Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘trust’

The Rest of This Day

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 15, 2011| 3 Comments »

It’s a hard reminder that our lives are not our own, no matter how much we believe they are. Oh sure, there are responsibilities and choices that only I can make for myself, and yet, in the end, it is God and all that is infinite that chooses to give or take away, to end or begin.


James 4: 13-14
Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a city and spend a year there and carry on our business and make money. Yet you do not know [the least thing] about what may happen tomorrow. What is the nature of your life? You are [really] but a wisp of vapor (a puff of smoke, a mist) that is visible for a little while and then disappears [into thin air]. [Amplified]

Conceptually, it should be a joy: after all, isn’t God sovereign? Doesn’t God promise to do what is good for me, even better than the birds of the air [Matthew 6:26]? But I don’t walk each day in this confidence. I am still wary of the next moment. I still want to “control” it: after all, what is familiar, even painful seems better than the unknown.

But the future is the great unknown. We can create probabilities, but we cannot create absolutes.

And so, I ask, what will I experience for the rest of this day? Can I keep my hands open? Can I say “yes” to this day before it unfolds? Can I trust god with my time, my experiences, my journey?

When/what is the next moment anyway? Is it now? no now, no this other now. I can watch the clock or I can turn that invisible countdown outward.

When my elderly mother lived with us, up until her 91st year, she would get so frustrated because she felt so unproductive in those last years. In fact, one of her biggest concerns, “What should I do for the rest of my life?” She never considered the number of those days, just the fullness of them. She wanted to see her minutes and hours as valuable to others, useful.

Can I be more mindful of my day time? Can I hear the stray comment, the smallest encounter, the big mistakes as well as the great successes as opportunities to embrace the “rest of my day” in God, through Christ and the Holy Spirit?

Read Full Post »

Restless Evil

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I am in the talking business. Honestly. Whether it’s in my current line of work serving the library public or my other life as an actress and presenter, or my private life of pure chatter, my mouth is in constant motion. How often has the flow from my heart been distorted without my knowing it?

James 3:8, 10 – 11
. . . but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. . . . Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?

As I contemplated these verses today, I kept going back to the birthplace of the tongue’s motion. After all, the tongue is but a tool; it’s not like training an animal that has some personal will, the tongue is a medium. No, the message is born in the mind and heart and whatever taming is done must begin there.

The mind bears the content but the heart carries the emotion. They work in tandem and can equally obliterate the results.

For this reason, the impetus comes across as a restless evil, with a range of anxieties and uneasy moments, with unexpected impacts like a meteor shower of the soul, the heart and mind react. They form a thought or feeling before it is registered in reason. They are the knee jerk of the patellar reflex.

The hardest thing for me to remember and to accept is the inevitable damage of the reflexive, restless discharge from my mouth as it colors everything else. Like the salty spring that salinates fresh water, so my ill-conceived words distort even the best message.

I am believing, as the heart and mind are transformed by the presence of the Holy Spirit, the tongue, poor stepsister, will respond to sanctification as well. But it has to be organic. Anything else will be a fake out and the words and intent will expose the truth within.

“By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” [Matthew 7:16]

Read Full Post »

How to Measure Faith

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 31, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Wouldn’t it be great if I could get a reading on a “faith meter?” Or, maybe not. After all, if it only takes faith the size of a mustard seed to move a mountain, my gauge would have to be in the millimeters.

James 2:22, 26
You see that his [Abraham’s] faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. . . . As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

Abraham and Rahab are the two stories James recounts in chapter two as examples of the best partnership between faith and action. One for hearing God so clearly that Abraham journeyed up a mountain with the intention of sacrificing is son Isaac and the second, of a prostitute who paradoxically harbored and aided enemies of her city because she felt compelled by God to do so. These two acts registered hot on the faith meter.

As I was reading and contemplating these stories, I realized it wasn’t the acts themselves that threw the meter into the red zone, it was their willingness to act and follow through by hearing God. It was trust. Acts of faith are an outgrowth of the faith itself, the love of God, a relationship with depth and authenticity.

I’ve never been very fond of the Abraham/Isaac story. As a parent, I shudder at the very idea or contemplation of a blood sacrifice of my own child. How could Abraham be willing to do this? Human sacrifice was not even the norm of the One God believers. Wasn’t it a pagan practice of neighboring tribes and faiths? Or, maybe he never really believed that God wanted an actual sacrifice?

I remember having a similar attitude some years ago when my husband and I had recently adopted our two boys from Latvia and a few months later I had to travel to a library conference. My friend and colleague was a white knuckle flyer and I tried to calm her by proclamation.

“It’s not my time to die.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Simple, I don’t believe God would orphan my children twice.”

Perhaps Abraham had locked his faith into that earlier promise that would be fulfilled through Isaac. Perhaps.

But here’s the point: the actions, the deeds, the works of love and self-sacrifice, the expressions of kindness, and the selfless sharing of worldly goods . . . these are the measuring sticks of faith.

Faith without expression is a mere concept.

Read Full Post »

Rock, Paper, Mercy

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 27, 2011| 2 Comments »

For mercy to have its full power, it must be a two-way street: that is the God road. Same as forgiveness, whose power can cast a wide swath when it flows freely. I forgive, God forgives me. I show mercy, God shows mercy to me.


James 2:13
. . . because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!

The truth is that mercy and forgiveness are a type of twins really, aren’t they? In both cases, the person who needs forgiveness (or mercy) doesn’t deserve it. They are guilty. And yet, if I, whether it’s deserved or not, extend mercy and/or forgiveness to this rascal/deadbeat/handicapped heart, God will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant, where you have been faithful in a few things, I will put you in charge of great things.” [my paraphrase of Matthew 25:23]

Those are the significant few things: forgiveness and mercy. And once again, as in so many of my posts, it’s paradox that rears its goofy head again. We are encouraged to do the very last thing we want to do.

There is no guarantee, in fact, less than a guarantee, not even a promise or law or a mandate that my stepping out to forgive the other will mean he/she will forgive me (either for the same situation or another one). The process doesn’t work that way. The exchange is between me and Holy Spirit, not me and thee.

So, when I play “rock, paper, mercy,” it’s always got to be mercy. And it may look from the outside as though I’m losing every contest, God says I’m winning where it counts.

My daughter once asked me how my husband and I have managed to stay together for all these years; we are after all, quite different. And all I can say is that we have practiced two key concepts: acceptance of what is and mercy/forgiveness for what is not.

Read Full Post »

Sacrifice of Sharing

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 14, 2011| 2 Comments »

I understand; I get it. Sharing is a sacrifice but I don’t like it. I think about the times I told my kids to share and I remember the look of incredulity. After all, sharing meant giving away what the one had in his hand.

Hebrews 13:16
And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

Oh sure, there are times that sharing might mean cutting something in half (or less), but more often than not, it’s giving it over, supposedly for a season, a short time, a shared time. But it never seems to work out that way from a kid’s perspective. And honestly, probably not from an adult perspective either when it comes to my lifestyle, my bank account, my comfort.

I’m afraid of it. OK. It also makes me mad sometimes.

I grew up with a strong work ethic and quite honestly, I can get somewhat scornful of people who don’t meet their obligations or hold up their end of the stick or break agreements or walk away from responsibilities. I can throw attitude with the best of them at deadbeat dads, plagiarizing students, and philandering husbands. I can get quite puffed up and think, “how dare they?”

After all, if I do my work, why shouldn’t they? If I hang in there, why shouldn’t she? If I earned the money, why must I share it with you? I suffered, so should you. I gave up what I wanted to do to make this life, so should you. After all, I walked to school twenty miles, in the snow, up hill: why shouldn’t my kids? They don’t appreciate hard work. They’re just spoiled.

On and on and on the mind drones. And why? Because God has asked me to share what I have with those who don’t. God even calls it a sacrifice (an offering, the surrender of something valuable for a higher cause). And there’s the point: the sacrifice is not about the worthiness of the other person — capable or not, low born or high, lazy or energetic — it’s about God.

“But, but, but . . . ,” my little self says inside, “they’ll take advantage of me!!!!”

God smiles (in that enigmatic spirit way) and seems to say, “That may be, that may very well be. But the laws of paradox and generosity, selflessness and love, pay back in ways untold. Trust me.”

Read Full Post »

Faith Stories 2

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 20, 2011| 3 Comments »

Obedience stories really, that’s what most of the faith stories are all about. The ancients heard a call and followed, even though they did not see what was promised, they believed the One who called.

Hebrews 11:7b-8
By faith Noah . . . built an ark to save his family. . . . By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.

There are a few prerequisites in these faith transactions. As noted earlier, one must believe that God exists. Once a person is past that hurdle, the next one is to trust that God is sovereign and can do all things, change all things, maintain all things. And God’s motive is pure.

So far, these traits pretty much go against human norms. We tend to disbelieve what we cannot see, we are slow to trust (particularly those in authority because we have observed so much abuse of power), miracles seem few and far between, and finally, our motives are usually self-oriented.

Nonetheless, there are humans who have traveled upstream. We have these old examples, but I need to look for contemporary examples. Is it possible to recognize the men and women of faith in the midst of their lives? Maybe not. Perhaps it is history that gives context to faith. That would make sense.

Something to ponder today: who is hearing God clearly enough to follow despite the appearance of conflict, blockades, poverty, global change, and fear. What is the message?

Read Full Post »

Faith Stories 1

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Most of Hebrews 11 is a cursory overview of some of the great men and women of faith who acted with determination and courage. Their faith was their talisman for relationship with God. And for me?

Hebrews 11:4, 5a, 6a
By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. . . . By faith Enoch . . . And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists. . .

Abel’s stories is one of the first. It’s so interesting that Adam and Eve are bypassed here, more than likely because their faith was wanting. Out of their union, two men were born whose stories have survived through the ages. One son was driven by a pure motive of faith in God and possibly driven by a desire to return their lives to the original purpose and intent of “Eden.” The other son, Cain, seemed to live on the other side of that coin: being more self-sufficient and clearly, my the story’s end, self-absorbed because he couldn’t bear to have his brother’s offering accepted while his was not. I have always believed that motive drove their differences.

In the second story of this chapter, we are given only the second reference to Enoch (now, I am not speaking of the controversial Book of Enoch – which I would like to read one day soon), first in Genesis 5:24 and then again, here in Hebrews 11. And although much is not said of Enoch, there seems to have been knowledge of this one as a prophet, some seven generations before Abraham. The first key for me, based solely on these brief references, is trust. Enoch believed and trusted that God was God and, as a result, anything was possible. Apparently, he transcended the norm, by disappearing without a trace. Although modern times may find this easily explained, there was no need back then for the FBI, pictures on milk cartons, or APB’s. People knew each other and their whereabouts. It was still a small world. His disappearance was supernatural and it occurred out of his faith.

So, what do these stories tell me today? Faith begins out of a decision to believe in the face of all circumstances. Faith begins each day. Faith is rewarded in order to build more faith. Faith is available.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »