How foolish to be discouraged, to be sad because you have given power over you emotions to anyone other than God!  I am not speaking of the sadness that comes from losing someone you love - it is reasonable to feel sad from time to time when you lose a loved one.

It struck me that it is unreasonable to be discouraged when we have God on our side.  When, as someone who has put their faith in God, in Christ as the One who gave His life so we might have life, and as someone who believes the Spirit of God dwells within us, why on earth should we be discouraged?  God has said He loves us. He has promised never to allow us to be tempted above what we can endure or pass through because we do not do it alone.  He has filtered everything that comes our way, and we can do it...because as our loving parent, our loving heavenly Father, He only allows into our lives that which is for our good and for His glory.Think about it...our failure does not bring much glory to Him.

Anyway it just struck me this morning, that it is unreasonable for us, as children of God, to yield to discouragement.  We have to get our eyes back on the God who loves us.

Another thought, and a short one, but important I think....could we say that, "I long for God in the same way that a thirsty deer, perhaps one fleeing human presence, does?  I fear we take God too much for granted, pulling Him out when we need Him.  Anyway thoughts that challenged me this morning.

And my apologies for anyone who might have been wondering what happened to me.  I confess these last couple of weeks, getting ready for the students to arrive, and a couple of other distractions have kept me from writing here....not from engaging with God's Word.

August 10, 2012 Ready to go?

Psalm 31:5  I entrust my spirit into your hand.

I read this passage yesterday morning, and today I learned that a dear friend, Darlene Baker, has entered into the presence of God.  Certainly Darlene had many years ago entrusted her spirit into God's hand .  These past several years, she has lived gracefully with this ugly disease, ALS, a disease that every day robbed her of more of her ability to function. But she continued to be faithful to God, to trust in His goodness when others may have faltered in their faith.

I have not written much in my blog this summer because I have poured most extra moments into a book I was commissioned to write, taking the journal of a woman who had cancer and turning it into something others could benefit from.  Like Darlene, Sandi said, "Not my will but thine," and "To God be the glory." 

These two women have shown me afresh not just what it looks like to die, but to live.  Both women suffered intensely, physically and mentally.  Think about what it is like to find your body failing you and having to live at the mercy and good will and patience of others - to feel like you must depend on those you longed to serve. Both of these women loved God first, then their husbands and family, and then us...and both would rejoice that even in death they could reflect glory to God.

So today, I am grateful to have known Darlene personally and to have come to know Sandi as I typed her journals and as I talk to those who did know her personally.  And I pray, that I might similarly live and die for the glory of God.

Aug. 3, 2012 Making It Up To God, or Doing Penance

Mark 1:15 Repent and reform your lives.

I have been reading Souvenirs of Solitude by Brennan Manning before I go to sleep and came cross this thought-provoking, at least to me, chapter on penance. My first impulse was to turn on the discernment antennae, and honestly I must admit, read on with prejudice. My understanding, albeit subjective and faulty, was that Catholics confess their sins to the priest to be forgiven and to get rid of the penalty. The priest told them to say three Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers, and they were good to go. At least that is what my television viewing taught me.

Then I came across this paragraph, and I will probably copy most of it here: Evangelical penance has a twofold purpose: to overcome the disorder and disharmony in our lives and to deepen our relationship with Christ. It should be both corrective and productive. A dialogue at Wernersville, Pennsylvania, with Father George Schemel, S.J., on the subject "What is a suitable way to do penance?" was enlightening. A suitable approach to penance depends on how the spirit has been wounded. How have I grieved the spirit within me? How have I wounded myself? How have I burdened or damaged the vital, animating force in my life? Obviously the most suitable way to do penance is to do that which revivifies the spirit within me Rather like letting the punishment fit the crime.

Manning goes on to ask "How has the spirit been deadened?...We are talking about the person here.

Ok, here's what came to me: my sin does separate my from the Father, from the Spirit of God - it damages my relationship with the Father in a way similar to what happens when one of my children might have sinned or offended me. The communication between us then is flawed, unnatural and shallow until the offence is cared for.

So penance is probably an unfamiliar and perhaps scary word to us, whatever you want to call us: evangelicals, Protestants, conservatives, fundamentalists, or Baptists even. Take your pick. We hear the word, tie it to Catholicism and dismiss it.

But I have come to like it - a way to name the process where I clear the air between God and me. I examine what I did, admit it and think through why I would choose to offend the One Who loves me and paid my sin debt. Remember, this is not about getting a sin paid for, but about repairing a violated relationship.

Then, I apologize to God for grieving Him, and I ask for His help in identifying what I allowed into my life or bumped into in the course of my life that made that particular sin reasonable, at least at the time. And with His help, I make a plan not to go there again. To that place, whether mental or physical, where the temptation might occur or where I am weakened by whatever, wherever that option of choosing self over God is reasonable.

I love this line: the most suitable way to do penance is to do that which revivifies the spirit within me. I have, with my sin, shut down the Spirit of God. I have hardened my heart to His voice, and now I must revivify it, or make it alive again. In reality, it never died, but I died to it, and now I must do whatever it takes to make myself alive again to the voice of God.

Well, this is much longer than I wanted it to be. I wrote a version yesterday and lost it, so I have to believe God wanted me to work through it once more...and here it is.