Doorkeeper

Monday 10/27/2014 4:25 AM

My devotional theme for the week is “A Friend of Souls.” Part of my reading included a poem entitled I Stand by the Door, by Samuel Moor Shoemaker. The poem is a description of what he desires to do in life, stand by the door to God and show people the way in. In the poem, God is portrayed as a vast, roomy house with a single door for entry. He sees his job as simply pointing out the door to passersby, those seeking after God. He will occasionally look into the house to hear the voice of God and to hear from others who live within how wonderful the house is but he quickly returns to his post by the door, lest anyone should miss finding it.

He says there are those who live within the house and plumb its depths, which is an encouragement to others, but he prefers to stand by the door. I feel called to be someone who explores the depths of God’s love and mercy. There needs to be someone who can tell others of the beauty that lies within, one who invites those who enter to do some exploring rather than to go back outside the door. Shoemaker agrees, but warns that those who live within should never forget the millions who are still outside, seeking to find a way in.

Finding a balance between losing myself in the love of God and interacting with those who live apart from God, to point them toward God, has always been a difficult thing for me to do. I don’t want to be so heavenly minded that I am of no earthly good. Lord, help me to explore the height and depths of your love without losing touch with those with whom I rub shoulders daily.

Drought

Sunday 10/19/2014 6:17 AM

California is in the middle of a drought. I have not watered my lawn at all this past summer and the grass is pretty much dead. There are mandatory water restrictions and farmers have also been restricted to the amount of water they can use. There has been unusually low rainfall and snowpack for the past few years and reservoirs all across the state are nearly empty.

My assigned scripture today included Joel 2:23ff, “Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before. The threshing floors will be filled with grain; the vats will overflow with new wine and oil. … Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other…” I also read Psalm 107:33ff, “He turned rivers into a desert, flowing springs into thirsty ground, and fruitful land into a salt waste, because of the wickedness of those who lived there. He turned the desert into pools of water and the parched ground into flowing springs; there he brought the hungry to live, and they founded a city where they could settle. They sowed fields and planted vineyards that yielded a fruitful harvest; he blessed them, and their numbers greatly increased.” Both of these passages talk about rain being sent to thirsty ground by a loving God. Our modern society denies the work of God in the cycles of drought and flooding. They attribute it to chance at best and, lately, they have attributed it to the work of man in the world, who has deposited too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.

At first I thought perhaps God was letting me know that the drought in California would subside this year, that there would be plenty of rain. But then I thought about my personal life and my relationship with God over the past year or so and how I have been in a drought in that aspect of my life. Over the course of the past few days I have had meaningful devotional times. Maybe God is telling me that the drought I am experiencing in that regard is ending. A prayer by Peter Marshall is mine today, “Father, I am beginning to know how much I miss when I fail to talk to thee in prayer, and through prayer to receive into my life the strength and the guidance which only you can give. Forgive me for the pride and the presumption that make me continue to struggle to manage my own affairs to the exhaustion of my body, the weariness of my mind, the trial of my faith.”

Perspective

Friday 10/17/2014 7:35 AM

Yesterday I attended a meeting that became somewhat contentious. People had differing ideas on how best to proceed and eventually people started to nitpick, citing violations of Robert’s Rules of Order when we have never previously used them. Then we began discussing a document and the word Nazis came to life, parsing sentences, arguing about the tenses of verbs or the most appropriate adjective, etc., bickering about the jots and tittles. It seemed obvious to me what everyone’s intent was but progress was being hindered by divisiveness. I became really upset and nearly walked out of the meeting because of my frustration but I didn’t want to disrespect the others so I decided to look out the window instead. There were beautiful clouds layering the sky, a welcome relief after the past few weeks of record-breaking heat. The jacaranda trees were sporting clusters of their characteristic purple flowers, unusual for this time of year. A young couple was sitting on the grass, obviously in love and enjoying each other’s company. I immediately felt the stress start to dissipate.

Today I read an excerpt from Prayer, a book by Simon Tugwell in which he notes the contrast between the grumbling preacher of Ecclesiastes saying, “there is nothing new under the sun” with the writer of Revelation proclaiming, “Look! I am making all things new.” He writes, “We may all of us sometime get Ecclesiastes moods, and if we do, it is comforting to know that they are not utterly debarred from God’s domain; but we should not devote our minds and imaginations to prolonging and justifying them. We should aim rather to have minds and imaginations able to respond joyfully to the truth that in Christ everything is given back its youth and at least something of the freshness of the very first days of creation.”

Over the past year or so I have been experiencing more of the darker side of life, frustrated with the lack of movement in my relationship with God and an inability to discern God’s will. I’ve felt like walking out on God, giving up, taking my ball and going home. Perhaps I need to glance out the windows of my life and see the world from God’s point of view, seeing the clouds as the means to bring relief from drought rather than as agents who are out to block the sun. It’s time to look for the unexpected beauty of blooming jacarandas and the joy of young lovers in my present circumstances instead of longing for my rose-colored past. Behold! God is doing a new thing.

Spiritual Ennui

Thursday 10/16/2014 5:00 AM

I have been battling spiritual ennui for almost a year and I feel as if I am finally succumbing to it. For many months I had my regular time of reading the Bible and meditating on it but seldom had any insights that I would consider to be earth shattering. Over the past couple of months it seems like I have completely given up on hearing God speak. My devotional time has been haphazard, cursory, or nonexistent, and the voice of God has been completely muted to my ears.

Jaci and I agreed to be co-leaders of a small group Bible study at our church in which we are studying God’s great love for us. When discussing what an appropriate response to that kind of love should be, I feel like a big hypocrite. There was a time when I felt close to God, when I regularly heard his voice and was comforted by his presence, but now it all seems like a distant memory. I have always believed that to be used effectively by God in the building of his kingdom one must maintain a vital connection with him. If that connection and relationship is severed, at best, I have nothing to offer and, at worst, I am a hindrance.

Psalm 86 is my psalm for the week. It begins with these words, “Hear me, Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Guard my life, for I am faithful to you; save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God; have mercy on me, Lord, for I call to you all day long. Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you.” I can relate to the poor and needy part and the plea for joy part, but the faithful part, the calling all day long part, and the trusting part do not strike a chord with me at all. If God’s protection, God’s mercy, and the joy he gives are dependent upon my faithfulness, my pleading and my trust, I am SOL.

The writing of Simon Tugwell, in his book Prayer, brings a little hope this morning. “Blessed are the poor! How easily we take that always to mean somebody else. Yet if we want to be with God, we must learn to hear it as ‘blessed are we who are poor’, we who have not got anything very impressive to give to anybody, whose giving my very well be rather a nuisance, but who still have not given up giving. … God invites us into this conspiracy of the poor, making himself its head, giving himself in poverty and weakness, knowing that if we will only receive that humble gift of his, it will transform everything. If we are prepared to be poor enough to learn and to appreciate the manner of God’s giving we shall find in that poverty the seed of all perfection.” Lord, please use me in my poverty.