Category: Faith

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Faith

Sabbath Quiet: Longing For Rest

There is a place of quiet rest,  a place where sin cannot molest, near to the heart of God. ~Cleland McAfee

Sudeley Castle

The Pulley

When God at first made man, having a glass of blessing standing by; “Let us,” said he, “pour on him all we can; let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie, contract into a span.

So strength first made a way; then beauty flow’d, then wisdom, honor, pleasure. When almost all was out, God made a stay, perceiving that alone of all his treasure, REST in the bottom lay.

“For if I should,” said he, “bestow this jewel also on my creature, he would adore my gifts instead of me, and rest in Nature, not the God of Nature: so both should losers be.

“Yet let him keep the rest, but keep them with repining restlessness. Let him be rich and weary, that at least, if goodness lead him not, yet weariness may toss him to my breast.”

George Herbert (1593-1633) British pastor and poet

Photograph of Sudeley Castle, Cotswalds, by Deborah Windes

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I Gather Together: A Lesson From The Toy Box

For where two or three gather together in my name, there am I with them. ~Jesus Christ

lego bricks

Without intending to, the inventors of these colorful building blocks gave them a name from the Latin, LEGO, which can be translated I gather together.

Stud and Tube are the official names of the two sides of the LEGO brick. In my painful experience, LEGOS prefer to rest stud-side-up, prepared for the unsuspecting tread of my bare feet.

The classic LEGO has both sides. No pirate ship, spacecraft or model of Hogwarts Castle is possible without their fundamental capacity to join and be joined to; the willingness to offer and receive in return.

LEGO’s are not made for solitary existence and neither are we. But it is tempting to admire smooth-sided plastic, so supremely self-sufficient and above the messy drama of relationships. To be limited and lacking, and to be in relationship with others who are equally so, is never easy.

But in the end it is the studs and tubes, not the smooth, glossy sides, that make it possible for young engineers to follow the dog-eared directions.

Piecing it together

  • On a shelf in my garage boxes of abandoned pieces wait. Maybe they dream of clumsy fingers patiently clumping them into a beauty they can’t find on their own.
  • On the shelves of our world abandoned people wait. Maybe they dream of tender hearts with un-glossy sides gathering them into the together they can’t find on their own.

I gather together, one person to another. This is the holy calling for all who still follow the Divine Inventor’s dog-eared design.

Who in your world needs to be gathered into community? Have you experienced the joy of being something together you could not be on your own?

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Declaration of Dependence

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. ~John Donne

A Connecticut farmhouse with generous lawns. Potato sack races, a pick-up softball game. Tables groaning with homemade cakes and pies. And, for only a quarter, bottles of birch beer and orange soda could be pulled from the ice–enough to make any child’s heart dance.

Because it was a Sunday School picnic, a hymn-sing–my aunt’s feet fueling the pump organ, generations piled on top of each other in the shade of the trees. The youngest ones, worn out by the sun-drenched games, would miss the sparklers and glow worms that waited for night to fall.

These were my father’s people, many unknown to me, yet mysteriously my own. A web, an unbreakable connection, my roots.

Many years later, the Santa Cruz mountains.  Marching band and homegrown parade. Ice-cream sundaes, women chattering on blankets in the shade of the redwoods. Men shepherding face-painted children on the lawn.  A worship service in the grove, the centerpiece of Family Camp–a family tied together not by blood, but by the Spirit.

These are God’s people, many unknown to me, yet mysteriously my own. A web, an unbreakable connection, nourishment for my roots.

Declaration of Dependence

I would prefer independence. I have inherited the American love for wide open possibilities and pride of self-reliance. Asking for help comes with a cost, the loss of the illusion that I am my own.

For, illusion it is. Self-sufficiency was the serpent’s lie, and we swallow it anew in each generation.

So, this is my Declaration of Dependence: Across the divide of generations and geography, nations and natures, we need each other.

Do you find it difficult to rely on others? What would you add to the Declaration of Dependence?

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Sabbath Quiet: Why Prayer Matters to God

Seven days without prayer makes one weak. ~Allen E. Vartlett

sunflowers

What if God knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most?

What if the main object in God’s idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need–the need of Himself?

What if the good of all our smaller and lower needs lies in this, that they help to drive us to God?

Hunger may drive the runaway child home, and he may or not be fed at once, but he needs his mother more than his dinner.

Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other need; prayer is the beginning of that communion, and some need is the motive of that prayer.

Our wants are for the sake of our coming into communion with God, our eternal need.

We must ask that we may receive, but that we should receive what we ask in respect of our lower needs, is not God’s end in making us pray, for He could give us everything without that.

To bring His child to his knee, God withholds that man may ask.

George MacDonald Scottish pastor/poet (1824-1905)

Photograph by Melanie Hunt


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Change

Christ wants us to face reality as it is, including all the fears, hurts, resentments, and self-protective motives we work hard to keep out of sight, and to emerge as changed people. ~Larry Crabb

private sign

Scandinavian genes, New England upbringing, introverted by nature– privacy is fiercely defended territory in my DNA. Add to that a 15-year bout with legalism–the conscious attempt, by outward behavior, to become what I was not–I was in trouble.

When our energies and efforts are directed toward trying to prove we are better than we are, we embrace a lie, and slowly die.

  • We pretend to be better (I’m a good person!)
  • We pretend we are doing better…

…than the voice of longing and disappointment deep within would claim.

Church people are often the worst. Testimonies are given in the past tense–I once was lost, but now I’m fine, was blind, but now I’ve arrived. So, who is most likely to stay home on a Sunday morning? The empty, doubting and confused or the self-satisfied and full?  

When I wasn’t looking, Larry Crabb’s book, Inside Out, slipped right past my PRIVATE, THANKS sign. His words exposed the true motivation behind my pious efforts–to avoid facing my own inner mess.

Change begins when we face the truth:

This life will never be complete. We will never be what we wish we could be. We will hunger and thirst, long for and sigh, disappoint and be hurt as long as we are here. To face that truth is to begin to change.

Come, all you who are weary, who hunger and thirst for what you cannot name. Come, you doubters and sinners, you losers and quitters. Come, you hopeful and despairing, haters and lovers, complainers and grateful. Come to me, the Living Water. In me your thirsty souls will find relief. 

(Psalm 63:1  Isaiah 55:1-2  John 4: 13-14; 7:37-38  Revelation 22:17)

 

 

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Sabbath Quiet: Loved First

I miss my time with you. ~God

bench in the meadow

You have loved us first, O God, alas! We speak of it in terms of history as if You have only loved us first but a single time, rather than that without ceasing You have loved us first many times and every day and our whole life through.

When we wake up in the morning and turn our soul toward You–You are the first–You have loved us first; if I rise at dawn and at the same second turn my soul toward You in prayer, You are there ahead of me, You have loved me first.

When I withdraw from the distractions of the day and turn my soul toward You, You are the first and thus forever. And yet we always speak ungratefully as if You have loved us first only once.

Soren Kierkegaard, Danish Philosopher (1813-1855)

 

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First Things First

What is new is that we are set free from the compulsions of our world and have set our hearts on the only necessary thing. -Henri J.M. Nouwen

Business and worries are enemies of the spiritual life, but what are we to do? Jesus is a realist. He doesn’t demand that we drop our commitments and stop caring about our needs; but to change our center of gravity.

There is a deep truth at work: If we put first things first, the rest will fall into place.

When you find your mind reeling with fear for yourself or another, concentrate not on the what-if’s but on the what-are’s and seek first:

  • The one reign that matters
  • The one reason you were made
  • The one hope that cannot die
  • The one love that will not fail
  • The one joy outlasting the rest.

Make the kingdom of God your primary concern and the other things, that God already knows you need, will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33)

Could it be that simple? Do we dare loosen ourselves from the paralyzing grip of dread?

Worry Bowl

worry bowl

I am not by nature a worrier. But sometimes problems stack up, circling restlessly overhead, and I freeze. I am too small and inept to ensure a safe landing for the people I love.

So, I have a worry bowl. Folded inside are slips of paper, the names and needs I turn over with relief to the One, whose timing and wisdom are perfectly suited for the task.

When I empty the bowl on occasion, I am amazed at what I find.

What do you do to keep worry in its place? 

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Why Worry?

Worrying has become such a part and parcel of our daily life that a life without worries seems not only impossible, but even desirable. We have a suspicion that to be carefree is unrealistic and–worse–dangerous. ~Henri J.M. Nouwen

hummingbird

Worry is a kind of spiritual bulimia. Like its physical counterpart, worry disorders our lives and does violence to our well-being.

  • By forcing our thoughts to dwell on the what-if’s just around the bend,
  • we empty the present moment of its power and provision,
  • and reject our precious allotment of grace.

As a young adult, the pressure to possess, to perform, and to plan obsessively for any potential calamity became the air I breathed. One day I received a gift, Making All Things New: An Introduction to the Spiritual Life by Henri J.M. Nouwen, one of many books God has intentionally scattered on my path.

What are the enemies of the spiritual life, a life in which all things are made new? Nouwen begins with busyness and worry–the occupations and preoccupations that fill up our present and crowd out the future before we even arrive.

Hummingbird Rest

My eyes are drawn to the hummingbird feeder hanging just outside my window. From here I can watch the diving, sparring and sipping of these lively birds. On a rare day a brave little one, relaxed and unguarded, will still its beating wings and rest. As the bird leans forward to guzzle the sweet nectar, I hear the invitation, “This is what I long for from you. Stop fluttering, be still, drink deeply of me.”

But what does that mean for me, or for you, who live in such uncertain times? How do we move from a life of distraction and concern for what might come, to one of grateful feasting and renewal right where we are?

 

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Sabbath Quiet: Renew Me

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ~Paul, the Apostle

Old Barn

Lord Jesus Christ; Let me seek you by desiring you, and let me desire you by seeking you; let me find you by loving you, and love you in finding you.

I confess, Lord, with thanksgiving that you made me in your image, so that I can remember you, think of you, and love you.

But that image is so worn and blotted out by faults, and darkened by the smoke of sin, that it cannot do that for which it was made, unless you renew and refashion it.

Lord, I am not trying to make my way to your height, for my understanding is in no way equal to that, but I do desire to understand a little of your truth which my heart already believes and loves.

I do not seek to understand so that I can believe, but I believe so that I may understand; and what is more, I believe that unless I do believe, I shall not understand.

St. Anselm, 1033-1109, medieval theologian and philosopher

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Facing Fear

For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach. ~J.R.R Tolkien

storm clouds

What you fear, you will face.

 

  • Introverts will be asked to speak to the crowd.
  • Extroverts will find themselves suddenly alone.
  • The timid will be appointed to lead the charge.
  • The arrogant will have power pried from their grasp

Have you seen this to be true? And when you face the very enemy you most dread, a circumstance that the person next to you would slip through with ease, do you chalk it up to the finger of sadistic fate, or to a Divine Artist’s careful design?

A prayer, a dance

In Elizabeth Goudge’s  The Scent of Water, a vicar offers a life-giving prayer to a young girl in crisis, There are three necessary prayers and they have three words each. They are these,

  • Lord have mercy.
  • Thee I adore.
  • Into Thy hands.

A cry for help. A sigh of gratitude. A costly surrender.

Trust, remember, yield. Turn, look up, let go.

A trinitarian dance for this life–the cadence and choreography to lead us through even what we dread most. But someday we will need only the middle prayer. In both meanings of the word we will adore God (verb) and adore God (feeling). We will realize that with every cry he drew near, and our every act of obedience was carefully poured, like precious oil, over the rusted, broken pieces of our efforts.

And we will fear no more.

Are you facing what you most feared? What are you learning in the midst of the storm?

 

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