Way leads on to way

One recent wintry afternoon, my husband and I were driving a short distance to hike a familiar trail.  We had taken this route so often that the turns came almost without thinking, right turn out of our neighborhood, left turn at the light.  

But this time, oh, we made a wrong turn.  Actually, we did not make a turn at all.  At the light, we went straight instead.  Oops.  Bill looked for the first opportunity to turn around.  But I said, "I think if you go a little further, we can turn left and get back to the road."  Famous last words from someone directionally-impaired.

When we got to the junction just a few hundred yards ahead, there was a one-way sign, pointing to the opposite direction. Again, I said, "I think if you go a little further..."  And so, we turned right.

We followed the road, an asphalt loop I have run many times before.  But after one long descent, the asphalt diverged into two separate ways, dividing the familiar and the unfamiliar.  I have passed that place before and always wondered where that other way led to.

 

No signs.  No spectacular vision.  Just a road.  Another strip of pavement in the woods.  Something unknown to us.

The familiar has a strong gravitational pull.  But as Robert Frost says, "Yet knowing how way leads on to way." 

We were not lost.  We just didn't know yet where it came out.  What if...? did not limit us, but spurred us on.  

"Let's see where this rabbit trail leads," I said, not out of compulsion but curiosity.  

The  pavement wandered through woods and fields of uncut grass, past other forest service roads blocked off to traffic, over hill and dale, and eventually ascended a hill, around a sharp turn, and we were right back where we started from.  "I know exactly where we are," I said.  "I never knew before where that road headed."

As J. R. R. Tolkien stated, "All who wander are not lost."  And I would add to that, "all who wonder..."  Even right where we are. 

Anytime we try something new -- or do something familiar a little differently-- it develops new nerve synapses in our brains.  We get a little less stuck in our own ways, ruts, and the "I've always done it like this" grooves in our practices.

Way leads on to way.  When we respond to God, the next step opens up before us.  Sometimes it is an entirely new road, and sometimes a new way of seeing the familiar. ("I never noticed that before.") And sometimes eliciting a new response to what God had already placed before us.  Even in this unknown wilderness in front of us.  Even in what only appears as just another day on the trail.   There are no ordinary days.

 

Make me to know Your ways, O LORD,

teach me Your paths.

                  Psalm 25. 4

 

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

 

Following God and being faithful to Him is what actually makes all the difference.  God may very well place something entirely new on our radar.  But it could also require staying the same course and seeing this same familiar landscape from a new perspective.  "The road less traveled by" may be the one we are already on.  Following God does not mean always seeking a new door, but responding to what is already here, right before us.  The now we have yet failed to grasp, the now of which we are missing God's extraordinary Presence.

 

Whatever is before me

As I sat at my desk early this morning, the strong eastern sunlight streamed through the windows, and I realized what I have neglected and ignored far too long.  With reluctance, I will be mopping our floors today.  It is not quite the way I envisioned the start of the week.

And then in my grumbling spirit, I remembered it is a holiday today in honor and memory of Martin Luther King Jr.  I was reminded of one of his quotations that reflects a Biblical worldview about work.  It always makes me think a little deeper about whatever is before me to do.  My agenda, my mindset, and my myopic heart are not always in alignment with the heart of God.  There is no insignificant work in God's economy, nothing that He cannot use far beyond my imagination. 

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry.  He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, "Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."

Whatever is before us today, the highest calling is to do it faithfully and with excellence before God.  And know that God will use it in powerful ways for His Kingdom and to point others to Him -- even in ways we may never see. Perhaps even to align our very own hearts with His.  "Trust Me in this."

God will ripen even the smallest seeds of love and faithfulness in His own perfect timing.

Every day we do things that we don't think really matter at all in the grand scheme of things.  But in God's grander narrative, every detail matters a lot.  Because what we do -- and perhaps even more, how we do it-- does something to us as well.  Doing my utmost for His highest looks very different even in the most ordinary task.  Because there are no ordinary obediences. 

We cannot yet see the other side--not just of our work-- but in how God uses it.  We would be astonished, if we knew, and someday we will know.

Whatever you do,

work heartily as for the LORD 

and not for men, 

knowing that from the Lord you will receive

 the inheritance as your reward.  

You are serving the Lord Christ.  

                        Colossians 3. 23-24

 

Whatever is before me today. 

 

Join Me

On a cold January morning, back in 2007, I received an email from a friend in our church community.  The email was actually written by his seven-year-old son.  “My dad and I are reading through the Bible this year.  Would you join us?”

I had made a practice of reading Scripture, but at that point, I don’t think I had ever read through the Bible cover to cover in any kind of systematic way.

One of our daughters said to me, “Let’s do it.”

That cinched it.

To help keep me accountable, I began following a schedule published online:  www.oneyearbibleonline.com, which designates each day a short passage in the Old Testament, the New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs. It takes about 15 minutes a day.

There is nothing magical or award winning in getting the Bible read in a year.  But it changes you.  It was not so much as making a habit of daily reading, but creating a different pattern and practicing it over and over. 

As I read, I did not just underline a verse or phrase or passage that spoke to me, but I began writing those verses down each day in a notebook.  I have found, that in each re-reading of Scripture, I find something “new” that I had not recognized or understood before, and more often than not, a particular way to live that day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That practice of writing verses down gradually morphed into my daily blog www.worddujour.blogspot.com. I didn’t want to just skim over my reading and check it off, but take some of God’s Word into my day and remind me of God's faithfulness.  

In good times and hardship, verses rose up seemingly out of the barren ground, to encourage, strengthen, help me, or to share with someone.

As James K. A. Smith says in his book You Are What You Love:  It is not what we are doing, but what it is doing to us. “That means looking again at all sorts of supposedly neutral and benign cultural institutions and rituals – things that we do – and seeing their formative, even liturgical power – their capacity to do something to us.”

Reading the Bible every day is not just reading words, but the very words of God.  It is a training, a sculpting, and engraving “…to train myself, in this tiny way, to live with my eyes open to God’s presence in this ordinary day,” writes Tish Harrison Warren in Liturgy of the Ordinary:  Sacred Practices in Everyday Life.

I was reminded this week by an article in the Wall Street Journal, written by Tony Dungy and Benjamin Watson:

Read the entire Bible.  This is a blessing – and doing it in a year takes only about 15 minutes a day.  There are plenty of reading plans and even apps to make the process easy.  Encourage others to join you.  How can we expect to share God’s Word passionately and accurately if we Christians are not Bible-literate?

I am so thankful for that simple and profoundly significant invitation I received so long ago, from that little boy.   

Join me. 

 

Your Word is a lamp to my feet,

and a light to my path.

            Psalm 119. 105 

 

All the Layers We Cannot See

 

 

For months now, I have watched the development of an empty lot I pass nearly every day.  Earth moving equipment appeared one day and moved some dirt around.  Dump trucks took away excess soil and unwanted rock.  Small flags marked the perimeters, footings were dug, and huge concrete trucks poured the foundation.  It is finally beginning to look like a building.  And when it is done, the foundation underneath, the work of preparation, and the structural supports will be mostly invisible.  Not one person alone did the work, but a team of contractors all doing their part, layer upon layer, all connected in one manner or another, all vital for the overall visible outcome.

For months now, we have heard about a pending vaccine to combat covid.  While many have questioned the speed at which the vaccine was developed, as in most things, there is a strong back story on which the vaccine was built. It did not just suddenly appear. 

For decades now, researchers have pursued a vaccine for HIV, delving into the complex intricacies of the immune system, one clue, one discovery, one connection at a time.  After all this time, a vaccine for HIV has not been developed, but the efforts have not been a failure, nor a defeat.

In early January 2020, teams of researchers testing prototype vaccines for several other viruses were able to shift gears quickly at the news of the coronavirus outbreak in China.  The roadmap and the essential knowledge that had been accumulated over decades while researching HIV finally paid off, allowing researchers to pivot their attention to the pending pandemic, utilizing knowledge about viruses, antibodies, emerging technologies, treatment, and vaccines.

"Everything we do with every other pathogen spins off of things we've learned with HIV," states Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.

What we do, what we learn, how we apply our knowledge lays the foundation for what we do not yet grasp, all connected in one manner or countless unexpected ways.  

That is what faithfulness does:  the constancy, devotion, dedication and steadfastness toward what is right in front of us, even if we never see the manifestation of our work or the final product, or even what we see as a failed effort.  Faithfulness to God always produces fruitfulness in infinite ways.

Layers upon layers, degrees by degrees, detail upon detail, nothing is insignificant. "Nothing," as my grandmother always said, "is for naught."  We can't do everything, but we can do something. There is nothing that God can't use, or might use, but indeed, He is already using.

We just cannot see it yet.  But be faithful to Him in it.

 

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

...According to the grace of God given to me,

like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation,

and someone else is building upon it.

                   1 Corinthians 3. 6, 10

 

 

A Crazy Year of Stories: Books 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was not the books we read that will be most remembered this year, the narratives, memoirs, and fictions, but the stories of our own lives.  Who would have imagined a fictional world where people could not touch, hug, gather, or stand less than six feet apart?  Where our smiles were hidden and our words muffled behind cloth masks? Where a deadly encroaching virus was invisibly spread just by breathing, talking and singing?  Everyone of us in 2020 lived a story beyond our own imaginings

2020 began like any other year. And suddenly it was not like any other year ever. Covid hit like an unexpected story that never seemed to end.

We cannot help but be changed by it.

Even looking back now on those first few months of lockdown, I would have considered it as a reader’s paradise.  But at first,  I couldn’t get settled.  I attempted to wade into a few books on our shelves at home, even those for years I have intended to read or wanted to reread.  But we were suddenly living in a strange story.

As I began reading again, I felt like a novice swimmer standing reluctantly on the side of a pool.  How do I jump back into books?  I joined a zoom book group at my church, discussing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a book I first read decades ago. I remember C. S. Lewis stating, “No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.” 

But because it is not the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia, I started dutifully with The Magician’s Nephew, read seamlessly into The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, and by then, I was on a roll, reading all seven volumes and stunned again by his tales, his intricate weaving of truth and wonder.  Every story is interconnected to the next, something we don't often realize in our own lives.

The books we read are not just what entertain us, but reveal to us timeless truths, unveil hidden strengths, and weave the fragments our lives together.  Jesus never spoke before others without a parable.  Because stories show us how to understand.  

He reveals deep and hidden things;

He knows what is in the darkness,

And the light dwells with Him.

                     Daniel 2. 22 

How little we are aware of being equipped by what we read, how profoundly we are changed by the ageless written words, how precisely an author brings our own thoughts into language, and how immeasurably stories connect us endlessly to each other.

Here are the books I read in 2020:

1.      Adorning The Dark:  Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making  by Andrew Peterson (2019)

2.     Esther and Ruth by Iain M. Duguld (2005)

3.     The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2019)

4.     Atomic Habits:  Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results, An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear (2018)

5.     Running to the Edge: A Band of Misfits and the Guru who Unlocked the Secrets of Speed by Matthew Futterman (2019)

6.     Different:  The Story of an Outside-the-Box Kid and the Mom Who Loved Him by Sally Clarkson (2016)

7.     Teaching Ruth and Esther:  From Text to Message by Christopher Ash (2018)

8.     The Terrible Speed of Mercy:  A Spiritual Biography of Flannery O’Connor by Jonathan Rogers (2012)

9.     Just Mercy: A True Story of the Fight for Justice by Bryan Stevenson (2018)

10.  Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis (1952)

11.  Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion by Rebecca McLaughlin (2019)

12.  The Incomparable Christ by John Stott (2001)

13.  One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty (1984)

14.  East of Eden by John Steinbeck (1952)

15.  The Seamless Life:  A Tapestry of Love and Learning, Worship and Work by Steven Garber (2020)

16.  The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis (1955)

17.  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (1950)

18.  The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis (1954)

19.  Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis (1951)

20.  Through the Wardrobe:  How C. S. Lewis Created Narnia by Lina Maslo (2020)

21.  Beneath A Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan (2017)

22.  Parnassus on Wheels  by Christopher Morley (1917)

23.  So Tall Within: Sojourner Truth’s Long Walk Toward Freedom by Gary D. Schmidt (2018)

24.  The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis (1946)

25.  Deacon King Kong by James McBride (2020)

26.  No Surrender by Chris Edmonds (2019)

27.  With Justice for All by John Perkins (1982)

28.  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis (1952)

29.  Let Justice Roll Down by John M. Perkins (1976)

30.  The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis (1953)

31.  The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis (1956)

32.  Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe (2019)

33.  A Bookshop in Berlin by Francoise Frenkel (1945 and 2017)

34.  Birds of a Lesser Paradise by Megan Mayhew Bergman (2012)

35.  Grow:  Secrets of Our DNA by Nicola Davies (2020)

36.  Surprised By Joy:  The Shape of My Early Life by C. S. Lewis (1955)

37.  A Simple Life-Changing Prayer:  Discovering the Power of St. Ignatius Loyola’s Examen by Jim Manney (2011)

38.  You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James K. A. Smith (2016)

39.  The Wonder Switch by Harris III (2020)

40.  Jack by Marilynne Robinson (2020)

41.  Hidden Christmas: The Surprising Truth Behind the Birth of Christ by Timothy Keller (2016)

42.  The Promise:  A Celebration of Christ’s Birth by Michael Card (1991)

43.  I Am Restored:  How I Lost My Religion But Found My Faith by LeCrae (2020)

44.  The Witness of Poetry by Czeslaw Milosz (1983)

45.  Uncommon Ground:  Living Faithfully in a World of Difference by Timothy Keller and John Inazu (2020)

46.  Immanuel: Reflections on the Life of Christ by Michael Card (1990)

47.  God With Us:  The Miracle of Christmas by John F. MacArthur (1989)

48.  I’m Still Here:  Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown (2018)

49.  Be The Bridge:  Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation by Latasha Morrison (2019)

50.  The Bible