Who or Whose?

Tuesday 9/29/2015 4:53 AM

When faced with uncertainty or with difficulty some people panic and worry about the future. In their minds they play out every possible scenario and then try to formulate their plan to deal with the consequences. When things become too overwhelming people will sometimes say they need to take time to find themselves, to discover who they are deep inside, to determine their priorities and how best to live out their priorities in the given circumstances.

My former pastor would always encourage our congregation to remember our identity, to remember not who we are but whose we are. He liked to quote one of our church’s confessions, the Heidelberg Catechism, Question and Answer 1. “What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own but belong – body and soul, in life and in death – to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.”

Today I read a similar quote by Rueben P. Job. “To remember who creates us and recreates, who calls us again and again, who knows us completely, and who loves us unconditionally is to be prepared, as Jesus was, for all that is to come. We need have no fear of today or anxiety about tomorrow. We belong to God who claims us as beloved children and holds us close in the embrace of strength and love. Listen and remember today that God calls your name, and be transformed and sustained in all that awaits you.”

It is easy to become discouraged in our modern society. News reports on television are filled with fear mongering. Breaking news bombards us with a barrage or stories of child abductions, random acts of violence, worldwide terror, threats to our financial security, predatory corporations robbing us of hard-earned money and threatening our environment, to mention a few. But these stories and threats pale when I realize that the God who created and maintains the universe has promised to hold me close and to walk with me through whatever circumstances arise. I pray that I will have the faith to trust in that loving God without reservation.

Empathy for Others

Friday 9/25/2015 5:51 AM

I listened to the U2 album Songs of Innocence as I ran this morning. Some of the lyrics of the song “Sleep Like a Baby Tonight” caught my attention. “Hope is where the door is when the church is where the war is, where no one can feel no one else’s pain. You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight. In your dreams everything is alright. Tomorrow dawns like a suicide but you’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight.”

I have lived my entire life in the United States. Our independence is something in which we take great pride. We celebrate those who have risen from the depths of poverty to wealth and describe our country as the land of opportunity. We claim that hard work and perseverance will be rewarded.

The danger of this mindset is that we feel that those who do not rise from what we consider to be the lower rungs of society fail because of lack of effort. We complain about all the freeloaders in our society who are riding on the coattails of us hardworking people and our world gets divided into “us” and “them.” Unfortunately, this kind of attitude is especially prevalent in the Christian church. U2 would say, “no one can feel no one else’s pain.”

I like to insulate myself from the world around me. I encircle myself with people who look just like me, those with similar belief systems, values, and economic status. Within this little dream world construct everything is all right. I sleep like a baby, swaddled in the comfort of my self-made world.

God’s call to me is to feel the pain of others. Rather that insulating myself from the world around me I am called to enter into it and share the pain and heartache that is so prevalent. Instead of complaining about things, I am to show mercy to the oppressed and to seek justice on their behalf. I am to expend my energy and the resources God has given me on behalf of others, not solely for my own benefit. God calls me to live in community with those who are made in his image, not to live in comfortable isolation. I pray that God will help me to live in such a way.

El Niño

Wednesday 9/23/2015 4:23 AM

Yesterday Facebook reminded me of a picture I posted six years ago, shortly after I bought my motorcycle. In it I am holding my grandson, three-month old Trey, while sitting on my bike with a beautifully manicured, green lawn in the background. Today Trey is in first grade and losing teeth and my lawn is dead, and brown. Time marches on and things change.

Relationships change too. Flourishing romantic love stoked by a newly minted marriage can become passé after a few years of shared life and dull routine if it is not carefully tended and nourished. Intimacy with and fervor for God can soon give way to ennui when the busyness and cares of life interfere with the time needed for quiet reflection and meditation. Time marches on and things change.

Southern California is currently enduring a record-setting drought, which accounts for my dead, brown lawn. My relationship with God is also enduring a drought. My reservoir of joy has been drained and the excitement of wondering what God would do next has given way to a quiet resignation that things have changed and may never again be the same. My dead, brown lawn mirrors my feelings about intimacy with God at the moment.

My devotional theme this week is gratitude. It is hard to be thankful in the middle of a drought but my assigned reading for today gives some hope. Jeremiah 33:10-11 says, “This is what the Lord says: You say about this place, ‘It is a desolate waste, without people or animals.’ Yet in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted, inhabited by neither people nor animals, there will be heard once more the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord, saying, ‘Give thanks to the Lord Almighty, for the Lord is good; his love endures forever.’ For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were before, says the Lord.”

Meteorologists are hopeful that the current drought across California will be alleviated due to an extra strong marine condition know as El Niño. Rising ocean temperatures along the coastline portend a wetter than usual rainy season, giving hope to a break in the drought. I can also have hope with regard to the listlessness in my relationship with God. He has sent El Niño, his Son, to warm the surface of my cooling heart and to restore intimacy and joy. I will experience the sinusoidal variations of life but God remains faithful. That is reason enough for gratitude.

Priority Shift

Sunday 9/13/2015 5:35 AM

The theme for my devotions this week is attentiveness. The world in which we live is filled with distractions and it is difficult to focus on one particular thing for any length of time. The media is especially prone to distraction, always looking for “breaking news” or for what is “trending.” A story about the genocide of thousands of people gives way to a story about some Hollywood star who got a traffic ticket for speeding through a school zone as if the speeding infraction was of greater importance.

I am guilty of similarly misplaced priorities. Television, social media, or other equally inane activities consume the time I should spend nourishing my relationship with Jaci. The concern I have for myself often supersedes the attentiveness I should be giving to the needs and concerns of others. My relationship with God atrophies because I think I am too busy to set aside time for contemplating God’s goodness to me or for trying to determine what he would have me do that would reveal God’s goodness to and his love for others.

It is time to stop the excuses and to set aside time for reflection. Priorities need to shift so that the important things take precedence over the urgent things. I need to be more attentive to the working of God in my life and more attentive to the needs of others. Lord, give me the grace to make the necessary changes.

Straying

Saturday 9/12/2015 6:03 AM

Yesterday Jaci and I went to see the movie War Room. It is a story about the power of prayer and the ability of God to change the lives of those who seek him with their whole being. I have experienced the transforming power of God at work in my life so there were many points in movie that resonated with me. I also realized that my passion for God has waned over the past few months and, as a result, I am less aware of God’s working in my life and in the lives of others with whom I have contact. This saddens me and I spent part of my time in the theater weeping and mourning the lost opportunities to dispense the grace of God into the lives of others and to experience God’s grace in my own life.

When I left the theater I resolved to return to my habit of spending an extended time each morning with God so that I am more aware of his work in the world and more aware of the role he wants me to play in that work. As I read my devotional materials today I read a prayer by Norman Shawchuck that seemed as if it was written for me. It is my prayer today.

My God, every fiber of my being vibrates at the touch of your grace – whereby I am given the privilege of being your child. My joy at your overwhelming gesture of love and the high privilege you extend to me of entering into your life invades my being with an acute sense of your ever-nearness. In response to this, my Lord, I offer praises to you.

Yet, my Lord, I am often cold toward you. I forget to love you for long periods of time – and this to my own harm and regret. Forgive me, Lord! Ever-loving God, set my life aflame with love for you only. O my God, I long to reflect your image throughout the world so that others might observe your doing in me and themselves be convinced that you love them also.