October 2008 | Elaine Olsen

Raising Faith (part twelve): Embracing Your Rest

October 12, 2008

“Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on him, for God is our refuge. Lowborn men are but a breath, the highborn are but a lie; if weighed on a balance, they are nothing; together they are only a breath.” (Psalm 62:5-9).

“Momma, I’m glad we’re going home.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I need to stop the fun for awhile because I am so tired.”

“I understand, honey; mommy’s tired too.”

Those were her words today while driving home from grandma and grandpa’s. Two days of non-stop entertainment with the full attention of grandparents has a way of wearing out the most willing of participants. Like us, I am sure they are resting well tonight, in the comfort of quiet and with their routine returning to usual. My daughter and son love visits with their grandparents. Why?

Because of the attention. Because of the intentional effort put into their visits. Because sometimes, grandmas and grandpas better understand the value of time and the giving of it therein.

They’re not too busy, too bothered, or too bogged down with the world’s agenda so as to neglect their gift of influence upon another generation. They are on the backside of some valuable lessons that have taught them to appreciate the simple joy of investing in our Father’s most precious commodity—human life.

But investing, both in the lives of children and in adults, comes with a price tag. It often invests tired and weary and with the aches and pains of knees that prefer the couch rather than the floor or the baseball field in the backyard. It requires that the will supersedes the flesh, especially when the flesh is crying out for some quiet amidst the invasion of words that so adequately flow from an endless supply of questions and needs that refuse their silence. It requires an open mind and welcoming arms, even when ideas don’t match and visions don’t level the same.

Investing in people is hard work. But it is God’s work for each one of us. Our holy requirement as participants in the Great Commission … as priests in the household of believers. He means for it to cost us something. Not because he relishes our slavery to the task, but rather because he delights in the lives of his creation and in giving each one of us the privilege of savoring accordingly. Simply put,

We don’t have to invest in people. We are given the delightful freedom to do so.

That being said, Jesus understands our weary. He spent his earthly pilgrimage investing in the lives of people. On many occasions, his need for solace would require his absence from people. He wasn’t afraid to tend to this need. Many places in Scripture record him pulling away from the crowds to find his soul’s peace with his Father in private (Matthew 14:13; Mark 1:35; Mark 6:31-32; Luke 4:42; Luke 5:15-16).

Just like my daughter’s need to rest from the joy of relational output, Jesus, too, needed his rest from the crowds. Time with his Father in quiet solitude was like going home for Jesus. Why?

Because of the attention his Father gave him. Because of the intentional efforts of renewal afforded him in the pause. Because God better understands the kingdom value of what time with him will seed:

Rest.
Renewal.
Rebirth.
Refocus.

Further investment in the stuff that really matters.

I understand my daughter’s need for the journey home. The excitement that surrounded her departure from our routine and our very scheduled life was matched by her enthusiasm to return to the same. She loves coming home to rest, and so do I. We are a people who need our Father’s rest. But in between the going and the coming?

Lots of fun. Relationships that count. Love that grows and hearts that better understand how kingdom investing really breathes.

I don’t know how this strikes you today. We all, every last one of us, are heading home. This life is but a breath, whether we are “highborn” or of lowly estate. The clock is ticking and our weary will soon be laid to rest at the gates of heaven. What we do here matters for all of eternity. The privilege of sacred investment is a gift to us from our Father. What we choose to do with such influence is left to our discretion. He will never force us to seed his grace and love into the lives of others.

But he wants us to. Not because our crowns will boast heavier and more bedazzled with the jewels of his favor, but rather because he has seeded his grace and love into our hearts through the unimaginable gift of Calvary’s cross. And that kind of investment, my friends, should shake our complacency and force our knees to the floor in gratitude and toward the intentional sowing of Godly influence into the hearts of others, especially our children.

Perhaps, like my daughter, you are in need of some rest this day. You’ve played hard and loved real. You’re routine has been blessed with the interruption of relationship, and you are weary from the doing. Your Father is calling you home for some solace and some attention. He understands your requirement, and he is ready to touch your tired with the sacred salve of his perfect intention. Come home to Jesus, and find your soul’s peace. He is waiting to invest his love into you. Thus, I pray…

Give us the wisdom, Father, to know when we are in need of your rest. You, alone, are our rock and our fortress and the seeding of our strengthened hope. Forgive me when I fail to come and when I falter in loving others because I have neglected my time with you. My life is but a breath, but for as long as I am breathing its measure, I want to spend it wisely and with your perfect intention guiding my steps and blessing my obedience. Thank you for the privilege of investing your love into the lives of others and for the privilege of sitting at your feet to receive the same. May Sabbath rest be my portion this day. Amen.

Raising Faith (part eleven): Embracing Your Nakedness

October 8, 2008

“Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” (2 Corinthians 5:24).

November 2001

He didn’t deserve my stern rebuke. He deserved something, but not the severity of my harsh response. What I should have offered him was some grace amidst a teachable moment. What he received, instead, was a portion of judgment leveled at a heart too tender for the verdict … too innocent for the label.

Why?

Because my nakedness refused God’s dressing. Because my flesh is still so very much in tact.

I don’t recall the specifics of that occasion. I only remember a few words that quickly seared their way into my heart and forced me to my knees in humble apology. It is a message I carry with me, even some three years down the road. Not because I delight in the boast of my sin but rather because I want the lesson from it for always. A lesson intended for my growth; not only as a parent, but as a keeper of God’s truth.

Jadon, young in years and full with a “me first” mentality, was wearing on my already thinned nerves. Me, older in years and still so often filled with a “me first” mentality, responded to his continual fussing by sending him to his room. It must have been a hard send because his response to me was a soft and sorrowful obedience.

With tears rolling down his cheeks as he surrendered to the upstairs climb, he simply turned around for a final glance and spoke these precious words of conviction over my soul:

“Mommy, God sent you here to be our lover.”

I don’t know if it was the tears or his gentle way of his administering God’s truth to me, but regardless of the emotional mixing, his words cut deep and immediately shrouded my heart in heavy conviction.

Guilty as charged, son. Naked and exposed, yet again.

I’ve never forgotten that moment. I think my Father would have it remain firmly entrenched in memory. He used my sin and my son’s broken spirit to teach me a valuable and consecrated lesson about human life and about the responsibility that I bear in loving each one toward his kingdom end. An end that is best served…

through love rather than shame.
through grace rather than judgment.
through mercy rather than punishment.
through selfless rather than selfish.

Oh, the groanings of my flesh! I am naked in my want for the righteous clothing of my God. He’s been dressing me for over forty years now, and still there are moments of raw and real exposure that are mirrored in my body. I am housed within a tent that isn’t well pegged to the ground and that blows wide and open at the whim of a temporal wind.

My life of faith is a literal peep show for the world to observe, and quite honestly, I’m not sure if anyone is coming back for a second look. I’m not sure I want them too. When I can’t love with grace and mercy and selfless intent, I can’t expect a good review. From the world. From my own family. And most importantly, from the perfect Lover of my soul—the God who created my frame with an eternal cloaking in mind.

A dressing that does not include my fleshy imperfections, but rather a perfection that will swallow up the old with the life-giving breath of heaven’s new. Until then, I groan all the more because I know that what awaits me on the other side of this pilgrimage unto death, is a life fully clothed with the righteousness of my salvation.

Flesh living is painful living. There are no short cuts to perfection. God uses the lives of other pilgrims toward that end. The groans of our sacred shaping may come to us through a stranger, a friend, a co-worker, a parent, a spouse, and some days…through the tears and honest words of a child.

God did indeed put me on this earth to be a lover of my children. Period. No matter their wrongs. No matter their mess. No matter their pursuits toward self-interest. I am the one who has been given the sacred privilege of loving them to adulthood. I don’t always do it right, but I always do it real. As it comes, even when God turns the table and allows my young son the sacred privilege of loving me into my adulthood.

If faith is to be raised in this generation, then our nakedness must be embraced—even when it’s humbling and especially when it exposes the truth of a neglected imperfection.

Perhaps this day, you know the groanings of a “yet to be finished” cloaking. I understand, for I am woman who shares your exposure. All of us, every last one of us, are as naked before God and before one another. We might mask it well in the temporary, but as you and I stand before our Father, there is nothing hidden from his view. No portion of our flesh that he cannot see. This truth, alone, is worthy of a few painful utterings.

The greater truth? God sent his Son to be the Lover of our souls. And with Jesus, there is always grace. There is always mercy. And there is always a love rooted in the selfless sacrifice of Calvary’s cross. It is more than enough to lead us all home to our heavenly dwelling where the mortal will, once and for all, be swallowed up by the eternal life that is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thus I pray,

Thank you for loving us perfectly, Father. For sending your Son to his own cloaking of flesh that has enabled us to one day drop this tent in trade for another—an eternal dressing worthy of the streets of gold. Thank you, also, for the sacred shaping that comes to us through our exposure. Give us the grace and the wisdom to receive our teaching, even when it comes to us through a child and forces us to our knees in humble confession. Today, we groan in holy expectation for what is promised to us in our tomorrow. Come quickly, Lord. Even so come. Amen.

God’s Plow … My Longing

October 6, 2008

“He said to another man, ‘Follow me.’ But the man replied ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Still another man said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.’ Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’” (Luke 9:59-62).

There is a difficult tug that exists within my heart.

A pull between my love for the plow and my longing for a backwards glance. There exists a sacred tension between the two because I am cut from a cloth that weaves accordingly. God seeded within my temporal flesh the eternal possibility of a life beyond my flesh. Thus, the rub.

Flesh verses forever … housed together within each one of us, requiring that we understand and overcome the strain that exists between these extremes. We were made the plow; yet, we are prone to a backwards glance. And somewhere in the midst of our understanding the difference, we must overcome our fleshly tendencies in order to undertake the higher cause of Jesus Christ. If we refuse the learning, we are as useless before God and in his service for the greater good of humanity.

I felt this simply and yet profoundly in the past week. There is a new song out on country music radio, and I liked it the first time I heard it. It had a good beat … a lively rhythm and a catchy chorus that awakened my interest. But after a first listen and further examination of its questionable lyrics, I realized that it was not a song I should further indulge. Not because I am bound by legalism, but rather because it tugged at something deeper within me.

A backwards glance.

A life I no longer live, and yet a life that I can quickly retreat to in a moment’s pause. Sometimes through a song. Sometimes through all manner of triggers that call for my retreat. And because I am not in the business of retreating from God’s calling upon my life, I must refuse the invitation.

Because God’s Spirit lives inside of me, it is within my power to do so; but when I neglect his promptings, when I choose a backwards glance over the plow that grips my heart, I lose a portion of the holy ground that is mine to claim and mine to plow for God’s kingdom agenda.

A cluttered mind filled with a backwards longing is a mind unfit to move on with God.

He said as much to a few well-meaning pilgrims who intended to join his cause, but who refused his calling (see Luke 9:57-62). At first glance, it is a difficult teaching to understand. Jesus’ words seem harsh; after all, these men simply wanted to bring some closure to their past before moving on with Jesus in their present.

He calls into question their motives and their usability within his kingdom purposes:

“‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’” (Luke 9:62).

What a reproof! What a rejection. It is warranted, but the reason for Christ’s stern rebuke is often missed, simply because we are painfully focused on the severity of Jesus’ response.

The culprit for his reprimand? Four seemingly harmless words spoken by both men, yet when placed in context alongside the Savior’s sacred call for discipleship, words that became hugely complex and worthy of a harsh reproach.

“‘Lord, first let me… ’”

“Lord” and “first let me” is an unholy coupling. My firsts and the Lord’s firsts are incompatible. We cannot claim him as Lord and still harbor a “me first” within. We can try. In fact, we have mastered the vernacular. We simply cloak our “me first’s” in less obvious and less offensive terms.

We don’t mean to; not always. But on each occasion when our minds trade in the plow of God’s current for the pull of a backwards glance, we offend the cause of the cross for which he died. We are limited in our holy usefulness because our “first let me” takes the lead. And when it comes to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the seeding of it within the soil given to us for the plowing, his leading takes a back seat to no one. No thing. No memory. No backwards glance. No time for another agenda other than the one that he has entrusted to us.

If we choose to bury his agenda in favor of our “me first”—our backwards glance that refuses the pulse of the present—then we need to understand that little, if any, kingdom influence will be allowed our flesh. Period.

When God calls, God requires a response. And if our response is anything but a resounding “yes” to the present and to our beyond, we will remain shackled to a past that breathes without hope and within the boundaries of an irreversible history that has already been written.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be stuck in my history. I want to be present with my Jesus in my now. I want to move forward with him. With my hand to his plow and his earth beneath my feet. With his seed in my heart and his yoke around my neck. I want to walk the fields of harvest with Jesus, sowing and watering and gleaning to the outer edges of my faith.

I don’t want to miss his ahead because of the “me first” of my behind. Honestly, I can’t think of one moment in my yesterdays that is worthy of sacrificing one moment of my now with Jesus. Can you? If you can, may I be so bold to suggest that you are going nowhere with God?

You’re stuck, and being stuck isn’t an excuse for staying as you are. You are a sinner saved by grace who is given the high and holy privilege of moving onto perfection. It is within your power to do so because, if you are a Christian, you house the presence and the living power of God’s Spirit within.

There is no mystery to your moving forward. It simply requires your refusal to longingly entreat the pull of a backwards glance. Backwards glances come in all shapes and sizes. Maybe through something as simple as a song, a book, or a television show. Maybe through something as complex as a relationship, an addiction, or a sin that entreats your imagination and pulls hard at your will. Regardless of the trigger, if allowed safe sanctuary within your mind and your heart, its voice will be heard.

It sounds a lot like me first. It sounds a lot like retreat. It sounds a lot like refusal.

And whenever we refuse God’s invitation to follow, his voice will be heard. It is louder than ours and cuts with more clarified precision than any justification we can offer in the matter. And that, my friends, sounds a whole lot like holy rejection—a painful contrast to what I truly and deeply desire.

I want to be fit for kingdom purpose. I want the privilege of sacred participation in the higher cause of Jesus Christ. I want the same for you. Thus, I pray…

Purify and cleanse our minds, Lord. Purge and eradicate the “me first’s” from our wills. Let your plow be our portion and the pull of a backwards glance be our refusal. Fill us to the outer edges of our flesh with the wild and untamed overflow of your Spirit. You are our future. You are our forever. Keep our eyes fixed accordingly. Amen.

Copyright © October 2008 – Elaine Olsen. All rights reserved.

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My Father’s Heart

October 2, 2008

“‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’” (John 3:16).

My father’s heart.

It sat for examination yesterday under the microscope of the learned. A blockage was found. A stint was inserted, and today he rests in the care of his beloved wife who’s been tending to his heart for nearly fifty years.

He didn’t know what the scrutinizing would yield. He only knew that he must submit his heart to the process of thorough assessment because earlier indicators urged him accordingly. He didn’t relish the idea going in. Who would? After all, heart business is hard business.

It requires.
It relinquishes.
It refuses.
It reminds.

Requires submission. Relinquishes control. Refuses the easy road. Reminds us of the fragility of life.

Indeed, heart business is hard business, and for those who are unwilling to bow to the authority of the learned, a heart’s health is often ignored. Left unexamined, a heart can become the fertile soil for a terminal disease. A death—physically, and even more so, spiritually.

But when a heart is allowed the light, when a heart is laid bare beneath the scope of understanding and superior wisdom, disease is quickly detected and a regimen toward heart healing is put into action.

Here’s the verdict according to John 3:19-21:

Light has come into the world. For a reason. For our heart’s examination. But men love darkness. Why? Because light exposes evil—the diseases that are eating away at the health of a heart. And quite frankly, we are a people prone to the easy of our hidden rather than the hard of our exposure.

We fear the light because of what it will require. Because of what we must relinquish. Because light always refuses the quick road to recovery and because light reminds us of our tenuous and frail condition. Light is our necessary portion, but often it remains our continual refusal because light insists on the truth.

And the truth about truth is this: Truth is the holy ground where the enemy will always wage his fiercest battles.

Evil thrives in the deep and in the dark and in the secrets that cower in perceived hiddenness and silence. Perceived because, even in the hidden and the quiet, Satan would have us to believe that this is where evil will remain. But this is his grand and unholy lie. Evil is never silent. Evil is never hidden. Evil insists on its own voice and evil persists in its peeking in and around the corners of our hearts until we can no longer refuse its anonymity.

Evil is the penchant of an unexamined life, and until our hearts are laid bare for a thorough assessment by the learned, evil will fester its growth and will foster its fatality into a life that was never meant to die.

Here’s the good news:

We were not made for the darkness. We are a people of light. A people who do not shrink back from the embrace of its exposure, but rather run toward it and bask beneath the light’s illumination because our faith dictates such a response (Hebrews 10:39). Jesus is the Light of the world, and it is for freedom that he has set us free.

Freedom to come into the light. Freedom to expose the deeds of our former darkness, and to walk in the truth of just how far we have come in the journey toward heart health and kingdom perfection. When we stand in the unveiling light of God’s truth for all the world to see, we stand as a witness to the transforming work of a lavish grace that bled for our release.

And here’s the truth about that Truth:

If our Father had never allowed his heart a thorough assessment—a full surrender to the process of a world’s heart cleansing through his son Jesus Christ—we would still be stumbling and fumbling around in our dark … in our death.

Unlike us, God knew what the scrutinizing would yield. It would necessiate his Son’s obedience to a cross. A Son who willingly chose the hard of an exposure that required his submission. That relinquished his control. That refused an easy road, and that painfully reminded them both about the frailty of the human condition.

Our condition. Yours and mine. A heart disease that required his heart’s submission, even unto death upon a cross.

My Father’s heart.

Who can fathom the depths of such a wondrous love?! Light has come into the world, my friends. He calls for our surrender today. Not to embarrass us or to shame us, but rather to free us from the chains of sin’s darkness. We can walk in the light because he is in the light (1 John 1:7), and he is our Father whose heart bled long and wide and high and deep in order to bring his children home. Thus I pray,

God of Light, illuminate my darkness. Shatter the lies of my sin with the truth of your grace. Strengthen my steps for the journey into the light, even though my flesh cries out for the secrets and for the dark. And when I am scared Father, about my exposure and the hard business required of me for my heart’s health, remind me of your Son’s willingness to sit for examination under the microscope of Calvary’s purification. Humbly I bow my heart to your authority and to your scrutiny this day. Amen.

~elaine

If you have the occasion today, please re-visit John 3:1-21. Read it again with fresh eyes. There’s a treasure trove of truth revealed through the Apostle’s pen and our Savior’s words. Shalom.

Monthly Archives: October 2008