Soul Solitude

The current flows quickly down the river. It is full of life and purpose and direction, the wind helping it along. In front of me a huge boulder peeks its corner above the surface. It beckons me to wade out and sit on it, dangling my feet in the rushing water. I am fascinated by the pattern of the river around it. The water rushes up about ¾ of the red rock and pools down in seeming whirlpools of spinning bubbles. It left the top ¼ of the rock exposed to the hot sun. The current is diverted only temporarily though as it bubbles on the other side like volcanic lava. Finally the swirling loops escape as though a valve were opened to continue its flow down the river. Occasionally a stick or leaf is drawn into the boulders’ curious bubbles. The pull of the current doesn’t contain them for long though.

All of a sudden it strikes me that I am like this rock. The river symbolizes God which is life. I am like this boulder buried deep in the bed of the river, a child of God. The currents are the circumstances of life rushing in at me, sometimes trying to cover over me. The wind is like the enemy hurrying things along, trying to overwhelm me. And sometimes, like now when I haven’t sunk deep into the riverbed, I spin into the whirlpools. I twist and turn trying to free myself. My flesh says fight, my spirit says rest.

The dry rocky place is reminiscent of my heart; Scorched by the heat from no protection. It is hard and weathered, parched for a breath of life.

I realize suddenly that I have been a temporary reservoir. I have been a place to hold things and spin them around trying to figure out what is wrong with me. I am becoming educated way beyond my level of obedience. This is a dangerous place reflecting in self-discovery.

God means for me to be a channel for His life to flow to others. Not a collection place that bears little or no fruit. I believe to be free of this self-discovery I need to proclaim what is right with me. And it has NOTHING to do with me!

John 15:3&4 states,’ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.’

I look up at the trees above me and their long trunks are curved and bent over. It is as though their leaves are parched for a drink from the river. It reminds me of Jesus as the vine, how I need only to hang on it. As my soul longs for God and all He has for me, I bend my knee surrendering to rest. My parched soul is filled again with a drink of life. I desire to obey Him, just to get Him. Nothing for me. All that is right with me is Him.

Thank you Lord for your patience with me as I spin around in my own whirlpools. Help me to remain in you when the wind and the currents come rushing in. Thank you that you desire for me to sink deep into your riverbed and be overcome with your love.

A Heart Displayed

My heart is grieved today. It is for the things that I have done right. Does that sound ridiculous? A new urgency was placed in me to deal with matters of my heart that God has revealed. Yesterday I heard from a talk, your behaviour cannot outpace your heart. Meaning whatever is in your heart will eventually manifest in your actions, regardless of how good we behave and try to cover it up.

All these years I have tried to do the ‘right thing’. I have had the appearance of being nice, when underneath I may have been in judgment of the person receiving my ‘good’ behaviour. I have laughed and smiled appropriately (at least appropriate to my audience, but possibly at things inappropriate that grieved God). I have put others before me (although sometimes begrudgingly with selfish motives). I have acted for many different parts but yet never been in a play.

Do you hear my heart? Do not get me wrong, there have been plenty of authentic moments in me. I have been nice truthfully, laughed honestly and genuinely cared and helped others. I believe that I am basically a good willed person. It is just that my methods and motives have sometimes been whacked or off course. As I shared last time, there is nothing that I can do to atone for the bad in me. Jesus’ sacrifice of His life is the only act that can cover that.

I believe that as I have asked God to reveal the things in me that keep me far from Him, He has been faithful in removing the scales from my eyes. As my heart has been laid out there, I see that it is not only my ‘obvious sin’ that keeps me stuck. Things such as anger, judgment, hurtful words. It is also the hidden sin in my heart, jealousy by comparing myself to others, hidden anger from things unresolved, pride that hides my insecurities, the addiction of my people pleasing to cover over my deepest fears.

It is the things I have done with wrong motives, to get something from someone, to look good so no one is disappointed with me, for God to bless me, to change someone. This is what grieves my heart when I see them with God's eyes. I have shared from Timothy Keller’s book before, The Prodigal God. He tells of how not only the younger rebellious son is far from God, but the elder son, the ‘righteous one’ also. He may even be further because his ‘sin’ doesn’t look as ugly as the other. He states, ‘His spiritual problem is the radical insecurity that comes from basing his self-image on achievements and performance, so he must endlessly prop up his sense of righteousness by putting others down and finding fault.’

As I repented of this behaviour I believe God gave me a picture of being a reflector. You see in my ‘goodness’, I believe I have given the impression that God’s love is conditional. If you are’ as good as me,’ then He will love you. Ironically, I haven’t truly believed that He really did until recently. In the process I have been a deflector, putting myself and others off the course of His unconditional love. Praise God for His grace and patience.

2 Corinthians 4:7 says, ‘But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us.’

Thankfully it is not our weakness or our frailties that define us – it is the treasure (the power of God in us) that defines us. We who call ourselves Christians, and please be careful to use that term seriously, we contain God! Does that not just blow your mind!

Lord, Thank you for entrusting me with your treasure. Forgive me for deflecting your love from others and myself by misusing the love and forgiveness you granted me. Help me live in the humility of the truth that I am only a jar of clay and that you are the power in me. In Jesus’ name, Amen

The Other Brother

I received a beautiful journal from my daughter, Tessa, for Mother’s Day. In it was a quote that stated, ‘I write to experience life twice.’ That is it I thought, the essence of my heart to write. I also believe it is the joy in being able to read what experiences God has given others to share in their books. I love when something I read brings a paradigm shift in my thinking and beliefs. I am reading such a book right now called ‘The Prodigal God’ by Timothy Keller.

It is especially beautiful when you know what you are reading is a direct answer to prayer. I have been praying for some time that God will reveal what is in my heart that keeps me from fully loving Him. I am only halfway done this book but I know that He has placed His finger on the ‘heart’ of my matter.

The premise of the book without fully giving it away is based on the story of the prodigal son. (Luke 15:1-32) The author states how our focus is usually on the rebellious younger son, and how he is far from God but is forgiven when he comes home and repents. We forget about the elder brother though, who also is far from God but it doesn’t look as ugly. (My words!) He seems to be doing the ‘right things’ being the ‘good’ son. Pride is his sin, but you can’t really ‘see’ that.

Timothy Keller says,’ The people who confess they aren’t particularly good or open-minded are moving toward God; because the prerequisite for receiving the grace of God is to know you need it.’

Wham! It was like God hit me between the eyes. Now I have been on both sides of the table here. I have definitely been the rebellious one, doing things my own way, committing out right sin, following a dark path seeking to find fulfillment. I saw my need for God in a sweet moment about 8 ½ years ago, so I made a commitment for Christ to be my Saviour. Then I followed hard after Him, trying to do all the ‘right things’, trying to earn my way into His heart, to be ‘good enough’.

“Pride in his good deeds, rather than remorse over his bad deeds, was keeping the older son out of the feast of salvation. The elder brother’s problem is his self righteousness, the way he uses his moral record to put God and others in his debt to control them and get them to do what he wants. His spiritual problem is the radical insecurity that comes from basing his self-image on achievement and performance, so he must endlessly prop up his sense of righteousness by putting others down and finding fault. Mr. Keller goes on to say, “What must we do then to be saved? To find God we must repent of the things we have done wrong, but if that is all you do, you may remain just an elder brother. To truly become Christians, we must also repent of the reasons we ever did anything right.”

I have been forgetting that I am not good and no matter how hard I try, I alone will not reconcile that fact. Only the blood of Jesus does that for me. I am missing the true gospel when I run from God or I try too hard to act like God! Timothy Keller calls it self -salvation. To be honest this revealing of the darkness in my heart is a little hard to take. I am trusting God’s timing in it as I lay it all before Him and pray for healing in these places.

I was remembering before God saved my life, my outright sin numbed out my need for Him; until I was fully desperate to have Him and saw that need for a time. As I began to walk with Him, the pride in my ‘goodness’ began the numbing process all over again. I believed in God but I didn’t believe Him! Oh Lord, forgive me! I came to a place of desperation again, tired of trying so hard to be good. This is the exact place He wants me to be.

John 1:12 ‘Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.’ The sweet part of this heart change for me, is I am really believing deep down in me , probably for the first time ever, that these promises pertain to me! As God peels away these layers, He has invited me to come as a little child.

Yesterday I observed a young child following his father in the park. The boy stayed a few steps behind, never losing sight of him. He knew he needed him for his direction, he trusted that his father knew where he was going. His father would turn occasionally to look him in the eyes and nudge him forward. When he started to trail too far behind, he stopped and reached out his hand and encouraged him to hold on.

When I recognized my ‘lostness’ I knew it was God who showed me. So now I will take His hand and trust Him to hold on as I follow.

Do you see either brother in yourself? Sometimes it is hard to recognize. Ask God to reveal your heart and trust Him with the results.

The 'C' Words

‘We become what we think about.' - Earl Nightingale

Did you know that there are 4 stages to becoming competent? We have all had occasion to progress through these places as we become good at something. Unfortunately I think we can also go through these stages in creating bad habits or behaviours. I have been considering this process a lot lately as God brought three ‘C’ words to my awareness.

Complaining

Criticism

Comparison

‘We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ’. 2 Corinthians 10:5

Pretension – the laying of a claim to something. I believe that these particular ‘C’ words set the stage to lay a claim. When we practice these types of speech we come up against the knowledge of God and create an atmosphere of defeat.

I never really realized how much complaining I did in a day until I read the book ‘A Complaint Free World’ by Will Bowen. He has a website that you can go on to order bracelets to do a 21 day challenge to be complaint free. Can you imagine what our world would be like if people didn’t complain?

He proposes in order to go through this process we do the 4 stages of becoming competent, or four stages of learning as Maslow theorized.

Stage #1 – Unconscious Incompetence

At this stage of the game, you might refer to me as oblivious. I complain but I am not aware of it, nor do I realize the deficit in my character (blind spot, some may say) Why would I want to do anything about it, there is nothing wrong!

Proverbs 14:16' A wise man fears the Lord and shuns evil, but a fool is hotheaded and reckless.'

Stage #2 - Conscious Incompetence

Ewwww, I see the ugly part of me. I am aware. It is becoming more real but is almost too overwhelming to do anything about at this stage. As it seeps into my consciousness, I am more aware of others who do more or less complaining than I do, and it is becoming uncomfortable.

Proverbs 18:2.' A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions.'

Stage # 3 – Conscious Competence

In my awareness, effort is needed to stay competent. At this stage is when I am trying to be deliberate to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. I do not want this to be a part of my nature and I know God is the only One who will make a true change in me. Here is the place where the mothers saying, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all’ comes into play. Sometimes it is eerily quiet!

Proverbs 10:19, 'When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.'

Stage #4 – Unconscious Competence

Practice, Practice, Practice is the old adage. Is this where Philippians 2:14 comes to light? ‘Do everything without complaining or arguing’ Another saying is fake it till you make it! This is where I am aware and I have practiced and now it comes naturally. I become very aware of how others sound as well. I have chosen to surround myself with like people.

So what is your choice? What kind of people do you want to attract by the things you say? How are you giving God glory in your speech?

Proverbs 12:18,' Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.'

By the way, I have not officially started the 21 day challenge, but I will let you know when I get my bracelet. I am trying to stay aware. Sometimes I need to ask God to muzzle me, but whatever it takes. Will you join me on this challenge?

P.S. Get ready because this challenge includes gossip as well......

Judgment - A Distorted Perception

My husband Wade and I are going through the series Love & Respect with our young married group. Emerson Eggerichs told a story about a man that got onto a crowded bus with his three children. It was an overnight trip and as people were trying to sleep these kids were running wild in the bus and the father just stared out the window, seemingly oblivious. The other passengers were getting quite irritated and starting to make snap judgments like this man is a terrible parent, if these were my kids etc. They elected one man to speak to this father about getting his unruly children under control. The man called to the other a couple times before he responded. ‘Sir, you need to settle your children down. ‘He said.

The other man responded,’ I am so sorry, sorry, we just came from the hospital, my wife just died and the children just lost their mother.’

He said in that split second, nothing changed but everything changed. All that was given was a piece of information and it changed the whole perception of what the bigger picture was of this family.

How many times I have been guilty of snap judgments. I am sure there was many times that if I had just gotten one piece of information, my perception would have changed. Dr. James Richards says in his book. How to Stop the Pain, ‘Identifying what someone did is not judgment; that is merely observation. It is when we assume to know why a person did what he did that we have entered into judgment.’

Judgment means according to one definition in dictionary.com the forming of an opinion, estimate, notion, or conclusion, as from circumstances presented to the mind

Do you think the people on the bus stopped to consider that there was something wrong with the man? I am finding more and more that when I judge the people around me, it is often a reflection of the ugliness in my own heart. They are like a mirror revealing to me something in my heart that God wants to deal with. I know that it is conviction about my behaviour and not condemnation that I am experiencing. When I learn of these things I want to turn to God and let Him change me from the inside out. There was a time when I was less convicted of my position as a child of God that I would take these revelations and beat myself up with them.

I don’t know about you but the more God reveals my heart, the less inclined I am to trust my own opinions. As my friend once commented,’ It is so amazing to me the things in myself that I am blinded to.’

That is another place of God’s grace; He does not reveal everything I need to deal with all at once. He gives me the chance to take a look as he shows me what is within my heart. I still need to choose if I am humble enough to let Him do the work. There is no limit to the opportunities God presents to make me more like Him.

Jeremiah 17:9, 10 ‘The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.’

How are you forming your opinions of others? What is in your heart that you see in others? I encourage you to examine the things you say throughout the day. What is reflected in your thoughts?

Lord thank you for the endless opportunities to change the things within me. Thank you for the insight to see you mean it for my good. Help me to look past my ‘snap judgments’ and obtain more information to change my perception. I want to humbly accept your invitations to change me from within.

Earth Day

Acts 17:24-28 NIV “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being. ‘As some of your poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
Today is celebrated as Earth Day. Earth Day is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the earth's environment. A day recognized as a specific time to take care for what God has given us. It is fitting that this is the day that I decided to turn over a new leaf. No pun intended. I came to this conclusion as I was getting ready and I considered wearing two bras. One for the real things and one for the growing thing under the real ones! I fight with these 10-20 pounds every year and each time it comes back it grows in a new spot! How is that possible? Ok well I know how it is possible that it got there. I am not a very good steward of my body that God has given me. I confess I am a little addicted to junk food and am leaning on the lazy side as far as exercise goes.
Ok now that the confession is out of the way. I will share with you what God showed me today with His creation. I went for a walk by the river (the beginning of the new leaf), my absolute favourite thing to do. I often do it with friends but the greatest friend of all, God, walked with me today. I shared how I have not been taking very good care of myself and how I really can’t do it without Him. He invited me to observe the gifts He gave me today as I went on my walk.
Rustling in the tall dry grass proved to be some prairie dogs having free reign in their playground habitat called earth. Green buds were springing forth from the trees and the grass was starting to join in the color parade. More rustling proved to be a robin, strutting under the trees, trusting the earth to provide its food. As I looked to the other side, dots of green shirts spotted the area as a company of people did their part to clean that space of the earth. Two geese waddled in front of me on the path, not paying me any mind. I walked over a bridge hearing the rush of traffic and the roar of the water streaming by.
More geese swam in the water; if you see them on the surface they appear so calm. I happened to catch a glimpse of their webbed feet; they were paddling furiously under the surface. Their calm presence seemingly a facade as the work underneath was in such contrast to their appearance. All of a sudden it hit me. That was me. I appear to be calm on the surface, but that is not always my heart. When it isn’t my heart, it comes out as some rotten fruit such as a bad attitude or judgement or frustration. Here I was seemingly swimming along when I am furiously paddling for my life. The inside of me is in turmoil and having many thoughts of how do I work this out, what can I do to make this better. How am I going to be a good Christian, lose the weight, make more money, look beautiful, parent my children, be a great wife.... the list goes on and on.
As I was walking I thought of all the creatures I saw. They don’t have to have a special day to celebrate earth. They live it, In Him they live and move and have their being. God has made them so they trust He will provide for them. He has also made us that way. He said in the verse in Acts that He made us so that we would reach out for Him and we would find Him. I found Him in all kinds of places today. He reminded me that it is in Him, that I live and move and have my being. There is nowhere else that I can rest but in Him, that as long as I continue to paddle so furiously under the surface, He will step back and let me do it. He loves me that much to honour my choices, even when they don’t honour Him.
As soon as I stop though, confess and turn back to Him. He is patiently waiting. The Creator of the universe. The One who determined my time on His earth, the One who determined the very place that I live. He gently leads me and says follow me, trust me, my child. Walk with me and be inspired, I look after my creation.
How were you inspired on this Earth day? Were you more aware of the things that you did to the environment today? Did your awareness extend to the Creator of the earth and everything in it? What did that look like?

Grief Reappearing

The Thomas M. Ellis book, This Thing Called Grief, states:’ Grief is a crazy-making complicated process. Grief is not about clear, predictable stages or steps. Rather, it is a natural process of dynamic changes that will ebb and flow as they may.’

I have experienced the crazy-making complicated process recently in a new way. Attending my Grandpa’s memorial was a great time of family renewal and remembering. I came home and ‘got on with my life’ stuffing the feelings of sadness. It wasn’t long though before God used my husband to prod me about my disconnectedness. I was living the reality that yes in fact; new grief does bring up old grief. Almost unknowingly I had started erecting walls to contain my pain. The loss of Grandpa had brought to the surface my feelings of grief about my mom.

I love that God loves me so much that even when I don’t consciously invite Him into my pain, He gives me opportunity to work through it. In these couple weeks since I have returned from the memorial, these are a few of the examples that He was in the middle of to allow me to feel and heal.

I attended a movie that allowed me to cry for the last half of it, steady! My daughter and her friend and I sat, without Kleenex, and shed tears of cleansing. (It wasn’t really pretty, but when is crying pretty?)

The day that my husband questioned me about what was going on I had been reading a book by Anne Lamott.She had written something that had struck a nerve with me and I had decided not to finish the book. Well that day as I gathered the books to return to the library I picked up her book, OK, just one more chapter. That chapter happened to be the story about her mother and how it was hard but she was a little relieved when her mother died. Their relationship was difficult and crazy at times, but now she was at the place where she just missed her. I knew what I was reading was precisely where God wanted me to be for that moment.

I took my son to the library and I returned with 3 books, one called Complaint Free World, the other Unattended Sorrow and lastly This Thing Called Grief. Hmmm, I wonder if I should pay more attention to what my heart is telling me. It seriously didn’t connect with me until later - I was not picking these books up just to be more prepared to help others in their grief. They were especially for my own heart at this time.

I realized when my husband cornered me with his love that it was grief that I was feeling. I don’t know what to do with it when it comes bursting through the covers of life. I tend to have very finite thinking sometimes. When I get to a certain place, I feel that I should be ‘done’ with something, rather than allowing my life to be a journey. My grief over Mom took me by surprise and in acknowledging it; God was able to heal another piece of my heart. I now feel I just miss her. I don’t dwell on the fact that the last times were difficult as she struggled in her mental illness, the fact that she ended her own life. I just miss having my Mom around, someone that always made me feel special and loved.

Another gift I was given was a visit from my sister and her boys. We are just re-establishing our relationship since her crazy making years of drug addiction. She has been clean for over a year now. Praise God! One day I may share some of that story. We had many conversations about Mom and her last times, shared our guilt and our grief and discovered the completely different ways we coped. I was reminded of how personally unique our journeys are with grief, even when we grieve the same person.

A line that stood out for me in the movie I cried through said that ‘love is fragile and we are not always the best caretakers’. As I walked through this part of my journey of grieving, I have seen that I have not always been the best caretaker of my heart. God tells us to guard our hearts for they are the wellspring of life. Although I took some deliberate steps to walk through my fresh loss, sadness still lingers. I needed to give myself permission to feel these things, to let God work it out for His good.

Stephen Levine says in his book Unattended Sorrow,’ Unresolved grief is like a low-grade fever. It flows in peaks and valleys. Sometimes it spikes into almost overwhelmingly afflictive emotions; at other times it lies almost dormant, nearly comatose, just beneath the surface, until a shadow crosses the heart and releases it.’

I am grateful for the shadow that released it, and the new opportunity to resolve it. I will trust my God to heal it and to not be afraid of it.

Do you have any unattended sorrow? Ask God to give you the courage to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. You will then fear no evil because He is with you.