Reflections

I was so excited this past Sunday when our pastor, Calvin Kelley, did a sermon on our spiritual journey and how it’s critical that we devote time each day to reading God’s word. I was afraid if I screamed, “Amen!” my Southern-Baptist roots would start to show, so I fought the urge. Instead, I did the new-tradition of head bobbing with a “That’s right” whispered under my breath. But oh, how I wanted to shout, “Amen!”

Part of Calvin’s sermon focused on journaling and how it can enhance your walk with God. I couldn’t agree more.

I can sit down and read a passage of scripture, and technically, I’ve spent time in God’s presence, but until I actually put pen to paper and write out what I observe; until I take the time to reflect on what He’s trying to tell me, it’s doesn’t get past my head and into my heart.

This blog is somewhat of a journal, and I started it last year to share my spiritual journey with you: to share what God is doing in my life; to pass along the secrets He whispers to me; to paint a picture of the glimpses that I catch of Him; and to hopefully provide you with ideas and tools to help you on your spiritual journey. I want people to know that you don’t have to be a scholar or be super-spiritual to be changed by God. He can change anyone.

And He WILL change you…
piece by piece
verse by verse
moment by moment
He will change you, not into who you want to be, but into who He wants you to be. He will change you into the image of His son.

I saw a note the other day in one of my journals: “You have to submit in order to be rescued.” So…

Will you submit to Him?
Will you take time to be alone with Him and listen?
Will you let him get inside you? Not just below the surface, but deep down inside – where all those empty, dark and broken places are?
Will you let him heal you?
Will you let him change you?

He will. If you let Him.

Resolve.  It’s a seemingly insignificant word.  Not one frequently used (unless you have to clean your carpet a lot).  It’s just two syllables. A mere seven letters. But yet, it is a mighty word for in it determines the success or failure of an endeavor.

I learned about this “resolve” characteristic last year in a study of Daniel.  Daniel and his pals – now they had some resolve!

Did they defile their bodies with tasty food?  “Nope.  Pass the fruits and vegetables, please.” (Daniel 1:8)

Bow to a statue?  “Over our dead bodies!” (Daniel 3:17-18)

Resolve.

Resolve requires you to make a decision before a decision.  It requires planning, discipline – and truth be told – good old fashioned stubbornness.

Stubbornness kind of gets a bad rap.  It gets thrown into the “character flaw” category a bit too often.  You’re more likely to hear someone say, “Would you PLEASE quit being so stubborn?” than you are to hear, “I love your stubbornness.  I wish I could be like that.”

Some people like to use sissy-words like, “determined” or “persistent,” but in my opinion, those are all just poodle-like synonyms for the great dane that is stubbornness.

Yep. Stubbornness needs a new image.   Stubbornness needs to take perseverance by the horns and show it who’s boss!

So, how can we give stubbornness a face lift? We can use our powers for good and not evil. We can use it to complete those resolutions we’ve set for the new year.

So, what have I resolved to do this year? What’s my passion? Well, this year, with the help of my awesomely cool and fabulous accountability group, we are reading through the Bible chronologically.

So, are you game? Come on! You know you want to roll up those sleeves of stubbornness and do it. All it takes is a little resolve.

Last week, I had the honor of witnessing a miracle.

It was an ordinary day. I was walking into work and overheard two people behind me. I’m not sure what caught my attention. I promise I wasn’t eaves-dropping, and I didn’t hear the conversation. What captured my attention was the sound of a lady’s voice broken by a flood of emotions she was trying desperately to restrain. Though, she was speaking softly, the sound was as loud as a scream.

My initial response was to turn around and look at her, but I kept walking, intently listening. I heard her say something about a stroke and “we buried him Tuesday.” My heart sank, and my mind began piecing together the situation.

The man walking next to her probably said, “Hi. How are you?” It’s an ordinary phrase. One we mutter to people we pass in our hurry to get where ever we think we need to be so that we can do what ever it is we think we should be doing. I’m sure he was expecting an ordinary, “I’m fine. How are you?” But instead, his ordinary question was met with an extraordinary hurt and an unanticipated response.

As I realized what was unfolding behind me, I felt a God-nudge (and by “nudge” I mean shove) to reach out to her. Trying to figure out the least awkward way to approach her, I decided to let her get ahead of me. In my mind, I was praying, “Please Lord, don’t make me stalk her. Don’t make me follow her to her desk.” Mercifully, her companion scurried up the stairs, and she chose to take the elevator. So, I hopped on with her.

I had no idea what to say, but there was no doubt in my mind that God wanted me to speak. My heart was racing as fast as my mind. As I stood beside her silently, tears rolling down her face, a boldness overcame me. I asked her name, and before I knew what was happening, I heard myself say, “I’m sorry that you are hurting.” Without a moments pause, I hugged a complete stranger.

Immediately, her tears stopped, her mouth loosened into a smile and her eyes sparkled. For a fleeting moment, I witnessed a miracle – a face once full of sadness and despair almost instantaneously transformed into a face full of hope.

And just as quickly as the moment started, the elevator doors opened, and the moment passed.

As I sat down at my desk, it was tempting to start my work without a second thought, but as my mind caught up to the Spirit, I realized what had happened. I realized that God pushed my agenda, my fear and my inhibitions out of the way and stepped in to help someone He loved who was hurting. Please hear me when I say this: It wasn’t me that hugged her. It wasn’t me telling her I was sorry she was hurting. It was God.

The Bible tells us that we are God’s ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20) and we are to imitate Christ’s love for us (Ephesians 5:1-2). God’s love is no easy feat to imitate. It’s a lavish, unfailing, reckless and sacrificial love (Romans 5:8; Ephesians 2:4-5;  1 John 3:1), but we are commanded to love each other while we are a speck on the cosmic time line (John 13:34). In fact, the way we love others is evidence of whether or not we know God (1 John 4:7-8).

God’s love is huge and covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8), and it’s a love that transforms ordinary moments into miracles.

My soul delights that I was privileged enough to witness that ordinary miracle, and my heart smiles in knowing that God not only sees our hurts, our disappointments, and our pain, but He goes out of His way to send His ambassadors to comfort us – even when He has to use an unsuspecting vessel on just an ordinary day.

May our prayers be not for God to comfort us, but for Him to send us people to comfort.

This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to teach what is quickly becoming one of my favorite bible stories. I’ve been in church pretty much my whole life, and I’m convinced every sunday school teacher and pastor over the past 30ish years has deprived me of the third greatest story in the Bible.

How can I be so sure I’ve never heard the story? If I can remember the story of a man getting swallowed and regurgitated by a whale and a story of a guy with a multi-colored coat, I’m about 110% positive I would remember someone having a donkey that talks.

Is anyone else surprised that there is a talking donkey in the Bible? It’s kind of easy to overlook. I mean, God kind of hid it in the book of Numbers like an awesome movie that went straight to DVD. And just like that awesome movie that you can’t believe didn’t make millions of dollars at the box office, you feel like it is your duty to share your fortune with a friend.

So, that’s just what I did this past Sunday. We talked about talking donkeys, because let’s face it, if a donkey talks, I think everyone should know how to handle themselves in the event they encounter one.

All this talking donkey business got me to thinking….God’s Word never, ever, ever ceases to amaze me. Whether it is by pointing out a story that I’ve never seen before, or the Holy Spirit giving me new insights into a story that I’ve heard a million times, it always meets me where I’m at, not only because God is awesome like that, but because His Word is “living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:11).

So, get into the Word. You never know what adventure God might be waiting to show you.

I don’t watch the news or read the newspaper.   If you are at my house and you hear CNN, CSPAN or any sort of news anchor coming from my TV, something is terribly, terribly wrong and you should seek medical attention for me immediately. 

I’ve never really understood the point of the news.  Why do we feel the need to report occurrences of the worst of humanity?  What fascinates us about the downfall of society or the antics of celebrities?  What captivates us about seeing devastation and disaster?  It’s all just sad and depressing.  Don’t we have something else to talk about? 

There is a plus side to the media mania.  In our desperate search to stay on top of things, many cool tools have been development.  Take for instance my favorite discovery for 2010:  RSS Feeds. 

RSS Feeds are what I consider golden nuggets of technology.  They allow you to subscribe to blogs (yay!) and news headlines (boo!) on various sites.  So, you can open your e-mail and get the latest blog post (yay!) or headlines (boo!)  from the sites you love without having to leave the comforts of your own inbox. 

There are no bookmarks to click on.  I’m sure that’s considered cruel and unusual punishment in some countries.  You don’t have to open your internet browser and type in the website.  Who does that anymore? No Google searches because you just can’t remember that website address.  That is so 2009!  It’s the epitome of internet laziness and it’s brilliant. 

I’m sure my lack of concern for current events shocks some and saddens others.  I realize I’m one in a minority of people who had rather be completely oblivious and happy than to be aware and miserable.  But may I be so bold as to suggest that happy and oblivious is the way God intended us to live our lives?  After all, wasn’t eating from the tree of knowledge what got us into this mess?  (Genesis 2:17) Thanks Adam.  Thanks Eve. 

It was never God’s intention for us to know everything.  We were supposed to leave that up to Him.  He’s in the business of omniscience – not us.  That is a burden we were never intended to bear (Romans 11:33-24), but you wouldn’t know it by looking at us with blackberries and iPhones glued to our ears, computers on every desktop, TVs in every room.  When will we learn – it’s not our job to be omniscient?  Our job is to know God and to trust Him with the rest (Proverbs 2:1-6).

At church today, Pastor Calvin challenged us to know our testimony, and to be able to communicate it clearly in less than one hundred words.  Sounds tricky, yes?

I don’t know about you, but to me, “testimony” can be so heavy, so overwhelming.  For a long time I thought of a person’s testimony in the context of a formal presentation of “How I Became a Christian.”  And there are certainly times where that full-blown version is appropriate, and maybe necessary.

Several years ago, another pastor lessened my anxiety about testimonies, saying it was really just a story about how the Lord has worked/is working in your life.  That’s true, and it was a little bit helpful, but …

I still wrestled with this idea that ordinary people (like me), with ordinary conversion stories (like me), lacked the ability to relate to – and intrigue – someone who was considering the Christian life.

Let’s just keep it real: when someone (like me) starts their story with, “I grew up in church, and when I was twelve years old …” that is the beginning of a total snooze-fest testimony for me.

Part of a powerful testimony is the change component, right?  Evangelists being paid to share their testimonies seem to have conversions on the heels of a terrible accident, an illness, a loved one’s death, a rock-bottom moment in substance abuse.  No doubt about it, those are the powerful befores and afters that get people excited!

On the other hand, when someone’s been living the Christian life since they were seven, we can all rejoice that they were saved at such a tender age, but don’t you want to know their story didn’t end then?  Don’t you want to hear that they’ve somehow been changed for good along the way?

Don’t get me wrong, I tear up just about every time a little one gets baptized.  Praise be to God, and thanks in large part to praying and diligent parents, those testimonies are real, and no less miraculous than ones that happen to people who are 21, 52, or 87 when they make a life-changing decision about Who’s in charge of their lives.

And that’s the rub: children being baptized is a beautiful thing, but where’s the zing in their story?  Where’s their opportunity for extreme transformation?  After all, when I was twelve and publicly confessed my belief in a living God, I wasn’t exactly living a crazy rebellious life, from whence I would make a supernatural U-turn away from the dark side!

I admit that I’ve often thought of what a boring story mine is, and I’ve wondered how a story like mine, when shared, could possibly interest someone enough to give them a better understanding of the Christian life.

Isn’t that just like Satan?  To trick God’s people — whose stories might not be the dramatic ones you hear at revivals and Christian conferences — into thinking that their stories can’t have an impact for the kingdom?

So, while my story might not be dramatic on the outside, it has everything to do with the work the Lord has done – and continues to do – on the inside.

(Cue the word counter.)

There was a time in my life when I thought that being a Christian – and obtaining the Lord’s favor – was a privilege reserved for the morally superior:  those who followed rules; always made “right” decisions; made their parents and families proud; and were considered “good” people by others.

In my quest to become morally superior (and make no mistake, stumbling all over the place along the way), I landed myself instead on the top rung of the Ladder of Morality, looking down my nose at other people in judgment and self-righteousness.  It wasn’t pretty.

These days, I’m still a work in progress, but the Lord has been gracious to teach me that His love is one that extends to all people, no matter if they’ve followed all the rules, made all the right decisions, won the approval of their families, or carry baggage that exceeds the morally acceptable weight limit.

He loves everyone passionately, and He commands us to do the same.  That’s our (my) challenge every day.

Sigh.  I couldn’t do it in less than one hundred words.  I’ll have to work on that.

In the meantime, be encouraged in your story, no matter where it falls on the ordinary scale.  There are other ordinary people waiting to hear it!