faith | Elaine Olsen

the next 1283 words…

February 17, 2010

I have a confession to make… I’m having trouble writing a book along with writing meaty blog posts. Thus, today I’m handing over my next 1283 words in my current WIP. It ought to be enough to keep you busy for a few days so that I can walk ever closer to the finish line of my manuscript. Keep in mind, this is my look at the “ancients” of Hebrews 11, something I explain in greater detail in my recent video blog post. I hesitate putting this reflection here by itself because it doesn’t “read” in isolation. It’s part of the bigger picture, but God has prompted me to release it to you this day, believing that somebody needs its relevance now, not later.

I’ll be back soon, but not before I make some further headway with pen. Shalom!

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faith shuts the mouth of the lion {Daniel}

“Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.”
–Daniel 6:10

My spirit is restless today. There are a great many things weighing on my mind. I’ve been here before—a moment in time when the splintered fragments of a busy life merge together to seed dissonance within my spirit. My right response to the discord is not always immediate; sometimes it takes some time to come around to practicing the one habit that I know will bring me peace—prayer. Thankfully, today I came to a swifter conclusion in the matter of my chaos. Today, I spread out my prayer quilt on the floor and pled my heart before God’s. He met me there and was faithful to his promise to replace my anxious thoughts with his better thinking.

Prayer is always the right response to our heart cries. Things happen when we pray that otherwise go undone should we neglect such sacred privilege. God means for prayer to be our habit, our default mode, our tendency rather than our last resort. To get to the place where prayer is our common practice is to live in faith as the ancients of Hebrews 11 lived. When coming to our knees in prayerful pause is the natural inclination of our hearts, then we, like the ancients, anchor our hopes for resolution in the One who is more than capable of bringing about a good and solid conclusion. With prayer, we release our hold on chaos and place all matters back into the hands of God. He has made our mess his business and will untangle the chaotic wires so that we may rest in peace.

Daniel understood this principle. He lived the habit of prayer. Three times a day and with windows opened toward Jerusalem, he bowed his knee and his will to the will of the Father. His practice of prayer earned him a trip to the lion’s den, a veiled mention in the Hebrews’ Hall of Faith (see Hebrews 11:33), and a miraculous conclusion that still speaks a faithful witness to those of us who stand at the crossroads looking for a similar finale.

“… just as he had done before.”

When was the last time the same could be said of you? When did you last face a threat from the enemy—one directly linked to your faith—only to enact that faith more vigorously via a window left open for public viewing? When has your trust in God extended past your doubt? Your faith superseded your fear?

We live in a culture unfamiliar with physical threats attached to faith’s affection. Most of us openly practice our belief in God without fear of retribution. The religious freedoms we enjoy today were hard fought by those who stood on the front side of liberty. Our spiritual ancestors lived their faith most rigorously; we live ours a bit differently. Gone are the days of lions’ dens, at least in eastern North Carolina; come are the days of quieter threats, veiled assaults, casually dressed and appropriately masked attempts by the enemy at having us relinquish our faith. And while our faith isn’t currently threatened with an ancient edict of vicious reprisal, from time to time our contemporary faith is given a rigorous work-out by an ancient enemy whose motives remain the same as they did in Daniel’s day—to steal, to kill, to destroy.

God allows us seasons of testing—times when our faith skims through the refining fires of his holy purification. Those allowances sometimes feel like a night’s wrestling with some hungry lions. If our faith is in tact—on fire and ready for the evening engagement—then we, like Daniel, emerge in the morning without fleshly wounding. If, however, we’re ill-prepared—if we approach the lions’ den with our fear and unresolved doubt regarding a Father’s best intentions for our lives—then the chances of our faith waking to morning’s light without personal injury are severely reduced.

Faith shuts the mouth of the lion because faith has been preparing for his savage hunger long before it is served on a platter as the main course. Faith doesn’t wait until it is thrown into the lion’s den to exercise its witness. Instead, faith spends a lifetime living its witness so that when a night with the lion approaches, faith isn’t surprised by its arrival. Rather, faith is duly prepared for the assault.

Alicia Chole speaks to this truth in her book Anonymous: Jesus’ Hidden Years and Yours (Integrity Publishers, 2006, pg.15). In one of her mentoring moments she offers her readers some wisdom regarding times of trials and testing:

“… trials tell us less about our future than they do about our past. Why? Because the decisions we make in difficult places today are greatly the product of decisions we made in the unseen places of our yesterdays.”

Read that again slowly, and consider how Alicia’s wisdom applies to Daniel’s habit of prayer, to yours as well. More than likely, you and I will face the lion’s den a few times in our journey of faith. When we arrive there, our responses to the threat say more about our prior walk of faith than our current moment of crisis. If prayer has been our practice, if tending to our relationship with God has been our daily obedience, then we are better able to engage with the lion’s hungering roar.

Daniel’s “… just as he had done before” was his saving grace, his companioned peace, his settled confidence in a certain God who would ordain for him a night’s rest with the lions rather than a life’s slaughter. God is calling us to our own “… just as he had done before.” He means for prayer to be our habit and for us to practice our faith in a daily way so that when the enemy threatens us with his schemes, we can walk in freedom from his intended outcome.

We can face the lion today because faith has been the holy habit of our yesterdays. Faith is the way we live. It’s what we believe. It’s where we look. It’s the steps we walk. It’s how we’ll finish.

Forward. One step at a time, until our feet crossover the edge of Canaan, and we finally lay claim to the unseen country of our dreams. Our stories will find their conclusions with the grand punctuation from our Father’s pen, and we will be with him… no longer praying our prayers through an open window in the direction of Jerusalem, but, instead, living the fruition of those prayers, face-to-face with the Author and Perfecter of our faith. It’s just as certain and real and glorious as all that, and almost more than my heart can hold this day. Thus, I pray…

Keep me to the habit of my faith and my prayers, Father, to daily placing my thoughts and concerns into your hands believing that with their release comes your promised peace. Dissolve my fears with the truth of your presence, and replace my doubts with the certainty of your Word. You have made my mess your business; only you are worthy and capable of untangling my wires and weaving them into sacred significance. I yield them to you this day; keep me in a yielded posture so that when the lion offers his roar in my direction, I can offer yours back in response. Amen.

~elaine

a single thing

February 15, 2010

“…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philipppians 1:6).

A few days ago, I wrote a post—a few rambling words brought about because of a single picture that spoke a single word to my spirit. Peace.

If truth be known (and really what profit is there in pretending), I didn’t want to write anything. My pen has grown weary in recent days. In fact, a certain fear crept over me last week, albeit momentary, that, perhaps, for the first time in a long time, I had nothing to say… nothing worthy to write. I’ve heard of writer’s block before, but I’ve never experienced it. Even typing that feels strange, almost ominous, almost as if by speaking it aloud, it might come on in full measure after hitting the “publish” button to this post. If I’ve written it once, I’ve written it a dozen times…

For as long as God allows the ink, I’ll keep penning my heart for him. And so, despite my feelings regarding an empty computer screen and with ample tears to go alongside, in obedience I began to type and pray. Pray and type, all the while asking the Lord to just use it as he would… if he would. Apparently, he has, and that, my friends, is no credit to me. It’s a credit to him.

God honors our obedience to use our gifts, most days in spite of us. We can choose our “no’s”—decline his offer of kingdom investment into the lives of others—but our “no’s” do nothing to further his agenda. Certainly there are seasons when our weariness and worn-out status diminish our effectiveness. We must heed those prompts of needful restoration. But even then, God will always use our willingness when our willingness concedes the struggle to his hands over ours… when we get to the end of ourselves and simply say, “If you will, Lord, use me once more in this single thing.”

A single thing.

We never know when ours will make an impact… our single thing—our one act of obedience, chosen freely despite feelings, emotions, and wills that sometime lead us to consider another direction. Instead of choosing self, we choose a single thing that extends influence beyond personal gratification—that changes the direction in someone else’s life, albeit seemingly small and immeasurable. We…

Bake some bread.
Pen a card.
Visit the sick.
Send a gift.
Run the carpool line.
Make a call.
Share a ride.
Hug a neck.
Speak a word.
Write a check.
Answer an E-mail.
Say a prayer.
Lend a hand.
Offer some time.
Share a smile.
Voice some truth.
Do some chores.
Live some love.
Give some Jesus.

Single things, when gathered and collected, become a big thing in the lives of those who stand on the receiving end. We’ve all been the recipients of single things; time and again our need has dictated their arrival. If we were to chronicle those single things—perhaps even the ones that have been lavishly bestowed upon us over the past week—then we would begin to understand the length that our Father’s love is willing to travel in order for us to have a more perfect life.

He’s working it all out, friends, in a way that exceeds comprehension, and he’s using us as his conduits of sacred dispensation. He’s taking the single things of our single days and weaving them into a tapestry that radiates with kingdom color and creativity. Rarely are we aware of his workings as they unfold, for we are a people easily distracted by temporal details and frustrations. God’s goodness continues in its liberality within our day-to-days, but without pause in our spirits to receive his invitation of sacred participation or to receive his goodness as it arrives, we come to the end of our days barely aware of his entrance and intervention on our behalf.

This week you will stand on both sides of God’s equation for goodness; you will receive it in abundance as well as be called upon in some capacity to add to someone else’s. Your obedience with your single thing will bring color to God’s bigger thing—a portrait that collectively gathers grace upon grace to paint a masterpiece worthy of the throne room of heaven. You may think that your single thing doesn’t matter, is too small and too inferior to make a difference. But your obedience to that single thing may just be the one thing that shifts the eternal foundation of someone’s forever.

Don’t underestimate your single thing, friends. Don’t diminish your obedience to use the gifts that God has generously seeded within your heart for kingdom progress. He who began a good work in you is faithful to bring it to completion. Not just for your sake, but more importantly, for his.

Keep to your single thing; keep yielding your heart in obedience as the Spirit prompts, and see if he is not faithful to make it all count! These are good days to be serving alongside of you in continuing faithfulness. Let us march the steps of our spiritual ancestors, believing God for far more than the eye can see, mind can conceive, and heart can imagine. I love you. As always…

peace for the journey,

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Summer

January 22, 2010

{for Summer… who made it home to Canaan today}

It occurs to me this evening that earthquakes come in all shapes and sizes. And while the world’s eyes have been focused on Haiti’s earthquake over the past week, my eyes have been fixed on the one occurring beneath the surface of my own little piece of ground… the place I call home… the woman I call friend.

The ground beneath her has been shaking for the past four months, but her faith? Well, not easily shaken. And while leukemia has not been kind to her, her Father’s strength has been exceedingly kind. She has weathered her quake with all the dignity and grace of heaven. Some would say the cancer got the best of her, but I would say differently. Today, cancer had no say in the matter, because today the quake beneath her feet ceased in its shaking as she made her grand entrance to the throne of her Savior’s feet where she will worship him forever.

For those of us left behind, especially for her precious sons and adoring husband, the ground still shakes. The collective grief of our small community is palpable and strong. We’ve made this walk before. I’ve made this walk before—three times in the last two years. Cancer and its havoc is an all too familiar struggling in our neck of the world. For whatever reason, and God only knows (believe me when I tell you that I’ve asked him), our county claims some of the highest cancer statistics for our state. Everyone in our community has been touched by the disease at some point along the way.

Still and yet, familiarity doesn’t make the journey any easier. Each situation exceeds statistical data. Each road of suffering is unique and personally labeled with a name, a family, a life lived, a grief felt. There’s nothing neat and tidy about cancer. Nothing we can quickly and perfectly pack away even as we lower another casket into the ground.

Death and its corresponding mystery shake the earth beneath our feet. It reminds us all (whether we’re willing to own it or not) about the temporal nature of our flesh. About the eternal nature of our spirits. And that kind of reminder, friends, is sometimes a hard reckoning with which to engage. Why? Because of the searing pain that interjects its witness into the mix. Because of the questions that coincide with the grief. Because of the empty chair at the dinner table reserved for the one who has preceded us in death. And when all of that (the reckoning, the pain, the questions, the grief, and the empty chair) collide, the earth beneath our feet moves in witness to the internal wrestling of our souls. I don’t imagine there’s a Richter scale big enough to gauge that kind of rumbling.

As it should be. The burying of a loved one cannot be quantified and measured by human standards, only painfully felt at the deepest, rawest level of the human condition. We’ll try to quantify it; try to put some manageable parameters around it so as to better control the pain. Perhaps, this is needful… a necessary component to the grief process that enables us a measure of comfort during these days of unedited grief. My own heart stands as a witness to that this night.

Writing my heart helps me. Words enable me to put parameters around my feelings. To reign in my thoughts and the emotions which are spinning at full speed. Words, and all the pondering that goes into penning them, help me to re-focus my heart around the one truth that exceeds the pain of the moment. And that truth, friends, doesn’t in any way resemble a grave. That truth is a King and a kingdom and a beautiful, entirely whole, thirty-nine-year-old woman running through heaven’s meadows, partaking in the rightful promise that belongs to her as an heir of the Most High God.

Cancer did not get the final word. God did, and all of hell shuddered at the sound of his voice.

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

May the God of all comfort, the God of everlasting peace, the God who collects our tears in a bottle and holds them close to his heart, the God who promises life beyond the casket, the God who numbered our days long before one of them came into being, the God who is well-familiar with all of our griefs and sufferings, the God who conquered death and the grave…

be the God who peels back the layers of heaven tonight to give us a glimpse of forever and to remind us, each one, that this is not our home.

He is.

And he is coming soon.

And his is a kingdom not easily shaken.

I love you “T” family. And I love the woman you so willing and graciously shared with this world. Her witness lives on in you. Winter’s bite will soon be over. Summer is just around the bend.

peace for the journey,

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returning light…

January 6, 2010

“You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.” (Psalm 18:28)

God’s returning light.

It’s returning to me after a long six-week season of diminishing dimness. Not elimination; God’s light always flames within me, but there are times when it decreases in its intensity. Not because of anything he’s done, but rather because life and its many messy circumstances have flickers all their own. A heart has a hard time highlighting them both; thus, when one takes the stage—flames fuller and burns brighter—the other retreats to the wings and waits its turn.

It’s God’s turn in my life, friends, and I feel the intensity of his flame returning in me. It matters not the situations that led to his light’s retreat. It began around Thanksgiving and continued its solid march through the month of December. In many ways, I had to break free from Christmas in order to live my Christmas. I realize that in writing this, some of you will be confused and left to your imaginations as to what I could possibly mean. But I think if you live with that statement for a few minutes, understanding will come.

Christmas wasn’t designed for its cramming into a confined calendar slot. Christmas was meant for a twelve month existence. For me (and this is Elaine talking for herself), I live the witness of Christmas better in the eleven months preceding its planned remembrance. Those months are less messy for me, less crowded, less programmed. And while Christmas isn’t to blame for my season of recent struggle, they happened to share the same month. I imagine there are others who could voice the same.

Through it all, I pressed into my faith because that is what faith does. It presses into known truth—a truth that relies on God’s strength to carry us through to resolution. Faith carries us in times of darkness. Faith anchors us, holds us, reminds us that on the other side of smoldering embers lies the hot breath of a Holy God who bends at the ready to flame them into significance.

My life has hosted many seasons of diminishing flames like this past one. I don’t imagine it will be my last. And while I don’t welcome them, I’m better prepared for them because I’ve lived each one of them successfully through to victory. To feeling the warmth of God’s returning light and to embracing the dawn as dawn was meant to be embraced.

With celebration … anticipation … high and holy expectation for the day that births anew with unlimited opportunities to unpack my God further. That is how I awoke this morning; by his grace, tomorrow will birth the same.

It’s good to be in fellowship with a God who understands the seasons of our lives, who walks them with us despite our willingness to walk them in isolation. Without the embers of his enduring love, our struggling seasons suffer deeper, linger longer, fester wider. There is little hope of emerging victory when we fail to tend to the wick of God’s sacred flame within us.

I’ve tended to that wick, even when my flesh cried out its resistance. I prayed about it, wrote about, spoke to God about it, and read about it in his holy Word. God’s Word is replete with a people who have stood where I have stood. They, too, pressed into their faith in order to move past their flesh.

God’s returning light. It’s found its way to my soul again, and I am eternally grateful for the mustard seed’s worth of faith within me that pushed me through to victory.

I don’t know where you are in your journey with God right now. Perhaps your faith is burning brightly with little wiggle room for doubt. If so, thank God for his continuing illumination. Perhaps your faith flickers with intermittent warmth and sporadic guidance, just enough to quell your worries regarding its diminishment. If so, pray to God for clearer vision and for firmer resolve. Perhaps your faith is down to a few smoldering embers as other “lights” have taken to the stage to voice their opposition. If so, cling to God as if your life depended on it.

Our lives depend on it, friends, on him no matter the season we’re walking. Without his continuing presence in our lives, we have little hope of emerging from the darkness. Thus, keep pressing into our faithful God. Keep running with him; keep walking beside him; keep crawling toward him, all the way through to final victory. I know it’s not an easy journey. In fact, “easy” doesn’t fit with an extraordinary faith. But extraordinary is exactly what we’ve been given. The heart of our Father could give no less. “Less” isn’t in keeping with his character.

I love you, am willing to pray for you, and am writing you my heart this day because it is all that I have to give to you. It seems to me that, perhaps, at least one of you needs the witness of my last six weeks. If so, know this…

God is approaching your soul in this very moment. His light is returning to you, even as the dawn is approaching its birth, and God’s hot and very holy breath would like nothing more than to fan into flame the embers of your struggling faith. May our good Father grant you, precious one, the witness of his presence as you close your eyes to slumber this night. As always…

peace for the journey,

~elaine

PS: I don’t know when I’ll be here again. As the Lord prompts my heart, I will be faithful to add a few words and post them here. I’m giving intentional focus to my latest WIP with a goal of finishing by February’s end. I would appreciate your prayers along those lines. In the meantime, if you have a special prayer request you’d be willing to entrust to me, I’d be most privileged to receive it. You are the reason I keep to my pen. Shalom.

"unpack me"… a night Visitor re-visits

January 2, 2010

{Hadn’t planned on being here today; hadn’t planned on writing today. Some days, however, our experiences call for some words, some remembrance. This was one of them. Maybe I wrote them for you as well. Shalom.}

“But when he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.” –John 16:13-14

“Unpack me.”

Words that haunt me eleven hours beyond the moment they first enveloped me. Somewhere along 1:30 AM, I awoke with the startling awareness that God’s presence was within reach. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him… the kind of feeling that frightens me, all the while enlivening me. A deep, rich peace surrounding me, calling for my attention and my willingness to entreat the “voice” of my Father. Past experience has taught me not to run from his voice, but instead, to wait for it.

This time, it was immediate. Not audible in the exterior, but loud and clear in my interior. I groped for the pen and notebook that resides on my bedside bookshelf and scribbled down these words in the dark:

“There is none so mysterious as the One standing in this room with you at this very minute.”

“Then what am I to do with you, Lord?”

“Unpack me.”

As quickly as the words arrived, they stopped; the pen and paper found their way home, and I snuggled deeper beneath the cover of night, cradling the gift I’d just been given—

The voice of God.

It arrived on the heels of an evening prayer where I’d wrestled some things out with my Father on my face and with some ample tears to chorus my questions. Questions about his character and his trustworthiness as they pertain to my life. Dangerous questions to ask, yet ones I needed to articulate because my faith had been challenged along these lines earlier in the week (thanks, friend, for the call, the faith, and the prod).

Can I trust the character of God? What is sum total of God’s character? Am I operating from his reality—the truest truth—or from a reality based on my perceptions regarding his interaction in my life? Can I know the character of God, and if so, how do I get there? How do I piece together a better understanding of who he is, so that I can begin to operate my faith from there rather than from a place of skewed awareness? Could it be that a lack of faith stems from ignorance regarding the true nature of faith’s Creator—faith’s Author and Perfecter?

Dangerous questions, yet ones that my Father was willing to entreat on my behalf last evening, because when it comes to his character and his child’s willingness to know him more fully, he bends low to listen, even further to deliver his answer.

“Unpack me.”

And with his voice, I discover something most distinctive about the character of my God.

He is near, and he wants to be known. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have taken the time to startle my soul from slumber and give witness to his mysteriousness, all the while allowing me an unpacking of him therein.

Are we meant to hold mystery and revelation all in the same moment?

Apparently so.

I held it last evening; it holds me today. It leads me to worship. It moves me to faith.

Perhaps today, at the beginning of a new beginning, you have some similar questions for our Father. Perhaps you languish in your understanding of God’s character. Perhaps you’re wondering if he can be trusted with your life. Perhaps you’ve seen much, lived through much, fought through much, to the point where your “much” seems too much in keeping with the character of a good God. Your faith is shaken, and you’re heart is asking…

“What am I to do with you, Lord?”

If that is the earnest and honest and purest plea of your heart, would you be willing to leave it with our Father? I don’t have the answers to all of your questions; I certainly haven’t found the answers to all of mine. But I know where to bring them. I trust the character of God enough to know that he receives them, hears them, ponders them, and then in his own time, his own way—

He answers them.

Sometimes in a whisper. Sometimes through a loud roar in the midst of loud day. Sometimes in the reading of his Word. Sometimes at the altar of grace. Sometimes through another’s kindness. Sometimes in a storm. Sometimes in peaceful waters, and sometimes in the middle of the night—bending low and standing bedside to honor the request of his daughter’s heart.

All the times, I think, through a simple two word command that leads all hearts to a greater point of sacred understanding.

“Unpack me.”

Are you willing to move past the questions, friends, into a greater revelation of our Father’s character? I am willing because today I hold the worth of a night’s pause with a night Visitor. I don’t imagine I shall ever recover; I’m certain that I don’t want to…

ever recover from God.

Let’s unpack him together in 2010. It would be my privilege to come alongside you in your night’s pause to entreat the voice of our King. As always…

peace for the journey,

~elaine

Category Archives: faith