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Leave Fine Behind; Letting Go of the Fine Facade
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gently and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:28-29 ESV I’m fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine. Only we’re not. Not only our default answer to the dreaded inquiry but secretly the response we are hoping to receive when asking a fellow human how they are, how their family is, and how their life is progressing. A global lot of fines walking and breathing through a world that’s gone amuck. We maintain our fineness even when the…
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Expect the Unexpected; When God Doesn’t Fit in Your Box
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV It is a tidy thing to put God in a box, limit his grace, his mercy and his love not just for us, but also for others, by our own understanding. We pray tiny whisper prayers, with specific outcomes in mind, and find ourselves fumbling in the land of disappointment because our prayers have not been answered. Again. Well, what if they have been answered but our thoughts…
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The Scarred Savior; Permanent Marks of the Lamb
The other disciples told him, “We have seen the LORD.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe.” John 20:25 There are multiple entries on pages of tattered journals where I describe what I believe my heart to look like, scarred and twisted, marked deep by hateful words and actions, ugly. This image haunted me for a long time as I wondered if a heart like that could be loved, could possibly be softened enough to love others. Walls hide hearts like that, built to keep others out, to keep others…
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When we Cannot Trace His Hand, Trust His Heart
After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” Genesis 22:1-2 Let’s take a walk with Abraham. He has the legs and the spine of an elderly man, and moves cautiously up the mountain. His son Isaac is with him, carrying the wood for the offering upon his young back. This son, Abraham and Sarah’s delight, a gift of youth given in the last years of…
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Engaging in a Prickly World
“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 ESV It seems the world is a bit prickly lately. Perhaps this is my observation and it only applies to southwest Michigan, but for some reason, I’m thinking it’s endemic. Plenty of confounding reasons for humans to be wound a little tighter than days past, so many in fact, I am not even going to list them. You can find them for yourself by typing the letters “Daily News” into your favorite search engine. It is possible to avoid…
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Baby Steps; Discerning the Movement of God
At the beginning of your (Daniel) pleas for mercy, a word went out. Daniel 9:23 ESV Every single breath, a miracle, biochemical pathways dependent upon exact translation of amino acids from RNA, sequenced in order, folded perfectly, matched exactly to a receptor, up regulating, down regulating. Microscopic machines driven by chemistry, and ultimately tiny, tiny waves of energy. We are walking, breathing miracles, always at work, even while at rest. Don’t believe in miracles? Our eyes often scan the horizon of our lives watching and waiting on a miracle, fretting that the God who created us has absentmindedly left us to our own devices. Sixty-four beats per minute, my resting…
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Maintaining A Perspective of Hope; Multi-Generational Sowing
“For here the saying holds true, One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered their labor.” John 4:37-38 Inhabitants of the free world stopped and gasped this week, breathing through their social media outlets with a call for prayer. A shattered republic standing in a pool of blood, blood from centuries of humans battling for the right to rule and the blood of foreign men and women dressed in battle fatigues, fighting for something. Something sometimes defined, sometimes not. My heart broke for strong, intelligent, steadfast women, children, a generation of young people who…
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Is the Abundant Life for You?
The dismantling of our checkbox list reveals itself to be the pathway to abundance. I thought it was a lie. A smiley face to put on for Sunday morning, to tack on for Bible Study. Abundant life, what does this even mean? A checkbox list of accomplishments, acquisitions, firsts. Checked boxes of fleeting satisfaction chalking up to nothing. The pursuit of more that leaves a trail of nothing but next. Sounds a bit like Solomon’s rant in the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon, the man of great wisdom. Solomon, the man of great wealth, of women too numerous to count, the one who finally built the temple. Was his life not…
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God’s Good and Very Good
Long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 2 Peter 3:5-6 We scramble on all fours, claiming the granite rock first with a hand and then a foot, breathing hard but steady. The sun is warm, the air is cool. We turn to see what has been left behind, to measure how far we have come. It is a majestic sight, set against blue sky mottled with small clouds. We watch for rocks worn smooth by hands and feet that have already ascended the path. Anna has…
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It’s Just a Dream; When God Plants a Seed
“So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.” Genesis 45:8 I feel spring in my bones, not just warmer air and longer days, the birds noisy in the morning. I feel restlessness stirring in my heart, I want it to hurry up already. I run it out, begging the terrain to pound against the soles of my shoes. I am not running because it feels good. It does not. I feel the impact against my joints as I run, I will feel it later. It is the rhythm I am after, the rhythm of breathing and of the pavement hitting my feet. I engage in the…
