:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

I had a bit of a grumpy afternoon yesterday. We were expecting thunderstorms, and I somehow got into a huff about our afternoon being ruined by rain and lightning and hail the size of hamsters.

I wanted to be outside, enjoying sunshine, not keeping a constant eye on each new wave of dark clouds.

I don’t know what gets into me sometimes. I just sort of a stew a bit and somehow I get worked up for a few hours. It passes, and I realize that the world isn’t so bad a place. We have rabbits who frolic about our home. There is coffee to drink each morning. Blueberries are in season.

Life is good.

I was praying this morning, and I began to think about Jesus’ teachings about fruitfulness in Matthew 21. Without sounding too dramatic, Jesus said that bearing fruit, i.e. producing the kind of life that God desires, is really, really important.

Ethics and practice are inextricably tied to our salvation in the Kingdom of God. Jesus wants people who actively reflect God’s character and nature. If we don’t reflect God’s nature, then we need to figure out who our Lord truly is and which kingdom we’re living in.

I began to think that I hadn’t been all that fruitful yesterday. Then I realized that I’d been plenty fruitful to a certain degree, but I’d been producing the wrong kind of fruit.

Yesterday I was producing the fruit of control and selfishness, wanting things to go exactly according to my plans. Rain in the afternoon, eh? Then I’ll just be tense, grumpy, and moody about it—introducing my fruit.

We’re always producing something. The scriptures make it really clear that the fruits of God’s Spirit are things like peace, hope, self-control, and even patience for dealing with rabbits who nibble on coffee tables. It shouldn’t take us long to figure out what’s influencing us based on the fruit we’re producing in our lives.

If you’ve had a yesterday like mine, take heart. God wants us to be fruitful. He’s not sitting back waiting for us to let him down. He wants to help you and me rest in his perfect strength today and make a clean break from yesterday. We can produce good fruit today because God is passionate for his people, compassionate when we repent, and powerful enough to change us.

I pray that you’ll produce fruit today that results from time spent resting in God’s presence, enjoying his favor for you. May you abide in his goodness and love, allowing his power to bring about good works and joy in your life.

Having gone to seminary, I sometimes think that I should be able to whip up some pretty sophisticated and profound prayers. It’s not that I took any classes on “Effective Prayers Before Meals” or “King David’s Greatest Hits.” I just think that with all of this theology crammed into my head, I should be able to formulate some really awesome prayers.

OK, I’ll be honest—theology really does change how we pray. However, theological training does not make one particularly better at seeking out God, listening to his Spirit, and speaking to him.

While my theology has helped me pray with more power, there are some prayers that I simply can’t improve. They seem sort of lame. What’s even more surprising to me is that a lame prayer can still be quite effective.

Here’s my lame prayer. At the start of each day I say something like this: “God, I offer myself and my work to you and your purposes.”

I suppose I could say more. Heck, I’m a writer. I could get that sucker up to 500 words in 20 minutes. What I have there always seems good enough because it drives at the heart of what needs to happen.

When we offer ourselves to God and open our lives to him, that’s often all he needs to get started.

That prayer isn’t a guarantee that every day will be good. I still need to keep myself on track, focus, and make good decisions. I can still make selfish decisions or lose my temper. I also need to pray a lot more than that simple sentence.

However, by offering my day to God and letting him work through me, I’ve also moved myself away from taking all of the credit. Pride is a huge struggle for writers, and I’m sure I don’t even know the half of my issues with it. If I finish my day and want to take all of the credit for my accomplishments, I know that I didn’t offer myself to God as an act of worship.

If I feel like God has carried me throughout my day and empowered me to do my work, then I have a deeper sense of fulfillment and joy because I’ve experienced God’s presence in my life and drawn glory to him.

The difference is subtle, but you’ll know it when you see it.

God wants to work in  and through us throughout the day. Sometimes it only takes a lame prayer to change everything.

How do you carve out time with God throughout the week?

Read more about creating spiritual “white space” to meet with God at Faith Barista today: How Ordinary You Holds Extraordinary Value.

We have been sorting through some old pictures as we try to downsize our boxes before moving next week. I’ve flipped through albums that were literally nothing but shots of Flyers games. We had pretty good seats, but I still can’t believe I thought that each picture I took would look all that different from the twenty others I had snapped.

Other pictures document parties in high school, family vacations, and odd college outings such as our disco bowling night. A lot of these pictures feel kind of awkward to me, perhaps digging up memories of insecurity, uncertainty, and turmoil in my family.

It makes me glad that I didn’t have a digital camera that would allow me to take 80 pictures of every single event and then shared with hundreds of people at once on the internet.

I catch myself in a kind of retrospective self-loathing when I look through old pictures.

That’s when I didn’t understand how to listen to Julie.

That’s when I judged people for listening to secular music.

That’s when I was stupid enough to have a crush on a girl who was completely wrong for me.

That’s when I didn’t feel accepted.

There’s a temptation to hate myself when I look back. If I’m not careful, it can creep into the present as well.

Heck, I may as well dread how awful I’m going to be in the future while I’m at it.

This self-absorption in my self-perception is a never-ending downward spiral that will not only make us miserable, but will also alienate us from others. It’s not rooted in reality, even though I’m sure I was sort of a tool at times.

As I look back on my friends, I don’t remember any of them as terrible people. Even the ones who wronged me have been forgiven—we’ve moved on and made new, better memories. I have grace for my friends, and therefore I’m pretty sure that they have grace for me.

OK, maybe there’s still someone who has it out for me. It could happen!

By digging up my memories of the times I was terrible, I’m acting like someone who can’t forgive and forget. I have to keep digging up the terrible stuff from my past in another doomed attempt at making things right. I have to remember what kind of person I really am.

I can’t forgive myself some days. And yet, God is fully capable of forgiving me.

God takes the terrible out of us. He has conquered the power of sin and death, and that includes the guilt of our past and the dread of the future. He rewires us by lavishing his love on us—and I don’t use a potentially cheesy word like “lavish” lightly. This is the firehose of God’s love (UHF reference).

To not only know but to experience the depths of God’s love is to experience radical acceptance that will not tolerate excuses or caveats. The past is healed, and the future is hopeful.

I can still bury myself in those old photo boxes and lament that I’m a terrible person. I can move away from God’s love.

However, his mercies are new every morning. He takes terrible people again and again. For those who are willing to sit in his presence, to wait for his deliverance, and to walk throughout their days mindful of him, there is love, peace, joy, and the end of all that is terrible.

When we abide in God, we can remember that we are loved people.

Sleep deprived and my mind buzzing with everything I have to do before we move, the last thing I felt like doing yesterday evening was sitting in rush hour traffic. However, as fate would have it, I joined a long line of red tail lights winding their way through downtown.

I had so many things I needed to do, and honestly, I just wanted to go to bed. Sitting in traffic wasn’t helping me in either department.

When I get really tired, I sometimes get emotional. I use phrases like, “point of no return” and “starting to melt down” when I feel like this around my wife. She switches into emergency mode and helps me get to bed as fast as possible. Stuck on a highway with nowhere to go, I felt trapped.

I thought of turning on the radio, but then, in a moment of grace, I heard, “Why turn on the radio?”

I wanted distraction. I didn’t want to face the emotions swirling in my mind about how much work I have to do this week before we move next week. I didn’t want to think about the packing and projects before moving. I didn’t want to think about leaving our friends here in Connecticut.

I could barely hold back the emotions that wanted to throw me into chaos, even as I inched forward in an orderly line of cars. Worse than that, I didn’t believe that God could handle that moment.

I didn’t want to be quiet and still. Who knows what could happen if I let myself sit in silence, if I stopped. The thought terrified me for a moment, but then I realized that I needed that stillness and silence especially because of the chaos in my mind.

I’ve been trying to deal with my fears, frustrations, and emotions by running from them or keeping busy trying to fix them. I fear the silence, that moment when I stop and everything crashes in on me. However, that was the time that I needed to reach out to God and let him work in the silence and in my life.

It was hard work to force myself to focus on God’s goodness and his love for me. I’m sure that it will be a struggle in the coming days to continue doing so.

Yesterday I learned that God is present in our silence and in our fears. He has something to say, but we have to first stop and listen.

I’ve never been all that good at sleeping. I’m still not sure I know what a nap is. I don’t believe my wife when she talks about “taking” one. Where does she find it?

When we started planning our move to Ohio back in the February/March ballpark, sleeping became really difficult. I would lay in bed for hours staring at the ceiling as my heart raced. I knew I didn’t have heart problems. It was my old friend anxiety manifesting itself in a new and annoying way.

I’ve been dealing with anxiety for a long time now. I’ve read a lot of scripture about fear and have received prayer. Prayer usually works.

One night I asked Julie to pray for me, and sure enough I didn’t have the racing heart and anxious thoughts I’d struggled against.

However, I still wasn’t sleeping great. Something wasn’t quite right when I laid down to sleep each night. I stumbled into a solution when I looked into solving another problem.

Read the rest of this entry »

This morning I read an article by Skye Jethani in the latest issue of Leadership (I have an article on volunteering in there) that brought up a point related to yesterday’s post about Peter and the way God gives us shoves in unexpected directions.

Skye wrote that radically following Jesus does not necessarily mean committing to sharing the Gospel on the other side of the world or living among the poor. In fact, those acts can become a kind of idol that we serve and pursue, rather than pursuing God first and letting our actions flow out of that radical commitment.

In other words, radically following Jesus begins with a personal commitment to him and then is manifested in our actions. If we seek to follow Jesus by pursuing works of service without first serving our Lord, we’ll miss out on what is most important as well as the empowerment God provides to do ministry.

I know that I’ve often wondered, “How can I follow Jesus radically?”

The sense I get is that we don’t do big things for God all at once.

The Kingdom starts in us as a small desire for God, for his presence in our lives, and we learn to seek him and his Kingdom first. As we learn to listen to God, we begin to train ourselves to tune out other desires. In drawing near to him, we learn what he would like us to do.

Never think that you can’t approach God because you don’t have your act together or because you aren’t serving him enough or any other excuse tied to your actions. You’ll only exhaust and discourage yourself.

God wants to guide his people step by step. The first step is to quiet ourselves before him in worship and in listening prayer. Every leap I’ve ever taken, and I really haven’t taken too many to be honest, was preceded by prayer and listening where God slowly worked on my heart and made his desires my own.

Radically following Jesus may involve incredible acts and radical choices, but it begins with quiet, still moments.

One day you’ll be praying just like Peter and you’ll have a vision of what God wants you to do or an opportunity will come knocking on your door. Though you wouldn’t have known what to do on the day before, you’ll make the right choice because of that time in prayer before God.

I was reading this morning about Peter praying on the roof of Simon the tanner’s home, his vision about not calling anything unclean that has been declared clean by God, and his subsequent visit to Cornelius, the Roman Centurion. That story always reminds me that Christianity could have remained a religion exclusively for Jews and Jewish converts.

The leader of the early church certainly didn’t think it was his job to preach to the Gentiles.

It took a firm shove by God to send him to them.

The mission to the Gentiles was one of the most significant developments in the early church, forever changing the fate of many. However, this wasn’t Peter’s idea. That was God’s idea.

This story reminds me of how important it is to pray and to remain open to the ways God wants to lead me. Chances are that I won’t be able to guess what God wants me to do next. I’m sure that dinner with a Roman Centurion wasn’t even on Peter’s list of top ten things he expected or wanted to do tomorrow.

God blindsides us sometimes.

We’ll never be able to predict it, but we can pray, listening to what the Spirit is saying. Sometimes we won’t hear anything, and that’s OK.  But when we’re listening, we’ll be in a position to hear God and to either participate or resist.

I pray that we will be listening for God’s voice today, and that we’ll go where he sends us, even if it’s the last thing we expect.

I’m continuing book review week with a look at Norris Chumley’s Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer. The project represents eight years of work on a documentary about the monks in the Eastern church who commit themselves to saying a simple prayer:

Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on a me, a sinner.

I first ran into this prayer about six or seven years ago at a church service that emphasized prayer and meditation. While I appreciated it then, reading this book about the way monks and nuns use it in seeking of God drove home how vitally important it can be.

The book unfolds as a series of journeys to various monasteries throughout the Eastern church, beginning at St. Anthony’s cave and the monastery below it. Part travelogue, part history of mysticism, and part manual on prayer, the book introduces places and concepts that may be new to some Christians in the west.

Perhaps most striking of all is the consistent way that monks and nuns feel unable to put into words the intimacy of God’s presence. The Jesus Prayer helps them focus on God, and in their solitude they gain something that I sense many people know little about.

The book is both interesting reading and spiritually encouraging. I found myself regularly feeling a nudge to say the Jesus Prayer while reading this book. Reading about men and women who are experiencing the joy of God’s presence is a great motivator for deeper spiritual discipline.

The fact that so many monks were willing to offer their perspectives on prayer is particularly encouraging, although there is a sort of underlying tension throughout the book about whether the typical person with a day job can truly meet with God on the same level as a monk whose day (and night) job is prayer.

Without a doubt, this book accomplishes its goal in making the Jesus Prayer more accessible for a wider audience. The writing is accessible, even if the story drags a bit at times with accounts of actually getting to the monasteries.

For readers looking for a fresh perspective on prayer, some advice on simple devotional practices, and a bit of history that many in the west overlook, Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer is an excellent option.

More by Norris Chumley

The Compelling Spiritual Discipline of Asceticism

Other Stops on the Blog Tour:

Tuesday, April 12th: Joy in this Journey

Wednesday, April 13th: Oh Mandie

Thursday, April 14th: Naptime diaries

Monday, April 18th: Elizabeth Esther

Tuesday, April 19th: Mom’s Mustard Seeds

Wednesday, April 20th: O me of little faith

Thursday, April 21st: The Pilot’s Wife

Friday, April 22nd: Diary of a Stay at Home Mom

Monday, April 25th: Walking in His Grace

Tuesday, April 26th: In the Heart of My Home

Wednesday, April 27th: In a Mirror Dimly

Thursday, April 28th: My Heart’s Desire

Friday, April 29th: A Minute Captured

Disclaimer: A free review copy was provided by TLC Book Tours.

A few days ago I had about twenty minutes to spare before running off to an appointment. I sensed a gentle nudge to sit quietly before God to pray and to just make myself available to him.

And then I thought, well, twenty minutes is a pretty big chunk of time. I’ll just go on Twitter to see what’s happening, and then I’ll sit to pray.

I read through the latest stream of updates, and then I noticed an interesting article. Without even thinking about it, I clicked it.

After reading the article, I obviously had to leave a comment.

After hitting the submit button for my comment,  I checked the time. I had five minutes.

Shoot.

We can always justify doing one more thing, but when I look back at that moment, I essentially squandered a chance to love God with all of my strength and to seek his Kingdom first. It was a good blog post, but I once heard someone say that the good is sometimes the enemy of the best.

Did reading that blog post and leaving a comment actually move me closer toward the most important objectives in my life? Probably not. While we shouldn’t beat ourselves up over our to-do lists, there is something to be said for hearing God’s voice and responding with quiet time before him.

Sometimes we need to just stop.

We can always add another chore to the list during the holiday season. However, are we leaving space for God and letting him rise to the top of our priority lists?

Lately, God has been claiming my time in the car. It has been really great. I’ve had some refreshing moments of prayer and meditation while driving that I would have missed if I’d had the radio on. Nevertheless, when God wanted to move in my time at home, I found reasons to distract myself.

It’s a process. It’s a relationship. There will come times when we lose sight of what’s most important. Thankfully God is passionate for his people, and he is patient with us. I’m blown away that he sticks with us.

As our schedules fill up during the holidays, may we find the time to stick with him and to enjoy the love he has for us.

For more posts about finding Jesus during the Christmas season, drop by Bonnie Gray’s Faith Barista Blog.

A family room is a place to hang out, to kick back and relax. We don’t expect to regularly eat our meals in there. We read books, watch TV, and hang out with friends.

That is, until we add some new rules.

For example, a child could take the cushions off the couch and build a fort. Certain parts of the room would become off-limits, and imaginary enemies could be lurking all over the place. We know in reality that a fort in our living rooms is unnecessary—unless you live in someplace like Texas.

When praying to God, we can make a similar mistake of creating rules, barriers, and harboring fears that are unfounded. We can set up false methods of protocol that make us “acceptable” before God. Like a fort made of couch cushions in a living room, our rules do nothing to change the reality of things.

God accepts us on the basis of his grace and mercy, redeeming us through Christ. We may ask him to play by our rules, but in the end we’ll only be frustrated.

It’s hard to figure out “how” to approach God. Do we begin with praise or confession? Do we need to take a step of obedience? Should we just sit still and meditate on him and his goodness?

What I’ve found is that I often play games with God, while God never plays games with me. I’m the one hiding in a pillow fort, not God. While God may ask me to take leaps of faith, I sometimes need to let go of my expectations or rules. I sometimes set up protocols for approaching God that never existed in the first place.

While God may ask us to take a step of obedience that feels difficult or to wait quietly without hearing anything in particular, he doesn’t play games. There is always a point and direction. Sometimes we need to wait for it. Sometimes it will remain a mystery.

When I am frustrated or discouraged, I sometimes find that I’m guilty of placing my own expectations and rules onto God. In other cases God simply will not move according to my timing. The trick is to move myself onto God’s schedule and follow his lead.

And that is tricky indeed…

The Next Post: On Friday we’ll talk about ways to move toward God and his plans for us.