The Voice

That Faith Chapter

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“All these I have mentioned died in faith without receiving the full promises, although they saw the fulfillment as though from a distance. These people accepted and confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on this earth because people who speak like this make it plain that they are still seeking a homeland. If this was only a bit of nostalgia for a time and place they left behind, then certainly they might have turned around and returned. But such saints as these look forward to a far better place, a heavenly country. So God is not ashamed to be called their God because He has prepared a heavenly city for them” (Hebrews 11:13-16, The Voice).

I thought about the next blog post as I drove down Concord Road on my way home. I had the windows rolled down, inviting the balmy and breezy night air in as Ray Charles bemoaned in the background. That really has nothing much to do with what follows, but I thought it might enhance my cool hipster factor a bit.

Here goes.

God is not ashamed of you. That’s the takeaway from tonight’s Kairos.

In Hebrews 11, there’s a long list of heroes of the faith. By faith, they conquered their circumstances and clung to faith in God in the midst of overwhelming odds.

Just about every one of them also had a major blunder or two on their resumes. We’re talking about adultery, drunkenness, lying, and the like.

Yet they’re heroes.

The longer I live, the more convinced I am that the real heroes are the ones who persevere and keep putting one foot in front of the other, no matter what. They readily acknowledge their weaknesses and grab hold of God with everything they’ve got.

God is never ashamed of anyone who reaches out to Him in faith. God will never despise anyone who calls out to Him in the midst of a great despair.

It’s not about great deeds of heroism but small acts of kindness and faithfulness over a lifetime that leave a legacy. It’s the determination to keep going in spite of repeated failures and mistakes.

Ultimately, it’s much more about God keeping His promises to us than it is about us keeping our promises to Him.

God is not ashamed of you. The end.

 

Hope Is a Revolutionary Patience

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“I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up” (Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life).

Whatever it is that you’re waiting for, never lose hope. Don’t quit now.

Remember that in hope, what matter isn’t just what you get at the end, but what you become in the process of waiting. Sometimes, the enduring is what makes you ready to receive what it is that you’ve been hoping and waiting for.

So my word to you is this: keep waiting and hoping.

God will either grant you what you desire or give you something much bigger and better than your mind can yet conceive or comprehend.

I’ve learned in all my years of waiting that the best outcome is that you find that God Himself is enough, with or without whatever you hope to get in the waiting process. God is enough.

So don’t give up. Let God have His way in you and let hope flourish in you during the waiting. It will be worth it in the end.

“Jesus leads us into a place of radical grace where we are able to celebrate the hope of experiencing God’s glory. And that’s not all. We also celebrate in seasons of suffering because we know that when we suffer we develop endurance, which shapes our characters. When our characters are refined, we learn what it means to hope and anticipate God’s goodness. And hope will never fail to satisfy our deepest need because the Holy Spirit that was given to us has flooded our hearts with God’s love” (Romans 5:2-5, The Voice).

The Space Between the Words

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“The spirit lives in the space between the words. The danger in becoming too wordy is that we miss the space between the words” (Macrina Wiederkehr, Seven Sacred Pauses: Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day).

I often think about something I learned in one of my advertising classes at Union University. The key when you’re creating an ad is not to cram in as many words and images as possible onto a flyer or a brochure. People would be overwhelmed by all the information hitting them all at once, and thus be highly unlikely to actually read the ad.

White space in an ad is extremely important in allowing the eye to rest and emphasizing the words and images.

Most of us live our lives at such a frenetic pace, trying to fill every possible space with words and activity and doing. No wonder so many of us feel like we’re running in place, exerting a great deal of energy but not really moving any place.

It’s vitally important to create margins in our lives. Those are the white spaces where we find rest. It’s also crucial to embrace silence and stillness not as enemies of our productivity but as allies in our quest to work and play smarter and not just harder.

How can any of us hear God speak if we leave no space between our words and our deeds? How can any of us grow into the grace of God apart from margins and boundaries?

No one naturally gravitates toward silence and stillness. Most of us will, left to our own devices, trend toward the tyranny of the urgent instead of nurturing and caring for what is most important– our communion with our Maker.

“When all the sheep have been gathered, [The Good Shepherd] walks on ahead of them; and they follow him because they know his voice” (John 10:4, The Voice).

God’s Inner Circle

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Perhaps you’ve been around an inner circle or two. You know what it feels like not to be included, not to have the inside information. No matter how long you’ve been around, you never get invited to said inner circle.

The good news of the gospel is for outsiders like you and me. The hope that Jesus offers is for those who never quite fit in or say the right things.

God has an inner circle and guess what? You’re invited in.

God’s inner circle is big enough for all of us. It’s for all the misfits and losers and has-beens out there.

Jesus said to His followers, “I don’t call you servants any longer; servants don’t know what the master is doing, but I have told you everything the Father has said to Me. I call you friends” (John 15:15).

You get to be a part of what God is doing in the world. You don’t have to know the password or the secret handshake. You don’t have to wear the right clothes or know the right catch-phrases. You don’t need a hipster haircut or facial hair.

All that is required is that you say YES to God in Jesus. All God wants to be able to use you is you.

This is a repeat but worth repeating: God chose you because He wanted you. He didn’t pick you because the people He really wanted were already taken. He saw you and chose you because He wanted (and still wants) you. He made you with a unique combination of talents and passions and a calling that only you can fulfill.

You get to be a part of God’s inner circle, a circle that’s wide enough for everyone who wants in. No one who truly seeks Him in faith ever gets turned away.

 

 

Refiner’s Fire

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I can think of no better illustration of what it means to be refined under God’s hand until we start to resemble our Maker than the following:

“One day we took the children to see a goldsmith refine gold after the ancient manner of the East. He was sitting beside his little charcoal fire. (‘He shall sit as a refiner’; the gold- or silversmith never leaves his crucible once it is on the fire.)

In the red glow lay a common curved roof tile; another tile covered it like a lid. This was the crucible. In it was the medicine made of salt, tamarind fruit and burnt brick dust, and imbedded in it was the gold.

The medicine does its appointed work on the gold, ‘then the fire eats it,’ and the goldsmith lifts the gold out with a pair of tongs, lets it cool, rubs it between his fingers, and if not satisfied puts it back again in fresh medicine.

This time he blows the fire hotter than it was before, and each time he puts the gold into the crucible, the heat of the fire is increased; ‘it could not bear it so hot at first, but it can bear it now; what would have destroyed it then helps it now.’

‘How do you know when the gold is purified?’ we asked him, and he answered, ‘When I can see my face in it [the liquid gold in the crucible] then it is pure’” (Amy Carmichael, Gold Cord).

When God sees His face in us, then we shall be pure.

“Like a refiner of silver,
    He will purify the descendants of Levi—
Until they are pure, unalloyed gold and silver.
    Then they will draw near to the Eternal One,
Presenting offerings with righteous, clean hands” (Malachi 3:3, The Voice)

 

Songs from the Wood: Listening to Nature

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I’m not a proponent of worshipping nature. That’s akin to worshipping the message rather than the Messenger, or the creation rather than the Creator.

I spent some time today at Radnor Lake State Park with a friend. Even after all this time, it’s like stepping out of the world I know into a strange, slower, more peaceful world where the pace is slower but the beauty is richer.

I do believe that if you listen closely, you can hear nature (or rather God speaking through nature). It might go something like this:

“I have existed long before you and will still remain long after you have gone. In contrast to your hurried and busy lives, my rhythms are slow and easy. My seasons flow into one another at their leisure and the changes are few and small, building over time.

I speak in hushed tones and in quiet ways. Often, you are so accustomed to noise that you miss my words. You are used to constant bombardment and flashy displays and do not see the gentle beauty I offer.

To listen to me, you must learn to quiet your soul and calm your spirit. You must open your clenched fists into a posture of receiving and giving. You must learn to see beauty in the small as well as the great.

I will not compete with your frenetic striving and ceaseless chatter. I will wait until you can learn to be still and know.”

“The celestial realms announce God’s glory;
    the skies testify of His hands’ great work.
Each day pours out more of their sayings;
    each night, more to hear and more to learn.
Inaudible words are their manner of speech,
    and silence, their means to convey.
Yet from here to the ends of the earth, their voices have gone out;
    the whole world can hear what they say” (Psalm 19:1-4, The Voice).

My Prayer for You

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 “It is for this reason that I bow my knees before the Father, after whom all families in heaven above and on earth below receive their names, and pray:

Father, out of Your honorable and glorious riches, strengthen Your people. Fill their souls with the power of Your Spirit so that through faith the Anointed One will reside in their hearts. May love be the rich soil where their lives take root. May it be the bedrock where their lives are founded so that together with all of Your people they will have the power to understand that the love of the Anointed is infinitely long, wide, high, and deep, surpassing everything anyone previously experienced. God, may Your fullness flood through their entire beings” (Ephesians 3:14-19, The Voice).

This is my prayer for all of you tonight, as originally prayed by the Apostle Paul.

The Paraclete

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“I will ask the Father to send you another Helper, the Spirit of truth, who will remain constantly with you. The world does not recognize the Spirit of truth, because it does not know the Spirit and is unable to receive Him. But you do know the Spirit because He lives with you, and He will dwell in you” (John 14:16-17, The Voice).

I saw something remarkable today. I’m a greeter at The Church at Avenue South, so I stood at my usual position at the front door and welcomed the good folks on their way into the building.

I saw an older man walking beside a younger man. Upon further inspection, he had his arm around the younger man’s arm, guiding him toward the door. As they drew nearer, it became apparent that the young man was blind. Ok, so I can be a little slow on the uptake sometimes.

That to me was a beautiful picture of the Holy Spirit, who is often called the Paraclete. That translates as Comforter, but it literally means “One who walks alongside.”

I couldn’t help thinking after this morning how often the Holy Spirit will come alongside us and guide us into truth in much the same way. I know that I can so often be like the Pharisees who bragged about how they could see but were really so blind to the truths coming out of Jesus’ mouth.

Often, I need help getting where Jesus wants me to go. On my own, I’ve been known to stray from the narrow path and miss what Jesus is trying to tell me.

That picture will always be in my mind. It wasn’t a picture of someone being frog-marched against their will but of gentle nudges in the right direction. It was complete trust and surrender that the one leading knew best.

Do you and I trust that the Holy Spirit of God knows best? Will we allow ourselves to be lead by Someone who knows where He is leading us and that it is for our ultimate good? Will we surrender to our ideas of where we need to go and what we need to do and simply follow unquestioningly without hesitation?

That’s my prayer for tonight. I hope it’s yours as well.

There Will Be Days

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“How fortunate are those You discipline, O Eternal One,
    those You train by Your divine law;
You relieve them in times of distress,
    until a grave is dug for evildoers” (Psalm 94:12-13, The Voice).

There will be days when you’re not at your best. You won’t be 100% and you might even feel a bit fuzzy-headed.

There will be days when all the old fears and anxieties that you thought you had mastered come rushing back once more to haunt you.

There will be days when it feels like two steps forward and roughly about 9,998 steps backward.

There will be days when the lies seem so much easier to believe than God’s promises and God seems so very far away.

There will be days that you start off already feeling weary and worn even before your first cup of coffee.

God uses even these days to mature you and prune you and refine you. God works even these days for your ultimate good.

You can still find blessings and gifts on days like these if you know where to look and how to look in anticipation with joy and thanksgiving.

These days still only last 24 hours and not one second longer.

You will get through. God will see to it.

 

God Makes Miracles out of Messes

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“Now to the God who can do so many awe-inspiring things, immeasurable things, things greater than we ever could ask or imagine through the power at work in us” (Ephesians 3:20, The Voice).

“God makes miracles out of messes.”

That was on a church sign that I passed on my way home.

How many of us have felt like we’ve made a mess of everything– careers, finances, relationships?

How many times have so many of us reached a certain point in life and looked back and wondered if we’d done anything of significance that might leave a lasting influence?

God makes miracles out of messes. God takes chaos and brings out of it a new creation.

There is nothing and no one too far gone, too messed up, too broken beyond repair for God to use for His glory.

There is no such thing as too late for God to begin His transformative work.

Maybe that gives you renewed hope.

Maybe that’s a lifeline for you to cling to in a sea of voices that are telling you that you’ve wasted your life.

God makes miracles out of messes.

Let that be your mantra as you fall asleep tonight, knowing that God never ceases watching over you and working in you for your good.