Network Unavailable

Sunday 9/29/2013 5:38 AM

I ran this morning in silence.  I have an app that tracks my running progress and allows me to listen to the music on my phone but this morning my playlist was not playing for some reason.  When I left my house I noticed the normal cloud cover was missing and the sky was very clear.  The moon was between the constellations of Orion and Gemini, near the planet Jupiter.  As always, the starry sky suggests the power and grandeur of God to me and I thought about the incredibly large universe and my insignificance in it.  David’s words in Psalm 8, “What is man that you are mindful of him?” came to mind.  When I got home I checked out my phone app to see why my music hadn’t played and I discovered that my normal playlist had been changed to iRadio.  My phone simply said, “Network unavailable.”  Evidently when I updated my operating system this morning it changed the settings on my phone and the music didn’t play because I did not have access to Wi-Fi during my run.

When I sat down for my devotions I started by reading Psalm 19, my assigned psalm for the week.  It begins with these words, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night that reveal knowledge.  They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from then.  Yet their voice goes out into al the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”  Later in the psalm it talks about the law of God, describing it as perfect, trustworthy, right, radiant, pure, firm, precious, sweet and rewarding.  It seems as if God communicates with mankind through his creation and through his word.

I also read an excerpt from The Untamed God, by George Cornell.  He writes, “The Bible is the record of those divine breakthroughs into human history.  ‘God’s search for man,’ it is described, rather than being our search for God.  And its accents are considered a key for discerning the continuing divine activity in the present.  Unlike most religious literature, it is not chiefly a collection of noble sayings, but a drumroll of events, people, struggles, great and terrible, of frailty, doubts, and heroism, of the ultimate might of right.  Scripture isn’t meant as scientific exposition or as mere history.  It is ‘salvation history,’ a universal spiritual drama of an overarching compassion and concern for human integrity, of an unwavering love that seeks an answering affirmation.  It is a vivid, sometime parabolic account of God’s persistent, unrelenting quest for us and our stumbling, often faithless response.”

Over the past few months I have been struggling in my relationship with God.  I have gotten out of my normal routine of running and having a time of quiet reflection on God’s word each morning.  As a result I do not hear the heavens declaring the glory of God and I don’t hear about God’s compassion and concern for humanity by reading the Bible.  George Cornell would say that God is continuing his unrelenting quest for me but I am unresponsive.  Like my phone, I have changed my operating system and now I am not receiving direction in my life.  I imagine that if God had an app for me it would say, “Network unavailable.”  It’s time to get reconnected.

Return to Me

Friday 9/20/2013 5:07 AM

The past week has been terribly busy.  Thankfully Jaci is visiting with her sisters in Pella so I am able to spend more time doing what needs to be done than I might otherwise without adversely affecting my relationship with her.

I am in the middle of the first round of tests for my classes.  I am teaching five different classes and one of them is multivariable calculus, a class I have not previously taught.  Consequently I have no previous tests or lesson plans on which to fall.  To complicate matters it has been nearly forty years since I took the class myself so I spend hours preparing for each lecture, trying to find ways to explain the new concepts in ways that my students will be able to understand and find meaningful.  I find that I awaken in the middle of the night dreaming about calculus and then have difficulty falling back asleep.  The combination of a busy schedule and a lack of sleep is beginning to take its toll.

My knee has been hurting for the past week so I have not had my normal run each morning.  The distraction of my school responsibilities has kept me from my regular time of devotional reflection.  Both of these activities have a calming influence on me so when they are not presence my level of stress and frustration mounts.

Last night we had our first choir practice for the new church year.  After our rehearsal our director, Faith, shared a devotional by Oswald Chambers in which he stressed the importance of maintaining a relationship with God if we expect to effect the world around us in a way that will reveal the character of God.  Chambers’ writing was based upon Genesis 13:3-4 where it says that Abram pitched his tent between Bethel, the house of God, and Ai, which represented the world around him.  He realized that in order to affect the world he needed to be close to God.  I was convicted to return to my previous habit of regular morning devotions.

Today I turned to my assigned chapter in my devotional book and noted the assigned scriptures for the week included Genesis 13.  I read some of the quotes in the book and this excerpt, from Hallowed Be This House by Thomas Howard, caught my attention.  “Somehow we have gotten swept into a millrace, and it’s nonstop flailing and thrashing just to keep ourselves from drowning.  The sheer necessities of modern life sweep us farther and farther from any sense that it is all hallowed, really.  What are we to do?”  This is exactly what I feel like this week and it also conjured up memories of sixteen years ago when Jaci’s sister, Linda, committed suicide.  I was using the same devotional book that year and this quote caught my attention because Linda and Fred, her husband, lived on a street called Millrace Avenue.  I decided to go back and read my journal entries from that time and I was surprised by how my life seems to be in the same place.  What follows is my journal entry from September 25, 1997.

I feel like I am so far behind in my work that I will never catch up.  I stay up late and get up early trying to get my tests made, and then corrected, and then proceed to fall asleep trying to meet the demands of my daily routine.  The first paragraph of my reading describes my situation fairly well.  It is an excerpt from Hallowed Be This House by Thomas Howard.  “Somehow we have gotten swept into a millrace, and it’s nonstop flailing and thrashing just to keep ourselves from drowning.  The sheer necessities of modern life sweep us farther and farther from any sense that it is all hallowed, really.  What are we to do?”  My assigned scripture reading was Genesis 13 this morning and as I read the chapter I noticed something about Abram.  He was in the process of moving from Egypt to the Negev, undoubtedly a busy time, when he began to have trouble getting along with his nephew Lot.  Abram could have worked harder and jockeyed for a position that would guarantee his financial and personal success but the Bible clearly states, in two different verses, the focus of his life.  Verses 3-4 read, “From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier and where he had first built an altar.  There Abram called on the name of the Lord.”  After giving Lot the choice of where he would like to live, and getting what appeared to be the short end of the stick, he did not mope about the raw deal he got but worshipped God.  Verse 18 records his response; “So Abram moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the Lord.”

There are two thoughts that come to me this morning.  The first is that I need to return to the place I have been earlier, a place where I first built an altar to the Lord.  In the midst of my busyness I need to lay it all out before God and simply worship him for who he is, leaving the details of my life entrusted to his care.  The second thought is that I need to ignore the situations in which I find myself and move myself to a place of worship.  Rather than getting my knickers in a twist about my circumstances, I need to focus on God and his agenda.  The Bible promises that if I seek first the kingdom of God, all these other things will be added to me.  Lord, may I trust your word and, more specifically, trust you to fulfill your will in my life.  Let me give up trying to control my life and let me rest in your provision for my needs.  Open my eyes to see your way and give me a calm spirit that entrusts my life to your care.

God’s word to me then is the same as his word to me this morning; return to me and trust me with your future.  In many ways my life is very different today than it was sixteen years ago.  Unfortunately, with regards to staying close to God and trusting God, I am a slow learner.

Missed Opportunities

Saturday 9/14/2013 5:41 AM

For the past week I have not had my regular devotional time, a time to read and reflect on God’s word and on his will for my life.  I have let the busyness of my schedule, late nights and other distractions steal the time that I normally devote to reading and meditating on God’s word.  Nearly twenty years ago I committed to having a regular time of reading and meditating upon God’s word and, by his grace, I have been able to keep that commitment.  I also committed to memorizing portions of God’s word that were especially meaningful for me.

I opened my devotional book for the first time since Sunday and turned to the next section.  This week’s theme is Study and my assigned psalm includes one of the memory verses I memorized over fifteen years ago, Psalm 119:15-16.  “I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.  I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.”  I originally chose to learn the verse because it was my promise to God and this morning it is a good reminder for me since I have neglected God’s word for the past week.

There was a time in my life when I would have castigated myself for not living up to my promise to God.  I would have lived in the land of guilt and shame for a few weeks reminding myself how disappointing I must be to God and wondering how I could even call myself a Christian.  But, because I followed through with my commitment for the most part, over the years I have spent hundreds of hours meditating on the love and grace of God and I realize that his love and grace do not depend upon me and my ability to hold up my end of the bargain.  His love for me is based upon the perfect work of Christ on my behalf.  When I fail to have my quiet time of reading and reflection God’s love doesn’t cease, I just don’t get to hear him whisper it to me.

Consumption v Contentment

Sunday 9/8/2013 7:12 AM

This is the first year in twenty-five years that Jaci has not worked outside the home.  She always worked part time so the income she generated was not enormous but it always helped to fill the gaps in our budget or to help pay for unexpected emergencies.  Now that we no longer have her check coming in I find that I become more concerned when I find that she has gone shopping and bought something that I had not been expecting.  She has always been a frugal shopper, buying things on sale or at a discount store, but now I find myself wondering if we will be able to live the way we lived before while continuing to give a significant portion of our income away.

These words from Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster, are good words for me to hear today.  “… Freedom from anxiety is characterized by three inner attitudes.  If what we have we receive as a gift, and if what we have is to be cared for by God, and if what we have is available to others, then we will possess freedom from anxiety. … What we have is not the result of our labor, but of the gracious care of God.  When we are tempted to think that what we own is the result of our personal efforts, it takes only a little drought or a small accident to show us once again how radically dependent we are for everything.  To know that it is God’s business, and not ours, to care for what we have is the second inner attitude of simplicity.  God is able to protect what we possess.  We can trust him.  To have our goods available to others marks the third inner attitude of simplicity.  Martin Luther said somewhere, ‘If our goods are not available to the community they are stolen goods.’  The reason we find these words so difficult is our fear of the future…. But if we truly believe that God is who Jesus said he is, then we do not need to be afraid.”

After reading what I wrote in the first paragraph I noticed this phrase, “… if we will be able to live the way we lived before…”.  Perhaps if I were not so concerned with living like I did before this would not be such a big issue.  Hans Küng addresses this in his book On Being a Christian.  “… the Christian message can make something clear which is apparently not envisaged at all either in the economic theory or in the practical scale of values of the modern consumer- and efficiency-oriented society, but which perhaps could have a part to play: replacement of the compulsion to consume by freedom in regard to consumption.  In any case there is some point in not constructing one’s happiness on the basis of consumption and prosperity alone.  But in the light of Jesus Christ it also makes sense not to be always striving, not always to be trying to have everything; not to be governed by the laws of prestige and competition; not to take part in the cult of abundance; but even with children exercise the freedom to renounce consumption.  This is ‘poverty in spirit’ as inward freedom from possessions: contented unpretentiousness and confident unconcernedness as a basic attitude.”

I have always felt that I did a pretty good job of recognizing that it is God who provides for my needs by giving me my health, my abilities, my job, my work ethic, etc.    I think I really need to ask God to change my attitude toward consumption, to create in me an attitude of contentment.

Encouragement Instead of Criticism

Sunday 9/1/2013 7:56 AM

A couple of days ago one of my Facebook friends posted a status update something like this: If I died tomorrow what is one thing you would remember about me?  No one, including me, responded.  This person has struggled with mental health issues over the years and has few friends.  I have had lunch with the person on more than one occasion but our conversation has always been forced and awkward.  I wanted to respond to the post, stressing some positive quality that has been meaningful to me, but I had difficulty coming up with something that was not trite or insincere.  Why is it so easy for me to find and comment on the negative traits of a person and so difficult to do the same with the positive?  I often blame it on my vocation as a teacher, always looking for things that need correction, but I have a feeling it goes deeper than that.

Today I read an excerpt from the book With Open Heart by Michael Quoist that I find very convicting.  “R. has just told me that Bernard (a priest and a friend, a wonderful, remarkable, generous man of action who gave his all) has died, defeated by depression. … I am going to the funeral.  I had hesitated–why go?  For him?  I can pray for him right here.  For his family, friends, myself?  Perhaps.  However I know that I will be going to very little more than a show.  I can already hear the sudden concert of unanimous praise and the miraculous disappearance of all criticism and reservation.  Like all sensitive beings, Bernard wanted a bit of approval, a little encouragement.  But he would never have believed the amount of praise that’s going to be heaped on him now.  The tragic thing is that just a fraction of it could have perhaps saved him.  Despite all, I’m going to the interment.  I haven’t got the courage not to go.”  Quoist’s observations are similar to those I have made at memorial services and I wonder what it is that keeps me, and others like me, from extending compliments and expressions of gratitude to others for who they are and for how they have impacted our lives.  Am I so concerned about what others think of me that I am afraid to think about what I think of others?  Am I afraid that I might give a compliment to someone, expecting one in return, only to be disappointed when the compliment is not reciprocated?

What I really need is to find my worth and security in how God views me.  If I recognize and believe that God thinks enough of me to die for me then the need for approval from others should disappear and I will be free to dispense that same grace of God to others through my human voice.  Lord, give me a clearer vision of who I am, and who others are, in your eyes.