Search Results

Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash OUR SUNDAY RESPONSE – THE PATH TO MEEKNESS Usually when I pray in the morning, I sit in my chair just inside the double glass doors that look out on the patio, Sandy's garden, and the woods beyond the fence. But this morning I went outside to actually sit on the patio while reading and praying. It was still cool and there was a pleasant breeze, the birds were singing (I read this morning that yesterday was the largest bird migration in our area for several years – you could really tell!). I say all this because my position in prayer only changed by about 11 feet (that's right, I measured it!), but that short distance changed everything. I normally look out back at everything "out there" while I read and pray. But this morning I was actually in the "out there." It's a super-small difference, but it changed my whole perspective on both the outdoors and on my reading and praying. This is really the heart of what I mentioned at the end of our worship service yesterday morning. If you weren't there, I said that we normally have a response time after the message (and wasn't Pastor Phil's message powerful yesterday?), but that this week our response time was going to extend into the entire following week. Our response to the message this week is to put ourselves in a position to let go of our fear, anger, anxiety, self-pity – whatever "gets our back up" in the course of daily life – and to lean into God. We don't do this very well or very consistently, do we? So our response to the message this week is to practice doing just those two simple things: letting go of what triggers us, and leaning into God – no other agenda, just setting down whatever we're carrying, and giving God permission to work on our wounded and weary hearts and souls. What if we could get better at not so much trying harder to be a good Christ-follower, or finding a new self-help trick to help us get over our obstacles to Christlikeness, or developing a more effective plan for spiritual growth? What if we could just relax and trust God and commit ourselves to him, and let him be the one to bring change and growth, healing and maturity? (See Psalm 37!) Friends, I'm not kidding when I say I believe that this is the entire "secret" to vibrant Christian living. Seriously! By faith, Christ lives in us, and when we trust him, when we make room for him, when we watch for and listen to him speaking to and guiding us, he will do as he promised! I believe the same thing Paul said to the Christians in Philippi is true for you and me: "There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears" (Phil. 1:6, Message). It's God's work to do, not ours! (Granted, we do have a part to play in this amazing lifelong process, but our part is mostly just getting out of God's way and positioning ourselves in such a way that he can get at us! And that's what God drove home for me on the patio this morning – a little change of position, a little shift in perspective, can do everything necessary to open the door to God's life-giving, joy-filled Presence in us and for us. So I don't expect all of you to respond to Pastor Phil's message by coming over to our house tomorrow to sit on our patio! The secret isn't the patio or the birds or the woods, the secret is the presence of Jesus himself. Here's what I do want you to do: Find just two minutes in your day every day this week. Make it a quiet place –indoors or outdoors – where you can be relatively sure of no interruptions. And then – remember, no agenda! – maybe set a timer on your phone for two minutes so you don't have to wonder whether your time's up yet. (It seems kind of silly, doesn't it? Just remember that the point of the timer isn't to help you keep track of the time, it's to help you stop thinking about the time!) And then just open your hands and offer yourself as entirely to God as you can, saying one or more of the following: "Be it done to me according to Your word." "Into Thy hands, Jesus." "Let Your kingdom come, let Your will be done." "Here I am, Lord." That's it. You can even do this more than once a day if you have the chance! And wouldn't it be wonderful if one day we could manage to carry this attitude or posture with us through every moment of every day, so that two minutes without a sense of him would be the shocker? I believe with all my heart that God longs for you to invite Him into your heart and life this way. And I also believe that making this a regular part of your daily life will change your life in ways you cannot even imagine. The key is your invitation to Him, your consent, your permission. You're not telling God what you want Him to do, you'll just be inviting Him to come in and do whatever He wants! You don't have to figure out first what He wants to do in you and then ask for it. The burden isn't on you to figure it out, the burden is on Him to finish the work He has already started! What a wonderful adventure we're about to embark upon! Be encouraged, friend, for God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who spoke all worlds into being, is both with you and for you.

Photo by Ralph Felzer GOOD SOIL → GOOD FRUIT You should lay the groundwork for this piece by taking a few moments to read The Parable of the Soils in Mark 4:2-20.  Go ahead, I'll wait! Ah, welcome back! I love pictures like the one above because they speak of possibility and hope.  We are at the front end of something big and unknown, a season of plowing and sowing and harvesting complete with all sorts of weather.  But the promise of growth and fruit is right there in front of us.  This scene reminds me, too, of the story you just read, The Parable of the Sower (although I prefer to call it The Parable of the Soils).   Most people talking about this parable will focus on the enemy who steals the seed, the trouble and persecution that starve it, the cares of the world and other worries that choke it off.  But I want to take a different tack today.  I want to look more closely at the soil  into which the seed is planted.  In all those examples I mentioned a moment ago, there is nothing at all wrong with the seed , the difference lies in the soil in which the seed is planted. This land in the picture above is WAITING for a plow, it's READY to be sown.  In order for it to become what it one day needs to become, it first needs a plow.  What I want to focus on this morning is:  Are YOU ready to be plowed up and sown?  And how do we go about GETTING ready in the first place? In order to answer these questions, let's back up and go to three other passages that may be helpful.  Then we'll come back to the Parable of the Soils. At the end of Psalm 95, David says that we are "people whose hearts go astray" (v. 10).  While this may sound  discouraging, this is a crucial point for us!  Once we acknowledge this, our way forward is wide open, but if we deny it, we won't be able to go anywhere spiritually.   David begins by crying out, "O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the God of our salvation!  Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving!  Give glory to Him, praise His name!"  And then he says, "O that today you would listen to His voice!" rather than being stubborn like your ancestors before you.  THEY cried out to Moses, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt to this desolate wilderness?!"  In other words, why did you break up our old familiar life, our old familiar SOIL?"  (See the connection to our parable in Mark 4?)  Having the "soil of your heart" dug up can be pretty uncomfortable!  But the Israelites had come out of slavery , for goodness sake!  We are a people who crave the familiar, who shun the strange and the unusual, so when God shows up to till up the soil of our hearts, if we're honest with ourselves, we often find ourselves reluctant, afraid, resistant.   David is saying that we have a chance to break the cycle of rebellion and brokenness that our forefathers established.  And the key to breaking that cycle is two-fold:  PRAISE & THANKSGIVING on the one hand, and LISTENING TO THE VOICE OF GOD on the other.  When we practice these habits, the soil of our hearts gets a little readier, a little softer, a little more receptive to the seed God wants to plant in us. The next passage I want to look at is Romans 5:1-8, 10: Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us…. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.  When we substitute a listening heart for the stubbornness of our forefathers, we learn that our hearts have gone astray, that we are broken people living in a broken world.  We don't have the luxury of starting from scratch–every single one of us was born into a world that was already broken and filled with suffering.  Paul now suggests that we relinquish our sufferings, hand them over, in fact, he says we should BOAST over them because they produce ENDURANCE in us, and in turn that endurance produces CHARACTER, and that character proceeds to produce HOPE.  And Hope does not disappoint, it won't let us down , because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit–poured onto our hearts like RAIN ON A NEWLY PLOWED, A NEWLY SOWN FIELD.  (Do you see?  Here's the parable once again!) Paul reminds us, just as David said, that we are sinners prone to wander, God's enemies, not the slightest bit less stubborn than our forefathers in the wilderness were with Moses. What's more, Paul says that WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS, Christ died for us!  He didn't wait for us to get it right or clean up our act, He didn't even wait for us to be sorry, or to repent!  What an AMAZING God!  This is the kind of love we have never seen or experienced from anyone else and so it is easy to think it's just pie-in-the-sky, too good to be true.  In fact, it's a gift most of us would shrink from not only because it seems too good to be true, but precisely because we agree with Him!  We DON'T deserve love like this!  It makes us uncomfortable to be loved like this; it confers a kind of obligation on us.  For example, many years ago, I got myself into trouble and bought a house I couldn't pay for.  I needed a co-signer before anyone would give me a loan.  My parents wanted to help out, but they didn't have the money.  Well, a friend of mine stepped up and volunteered to sign on the dotted line.  I can't tell you how grateful I was!  I literally couldn't express the depth of my gratitude.  All the same, something more than words was called for, something else, something more–what I call "the etiquette of grace."  A life  of gratitude, not just words.  A grateful heart , a readiness, an openness, and a willingness to dedicate myself to a life  that says loudly and clearly, "Thank You."   We don't like owing people.  Even if all that's called for is gratitude, we get squirrely in the face of any debt we cannot repay.  And Jesus has done this incredible, miraculous, unwanted, unasked for thing in dying for us–before it ever even occurred to us to ask for it–or even recognize that we needed it!  But we have to ask the question:  How am I supposed to respond to love like this?  Once my eyes have been opened to the price He paid to settle my debt, how am I to live a life of sufficient gratitude? The last passage to help us in our discussion this morning is the familiar story of the woman at the well in John 4.  Now, I don't want to look at the whole passage, but just one small part of it.  Jesus makes a promise to this woman:  "Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water'" (Jn. 4:13-15).   Notice what Jesus does with the woman–He breaks her heart, just like the soil of the field is plowed up, in order to sow the seed of hope and life.  He reveals that He knows the hard facts of her life (that she's been married five times and is now living with a man she isn't married to), and she is broken ("Come, see a man who told me everything I have ever done!").  Being truly seen and known has broken her heart, but has also given her life, has watered her heart with living water!  She runs to tell all the people in the village, who come and see and hear Jesus for themselves.  And what's the result?  They say to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."   What we see here is the fulfillment of the Parable of the Soils–we see right before our eyes people's hearts becoming good, rich, fertile soil (that is, READY soil!), hearts that "hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty, and a hundredfold" (Mk. 4:20). So in all these passages we have gained light with which to come to grips with the Parable of the Sower.  Looking aside to these other passages has helped us see the parable more clearly, just as we enjoy the hope and brilliance of a sunny spring day without ever looking directly at the sun. When it comes to having the soil of our hearts broken up, it's helpful to know that Jesus never asks anything of us that He hasn't already taken on Himself.  Psalm 129:3 prophesies:  "The plowers plowed upon my back so that it looked like a freshly plowed field" (Ps. 129:3).  The writer to the Hebrews says that Jesus "learned obedience from the things He suffered" (Heb. 5:8).  In a wonderful paradox, we see that at the very same time, Jesus is both THE PLOWED UPON and THE PLOW.   Remember John 15?  Jesus is the vine, and He is in the business of making fruit.  He knows the process.  He knows the cost.  He sows, He plants, He prunes, He tends.  Our business is to stay with Him, to abide in Him, to let Him be about His business, to make room for Him to get at us.   One of the key themes in Lent is "Rend your hearts and not your garments."  Jesus came and died in order that our hearts would be rent, that our hearts would be broken up.  It's all for our good, mind you, but it's not always pleasant.  On the other hand, it's not always pain and suffering either!  I would imagine it's rather unpleasant for the soil to be plowed up in the Spring, but I would also imagine that the soil takes great delight in being sown, in being rained upon, and basking in the warmth of the sun.  There's a whole lot more to revel in than to shrink from!  Praise and thanksgiving and gratitude break up the soil of our hearts and make it fertile, but they're not unpleasant! The bottom line:  It isn't our job to bear good fruit, it's to be good soil. If the seed of the word of God is to fall on rich, fertile soil in our own hearts, our hearts are going to need to be characterized by: Praise and thanksgiving, not as a habit so much as a lifestyle A listening posture before the Lord, attuned to His voice, willing to follow where He leads An awareness of our great debt that leads to humility and gratitude–the etiquette of grace A willingness, even an eagerness, to tell our story, so that the seed of the Word can propagate all around us, just as it did to the woman's townspeople. "Lord Jesus, give us the grace to SEE the blessings You've showered upon us like rain and then to give abundant praise and thanksgiving for those blessings.  Teach us to be quiet before You, to listen for Your healing voice, Your affirming voice.  Show us Christ crucified, and show us the great debt we owe, that we are no longer our own but have been bought with a price.  And grant us both the opportunity AND the willingness to simply share our story with any who will hear.  In all this, Lord, we pray that You will make us good, rich and  fertile soil in order that we may bear fruit for You and bring great glory to Your holy name.  And in that name, Jesus, we pray.  Amen." Be encouraged, friend, for God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who spoke all worlds into being, is both with you and for you.

Image by Frederik Lower on Unsplash LEAVING ROOM FOR GOD "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room  for the wrath of God, for it is written,  'Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.'" (Romans 12:19, emphasis mine) Don't go getting out ahead of me now, I'm not actually going to be talking about not getting revenge or getting back at people, or "avenging yourselves"!  We're going to keep things pretty simple and straightforward today. I happened to be reading Romans 12 the other day, and when my eye fell on this passage I suddenly found myself focusing not so much on the idea of "not avenging yourselves," but on "leaving room for God."  Not even the wrath of God, but just, quite simply … God. Isn't it amazing how often we just start out on our way without really giving a thought to God?  I've been struck lately by how often we just go out and start living as we please and expecting God to bless us and walk with us.  It's not like we're doing anything blatantly wrong or sinful, it's just that maybe it would be better for us to make room for God first , and then  go about our business. How often we find ourselves getting out ahead of God!  How often we set out with our own agenda on well, anything, and expect God to bless us.  We believe in Jesus, so we just expect that as long as we're not doing anything explicitly sinful, He'll follow along and bless our ways.  Phil quoted someone recently as saying, "Jesus wants us to follow Him.  He doesn't want us to ask Him to come along with us."  Wow!   Maybe a better place for us to start would be not so much leaving room for God, but making room for God.  A few years ago, I moved most of my dad's tools into our garage.  Now, our garage is probably not much different than yours.  The first thing I had to do was clear out all the old clutter and trash and put into order all the various things we needed to leave in there.  Once that was done, I could paint the workbench (which had been buried beneath a lot of that clutter) and then put up a pegboard that would allow me to hang most of the tools, and then stock the shelves underneath the bench with the storage drawers filled with nuts, bolts, screws and other odds and ends.   I needed to make room for the tools before they actually had a space of their own. The best way to leave room  is to carve it out ahead of time, to safeguard that space from being encroached upon by randomly accumulating clutter.  Our life with God is no different. I remember reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People  many years ago.  Stephen Covey used to do an exercise  with big rocks and an empty jar .  He fills a large jar with gravel that represents all the many things that tend to fill our day.  Then he has a member of the audience try to add her high priority commitments, such as church life, relationships, family, career, planning, vacation, etc.  This proves immensely frustrating for her until she realizes that the only way to make room  for the big rocks/priorities is to clear out the smaller things first.  The moral of the story is that you have to put your big rocks into your life first.  Otherwise, they will only get crowded out by smaller, lesser things–not necessarily unimportant things, just less important things. If you think back to my garage organization project, consider that most of us don't even have room for a car in our garage!  Now that's a big rock!  I suppose you could just open the door and hit the gas, crashing into the space and breaking things and making a huge mess.  Sure, in the end you might manage to get the car in, but you've paid a huge price in order to do it! There are two solutions to this problem that we've already talked about.  First, we can clear away all the clutter, throwing out the junk and re-organizing the things we really, truly want to keep–we can make room .  Second, we can live in such a way that we leave room  by keeping the space orderly, or at least spending time every week or so making sure we put things back where they belong.  As I learned many years ago (and still need to re-learn from time to time!):  It's easier to keep up than it is to catch up. Now, you might have noticed that there will be seasons in which you need to make room  in some part of your life, and there may be other seasons in which you need to leave room.   That's normal for everyone, of course, but let me say that life will go much easier for you if you leave room for God than if you find yourself again and again needing to make room for God.  This is why devotional time is so critically important.  I know very well from years teaching high school students and Lifechange classes–and just from my own day-to-day living and relating to people–that not everyone is a morning person.  My broad experience from talking to people from all ages and all walks of life–not my own morning-person-preference!–shows that spending time with God in the morning, whatever that looks like for you, is the best way to leave room for Jesus–the ultimate Big Rock!  As our former pastor, Larry Evans used to say, "We leak."  If we begin the day filled only with caffeine and/or endorphins we're already starting with a mostly drained tank.  Every day is a large, empty jar to be filled with commitments and responsibilities, and the best way to consistently walk with Jesus is to take His hand in the morning and abide with Him through the day rather than trying to catch up  and invite Him to bless all the things you did without Him for the last 16 hours!   Remember Phil's friend:  "Jesus wants us to follow Him.  He doesn't want us to ask Him to come along with us."  When we begin our day listening to Jesus and inviting Him to lead us through the course of the day, or praying like Mary, " Be it done to me  according to Your will," don't you think your day will go better, whether you're a morning person or a night person?  I'm not suggesting you take  a single thing out of your life.  I'm only suggesting you put Jesus in first. The last thing I want anybody to do is pile themselves beneath an immense load of guilt.  What I do want, though, is for you to take stock, to take an honest look at your normal, day-to-day life and consider ahead of time how to get your Jesus Rock into your life first before He gets crowded out by the clutter that every day holds. Please–please!–let me know how this goes for you!  I would love nothing more than to talk with you, pray with you, maybe sit down over breakfast or a cup of coffee and help you brainstorm ways to make sure your Jesus Rock has the place in your life He wants to have.  Remember, it's not about guilt it's about grace and peace, freedom and life in Christ! Be encouraged, friend, for God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who spoke all worlds into being, is both with you and for you.

Photo Credit: Ralph Felzer WHAT SHALL I RETURN TO THE LORD? Do me a little favor as we get started, would you?  Take just a minute and consider how good God has been to you.  Not just that He's been good to you, but the delightful, precious gifts–however big or small they may be–that you are grateful for.  Go ahead, I'll be here when you get back! …. Ah, there you are!  Surprising, isn't it, just how much there is?  And it's not all sweetness and roses either, is it?  And yet, we still find that God finds ways to use even the difficult things, even the painful things, to bless us.  In fact, you might very well be in one of those tight spots right now.  So consider God's track record, not just with you, but all down through the years!  Decade after decade.  Century after century.  Millenium after millenium!  God is in the business of taking all the stuff of this life here "under the sun" and using it to make something beautiful, to shape, form, and bless His people.  You can count on that.  You can "take that to the bank," as my dad used to say. In fact, it occurs to me that God is always looking for ways to bless us!  And though sometimes He does so without any advanced notice, just dropping some delightful morsel in our laps, more often than not He doesn't intrude upon us.  He doesn't barge in.  He doesn't slide down the chimney and leave presents under our tree.  No, God is a gentleman. But He's a gentleman, not a butler.  And that makes Him a little difficult to figure out at times because He doesn't always jump to our aid in quite the way we expect.  If you're at all like me (and I suspect you are!) that's often pretty tough to handle. I was thinking about this the other day as I was spending my few minutes with the Lord in the morning–remember those two minutes we've been taking at Sunday morning worship from time to time lately?  I do about five minutes most mornings, and what I really, really like about that time is the "no agenda" part.  I just love opening my hands and quietly saying to Him, "Be it done to me according to Your word," or "Into Thy hands," or "I give You permission to do whatever You like in me and with me."   It hasn't always been easy for me to pray this openly and vulnerably.  It took me years–and years–after I had cancer to pray that openly, to invite God to do whatever He wanted to with me.  I'm not proud of it.  It was a great weakness in me, and I was terribly fearful for a long time, but it was what it was, and God didn't turn His face away.  I just wound up limiting His access to my heart and life, and that likely hurt me more than it did Him. But I do pray that way now, almost every morning.  I don't usually ask for anything .   Instead, I just give Him permission–access–to my heart and mind.  And over the last several months I wouldn't say that I have a truckload of answered prayer (because I haven't really been asking for anything specific–although I do ask, I just don't ask during that part of my time with Him).  What I have found is an intimacy with God, a relationship with Him in which He opens the Scriptures in new ways, lays ideas on my heart or in my mind (which I write down and then just go back to quietly offering myself), or just a sense of beauty and stillness and ... presence.  And the really cool thing is how all of that shapes me!  I am becoming a different man.  I am becoming increasingly calm and joyful and trusting of Him.  And I can't tell you how grateful I am for that! And that leads me to the main thing I want to share with you today.  I find myself these days wanting to find a way to make a return to the Lord for all His goodness to me.  Remember those things you gave thanks for a minute or two ago?  What if, together, we thoughtfully considered how we might make a free thanksgiving offering to the Lord? I was thinking earlier about how we might do this.  I considered David's thoughts in Psalm 116:  "What shall I return to the Lord for all His bounty toward me?  I will offer to You a thanksgiving sacrifice and call on the name of the Lord" (vv. 12, 17).  And the other day I found this while reading Psalm 76, "But You indeed are awesome!  Make vows to the Lord your God, and perform them; let all who are around Him bring gifts to the One who is awesome!" (vv. 7a, 11).   I don't know how exactly I'm going to do this or what my offering will be, but it will be a freewill offering, something I do for God just because I love Him and He's been good to me.  I sense that He wants me to do this, but whatever I do will be  entirely up to me!   Even though I haven't done it yet (or even decided what to do!) I'm excited to do it.  I'm getting excited to do something for Him in the same way I used to get excited to give my mom or my dad a gift for their birthday or at Christmas time (especially when I was little and they didn't expect anything from me!). What could you do?  And let me encourage you here too–keep it a secret, just between you and God!  Yeah, I know, I already told you I'm doing something–but I didn't tell you what I'm going to do! I'll leave it up to you to sort out what you'd like to do, but let me just offer you a word of encouragement as you consider your response: Do not fret about what God wants you to do!  Sometimes we get so caught up in being obedient that we lose our simple, joyful, childlike desire to please God.  I was telling someone the other day that I think we get obedience all wrong much of the time.  It's as if God said to us, "What are you doing inside on such a glorious day!  Go outside and play!"  And then we wrinkle our brow and start to worry and wring our hands:  "What does He mean by 'play'?  Can I ride my bike?  Am I allowed to go across the street?  Can I do it on my own or do I have to ask somebody to come play with me?"  Oh my gosh!  We get so caught up in trying to figure out "What's the right thing to do?" or "Is it okay to do this?" or "Is this the wrong way to do this?" You know how you love to give good gifts to your husband, wife, children or anyone else you love? Not for any reason at all, but just because.... Let's do that! Let's surprise God with a free gift of love and gratitude! (I know, can we really surprise God? Well, let's try, we can at least make a game of it!) What I love about this "exercise" (for lack of a better word) is that this is entirely a freewill offering on our part, something we're doing for God just because we love Him and He's been so, so good to us.  How might our devotion to God, our love for Him, our excitement to serve Him and others be transformed by doing something as simple as finding a way to say, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!  You are awesome!  You have been so good to me, even in the hard times!" I hope that one day soon we can find a way to share with one another what new roads into joy and intimacy with God have opened up in us simply because we've learned to be grateful. Be encouraged, friend, for God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who spoke all worlds into being, is both with you and for you.

Photo by Ralph Felzer THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS Have you ever wrestled with the thought that you're just not doing enough?  Or that all the things you spend your days on just don't ever seem to add up to very much?  Or that you'll never really change the world or even the lives of those you spend your days with in any significant, meaningful sort of way?  If that's you, I want to encourage you today! If you know Mary Brack very well you know that every January she chooses a word to be the focus of the year ahead.  Some of her words in previous years have been: Fruit, Be, Rest, Sacred.  (I'd like to hear whether any of you have annual habits like this–feel free to share them in the Comments below!) I had never done what Mary did, but when I was on a personal retreat last January, I thought it would be wonderful if I could find a way to linger over God's Word and in His presence throughout my ordinary days in just the same way I do it when I'm on retreat: no rush, no hurry, free to just linger over a verse, or look out the window, or pay attention to the birds at the feeder, or the trees swaying in the breeze, and let my mind and heart slow down to the pace of nature around me.  (I'm not talking about gobs of time here–only minutes, not hours–this is more a state of mind that I wanted to take back with me into daily life.) There had to be a way to carry that retreat-experience into my daily life.  So I decided, like Mary, to choose a word that fit the longing I had on retreat:  Linger.  And you know what?  It was wonderful!  It was so helpful for aligning the pace of my daily life and all of its commitments and activities and various other scheduled things.  I found that starting the day intentionally focused on lingering in God's presence, without allowing myself to feel rushed or pressured into the rest of the day, really was possible!  And enriching!  And calming! Who would have thought that such a small daily reminder could make such a difference?  Doesn't it seem like most of our days are filled with "small things," whether they feel meaningful or not?  We launch new resolutions and work up fresh determination, but never see any real progress.  Sound familiar?  I know.  Me too.   So when I came across a book a few months ago called Tiny Habits,  I was intrigued.  The author said that where most people go off the rails trying to change or improve their lives is by aiming way too high.  Instead of trying to get ripped abs, or run a marathon, or lose 50 pounds, we should focus on much smaller–actually tiny –habits.  The author had wanted to get in better shape so in order to practice a tiny habit of his own he decided that every time he used the restroom he would do two pushups.  Very small.  Very practical.  And very do-able.  So I thought I'd try it too.  I've shared before about being haunted by the calling to write this one particular book, but I've started and started, and started again.  Over and over.  Fresh start.  New perspective.  More determination.  A different plan.  A better plan.  It just seems over the years to have been one small thing after another, no headway, no difference, no progress. Enter tiny habits.  I decided that I would take 15 minutes right after my quiet time in the morning (since I do this very nearly every morning, that time is already built in).  I wasn't sure what kind of real, meaningful writing I'd be able to do in just 15 minutes, but what did I have to lose?  The worst case scenario would be that I write for one hour and forty-five minutes a week.  To me, that sounds pretty pitiful, but you know what?  It was right around one hour and forty-five minutes a week more than I was writing at the time! And you know what else?  I've been doing it!  And I have momentum and clarity and direction that I haven't had for a very long time.  The thing is, you don't have to stop at two push-ups or fifteen minutes or whatever.  Just set a tiny goal, do it, and watch what happens. All this reminds me of our "two minute" exercise from Sunday mornings over the last few months.  I'd like to hear if any of the rest of you have worked this "tiny habit" into your life, but I have, and I can tell you that two minutes of simply offering myself to God, of intentionally giving Him permission to work in my heart and life, my commitments and relationships–"Lord, whatever You want to do in me, have at it–I give you permission to get to work on me in whatever way You see fit"–can make a world of difference.  You see, Jesus is very polite.  The vast majority of the time, He won't just barge into your life, He'll wait for your invitation–and then get to work!  Try it and see!  The Lord is good and He desires nothing but good for us.  What do you have to lose? So, in the spirit of "small things," let me go back to Mary's word-of-the-year plan.  I had thought my own focus last year on "Linger" was just a one off, but then a reading came to me during Advent from Zechariah 4:10, "For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel."  It might sound a little weird, but I was really struck by that phrase: "the day of small things." I felt a little rebuke when I read that.  Do you?  How often, O Lord, have I despised the day of small things?  How often have I beaten myself up over failing to get any writing done?  How often have I missed the opportunity to lend a helping hand for just two measly minutes?   Most of us know the story of Nehemiah rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem, but fewer of us know the story of Ezra (whose calling was to re-focus the hearts and minds of the people on worship and listening to the Word of God).  And hardly anybody knows who in the world Zechariah is!  Zechariah's purpose was similar: to encourage the king of Israel at the time–Zerubbabel–to rebuild the temple.  All three projects were of great importance!  The temple, the city walls, and the people's hearts for worship and the Word. Every single one of these three men's days was utterly filled with small things.  And we've already talked about how discouraging it can be to be immersed in small things day after day.  But what is God's word to these guys?  "Don't despise the day of small things!" I know all sorts of people who don't think they're making a difference, who want to live more heroic lives, who want to leave the world better than it was when they came into it.  But how do you measure that?  More often than not, we look at the big, historical movers and shakers whose names are all over the history books.  But most real, meaningful differences get made in "day of small things"–the little conversations you have while going from one place to another, the kind words or simple deeds you do through the day.  Sure, you've got somewhere else to get to, but … I'll just help this lady with her groceries, or smile at the cashier, or walk a few yards with the neighbor's son who's getting off the school bus. You know, Billy Graham gave his life to Christ because an usher (no one knows his name) found a seat for him when he was on his way out because there was nowhere to sit.  The world is a different place today than it might have been not so much because of Billy Graham but because of that nameless usher.   Remember the old widow Jesus observed in the Temple?  He "looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. He said, 'Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them, 4 for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on'" (Luke 21:1-4).  We dare not despise the day of small things! And how do we even measure "small things" and "big things"?  I think the secret to answering this question lies in the Level and the Plumbline.  You see, the vast majority of the time we look "horizontally" at all the people around us and the lives they lead and the difference they make and we compare ourselves to them–we're using a Level, you know, the tool with the bubble in it that you use to see whether a surface is perfectly flat and … horizontal. But what if we measured our worth vertically rather than horizontally?  What if we used a Plumbline instead of a Level?   A Plumbline like you see in the photo for this article will point directly to the center of the earth.  And that center never changes.  When we take our eyes off the horizontal long enough to get our bearings from the vertical–when we look up  to God and His ways, rather than aside  to the world around us–we will find ourselves more surely oriented to what's permanent and lasting rather than that which is temporary and fleeting. Remember Zechariah 4:10?  I could get bogged down in never making any headway on my book.  I could get discouraged and just give it up.  But I need to not "despise the day of small things!"  We need to keep at it!  Do the work that's set before us!  Even small things, small beginnings, count for something!   We need to remember to put first things first, to be faithful to the task God has set before us, no matter how seemingly humble or ordinary.  Ezra restored the Word of God to its central place in the life of the people.  Nehemiah rebuilt the walls around Jerusalem to provide safety and security.  Zerubbabel took charge of rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem when Israel returned from exile.  "You will see the Plumbline in the hand of Zerubbabel!"  Be faithful to what you know!  Be faithful to what has already been revealed to you!    So what does this look like for you and me?  How do we align ourselves vertically with Jesus?  Jesus gives us our first direction in Mt. 6:33:  "Seek first the kingdom of God and all the rest will be added to you"–or "all the rest will fall into place."  This is our perfect starting point.  This is the nail from which we hang our Plumbline.   Jesus' words help us find our place in the line of Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah.  Only then can we begin to build a life, lay a firm foundation.  What's more, we walk in the footsteps of Joseph and David and Isaiah, of Peter and James and John.  We don't measure our worth by these giants of the faith, but we do hang our Plumbline from the same peg in the wall–Jesus.  They're not our standard, He is. Let's be faithful to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, the plumbline–the anchor–of our souls.  No matter how dark the days appear, no matter how hopeful or helpless we may feel, let us trust Him and walk with Him and find our bearings in Him! Be encouraged, friend, for God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who spoke all worlds into being, is both with you and for you.

Photo Credit Ralph Felzer A HUMBLE PRAYER FOR YOU Since our prayer service this past Sunday (wasn't that awesome, by the way?) I've been thinking quite a lot about prayer and trouble and humility, so I thought I would share a few insights with you, and then I want to pray for you!  I hope you'll be blessed.  Let me know! We are coming off of a Christmas season that, as always, has been wonderful for some but sorrowful for others.  It's good for us to think back on the past year (or years) and remember God's track record with us.  I wonder if you can see yourself in this passage from Deuteronomy 8 that I just read this morning: Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you … in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart….  He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. (vv. 2-3) Think back over the "long way God has led you" over the years.  The hardships.  The illnesses.  The loved ones who have passed away.  The disappointments.  The broken relationships.  But also the healing, the deliverance, the provision, the new relationships. Now consider that while we may not know the whole picture, God has led us in this way "in order to humble us."  It is not just good, but very good  to be humbled, to be reminded that we are not the focal point of all creation!  Think of the company we keep when the Lord humbles us!  Think of David's words in Psalm 119:   Before I was humbled I went astray,      but now I keep your word…. (v. 67) It is good for me that I was humbled,      so that I might learn your statutes…. (v. 71) I know, O Lord that your judgments are right      and that in faithfulness you have humbled me…. (v. 75) So first, when the Lord humbles us we are reminded that like Adam we have been formed from the dust of the earth and that He has breathed His very own life into us–we owe our very existence to God's loving, shaping hand!  It can never be wrong to be humbled before the Lord, if for no other reason than to remember that we are dust and to remember that those whom the Lord humbles, He also raises up! Secondly, His humbling teaches us to know our own hearts.  Remember what God says through the prophet Jeremiah: "The heart is deceitful above all things" (17:9).  Not only do we tend to have too high a view of ourselves, we also tend not to know ourselves very well either!   God allows Israel to be hungry–that is, to know lack. Sometimes we hunger for more than food. Sometimes we don't have everything we wish we did or think we need.  Why would He let us suffer lack, need, hunger?  In order "to test us to know what is in our hearts."  This doesn't mean that God  doesn't know what's in our hearts, but that we don't! He humbles us, Deuteronomy says, by letting us hunger so that He can then feed us.  It's beautiful, isn't it?  (If it weren't often times so hard!)  There really is a beauty in the hardship, in the humbling, in the hungering, because then we know what it means for the Lord to provide for us.  Because all of this is meant, He says, to teach us that we "do not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord."  When I read this I see a picture of a momma bird feeding her young in the springtime.  Those little ones chirp away all day long, clamoring to be fed, and momma makes sure it happens!  Think of those birds when you read this from Psalm 84: My soul longs, indeed it faints,     for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for joy     to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home     and the swallow a nest for herself,     where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts,     my King and my God. Happy are those who live in your house, ever singing your praise. I bet by now you thought I forgot about prayer, didn't you?  Aha, no!  Think of how often and incessantly we are like those birds, clamoring and chirping and tweeting our little hearts away, asking God to feed us!  Of course, there's nothing at all wrong with being persistent in our prayers–don't get me wrong!  It's just that every now and then God tests us to know what is in our hearts, to humble us, to help us grow strong in faith and love.  Think of the picture we see in Psalm 131: I do not occupy myself with things      too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul,      like a weaned child with its mother;      my soul within me is like a weaned child. (v. 2) The aim, the goal, of God's humbling of us is that we should remember that He is God and we are not, that we owe our existence, our very breath to Him; that it is He who feeds us and not we ourselves, giving us the proper food at the proper time; and that there is a calm, a shalom peace, an overriding sense of well-being (like that of a weaned child) in store for all those who trust in the Lord. And thirdly, the food God gives us is Himself!  He doesn't just give us "stuff. " He doesn't just provide the food on our tables or the clothing on our backs or the shoes on our feet–all this is too little by far (though we certainly do need all these, and He knows that!).  He gives us His very self–Jesus.  And Jesus says this very thing in John 6 (remember again back in Deuteronomy where God feeds His people with manna from heaven?).  Jesus says, "It wasn't Moses who fed you in the wilderness, it was my Father who gives you the true bread!  I am the bread of life.  Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.  This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." (vv. 32, 48-51, lightly edited) I want to leave you with more than just an encouraging word for those of you who are stuck right now in the middle of a hard, dark, challenging place.  I want you to know  that the very God who made the heavens and the earth is not only in the business of humbling you, He's in the business of raising you up, of nourishing the soil of your hearts, of growing fruit in you from which you yourselves can eat and be strengthened and refreshed! (Notice how much "fruit-bearing" is happening in the following beautiful passages!)  There is "a hope laid up for you in heaven through the gospel.  And just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God…." (Col. 1:5-6, lightly edited, emphasis mine). I want to close by praying for you.  Receive this prayer right now. And just as the Apostle Paul prayed for the Christians in Colossae, I pray these words over you:  Father, I ask that those who read these words "may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that they may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to You, as they bear fruit [there it is again!] in every good work and as they grow in the knowledge of You.  May they be made strong with all the strength that comes from Your glorious power, so that they may have all endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to You, their heavenly Father, who has enabled them to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.  You have rescued them from the power of darkness and transferred them into the kingdom of Your beloved Son, in whom we all have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."  (1:9-14, lightly edited). May you know the love of the Father, the peace of Christ, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit throughout this coming year! Be encouraged, friend, for God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who spoke all worlds into being, is both with you and for you.

Photo by Ralph Felzer A LIGHT SHINES IN THE DARKNESS We all know that God spoke the whole of Creation into being in Genesis 1.  "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…."  Day and night, sea and sky, stars and planets, and human beings.     And then, in a work of incredible beauty and profound complexity, the Apostle John picks up this creation melody at the very beginning of his gospel.  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people."   From all this, we understand a simple truth that, in spite of its simplicity, we can never plumb the depths of–when God speaks, life begins.  Where chaos and darkness rule, order and life have come.  Things that had no being suddenly come into being.   And then we see Luke providing us with a little backstory to John's account of the Word–Jesus–coming into the world: the Nativity Story in Luke 1-2.  The angel Gabriel appears to the virgin Mary and announces that God has a plan.  But just when we expect God to simply act , we see something incredible–we see God invite Mary to participate in His plan!  He doesn't force His way, He doesn't coerce or manipulate her in any way, He simply announces what He intends to do.  If she chose, Mary could push back against Gabriel's announcement, but instead her reply is the beautifully simple, "Here I am, the servant of the Lord.  Be it done to me according to Your word" (Luke 1:38). I say all this in part because it's Advent and we're anticipating Christmas.  But I say it also because in a way I believe we are all Mary.  In Genesis 1 God spoke.  Throughout the history of the people of God and the raising up of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God spoke.  When Israel went into captivity in Egypt and Moses challenged Pharaoh to set God's people free, God spoke.  When the time for the Messiah arose, again God spoke (first to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist) and then as we've seen, to Mary. Let's back up for a moment and look at the story of Joseph, Jacob's son.  When he was just a child, God sent him dreams that he and the rest of his family knew foretold that his brothers would one day serve him and bow down to him.  In the meantime, Joseph grows up, his brothers grow increasingly jealous and, stopping just short of actually killing him, they throw him into a pit and leave him there to die (they had consciences, after all!).  But Joseph is rescued from the pit, taken into Pharaoh's household and given a position higher than any but Pharaoh himself.  Again, though, he faces hostility and unjust accusations are made against him, and he is abruptly thrown into prison.  Other prisoners promise to help him, but they forget all about him when they are released.   It seems that Joseph will be lost and forgotten. What about those dreams, though?  I love this passage about Joseph in the Psalms:  "Until what He had said came to pass, the word of the Lord kept testing him" (105:19).  You see, God had spoken a word over Joseph, and throughout all of Joseph's trials, the question was not so much " Will God be faithful  to Joseph and fulfill the dreams of his childhood?"  No, the question was: " Will Joseph continue to believe the word God spoke over him?"  This is how God "tests" us.  God is testing Joseph's faith, meaning He is casting Joseph's faith into a sort of crucible into which we might put gold or silver ore in order to cleanse it of impurities.  Joseph's faith is purified and strengthened in the crucible of doubt and difficulty, in the fire of adversity.  Joseph chooses faith and rejects despair. God still speaks.  It's one thing for us to study the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Zechariah, and Mary looking for principles and patterns of faith that we can perhaps learn from. But my question for you is:  What creative "Genesis" word has God spoken over you?  What is it that God wants to call into being in you?  Just as He spoke into chaos and darkness and created the universe.  Just as He spoke to Mary and with her consent life came into being in her womb (again, see John 1).  Just so, He continues to speak. Do you believe that?  Do you believe God is speaking to you?  What new life does God want to birth in you?   Over the years, God has used a number of Scripture passages to reveal Himself to me and to give me affirmation, healing, encouragement, and direction.  Among them are Philippians 4:8-9, Isaiah 61:1-4, Psalm 74:3, and Colossians 1:9-12.  I could (and would love to) give sermons on every one of these … and more!  But the point is that God is speaking .  And the question is "Do we have ears to hear?  Are we listening?"  Will we harden our hearts against the word God is speaking to us?  Will we be like those in John 12 who, when the Father confirms to Jesus and the disciples that He has–and will–glorify His name, fail to hear God's voice and instead hear only … thunder? What are the verses, stories, characters that have shaped you ?  Go deeper than just "my favorite passages."  Ask yourself, " Why do these stories resonate in me the way they do?  What virtues, traits, and characteristics do I admire–and want to see formed–in me?  How has God's Word transformed me over the course of my believing life? We can only know so much of any other person's story, but how beautiful would it be if people could tell their life stories simply by assembling a collection of the Bible verses, stories, and characters that have shaped them!  How much greater and deeper would our love for one another be if we knew the tale of one another's long journey to wholeness and new life in Christ? As part of your Advent preparation, why not consider writing some of those down?  Why not share them with someone?  What a wonderful way to deepen intimacy in our relationships!  What a great way to challenge ourselves to be vulnerable with one another!  We might say to one another:  "Right in the middle of the most painful time of my life, God led me to the story of ______ , and I found strength and hope and peace with which to face it, and grow beyond it.  I'm a better man/woman today because God spoke to me then!" Genesis 1 says that chaos and darkness covered the face of the deep.  But God then spoke and all things came into existence.  What creative, life-giving word has God spoken over the chaos and darkness of your own life?   I believe with all my heart that God has spoken these life-giving words over every man and woman who has ever drawn breath.  The journey of life is about discovering that word, listening for it–and then listening to it, obeying it, following it, living it. What are those stories for you?  What are those verses?  Who are those characters? Be encouraged, friend, for God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who spoke all worlds into being, is both with you and for you.

Image by Makoto Tsuka on Unsplash INTO THE DEEP END Okay, so I know it's Thanksgiving week, but I also know that many of us are going to be struggling our way through it, so this won't be your typical Thanksgiving piece.  My hope is that you'll find God's peace in the season you're in, and that these words might serve as a sort of lifejacket while you struggle through whatever deep waters you find yourself in today. When I was forty I learned how to swim.  Yep, that's right, I'm a late-bloomer.  Actually, Grace was planning a mission trip to come alongside some missionary friends of ours in the Bahamas (yeah, I know).  I thought it would be a shame to get all the way there and not be able to do anything but stand on that hot, white, sandy beach thinking how deliciously cool it would be to get into that ocean.   So I decided to sign up for swimming lessons at the Y, and a fascinating thing happened:  Our instructor told us to go into the deep end of the pool and hold onto the side.  Then we were to push ourselves up and then shove ourselves down as hard as we could so that our feet would touch the bottom, and then push ourselves back up to the top.   I couldn't do it. No, I didn't run out of the Y scared and tearful.  I just literally could not get to the bottom of the pool!  Even after a few tries.  I was amazed!  I had always assumed that since I didn't know how to swim, if I got into deep water I would just sink like a rock.  But no! And yet….  When I got to the Bahamas and had my chance to get into the ocean, I got in, of course, but I didn't go very far out at all.  I don't even think I got our into water more than a couple feet over my head.  I knew better in my head, but I hadn't learned yet how to trust  what I believed.  (But hey, I can say I swam in the ocean!) I was reminded of all this the other day when I found a couple journals in my church office.  When I opened them up, I discovered Doug's hand-made Scripture journals for Galatians and Hebrews (they were very much like the ones we give away for our Sunday morning services, only Doug made them by copying and pasting Scripture passages into the journals, and then writing his notes on the opposite pages).   And then I thought of how Phil, too, got thrown into the deep end a few years ago when his dad, Pastor Doug, died.  And now these journals pop up and he finds a little more strength for his journey. I found myself giving thanks for the work God is doing–and has been doing–in Phil for the last nearly three years.  You know, Phil didn't start loving Jesus when he became our pastor, he's loved Him for years.  And he knew the Holy Spirit long before he got his own church office.    All the same, three years ago, Phil was thrown into the deep end.  His dad died just three months into a two-year mentoring and transition plan.  I think now of how ill-prepared Phil was.  I think of the plans Doug had made to mentor and train Phil for pastoral ministry.  And I think of the long, deep conversations, the "informal training" of father-and-son talks I know they had.  But God had other plans. Here's the thing.  I think Jesus is always calling us into the deep end.  You might be feeling in over your head even while you read this.  It's a metaphor, I know, but all of us will, like Phil, sooner or later find ourselves in over our heads.  We'll find ourselves face to face with someone or something we are completely, utterly unable to handle on our own.  Not because we don't have enough confidence or self-esteem or life skills, and not because we don't love Jesus and hunger for His Holy Spirit, but simply because we are facing giants that truly are bigger than we are. This is why we are people of faith.   Faith has no place in a world that doesn't know giants.  Faith is the possession of people who know what it is to be in over their heads. I was talking to a do-er the other day.  You know, the kind of person who feels more comfortable doing and fixing and making than praying and asking and receiving (you might even be a do-er yourself!).  He's in his own deep end right now, and he has several friends and family members who are also in their own deep ends.  And being a do-er he wants to fix it all and make it better–who doesn't?  He reminded me of our series on the spiritual practices last summer that focused on all the sorts of things we can do  in order to put ourselves in a position for God to get at us the way He wants to.  And he asked me, "So what practices can I do  that will help me and my friends and family get through all this junk?"   Before I answered him it occurred to me that maybe all of our do-ing is part of the problem.  There will always be a place for do-ing in the Christian life, but sometimes I think the point of finding ourselves in the deep end is so that we can learn to trust the water rather than trust our own flailing arms, so that we can learn to trust the Lord rather than our own efforts, even our own spiritual practices.   I wrote a piece recently called  Life in the Middle Voice , and one of the points I made is that we need to learn how to get more comfortable with passive activity or active passivity.   Think of it like floating.  Your body won't float all on its own, it needs a little help.  So we put our body in a position  to do in water what it naturally wants to do.  We need to remind ourselves to do the same thing in daily life.   So I told my friend that the spiritual practice he ought to be doing is one that would help him learn to surrender, to let go.  We've done a frequent exercise on Sunday mornings lately in which we practice two minutes of silence with no agenda other than making ourselves available to God.  What if we took just a couple minutes to pray "Into Your hands, Lord."  Or "Have Your way with me, O God."  Or "I give You permission to do in me whatever You want, Lord."  Or like Mary, "Be it done to be according to Your word."  Or something else.  Or all of these!  This is a wonderful way to practice putting ourselves in a position to stop our restless do-ing  and enter into God's rest, giving Him permission to work in us and through us.  We become the work of God instead of always working for God.  See the difference?   God wants very much to accomplish something in you!  He doesn't only want to do something through you.  In fact, there's a good possibility that He won't be able to do what He wants to do through you until He accomplishes what He wants to in you. So, are you in deep waters these days?  Just simply knowing that you are in over your head is a gift of the Holy Spirit.  Give thanks and know that God is offering rest and peace for your soul.  Phil's waybread this week came in the form of a couple old journals found in an office in which his dad used to sit.  Where will yours come from?  Try taking two minutes and see! I'm so thankful that God is blessing Phil as our pastor (and blessing us through him!).  But I also want each of you to know that the very same hand of blessing that rests on Phil's head rests on the head of all those who love Jesus and entrust themselves to Him. "The Lord bless you     and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine on you     and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you     and give you peace."  (Numbers 6:24-26) Be encouraged, friend, for God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who spoke all worlds into being, is both with you and for you.

Photo by Ralph Felzer STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY "I am severely afflicted– give me life, O Lord, according to Your word."  ~Psalm 119:107 It's hard not to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of griefs, sorrows, and sufferings going on in our midst these days.  They run the gamut from threats to the roofs over our heads, to the safety and well-being of our children, to our own chronic illnesses and disease.  When a great sorrow hits, the weight of it just seems to collapse onto our hearts, pressing them down and taking our breath away.  Chronic pain, long grief, and aching loss surround us on every side.   There's a reason I called this column Waybread.  Waybread is sustenance offered travelers along their way.  I want the words here to offer you all strength and encouragement for your own journey through life.  And I'm feeling profoundly these days the need we all have for strength on our various journeys. We all have different lives and different stories that are complicated by all sorts of dysfunctions and disasters, boons and blessings.  And yet at the same time, none of of our stories stands on its own. We all have our individual stories, but all of those are wrapped up in one grand, marvelous Story that began in Genesis 1.  Together and collectively, we are the Body of Christ.  When one of us grieves, we all grieve.  When one of us rejoices, we all rejoice.   My absolute favorite things about the Body of Christ are baptism and the Lord's supper.  I love them because they are beautiful and concrete pictures of who we are together.   Sure, when someone gets baptized, only that person gets wet.  But something mysterious and wonderful is also taking place–the entering of a soul into the kingdom of God, of which all the rest of us are already citizens.  We are welcoming another into our country of love, joy, hope, and peace, a country overseen by a loving Father, a compassionate Son, and a sustaining Spirit.  A baptism is an event for all of us , not just the one getting wet! And at Communion, my favorite moment is stepping aside while everyone comes forward to receive the bread and the cup, and I notice what an enormous variety of folks we are.  What a motley crew!  What a hodge-podge of humanity!  But as different as we all are, we share much, much more in common–our faith in Jesus Christ, a faith that knits us together more permanently than blood relations.  We are a people, made one by faith, made one by baptism, made one by the common sacrifice of Jesus, once for all, our Lord, our Savior, and our Redeemer.  All this is truer of us (and a tighter bond between us) than the stuff of income, class, age, and race that only appear to divide us.   "To glorify God as His faithful people."  One call, one mission, one identity.  But we certainly are a work in progress, aren't we?  We are "building a community to reach a community."  We aren't done yet.  We are a people on the way.  Pain, loss, disease, confusion, and anxiety may run rampant among us, but they don't define us, they don't tell us who we are--we are the Church of God, the Body of Christ, children of the Most High, no longer our own, but bought with the precious blood of Christ shed on the Cross.  This good news, this gospel of Jesus, means that we have a strength, a power alive within us–the life of "Christ in us, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27).  And this Life is ours transcends the brokenness of life, not removing the possibility of suffering, but giving us kingdom of God resources with which to overcome that brokenness and suffering.  In Christ, we truly are "more than conquerors through him who loves us" (Rom. 8:37). I'm reminded of God speaking to Moses at the burning bush.  When Moses asks Him what His name is so that he can answer those who want to know who sent him, God replies, "I am who I am," or "I am that I am" (Exodus 3:14).  The Name God speaks to Moses is a verb that means "to be."  So when God says, "Tell them 'I am' sent you," he's simply saying, "The One who IS, who always has been  and always will be  is My name."   Friends, God is .  That's all.  And that's enough.  When we grieve, God is.  When we rejoice, God is.  When we are perplexed, confused, anxious, angry, frustrated, and so sorrowful our heart seems to be breaking … God is.  Right there with you, right there in the middle, in the thick of it, weeping His own very real tears right alongside you (remember, "Jesus wept"), God simply is.   And God is Love.  And compassion.  And help.  And healing.  And wholeness.  And redemption.   I'll leave you with an old hymn that I believe is God's word for us in this season. Let these words wash over you, heal your heart, and lead you into worship (and then go look it up online and give it a listen--or two). Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation! O my soul, praise him, for he is your health and salvation! Come, all who hear; now to his temple draw near, join me in glad adoration. Praise to the Lord, above all things so wondrously reigning; sheltering you under his wings, and so gently sustaining! Have you not seen all that is needful has been sent by his gracious ordaining? Praise to the Lord, who will prosper your work and defend you; surely his goodness and mercy shall daily attend you. Ponder anew what the Almighty can do, if with his love he befriends you. Praise to the Lord! O let all that is in me adore him! All that has life and breath, come now with praises before him. Let the Amen sound from his people again; gladly forever adore him. Be encouraged, friend, for God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who spoke all worlds into being, is both with you and for you.