I am the not-so-proud parent of a five-year-old backseat driver. This can happen when you let your little one ride around in the car as you teach your older children to drive, which is exactly what Son4 has done. So from time to time Son4 asks me questions like these: Are your lights on? What does that sign say? Are you going faster than 60? This generally amuses me, except for when he constantly announces the read-out on the speedometer. But the question that amuses me less is the one when he asks me whether I know where I'm going.
The fact that he has an amazing sense of direction only makes matters worse. If you want to get from Point A to Point B around here, you could probably pop him in the car and he could tell you where to turn. That sense of direction is a wonderful thing, but sometimes I like to take a different route, and that's when we run into trouble. That's when he'll ask me: Do you even know where you're going? Just imagine his voice — it is full of doubt and disdain, like, are you the idiot running the show? This is preposterous of course. I mean — does he?! Furthermore, do I have any interest in getting lost? No. The answer is — Yes, I DO know where I am going.
But in life, I think we ask God this question all the time. We look at the things happening around us, and we think, "Dear God, do you even know where you are going? Do you SEE where we are here?" Honestly, it's a pretty arrogant question, isn't it?
Friday, September 25, 2015
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Idiots?
Sometimes when I read the Bible, I am inclined to think the disciples might have been idiots, but usually I remember that they were just humans, without the benefit of hindsight and a New Testament to explain a few things to them. It must have been awfully confusing traveling around with the Son of God without quite understanding who he was or what he was up to. Let's face it: we have the whole Bible and we still don't really understand the Son of God and what he is up to on Earth.
So the poor disciples often appear utterly faithless. They often seem to be freaking out about something that turns out to be nothing -- which means that the poor disciples appear to be a whole lot like us; and though we might think we'd do better if we had some time to hang out with Jesus, Emmanuel, here in the flesh, I am guessing that is just our ego talking and we wouldn't do any better than they did. I recently read these verses from Matthew 14: Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them [the disciples, in a boat], walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
It struck me that much of life is just like the disciples' experience that night. We're just doing our thing -- living our ordinary lives -- and the next thing we know, something scary comes our way: sickness, job loss, relationship troubles, kids making bad choices, etc. And our reactions are the same as the disciples: we are terrified. We don't understand that Jesus is out there on the water and that all circumstances present an opportunity to meet him all over again. I cannot explain your sickness or bankruptcy or divorce or depression or your child's drug use. This world is often a desperate and sad place. I don't have the first idea how God will make a way for these objectively terrible things to work for good, as he says they will. That's the miracle business, and God doesn't need us to see it or understand it in order to make it happen.
Like the disciples, we panic when the unexpected comes our way because we don't yet have the benefit of hindsight and because trust is not our strong suit. But Jesus is on the water, walking toward you. This I DO know. It looks scary, yes, it does. But I hear Jesus saying, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."
So the poor disciples often appear utterly faithless. They often seem to be freaking out about something that turns out to be nothing -- which means that the poor disciples appear to be a whole lot like us; and though we might think we'd do better if we had some time to hang out with Jesus, Emmanuel, here in the flesh, I am guessing that is just our ego talking and we wouldn't do any better than they did. I recently read these verses from Matthew 14: Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them [the disciples, in a boat], walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
It struck me that much of life is just like the disciples' experience that night. We're just doing our thing -- living our ordinary lives -- and the next thing we know, something scary comes our way: sickness, job loss, relationship troubles, kids making bad choices, etc. And our reactions are the same as the disciples: we are terrified. We don't understand that Jesus is out there on the water and that all circumstances present an opportunity to meet him all over again. I cannot explain your sickness or bankruptcy or divorce or depression or your child's drug use. This world is often a desperate and sad place. I don't have the first idea how God will make a way for these objectively terrible things to work for good, as he says they will. That's the miracle business, and God doesn't need us to see it or understand it in order to make it happen.
Like the disciples, we panic when the unexpected comes our way because we don't yet have the benefit of hindsight and because trust is not our strong suit. But Jesus is on the water, walking toward you. This I DO know. It looks scary, yes, it does. But I hear Jesus saying, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."
Monday, February 2, 2015
Eyes to See
In less than three weeks now, Glennon Doyle Melton, creator of Momastery.com will be speaking at our church. I am the lucky (terrified) duck who will be on stage interviewing her. Glennon is remarkable because she has a way of making room for people, a way of inviting them into love. Her blog is like a church itself (or what a church should be) -- a place of community and growth and service and love.
Recently she wrote a blog post entitled Cool Ashes Don't Burn about being a witness to others' pain. She talks about how we all need to be seen and heard and that we all need acknowledgment that our pain is real. This idea resounded with me because it's something we do naturally for our own friends and it's something we sometimes need to have done for us. But I wondered why. What makes this so powerful? And then I thought of Hagar.
Genesis 16 tells the painful story of Hagar, slave to Sarah, and ultimately a second wife to Abraham. Sarah could not conceive, and she was tired of waiting for God's promise to be fulfilled, so she let Abraham take Hagar so that a family could be built that way. But once Hagar was pregnant, she began to despise Sarah, and ultimately Sarah mistreated her. What a mess.
Hagar ran away, and when she was on the run, she ran into God himself. God told Hagar to return to her mistress, but he also gave her some promises about the boy she was carrying in her belly. Hagar obeyed the Lord and returned to Sarah, and she also gave a new name to God: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”
God saw Hagar's situation -- she was a woman without choices. She was a slave, and she was commanded into a bad situation in which the only possible result would be even worse for her. I find it difficult that God didn't really change things for Hagar -- she was to remain a slave. But God did "see" her, and he did give her a son and promise that her descendants would be too numerous to count.
Sometimes we want God to do more than see, don't we? We want him to DO. To FIX. To CHANGE. I am fairly certain he does that too, just rarely as quickly as we want. He is the God who transforms. The God who transfigures. The God who wastes nothing. The God who makes the bad good. The God who gives us beauty for ashes. But first... First he sees. Glennon's post is a great reminder that we can participate with God in this great thing he does: we can see too.
Recently she wrote a blog post entitled Cool Ashes Don't Burn about being a witness to others' pain. She talks about how we all need to be seen and heard and that we all need acknowledgment that our pain is real. This idea resounded with me because it's something we do naturally for our own friends and it's something we sometimes need to have done for us. But I wondered why. What makes this so powerful? And then I thought of Hagar.
Genesis 16 tells the painful story of Hagar, slave to Sarah, and ultimately a second wife to Abraham. Sarah could not conceive, and she was tired of waiting for God's promise to be fulfilled, so she let Abraham take Hagar so that a family could be built that way. But once Hagar was pregnant, she began to despise Sarah, and ultimately Sarah mistreated her. What a mess.
Hagar ran away, and when she was on the run, she ran into God himself. God told Hagar to return to her mistress, but he also gave her some promises about the boy she was carrying in her belly. Hagar obeyed the Lord and returned to Sarah, and she also gave a new name to God: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”
God saw Hagar's situation -- she was a woman without choices. She was a slave, and she was commanded into a bad situation in which the only possible result would be even worse for her. I find it difficult that God didn't really change things for Hagar -- she was to remain a slave. But God did "see" her, and he did give her a son and promise that her descendants would be too numerous to count.
Sometimes we want God to do more than see, don't we? We want him to DO. To FIX. To CHANGE. I am fairly certain he does that too, just rarely as quickly as we want. He is the God who transforms. The God who transfigures. The God who wastes nothing. The God who makes the bad good. The God who gives us beauty for ashes. But first... First he sees. Glennon's post is a great reminder that we can participate with God in this great thing he does: we can see too.
Friday, January 9, 2015
All You Don't Have
Years of difficult finances and debt have left me somewhat enslaved to counting the dollars and "figuring things out." It's a terrible way to live, and I've felt trapped there by circumstances with no way out despite my endless "figuring." But last Sunday at church I heard God's unmistakeable voice in my head saying, "Stop counting your resources." It got me thinking about Gideon and self-reliance and miracles.
God charges Gideon with attacking the Midianites, but he also says this about Gideon's army: “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’" (Judges 7:2) Gideon started with an army of over 30,000 men, but ultimately God used an army of 300 to defeat the Midianites.
As American Christians, I think we are big fans of the gospel of self-reliance. We love the idea that God helps those who helps themselves, despite the fact that there's no Bible reference for that one. Grace makes us uncomfortable. Lack of personal responsibility even more so.
I am all about personal responsibility. I love it so much, because if something is up to me, then I can make it happen. If it's someone else's job, well they might not do it. But if it's mine, I know I will. Yes, I just might be a bit of a control-freak workaholic, and God just might have been working on that in me for the past decade or so. The reality is that despite my best efforts, I cannot fix my mess. I don't have the resources to do so. And I am not just talking financial resources. I'm talking about all kinds of resources -- time, emotional reserves, ideas, opportunities, wisdom, love... I cannot resource my way to the changes that need to happen in my life. I don't have what's needed, but God is telling me he doesn't need me to.
Transfiguring things is something we cannot do, but it IS what God does. I come with water, and Jesus makes the wine. It is a miracle, plain and simple. This is what I hear God calling me to. He's saying, "Let me transfigure things. Give me your water, and I will give you wine. See what I can do with all you DON'T have."
I lack the financial resources to change our financial picture in any real way. I lack the emotional reserves to not feel pulled down by difficulty, to live life lightly. I lack the time to devote to writing because I am fixated on the financial resources I need to earn. It's the beginning of a new year, and I feel invited to a miracle. What can God do with all I do not have? We shall see. We shall see.
God charges Gideon with attacking the Midianites, but he also says this about Gideon's army: “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’" (Judges 7:2) Gideon started with an army of over 30,000 men, but ultimately God used an army of 300 to defeat the Midianites.
As American Christians, I think we are big fans of the gospel of self-reliance. We love the idea that God helps those who helps themselves, despite the fact that there's no Bible reference for that one. Grace makes us uncomfortable. Lack of personal responsibility even more so.
I am all about personal responsibility. I love it so much, because if something is up to me, then I can make it happen. If it's someone else's job, well they might not do it. But if it's mine, I know I will. Yes, I just might be a bit of a control-freak workaholic, and God just might have been working on that in me for the past decade or so. The reality is that despite my best efforts, I cannot fix my mess. I don't have the resources to do so. And I am not just talking financial resources. I'm talking about all kinds of resources -- time, emotional reserves, ideas, opportunities, wisdom, love... I cannot resource my way to the changes that need to happen in my life. I don't have what's needed, but God is telling me he doesn't need me to.
Transfiguring things is something we cannot do, but it IS what God does. I come with water, and Jesus makes the wine. It is a miracle, plain and simple. This is what I hear God calling me to. He's saying, "Let me transfigure things. Give me your water, and I will give you wine. See what I can do with all you DON'T have."
I lack the financial resources to change our financial picture in any real way. I lack the emotional reserves to not feel pulled down by difficulty, to live life lightly. I lack the time to devote to writing because I am fixated on the financial resources I need to earn. It's the beginning of a new year, and I feel invited to a miracle. What can God do with all I do not have? We shall see. We shall see.
Thursday, January 1, 2015
Making Room
Christmas is over, but I am being hounded by a message sent home in my son's preschool papers. It was a brown construction-paper nativity scene with stickers to place for Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. Inside the stable was a piece of paper that said "We are all innkeepers." I cannot stop thinking about it.
Like the innkeeper, we all have a choice to make, except that we get to make that choice again and again and again. Will we make room for Jesus? Will we make room for him in our happiness and our sadness? In our successes and our failures? In our darkness and our light? Are there places we think he cannot or will not go? Are we afraid he won't come into some places or afraid that he will enter some places we keep for ourselves?
This Emmanuel, this God with us, will come in anywhere. The whole born in a stable thing makes that perfectly clear. What is more vulnerable than an infant? What is dirtier than a stable? There is no place in our lives that Jesus is afraid of. There is nothing too messy for him, although sometimes I think it's easier to let him into our messes than into the things that seem like they are going well.
At the beginning of this new year, I am asking myself, how will I make more room for him? My life is maxed out -- full of demands and responsibilities and people to love and take care of. I can't "make" time. For me the only answer to making room is to see Jesus in the now. God, the I AM, is present in every moment, so making room is a matter of seeing in a new way. It's not even so much inviting God into the present moment (although sometimes it may be that) but more of seeing that he is already there -- God with us, God with me.
Yet I think God is asking more of me. I am that cliché of a woman, who can make time for anything and anyone but not so much for herself. I make little time for writing or the things I want most, but I hear a whisper asking me, "Will you make room? Will you make room for you? For your gifts?" I am not sure why I resist my own self so much, but this morning I am wondering whether making more time for the things in my own heart won't be its own way of letting God in. When I write and do the things I love, I think I make room for us both.
My heart is its own inn. What good does it do to say yes when he asks for entrance if I'm not truly occupying the space myself? Here's to a new year.
Like the innkeeper, we all have a choice to make, except that we get to make that choice again and again and again. Will we make room for Jesus? Will we make room for him in our happiness and our sadness? In our successes and our failures? In our darkness and our light? Are there places we think he cannot or will not go? Are we afraid he won't come into some places or afraid that he will enter some places we keep for ourselves?
This Emmanuel, this God with us, will come in anywhere. The whole born in a stable thing makes that perfectly clear. What is more vulnerable than an infant? What is dirtier than a stable? There is no place in our lives that Jesus is afraid of. There is nothing too messy for him, although sometimes I think it's easier to let him into our messes than into the things that seem like they are going well.
At the beginning of this new year, I am asking myself, how will I make more room for him? My life is maxed out -- full of demands and responsibilities and people to love and take care of. I can't "make" time. For me the only answer to making room is to see Jesus in the now. God, the I AM, is present in every moment, so making room is a matter of seeing in a new way. It's not even so much inviting God into the present moment (although sometimes it may be that) but more of seeing that he is already there -- God with us, God with me.
Yet I think God is asking more of me. I am that cliché of a woman, who can make time for anything and anyone but not so much for herself. I make little time for writing or the things I want most, but I hear a whisper asking me, "Will you make room? Will you make room for you? For your gifts?" I am not sure why I resist my own self so much, but this morning I am wondering whether making more time for the things in my own heart won't be its own way of letting God in. When I write and do the things I love, I think I make room for us both.
My heart is its own inn. What good does it do to say yes when he asks for entrance if I'm not truly occupying the space myself? Here's to a new year.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Night and Day
I live inside the Psalms. They give words to my days, an endless source of comfort and help. On Sunday these verses from Psalm 74 jumped out at me:
Yet God is my king from of old,
Who works deeds of deliverance in the midst of the earth.
...Yours is the day, Yours also is the night;
You have prepared the light and the sun.
You have established all the boundaries of the earth;
You have made summer and winter.
Some Christians like to think there should only be light. That if there is darkness in your life, you are at fault. You should pray more, believe more, and worship more until the darkness goes away. The darkness is just not meant to be.
I think God and the Bible are much more nuanced that most Christians. Psalm 74 says, "Yours is the day, Yours also is the night." There is day and night in my life, all the time. I don't think we can live with an ounce of peace if we have to endlessly fight the darkness in our lives; if we can't just say, this, too, is a part of life. I think most Christians are wrong, quite frankly. At least the loud ones anyway. I live in light and in dark, and Emmanuel lives in it all with me. And thank God for that.
Yet God is my king from of old,
Who works deeds of deliverance in the midst of the earth.
...Yours is the day, Yours also is the night;
You have prepared the light and the sun.
You have established all the boundaries of the earth;
You have made summer and winter.
Some Christians like to think there should only be light. That if there is darkness in your life, you are at fault. You should pray more, believe more, and worship more until the darkness goes away. The darkness is just not meant to be.
I think God and the Bible are much more nuanced that most Christians. Psalm 74 says, "Yours is the day, Yours also is the night." There is day and night in my life, all the time. I don't think we can live with an ounce of peace if we have to endlessly fight the darkness in our lives; if we can't just say, this, too, is a part of life. I think most Christians are wrong, quite frankly. At least the loud ones anyway. I live in light and in dark, and Emmanuel lives in it all with me. And thank God for that.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Focus
Yesterday we went to a nearby state park, just me and the littlest. It was one of those summer days that makes me wish every day would be like it and fear that there will never be another as perfect: sunshine, dry air, a breeze, warm. The boy plunged into the cold creek water, squealing again and again. He did a circuit through sand and mud, and then ran in, as deep as he could go. I dug my feet into the mud and listened to the breeze rustle leaves, the water run over rocks, and the boy sing, "You're my best mommy. You're my hero." .
It is easy to see the glass half empty. Some days I can think that this isn't the shape my life was supposed to take. And certainly by now I should have had some time to think my own thoughts and sleep past 5:30 a.m. I should have been helping my older boys figure things out and accomplish what they need to accomplish to set them on the best trajectory into adulthood. I should have been working more, earning more. College is upon us. Instead my days have been consumed by a relentlessly demanding little one. A complicated boy. It feels like he takes everything from me and leaves me with very little for anyone else. I can grow somewhat resentful if I let those thoughts sink it. I worry that the situation makes his brothers resentful, and surely it does sometimes.
But yesterday we went to the creek. We kicked up cold water and searched for shiny rocks. Later we sat on a boulder beneath a tree and just listened. "I like it here," he said. He kissed me and hugged me. I would never have been listening to a breeze, squishing my toes in mud, or splashing in cold water yesterday if it were not for him. My glass is not half empty. It is overflowing. Some days I just need to remember that.
It is easy to see the glass half empty. Some days I can think that this isn't the shape my life was supposed to take. And certainly by now I should have had some time to think my own thoughts and sleep past 5:30 a.m. I should have been helping my older boys figure things out and accomplish what they need to accomplish to set them on the best trajectory into adulthood. I should have been working more, earning more. College is upon us. Instead my days have been consumed by a relentlessly demanding little one. A complicated boy. It feels like he takes everything from me and leaves me with very little for anyone else. I can grow somewhat resentful if I let those thoughts sink it. I worry that the situation makes his brothers resentful, and surely it does sometimes.
But yesterday we went to the creek. We kicked up cold water and searched for shiny rocks. Later we sat on a boulder beneath a tree and just listened. "I like it here," he said. He kissed me and hugged me. I would never have been listening to a breeze, squishing my toes in mud, or splashing in cold water yesterday if it were not for him. My glass is not half empty. It is overflowing. Some days I just need to remember that.
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