Category: Scripture ponderings

Tradition’s Impact

Today’s Bible study covered Mark 7:1-23. I look forward to getting with my friend to study on a weekly basis. We have translated Philippians and the Sermon on the Mount, and are currently working our way through the gospel of Mark. Her background is Greek language studies, not Koine Greek. I have studied Koine and as a pastor come at study from a more exegetical framework. This difference has meshed amazingly well and led to some rich discussions. Often we come away with more questions than answers, but we’re both getting better at being okay with that.

So we decided that in this passage Jesus was pretty ticked off with the Pharisees. He probably did his fair share of finger wagging. This definitely wasn’t a “writing in the sand” moment. He spoke harshly and with oozing sarcasm when addressing their annulling/voiding the word of God in favor of their own traditions. We found ourselves speaking as passionately as Jesus as we discussed our translations.

We noticed in verse 18, Jesus again refers to the dullness of the disciples (see also Mk. 6:52). For the longest time I just thought that the disciples were just not getting the God side of Jesus as the God-Man. His miracles and authoritative preaching seemed to mystify them. What I began to see as a result of studying this passage is some of the reasons why they were so hopelessly confused. Jesus challenged everything they believed.

This passage focuses on the encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees and Scribes related to cleanliness and uncleanliness. At first glance it may seem that the main issue was that of hygienic versus ceremonial cleanliness, but digging deeper reveals so much more. The traditions of the elders were so restrictive regarding purity issues that it would have been very difficult to consider eating socially on a casual basis. Everything Jesus did flew in the face of this.

As I considered this I saw in a new why some of the ones invited to the King’s banquet might have been reluctant to accept that invitation (see Matt. 22:1-14). I understand that thinking flies in the face of traditional interpretation, but when I consider the extremes of the purity traditions, it just began to make more sense to me. So with that mindset, I start to understand how Jesus just was an enormous irritation. They had worked all their lives to uphold these traditions and Jesus threw it back in their faces when he chose to dine with all manner of unclean and unacceptable kinds of people. And both sides were adamant in their stance and irritation with other on this.

I think this also explains the confusion for the disciples. If in fact they were looking for a Messiah who would rid them of theiroppression, they thought he would be attacking the Romans not their own religious leaders. Instead Jesus was telling them to keep on paying the taxes, while they needed to throw off the traditions of the elders which had invalidated God’s word. The Kingdom that was at hand was the Kingdom of God and it flew in the face of everything they were basing their lives and hope upon.

This matter of eating and ceremonial cleanliness cut across the fabric of their faith and practice. They didn’t get it while Jesus was with them. No, the problem continues to be addressed in the developing church: see Peter’s encounters in Acts 10 and Paul’s many words about food being a stumbling block.

So I’m wondering if we get it yet? I don’t think so. I’ve been a part of several different denominational groups, each holding to its own set of traditions. I’ll never forget the scolding I received for using the wrong communion cloth on the altar early on in ministry, or the time I questioned the point of the Hanging of the Greens at Christmas. The effectiveness of my ministry in one church was severely hampered because I moved the pews in the sanctuary by angling them by a mere few inches so the congregation would focus their attention on the cross instead of staring blanking straight ahead. More than one time I was told that “we always do it that way” and it was therefore assumed it would be done that way until Jesus comes–and maybe even on into heaven.

Please don’t hear me saying that traditions are bad. I can’t because I don’t believe that Jesus held that position. What frustrated and even angered Jesus was when the traditions superseded God’s intentions and hindered the people’s ability to move more deeply into relationship with God. Take the Sabbath, for example. Jesus stated that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. God’s intention was that Sabbath should be seen and experienced as gift not a hardship. It should be something that improves one’s relationship with God, not something that becomes the scorecard for adherence and practice.

I believe that one of the most meaningful passages of scripture is found in Revelation 3:19: Look at me. I stand at the door. I knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I’ll come right in and sit down to supper with you (The Message). Jesus was willing to break bread with Simon the Pharisee, Zaccheus, Matthew, and at least 5000 on a hillside, where I’m pretty sure there wasn’t’ near enough water to satisfy the traditional rituals for cleanliness. He didn’t let it stop him then, and I don’t think he would today.

　

　

　

　

　

Lent Old Testament Intolerance?

So many times, so many years, I declare at the beginning of the year that I am going to follow a read through the Bible in a year program.  One year I purchased the “One Year Bible” to help me accomplish this task.  I failed miserably each time–until this year!

This year I decided to try something and it has worked.  I have been tearing out the pages for each month out of the binding so that I am able to tuck one month’s readings in my purse.  It’s always with me.  I typically have time to read the daily portion when I first get to work in the morning, but if something comes up, or it’s one of the days of the week when I’m not working, then I always have it with me.  What I’ve attempted, and seemed to have accomplished, is to remove the excuse that has sabotaged my efforts in the past. 

And I’m happy to say: I’m still reading and have only had to play “catch up” a couple times.  The other thing I am quite happy to say is that I am totally enjoying it.  I look forward to it.  Well, until this week anyway.

This week has been different.  Up until now, I have really gotten excited about the journey of God’s people and seeing things in the Old Testament story that point me to things in the New Testament.  It’s been neat to make those kind of connections.  But this week I became troubled by all the God-endorsed and God-directed (ordered) killing that was done as the Children of Israel entered the Promised Land.  It felt hostile and intolerant.  It made me uncomfortable.  Surely God didn’t want to have that kind of rep.  Surely God didn’t want to come across that way to people who are just considering following him.  Could he?

I am a completely sold out to the idea that what we have contained in the Bible is there on purpose and for a reason.  I don’t always see or understand what that reason is–and this is just such a case.  It has left me with a great big, “Why?”

As I pondered this for a while, my discomfort continued to grow.  Tolerance.  It’s a good thing, right?  Here’s how dictionary.com defines tolerance:
1. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one’s own; freedom from bigotry.
2. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one’s own.
3. interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc., foreign to one’s own; a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint.

I sat with that for a bit and let it percolate, if you will.  Fair.  That’s good.  Objective.  I’m okay with that.  Permissive.  Hmm. We’ve entered into queasy territory here.  Maybe that’s where God has trouble, too.  Being permissive feels like letting someone get away with something–and not something good.  Perhaps that’s how I’m to make the link to this portion of history for God’s people.  As uncomfortable as it makes me, I have to come to the place where I understand that there are things that God doesn’t permit, that He just won’t tolerate.  I have to step out of my “politically correct” bubble that doesn’t just make allowances for differences, but obliterates any distinctions between right and wrong.  Doing that means that I have to try to understand the heart and mind of God, consider His perspective.  Tall task.

Part of the challenge in this is that I have grown up in a culture that has advocated for tolerance and acceptance.  After all, I want to be accepted so I should be accepting.  I was trained to believe that there is too much rigidity in thinking that is only “black and white”.  Ecologically we may be going green, but spiritually we’ve been heading towards many shades of gray for a very long time.  Menninger’s message from a few decades past only rings truer today: What ever became of sin?”

What I wish I could come away with from all this pondering  is a clearer understanding of how live less tolerantly (in the negative sense) while remaining relevant to a world that refuses to be any other way.  I’m not there yet.  I did however see the wisdom in a quote that may offer a little guidance at this point:
“In essentials unity.  In non-essentials liberty.  In all things charity.” (Rupertus Meldenius)

 

Balaam’s Ass

Text: Numbers 22

Just about every time that I’ve heard this story, the emphasis has been that if God can use a donkey to get his message across then certainly He can use “me” (the me being whoever was telling the story). But as I read the story today,I saw something very different. The focus seemed to shift from the cowering mule to the persistant angel.

Have you ever wondered what it takes for God to get through to us?  How many signals do we ignore? Or maybe a better question is why? What this account shows me, and so much of my life testifies to, is that God works in many ways, by many means, to get His message, His plan, across to me. The how of my missing may be more directly related to why. He is the hound of heaven, but I have become very good at tuning out the barking dog.

So I took some time to reflect on why I’ve been ignoring the barking dog.

I’m comfortable with the way things are.

I’m afraid.

I’m listening to something else.

I assume, or hope, the dog is barking for someone else.

I’ve come to accept the barking as just a part of life. Everybody has barking dogs, thy’re eveywhere, so what you going to do?

I am thankful as I have journey through this Lenten season that God has barked, spoken so clearly to me.  I started out the year thinking that I was going to focus on prayer.  While I have to a certain degree, it has been because my fear has driven me to it.  Having opportunity to teach a Suday School class where we discussed a book about pinpoint praying helped that focus as well. 

God hasn’t used a donkey to get through to me, unless you are considering my own metaphorical stubbornness.  He has however gotten my attention through some unusual things.  I heard him whisper that I had been worrying too much as I stepped on the scales every morning and saw the frustrating results of my emotional eating.  He answered my prayer about writing with a scholarship to  the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference and then to me that it is time to stop dreaming and start doing.  For so long I have been praying about a particular issue that my husband has been struggling with for years and this past week during spiritual enrichment services the Spirit broke through.  And I felt God’s smile envelop me and assure me that he has heard my heart’s cry and not to worry because he’s been working in ways I cannot see because he loves my husband more than me.  I let him know that I’m okay with that.

I wish I could stay right here in this spiritual place, feeling encouraged and provided for.  I’d happily just pitch my tent and sit.  I hear him so well here.  But that thinking didn’t work for the disciples when they wanted to stay on the mountain.  So  I guess I’ll travel on, but I’m going to be listening harder.  No donkey’s going to have to get my message from God.

We’re Still in Lent….I’m still journeying

Have been thinking a lot about fear these past few days. Have been feeling it, too. Not liking it very much conceptually or emotionally.

I broke down and tried to tell a friend about it. We were having our weekly Bible study (currently we’re translating and studying the Gospel of Mark). Before we dive into the text, we spend some time catching up and sharing what’s been happening in our lives. She asked me if I had been doing any writing and I had to confess that I had been too frozen by fear to be creative at all. She didn’t get it. I don’t blame her, neither do I.

I am facing a day in the very near future when I will bring to a close a very shame-filled part of my life. March 26th should be a time of celebration, but I am afraid that some kind of hiccup in the system is going to happen and instead of an end I will just experience a never-ending dark hanging over my life. My fear isn’t completely unfounded for in the middle of this “sentence” there was legislation that temporarily snatched away the hope of an end. It was a very dark time for me. I found that living without hope of end of pain, emotional in my case, is difficult to say the least.

My friend went on to ask me how my faith was impacting this fear. Her question implied that if I had faith then I wouldn’t have fear. I wish it were that simple. Perhaps the problem is that for me, it’s not just about fear–it’s really about control. Who’s really in control of my life and can I trust the one who is in control to do a better job of managing my life than I can? What if He takes me to a place that is overwhelmingly difficult? Why can’t I have some of the ease that others get?

Thinking this way took me on a journey through scriptures that should bring me comfort and contentment. There is the verse that is often quoted from Jeremiah, that God has plans for, plans that involve hope and a future, is generally taken out of context. If you read the entire chapter, you find that God has put his people in a very dangerous exile and told them to get comfortable. Job, asks a question that echoes what these folks must have been feeling and fearing: shall we take the good and not the bad? Life must have looked better to the one to whom the Psalmist wrote Psalm 37. He or she seemed to be in a difficult place and when they looked around them people who were living rough and faithless lives seemed to be prospering. It didn’t seem fair.

Ok. Everything written up to this point is from yesterday and before. What a difference a day makes. Or at least, what a difference a sermon can make. I had one of those moments this morning when I was almost positive that my pastor had been reading my emails, blogs, or mind this week. His message was straight from God’s heart to mine. (And I told him so, too.)

The title of the message was “Victory and Deliverence.” He used Acts 12:1-11 as his text. It was one of his more powerful and spirited sermons. Or maybe it just seemed that way, since it felt like he was sharing it just with me. I was most affected by the first half, the part about victory. He shared that he had a thought, one that didn’t come from his many books and it impacted his preparation. “Victory doesn‘t require winning.” He spoke about trusting God and not being concerned about the outcome. The pump was primed for me during the offertory, of all things. The pianist played a beautiful arrangement of “Because He Lives.” As I listened to the music, I was totally captured by the phrase: “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone.” Looking at the pieces individually may not have the same impact for you, but it just about knocked me over.

Pastor didn’t know about my nagging fear. He knows March 26 is coming for me, but he had no idea how I had been struggling. The pianist has no clue about my fear or the importance of March 26 for me. Yet both she and the pastor, in obedience to God shared exactly what I needed to hear to get me through this trying time.

Tuesday, the 27th, may not be any different than the day before. Some emergency law may go into effect that in effect snatches away my intensely anticipated and longed for freedom, but I know I’ll be okay.

To seal the deal for me, one of the major points in this morning’s Sunday School lesson (which the co-teacher taught today, not me) was that we need to have a “so be it” attitude (think Mary speaking to the angel about being God’s handmaden, or Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemene) in our relationship with God, especially as it pertains to our prayer life.

I no more know what the 26th or 27th will hold any more than I know what’s going to happen in the next minute, hour, or day. What I do know is that I know who’s I am. I know that whatever the plan is, wherever the path leads, I can trust the maker of path and plan to have what’s best for me–even when I can’t see it or don’t understand. I have already been delivered from the worst and am a victor through Christ. And really, what more do I need? I can’t think of anything.

Funny. I don’t feel afraid anymore. And the only thing that’s changed is me.

Lent Day Seventeen: Staying Connected

I miss being on Facebook. Long story about why I’m not, but for now let’s just leave it at: it wasn’t my choice. When I stop to really think about it, what I miss the most is some of the connections and reconnections that I made. It was good to catch up with old friends from high school and keep tabs with family separated by distance. I don’t however miss the wasted hours of gaming that I got sucked into.

When I was “unfriended” by the major site for sociality it wasn’t long until this little extrovert wandered over to Twitter and got connected. Interestingly though, the connections I made were much more intentional. I chose to follow people who expressed like ideas, but also those who could stretch my thinking, who could encourage me, teach me. I only follow one family member and a handful of personal friends or acquaintances. There just aren’t a lot of people that I know who know me there.

Now Pinterest, that’s a completely different story. I know people there and I am having a blast finding new ideas and letting my creative little girl who has been buried deep within out to play! New recipes. Crafty ideas. That place makes me smile!

I’m imagining that you’re wondering what on earth that has to with God or Lent. I’m glad I’ve made you wonder. (insert small smile here) Wait for it…This morning on Twitter I read the tweet of a highly esteemed Christian pastor-leader-preacher-writer that said, “God created Twitter. How can we serve His purpose?” (Ray Ortland) This simple tweet really caught my attention. What I failed to notice originally was that there was a URL attached that directed me to a blog interview with Pastor Ortland where he discussed his thoughts on how we can use the vast array of social media to share God’s message. I’m glad I just went back and read it. You can find it here: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/serving-up-tweets-an-interview-with-ray-ortlund-on-social-media

A couple years ago, when I still was on FB, a pastor friend of mine decided that for Lent he would give up his presence on FB. For him it had become a time waster and he decided to use that time instead for going deep into the Word and his relationship with God. He encouraged others to consider the same kind of action. While I understood his intentions, I wasn’t inclined to follow his lead because I was very conscious of using my media connections as an opportunity to discuss my faith journey.

He was also taking this position because of some very negative experiences he had on FB. I was thankful that I hadn’t had much of that happen for me, but I saw others doing battle with this. Some of the misunderstandings were toxic and painful and I could easily imagine not wanting that to be a part of your daily experience. But on the other hand, do we always run away from confrontation, or do we learn how to confront in a Godly manner?

So what do we do with this? How do we survive in this viral community without being of that community? Is that what Jesus prayed for us (see John 17)? I choose to land in the thinking of Paul in Colossians: “Live wisely among those who are not Christians, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and effective so that you will have the right answer for everyone (4:5-6, NLT)”

Maybe Pastor Ortland was right. Maybe God did create Twitter. Let us use it wisely and to His glory.

Day Sixteen: Boredom’s Cure

(Sorry for the lapse.  Computer and then internet issues have sought to sabotage my commitment to daily writing.  Thank you for hanging in there with me.)

Being bored has never been a good thing. When I was a kid, if I told my mom I was bored, she would gladly find me something to do…and it was never pleasant. Remembering this, I did what all mothers do: I passed the same trick along to my children, foster children, and grandchildren. The mere threat of my finding something for them to do generally cured any malaise.

So what about me? How as an adult do I do battle with boredom? I began by considering the antonyms for boredom, as suggested by dictionary.com: amuse; thrill, enrapture. Hmmm. The last few days I’ve been amusing myself with my new Nook Tablet. I have enjoyed learning its intricacies and capabilities. That has been good. Thrill? Not big into thrills. I wasn’t blessed with an abundance of curiosity or daring. I’m not even sure I’ve thought of thrill in a positive light for a very long time. Lately all I can think of is saying that I’m not thrilled about something or other, usually about feeling like I have no choices. My time doesn’t seem to belong to me. I don’t have any pocket money to blow. What would I do if my time were my own? Would it be thrilling to make a few choices? To say no when everyone expects me to say yes? Hmmm.

Enraptured. Now there’s something to think about. I just dashed over to dictionary.com again to check whether I really knew what the word meant. To me it’s an all encompassing kind of word. It’s a feeling of being lost in something. It’s an experience engaging all my senses.

One of the actual definitions is: to delight beyond measure. And therein, as my mother would say, lies the rub. I’m not feeling much joy these days. I can’t tell you why or when joy took a hiatus, but I’m definitely missing it.

So I turned to the scriptures to find my cure. First stop, Psalms. Now I realized I was feeling like David in Psalm 13. He was one depressed dude. But in the end he returns to the source of his faith. Later he reminds himself in Psalm 37 not to worry about how good the other guy has it but trust in God who will give him the delight of his heart. Finally I landed in Psalm 51, where David writes: Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. I had trouble finding the verse. I put in several different combinations and each one included: the joy of my salvation. Now that little difference may not jump out at you, but it spoke volumes to me.

Do you wear glasses? I do. I started wearing glasses when I was 40. I’ve always had trouble with my eyes (4 corrective eye muscle surgeries before I was 9), so I was familiar with the ocular device where the doctor asks you to consider which lens is clearer, “This one or this one? This one or this one? This one or this one?” This part of the examination seems to take forever, and some of the differences are so minute that they’re practically indistinguishable.

That’s what I started thinking about as I considered the difference between “my salvation” and “your salvation.” How much difference can one word really make? For me, in this case, a huge difference. As I reflected, I realized that I was once again at that place where I want things the way I want them. I had been relying upon my wisdom, my strength, my salvation. Interesting side note: I just spelled that slavation–as if doing it my made me a slave to my self and didn’t provide what I needed most: salvation from the only one who can truly provide it, now and forever. No wonder I had lost my joy.

I wish I could say that I have determined three steps to reach my goal of restored joy. Wouldn’t that be nice? Right now, all I can muster is a determination to seek after God and his salvation through greater dependence on the word and more time in direct communication with him in prayer. And trust me, I’ll let you know where that gets me. Shalom.

Just Like Us

This morning I woke up REALLY early: the alarm time was 3:43AM! And wasn’t one of those glance at the alarm and roll over moments.  I was WIDE awake.  So I got up.  That gave me a few moments to chat with Hub before he headed out for work–I like doing that.  Still awake, I grabbed my Greek study materials and started working on my translation and study of Mark.  I’ll be meeting with my friend this morning.  We’re covering Mark 4:10-41.

One of the things that jumped out at me came close to the end of the chapter.  Jesus and the disciples loaded into a boat and headed across the lake.  At first there were other boats going along with them, but then a violent squall comes up.  The other boats turn back, but the disciples decide to continue into the storm.  They make the decision to head on–why?  Jesus is asleep below deck and obviously sleeping quite soundly because the storm doesn’t wake him.  But then the storm gets to be too much for the disciples and they wake Jesus frantically and rebuke him, “Don’t you even care that we’re about to perish?”  AKA: What’s up with you? This is the time for one of your little miracles.  Wake up and save us you sleeping slug! 

How like us weak and fear-filled humans! Instead of using the wisdom and discernment that is available to us we arrogantly head on into the storms of life thinking that we can somehow weather the storm, but when we are badly battered we rebuke God for not protecting us.  What?  There was no reason to keep going into the storm when it would have been more prudent to turn back.  I know in my own life, God provided godly individuals to direct me away from the impendinding doom but I thought that I was stronger than the storm and would be okay.  The result was disasterous.  And I, too, found myself asking why God let me do that, didn’t He care that my life was in shambles?  How ridiculous.

When Jesus shook off his sleepiness, he stepped up and commanded the wind and waves to muzzle it!  And the wind and waves IMMEDIATELY calm themselves.  This was no natural and gradual slow coming calm.  This was a hit-a-brick-wall-stop-it-right-now occurance, a miracle showing of Jesus’ power and dominion.  So while the disciples rebuked Jesus, Jesus rebuked the storm.

So what can be learned from this?  How do we apply this to our life?  Can we?  The way I see it, we need to really be sure that we’re being directed to head into the storm and not just arrogantly proceeding.  It’s not enough to take Jesus into a storm, we have to trust that if he’s with us we’ll be ok.  And if we have headed in on our own strength, we shouldn’t be blaming God for our situation.  But even if it is our own doings that get us in a mess, we can turn to Him and know that he can and will bring us peace.

Faith doesn’t call us to foolishness, it enables us to trust the one who is ultimately in control.

Pray First: Fervent

When was the last time you used the word fervent in a sentence? I can’t remember either. So when I was looking for verses about prayer and rediscovered our verse in James, it should probably come as no surprise that I got stuck on that word. What does it mean? What does it mean to pray fervently?

As is my pattern, I went to dictionary.com to look up this unused and unfamiliar word. There I found that to be fervent is to mean imassioned, passionate, or ardent. That definition, of course, led me off to quickly find out what ardent means. Ardent is defined as intensely devoted, eager, or enthusiastic; zealous. Each word defined the other.

Initially I wondered if the intensity that was being described was to define the action of praying. As if something about the way I pray would bring about more positive results. I’ve heard stirring prayers in different worship settings that have left me feeling that perhaps my prayers weren’t “good enough.” Perhaps I just needed to get louder, pace around, and wave my arms at the heavens. Afterall, isn’t that a more accurate portrayal of Jesus’ intensity in the garden. He was so intent in his praying that he sweat drops of blood. That sounds pretty fervent to me.

All this thinking about fervent prayer reminded me of a very special thing that happened at a church I attended back in the 90’s. My primaray “assigned” ministry was chaplain at an agency that worked with out of home placed kids, but I was also a part of a pastoral team at my church. Our beloved pastor was going through a very rough time with the ravages of cancer. In our congregation there were three persons who had served as senior pastors, myself included, so we had been directed by the district leadership and the local board to divide up the pastoral duties to cover for our ailing pastor.

This was a very emotional time for our church, but it also turned into a very dynamic time of spiritual growth and maturity. No place was this more obvious than in our times of prayer. You want to talk about fervent? Our intense prayers for our pastor and his family spilled over into earnest prayers for our congregation. Then I happened to be covering in the office and I noticed that this experience didn’t stop at the walls of the church or its parking lot. Calls started coming in from individuals in the community who had heard that we were a “praying church” and they wanted add their concerns to our prayers. Members of the congregation were stopped at the grocery or Walmart by friends and acquaintances and asked to pray for needs and situations.

One Sunday worship as we were preparing for the congregational prayer time we stopped and reflected on this. The congregation had always wanted to make an impact in the community. Now they had. So what would they do with it? We chose to keep praying.

So where was the passion and intensity in our prayers? It wasn’t about noise or motion, it was about a deep desire to reach the heart of God with the things that mattered to our hearts. That’s what I’m hoping to find again. It’ll be exciting to see what else will be affected in my life because of this commitment to Pray First this year…but I will be ardently seeking to find out!

Getting the Word

1Timothy 2:1-3 The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live. (The Message)

Each year I use the week between Christmas and New Years to intentionally seek the “theme” that God would use as a guide for me in the new year. One year it was the word contentment, another time surrender. Last year it seemed that God wanted to reinforce in me the thought from Psalm 23 that “I have all I need.”

I hadn’t really even begun to give thought to the process when God broke into my quiet time this morning with the scripture quoted above. Initially, I thought that the verse was merely there to set the tone for my search, but I quickly realized that the first part of verse one was the answer to the question I had yet to ask.

So it looks like it’s going to be a year of prayer. As I let this soak in some specific thoughts bubbled up:

-Pray first. My standard practice of allowing worry to drive me to prayer will no longer suffice. Before worry, before complaint, before anything: prayer.

-Pray for leaders. I must confess that I am quite tired with all the grumbling and negativity associated with our current governmental leadership as well as with those seeking to be considered for leadership. I really feel that I am being asked to be silent in the conversations that will be raging and instead be prayerful.

-Prayer is going to lead me into living simply, humbly, and contemplatively.

 My thought is to write about this journey. I intend to read about prayer, and about pray-ers. I want to be able to look back see what the terrain of this year-long journey has been. And I will be recording that here (interspersed with other reflections, especially during Lent). To that end, if there is something that I can be praying for you about, please leave me a note. If it’s a private matter, perhaps we can email about that.

I’m excited. I expect I’ll be stretched. I don’t anticipate that this will be easy. But growth rarely is, and I believe I will grow.

Advent: Quiet

 12-24-11 Quiet

15For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said, “In repentance and rest you will be saved,in quietness and trust is your strength.” But you were not willing,

When our first grandchild, Penelope, was born I created an ABC lullaby that was quite effective at calming her and lulling her to sleep. She heard it nearly every day for six months and then she and her mommy moved away. My second grandchild, Caden didn’t get to hear the song much since they lived away from us when he was little. When Asher came along he lived with us and even when he and his mommy got an apartment he came to see us nearly every day. Needless to say, Asher heard the lullaby almost daily. As calming as it was for him, singing it also calmed my spirit.

I have come to appreciate quiet and not just the quiet that comes after the kids are gone. I mean the stillness of a fresh morning when I whisper even to God. This has not always been the case. For far too many years I had way too much on my on my plate. Keeping myself busy, taking on more and more tasks earned me recognition at work and seemed to impress people. So I kept at it, all the while feeling a niggling in my spirit that whispered of my need for quiet and rest. But I was not willing, and the result was tragic. I’m still trying to put the pieces back together, but some days it really doesn’t feel like there any pieces to work with (see Isaiah 30:14).

Recently Asher was obviously needing a nap, but desperately fighting to stay awake. He had crawled up into my lap so I started to sing the ABC lullaby. Knowing that he didn’t want to go to sleep, he put his hand over my mouth and said, “No, Mema.” He knew if I continued to sing he would fall asleep and he just couldn’t afford to miss anything. Or so he thought. He had a miserable afternoon which resulted in his spending some time in Time Out where, finally alone, he fell asleep.

Just like I knew that Asher needed a nap, God knows what we need. He knew what the children of Israel needed, too. They foolishly wanted to put their confidence back in Egypt. They didn’t want to trust in God or his word. The prophet is warning them that they needed to return and find their rest, their satisfaction in God and his plan. They needed to surrender their disquieted spirit and find their strength in him. But they weren’t willing. Are you?