an invitation to more...

“‘See the former things have taken place and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.’” (Isaiah 42:9).

I want to be here today.

A blank computer screen and “yet to be realized” words cannot keep me from this discipline … this penciling of ideas until they fill and gather to become a completed work. It would be easy to skip the moment; to walk away from the “emptiness” and fill my time with another activity. But even then, I’m not sure what that “filler” would be; how it would go; if it would matter. There’s nothing pressing on my agenda this evening.

Just moments—time given to me from God as an investment toward something.

How and where I choose to invest them is a decision worth contemplating, but even then, too much contemplation results in very little being accomplished. I’ve logged a lot of hours into my contemplations only to arrive at the end of some of them with little to show for my measured moments of deliberation. I don’t want this to be one of those times. Instead, I want to ponder alongside of you; think and consider some of God’s words with some of God’s people who best understand this God who measures all of our moments and considers each one of them as worthy and precious in his sight.

And in this current moment that belongs to me (and to you if you’re reading this), my thoughts are drawn back to an important biblical truth spoken through the prophet Isaiah to an obstinate people. A chosen people who had yet to realize the depth and meaning behind his words as they were spoken in real time. Approximately one hundred and twenty years would pass before this obstinate people would recall the divine wisdom and strength behind Isaiah’s prophetic voice.

At that time, they would need his words as they languished in exile in a foreign land. Words that reminded them about the “new things” God had promised back then in a season when their sin wasn’t looking for anything “new” but only for more room to grow and flourish.

When life walks without the immediate and visible consequences of sin, sin can sometimes seem reasonable. It did for God’s children, and after ample warning regarding their blatant disregard for God and his ways, their sin landed them in an unknown country with some unfamiliar gods and an understanding that forced them to grapple with their “what’s next?” and “how did we get ourselves into this mess?”.

God graciously unwrapped their confusion with the truth of his Word … his many words as spoken over a century earlier through his prophet Isaiah; the Israelites didn’t pay much attention to his words then, but I imagine that they clung to them in their current state of desperation:

“‘See the former things have taken place and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.’”

Who couldn’t use a little bit of God’s “new” in the midst of a formidable exile? A promise laced with a divine truth that declares a future before the future arrives? That there is coming a return from exile and a replanting in the land of Promise that has been designed and orchestrated by God and spoken by him in the annals of time long before their appearance on the road ahead?

What encouragement could we glean from knowing that no matter how our lives breathe in this current moment, there is a good word from a good God spoken on behalf of a good future we’ve yet to realize? That for all of the former things that have taken place in our history, God has written his “new” into our tomorrows—into the “next” moments that happen beyond this one. That there is something he has declared beyond the visioning of our eyes and the hearing of his voice that, once unfolded, will speak the witness of his majesty and his incomparable love for a people who deserve far less.

God’s Word is full of such announcements to his people:

Blessings;
Promises;
Gifts;
Joys;
Rescues;
Beholdings;
Comforts;
Companionships;
Understandings;
Everlastings;
Incomprehensibilities;
Graces;
Restorations;
Returns;
_______________________.

Beautiful proclamations contained and spilled forth within the pages of holy writ. Declarations made public by the heart of God via the pen of a few obedient saints who believed beyond the “reasonable and the seen” in order to scribe the voice of the unseen One whose reason extends beyond the logical to include the likes of you and me.

God prescribes his “new” for us—the usual suspects who’ve grown quite accustomed to the cloaking of an “old” way of doing life with him. Could it be that we’ve become a bit “crusty” in our approach to living out this “thing” we call our lives? Are you already imagining that tomorrow will unfold in similar stride to your today … your yesterday? Is there any measure of faith within your heart to believe God for more? To take him at his Word and to trust him regarding the declarations he has already made on your behalf and for his glory?

Is your belief in God couched in the reasonable, or is there a flicker of something more … a stronger inclination in your heart that leads you to believe in the unreasonable, unexplainable yet fully attainable mandates laid out for you in Scripture?

Our God can be trusted with our contemplations along these lines. For everything we believe to be true about our lives and their unfolding, there is more to the story. With God, there is always more to the story. There are things and moments he has imagined on our behalf that exceed understanding. To live with less, to settle for a life that simply “walks it out” in isolation rather than walking it out with God, is to forsake the inheritance that comes to us as children of the King.

I want to live better this week; to give God my moments and to allow him to write them with the truth of my sacred birthright. I don’t want to live as a pauper begging for scraps. I want to dine at the table of rich meats and finest linen and look into my Father’s eyes knowing that this banquet was prepared as a declaration from his heart, long before it ever came into being.

Two thousand years ago on an Easter morning in Jerusalem, Christ’s invitation for “more” sprang into being. It began with a cross; it ended with a resurrection. And it continues this day as a living witness to God’s very good and glorious declaration that we were meant for more than our current understanding of less. God’s story was written with us in mind.

Even now it springs into being. Perceive it; believe it, and then receive it as you sit with your Father this week in holy contemplation. There are some “blank screens” and some moments waiting to be written by his hand and with his truth. As always…

PS: I'd like to hear from you ... what "new" and "more" do you need to believe God for this week? God has already "announced" some good things in advance on your behalf. Spend time in his Word researching those things, writing them down, and carrying them close to your heart as you walk your inheritance in faith. We journey together, friends, and these few moments before the screen tonight are my way of investing in your lives for God's kingdom good. I love you each one. Shalom.

thankful

Sometimes there comes a moment that catches me off guard, an unexpected pause in my day that strikes a chord deep within, stirring the cobwebs off of the history of my heart.

I had a moment like that today while listening to this song on Kimberly's blog. The sacred nature of the setting, coupled with the haunting echoes from the acoustical setting, set my spirit aflame and called to my remembrance that long ago and far away split-second clarification when I clearly understood the grace and truth of Calvary's gift.

I'm still a sinner, friends, and God's grace is still amazing.

Remember and be thankful.

Have a blessed weekend, friends. As always...

lunch money

“And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19).

What do you do when your kids ask you for lunch money? When those slips of paper come home from school announcing the menu choices for the upcoming week, and you’re forced to make a decision as to which “days” merit your $3.50? Do you, like me, scramble for change all the while grumbling about inflated lunch prices and how your child will likely drink the chocolate milk and nothing else?

What do you do when your neighbor comes asking for lunch money? Literally.

Mine did today; not because he didn’t have money to purchase his own lunch, but rather because we insisted that he did … ask us for something.

You see, our neighbor is a mechanic who works exclusively on Nissan vehicles. When we moved into the parsonage six years ago and noticed that Dr. John’s Auto Clinic would be sharing a fence with us, we had no inclination of how this would prove providential and beneficial to us over the years. He’s been a “saving grace” for our vehicles. He was again this morning.

The car wouldn’t start, and Dr. John was called to the rescue. He arrived on the job early; around the fence he came, with tools in hand, knowing that our car wouldn’t budge from its current state of rest. We feared the worst. He warned us last evening of the most probable cause behind the car’s refusal to start… something about a hydraulic pump “something or something” and an uncooperative clutch.

But an hour later, our “something and something” was fixed by flushing out the old hydraulic fluid and replacing it with some new. Our neighbor asked for nothing in return. When my husband insisted, he simply requested lunch money. My husband handed him a twenty dollar bill, and Dr. John asked him if he wanted some change.

Can you even imagine?

Lunch money, friends, in exchange for the provision from God’s great storehouses of riches. It couldn’t have come at a better time; I am profoundly grateful for the gift and humbled by the ways in which God continually arrives on the scene of my life to remind me of his watchful care on my behalf.

Every day and in incalculable ways, our God shows up to show us his “God-ness”. We aren’t always privy to his arrival. In fact, most of us miss it. Why? Because we’re too busy scrambling for change in the crevices and hidden places of our daily life instead of looking up toward the open and spacious places best reserved for his sacred grandeur.

Wide and long and high and deep. That is exactly how far our Father travels to get our attention and to lavish his love upon us. To flush out our “old” and replace it with his “new”. The simplicity and the complexity of it all still stuns me and leaves me speechless. Well, almost.

Look up this day, my kindred pilgrims, and see his kingdom come. His will be done. On earth, even as it has so beautifully been done in heaven.

As always,

PS: Another satisfied customer; he made me include this...

just to say "hi"

Just because I miss you, even though I've never met most of you face to face. Perhaps one day soon.



As always,

Growing up Solid

“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:11-14).

The riding lawn mower quit working recently. Apparently, grounded tree limbs and freeway driving speeds over top of said tree limbs don’t make for a good mix. I’m not surprised by the breakdown. I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

After a few days at the shop and a costly repair, I informed the “lawn mowers” in my household that mowers and sticks don’t mix; they nodded their understanding. It didn’t sink in; not fully. For just the other day, the “lawn mower” man was at it again, driving like Mario Andretti, all the while crunching and munching the remnants from a recent storm beneath the blades of the newly renovated mower. When I confronted him about the issue, he looked at me with all sincerity and ease and simply replied…

“Mom, I don’t do sticks.”

My immediate response to him?

“Son, that is about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You don’t do sticks? Are you kidding me? How old are you?

I’ll spare you the rest of the details. Your imagination is ample enough to create a fairly clear picture of just how it all went down.

I’ve raised two impatient sons as it pertains to the “doing” of the rudimentary tasks of daily living, which includes anything that doesn’t make their list of “how a young man should be spending his time.” And while they’ve always been willing to comply with these daily chores (and to their credit, with little grumbling alongside), the rules of engagement for accomplishing the tasks share one common denominator.

The faster the better. The sooner it’s done, the sooner the fun. Sometimes it works out that way; sometimes it doesn’t. They are both finding out via personal experience that faster isn’t always the best route for progress. That speeding through life sometimes presents them with a yield—a pause that forces them to grapple with their impatience and their choice to either “grow up” in this area or to keep returning to the bottle of their infancy.

As it goes with them, so it goes with me. There are seasons in my life when the pressure to mature burdens me with the responsibility of having to make a choice along those lines. In the days of my youth, I couldn’t wait to be older; at least then I would be in control of my decisions.

I was right; I’m now in control of my decisions, but there are times when the comfort of a little milk and a warm blanket are tempting. Times when I wish I could revert to the cradle and leave all the decisions up to someone else. Times when I, like my sons, say dumb things to others and to God, in hopes that my words make sense, but all the while knowing that they don’t. That they are offensive to the ears of those on the receiving end.

Unreasonable words. Thoughts based on emotion rather than truth. Casual statements issuing forth from a place of unbelief, fear, and selfishness. Justifications that aren’t thought out but, rather, are based on inconsistent sentiment that shrouds my flesh in self-interest.

I spoke as much to God this morning.

“Where are you God?”
“I think you’ve forgotten about me.”
“Could you just hurry up with the answer?”
“Is there really any point to this day?”
“I imagine that this is about as good as it’s going to get, so I’d better get up and get it over with.”

Yammering unbelief like that, on and on for a few moments, only to be quickly followed up by my confession.

“I’m sorry God. That was really a dumb thing to say.”

And then I laughed; and then he did. And thus, the conversation was opened up for a better word; a truer truth; a love and a grace that exceeds my stupidity to say,

“Now that we’ve cleared that up, elaine, let’s move on to some solid food.”

It’s time to move on with some solid food, my friends. Our maturing doesn’t happen overnight or with a quick ride around the lawn. Our “growing up” in the faith takes time … takes a willingness on our parts to bend to the menial tasks of picking up sticks and slowing our pace. Of entreating the pauses that find us, whether forced upon us by others or freely chosen by us because we’ve come to the conclusion that faster doesn’t always yield better. That solid food requires a longer chew.

And that chewing can, in fact, bring pleasure to the process of our becoming.

How about you? What excuses are you bringing to the table of grace today? What could you possibly offer up to our God as a justification for your staying as you are? What bottle of milk tastes better than a steak? What questions could you ask him that remain without answers? What elementary understanding stifles your “gettin’ on with the gettin’ on” as it pertains to your faith journey?

Can this mother’s heart be honest?

It’s time to grow up. Time to slow down and sit with Father God and listen to what he has to say. Why? Because if we don’t, we risk a lifetime of infancy, never tasting the freedom and joy that comes with moving onto our maturity in Christ. Jesus didn’t go all the way to the cross and back so that we could stay as we are; he made that journey so that we could become a living conduit of his kingdom and his grace.

And that kind of sacred consecration and calling, my friends, deserves more than our menial attempts at maturity. Kingdom bestowment deserves our unparalleled obedience and humble willingness to grow into our crowns and to be thankful for the grace it has taken to make them a worthy fit.

Leave the bottles for the infants and keep to the table of rich meats this week. I’ll meet you at the table of grace where the food is solid and the communion is ever sweet. As always,

A Sacred Exchange

“Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” (John 4:15).

Where is your “here”? The well you return to, time and again, in order to quench your insatiable thirst? What “deep and dark” cavernous hole beckons your ladle and, therefore, your strength with empty promises of lasting fulfillment?

These are the questions that linger in my heart this day. My friend, Lisa, has challenged me to visit them … to be a “lady on a mission from the inside-out: lay it down seven day challenge” (LOAM). Several of us have answered the call for intentional discipleship with the Lord; not with man, or in this case, with several women, but rather with him. On our faces, before his face, with his Word and the prayers of our heart as our guide.

Lisa is prompting the daily retreat by an offering of prayer and Scripture readings for reflection. This morning’s reading led me to few verses from John 4. I was compelled to read more. A familiar story about a Savior whose thirst led him to a well in Samaria and a woman whose thirst kept her there until understanding arrived and she presented, what I believe to be, one of the purest offerings we can make to our Lord.

An exchange.

Her ladle for God’s water. Her strength and daily “labor” for God’s strength and abundant overflow. Her sin for God’s grace. Her temporal for God’s eternal.

“Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

And with that offering, Father God reaches down, deep down into his personal storehouse of eternal love and lavishly pours his own offering of excess into her empty cup.

Living water. A wellspring of holy consecration flowing in and out of her with headwaters issuing forth from the Spirit of the Living God who decided that she was an appropriate dwelling for his holy presence. He’s made the same offer to each one of us.

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John4:13).

So again, I ask you the same question I’m asking of myself this day. Where is your “here”? Where does your thirst lead you? To a man-made well that is deep and dark, sapping your strength every time you notice your thirst? Or, to a God-made well that is amply filled to overflow so that strength can be given to you rather than taken in equal measure from you?

The journey to God’s well is a simple walk; it doesn’t require the heat of the day so as to hide you from the shame of your sin. You can make that pilgrimage in the quiet of your own room, in your own way where the only “eyes” on you are the ones belonging to your Savior. He’s been waiting for you and the refreshment you will bring him because of your obedience to come and sit with him.

Yes, our Father is refreshed by our presence. It’s part of the exchange.

Living water from the living Word ... loving worship of the living God.

Sacred intimacy at the deepest level. May your heart know the value and the beauty of such a sacred exchange this day. As always…

PS: For further information about L.O.A.M., click here to visit Lisa's place. Also, here's Bebo Norman with another one of my favorites, "Bring me to Life". Shalom.

a wave of empty

“So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. Nevertheless, we must run aground on some island.” (Acts 27:25-26).

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received came from a counselor during a time of great personal crisis nearly fourteen years ago. It went something like this…

Elaine, you spend a great deal of your time trying to “out swim” the waves that are chasing you. You expend your valuable energy in trying to reach the shore before they have the opportunity to consume you. Sometimes you make it; sometimes you don’t. How much better would it be if you stopped swimming, anchored your feet into the sand, and turned to face the wave … head on and with the full confidence that your survival has already been written in the history books?


Facing the wave. That’s where I am today. Actually, where I am is in an upstairs bedroom where two beds are stripped of their linens and where closets are mostly bare. The trophies remain … the bookshelf filled with yesteryear’s reads, and the dust all the more; but what I notice most about this room this morning is not the remnants left behind. What I’m most keenly aware of is its emptiness. The silence. The incredible void that fills this place because two young men are no longer making this room the place where they lay their heads at night.

My tears have mostly dried, and the exhaustion has nearly subsided; for the most part, I’m ready to “get on with the gettin’ on.” But before I do, before I have clarity about “what’s next” for me and for those of us left behind, I want to spend some time this week “facing the wave” and allowing the full force of change to hit me squarely in the heart, therefore requiring me to grapple with some questions that are worthy of more than my casual acknowledgment.

Questions that arrive because routine has been stripped away and because there is now ample time and space to formulate some answers, out loud and before God in a way that wouldn’t have been possible a week ago. A week ago, I was still walking through this parental obedience of “letting go” with the objects of that “letting go” still shadowing my every move. Today, the shadows are removed. They are gone, casting their depth on the campuses of two universities that are just out of my reach.

Truly, I’m fine with the distance between us. It is part of their “becoming”; it’s part of mine. All of us are searching for the “next thing”—the next step in this journey called faith. And while their search leads them along different paths than mine, one thread remains constant for us all. Change has arrived, and when change comes, we can do one of two things with it. We can fight it, or we can bend to it … bow to it, turn to it and allow the full force behind its pulse to hit us where we stand and to shape us accordingly.

I choose to turn and face the wave this day, knowing that regardless of the “hit” my survival has already been written in the history books.

Some days … some seasons … our ships, like the Apostle Paul’s, get the “go ahead” from God to run aground. Our safety isn’t in question. We may feel as if it is; after all, the waves are high and the surge is certain. We may have lost all hope of being saved from the storm; but even there, our God comes to us in the dark of the night and reminds us that not one of us will be lost. We live with the assurance that our lives will be spared. But our ships? Our comfortable and our familiar?

Well, sometimes they know the splintering and breakage of an intentional island, placed in our paths on purpose and with the sole intention of stripping us down to the basics. The island is never intended to destroy us but, rather, to save us. Without it, we are at risk of succumbing to the treacherous battering from a sea’s fury whose relentless passion has sent more than a few ships to a watery and forgotten grave.

With the island, we get reprieve. A fresh start. A place of beginning again; of rebuilding and renewal and re-examination of a life that will continue down a new path, yet one with the same destination in mind.

Home to God.

He will use many routes to get us there, all manner of detours and obstacles to accomplish our arrival. We may not always welcome the change … the “stripping down” and painful emptiness that calls for our contemplation and our maturation. But to deny its reality is to delay its intentional good. And God is after our good; not for goodness’ sake, but for his sake. For his plan. For his perfected end that gloriously welcomes and includes our “becoming” as part of the determined process.

Perhaps this day the waves are fiercely and desperately chasing you from behind. Your ship is hanging by a thread and your efforts at “lightening the load” are doing little to quell the fury. Your “frantic and frenzy” at trying to “out swim” the inevitable embrace of the waves in order to reach the safety of the shore has worn you out and your exhaustion is complete.

Would you be willing to pause, to stop where you are, to dig your heels deeply into the soil beneath your weary feet and then to courageously, turn and face the wave? Sometimes a ship has to be willing to be broken in order for a life to be saved. It maybe your ship … your life. It maybe the life of someone you dearly love. Either way, the willingness to invite the “stripping down” of the waves is the beginning of the “building up” of a new way of doing life with Jesus.

Thus, keep up your courage, friends, and I will keep up mine. I have all the confidence in my God to lead us as we go and to bring us safely home, just as he has said. Our God is ever faithful. He will do it.

Even so, do it today, Lord Jesus. As always…

Packing...

Today, we packed our second-born son for his freshman year at college.

Tomorrow, we'll move him in.

On Saturday, we'll pack our first-born son for his junior year at college.

On Sunday, we'll move him in.

And somewhere between now and then, my heart will hurt and grieve the passage of time, all the while being incredibly grateful for the years we've been given together beneath the same roof.

A family. One I would have never predicted, yet one that is so beautifully woven with the golden threads of heaven and a Father's sacred and unifying love.

I love my boys. Seems like yesterday we were packing bookbags.

Now, we're packing our good-byes. Ones that cut more profoundly and with more clarity. Ones that leave me hoping that our years together have been enough to launch them in the right direction.

Pray for me friends. I'll see you on the other side of some miles and some hugs and some tears that are sure to wet my heart. As always...

Walking My Way to Worship

(For my friend, Sassy Granny, who has me thinking about worship... thanks for your post.)

“Thinking he was the gardener, she said, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said, ‘Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned o the Father.’” (John 20:15-17).

Tonight I walked my way to worship.

I could have run there, but if you lived where I live you’d understand the reasons behind my walking. It’s hot here. Finding an ounce of desire for the pavement beneath my feet in this type of inclement weather is a difficult obedience. But does that mean I shouldn’t try … shouldn’t step out into the day’s sweltering confinement in hopes of finding a few minutes of solitude with my King?

Not at all. If “heat” was an ample excuse for my not moving outside the comforts of my air-conditioned life, my flesh and my faith would have long since grown stale with neglect. Heat doesn’t warrant my complacency. Heat simply requires I step up my will in the matter. It means I choose to walk it through on days when I’d rather stay inside. Staying inside keeps me as I am. Moving beyond the parameters of my comfort forces the issue of my growth.

Thus, I laced up my shoes and headed outdoors this evening to walk with Jesus. He met me there. He always does. I don’t know why it’s easier for me to find him on the road rather than other places in my life. Perhaps because I’ve grown to expect him there. Perhaps because he’s grown to expect me. Either way, when my obedience melds with his presence, sacred ground is walked. It is the purest form of worship I know.

Worship. A big word; an even bigger endeavor. We make it so hard by turning it into a prescribed set of steps to get there when all we really need to make it happen is us and our Creator.

Worship is a mutual endeavor between two hearts—ours and God’s. It happens when he recognizes us by name, and we recognize him by his. When we stand face to face without the obstruction of the world’s distractions and connect with him as one. When we’re stripped naked of all pretense and aren’t ashamed of the glances he cast in our direction. When we look into his eyes and see the reflection of ourselves staring back. When understanding is clear and right and good, therefore casting all of our questions into the shadows of his illuminating truth.

That’s worship for me, and when it happens, I, like Mary, want to grab hold of my Savior and not let go. The hem of his garment is a sweet embrace and a good place to linger … especially in the heat.

If anyone understood the pressures of “heated obedience”, it was Mary--a woman in search of Jesus following his death on the cross. The last few days of her life offered her ample reason to stay inside. Three days earlier, the temperature in Jerusalem was exponentially elevated because of the crucifixion of her Lord. Her Teacher. Her Rabonni. She could have mourned him privately … could have stayed inside, salving her wounded heart with tears that rained diligently and painfully upon her grief. Instead, she chose the road to the tomb. To the one place she’d last seen him, and in doing so, received the revelation that would alter her forever.

“Mary.” …

“Rabboni.”

Mutual recognition between two hearts.

Pure, untainted worship between a sinner and her Savior.

For that kind of moment, friends, I’ll walk some “heat” … again and again and again because I know he’s waiting for me on the road as I am faithful to come. He’s waiting for you too. In fact, he’s summoned you by name. Are you willing, this day, to summon him by his?

Worship with him fearlessly. Worship with him passionately. Worship with him tenderly, knowing that your name is on his lips and that your life is engraved in the very palm of his hands.

As always,

PS: I encourage your listen of this song, "The Only Hope" by Bebo Norman. It was the catalyst behind my writing this post tonight.



I want a crow; but you are a feast. I want a song; but you are a symphony. I want a star; but you are a galaxy. I have resolved that I’m much better off in what you have for me…

Stuff

I laughed this morning, loudly to myself and with little regard to my surroundings. I suppose I needed it; the pressure and chaos in my life have been immense over the past several weeks. In the midst of the busiest season I have ever known, there have been few occasions that have afforded me the release that I experienced today through my uninhibited and unrestrained laughter. The culprit behind amusement?

Hot Stuff. The smash hit made popular by Donna Summer in 1979 when I was but a young thirteen. Thirty years down the road, I’m less young, but somehow the song still manages to find its way into radio play. It did so this morning in the dentist office while I was awaiting my semi-annual clean. At age thirteen, I knew little about looking for some hot stuff. At forty-three, I’m content to drop the hot and simply stick with stuff … less of it!

Stuff.

My life’s been filled to the brim and then some with its consumption. I imagine you could voice the same. I’ll spare you most of the details. After all, stuff is stuff. It packs heavy in every household. Yours probably doesn’t look like mine, but I bet it sometimes feels like mine.

Full;
Unwanted;
Too much;
Too detailed;
Hard;
Chaotic;
Stressful;
Burdensome.
_____________.

Stuff does that. It weighs us down and keeps us from a single-minded focus, at least it does for me. I like the neatly defined parameters I’ve created for my life. When an abundance of stuff threatens to overflow those self-imposed boundaries, my inclination is to shut down. I don’t always manage the “excess” of stuff very well. It effects every area of my life (physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, spiritually … have I covered all the “ally’s”?).

I don’t eat right, think right, feel right, act right, pray right. Instead, I default to mediocrity—to just barely getting by with the hope that tomorrow will birth less stuff and more peace. And while the current stuff in my life will lessen with the passage of time, I imagine future stuff will soon arrive to fill any void.

We can’t help but live with our stuff. It finds us regardless of our striving toward keeping it at bay. Stuff barks loudly, refusing hiddenness. We can ignore it for a season, but eventually it catches up with us until we can no longer refuse its insistence. We simply must collect the strength and grace to deal with it.

God is the true source behind that strength. Regardless of my desire to shut down, God’s desire is to see me through my times of stress-filled stuff. He understands a crowded agenda. I can’t begin to understand the “stuff” he’s dealing with on an everlasting basis. Can you?

I know what you’re thinking. He’s God. He can handle it. But friends, God intends for us to handle our stuff in accordance with his will. His Word tells us that we’ve been given everything we need to lead a godly and holy life. That we have been endowed with the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16), the Spirit of Christ (John 14:16-17), the power of Christ (Eph. 1:18-20). God means for us to manage our stuff with his management staff in tow. Then and only then, will any of it be done with a measure of success and, ultimately, to the glory of his kingdom.

This morning, I packed the book bags of my two young kids and sent them off to their first day of school. This weekend, I’ll help two more with their packing. Not book bags, but rather with the packing of their cars as they make preparations to return to college, one a junior and the other a freshman. The amount of stuff we’ve got to do between now and then is large and overwhelming. I’m not sure I’m up for the task.

Still and yet, it’s my stuff to carry. I want to do it well, with efficiency, with patience, and with a heart that is willing to bend to imperfection even though the perfectionist in me is desperately trying to state her case. I want to get to the end of my current stuff with my sanity in tact and with my faith all the more. I’m not sure how God is going to work it all out in me and, therefore, through me, but I am willing to offer up all of me for the process.

It’s a hard surrender, but one of the benefits that comes because of my exhaustion is that I’m finally willing to concede my flesh and inabilities into the hands of God’s capability. He, alone, can turn my stuff into something.

I don’t know what stuff you’re carrying this day. If your plate, like mine, is full and overflowing with deadlines, my heart is with you. You are not alone in your struggle. We journey this road together with God, and if my confession about my “stuff” can buoy your spirit along these same lines, then these few moments before the screen have been a worthy pause in my life this day.

May God’s good favor, heavenly understanding, abundant patience, calm assurance, and grace-filled reminders be your portion at every turn as you walk your week. Stay close to Jesus no matter the stuff that’s warring its insistence into your life. Whatever you have to do to get to Jesus … do it. Don’t wait until your inclinations carry you to a place of despair. Instead, bolster your busyness with the truth and power of God’s help.

It’s ours for the asking. Ask boldly. Ask with confidence. Ask a lot. Ask today. As always,

PS: If you have a specific prayer concern you’d like for me to pray over, please indicate in the comment section or feel free to e-mail me. Adding your “stuff” to mine is a privilege, not a problem. Shalom.

a seventh birthday celebration

Today, my daughter celebrates her birthday. She is seven. Yesterday she was six.

It’s been an interesting “watch” … this observing her as she navigates her thoughts about growing a year older. For months, she’s been planning her birthday festivities and adding to her “gift list”. A couple of days ago, I caught her staring at herself in the mirror. When I asked her what she was doing, she simply replied, “I’m seeing if I look any older.”

Miss Amelia has longed for seven ever since she turned six. It’s the way of her young heart … looking forward and hoping that with this birthday will come more maturity, more responsibility, more being the grown-up she sees in her older family members. It’s hard being the caboose of the family some days. She wants to catch up to the rest of us; she seems to think she’s missing out on something by being the youngest.

Being seven, to Amelia, seems a whole lot better than staying six. But for all of the reasons she could articulate behind her desire to see this day arrive, there’s still a part of her that longs to remain a child. I saw a glimpse of it yesterday.

Amelia closed the door to our bedroom (always a good indication that she is up to something, perhaps even trying to hide something). When I opened the door, she quickly turned off the television. I asked her what she was watching. She was hesitant and then softly said, “A baby show, Mom, and I didn’t want anyone to know. Seven-year-olds don’t watch baby shows.” I nodded my understanding and then left her to her internal wrangling regarding the issue.

Somewhere between six and seven comes a struggle—a season of clarification between our baby days and our moving on to maturity. Biblically speaking, the number seven is a number representing completeness and perfection:

*God’s seventh day rest after six-days of creation (Genesis 1-2:4);
*Seventh year sabbatical rest of the land (Lev. 25:2-7);
*Feast of Tabernacles and Passover lasted seven days (Judges 14:12, 17);
*Pharoah’s dream regarding the land / seven good years, seven famine years (Genesis 41:1-36);
*Seven churches in Revelation (Revelation 2-3);
*Forgiveness requirements = 70 x 7 (Matthew 18:21-22).

And while I’m not obsessed with the numeric aspect of Scripture, I do think there is something to this “seven”. At the least, it intrigues me, especially as I walk through this day with my daughter and see her wrestling with the issue. She wants to grow up, yet there remains her inclination, a smaller preference for her former days.

As is goes with Amelia, so it goes with my own heart. To get to “seven”—my completion, my perfection and my final end—I’ve got to move past “six.” I think I’ve been stuck on “six” for a long season. I think we all could echo the same. Days when we desire to know the fullness of what our Father has intended for us to be, yet days when we can’t seem to get past the “baby” in us.

As Christians on pilgrimage to a better country, there is a sacred tension we walk between the celebration of our seven and the seemingly interminability of our six. We long for the arrival of the party, for the recognition of our completion, yet we’re caught in our current status of growth. These six years that belong to us—the lifespan between our birth and our death—seem long and laborious most days. When we look in the mirror, we see the witness of a six-year season that hasn’t always been kind but that is more than willing to carve its wrinkled remembrance. Like my daughter, we are looking for signs of growth indicating that our “seven” stands ready on the horizon and that our maturity has warranted our participation in the celebration.

The party is not long off, friends. Soon, each of us will move from our six to our seven. We will sit with our Host, look back over the scenes of our lives and, together with him, call it done, completed … a perfection that’s been worth the six years’ collection of steps to get there.

And if today’s celebration in my family is any indication of what our “seven” is going to be like, then there will be cake and presents a plenty, a song or two sung in our honor, and lots of wishes come true.

May you, each one, know this day that seven is on its way. The six we now journey is preparing our hearts for the seven that is soon to arrive. I look forward to sharing the party with you. As always,

Feast of Dedication (part three): an unexpected renewal

“Again, they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp. Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. Here he stayed…’” (John 10:39-40).

A journey back to the Jordan, to the place of initial understanding where the voice of God was clearly evident for Jesus, marking the beginning of his public ministry.

Jordan. A name meaning “the descender”; an appropriate fit for this two-hundred mile winding river with its headwaters beginning more than 1000 feet above sea level in the foothills of Mount Hermon, descending through the Sea of Galilee, to eventually landing 1300 feet below sea level into the Dead Sea. The Jordan is the longest and most important river in Israel, nourishing the fertile river valley that surrounds its borders.

While sometimes a disappointment to the casual tourist longing for the grandeur befitting its historical and biblical mention, to the people who dwell there—the farmers and the commoners—the Jordan is the life-blood behind their survival.

Fitting that the Christ would receive his sacred commendation from his Father in that place:

“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’” (Matthew 3:16-17).

With those words of consecrated beginning, Jesus began his winding navigation of the waters that would become the life-blood behind humanity’s survival. Sometimes the river’s ride carried him gently; sometimes more violently. Regardless of its pulse, the Jordan River was Christ’s “point of understanding”—his “go to moment” in seasons when he needed a reminder as to the reason behind his journey on this earth.

He couldn’t find that reminder in the Temple, at least not on that day during the Feast of Dedication. What he found in its place were the disdain and mockery of a people who refused to believe the truth behind his Jordan moment. Instead of receiving him as the one true “Light” during this festival of lights, they sought to extinguish his flames through the dousing of stones.

But Christ escaped their grasp. Both spiritually and literally. When they couldn’t “grasp” the truth behind the Truth, Truth removed himself from their grip and found his way back to the one place where life made sense. Where the memory of his Father’s voice and his Father’s love resonated in his recollection.

Instead of continuing in the fray and confusion of man’s attempts at worship and celebratory remembrance at the Temple, Jesus took his worship to the Jordan River and paused with Father God for a time of reflection and renewal. There he would feel the pulse behind his calling. There he would experience, once again, the watery embrace of an earlier remembrance, reminding him of his calling and fueling his heart for a continued obedience.

“…and many people came to him. They said, ‘Though John never performed a miraculous sign, all that John said about this man was true.’ And in that place many believed in Jesus.” (John 10:41-42).

In that place, many believed. In that place, Jesus received an unexpected renewal from his Father for the road ahead. Christ’s escape to the Jordan refueled his “descending” walk to the cross.

Sometimes, like Jesus, the return to the Jordan is a journey we need to make. Not to hide from the calling we’ve received from our Father, but simply to remember his summons and to re-invite the whispers of an earlier season when our initial walk to the cross seemed more clearly defined and, therefore, more readily embraced.

Time has a way of separating us from these moments of beginning understanding. Given enough occasions of misunderstanding—times when the world refuses to acknowledge the worth behind our walks—we become susceptible to our own questions, our doubts, and our relevance as it pertains to God’s kingdom purposes. If the world’s refusal regarding our “baptism” by God is not tended to by the Jordan’s reminder—the time when we first “knew what we knew and believed it to be true”—then we are at risk of forgetting. Of relegating that “calling” to the shadows of a louder, more intrusive voice that forcefully demands selfish pursuit over selfless denial.

The Temple has always been a good place for loud voices. But the Jordan? The best place for God’s whispered reminders.

This is my Son, this is my child, whom I dearly love. With him … with you … I am well pleased.

How long has it been, my friends, since you’ve heard the whispers of heaven’s grace spoken over your well-worn and war-torn souls? Could you, like Jesus, use a trip to the banks of the Jordan to remember, to reflect, and to relive those glimmers of truth when they first filtered past your unbelief to cast their brilliance upon your heart of understanding?

I need the Jordan’s renewal. I need its nourishing “wet” to overflow its borders and to wash me clean of the doubts and confusion that amply cling to my heart because of the world’s refusal to recognize the truth behind what my Father has spoken over my life—

His love and his pleasure regarding my status as his child.

He’s spoken the same over you. May we, each one, know the depth and breadth of such an understanding this night and in the days to come. Thus, I pray…

Thank you, Father, for the Jordan and for all that it means to me. For your Son’s baptism and for my own and for their collective understanding that births new life in me, through me, and most days in spite of me. When I can’t find you in the exterior places that fill my day and when the voices of those places speak louder than the truth within, bring me back to the place of understanding where truth is evident through the whispers of an earlier summons. Your descent into my dismal sin, has allowed me my ascent into your marvelous grace.

"On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand, this night, and cast a wishful eye; to Canaan’s fair and happy land, where my possessions lie. I am bound for the Promised Land."

Even so, come Lord Jesus to the Jordan this night, and renew a right spirit within me. Amen.

PS: This concludes my thoughts on the "Feast of Dedication" as presented in John 10. I hope to do more mini-series in the weeks to come. Truly, this type of the writing is the pulse that continues to push my pen along. May you, each one, know our God more fully this week through the study his Word. It is the greatest treasure we hold. Shalom.