:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

Over the past year I’ve had the privilege of getting to know Stephanie Smith and have watched her develop her voice, refine her writing, and always, always learn with enthusiasm and humility. Those who question the quality of writing from 20-something writers simply haven’t met Steph.

I never wanted to host the women’s coffee and danish hour; I wanted to rescue child soldiers. And I didn’t want to do women’s ministry at a church; I wanted to go to the red light district of Amsterdam.

I never wanted to do women’s ministry. I got roped into it.

It was my freshman year at Moody Bible Institute, and my plan to major in missions to serve among the hungry and impoverished was effectively upturned by an informational meeting for the Women’s Ministry major.

There were only a few of us, a cluster of girls and the department chair politely taking turns sharing their passions as we went around the table. During the course of the meeting, estrogen was displayed at its finest—one girl started crying about a paper she had to finish that night, and there was the inevitable mention of PMS. The professor talked to us with her manicured hands, telling us an anecdote about how her husband recently dragged her to Home Depot when all she wanted was a latte—nonfat and no foam, please.

There we were, women young and old saturated in our own stereotypes, and somehow, in a peculiar stunt of grace, I wanted in.

I wanted in for the same reason that fires me up today—because beyond the tedious gender debates and the defensive disclaimers against angry feminists and doormat housewives, I believe in women. And I have witnessed, first as a student of women’s ministry and many times since, the beauty of a woman who has found her voice. This is what I hope we will be known for—not our looks, our limitations, or our agenda, but our voice.

She may use her voice to sing the back-up harmony or to lead an army, I’ve seen both. Sometimes her voice is bold and authoritative, trembling with the urgent tenor of the movers and shakers, muckrakers and go-getters, and sometimes she speaks quietly out of a well deep with wisdom. And me? I learned through the generous affirmation of others that my voice best ministers through paper. I’m not the woman at the helm, teaching and leading great initiatives and events. I’m the woman whose heart overflows onto the page and perhaps touches a kindred soul.

She’s free to find her own style. This is what I discovered as I delved into the Scriptures for myself, searching for God’s heart for His daughters from quick-handed Jael to meek-hearted Mary.

I used to echo the sentiment of Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees, when she said, “Mary and sacred feminine images in general had become wounded, diminished, and sacrificed…I was put off by the meek and mild look. I wanted to shake her.”^[1] But as I look to Mary’s famed Magnificat, or Mary’s song, I see a woman who knew how to articulate herself. . .and speak to her Maker’s glory. Mary not only possessed a strong sense of voice, she sang. And we are called to do the same.

About Today’s Blogger

Stephanie S. Smith is a twenty-something writer, editor, and book publicist addicted to print and pixels. She runs her business, (In)dialogue Communications, from her home in Upstate New York where she lives with her husband, trying her hand at backyard sustainable living and muddling her way through the liturgical year. You can find her blogging at www.stephindialogue.com about embodied faith, or tweeting @stephindialogue.

About the Women in Ministry Series

The Women in Ministry Series is a collection of guest posts that aims to:

• Provide an alternative to the women in ministry debates by telling the stories of women in ministry.
• Encourage women to explore their God-given callings.

Contributions Welcome: Contact Ed to pitch your post idea in 2-4 sentences.

You can stay updated on the latest post each week by signing up for the weekly e-mail list. (You also get a free E-book!)

Comment Policy: Everyone is welcome to leave a comment. However, this series takes for granted that women are called by God into every facet of ministry. This is not the place to debate that point and such comments will be removed.Women have been told “no” in far too many places. This is one place that is committed to saying “yes.” For more about the comment policy or submitting your own story, read here.

Next Week’s Blogger: Pastor Meg Jenista

[1] Sue Monk Kidd, Traveling with Pomegranates (New York: Penguin Books, reprint edition 2010), 48.

As Jesus prepared to depart from this world, he gathered his disciples for a meal that he asked them to duplicate when they gathered together in the future.

For the Jewish people who had put so much stock in showing up at the synagogue each week and traveling to the temple for the major religious festivals, Jesus re-centered his community around a meal at a common table.

One may approach a temple with elaborate prayers and pretense. It’s quite another matter to do the same at a community meal.

Just as his followers shared wine and bread in common, they were expected to share their lives with one another. In the setting of a home, there is little room to hide.

There are plenty of ways to keep in touch with our friends and family, but there is something about sitting at a table together. We fall into traps when we speak in terms of the shallowness of text messages or the internet, forgetting that these things can tie into physical community—even if it remains true that gathering at a table with friends is a superior way to share life together.

I admit that it’s far easier to settle for an e-mail or a note on Facebook rather than going through the trouble of welcoming people into our home. However, that effort to meet in person pays off so significantly in friendships, encouragement, and blessings.

The meal Jesus shared with his disciples is meant to jump off the page at us. The writers of the Gospels stuck the story of his last supper at the center of their narratives. This is what God wants us to be—a community formed around a table.

The Greenhouse

In the next month, consider ways you can be more present with Christians in your community. Can you share a meal with another family? Can you join a small group?

What does it look like for you to balance online community with physical community?

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

The first time we moved, I remember feeling really awful about asking some friends to help out. Once they arrived to help us load the truck, the older guy, who had managed a few of his own moves in the past, took control and helped us organize the truck.

I don’t think I can ever thank him enough. He knew really basic but important stuff for moving, like stacking light boxes on top of heavy ones. I thought this was brilliant.

We moved five times after that. Each time we had to rely on friends and family. Sometimes we’d accumulated too much stuff at yard sales and hadn’t thought of thinning out before moving day.

Each time we depended on friends and family to move us, I felt terrible about asking for an entire day of labor that only included a free lunch as payment. I used to think that I should be self-sufficient enough that I didn’t have to always ask my friends and family for help.

There’s this myth that a lot of us have about becoming self-sufficient the day after graduating from college or when we’re old enough to drink or whatever artificial milestones we set up. The truth is that almost everyone I know has lived with their parents at some point after college or while in between jobs, many with a spouse and kids along for the ride.

Whether it’s moving, taking care of children, or providing a temporary place to call home, we need the support of our friends and family. Some may need more support than others, but a big problem with the American dream is an individualized notion of owning everything and never depending on anyone because you’re self-sufficient.

We know that Christianity is all about living in community and depending on one another. However, it’s hard to shake the American dream of self-sufficiency and radical individualism. It’s coursing through our environment.

We breathe it in and out, over and over again each day.

Depending on others goes against the grain of our culture. Aren’t such people lazy freeloaders?

Most of us have experienced the opposite—where we often need help for a day or a brief season of life. Freeloaders aside, it’s not out of the question that we may need to trust and depend on one another in our Christian community. We may need to ask for help, and other times we may need to step out and be inconvenienced for the sake of others.

Jesus talked about lending freely to those who could not repay and sharing meals with those who cannot invite us to their own homes. One of the first acts of the early church was sharing possessions and selling extra resources in order to share with the poor.

The Christian life includes both learning how to give and also how to depend. I spend a lot of time trying to learn how to generous, but I give very little thought to how I receive from others.

Life among God’s people pushes us to give generously and to receive graciously. While our culture glorifies the individuals, the family of God glories in the blessings we share with one another.

The Greenhouse

Do you find it harder to receive or to give blessings?

Ask God to open your eyes today to the blessings you can give and receive.

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

When I changed to a freelance career, I began walking to cafes and libraries in order to work. Up to that point in my life, I’d always commuted between thirty to sixty minutes to work.

As I walked through my neighborhood, which used to be a blur on my way to the office, I began to notice trees, flowers, and even some nice parks that I’d overlooked. Honestly, after spending so much of my time driving from one place to another, I knew next to nothing about spring blossoms on trees or perennial flowers.

That soon changed as I began to walk more each day. There were some times when I needed to drive, but I found that my walk could become an important time of prayer, reflection, and restoration. If my day felt busy or out of control, a walk often helped me reconnect with God.

While some days I craved the convenience of hopping into my car and speeding into my day, there were other days when I began to recognize a need for a different pace.

Different times and seasons of life require different paces.

The more I thought about my days and my schedule, the more I realized that I needed to pace myself a little differently each day. Some days I needed an extra thirty minutes so I could sprint through my work better.

Other days I needed a slower pace in order to stay on the same page with God. Always charging into my day at full speed left me worn out and often a bit disoriented. It was like I’d been running a marathon without a break, became disoriented, and then wandered off course.

We need to know what the right pace is for particular moments.

Too Fast at a Slow Time Misses Important Stuff

Sometimes my family needs me to be fully present and the last thing I should do is multi-task my work. Other times I’ve been pushing to get my work done all day and I need to just take a break.

As someone who tends to keep pushing to squeeze every ounce of productivity out of a day, I often need to just close my computer and declare myself done for the day.

Too Slow at a Fast Time Misses Opportunities

Sometimes we need to kick our lives into high gear and jump on opportunities. It’s not always wrong to push hard to get a project done, provided we slow down or stop at a certain point in order to recharge.

Sometimes we just need to focus all of our energy on something that’s really important, whether that’s something for our family or our careers. The hard part is figuring out the right time to bump up the pace and when to let up.

There is an art to finding the right pace for life. It requires wisdom and reflection. Going fast well means learning when to slow down.

The Greenhouse

Do you find it hard to slow down or hard to speed up? Are there particular times when slowing down or picking up speed is tough for you?

God promises to give us wisdom generously, and figuring out the right pace for life is one of those times when we should take five minutes to quietly ask God for more of it.

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

The first hour of your day is described by some research studies as the most important. You set the tone for the rest of your day in those early hours. I find that no matter what I have scheduled or what has happened, I often wake up feeling anxious.

Some people need difficult circumstances in order to feel stress and anxiety. That’s just my natural default most days. If I don’t stop to sort out what’s going on, there’s a chance I could let that morning’s stress guide the rest of my day.

I’m sure you know that feeling some days when stuff starts to go wrong, and you catch yourself losing your temper or feeling stressed. It’s always tempting to say that things aren’t going my way, but the truth is that I’m placing myself at the mercy of my circumstances and my inadequate mental resources.

Anxiety doesn’t usually yield to frontal assault. We need to stop ourselves, breathe deeply, and let God guide us. We need worship. We need God to renew our minds.

The sooner we root ourselves and our days in the presence and peace of God, the better.

The longer we allow ourselves to veer off course during the day, the harder it will be find our way back on track. There’s a very good reason why Christian monastic communities begin each day with prayer: what they call the morning office.

Cultivating prayer early in the morning provides us a tool for counteracting anything that sets itself up against what God wants to do in us.

Anxiety uproots us, preventing us from stopping and resting in the goodness of God. If the Spirit of the Lord brings peace and freedom, the spirit of this world brings chaos and bondage.

We can’t work ourselves out of anxiety. However, we can say no to it and even opt out of it by letting God guide us into his peace and freedom. The best time to block anxiety is early in the morning before it has time to change the course of the day.

The mercies of the Lord are new each morning, no matter what yesterday looked like.

The Greenhouse

How do you feel at the start of each day? What circumstances are particularly hard to handle each day?

Set aside ten minutes for prayer or prayerful meditation during your first waking hour tomorrow, even if you need to get up ten minutes earlier.

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

I’m proud to announce my latest book release:

Read the book of Acts with fresh eyes and easily retweet your favorite passages with the New Twitter Version’s latest translation: The Tweets of the Apostles. 

Download the full E-book today:

Download to your Kindle ($.99)

Download to your Nook ($.99)

Want to check it our first before you toss a buck my way?

Download the free PDF (portrait orientation)

Download the free PDF (landscape orientation)

Don’t forget to tweet #NTV12, mentioning @edcyzewski, and to share on Facebook!

About the Tweets of the Apostles in the NTV

Twitter has changed everything in our world: how we communicate, market, and network. Now, Twitter is changing how we read and understand the Bible. Until now, every translator of the Bible was bound to report every single detail in the original manuscripts.

With Twitter, we’ve found a fast, efficient, easily shared way of communicating that cuts out the repetition and cluttered details. By constraining the message of Acts into a series of tweets, readers will quickly grasp the complete message of the book of Acts and easily share the Gospel with their friends and neighbors who may not understand the Gospel if we build orphanages and provide clean water for the poor, but who may understand a simple, succinct tweet.

The New Twitter Version keeps the message of Acts simple, effective, and easy to share. By focusing on the minor details of the Acts story and cutting out the long, repetitious conversion narratives, this fresh translation reshapes the Bible into the image of today’s communication technology so that we can relate to the characters, understand the challenges they faced, and learn more about what they ate for lunch.

Download the TNV Media Kit now.

Is The Tweets of the Apostles a Real Book?

The NTV and The Tweets of the Apostles is a real book in that you can download and read a real E-book. However, this book is being released on April 1st. Take a moment to consider what usually happens on April 1st. Whoopee cushions… Staplers in jello… Threats to conduct small group over Skype… (Yes, my brilliant friend actually pulled that one off!)

Are you following me?

In fact, every year I release a book like this on April 1st.

• Love Bites (think Love Wins and Twighlight)
• The Lost Tweets of Jesus

All that to say, while I do spend a lot of time talking about what Christians do and believe and how our culture impacts both, you may not want to form your judgments of me based on the NTV. Coffeehouse Theology would be a much better place to start.

What Authors Are Saying…

“Ed Cyzewski has done it again! (Whatever it is that he does).”
- Bradley Wright, Author of Upside and Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites and Other Lies You’ve Been Told

"I would loudly proclaim my endorsement of Ed Cyzewski’s writing but I’m not sure how to pronounce his last name."
- Jason Boyett, Creator of the 9 Thumbs podcast (9Thumbs.com) and author of some books

“Wow, Ed C…ski has done it again. This is a GR8, 1st-rate book! If u read this book & it d/n change ur life, there’s something wrong w/ u. D/n miss it!”

- Matt Woodley, managing editor of PreachingToday.com & author of The Gospel of Matthew: God with Us

About the Author

Ed Cyzewski (MDiv, Biblical Seminary) is a freelance writer and blogger at http://www.inamirrordimly.com who uses curiosity, a seminary degree, and bad puns to help his readers follow Jesus. He aims to make good theology accessible, interesting, and practical. Ed is the author of Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life and Divided We Unite: Practical Christian Unity. He is the co-author of Hazardous: Committing to the Cost of Following Jesus (CLC, Fall 2012) with Derek Cooper.

When I asked Carol Howard Merritt to contribute a guest post to this series, I knew she had some great ministry stories, but nothing could have prepared me for what follows. Enjoy!

“Well. The good news is that you did well on your tests. Your grades are way above what we require. Your IQ is very high,” the advisor began.

“Oh great,” I sat back in relief. I went to Moody Bible Institute in the hopes of getting into their Mission Aviation program. After months of orientation and testing, I was finally receiving the verdict of whether I was accepted.

“BUT,” she said, trying to catch up with herself. “The Board rejected your application.”

“Really? Why?”

“Well,” she opened my file, pretending to examine pages for clues so she could avoid my eyes. “We don’t have any girls in the flight school. We’ve never had a girl apply.”

“That’s not true. I saw a woman in our orientation class,” I protested.

She shook her head. “She’s in avionics, not flight. Carol, we don’t even have any girls’ restrooms on the Tennessee campus,” She finally looked up and closed the file. Grasping the folder with one hand, she reached out her other hand as if she wanted to hold my palm in prayer.

I folded my arms tightly around my chest and imagined all of those secretaries relieving themselves in the woods.

She exhaled, shook her head diagonally, and continued, her words dripping with sympathy, “Believe me. The Board had a difficult time with your application. It felt like those men argued for hours. But the donors spend more money on flight school students than any other student. They just couldn’t take the risk.”

“What risk?” I asked.

“Think about it. What happens when you get pregnant?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you willing to promise that you’ll never get married?”

“What?” I said crossing my legs the other direction. I couldn’t figure out what she was saying. I was seventeen. Did she want me to take a vow of celibacy in order to get into the program?

“You can’t fly after you get pregnant.”

I sat. Taking it all in. She did expect a vow.

“Plus,” she went on, as her compassion took on a patronizing tone, as if she was trying to explain to a five-year-old the facts of big-girl life. “Being a pilot is a position of authority, and as a woman, it just wouldn’t be what God would want.”

“Why isn’t it in the catalogue that the Flight school is only for men?” I asked bitterly.

She continued her sorrowful head shaking. “We just never expected a girl to apply,” she smiled. Pointing to a box of Kleenex, she made an invitation, “You can cry, if you’d like.”

I looked at her, rolled my eyes and thought, Oh hell no. I am not giving you that satisfaction, and walked out of the room.

I left my advisor’s office, feeling shattered, ashamed and disoriented. I didn’t want to fly the planes to be in authority. I wanted to help people—to take medical supplies and building materials onto the mission field. Why was that act of servitude off-limits? I was not allowed to teach a boy who was over the age of six, because a seven-year-old male had spiritual authority over me.

The only thing that seemed acceptable for women was playing the organ and singing in the choir. I sucked at both. With my complete lack of domestic and musical abilities, I was useless to the church. I wanted to serve God, but how?

I suppose that’s when I began to question “God’s intended order for women.” I read Jesus’s parable a thousand times. We were given talents. We were not to bury them, but to use them.

So why had God given me all the wrong talents? Why did teaching and studying theology excite me like nothing else?

What finally saved me was the fact that even more than serving people, I wanted to serve God. I began the painful and arduous path of trying to live into the fullness of what God beckoned me to be. I had to tune out the eternal chorus of people calling me a “feminazi.” I had to quit imagining how I embarrassed my parents. I had to tame my thoughts that taunted me for not being good enough, smart enough, or just plain enough to be in ministry. I kept plodding along the path God set out, one step at a time.

I would have never planned this journey—going to seminary, becoming the solo pastor of a tiny Cajun congregation, leading a larger church in Rhode Island, and serving a church in downtown D.C. I began writing, and the process was like discovering an unused appendage. Then, I stumbled upon a whole new vocation, as I travel around, teaching church leaders and seminarians.

Now I’m working on a book, trying to trace the circuitous path behind me, in the hopes that others will be able to find their own way to live into the fullness of God’s call.

About Today’s Blogger

Carol Howard Merritt is a pastor at Western Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. She is the author of Tribal Church and Reframing Hope. She blogs at TribalChurch.org, which is hosted by the Christian Century. And she co-hosts the God Complex Radio podcast with Derrick Weston.

About the Women in Ministry Series

The Women in Ministry Series is a collection of guest posts that aims to:

• Provide an alternative to the women in ministry debates by telling the stories of women in ministry.
• Encourage women to explore their God-given callings.

Contributions Welcome: Contact Ed to pitch your post idea in 2-4 sentences.

You can stay updated on the latest post each week by signing up for the weekly e-mail list. (You also get a free E-book!)

Comment Policy: Everyone is welcome to leave a comment. However, this series takes for granted that women are called by God into every facet of ministry. This is not the place to debate that point and such comments will be removed. Women have been told “no” in far too many places. This is one place that is committed to saying “yes.” For more about the comment policy or submitting your own story, read here.

Next Week’s Blogger: Stephanie Smith

We planted our first garden in the thick, unforgiving clay soil of southeast Pennsylvania. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that my wife planted it. I was more of an occasional sidekick. The clay soil just about crushed our seeds as we pressed them into the ground.

We grew a few things that summer, but by the end of August we were shocked at how few vegetables we had grown and how many weeds had sprung up. In hindsight, I certainly didn’t invest enough time and energy into the garden to warrant those expectations.

I had every reason to think our failed garden was the end of gardening for our family.

I was wrong.

Each year we tried something else in the garden, slowly building upon each success.

One year my wife’s parents planted a few tomato plants behind our house, and we enjoyed tomatoes all summer.

The year after that, we planted lettuce and some other greens outside of the kitchen.

After enjoying so much lettuce that year, our gardens grew more ambitious for the years that followed, only thwarted by blight, critters, or drought, not a lack of effort or enthusiasm on our parts.

Friends would stop by and look at our garden and say something like, “We could never do that. I can hardly keep a house plant alive.” They didn’t realize that I started in the same place.

Each year I tried new vegetables, learned about fertilizers, and worked on improving the soil in our garden. Some years I failed, such as the time I tried growing sweet corn. Many other times we enjoyed significant success such as sugary sweet heirloom carrots and epic eggplants.

It’s easy to look at our garden and to forget that every gain we made came through failure, learning from mistakes, and cultivating better growing practices. We started with a small garden and grew it each year, adding to our knowledge about how to grow the different vegetables we found in the seed catalogue each winter.

Learning how to garden is a process, and it isn’t always a pretty process to behold. Process really shouldn’t be all that hard of a concept for us to understand.

I often think about what it would be like to meet myself at the age of 15. Like a garden packed with rugged clay soil, I had issues with pride, anger, and combativeness that I would have never admitted. God was working in my life, but I had so many problems.

To say the least, my spiritual growth since then has been a process.

I also wonder what I’ll think of myself fifteen years from now.

Spiritual growth is a process where we may not see all that much progress at first. There is a lot of failure along the way. This doesn’t surprise God.

He’s committed to us and the process because he knows that we have so much potential. He sees the goodness possible in us.

We could focus on the ways that we have failed, or we could repent and begin to believe that God sees that we are a people in process. Better yet, we are in a community with fellow Christians in the same process. While one of us falls down, the others can provide prayer and encouragement.

Paul says, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2) because being formed into loving people takes time. Love is not our default.

Thankfully we belong to a God who keeps returning to us one season after another. A failure isn’t the end of the process. It just means we need to spend more time with the one who cultivates holiness in our souls.

The Greenhouse

Think about process in your own life. What is something that you have learned to do over a period of time?

Pray for 5 minutes today about one area where you need God to cultivate more holiness in your life.

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

People are searching for you.

They want to know what you care about.

They want to know how you spend your day.

They love learning every little detail about your life—your birthday, your vacations, your favorite restaurants.

These people who care so much about you are called advertisers. They are hungry for data—anything from your personal life they can use to sell products to you, to make you interested in their brands, or to prompt you to talk to others about their brands.

There are plenty of statistics that suggest that many of us feel lonely and disconnected. We create profiles online in order to connect more. In the meantime, advertisers want to sift through this data to get to know us.

I read marketing sites from time to time for my writing clients, and the language is disturbing. Advertisers know we’re lonely, looking for distraction, and willing to share a lot of information about ourselves that they can use. They’re designing games, promotions, and other tricks to capture our attention and sell us products.

On the one hand, there’s nothing wrong taking advantage of a brand’s promotion or game for the sake of getting a sale. However, we need to remain wary of the motives. Brands want to become fixtures in our lives, friends that we integrate into our identity.

Brands want me to think of them when I ask, “Who am I?”

If we start to identify ourselves by linking together a series of brands, we may have an identity problem. We’ve been found by the wrong tribe—the tribe that wants our money, not us.

I’m always struck by the fact that Jesus founded a community of disciples instead of writing a book or even organizing himself out of a physical headquarters. He wanted the identity of his people to be rooted in their relationships with one another under God’s caring rule.

The narrative of God’s people is that we have been found by God and integrated into his family.

The alternative of being found by brands and integrated into their customer base is a terribly sad and lonely story that can’t compete with a people who are united by God’s Spirit.

When Jesus finds us, he welcomes us into his Kingdom and gives us everything that he has. He empties himself for our sake. God’s economy is one of generosity and family. God’s family isn’t dependent on money or brand identity.

You have been found and accepted. You’re not just another data point or customer with a wallet. You’re a beloved daughter or son in God’s family with a place at his table.

The Greenhouse

Try to avoid ads for a set period of time, either a few hours or a whole day. How hard is that?

Are there any brands that you particularly identify with? What are the things you value about them? How rooted is your identity in these brands?

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.

If there’s one thing that gardeners dread, it’s tomato blight. It’s almost a supernatural phenomenon. I didn’t watch the X-Files, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they covered tomato blights in an episode.

Tomato blights seem to arise from nowhere in particular, and they inflict irreversible damage to tomato plants. A plant with blight has received a kind of death sentence. It’s like bubonic plague for tomatoes.

I think we all fear spiritual blight at one time or another: a kind of lapse in our relationships with God that we can’t overcome. Maybe a persistent sin derails us, a big sin knocks us out, or the persistent tapping of doubt finally starts to resonate with us.

Spiritual blight is worth fearing because we don’t really know how to repair it on our own. When we’ve messed up so completely and horribly, what can make things better?

There is one sure remedy for spiritual blight that I know of, and it may surprise you. In a sense, repentance has a part in it, but not quite in the way you think. You don’t have to sit before God and merely wallow in your state of spiritual blight.

You need to sit before God and worship.

Spiritual blight occurs when we focus too much on ourselves, on our sins, on the wrong people, or the wrong priorities. We can’t fix it on our own because too much of ourselves is the problem in the first place. It’s like taking a plant infected with blight and rubbing it on a plant already suffering from blight.

Worship repairs us because we were made to focus on God, not on ourselves or our sins. Worship leads us to repentance and better choices. Worship grounds us in God’s reality, and in worship we can find the sacrifice for our sins, the hope of resurrection, and the peace and joy of God’s Spirit.

If you read enough of the Old Testament, you’ll find that the problem God’s people confronted over and over again was purity of worship. They always found something else to trust, something else to praise, and something else to guide their lives.

Worship was always the place where God began with his people. It fights off the false gods we trust, the priorities that threaten God’s place in our lives, and the sinful practices that alienate us from God. When we are worshipping God with all of our hearts and minds, we don’t have anything left to give to our sinful desires.

When we worship, we are repaired. When we worship, we tap into the hope that God promises us.

We don’t live holy lives by avoiding sin. We live in holiness by worshipping.

The Greenhouse

What do you think is keeping you back from God today?

Take 5 minutes to listen to worship music or to read prayers of worship (such as the Psalms) in order to restore God to his central place in your life today.

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast for each day of the series.