Brennan Manning

Still Waiting on God

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“I believe that a trusting attitude and a patient attitude go hand in hand. You see, when you let go and learn to trust God, it releases joy in your life. And when you trust God, you’re able to be more patient. Patience is not just about waiting for something… it’s about how you wait, or your attitude while waiting” (Joyce Meyer).

Today, Pastor Aaron preached from Psalm 130 on how to wait on God. Waiting is one of the hardest disciplines of the faith but well worth it in the end.

I supposed I should say waiting well is hard. Waiting by itself takes no effort. You don’t need any special skills to sit with hands folded in your lap, or in front of the TV binge-watching the latest Netflix craze.

Waiting well is different. Waiting well means that you learn to tune your heartbeat to God’s. You learn to discern God’s voice out of the myriad of other voices that are constantly calling to you all the time.

Waiting well means that you let God have His way in you so that you are ready whenever God chooses to end the wait and give you whatever it is you’ve been waiting for.

I’ve come to learn to be thankful that God didn’t give me many of the things I asked for when I asked for them. I probably would have ruined it and ruined myself in the process, especially where relationships are concerned.

Waiting involves open-ended hope. You go from waiting with expectations for a certain outcome to waiting with the sole expectation that God will do what God sees fit, which is always for His highest glory and your best possible outcome.

Lord, help all of us to learn to wait well and not focus on the outcome but who we are becoming in the process. Help us to remember that ultimately who we are as defined by You is far more important than what we have, what we do, or where we are.

 

All Is Still Grace

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As I type these words, I’m listening to Peanut, my new kitten, frolicking and playing nearby.

It still seems surreal that she’s even here. Part of me feels like my old cat Lucy should still be alive and snoring on the pillow next to mine. A small part of my heart went with her when she crossed that rainbow bridge and another small part still hurts whenever photos of her pop up on Timehop.

I’m grateful to have someone new to love. Peanut is helping my heart heal. Plus, she keeps me smiling with her sweet, endearing, klutzy ways.

At the end of the day, it’s all still grace. Anything good that happened today was all God, and even the not so good moments had grace all over them.

I think Peanut wants to add her two cents worth by the way she’s attacking my iPad and purring. She’s saying thanks for the new home and all the love. She likes her food and all the toys are neato keen (her words not mine).

God gifted me with another day filled with too many blessings to count, so I’m good. And all is still grace.

The Way of the Rabbi

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“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world” (Karl Barth).

I’m still not a fan of politics. To me, it seems that politics and political views become an excuse used by too many to disobey Jesus’ teaching on loving and praying for your enemies. It becomes the justification to belittle and mock the other side, often celebrating when they fail. That is not the way of the Rabbi.

I hear the word tolerance bandied about quite a bit lately, but what it usually means is tolerance for those whose views match your own. That is not the way of the Rabbi.

Jesus never told us to tolerate each other. He said to love each other, even your enemies. He said to pray even for those who persecute you, to go the extra mile for that enemy, to turn the other cheek. 

He said to render to Caesar the things that belong to Caesar, and to God the things that are God’s. He said this about the Caesar whose administration actively oppressed the people of Israel.

Jesus believed that love is what ultimately conquers evil, not hate or animosity or fear-mongering or resistance for the sake of resistance.

Jesus never minced His words, yet His harshest words were for those who used religion to exclude rather than to include people. 

Let us never condemn or despise those for whom Jesus died, but love them as He loved them, even forgiving those who murdered Him while they were in the very act.

That is the way of the Rabbi.

Open-Ended Hope: A Guest Blog Post by Henri Nouwen

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“We lived in a world where people don’t know much about hope. We know about wishes. The whole Christmas period is full of wishes. I wish this, or I want that. It’s very concrete: I want a toy or a car or a new job. These are all very specific requests. But hope is precisely to say, ‘I don’t know how God is going to fulfil His promises, but I know that He will, and therefore I can live in the presence with the knowledge that He is with me.’ I can then know and trust that the deepest desires of my being will be fulfilled. This way keeps the future very open.

Hope has nothing to do with optimism. Many people think that hope is optimism, looking at the positive side of life. But Jesus doesn’t speak like that at all. When Jesus talks about the future or the end of the world, He describes wars, people in anguish, nation rising against nation, and earthquakes. There’s no place where Jesus says, ‘One day it will all be wonderful.’ He talks about enormous agony, but He says, ‘You, you (my beloved ones) pray unceasingly that you will keep your heart focused on Me. Stand with your head erect in the presence of the Son of Man. Don’t get distracted by it all. Remain focused.’ Don’t think that things will clean up, and finally there won’t be any more pain. Jesus is saying that the world is dark, and will remain dark.

     If you live with hope, you can live very much in the present because you can nurture the footprints of God in your heart and life. You already have a sense of what is to come. And the whole of the spiritual life is saying that God is right with us, right now, so that we can wait for His coming, and this waiting is a waiting in hope. But because we wait with hope we know that what we are waiting for is already here. We have to nurture that. Here and now matters because God is a God of the present. And God is God of the present because He is God of Eternity.

     Hope is to open yourself up to let God do His work in you in ways that transcend your imagination. As Jesus said, ‘When you are young you put your own belt on and went where you wanted to go. But when you grow spiritually old, then your stretch out your hands and let others and God lead you where you rather wouldn’t go.’ That’s hope, to let yourself be led to new places” (Henri Nouwen).

Keep hoping, not because everything will work out exactly like you want it to, but because God is working it all out for His ultimate glory and your good.

No Fears

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“…new day & *no fears* because fears are just the bad stories we tell ourselves. *And your Father is far bigger than your fears.*
This is why ‘I have set the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand I will not be shaken’ Psalm 16:8. He pulls you right close & whispers it, ‘Do Not Be Afraid.’ He knows how hard things are. And He knows how *faithful He will be.*
That’s why He repeats it again & again, 365 times, so we don’t have need to fear any day of the year: Do Not Be Afraid. He holds every minute of this week & His grace & timing are *perfect.*
So we’re just going to go all out & Trust & be brave this week: It takes courage to listen with our whole heart to the tick of God’s timing, rather than march to the loud beat of our fears” (Ann Voskamp) #PreachingGospeltoMyself

Again, I remind you that fear is just False Evidence Appearing Real. Fear always looks to the future but fails to figure God into the equation. Fear always forgets what God has done in the past, but faith as the antidote to fear reminds us that God remains faithful in every circumstance.

Sometimes, fear comes over a specific circumstance, like a loved one being far away from home or the uncertainty of an undiagnosed illness.

Sometimes, fear is generalized and hard to pinpoint. You have anxiety but aren’t exactly sure why.

In either case, the cure to fear is still the perfect love of God. It’s believing that God’s perfect love can overcome whatever it is that you’re fearing.

Fear says that God is not enough. Faith says God is more than enough.

Once again, I say the words, “I believe,” even when my feelings tell me otherwise. I proclaim it until every part of me receives it and until I fully believe it.

God is enough.

Another 4th of July

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I do love the 4th of July. I get the day off from work, I get to sleep in, plus I get to dress up patriotically (including my very patriotic Star-Spangled Chucks). Throw in fireworks and it’s one of my best days ever.

Don’t get me wrong. I do love my country. I love what it has stood for since 1776, as well as what it still stands for today. I also know it’s not my religion. It’s not God and country. That’s idolatry. It’s God then country as a very distant second.

My ultimate home is in heaven and my primary citizenship is in the Kingdom of God. That trumps any flag or ideology or political party. That trumps Trump (or whoever the next President turns out to be).

I know I’m called to pray for the peace of the place where I live. The Apostle Paul in Romans 14 tells me to honor and support my leaders (and don’t forget the original readers had Nero to deal with, and he was way worse than any bad President we’ve ever had).

But if I have to choose my loyalties, God wins. Every single time. The Bible also says that it’s far better to obey God rather than human authorities when people contradict the word of God.

America won’t last forever. God will. His kingdom will. His love and grace and mercy will. Choose those first.

A Little Love Goes A Long Way

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I still vividly recall a year ago when I had a bout of pneumonia. My cat Lucy comforted me and helped me in my recovery. She loved me well again.

It still makes my heart hurt that I wasn’t able to love her well again during her last illness. I truly believe that if my love could have made her well, she’d live forever. I believe that it as her love for me that allowed her to stay with me as long as she did.


Then this little gal came into my life. She rescued me from my sadness with her charm and spunk.

Even though I’m still getting used to this new normal, I feel blessed that I’m able to give Peanut a love she might never have known and to pay forward the love Lucy gave me.

I’m dreaming of the day when there will be no more loss or pain or grief. I’m hoping for the day Jesus will turn the world right side up again and forever end the tyranny of evil and lies.

At the end of the day, I’m blessed to have known such love and to still be able to pass it on. The legacy continues.

Blog Post #2,540

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“Thank you, dear God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough” (Garrison Keillor).

It doesn’t seem real that I’ve written over 2,500 blog posts in nearly 7 years. That averages out to just about one per day.

It’s been a good discipline to attempt to write something every day. Granted, some days are easier than others, and some days I don’t got nothing.

I can look back over seven years and realize just how much has transpired since that very first blog post back in 2010. I lost my job and went through a lengthy job transition before finding my current position. I had to say a final goodbye (I like to think of it more as a goodbye for now) to my beloved cat Lucy and welcomed little Peanut into my world.

I’m still driving a Jeep Cherokee, though not the same one that I had back in 2010. This one is two years newer and has power windows and locks (which you probably take for granted until you don’t have them then they become very much appreciated).

I feel like I’ve grown in grace quite a bit in these seven years. I know that I am certainly more thankful than I was then. It’s not that I necessarily have more than I did, but I’m much more grateful for what I have and a lot less apt to take things and people for granted than I was.

I can’t wait to see what the next seven years bring. I know God will be just as faithful and true to His promises as He’s been up until now. God willing, I will be able to keep you updated on all my latest shenanigans and wisdom.

“Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known” (Garrison Keillor).

I Want to Go There, Too

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I believe there’s an actual place that exists that meets all of these descriptions. I believe that it’s a place where God will wipe away every tear and where there will be no more night or darkness.

I believe there are hints of that place here and now. We catch glimpses of it here and there and it gives us longings that nothing earthly can satisfy.

Still I long for that kind of place.

Rescued by a Cat

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I went to the local animal shelter with every intention of rescuing a kitten. I had a certain type in mind. 

I even had a kitten in my carrier about to sign the papers when this scrawny tortoise shell ball of fur started meowing at me and reaching at me through the bars of her cage.

I went to where she was and put my hand through the bars and she immediately began rubbing her face against it and purring loudly. She stole my heart in that moment.

As it turns out, she was literally rescued from the middle of the interstate. Today, she rescued me.

I know that nothing will ever replace my Lucy. That was a beautiful 17 year dream that will live in my heart.

Still, I found something I can love and be loved by so I can pay forward the love Lucy gave me.

I haven’t named her yet, but she’s the cuddliest little critter I’ve ever known. God willing, I look forward to at least 17 years with this one.