Thursday, June 25, 2009

Solitude

"Solitude--The creation of an open, empty space in our lives by purposefully abstaining from interaction with other human beings, so that, freed from competing loyalties, we can be found by God." Life With God Bible

For the past few days I have been attending a Renovare conference in San Antonio, Texas. The first night we were presented with an important question, what did you come here for? That question persisted in my mind as I returned to my room that night.

What did I come here for?

Actually, the question had been forming before that night as I readied myself for the trip. Why was I going? I was going because it was in San Antonio, because we have family there, because it was just a week before our annual trip to Texas, because we were richly blessed at a previously attended Renovare conference.

But this time I was going alone. The separation from my dear husband has been good, it helped me realize how much I value his presence, his wisdom. I have missed him terribly. There were many times previously in our 30something years of marriage in which that would not have been the case.

So, why did I come? I can enjoy quiet and solitude at our home outside a small town. Why fly halfway across the country to a big Texas city? Was I looking for Truth, for God, or for entertainment from Christian celebrities and bragging rights to having been at a big event?

I think I came because I felt I should, a response to an invitation from my Redeemer to meet him here. In the solitude of 2500 fellow attendees, in a big city in Texas.

My coming created an open space in my life, a space where I abstained from the presence of my family and friends, the distractions of routine things so that I could be found by God.

He's a very jealous God, you know. If we fail to take the initiative, He will create those open spaces for us in whatever way is necessary. Whatever way--a trip across country, an emotional breakdown, death, injury. Our competing loyalties are legion.

But His love for us is too great to allow us to settle for anything less than His presence.  And so He creates those open spaces for us, knowing that we are too often too feeble to create them for ourselves.

"For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from Him." Psalm 62:5 
jas sig

Monday, June 15, 2009

Perfection

"Crown Him the Lord of love, behold His hands and side,
Those wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his burning eye at mysteries so bright." Matthew Bridges, Crown Him With Many Crowns

Our church had a wonderful music director when I was a child. As part of our participation in the choir, he required completion of a booklet that taught us about classic hymns. I remember my vain attempt to depict this one as a robed stick figure of God, sitting on a throne, and arrayed with a layer cake of crowns on his head. I was a very literal child.  I remember my frustration at that assignment, at my inability to produce something worthy of the subject. My drawing fell woefully short of perfection.

I complain loudly and often to God when life doesn't go as I think it should for me, when my expectations of perfection are not met. And yet, He who is holy and perfect allowed himself to be flawed by the ugliness of my sin. Those marks are eternal. They are the means by which, when I see Him face to face, I will recognize Him as my Redeemer.  He who is holy and perfect gladly bears those scars because of his love for me.  It is humbling to be so loved. I think sometimes I cannot fully bear that sight either.

It is too beautiful, too holy.  And I am too unworthy.

I have a new model of perfection. It is a perfect hand marked with a perfect scar that is both awful and wonderful at the same time.

"No angel in the sky can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his burning eye at mysteries so bright."

"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." Philippians 3:8-11 (NIV)


jas sig




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Saturday, June 13, 2009

Where to hang my soul

Jesus Prayer in Cross-StitchImage by Else10 via Flickr
Every Sunday morning in our church we repeat a creed. You know what it says, "I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible." There's a statement that has nothing whatever to do with my personal opinions or emotions. It's a statement of objective faith, accepted faith, and when I stand up in the company of other Christians and repeat this statement I am not talking about myself at all. The only thing I am saying about myself is that I submit to these truths. This is where I stand; this is Reality.

Very often (nearly always, I am afraid) when I come to church my feelings are uppermost in my mind...But worship is not feeling. Worship is not an experience. Worship is an act, and this takes discipline. We are to worship "in spirit and in truth". Never mind about the feelings. We are to worship in spite of them.

Finding my thoughts scattered in all directions and in need of corralling like so many skittish calves, I kneel before the service begins and ask to be delivered from a vague preoccupation with myself and my own concerns and be turned, during this short hour, to God. Often the words of the Jesus Prayer, which I learned from a book about a Russian pilgrim who spent his life seeking to know the full meaning of it, help in this "corralling":


"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me."


Orthodox Christians pray this over and over, in the rhythm of breathing. This prayer has rescued me from wordlessness in many places quite different than church srevices.

When I stand to say the creed, I am lifted up to eternal verities, far past the trivialities of how I feel, what I must do after church, and what so-and-so said or did to me. I hang my soul on those strong pegs, those "I believes." And I am strengthened.

Sometimes we sing St Patrick's great hymn:

I bind unto myself today
the strong Name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three.

I bind unto myself today
the power of God to hold and lead,
his eye to watch, his might to stay,
his ear to hearken, to my need;

If in fact I do believe these great things we say and sing together, then those little things (and what is not little by comparison?) will be taken care of. I take my position, I get my bearings. I need to do this often---more often, it seems, in these days when so many have altogether lost their bearing.


--excerpted from Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliott, Tyndale Publishers.








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Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Home

"Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule." ~Frederick W. Robertson
Home.

That little four letter word contains a universe of meaning.

My physical home for the last 26 years (New York, then Pennsylvania) has been a long way from the place where I was born and raised.(Texas) I have resisted feeling at home in exile all these years, and my desire to return "home" persists.

Why is that feeling of culture, experience, and memories so compelling? My dear husband speaks about a sense of place that is quickly disappearing among the youth in a very mobile culture. I doubt that the phrase, "always remember where you came from", has any current meaning. It did in previous generations. It summed up the type of character you possessed based on the culture that produced it.  And it does for me now as I long to return to my home, my culture some day. Yet, I know when I do, it will not be the same.  We will both have changed.

But there is an even greater pull on my heart, the call of Heaven.  The place where the Trinity dances in joy at the thought of my arrival. A place that does not change, for the unchanging God dwells there.  A place of righteousness.

There will be no tears, no sorrow, no infirmity, no loss, no injustice, no lies, no loneliness. My family of faith will all be there and it will be the best reunion ever. And there will be a wedding feast. Christ will finally embrace His spotless bride, the church. The celebration will last for eternity.  My soul will find rest.

Home.

It is in my heart's longing for Texas that I have found a small taste of my spirit's longing for Heaven, for Christ, for God.

My true home.
  11Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.[b]That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.2 Peter 3:11-13 (NIV

jas sig

Friday, June 5, 2009

Eternity

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV)

I claim my lifelong optimism as a result of seeing Disney's Pollyanna. Pollyanna's outlook just seemed to be right, at least it fit into the character of a Christian as I had been taught.

In my twenties, I found myself reading Ecclesiastes and hoping I would never turn into a sour old person. I just didn't have enough life experience to understand that "sourness" was wisdom.

At the age of 60something, I identify with the writer of Ecclesiastes. He's right. The things of this world are ephemeral, their joy does not last. I love the note on this verse in the NIV Study Bible,
God's beautiful but tantalizing world is too big for us, yet its satisfactions are too small. Since we are made for eternity, the things of time cannot fully and permanently satisfy.
More and more I understand De Chardin, that I am a not a "human being having a spiritual experience but a spiritual being having a human experience."   We all are.

I also find the verse written by a seeming curmudgeon to be very hopeful. God has set eternity in my heart. My longing for justice, for reconciliation, for truth are evidences of His life in mine.  They are remnants of the glory in which he created Adam and Eve.  The ruins of what once was.

The promise of what will be again.

I am grateful for that. And for the wisdom of a sour old man. "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

All except for that part of Christ, of His eternal Life, that dwells in my heart.
jas sig


Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Naked

When the Lamb of God, the Word with and by which everything was made that was made, came to earth, He came here naked.

When Jesus, King of the Jews, Savior of all, hung on the cross, he hung there naked.

There is something supremely unsettling about the word "naked". It usually conjures up an embarrassed laugh or two, followed by shame, a distasteful sense of vulnerability, and fear.

There is also a sense of holiness, we turn away in reverence.

But if we are to truly emulate our Redeemer, we must be willing to come to our sinful, selfish, scary relationships naked. We must cast aside our fig leaves of pretension and agenda and let others see who we really are, warts and all. That is the way of true humility, the way Jesus entered our lives, and the way we enter the lives of others.

When we do, we find ourselves seated and in His right mind, clothed in the robes of grace.

Jesus was willing to bare and bear all for us. Can we do anything less for Him?
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  Colossians 3:12-13
jas sig