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Posts Tagged ‘Christ’

Hide in God

Posted in Ordinary Time, Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 15, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Psalm 143 is filled with urgency and no less in these two verses:

hidingplaceLet the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
    for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
    for to you I entrust my life.
Rescue me from my enemies, Lord,
    for I hide myself in you. [Psalm 143:8-9 NIV 2011]

I don’t know this kind of urgency very often. From day to day, I live a life of relative ease. There might be emotional upheavals and drama (after all, I have two young adults still living at home with us), but none of these cause me to burrow into the hiding place of God. I do not live in a foxhole as many people do throughout the world today. Instead, for all I know, I may be luxuriating in pot of water on the stove, getting warmer and warmer, but not realizing I am actually dying.

Well, we all are. From day to day, closer each day to some inevitable transformative moment that will take us out of our bodies in an instant or on a journey of pain and disease, a slower but nonetheless equally lethal end. This is part of living, the dying.

There have been several deaths around me of late: husbands of friends, old friends, passing acquaintances, relatives of colleagues, and on and on the list seems to get longer each year. We have a patron who comes into the library every week to look at the local newspaper for one thing only, to check the obituaries. There is always someone she knows, she has lived in this same community all of her life.

Is the shadow of death the only real urgency in a life? Or, is that merely self-serving to the end?

Or, are we to live with empathy for others in their crisis?

No one can sustain the stress of true crisis for an extended time. The body cannot generate enough adrenalin. I could help by if I knew how to envelop this person in need with the love of God, with the touch of authentic human, with the promise of rest. But then, I must really know what it means to shelter in God before I can bring someone else into the hiding place.

Back in my childhood, I was never very good at playing hide and seek. Either my hiding place was too good (and no one could find me so I would come out – who wants to be alone in a hiding place?) or the spot was too easy and I was found right away. Often, I would keep peeking out just to see what was going on around me. Just in case. And of course, this would be another way I would be pulled free from safety.

And there’s the problem, the human tendency to peek. To hide in God works better as a permanent solution, not just in a state of emergency. If I could stay in the hiding place of God, within the Spirit of Christ, my view of the world would be through a completely different lens. I would see more clearly; I would recognize needs in others; I could envelope and invite them in, for the place is large and plentiful. The hiding place of God knows no limits, nor does it include chains. It’s a choice to remain, just as it is a choice to enter.

So, does the hiding place mean I won’t experience urgency and fear and pain? On the contrary, those moments will still happen, I’m sure of it. The difference is in walking out trauma with an ongoing confidence in the Presence: “We are confident that God is able to orchestrate everything to work toward something good and beautiful when we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan” [Romans 8:38, The Voice].

And remaining “in” God. No peeking.

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Verbs in Prayer

Posted in Ordinary Time, Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 3, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I love the verbs in this Psalm. If I took those verbs into my heart, I would have a prayer life that could change the world.

prayers are manyLord, hear my prayer,
    listen to my cry for mercy;
in your faithfulness and righteousness
    come to my relief. . . .
The enemy pursues me,
    he crushes me to the ground; . . .
I remember the days of long ago;
    I meditate on all your works
    and consider what your hands have done.
I spread out my hands to you; [surrender]
    I thirst for you like a parched land. [Psalm 143:1, 3a, 5-6]

It’s so simple.

I ask God to hear, listen & come, while the “enemy” pursues & crushes, but I am busy: remembering, meditating, considering, surrendering and thirsting [desiring] after the things of God: voice, heart, peace, and confidence.
If I am to successfully face the trials of life, this must be my mode of operation. There is no trial or circumstance that has not been covered by the promises of God when I am surrendered to God. The deal was struck through the covenant relationship that God has with human. . . . and with me.

Trials and disappointments will still be around. In fact, the world pursues us all, through the evil actions of others which cause hurricanes of pain and sorrow. I cannot stop the flood of terror or violence or stupidity fueled by selfish ambitions and delusion. I cannot always understand what drives others. I can only do my part: remember who God is my life; meditate on the presence of Christ’s Spirit within; consider the implications of living a surrendered life; and desiring God’s way and not my own.

This is what it means to pray.

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Listening to God

Posted in Ordinary Time, Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »

listeningWhat does it mean to listen to God?

I will listen to what God the Lord says;
    he promises peace to his people, his faithful servants [saints]—
    but let them not [re]turn to folly. [Psalm 85:8, NIV, 2010 with words inserted from 1984 version]

When I was in acting school, we used to have a teacher who tried to teach us how to center down into ourselves, to experience “constructive rest,” to align our bodies, to know “neutral” in ourselves. Much of that time was spent on the floor and breathing. At the time, I was simply too immature to appreciate what she was trying to accomplish. One of her exercises required us to listen: to listen to the sounds outside the room, then inside the room, and then inside our bodies. In a way, this is technique that can also be used to settle the mind down in preparation to listen to God. It’s pretty hard to listen to God while being busy doing other things. [Unless anyone has cultivated the habits of Brother Lawrence, and his Practice of the Presence of God.]

But I believe, more than anything else, that the heart must be prepared to hear before listening will occur. It is up to me to establish that environment, like preparing garden soil to be sown. I can help this preparation of the heart along by reading or singing or breathing.

In this process, I should also know the subject matter. In other words, I believe the most productive listening is done when focused on a situation or topic or question. (And I don’t mean a yes or no question, but a more open-ended one, that allows room for God to expand the answer.) But here is the vital key: I must be at my wit’s end, so to speak. If I really want my heart to be open to the voice of God, then I must know that my resources have been expended, my “way” has not worked, my solutions have been exhausted.

surrenderOtherwise, I think my very human tendency, once I “hear” God’s response, is to compare it to all the other answers out there. It’s not the way God works. If I am truly coming to the God of the Universe for help and illumination, then I can’t treat the answer as though God is simply weighing in on the possibilities like another girlfriend at a kaffeeklatsch.

Do not, then, go to God lightly. For in the breadth of this one verse, Psalm 85:8, there is a warning about returning to our folly (our own way). To ask God, the Holy Spirit, to help and then to choose another way, is, indeed foolishness.

In the older 1984 NIV version, the translation reads that God promises peace to his saints. In later years, this term has been replaced with culture friendly phrases like “faithful servants” or “the holy people He loves.” We are adverse to calling ourselves saints and yet I know it’s not a word to be taken lightly, it is the one that speaks of total surrender to the Christ. A saint is totally sold out to God. A saint hears God and listens and then acts upon the information.

Clearly, the opposite of a saint is a fool.

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My Heart on Pilgrimage

Posted in Ordinary Time, Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , , , on September 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

It is a journey. It has always been a journey. And not just any journey, but a pilgrimage, a long odyssey toward a sacred place.

Paper cut design by Sue Codee

Paper cut design by Sue Codee

Blessed are those whose strength is in You,
    whose hearts are set on pilgrimage,
As they pass through the Valley of Baka [valley of tears],
    they make it a place of springs;
    the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
They go from strength to strength,
    till each appears before God in Zion [dwelling place]. [Psalm 84:5-7, NIV 1984]

In YouVersion notes, the valley of Baka is explained this way: “It was nearly impossible to travel this valley without facing extreme hardship and suffering. That is why the Valley of Baca was named because it literally means “Valley of Tears”. Those who traveled this valley did not find relief until they reached their final destination.”

This is the way of the journey we have agreed to take as followers and believers. We can try to avoid this valley, but dangers abound whether we go through the Valley or around it. For this reason, we are encouraged to go slowly, from strength to strength (and not our own, but God’s) so that tears can be transformed into pools of living water.

My own heart complains of the way still. I know why: I keep trying to travel in my own strength. Like a three year old, I keep demanding to do it myself. Me, me, me. But that’s not the plan at all. And until I surrender and trust God to take care of me in this valley, I will slow my own progress forward.

This truth remains, again and again, I say: it is the paradox of our faith. Die to live; let go to hold; love to repay evil; give to receive.

This is the pilgrimage of the heart.

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Is God Disappointed?

Posted in Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 25, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I know the answer to this question because I know we anthropomorphize God.

I can’t help but wonder why You care about mortals—
    sons and daughters of men—
    specks of dust floating about the cosmos.

But You placed the son of man just beneath God
    and honored him like royalty, crowning him with glory and honor.
You ordained him to govern the works of Your hands,
    to nurture the offspring of Your divine imagination; [Psalm 8:4-6a, The Voice]

paradoxWe’re fortunate, really, that God is not much like people but we’re unlucky that human is not nearly like God as God would have hoped or planned. If God were more like us, then I’m sure God would be disappointed.

After all, God gives humans everything they need to make the best of a life: the ability to reason, the ability to create, the ability to love and care and help others. We are given the opportunity to partner with the greatest power in the Universe, the Holy Spirit, and we are asked to participate in the making of heaven on earth.

Instead, we who received the most have deceived the most.

The story of us is reflected in the first story of Adam & Eve. How could they do it? Why did they choose badly? Why do we? In essence, this is our story, day after day after day.

Until we figure out the reality of living within the paradox, we will not get it. I say this, at the very least, for myself. I understand intellectually what it means to love the unlovable, to give out of little instead of plenty, to turn the other cheek, to embrace enemies, to trust God is avenge pain, to sacrifice now for another life, to live outside of my perceived wants and needs, to take up the cross of Christ. I can say all the right words. I can teach the concepts. I know in my head, but I still, like Paul, “I can will myself to do something good, but that does not help me carry it out. I can determine that I am going to do good, but I don’t do it; instead, I end up living out the evil that I decided not to do.” [Romans 7:18b – 19, The Voice]

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Who Are My Enemies?

Posted in Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 14, 2013| 1 Comment »

When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh,
My adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell.
Though a host encamp against me,
My heart will not fear;
Though war arise against me,
In spite of this I shall be confident.

One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord
And to meditate in His temple.
For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle;
In the secret place of His tent He will hide me;
He will lift me up on a rock.  [Psalm 27:2-5, NAS]

enemy proverbI am to walk in confidence and pray so since the promise is plainly spoken, my enemies will fall before and I will dwell safely. But there is no promise of the timetable. And I must remember this. I may be safe in the stronghold, but the outer keeps and lands around my stronghold may suffer pain or loss or injury. There is no promise of a pain-free life, just a promise that no enemy will prevail.

Who are these enemies anyway?

Are there, literally, people out there who want to specifically do “me” harm? Are there people who would intentionally hurt me? I don’t think so, not really. Of course, if I put myself in dangerous places, if I travel in war-torn areas or walk the streets of brutalized neighborhoods, I might indeed become a representative of everything someone hates: while, middle-class, Christian female. For some, that might be enough. I cannot say or expect that I, as an individual, would be excused from misfortune or injury in that situation.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure my biggest enemy is within, that “old self” who continues to look for footing and place where none should be. It is that untamed part of me that kicks against surrender to the Christ Spirit. That part of me continues to behave like a stubborn step child, unwilling to adapt to change, and unwilling to live under spiritual authority.

The prayer, then, makes sense: to remain in the “house” of the Lord (that inner stronghold). For me, this passage has more depth than simply going to church on Sunday mornings. The words ring truer when I consider the house of God within me, that shelter of the most high, where the Spirit meets me willingly and lovingly. This is the place for I have free access to the God of the Universe, where I can see and feel the light ad beauty of God.

The more familiar I become in this place, the more clearly I can experience true peace, and that clamoring enemy and the traps of the worldly concerns have less and less power. Here is the core of worship.

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Delusions

Posted in Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , on August 7, 2013| 2 Comments »

“How long, O daughter, will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?”  [Psalm 4:2; NIV 1984]

Miniature by Lori Nix

Miniature by Lori Nix

It’s not a cozy message, this psalm. Instead, I hear a strong admonishment. All along, I skimmed over this verse and relegated it to someone else’s state of being. After all, I’m not delusional. Am I? Am I?

Clearly, I have been quick to sugar-coat my own spiritual condition. How can I ignore that I am still grappling with serious issues that color my world dark: judging others, selfishness, lying, just to name a few and more than likely, not that foreign to any of us.

As a follower of the Christ, I have the opportunity to know God, to dwell in the light of God’s countenance, to change up my response to the challenges of life. I am promised that every prayer will be heard and every prayer answered.

However, am I abusing this grace?

If I continue in the old ways which dig me into a deeper hole, is there wonder that I am complaining that God is not relieving my distress and seemingly not giving response? Perhaps the delusion is my own inability to accept the answer already given. Like Paul on the road to Damascus, am I kicking against the goads (the inevitability) of God’s plan? Am I trying to go one way when God is leading me another?

I am reading a rather frivolous fantasy book right now but the basic story line is relevant. A young man grapples with the “gift” of magic versus his own desires and expectations within his society. In his culture, he is expected to be a soldier and follow the dictates of his father’s line. But the magic is directing him elsewhere and is literally fighting for a place within him.

So I wonder if I don’t do the same thing. I invited the Spirit to dwell within me but then fight the very direction given. While fighting, I may be missing the very best part of my life. I have struggled for so long alone. I made my way. I made things happen. I was intentional and ambitious. I was determined. But the Spirit is slowing me down. I know it but I fight it.

I can’t keep asking God to help me do the very things I have been called to stop doing, right? It is a delusion. Here is a place for prayer to begin. Here is a place to truly understand what it means to “Search your heart.”

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