Spiritual ADD

Sunday 10/6/2013 7:36 AM

Last night the people who attended my forty-year high school reunion had a dinner.  We remembered the good old days, reflected on the lives of our classmates who have since died and some of my classmates shared what happened in their lives over the course of the years since we last met.  Three of my classmates had come to a renewed faith over the past few years, moved by the Spirit of God and the events in their lives to acknowledge their need for God.  Each of them expressed how the emptiness and futility of their lives had been replaced with fullness and purpose and it reminded me of the great patience and mercy of God.

Today my assigned passage includes Isaiah 48.  In this chapter Isaiah reveals that God will send the Babylonians and take Israel into captivity.  Verses 17-18 are the words of God to his people.  “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.  If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea.”  God does the same for me.  He wants what is best for me and shows me the way I should go to attain it.  Unfortunately, too often, like the Israelites, I do not pay attention, choosing instead to do things my own way.  Thankfully God does not deal with my lack of attention or outright defiance by completely writing me off as a lost cause; he simply withholds the peace I so desperately long for until I turn back to him.  I pray that as I continue to age I will become better at paying attention to what God says and more obedient in following the path he lays out before me.

External Hard Drive

Thursday 10/3/2013 4:43 AM

I recently bought an external drive for my computer and I periodically plug it in and back up my hard drive.  I have heard horror stories of people whose hard drive has crashed and they have lost all the data that was stored in their computer.  Pictures, documents, videos, programs and anything else that was stored in the computer are gone.  In some cases it is recoverable but in other cases it is gone forever.  Last night I plugged in the external drive and backed everything up so if my computer crashes today I should be able to recover everything.

Over the course of the past few months I have felt as if God has left me.  I had little desire to read the Bible or stop to consider what God might be saying to me through my circumstances and, as a result, I have felt purposeless, without direction.  It seems that the hard drive of my life has crashed and the messages God had for me that were previously easily accessible are now beyond reach.  I find this state of affairs disturbing.  The words of Fredrick Buechner in his book Now and Then give me encouragement today.  “Because the word that God speaks to us is always an incarnate word – a word spelled out to us not alphabetically, in syllables, but enigmatically, in events, even in books we read and the movies we see – the chances are we will never get it just right.  We are so used to hearing what we want to hear and remaining deaf to what it would be well for us to hear that it is hard to break the habit.  But if we keep our hearts and minds open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly, then I think we come to recognize, beyond all doubt, that, however faintly we my hear him, he is indeed speaking to us, and that, however little we may understand of it, his word to each of us is both recoverable and precious beyond telling.”  Buechner seems to believe that God is still speaking to me and eventually I will be able to recover what I now sense as irretrievable.  I guess I need to continue to listen with patience and hope and trust that God is backing everything up.

Do Not Follow Too Closely

Tuesday 10/1/2013 5:30 AM

I have long been impressed by Paul’s words in Philippians 4:9, “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me – put it into practice.”  He also makes a bold statement in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”  In both passages he encourages his readers to use him as a role model; to mold their lives to look like his.  I have never had the courage to say that to others, realizing that I often fall short of the mark in my life.  I have moments where I live in a way that is consistent with the teachings of Jesus, when I consider others better than myself and put their needs above my own, but too much of the time I live selfishly without considering the impact my behavior has on those around me.

Lately my example is a very poor one to follow.  My life is undisciplined in nearly every way.  My regular routine of daily exercise has fallen by the wayside.  My time of reading the Bible and listening to God each morning before I begin the day is nearly nonexistent.  I have stopped participating in the men’s Bible study at our church and I resigned my position as storyteller in our church’s Children and Worship ministry.  My relationship with Jaci is not what it should be because of my messed up schedule at school which takes me away from home two nights a week and makes me so tired that when I am home I do little but sleep.  It seems I have less energy to invest in the relationship and it suffers as a result.

The other day I was driving and saw a sign on the back of a truck that read, “Frequent stops.  Do not follow too closely.”  I immediately thought it would be an appropriate sign to wear myself.  Someone desiring to follow Christ and live a life that parallels the life God desires for his people would do well to avoid my example like the plague.  Following me at this point in my life would be like trying to move forward while taking on step forward and two steps backward.  I would like to be an example to others but for now nothing could be farther from the truth.  My advice to others is, “Do not follow too closely.”

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.