Category Archives: Christian Living

Thoughts on Good Friday

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Good Friday is always a difficult day for me, facing the sacrifice that Jesus made for us–for me–and wishing there’d been another way. Recently at Hearing the Heartbeat, Carolyn Watts looked at it a little differently and discovered:

As much as I want to be able to bear my own blame, it would destroy me. If I want to be His, I must let Him kneel at the scourging post, hands tied above His head, let Him take every last stroke of that fiercely studded whip that should have been mine, and continue, body already broken, down the road to the cross, that final doorway into the heart of enemy territory. If I want to be His, I must receive the gift of Himself.

Read Carolyn’s entire post at The Words You Never Dreamed He’d Say, and let it bless you today.

Trust

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My friend Jan Cox has dubbed this the Year of Trust. I’m focusing on relentless gratitude, and there’s a definite cross-over. Gratitude to God reinforces trust in God.

Here are some links I’ve found helpful:

Carolyn Watts’ posts at Hearing the Heartbeat often bless me.  Here she offers a simple reminder of what trust can look like.

At Something About the Joy, Ginny Jaques shares Four Things About God that Make Life So Much Easier.

At Dreaming Big, Heather Boersma encourages us to let our words affirm our dependence on God and speak life, not death. That sounds like trust to me.

At Promises for All Who Are In Christ, Natalie Gidney lists several promises from God that define who we are in Christ. Good to memorize for when the doubts fly.

And Janice Dick reminds us of God’s protective hold on us.

What Makes You Come Alive?

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Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. ~Howard Thurman

What makes me come alive?

  • Worship. First, foremost. It’s like oxygen, water and food. Subsets would be listening prayer, reading the Bible (and really listening), and worship music.
  • Creating. Mostly through writing fiction. Cross-stitch, knitting and cooking also help.
  • Loving and being loved. Accepting and being accepted. Minds and hearts meeting.

If this quote is true, and I suspect it is, then allowing life to crowd these things out makes me less effective as a person. Even if I complete everything on my to-do list.

My heart won’t be there. I won’t be what Dr. Howard Thurman calls alive. Who around me will be the poorer for it?

We can’t spend all day doing what we like best. There are wages to earn, household chores and responsibilities to tend to, social interactions (yes, we introverts find this a hard one) etc. But this quote intrigues me with the promise that intentionally including come-alive experiences in part of my day will positively affect the whole 24 hours.

What makes you come alive?

Three Good Things

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“Today is gone, it was not fun. Tomorrow is another one. Every day from here to there, funny things are everywhere.” (With apologies to Dr. Seuss’ One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish)

Certain Seuss-isms have lodged in my brain and pop out at times to bother my children. The good Doctor actually wrote “today was fun” and I tend to quote this one properly at the end of a good but tiring day. But the day in question had been stressful and I was glad to see the end of it.

Instead of his usual Seuss-induced eye roll, my 15-year-old stepped into my personal space, index finger outstretched, and challenged, “Name three good things that happened today. Fast.”

Umm.

There had been good things, not least being that although anxiety had hounded me all day I hadn’t crumpled. I was just tired of the repetitive battle.

He didn’t move. “Three good things.”

I don’t remember now which three I told him, but his moment of tough love is up there with the best things in that day.

How quickly we forget the good, or focus on the bad instead. And as Ann Voskamp says in One Thousand Gifts, even the bad can be a gift if we choose to recognize God there and continue giving thanks.

Gratitude has to be intentional. Deliberate. Radical.

For further reading:

At A Voice Crying Out into the Wilderness, Roger Tharpe reminds us of the importance of remembering the good.

At Other Food: daily devos, Violet Nesdoly affirms that gratitude is a choice.

And you’re bound to find something valuable about gratitude at Ann Voskamp’s A Holy Experience.

So the Lord May Bless You

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I’ve been reading in Deuteronomy (yes, on purpose!) about Moses’ long speech to the Israelites before they’re to finally enter the Promised Land. He reminds them what God has done in the past and what kind of behaviour God expects in the future.

What strikes me is the intent behind the litany of dos and don’ts: it’s not about following the rules, it’s about the Israelites’ lifestyle being a sign to the people around them. They’re to show how God designed humans to function, and how well He looks after those who trust Him.

Although the Old Testament proclaims Israel as God’s chosen people, it gives clear instruction to welcome the stranger and the alien and to allow them to learn about God.

The Pharisees got it wrong with their legalism. From the beginning, God asked for wholehearted love and obedience rather than rigidity. Peter had a handle on this when he wrote that we’re to live prepared to give an answer for the hope within us – we’re to live so that people can see we’re different.

What does it mean for us today?

  • legalism is not the way
  • personal holiness: not “I don’t do that” in a judgmental way, but “I do this because I love God”
  • taking seriously what He says
  • personal times alone with Him, again out of love and perceived need rather than performance or “earning points”
  • care for the person who doesn’t see his/her need, because God does see the need

We need to live mindfully according to His ways, secure in the knowledge that He is powerful, good, and able to care for us. Deuteronomy 23:20b is one of many illustrations of Moses’ theme: live God’s way so that we don’t block the blessings God wants to give – for our sakes and for the sakes of those who see us.

I’m really struck by how much God wants to give, and I wonder how much we miss by our own choices and actions.

Stillness and Silence

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Stillness and silence aren’t natural to most of us… I know they’re not for me, even when I’m sleeping :-p

But they’ve have been catching my attention lately in a way that points to God.

At Under the Cover of Prayer, Judith Lawrence wrote:

Silence is not a familiar place for many of us but as we seek to be with God silence becomes a sought after and familiar venue. (Adventures of the Spiritual Life — click to read the whole post, it’s worth your time)

This little gem from Oswald Chambers really got me thinking:

I must keep my conscious life as a sacred place for the Holy Spirit. Then as I lift different ones to God through prayer, the Holy Spirit intercedes for them.” (Nov. 7 reading, My Utmost for His Highest, updated edition edited by James Reimann)

I don’t always “get” brother Oswald’s thoughts, since they’re often elevated above my own, but this sacred place in the conscious life… that resonates with me. A still place, a holy place, in keeping with the idea that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.

I can see this sacred inner place being the basis for Frank Laubach‘s call to “keep in constant touch with God,” echoing Brother Lawrence‘s call to “practice the presence of God.” (You can read some of Frank Laubach’s writing here… just scroll through the page until you reach the excerpt from Letters by a Modern Mystic.) Or you can get hold of a copy of Practicing His Presence, edited by Gene Edwards, which contains the writings of Frank Laubach and Brother Lawrence. It’s a slim book and one I consider a keeper.

I don’t usually include a song on Fridays, but here’s Brian Doerksen‘s Everything. Let it become our prayer. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XTAj0bM-C0]

Friday Findings: Time With God

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I love those quiet times with God, still-soul-times rich with nearness and uncluttered by my words and lists. I often find them on retreat, but they can be part of each day… if I will remember and be disciplined about seeking them.

They’re when I feel most alive, and yet I so rarely stop to enjoy them. The Lord has been reminding me of this through some of my friends’ posts lately:

At Under the Cover of Prayer, Jan Cox wrote:

I think about our ‘busy’ lives and know that our quiet time with God gets left out. But I believe it is the MOST important part of our day. To be wired to God. How else can we live the life He wants? Without His godly spirit flowing through us, how can we deal with our daily lives? (Connected)

At Whatever He Says, Belinda Burston wrote:

Paul and I pray together before work, and I draw strength and comfort from that cherished time. But it’s a different thing to just coming before God with no agenda but to quieten my heart and listen for his. (Confession)

Again at Under the Cover of Prayer, Janice Keats wrote:

We can learn so much by entering into His presence. Maybe just sitting in His presence is enough. He is all we need. Time well spent with God produces a thirst for more—more peace and more of Him. (Be Still and Wait Patiently for the Lord)

Belinda’s post above ended with a familiar Bible passage as phrased in The Message, and I want to close with a portion of it as well. The wording is fresh and puts a new light on it. Drink deeply:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Romans 12:1-2, MSG*)

*The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Progress!

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I’m preparing a talk for the local library, on “Writing Personal Experience Stories People Want to Read.” Last Saturday when everyone else was out, I opened the file and did my first talk-through.

It was… less than stellar.

The outline needs a bit of tweaking, but the points are sound. The illustrations of said points need major fleshing out. Did I expect to pull them out of the air in front of an audience?

Seasoned public speakers are probably nodding and saying that’s why we practice–to see what’s wonky or missing while there’s time to fix it. That’s what I say about a first draft in writing. It’s no big deal. You can’t polish what isn’t written yet.

As I umm-ed and uh-ed through this first attempt, the negative feelings clustered nearer. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, that sinking sense of hopelessness and desperation….

Before, I’d have drawn those feelings close like a comforting blanket and accepted their lies.

This time, God showed me what was  happening and reminded me I can choose what to believe. And He helped me choose to believe Him.

In the clarity of deception-free sight, I saw what my trial run really showed me: where to strengthen the material, and where I needed illustrations. It wasn’t proof of inadequacy at all, just a step in the preparation process.

I could have accepted the lies and given up. Instead, I’m relying on the truth that I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I can do this. I can fine-tune the outline and locate good examples for each point. Several have already come to mind.

Public speaking is a stretch for me, but I’ve done it before and lived to tell. Recognizing and deflecting the lies is also stretching me, and I’m so encouraged to see progress!