Never Too Late to Learn

Dear Faith Family,  

The stunning simplicity of the Ten Words in Exodus 20 is magnified by how remarkably exhaustive these foundational words are. As we've seen over the summer, and as Leviticus details, an entire civilization, a community's every day customs and culture in life together and with God, can be built upon these ten simple words. The simplest of which might just be the Eighth Word:

You shall not steal.
(Exodus 20:15) 

From early in life we learn that taking what is not ours is wrong. Whether it be our playmates toys or candy from the store, by two-years of age most every human knows that stealing is an action to avoid, or to hide! While the Eighth Word may be the earliest espoused command, it may also be the most frequently transgressed. 

As we said on Sunday, the word used for "steal" allows us to expand the prohibition from no unlawfully appropriation of someone else’s property, to do no action to take advantage of another. 

The truth is, we can take advantage of others in as nearly as varied ways as we can run off with their possessions. Whether through mindless consumption that takes advantage of unjust labor costs, or a demanding dependence on the kindness of others, idle and half-hearted labor, or even inconsiderate production; taking advantage of others is the failure to take responsibility for ourselves, a failure in stewardship.  

A steward recognizes both what they have and what others have belong to someone else. For a steward, there is true and only owner of possessions, prosperity, and persons, who has entrusted the stewards to use what they've been given in ways that honor the owners character and intentions. And the owner to which we are each of us stewards, as Paul reminds us, intends for us to take responsibility for what we have been entrusted by doing good work well with a generous spirit. 

Let the thief no longer steal,
but rather let him labor,
doing good work with his own hands,
so that he may have something to share
with anyone in need.
(Ephesians 4:28)

While you might not be directly taking what is not yours, I'd be willing to wager that like me, you are taking advantage of others, whether our "stealing" is self-evident or (as thieving tends to be) a self-deception. So, today, lets take a few moments to allow the Spirit to examen our hearts in the ways we interact with our daily responsibilities and employment, our possessions and persons, and our community. 

Pray:  "Search me, O God, and know my heart! Examine me, and know my disquieting thoughts. See if there is any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way ancient and everlasting." (Ps. 139:23-24)

Then listen as the Spirit reveals: 

• The ways am I taking, rather than taking responsibility & 

• What I need to do to give up “thieving." 

May our souls know the grace and freedom of a thief who recognizes in Jesus the means of living differently and forever: "Today with [Him] in Paradise" (Luke 23:43) 

Love you, faith family! God bless. 

An Old Word

Dear Faith Family,  

The word fidelity is probably not a part of your everyday vocab. Unless you are an avid Wendell Berry fan (like me!), you may have had few run-ins with the fifteenth-century French word. We're more likely to use words like trustworthy or faithful to describe a person who keeps her or his commitments, who adheres to the reality of life through relationship. While fidelity implies the same integrity of duty as our usual descriptors, the word also discloses what it takes to live true to the bonds we make and make us. Fidelity is: faithfulness to a person, a way of life, or a community, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support. 

As we discussed on Sunday, like the Seventh Word ("You shall not commit adultery"), the word fidelity presumes that life is made good through integrity in our bound relationships. Like the Sixth Word, the seventh is not merely a prohibition against an act fundamentally destructive and dishonoring of relationship; it is a directive to nurture the relational bonds of our commitments continuously. So, when we stop cultivating the relationships in which we are bound, it can be said that we are practicing in-fidelity--even if by "the letter of the law," we've remained faithful. 

Our scriptures tell the story of humans (individuals and entire civilizations) constantly binding themselves to something or someone in order to live. Even if the image offends our modern tastes, living bound has never been an issue for humanity. Faithful, committed relationship has actually been how we have survived over the millennia. Our problem is remaining true for the long haul to the bonds that produce flourishing.

Like we said on Sunday, "adultery" is the action and word that epitomizes our inconsistent loyalty to others. Adultery is not merely the failure to keep the letter of a covenant, not solely the dereliction of duty or expectation. Adultery is the breaking of commitment through entanglement with someone or something other than the one you are committed to. As 1 Corinthians 6 reveals, adultery is giving what belongs to another (person/Way/community)--that is, your body or heart, spirit or soul--to someone/thing to which you are not bound. 

From the opening chapters of our story (see Gen. 3), we discover that our loyalty is under perpetual persuasion away from what is true, good, and beautiful. So while you may not "technically" commit adultery, you, like me, have entangled some part of yourself with someone/thing in disloyalty of your bound relationships--whether through willful action or apathy. Good thing for us; from the opening chapters of our story (see Gen. 3), we discover that despite our consistent inconsistencies, One is endlessly demonstrating continuous loyalty and support to our relationship with Him. 

Out of reverence for the fidelitous One, through whom we've received and continue to live in grace upon grace, let's keep the Seventh Word by following His lead, demonstrating our loyalty by intentionally nurturing our bound relationships. You might call this intentional nurturing, loving the ones you're bound to like you love yourself. The apostle Paul did (see Ephesians 5:21-33). 

Just imagine how true your heart would remain if you started off each day asking the Spirit to lead you, in the same way Jesus did, to "understand and support," honor, and respect those you're committed to so that everything you do and say might "bring out their best." After all, don't we ask Him to lead others to do the same for us? Add in the devotion cultivated if you were to listen to the voices encouraging and challenging your fidelity to others, not just your contentment, much like Jesus did, and there'd be little room for someone/thing else to get entangled in your bound relationships. 

Being faithful to our essential-to-flourishing relationships takes work. No matter how frayed or secure the bonds of our relationships may be at this moment, each day, we have the opportunity, by the Spirit, to cultivate fidelity or something less. 

For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap decay,
but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap life unending.

And let us not grow weary of doing good,
for in due season we will reap,
if we do not give up. 

(Galatians 6:8-9) 

Might we know our lovers' grace in our failings, and experience the "very good" of lives lived true to God and others.

Love you, faith family! God bless. 

Something To Talk About

Dear Faith Family,  

Be angry and do not sin;
do not let the sun go down on your indignation,
and give no opportunity to the devil.
(Ephesians 4:26-27) 

As Chaz helped us see on Sunday, the Sixth Word is more than a prohibition against taking life. At its heart, the sixth of the Ten Words is a proclamation that life is of supreme value, and protecting and caring for life is of utter importance. The detailed laws which follow the Sixth Word in Israel's history testify to the reality that not taking life is a mindful endeavor. Valuing the life of another is not a thoughtless action; rather, when we fail to consider the fundamentals of life, we are most prone to destroy it--whether apathetically, accidentally, or in anger. 

While we are rarely in a position of power over life, and not all accidents can be avoided, nevertheless, we've all felt Cain's anger, the deep frustration at a fellow human in a particular moment for specific circumstances (see Gen. 4:3-5). Yet being momentarily angry wasn't Cain's fundamental issue; after all, God said, his particular situation was not permanent (Gen. 4:6). Cain's issue, like ours, is failing to take responsibility for our hearts while angry. 

And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.
Its desire is against you, but you must rule over it.
(Genesis 4:7) 

Anger is a normal and acceptable (even healthy) emotion in our image-bearing experience. Especially when we are confronted with difficulty, disappointment, and evil. The problem is not anger; it is when our anger at what is not right is not met and mastered by a hunger and thirst for what is righteous that we find ourselves acting under the coercion of our indignation and the enemy rather than in our God-given freedom.

In our exasperation, we fail to believe that "if you do well, will there not be a lifting up" (Gen. 4:6). We fail to see the fundamental truth that there will be an end to the source of our anger in our "well" or righteous response. Instead, like Cain, we see the end of our anger not in resolving the particular situation but in destroying what angers us. And it is then, when our hearts are more than angry, when we feel contempt for the supposed source of our indignation, that we are prone to take life--whether physically as Cain did (Gen. 4:8) or through all the variety of daily deaths which hate fosters. 

So, how are we to keep the heart of the Sixth Word, to value protecting and caring for life rather than taking it? Especially in daily roles and relationships and amid a culture where anger is ever waiting to boil up? We speak gently. 

The apostle Paul assumed that we could be angry and not sin, but only when we were mindful of how we lived, "not as unwise but as wise" (Eph. 5:15). And as our wisest words remind us: 

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger...
A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but crookedness in it breaks the spirit.
(Proverbs 15:1,4)

When you are angry, how do you speak? How do you speak to others and yourself about the persons/objects of your anger? Whether internally or in venting, in posts or in person, are your words (which we use to make a life) harsh or crooked (not true)? You'll know if they are if anger moves to violent action or if the spirit to strive for life is broken--whether your own or the one(s) your speaking with. 

Perhaps one of the best ways we can keep the Sixth Word in daily living at our time in history, is to consider how you speak--to yourself and one another. May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts value life and not take it, allowing us to be angry at what is not right, and live well so that it will be. 

Love you, faith family! God bless. 

A Family Matter

Dear Faith Family,  

For freedom Christ has set us free;
stand firm therefore, and
do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.
(Galatians 5:1) 

Paul's words were not written to the people whom God "brought out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery" (Ex. 20:2), but they could have been. At least Paul presumes that what happened in Exodus 20 is happening still in his day, and so too in ours. That, by God's gracious and mighty efforts, we are being freed from all that oppresses and opposes life whole and holy. 

The question we started asking a few weeks ago is how are the Ten Words that follow this grand and perpetuating rescue about freedom? How can words that bind us, grounding us in our limitations, help us live free? 

As Dylan mentioned a few weeks ago, freedom is not realized in autonomy, in isolation or separation, but in proper relationship. Remember, the Ten Words are like the law of gravity; they describe reality as it is, regardless of our cognitive or willful assent. According to this "natural law," life free from oppression and slavery (internally and externally) is a matter of relationship. To live free is to relate rightly to God, one another, and even ourselves. Ironically, our relations are where we feel the most oppressed and stifled, whether by boss or parent, child or coworker, spouse or sibling. But we feel this not because relationships inherently oppress our freedom, but because we are not giving proper weight to (i.e., honoring) how we relate. 

Most of us probably have little trouble believing that how we relate to God's person and providence matters for how we experience life. The first four of the Ten Words, while not always easily or willingly submitted to, are not argumentatively resisted. Yet, the assumption that our free life is not merely a product of our relation to God but how we relate to others, that's where we tend to push back. 

We have no problem arguing that how others relate to me impacts how I live. Like our first parents, we are accustomed to blaming our tensions and predicaments on others--any other-- rather than taking responsibility (Genesis 3:8-13). Yet our scriptures are clear from beginning to end that our attitudes and actions towards others (not primarily theirs towards us) determine the type of life we experience. Or, in the words of Jesus, 

So whatever you wish that others would do to you,
do also to them,
for this is the Law and the Prophets.
(Matthew 7:12) 

 

There is no more evident context for validating this reality than in the fundamental and inescapable relation of our immediate family, especially parents to children and children to parents. And so the Fifth Word, 

Honor your father and mother,
that your days may be long in the land
that the LORD your God is giving you.
(Exodus 20:12)

The Fifth Word brings what is unseen (life with God) into unavoidable visibility (life with others). We cannot theologize our way around our relation to our family, no matter how difficult or "abnormal" they may be. 

Our relation to family is complicated, so we need the simplicity of heart that comes through living in harmony with the first four words (as we said last week). Yet, it is our properly weighted attitudes and actions towards those we did not choose, but were chosen for us that have the power to influence how we "live in the land" of promise, that is, in the free life God has rescued us for.  

The essentialness of this fundamental truth is not meant to burden us with acculturated expectations of relation. The Fifth Word is not never question your parents, nor retain a codependency on your parents. Nor does the Fifth Worth assume your parent's parenting is intrinsically right or good or worth imitating. Remember, all the parents of the ones hearing this word for the first time had all but forgotten their God and knew life only as those enslaved. Instead, the word is to take seriously how you relate, how you respond to and treat your parents. In doing so, this word frees us to not have to strive against or overcome those things out of our control: our history, the actions of others. Instead, we are empowered to take appropriate responsibility for the only thing we can, for who we are and how we relate. 

Some of us have good relations with our family, some of us not so good. However, if we are honest, all of us struggle with our responsibility in relating to others. So, instead then getting entangled in our particulars (though a concentrated de-entanglement is helpful), let's step back and consider the fundamental reality of this word: how I relate to others is essential to how I experience life--whether I live free or under a yoke of slavery.

Where and in what ways do you experience the truth of the Fifth Word -- positively and negatively?

As you reflect, consider sharing what the Spirit brings to mind with your DNA, spiritual companions, Gospel Community, and/or spouse. While our inescapable and intimate relations are where we feel the tension, our faith family relations are here to help us live free by sharing the burden of the load we carry (Gal. 6:2-5). 

I am praying today that we may experience the freedom that is made for us as we "Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Taking the lead (outdoing one another) in honoring one another" (Rom. 12:10).  

Love you, faith family! God bless. 

Free In Fear

Dear Faith Family,  

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain,
for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. 
(Exodus 20:7)

There is an unnerving aspect to the Third Word. Especially the last part about not getting away with living as if God's primacy and providence are empty ideas. Coupled with the vivid portrayal of the arrived consequences of wrong perceptions (Ex. 20:5), and there is no wonder "fear of the LORD" becomes a prominent promotion from God's people. 

Most fears add layers of complexity to our daily labors and relationships. Whether we fear exposure, failure, loss, pain, or disconnection, fear often fosters hesitation, aggression, and anxiousness. Ironically, the humility and respect that God's ultimate primacy in life and ceaseless (even if incalculable) providence engenders, is the essential disposition to cultivate life freed from the entanglements of fear,  "with simplicity of heart" (Col. 3:22). In "fearing the Lord," living in amazed awe and submitting wonder, our identity, purpose, and future are not potentials or puzzles but promises. Words spoken, like the first Word, that create and keep life in intimate relation, and which are never spoken in vain:

'I don’t think the way you think.
    The way you work isn’t the way I work.'
        God’s Decree.
'For as the sky soars high above earth,
    so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
    and the way I think is beyond the way you think.
Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
    and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
    producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
    not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do,
    they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.'
(Isiah 55:8-11)

It is our propensity to get entangled by the complexities of life, all the striving to unlock the puzzle and potentials of roles and relationships, that makes the Fourth Word's rhythm fundamental to living free. Essential to being the persons we are made to be--the women and men, husbands and wives, daughters and sons, employees and parents we are fashioned to be--is a day of delight in the certainty of the Word. A day, as Dylan reminded us a couple weeks ago, to practice the promise of our foundational relations, and renew our awe and wonder so that we might live unbound by over-complication.  

In between and in preparation for that necessary day, when your heart is vexed, disquieted by the opportunities and anxieties of today, take a moment to simplify your heart by fearing the LORD. Take a moment to remember His promise from Isaiah (above), that the life He speaks into existence, your life, is a word that "shall accomplish that which [[He] purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which [He] sent it." And here's the key to freedom, that 

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it.
(Psalm 139:6) 

May  "The sheer mystery of God's purposes and God's works exhilarate us, causing us to live daily life with gusto" and grace. 

Love you, faith family! God bless. 

Let's Not Squander This

Dear Faith Family,  

What God does, is free us from the things that suppress our flourishing, keeping us from being who He made us to be. He often does so in a timing and manner that leaves us in awe at His intimate affection and might, yet bewildered at His unpredictability.

After all, who could have imagined God would use a slave boy inadvertently rescued and raised by his oppressors, who lost his way and wealth only to return to the roots of his shepherding ancestry as the vessel for returning God's people to their place and purpose in the world? Not to mention the apparently odd yet contextually spot-on cosmic displays that accompanied this spokesperson's obedient actions? Did anyone see that coming? God acting on behalf of His own, sure. But in those specific ways? 

Fast forward a few millennia and the same awe and bewilderment accompanied God's once and final freeing actions, this time through the carpenter's kid, who happened to be the King of the universe. This time, cosmic power was displayed not in overwhelming force but in a sacrificial death and its short-lived victory. Who could have seen that coming? Oh sure, a few did, or at least had an idea that God could work that way, but even they were caught off guard by the timing and methods of their rescue and restoration. 

From beginning to end, our scriptures testify to the reality that we can know and trust that God is for us and God is with us, but when and how He does His thing often evades our forecasting. If we miss that, that God's work on our behalf is primary to living  (i.e., The First Word) and that His working in our living is beyond what our limited visions can craft (i.e., The Second Word), then we are likely to go about making a life in a way that makes the name (the character and work) of God empty.

Like Chaz said a couple of Sundays ago, The Third Word is not a prohibition on coarse language (though, as he rightly pointed out, our words evidence our hearts' dispositions), but rather, an admonition to, as the apostle Paul would later say, not squander our freedom by submitting again to the yoke of slavery (Gal. 5:1-15). Or to say it positively, the third word exhorts us to remain ever in awe and wonder at the surprising grace of our Father's ceaseless, shaping care.

Remember, the 'natural law' of these foundational "Ten Words" is a movement towards more freedom, becoming our true selves: ones bound by love in liberty, whose everyday existence in work and rest and relationship and responsibility is a non-anxious transformative presence for the good. One's who do not squander Jesus' hard-won gift of freedom but who use freedom to serve one another in love, who see it grow in us and those around us in whatever we do, in word or deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father.

So, take a few minutes today and ask yourself, "Am I living amazed by grace?" Then read Psalm 139:2-18, letting the Spirit guide you to ponder the wonderous work and innumerable ways our Father has cared for and crafted you to be who and where you are this day, and then enter your labors empowered by grace. 

Love you, faith family! God bless. 

When More Words Are Needed

Dear Faith Family,  

Some of us are crafts-persons in the traditional sense. You are able to construct the material world (whether from wood or metal, fabric or color or code) into the manifestation of your imagination. And while the rest of us less apt at shaping the material into something recognizable (much less beautiful or sturdy as my "home projects" continue to attest) may decry our lack of "craftiness," the truth is our daily living is no less an attempt to shape our little worlds into the images of the life we desire. And that's the way it is meant to be! 

We are, remember, formed and fashioned to participate with God in the cultivating of creation, working with Him to construct and shape the world in goodness (Gen. 2). When we fail to take our God-given responsibility for trying to make something of our life, that is when we find ourselves on the wrong side of the Master's joy (Matt. 25:14-30). The warning of the second word, then, is not so much against our aptitude to craft our little worlds as it tells us that the images informing our crafting- whether in our homes or offices, with our hands or with hearts- actually shape us. 

At this point, you may be wondering why more words on "the second word"? Well, if you notice, the second word gets a lot of extra words (Ex. 20:4-6), with only the fourth word on Sabbath and work getting more. It seems like there is something important about this word that requires some nuance or at least a little extra attention. 

We are made to craft, to cultivate a good life out of the created material of our existence. Yet, we are limited in imagining the good, what it is, and how we get it. So, as we said last week, we are prone to craft from false ideals, false idols, perpetuating our misrepresentations of what is true about ourselves, others, our world, and ultimately, God. While the solution seems straightforward enough, "don't craft false images," representations of life that you submit to, the truth is, we are not very good at recognizing the stories that shape our crafting. Or, as one author says is, 

"We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves...For most of the people in the world, there is no greater subjective reality than this false self of theirs...A life devoted to...this shadow is what is called a life of sin [i.e., missing the mark of our true selves]."
(Thomas Merton)

Yes, we "shall not make for ourselves a carved image," but how we do that is not a cold stop on crafting, but a relational examine of the images (stories) that shape our shaping. While we are not good at recognizing our illusions, our Father is. 

Once again, take a few minutes today or this week and let God examine your ways of crafting. Add to "Step 2" in the linked guide the revelations of last week's examine, specifically what the Spirit revealed about the stories of life you submit to, and let the Spirit lead you into the good crafting.

May the Love in which we are bound allow us to see clearly what binds us from living whole, holy, and free in the One "who brought us...out of the house of slavery." 

Love you, faith family! God bless. 

The Stories We Tell

Dear Faith Family,  

When you hear "idol," what images pop into your mind? I'd imagine one of two things. Either you think of some deity of the ancient or unlearned world or the more modern notion of "inordinate desires," good things that we make ultimate things--whether a career, a person, a pleasure, etc. While both images of idols are valid representations, I don't think either is what God had in mind when He spoke the second of "The Ten Words,"

You shall not make for yourself a carved image...You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6) 

The carved images of old were not pocket gods nor possessed vessels (though I am sure some thought they were), but mainly, they were visual representations of the stories of reality, tools for telling the stories of how things really are in the world seen and unseen, including where we fit and how we get what we need and desire. Like their physical representations, the stories were forged in the pain of daily living and the felt absence of conflict with transcendence, though some were crafted in the chase of pleasure, of some life more. In this way, they were images submitted to and served in the struggle to live and live abundantly. 

The problem, we know, is that, like the carved images themselves, the stories behind them were fashioned from a limited perspective, in the shape, "the likeness of" something real but not of reality itself. And so, even the best stories made for a false image of the world, of others, and even of self. 

It's this false story of who we are in relation to others, the world, and ultimately God that puts us in conflict with what is true. Conversely, its submission and service not to an image of God, but in relation to God for us and God with us, responding to His presence and voice, that ensure the blessing of becoming ourselves truly. 

Our propensity to craft stories of reality, even of ourselves, means we are just as prone today to submit and serve a false representation of reality rather than God for us and with us. In this way, we are just as inclined to remain bound, not by love--God's steadfast love towards us and our love for Him--but rather by our false selves.

So we must ask, what story(s) are you crafting out your experiences in life? What images of life--of how it works, your place within it, and how you get what you desire--are you submitting to and serving? 

While it might be easy to fly by the second word as something from another time or for another place, the truth is we haven't advanced much beyond our early ancestors. While the carving methods have developed over the centuries, and the specifics of the stories have been tweaked from generation to generation, you and I are no less prone to bow down to the meanings we've made from our experiences in life, which is why we need someone else to tell us our true story. 

Take a few moments today or this week to let God examen your story. I think doing so will help us better discern what images we are crafting, put those aside, and continue our movement towards living free by keeping it simple.  

Love you, faith family! God bless. 

Bound To Be Free

Dear Faith Family,  

Concluding his famed letter of faith's apparent triumph over law, Paul exhorts those "called to freedom" to: 

Make a careful exploration of who you are
and the work you have been given,
and then sink yourself into that.
Don’t be impressed with yourself.
Don’t compare yourself with others.
Each of you must take responsibility for doing
the creative best you can with your own life.
(Galatians 6:4-5)

Perhaps ironically, Chaz began our series on the first ten words of what would come to be known as "the law," echoing Paul's exhortation to the free in Christ,

"True freedom is becoming who we are
and living within the bounds of our existence.
It is creative, vital, and abundant precisely
because it submits to the claims of love and liberty...
not finding the boundaries [i.e., responsibilities] 
of reality and relationship burdensome."

How do freedom and "commandments" co-exist? How can I be (become) myself if I am bound? These are the questions every maturing child asks. I know mine are right now! The resolution, as Chaz mentioned a couple of Sundays back and Paul described to the faith family of Galatia, is recognizing that what binds us is the love that comes before "the law" and continues long after the law has served its formative function. Realizing that we are indeed "hemmed in, behind and before," as the Psalmist attests, is meant to expand our world, not shrink it (139:5-6).

"Love," says G.K. Chesterton, "is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind." The more we know and live in the bonds of Love that acted to free us and leads us to the promise of freedom's fullness, the more clearly we are able to see ourselves in relation to others (including God). Bound in love, we are able to distinguish where we stop and where the other starts and so free to be responsible for ourselves and to others without the anxiety of over-mingling or avoiding. And people claimed by such love and liberty are truly "blessed to be a blessing" (Gen. 12:2). 

So, as we move together through the 'natural law' of the "Ten Words," may we do so with the expectation that we are moving towards more freedom, to becoming our true selves: ones bound by love in liberty, whose every day existence in work and rest and relationship and responsibility is a non-anxious transformative presence for the good. Probably not what you imagine when you first think of "The Ten Commandments," but perhaps the vision our heavenly Father imagines for us, His freed and ever-maturing children! 

For today, take a moment to rest in your bound existence, hemmed in before and behind by the love of God. Take a deep breath and see that you are someone wholly known and wondrously formed for life now and forever. 

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully set apart.
Wonderful are your works; 
my soul knows it very well... 
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me...
 (Psalm 139:13-14, 16) 

Love you, faith family! God bless. 

The Matter of Good Work

Dear Faith Family,  

"The only Christian work is good work done well," says Dorothy Sayers.

Work, that God-crafted thing for which we were made and by which we make and maintain a life, cultivating life good. To do that thing well, we have to love that for which we work and those whom we work with. Only love can sustain the devotion required to work well. The effort that must be exerted, even against opposing forces both internal and external. The time that must be devoted well beyond immediate evidence of effectiveness. The persistence required to get better, to stay curious even when routine or arrival bread apathy. The inhering "pleasure, even...joy"  even when trouble "from time to time will come to it." 

Love, as the apostle Paul reminds us, binds whatever we do in word or deed to make a life together in perfect harmony (Cor. 3:14), securing our in-love efforts to the end result: work done well. Yet Sayers said Christian work is not merely any work done well, but "good work well done." 

The truth is, our world is full of people who love what they were made for and whose commitment to what they love has produced beautiful and extraordinary results. Many, if not most, of these operators in common grace, have little or no faith in their gracious Maker. But you and I are different. We desire to do our work well, to the glory of God, that is, to do work that is the good work God designed. But how? 

As we discussed on Sunday, good work is the product of being at work with God. Or, to put it more practically, we do good work when we offer our work to God and welcome Him in our work. At least that is what the apostle Paul encourage the faith family of Rome to do: 

So here's what I want you to do, because of the gospel of God with you: Take your everyday, ordinary living--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, walking around living--and place it before God as a giving-over-to-go-with offering, which is your soul service. 

Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you don't know what you are doing, if it's for the good or not. Instead, be changed by God with you in your living. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and respond to it; that way, you'll work with conviction for what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (Romans 12:1-2) 

Good work, work that God designed for you and you for, is the product of doing what God desires, not just in our "big" choices and decisions, but in the everyday ordinary labors of living. And the way we know what God desires is by being at work with Him, offering our work to Him, and welcoming Him in our work.

But Paul's exhortation is not merely asking for God's blessing over your labors. Rather, it is a consecration of them, setting them apart for holy service, committing to look for the good in every detail and decision of the day as a means of communion. What God desires, what is "good and acceptable" to Him, is work done well, yes, but more so, work done with Him. After all, work began in a place where God created and humanity labored in undivided communion (see. Gen. 2). 

So, how can we be with God at work, offering our work to Him, welcoming Him in our work? While, as we said on Sunday, there are many ways you already know, might I suggest one for us today?

Jesus' prayer in Matthew 6 is not so much a supplication for God to do something, as it is a resolution to join in His Father's work by following His Father's care and lead. You can pray it that way too.

Wherever you are at this moment, stop, take a deep breath, breathe in the grace of God, and as you exhale, let your body rest in His presence. Then consecrate and commit today's work: 

Our Father in heaven, I will be a part of your name being kept holy, your kingdom come, your will done on earth--the very place my feet now rest--as it is in heaven. 

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. I will receive all I need for life from you today, to live like you today. 

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil and the evil one. You'll lead. I'll follow, guided and guarded by you along the path. 

For yours is the kingdom--the only forever good--and the power--the only forever force--and the glory--the only forever approval needed. And you share all with us in Jesus. Amen. 

May you experience the conviction and courage and bear the fruit of being at good work with God today, doing the work that matters, forever. 

Love you, faith family. God bless! 

A Moment In The Middle

Dear Faith Family,  

On Sunday, before enjoying our "appointed feast," we lit a couple of candles and prayed a collection of prayers. And while there was nothing particularly dramatic in our actions, there is something profound about the simple rituals of entering and ending the Sabbath. 

"Beginnings and endings matter," argues Ruth Haley Barton, not so much because the first and last things we do on our Sabbath determine if we "get it right" or not. Beginnings and endings matter because the Sabbath is a renovating reprieve, a space of peace amid the turmoil of peacemaking, but it is only so if we choose to welcome it and leave it.  

If you missed our unassuming practices (modeled after the Jewish Kiddush and Havdalah), don't worry, we'll post the audio and a guide here soon. But for now, in the middle of life's labor, take a mini-Sabbath, a moment to welcome rest and leave restful into the good work still before you. 

WELCOMING REST

PRAY: Father, thank you that rest in Your finished work is a part of being whole and holy. I rest because I am free at this moment from all that binds me because of Your affection, compassion, and care. I rest because You are for me and with me through Jesus. Amen. 

WATCH & REST: Click this link, and as the candle melts, let all today's anxiety melt away in our Father's knowledge of your need and His present provision. 

LEAVING RESTFUL 

"This light...is a sign that the time to begin creating again has arrived. No more dreamlike [moments]. It is now time to invest ourselves in our work again.” 

WATCH & PRAY: Click this link and pray the words Jesus prayed for you as you step back into the good work you were created for. 

I do not ask that you take the people whom you gave me out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are no more defined by the world as I am defined by the world. Set them apart in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I set myself apart for holy service to You, that they also may be set apart of holy service in truth. (John 17:15-19)

May you find rest in the middle of work and work resting in God for you and God with you. 

Love you, faith family! God bless. 

One More (Last?) Question

Dear Faith Family,  

Life with God, a life freed by His efforts, is no walk in the park. It is much more like a pilgrimage through death's shadows, the hazy, foreboding, and nearly alive manifestations of objects standing between us and the light. Good thing we are not alone on the journey! We not only follow One who has gone through the valley but the Good Shepherd back again to walk with us on our turn along the path ancient and everlasting. 

As we discussed on Sunday, the place along faith's journey where the Sabbath finds us is not too different from the place it found God's people way back when.

On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. And the Lord said to Moses, "How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day." So the people rested on the seventh day. (Exodus 16:27-30)

Having known bondage and having witnesses to the power of God for them, moving in hope towards a promised better place and yet feeling stuck in the daily grind to live free, the men and women of Exodus 16 were "given" the Sabbath amid the disappoint of the not-immediately-better between what was known and what is believed.

Doing what most of us do when we've journeyed what feels like a long way to end up nowhere far, the first generation of the free grumbled. They complained amongst themselves and to the ones they blamed for the dupe and even to the One who was clearly with them through it all. Instead of the expected swift kick in the rear or a speedy rescue, God gave his fledgling freed people provision for each day. Manna, "the bread of heaven," there for their daily gathering, well, almost every day.

God gave daily bread for living and the expectation for them to labor in His provision, gathering as their usual work of faith. Day after day, they would join God in making a good life along the journey, except for one special day when the provision and labor of the days before would be enough. Enough to cease laboring for life and simply be alive with Him. With their stomachs satisfied by their six-day co-laboring, God gave them a means for their freedom to mature in the seventh day's faith. The Sabbath (re)entered the journey as a means of grace, an experience of reprieve on the road from rescue to maturation as the means for freedom's flourishing.

For six days, God's people had to live and work only for the day, wrestling against the urge to do more, take more, and get more from the day. Whether out of fear of lacking enough for tomorrow, greed's insatiable apatite, slothfulness' slyness of working out of work by working the system, or pride's hunger to control, faith was in a constant battle. But the seventh day was different.

It was a day to resist the creeping shadows blocking the light of Life by simply being free of them. Free not to wrestle with the anxiety, lust, weariness, and ambition in the labors of living but live because they were free already, even if not all the way. A day to rest not only because it is God's good rhythm, nor strictly remembering God was indeed for them and with them, but also as the very means of resisting being lost in the shadows. To keep the Sabbath was to rest as an act of freedom that aided living free between the special days. It still is.  

Sabbath, as discussed in detail on Sunday,  is a day with God and others to resist all those attitudes, actions, inactions, and words that blind our freedom and stifle our maturing into whole and holy life free in Jesus.

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

So, as we consider how we keep the Sabbath, we can add to our questions: "What do I need to resist as a practice of being free, even if only for a day?"

The Sabbath was given to live free for a day and form us to live free all the other days too. Still, because we are not too dissimilar from the first generations of our faith family, yet are people who hope for a different life experience between(!), we best ask the Spirit, "Why do I resist the Sabbath?" What shadows still overcast my heart, keeping me from walking in the Light? 

For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because it did not meet with faith in the hearers. (Hebrews 4:2) 

May we ask with confidence, and by faith receive the mercy and grace of One who "sympathizes with our weakness" and delights to "help in time of need" as we follow Him through the valley and into the place of peace matured.  

Love you, faith family. God bless! 

The Grace of Loving Work

Dear Faith Family,  

Do you love that for which you work and those whom you work with? That was the question we asked each other on Sunday. 

The question is not, "Do you like your work or all the duties of your daily labor?" Nor, "Are you fond of everyone you work alongside?" In asking, I don't assume that the labors of living are always easy, enjoyable, or even chosen. But, we did presume that,

"whatever is done to make, manufacture, construct your life—in word and actions" is worth "working from your soul as for the Lord..."
(Colossians 3:17,23) 

As we said, work is not fundamentally what you get paid to do. Instead, work is everything we do in cultivating (making, sustaining) life. Work is all those daily labors done to make a life with God and with others, good (or not), in our time and place.

Our desire for our work to be good (instead of not), in step with the good of God's design and destiny, compels us to work from the soul, from our complete self.

We know that submitting ourselves wholly to Jesus, connected and committed to Life Himself, is the only Way to True life now and forever. In the same manner, a life wholly committed to Jesus is a life wholly committed to the "good works" for which we were crafted (Eph. 2:10). Just as in life, so in the heart for work: what is submitted to Him, is raised with Him, and so is good. 

But submitting the soul to something or someone can not be out of obligation or for earnings. Our soul can only be so committed through love. Only in love can our labors in living be in harmony with the "very good" of God's creating and re-creating (Col. 3:10,14).

And so, we return to the question, Do you love that for which you work? Have you given yourself wholly to the good work you were crafted to contribute in the "determined allotted period and boundaries of your dwelling place" (Acts 17:26)? Do you love those you work with? Have you given yourself wholly to the good of those whose labor in living you share? 

In truth, much like our relationship with Jesus, our relationship with work is a matter of maturation, a growing into completeness over time and through the ups and downs of passing seasons. So don't fret; just follow if, in asking the Spirit to examen your heart for work, you discover you still have some ways to go. Nevertheless, there is something holy, something already "blessed," within submitting to the love of that and those for whom we have been made. Wendell Berry describes one person's revelation of the grace of loving work this way, 

"Andy has loved his work, the daily care of his place...the daily waiting for words...As it was human work it could not be free of trouble that from time to time would come to it, but it has had in it also a constant inherence of pleasure, even of joy. His work, he thinks, the love that was in it, the love that it was for, has given him a happy life." 

May we love our work and find, even in the trouble that comes to it, the inherence of joy in it and life whole and holy, happy (already blessed) in Jesus. 

Love you, faith family. God bless! 

Starting At The Heart

Dear Faith Family,  

No matter how much we'd like to think otherwise, our routines and rituals, whether religious practices or cultural adaptations, often shape our understanding of life with God more than His stories of life with Him. In other words, our experience (whether directly, indirectly, or lack thereof) is often the primary filter for our understanding. I know this especially to be true for my understanding of the Sabbath. 

Growing up, there was no "Sabbath." There was certainly a day for church and God-related activities, but it was busy. Full from morning until night. And while I enjoyed most of it, the "holiness" of the day had less to do with getting into a rhythm with God's way of being than it did with meeting the expectations of our community. Later in life, it was "studying" the Sabbath practices of others that, admittedly, confused more comforted my longing for peace. There were so many ideas and assumptions and convictions, not to mention the endless list of do's and don'ts; it was hard to know where to start, or even if I should!  

But I (we?) are not the first to be so influenced by the expectations and practices of others that we miss the heart of the day God made for us. In truth, especially around this topic, we are more like the Pharisees who observe Jesus and his disciples' actions on the Sabbath and get lost asking, "What is work?" and "What is rest?" We look at what others have and haven't done on the Sabbath, assessing what others are doing and not doing through our own experiences (or inexperience) and expectations of this day, and more often than not, dismiss their efforts--either in judgment or because don't know how to follow suit. All the while, we, like those Pharisees way back when, never ask, "What is the Sabbath for?" But don't fret; Jesus answers the questions we often fail to ask, 

Then Jesus said, 'The Sabbath was made to serve us; we weren't made to serve the Sabbath. The Son of Man is no lackey to the Sabbath. He's in charge!'
(Mark 2:27-28) 

When it comes to sabbath-keeping, we fall into a long line of God-people who start with the how rather than the heart. But, if we'd just for a moment assume that we know nothing about the Sabbath and let the stories of life with God form our understanding, we'd see that at the heart of the seventh-day's design was enjoying the completeness, the wholeness of what we are already apart of. 

Looking over what was "very good" (Gen. 1:31), God stops simply to enjoy His being with what He loves as it already is. In the peace of a world complete (even if not yet fully finished), in the harmony of unseparated communion with His beloved, content in Himself and His labors, God stops to be with, to enjoy, to cherish, to relish in the wholeness, the shalom, of the relationships in His presence (Gen. 2:1-2). And in doing so, God blessed us with a day to do the same. Sabbath is a day to be whole with God, with ourselves, with others, and with creation because God has made it so we can be. Through His creating work and again in His work of re-creation through Jesus ("lord even of the Sabbath"), peace is complete--even if not yet fully finished.

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
(John 16:33) 

As we discussed on Sunday, the transforming blessing of the Sabbath does not begin with what we do and don't do, but with the heart that formed this day to serve us. A day that was created and made holy, blessed (Gen. 2:3) so that we too might delight in wholeness, delight in being at peace in our relationship with God, with self, with others, with creation because of the work of Jesus. 

So say you buy what I believe our scripture and Savior are selling, that Sabbath is about stopping to delight in the wholeness of life with God and others. Whether this affirms or reshapes your experience of the Sabbath, I bet you can't help but ask, "But what am I supposed to do, or not do, on the Sabbath?" 

While the question is only natural, let me leave you with two better questions that I think will help us enter the heart of the Sabbath. 

• What are the things you do (or don't do) that cause you to miss out on or overlook your "very good" relationships or cause confusion or conflict within them? Consider abstaining from these things. 

• What are the things you do (or don't do) that allow you the space to delight, cherish and strengthen your "excellent" relationships? Consider prioritizing these things. 

Your answers won't give you a finished picture of the Sabbath, but they might give you a place to start from within the heart of Sabbath. 

Love you, faith family. God bless! 

No Need To Wait For Tomorrow

Dear Faith Family,  

I recently had the privilege of serving as a chaperone on the twin's 5th Grade Austin/San Antonio field trip, their first overnight school trip! Cohen, Lily, and their fifty-eight classmates were pumped for two days and a night away from the ordinary routines of class and home. 

The trip was a blast, though I'm not sure how much Texas history we returned with! Still, we had a great time with many unexpected excitements along our fully packed schedule. From 7 am on Thursday until 9 pm on Friday, our only "downtime" was quiet moments during movies on buses packed with overstimulated children. Graciously, kids are resilient, though I'm not sure I've fully recovered! 

While the non-stop schedule was exhilarating and brilliantly appropriate for our adventure (after all, a full slate of activities means less time for wandering into trouble!), such a pace is not conducive to living well--no matter what those quick-to-recover kids will tell you! 

Sadly, many of us (myself included) live our days bound by over-packed schedules. Whether by choice or circumstances, or a bit of both, we go through a day and a week non-stop trying to wring the most out of life. Whether for pleasure, for profit, for purpose, or to just pull through, we go day to day and week to week, with the only downtime being momentary pauses in front of a screen.

What's more sad than our habits is the fact, as Annie Dillard once noted, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” We think tomorrow will be different; our schedule will change next week. But before we know it, we've lived a life (at least a more significant chunk of life than we expected) full of days filled yet, like our field trip, with little more than worn-out bodies and cheap souvenirs to show for it.  

Good thing we don't have to wait until tomorrow to enter a whole and holy different rhythm. As the author of Hebrews reminds us, God "appoints a certain day, 'Today'" to participate in His rest, "therefore let us strive to enter that rest...." (Hebrews 4:7,11). 

So, right now, wherever you are in your day's schedule, stop and rest with God in His work "finished from the foundation of the world" (Hebrews 4:3).

Take a deep breath, and as you breathe in, pray: God...and as you exhale, pray: With Me. Take a deep breath, and as you breathe in, pray: God At Work...and as you exhale, pray: Through Me.

Repeat the prayed breaths twice before you renter the good work you've been fashioned for in the rest created for you.  

How you spend your day is how you spend your life. So today, spend it with God and with God in your work as we draw closer to a day of rest with Him. 

Love you, faith family! God bless.

Work In Progress

Dear Faith Family,  

Our family enjoys Disney World; that's no secret. Due largely to Deedra's savvy planning, we have had several opportunities to spend time as a family immersed in a world of stories and thrill rides. Inevitably, we find ourselves wandering the park waiting for our next adventure but needing some cool place to slow down, and that's when we make our way to Walt's Carousel of Progress.

The "ride" is a slowly rotating theater with audio-animatronics on the stage showing a family's "progress" from the first days of electricity into the future of a technological utopia. The attraction was the central feature of the 1964 New York World's Fair, and while its tech is dated (and its song annoyingly sticky!), the vision for humanity it foretells is sadly accurate. In Walt's eyes, humanity is advanced the further it is removed from the daily tasks of living. The more machines can do for us, the less we have to do for ourselves. And the assumption in the "progressing" theater is the better we are for it all. 

What Walt saw way back then is what most of the modern, especially our Western world, has arrived at. Like Disney's carousel, we go around and around under the assumption that what makes life better is working less, rather than good work done well. 

Maybe because in the cultivation of life, all those responsibilities, roles, and relationships which require our daily efforts are entangled with thistles and thorns, we wrestle to work less. Maybe because leisure is marketed as a luxury and luxury is for the elite, we long for less labor. Maybe because we don't see the value of our daily efforts, unable to imagine our daily grinding as a part of something more than surviving; we save our hearts for something else. Maybe because we don't rhythmically cease striving for life with God, we strive for the god-like disconnection from the efforts to live (though admittedly, that is unlike the God we know in Jesus). 

Contrary to Walt and our cultural perception and (if we're honest) our feelings toward it, work, as we said on Sunday, is not something that we overcome, but the means for overcoming, the way of living with God in partnership with His good design and destiny. Work is cultivating good in life that God has made, and doing so amid the seeming chaos that surrounds (see Gen. 2:5-15). If work was anything less, could the apostle Paul, with integrity to his calling as 'a servant of Christ Jesus...set apart for the gospel of God,' say to wives and husbands, children and parents, slaves and masters, 

Whatever you do, work from the soul as for the Lord and not for mankind, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
(Colossians 3:23-24)

Our goal is not to get through work, get out of work, or work less, but to experience the wholeness of being (re)made to work in Jesus. And doing that for which we are fashioned, well, from the essence of our being. To that end, I invite you to pray an adaption of our Collective Prayer this week with me (and for one another). 

Father, help us live into the gift of your beautiful, never-ending grace.

Holy Spirit, help us see that in you we are enough,
formed and fashioned in your good design for your good destiny.
Wonderful is your work; may our souls know it very well! 

May our work be a beautiful, generous offering of love to you, Father.

May it spill over to the people and the world you made.
May we flourish in our work,
because we are always resting
in the finished work of Jesus and His ever-presence.
Amen. 

Love you, faith family! God bless.

The Place We (Re)Start

Dear Faith Family,  

Last week, like those in the garden, on the road, or in the room running into Jesus alive, we were invited to  "not disbelieve, but believe." Believe that all the adversaries of our souls (within and without) have been destroyed by the finished work of Jesus on the cross. Believe that we are not alone, not meant just to figure it out, not left to wander through our days, but shown, taught, and guided into God’s good design and destiny by Jesus alive again and forever. 

What could life be, if we believed? We asked that question, hoping to spark our imagination for life after Easter. It is the question that will set the course for our Gathered times during this next season. But where do we start? Well, as Psalm 92 reminds us, we begin where God has finished, ceased, sabbathed. 

A Psalm. A Song for the Sabbath
It is good to give thanks to LORD...For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work...My eyes have seen the down fall of my enemies,
my ears have heard the doom of my assailants.
(Psalm 92:1,4,11) 

Life after Easter starts where all life started and restarts, resting with God in His finished work. As it was in Genesis, so it is again in Jesus. After God works, we rest with Him before we work with Him. It's (re)entering this incredibly profound God design, this whole and holy rhythm of Sabbathing to work, working into Sabbath, that allows us to live wisely, courageously, competently, and with peace. Imagine that! 

Seriously, imagine if you could discern what was temporal versus what was eternal in your daily duties, dialogues, and disagreements. Imagine being free from the bondage of fear in your relationships and responsibilities. Imagine if you were crafted and commissioned to handle your circumstances and career. Imagine if you were perfectly planted in God's Kingdom come and will being done on earth as in heaven. 

Psalm 92, as we shared on Sunday, invites us to see life whole and holy from the only place we can, from a place of rest in God's finished work. I invite you, faith family, to let the Spirit lead you (again) into praying from a Sabbath place this week. 

Love you, faith family! God bless.

Life After Easter

Dear Faith Family,  

The marvelous wonder of living after Easter is the struggle for life is over. No longer do we have to strive to attain life nor keep life, though we will, as Psalm 143 revealed on Sunday, continue to face struggles within life. Yes, even after Easter, there will be days and seasons where we feel the enemies crushing closeness and the fatigue of a life pursued for ill purposes. Yet, Jesus alive means all those enemies of living, those adversaries of the soul that still, kill, and destroy that which they strive after, have themselves met their better. 

Each morning after Easter, including this morning, we awake to the sound of steadfast love showing us the way we should go, teaching us how to live well, and leading us into open space. All because Jesus died for our sin, rose from the grave that first Easter morning, and lives this morning speaking the same words He spoke then: "Peace be with you." (Jn. 20:19, 21, 26) 

What if we believed that? I mean, really believed that peace was with us?

What if you believed that your conflicts in life would not be your end? Nor will the ones you are in conflict with.

What if you believed that you are not alone, not left to wonder, not left to figure it out? But instead, what if you woke with ears expecting to hear steadfast love show, teach, and lead you into life whole and holy?

What all could an after-Easter life be if we believed?! 

We'll begin to answer that question together on Sunday. But in the meantime, I invite you, my friends, to believe, trusting the good news that God is for you and with you. And, to imagine a life after Easter, a life where you "have seen the downfall of your enemies" in the forever life of Jesus. 

Love you, faith family! God bless.

Putting Prayer Into Practice

Dear Faith Family,  

Unless you grew up in a tradition that kept the prayers and celebrations of “holy week,” the days leading up to Easter may not have included a time of reflecting on Jesus’ last supper with His friends before His crucifixion. Well, that is what tomorrow, Maundy Thursday, marks.

The label comes from the shortened Latin word “mandatum,” which means “command” and is the root of our word “mandate.” On the night before Jesus died, He gathered his apprentices together, giving them a mandate,

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you….”
(John 13:34)

At this gathered meal, Jesus gave the disciples our regular manner of remembering His love for us in the earthy elements of broken bread and poured out wine (Lk. 22:19-20). It was also here that Jesus gave his friends the often overshadowed example of His love in action by washing the disciples’ feet (Jn. 13:2-17). An “example,” Jesus says, “that you also should do just as I have done to you.”

At this final pre-Easter meal, Jesus offered himself and his service not just to friends but to friends who would either betray him or abandon him or both. Jesus' love was not only selfless and sacrificial but was simple and lacked all conditions. Jesus mandates a love like His and shows us how to keep that command. 

The prayed poems of Lent, Lord willing, have cultivated in us a prophetic empathy with our fellow sinners and saints. Now reflecting on Jesus' final meal encourages us to move those prayers into practice. 

So today, take a moment to read and remember Jesus' final mandatum and ask the Spirit to lead you into the humble service of your fellow saints and sinners tomorrow. Pray believing Jesus' love for you empowers you to fulfill His command in even the simplest of actions toward those around you. 

Love you, faith family! God bless.

Willing To Be Pushy

Dear Faith Family,

When something feels different, often our initial question is: What’s wrong? Think about the last time your spouse or friend mentioned, perhaps offhandedly, that they didn’t feel right. Did you not, like the excellent spouse and friend you are, press in asking, “What’s wrong?” or “What’s the problem?” Of course, you did!

Instinctually, or at least culturally, when we or those near us experience something different, something other than the status quo, we assume the origin of the unsettlement is a disorienting crisis: some pain point of faith, within self, or among relationships. Perhaps that is because the experiences of disorientation are jolting. Whether microbial stings or cataclysmic shifts, pain forces us, pushes us, does violence against our state of stability. So naturally, those memories stick in and stick out in our minds, hearts, and prayers. And it is amid these pain points that we have been learning to pray via our Psalms of Lent.

Yet, pain is not the only unsettling experience in life. Goodness and mercy, too, are violent. Goodness and mercy, too, have the force to knock us out of death and into life. Goodness and mercy are enough to push us out of the narrow confines of life lived in the dark of sin (our own and another’s) into the wide open spaces of something new. New things, like painful things, can be unsettling too. At least, that is what we learned from Psalm 102 on Sunday.

We can all recall those times when goodness and mercy caught us in a way that made everything feel different. Whether you were caught off guard by a kind word, a just-at-the-right-moment encounter, or the arrival of daily bread. Or you were raptured in tears by a fellow human’s courage, a form of beauty, or the end of some evil. Each of us experience moments when we sense in body and soul that the world is not as dim as it seems, that there is more to life than we can see, and that we are not merely tossed around by random forces but caught up in something magnificently more.

May days are like an everlasting shadow; I wither away like grass. But you, O LORD, are enthroned forever…set free those who were doomed to die…. (Psalm 102:11-12, 20)

Amongst the many amazing graces of goodness and mercy knocking us out of the darkness of pain and reviving an atrophied heart is the push often comes from a person. Certainly, the Spirit’s presence and providence are evident, at least in hindsight, in the expanding light of reflection. But the initial contact that shifted our status quo arrived through another human not too dissimilar from you or me.

So, what if you and I, having been recipients of the force of goodness and mercy from another’s words or actions toward us, assumed we, too, might be the instruments of reviving violence?  What if we entered into our ordinary roles and relationships, assuming we may get to be the means of a push out of darkness and dismay into light and life? What if we believed today, whether in our home, workplace, neighborhood, school, or friendships, it had been planned that we’d be the evidence of goodness and mercy chasing after our fellow humans?

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)

What if you lived ready to give a push of goodness and mercy to your children, your spouse, your friend, your employee, your employer, and even your enemy? What if, more than any other force you could muster or design or will, such a God-attuned heart could actually change a life, unsettle it into something new and more? What if you believed it, desired it, and woke up ready to be a part of another’s resurrection?

May you (we) be willing to push others around with words and actions of goodness and mercy and so practice and participate in resurrection.

Love you, faith family! God bless.