The cross itself

Some people feel like love is okay, but what we really have to do is love God over the humans He made. Others feel like love is okay, but what we really have to do is love the humans God made over the God who made them. You can think of loving God as the vertical beam of the cross. And loving our neighbor as the horizontal beam. To make the cross - Jesus needed both. All that refers to Jesus’ teaching that the two greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbor. (Matthew 22:36-39, and Luke 10:25-28) And how can we have TWO greatEST commands anyway? - Doesn’t greatEST automatically imply that there' can only be one? What’s going on here?

This thinking - in short - is referred to as “dualistic” thinking. It is not the greatest example of dualistic thinking … but it works well enough.

Dualistic thinking is great when you want to know a very simple answer such as “who’s got the best price on gas in my neighborhood?” It falls short of giving a satisfying answer to the really hard questions that people like you and me and those we love face every day. Questions like, “I prayed, and God didn’t answer”, “my relationship’s over and I’m heartbroken”, “why’d my child get this diagnosis?” Some might feel tempted to give a “just do this” answer, or a “all you have to do is bla bla bla” answer - but those responses don’t usually work. They don’t really read the full situation and fall flat.

Truth is most of what I learned in Sunday school left me thinking if I just knew about Noah, and the shepherd boy King, David - I’d always know what to do. Maybe I did learn how to to always know what to do in Sunday school - and just didn’t get it because I was a really bad Sunday school student … but I don’t think so. I needed a Sunday school or youth group that talked about the fact that being adult means the vast majority of my decisions - the “right” decision is the one that’s only 1-2% better. Which major, internship, apartment, car … what to say to my friend, bae, or family member when they’re having a hard time, or they’ve hurt my feelings, or when I feel like I have to let them down. So often really hard situations don’t even have a yes or no/go or stay.

If one of the two greatest commandments was “better” than the other - we’d only have that one. God could’ve made that happen. But that’s not how God set it up. Why?

What if having TWO greatest commandments is a gift for us. What if God did this on purpose - so we’d really get it. What if God knew we had it in us to do more than zero in on one of those. After years of watching students’ grow their faith - I’ve come to appreciate that some are “better” at loving one or the other. It just comes easy for some to put one of those first. It’s having two greatest commandments - both loving God and others that really pushes each and every one of us into a place where we have to give up the idea of “looking smart, or wise, or whatever - because we came up with an easy answer. Being called by God to live by both of those commandments means we are all dealing with a lot of complication all the time - which means we really feel and know our own need to pray for one another, and we really need one another’s help, perspective, wisdom, compassion, patience and on and on and on. And it all reminds us every step of the way that none of us has all the answers - and the journey is so humbling. But there are few things sweeter than watching Jesus’ people live out vertical and horizontal love over and over again. It heals us of our wounds as we follow Him this way. It restores us to a better relationship with God and one another. It’s richly connecting. It’s beautifully genuine - and it grow us up, makes us better than “strong” - it makes us good, kind, and more aware of when our ego is trying to lead us into trouble. It expands our awareness of just how much God loves us that He gave us the cross - with it’s vertical and horizontal beams to remind us how to find our path. I love it.

The Two Greatest Commandments

Every student knows that when your instructor says, “This will be on the test.” you’ve got to understand it. Simple. Maybe not easy, but simple.

In Matthew 22:36-39 we read

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

And very similarly we read in Luke 10:27-28

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

Ever wonder - why are these called the 2 greatest commandments?

According to some, Jesus gave us at least 6 and some say that the grand total for all commandments in the New Testament is over 8,000. Christianity is a 2,000-ish year old faith and whether there’s 6 or 8,000 - it’s complicated.

I believe these are the two greatest commandments because these tie it all together. Jesus came according to John 3:16 because God loved us. God’s commands teach us to love God too - because this is good for us. They also teach us to love one another - because that’s good for us too. This is not a self-indulgent love - but something genuinely healthy, good, and beneficial. When we love God and our neighbor - we live out all of the seven heavenly virtues (charity, chastity, diligence, humility, kindness, patience, and temperance). The more loving we are - the more we live and walk in the virtues. The more we walk in the virtues - the more loving we are to those around us. If we do not love God or our neighbor - we live and walk in the seven deadly sins (greed, lust, sloth, pride, envy, gluttony, and wrath). These are called deadly sins because they have an addictive quality. They are easy to fall into because at least in the moment they feel good. But they have a dreadful power to harm our souls and make our hearts hard.

These are really, really old ideas, and while theologians, philosophers and the like can complicate them - even a child can understand that when we live lovingly - it feels much better than when we live unlovingly.

So - when we follow these two commandments - we get all the other 6 or 8,000 - or however many you count. And if we try to live by all the others - but not these two - it’s not only extremely complicated - but it feels awful. To me - it feels “legalistic”

So why doesn’t every one live by these? It takes courage to love like that. And that makes sense. I mean - who can read about how Jesus and those who followed Him lived and not see their courage? It also takes an awful lot of humility. Humility can be tricky to define - but the kind of love that loves God and loves our neighbor “to life” (an old Benedictine idea) will love us to life too.

Learning to live by these two commandments takes a whole lifetime at least. But it is a beautiful life. The seven deadly sins - even if you know nothing about Jesus, the Bible and never heard the word sin - will wreck all your most valued relationships. The virtues - are the opposite. You could be the least theological and philosophical person in the world - and yet if you treated those around you according to those virtues - they would feel good. And I believe you’d feel good. Even better - God would recognize you as trying to follow Him.

Simple. But not remotely easy. But definitely a really, really beautifully strong and courageously gracious way to live.

sometimes you just gotta breathe

Sometimes the plan needs modifying. You ever have that happen? I started today’s post about the secret sauce for our followership last week. But, as it turns out, today the secret sauce is realizing that the plan for finals week needs to shift a bit. I don’t know how much you have on your plate - but if this resonates with you - then I invite you to modify your plan too. Sometimes I make plans and as soon as they’re made they become set in stone, but that just isn’t how it has to be. There is flexibility when I claim it. Do you need flexibility? Do you need more time or space - or both? I know today I do. So - join me in hitting pause and taking the time. Join me next Thursday for the Secret Sauce.

Till then!

Follow the Leader

Today’s post goes straight to the point. If we worship Jesus - but don’t follow Him, what kind of worship are we offering? What does “worship” mean if we say we worship Him, but we don’t touch the lepers in our lives, or embrace those who are grieving? If the broken, hungry, and searching of the world don’t see in me that they did in Him - what kind of worship am I offering?

Of course, none of us starts off following more than worshipping. That’s just kind of impossible. And the longer we follow His example - the more we experience that following His example really takes all of us laid upon the altar as a living, daily, offering to Him. At least, speaking for myself, it takes everything I have to get up every day and live by His example. It’s a huge, ongoing effort - and after that realization we say, “I coulda had a V8!” or rather the Christian version, “Jesus was amazing!”

And He still is amazing.

But it’s really hard to follow Him, isn’t it? I mean, worship is so beautiful. We can sing our favorite worship song, recite our favski Psalm or parable, or linger a while in soul-nourishing prayer - but none of those things wears on my soul like swallowing that sharp-tongued thing I was going to say, or being neighborly to some stranger who just took my parking spot or, showing patience to the person who just insulted me to my face.

So why do those things, then? I mean if they’re harder to do, and if worship is enough, then why get worked up. Isn’t perfectionism bad for us?

Perfectionism is bad for us, but “me-ism+worship is badder.” You can quote me on that.

Followership, the more I embrace it, is like a daily, spiritual spa treatment for my soul. Jesus uses His example in my life, and His Spirit speaking (and sometimes shouting) to work the thorny bits out of my soul. Following Jesus’ example in my day-to-day, mundane, boring ol’ life teaches me from the top of my soul to the marrow in my bones, that the sharp-tongued thing I was going to say isn’t even about them but is in fact entirely about me, and that reality tends to hit me hard as I’m trying to fall asleep. The stranger I’m neighborly too, might see my tiny little neighborliness and light up my whole day after it happens. Then again, if they don’t see, Jesus may give me grace to think about all the myriads of unrecognized graces He blesses me with. The person who insults me may offer me an opportunity to bask in the security of Jesus’ love without having my ego affirmed at every turn - which is another way to say it can help me build resilience.

So, what I’m saying is that followership leads to much deeper, more meaningful, more soul-engaging worship. Worship that comes from followership connects my daily efforts to Jesus’ daily life. There is nothing we experience on a daily that Jesus didn’t also have to deal with. And that is really humbling. He went through all I’m going through and His response was to die for all those people giving Him all that grief? Followership has a way of putting Jesus on a throne of praises right in my own heart.

Okay - thank you for reading these Lenten season 2023 posts. I am grateful for you. I’m going to keep posting more of this for a bit. I have been informed though, that sometimes the algorithms are not always notifying subscribers and followers of new posts. I am not sure how to fix that today, but I am looking into it. For now - what I’m told is sharing and liking and all that will help the algorithm work better, so if you’d like to help me with that, I’d appreciate it very much.

Come back next week to read about the Secret Sauce!

What's This Maundy Thursday Stuff Anyway?

The other day I mentioned to someone that tomorrow is Maundy Thursday and they shot me a funny look and then said, “I think you mean Mardi Gras”

It’s easy to ignore this. It can also be more comfortable to ignore it.

But I am madly and wildly in love with it.

What do you like to do before the most difficult day of your life? Go to bed early? Special dinner? Extra time doing something you like? Skip out of some responsibilities? What would be your preferred self-care at such a crucial moment?

I’m sitting here going ape that on the night before the worst day ever Jesus’ life - He had a menaingful but simple dinner with the guys He’d been trying to teach everything to for quite some time - and then He sums the whole three years of stomping all over His dusty homeland and sloshing all around that huge Sea of Galilee - and he gets up, get’s comfortable to do His cultures most lowly job - and starts washing His disciples’ feet.

His self-care, was telling us to care for one another, serve one another, Love one another.

Not gimme gimme gimme. Not, “ya know what? I’m gonna eat all the deviled eggs, okay? They’re MY favorite. Not fight over politics - which would’ve been as big a disaster for them as for us because Jesus’ hand-picked disciples subscribed to at least 5 different political parties.

Nope - He’s scrubbing His disciples’ feet. Not feet shod in 21st-century shoes and having ridden around all the last three years in some cushy air-conditioned SUV. Nope. We all know those feet were in need of more than a pedicure. It was the most disrespected job because everyone’s feet were like that and everyone with feet like that or even us today with our pristine, barely used up baby-smooth feet wrapped in plush socks and squishy shoes - LOVES that kind of TLC. And - it just needed to be done. He wanted them to have this bit of loving from Him because He knew what was coming. And as He’s scrubbing the caked-on grime off their tired dogs and toweling them dry, He’s telling them “This is how you love one another.”

For God so LOVED the world He gave His only Son - and His only Son - on His last night with His friends - loved on them like crazy.

The name MAUNDY comes from the Latin word from which we get our modern English word mandate. The Thursday before Good Friday we celebrate Jesus’ commandment - His mandate to love one another.

And I am as certain as I am short - that He gave us that mandate for our good. They were about to have their worst day ever too. A bad day stinks no matter how you slice it - but it sure does stink a whole lot less if you can go through it with those who love you - and I mean love you enough to grab your stinky, crusty, dusty old foot and tenderly scrub it - and still love you all the same if not even just a bit more because ain’t nobody’s foot, or problems, or heart-aches or burdens any better. We’re all carrying the same old awful stuff. Oh sure - yours may seem to be a bit different from mine, but that’s just cuz our human eyes are sometimes easily confused.

And isn’t this so much of what makes Good Friday so good? He went through that bad Friday for our good and it was His good pleasure to do so. Just like it was His good pleasure to let us in on the secret sauce He was going to use in order to get through it. We talk about being united with Him in baptism which was like His death - but I do not think we talk enough about being united with Him in Love.

Love like the kind He washed those feet with and dabbed them dry again - it’s “checkbox” love. It’s transformational love. It’s the kind that absolutely will not work if we attempt it out of obligation. It’s the kind that flows from seeing ourselves as He does - which always is an adjustment from the glitz and glam of the world. He sees our brokenness and loves us anyway - if not all the more. He sees our imperfections and still washes away. He sees all those things about us that we will never figure out how to bring to Him, and still, he gently dries between every single toe. It’s the kind that knows that we just will never give Him some areas of our lives - out of fear, or anger, or blindness or whathaveyou - and still He tells us that the secret sauce that makes it all work in so far as it can work at all, is Love - and even if we never get it as much as He’s love for us to, He’ll still go to the cross for us - out of love for us. He gave the mandate. He modeled the mandate.

Tomorrow is Mandate Thursday.

So we can have a lifetime of Good Fridays.

I’m broken by His wild, unstoppable, infinite love for us.

May we all love one another and together love what remember He did for us.

Wonder Drug - Why I'm Passionate about Compassion

I recently read a recently released book called “Wonder Drug” by Dr. Stephen Trzeciak MD, MPH, who’s chair of medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University and Anthony Mazzarelli MD, JD MBE who’s the co-president and CEO of Cooper University Health Care. They both actually have lots of other roles – but the important thing to note is that they’ve written a book that is as beneficial to them in their positions as it is to anyone else. I became interested in the book when I heard them being interviewed about it on one of my favorite podcasts.

The book is absolutely worth the time it takes to read. Are you a numbers person? There are numbers for you. Are you a stories of personal impact, there are personal stories for you. I like both of the numbers and the stories. Here’s a short list of the lessons that have stuck with me after reading these two doctors’ work that have stuck with me and continue to encourage me.

·       Compassion fatigue is what happens when we almost practice something that looks like compassion but is not compassion purely for compassion’s sake. Practicing compassion to be thought of as compassionate doesn’t carry as many benefits and can even lead to burnout. Practicing compassion towards others at one level and towards yourself at another (or visa versa) also does not work as well. Practicing compassion out of obligation also deprives us of the full benefit of practicing compassion for compassion’s sake. I have grown to love compassion – and find that the more I lean into showing it to my loved ones, those in my church community, those in my local community, and the wider world – the easier it is to show it to myself too. And – I am so imperfect I truly need it. The more I show it the more humanized everyone becomes – the more I can minister to angels unawares and treat strangers and sojourners as I want to believe I would treat Christ. Christ denied compassion to no one. Even those he fought with, he also wanted to gather to him like a hen gathers her chicks.

·       The health field has a long standing position of saying to help people better, professionals need to distance themselves. What these two doctors found though, was that it’s that very disconnect that leads to compassion fatigue. In that case, and this is my paraphrase, compassion fatigue is a result of our human want and need to feel and show compassion being disconnected. We are made for compassionate connection, not discompassionate disconnection. But disconnection is often so painful, we can only do it discompassionately – because it just hurts us. We may not admit this easily to ourselves. I confess that once upon a time I valued big personalities, making “tough calls” with bluff and bluster and maybe even gruffness “for the good” of other. What I’ve come to understand from plenty of tough situations of my own is that I’m afraid that’s kind of crap. There is no strength like the strength of respect, dignity shown with kindness and compassion. I can only do this when I am up-to-date on engaging in the ongoing work on my soul with God to surrender the garbage that keeps me from feeling His loving-kindness, compassion and patient grace with me. I am only as compassionate to myself/others as I allow God to be to me. It takes a lot of intentional strength to stay in this process in a mind-set of progress not perfection.

·       It takes a tiny amount of compassionate connecting time to make a HUGE difference in our lives. Compassion isn’t some fluffy thing that we put out into the world. It is SOUL MEDICINE. The science, the data is clear – compassion doesn’t just feel good to our hearts, it actually protects them from actual physical heart disease. I KNOW!! Not only that – it can literally heal our hearts – spiritually from the burdens we carry in them, and even some of the physical damage in them. Is it a silver bullet? Clearly not. Is it magic? Don’t get me started. Not only does compassion make us feel engaged and meaningfully connected to our work, to our families – and I would say for me – to my purpose for being here, but it can even reverse and help us start to reclaim parts of ourselves that we’ve lost – like our hope, our agency – our ability to make our lives better. And how much time per day are we talking about? 15 minutes. We’ve all had a rough couple of years and I don’t know about you – but I often wish people were less mean, less angry, less irritable. Well. Come join me. Let’s be the change we crave. Can we make others change? And let’s be real, it’s silly to talk about that until I’ve changed me. I have worked hard on these issues in my life long before this book came out last year – but I am reinvigorated in my passion for compassion by this book and all that’s in it. I can’t speak for the rest of the world – but I sure am willing to stand with you as you stand with me – and together we will surely make a difference to one another – and that’s pretty awesome.

I Poke Bears. What do you do?

You cannot imagine how many different versions for a title I’ve tried out for this post. But this is the struggle. I wasn’t just struggling to find words with the right cadence and meaning, but to find the right words to spark curiosity.

But - here’s the thing. I am CERTAIN that God put me on this earth to challenge ideas, people, and church communities - all while challenging the heck out of myself. As I like to tell my friends, “I poke bears.” By that I mean I poke at judgments, assumptions, delusions, and sacred cows. I poke at my own and others.

And yet - if you know me, you know as well as I do that despite those words - I am playful, happy, humorous, gregarious, energetic, and deeply, deeply passionate about all the best things in life - family, friends, fellowship, faith, and fun!

In fact, the only reason I poke bears - is because that’s how God made me. And I endeavor to do so as fiercely lovingly and graciously as I can - for me and everyone I’m connected to, so that my bear-poking can be a gift.

What about you though? What is the gift God made you to bring? Thanks to most of our daily media diets consisting almost exclusively of digitally engineered anxiety-inducing, misinforming “infotainment,” most of us live a life where we kind of know that our smart phones feed us a constant diet of dumb garbage that makes us angry, feel bad, feel less, feel … despair - and yet we cannot put them down - we find it easier to go there over and over throughout the day. Every day. Yet - going to God - who I know so many of us know full well, see as loving, gracious, and all the rest of the good things - and yet somehow for most of us it is not as easy to drop into some peace and quiet with God and let Him heal us from the lumps and slumps of life as it is to pull out phones out again and consume another string of utterly forgettable and yet highly influential and soul stifling content.

Isn’t that odd?

And I know - that for so many of us - this is how it is because really sitting alone with God and baring our souls for the healing, rest, and restoration we so want - feels like a hurdle. In fact - I have heard it often said that it feels like that is maybe just the thing to make matters worse.

I have zero judgment. I get it.

Some folks do occasionally sit with God and get some of these things - but dang it all if some of them don’t pop out of those times with words, attitudes, and behaviors that frankly scare the crap out of the rest of us.

I have good news though.

Spending time with God can feel like a spa-day for your soul. Everything I’ve written about connecting with God this whole Lent so far, is aiming exactly at that. We are not social-media beings; we’re social beings. We’re not just made for connecting with one another. We’re made for connecting spiritually - to a community of people gathered to encourage one another in their pursuit of spiritual growth and healing - but also to God so we can experience divine healing and connection. I had to poke a lot of my own bears to arrive at a place where I love to spend time with God. I don’t know what your bears are. Some of them are probably the same as mine. Some are surely unique to you and your life experience.

Maybe this whole post you’ve thought that my “bear-poking” is all just for the sake of making people uncomfortable, but what if I’m talking about poking God - so you can get a bear hug? Of all the people Jesus lavished love and grace on in Gospels - how do we not all know to our bones - that He’d have loved for us - as much as any of them, to poke Him and ask Him for some of the love He came to give away?

I am absolutely certain that such a poke from you, is what He’s all about!

Code Hope

As I strive to listen deeply, and allow myself to be heard – as I press in to pay as close attention as I can to the whispers of the Spirit of God – it occurs to me that these goals of mine are complicated by how over extended we all are. I doubt it’s possible to over-extend God’s capacity to whisper to our souls – but – something does wane in us when we do not tune in to those whispers as often as we tune into those noises that offer us no solace.

I mean – can you relate? The time change comes and for all the articles, books and experts who declare that you can “adjust your sleep by one hour per night” – a simple one hour time change seems somehow to slam my sleep into a bumpier gear for at least a week. And no one, but no one tells the cat, the dog, the child that the clock that governs every adult’s life is up to its biannual shenanigans. So – you enter another week groggier than before which is just another way to say “even behinder” than usual. And then the whole world we encounter outside of our door is suffering more than usual under the same as well. Tensions seems to be the only thing freely available in unlimited supply sometimes.

So what do we do?

Did you know that almost 20 years ago Dr. Earl Bakken created a new hospital code. You’ve heard of code blue and code red, but have you heard of code lavender? Dr. Bakken named the code after the lavender plant known which is prized for its calming properties. Like the other older codes it is a crisis code – but this one to mental well-being of anyone in the hospital and is often called after a particularly challenging patient/staff event. It’s like a psychological first-aid/crisis response intended to help all affected by the event support one another and find restoration together. It’s led by highly trained staff who offer a variety of means to allow those affected to find expression and give voice to what they saw and experienced.

I had never heard of a code lavender until recently and since I learned about it I cannot stop thinking about it and honestly – I’ll post about it in more depth later on (I’m still researching it at the moment). Code lavender response teams exist in a variety of hospital settings now – and in some institutions, it goes by other names. Regardless of the name, the code connects people to their deeper self and reintegrates them – often via deeply spiritual practices such as group and individual prayer, meditation, discussion and expression via all sorts of creative means.

I want to do a personal code lavender. Not because today itself is so bad – but because there were a lot of hard days in the last year. We laid my dad to rest. We finished emptying out the family home. I started two new programs – then there’s all the things that keep dominating the global and national news … it feels stressful. I’d like to sit with some friends and support one another and ask, when did we stop being able to even numb by scrolling through our phones – now it just hurts to do so. There’s no dopamine rush in it – just irritation. Phone games are no reprieve – they just annoy with endless ads. Too much seems like too much work. And it is no help at all to just turn to whatever flavor of news you prefer and get even madder.

And yet these are the things that are most readily available to most of us. And these things are no help at all.

I refuse to believe that things are hopeless – they are not. I refuse to believe that this is how any of us has to feel. So – I invite you to join me for a Code Hope. This is a crisis code – with potential to become a care-code. To engage in a code hope, put your phone down and grab a steaming mug of something soothing - your favorite tea or cocoa or what have you and sit down and think back to a time recently you got to spend cheering up or helping someone you love. When did you last laugh with a friend? When did you last get to help someone in some way? When did you last get to be creative – and sing, write, draw, dance, experiment in the kitchen, tend a plant, or upgrade an old item? Can you give yourself the gift of some more of that? I know I want to. I want to reflect for a spell that the toxicity of digital everything can’t hold a candle to the power of hugging a neighbor, smiling at an old friend, playing with kids, petting and brushing the pets, gazing with satisfaction upon something you made – and feel pleased with.

And I do take such quiet moments. It’s sometimes much harder than others. But I suppose this is like every really good thing – it will not happen by accident. Patience. Mercy. Generosity. Humility. All these qualities that are the hallmarks of spiritual growth and maturity. They cannot happen on their own. I think back to earlier times in my life when things seemed simpler – and there were my parents – stressed to the moon.

If I don’t slam on the brakes and pause today – when am I going to?

But the risk always feels – really risky.

Surely the answer cannot be, “well, maybe tomorrow? Or, “I’ll start next Monday.” We all know how that goes.

And yet, the more I toss caution into the wind, the more I know that giving myself this permission is me leaning on Jesus, trusting, ignoring the incessant drumbeat, and turning my head so I can more clearly hear the voice of my Shepherd calling me. And the more it makes complete sense that His call leads me toward green valleys and quiet waters.

I suppose writing Lenten blog posts, some might think it should all be alms giving, fasting, and prayer. As good as these things are I already let the cat out of the bag – they are only as good as our “want to” do them – and if our soul feels a “should” around them then – perhaps they are not what we most right now. I mean – even Thomas Keating – the great proponent of centering prayer says, “If you fall asleep during centering prayer, you must need the sleep. God doesn’t care!” Perhaps a nap is your ticket to successfully implementing your own Code Hope.

Happy napping then if that’s the case. Most importantly – may we turn and rest a breath with our Shepherd and find with Him there all He longs to give us. I will give you grace while you risk your own code hope.

Cave of Whispers

Also known as Elijah’s cave. (you can read all about this passage in 1 Kings 19)

So often we don’t hear one another because we don’t even listen to ourselves. Sometimes we don’t just have ourselves and those coincidentally around us on “ignore”, but we have our closest loved ones on ignore - and even God on ignore.

Elijah - as a prophet of God - was someone whose whole calling was to hear what God was telling him. Sometimes even he needed help though. So in this account - Elijah, worn down and literally running for his life, hides out in a cave on Mount Horeb. While he’s there - God tells him to go to the mouth of the cave because the Lord Himself is going to pass by.

A gale force wind hurled by breaking up the rocks - but that was not the Lord.

An earthquake shook the mountains - but that was not the Lord.

A fire scorched all that was left - but that was not the Lord.

and then a gentle blowing came - and Elijah covered his face, because he knew this was the Lord.

And what did the Lord say to Elijah?

“What are you doing here?”

Did God not know what Elijah was going through?

The Lord was not asking Elijah for information - He was giving Elijah His ear. He was inviting Elijah to unburden his soul before the Lord.

How often do we long to be heard - but no one will just listen. Or how often does our heart ache to help someone we love - but we struggle to not gush with advice and solutions?

So often - we imagine that going to God to unburden our souls will be calamitous - stormy - or tumultuous. And yet - this is God as we imagine Him. So often - it’s not the “acts of God” that God uses to get our attention. It’s His whispers. He is our Shepherd, not our cattle driver. He isn’t the God who screams in our ear. He’s the God who whispers into our hearts.

This is another thing altogether to listen for though isn’t it. We have to still ourselves. We have to humble ourselves. We have to go to the mouth of the cave and answer His question, “Why are you here?”

Whether you have one minute or one hundred - I pray you take all of what you have to go to Him with all you feel on your heart - and allow yourself some time of being heard and hearing Him. Go for a drive. Go for a walk. Go sit in the tub and soak. Or take a long shower. Lay on the floor with your pet - or just a good pillow. Regardless - lay your burdens down as you share your heart and then let Him carry you and what you carry.

The Healing Power of Hearing

Last week I posted about the healing power of listening. Today I want to keep pressing forward with this idea how healing it can be to be heard – really heard.

But first I must confess. Sometimes the idea of being heard leaves me feeling nervous. It seems like there are just too many ways of not really being heard. You know when you’re not being heard because the energy of the conversation starts to get weird, and suddenly all you can think of are all the other things that need to be done in all the other places you’d rather be.

What happened?

The treasure of connecting purposefully got lost. Why does it sometimes get lost? Why does it feel so empty and pointless when it does get lost? Why does it feel so magical when we catch it? No. Not magical. It feels sacred.

Can we do something to make this happen more easily?

Can we stop the thing from happening that derails these moments?

How come it seems easy to imagine this working with some folks but not with others? What’s the thing that’s different between those with whom this back and forth happens naturally – and those with whom it just keeps falling flat?

Listening to someone who’s really listening to you – hearing someone who’s really hearing you – this is how we experience deep belonging. Real connection. In a delightfully human way of mixing senses – this is how we felt seen. This is how we experience being genuinely accepted. We feel ourselves belonging in these moments.

This takes a bunch of courage.

But how do we find our courage in these moments? Where does this courage come from? Can we get more of it? And is getting more of it going to involve something dreadful?

What if the very thing that helps us be heard – helps us become better hearers? Wouldn’t that be like a miraculous provision?

The Healing Power of Listening

Studs Terkel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who wrote incredible oral histories from the biggest events of the 20th century, was a dedicated listener. He excelled at sitting down in front of someone who’d lived through unimaginable times and just listening. He knew just how to get them to recount their experience. Just at moment most of the rest of us would disrupt the conversation or shut things down – he’d pose a real “whopper”, a “doozy” – and then they’d be off. It was like he’d used all of his interviewees’ previous responses to zero in on a simply dead-on question that had been hanging around – just outside of the spoken. His conversation partner, often wouldn’t even realize how deeply they’d just been heard. But they would respond to being heard. And like a newly tapped underground spring, just start gushing one memory after another in a torrent of a flow. In the river of words, we’d hear a crucial moment being deeply humanized and BAM – we feel connected to the people going through that time.

This past fall I started two programs, spiritual direction in September and clinical pastoral education (that’s “chaplain training” to the uninitiated) in October. The center of the Venn diagram between the best of these two programs is listening.

When among the all relationships in your life, have things not turned out as you’d hope – despite everyone actually being fully heard – or fully hearing the other?

There is in both spiritual direction and in clinical pastoral education (CPE for short) the idea that sitting in front of someone who’s listening to you – really, deeply listening to what you’re saying is so rare – that just being deeply listened to and deeply heard has healing power. They’re right.

Getting ready to head into Lent this year into what feels like a very different world than the one we were living in not so long ago. I’m listening to myself and realizing that I feel like I’m running to just keep up. Just the other day I caught myself feeling uncomfortable and vaguely irritated and realized that I worked straight through my last couple of days off. Why’d I do that? Because instead of listening to me – to my soul – I let myself get harried by a whole bunch of externals.

Isn’t it funny how easy it is to kinda listen to just the pervasive din of disorganized media chatter shouting millions of voices at once and yet tune out the actual important stuff?

Yet in the space of a breath, we can pause and tune into the conversation within – the one between us and God.

I’ve usually begun Lent with a firm plan, plopped into place well before Ash Wednesday. This year though, I am beginning with a different plan. The plan is simply to listen to ourselves, one another, and of course, God. Who knows what could happen? What if it changes us? What if we heal?

If we devoted ourselves to what we need most for Lent would it be ...

Fasting? Giving up chocolate? Praying extra?

These are excellent Lenten goals and can be spiritually challenging and nourishing.

But I wonder how many of you would benefit from something different?

I started taking advantage of Lent to take my walk with God a step further over 20 years ago - almost 25 years ago in fact. In that time I’ve started my Lenten challenge after prayerfully considering God’s leading. I’ve gone on daily prayer walks, prayer hikes; read chunks of Scripture above and beyond what I’d normally read. I’ve added ministry goals, spiritual goals. Fasted soda, coffee, and all foods entirely even.

Some years ago though, it became clear that the spiritual practice I was most lacking in was patience and grace towards myself.

This year it was clear again that what I need to do is lean on God harder than ever to let Him help me grieve my dad’s passing. You may or may not have something of similar weight on your heart this Lent, but so many of us have heavy hearts. We’ve been through a lot over the last few years. The news outlets are full again with fresh stress and world disasters. Grief, stress, inflation, family pressure, concerns for the future - all of these somehow have the twin effect of making finding rest in Jesus even more important - and yet often also somehow more elusive.

I have a theory about why this is. Much of Christianity (regardless of denomination) sees much of how we engage in our walk as a cerebral exercise. We read our Bible. We open our commentaries and concordances, New Testament dictionaries - all because we want to understand. I don’t know about you but sometimes I feel like the spiritual part of spiritual growth kind of gets forgotten. And don’t even get me started about how ignored/denied our emotions get.

And yet we cannot function as humans - as the very thing that we are - without our emotional side and our spiritual side. I doubt that Jesus intended us to just be cerebral followers, I mean He picked Peter after all. I am happy that the savior of humanity chose to be so - repeatedly and showed His own emotions as much as He did. Surely our minds are powerful, but so are our emotions and our spirits.

Imagine how powerfully our walk with Jesus can be when we follow Him with our whole selves.

If you haven’t been encouraged to follow Him with your whole self - then this could sound radical. Or it could sound fine, but feel radical or even uncomfortable. But the discomfort is worth it.

If you knew me back in the day you might be surprised to hear me say these things, but if you’ve known me more recently - you’d not be surprised at all.

When I first started sitting down to have “quiet times” in my dorm room as a freshman at Michigan State - I imagined effortlessly spending time with God every single day. But that was harder than I’d imagined. Then I realized it was impossible. Or at least it was impossible the way I was going about it - trying to be an 18 year old theologian, writing eloquant devotionals from scratch every morning in my journal. No pressure.

Maybe like me, you also feel better after spending time with God - praying for your loved ones, deepening your understanding of Scripture.

Don’t forget to also let Him heal your heart, take your burdens, remind you of your identity in Him, whisper His love to your soul, slather your spirit with His love and grace and give your spiritual side a breath of His heaven scent. Bring your whole self to Him - not just your theological side. Bring Him your child-side, your goofy self, your whacky humor, your exhaustion, your stress - all of that and more.

If you have never done that before, it might feel weird. You might get to the end of your time with God and wonder, “was that it?” YES! Be as real with Him as you can - be as YOU as you understand He made you to be. Do it again tomorrow and grow in your understanding and experience of who He made you to be. If you can’t be you with Him - with whom do you think you can? But who in the cosmos loves you - the REAL YOU - more than Him? Who wants you to be as fully YOU as you can more than Him? And can you imagine how affirming and encouraging and illuminating it is to experience His love as you are just you - all you - in your times with Him?

In America, we are some of the fussiest consumers in history. We want things new, we want them exciting, shiny, useful, and perfect. We avoid buying something dent, scratched, wonky and malformed. And yet God CHOSE us while we were still hostile to Him (at least that’s what Paul says in Romans 5). Do you think He doesn’t know how imperfect you are? Do you think someone else knows the point of your unique combo of imperfections? Maybe they’re not what you think they are.

So - how to do this?

Let’s be kind to ourselves. If you’ve never approached God this way before - think back to the last time you saw a child or a pet do something ridiculous. Remember how you felt - especially if you know that child and/or that pet well. Can you allow yourself to know that God is the source - the origin - of such feelings? If you can feel warmly, lovingly, and adoringly about another person’s embarrassing or hilarious moment - imagine how much more generously God - who died so we could be with Him - feels about us? This is encouraging, humbling, incomprehensible, and obvious all at once.

If you’re really brave, recall a moment in the recent past and let Him love you through it. However embarrassed by our antics we might feel, He is never surprised and never dissuaded from loving us. He knew from before time what we’re like - and He chose us. Not anyway - but regardless.

What a git! What incredible GRACE!

What if we do Lent completely differently this year?

Hey there fellow traveler through these strange times. Tonight is Mardi Gras 2022. Mardi Gras - of course, means “Fat Tuesday” and it’s a tradition that goes by many names and forms all across the Christian world. The gist of Mardi Gras is to celebrate indulgent hedonism before starting the more aesthetic season of Lent with its traditional focus on fasting, almsgiving (offering and gifts), and prayer in preparation for Palm Sunday, Passion Week, Good Friday, and Easter (Resurrection Sunday).

Maybe you grew up with Lent and have your “go-to” thing that you do each year. Maybe you didn’t grow up with it and you’re thinking “Lent?”.

Just to make sure we’re all on the same page - the word “Lent” comes from a really old form of the word “lengthen” because this time of year is when we really start to notice how much longer the days are getting again. Traditionally, believers used the weeks leading up to Easter to dig in and grow spiritually. In the earliest days of the church, there was great concern that new converts, wherever they might live and worship, deserved to all hear the same truth and teaching. This time of year was also the time when it was easiest for families and communities to run short on resources - so a spiritual focus was a good way to redirect people and make the best of a tough situation.

These days, generally speaking, most of us struggle with abundance more than lack when it comes to food - and I think there have been plenty of things in our lives inspiring us to give and pray.

But you know what I think people are starving for? I think we’re hungry to feel deeply connected to our faith in a way that heals us, restores our souls, refreshes our spirits, deepens our love for God, God’s work in our lives, and God’s invitation for us to help others find more of these blessings in their lives. And unlike whatever your favorite food is, there is no downside to us feeling full of everything on that list.

So - here’s my challenge to you for Lent this year. Let’s do that. Let’s satiate our spiritual hunger and slake our godly thirst for more of all those gifts and blessings in our lives this Lenten season. Don’t worry if you’re not sure how to do that. I’ll be posting once or twice a week between now and Easter with some more short, but hopefully encouragingly provocative articles. I have some ideas already - but am hoping to grow more in these ways with you.

For now though - for this first day of Lent (or this first Wednesday of March if you prefer) here are a couple of questions to ponder.

• A long time ago I had a freshman ask, “I know God loves me because He’s theologically obligated. But does He like me?”

• If you were gifted a spiritual spa-day, what activities would you fill your day with?

• What if - like the first disciples - what if in six weeks - on Easter morning we could feel filled with more joy?

Whatever your plans are for tomorrow - I encourage you to dare dig in and take a bit of time to mull at least one of those questions over. Imagine yourself somewhere lovely - like this place below if you like as you reflect.

Talk to you again in a few days!

Gift Number Twenty Three

Yesterday i wrote about the Grace Habit which has made an incredible difference in my life. Over the last 7 years as I’ve engaged in that practice it’s continued to grow with me as has my understanding of the importance of Grace.

Back when I was in college, it felt really important to me at one point to make sure that I’d never forget what Christ did for me on the cross. So, to help me remember that I took a trip to Meijer’s Thrifty Acres near Michigan State’s campus and went to the hardware area and bought the BIGGEST nails I could find - and bought some. I started carrying a nail or two with me all the time. My mom would get so mad because of the damage these nails would cause all my jeans.

Back then, obedience was everything. I wasn’t too impressed with grace.

But now I understand that Grace is one leg and Obedience is the other. We’ll end up with a mighty weird walk with God if we only have one. It’s not enough to understand grace but not obedience. And it’s not enough to understand obedience but not grace.

The Grace Habit has also taught me that there are plenty of situations in my life that aren’t the kind of thing that I can just toss into the fire and release forever. You probably have some things in your life like that too. For me, it’s loved ones with health issues, concerns for their kids, or careers. Whatever it is, what I’m crystal clear about is that the more burden I carry, the less love and grace I carry, the more fatigued I feel. If I want to feel the way I want to feel spiritually - I have to carry only what’s best to carry. In fact, at this point, I’m certain that all we’re really capable of carrying without doing harm to ourselves is God’s love and grace. At least every time I have ever carried anything else, whether it was anger, stress, guilt, shame - whatever - it makes a real mess of things.

I don’t know about you - but I can’t just pretend I don’t care about what I in fact care about. So what do we do?

Let me introduce the burden canoe. A while back, when some pretty big things were happening in my life - they weren’t bad as much as they just were. It was my response to them that I really needed to let God work on, but the burden was just too much for me to carry - like at all. For instance - my Dad is getting older. There are just certain realities about that.

You might be happy to carry burdens all the time - but I know I’m not really made for that. And since you’re reading this I know you’re not made for it either. In our culture - we place such a high priority on having such unnatural strengths. No. Not unnatural. In-human. I mean that. Things that wear us down, exhaust us, sap our joy, drain away our hope, keep us up at night, make us feel overwhelmed, stressed, frightened, miserable - if these aren’t the very things that Jesus is referring to when He said, “Take my yoke upon you” (Matthew 11:29). Peter even goes so far as to say, “Cast your cares upon Jesus” 1 Peter 5:7. But this idea goes way back - the psalmist all the way back in Psalm 55:22 says “cast all your burden upon the Lord.”

I do the grace habit sitting in nature - so I suppose me tossing my burdens into a canoe that Jesus takes off in. Maybe you’d prefer something else - a moving van, a Conestoga wagon - or some other method altogether.

All I know - is none of us is meant to carry so much. None of us can have all God wants to give us while we hold onto to so much more than we can hold. Bonus - seven years of letting go of as much as I can every day - I’ve become much better at letting go.

Let your burdens go. He will take care of them for you. He longs to give you so much more of all His blessings. It’s not just what He wants to do for you at Christmas. He wants to take your burdens off your shoulders every day. It’s why He came as a babe - so we could be His carefree children - carrying nothing but His love and Grace.

Merry Christmas, my friend!

Gift Number Twenty Two

Many of you have heard me talk about the Grace Habit. Some of you haven’t. But the fact is - the Grace Habit is good to practice often.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed - all these gifts are intended to make walking a life of faith more meaningful, rich and healing. All of these gifts support one another. Each gift makes the next easier to open, if you will.

So, whether you haven’t done the grace habit in a while (or ever) this gift is for you.

Sit down somewhere comfortably quiet - at least for the next few minutes. Take a few deep breaths and with each one release a bit more of the stress and chaos of the moment. I like to imagine one of many spots on earth that remind me of the Garden - Garden of Eden, Garden of Gethsemane, garden of paradise - whatever pleases you. Go there in your mind. I like to imagine a little fire there - like one of the many campfires I’ve made.

I also really like to sit a beautiful place, with a cozy little fire, with some really great company. No better company in my mind than Jesus. Go ahead and imagine yourself sitting there with Jesus.

As you’re sitting there - go over the burdens you’re carrying. Anything that’s negative or heavy or hard to carry - go ahead and toss into the fire. The more you allow yourself to be in that space with Him - the more meaningful it is as you let each of those things that are too much to carry, too much to keep lugging about slip into the fire. Of course, when you toss fuel into the fire - the flames leap up. Sparks pop and snap. The heat intensifies.

Imagine all that heat coming off your fire as Jesus’ love and warmth flooding into your soul - into all those spaces that used to be taken up with all those burdens. Stress. Disappointments. Arguments. Losses. Whatever it is that’s wearing you out and weighing you down you can offer up there in that fire - and allow the warmth of Jesus’ Love and Grace to take its place in your soul.

Filling up with Jesus’ Grace is the only godly way to fuel obedience. If you try to fuel growth and transformation with laws, rules, “shoulds” and legalism you’ll get crushed. But fueling our walk with Jesus with His Grace will grow in us all the spiritual fruits in abundance.

When you’ve finished unburdening yourself - consider interceding for others and doing a little prayer-care for those in your life. We all know someone who’s had a tough year, or rough week - and everything in between. We all know someone who’s lost someone, or had some significant changes in their life. Lift them up.

You can do the Grace Habit as often and as long as you like. In the beginning I thought I’d never make headway at living life without stress and frustration - but then it all of a sudden dawned on me that the bulk of the fuel I was tossing into my little bon-fire on the beach were others’ burdens. Try it. Keep at it - and watch your burdens, frustrations, stresses melt away as Jesus uses His love and Grace to heal your soul and put everything into perspective.

Gift Number Twenty One

It’s not shameful for life’s circumstances to alter your plans.

I mean - I LOVE making plans - plans for get-togethers, outings, adventures, classes, projects - all of that. But so many of us are so hard on ourselves when the myriad details we want to plan out to the Nth degree derail. So many of us rush around in our lives with zero margins for error, a houseful of unpredictable babies - furry and otherwise. So many of us base so much of our happiness and our lives on so much go perfectly.

Here’s the only thing you can plan on perfectly … That thing you planned - it will not go like that. And, that does not make you less of a glorious Creation of God’s deserving of love, respect, and for the love of all that’s good - some occasional peace and quiet. Yes. Please!

Other than Jesus, death, and taxes, the only other certainty is plans going awry.

Yoda didn’t plan on that spaceship landing in his swamp.

Frodo didn’t plan on carrying the ring past Rivendell.

Lucy didn’t plan on finding anything past the back of the wardrobe.

Katniss didn’t plan to volunteer.

Luke planned on going to get power converters with his friends.

Sometimes - things that mess our plans up are the beginning of something really, really big. Sometimes even awesome. Sometimes our plans weren’t as great as we thought.

We’ve all had so much go so differently from what we’d planned, from what we’d hoped.

What I know about this Christmas is that it will not be what we thought it would be a month ago. But it’s not the stuff, the food, the decorations that make Christmas special - it’s the people we love - wherever they are. Maybe if we let go of what isn’t important, we’ll have clarity about what is important - about the big adventure of valuing what is valuable. If we let ourselves do that often enough - we can grow wise. If keep that up - we can find ourselves on a wonderful journey of throwing off unimportant stuff that weighs us down and complicates everything and embarking on what could be the most rewarding journey of our lives - the journey of becoming someone who helps others love the life God’s given them.

Gift Number Twenty

Christmas is just a few days away friends - but never fear - I have MORE gifts for you to unwrap.

Today’s gift is peace and calm.

Jesus is our Prince of Peace - and just remembering that, saying those words calms me and soothes my soul.

How does that work?

Prayer is calming. Usually, when we’re younger in the faith we excel at telling God what we want. The more we seek Him, and desire that He grow our faith deeper the more we listen as we pray and ask Him to tell us what He wants. I honestly think prayer is how God disciples us. The more we practice listening prayer, the more we see that though things might not be comfy and cozy to our way of thinking - more often than not - God’s timing and answers produce some pretty incredible results. Imagine that.

So prayer is pretty calming.

Scripture is also pretty calming - especially those go-to verses that are so tried and true. I don’t necessarily mean the super common ones that marketers plaster on all kinds of stuff - but rather the ones that are special between me and God. Verses like Psalm 27:4 for instance - which doesn’t hold some special promise - but it doesn’t have to - I just love it and it reminds me of everything I love about God and His word. Of course - there’s nothing wrong with loving Jeremiah 29:11 for lots of reasons too, right?

A while back during a really stressful season I did a little experiment - I wanted to have more calm - so I read up on some ways to reduce stress - and soon not only was I limiting how much time I spent on social media, but limiting how much time I spent in stressful situations, and how much time I allowed myself to feel that stress. It was also helpful to not rehearse, repeat in my head, vent, rant, talk about, or in any other way repeat that stressful moment in my head after the moment of stress itself. Let’s be honest - we can’t eliminate all stressful situations from our lives - but we can change how we respond to them. So, if I felt stress - I’d write it down (that was just what worked for me), and then review, re-read, listen to a few of my favorite scripture passages. I’d refuse to let the stress cause me to flip out though. Or at least that was the goal.

When I first cooked up that plan - I was unsure if it’d work at all.

You guys! It was SO effective. There wasn’t much change in the first week or so. But after that - big changes began to happen. Within a couple of months - it just kept getting easier and easier because new ways to keep stress at bay kept coming to mind - and a year or so later I realized that this process had made me resistant to stress.

And then I started noticing that there’s something really seductive about stress.

What’s more - our culture almost connects feeling stressed out and pressed to your limit - and or beyond - with success, importance, and being a meaningful adult. Think I’m kidding - imagine walking up to your friend circle and telling them that you’re not stressed at all. Eeek. Maybe don’t do that - but you know what would happen if you did. It might seem like this was a lot of work/effort - but it really wasn’t. Instead it was like going from living life with my shoelaces untied and then figuring out how to tie them. It made everything smoother. I’ll go into this more in posts in 2022.

Gift Number Nineteen

Imagine how different family, friends-circles, work, church, communities - all of it - would feel if instead of holding one another to impossible standards of gob-smacking beauty, the eternal physical youthfulness of an Adonis, the infallible mental quickness of Loki and Einstein combined , and bank accounts that would make Elon Musk’s jaw drop - what if the only standard we held one another to was that of basic good character.

So many of us are running around drowning in a sea of insufficiency. It’s exhausting. It’s merciless. There is no way to move forward - and it seems like the only thing left to do is give up - so we walk around frustrated with those God’s given life at this time to share this hurtling ball of rock with us. But in my experience the vast majority of people are frustrated with themselves.

So today’s gift is the gift of acceptance.

You were highly prized by Jesus - to the point of Him not shrinking from His work on the cross - before you ever even drew a breath, before you even appreciated what He’d done, and certainly before you could torture and contort yourself into “becoming worthy” of His work - a thoroughly unattainable goal.

As if all this Sisyphean struggle against the unattainable could accomplish any of the good we hope for. But worse than that insult is the fact that it actually leaves us disrespecting what it is about each of us that best reveals God’s thumbprint of craftsmanship in us - that thing about us that no one else has that makes - well - you the amazing you that you are to all those who just love being around you. That thing you do when you laugh, the way you care, the ability you have to solve that kind of problem as easily as you do. The way you make that amazing dish. The way you tell that joke.

If Jesus can deem us worthy of saving while we were still hostile (Read Romans dude!) then how can we keep going around refusing to accept ourselves? If we can’t bother to accept ourselves, how in the world will we ever accept anyone else? If we’re all running around slashed up, hurt and disheartened because we don’t accept ourselves or accept anyone else’s acceptance of us - attempting to live up to the one measure of goodness that is timeless - namely basic character.

So - be your wonderful, goofy, quirky, awesome weird-O self. FULLY! And you’ll find it far, far easier to be your best self too. After all - if Jesus deems us worthy of His grace - by what logic will you argue with Him? And good character - is attainable. Not only is it attainable - but it’s the path to all the good things we all want most all year long - not just on Christmas morning.

Gift Number Eighteen

Last Sunday I wrote about taking a break from negativity. Today’s gift riffs off that and takes it up a notch - because today’s gift is intentional positivity.

Before I started down this road - I didn’t really appreciate the power of not being negative. But there’s something even more powerful than that - and that is not just keeping your head, your thoughts, your heart out of negative territory (because, truly, that kind of thinking is incredibly limiting and exhausting), but positioning yourself so as much as possible your thoughts are oriented around positives.

Honestly - I think this power is accentuated profoundly by all we’re all experiencing right now. There are a lot of negative emotions running amok these days. Even people who aren’t typically negative are finding themselves easily overwhelmed by it. Meetings turn into opportunities to vent. Get-togethers become occasions for discharging all sorts of negative and stressful emotions.

There is another option.

Imagine how different you would have felt yesterday if you’d spent the few moments you’d had to yourself replaying a favorite memory, or a favorite song, or meditating on a favorite passage. There’s something abrasively exhausting about worry, complaining and rehashing - it wears us down. There’s also something just so positively hopeful and uplifting about having happy, spiritually nourishing things to occupy your heart, mind and spirit with when you’re walking to and from, or driving here and there, going about your tasks and chores and responsibilities.

I used to be really, really good at thinking about all the things that could go wrong (commonly known as worrying) - but turns out that this is a less than ideal strategy for dealing with grief, illness and trauma or any other negative thing you want to move beyond. So - I started replaying vacations - especially the best moments - in my mind - especially whenever I started to feel overwhelmed by stress, grief, etc. I mean - by all means - be a real human - and acknowledge what you feel. See it. Name it. Call it what it is. Reach out to a friend or loved one and ask them to help you process it. Help them process their stuff. But usually that exchange doesn’t take all that long. After that though - move on - and park your mind on something that will help you recover, re-center on God’s goodness, and heal.

Imagine - instead of carrying around a huge mass of negative thoughts, concerns, open-ended uncertainties from moment to moment - carrying thoughts that fuel, energize and restore you.

It is awkward at first - for sure. But the littlest clues can ben super helpful reminders. I like to to put another vacation picture on my phone’s lock-screen to help me remember what kind of thoughts I want to keep in my head - or whatever will remind me best. It’s so much easier to come up with better solutions to the pesky problems and irritations of the day when we’re not weighed down and burdened.

And isn’t this exactly what Paul’s telling us is good to do in Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things”

May your hearts, minds and souls be full of His Light!

Gift Number Seventeen

Yesterday I wrote about how I was struck by God’s perspective on us. Today I’d like to give you the gift of seeing your life right now through a different lens. Some of the hardest situations I’ve had to face - I couldn’t stand to face till I started praying for God to give me His perspective on those circumstances. If you’ve known me for very long - then you might know some of the situations I’m talking about.

Sixteen gifts of encouragement, hope, healing - and I stand by every single one. Today’s is a little different.

Today - I’m going to be your coach. Or - maybe you’ll feel like I’m your drill instructor.

Have you prayed for God to make you wise? Have you prayed for God to make you strong? Or have you prayed that he’d teach you how to walk more closely with Him. I only ask - because I’ve asked for all those things - plus humility, patience, and all that other stuff they say not to pray for.

Can I tell you one of the biggest barriers to growing our walk deeper with God? We take it personally when it’s not easy. It’s often not easy. That’s okay. It’s sometimes painful. That’s okay too. Sometimes, God putting us in circumstances designed to mature us is uncomfortably realistic in how it reveals that I’m not quite as awesome as I thought I was. Sometimes - His lessons reveal that I expected to grow wise and mature and capable - with a whole perfectly shiny, crisp, slick life devoid of my usual day-to-day embarrassing shortcomings.

Honestly - one of the worst barriers to my having the walk with God I’ve always wanted is me - and how I have this messed up idea that it’s glamorous, glorious, and perfect to walk more closely with Him.

Turns out that walking more closely with him - I’m learning - looks like holes in my socks, a less than perfect house, an older car - that probably needs something - relationships that aren’t “perfect” (whatever that might mean), a string of really imperfect days full of uncertainty, big questions, unanswered questions, problems I’m not quite sure how to resolve, some thing going on that leaves me wondering “how long can I keep doing this?! And a whole host of other similar stuff.

Yet - YET - in the midst of all that - still the lights are on, the house is warm, I end phone calls with “I love you” or “I love you too!” Some things get better. I keep asking God to show me His way through this wilderness - and in some tiny way - I feel like I should go, um, … that way. But most importantly - I celebrate the heck out of whatever the thing is that went okay - because THAT action is how you really start to grow real gratitude for what God is doing instead of what I do when I’m weaker - and I whine and whine about all that’s not “just so.”

You know - at this point - I think God and I have totally different ideas about what “just so” even means. And that’s okay too - especially as I step out more and more and take on His perspective on my life then it will be okay.

I think God likes it when I lean hard on Him and let go of all my expectations.

Perhaps for such a season as this - He is answering our most heart-felt prayers for growth, wisdom, richness of faith and all the rest of those things - and if we take a bit more of His perspective on this moment we can give ourselves some credit. We have all grown much.