Tonight at Kairos, Pastor Mike spoke about rest from 1 Kings 19. He pointed to Elijah, one of the most well known prophets in the Bible, who got to a point where he was depleted and depressed. In that moment, God’s instructions to him were to rest and eat until he could recover.
You’re no good to anyone if you’re broken and burned-out and busted. You can’t serve God or anyone else out of an empty reserve. Sometimes, you need to take care of yourself as well as others.
It starts with being honest with yourself and others about how you really feel. When you tell others you’re fine, maybe you’re really F.I.N.E. (Freaked Out, Insecure, Neurotic, Emotional).
It’s okay to admit that you’re broken. It’s okay to confess that you need help. It’s okay to allow others to serve you as well as you serving others. It’s okay to rest and refresh.
The Bible says that God rested from all His work on the seventh day, and that’s the pattern He set for us. Rest is good.
The old Serenity prayer goes something like God give me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I think I might like the new version a bit better.
Both are needed and good, but the new one keeps reminding me that I’m not God, which is something I apparently need to be reminded of a lot.
I think a lot of my anxiety is just me trying to play God with my problems and solve them on my own. My fear comes from the notion that God can’t be trusted and that once again, it’s up to me. Pride says that I know better than God or anyone else.
So it’s good for me to remember that there is a God and that I’m not Him. Nor is He me.
“To be grateful for an unanswered prayer, to give thanks in a state of interior desolation, to trust in the love of God in the face of the marvels, cruel circumstances, obscenities, and commonplaces of life is to whisper a doxology in darkness” (Brennan Manning).
Man, that’s tough.
It’s easy to give thanks when the sun is shining and everyone I love is doing well. It’s easy when all my traffic lights are green and my bank account is looking healthy.
It becomes more difficult to praise when I’m in between jobs and wondering how I will pay my bills. It’s not so easy to give thanks when the diagnosis comes back and you can’t hear or see anything past the word terminal.
It’s difficult to sing that doxology when every day seems the same and you are no closer to seeing your dreams fulfilled than you were when you first dreamed them. Your prayers seem to bounce off of a sky of bronze where nothing gets through.
But that’s where faith becomes real and hope goes from being a luxury to a necessity. That’s where you learn to hear God’s voice and feel His heartbeat. Even when God is silent, it’s knowing He’s still near and preparing you for what you are not quite ready to hear and to see. It’s not a “no” as much as it is a “not yet.”
If I’d known any better, this would have been on my bucket list. Tommy Emmanuel is widely regarded to be one of the best — if not the best — acoustic guitar players on the planet. After scraping the bottom half of my jaw off the ground at the end of his concert, I’d have to agree.
I read once that if you want to fall in love with something, watch someone who is 1) really good at it and 2) very passionate about it. I’m not a guitar player, but I recognize insane brilliance when I see it. I can pick out genius-level talent because it’s not something I see every day.
I almost wish there had been a recording of that night, so I could go back and relive it again and again. But I have my memories. Plus, I have some CDs and vinyl of his music. Still, nothing beats being there in person.
It was worth every penny and every mile. I hope I can do it all again next year.
The author of this quote, Brennan Manning, passed away over 9 years ago. His words, especially these, live on and will last long after we’re dead and buried.
Do you believe that God’s love is really eternal? Do you believe that there is nothing you can do to make God love you more and nothing you can do to make Him love you less? Do you believe that you can’t earn it or deserve it but only receive it?
I really deep in my heart know for a fact that if we truly comprehended God’s love for us, we’d be far more radical with our gospel conversations and evangelical love for those outside the faith. We’d never shut up about the love of God if we really got it deep in the core of our being. Also, our brains would probably explode since that kind of love is far beyond our comprehending.
The beauty of God’s love is that we don’t have to fully understand it to take hold of it. We don’t have to know everything about it to receive it. We don’t have to be able to fully explain it to share it.
The more we’re faithful to obey, the more we of this love we will know and understand. The more we share this love, the more room we have in our hearts to receive more of it. And it will never get old or go out of style or become irrelevant or end. Ever.
Yes! The day I’ve been waiting for since June has finally arrived. It’s the Autumnal Equinox, the first day of fall. In the South, that means next to nothing since we will still have at least two more weeks of warm to hot weather, but it’s the thought that counts.
But honestly, fall is my favorite. Just knowing that the air will soon be turning crisp and the leaves will turn into a blaze of colors before showing us the beauty of letting go and falling to the earth. Plus, there will be no more bugs for about 6 months.
Today was just about perfect. Coming on the heels of two unbearably hot days, it felt great. But for me, true fall weather needs to be cool enough that you need a jacket or a flannel shirt. There should be breezes that have the tiniest hint of frost, reminding me of all the upcoming holidays that I love — Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
Still, I’ll never complain about a zero-humidity day in September.
“I see the morning moving over the hills I can see the shadows on the western side And all those illusions that I had They just vanish in Your light Though the chill in the night still hangs in the air I can feel the warmth of morning on my face Though the storm had tossed me ‘Til I thought I’d nearly lost my way
And now the night is fading and the storm is past And everything that could be shaken was shaken And all that remains is all I ever really had
What I’d have settled for You’ve blown so far away What You brought me to I thought I could not reach And I came so close to giving up But You never did give up on me I see the morning moving over the hills I feel the rush of life here where the darkness broke And I am in You and You’re in me Here where the winds of Heaven blow
And now the night is fading And the storm is through And everything You sent to shake me From my dreams they come to wake me In the love I find in You And now the morning comes And everything that really matters Become the wings You send to gather me To my home To my home I’m going home” (Craig Michael Wiseman / Tony Carl Mullins).
It absolutely blows my mind that it’s been 25 years since Rich Mullins passed so tragically. It also makes me feel incredibly old, but that’s another post for another night.
I can think of few other musical artists who have moved me and spoken to the core of my being the way Rich did. There was something confessional about his songwriting that put my own thoughts and feelings into words better than I ever could.
I was privileged to see him in concert the one time. I’ll never forget how the last song in the set was all about how God is leading us and guiding us and as he walked away, we were singing the refrain “And everywhere I go, I see you.” It was definitely a kairos event, a unique moment in time.
I get a bit sad when I think of all he could have said and done and written if he had lived longer, but the legacy he left is still touching and transforming people’s lives a quarter of a century later.
It’s amazing to me how he wrote almost prophetically about his own passing in one of his songs called Elijah:
“But when I leave I want to go out like Elijah With a whirlwind to fuel my chariot of fire And when I look back on the stars It’ll be like a candlelight in Central Park And it won’t break my heart to say goodbye” (Richard Mullins).
I’ve been praying for a friend who’s going through some relational conflict. As a recovering people pleaser, I can attest that one of the worst feelings in the world is when I have felt that someone is upset with me and I don’t know what to do to put it right.
I can also testify that there have been times in my life when I’ve prayed for God to change my circumstances and my surroundings to make my life easier and more bearable. Lately, I think what God’s been prompting me to pray for isn’t so much for God to change my environment but to change me in the midst of my environment.
I remember Dan Allendar said something like that if your cry for relief is greater than your cry for a changed and transformed heart, you’re never gonna grow up. You’ll never find transformation as long as you cling to comfort and familiarity instead of venturing out into change and healing.
It’s the question Jesus asked to the man who had waited at the Pool of Bethesda: “Do you want to be made well?”
In other words, do you want healing and wholeness, no matter how painful and protracted the process may be, no matter how much it costs?
Relationally speaking, if I am at odds with someone else, I may be seeking God to change the other person while God might be seeking to transform me. As humbling as it may seem, the place to start for reconciliation is to look in the mirror first through the lens of God’s grace to see the good, the bad, and the ugly.
God, change me in the midst of my circumstances so that I can look more like you, regardless of whether or not my circumstances change. I submit myself to you completely. Have your way in me. Amen.
As I’ve said before, anxiety is the belief that everything is up to me to figure out and solve. Worry is basically me seeing my world minus God in it. Both say that I need to figure everything out RIGHT NOW.
But those nail-scarred hands tell a different story. They say that God is concerned even about the lowliest sparrow, so He knows about you. God has numbered the very hairs on your head, so He is very much aware of what keeps you up at night.
You can trust that God will indeed work all things — including yours — together for good. He will work your circumstances toward the best possible outcome — both for your good and His glory. You can leave it all in the more than capable hands that were wounded for you.
I love what Craig Groeshel said about anxiety not being a sin but a signal to pray. It’s the spiritual equivalent of the check engine light coming on in your car, letting you know that everything is not alright with your vehicle and that something needs attention.
I do think that the culture we live in thrives on anxiety. I mean that the end goal of news media outlets and social media and advertising is to keep you in a perpetual state of fear and worry about what you’re missing out on or how the world’s about to come to an end or how you will never be fulfilled unless you drink this cola or wear these shoes or buy this luxury SUV.
But you do have a choices as to what you do with the anxiety. You can start by turning off the source. That means fasting from media, turning off the television, choosing to immerse yourself in God’s Word rather than Netflix or Amazon Prime.
You can pray. God doesn’t need reminding of how much anxiety you have, but you need reminding that God already knows. You need reminding that nothing you’re facing will catch God off guard or take Him by surprise. There’s nothing in your world that He can’t handle, that He hasn’t already overcome through the cross.
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