Kairos

41

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“In the Bible, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights.
Day 41 came and the rain stopped.

Moses committed murder & hid in the desert for 40 years.
Year 41 came, and God called him to help rescue Israel.

Moses went up on the mountain for 40 days.
On day 41, he received the Ten Commandments.

The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.
Year 41, they walked into the Promised Land.

Goliath taunted Israel for 40 days.
Day 41 came, and David slew him.

Jonah preached a message of repentance to Ninevah for 40 days.
On day 41, God stopped His plan to destroy them.

Jesus fasted and was tempted for 40 days.
Day 41, and the devil fled.

After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to His disciples for 40 days.
On day 41, He ascended into Heaven.

All this to say…don’t quit. The rain will stop, the giant will fall, and you will enter your ‘promised land.’ Don’t give up at 40.

41 is coming” (Chelsie Zurcher Wren).

In the Bible, the number 40 represents testing or trials — and sometimes judgment. All these examples show that what we endure may be severe but it is always finite. There’s a limit.

Sometimes 40 days can seem like forever. But just as the rainbow of God’s promise followed the flood, so day 41 will surely follow that 40th day of testing.

I’m not promising vast material blessings will come your way, but I do think God’s favor follows adversity, provided its because of enduring trials and not receiving consequences for sinful actions.

God is faithful. God honors those who honor Him, and the eyes of the Lord roam the earth seeking those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. All it takes is a mustard seed amount of faith in a mountain-moving God.

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A Lenten Prayer

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“O Lord, this holy season of Lent is passing quickly,
I entered into it with fear, but also with great expectations.
I hoped for a great breakthrough, a powerful conversion, a real change of heart;
I wanted Easter to be a day so full of light that not even a trace 
of darkness would be left in my soul.
But I know that you do not come to your people with thunder and lightning.
Even St. Paul and St. Francis journeyed through much darkness
before they could see your light.
Let me be thankful for your gentle way.
I know you are at work.
I know you will not leave me alone, 
I know you are quickening me for Easter – 
but in a way fitting to my own history and my own temperament.
I pray that these last three weeks, in which you invite me to enter 
more fully into the mystery of your passion,
will bring me a greater desire to follow you on the way you create for me
and to accept the cross that you give to me.
Let me die to the desire to choose my own way and select my own cross.
You do not want to make me a hero but a servant who loves you.
Be with me tomorrow and in the days to come,
and let me experience your gentle presence.
Amen” (Henri Nouwen).

Lord, may the last three weeks of Lent not be wasted. Help me to use my time away from social media to create margins of unhurried space within my day for me to hear Your voice speaking to me. Give me a quiet heart and a calm mind to receive Your words. Above all, grant me the ability and willingness to obey what I hear. Amen.

The Fear of God

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“I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly Father nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a benign teddy bear that there is no aberrant behavior or desire of mine that he will not condone. I want a relationship with the Abba of Jesus, who is infinitely compassionate with my brokenness and at the same time an awesome, incomprehensible, and unwieldy Mystery” (Brennan Manning).

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
    and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10, NIV)

The fear of God was the topic of tonight’s sermon from Kairos. I don’t mean fear as in uncontrollable terror, but more as a reverential awe. A healthy fear of God means that I can’t stay comfortable in my own sin, but this God who loves me as I am won’t leave me that way, but does all that is in His power to make me just like Jesus.

This God of the Bible isn’t a daft old grandfatherly type who will wink at your misdeeds and sins. This is the God who is completely Other, whom we could never hope to know if He hadn’t chosen to reveal Himself to us.

My favorite illustration of the fear of God comes from John Piper. He said it’s like witnessing a mighty thunderstorm from the safety of a shelter. You see the majesty and power of the storm but are protected from the danger of it.

This God of love is also a God of holiness. Jesus Himself said that God’s standard is perfection, yet Jesus also met that standard on our behalf. He said not to fear those who can kill the body only, but to fear Him who can kill the body and the soul, namely God.

I’m thankful God poured the wrath that my own sins deserved on Jesus. I hope I never take for granted that my sins always are costly and always bring death in some form. I hope I never lose sight of the wonder and awe and mystery of God who has made Himself known in the person of Jesus.

 

Further Kairos Takeaways

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“Jesus continued from there toward Jerusalem and came to another village. Martha, a resident of that village, welcomed Jesus into her home. Her sister, Mary, went and sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him teach. Meanwhile Martha was anxious about all the hospitality arrangements.

Martha (interrupting Jesus): Lord, why don’t You care that my sister is leaving me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to get over here and help me.

Jesus: Oh Martha, Martha, you are so anxious and concerned about a million details, but really, only one thing matters. Mary has chosen that one thing, and I won’t take it away from her” (Luke 10:38-42).

Tonight’s guest speaker, Jason Cook, spoke from Luke 10:38-42 about choosing the better way. In this culture where we idolize busyness and being on the go non-stop, we look to Martha as having chosen rightly.

Yet Jesus sees Mary doing nothing but sitting at His feet and listening as having chosen the better way. Instead of doing a million things for Jesus, she’s chosen to be with Jesus.

It’s very easy to get so caught up in serving Jesus that we forget to spend time with Him. Christianity can become so much about activities and rituals that  we forget what it’s really all about.

Jesus is saying two words that have almost become anathema in this day and age– SLOW DOWN. Stop and listen. Rest in My presence and learn from Me.

Sometimes, we need to stop talking at God, running down our laundry lists of requests and petitions, be still and listen.

There’s a time for asking, but there’s also a time for adoration. There’s the command to keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking, but there’s also the command to be still.

Maybe today we can choose the better way, if only for a few moments, to hear the voice of Jesus over all the other voices clamoring for our attention.

 

The Fear of Being Known (Stolen from Kairos)

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It’s odd that we long to be known, yet at the same time we have a fear of being known. I think we want to be known by our best self we present via social media and not all the parts that we try to repress and hide.

To be fully known is to be honest, transparent, and vulnerable. It means taking the risk of rejection, but the reward is the realization that you are not alone in your struggles and insecurities and addictions and flaws.

I think all of us have at one point thought something akin to “If you really knew me, deep down, with all that I’ve done, you’d walk right out of my life and never look back.”

I believe one of Satan’s greatest lies to keep us isolated and alone is “You’re the only one who struggles with _________. You are a freak and a pervert and a disgusting human being because of your sin or habit. You don’t deserve to be known.”

As I once read, demons die in the light. Lies die in the light that comes from accountability and disclosure within a small and trusted group of people who will encourage and challenge you.

No one ever finds healing in isolation. You need community to help you find your truest and best self. God never meant for there to be any Lone Ranger Christians. And even the Lone Ranger had Tonto.

As you know, fear stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. The reality is that everyone struggles and sins and falls headlong into temptation. Everyone has addictions and habits and sins that they’d prefer to keep hidden.

I always remember that God knows me more fully than I even know myself and still loves me unconditionally. He accepts me as I am but refuses to leave me that way. He calls us to love each other in the same way and to accept from each other nothing less than God’s very best.

H. A. L. T.

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Note: I’m not taking credit for any of what follows. I’m only trying to reproduce it as faithfully as I can.

Everyone knows that you’re most vulnerable to temptation when you’re hungry, angry, lonely, and/or tired. Any one of these is tough to overcome, but a combination of two or more makes it even harder.

At Kairos tonight, Chris Brooks suggested some methods to deal with these emotions.

When you’re tired, you need to fill up on God and His word. As strange as it sounds, the best way to do that is to fast, whether that be from food or social media or anything that can distract you from or take the place of God in your heart.

When you’re angry, it’s best to seek awareness of what it is that is causing that emotion. Rather than always blaming something or someone else, you need to look within to find what’s off in your own life. The best way is by spending time in silent reflection.

When you’re lonely, you want to seek to be united in the fellowship of brothers and sisters in Christ. You want to seek to love and be loved. Sometimes, that takes the form of seeking guidance by asking others to speak into your loneliness or sometimes you need solitude to be better able to interact with others out of a place of wholeness and not approval-seeking.

When you’re tired, sometimes you need a time out from doing. God created the Sabbath so that we could rest and worship (and sometimes the best worship can be resting). No one was ever meant to go full-steam 24/7.

Something that grabbed my attention is the idea of secrecy– that is, doing an act of service and kindness for someone else with the intention of no one finding out. That way you take the attention off yourself and put it on another.

Again, I’m parroting what I learned tonight. I’m probably leaving out a good deal of important information, but I myself am tired, so I will make use of Chris’ advice and get me some rest.

 

 

Feeling a Little Feverish

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I’ll keep this short because I’m feeling a tad feverish tonight. Not in any way sick or bad, just a case of the mild chills.

Kairos was fantastic as usual. My takeaway is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ makes us secret keepers who turn into secret tellers when we pass on the hope that we have because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

No matter how I’m feeling, good or bad or indifferent, that secret still rings true. It’s still the hope that all the world has been looking for from the very beginning until now.

All I need tonight is a couple of Ibuprofen, lots of vitamin C, a good night’s sleep, and Jesus.

 

A Royal Waste of Time

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Tonight, Chris Brooks talked about wasting your life . . . in a good way. The idea is that you give up pursuing what society and the media and culture tell you are worthy pursuits, and you spend your time, your talents, and your treasures to reach out to the least of these that the world calls nobodies.

You waste your life (according to the world) if you live selflessly and sacrificially and deliberately choose not to keep up with the proverbial Joneses.

You waste your life if you serve and give to those who will most likely never have the means to pay back what you’ve done for them.

You waste your life if you give up a promising career to go halfway around the world to serve the poverty-stricken in a third world country.

You royally wasted your time and your life (according to everything the world tells you) every time you lift your voice and your hands in worship to celebrate a baby born in a barn and laid in a feeding trough and who favored the outcasts and the marginalized but who is now the Risen King who lives forevermore.

If that’s a waste of time, let me be the first to waste my life for the God who didn’t spare any of His own life for me but lavishly wasted it on me in the person of Jesus Christ.

Here’s the book Chris mentioned in his sermon:

A Good End to the Day

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“And I will not remember
That I even felt the pain.
We shall walk and talk
In gardens all misty and wet with rain
And I will never, never, never
Grow so old again” (Van Morrison, Sweet Thing).

I’m currently tucked into my bed with a purring feline burrowed under the covers and hanging out near my feet. I never said she was a normal feline, but she’s fun to have around and can at times be extremely cuddly and affectionate. I believe with all my heart that rescues are the best kind of pets to have, as they are the most grateful animals.

It was a grey drizzly kind of day all day. We never got the gallons of rain forecasted from the remnants of Hurricane Irma. It was more of a soft misty kind of rain that made me long for a fireplace and a hot cup of tea.

I had Astral Weeks by Van Morrison playing in the car on the way home from my obligatory stop Chick-fil-A after Kairos. It seemed like the perfect music for unwinding at the end of the day. And I had chicken noodle soup and no, I wasn’t sick. I chose it because it fit the rainy day perfectly.

It may only be Tuesday, but so far this week’s shaping up to be another good one. Hopefully, the sun will come out sooner than later, but I woke up again this morning, so I’m not going to complain too much about a little rain.

 

 

Sabbath Rest

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“In a culture where busyness is a fetish and stillness is laziness, rest is sloth. But without rest, we miss the rest of God: the rest he invites us to enter more fully so that we might know him more deeply. ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ Some knowing is never pursued, only received. And for that, you need to be still. Sabbath is both a day and an attitude to nurture such stillness. It is both time on a calendar and a disposition of the heart. It is a day we enter, but just as much a way we see. Sabbath imparts the rest of God—actual physical, mental, spiritual rest, but also the rest of God— the things of God’s nature and presence we miss in our busyness” (Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath).

I’m still mulling over what Chris Brooks said at Kairos tonight about Sabbath rest. We don’t rest from our work as much as we work from our rest.

Most of us go non-stop full speed ahead for five days and then come to a screeching halt for two days. Then we start the madness all over again.

Some never stop. They go all out, thinking that sleep and rest can wait. Unfortunately, their bodies often have different ideas.

I think very few of us know how to work from our rest as a form of worship. That’s what the Hebrew word for work also means– worship.

Rest sounds really good to me right now. Actually, sleep sounds great. I think I’ll take myself up on my own advice and call it a night, but not before leaving you with this little nugget.

May you find the rest of God by resting in God, staying your mind on Him throughout the day and working not for but out of your approval as a son or a daughter of God.