living God’s truth | Elaine Olsen

A Turn Toward the Better

September 9, 2008

Congrats to Joan (#13) at More God = Less Me for winning Chris Tomlin’s new CD (please email me your snail mail, so I can get it to you ASAP). Today, we pause in our study of “Setting the Table for Communion.” There is greater thought that pulses in my heart today and requires my attention. It’s a hard teaching, especially when our hearts cry out for an easy road…a quick fix to the problems of our lives. If that is what you’re after, you won’t find it here. Instead, you will walk my heart’s strain as I seek to make sense of all of the nonsense that crowds and confronts my current. If I can’t live as authentic before you and before God, then why bother? That being said, let’s get to the doing and to the digging in hopes of hearing Him somewhere within the penned thoughts, breathing his truth as only he can.

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“Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the LORD showed him the whole land … Then the LORD said to him, ‘This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, “I will give it to your descendants.” I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.’ And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab, as the LORD had said.” (Deuteronomy 34:1, 4-5).

Life hasn’t turned out the way that I thought it would.

I thought it would turn toward all things lovely. Instead, it turned differently. Sometimes lovely. Sometimes in stark contrast, but never quite in the direction that I thought it would. I feel the profundity of it today, as I lie upon my prayer quilt and hammer out my thoughts with God.

He understands. We’ve been here before. Perhaps, he too, shares in my disappointment. Not because his love for me breathes less as a result of my sin, but simply because he knows that my life could have lived differently. A better different, but it hasn’t. And this has been his surrendered gift to me.

A gift that allows a life to walk within the parameters of a freely chosen will. Mine, not his.

I’ve taken God up on his offer many times. Too many to count. Too awfully painful to chronicle in this moment. I don’t tell you this to warrant your sympathy. I simply offer it to you as my explanation for a life that currently lives differently than how I imagined it would live all those many years ago—when life walked young and free and full of ideals that had room to breathe and with the ample innocence to fuel their imagining.

That was then. This is now. And the life lived between innocence’s conception and innocence’s death was a vast territory of wild and reckless exploration that weeps its remembrance this day.

There are portions of the Promised Land that I will never walk on this side of eternity. Not because my Father doesn’t delight in giving me his grace-filled abundance, but rather because my sin has kept me from it. Forty-two years worth of living have authored some seasons of regrets—times in life that have been lost to the indulgence of fleshly appetites over the reasoned pursuit of holiness.

I understand this. I accept it. I know and live the ramifications of my choices everyday. This doesn’t mean that life breathes a pitiful existence for me; it would be a quick leap to live within that conclusion. No, what it means is that life simply walks different and with a full awareness that some of the dreams birthed on the front end of my existence will only find their completed rest on the backside of eternity.

Not here. Not yet, but in the Promised Land that lies just beyond these years of my desert pilgrimage.

Moses walked the territory between a promise given and its final fruition. He would never taste the milk and honey of a God-given dream, much less walk upon its soil. He would only witness it from a distance. From atop a mountain where God would open up his eyes to the wild imaginings of sacred possibility. Moses didn’t come to the mountain with the hope of God changing his mind in the matter. He’d walked with his Father long enough to reason better.

No, when Moses made the climb up Mt. Nebo that day, he did so knowing that death awaited his arrival. Moses came to the mountain to die. To witness with his eyes a final taste of earth’s best and then to witness through life’s surrender his first taste of eternity’s forever—a lasting best that far exceeds any lovely we could walk on this side of heaven.

Indeed, Moses’ life hadn’t turned out the way that he thought it would. His sin kept him from walking God’s perfect and best will. But his finish?

Well, it turned out better than he could have ever imagined. It turned out perfect and lovely and full of the wild imaginings that had followed him since his youth.

The Promised Land…forever beneath his feet.

It is the same for us, even if life isn’t walking the way that we thought that it would. There is coming a better day when all of this will be left behind and traded in for something far more wonderful than our minds and hearts can currently conceive.

If you don’t believe this—if for some reason you’re convinced that your “current” is as good as it gets and that it will breathe as similar in your “next”—then can I be so bold as to suggest that you’ve cast your faith with the wrong King?

This isn’t it, oh sleepy pilgrim. What you and I are living today isn’t the final word on our forever. This life isn’t perfectly lovely, and it certainly isn’t God’s final best. If I believed this, I would walk away in an instant and pay homage to the closest golden calf, because, quite frankly, this faith walk has been hard fought and painfully lived and deserves a final promise that exceeds my mind’s capacity for imagining.

If I could take hold of everything that God intends for me in my now, if I could capture the true pulse of a perfected good within my heart and on this side of eternity, then I’m pretty sure I would stop trying to get there. My pressing on would walk in vain. If this is as good as it gets, then I’m done because life has not turned in the direction that I thought it would.

But it will, even as it did for Moses.

One day soon, because my faith exceeds my flesh, and for all of the sins that have kept me from the fullness of God’s best in my “now,” there is none so great that will keep me from God’s best in my next.

My Promised Land—where milk and honey will be my portion and where God’s lovely will be my perfected end.

That, my friends, is what I’m after. That is the day that I am longing for, for me and for you. And until we make our final climb of surrender, may God grant us all the strength and the wisdom to walk with intention and with the promise of forever pulsing in our veins.

As always,

~elaine

The Gift of Peace

August 28, 2008

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27).

Can I ask you a question or two? Would you be willing to entreat the thoughts that have been walking around my heart recently? I hope so, but if you are in a rush and life is screaming around your heart with the speed of light, I’ll understand your taking a pass. But in doing so, I think you will neglect a pondering that is, perhaps, most intended for you, for we are a weary and busy people. And God would like to offer you something of lasting worth that will not only help you in your weary, but will walk with you for always.

His peace.

How long has it been since you have tasted the full and deep measure of God’s peace? And more importantly, do you even begin to comprehend the difference between this world’s packaging of peace and the Father’s gifting of peace? What does it mean to you that the God of all creation gives in accordance to his “Godness” and not according to a temporal standard that, at best, is momentary and shallow?

The contrast is staggering. If would could ever get our minds around the disparity between the two, we would quickly trade in our purchasing of the world’s peace for the receiving of God’s eternal peace. His cannot be bought. It can only be received as a gift. This is a difficult concept for most of us, for we have spent a lifetime negotiating the purchase price for peace.

We take vacations in search of peace, only to return with frazzled nerves and a mounting credit card. We turn on the television as a way of escaping the pressures of the current, only to be bombarded with the harsh assaults by an industry that thrives on chaos and conflict. We labor our cause for peace through political points of view, only to walk away with a growing dislike for our contemporaries who don’t view the world through similar lenses.

We take to our self-soothing through…

alcohol
drugs…prescribed and otherwise
food
sleep
shopping
internet and email
movies
music
sexual addictions…and the entertaining of thoughts therein
exercise

…all manner of creature comforts that, perhaps, breathe an initial breath of peace but in the end leave us void of any deep and lasting portion.

We want peace for our journeys, but somewhere along the road, we have bought into the lie that peace can be purchased. It is a good lie because it’s working on most of us. But peace that comes with a price tag is simply a masking for the enemy’s offering of bondage. Satan’s objective is to keep us searching…to keep us in a perpetual stage of running toward a goal that he knows can never be achieved through our good intentions or a bulging bank account. Satan’s offer of peace serves on the same platter as it did for the disciples over 2000 years ago.

The world’s promise of peace may have walked differently back then, but it still measured the same.

Worldly and lacking.

But then Jesus interrupted the scene with an alternative—an offering of his own portion of peace. It was a peace that extended far beyond the customary greeting and conversational benediction of their vernacular. It was a “penetrating through the doors” kind of peace that poured deep with an extended reach toward their forever.

When Jesus told his followers about his soon and coming departure, undoubtedly their hearts were a flurry with confusion and grief. It is the same for us. Anytime we perceive our Jesus to be absent from our “routine and normal” we, too, are prone to our flurry and our worry until we can no longer find the thread of peace that links us back to our faith. It may only be momentary, but unless our peace is anchored within the truth of Jesus’ offering of peace, our lingering chaos lasts long and hard and keeps us from experiencing the immediate intention of a Father’s gift.

The disciples were at a distinct disadvantage, although we often think of them as more blessed for having walked and talked with Jesus and for being the front row witnesses of his miraculous. No, in that moment of hearing Jesus’ forecast concerning his future, their troubled hearts didn’t have the benefit of the one thing that we now possess.

Hindsight. A backward glance into sacred history as we now know it. We see Jesus’ cycle of life and understand the reasons for his cross. We are the benefactors of such a gift. But when Christ spoke to the disciples concerning his death and his resurrection, their momentary pain kept them shackled to the cross…to their chaos and confusion…instead of pushing them ahead to vision the promise of their forever.

It was a moment worthy of the spoken word and the spoken Presence of that word.

Peace. Not as the world gives, but as the Father gives.

And even though we have the documented benefit of history, even though we’ve seen the working out of Calvary’s pouring grace and an Easter’s crowning resurrection and a Pentecost’s promised revival, even though we know it all to be true in the deepest marrow of our being, we still live as a people in search of God’s peace.

I’ve got some good news for you today. The search is over. God’s peace is here. His name is Jesus, and he lives in each one of us through the witness and power of his Holy Spirit. Love’s redeeming work was done over 2000 years ago, and the overflow from that sacred grace is a lasting peace. Never to be purchased. Never to be contrived or managed or fit into a busy schedule as needed, but rather to simply be received and to be lived. To be understood and to be treasured.

You need not go to the market in search for the seemingly unattainable. If you know Jesus to be your Savior, then you contain within you the absolute attainable. Not because you are deserving, but simply because you are the penchant of your Father’s heart, and his lasting and enduring peace is the sacred root that will grow you toward your forever.

Our Father does not give to us as the world gives. He gives better. More than the eye can see. More than the ear can hear. More than the mind can conceive. And sometimes, more than our faith can believe. God’s immeasurably more will always trump the seen and the measurable. The gifts from our Father’s hands are the seeding of our tomorrow. He gives with the future in mind. He gives gifts that have eternal reach because eternity is his to give, and Peace is ours to live.

Not just when life breathes good, but when life breathes heavy and threatens our very existence. Peace is our very good portion. Our constant and our abiding gift from heaven until we reach the shores of our forever and see our Peace, face to face.

Who can fathom the glorious riches of our then…of our now?! I can, and thus I pray,

Jesus, you are my Peace. Keep me to the road of Peace. Harbor my thoughts in the depth of your constant and abiding Peace who lives within. When I am tempted to search elsewhere…to pull out the wallet and to purchase peace at the going rate…drop me to my knees in thankfulness for the price that has already been paid on my behalf for your gift of lasting peace. Walk through the door of my heart, Lord, each and every day and speak your words of Peace over my life. Give according to your “Godness” and not according to my want, for my want will always fall short of your immeasurably more. And you my Father, have made me for more; thus, I bow to receive my portion from your hand his day. Amen.

~elaine

For a more in-depth look at God’s concept of peace, please take time to read John 14. May God bless the reading and the pondering of his word as only he can. Shalom!

Imagine

August 24, 2008

For those of you who need to know that your God sees you this day…

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.” (Psalm 19:1-6).

Can you even imagine? Better still, do you?

Ever imagine?

Him.

Pitching his tent in the heavens and watching over your every move. Not because he is waiting for you to make a mess out of your life, but simply because he is waiting for you to take notice of his.

His constant presence. His everlasting love. His faithful glances in your direction.

He is there, but most days, our preoccupation with the flesh leaves little room for the imagining of him. Horizontal focus trumps the beauty of vertical visioning because horizontal focus usually voices the loudest. That which cannot be heard is almost always overlooked. Overshadowed and nearly forgotten. Almost.

Not today. Not for me. For today the heavens voiced a melody that trumped any earthly sound. They scripted their chorus in the sky above, and only those with the eyes to look up and the hearts to look deep had the privilege of singing along. God gave me a gift this morning through my imagination. Maybe you, too, will be able to hear the song.

Imagine a beautiful Sunday morning. A day set apart for the worship of the Creator of your heart. Imagine going to church, parking your car and grabbing hold of the hands of two young children. Imagine, then, looking up and seeing the sky painted with the brushstrokes from a Heavenly Father’s morning walk.

Imagine commenting on their beauty to your children and then finding your camera to take a few pictures to benchmark the moment.

Imagine going into the church, finding your pew, only to be distracted by the beauty of a sky’s sacred witness. Imagine retrieving your camera from your purse and perusing your earlier remembrances while the choir sings their anthem.

Imagine, then, being disturbed by a seemingly odd coloring on a few of the pictures.

Imagine, then, zooming the camera’s focus in to take a closer look.

Imagine then, the possibility of what you think you see.

Imagine.

Call me crazy. Call me emotional. Call me way over the top. Call me hysterical for Jesus. That’s OK. I know Who I imagined this morning, and I am perfectly fine with your labels. Better still, I am perfectly fine with believing in the One whose eyes are always on me and who is coming soon to take me home as his bride.

“For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him” (2 Chronicles 16:9).

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.’” (Revelation 21:1-3).

It won’t be long, friends, until we truly see him in all his glory. For now, we can only imagine him, watching over us and waiting for the divine “go” from his Father. In that moment, his voice will split the sky, and he will shatter earth’s darkness with the glorious illumination of our forever. Can you even imagine?

It’s a holy imagining worthy of our thoughts this day—a Sabbath day when our focus should level toward the vertical and our faith should level toward the seen possibility of a wild and sacred imagining. He’s been my portion this day. How I earnestly desire the same for you.

Look up, for your salvation is closer now than it has ever been! (Romans 13:11-12). As always,

~elaine

I came across this song last night for the very first time. You’ve probably heard it before, but would you take the time this day to listen again and to imagine your Father’s watchful and loving gaze over you right now? This song brought me to my tears and to my knees. I pray it will do the same for you.

Raising Faith (part ten): Embracing Your Intercession

August 23, 2008

“I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time.” (1 Timothy 2:1-6).

What do the department store Target, handcuffs, two sobbing women (one old, one young), and a “no shirt wearin’, boxer brief showin’” teenager have in common? Absolutely nothing, unless your name is Elaine and you happened to be cruising the Target parking lot around 5:00 PM this evening.

No. We weren’t robbed. We were simply witness to the arrest of a young man who had apparently done something worthy of handcuffs—a rubber-necking moment if there ever was one! Police cars and flashing lights were enough to garner our immediate attention. But as soon as we had passed the scene of the crime, my curious attention suddenly turned to tears. Lots of them. Before long, I had my daughter crying and my son and husband wondering as to the reason behind my emotional outburst. I can sum it up in one word.

Compassion.

When I saw that young man standing beside the patrol car, half-dressed and with a look of warranted fear in his eyes, my heart beat with the love of a mother. Through choking sobs, I spoke the penchant of my heart’s pause to the carload of dazed companions. Words like…

*That is somebody’s child.
*This boy didn’t start out this way.
*He was made for more than handcuffs and crime.
*Somebody’s getting a phone call tonight that they don’t want to get, and it is likely to bring heartache.
*Who is going to tell him that life doesn’t have to be this way—that there is a Jesus who loves him and died for him so that he might truly live?
*How will he ever know the hope of heaven?
*Who is going to stand beside him when he comes before the judge?

Words like that, and before we’d left the parking lot, everyone else was caught up in the drama of my tearful wondering. We took a few moments to pray, asking God to shatter the darkness of this young man’s heart with the truth of Jesus Christ. To bring a person of influence alongside him who will lead him to the foot of the cross.

It may not sound like much. I suppose in the grand scheme of issues that now await this boy, it offers little in the way of an immediate salve. But it’s all I have to give him. And prayers, when offered on behalf of others, are sometimes the difference between heaven and hell. Between life and death. Between handcuffs and freedom.

I will probably never know the outcome of tonight’s prayers. At least not now. But I do know that my Father heard me and that he is faithful to act on behalf of all of his children, especially those so prone to their shackles and their cells. What happened tonight in my van wasn’t contrived or superficial or #10 on the list of “30 Full Proof Methods for Raising Godly Children.” No, what happened tonight was solely rooted in the witness of God’s Spirit living within, provoking me to compassion and moving me to action.

That action was prayer. It doesn’t always breathe this way. Sometimes, more is required. Sometimes, I am the one charged with the responsibility of coming alongside. But tonight, my requirement was different. It was about lifting the life of a young man before the throne of heaven in love and asking the Father to move in his favor. It was also about the drawing of young hearts and minds to do the same.

Sacred seeding on both counts. One seed for another mother’s child. Two seeds for my own. All seeds acknowledged before God because God is in the holy habit of receiving our prayers.

Intercession is a privilege and is the sacred ladling from our heart’s well. Unfortunately, we spend a great deal of time and energy underestimating its power. When prayers go seemingly unanswered, we are prone to keeping our silence. We closely guard our words for fear of having our faith challenged when God doesn’t breathe in compliance with our requests. Thus, we level the assumption that prayers matter little when all along, the very opposite is true.

Prayers matter much because prayers voice the witness of our relationship with the living, breathing Creator of the entire universe. Our words mean something to him. And when our words breathe on behalf of his children, he is tendered by our outward focus. We may not know them by name, but he does, and he is well-pleased when we take the time to acknowledge the value of a single human life.

I want my kids to grow in their understanding of prayer. I don’t want their lives to be so cloistered within the walls of a church that they forget the reason and purpose behind the church.

To go. To preach. To baptize and to make disciples of all people. To cry on behalf of a lost soul and then to petition the heart of the Almighty because they understand that heaven and hell hangs in the balance. That kingdom work can be accomplished through the pure intention of their young hearts. That sacred shaping doesn’t just happen on Sundays, but on every day. At every occasion, even when that occasion includes the Target parking lot.

If faith is to be raised in this generation, then prayer must find its witness through our voices. Yours and mine. We are who they are watching.

And tonight, while my daughter may not have fully grasped the weight of my tears or hers, she nevertheless gave way to something deep within. She gave way to her gut, and her gut told her that something of kingdom value was going on, and she wanted to feel it…just like her momma.

Oh for the heart of a child, so easily taught and so easily moved to her own well-intentioned prayers. May it be so for each one of us this day, and so I pray…

Move us quicker to our prayers, Father. Swifter to our knees in times of trouble, and truer in our petitions on behalf of your creation. Forgive us when our focus remains secluded toward self. Foster your outward focus within us as we live and move and have our being in you. Let our casual prayers be less and our intentional prayers find room to breathe in their absence. Thank you for always listening, and by the power of your Spirit and through the saving work of your Son, Jesus Christ, I ask for grace to come to a jail cell tonight for a young man who needs to know that a King and a kingdom await his arrival. Seed his heart for your forever. Amen.

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A Morning’s Glory

August 19, 2008

“Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. (Hebrews 12:10).

This morning, I almost didn’t do what I needed to do.

Almost.

But I didn’t. Instead, I did what I needed to do and in doing so, I got a taste of some morning glory!

I ran, and I am the better because of it.

I made the choice to partake in a discipline that’s been following me for over twenty years. Most days, I hate the doing. It is a dread that wears hard and heavy on my will. Discipline is like that. It rarely feels good at the time, but in the end, it usually works toward my good. And while my outward doesn’t necessarily mirror the fruits of my hard laboring, my inward boasts the beauty of my commitment.

Heart health.

As it is with the temporal, so it is with my eternal.

I’ve got a heart that needs strengthening and a faith that needs walking. It’s what I need to do, and on most days, it’s what I want to do. But there are those occasions when my faith walk seems better left untouched. Unchallenged and untamed by life’s daily because, quite frankly, life’s daily wears hard and heavy upon my stubborn will.

No matter. Long ago, I made the decision to reposition my will behind God’s. In doing so, I signed up for a life that chooses best interest over preferred interest. And as much as I am prone to the latter, it is the former that keeps me on the road toward heart health.

When the health of the heart takes precedence over the emotions of the heart, God is faithful to honor such obedience with a measure of maturing that cannot be attained otherwise. We may not see it, feel it, touch it or taste it in the immediate, but down the road, it will be our strengthened portion when we most need the power of its witness.

A walking faith is a difficult faith. It means that we surrender how we think it ought to breathe and, instead, receive the deep breath of the Holy Spirit who abides our steps, no matter how sharp and hard the path. It means drinking Him in, even when our preference leads our lust toward the ladle of another well. It means keeping to the Word and believing in its effectual and accomplishing power even when the script reads as seemingly void of purpose.

It means getting up, day in and evening out, and living the truth of who we are as children of the Most High God, even when our preferred inclination leans toward the snooze button.

Fully living our sacred adoption is our good and gracious requirement if we are ever to share in his holiness and to reach our perfected end. This is the overriding truth that keeps me on the path, friends. Not my emotions or my feelings. They’ve run the show for most of my life and almost always run counterproductive within God’s agenda for me.

Thus, I am learning to deny them their unhealthy portion of influence. Instead, I am filling my life with the discipline of Jesus. Yes, that’s what I wrote. Discipline. As Eugene Peterson would say, “a long obedience in the same direction.” It doesn’t sound too exciting, does it? In fact, to most it sounds rather boring and walks even more laborious. But there again, it matters not how it sounds or feels. What matters is the choice to embrace the journey.

I am finding that with such a decision comes some of the most fantastic growth I have ever known as a Christian. Why?

Because choices that seed on behalf of the heart always yield long term benefits—a lasting harvest of peace and righteousness that will carry this soul to its perfected end.

This is what I’m after. This is why I will keep to the road…to the run, even when my preference leans toward the snooze. Jesus Christ is the great finisher and completer of my faith journey; thus, I will keep repositioning my will behind his until he brings me home to my forever.

I don’t know how this strikes you today. Many of you are weary. Many of you are in the middle of making some hard decisions, perhaps even living the effects of some bad ones. Some of you stand at the edge of a road, wondering if the walk ahead is worth the process. Some of you stand at the end of a road, looking back with regrets and wishing the opportunity for a do-over. A blessed few are skipping along with the pure contentment of trusting in Jesus for the unseen. A gracious many, unfortunately, are hitting the snooze button one more time in hopes of waking up to a better day.

No matter. What does matter, however, is what we choose to do with our now. What will be the next step in our journeys toward heart health? Our steps matter, and together, we can do this thing. We can walk home to Jesus with a measure of sure victory because we are his chosen dwelling. Rarely will it breathe easy, but always will it breathe with the hope of heaven.

“Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God…” (Hebrews 12:12-15a).

or the magnificent glory of a morning run! See to it, friends, see to it. And thus I pray…

Keep us to the path of our long obedience, Lord, which leads in only one direction—home to you. Strengthen our frames to do that which our souls need to do, rather than what our emotions cry out to do. Show us the beauty and lavish expression of your heart, so that we in turn will chose to tend to ours. And when all seems too hard and too costly, fill our frames with the wind of your Spirit who breathes sacred perspective over all our “seeming” until our seeming fades beneath the truth of our becoming. Thank you, Father, for your good discipline that is leading me on to my completion. And while it sometimes hurts and requires a hard humbling, I know you mean it for my holy. Thus, I gladly yield to your staff and to your rod this day. Amen.

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