Tuesday, October 31, 2017

It is not just halloween today, not the wearing of disguises, but the taking off of masks


Today is not just halloween day, but the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation.  It was the simple action of one man, convicted by what he saw around him.  For the love of God, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany.  He had no idea the impact of that simple act of obeying what God had placed in his heart.

None of us have any idea the incredible way God redeems even a single baby step of obedience, even in whatever we face today.

What stood out to me, when I looked up the contents of those papers nailed to that old church door, was that these words were not of violence against the church. These theses were not a manifesto to scream "rebel" or "revolt."

But repent.

The very first of Luther's theses states:  "When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, 'Repent,' He willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance."

There was, in the established church at that time, the practice of indulgences, whereby a sinner could simply buy his way out of his transgression by basically purchasing a "get out of purgatory free" card. Just throw a money at the church for your guilt.

And 500 years ago today, on October 31, 1517, Luther's cry for personal repentance was what started the Reformation.  No more covering up sin.  No more disguises.  No more masks. But what does the Word of God say about it?

The sound of that hammer on that Wittenberg door still resounds in the hearts of all believers, right at the core of what we believe.

God always redeems a repentant heart.  Repentance is where the redeeming begins.

Repentance does not mean saying, "Oh sorry, God," and going about your merry way.  But repenting is speaking the three hardest words ever, "I was wrong."  The word repentance literally means "turning around and going in a different direction."

What is even harder than admitting and confessing, whether a wrong heart or wrongdoing, is realizing that God's forgiveness is already there.  He already has that covered through the death of His Son Jesus.  If there was any other way to forgiveness, Jesus would not have had to die. for. you. You cannot make up for your wrongdoing. You don't have to. Jesus has already been there.  No more guilt.  No more shame.

Sola scriptura.
Sola fida.
Sola gratia.

By scripture alone,
by faith alone,
by grace alone.

That is the core of Reformation teaching.

I don't have to nail anything to a church door, because my sins were nailed on the cross.

And so, as revealed in Scripture, our relationship with God is based not just on a heart of repentance, but on God's heart of forgiveness.

Make sure your children know what this day signifies for every one of us:
               In Christ alone my hope is found.

 The LORD is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
...He does not deal with us
              according to our sins,
nor requite us
              according to our iniquities.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is His steadfast love
              toward those who fear Him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does He remove our transgressions from us.
                                         
                                         Psalm 103. 8, 10-12
   


Tuesday, October 24, 2017

From here to there and even now

In the margins of my Bible are written dates and places and names, when I have claimed a verse or two for someone, for a impossible situation, for a seeking of God in this.  Sometimes I have seen how God has answered, sometimes I have not yet.  Some things now, some things later, some things belong to eternity.

This morning as I noticed a number of dates next to a particular verse in Jeremiah.  It was like a parade of our many moves as a nomadic family, a variety of dates and places.

But what stood out to me was not the memory of moving yet again, but God's faithfulness, even in what we could not understand at the time, even into what only appeared as wilderness, even then, even there.  His steps were revealed in unexpected ways and in the most unlikely of places.  And God changed us through them.

I cannot know what is ahead, even today, but I can know Who is with me.  Be not afraid. Don't miss out on the wonder.  God is faithful.  I can stake my life on that.

...that the LORD your God
       may show us the way we should go,
and the thing that we should do.
         
                                Jeremiah 42. 3

Am I willing to follow God into this?
Am I listening for Him,
    am I listening to Him?
Never ignore
        the power of the supernatural.
God is at work in you
    and extraordinarily around you,
His purposes deeper
                than you can ever know.
           

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Excuse me, but there is a dead body on your living room floor


A slight break would occur usually in the early afternoon, after the extended rush hours of the morning and before the next tsunami wave crashed through her schedule.  It was not a noticeable gap in her day, not even a predictable or reliable pocket of time.  It was almost imperceptible, easily missed if she hadn't been listening for it.

If you have ever driven a car with stick-shift, there is a reluctant moment between the release of one gear and the engaging of the next.  That was the momentary gift she was looking for.

My mom was a master of those snatches of time.  She taught violin lessons to high schoolers in the early morning darkness before the school day, during their study halls, and then again, after school into the evening hours. It was a grueling schedule for her, to say the least, but you know, sometimes you just have to roll with what is needful.  Sometimes, life is just hard.  She was tired, and half-empty cups of cold coffee decorated our home.

As a result, it was not an unlikely sight to come into our house and see my mom prone and unmoving on the floor, right in the middle of the living room in the middle of the day.  Dead asleep, barely breathing, unaware of anything going on around her, even the dogs racing around her stirred up no response at all.

"I'm taking a nap," she once explained to me.  "Why don't you just lay down on your bed?" I asked.  She looked at me with a bit of shock in her eyes.  "Oh, I would get too comfortable.  I just need ten minutes on the floor, and I'm good to go."

And seriously, she would become comatose for ten minutes, awaken refreshed without an alarm, and proceed energized into the rest of her day and sometimes deep into the night.  It was quite simply "a power nap."

It is not unusual for any one of us for our load to become heavier through the day.  

But what if we treated our own languishing souls in the middle of unworkable situations and among impossible people, not with a power nap, but ten minutes of prayer?  Laying not on the floor to sleep, but laying out our troubled hearts and heavy burdens and stormy circumstances before the LORD?  Right at my desk, right at the counter, right while I am mopping up someone else's mess.

The truth is that we spend a lot more time stressing out than praying about it.

When I am anxious and overwhelmed, I don't know what to do, but God Almighty does.  As God's Word says in 2 Chronicles 20.12:
   
                      "For we are powerless against this great multitude
                                                        that is coming against us.
                      We do not know what to do,
                                             but our eyes are upon You."

I can hurtle through my day, or I can listen to God's way in this, and pray my way through. How can I think differently about this? 

A little power prayer in the middle of the day. 

Weary?  God invented something even better than a power nap.

...it seemed to me a wearisome task,
      until I went into the sanctuary of God...

                                           Psalm 73. 16-17

As my friend Brad used to say,
    "Stop. drop, and pray."



Tuesday, October 17, 2017

What is next stands on the shoulders of what has been




I have been through hard places
           and rugged terrain.
I found His strength.
I will find it again.
And because the ways I have traveled before,
      I can have no fear.
Even in the wilderness,
     I find His grace.
His faithfulness rises out of the very ground.
Not that "it will work out,"
             but God works it,
    that which He has already
                               intricately designed.
I have seen the impossible.
Guide me,
    O Thou great Jehovah.
We look back some day
                       and laugh.
We can look ahead even now
    and without even seeing the outcome,
delight in Him.
Heading straight into His glory,
   that point of letting go,
even on the most obscure street,
                       His way revealed,
His footprints yet unseen.
 

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

A Not-So Mountaintop Experience ...and Yet



Image result for mt sterling trailhead imagesMy husband and I love to explore our favorite trails, over and over, where cathedrals of trees rise up around us, and rushing creeks sing endless ancient choruses. But even on those familiar trails, something new always emerges, the seniority of an old growth tree towering overhead, or suddenly, the sun's rays slicing through the thick canopy like a prophetic vision of God.  Always we return to civilization with a story or two, and sometimes the resounding silence of the woods even follows us inside.

But last week, we hiked a trail we did not know, realizing that the beginning of a familiar trail is in hiking a new one. Our now-preferred routes were once strangers too.

This trail was on our way to see some herds of elk, gathering at Cataloochee for a little autumn party. A little side hike was a welcome break after navigating fifteen miles of potholes on a lonely gravel road. 

The carved wooden sign at the trail head stated in bold print:  Mount Sterling Trail 2.3 miles, a morning's journey, not daunting at all. Another trail would intersect in a half mile.  All I knew from my limited experience was that when the trail name includes the word "mount," count on it being steep.

Immediately, the path started upward. We were on our way.  "Do I need a heavier long sleeve shirt?"  I asked Bill, as I shivered in the early morning coolness.  "Not likely," he said. I was still skeptical.

In the first quarter mile of the ascent, I was down to a tank top.

When we reached the other trail branching off, the sign repeated:  Mount Sterling Trail 2.3 miles.  The same as a half mile ago.  Hmmmm. Not what our map said.  What else don't we know?

The path became even steeper.  Sometimes a little ignorance is a grace, I justified. But the truth was  we hadn't read the guide book.  We hadn't asked anyone about it.  We didn't know the "story" about this trail. It was another mile longer than expected, not unbearably steep, but it was a continuous climb. Each switchback vaguely promised a break, but as we climbed and approached yet another turn, the path was relentless.  It will flatten out at the next bend, I lied to myself   But no rest area was to be found.

Just keep on, I said to myself. Think about the view from the top!  That is always worth it. The rocks and the roots threatened to trip me on every step, but gradually I began to see them as footholds, at times almost like steps carved into the side of the mountain. 

We came around yet another bend, and quite suddenly, that was it, the end of the trail.  We looked around us, and then, at each other.  There was no view.  There was nothing but some scrub trees and another trail sign that pointed down the mountain in two opposite directions.

A mountaintop experience without a view?  We climbed all this way, and there was nothing here.  "I can see why this is not a popular trail," I said to Bill.

"Well, it was a nice hike on a beautiful day," he said.  And indeed it was, view or not.

On the way down, back to the car, we passed quite a few hikers on the way up.  "Should I tell them there is nothing there?" I whispered to myself.  They looked so excited.  I hated to discourage them.

And of course, as I hiked down, my mind began to find a story in this journey.  Don't climb for just a view.  There may be some other purpose in it.  It may just be about the conversation, the being together, the just getting out and trying new paths in life.

That could have been the tale on this hike, the purpose for this trek.  But I should know better than to guess how the story turns out when I'm still in the middle of a saga.

A young high schooler was coming up the trail towards us, keeping quite a pace as she ascended.  She obviously didn't know about how her hike was going to end.  About twenty yards behind her was a man with two teenage boys, evidently her father and brothers.  As we passed them, the father asked us excitedly, "Was it so amazing at the top?"

Ummmm.  "Well," Bill said.  "There really wasn't anything there."

"Isn't this the Mt. Sterling Trail?"  Yes.

"There is an historic 60-foot fire tower at the top," the man said with great anticipation in his voice, sweeping his arm upward, "the tallest fire tower east of the Mississippi."  Like, didn't you see it? They proceeded in their excitement upward and onward.

We shook our heads. There was nothing there.  Boy, are they going to be disappointed.

But later,we discovered that indeed there is a 60-foot historic tower, standing tall less than a quarter mile from where we lingered at the top. If it had been alive, it would have bopped us on the head.  If we had read the guidebook, if we had explored the summit even a few dozen yards, if we had even looked up, we would have had a much different experience.  No doubt about it.  We missed out.

Image result for mt sterling fire tower

There was more than a view at the top, but a panorama. God designs the awe.  I can look at the images on my computer screen, but that is nothing compared to what is real.  We missed out on the poetic view.  We missed out on the wonder.
Image result for mt sterling fire tower

It was a gentle reminder that there is a incredibly strong connection between what I know and what I see, what I read and discover in God's Word, what I pray, and what I end up doing that day.  Over and over, Scripture profoundly influences my vision and orders my day-- what I see around me, who I notice, how I respond, and Who I'm walking with.  It matters.  It matters a lot.  Read the Guidebook.

What else don't I know?  That which God has placed right before me. 

God's faithfulness helps me know that the wilderness is a place of flourishing, not despair.  Silence is a place of His fathomless Presence, not His absence.  And that reality takes my breath away.

Same trail, different outcome. Ordinary day, extraordinary day.  His Word does not just influence my expectations, but helps me watch for the unexpected that God Almighty always brings.

I am yet in the middle of the story.

Thus says the LORD:
"Stand by the roads,
             and look,
and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is,
and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls."

                  Jeremiah 6. 16


Friday, October 6, 2017

There are no small things

"Never tire of doing even the smallest things for Him, because He isn't impressed so much with the dimensions of our work as with the love in which it is done."

--Brother Lawrence
   The Practice of the Presence of God (1691)

Sunday, October 1, 2017

How much we miss
because we are not even looking,
how much we miss
because we don't pray.

"If you don't pray,
you are not expecting
     anything different."
 
        -- James MacDonald

...it seemed to me
     a wearisome task,
until I went
   into the sanctuary of God.

                    Psalm 73. 16-17

Don't miss out
   on what God can do.
"Trust Me in this.
    Follow Me into it."