There Is Always a Response

Dear Faith Family,

On Sunday, we looked at the final two ways God addresses us personally: through union with the human voice and spirit. While less dramatic than the other ways God speaks, union with distinct human voices and our inner thoughts and attendant feelings are certainly more intimate and often.

The intimacy and normalcy have a purpose, to help us mature into the kinds of persons God desires us to be. While the spectacular addresses have their place and benefits, it is these ordinary forms that cultivate minds, and hearts, and wills that freely and fully involve us in the love and work of God as "colaborers and friends."

One area in which we can see the deepening benefits of God's addressing us through union with the human voice and spirit is our prayer life.

Now, we know that God will not always give us what we want or what we ask for, but he will always answer our prayers. Do you believe that?  God will always respond to us in some way, for that is the nature of a conversational relationship.  

But wait. You might be thinking, "Can't we all give accounts of requests to God that we never "heard" anything in response? Certainly, he didn't give us what we asked. So are you saying that silence sometimes is the answer?" No, I am not! I am actually saying the opposite.

The issue many of us face in "unanswered" prayer or seeming silence, is that we are not listening to intimate and often forms of God's addressing. We are looking and listening for the spectacular or abnormal. Perhaps even looking only to outward signs--like the thing asked being done--and no voiced response at all.  

But when we learn to recognize His voice in union with the human voice and human spirit--his most intimate and regular means of addressing us--we'll discover that God does indeed reveal to those he loves his intentions (1 Cor. 2:9-16); including the denied requests.

We see this in the apostle Paul's story. Inflicted with "thorn in the flesh," he begged God to remove it, multiple times (2 Cor. 12:7-8). Yet God did not oblige Paul's request, but God did not keep silent. Instead, Paul says, "His [God's] answer was: 'My grace is all you need; power is most fully seen in weakness.'" (2 Cor. 12:9).

God spoke to Paul, even in His denying of Paul's desire. In the same way that we would not give our children the silent treatment if they were earnestly asking us for something, even if we didn't think it best for them, so too God will not leave his beloved children just hanging.  He is not, as one author noted, "impassive towards us, like an unresponsive pagan idol."

So, this week, as a way to practice, consider those things you have been praying to which you have received only silence or seeming denial so far. Then ask our Father,  "Why the delay or denial? "

Pay attention to the thoughts that come into your mind, especially the ones that won't just float by or keep returning. Maybe its a passage of scripture, a past conversation, an idea of God,  a truth about his kingdom, or something more specific to you. Whatever they are, write them down.

It may take a few times asking before you'll be in place to hear God's response. But, don't worry, it took Paul at least three times, so you're in good company! Stick with it, and remember Jesus' words about the propensity of our Father in heaven to answer,

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be open to you."
(Matt. 7:7)

Love you! God bless. 

What Is Plugging Your Ears?

Dear Faith Family,

I know a not-to-be-named acquaintance whose spouse snores. I am sure many spouses snore, but in this particular case, the nightly noises cause more than brief wakings and fail elimination with elbow nudges.  So, to sleep in the shared space of the spouse and remain somewhat aware of the surroundings, this acquaintance uses earplugs. These are not noise eliminating, sound-proof bubble creating headphones. They are the malleable foam kind that fit and figure themselves to the ear's canal, muffling sounds, muting the intensity and consistency of the noise. Sounds hit the ear like a "far off" noise or background chatter rather than a face-to-face conversation...or a freight train!

While earplugs help my acquaintance sleep and aid the acquaintance's marital relationship,  earplugs are not as helpful when employed in relationship with our heavenly Father. Oh sure, they'll help us sleep, but muting the intensity and consistency of His voice is the reason for our difficulties and complaints in Hearing God.

To be sure, many of us are guilty of using earplugs without even being aware of it. Some of the earplugs are products of our environment and education. We have chatted about a few of these:

• our misguided understandings of who God is and what he intends for us,  

• our mistaken ideas about how God speaks, and

• being unaccustomed to God's verbal vibrations (like Samuel). 

Nevertheless, some of the voice filtering material in our heart's ears is indeed of our own making, such as a  lack of shared focus, which we discussed a couple of weeks ago. But there are two additional earplugs that cause God's voice to seem "far off" or indistinguishable chatter. They are:

• being unready to put his word to use, and

• self-employment.

Being unready to put God's word to use has nothing to do with skills or effort. Instead, it has to do with our devotion. Devotion is an old word, I know, but it remains the best descriptor. As a devotee, my attitudes and actions revolve around the will of the one to whom I show fidelity. That's why Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done" (Matt. 6:10).  

If I am honest, there are times when my devotion is splintered, and there is little regard for what "Thy's will" is. What He desires is so far from mind and heart that if I were to hear him speak, I wouldn't know what to do with it. For, as Dallas Willard reminds us when God speaks, "it is to accomplish his good purposes in our lives." My lack of devotion to his glory and allegiance to his kingdom, muffle the continual guidance daily sounding.

While being unready to put God's word for me to use can be (at times) a passive plugging, the final earplug is undoubtedly not. The earplug of self-employment requires some honest examination for us Jesus followers. Many of us, myself included, pray Jesus' prayer for God's kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven as a general desire but not as participants. We have no problem asking for the provisions that follow in Matthew 6:11-13, but at the end of the day, we are self-employed receipts of governmental grace rather than kingdom collaborators. Dallas Willard puts it this way,

"perhaps we [have trouble hearing God] because we know we fully intend to run our lives on our own and have never seriously considered anything else. The voice of God would therefore be an unwelcome intrusion into our plans." 

If hearing God is going to be a willing, conscious companionship, we'll have to recognize and remove those earplugs that muffle his voice. Earplugs we are all guilty of using from time to time.

So I want to invite you this week, and throughout this series, to repent with me. Consider these common, malleable, earplugs, and then ask our Father who formed us and knows us and who desires us to have ears that hear without obstruction, to  

"Search me, loving Father, and know my heart! See for yourself what's clogging my ears; then guide me with unsuppressed volume." 
(Psalm 139:24, a bit adapted!)

Confessing what earplugs we use allows us to unstop our ears, and experience the clarity and intensity of a voice that is face-to-face. May we bear much fruit in keeping with repentance.

Love you. God bless.

Something Is Different

Dear Faith Family,

Just under two months ago, an already unsettled world began to be turned upside down, at least for me. While the evil that took George Floyd's life has been a constant force operating within our country's history (and the history of the world), and while the outpouring of pain and anger and call for justice has been just as constant, there was something different this time. Something was compelling me to listen. 

Perhaps the lack of news due to the pandemic lockdown made the sadness, hurt, and injustice an inescapable reality. Maybe the free time kept the wounded and the wanting on the streets giving voice to what has been avoided by many of us. Both are undoubtedly true. Yet, what made this time different for me was the invitation from friends to consider the moment with them.

The first, a request from three friends in our faith family to listen to their hearts. In the semi-cool shade of my front yard (really it was not cool at all!), these three women shared what our Father has been speaking to them regarding His heart for racial justice. Together we considered how He might be guiding and working in others--including myself--at that moment, and what we could do in response. They invited me to listen. To listen to the Lord in and through them, and to listen for myself to our Father revealing His heart and my responsibility.

The second, a bid from a friend, who is a black pastor, to listen to his hurt and let him listen to my heart. At a slightly sheltered picnic table soon to be drenched in sweat, this man shared with me the full range of emotions that he had been speaking to our Father. He also asked me how I was feeling and what I was thinking about this moment. Together we considered how our Father might be guiding and working in us and what we could do in response. He invited me to listen. To listen to the Lord through his pain and to listen to our Father in my thoughts and feelings. My friend also asked me to listen to the Spirit by learning with him the history of his anguish and my responsibility.

The months since these invitations have been a lot of listening and learning, at least for me. Listening to friends and historians, pastors and protestors, theologians and sociologists, the hurt and the healing, and the Hurting Healer. While I have much left to hear, what I have heard so far is already changing me. Things and people look, sound, and feel different. 

This time is different because I was invited by friends to consider the moment with them. To listen to their hearts. To listen to my own. And, to listen with them to the Spirit who "will convict the world," including me, "concerning sin and righteousness and judgment" (Jn. 16:8).  And so I want to invite you too to consider the moment and to listen as well.

Specifically, I am inviting you to listen: 

WITH US | Join with those in your faith family who are considering our Father's heart and our responsibility at this moment. All you need to do is click here to join the conversation. 

TO DR. KING | In April of 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. penned the letter linked here from the Birmingham jail in response to public words from faith leaders. So I listen to men who, like me, possessed both empathy and ignorance. And, like me, were functionally blind and hard of hearing. And I listen to Dr. King's words which are concise and clear. Words written with unwavering conviction and Christ-like concern that something would be different this time. 

May our considering this moment, and our past, give us "an ear," to "hear what the Spirit says to," our faith family. 

So Be It

Dear Faith Family,

One of the most common words in our "church speak" is a word uttered primarily out of habit. It is a word that passes out of our thoughts as quickly as it passes over our lips. The word is amen.

Routinely, amen follows words used to praise God, to beseech God, to acknowledge God, in other words: prayer. For millennia now, God's people have uttered this two-syllable affirmation of the certainty of prayer as an act of faith.

In more recent history, amen rings with the declaration "so be it," or "it is so." When we say amen, we validate the words which precede it--the words that speak of God's goodness, God's power, God's justice, and God's presence--as true and truly received. When we say amen, we declare, "Yes, God is worthy, God is mighty, God is here," so be it...it is so.

Amen is meant to ground us in the confidence of the One to whom we pray so that we might pray with certainty and without wavering. But can I be honest? Many prayers of mine end in amen but lack the conviction of the "verily" spoken.   

I wish it were not the case that my amens are often habitual rather than faith-full. I imagine I am not alone in this aspiration. So as a way of mutual encouragement, I leave you with these words of confession and hope on which to meditate and make your own.

Malcolm Guite | Amen 

When will I ever learn to say Amen, 
Really assent at last to anything? 
For now my hesitations always bring 
Some reservation in their trail, and then 
Each reservation brings new hesitations; 
All my intended amens just collapse
In an evasive mumble: well, perhaps, 
Let me consider all the implications...

But you can read my heart, I hear you say: 
For once be present to me, I am here, 
Breathe in the perfect love that casts out fear
Open your heart and let your yea be yea. 
Oh, bring me to that brink, that moment when
I see your full-eyed love and say Amen. 

Love you. God bless. 

A Not So New Practice

Dear Faith Family,

On Sunday, we turned our attention to the source and means of experiencing our God gifted free life: a conversational companionship with Him and His family.  Our focus on Sunday was on unclogging our hearts to open our ears, preparing us to focus over the coming weeks on developing competency and confidence in the all-important skill of shared life with God: Hearing God.

While we will discover and discuss the multifaceted nature of God's speaking to us, there is one particular practice our faith family for over millennia has used to mature in assuming and discerning God's communing with we, his children. The practice is called Lectio Divina, literally translated "divine reading."

Lectio (as we'll refer to it), is a framework, guide, or structure used to help us in our often distracted lives and noisy minds, to dialogue with our Father through His word. In Lectio, we assume that God has spoken in the words written and that those words help us recognize His voice today. When incorporated into our regular rhythms, Lectio grounds our hearing in something sure (scripture) and helps tune our ears to be attentive to the living and active voice, which is the foundation of our conversational companionship throughout our everyday routines.

In regards to the practice itself, Lectio has four "movements": Read, Reflect, Respond, Rest. Each step guiding us deeper into dialogue with our Father through the scripture and Christ, who is in us via His Spirit. While Lectio can be applied to almost any passage of scripture, psalm, or story, it is best used in familiar or easily understandable texts or ones in which we have a bit of context. The purpose of the practice is dialogue through meditation and contemplation, so having to do a lot of research kind of defeats the point.

Lectio is not a new practice for our faith family. We've often used it in our Gatherings and have put together several guides for the practice. For instance, last summer, while in the books of Ezekiel & John, we used Lectio to help us engage with God through Jesus' seven "I AM" statements. These would be an excellent place to start to (re)introduce you to the practice.

CLICK HERE FOR ‘I AM’ LECTIO GUIDES

These guides will most likely migrate over the current series resource page in the coming days, along with additional guides to help us mature in our competency and confidence in Hearing God, especially amid the disorientation of our current moment.

One last word on Lectio. The assumption of those in our faith history who developed this practice was that it would be the starting and balancing practice for knowing God and His word. Lectio was the beginning practice for individuals (within the community, of course) in the study of scripture. It was also incorporated into the regular rhythms of the more "mature" to help ensure that studying God did not replace communicating with God. In other words, it is a practice for all of us, no matter how much (or little) we know or how new (or learned) we are in following Jesus.

Praying that you have the humility and courage to enter into an ongoing conversation with our Father. If you have any questions or need any help along the way, please don't hesitate to ask. 

Love you all. God bless. 

A Fresh Image

Dear Faith Family,

This past Sunday, our journey towards learning to live freely and lightly through Galatians came to an end. In his farewell remarks, the apostle Paul drew our attention once more to the image that captivated and compelled his vision of the free life. A historical event and transformative symbol by which Paul viewed himself and the everyday world he inhabited: "the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." (6:14). 

The cross as the symbol of our faith is nothing new to you and me. I know that today crosses decorate the walls of many of our homes. I know that today crosses are worn around many of our necks and tattooed on many of our bodies. If anything, we might be too familiar with the cross. But what if, like for myself, the image of the cross cultivates very little dissonance in the way I see myself and the world I inhabit? What if it no longer carries its original weight and appall as an instrument of death and unavoidable consequence of systems and states governed by human wit and wisdom?  Well, when that happens, we need to see the cross afresh, which is my hope for today's letter. 

We know that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). And that is why we cherish the cross, the "giving" of the Son for us. But did you know that Jesus' declaration directly preceding this famous verse helps us understand how the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ helps us see our daily steps in the world which God loves? Here is what Jesus said in John 3:14-15,
 

"In the same way that Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert so people could have something to see and then believe, it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up--and everyone who looks up to him, trusting and expectant, will gain a real-life, eternal life."  

Jesus is referencing a story of the wilderness wanderings of Israel from Numbers 21:4-9. The people of God find themselves between deliverance from enslavement and freedom in the fullness of the promised land. And the in-between is hard on God's people! It is a physically, emotionally, and spiritually challange maturing along their journey, as what they thought they knew of themselves, of the world, and of God is being stripped away as they learn to trust God's presence and provision. They complain a lot. They quarrel amongst themselves, a lot. They fight against other peoples and forces, a lot. They grumble, moan, and grow impatient with God's way in and for them. Sound familiar to anything you've experienced?

Anyway, at the climax of their fatigue, they venomously speak out against God's act of salvation, calling it worthless and for not. It is here that "fiery serpents" are sent among the people, and many of them die. A rather traumatic scene, don't you think? Seeing friends and family attacked by snakes and dying, as God's presence and provision is removed--since it was worthless after all.

Quickly the people take back their words, recognize the sin in wanting something other than the Lord and his way, and plead for his mercy to "take away the serpents from us." It's here that God does something not merely merciful but formative. Something not only to remove the forever consequence of their sin but to give the people an image to look at every time the reality of living in a world of sin bits them.

Carlos Ruiz, a pastor in Chicago, describes the scene and its implication this way, "After [the people of God] repented for their sin and asked for help to Moses, it would have made sense for God to remove the serpents right away in order to heal them. However, God did not do that. On the contrary, God asked Moses to build an icon of the very creature that was causing them to die, a serpent of bronze. Whenever they would look at the serpent of bronze, they would be healed and live...an odd way of being saved. It is odd and scary because they realized that if they looked at the traumatic icon, instead of running away from it [or becoming too comfortable with it], they would live."

The people in Numbers did not stop getting bit by the manifestations of sin, but they did have something to look at when they felt the sting, something to look at that would allow them to live despite the bite of sin. Ironically, the image was the very thing that bit them. The serpent in bronze was a visual manifestation of their discontent with God's presence and provision; in other words, his way to the good life. They were not given an image of a better life to look at to live, but rather the visual reality of the worst in this world.

In the same way that Israel in the wilderness was meant to look at an image, not of another world but the reality of this one to "live," so too are we to look to the cross as an image of reality as it is so that we might "gain a real-life." For, when we look at the image of the cross, we see two things. We see the real-life outworking of life on our own--and thus the same limitations and consequences of those we share this world with. And, we see God, amid things as they are, giving real-life, taking away death, limiting the consequences of our sin--and the sin of others.

Think about that for a moment--maybe for the rest of your life(!)--but at least for a moment right now. When the difficulty of living between deliverance and future promise begins to bite, when suffering the venom of others and even spewing our own, we can look to "the Son of Man lifted up" like "the serpent in the wilderness," admitting the reality in which we live and the mercy and grace of a new life gifted.

Just think, instead of quarreling, complaining, and all those other "works of the flesh" Paul says leads to "biting and devouring," when we see the manifestation of sin in our lives and experience it through others, what if we looked up to "the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ"?  What might life look like--how might we see our next steps--through that line of sight?

Love you my friends. May what our Lord Jesus Christ gives freely, be deeply and personally yours. God bless. 

A Weighty Week

Dear Faith Family, 

The last few weeks have felt weighty. There has been a heaviness all about us in our city, society, and culture. And, there has been a heaviness within our faith family amind the various trials and troubles, opportunities, and responsibilities of our individual stories. And while we tend to bemoan the heaviness, shake off the weight, and ignore the burden that would drag us down, there is something else happening under the weight if we will let it. The weight I, and most of you, am feeling is not a sinking weight, pulling us down into despair or apathy, but rather a weight that draws us deeper into the heart of God.

What we will discover under the weight--that is if we aren't blinded by complaint, busied by solutions, or distracted by addictions--is the heart and healing of our heavenly Father. Or, as Psalm 34:18 puts it, 

"If your heart is broken, you'll find God right there; 
if you're kicked in the gut, he'll help you catch your breath." 

When we follow Jesus, we follow him into the depths of real life. All the muck, all the mundanity, all the fragility, all the physicality, the money, the emotions, the relationships, etc. And in those depths, we discover things that are awful and painful, and we discover something that transcends it all: the compassionate heart of a Father, and the healing Spirit of a Savior. 

May we let the weight draw us into the depths from which new creation arise. God bless.

A Unique Gift

Dear Faith Family, 

Do you have an idea, image, or phrase from Scripture that you find yourself circling back to more for its obscurity than its clarity? You know, a saying or story that sticks out because it's brief and a bit odd, though you are sure there is more to it than meets the eye? And, every once a while, something you are reading, watching, or thinking about reminds you of that little enigma, and you find yourself pondering it again--even if only for a moment or two?

Well,  I found myself pondering once more Jesus' promise to give those who hold fast to faith in Him, the enigmatic "white stone, with a new name," from Revelation 2:17 the other day. The curious nature of this pocket-sized gift is that "no one knows [the name on the stone] except the one who receives it."  How mysterious & kind-of-exciting, don't you think?! 

Now, we've been learning the last few months through Galatians that we find ourselves under a steady barrage of marketed spiritual insights trying to get us to buy security, competency, and control in our life with God. Many of these insights seem plausible, some sincere, but all are relatively common due to their human-crafting. But here, in "the white stone, with a new name," Jesus offers us something truly unique, something we cannot buy nor which anyone could possibly say they know for us, a personal gift unwrapped through enduring faith. 

So what is this gift? Not specifically, of course, but descriptively? What is this unique, God-inscribed rock?

Well, I think George MacDonald describes the gift for those who hold fast to the name of Jesus amid the persistent opportunities to buy something else, best. And he does so in a manner that encourages you and me to persevere in our freedom so that we might unwrap and display what God has given! 

"The giving of the white stone with a new name is the communication of what God thinks about the man to the man. It is the divine judgment, the solemn holy doom of the righteous person, the 'Come, thou blessed,' spoken to the individual...

The true name is one which expresses the character, the nature, the meaning of the person who bears it. It is the woman's own symbol--her soul's picture in a word--the sign which belongs to her and to no one else. Who can give a man this, his own name? God alone. For no one but God sees what the man is, what the woman is...

God's name for a man must be the expression of God's own idea of the man, the being God had in His thought when he began to make the child, and whom God kept in His thought through the long process of creation that went to realize the idea. To tell the name is to seal the success--to say 'In thee also I am well pleased.' 

...each woman has her individual relation to God, but each woman [also] has here peculiar relation to God. She is to God a peculiar being, made after her own fashion, and that of no one else. Hence she can worship God as no woman else can worship Him. 

For each, God has a different response. With every man Jesus has a secret--the secret of a new name. In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter. 

There is a chamber also (O God, humble and accept my speech)--a chamber in God Himself, into which none can enter but the one, the individual, the peculiar man or woman--out of which chamber that person has to bring revelation and strength for his or her brothers and sisters. This is that for which they were made--to reveal the secret things fo the Father." 

Praying this little enigma makes its way into your mind, heart, and life of faith this week--and circles back often! Love you. God bless. 

How I Talk To God

Dear Faith Family, 

We speak a lot of the "ordinariness" of our faith, by which we mean that even the most routine, often unnoticed aspect of our day can be an interaction with God who is here, sharing his life with us. From "interruptions and mental preoccupations that sometimes clutter our days," to planned moments, to-do lists, and daily commutes (when still did that!), there can be an open exchange with God who spoke first and gifted us his Spirit to cry 'Abba! Father!' 

What makes the ordinary an interaction with God, the mechanism of "can be," is prayer: the open exchange we have with God who is here. George Herbert called this exchange 'Heaven in ordinarie,' the blessed in the noticed specifics of routine.

Maybe the idea of praying as you go, 'without ceasing,' seems more of an ideal than actually achievable, or maybe prayer is too defined, reduced to a formal action rather than a passing awareness. If that is you, as it is me at times, I want to offer you a simple, practical poem on the conversational nature of prayer that undergirds our ordinary faith. A poem that we can all identify with, and because of that, a poem that I hope will encourage you too to write down and remember those moments in recent past, today, this week, when the everyday was "opened to the eternal."

HOW I TALK TO GOD | Kelly Belmonte

Coffee in one hand
leaning in to share, listen:
How I talk to God.

'Momma, you're special.'
Three-year-old touches my cheek.
How God talks to me. 

While driving I make
lists: done, do, hope, love, hate, try.
How I talk to God. 

Above the highway
hawk: high, alone, free, focused.
How God talks to me. 

Rash, impetuous
chatter, followed by silence;
How I talk to God. 

First, second, third, fourth
chance to hear, then another:
How God talks to me. 

Fetal position
under flannel sheets, weeping
How I talk to God.

Moonlight on pillow
tending to my open wounds
How God talks to me.

Pulling from my heap
of words, the ones that mean yes:
How I talk to God.

Infinite connects
with finite, without words:
How God talks to me. 

Just Breathe

Dear Faith Family, 

When we began our journey into Galatians, I said that Paul's letter was first and foremost a response to the gospel, to the good news that God is here and sharing his life with us. For Paul, the cross of Jesus was the focal point of this good news, the moment in history when the story of salvation converged with his own story,

"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." (2:20a)

"far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." (6:14)

We are free because "the Lord Jesus Chrsit...gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father." (1:4)  Paul won't let us get too far from this cosmos shifting event in his little letter. Every few sentences, it seems, there is yet another reminder of the means and manner of our free lives. While immersed in Galatians, it is nearly impossible to wander too far from the denouement of salvation history. Yet, the death and resurrection of Jesus as my own is rather too easily submerged under the routines and rigors of daily existence.

So, what can I do to be filled with "a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in [such] knowledge of [Jesus]"? Well, breathe.

Malcolm Guite reminds us of our faith family's old and cherished practice of letting the most natural and necessary physical process for living, reinvigorate our living faith:

"Contained in the pattern of our breathing is the whole story of our salvation. For a Christian in prayer, the very act of breathing can become a return to our birth: receiving of original life from the breath of God, as we breathe in with Adam in the garden of our beginnings; an offering of all that needs letting go and redeeming as we breathe out with Christ on the cross; a glad acceptance of new life in the Holy Spirit as we breathe in again receiving our life and commission afresh from the risen Lord." 

Breathe in--breathe out--breathe in again, and the story of salvation converges with our own. A process that can be repeated without preparation, wherever we find ourselves, and as often as needed to live.

Might we breathe in the good news today, and tomorrow, and as long as there is breath in our lungs, finding that "the life we live now in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us." (2:20b)

A Mother's Wisdom

Dear Faith Family, 

For those that might have forgotten (us dads and sons!), Mother's Day is this coming Sunday. So, in honor of this special day, I thought it appropriate timing to share with you words of wisdom from one mother to her son,

"Let this be a mother's gift; find yourself a faith, it helps. No, not helps. It is everything." 

Deedra and I have been watching the latest season of The Crown during the quarantine. It is a fictional, loosely historical account of various moments in the British royal family. If you didn't know, we have Anglophile tendencies! Anyway, one fo the episodes this season focused on the Duke of Edinburgh--Prince Philp, the Queen's husband--and his princess turned nun mother. Princess Alice is her official title. Having suffered from the best treatments of modern-psychology and survived the worst disintegrations of societal expectations and political unrest, she became a nun in the Greek Orthodox Church. Her personal traumas distanced her son from her for most of his life, but at the end of her life, they find themselves unintentionally reunited. In a long-overdue inquiry, she asks Prince Philip, "How is your faith?" The duke's reply is diffident, implying that faith is not a critical component in his life. To this, Princess Alice speaks the wisdom quoted above.

While this exchange between this mother and her son may or may not have happened as described, the powerful truth of the statement is undiminished. Faith is more than a help, a supplement to aid in our survival; it is as vital to life as air. Paul has been speaking the same words to you and me in chapters 2-3 of Galatians, "find yourself a faith in Jesus crucified," Paul would say to his family in Christ, "it helps. No, not helps. It is everything. The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." 

The trust that God is here and shares his life with us is everything: the foundation on which we can endure the storms and rudder by which we navigate the seas of life. A few episodes later, Prince Philip discovers the truth of his mother's wisdom as the things he holds on to for stability and direction prove frail. Might we too heed the words of a mother to her child, and find a faith to hold us fast.

Love you faith family. God bless.  

A Second Shot

Dear Faith Family, 

Have you ever felt like you missed? Missed the opportunity to say something to a friend or family member which would have made a difference? Missed nailing that presentation at work? Missed out on saying clearly and simply what was on your heart?

Sunday’s sermon felt like a miss for me. Now before those of you in kindness and pitty email me to say it hit somewhere on the board, misses are a part of life, so I am not overly upset. Like anyone, I would prefer not to miss, but misses are not the end of the world. So thank you in advance for your compassion, but no need to console!

Nevertheless, this week’s note is an effort to say more plainly what I had hoped to say on Sunday: because of the cross, we are meant to view the world through faith, not sin—because of the cross of Christ.

Sin shrinks our view of ourselves, one another, and God by creating distance. The more mired we are in sin, the further divided we are from the fullness of life in “righteous” or whole relationships.  Ironically, our well-intentioned and religiously approved attempts to overcome sin only perpetuate the ever-widening gap, tearing apart and distorting details. Yet, when the image of Jesus Christ dying and dead upon the cross (the story we looked at in Matthew 27:45-54) sinks deep into our consciousness, becoming the lens by which we view our everyday world, our vision expands—the depth and details of life become vivid. We see ourselves and one another and even God, not through the blurring fractals of sin but with the clarity of faith in the moment of most powerful grace.

Malcolm Guite says contends that,  

“One key to the mystery of the Gospels is the truth that everything that happened ‘out there and back then’ also happens ‘in here and right now.’ Christ is the second Adam [I Cor. 15:21-22], the second human being in whom we are all gathered up [Heb. 2:14-18]. What he does for us, he also does in us. Just as hidden in us somewhere is the Eden we once inhabited and have lost, so also somewhere in us is Golgatha.”[1]

 
We were both born for more than the world as it is, and at the same time, born into the world as it is. We cannot escape the midden that humanity produces nor the polluted heart. No matter how desperate we are to wash off the refuse, we are soiled at the cellular level. But what is both surprising and powerful at the moment of Jesus dying and dead upon the cross, is that he met us in the filth, the worst gunge of society’s oppression and the worst grime of our hearts’ rebellion; so that we might be made clean. “For our sake he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness [the pure, the holy] of God.” (II Cor. 5:21) Counted righteous, made clean, because we have been crucified with Christ, and live today by faith that what was polluted has been purified.

To live freely and lightly, unbound by the shrinking nature of sin, we must let the image and story of Jesus’ end be our beginning and future. The trash heap of Golgatha is the place where the world started anew—the curtain forever removed and the sleeping saints alive again. We must, as the poet, John Heath-Stubbs[2] describes, cry out as “first Adams,” ‘Create me.’ and hear the second Adam upon the cross,  
            

From lips cracked with thirst, the voice
              That sounded once over the billows of chaos
              When the royal banners advanced,
              [reply] through the smother of dark:
              ‘All is accomplished, all is made new, and look –
              All things, once more, are good.’

When this story seeps its way into our bones and the depths of our souls, when this image becomes the lens through which we view the world—God, neighbor, ourselves—then the world is opened to us, becoming the “land of the living,” rather than the garbage heap of the dying or the survival of the purest. And then, as we prayed on Sunday, we can, together, “cross our broken land/And make each other bridges back to heaven.”

Love you, faith family. God bless! 

A Snacking Problem

Dear Faith Family, 

I don't know about you, but I find myself snacking more in these days of confinement than I usually do. Now, I am a snacker even when not restricted, which is one reason I patronize certain coffee shops to help me avoid the temptations awaiting in my pantry and fridge. But in these days of sheltering, working, and doing everything else at home, the trips to the kitchen (which is just a few steps to my right as I type) are, well...frequent!

While modest snacking is acceptable, and perhaps even beneficial, the truth is that the more I snack, popping into the kitchen for an apple here and a piece of chocolate there and there and there again (!), the less inclined I am to desire, enjoy, or benefit from the filling and more nutritious meals Deedra provides for our family.  In an extended period of indulging in this habit,  my body, mind, and soul feel undernourished and a bit sluggish. Do you know what I mean?  

Well, here is the thing I have noticed: my prayer life is reflecting my dietary habits, and sharing the unfortunate ramifications as well. I am "snacking" more in my conversations with our Father, popping off a little prayer for something here, asking him for favor or relief there, speaking at him more than speaking with him, and finding that I am less inclined to desire, enjoy, or benefit from the filling and nutritious banquet laid out before me by Jesus. Do you know what I mean? 

"...the Church's banquet," that's how George Herbert described prayer. Not an insalubrious snack, but a smorgasbord so abundant that one leaves unsatisfied only by choosing to snack or diet rather than dine. Maybe the confinement with its lack of solitude and rarity of quiet and abundance of distractions has exacerbated my 'snacklet' prayers, or maybe there is something deeper (or perhaps even a shallowness) that keeps me stepping to the pantry for something to snatch for momentary satisfaction? Regardless, what I want--no, what I need--is to moderate my snacking, not by praying "more" but rather engaging in prayer like it is indeed a banquet. Intentionally setting my mind and heart on the reality that answering God, conversing with him, listening to him, is an abundance rather than a quick bite. 

I know it sounds a little silly, perhaps even oversimplified, to suggest that the solution is a change of perspective. Still, our scriptures seem to be pretty adamant that it is our perspectives that keep us from experiencing the full benefits of what we have been given in Jesus (see Lk. 19:11-27). So, to help myself...and you if you need it(!)...pray while under our curtailment, I want to encourage some meditation on prayer being our banquet. To aid our imagination, I offer you another believer's (Malcome Guite) mediation on "The Church's Banquet":

Not some strict modicum, exact allowance,
Precise prescription, rigid regimen,
But beauty and gratuitous abundance,
Capacious grace, beyond comparison.
Not something hasty, always snatched alone;
Junkets of junk food, fueling our dis-ease,
Not little snacklets eaten on the run,
But peace and plenty, taken at our ease.
Not to be worked for, not another task,
But love that's lavished on us, full and free,
Course after course of hospitality,
And rich wine flowing from an unstopped flask.
He paid the price before we reached the inn,
And all he asks of us is to begin.

Think long on this reflection. And know that I will be praying that your prayers, and mine, might be feasts in these days of restriction! Love you, God bless! 

Where Does Our Help Come From?

Dear Faith Family, 

We humans have a habit of projecting our feelings onto our environment, "so that the outward becomes expressive of the inward." And, there are also times when the outward circumstances of existence cast a mirrored image of our inward journey, conditions that strip away our securities, widdle down our strength, and overwhelm us like a dense forest in "the valley of deep darkness."

The realities of our moment--those uncertainties of what tomorrow brings, the loss of connection, finances, experiences, health, opportunities, and the clarity of our lack of control--have left many of us feeling as though we have been tossed overboard from a sinking ship into a tempest wrecked sea struggling to keep from falling beneath the waves. I am not trying to be dramatic. I have prayed with many these last few weeks who, because of these outward circumstances, have come to their end, "the shadow of death," cast over the things they depend upon for life.

I have been thinking about this a lot, especially in light of all that we commemorated and celebrated this past weekend. Remembering Jesus' experience of sinking beneath the physical and relational agony until it took his life, his outward circumstances mirroring his inward anguish helps us in our similar moments. His suffering means that no matter whether we project our internal spiral onto outer circumstances or are drug down into internal affliction through outward events, there is one who has gone down before us, who has sunk further than we will have to fall.

It is the "loyalty and solidarity" of our Good Shepherd that comforts us as we descend into the valleys that must be traversed towards our "surely" ascents (Ps. 23), and it is Jesus' going further than we will ever have to which compelled me to write this for us: 

When falling we look for a rope from above
to catch us as we sink;
but what if help is underneath?
What if rescue were to come
from descending
into the arms of sightly defeat.

There is one who sank further.
He plummeted so that we would know,
He plunged further than we will ever go.

He descended upon the devil's gate,
freeing them from their hinges. 
He descended so that our fate, 
is to rise with his ascending. 
'And though you cannot see, or speak, or breath,
the everlasting arms are underneath.'

Praying that you would find comfort in your falling, as you discover that help grips you from underneath. Love you. God bless.  

Pitiful Prayers

Dear Faith Family, 

I shared this with my Gospel Community earlier this week and thought it might encourage others as well. Now, halfway through another week continuing to hope for an end to our troubles, our inconveniences, and our wavering moods with little end in sight, we might find that our prayers are more pitiful than powerful. Maybe you can identify, as I can, with the psalmist in Psalm 77, whose prayer starts as a pity-party directed towards God, and a dramatic one at that! 
 

I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might, 
I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens.  I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord; 
my life was an open wound that wouldn't heal. 
When friends said, 'Everything will turn out all right,' 
I didn't believe a word they said. 
I remember God--and shake my head. 
I bow my head--then wring my hands. 
I'm awake all night--not a wink of sleep; 
I can't even say what's bothering me. 
I go over the days one by one, 
I ponder the years gone by. 
I strum my lute all through the night, 
wondering how to get my life together.  Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good? 
Will he ever smile again? 
Is his love worn threadbare? 
Has his salvation promise burned out? 
Has God forgotten his manners? 
Has he angrily stalked off and left us? 
'Just my luck,' I said, 'The High God goes out of business 
just the moment I need him.' 

The last line is my favorite! I have thought those words, though hardly had the courage to pray them! Have your prayers sounded like any or all of the psalmist's? Or maybe your feelings and thoughts, whether you prayed them or not?  

Well, if you are like me, you probably feel bad about praying such things. You don't like self-pity and think it is both useless and even wrong to dwell in this crippling, distorting activity. And you'd be right. Self-pity is a dead-end, and yet our psalms don't forbid self-pity, at least in the presence of our Father. 

Reread the second line, "I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens." The psalmist's pity-party is directed in the right direction; it's directed towards God, who is listening. And you know what happens to the psalmist, and what happens more often than not in my own prayed pity-parties, the prayer ends far from where it started. Here is the rest of Psalm 77, 
 

Once again I'll go over what God has done, 
lay out on the table the ancient wonders; 
I'll ponder all the things you've accomplished, 
and give a long, loving look at your acts.  O God! Your way is holy! 
No god is great like God! 
You're the God who makes things happen; 
you showed everyone what you can do--
You pulled your people out of the worst kind of trouble, 
rescued the children of Jacob and Joseph.  Ocean saw you in action, God, 
saw you and trembled with fear; 
Deep Ocean was scared to death. 
Clouds belched buckets of rain, Sky exploded with thunder, your arrows flashing this way and that. 
From Whirlwind came your thundering voice, 
Lighting exposed the world, 
Earth reeled and rocked. 
You strode right through Ocean, 
walked straight through roaring Ocean, 
but nobody saw your footprints, saw you come and go. You led your people like a flock of sheep, 
by the hand of Moses and Aaron. 

Something happened to the psalmist in the middle of his pity-party with God; his focused changed. But the amazing thing to me, the thing that keeps me praying through my self-pity, is that there is nothing other than the listening God's presence that seemed to reorient the psalmist. He didn't will his change of attitude. He didn't argue himself into a different focus. He didn't even respond to a self or Spirit rebuke. The prayer simply turns on a dime. One minute he is wallowing in his self-pity (vs.10), and the next (vs. 11) he is worshiping. There is nothing to account for such a change but that his prayer was truly prayer: a response to the living, intimate God who listens. 

Eugene Peterson once said, "Any place is the right place to begin to pray. But we mustn't be afraid of ending up someplace quite different from where we start." So, my encouragement for us this week is to keep praying. And, if your prayer starts like Psalm 77, keep praying to our Father who listens, until your prayer turns too. 

A Gift For This Moment

Dear Faith Family, 

I pray that you are well in body, mind, and soul as you read this note. I have been praying for each of you even more and with greater desperation than usual these last few weeks.  I guess that is one blessing amid the uncertainties of this moment; it compels us to pray like we need it.

One of the things I have begun praying for you as we prepare for at least another month of distancing is that you would press through the mourning of what is lost and into the resolve needed to live well.

I do not mean that you should not mourn, though I would encourage you not to moan. There is real loss in all of this. What I am praying for you and us, however, is that we would not remain in mourning, withdrawn into our feelings of loss and fear, but would accept the reality of this moment and embrace God's gift to us.

Perhaps the apostle Paul's dearest companion, Timothy, was a man whose faith Paul knew to be sincere and grounded. Nevertheless, Timothy found himself with difficulty living up to his faith.  And so, Paul writes him saying, 
 

"For this reason, I [Paul] remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you...for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and sound mind."
(2 Timothy 1:6-7) 

It is normal to grieve and worry, and it is human to complain and fret, but we have something in us, given us, that allows us to continue through the trial, ready for whatever is needed of us. My prayer for you, for us, and myself is that we would "fan into flame," not "hide under a basket," this God gift, a spirit with the power to persevere and overcome,  able to love as we have been loved, and do so with steadiness often absent in times like this.

The headmaster of our twin's school emailed the parents a trending quote on social media, though I wouldn't know (ha!). The exchange is between two of the primary characters of Tolkien's Lord of The Rings, and is certainly appropriate to our prayer. Even if you haven't read the books, you'll recognize the line from the first movie. 
 

'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo. 'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'  

None of us are glad to be in the time we are in right now, but that is not for us to decide. It has been decided for us (Acts 17:26). What we are able and free to determine is how we will live during our allotted day, in a spirit of fear or radiating  with "the good deposit entrusted to you." 

Savoring Faith

Dear Faith Family, 

I am writing to you today, my friends, to ask you to do something that does not come easily for most: slow down and savor words.

In 'normal' times, we are commonly overrun with words and information, but these last few weeks have intensified the onslaught of opinions, instructions, and even encouragements. I expect then, with empathy rather than judgment, that you are more than likely going to skim through my addition to the verbiage. But, I ask you to resist your inclination to scan and continue reading only at a leisurely pace. I ask it for your good, so when you are ready and able to slow down and savor, please continue. 

There is an underlying anxiousness in most of us right now, for obvious reasons. An anxiousness that creeps up and overwhelms, perhaps only in passing moments or manifesting in unsettled stomachs and uneasy sleep. For some, the anxiousness is not so hidden. Regardless, we know we can and ought not to fret as we do, at least that is what our faith tells us. We try not to worry, yet we are unable it seems but to wander in the wilderness of the present, brooding on what lies beyond our vision, the unknown surrounding us like darkness. We are unsure where the sounds behind the veil of night originate and to whom or what they belong. Anything and everything imaginable could be on the other side of the night so thick yet pale.  

We wonder if our faith is lacking and what confession needs to be made. We think our faith is weak, our faith mistakenly abased by our overconsumption of the news, constant distracting, and 'selfish solicitude.' And now, when we need it most, and it’s night and hard to see, it seems fleeting as a match's flame.  

What are we to do at these times? It would be easy enough to offer a quick reminder of the truth--and those are certainly helpful--or a list of useful tips for mental health in stressful times, or a treatise on "being anxious for nothing." Instead, I offer you an opportunity to slow down and savor, to "taste and see that the Lord is good," not through information, but a meditation on words about the Word.

The instructions are simple: read the poem below slowly, then read the section after meant to help you connect some of the dots in the poem, then re-read the poem slowly two to three more times, allowing yourself be drawn into the images, emotions, and the echos, stopping to hang on the words that jut out to you until the reason for their protruding is satisfied. 

STATION ISLAND XI | Seamus Heaney and St. John of the Cross 

As if the prisms of the kaleidoscope
I plunged once in a butt of muddied water
Surfaced like a marvellous lightship

And out of its silted crystals a monk's face
That had spoken years ago from behind a grille
Spoke again about the need and chance 

To salvage everything, to re-envisage 
The zenith and glimpsed jewels of any gift
Mistakenly abased...

What came to nothing could always be replenished. 

'Read poems as prayers,' he said, 'and for your penance
Translate me something by Juan de la Cruz.' 

Returned from Spain to our chapped wilderness, 
His consonants aspirate, his forehead shining, 
He had made me feel there was nothing to confess. 

Now his sandalled passage stirred me to do this:

How well I  know that fountain, filling, running,
Although it is the night. 

That eternal fountain, hidden away
I know its haven and its secrecy
Although it is the night

But not its source because it does not have one,
Which is all sources' source and origin? 
Although it is the night. 

No other thing can be so beautiful. 
Here the earth and heaven drink their fill
Although it is the night. 

So pellucid it never can be muddied, 
And I know that all light radiates from it
Although it is the night. 

I know no sounding-line can find its bottom,
Nobody ford or plumb its deepest fathom
Although it is the night. 

And its current so in flood it overspills
To water hell and heaven and all peoples
Although it is the night. 

And the current that is generated there,
As far as it wills to, it can flow that far
Although it is the night. 

And from these two a third current proceeds
Which neither of these two, I know, proceeds
Although it is the night. 

This eternal fountain hides and splashes
Within this living bread that is life to us
Although it is the night. 

Hear it calling out to every creature. 
And they drink these waters, although it is dark here
Because it is the night. 

I am repining for this living fountain. 
Within this bread of life I see it plain
Although it is the night. 

The poem begins with the author recounting a kaleidoscope he ruined in his desire to see into the dark of 'muddied water." This gift meant to allow him to see the refracted and beautiful glories of God's light seems to him lost and wonders if it can be salvaged. Feeling the seeming loss of such a gift, he remembers a conversation with a monk in a confessional ('behind a grille'), through which he came to realize that "What came to nothing could always be replenished." 

Like you and I, the author has struggled to see through the dark, feeling that he has lost his apprentice for viewing God's glory and beauty through the unknown of the "chapped wilderness." And like the author, we are invited to "Read poems as prayer," specifically a poem by St. John of the Cross ("Juan de la Cruz."), which are the final twelve stanzas. 

God, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, addresses himself as "the fountain of living waters" (Jeremiah 2:13, 17:13). And St. John of the cross ruminates on the magnificent features of this fountain and its water in the first several stanzas. 

Jesus would say that if we asked him for a drink, he would give us ever quenching access to the same "living water" (John 4:10). Jesus' access granting comes because he is the "bread of life" and "living bread" (John 6:35, 51). Jesus makes this declaration in the context of him explaining that consuming his body and blood is the only way to life now and forever. His words and actions, making an easy connection for you and me to the bread and wine of communion. In both instances, Jesus offers access to the fountain of living waters through his body and his blood to people at the moment of their need, "Because it is the night."

Now that you have a little bit of connection to the parts of the poem, re-read the poem slowly two to three more times, allowing yourself be drawn into the images, emotions, and the echos, stopping to hang on the words that jut out to you until the reason for their protruding is satisfied. 

Minding Our Own Business

Dear Faith Family, 

It seems timely that our conversation over the last few weeks has centered around Paul's admonishment to the Thessalonian faithful to "aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs" (1 Thess. 4:11). Circumstantially we find our selves with little choice but to focus on the ordinary routines and relationships necessary to get by each day. Similarly, we are encouraged to quiet our activities and keep to ourselves, all of which is wise caution for both our health and our neighbors.  

I don't know about you, but I hear the warnings of leaders and experts, and couple those with Paul saying "mind your own affairs," and I am tempted to check-out. Check-out of responsibilities and relationships that would get me too mixed up in other people's "affairs" and germs. 

I'll all to easily avoid you and busy myself with me even when I am not being encouraged to do so! So, while social distancing is prudent and neighborly at this moment, as those "taught by God to love one another" (1 Thess. 4:9), we must, however, not let this moment justify our self-absorbed tendencies. 

In fact, "mind your own affairs," actually encourages me away from self-absorption, and into prudent living. Remember that Paul's counsel is given in the context of "more and more...brotherly love" (1 Thess. 4:10) or what we can call familial friendship. In this context, minding our own affairs means taking proper and proportionate responsibility for what we have specifically been given to do, care for, and cultivate.

Each of us has everyday roles and relationships within our home, community, faith family, and society for which we have been uniquely created, divinely commissioned, and are graciously accompanied in helping to flourish. That is your business, "your own affairs," which Paul says pay attention! 

While there are similarities and overlaps in these everyday roles and relationships, they are also distinct, specifically special, for each of us. Expect in this way: to avoid them or to attempt them in any other means, then what we have been "taught by God" always leads to less life, not more. We are neither couch-potatoes nor messiahs in everyday living but have a proper and proportionate place somewhere in between. 

If we don't take proper and proportionate responsibility for the relationships which make up our existence, we end up judging but not loving, meddling but not serving, helping but in ways that harm, comparing and contrasting, seeing others weaknesses while ignoring our own, and using the word arrogantly or ignorantly but not being "doers of the word," just to name a few examples. Yet, if in the 'more and more' of familial affection we can mind our own affairs, not in self-absorbed avoidance of others or self-centered serving, but properly and in proportion, we can wisely share the burdens of each other in this and any moment, even as we each carry our own load (Gal. 6:2,5). 

So, may we "mind our own affairs," to the momentary and eternal health of one another, and in so doing, fulfill the law of Christ. 

Not Quiet Like We Think

Dear Faith Family, 

I need to admit that I have a proclivity for the quiet. I don't always feel a need to talk, but I do feel a need to be alone at times. I don't get antsy when boredom sets in, but I do when there is too much commotion. Maybe that's why Paul's admonishment in I Thessalonians 4:11-12 to "aspire to live quietly," sticks out to me. At first glance, it seems to resonate with my natural disposition. But is Paul encouraging us to develop a particular personality bent? I don't think so, though I do believe many of us dismiss Paul's words because our personality is not inclined to whatever image of a "quiet life" pops into our minds. 

While it has been my experience that the majority of us long for a simpler, less chaotic life, we still want to make a difference, yearning to be a part of something bigger, recognizable, and exciting. And, a quiet life seems the opposite of such aspirations, but only if we miss the context of Paul's charge. Just a few verses before, Pauls says this, 

"Now concerning brotherly love (familial friendship), you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, faith family, to do this more and more..." (I Thess. 4:9-10)

You see, the Thessalonians were already involved in something bigger, recognizable, and exciting; their relationships.  They were already making a noticeable difference (in their entire region, i.e., "Macedonia") through the way they loved one another, in the way they sought the good for one another. And that's the point Paul is trying to make, that the yearning within us for a fuller life finds its satisfaction in the relationships in which we are enmeshed.  

God rescues people. God redeems people. God transforms people. And, he does so continuously and persistently day-in and day-out, you know, in the middle of that stuff, we call living. So, to be involved with people then is to be involved in God's fantastic activity. And, to love people is to participate in God's activity in the most impactful way possible. What could be more interesting, more influential, or more satisfying than that! 

A quiet life does not exclude us from having an impact, or keep us locked away from the interesting; instead, it keeps us from missing out on what is most impactful and most interesting. "Aspire to live quietly," is an admonition to strive against the distraction of the grandiose which pulls us out of the personal, and to strive for a life of greatest satisfaction which is found only through loving relationships. 

It's not easy living quietly. Like Jesus (Matt. 4:1-11), we are tempted to gratify our natural craving for satisfaction, tempted to seek out that which makes the most impact for the kingdom, and do that which demonstrates the extensiveness of God's power; but all that is a temptation, but not from God, for God does not tempt (James 1:13-15).  Which is why Paul uses the word "aspire." We don't live quietly by temperament but by choice, as we direct our hopes toward achieving, a life in which we experience and participate in the incredible, but in the context and way, our Father has given us. 

Aspiring to Freedom

Dear Faith Family, 

Over the years, we have attempted to make a big deal about the ordinariness of our faith. The ordinary places where faith takes root and bears fruit. The ordinary routines and relationships where we learn to live by faith and share that faith with others. The ordinary expressions of faith that fill a day, a week, a life.

Now, the ordinary is not an ideal our culture esteems, instead, we seemingly are always on the lookout for the extraordinary. And yet, our valuing of what we think of as normal life—life as employees, friends, neighbors, parents, children, spouses, roommates, church members, etc.—isn't something we just made up or have natural proclivities towards. Rather, it stems from Paul’s admonition to a faith family in Thessalonica whose life of faith “became an example to all the believers.” (I Thes. 1:7).

Having followed Jesus in the Holy Spirit to love one another well (I Thes. 4:9), Paul says to these faithful,

“But we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do this [loving one another well] more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.” (I Thess. 4:10-12)

 
Let your love for one another multiple as you aspire--letting what you hope for be--to live quietly, not splashy or busy or frantic or clamorous, but calm, at peace in your daily doings, your normal labors, your common relationships for the sake of those around you and your freedom. This is Paul's admonition to a family of faith two millennia ago, and one which we have taken to be essential still today.

This coming Sunday, we began a dive into the depths and details of the freedom of an ordinary life in Jesus together to which we aspire. In preparation, I encourage you to do two things. First, consider your own aspirations, especially in regards to a life of faith. What are your ambitions? How does Paul's exhortation to ordinariness sit with you? 

Second, read Galatians. It should only take about 20 minutes to get through the entire letter. After reading Paul's letter, spend some time meditating on the relation of the message to the Galatians, and Paul's encouragement to the Thessalonians. If it helps, re-read The Orthodox Jewish Bible translation of I Thessalonians 4:10-11 which provides  bit more vividness to this shaping exhortation: 
 

"And have as your ambition to lead a quiet life of peace in the home of God, and mind your own business, and have an income, a job, working with your own hands, according to the commandments we gave you. The purpose is that the way you conduct yourself in respectful rhythm with creation, be conducted properly toward outsiders and that you might not be needy, dependent on the way of the world.”

May our ambition for a quiet life bear the fruit of freedom in Jesus!