Category Archives: fellowship with God

Saving Grace

This has been my saving grace in this season. Mind you, not the grace that saves me from my sin but, rather, the grace that keeps my sanity intact. Whenever the stressors in my life seem too big and my capacity for handling them feels too small, I strap on my tennis shoes and hit the streets for a long walk in God’s wild kingdom. I’m literally steps away from beholding a blue heron take flight, hearing a pileated woodpecker drilling for food, or chronicling the life cycle of a family of geese as they nest, grow, and explore their surroundings.

I explore alongside all of them – taking snapshots of their activity and taking note of the grace-work going on in my heart. In seeing them live out their days, I’m better able to live out mine. I don’t know when I started making it so hard, this living out my days, but hard it is. I see the changes in myself, and I struggle with this ache.

But God’s creatures help me in my deliberations. They break down the stress for me and allow me a moment’s peace – a break in the day to soak in simplicity and to find the smile that too often remains hidden behind my sadness.

I am grateful for herons and woodpeckers and geese. For life that returns to the neighborhood after a long winter’s nap. For the swift take-off of the blue one, the noisy rattle of the red one, and the feathering nesting of the grey ones.

Flying. Feeding. Feathering.

Perhaps this is why I’m enjoying my time with them this year. In them, I see something of the someone I want to be. A woman who . . .

Flies.
Feeds.
Feathers.

As God has so carefully crafted his creatures, so too he has crafted me. May God help me to live as my feathered friends so courageously live – free from the worries of the world and firm in their trust of their Father.

So make me like them if you will, Lord,
The blue, the red, the grey;
Grant me faith to trust you fully,
With the advent of each day.

Let me soar on heights of glory,
Let me feed from heaven’s hand;
Let me lace my nest with feathers,
From the grace that fills your land.

When the work feels far too tedious,
And the stress too much I’ll break,
Rest me there beside cool waters,
In the shade of mercy’s lake.

Strengthen feet for forward movement,
Strengthen wings for upward flight;
Strengthen beaks for inward searching,
Strengthen hearts for faith’s good fight.

Keep me tethered to this earthen sod,
While there’s work enough to do.
Keep me tethered to forever,
Take me there when I am through.

Yes, make me like them if you will, Lord,
The blue, the red, the grey;
They are yours from start to finish,
I am yours . . . this I pray.
(F. Elaine Olsen ©2014)

Kept in peace,

it might be hope

I made a telling discovery this morning during my morning devotional time – a few thoughts I’m lingering on and in as I begin this grace-day with Jesus. It’s about my standing “near the cross” and the posture of my heart therein. Let me explain.

Three years ago, I led a group of women through Alicia Chole’s study, Choices: to be or not to be … a woman of God. In this current season, I have the privilege of doing the same with another group of women at our new church. One of the questions that Alicia repeatedly asks of us in our times together is, “How is your garden growing?” (alicia chole, choices: to be or not to be a woman of God, 2003, p.4)

What I like most about this question is that it roots in intentionality—something along the lines of: This is the garden of your soul, Elaine; what’s being planted in that place? What is growing there? And therein, I cannot sit back and simply lead. Instead, I must sit alongside my sisters as a participant. Just because I’ve done the study before, doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be some fresh digging, fresh seed planted in the soil of my own heart. If I can’t give God access to the spade and shovel to work within the confines of my soul, I certainly shouldn’t waste the time of the members of my group in shepherding them toward the same.

And so, I give the trowel over to Jesus and ask him to break up the soil of my unplowed ground, to see, once again, what is growing within me nearly three years after this familiar blade first broke the soil regarding the choices I make … to be or not to be a woman of God.

Week Three, Day One (ibid, p. 29). Alicia guides me to consider that familiar scene at the cross, where Jesus’ mother, close friends, and followers were “standing by” as eyewitnesses to his suffering (see John 19:25). I journal my thoughts regarding the many, strong emotions that must have been present that day. I do so without looking back at the responses I wrote to this same question three years earlier. In keeping my responses fresh, I’m able to (at the conclusion of the activity) look back to those earlier responses and compare them with my current ones. It’s a rich exercise in evaluation.

Easily, I find the similarities. Feelings that include: confusion, emptiness, sorrow, loneliness, fear, gut-wrenching pain. I imagine many of you might reach these same conclusions regarding the emotions surrounding that day at Calvary. What surprised me the most in the comparing of my two lists was the inclusion of a couple of emotions this time around that were glaringly absent from my list three years ago. Those emotions? Relief and hope. Relief that Christ’s anguish had come to an end—a finishing point to an event that had, undoubtedly, been building up in their minds for a long season. And feelings of hope based on the reality of the finishing work of the cross—something along the lines of: Now that we’ve come to this moment in his story, I can’t wait to see what he’s going to do next.

And therein is my discovery, my lingering. Why the emotions of relief and hope this time around and not three years ago? Well, that’s another story for another day. But when I look back to where I was three years ago (a season of deep suffering and wounding) and to where I am today, the discrepancy is more clearly understood. Suffering sometimes clouds the truth, and the truth is … suffering does a finishing work in all of us. When we arrive at suffering’s end, hope often turns up in our hearts to surprise us and to invite us forward into holy expectation for the words yet to be written onto the pages of our lives.

This is the garden of your soul, Elaine; what’s being planted in that place? What is growing there?

Well, it feels like relief; it feels like it might be hope. What about you, friends? What is growing in the soil of your heart? Won’t you take some time today to consider the question with Jesus? It’s a fine deliberation and one that has the potential to yield abundant fruit for your soul. As always …

Peace for the journey,
 

distracted …

Distracted.

I am. I have been for the past couple of weeks, and now I’m physically sick. What has been brewing in my mind and circling over my emotions has taken root in my flesh, and I have taken to my bed. Oh, perhaps there’s a floating bug in the air that took advantage of my compromised immune system; ‘tis the season to catch unwanted viruses. But I’m thinking the two are connected.

Whenever a virus lies in wait, whether of the physical variety or of the assault-your-heart-and-mind variety, some breakage is inevitable. When both are present at the same time, there’s bound to be a collision that forces the issue of healing.

I hear the Father’s question spoken to my heart today, even as I read it in antiquity from John’s Gospel (5:6) …

Do you want to get well … Elaine?

The answer seems obvious. However, that which is obvious is not always that which is chosen. Follow-thru is paramount regarding a choice for health. If I want to get well, I’d better start acting toward that end. What does this look like for me?

Two things: a choice to medicate and a choice to meditate. To fuel my body with the proper regimen of proven remedies and to fuel my mind with the same. And so, as I reach over to my nightstand for another Vitamin C tablet to bolster my flesh, I also reach for the Book that’s been remedying my soul-maladies for nearly half a century. Together, they are prescriptive, a best course of treatment for attacking the viruses within and bringing about my healing in due time.

When I am distracted by God’s Word, I am less distracted by the many cares of this world. Not that I live apart from the world; the world is ever-present around me and requires my participation. But in the midst of that requirement, there are ways to temper such burden. A good dose of vitamins and a good dive into scripture is a good beginning.

Maybe today a virus is eating away at your good health. You’re worn down from the chase, running in circles and slamming into walls that won’t move. Try as you may, you can no longer deny the impending collision. Where your preference plays a role is in answering the same question that was offered by Jesus to the one infirmed at the pool of Bethesda some 2000 years ago:

Do you want to get well?

I know I do. My prayer is that you will as well. Whatever sickbed you’re lying on today, the prescription for healing is within reach.

Medicate and meditate. Meditate and medicate. Back and forth – forth and back until the worldly disruption in your flesh and in your mind fades to black and the eternal distraction of Jesus comes into clear focus. In him and with him, all things are made well.

Peace for the journey,

yet inwardly

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”  -2 Cor. 4:16-17

Yet inwardly.

As God-followers, we must remember that for every outward reduction to our lives there is an inward renewal taking place. Soul renewal. New strength to replace waning fortitude. New life in exchange for that which is old, even when the old is mostly preferred.

We cannot always foresee the reductions coming. Sometimes they surprise us. Sometimes we are warned in advance of their arrival. Still and yet, when loss arrives to our familiar, we feel it profoundly. We’re quick to mourn its advent, even quicker to forget the deeper work of grace that is taking place underneath the pain, at heart-level. It is in this inward place where our soul advances. Where faith is shaped. Where eternal glory exponentially increases at a rapid rate.

We may not see the increase happening, but just because our eyesight is momentarily dimmed by personal pain doesn’t mean that something good isn’t occurring at a deeper level. What soil put to the blade has ever thanked the blade for its penetrating sharpness? Until the seed is planted, the earth watered, and the sun applied, the soil has no appreciation for this inward work of glory. The soil just has to wait and believe that, with every passing sunrise and sunset, there is something generous taking place beneath the visible.

As it is with the soil, so it is with the soul.

I’m fourteen days into 2014, and if there’s one word that best characterizes what I’ve experienced in these beginning weeks it would be simply and profoundly be … loss.

Not only have I known deep, personal reduction, but one of my children has as well. My parents, the same. We couldn’t see it coming on the backside of our 2013s; nevertheless, loss has arrived at the doorsteps of our hearts, and we are challenged to take hold of God’s inward multiplication despite man’s attempts at outward reduction.

By the generous grace of God, we’re all still standing in faith. We all still believe in the mighty work belonging to the unseen—the hidden places of our hearts where the Gardener’s inward work is taking place. Even in loss, there is increase. We just can’t see it yet, not fully.

What I can see and what I do know is this:

God is keeping me in his perfect peace. Why? Because I am intentionally choosing to trust him and, moment by moment, to place my mind next to his. Whenever I begin to fret and feel overcome by the arrows of chaos shooting poison into my thoughts, I move my thoughts to a higher place. There’s nothing mystical about this mind-movement; rather, it’s a choice I’m making—a fluid, uninterrupted heart-motion that begins with saying, “I trust you, God” and ends with my resting my head on his chest.

Therein, I am a kept woman, if only for a moment. Moments can accumulate into hours. Hours into days, and days into weeks … these past two weeks of continuing peace. I’m growing to expect this from God, and I am exceedingly grateful for his generosity.

This is an inward work by the unseen God. This is increasing, eternal glory. And today, this is enough to carry me forward.

How about you? I don’t imagine I’m the only one who is experiencing loss in this season. Perhaps you’re standing where I am standing, feeling the sharp blade of unanticipated reduction to the soil of your heart. Might I encourage you with the words of the Apostle Paul that have greatly encouraged me?

Yet inwardly.

There is an inward grace taking place just beneath your seen and visible. It may not feel like much right now; this reduction may have temporarily numbed you to the truth regarding kingdom increase. But when you get to the other side of this loss—when the seeds planted in darkness begin to sprout as glory under the splendor of God’s radiant Son—then you will know that there is more to this current grief than what can currently be seen.

So rejoice with me, ye sojourners on the road of reduction! Yet inwardly, the Gardener is sowing for increase. Rejoice, at least, in this. It’s something more than we expected, and it just might wind up being our preference in the end.

Kept in peace,

Anchor Verse 2014 ~ Kept

 

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” –Isaiah 26:3, ESV

Kept.

This is who I want to be in 2014. This is how I want to live.

Kept … in perfect peace—the Father’s pledge to me preceded by my obedience to him. That obedience? To trust God first and, then, out of that unwavering confidence, to lay, lean, rest, and support my mind upon him … to stay with God.

With that trusting and in that staying comes a God-guarded, perfect peace—completeness, tranquility, safety, and contentment that cannot be secured in any other way. Like a night watchman keeping vigilance over his vineyard, the Father promises to safeguard my peace so that the harvest remains intact, healthy and thriving to fullness.

I don’t imagine I’ve ever experienced this perfect peace long-term. There have been moments, even days, perhaps a season or two of holding this kind of sustained, perfect peace, but I want more than seasonal glimpses. What I’m after is an enduring fellowship with this God-protected contentment.

And so, when I dreamed about these words from Isaiah 26:3 a few nights ago (to be fair, I didn’t know they were found in Isaiah 26:3 at the time), I awakened in the morning holding a fresh purpose for my 2014. This year, I want to know my Father as Keeper. I want to be kept in his perfect peace. Accordingly, I must tend to my trusting and to my staying.

A pledge preceded by an obedience. A pledge and an obedience tucked securely within the set of bookends who can and who does author such reality:

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”

You. God. Father. Keeper.

He is where I begin my 2014. He is where I’ll finish. And in between my now and my then, a long season of trusting and staying … an enduring season of fellowship with God-protected contentment.

Kept. This is who I want to be in 2014. This is how I want to live … anchored and held by the rich truth and work of Isaiah 26:3. And so I offer my “welcome” to this New Year, and I offer my welcome to you as well. For as much and as little as we are able, the fellowship we share here is a stone of remembrance for me on this journey of grace. May God keep you strong and in the faith this 2014, and may you be guarded by his perfect peace every step of the way.

Stay with God,

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