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Image generated by AI at stockcake.com ABIDING IN CHRIST IS THE ABUNDANT LIFE Like a river full of water,     God enriches the earth and provides people with grain,    because this is how He works in the world: 1 You water its furrows abundantly,     settling its ridges, softening it with showers,     and blessing its growth. You crown the year with your bounty;     your wagon tracks overflow with richness. The pastures of the wilderness overflow;     the hills gird themselves with joy; the meadows clothe themselves with flocks;     the valleys deck themselves with grain;     they shout and sing together for joy. 1 My paraphrase of Psalm 65:9. I was reading these closing verses from Psalm 65 this morning (one of my favorite passages in the psalms), and I was impressed all over again with the bounty, the abundance, that God wants to pour into our laps, not because we're so lovely or deserving, but simply because it is His nature to shower blessing and abundance upon those who love Him! And I haven't been able to stop thinking lately of what a blessing it is to abide in Christ–and how beyond-blessed we are to know that He abides in us!  And I also can't stop thinking of the fruitfulness and abundance and richness that flow from abiding in Him. At the same time, I'm mindful of how easy it is for us to separate our practicing of the practices from our abiding in Christ.  The whole time we're keeping Sabbath, or reading our Scriptures, or giving away our possessions, or fasting, or whatever, we should also be abiding in Christ.  We do all these things with Him and in Him, and in the end we become like Him!  What a wonderful mystery!  But also, what a privilege to not just wait for this oneness to be dropped into our laps, but to actually participate with Him in fulfilling His promises to us!   We participate with Jesus in the practices because He went before us in practicing them–He shows us how to abide because He Himself abides in the Father.  And when we engage in the practices while we abide in Him, we are weaving them–and Him–into the rhythm of our lives. And I'm also thinking this morning of His promises.  Read that Psalm 65 passage again (go ahead, I'll be right here when you get back!). Do you see the grace? the abundance? the favor? the blessing in every verse?  Hardened ridges and furrows softening even as the rain falls upon them, a bounty so rich and full that the wagons overflow as they bounce along the path, the meadows and hills crowded with grain and sheep, and they, even they, shout and sing together for joy! This is no stingy God who has to have blessings pried from his clenched fist! It's a beautiful picture, but it's also a beautiful promise.  The hills and the sheep shout and sing, basking in the bounty and perfection that God has provided for them, and their shouting and singing reminds me of what Jesus says during His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem: "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out!" And we are no different than the hills and sheep, except that, because we're human beings made in the image of God, when we bask in God's bounty and provision, He also involves us in His work. He longs for our willing and eager participation.  And the practices are just simply how we do this. One of the ways we live the promise that God has opened up before us is to give the blessings back, sharing them with whoever crosses our path. And it's no different with the difficult people around us--when we keep ourselves from judging others, when we forgive and bless them as abundantly as we have been forgiven and blessed, we are participating in the abundant life of Jesus.  As He says:   "Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap, for the measure you give will be the measure you get back" (Luke 6:37-38). And do you see there the gracious thread of connection between God's rich blessing, our taking hold of that blessing, and then our generous passing along of that blessing to others?  If our practices don't help us live this way among other image-bearers in the world, we should leave them behind and find other, better practices for abiding in Christ. Another passage God showed me this morning was from Deuteronomy 30.  It's a long passage, but I only want to focus on a few brief thoughts that will help us enter more fully into God's promises and guide us into a more fruitful following of Him.  (I'll highlight key thoughts I want to show you in bold italics.) “When all these things have happened to you, the blessings and the curses that I have set before you, if you call them to mind  among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you and return to the Lord your God , and you and your children obey him with all your heart and with all your soul , just as I am commanding you today, then the Lord your God will return you from your captivity and have compassion on you , gathering you again from all the peoples among whom the Lord your God has scattered you. Even if you are exiled to the ends of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather you , and from there he will take you back . The Lord your God will bring you into the land  that your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it; he will make you more prosperous and numerous  than your ancestors. “Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live….  Then you shall again obey the Lord , observing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, and the Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous  in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your soil . For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you , just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors, when you obey the Lord your God  by observing his commandments and decrees that are written in this book of the law, because you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul (Deuteronomy 30:1-10). First, we need to remember all the blessings of God (as well as His warnings, but if we remember and obey, we need not concern ourselves with those!).   And if we have wandered from right paths, and return to Him (and the evidence of our returning is obeying Him!), He will then return to us and have compassion on us (and our very returning to Him is the fruit of His compassion!). Our response to His compassion is our whole and joyful obedience, loving Him with all our heart and soul.  The chains of our captivity to sin will be broken and He will welcome us back with great compassion to the land of promise. And the result of all this gathering and returning, loving and obeying, is fulfilment, abundance, joy, peace, and prosperity! And lastly, because God is so eager for us to embrace His promise , He repeats it all again in the next paragraph, with still more heart and compassion and, if I may be so bold, still more yearning for His people.  I hope you see that yearning here, I hope you hear it in His voice!  The passion of God is for His people–always has been and always will be.  If you watch for it and listen for it, it's everywhere from Genesis to Revelation:  "I will be their God, and they will be My people." There is great encouragement and joy and freedom in abiding in Christ because to abide in Him is to enter His joy, to become boys and girls, men and women, who embody joy and gladness and abundance!  As Nehemiah 8:10 says, "The joy of the Lord is your strength."  And what does this mean except that God is Himself the most joyful of all beings and that, by abiding in Him, His joy becomes the fountain of a strength beyond our own–and who can contain that! 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 generated by AI at stockcake.com ABIDING ~ LISTENING ~ GROWING I hope you've been enjoying our new Sunday morning series on Practices in Abiding!  I can't tell you how often I think of the various practices through the week, and I know I'm not alone in that.  Two thoughts have been coming back to me again and again recently, and I want to use today's Waybread piece to build on them. (And we'd love to hear what's coming to mind for each of you in our sharing time on Sunday mornings!)    First, I've come back often to a phrase of Jesus' that is super easy to miss.  He doesn't just say "Abide in me" he says, "Abide in me as I abide in you " (John 15:4).  Our practices in abiding don't begin or end with our own efforts, but with Jesus' very presence within us.  Jesus is both our starting place and our goal.  If he doesn't already live in us by faith, nothing we do will be of any real consequence anyway.  The practices are really just ways of getting ourselves out of Jesus' way.  When we do that, he can accomplish in and through us everything he wants. Secondly, in addition to being reminded that Jesus is already at work in us, I remember that the practices are not so much about becoming good people as they are about breaking up the hard and crusty soil of our hearts.  Here I think about the Parable of the Sower (Luke 8:4-15).  Jesus says that God's word is like seed a farmer sows in his field, and the soil that seed takes root in is our hearts.  If our hearts are dry and crusty or overgrown with weeds or surrounded by thorns, God's work in us won't bear fruit.  So the real question for us is:  What kind of soil does our heart consist of?  And another question follows:  How can the soil of my heart be made more rich and fertile?   The answer is: The Practices!  When we practice sabbath-keeping (however weakly or inconsistently) or read the Scriptures thoughtfully and prayerfully, or practice holding our money and other possessions loosely by freely giving them away (three practices we've already talked about), the soil of our hearts gets plowed up and becomes receptive to the seed of God's word. The heart of what I have to say today builds on a simple but crucial part of Jesus' descriptions of the four soils in the Parable of the Sower.  He says that what matters most is how we hear the word.   When these various people hear the word,  what happens to it, what do they do with it?   The key to practicing the practices really just comes down to this: What happens in our hearts when we hear the word of God?  And what growth does that word produce in us?    Did you know that in New Testament Greek the words we translate "hear" and "obey" have the same root?  This means that if we don't live out what we hear, we could say that we never really heard it at all because hearing leads to living.  Clear and accurate hearing always results in a living response–that response is the fruit, the result, of abiding in the vine (sorry to mix both of those passages together, but I trust you can see how intimately related they are).  The test of whether or not we have really heard what Jesus says is how we live out what Jesus says. The Sermon on the Mount ends with Jesus telling the story of the man who builds his house on the sand and the one who builds on the rock.  What's the difference?  They both heard Jesus' words, but one acted upon them, and one didn't.  Simple.  But we get hung up on whether we heard Jesus right, or whether we're responding in the right way, or whether we've got what it takes to respond well.  We need to not take ourselves so seriously, walking in grace and growing in love. And grace means we have the freedom to try, to experiment, to explore, even to come up short and get it wrong.  As Paul says, "God gives the growth."  The fruit we bear is his work not ours (1 Cor. 3:6). I really wrestle with this because I think so many people feel this pressure to act, to do, to serve, to get busy for Jesus, and I think a whole lot of that doing is misdirected. First–FIRST–we abide, we read, we listen, we reflect.  Then we respond.  And we don't just do anything , no matter how good our ideas might look.  We don't invent a response, we listen for God's still, small voice prompting us to act, and then we respond. With a smile on our face and a spring in our step we go out to encourage and comfort and serve. But again (I'll never get tired of saying it), first we listen .  When Matthew tells the story of the Parable of the Sower, Jesus starts this way: "Listen!  A sower went out to sow…" (Mt. 13:3).  Right off the bat we know that Jesus' whole point is "Listen!"  And then he tells his little story, just a few verses, and closes with "Let anyone who has ears to hear listen!"  Then, of course, the disciples don't understand what he's trying to say (none of us is more clueless than those first disciples were!), so they ask him and he explains it to them in detail. I want to show you the last part of the parable and then what comes right after it so that you can see that the story isn't just plopped down in the middle of the book and left to stand on its own.  No, it's woven into all Jesus is trying to teach!  Listen!  Listen!  Listen!   Here is Jesus' explanation to the disciples with another short passage right after it that at first seems unrelated … but is it?  Check it out: “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. The ones on the path are those who have heard ;  then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word , receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe only for a while and in a time of testing fall away. As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear , but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word , hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with endurance. “No one after lighting a lamp hides it under a jar or puts it under a bed; rather, one puts it on a lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light. For nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, nor is anything secret that will not become known and come to light. So pay attention to how you listen , for to those who have, more will be given, and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away.” (Luke 8:11-18, emphasis mine) Did you catch that?  "Hear."  "Those who hear."  "Hear the word."  "Pay attention to how you listen."   Everybody hears, but are we listening?  How do you listen?  If you're a better do-er than a listener, I have good news for you!  There is grace available for you.  There is always room at the feet of Jesus for someone else to come, have a seat and … listen to him.  Just go sit your Martha-self down next to Mary and listen to Jesus (Luke 10).  (By the way–do you think it's any accident that this story is just two short chapters away from the one we just read?  Me neither).   Soak up all that Jesus has to say (like fertile soil taking in the seed of his word), then get up, go on your way and live what you've learned.  And keep listening along the way.  That's it.  That's the Jesus life.  And because it's all grace, all of life becomes one long "Thank You!"  To everyone we meet we say, "Here, have some life!" as we listen and share and bless and love. We're much too eager to act.  Slow down. Slow way down.  This is the whole point of practices like sabbath-keeping, Scripture reading, solitude, journaling, simplicity, and more.  They drive us to a place of slowing down, of paying attention, of getting our bearings as we abide–rest, dwell–in Christ.  (And remember–he is first abiding, resting and dwelling in us.) 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 Yifeng Lu on Unsplash THE JESUS LIFE – BELIEVING and ABIDING Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? ~1 John 5:5 As we spend the next few months cultivating spiritual practices for abiding in Christ, we may find ourselves working really hard at trying to do all the things we think God "requires."  But how we work at this is super important! Jesus was (and still is!) in the business of shaking up people's ideas about what it looks like to follow God.  Over and over again, we see people from all walks of life, even His disciples, trying to figure out what it looked like to really follow Him.  In John 6, one group of folks went out in search of Jesus and when they found Him asked, "What must we do to perform the works of God?"  And then Jesus gave them an answer they weren't expecting (He's good at that!).   He said, "This is the work of God:  that you believe in him whom he has sent" (vv. 28-29; emphasis mine). Did you catch that?  The work that God requires is believing in Jesus!  In other words, the highest form of obedience you can enter into is not feeding the hungry or providing for the poor or fighting for social justice or getting prayer back in schools (as important as these may be).  The greatest obedience you can "perform" is simply to believe in Jesus! When we believe in Him, He comes to live in us, and His Holy Spirit begins the work of transforming us from the inside out.  He says, in fact, that when we believe in Jesus we actually become a new creation–not just a better person but an entirely new person!  If we don't get this right, if we don't start from this place, we will get nearly everything about doing good works wrong.  Because we don't do good works in order to be right with God.  We don't do good works in order to please God.  And we don't do good works in order to prove to the world that we love Jesus and that by living the way we do they can get in on the action too.  No, no, a thousand times no! The soil out of which our good works grow is our belief in, our trust of, and our dependence on Jesus.  And the fruit of that faith is a life of gratitude, service, sacrifice, and good deeds.  If we put our good works ahead of our faith and trust in Jesus, we have gotten off track no matter how virtuous our causes may be. I'll say it again: Believing in Jesus is obedience.  In John 3:36, Jesus says it again: "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life…" (NRSV; emphasis mine).  Believing is obeying. I am most definitely not saying that good works don't matter–they're of immense importance!   I am saying that our actions are to flow out of the new creation we become as a result of our faith in Jesus.  Good works are the fruit of faith.   In fact, James says that without works faith is dead (James 2:17).  People who don't bear fruit in good works are dead and not connected to the vine.  Jesus said as much back in John 15:  "Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them  bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.  Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned" (vv. 4-6; emphasis mine).  We can't do good works apart from faith, apart from abiding in Christ!  And if we aren't abiding in Christ, we won't bear fruit, we'll be worse than nothing. So we heard it from Jesus, and we heard it from James.  Here's Paul (and Isaiah) with the same message:  "But not all have obeyed the Good News; for Isiaiah says, 'Who has believed our message?'" (Rom. 10:16; emphasis mine).  Obeying the Good News doesn't mean doing good deeds, it means believing Jesus for grace, forgiveness, and a transformed life. This is SO important I'm going to hit you with one more.  In 1 John 2:4-6, John writes, "Whoever says, 'I have come to know him,' but does not obey his commandments is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we know that we are in him: whoever says, 'I abide in him,' ought to walk in the same way as he walked" (emphasis mine).   We are to walk in faith and love (that's what abiding is ).  And this, friends, is what the spiritual practices are all about: learning how to let Christ into the crusty places of our hearts, so that, as Christ abides in us, our hearts and minds grow and mature in faith and grace, so that Jesus can live and love through us more freely and powerfully.             Simply put, the practices are WAYS we believe.  And we always live what we believe (even if our words say different!).  If you want to know what someone believes, don't look at their values or belief systems or creeds or their mission statements, just look at how they live .  But that, too, can easily get us off track because then we start looking at all the externals and before you know it, we're just measuring everybody by their behavior, and no better than legalists and Pharisees.   So once again, this is why our behavior (our living) has to follow our abiding.  Our abiding and our living are integrally connected to one another.  More than that: Our living–our behavior, our good deeds–is the fruit of our abiding with and in Jesus.   Faith first ~ belief first ~ then works.  Believe in Jesus, abide in Him, and bear fruit.  We don't have to memorize this, it's just the way life in Christ works.  Farmers don't have to remember: plow the field, sow the seed, reap the crop–these are just natural processes that happen when we're connected to life.  When we're connected with Jesus–abiding in Him–fruit happens! So, the first step in this abiding life is believing Jesus, believing the Good News.    The second step is staying with Him, listening to His word, and following His lead (abiding). The third step is where the practices come in:  "Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord" (Hosea 10:12).  Apart from Christ our hearts and souls are barren.  In themselves, the practices have no virtue or value at all except for their work in breaking up the soil of your heart so that the Seed of God's word and the promise of gospel joy, freedom, and life can take root in you and produce a crop "greater than you can even imagine" (my paraphrase; see Matthew 13:1-23 for the whole parable). So in the weeks ahead, let's focus on believing in Christ and abiding in Him.  Let's "practice the practices" together, and grow together in "the grace and knowledge" of Him.  And as we do all this, let's remember that He abides in us first, and that all our living and behaving and serving and loving spring from His indwelling presence!   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 Daniel Lloyd Blunk Fernandez on Unsplash GLORIOUS RUINS Is the resurrection life we just celebrated on Easter this past Sunday something that we too can enter into?  Is there any way for us to really walk in that life and live that life and celebrate that life today?  Absolutely!  Jesus didn't intend that we live miserable, frustrated, fruitless, and meaningless lives until we die one day and go to be with Him in heaven.  That will certainly be a glorious day, but Jesus' gift, and life in the Holy Spirit, is meant for us every bit as much now as it will be then!   I'm getting older (don't laugh, you are too!).  But recently, I was thinking about all the things that are wrong with my body, some since childhood, some only discovered in the last few months:  I'm near-sighted, I have what seem to be dozens of floaters constantly drifting before my eyes, I just got hearing aids a couple months ago, tinnitus rings in my ears 24/7, my back complains on a regular basis, and my knees can't take running anymore (boy do I miss running!).   Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the technology that allows me to compensate, however imperfectly, for most of these problems.  And in all likelihood, you have a variety of issues that are worse–even much worse–than mine (even if you're much younger than I am).  But I don't want to get into a pity contest.  My point isn't to see which of us is worse off than the other.  My point is that our bodies are ruins.  Regardless how healthy we are, our bodies are constantly breaking down, and one day they'll stop running altogether and we'll die. Have you ever considered, though, that your soul is also in ruins?  Your soul is not what it once was, and most certainly is not what it was intended by God to be.   Remember, we are not just our bodies.  Your body is the visible part of you, the part you can look at and touch.  It is uniquely yours–even if you are an identical twin, your body is still yours alone and not your twin's.  Your soul is the invisible part of you, the part you cannot look at or touch, your will, emotions, imagination, desire, intellect.  It, too, is uniquely yours–no one else who has ever lived has ever encountered the world, or reacted to the world, in quite the same way you have.  No one has ever possessed your imagination or your sense of humor or your unique capacity to choose how to respond to beauty or heartache.  And your spirit  is the life that animates your body and soul.  It is also uniquely yours, but it didn't originate with you, it comes from God alone.  Just as God formed Adam from the dust of the earth and then breathed life into him so that he became a living being, just so your very breath is one facet of the mystery of being made in the image of God. One of the doctrines of Calvinism is Total Depravity.   Some people understand this to mean (wrongly) that because of Adam and Eve's first sin, there is nothing, zero, zilch, nada, not one single good thing in us.  I am no Calvinist, but I do believe in Total Depravity, but only in the sense that every good thing that God created   in us is corrupted and perverted by sin.  Creation groans in anticipation of our being set right again one day.  And we groan when we experience our own fallenness, limitations, and sin, and when we see and hear all around us from abuse to war, from illness to starvation, from random meanness to intentional destruction.  There is a gap between our well-intentioned goodness and the flawed and imperfect results of confusion and conflict we never intended.  We argue and fight and disagree and misunderstand and manipulate (and are manipulated) on a daily basis. The truth is that we live an in-between life.  On the one hand, we know we have resurrection life in Jesus.  And on the other, we are broken, ruined remnants of humanity. Paul says that Christ has not merely helped us turn over a new leaf, He has actually made us new creations in Christ .  At the very same time, though, we plod along, mired in old habits, destructive thought patterns, and unhealthy lifestyles (our lives are ruins, remember?).  How are we supposed to live in the push and pull, back and forth, up and down of this in-between/not-yet life? But Jesus wants to rebuild our ruins (Isaiah 61).  Jesus says that life, the real, abundant, fulfilling life we're looking for can be ours in the here and now by abiding in Him (John 15).  But what in the world does that mean?  What does abiding in Christ even look like for ordinary people like us? Well, I think the starting place is putting our roots down deep into what we believe about Jesus.  Are we going to Him for His sake, or just to find happiness for ourselves.  Is it about Him or about us?  Do we really believe the truth that "all things came into being through Him" and that "He sustains all things" and that "all things hold together in Him"?  Do we really believe that He lives in us right now?  Do we really believe what Peter says, that "we have everything necessary for life and godliness" in Christ?   The truest thing about our life in Jesus is that He lives in us right now–His life is our life.  I mentioned a moment ago that the key to life is abiding in Christ, but look a little closer at John 15–in verse 4 He says, "Abide in Me as I abide in you. "  The key has been right in front of us all along!  The secret of abiding in Christ is not necessarily doing anything radically different, but just resting (abiding!) in the truth that He is already at work in us!  It remains for us to work together with Him toward the glory He has prepared for all of creation.  Paul says to " work on your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12b-13). Paul goes on to say, in 2 Cor. 5: 16-17: "From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way.  So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!"   But if we are body/soul/spirit people like we talked about a few minutes ago, we need to realize that every single part of us–visible or invisible–needs to find restoration in Jesus.  We need to find a way to make sure Jesus has access to every part of who we are. The bottom line, though, if we're honest with ourselves, is that there are parts of us that we would very much prefer not to let Jesus get at. We've begun to talk a lot about "spiritual practices" lately (they're often called spiritual disciplines), things like Scripture reading, prayer, fasting, community, solitude, generosity, and lots more.  Some of these you practice already, I'm sure, but over the next few months in our Sunday morning messages, we're going to look at these and other practices and see how they can help us abide in Christ.  The end result, we pray, will be full, abundant life and great fruitfulness in how we live it. Think of the spiritual practices this way:  First and foremost they are not signs of spiritual maturity or ways of proving how serious we are about following Jesus.   Instead, think of your soul, the unique, invisible part of yourself, as a dry, crusty farm field that's been lying fallow through months of winter cold.  What's the first thing a farmer does in the springtime?  Of course!  He plants a bunch of seed for whatever crop he wants to get in the Fall….  NO, silly!  In that case, the seed will just dry up or be eaten by the birds.  First, he has to plow up the field.   He has to break up the soil, and turn it over and over again in order that the soft, rich, fertile soil can come to the surface.  Only then can the seed be sown so the sunlight and spring rains can help the seed germinate and send its roots deep down into the soil, then grow skyward, and still later bear much fruit. This is what the spiritual practices do for us–they plow up the dry, crusty soil of our hearts.  Then, as we abide in Christ and He in us, His Word, His light, and His love can fall fresh on our hearts, help us put down roots, grow heavenward, and bear much fruit–in this life! The practices help us make our bodies our servants (and don't you sometimes feel like you're the slave of your body and its appetites?).  After all, Paul says that we are to bring our bodies into submission– this is what he's talking about (see 1 Cor. 9:27).  And the spiritual practices are how we let God get at us. Sound good to you?  I hope so!  If you're feeling like your life is just one big heap of ruins, please know that God is in the business of raising up and restoring ruins!  He alone can bring glory to the ruins of any life!  So for now, the best way to prepare your hearts for what God wants to do over the next few months is: Abide in Christ and let Him abide in you Linger in His presence Listen for His guidance 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 Michaela Murphy on Unsplash THE FRAGRANCE OF CHRIST This is going to be a different type of Waybread piece.  I usually have an idea or theme in mind when I start to write.  But in my own personal devotions this morning, a verse or two from every reading stood out to me, and they all seemed to fit together in a way that I thought was important not just for me, but for all of you as well.  I hope you find that to be the case because I believe that this is somehow tied to the "new thing" God has so recently begun in us. DAVID, FROM THE PSALMS In one of the Songs of Ascent, David sings: "O Israel, hope in the Lord!     For with the Lord there is steadfast love,     and with him is great power to redeem." (130:7) In English, we can often identify poetry by lines that rhyme.  In Hebrew, poetry is often defined by what's called parallelism–the repetition of a single idea in using different words in order to emphasize a key point.  So here, look at those last two lines.  "With the Lord" and "with him" repeat themselves, but then the latter phrases reflect off each other as if in a mirror, only each one adds subtle meanings to the other.  With the Lord there is "steadfast love" and "great power to redeem."  Do you see it?  The great power of love and redemption work together!  Love is at work in redemption, and redemption is a fruit of God's love.  His steadfast love is demonstrated for us in its power to redeem!  And the work of redemption is the work of steadfast love!   But let's not go too fast.  What is redemption, anyway?  When you redeem a coupon at the grocery store, you are exchanging a little slip of paper that has virtually no value (notice that most coupons say in very small print something like: Cash value: 1/100¢) for something of immeasurably more value–a can of corn perhaps.  But when we look at ourselves and our own souls, and we consider that because of sin our entire selves have been rendered virtually worthless, and then we think (how wonderful!) that Christ's freely-entered-into sacrifice on the cross, the shedding of His blood, redeems our whole self, body, soul, and spirit, how can we not fall down on our knees in worship and adoration? Everything we have and everything we are flows from this wonderful and mysterious exchange, this beautiful redemption, this steadfast love in which we find the wholeness we could never know on our own.  And to know that this redemption not only secures for us eternal, abundant life but that it does so because it binds us to the risen Christ in love … this staggers the imagination.  Truly, eye has never seen, nor ear heard of such a wonder. PAUL, IN 2 CORINTHIANS 14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. 15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing: 16 to the one group a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is qualified for these things? (2 Cor. 2:14-16) I also like the way Eugene Peterson says this in The Message: 14-16  In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life. But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse. 16-17  This is a terrific responsibility. Is anyone competent to take it on?  So let's not leave the idea of steadfast love and redemption behind!  Let's bring it with us into this new thought.  This redeemed people of God–you and me, can you believe it?–become Christ's gift to the world.  Having been redeemed, we move into the world with love and grace, joy and peace, emanating from us like heat from a fire or like scent from a flower.  In fact, that's the exact image Paul uses here.  In and through Jesus we are the aroma of Christ to everyone we meet.   I hope you see here that this is nothing you have to do .  It is not a mission or a task or even a calling–it is the simplest thing imaginable: it is nothing more than who we are .  When you walk through the rain and then enter a shop or a store, you leave wet footprints.  You don't try to.  You don't make it your mission.  You don't check "Leave wet footprints" off your to-do list for the day.  You just got wet and you took wetness with you.  The Christian life means we find Christ and take Him with us.  In Christ, we catch the scent of love, service, and sacrifice, and we leave that secnt wherever we go.  It's just who we are! JESUS, IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.  Again (without straining too hard!), bring with you into this passage, like a little bouquet of flowers, what we've found in the previous couple of passages.  As lofty and beautiful and awe-inspiring as David's and Paul's words are, we can never divorce them from the actual stuff of our lives, how we really live, and those with whom we eat and talk and worship.  We aren't, any of us, completed works of grace.  We are still becoming the men and women God intends us to be.  And part of that process of growing in grace involves navigating the bumps and potholes of our relationships with one another.  What's more, what Jesus is saying in this part of the Sermon on the Mount is that how we live with one another is actually woven into the fabric of our worship of God.  The redemption we have experienced becomes the reconciliation we pursue with others.  We don't have a family life, a work life, a friendship life, and a worship life.  Our worship is laced with family, work, and friends.  Our family, work, and friends, are (or ought to be) steeped in our worship.  It's like a teabag.  When you place a teabag in a steaming cup of water, the water takes on the color and flavor of the tea; you can no longer separate one from the other. This is the mystery of what it means for us to be the Body of Christ!  Our salvation, our life in Christ, is no secret exchange between each of us and God, and hidden from others.  Far from it!  In Christ, we are, as Paul says, members of one another, like the various parts of a human body–unique, and yet inseparable.   And so, when we come to the altar, when we come to the Table, when we come to worship the one true and living God, and we know that our brother or sister harbors some grudge or ill will toward us, Jesus says we should go and be reconciled to that brother or sister before continuing with our worship.  You might even say that the reconciliation is an actual part of our worship–it's like the teabag again: the various facets cannot be completely severed from one another.  Friends, this is the gospel!  Not only redemption, not only basking in the Word of God (and there is so much more we could say about all these passages!), not only reconciliation with one another, but union with Christ Himself, our Savior and Healer, the One who sends us into the world to spread the aroma of Christ, not so much that others can be persuaded or convinced of His existence, but so they too can partake, share in, the same life of Christ which we have tasted and known! 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 Johannes Plenio on Unsplash SILENT AS LIGHT I am pitifully ignorant of most of the great old hymns.  There are so many high and noble truths embedded in them.  Sandy, though, having been raised in the Free Methodist Church in Canada, knows virtually all of them, it seems.  Now and then I'll come across the lyrics to one in some book I'm reading, and when I share it with her, she'll start singing it!   Just the other day in my morning reading, I came across this beautiful line and have been haunted by it since:  "Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light…."  Not knowing where it came from, I looked for a footnote, and discovered that it comes from an 1867 hymn by Walter Chalmers Smith called "Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise," based on 1 Timothy 1:17 [the complete lyrics are at the bottom of the page].  Interestingly enough, after writing the line down in my journal I continued on with the morning's Scripture readings, only to find that one of them was (you guessed it) 1 Timothy 1:17!  And, of course, it will come as no surprise to you that when I shared it with Sandy, she said, "Oh yeah!" and began to sing it. We think too little of light.  Just look at that last phrase:  "silent as light."  I never thought about it that way, but I just love the thought, don't you?  Because, well, we know that God is light.  And God is very often silent, in both comforting and difficult ways.  But, like light, God is humble and willing to be overlooked.   Light, too, is like that.  All that we know, we know by light, and yet light rarely calls attention to itself; it's too busy illuminating other things.  Even the wind, invisible though it is, makes itself known to us by its soft spring caresses or its sharp winter teeth or its whispers in the trees.  But light–light always points beyond itself.  We seldom actually even see light.  The closest we come is a ray of sunlight piercing through a fog, but even then it's not the light we see, but the mist hanging in the air.  We never see light, but we see all other things by it.   The Bible says that God Himself is light "and in Him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5).  Even in the darkest places, David tells us, "even the darkness is not dark to You; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to You" (Ps. 139:12).   And the light of God's Word cannot be quenched by darkness either, for His Word is a light to our path (Ps. 119:105).  But even God's Word is, if not silent, at least subtle.  His voice, we read, is "still, small," easy to miss, quiet as a seed nestled in dark earth. And even Jesus says, in His own small voice, "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12).  Furthermore, the Apostle John says that "All things came into being through Him, and without Him not one thing came into being.  What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it" (John 1:3-5).  Think of it: His life itself is the light of all people! And beyond all this, God's light not only helps us see, it helps us see!  It gives us understanding in His Word, without the light of which we would know nothing.  Psalm 119:130 says that "the unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple." But that lyric says a couple other things about God that I think we need to hear.  First, He is "unresting."  If you've been around on Sunday mornings lately you know that we've been talking about God ushering in a new season.  He is on the move, doing a new thing, birthing gospel life and hope in those who know Him.  But while God is most certainly up to "a new thing," He is at the same time always doing a new thing!  From the earliest days of Genesis, God has been "working salvation in the earth."  And from the earliest days of civilization, He has been at work.  And even from your own conception in your mother's womb, He has been "afoot." Now, one of the paradoxes of our faith is that even while He is unresting, God is always at rest.  The Scriptures speak of there being an eternal rest that those of us who believe in Jesus will one day enter.  So which is it?  Is He at work or is He at rest?  The simple answer is … Yes!  The truth I think we're meant to focus on is that God is relentless.   He is in pursuit of you.  In His love, He will permit nothing to hinder His purposes in you.  Paul says that "He who began a good work among you will bring it to completion…" (Phil. 1:6). But the beauty and wonder of all this is found in the other word in this lyric.  While unresting , God is also at one and the same time unhasting .  He is in no hurry (though don't we sometimes wish He were!).  He is not rushed or behind schedule.  He is not panicked or daunted by circumstances (though we sometimes may be).  He knows what you face, He knows what you are up against, and He will stand as a bulwark and a shield between you and all that would do you harm. My last encouragement to you today is to trust in this "unresting, unhasting" love of God.  Because of His marvelous steadfast love, we can find our rest in Him, because He is our defender and our redeemer–He promises to take all of our pain and sorrow, our frustration and disappointment–and make them count for something beautiful.  Indeed, He will turn them to light in the very heart of darkness.   So quiet your soul, friend.  Still yourself.  All our best insights into the character are revealed in the quiet moments.  However marvelously God has revealed Himself to you, I am confident that His most striking revelations, come to us in the quietest moments.  If we linger a while in the quiet, He will make His still, small voice heard.   So remember, whatever darkness you are facing, however dense and impenetrable it may seem, the God of light is unresting and unhasting, and the light of His love is working salvation in you, however silently.  Trust Him, and walk in the light of His Word, for even this darkness is as light to 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. Here's a link to Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise . IMMORTAL, INVISIBLE, GOD ONLY WISE 1 Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes, most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise. 2 Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light, nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might; thy justice like mountains high soaring above thy clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love. 3 To all life thou givest, to both great and small; in all life thou livest, the true life of all; we blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree, and wither and perish but naught changeth thee. 4 Great Father of glory, pure Father of light, thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight; all praise we would render, O help us to see 'tis only the splendor of light hideth thee.

Image generated by AI at bible.art FREE FOR THE TAKING I often hear people talk about "living their best life."  While I admit there's an element of helpfulness to this idea, I think it gets a couple things wrong.  First, it puts us in the driver's seat.  Sure, there is a place for our own prioritizing and decision-making as we move from one day to the next, but the burden of making our lives consequential, of making sure that we don't shrivel up and wither on the vine, is a weight we weren't meant to bear.  Too many of us have rounded soul-shoulders bent from a too-heavy yoke.  I have good news for you today–an easier yoke is at hand! The burden of making your life count–even the burden of living your best life–rests on God's shoulders, not your own.  His plan is gospel freedom, abundant life, an open door to simply walk into who you already are in Christ–no pressure to be constantly re-inventing yourself or blazing new trails of identity and meaning.  Your life is not a continual home improvement project.  God's plan, God's design, is for His kingdom to rule in you; and as you love Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, to let that kingdom have greater and greater sway over your thoughts, desires, and choices.  The secret is "Christ in you, the hope of glory," that is, the freedom to increasingly be who you already are in Christ, not the freedom to re-make your life from scratch every morning or whenever your soul itches for a tweak.   Do you ever beat yourself up for not being more or doing more?  For living a "small" life?  For the longest time, I did.  At first, it was because I had so much baggage from my childhood–never thinking I could measure up or do anything right.  Feeling inadequate in all sorts of ways (I don't know that I ever really felt adequate at anything as a boy–except spelling; I was always a good speller).  Then, after I became a Christian, I even struggled with being a "good enough" Christian–sheesh.  I knew about grace and believed in grace, but I hadn't a clue how to receive it, or live from a quiet, confident, stable center of grace. And then many years ago I heard someone once say that we Christ-followers needed to learn how to "celebrate our smallness."  Well, shoot, I'd been doing that my whole life!  Or had I?  Far from celebrating my smallness, I was mired in and resented my smallness.  I was so small I felt that nobody could see me.  I was smaller than the two coins the widow put into the offering.  I may have looked like everyone else on the outside, but on the inside I needed healing every bit as much as the leper begging Jesus to make him clean.  And the harder I tried to stand out or to make something of myself, all I was ever really able to do was scrape at the scabs of my leprosy.  The harder I tried to "live my best life," the smaller I seemed to get.  You see, I had yet to learn that there's a huge difference between truly, authentically celebrating a smallness that produces ever more becoming and living out of a cramped cellar of deep-seated shame.   (To clarify–shame is not the same as guilt: guilt is the product of some wrong we have done.  Shame, on the other hand, is rooted in the conviction that my very self is flawed beyond remedy or repair.  Guilt is about what we've done ; shame is about who we are .)   Somehow, I needed to make an exchange; or rather, I needed to be redeemed.  Because the antidote to shame is not achievement or accomplishment or accolades; it's not bigness or recognition or visibility, it's appropriate smallness .  Shame is most certainly a type of smallness, but it's a counterfeit, a lie.    There's a word for this appropriate smallness: humility.  And do you know the root of the word humility?  Humus.  Earth.  Dirt.  To become humble is to discover that we are, in the words of Genesis, the dust of the earth.  And what is it that we are encouraged to remember on Ash Wednesday?  "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."   It turns out that the secret to living your best life is getting your hands dirty. Take a look at the creation of Adam in Genesis 2.  God shapes Adam from the dust of the earth, and then He does something remarkable, something He had not done with any other part of His creation:  He breathes His life into Adam.  Now, the word for "breath" in both the Hebrew and the Greek can also be translated breath, wind, or spirit, depending on the context.  The fact that we are made in the image of God, that we are animated by God's own spirit, and that we have been given dominion over the rest of what God has made, elevates us to what David calls the crown of creation (Ps. 8:5).  Humility is remembering that we are dust, but more than that, living, breathing, glorified dust.  Humility is remembering that once we were not.   Humility is not thinking poorly of yourself, it is simply remembering that we are made, and that we did not make ourselves.  And that's a smallness we can celebrate! My healing didn't come from learning new truths or from studying Bible passages on shame or humility.  It came when I repented from the pride (yes, pride!) of believing that my old, cramped shameful view of myself was truer than God's liberating design for me.  It came when I agreed to become the me He intended rather than the one I had insisted on being ( however  pitiful and shrunken that "me" happened to be). Friend, let me remind you of a passage I quoted at our baptism just a couple Sundays ago.  God says through the prophet Isaiah.  It's true of those who were being baptized, but it's every bit as true of every one of us who have been baptized: "Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing;  now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." (vv. 18-19) It always helps if we remember that every day  God is doing a new thing!  There is Another who has called you into being, who is shaping you, forming you, breathing His very Spirit, breath, into you!  And none  of it is of your own effort!  Do you not perceive it?  He is making a way in what was once the wilderness of your soul!  He is making rivers of living water flow in what was once the desert of your soul!  Your very existence is evidence of God at work in creation!  Your very existence is a gift from God not just to you, but to all the rest of us!   You want to live your best life?  You can do more than read about God and Adam in Genesis.  You can live Genesis anew today.  You can do more than read what Isaiah says about God preparing to do a new thing–you can be the new thing that God is doing!   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 Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash WILDERNESS TIME This past Sunday I mentioned that we have a couple new Lifechange classes coming up.  One is "Exploring Membership" (a catchy title that requires no explanation whatsoever) and "Wilderness Time With Jesus," which probably requires quite a bit of explanation!  So I thought this week would be a good opportunity to offer an encouraging word about finding a way to experience Christ in the "wilderness" of our own lives. You may have heard the old saying "I need some time to let my soul catch up to my body."  Nobody really knows where it originated, but it's been attributed to everything from African safari guides to sherpas leading expeditions up Mt. Everest.  Either way, I know I'm not alone when I say that many of us feel like we've just escaped the swirling winds of the holiday season only to be thrust right back into the more predictable but no less harried busy-ness of "ordinary" life.  I just had a brief conversation last Sunday morning with someone who was grappling with this very challenge–family, kids, school, ministry, jobs.  It just seems to never end.  Not only that, it feels like it's beyond our control. You might even call it wild.   We have beautiful woods behind our house.  It's probably the one feature that sold us on buying the place 20 years ago.  Most of the woods aren't our own property, but when you gaze into the trees you don't see boundaries and property markers, you just see trees.  The same thing is true of our own lives–the boundaries, guidelines, and principles we set up to give structure to our lives are invisible but they're there nonetheless–or they should be.  In a minute, I'll share some of my own with you. At this time of year, we tend to give more thought to those invisible boundaries and try to make some effort at establishing new ones or realigning old ones.  I wonder if that's you today. One of the greatest challenges we face is waking up every day to a life that's already going– commitments have been made, appointments scheduled, unanticipated needs clamor for our attention.  All this, and our feet haven't even hit the floor! Even if we hunger and thirst for a quiet interlude or space for a little stillness, life is already bustling all around us.  Quiet and stillness have to be carved out of all the busy-ness.  But Jesus' way of life was just the opposite.  He was every bit as busy as we are, and people were clamoring for his attention 24/7.  And yet, his busy-ness followed a quiet and a stillness that preceded all the activity.  I believe that if we're to have any measure of real genuine peace in our lives–and not just peace but shalom,  that stable, rooted wholeness and well-being only God can provide–we need to find a way to get behind or beneath  our busy-ness and establish a foundation of quiet and stillness.  And then, ideally, we go on from there to build our activities and commitments upon what we hear from God in the stillness and quiet. But how do we do that?  Where do we even start?  Part of the reason this is so hard is that we want action steps.  But what this requires is a reset of our souls, not just a new habit.   As I write this, I'm getting ready to go off on a three-day retreat of my own.  I've done this many times over the years, and I promised a minute ago that I'd share some of what I've learned with you, so let's get started!  (If you want to know more, you'll have to sign up for the class!) First, be patient with yourself.  I've learned the hard way that trying to spend a day or two on my own in prayer sounds great, but it can be shockingly intimidating when you first sit down.  The exact same thing happens when you try to take even ten minutes at the start of the day.  "What do I do now?"  Or all of a sudden your to-do list leaps into life like an animal in the wilderness and, afraid you'll forget this or that, you rush off with the resolve to come back "just as soon as I get this out of the way–otherwise, I'll forget it."  Well, pat yourself on the back because you just learned first-hand what C.S. Lewis said happened to him.  But he also gives us the solution: "All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind." Maybe keeping a pad and a pencil next to you will help.  Right down what occurs to you to do, and then re-focus on Jesus.  Don't worry, your list will still be there in ten minutes.   Second, be patient with yourself.  (I know, that was #1–but it's also #2!).  Most of us try to start beyond where we are, like training for a marathon by trying to run six miles and building from there to 26.2.  That's not going to work, not in marathoning and not in solitude.  Just like you have to start by running quarter miles and half miles, you need to start with minutes of solitude, not hours, days or weeks.  So start with maybe five minutes of just quiet and stillness.  (And this works best in the morning.  If you want to build on a core of quiet and stillness, the quiet and stillness need to come first.  Second best would be to do it right before bed.)  Don't do anything, don't read anything, don't listen to anything.  Just invite God to come.  Ask Him to speak to you, and then be quiet.  Don't try to listen, just be quiet.  If you can be outside or look out a window, all the better.  After that, take five minutes and read a short Bible story, like John the Baptist calling in the wilderness or Jesus calming the storm or feeding the five thousand.  And then look for a word or an idea and just let it roll around in your heart for a minute or two.  You can build on this over time, but there's no need to rush anything, it's not a contest.  Just listen.  Just pay attention. Third, I have never–honestly, never –left a retreat without the compelling sense that the pace of life the way we normally live it is unhealthy and abnormal.  I've learned not to try to do anything especially deep or meaningful other than some quiet Bible reading or even some other reading I may have brought along.  Or maybe I'll go for a little walk or take a short nap.  Regardless, I'll usually do very little until I get up the next morning.  Remember what I said earlier about our souls needing to catch up with our bodies?  It's a bit like turning a bicycle upside down and working the pedals real fast with your hands.  Then you stop pedaling, but the wheel just keeps spinning … and spinning.  Our souls operate exactly the same way.  We can go to a quiet place and sit down and stop all of our frantic doing, but inside those wheels just keep on spinning.  Don't panic or beat yourself up, just take some time and let them come to stillness all by themselves.  Practice doing this (or at least being aware of the spinning) even in your little ten-minute retreats! In the end, all we're after is finding a way to put ourselves in a position where God can get at us.  Nobody gets additional brownie points.  The only reward is the presence of Jesus, and then walking with Him through the course of the day.  This is what He did in His relationship with the Father.  He got his bearings at the beginning of the day, and then simply looked to see where the Father was at work and joined Him.  This is the way of Jesus.  This is the way of peace.  There's more to it, of course–a whole lifetime more!  But if we have the courage to spend a little time in the wilderness, we can begin to know the very same kind of peace.    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 generated by AI at bible.art LETTING THE BIBLE CHANGE YOUR LIFE Happy New Year, friends!  I want to start our Waybread year by building upon something I spoke about in my Advent message a few weeks ago.  I want to talk about how to read the Bible in a way that will help you do more than just check off an item on your spiritual to-do list, it will lead you into lasting vitality, healing, growth, and transformation, and who doesn't want that? Bible reading all by itself will likely not change you.  It all depends on the heart, mind, and soul you bring to your reading of the Bible.  Otherwise, reading the Bible is essentially no different than reading Moby Dick or The Lord of the Rings.   Or the newspaper.  Or even a comic book. So much of the Christian life isn't so much making anything happen as it is putting yourself in a position where Christ can get at you.   I tell you what–the most lasting changes to my inner self have consistently happened because I've either accidentally or on purpose found myself in a position to receive fresh grace from God to accomplish those things.  I say "accidentally or on purpose" because very often God changes me when I'm not looking for it.  I get sick or have an argument with somebody or don't have enough money to pay the insurance bill or just feel overwhelmed by how much I have to do and how inadequate I feel to do it.  But at one time or another, God has used every one of those circumstances to speak healing and transformation into my life.  But it didn't happen magically or without my permission.  It happened because even while I was going through those things God spoke to me through His word and helped me approach them differently than I would have without His word. The bottom line is that the single most important factor in my own healing and transformation over the years has been regular, consistent time in the Word.  And most of the time I don't hear anything especially helpful or relevant or profound.  But I've learned to keep at it, regardless.  Because ultimately, I don't spend time in God's Word to find answers to problems or help with a difficult relationship; I go to His Word to learn who He is and how He works and what His love looks like in the lives of other people all down through the centuries.   So my understanding of the love and the character of God shapes who I am and how I think and what I dream about and long for.  And then when life throws unexpected junk my way, I handle it differently not because I have better techniques but because I'm a different man  than I used to be.  Granted, I don't always, or even often, "get it."  I very often feel like God speaks to me like Jesus spoke to the disciples on the road to Emmaus:  "How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken." But the most important thing about me, I think, is that I daily spend time in God's word whether I come away feeling enriched and blessed or feeling like I've just started the day by doing the next right thing. You can't over-estimate the importance of simply putting yourself in a position  to hear from God and learn about God. So, as I said in my Advent message a few weeks ago, Eugene Peterson recommended reading the Bible:  Slowly.  Imaginatively.  Prayerfully.  Obediently.  Let's take a quick look at how we can do all four. Slowly.  Nobody realizes how quickly our minds begin looking for new stimulation these days.  In her studies, Dr. Gloria Mark found that in 2004, we could focus on a screen for an average of 150 seconds.  By 2012 we could only focus for 75 seconds.  And by 2020, our attention had fallen to an average of 47 seconds.  This is for ALL of us, not just "the younger generation."  We begin to get a little uncomfortable, a little impatient after less than a minute.  Just think about what this means for our ability to focus on our Bibles, and even more so when we use a Bible app on our phones.  Think about how impatient you've gotten with reading in general.  In order to be done well (that is, in order to consider, imagine, reflect, and think critically), reading has to be done slowly.  More than that, we likely need to read a passage two or three times to allow its various meanings and implications to soak into our minds and hearts. In order to make up for our impulsive need to re-stimulate ourselves, try this with your Bible reading.  Read shorter passages, maybe just a chapter or a part of a chapter.  Focus on pronouncing every word, even if it means reading it quietly out loud (don't study each word, just don't rush through the passage).  Or take a passage that interests you and read it two or three times and pay attention to different details each time through.  A great way to do this is called Lectio Divina  or "divine reading."  Click the link to check it out.  Slow is good! Imaginatively.  One of the best ways to get into a passage and past the words alone is to immerse yourself as best you can in the actual scene you're reading about.  Whenever Pastor Doug used to talk about reading the Bible, he would encourage us to use our imaginations.  How big were the crowds?  What did they sound like?  What were the smells? of people? of food? of clothing? of fish? of incense?  What did the dirt, sand, water feel like?  How hot (or cold) was it?  You get the idea.  And the more you enter that world yourself, the more you can also begin to imagine:  What would my reaction likely have been?  What would I have said?  Anything?  Would I more likely be one of those clamoring after Jesus?  Or would I be standoff-ish, not wanting to be taken in or misled?  Would I have obeyed–or delayed? To enter into Scripture this way helps us read the Bible not only with our heads but with our hearts and our senses.  After all, Jesus' command is that we love the Lord with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength.  Surely, loving the Lord requires bringing all that we are to our following of Him–and our reading of His Word.  And no, we're not talking about reading into the Scriptures anything that's not there.  We're just taking seriously what the stories and the lives that the words are inviting us into. Prayerfully.  One of the most common complaints I hear from people when we talk about prayer is that they so often feel like they can't find the right words to use in their prayers.  They wish their prayers were more polished or eloquent.  But I think God just wants us to be honest–with ourselves and with Him.  Are we ever put off because our children say, "I would very much like to attend a Tigers game this summer, Father.  Might there be a chance for us to secure tickets to an upcoming game?"  Not at all!  It's not formal language  or words our father wants to hear, it's our desire and our excitement, the authenticity of our request! I use the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) to direct my daily Bible Reading.  It keeps me in the Psalms, the Old Testament, the New Testament letters, and the Gospels every day, and I wind up reading through the Bible in two years without skipping over the "boring" parts or focusing only on my favorite books.  But I also like the BCP because it's filled with prayers for nearly every occasion imaginable.  The beauty and eloquence of many of these prayers help lift my heart and mind into more heartfelt devotion, but they never take the place of the real longing to speak honestly  to the Father and to hear clearly  from Him. But on a day by day basis, the best advice I have for reading the Bible prayerfully is to actually make the verses you're reading your prayer.   For example, imagine you've just read Psalm 19, which speaks beautifully about God's law (go ahead, go read it and then come back–I'll wait!).  Look at v. 7:  "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple…."  Can you find a way to turn this into prayer?  How about starting with something like, "Lord, I'm feeling kind of dry, like I'm just going through the motions.  I'm tired.  [Now, be specific about why you're feeling this way.]  You say that Your word 'revives' my soul –I need that, Lord!  Refresh my spirit  and my body so that I can live and love as You would have me to do today.  Help me, too, not to lean on my own efforts or energy or understanding, but to be wise in all my dealings ."   There's no wrong way to do this because you're just letting God's Word give expression to what's already going on in your heart and life.  Go ahead, dive in! Obediently.  I think obedience gets a bad rap these days.  Most of the time, what we hear in the word "obedience" is duty, grunt work, following orders, and drudgery.  There are certainly elements of truth to that, at least at times, but I think we would be far better served to have the word redeemed for us–to exchange it for a higher, richer, deeper meaning.  For example, Jesus was quite simply the most obedient human being who ever lived.  I have a hard time thinking that Jesus' obedience was characterized by duty, grunt work, following orders, and drudgery, don't you?   I think a much healthier way of viewing obedience is as a willing, and usually eager, and joyful response to the Father's leading, or a walking with God into His ongoing activity in our relationships and in the larger world around us.  We spoke during Advent of the disciples on the road to Emmaus.  Though downcast and discouraged on their way, once their eyes were opened to Jesus' presence with them, they lost no time in hurrying back to their friends to share the good news with them.  Now that's obedience, too, in my book, just as much as a soldier following orders (which is still obedience, just not a complete picture of it).  Just imagine how much freer your life in Christ might be if you began to view obedience like this rather than as dutiful drudgery. All that to say that we need to read God's word obediently.   Here's the "rule" to follow:  Read and respond.  What if we simply looked at what our morning Scriptures said and then asked God how we could respond to that word, how we could follow Him into our day living out that truth?  I think viewing obedience more as a faithful response than as dutiful drudgery would change our lives.  Don't you?  His Word would take on a whole new freshness, and we'd carry the aroma of that freshness into all we did. What's essential for us is to persevere, to keep the faith, to press on in our believing and our obedience.  Even the atheist philosopher Frederick Nietzsche say the truth and the power of this.  He wrote: “The essential thing in heaven and earth is that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.”   Friends, I think these are the first steps on the road to the transformation we'd like to see.  Even if they're at first halting and hesitant, let's walk that road together with Him, what do you say? Be encouraged, friend, for God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who spoke all worlds into being, is both with you and for you.