Category: Balance

Lovers of Peace…

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“Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). These are the qualities God asks us to demonstrate with our lives when He is asked by His people “What does the Lord require of us?”. This word comes in the Old Testament, an age that was under the Law. Even from then, the things God asks of us are really quite simple, but most certainly, simultaneously quite profound. In a way, they can be summed up in a code of peace. We are to have peace with God, peace with others, & peace within ourselves. If that peace exists, these qualities will be consistently demonstrated in our lives. In the New Testament, Jesus & his disciples often command us to be lovers of peace, & peace is also delineated as one of the pieces of the “armor of God”. Paul tells us to put it on every day in Ephesians 6:15: “having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” The Gospel simply means “good news”, & we associate this with God’s gift of salvation from our sins & darkness through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus.

 

But…there’s a piece of this armor that I’ve often missed. Not only does donning God’s armor mean we are equipped with that Word of the Gospel…it also means we must demonstrate the PEACE that news brings to our lives (The Armor of God, Priscilla Shirer). That PEACE is what speaks into the hearts & minds of those around us. It’s what equips & empowers us to live in hope & life. If we don’t demonstrate it, then we’re not “speaking” His good news to the world in action & deed. Perhaps that means we’re not truly allowing His Spirit to empower us in the moment-by-moment living. Another piece of good news, however, is that this peace is not something we can produce on our own, it is described as a fruit & byproduct of His Holy Spirit working in us (Galatians 5:22-23). After accepting His salvation, all we must do is allow His Spirit to work within us as His vessels. We must simply allow His PEACE to PERMEATE our hearts & minds & souls if we are to offer it over & over again to a broken world living without His hope & His life. I want to soak it in, and let it permeate my thoughts…and heart…and words…and relationships.

“The Wonder of It All”…

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A dear friend once gave me a card that said “Never lose your sense of wonder.” Coming from her, this encouragement carries great weight for me; it becomes an inspiration because it reflects a life grounded in both reality and wonder. Though nearing retirement and a veteran of more than her fair share of life’s challenges, she’s never lost her curiosity and amazement with life and the Lord. I came to know her as my mentor and friend when I moved to the town where I began my first long-term teaching job. She taught high school, and helped me learn to do the same. Her contagious vivacity and wit, as well as natural way of connecting and empathizing with youth, make people assume she’s twenty years younger than she actually is. She always downplays her own role in this, claiming that teaching keeps us young. Indeed, I have found this to be true, but most especially so when we as teachers are willing to be affected by all those we teach. She’s ever-willing, and because she is, her life in turn, has profoundly affected those of the students she taught.
Though we no longer teach together, I still consider her my mentor. As a teacher and a person, she is a force as awesome and resilient as nature herself. There are powerful influences in her life that have often attempted to determine and shape her reality, but she has staunchly refused to acquiesce.  Though at times her circumstances have seemed challenging, she faithfully cultivates joy one day at a time, continuously searches for reasons to laugh, walks determinedly in faith and not by sight, and pursues connections that pull her into spheres of positivity. I’ve known her almost ten years now, and in that time, she’s adopted me, welcoming me into her home and family as if I were a second daughter. When I became sick with a chronic illness, she cared for me. She has seen and understood me at the times where it seemed like few others could. She has refused to let me give up or give in to negativity, most effectively by her own example. Edith Wharton, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, once said something that seems to purposefully describe my friend: “One can remain alive  long past the usual date of expiration, if one is unafraid of change, happy in small ways, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, and interested in big things.” My wonderful friend has lived in such a way, and therefore, remains not just alive, but ALIVE.  In other words, my friend lives out God’s granting of another’s request: “I do not ask to know the reason for it all; I ask only, to know the wonder of it all” (Heschel, Abraham). May we all be continually captivated by the wonder of it all.

Irony of Christianity…

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In the movie Becoming Jane, the character of Jane Austen offers a wonderful definition of irony: “…the bringing together of two contradictory truths, but always done with a smile”. As an author, Austen is most praised for her astute observations and understanding of human character. The ability to understand the complexity of human nature must take irony into account. It is an incontestable component of life. We all have some  experience with navigating its paradoxes. Those of us who find happiness have learned to do it with a smile.

 
This definition of irony calls to mind many things for me, but foremost among them is Christianity. We are saved sinners; we’ve been made right with God, but live out our sanctification; God’s power is made perfect in our weakness (II Corinthians 12:9); we walk in faith, and yet by sight. The season of Advent is described as “the already, and the not yet”. Jesus, our Messiah, lived a life where He was fully human, yet fully divine. The apostle Paul described the irony of the Christian life in his second letter to the young Corinthian church: “…we are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed, perplexed, but don’t despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed….having nothing, and yet, possessing everything” (II Corinthians 4:8-10). Paul cuts to the core of the irony of Christianity in that same letter: “We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God, and not from us….Therefore we do not lose heart: Though outwards we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (II Corinthians 4:7, 16). The irony of Christianity is a God who continually offers Himself to fill the needs of humanity, through broken humanity itself.

Faithfulness of Perseverance…

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It strikes me that the saints of old are often called the faithful. The most famous example of this must be in the beloved Christmas hymn “O Come All Ye Faithful”. Those of us with even a small acquaintance with humanity know that none of us are naturally saintly nor faithful. What is it that enabled these pilgrims to be found thus, and in so doing, to become “joyful and triumphant”? What would allow us to do the same?

In the “Faith Hall of Fame” begun in Hebrews 11, those such as Abraham and Moses are referenced because they believed that God had power to do what He proclaimed, and were obedient, even unto death, despite great obstacles. It could be said they persevered in the calling God gave them regardless of the circumstances.Merriam-Webster defines perseverance as “continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition: the action or condition or an instance of persevering : steadfastness.” Paul wrote to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race” (II Timothy 4:7). I have always thought of the two statements as two different accomplishments, but maybe they are one and the same. Maybe to be faithful, we just have to run our races, not win any prizes. Maybe we simply have to stay the course. 
Today, we promise to be faithful in everything from attendance to marriage, and yet so few of us are. For most, it has come to mean loyal, or steadfast in fulfilling one’s promises or obligations. If we simply dissect the building blocks of the word, it is to be full of faith, but its definition parallels that of perseverance: “loyal, constant, staunch, steadfast, resolute, firm in adherence to whatever one owes allegiance, implying unswerving adherence to a person or thing or to the oath or promise by which a tie was contracted” (Merriam-Webster). It would seem it is working in tandem with God, and taking Him at His word, that enables us to embody such constancy and unswerving devotion, and gives us the tools to persevere.

 

God makes us faithful, by being faithful to us. Each day, He asks us to run the course He’s set before us, and each day, He acts as our trainer and guide, as well as our fuel and our rest. I’ve found if I’ll just show up & take that first step forward, He’ll take me the rest of the way; irregardless, He shows up every day. He invites all to come, regardless of their qualifications or the training needed. The end results are in His hands, and regardless of how we place, He is “quick to mark even the simplest of efforts to please [Him]” (Tozer, A.W., The Attributes of God). He offers Himself to as the prize., and in so doing, He Himself is glorified. As we, the faithful, sing out each Christmas to THE Faithful One: “Jesus, to Thee be all glory given…..Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing…. O Come, let us adore Him….O Come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord” (“O Come All Ye Faithful”, Wade & Reading).

The Gift of Presence…

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There’s a faithfulness in presence. On the other side of my Grandma Thelma’s kitchen, and the table she always seemed to have prepared, sat Grandpa Ray in his screened back porch. No matter when we’d arrive for a visit, there he’d be in his chair, calmly smoking his pipe, ever composed and even-keeled. He never seemed caught off guard: throughout each day until supper and sunset, there he remained sentinel, regardless of what moved around him. He wasn’t an excitable man, and despite having spent his life as a barber, he wasn’t a talkative one. Even as a child, I wondered why he held himself aloof, always a bit removed even from those he loved most. I still know relatively little about his life, beyond the fact that he married my grandma when my dad was in high school, after my dad’s biological father had passed away. Grandpa Ray was the only paternal grandfather I knew, and though he never said he word, I knew he adored us. He  died soon after Grandma passed, so in my mind and in that reality, he was always with her.
Though I never understood his cautious engagement with life and people, I think it was through him that I first learned that presence itself is a gift. Grandpa Ray was an observer of the quiet and beauty around him, enjoying his vantage point of the lane through the apple orchard and the bluff of southwestern Wisconsin. More than that, he regarded relationships and life with acceptance and wisdom. On the rare occasion where he would choose to comment, it was clear he’d been paying attention all along, and his voice was respected. “[His] good opinion [was] rarely bestowed, and therefore more worth the earning” (Austen, Jane. Pride & Prejudice). Though he was a man of few words, on the rare occasion he was out of the house, it felt rather empty without him. By the time I knew him, and perhaps before, he’d realized he could do little to control life, little he could understand of it. Still, he faithfully offered his attendance, and stood beside us all; his was the faithful gift of presence.

The Inevitability of Hope: Esperanza…

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In her beautiful novel Gilead, Marilynne Robinson’s protagonist astutely notes, “We are never out of light, we just turn around in it.” David said it too in the 139th Psalm:

 

“Where can I go from your spirit, where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depth, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me’, even the darkness will not be dark to you, the night will shine as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

 

Such statements would seem to describe our existence on earth. We cannot escape the light and love and presence of God, and yet we dwell in the valley of the shadow, where we cannot yet fully enter in. Though I cannot escape His love, I am also unable to avoid waiting for its full realization. To be able to enter fully into the presence of peace one day is our hope; hope is essential to life. I remember feeling caught off guard once as I read Paul’s observations on hope in Romans 5:3-5:

 

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance, character, and character, hope; and hope does not disappoint us, because God has filled us with His love by the power of His Holy Spirit.”

 

I was in my early 20’s, and processing several years of experiences that had been traumatic for various reasons. The passage struck me because I felt jaded, and in my cynicism, had begun to assume hope could only be the product of naivité, something generally found at the outset of experience, but not at its end. This verse asserts the opposite: Hope comes as the fruit of suffering, perseverance and character; if hope is founded on the true love of God, it cannot lead to disappointment. As Paul says later in Romans, the eighth chapter, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.”
It encourages me to think that though there are times I might not always feel hopeful, I can trust that it is still a possibility of whatever process I am in. In Spanish, the verb for “to hope” is the exact same as both the verbs for “to wait” and “to expect”. Though in English, the terms are nuanced, when viewed as they are understood in Spanish, it seems true we cannot separate them. “Who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we cannot see, we wait for it patiently” (Romans 8:25). Paul also felt the terms and their practices were inseparable. Esperanza: hope and expectation, inextricably intertwined. If waiting is unavoidable, perhaps too, expecting and hoping are inevitable: “We are never out of light, we just turn around in it.”

“O Joy that Seekest Me Through Pain” (George Matheson)-

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One of my favorite sights in Barcelona is the artist Antoni Gaudi’s Parque Güell, where mosaic tiles cover the longest bench in the world. There’s something so beautiful about mosaics, isn’t there? They strike something within us not only for the picture they create with complementary colors, but also for the stunning revelation of patterns and colors one wouldn’t think of as naturally belonging together. They are all simply pieces of vessels and structures that have been broken and neglected, whose original purpose seemed to lie torn in worn-out pieces. They highlight the beauty of fractured things coming together to create something new, something unexpected. When this happen in my life, as in this present season of reinvention, the new and ultimate picture being made by God is often a mystery. C.S. Lewis spoke of God as being the master artist in our lives:

“Remember He is the artist and you are only the picture. You can’t see it. So quietly submit to be painted—i.e., keep fulfilling all the obvious duties of your station (you really know quite well enough what they are!), asking forgiveness for each failure and then leaving it alone. You are in the right way. Walk—don’t keep on looking at it.”

When I do catch a glimpse of God’s vision for what seemed fragmented and lost, it often takes my breath away. Submitting to His artistry, and to this mystery, ultimately seems to bring a surprising joy that can’t be ignored. Pastor and hymn writer George Matheson spoke of this too:

“O joy that seekest me through pain,

I dare not close my heart to thee.

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

And know the promise is not vain,

That morn shall tearless be.”

The Apostle Paul’s encouragement in Romans 8:28 is so comforting: “And we know in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, of those who are called according to His purpose”. One day will see the grand design: “Then I will know, even as [we] are fully known” (I Corinthians 13:12). That day will not only hold the revealing of His artistic design, it will be the completion of all our joyous victories, manifested in all their fullness.

The Song of the Meadowlark & The Coming of Spring…

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In Colorado, it’s definitely hard to predict when spring has actually arrived. Skies are typically as consistently gray as ever are, and spring blizzards and dust storms frequent. It’s mid-April now, and for a couple weeks, I’ve been hearing the song of the meadowlark, my favorite of all birds. There’s something about this bird’s song in particular that signifies the arrival of spring here. Now the daffodils are blooming, and I’m sure that spring is on the way. Oh, how wondrous it always is. Sometimes in the fall, I almost welcome the shorter days and quieter season, bringing with them a chance to turn inward. Despite holding a definite appreciation for each season, however, it does seem winter always leaves its mark. The coming of spring is always so welcome. Margaret Manning, an author and speaker for Ravi Zacharias ministries, reflects on the arrival of spring and Easter:

Even as Christian mourning turns to joy with Easter resurrection celebrations, it is important to note that Jesus bore the wounds of violence and oppression in his body—even after his resurrection. When he appeared to his disciples, according to John’s gospel, Jesus showed them “both his hands and his side” as a means by which to identify himself to them. Indeed, the text tells us that once the disciples took in these visible wounds “they rejoiced when they saw the Lord” (John 20:20).

The resurrection body of Jesus contained the scars from nail and sword, and these scars identified Jesus to his followers. And yet, the wounds of Jesus took on new significance in light of his resurrection. While still reminders of the violence of crucifixion his wound-marked resurrection body demonstrates God’s power over evil and death.

But his wounds reveal something else. God’s work of resurrection—indeed of new creation—begins in our wounded world. His resurrection is not a disembodied spiritual reality for life after the grave; it bears the marks of his wounded life here and now, yet with new significance.

One of the best parts of spring and Easter, it seems, is the joy we find in the perspective we have in them…perspective that is often wrought from the suffering and scars gained in winter-likes seasons in our lives. Bess Streeter Aldrich, a fiction author who wrote primarily in the the 1920’s, has a novel called Spring Comes On Forever. It’s a beautifully told story, but it’s the title itself to which I’d like to call attention. The wonder of spring is that we can enter into it fully, in all its presence and glory, and yet simultaneously receive the promise that it is always still coming, still waiting. May we never lose our sense of wonder in both realities!

On Waiting…

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Though most of us live our lives “on the go”, and many of us will travel far, the place we’ll spend perhaps more time in than any other is  in life’s waiting room. Even Dr. Seuss recognizes this in his classic children’s story Oh, The Places You’ll Go: “Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plan to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.” It’s as if he’s pointing it out to both the child and the adult that waiting is a necessary component of any voyage.

 

Many of us feel we’ve spent a great deal of our lives waiting on God. Our petitions are many, our prayers may even be incessant, but God often seems slow to answer. One possible reason for this is God’s view of time, as the apostle Peter observes:

‘But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.’

This same passage points out that though God may require us to be patient, we are the true beneficiaries of patience. Through waiting and hoping, we learn not just to lay our requests before the Father, but also to converse with Him, learning to trust that He will always faithfully respond, and always answer in a way that yields “the best possible results, for the most possible people, at the best possible time” (Chip Ingram). Eugene Peterson once summarized, “Waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.”

Living in a House Called “Enough”…

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From the day of my birth until today, there isn’t one I have survived without grace. Despite my doubts and regrets, that grace has always been enough. My needs have been met, and often in ways I could never have envisioned. It’s as if someone saw my future, and stockpiled exactly the provisions I would need along the way. Someone did. As unchanging as I may be, God never wavers. Worry hasn’t changed one bit of His gracious provision. Considering the reality of His providence and provenance, why is it I spend most of life ruminating over thoughts full of worry? Will there be sufficient companionship, happiness, or strength, or time, or wisdom? Though His grace has always proved sufficient, it seems I’m always fretting He won’t be enough.
Often I think God is asking me about that very thing: Just when will all He’s given fill my bottomless well? Just when will I let Him be enough?  He’s never ever failed me. If fear, as someone said, is a result of imagining the future without God in it, then why, oh why, am I so afraid? I want to learn to dwell in a land called enough…to live in it and make my home there. I’m determined to learn to give to others from that place of enough, knowing in the depths of my soul there’s an inexhaustible supply. To find that place, I must choose to make it my destination, to gratefully acknowledge each grace, to constantly hear the voice that beckons over any calm or storm: “I am enough. I will be enough.” As Cheryl Strayed said, I too proclaim: “Fear to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I choose to tell myself a different story.”