answers

A Mic Drop Moment

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“Whenever the insistence is on the point that God answers prayer, we are off the track. The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God, not of the answer” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).

I almost want to make this a mic drop moment and end this post here. There’s such a misconception about prayer being a way to inform God of what He didn’t already know or to ask Him for things He wasn’t aware that I needed.

Prayer isn’t about getting God to see things from my point of view but getting me to see things from God’s point of view. It’s not so much about answers as it is about awareness of God’s presence. When I pray, I’m acknowledging in that moment my deep need and God’s deeper provision.

What would I want from God apart from Himself anyway? As the old song says, “I’d rather have Jesus than riches untold.”

It’s like when Job asks all these questions to God. When God responds, He doesn’t answer a single one of those questions. Instead, God asks Job some of His own questions. At the end, what Job realized was that he needed not answers but God’s presence. He needed to know God hadn’t left him or forgotten about him.

My own prayers can easily become rote and full of requests. They can almost sound like the letters I used to write to Santa Claus before Christmas with my list of everything I wanted under the tree that year. They can be very me-focused when the idea of prayer is to get me very God-focused. It’s to help me see God’s purposes and plans for His entire creation and not just my own little world.

Sure, God answers prayer, but that’s not the main point of prayer. My character being transformed into the character of God and my will being transformed into His is.

Singing in the Dark

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“If we wait till we have clear enough vision to see the expected end before we stay our mind upon Him who is our Strength, we shall miss an opportunity that will never come again: we shall never know the blessing of the unoffended. Now is the time to say, ‘My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed. I will sing and give praise,’ even though as we say the words there is no sense of exultation” (Amy Carmichael).

It’s much easier to praise God and be thankful when all our plans come to fruition, when we have the perfect spouse and the perfect kids and the house with the white picket fence.

But what if you don’t have any of these things? What if your spouse and kids aren’t quite perfect? What if the picket fence is faded and peeling and the house is falling down?

If you drew a breath in the last few seconds, you have a reason to praise and give thanks, if for no other reason than you’re still here. You still have a purpose to fulfill that no one else can do and a gift to contribute that no one else has.

You can praise and be thankful without knowing all the answers or, sometimes, without knowing any of the answers, because your trust is in the One who is the Answer to all questions, in whose face questions fly away into nothing.

Usually these times mean that God is preparing something for us that our feeble minds can’t handle at the moment. If we truly knew what He has in store for those who love Him, namely us, then our brains would explode. It’s too much to handle all at once.

So trust in God’s heart when you can’t see His hand.

That’s all for tonight.

 

Severe Mercies

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ee

“God never withholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. God’s refusals are always merciful — ‘severe mercies’ at times but mercies all the same. God never denies us our hearts desire except to give us something better” (Elisabeth Elliot).

I saw where you entered through those gates of splendor you had written about all those years ago. I read where your own suffering had ended, that ‘severe mercy’ that God gave you to bear, Alzheimer’s disease, was finally over.

You taught me that the mark of a man is in being both tough as nails about what he believes and fights for and tender toward those he fights for.

You shared the words that your first husband, Jim, wrote, before he was martyred for his faith: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

You showed me that faithful obedience and surrender to Jesus aren’t the keys to joy. They are the joy, that a heart given over completely to God is a heart at rest.

You helped me see that trust doesn’t always require explanations or answers or reasons why. Faith is its own reward and God above all is enough.

You defined true femininity when you wrote these words: “. . . my plea is let me be a woman, holy through and through, asking for nothing but what God wants to give me, receiving with both hands and with all my heart whatever that is”.

I hear God saying to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into your rest.”

I and so many others will carry on your legacy you left behind in your books and speeches and letters. We are your legacy.

So thank you. May all who come behind us also find us equally faithful.

A Psalm for When You’re at the End of Your Rope

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image

“May the Eternal’s answer find you, come to rescue you,
when you desperately cling to the end of your rope.
May the name of the True God of Jacob be your shelter.
May He extend hope and help to you from His holy sanctuary
and support you from His sacred city of Zion.
May He remember all that you have offered Him;
may your burnt sacrifices serve as a prelude to His mercy.
[pause]
May He grant the dreams of your heart
and see your plans through to the end.
When you win, we will not be silent! We will shout
and raise high our banners in the great name of our God!
May the Eternal say yes to all your requests.
I don’t fear; I’m confident that help will
come to the one anointed by the Eternal:
heaven will respond to his plea;
His mighty right hand will win the battle.
Many put their hope in chariots, others in horses,
but we place our trust in the name of the Eternal One, our True God.
Soon our enemies will collapse and fall, never to return home;
all the while, we will rise and stand firm.
Eternal One, grant victory to our king!
Answer our plea for help” (Psalm 20).

I think that says it all.

An Exciting New Adventure

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image

“There is absolutely no experience, however terrible, or heartbreaking, or unjust, or cruel, or evil, which you can meet in the course of your earthly life, that can harm you if you but let Me teach you how to accept it with joy; and to react to it triumphantly as I did myself, with love and forgiveness and with willingness to bear the results of wrong done by others. Every trial, every test, every difficulty and seemingly wrong experience through which you may have to pass, is only another opportunity granted to you of conquering an evil thing and bringing out of it something to the lasting praise and glory of God.” ― Hannah Hurnard, Mountains of Spices

I feel a bit like Bilbo Baggins.

For those of you who aren’t nerds, Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who is very much a homebody until Gandalf the great wizard invites him to be a part of a great adventure involving dwarfs and gold and dragons. If you want more info, read The Hobbit.

My temp assignment ended today, leaving me unemployed. Part of me is excited at the prospect of what God has in store for me. Part of me is scared in such a way that I won’t have to go to the bathroom for a while. Catch my drift?

God has a proven track record in my life. Up to this point, He has yet to fail me or let me down. True, His answers may not come when I want or look like what I expected, but they are always greater, not less, than what I dreamed.

The upside is that I can sleep in tomorrow. I have a bit of free time to hang out if you so desire. The downside is that I will be broke soon.

This could be a prime opportunity to panic. I choose instead to see it as a test of faith and another arena for God to once again prove Himself faithful. Did I mention that I’m a “glass half full” kind of guy?

More exciting installments of my new adventure to follow.

The Final Exam of Life

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finalexam

If there is a final exam at the end of my life (and I seriously hope there’s not one because I haven’t studied in a very long time), I like to think there would be one question. I think of all the questions God could ask, it will not be these:

“DId you read your Bible enough?’

“Did you tithe enough and support enough missionaries and causes?”

“Did you have the correct theological beliefs and vote for the person who toted the biggest Bible?”

None of these. One question will be on that final and it will be this:

“Did you love well?”

Did you love those people in your everyday life? Did you take time to speak to those in your office or classroom? Did you give friendly smile to people who passed you on the street? For all your talk of how much you love God, did people see it lived out in you toward those who needed it?

Love is about saying to someone, “I see you when nobody else does. I hear you when no one else will listen. I will do whatever I can to help you become the person you always wanted to be.”

That kind of love is the love God has toward us.

The problem is that we have too many likes and not enough love. We have too many Facebook friends and not enough real relationships. Our vision gets narrow and we miss the people around us who will go through an entire day without anyone speaking to them or acknowledging them.

I will say this.

It is not okay to ignore someone who speaks to you or texts you or messages you.

It is not okay to get up and move when someone sits down at your table just because you don’t feel like talking to them.

It is not okay to defriend someone or cut them off as punishment, especially if that person never knows what they did wrong.

It is not okay to be friendly to everyone in your office or class and single out one person to not talk to.

Remember, each person bears the image of God, distorted as it may be though sin. Each person is a uniquely valuable creation that God made and Jesus died for. To treat anyone less is to treat what God made and what Jesus died for with disdain. You can’t love God if you don’t love His people. All of them.

Even further, what you did to the least of these– regardless of whether they live in a third world country or next door, whether they dress in rags or tailor-made three piece suits, you do to Jesus.

I want to live my life so that at the end I can say I loved well as I was loved well by Jesus. I will never love perfectly, but I will never stop trying. I may lose my way from time to time, but God’s love will always gently guide me back to His heart for His people.

May we all find that love and live that love. May God’s heart for people be ours. And when that final question on that final exam comes, I’m praying we will not only know the answer in theory, but will have lived it out so that our lives are an essay and a testimony to how good God’s love is.

Things I Love 12: Tested And Approved by Lucy The Wonder Kitty

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island hammock

Lucy is in my lap, approving  whatever I type. Of course, she can’t read, but if she could, she would add her own comments (most of which would not be fit to print in a family-style blog such as this one). So I’ll take her silence as either approval or extreme sleepiness.

The list commences with #264 (I think).

264) Ice-cold water to quench my thirst on a humid summer day.

265) A long walk alone under a full moon at night (as opposed to all those moonlit walks during the day).

266) That I’m finally at a place where I’m comfortable alone or in a crowd.

267) Planned spontaneity.

268) That I’ve come to the place where if I never see a certain person ever again (and at the moment it appears very likely to be the case), that I will be glad for the friendship; I will miss her, but my life will go on.

269) Those quiet moments of peace where God speaks into my silence.

270) That with God, every day is a day to look forward to.

271) Reading collects out of The Book of Common Prayer and seeing my own prayers expressed better than I could ever put them.

272) That this blog site has spell-check so that I can appear smarter than I really am, i.e. that I can actually spell.

273) That I really don’t have to be friends with everyone or have everyone like me to be content.

274) That everything will be fine in the end, and if it’s not fine, it’s not the end.

275) Good lines from good movies (like the one I just referenced earlier).

276) Chocolate bars with bacon in them (it sounds gross, but tastes divine).

277) All of my quirks

278) That I have to show my driver’s license to prove that I really am the age I say I am.

279) That even though Jon Acuff might have more readers for one blog than I’ve had for all my 1,000+ blogs combined, that I have touched and impacted lives that wouldn’t have been touched and impacted had I chosen not to write a blog.

280) That I can use bad grammar, and bad punctuation, in my blogs, if I so, choose.

281) Those rare times when the Church is known for what it’s for rather than what it’s against.

282) That I can learn something from anybody, no matter what their philosophical, theological, political or social beliefs and regardless of whether or not they have the same worldview as mine.

283) That hamburger from The Pharmacy with bacon, ham, and a fried egg (10,000 calories of deliciousness!)

284) That the last spoken words from Jesus in the Bible aren’t a condemnation but an invitation.

285) When I talk into a box fan and make my voice sound like a robot.

286) That being grown-up doesn’t always mean having to be mature all the time.

287) That the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

288) The way my cat Lucy hovers when she goes to the bathroom.

289) Not knowing all the answers (or even all of the questions).

290) A perfectly made and perfectly thrown paper airplane.

291) That I saw the actual Batmobile from the campy 60’s TV show tonight in downtown Franklin

292) That this list will continue– maybe tomorrow, maybe not. You’ll just have to tune in tomorrow to find out. Same bat time, same bat channel.

For All the Phonies in the World

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Let me ask you something. Just between you and me (and the world wide web). Do you ever feel like a phony?

Do you ever hear yourself giving Sunday School answers to real life questions? Do you ever feel that you’re praying what you think God wants to hear instead of what’s really in your heart? Do you ever lie awake at night wondering what would happen if the people around you knew what you were really thinking? What you were really like?

There’s good news that sounds like bad news at first. God knows. God knows it all. He knows all the faux-prayers and the religious jargon you talk sometimes. He knows what you do and what you think when no one’s watching. That seems like bad news until you get to the clincher. He loves you anyway.

He loves you at your phoniest. He loves you at your meanest. He loves you at your darkest moments in the middle of the night. He looks at you and doesn’t see phony. He looks at you and sees Jesus and what Jesus did in your place. He sees the perfect life Jesus lived instead of your own very imperfect existence.

Best of all, God sees you for who you will be instead of who you are. He sees what He designed you to be. He promised to not stop working on you until you’re 100% real and complete.

In the meantime, it’s okay to be real and honest and admit you have made a mess of your life. It’s okay to confess you don’t have all the answers, or even all the questions. It’s really not about how much you know or how well you act but how much you are loved.

I raise my glass and toast to all the phonies who are stepping forward to take off the mask and be honest about themselves. I drink to all the pretenders who just got real. I salute all of you who are letting down the walls on what God is doing in your life so others can see grace at work and how love can transform a person. That’s where the freedom is. That’s where I want to be. I hope you do, too.

Some things I have learned what it means to care

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out-of-solitude

First of all, everyone should read the little book, Out of Solitude by Henri Nouwen, which is the basis for this blog. It’s only 63 pages and you can read it in an hour or two and be radically changed.

Care at its core means “to grieve, to experience sorrow, to cry out with.” It means weeping with those who weep. It means sharing joy and laughter. It means that I come out of my protective shell, become vulnerable and step into your world. It means that I realize that there is no one anywhere that I can not identify with if I am honest with myself. I have it in me to be kind or cruel, honest or a liar, warm-hearted or cold-blooded, etc. It means that I don’t have to give the right answers or even give answers at all. I can sit with someone who is hurting and cry with them and let that be enough.

One old saying that I like goes like “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Jesus is the best at this.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

Henri Nouwen writes, “By the honest recognition and confession of our human sameness we can participate in the care of God who came, not to the powerful but to the powerless, not to be different but to be the same, not to take our pain away but to share it. Through this participation, we can open our hearts to each other and form a new community.” A “fellowship of the broken,” as he calls it.

I am broken and empty of anything God can use. I am full of myself and until I learn to empty myself of all that I think is so good about me and let God fill me with Himself, I can never truly care and serve. Until I give up the desire to do good make a name for myself and simply be available to people in need, I miss the blessing of seeing God really work through me. That’s what I want. That’s what I need. That is community.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.