Walking My Way to Worship


“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,

post signature

 

Stuff

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,

post signature

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

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,

post signature

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.

post signature

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.

Feast of Dedication (part two): an unexpected question

“Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?’” (John 10:31-32).

I’m not comfortable with the question; still and yet, it’s mine to answer. It’s yours too.

I’m a firm believer in the questions of Scripture … the ones issuing forth from a Father’s heart. Whether they come to us through the Old Testament prophets, God’s angels, his Son Jesus, or through his own voice, when God asks a question, he intends for it to transcend the pages of a “long ago and far away” to become a question for our “here and now”.

God’s Word is alive and active. As Christians, we can do one of two things with it:

Pick out the more seemingly applicable points and derive a partial theology based on human inclinations. Or, allow the entirety of its pulse to course through our veins so as to exact a change within based on divine perfection rather than fleshly preferences.

If we choose the latter, and I happen to view the latter as the correct approach to the handling of God’s Word, then we must be willing to sit before God and allow him his voice via his history. It’s a history that includes some direct questions, both in the context in which they were initially asked and in the context that surrounds our current faith.

On that day of Dedication 2000 years ago, in the shadows of a festival designed with the “lights” in mind, Jesus offered his people a question that would force them to wrestle with the truth of who he was … who he still is.

“‘I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?’”

For which of these do we? Do you? Do I … stone him?

Stoning.

Indeed, a difficult wrestling for my spirit these past few days. The more research I do on the topic, the less I understand about why God would sanction any such cruelty toward his people. Swifter retribution seems an easier swallow than that of stoning—a slower death brought about through a collective group of smaller stones, intended to prolong the suffering. Still and yet, God’s Law allowed for stoning—for retributive killing based on certain offenses laid out in his Word. Things like…

Oxen and their owners who were in the habit of goring (Ex. 21:23, 32);
Anyone sacrificing a child to Molech (Lev. 20:2);
Any medium or wizard (Lev. 20:27);
Anyone blaspheming the divine name (Lev. 24:14, 16, 23);
Anyone leading the congregation astray to serve other gods (Dt. 13:10);
Anyone serving other gods (Dt. 17:5);
A stubborn or rebellious son (Dt. 21:21);
A woman who is without her virginity upon marriage (Dt. 22:21);
A man and a betrothed virgin who have sexual relations within the city (Dt. 22:24);

Things like that. There are more, but I’m certain you get the idea. And tonight, I’m confident that, but for the grace of God, a “stoning” I deserve. Who of us couldn’t confess the same? Without the shed blood of Jesus Christ, none of us are clothed with innocence. With him? Well, we’re found faultless, worthy to stand before the throne.

The grace of the cross is a very good gift to us. It means everything to me. I confess I don’t know why God waited so long to send his Son to earth to pay penalty for his children. I don’t understand this kind of Old Testament justice that came through the filling up of hands with stones in order to release them upon another for death’s arrival. It seems cruel and harsh and hardly in line with the mercy and love of a very good God.

I cannot imagine holding stones in my hands, wanting to cast them at anyone, let alone the Christ. But there were those that did. There are those who still do. Perhaps in our civil way of doing life with Jesus in 2009, we mask it better than the people of 2000 years ago. Perhaps our stones aren’t as obvious, more hidden, more private, yet nevertheless just as sharp. Stones we cling to with harsh resentment and that speak the same answer as that of Israelites on a day in Solomon’s Colonnade so long ago…

“‘We are not stoning you for any of these [miracles],’ replied the Jews, ‘but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.’” (John 10:33).

Oh yes, we’ll take your miracles Jesus, but when you fail to act like God … when it seems you’ve abandoned your Kingly throne and instead respond to our need like a mere man? When you claim to be God, yet your actions seem to speak otherwise? Well, for that we’ll pick up a few stones. We may not throw them, but we’ll pocket them, touch them, cradle them and keep them until they collect and become too heavy for the holding. And then, if there is strength enough left, we’ll empty our pockets. Either at you or surrendered to you.

Both ways are burdensome to us because stones carry their weight, and when clutched for long seasons and collected en masse, their heaviness penetrates our hearts with doubt, with fear, and with a hardness that refuses to know Christ for the Savior that he is.

I have shown you many miracles, elaine. For which of these do you stone me? Is grace not enough to warrant your trust? Did my blood shed shallow … too little and not enough to clean up your sinful mess? Have you not known my favor and my provision for the past forty-three years?

For which of these do you stone me, child?

Do you not yet believe I am who I say I Am? Who I’ve proved I Am over and over again? It isn’t within your rights to fully comprehend my thoughts, but it is your privilege to wrestle with them … to answer my questions, and in doing so, draw closer to my heart of understanding. Thus, I ask you again, elaine…

For which miracle have I wrought forth in your life, do you stone me?

And with that question, friends, I am undone before my God. How about you? Would you be willing to entreat the thoughts of our Father this night, examine your own heart beneath the light of his great love and mercy for you, and answer his prompt in order to grow closer to him?

I’m heading to my knees just now, and I do so with the song below, playing over in my heart again. Would you join me on my prayer quilt and leave your stones where they lie? I’m praying for you this night. As always…

post signature

 

error: Content is protected !!