Spiritual Adventure

This, of course, is what religion is about: this adherence to God, this confident dependence on that which is unchanging. This is the more abundant life, which in its own particular language and own particular way, it calls us to live. Because it is our part in the one life in the whole universe of spirits, our share in the great drive towards Reality, the tendency of all life to seek God, Who made it for Himself, and now incites and guides it, we are already adapted to it, just as a fish is adapted to live in the sea.

This view of our situation fills us with a certain awed and humble gladness. It delivers us from all niggling fuss about ourselves, prevents us from feeling self-important about our own little spiritual adventures; and yet makes them worth while as part of one great spiritual adventure.

... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), The Spiritual Life

Rescue Me

This has been a busy week... between traveling to So Cal twice this week for consulting projects with the Free Methodist Church of Southern CA, fighting (mostly losing) a cold, and my birthday, I was on the move. While I loved every single part of my week (well, not the cold), it feels good to sit still and reflect.

I continued my series on the Book of Psalms with students at Providence Hall, and as always, to prepare for a study like this blesses me perhaps more than anyone.

I was told by some students that they were recently praying that we would in fact grow in prayer as a school. So this study of psalms seems like an answer to those prayers.

As I told them, it's pretty simple: we can only grow in learning how to pray by… PRAYING. That is easier said than done though. It’s difficult to concentrate during prayer; it’s difficult to find others to pray with who are ready to pray. It’s difficult to know what to pray about.

So I suggested that we learn from the longest book in the Bible, the book of Psalms, which is God’s prayer book.

Psalms is unique in that it’s the only book in the Bible where people’s words are directed to God, rather than the rest of scripture, which is God speaking to us through the various authors.

Even better, we can’t see any particular organization in the five books of the Psalms, other than they are sometimes grouped according to authorship. I've learned that the psalms were a living, open book during the entire Old Testament period, from Moses to after they return to Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile.

Just like our emotions and experiences with God are all over the place, so is each book within psalms. My hope for my students is that as they become more familiar with Psalms during our series that they will learn how to use the prayers to shape their lives of prayer, and more importantly, make that prayer life BIGGER.

In the series we are walking through 7 different genres in the psalms. The first one we examined are known as HYMNS. In other words, these psalms simply thank God for who He is.

The next type of psalm we looked at were psalms of THANKSGIVING, which might seem somewhat similar. But thanksgiving psalms are written about specific things that God has done for us in answer to prayer. And as we give thanks, we are also invited to bear witness to others about what God has done.

We then read a psalm of thanksgiving...

Psalm 30

A psalm of David. A song for the dedication of the Temple.

¹ I will exalt you, Lord, for you rescued me.
You refused to let my enemies triumph over me.
² O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,
and you restored my health.
³ You brought me up from the grave, O Lord.
You kept me from falling into the pit of death.

⁴ Sing to the Lord, all you godly ones!
Praise his holy name.
⁵ For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime!
Weeping may last through the night,
but joy comes with the morning.

⁶ When I was prosperous, I said,
“Nothing can stop me now!”
⁷ Your favor, O Lord, made me as secure as a mountain.
Then you turned away from me, and I was shattered.

⁸ I cried out to you, O Lord.
I begged the Lord for mercy, saying,
⁹ “What will you gain if I die,
if I sink into the grave?
Can my dust praise you?
Can it tell of your faithfulness?
¹⁰ Hear me, Lord, and have mercy on me.
Help me, O Lord.”

¹¹ You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing.
You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy,
¹² that I might sing praises to you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!

We then spent some time in small groups asking ourselves a simple question of one another: When was a time that God rescued me? When was a time that I cried out to God and He answered my prayer?

As I asked those questions of the students, I had to turn the magnifying glass on my own life as well. I recalled two different times when I have felt called to leave after significant years (one of thirteen years, another of fifteen years) of commitment and ministry. These were agonizing decisions. I could not describe how I finally discerned that it was time to go. But as I reluctantly stepped away both times and jumped into the abyss of "what's next," God caught me. He didn't solve everything and tie it all up in a bow... but he was palpably there.

Then I read Psalm 30 as my own story. This is one of the greatest powers of scripture in my mind. As Tremper Longman says, we learn not only about God as we read the Psalms, we learn about ourselves as well. As I trace my fingers across words that have comforted millions for thousands of years, I still manage to feel known and understood personally. My own struggles and joys are given words that express my plight better than anything I could come up with myself.

O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!

I Want to be a Philippian

I have clear memories of my visit to Philippi on a tour of the ministry of the Apostle Paul that I went on through Turkey and Greece in May 2005.

Though this isn't my photo (thank you, interweb), it really does look like this... the ruins of the ancient church in Philippi, that is.

I was reminded of this visit this morning as I was reading in the Book of Acts, chapter 16. I'm reading it in The Message -- not terribly scholarly to be sure, but for me, Peterson's paraphrase captures the excitement and wonder and terror that must have been felt as the events he is describing were happening.

I have read this chapter many times because I especially love the Book of Philippians, and to hear the story of how the church got started is a thrill. I have also taken on the "founder" of the church of Philippi, Lydia, as my hero -- clearly someone who was a gifted businesswoman but also "known to be God-fearing." Peterson writes that she "listened with intensity" and a trusting heart, and then hosted the church in her home until it grew.

On the tour I visited the river site where it is thought that Lydia was meeting with some friends for a prayer meeting when Paul and Timothy arrived -- and where she was then baptized after "listening with intensity" to the Gospel message.

You have to read the story for yourself to really grasp the thrill of it all: dreams, riverside baptisms, vicious beatings, earthquakes, more conversions, festive meals, bold standoffs with the powers-that-be, great friendship. Exciting stuff.

It would take many postings to list the reasons for my fondness for Philippians -- future postings, perhaps.... but today I embrace this passage most heartily:

So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11)

As I press on through the highs & lows of life -- hard work, friends with cancer, broken-hearted grief, amazing students, partnership in the gospel, personal challenges -- this passage reminds me to give both my head and heart to Jesus. No holding back. Dive in, get messy, be vulnerable, keep moving forward -- even when there is deep fear. As you forge ahead, you walk through those hard things, and get on the other side of them: more mature, deeper, wiser, more full of love and true joy.

To "listen with intensity" and then believe with a trusting heart, like Lydia, is the most important decision of one's life. Yet it is not just a one-time, mountain-top experience; it works itself out each day, in the small things. I finish with these words, that pushed me to keep reading all this wonderful stuff in the first place:

We too often fail to realize, however, that people who say that they want to find God in life have to work every day too to bring that Presence into focus, or the Presence will elude them no matter how present it is in theory. (Joan Chittister)

Look for the Presence each day.

Simple Authenticity

I am reading through a particular devotional for the third time right now that is digging deep into my heart and mind once again. It is demanding that various things in my life be examined, dusted off, thrown away, replaced, kept. The book is titled Benedict’s Way: An Ancient Monk’s Insights for a Balanced Life. There is no easy way to summarize it, so I won’t. I just recommend that you buy it. I found mine in a Catholic bookstore, but other friends to whom I’ve recommended it have found it inexpensively on half.com.

The title of today’s reading had me at “hello”: Simple Authenticity. A few nuggets:

Your way of acting should be different from the world’s way. RB 4:20 (“RB” = Rule of St. Benedict, a guide written by 5th century Italian monk which has guided believers who are living in intentional, monastic communities. The practices are surprisingly applicable still in the 21st century.)

Seldom or never do we hear anything about simplicity as an essential discipline of the spiritual life. Most of us have only a vague idea of the meaning of the word. Simplicity means “absence of artificial ornamentation or pretentious styles… lack of cunning or duplicity.” Where there is simplicity words can be taken at their face value… where there is simplicity there is no artificiality. Albert Day
Simplicity is trendy. People have shelves of books and attend conferences lasting a day or longer to learn how to downsize the clutter and complexity of their lives. This is one time when the cliché “Just do it” seems appropriate. Lonni Collins Pratt

It isn’t just our dressers and closets [and garages] that are jammed. That’s the easy part to simplify. You just square your shoulders and cut back. The harder part? Ceasing all of our complicated artificiality… the bigger problem, and maybe the root of why we accumulate, has to do with the clutter in our minds and hearts. Our relationships are cluttered, and our energy is fragmented in all directions… Keeping to the basics – this the strength of the Benedictine life. And it starts with the courage to step out of the disguise and into the reality of who we are. Pratt

~ Chew on all of that for a few moments ~

After I read these thoughts, I picked up my Bible. I am currently in the Book of Jeremiah. Today I was in chapter 17:5-18 and these words hit me most:

7 “But blessed are those who trust in the Lord
and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.
8 They are like trees planted along a riverbank,
with roots that reach deep into the water.
Such trees are not bothered by the heat
or worried by long months of drought.
Their leaves stay green,
and they never stop producing fruit.

9 “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,
and desperately wicked.
Who really knows how bad it is?
10 But I, the Lord, search all hearts
and examine secret motives.
I give all people their due rewards,
according to what their actions deserve.”

Then I really appreciated the questions from the IV Press Study:

• Why will the person who relies on human strength be disappointed (vv. 5-6)?
• How does God provide for the person who relies on him instead of on human strength (vv. 7-8)?
• What is the state of the human heart before God (vv. 9-10)?
• What did Jeremiah continue to hope for (vv. 14-18)?
• What "drought conditions" are you facing now?
• In what ways do you find it easier to trust someone or something else besides God to see you through those circumstances?
• How does God's promise in verses 7-8 give you confidence?

I sense God’s guidance most clearly when he coordinates the dance between various “songs” I’m hearing… The reading from Benedict and this scripture passage from Jeremiah connected in my soul, but not in a beat-me-over-the-head sort of way.

As I read these two passages I tried to listen closely. I “heard” the rhythmic connections between Benedict’s call to authenticity and Jeremiah’s prophetic push to dig my roots down deep for real water. The Benedictine reading reminds me to clear out the clutter that distracts me from Jesus, and the reading from Jeremiah tells me that God sees through my facades, regardless. Lord, I thank you for the safety and truth that you are; that gives me the space to be real and vulnerable. Then your Spirit does His work, shaping my soul for eternity.

Shhhhhh.......

Many people seek a sympathetic ear and do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longer be listening to God either; they will always be talking even in the presence of God. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there will be nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in pious words ... never really speaking to others.

... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Life Together [1954], tr. Daniel W. Bloesch & James H. Burtness, Fortress Press, 2004, p. 98

What keeps you from hearing God -- in other words, what is noisy in your daily world?

Do you make room for silence in your life? How could that happen this week?

You'll never "have time" to do this. Just do it.

Pascal Rocks My World

I read a small section by him today. These two passages stood out:

The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Christians, is a God of love and consolation, a God who fills the souls and hearts of His own, a God who makes them feel their inward wretchedness and His infinite mercy, who unites Himself to their inmost spirit, filling it with humility and joy, with confidence and love, rendering them incapable of any end other than Himself...

The God of Christians is a God who makes the soul perceive that He is her only good, that her only rest is in Him, her only joy in loving Him. (Blaise Pascal)

I am thankful that I grow in hunger for Him. As Pascal writes, He is my soul's only good...

I pray for the perseverance to seek after Him most and first, rather than the success of this world.

The fear of human opinion disables;
trusting in God protects you from that.
(Proverbs 29:25)