No DYI Necessary

 

We entered the shaded path under coverings of Jeffery Pines and Cedar trees. Our bodies and minds unfurling, leaving behind weeks of tension. The scent of pine and soil enriched from the life-giving decay of dying plants invited us to slow down and pay attention. We found no trail map at the trail head. No problem, we hiked this trail before. Our joy of being in the woods was enhanced by moments of complete silence and photo opportunities. At the back side of the park the trail was suddenly unfamiliar; it had been altered and we weren’t sure which way to go. Occasional signs with the trail name haphazardly pointed us forward. We stood in a parking lot looking up in the direction of one such sign.

By this time my back and hip were aching from the rugged tramping over roots and up and down on rocks; I was weary. Two ladies came over and we asked about the climb. “Yes,” they said. “That’s the right trail. It goes up 800 feet and there’s a beautiful view.” For one minute a wrestling match ensued between my FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and the limitations of the body. I know how long it takes to recover from pushing past my limits so we opted out of the beautiful view. I can’t say the other option was an easy one. We turned around and went back the way we came; our bodies had already measured the length of the trail; it gave us joy while siphoning our energy.

The turn around wasn’t so delightful. Another sign directed us back to the Nature Center. If we followed that sign we would end up back on the road leading to the parking lot. That seemed like a good idea but in truth it first lead us to the other side of the 800 foot ascent. We either had to climb over that peak or go back. We turned back. This year my lower back has required extra care. I confess towards the end, of a not so difficult hike, it took real effort for me but we made it.

I am reminded of a conversation I had recently with a close friend. We were sharing our hearts when the topic turned to one in which we both could relate: fixing ourselves. It is so much like starting on a trail without a map. Do you ever find yourself working hard to right something inside yourself or bullying yourself into letting go of the past that shaped you? There have been times, too many to count, when my need to calm down after someone rubbed up against an open wound in my spirit would send me on a search. Did I crawl up next to my Heavenly Father and pour my heart out to Him? No. I went scrambling around the house for a book that spoke into my hurt or lifted me for a moment. Nothing wrong with reading these types of books but I’ve left the most important One, the One who made me, out of my pain and longing.

When I see myself as a project to fix instead of God’s creation being transformed by His Spirit I have to ask some questions about my beliefs. Do I believe God’s Word and what is written in passages such as:

Romans 8:25-27

“But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do no know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself interceded for us with groans that words cannot express.”

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

Do I remember I can trust Him to work His Word into my soul while I go about ordinary tasks?

1 Thessalonians 2:13

“And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.”

Do I accept the reality that He is making me new and I can do nothing without Him?

John 15:3-4

“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 bear fruit unless you remain in me.”

I could go on. You see, we not only have a map (the Scriptures) for our lives but we also have the perfect Guide. Our Heavenly Father doesn’t want us to rely on ourselves. He doesn’t leave us to our own devices. If He were to do so we would be like sheep cast down, turned over on our backs, unable to get to our feet. Our limbs would go numb. We would lay there and die without the Shepherd righting and stabilizing us until we could walk again. God created us to depend on Him.

This morning I read this post on Instagram. Oh how it speaks to me in moments when I am busy searching for a good fix instead of the One Who made and redeems me. “We don’t pray because we don’t think God can do anything more for us than what we can do for ourselves.” --Valerie Woerner on IG #wellwateredwomen

It is not above me to, on occasion, grab at things in hope of making me into a better person. I search for just the right book or podcast to soothe me whenever a deep ache has woken within but this is but a band-aid to put over a gaping hole. I can even read Scripture looking for a fix instead of for the One Who transforms me and makes me whole.

In the conversation with my friend I challenged her current intensity to find the next study, layering one on top of the other, believing she will eventually be fixed. I recognized what she was doing because I have done it myself and found it less than satisfactory. I know, and she knows, deep down that she isn’t her own transformer. Christ in her is the One transforming her and He has given her a new self.

2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.”

Reflection of God Study Bible (Zondervan Publishing House) footnote: new creation. Redemption is the restoration and fulfillment of God’s purposes in creation, and this takes place in Christ, through whom all things were made and in whom all things are restored or created anew.”

You and I are not projects. We are God’s creation made in His image. And for followers of Christ we are His children and He has given us new selves. His Spirit teaches us how to walk in this newness day by day. Jim and I never did find a detailed map for the hiking trail but we made it back to our car. I am certainly glad my husband was willing to turn back instead of continuing to try and figure it out.

Jacques Philippe writes in his book, Interior Freedom, “First of all, the most important thing in our lives is not so much what we can do as leaving room for what God can do. The great secret of all spiritual fruitfulness and growth is learning to let God act. . . . Yet one of the most essential conditions for God’s grace to act in our lives is saying yes to what we are and to the situations in which we find ourselves. That is because God is ‘realistic.’ His grace does not operate on our imaginings, ideals, or dreams. It works on reality, the specific, the concrete elements of our lives.”

Do you ever find yourself wandering around looking for answers to right yourself without first turning to God? Or is your first response to go to your Heavenly Father? Either way we can go to Him and confess when we have left Him out and invite Him to help us with our messy selves. He is not surprised or shocked by us; He made us human and He made us to need Him. That is a very good thing.

 

Jennifer Dukes Lee wrote these encouraging words in her book Growing Slow (p 152), “My best efforts don’t fix broken things. Only his brokenness does. My manipulation of circumstances won’t fix broken things. Only his brokenness will. My frustration can’t fix broken things. Only his brokenness can. Jesus won’t always take away the brokenness, but he will cover it with himself. He will cover it with his cross. Brokenness isn’t intended to break us. It’s intended to heal us by leading us back to the cross. Brokenness leads us back to our need for Christ, our need for rescuing, and his ridiculously wonderful and unfathomable decision to save us all.”

Living into the Hard Season

A note before you begin: In this writing I wrestle with finding goodness in this difficult season.

Rethinking it, I was tempted to delete the whole post and start again. I already rearranged and deleted thoughts, then turned it over to my husband to read. It is what it is. I do believe God is with me and working in me in this season. This morning a heavy reality pressed upon me. Everyone in the world is in a difficult season – has been since the global pandemic. This means many of you are dealing with multiple crises in your difficult season. I am not alone. You are not alone. And so as I share how I am seeking to see God in this season, I hope you experience a deep knowing within: you are not alone either.

The day I began writing this a sea breeze whispered through the palm branches in the neighbor’s back yard. Today as I rewrite and edit we had an unexpected rain shower with thunder and lightening. A rare treat in Southern California. The leaves of our pomegranate tree are fading while the blush of the fruit deepens. It’s a beautiful, comfortable day. September slipped in while I was in Texas helping my Mom. On the first day of the month a dear friend passed from this life into eternity. I find myself mourning the loss of her and feeling a bit glazed over after the whirlwind summer. When I feel frayed I start looking for a hideaway – a place where I can control what’s happening. The reality is I will not find one. Have you found that to be true for you too?

Of course I set boundaries and I say, “No”, but the truth is I don’t control everything that enters and dominates a season of life. I can choose to embrace the season as is and look for the little gifts it hands out. Even in dark seasons it is surprising what pushes through a hard bit of earth. As I shared in an earlier post this summer, without any help from us, a wild sunflower came forth and sent out several cheery blossoms. It was a lovely addition standing next to the bird feeder.

I came across this poem by Wendell Berry. It speaks to my heart – a heart that is comforted by God’s goodness in creating the beauty of the earth.

“When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of the wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and I am free.”

– Wendell Berry

What kind of season do you find yourself in right now? Are you in the beginning, middle or end of a season? What surprising gifts are pushing through the hard soil of this difficult season? Most days I feel just fine considering all I deal with alongside carrying burdens for so many others and their sorrows. Then there are days when deep weariness sets in and I don’t want to decisions about supper or what to do for a date day. You know those kinds of days; we all have them.

In the midst of a challenging season there are others being hit hard – like waves crashing over them each time they attempt to stand. Some are assaulted by horrific crises. Monday last week I received two phone calls, people in their darkest moments needing prayer. My own difficulties, though real, don’t compare. There are people who are facing worse. I want to keep things in perspective without ignoring the effects of our experience on Jim and me.

Though our trials don’t compare, we feel the weight of our experiences; bodies and minds get worn down. How do we keep a reasonably good outlook when three stress-filled challenges overlap in one season and on top of it all there is no peace and quiet in the neighborhood? And how do we bear it all when the whole world seems to be in a crisis? How do we continue to walk in grace and compassion for self and others?

And more importantly how do we keep our gaze on the One who brings life where there is death? Paul writes in Romans 4:19-21 concerning Abraham: “Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead – since he was about a hundred years old – and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God has power to do what he had promised.”

Abraham believed God. He believed God’s promise. Abraham believed God could bring life where there was only death. Are you weary? Are there areas of your life that feel dead? Do you believe that even in the most barren, dried up place within you, God can breathe new life? He can and He will. This is my hope in the middle of this multi-layered challenging season.

When I feel dried up, the Breath of Life is the One who fully rejuvenates me. As I wait, I can invest in caring for this temple – the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. In this season with its hardships, I am often reminded of the speech given on every flight about the oxygen mask: the parent is to put on their oxygen mask first before assisting the child. If a parent runs out of oxygen what happens to the child? I am a helper, so even when I am in a hard place it is hard to say “No.” But like the truest version of Autumn, I am learning to let go. I am turning more towards the needs behind my front door. This does not mean I am not showing care for others, but I see the need to pour more care into our little family so we can carry on with the work God has allowed in our current season. It is a real discipline for me.

Self-care – putting on my oxygen mask first – is necessary for going the long haul in being there for one another while weathering rough days, weeks or years. Here are a few practices I find necessary and life-giving for me right now.

• Daily time with God is most significant. There are days I would buckle under if I were not intentional about reading the Bible, praying and meditating on God’s truths. This is my lifeline.

• Thinking about Jesus, my Shepherd, Who leads me and tends to my every need. I find thoughts of Jesus the Good Shepherd so comforting. I hope soon to share more with you what I have been learning about the significance of Jesus as our Shepherd.

• Exercise, practical, but essential. I don’t exercise as consistently as I would like but keep coming back to it. I feel better emotionally and physically when I make time for exercise. The very best exercise for me is walking outside.

• Accepting my limits. No surprise there but how often do you push past your limits, not paying attention to what your body, mind and spirit need? God has been reminding me He made me human with limitations. I need to recognize those limits and lean on Him. We are in a season unlike any we have ever been and perhaps I need to let go of some things for a season.

• Consent to the current season. Embrace it. This is harder said than done. Sometimes it feels unfair but seek God’s invitation in this season. I want to trust God is with me and will bring good from a hard season.

• Create life-giving rhythms for circumstances and don’t rely on what worked before. Let go and simplify how I move through the days. This isn’t simple nor can I say I do it well; I am learning. What does it look like? It is learning to say “no” to things I always do, things that will wait well. It means focusing on relationships close to home more than ever. It means making simpler meals whether for us or for someone else.

• Find time for life-giving activities. When a season is full of life-draining activities, it is important to replenish joy with activities here and there that lift my spirit. Sadly, these are the things I have the most difficulty weaving into my life. I need time in nature, creating, and reading. I also need time with a few close friends – long distance friends on Zoom and friends nearby for a walk.

• Give myself grace. Often in challenging seasons, we don’t know what is the best thing to do and need lots of grace for navigating uncharted territory with a bit of humility to learn from others who have traveled a similar road.

• For those of you with noisy neighbors – a place where quiet is hard to find – keep a good supply of earplugs and use them even during the day.

My brother often says, “You are either in the middle of a crisis, entering a crisis, or leaving a crisis.” I consider this a season, not a crisis. Some seasons are harder than others. I hope and pray your season is one of delight and hope. And if you find yourself in a challenging season, I pray it is coming to an end. These encouraging and beautiful words from Hebrews are a lullaby to me. I pray this for you now, my friend, and may you experience His comforting presence wherever you find yourself this moment.

“May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” – Hebrews 13:20-22

I wonder what He is working in me. How about you?

A Season of Reflection

 

Last week we parked our camp chairs in the shade at a nearby lake. It was a time for connecting, relaxing and reading. I went prepared (this is unusual) with a few questions for the two of us. I wanted to hear from my husband’s heart. I didn’t want us to just talk about work or the heavy stuff we carry, which we often do. It was nice. These kinds of conversations really help me feel connected to our being a couple, being best friends. We can get lost in care giving and in ministry. Those are things we do but not who we are. My questions were designed to reconnect with forgotten places within ourselves and to hear my husband’s heart.

• What has been life-giving for you in this season of life?

• What has been life-draining for you in this season of life?

• What are you longing for?

After sharing we both tucked into our books but I found myself watching birds, listening to their conversations and reflecting on our season of life. I suggested to Jim we should come to the lake once a month for a year and document the changes. When we first arrived we saw 3 osprey circling. One eventually perched in a dead tree – we have often seen one there – while the others disappeared. We saw numerous red-winged blackbirds flying from one location to the next. Before their shift was over we saw a flock of 40 or 50 red-winged blackbirds. I enjoy taking notice of the natural world around me and am always mesmerized by the variety of flora, fauna and wildlife God created.

In my relaxed state while enjoying nature I wrote down a few questions for processing in my journal when I got home. Here are the questions.

• What season of life do I (we) find ourselves in right now?

• Are we in the beginning, middle or end of the season?

• What are my feelings about this season?

• What are some limitations of this season?

• How might I welcome this season and lean into what God is teaching me?

• What matters to me during this season?

And I think I would add: What gifts have turned up in this season?

Some of my responses were quite personal but here are a few things I recognized: we are in a season of care giving. Actually my husband is in a season of care giving and I am in a season of taking care of the care giver. Both are a privilege and both are challenging. My husband has a hard time not doing everything else as usual even when he is in a significant season of transition – a change that requires so much more of you than the everyday, ordinary responsibilities. And this season was plopped into the middle of his cancer season, which has ended except for the intense side effects.

I am very much a part of his seasons but I have a little season of my own sitting alongside the bigger transitional season of care giving. I am in the beginning of some portions of my season and the middle of others. The beginning is a little nerve wracking. Well, sometimes a lot nerve wracking. You, the reader, are a big consideration for me during this season. I show up to encourage you and help you find God in your everyday life. I am very interested in what season you find yourself in and how you are being effected. What are you needing in this season?

Take some time to consider the questions regarding your season of life.

• Do you find yourself in the beginning, middle or ending of a season?

• What is sustaining you?

• What is draining you?

• What’s God’s invitation to you?

• Have you made plans for something to look forward to in the not too distant future?

I am in the beginning to middle phase of considering how this blog might serve you best going forward. How can I best support you? I want to bring a sharper focus to the things I write for you. I am also considering an email list so I can offer a newsletter for people interested in something more than a personal essay, and with a deeper spiritual challenge and a few reflection questions to help deepen your connection to God. Another consideration, scarier, is I do short talks on Instagram. What is your preference: reading or listening? I would really appreciate your feedback.

Home: A Place for Holding the Suffering

 

“All that’s required of us refugees of the broken cosmos is a willingness to come home. To be made welcome by God and to let our belonging transform not only the inward rooms of our hearts but also the outer rooms of our lives, so that where we are we dwell in heaven, though we yet live in the broken earth – our lives a refuge for the sorrowing in hungry search for love.”

Sarah Clarkson, This Beautiful Truth

We have a visitor coming in a couple of weeks. I am excited for her to stay in our home for the first time and for an opportunity to enjoy the companionship. What fun it is to prepare for guests, to think of ways to create an experience that nourishes a person’s body, mind and spirit. Being a care giver of our home and sharing it with others is the sweetest hospitality without doing anything extraordinary. The ordinary simplicity of taking delight in the rhythm of homemaking naturally creates an environment of hospitality. Welcoming others into a space you care about is an invitation for them to breathe deep and allow sore places to be soothed. A spirit can be uplifted by the opportunity to rest from chores and the little extraordinary details are icing on the brownie (I like my brownies frosted).

How have I elevated ordinary chores of keeping home so as to bring joy and rest to the two of us living here? This is where I begin, not when I company is coming. This is not a post harping on women to be great home makers but we (men and women) are privileged to be keepers of home – stewarding well the place we’re gifted for sanctuary and the people within. The attitude in which I enter into these tasks can infuse them with a sense of meaning and nurture, or begrudging duty.

As I ponder the preparations for our guest’s arrival I relive a time or two when I felt nurtured by another person’s welcome. There is a story in Sarah Clarkson’s new book This Beautiful Truth: How God’s Goodness Breaks into Our Darkness that expresses the heart of this type of hospitality. Sarah’s book is about her struggle with mental illness, doubts about God, and how beauty brought her to a place of wholeness. Her struggle carries her through oppressive loneliness and deep doubt to hope in God’s redeeming beauty. There are glimpses woven throughout her larger story of beautiful love-filled moments with others who held her through a long journey of hopelessness.

 

This book is layered with pain, hope, reflections on great literature, God’s redeeming beauty and so much more. My small bit of relating one experience in Sarah’s journey doesn’t do justice to her book and it certainly isn’t the whole purpose of her story. But I do hope this one window of hope will stoke your curiosity to read the book. The redeeming qualities Sarah experienced with a stranger turned friend, and the healing power of being invited into the beautiful simplicity of this woman’s everyday life moved me to tears.

“We are called to courageous creation, for the making of beauty

is our own gentle and holy defiance

of the forces of disintegration and the powers of darkness.”

Sarah Clarkson, This Beautiful Truth

I will do my best to share portions of her experience hosting with a healthy rhythm of nurture and nudging – an invitation to receive – a soul toward hope and restoration. Sarah describes herself as wandering from one friends’ house to another while in Scotland doing research. There was a dark shadow of loneliness stalking her when she found herself waiting alongside the road to be picked up by a friend of a friend, a stranger to Sarah.

The wait ended: “. . . a hobbit-sized dark green hatchback jolted to a sudden stop in the front of me, and a slim-faced woman in an old sweater with dark, curling hair rolled down the window. ‘Are you Sarah?’ she said in a gentle melodic Scot’s voice, with just a hint of a smile.” What Sarah thought would be an inconvenience was a nurturing encounter with a stranger. The moments were filled with surprise and beauty.

Sarah writes about her view from the car window as she is whisked off to this stranger’s home. “I looked out and saw the delicate thread of a waterfall glimmering through a meadow starred with purple and yellow flowers.”

“We pulled up to her home at dusk. A painter’s sunset of purple and rose brushed the sky, and the white cottage shone out, friendly, in the coming dark. She showed me to a small, upstairs room . . .”

From the window of her room she looked out at an “inlet from the sea,” “navy hills,” “an old stone Celtic cross” and “laundry flickered on the line in the patch of garden below me.” The cozy amenities included a “thick duvet on the bed, and a tray with china cups, a kettle, and two pieces of shortbread.”

Sarah writes how she was affected by the beauty surrounding the cottage and the welcome of thoughtful home keeping. “I was lulled into the quiet enjoyment of a moment I’d not been able to manage in days.” What a healing gift such simple administrations can have on a person. On one hand it all seems so ordinary, and on another it is compelling and life giving. The visit included little shops and lunch in another village after which she was dropped off at a footpath to walk home – a walk for own good.

“When I got home in the gloaming – and it did feel like coming home with the windows golden and my friend waiting with a wave at the door as she brought in the wind-fresh laundry – I found she’d made a rich, spicy curry, and I ate two bowls before I blinked. There was sticky toffee pudding after . . . I ate two bowls of that too, and we talked, late and long. She was gentle and curious, and met the difficult bits of my story I told her with a soft clucking of the tongue that eased and comforted me.”

As soon as I finished reading Sarah’s lovely experience of staying in this stranger’s home, I thought, “I want people to feel this way when they walk into my life, into my home.” I don’t want to be overwhelmed making everything perfect for a visitor; I want to live my life in such a way that a guest can step into my home as is and feel welcomed and enveloped by love. Am living so those who are hurting find shelter in my home, in my presence?

This Scottish stranger turned friend was thoughtful of Sarah’s needs without hovering. She nudged Sarah towards simple pleasures she needed for her healing: walks in nature, little shops, nourishing food, as well as offering a listening ear. Her new friend interlaced her need to run an errand and do laundry with Sarah’s need for shelter and beauty. This is real hospitality, being with others in their suffering. So often I let my need to be needed, feel important, that I do not consider and encourage a guest to spend time alone. How might we offer hospitality that creates a different kind of experience – that allows a guest/stranger time alone, as well as the gift of entering into the cozy created for your own family?

“I knew that every one of us was a living picture

of the Love who has come among us,

our lives, His portraits, painted in the vivid hues of redemption.”

Sarah Clarkson, This Beautiful Truth

As a disciple of Christ I am called to hospitality, to bear a brother’s or sister’s burden, to be with others in their suffering. I am challenged by the relaxed way in which this thoughtful hostess moved through her ordinary task and still managed to offer Sarah hospitality. How many times have I felt too busy to invite a lonely person in? What if I was willing to invite another to join me as I went about my ordinary tasks, offering an encouraging article to read or handing them clippers to cut a bouquet when I needed to take care of something requiring concentration? There is an art to this requiring practice.

“. . . time deliberately set aside for keeping house is never just about

‘making a home for my family.’ Of course housework is about making a home,

but a Christian home, properly understood, is never just for one’s own family.

A Christian home overflows its boundaries; it is an outpost of the kingdom of God,

                    where the hungry are fed and the naked are clothed and there is room

enough for everyone. . . . housekeeping is about practicing sacred disciplines

and creating sacred space, for the sake of Christ as we encounter him

in our fellow household members and in neighbors, stranger, and guest.”

--- Margaret Kim Peterson, Keeping House, A Litany of Everyday Life

With the help of the Holy Spirit I accept the challenge to move toward a more organic hospitality. Anyone else interested? I would love to hear if you have experienced such a stay at someone’s home or if you found yourself able to give someone else such a burden free experience.

Junk in the Cellar of My Soul

Cellars are creepy places. Have you ever been in one? My grandparents had a cellar – the kind you enter from the outside. I don’t recall ever going in alone. It was dark, damp and smelled musty. Reaching into the darkness to turn on the light could involve contact with a spider web or worse a spider. I imagined all kinds of creepiness lurking in dark corners.

It isn’t until the light goes on that you actually see what awaits in the darkness. It is the same when the Holy Spirit lights up a dark place inside a soul – a soul with unacknowledged moldiness lurking in the corners. I remember a day when the Holy Spirit shined a light in the recesses of my soul exposing an unnamed sin. The light exposed a conflict in my relationship with God – feeling unloved when life turned sour and wondering how I disappointed Him. I felt I couldn’t do anything well enough for God to be pleased with me. I couldn’t find a way to finagle a good life from the hand of God. I was unable to receive His deep love of who I am or recognize His love which held me in the storms of life. Instead, I felt as if I broke a rule I didn’t know existed.

I will never forget the realization that I served a God I misunderstood. The truth of this unhealthy relationship was pushed through my conscience while reading a novel – a story woven with an understanding of right relationship with God. Author, George MacDonald, wrote to his 19^th century readers about the glorious love of God – the truest love ever, a love that holds fast no matter my circumstances. MacDonald writes about the God of the Bible, the God who pursues us and loves us unconditionally.

 

Have you experienced a conflict in relationship to God? Maybe I’m the only one to ever put my broken human relationships template smack dab on top of my relationship to God… but I doubt it. Most of you are just like me. You’re trying to live wrapped in God’s perfect love but can’t seem to shrug off patterns of dysfunction that twist your perception of His love. I lived as if God owed me something when, in truth, He gave up His very life for me.

Dallas Willard sheds light on this struggle in his teachings on the 23^rd Psalm. Willard says, “The experience of life without lack depends first and foremost upon the presence of God in our lives, because the source of this life is God himself . . . we must think about God in ways that match what God is like. Without harmony between our ideas about God and his true character, we will never be able to make the kind of contact with God that will give us confidence, grounded in our experience, in the complete sufficiency of God to provide for our needs.”

Willard continues, “ . . . until our minds are informed by the right view of God, we cannot put our minds on God in the right way. . . . All the things that we know about God that ‘ain’t so’ destroy our lives, poison us, throw our lives out of kilter, and throw our bodies out of appropriate relationship to reality. Wrong ideas about God make it impossible for us to function in relationship to one another. We are not able to love one another because we do not have our minds filled with an accurate vision of God” (Life Without Lack: Living in the Fullness of Psalm 23, Dallas Willard).

There I was, 24 years old and 15 years into my Christian journey, standing in the middle of my apartment startled as if I had been slapped across the face. I saw for the first time how wrong my understanding of God was and how my perception of Him got in the way of intimacy with Him. I cried out in confession, seeking His forgiveness. I confessed to God that I had it all wrong about Him. I asked Him to show me the truth of who He is, ridding me of my distorted view of Him. And then I was compelled by the Spirit to ask Him to show me who I was – the truth about me. I longed to see God and myself through His eyes and not my own blurry vision. I had some awareness that my life story gave me a distorted lens from which to view God; I wanted God to adjust the lens with the Truth. This began a tremendous healing within me and it continues.

My passion for helping others know God more truly and intimately grew out of the recognition and healing of my unhealthy idea of what it means to be in a relationship with God. Do I hear murmuring? Some of you are wondering if it’s true – that we can be in an unhealthy relationship with God. Let me clear up one thing: God is always in a healthy relationship with us. We often don’t realize we bring our unhealthy ways into our relationship with God and interact with Him as we do in unhealthy human relationships.

All that to say, I once was so conflicted in my relationship to God that I can’t imagine why I remained a Christian but by His grace I did. I think it safe to say this journey of discovering the truth of God’s love, the purity and the power of His unconditional love, continues to transform me. Over the years the reality that I am in a relationship with the Creator of the universe changed how I approach God’s Word and relate to Him. If you long to grow in intimacy with God but something seems in the way, be assured God longs to be known by you. He is not hiding; He is inviting you to intimacy. God’s Word guides us in all things true about Him but He can speak to us anywhere, anytime. This morning I recalled and sang a song I loved as a child, “This Is My Father’s World.” The last line of the second verse says, “In the rustling grass I hear Him pass; He speaks to me everywhere.” He desires intimacy with you so much that He shows up in surprising ways – even in the reading of a novel.

If you desire to know your Heavenly Father more intimately, ask the Holy Spirit to prepare your heart to hear His voice. Then pay attention; He has an invitation for you that will transform your life. He will prepare you and free you from things in the dark hindering you from flourishing in your relationship with Him.

Joy in the Mist

 

The marine layer limited the morning sunshine to a dim, indistinct glow as we began the climb. The location we met to walk the previous weeks looked so different. Since mid-February my friend Doreen and I walked this trail increasing our strength and duration until we could reach the goal she set for her 60^th birthday. But the day of her birthday hike it looked as if we were somewhere entirely different. We could see the trail in front of us and the plants along the trail; we couldn’t see our goal. The plants looked softer in the misty gray.

It was if no one existed except the hikers around us and the trail before us. Those coming down generously assured us sunshine was at the top to greet us. I enjoyed being cocooned in a visually smaller world. It was calming and less stimulating. Gradually there was a sense of light filtering through. All the time ascending, some looked for the sun while others enjoyed the misty view, but all had a common goal – to reach the top. When we emerged into the bright sunlight, below lay a thick, gray marine layer over the city like a down comforter.

We pressed on until we reached our destination. Weary worn we rested. We celebrated. We took photos. Soon the marine layer thinned and we saw a filtered view of the world below, as if looking through a veil. Oh, but Doreen wanted everyone to have a clear view – the view she delighted in just two weeks before when she and I first reached the top. I found a different kind of beauty looking through the veil.

As we descended, the heat of the sun pushed the marine layer back toward the ocean. The view opened up before us and all took joy in seeing everything below as clearly as we could from far above. We looked forward to the end; it would be a celebrated moment of accomplishment and an opportunity to eat a big breakfast.

The hard seasons of life – ones we know are temporary but with an unknown expiration date – often feel like days of preparing and making the final ascent of a celebrated climb on a gray covered day; for awhile it seems endless. These times lack the hushed quiet of a gray morning but are like the sun beating down on me. I gravitate toward a minimally stimulating schedule/life. I prefer being cocooned in a quiet, calm rhythm with the outside world softened behind a veil. When the gray comes in the form of hardship and blocks the view of my desired destination, now that’s a different story. Then I desperately want to be above it in the sunlight. But this is not the life Jesus called me to, a life where I design my days of joy. I need to live a life of joy both in gloom and in light. He tells us in His Word that the darkness doesn’t overcome the light. This is hope. His light always penetrates and overcomes the darkness.

It is interesting and so like our Lord to invite me into joy the year of 2021. There are days when it has been a steep ascent to encounter joy and on other days it can be a gentle walk. Though the last three years have been challenging for our household, this year seems the most challenging for me to experience joy in the midst of it all. I understand why joy is the invitation; I must not lose joy no matter what. The verse my heart is set to navigate the year 2021 is Romans 12:12.

“Be joyful in hope,

patient in affliction,

faithful in prayer.”

And then the Spirit added a P. S. from James 1:2.

“Count it all joy . . .”

The truth of His Word challenges me to believe the joy I experienced in the midst of a marine layer on that hike can be found in the gray days of living love in the hard places. The long view can’t be seen; it’s as if the trail disappears in the gloom and the end is uncertain. I love the phrase: “Be joyful in hope . . .” What we hope for is unseen, but oh so certain.

Jerry Bridges writes these truths about joy in The Fruitful Life; I am convicted and inspired. “The fact is, only Christians have a reason to be joyful, but it is also a fact that every Christian should be joyful. True Christian joy is both a privilege and a duty. . . . we are not to sit around waiting for our circumstances to make us joyful; but we are commanded to be joyful always (1 Thessalonians 5:16). . . . joy is not an option available to those whose temperament is conducive to it. God intends that every one of His children exhibit the fruit of joy. Just being joyful is not enough, however; we should be continually growing in joy.” Joy, a distinctive quality of being a disciple of Jesus, is expected of me.

 

It is by the power of the Holy Spirit I grow in joy regardless of circumstances; it is not something I can talk myself into. Joy comes from a place of surrender and trust. Though we could not see the flag that marked our goal at the beginning of the upward hike, we knew it was there; we had been there before. The climb may be difficult and the view closed off in gray, we can, and did, take joy in the journey. I desire to look at my current life through joy in the same way I delighted in the soft, limited view of the first half of my friend’s birthday hike.

How are you experiencing joy in your ordinary life? How are you finding joy in hardship? How are you experiencing God these days, whether in or out of hardship? What is God’s invitation to you in 2021 for spiritual growth?

Shifting From Purpose Driven to Purpose Living

 

Sometimes I forget my purpose and am tied up in knots to rediscover it. Those are times I get sidetracked by a search for significance. My purpose isn’t that complicated to find. And my significance comes completely from the One to whom I belong. My significance comes from being in relationship with Jesus – spending time with Him. When I return to this one important, rock solid truth, the passion He placed within comes to the surface. This passion drives my purpose. I am passionate to help others fall in love with Jesus, to know Him more fully and learn what it means to walk with Him. I don’t have this perfectly figured out but as I follow Christ, I want to bring others along.

It makes me think of the phrase said by Erin Napier at the opening of the show Home Town, “You don’t have to be an expert to save your town, you’ve just got to care enough to get up and do it.” My purpose as a follower of Christ is to care enough to get up and follow where He leads – to do the things He puts in front of me. I have to care enough to get up and do the work of His kingdom so others may know Him. And it really looks quite ordinary much of the time.

But there are days when I might not look like I care enough to get up and serve however and wherever He invites me to serve. And if I am honest with myself, I sometimes don’t care or I would be living in love toward Jesus and others and not fixated on myself. Sometimes I am afraid to move forward for fear that no one would respond. Here again, I have returned to a place of self-importance and a need for validation, not service.

I am being vulnerable. Are any of you with me? Do you ever find yourself looking for a position of importance or the having the illusion of being valuable because of your busyness? I am learning to do what I can where I am at the moment with what has been given me. I do look for ways to use the gifts He has given but I must seek the Savior first and follow His leading, surrendering the temptation to live in self-importance and learning to be “like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose” (Philippians 2 NIV). I am to have the same attitude as Christ – not grasping for position but becoming a servant. I am not always comfortable with this. You?

Emily P. Freeman spoke with Christian comedian Michael Jr on the The Next Right Thing Podcast. I highly recommend listening to it.

 https://emilypfreeman.com/podcast/the-next-right-thing/164/

Emily and Michael Jr talked about how complicated we make finding our purpose. Michael Jr says it well using the language of his occupation: we have a set up – our story, our training, our living situation, our relationships, our woundedness, it’s all fodder for the punchline – the act of service – what we can deliver. In Michael Jr’s words, “But people don’t always understand what their line is and they’ll feel there is a void. Like there is something missing. And what people do more times than not to fill that void, they think that what they need is more set up. (ex. Better training, a new car, cool clothes, etc.) . . . What you really need to know is what is truly your punchline . . . even your setbacks in life are part of your set up so you can deliver the punchline you are called to deliver.”

Dallas Willard writes in The Divine Conspiracy quite succinctly, “The kingdom disciple teaches from his or her storehouse of personal experiences of God’s rule in the commonplace events of real life.”

This brings to mind the words of poet Enuma Okoro (Passing Ordinary Time):

“This ordinary time is

gifted in its quiet, marked passing

Christ slips about

calling and baptizing,

sending and affirming,

pouring his Spirit like water

into broken cisterns,

sealing cracks and filtering our senses,

that we may savor the foolish

simplicity of his grace.”

He goes about doing kingdom work in quiet, uncomplicated ways. I long to follow in His footsteps. So much of kingdom work is a response to what we see, to what is pressed upon our hearts. How can I move about in this rhythm of purpose without making it such a big deal? It requires abiding in His presence, being sifted by the Spirit, confession, humility, and doing life in relationship to Jesus. This is a relationship and all my doing is better when motivated by walking with Him day in and day out. Abiding in His presence and listening helps me grow in awareness to His Spirit’s leading throughout my day.

Christianity and being a disciple of Christ isn’t designed for my significance, that thing I look for when I am fixated on my purpose. This is a life of sensitivity to what the Spirit places before me. And sometimes that might mean serving my husband while he carries a heavy burden in the midst of side effects as a result of cancer treatments. It might be a meal for someone, letting someone go ahead in a line, or posting a blog no matter how many people read or don’t read it. My purpose is to glorify God in whatever I set my hands to this day and that means my eyes must be fixed on Him. The following interview on Fully Expressed by John Dembeck of my husband, Jim Joiner, challenged me anew to live a life of faithfulness to God in the present moment. I hope you will take time to listen to it.

 Fully Expressed episode 23

Erin Napier is passionate about saving her town by restoring neglected houses and giving others a welcoming home. What is my passion? How has it fueled my living the life of a disciple in the kingdom of God? Am I motivated to get up and do, in love, whatever brings others to the kingdom of God, to shine the light in my community? I desire to shift from searching for a purpose to living purposely.

None of us does this life of purpose alone. We have Jesus and we have each other. Where are you today on your journey of living purposefully?