Featured Post

Book of the Month: Schola Caritatis: Learning the Rhythms of God's Amazing Love

  Starting a new feature for the next several months called Book of the Month.  I will present one of my books and tell you a little of the ...

Monday, April 29, 2019

proactive

Well, it happened again—I reacted.  I let my fears and my anxieties and my insecurities get the best of me—and turn me into the worst possible version of myself—and I reacted.  It seems like at some point I would learn.  At some point I would stop living a reactive life and start living a more proactive one.  The kind of life Psalm 1 encourages me to live.  Oh, I do get it right from time to time, or from season to season, but I still get it wrong so often.

When will I ever learn that I cannot stop delighting in his law and meditating on it night and day or this will be the end result?  I cannot grow tired or lazy or lax in my practice, or I will quickly turn into someone that I really do not like at all.  I will suddenly be at the mercy of the winds and waves of circumstance and emotion and be blown like chaff once again.  Maybe that’s why the psalm includes the words day and night as it talks about our meditation on the law, because the psalmist knows the relentlessly ongoing nature of this battle—the battle between being proactive and being reactive.

And it is never very hard to see who is winning this battle at any given moment, all you have to do is look at the fruit.  If the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, then all I have to do is see if those things are present in my life to know whether I am living a proactive life of being planted by streams, or a reactive life of being blown like chaff.

Luckily, there is repentance.  Luckily, each and every minute of every day we have the opportunity to choose to return to God, to plant ourselves by the stream of Living Water.  Even after we have, once again, forgotten to do that and allowed emotion or busyness or insecurity or circumstances to blow us away.  That is the beauty of repentance.  Blessed is the man who practices it regularly.


O Lord, how I long to be different.  How I long to turn from my twisted and dysfunctional patterns and habits, in order to be more whole and holy.  I long to be set free from my own self-consumed ways of being and seeing, and to become more and more like you.  I long to be more loving instead of self-centered.  I long to be more compassionate rather than competitive.  And I long to care more about your will and your work than I do about my own.  Continue, O God, to transform my heart.  Grow your grace in me and let it flow freely and effortlessly from my heart and life.  Change me from deep within. Give me more peace and less frustration.  Make me more rooted and less reactive.  Help me to be more caring and less annoyed.  O Jesus, fill me so full of your love that there will be no room in me for anything else.  (Room to Flourish by Jim Branch)

Saturday, April 27, 2019

risen

john 20:19-28

you show up
behind our doors
locked in fear
offering us your peace
and revealing yourself
in a way that changes 
how we see

you invite us
to touch your 
risen wounds
so that we can know
the depths of what 
resurrection can do

you breathe
your divine breath
upon and within us
and then send us
into the broken world
to be your hands and feet
your heart and soul

you say to us
stop doubting and believe
and so it is up to us
to decide whether
we will do that
or not

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

sometimes it takes an earthquake

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.  His appearance was like lightening, and his clothes were as white as snow.  The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.” (Matthew 28:2-4)

Sometimes it takes an earthquake to roll away the stone that keeps us trapped in death and darkness and despair.  Sometimes it takes an earthquake to awaken us from our slumber and stagnation and lethargy, and send us on our way with new life and energy and direction.  Sometimes it takes an earthquake to get us out of our comfortable, safe, sheltered lives, in order to start a new fire and instill a new passion deep within us.  Sometimes it takes an earthquake to disrupt our daily, self-consumed routines and remind us that, ultimately, this life is not about us in the first place, but about God.

So God sends his angel from heaven to shake us up.  He sends his holy messenger to disturb and disrupt us, so that we might not be trapped in our old ways of being and seeing.  He removes the stone that holds us captive and offers us the freedom to walk out of the dark tomb into the light of his love and affection.  For God always wants more for us, but sometimes it takes an earthquake to get us there.

Monday, April 22, 2019

the empty tomb

I have to admit that during Eastertide I often rush right past the empty tomb in order to get to the resurrection appearances of Jesus.  But when I do so, I miss the opportunity to be both amazed and confounded by exactly what Mary and the disciples discovered as they arrived at the tomb early on that first Easter morning.  Just imagine what must have been going on within them as they tried to understand and explain and come to terms with what had just taken place.  And even though Jesus had been telling them about it all along, the reality of what had just happened was far beyond their wildest dreams or best explanations.

You see, the empty tomb shows us that God is forever busting out of the tiny boxes we try to put him in.  He cannot be confined or contained.  He will not be controlled or manipulated.  He refuses to be captured or tamed or domesticated.  He is always wild and free and alive.  We never quite know how or where or when he might show up next, so we have to be awake and alert and attentive.  He might show up in the way, or at a time, we least expect it.

The tomb could not contain you, Lord Jesus, and neither can we.  Forgive us when we try.  Be wild and free and alive in our lives today and every day.  Amen.

Friday, April 19, 2019

knowing who you are

But Moses said to Pharaoh, "Who am I, that I should and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" (Exodus 3:11)

Who am I? All of life, it seems, is a continual journey to find the answer to that question.  It is the force that drives us and the conundrum that plagues us.  Ever since the Fall, when we became disconnected from the only One who can really give us the answer to our deepest questions of meaning and purpose, we have struggled to come to terms with our true identity.  Who are we?  And what makes us worth loving?  We spend our whole lives trying to answer those questions.  The problem is that we seek an answer in places that can never fully provide one.  We look to the world to tell us who we are, rather than looking to our God.  And the truth is that our identity can never be achieved or manufactured or constructed, it can only be bestowed.  And it can only be bestowed by the One who made us, by the One who dreamt us into being.

But instead of listening to the Voice of Love, we listen to so many other voices.  We listen to the voices of our world and our culture who tell us that we are what we do, we are how we look, or we are what we've got.  We listen to the voices of our anxiety and insecurity and fear.  Or we listen to the voices of our pride and our arrogance and our adequacy.  All of which lead us on a wild goose chase, for none of these voices can tell us what we most deeply long to hear.  None of these things can satisfy the deepest longings of our souls.  So we spend our days trying to become somebody, rather than simply enjoying the fact that (in Christ) we already are somebody. We spend our lives trying to make a name for ourselves, when God has already given us a name, one that he has chosen especially for us.  We work and we sweat and we perform. We measure and we compare and we compete.  We fret and we toil and we strain.  We read books and take tests and go to workshops.  We listen to speakers and webinars and podcasts.  We are so thirsty to know who we really are that we will believe anyone who seems to have a compelling answer.  We are bound and determined to find an identity, even if we have to beg, borrow, or steal one.  But the truth remains that only God can tell us who we really are.  No person, nor number, nor acronym can do that.  At best they can only describe what we have become as a result of the pain and heartbreak of living in this broken world.  They can help us identify the fig leaves that have worked for us thus far as we have attempted to hide our nakedness and our fear and our shame.

For example, contrary to popular belief, you are not a number.  Your enneagram number is not who you are.  It is what you have become.  It is just another "coat against the cold," to borrow a phrase from Frederick Buechner.  It is just another "dragon skin," (to borrow an image from C. S. Lewis) that must be peeled away and discarded.  In the words of the creator of the enneagram himself (Oscar Ichazo), the nine personality types are merely "ego fixations and aberrations."  They are what we have become as a result of living in a fallen world.  Only God can tell us who we really are.  Only Aslan can cut through all of the layers of the fake and the false to get down to what is real and true.  Don't get me wrong, the enneagram can be incredibly helpful in "taking off the old self and its practices" (Col. 3:9), but only Jesus can give you a new (true) self to become.

Moses was an Israelite who was born and raised in Egypt.  We are not told a lot about his family.  We do not know if he ever knew his father, and we do not know exactly how long he knew his mother.  The one thing we do know is that the daughter of Pharaoh was the one who named him and raised him.  In fact, she named him Moses because he was drawn out of the water.  But in Egyptian, the name Moses simply meant son of.  As in, son of no one, son of someone, son of anyone.  You fill in the blank.  So Moses grew up not knowing who he really was.  Thus, it was certainly no mistake that when he came to the burning bush and God told him that he was sending him to deliver the Israelites, Moses' first question was "Who am I?"  for he really didn't know.

And God answered that question in such an amazing way.  He answered it not by telling Moses who Moses was, he answered it by telling Moses who God was--I am.  He did that because we can only know who we are if we first know who God is.  Who I am depends solely on the great I Am.  Our being is derived from his, not vice versa.  Any attempt to know our own identity apart from God is fruitless.  I can only know who I am in relation to knowing who he is.  So the more I get to know God, there more likely I am to know my truest and best self, the one made in his image.

Sunday, April 14, 2019

a palm sunday prayer

Jesus rode into Jerusalem fully knowing all that awaited him there.  Thus, we too must endure the pain of the cross, in order to experience the joy of the resurrection.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for riding into Jerusalem—fully knowing all that awaited you there.  Help us, this week, to follow you all the way to the cross, and then on to the empty tomb, that we too may die and be raised to new life.

Saturday, April 6, 2019

prayer is surrender


"When you finally surrender and stop fighting the winds, you will be carried into the eye of God. There. you will rest in peace and learn to see like God." ~Macrina Wiederkehr

Friday, April 5, 2019

tired of waiting

My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. (Psalm 130:6)

A Prayer for those who are tired of waiting:

Okay Lord, let’s be honest.  I am tired of waiting.  So, so tired.  I have waited and waited and waited, until I’m not sure I can wait anymore.  Yet I have to.  I have no other option.  So if you want me to wait some more, you are going to have to give me the ability to do so.  Otherwise, I will just grow bitter and frustrated, dark and depressed.  And I don’t want that any more than you do.  I want to be able to wait like a watchman waiting for the morning, I really do.  And for a time I was able to do that, but I am simply not able to anymore.  I don’t have it in me.  I need your help.  Have mercy on me, O Lord.  Meet me in the midst of this long, long season of waiting.  And if you are not yet going to give me resolution, at least give me yourself.

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

home again

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. (Luke 15:20)

O God, how do you see me when I am still a long way off?  When my heart is fearful and consumed with the worries and cares of this life?  Are you heartbroken, longing for me to turn and come home to you, so that you can give me the peace and the comfort I so desperately need?  Are you filled with compassion for me, leaping from the front porch and running through the fields to wrap your arms of love and care around me, and bring me into the joy and delight of your house once again?  Are you so full of affection for me that you can’t keep your hands from my hair or your lips from my cheeks?

O Father, it is so easy to get lost in this life, so easy to lose track of who I am and whose I am.  In the midst of the brokenness and the pain of this world, it is easy to lose track of your care and your provision.  It is easy to start believing that I am alone and it is all up to me.  O Father, even this day I know I will get lost again amidst the flurry of activity.  Circumstances and chaos will rear their ugly heads and sweep over me, and I will forget your love and your care.  O God, when that happens today, please come and find me.  When I am still a long way off, leave the comfort of your house and come running to me.  Wrap your arms of love and mercy around me and, once again, bring me home.  Allow me to come and rest in the warmth and safety of your loving embrace.  For you are my home.

Monday, April 1, 2019

pursued

Surely goodness and love will follow me all of the days of my life. (Psalm 23:6) 

It is so easy to skim right over this line, if we are not careful, and miss the beauty and the mystery and depths and the truth of what is actually being said.  So often we fall into the trap of believing that we are the ones pursuing an elusive God, rather than realizing that it is actually he who is pursuing us.  And this one realization can make all of the difference in the world.  It can make a difference in how we see God, how we feel about him, how we think he feels about us, and, thus, how we relate to him.

If we think that we are the pursuers and God is the pursued, we are likely to live our lives in anger and frustration and despair and doubt and uncertainty, due to our perception that, no matter how hard we try, God often seems either extraordinarily distant, or absent altogether.  He doesn’t often show up in the ways we want or need (or think we need) or demand.  So that either means that he does not care, or that we are doing something wrong.  Both of which create distance between us, rather than the intimacy both we and God long for.

But what if God is actually the pursuer, and we are the pursued?  What does that tell us about his heart?  And what does it tell us about our worth and value?  And how does it change the way we see him and relate to him?  My guess is that it makes an enormous difference.  For when we truly see ourselves as the Sought After (Isaiah 62:12), it does something deep and beautiful in our hearts.  It draws us and woos toward the One who made us fearfully and wonderfully, and loves us so much that he cannot possibly stay away from us, but promises to pursue us to the ends of the earth.  I suppose that’s why so many saints and pilgrims of old have called him the Hound of Heaven.  For he is the One relentlessly in pursuit of us.  As Thomas Kelly once said: “The Hound of Heaven is on our track, the God of Love is wooing us to His Holy Life.”

Which brings us to our verse in the psalm: “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life.” (Psalm 23:6)  The word translated here as follow, is the Hebrew word radaph, which means to run after, chase after, or pursue earnestly.  In fact, in 1 Samuel 26:20 it is translated, to hunt: “As one hunts for a partridge in the mountains.”  Thus, the God of goodness and love pursues us, his beloved.  He runs after us, chases after us, and tracks us down all the days of our lives.  We are no longer the hunter—looking and searching all over for the elusive God—but the hunted.  God is pursuing us with his unfailing, relentless love and care.  And he will not stop until we have been completely captured by him—until we have been seized by the power of the Great Affection.  Thanks be to God!