APRIL 2013 Posts

Questions you ask (4/29)
Go fish—if he says so (4/25)
What’s on your nightstand? April ’13 (4/23)
When you can, choose your change (4/23)
Know-it-all faith? Or humble orthodoxy? (4/18)
When you see the crumbling—still stand (4/17)
To do or to be? Yes (4/15)
R.I.P. Brennan Manning (4/13)
Your moment of surrender—5 little things to give up (4/11)
Be this nurse (4/10)
When you don’t know what to say (4/8)
This is today in April 2013 (4/5)
Take it personally (4/3)
The practice of saying no: Observe and remember (4/1)

Questions you ask

“Before you go, can I ask one more question?”

I knew Gary wouldn’t mind. Even though we’d only met an hour earlier, he’d already shared so much. This final question would be a pleasing one to him. And the answer would mean much to me.

The first question had come easily. He’d exposed an obvious opening, reading his Bible as he waited for the food we were serving the homeless.

I asked, “So what are you reading?”

That was all it took. If I remember right, he was in Isaiah, but he seized the moment and flipped over to other related passages, giving clear explanations for each. His Bible was heavily colored with highlighters and ink.

I asked, “Are you a student?”

No, he said he was actually a Bible teacher. (My bad. I’m still learning: Never make assumptions about the homeless, well, about anybody.) I asked him if he’d always known Jesus, even as a child, and again he answered no.

He used to be a witch.

Oh. So I asked, “What changed that?”

He said he’d walked through the desert. 

He told me about his journey on the road from Texas to San Francisco. About his friend and about LSD. Then about reading his Bible for a whole year. And about finding truth. And finding Jesus.

His life was new. He learned then taught at a Bible school for eight years in California. He was recently released from the position when they decided he was too mystical to teach there.

He said he was big into spiritual warfare. He flipped to underlined verses and margin notes he’d scribbled around Ephesians 6. We talked about wearing the armor of God and what each piece meant and how important it was.

But he was almost out the door to catch the bus back to wherever he came from (and eventually back to family in North Carolina, hopefully) when I caught his attention one last time to ask my final question:

“Hey Gary, would you share with me your favorite Bible verse?”

I knew it’d tell me the most about Gary. The truths we treasure the greatest, reveal our greatest treasures.

“It’s Matthew 24:13.” And he quoted it,

But the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.
Matthew 24:13 (NIV)

That’s what Gary was most about. Just standing in Jesus. Against the devil’s schemes. Firm to the end (Ephesians 6:11-13).

I don’t know all the warfare that’s come against Gary. That comes against him still.

And I don’t know if our paths will ever cross again. Sometimes one intersection is all we get, and this may have been ours.

But at that junction and for that moment, hearing that answer from Gary about what counts most may have been enough for a lifetime.

So Gary, wherever you are tonight, I pray you’re doing what matters the most. Stand firm to the end, my brother.

* * *

Do you have a favorite Bible verse? Why is it special to you?

Go fish – if he says so

The opportunity opened up unexpectedly. Now it was up to me: yes or no.

Which should I decide?

“No” was safer . . .
It was surer. It carried less potential for controversy, now and later. It would be understood and accepted.

. . . while “yes” had an edge.
It was dangerous. It birthed discomfort and uncertainty. It might be a daring act of love, but not all would see it that way.

I decided to lay it down for awhile on this Monday night, and go meet my friends for an open dive into the Word.

---

The story was read. It was Jesus telling Simon, “Push the boat out further to the deep water, and you and your partners let down your nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4).

I could hear the frustration in Simon’s reply, “Master, we worked hard all night long and caught nothing” (Luke 5:5). “But if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

I imagined the rest. The flurry of activity as fish crowded into the nets. The smell of sweat and salt and the catch. The dependence upon partners’ muscles pulling the load out of the water.

But as the story was read a third time, I was caught off guard.

I heard the invitation no longer to Simon, but to me . . .

Was God also asking me to go further and cast deeper?

Against my conscious will, my impending decision from earlier in the day immediately returned to mind. I knew I was being asked to continue wrestling with it. With Love himself.

“Master, I’ve worked hard to row out this far; can’t I rest comfortably here a bit longer? Isn’t this enough?”

But even though the wrestling wouldn’t end for days, I caught a glimpse immediately of the appropriate answer, “Yes, I will let down the nets, if you say so.”

---

I hadn’t planned on a fishing excursion that Monday night, but God took me on one anyway.

Going further.
Casting deeper.
Answering, “Yes, if you say so.”

* * *

We can’t predict what God wants to say to us when we listen to his words. How has he caught you off guard lately?

What’s on your nightstand? – April ‘13

Just started

Accidental Pharisees
Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the Other Dangers of Overzealous Faith
by Larry Osborne

Who ever plans to be a Pharisee, one viewed as always “right” and proud and judgmental? Yet we all can name quite a few who are. I know I’ve been one, but I don’t want to be anymore. This book addresses how to avoid becoming one even accidentally.

Transformational Architecture
Reshaping Our Lives as Narrative
by Ron Martoia

Very interesting so far. Martoia is breaking down how God’s story fits into our stories using a less traditional approach revolving around context, Biblical text, and the human text, and how to better connect in spiritual conversations with others. 

Understanding Jesus
A Guide to His Life and Times
by Stephen M. Miller

This is a very detailed (i.e., long) book about all things concerning Jesus and the history surrounding the accounts of his time on earth. I got it free on my Kindle because it fits in perfectly with my One Word 2013: Jesus. It’s a review of some stuff I already know, but filling in some new details as well.

The Education of Little Tree
by Forrest Carter

I’m struggling to stay interested in this classic novel about a boy during the Great Depression being raised by his Cherokee grandmother and half-Cherokee grandfather. It’s sweet but just not very plot-heavy. But it’s the May selection of a reading group in my neighborhood I’m thinking about joining, but now I’m not so sure. 

From Eternity to Here
Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God
by Frank Viola

I’m in the first of three sections of this book. This one “lays out the Biblical narrative in such a way that it emphasizes the church as the bride as an eternal passion of God from before the beginning of time.” It makes some interesting points (not all of which I agree with); I do want to keep reading more.

Finished from March’s nightstand

Humble Orthodoxy
Holding the Truth High Without Putting People Down
by Joshua Harris

My review here. I liked it. It’s short and to the point—an expanded chapter from Harris’ Dug Down Deep. It blended well with my reading of Accidental Pharisees (above). (Is God trying to tell me something?)

The Bible as Improv
Seeing and Living the Script in New Ways
by Ron Martoia

I finished this one a few weeks ago, but I’m still thinking about it. Martoia presents some new metaphors (to me anyway) about reading and interpreting the Bible that might not be accepted among traditionalists, but are definitely worth pondering over.

Servanthood as Worship
by Nate Palmer

Another freebie on my Kindle. It’s a fine book, and I’m glad I read it, but it wasn’t particularly thought-provoking. Nonetheless, Palmer makes several valid points about rekindling the call to service not just as a way to help others but as part of our worship to God. 

Awakenings
by Thomas Keating

This is a book I’ll return to because of its depth. Keating addresses various stories in the Bible with a fresh outlook that makes you think a little differently and a little sharper than the same old interpretations. I checked it out from my public library only because it was beside this next book I was looking for by Keating (below), and I’m glad I picked it up.

Open Mind, Open Heart
The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel
by Thomas Keating 

Keating comes across as such a gentle soul. I read this book to learn more about Centering Prayer, a practice that Keating helped bring back into favor. He encourages us that any time we intentionally spend in conversation with God is time well spent.

Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening
by Cynthia Bourgeault

This book amplifies many of the principles from Keating (who is a Catholic monk) and puts them a little more within our reach. But Bourgeault is herself very much a contemplative and writes and practices as such (I like that). I gained a lot from reading this book. 

Draw the Circle
The 40 Day Prayer Challenge
by Mark Batterson

My review here. This devotional (although it’s a full book) is based on his The Circle Maker, and is a wonderful encouragement to pray more often and more persistently. Batterson excels at retelling Bible stories but also fleshing them out with modern-day stories from his own experiences.

Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus
How the Jewish Words of Jesus Can Change Your Life
by Lois Tverberg

This is about the story behind the stories in the New Testament. It explains a little more in depth about the culture and common sayings and other details of Jesus’s time that helps the stories have even more meaning.

The Merchant’s Daughter
by Melanie Dickerson

A sweet medieval novel loosely based on Beauty and the Beast by my friend Melanie. She weaves scripture and godly principles into all her stories in a way that isn’t preachy but still gets the message across. She writes for young adults, but I love her stories as well.

The Survivors Club
The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life
by Ben Sherwood

This is one of those books I wouldn’t have picked out for myself, so I’m glad my sister loaned me her copy because it was a most interesting read about what gives people that survival instinct. The author researched those who’ve lived through harrowing experiences, and analyzed what helped them make it.

* * *

What book(s) are you reading this month?

When you can, choose your change

This is the last time.

It’s Saturday, and the A-Day spring football scrimmage is over. We all head to the trees. Over 60,000 of us.

In three days, the trees on Toomer’s Corner will be cut down, ending a decades-old Auburn University tradition of rolling this pair of live oaks by Toomer’s Drugs on the corner of Magnolia Avenue and College Street to celebrate Auburn victories.

The change is forced.

In November 2010, a fanatic of a rival college purposely poisoned the trees. Their death was gradual, but their demise is final.

So after this final celebratory rolling, the old tradition must morph into a new one.

It’s Sunday morning.

We’re asked to get up on our feet. We do. We begin clapping in rhythm with the guitars, the keyboards, the drums. Our mouths open and praise spills out. Hearts overflow in worship to Jesus.

It’s not how I’ve always done it on Sundays. But this new way encourages me now to greater praise and higher worship, even on Sundays. It works for me in ways that the old traditions were starting to skip.

Sometimes you have no choice but to change.

But sometimes you change only by choice.

I chose my change.

The traditions surrounding the oak trees are being forced to change. The revelry of victories seek new expression.

But my worship traditions changed by choice. The ones no longer expressing the most honor to God needed to change. To be intentionally replaced with purposeful ones, reigniting the worship to the One most worthy of it. From me to him.

Sometimes the choice is between death or change.

I choose change. 

* * *

What works for one may not work for another.
What works in one season may not work in the next.
What change have you had to choose?

RELATED:

• Why break a tradition?

Know-it-all faith? Or humble orthodoxy?

How can we be arrogant about a truth that is completely outside of anything we’ve done?
JOSHUA HARRIS, Humble Orthodoxy

I don’t know, but we definitely can.

And so this short book by Joshua Harris—Humble Orthodoxy—talks us down from our arrogance.

Originally written as the closing chapter in Dug Down Deep, it’s been expanded because it’s something Christ followers need. Despite being saved by grace, we’re still too conceited about our own knowledge, our own works, our own goodness. Yuck. No wonder we’re often seen as unattractive to the world.

Need proof? As Harris points out,

If anyone thinks arrogant orthodoxy doesn’t exist, he’s never read the comments section of a Christian blog.
One of the mistakes Christians often make is that we learn to rebuke like Jesus but not love like Jesus. Sometimes it seems that almost everyone who cares about doctrine is harsh and angry.

And sometimes it seems the more we know, the haughtier we get (despite Paul’s warning about this in 1 Corinthians 8:1).

But it doesn’t need to be that way. Harris says, “Truth matters, but so does our attitude. We have to live and speak and interact with others in a spirit of humility.”

The more we come to know the essential doctrine of grace, the more we should grow in humility.

We don’t have to be jerks with the truth.
We can remember how Jesus showed us mercy when we were his enemies. We can demonstrate a humble orthodoxy, holding on to our identity in the gospel.
We are not those who are right; we are those who have been redeemed.

I know I haven’t arrived. Sometimes the closer I get to grace, the more intolerant I am of detractors from grace. How can I espouse something that I don’t embody?

Repentance has to start with me—“Shouldn’t individuals and churches that hold most faithfully to orthodoxy and biblical truth be the most frequently filled with godly repentance? …We all have good cause to tear our robes.”

So I’d recommend this little book as another tool in our arsenal of killing our pride and lifting up our Savior. Harris doesn’t always hit it spot-on (in my opinion) but he’s at least pointing us in the right direction and awakening us to our wrong attitudes about being right.

Because when all is said and done and we look back on what we once believed, we’ll realize we all had many things wrong.

We’ll realize to our shame that to differing degrees we trusted in our intellect, our morality, the rightness of our doctrine, and our religious performance when all along it was completely grace.

Grace. Complete grace. That’s humble orthodoxy. That’s Jesus.

* * *

THANKS TO WATERBROOK MULTNOMAH
FOR THE REVIEW COPY OF THIS BOOK

When you see the crumbling – Still stand

Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees.
Hebrews 12:12

It was Pompeii, AD 79.

As the story goes, the Roman sentry heard, saw, and smelled all of life crumbling around him. Vesuvius had erupted.

Yet he hadn’t been dismissed from his post.

So he stood.
Still stood.

Should we do any less?

There’s only one way we’re abled—by staying near the throne. It’s there we’ll receive mercy and find grace to stand firm (Hebrews 4:16).

Jesus showed us how. He was faithful to carry out his Father’s will in the face of enemies (Hebrews 3:1-2). Tempted yet was without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Endured the worst to secure the best (Hebrews 12:2-3). Because he stayed near God.

God keeps his promises.

So our confidence is in him, not ourselves.
In his faithfulness, not our own.

The only reason we can be faithful is because he is.

And our faithfulness—in big things and small things—will encourage others to stay in his presence, too. If we’ll stay with hope at our post until dismissed, God will strengthen us . . .

• to be bold
• to love
• to do good works
• to do his will
• to receive rewards

. . . if we’ll stand now.
Still stand.

* * *

In the horror of Monday’s tragedy at the Boston Marathon, how can we encourage each other to still stand?

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT DO NOT DEPART
REVISED HERE FOR THE ARCHIVES

To do or to be? Yes

If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:2 (Message)

It’s been four months since I started with this One Word 2013: Jesus thing.

On the outside, I added an extra layer of Gospel reading to my regular Bible reading schedule. I’ve learned more of how Jesus shows up in the Hebrew scriptures as well as in the New Testament stories in Jesus: A Theography; more about the culture of his time in Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus; more about how to converse about him in ordinary ways in Speaking of Jesus. 

I’ve experimented with different spiritual practices of Jesus, like paying attention and wearing skin and observing a Sabbath. I’m learning how to surrender more to him with a weekly Centering Prayer group. I’m trying to take more risks in loving others like I think he would.

And doing this and that and the other and 
. . . blah, blah, blah.

While those things are fine—and I’ve benefited from each of them and pray I continue—those are only things I am DOING.

The more important question is:
     Who am I BEING?

We all know this truth: Without love, I am nothing.
If not for Jesus, I am empty.
The goal isn’t just to DO differently; it’s to BE different. 

I can’t make love happen on my own. I can mimic it on the outside through loving actions, but I can’t melt my own heart. For love to be alive, I need it to crawl inside me and live outward from there (Galatians 2:20).

And Jesus does.
Because Jesus is.

Inside, he’s working to get my BE right, so my DO will be richer, deeper, stronger. More real. More loving. More like him.

So I’ll try to keep DOING: learning and serving and praying.
     But it’s the BEING I’m really after.

Because I don’t only want to DO like Jesus (not that I’ll ever get there either!), I want to BE like Jesus.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
1 Corinthians 13:3 (Message)

* * *

It’s our one word 2013 monthly check-in. What are you learning from your one word 2013?

R.I.P. Brennan Manning

We lost a true voice of grace yesterday.

But even though we’ll no longer hear new words from Brennan Manning, we can still learn from the ones already published.

Brennan was authentic. He revealed more of himself than sometimes we even wanted to know. He showed us that he, like us, also had an ugly side.

But because he was see-through, we could behold Jesus on his inside. His relationship with the Lord, like ours, wasn’t perfect, but it was real.

Read his words slowly, and delight with him on the joys of familial intimacy with our blood-Brother:

What is indeed crucial to the evangelical enterprise is the awareness that we ourselves are the primary target.

It is not “they” who are poor, sinful, and lost. It is ourselves.

Unless we acknowledge that we are the sinners, the sick ones, and the lost sheep for whom Jesus came, we do not belong to the “blessed” who know that they are poor and inherit the Kingdom.

---

Whatever else it may be, prayer is first and foremost an act of love.

Before any pragmatic, utilitarian, or altruistic motivations, prayer is born of a desire to be with Jesus.

His incomparable wisdom, compelling beauty, irresistible goodness, and unrestricted love lure us into the quiet of our hearts where he dwells. To really love someone implies a natural longing for presence and intimate communion.

---

When the Crucified One says, “I’m dying to be with you,” and then whispers, “Will you die a little to be with me?” my sluggish spirit is stirred (unfortunately not always) to prefer the pleasure of his company to whatever trinket of creation is mesmerizing me at the moment.

---

The church and the Bible are not substitutes for God; they are means through which we make conscious contact with Jesus Christ.

They are the place of encounter with the compassionate One, who reveals himself in sundry ways and diverse temperaments.

~ BRENNAN MANNING
A Glimpse of Jesus

April 27, 1934 – April 12, 2013

Until we join him, may Brennan enjoy the fullest fruits of grace ever imagined.

* * *

Do you have a favorite Brennan Manning book or memory?

REVISED FROM THE ARCHIVES

Your moment of surrender – 5 little things to give up

I dream that in a moment of dramatic testing, I’d make the big sacrifice. You know the one—gun to the head, demanding me to deny Jesus, my very life at stake. And I boldly proclaim, “Jesus forever!”, giving up my earthly life.

Yet I can’t give up my place in line at Walmart?

Do you also experience these smaller tugs of war to die to self and live for Christ? Afraid that if you loosen your grip, the situation will spin out of control or a treasure will slip through your fingers? I want to hand over all my concerns and plans to the Lord, but I don’t do it as fully as I’d like.

So how do we learn to let go of our will and grab hold of God’s?

HOW DID JESUS DO IT?

In coming to earth—trading in the Taj Mahal for a shack—Jesus turned Himself inside out, laying down all the privileges of royalty, living in the skin of a servant instead.

Who, though he was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
Philippians 2:6-7

How could He? Because He wanted to please the Father more than He wanted to please Himself (Luke 22:42). And because He understood the joy to come would exceed the cost of the moment (Hebrews 12:2).

So He surrendered to the moment (Luke 23:46).

YOUR MOMENT OF SURRENDER

Which moment is your grand moment of surrender? This one.

Maybe you’re not asked in this moment to physically die for the cause, but you are daily called to numerous symbolic deaths. Consider these five practices to help surrender a little thing today.

5 LITTLE THINGS TO GIVE UP . . .

Read the rest here

* * *

I’m writing today at Do Not Depart. Join me there?

What “little things” are hard for you to surrender on a daily basis? What helps you give them up? Do you have a favorite scripture about surrendering?

Be this nurse

This story touched me as I read it yesterday. Told here by Thomas Keating in Awakenings (italics and breaks are mine):

Here is a true story about a psychiatric nurse who was told the lurid history of a certain patient who had just entered the hospital.

This man had committed a terrible crime. It was so terrible that he never wanted it known.

He had completed his long prison sentence and had come to the hospital in a dying condition. He could not believe that God could forgive his crime; hence, he resisted any form of reconciliation.

The chaplain tried to persuade him to trust God. He refused. Any thought of reconciliation awakened his self-hatred. It was more painful for him to think of forgiveness than to feel his self-hatred.

The psychiatric nurse showed him every courtesy. She tucked him in at night, provided him with little favors like flowers, remembered his birthday, asked about his family, and wrote him notes on her day off. Because his illness was prolonged, she developed a friendship with him.

Near the end, his closest friend came to see him and urged him to be reconciled with God. “Please don’t mention it!” the dying man pleaded. “God couldn’t possibly forgive me for what I have done.”

His friend kept urging, “God is good! He loves you. You can trust him.”

But nothing he said could penetrate the sick man’s defenses.

Finally the friend said in desperation, “Think how much love the nurse shows you. Couldn’t God do the same?”

The sick man acknowledged how grateful he was to the nurse who had shown him so much love, but he added, “If she knew what I have done, she too would reject me.”

His friend replied, “I must make a confession to you. When you first entered the hospital, I confided to her the entire story of your crime in every detail.”

The dying man looked at him in stunned astonishment. His defenses dissolved and his eyes filled with tears. “If she could love me,” he murmured, “knowing all that I have done, it must be true. God too can love me.”

- THOMAS KEATING

Many who won’t willingly accept the truth and grace of God’s love from God himself might accept it from other people first.

Please, let’s accept it for ourselves so we then have it to give to others.

May we each go and be the nurse.
For the love of God.
By the grace of God.

* * *

When you don’t know what to say

I’m never quite sure what to say.

I don’t know what to say this Saturday morning either when I walk up to their makeshift table shaded under the overpass where they are eating biscuits and white gravy and ham brought to them by another group of Christ-followers and eating hot Krispy Kreme donuts brought to them by the group in our van.

I ask a question or two to get us going, nothing important, just chit-chat stuff, like conversations I would have every day with people who live under bridges and sleep in tents every night.

Except that I don’t have those conversations every day because until a year ago I couldn’t have even called one person by name who lived without a working refrigerator and who did all their cooking unplugged and who didn’t use a real toilet one more time before turning out the lights at night.

So when I don’t know what to say, I don’t say much and I just listen more to what somebody else has to say.

~ * ~ * ~

Today the Lord was giving me ears for Kristi’s voice. 

At first she doesn’t say too much either but the more she’s heard, the more she talks so I borrow Matthew’s chair (well, sort of a chair) and draw in closer to listen to Kristi.

• She tells me she was a daddy’s girl which made it all the harder when he died a few years ago and I tell her my daddy is gone, too.
• She talks about why her new boyfriend is so much better than her last one because this one treats her with respect and doesn’t try to control her and he lets her have conversations with everybody in their camp without getting mad at her. I amen a respectful man anytime, anywhere.
• She says her baby girl was stillborn last December and she named her Allie (and I tell her about my sweet baby Kali) but before she has another child (she wants a boy next time) she wants to be in a better place in her life and she says how her other daughter is growing up so fast and how she’d like to go visit her mama in Tennessee one day soon but her step-dad isn’t so easy to be around.

And I throw in a “yeah, I get that” when I can and when I can’t, I ask another question to try to understand or at least to let her know I’m still here and still listening and still wanting to love on her in some tiny way in this very real space in the Kingdom.

~ * ~ * ~

Then before I know it, time’s up and I need to walk back to the heated church van with a tankful of gas that will transport me back to suburbia and big screen TVs and wi-fi and toilets with a handle.

~ * ~ * ~

But now I can’t stop talking, not just yet.

Because I have a bit more words in me now that we’re friends and all, and so I ask Kristi if I can pray a blessing over her before I go and she says yes (why am I always surprised when almost everyone answers yes?).

We hold hands and I beg God in my head to spill the words out of my mouth that he wants to say to Kristi in this moment and so I voice what I hope I’m hearing right, then I say amen in Jesus’s name, so be it.

Before I walk away she says maybe next week her boyfriend will be here and she’ll introduce us.

And I say I’d love that because I really would love that.

I smile on the outside and on the inside too because her offer means she knows I was listening to her.

And maybe my listening more than talking was just what she needed, this beautiful creature named Kristi made in the image of God just like I am even though she lives in a tent near the railroad tracks and I live in a three-bedroom house with two baths.

~ * ~ * ~

Sometimes I don’t have much to say.
I hear it’s by the grace of God.

* * *

See photos here by Eric Schultz of the annual Point in Time homeless count, January 2013

This is today in April 2013

Outside my window...is Cocoa Beach, Florida, but we’re parting ways today

I am thinking...about wonder and how important it is stay amazed (Psalm 71:17)

I am wondering...why I think clearer (or so I assume) when the ocean is humming in the background

I am thankful for...thermometers that climb to 80

In the kitchen...(if you want to call it that in my hotel room): leftover pizza and Diet Dr. Pepper in the mini-fridge, Starburst jelly beans and a bag of Oreos on the desk

I am resolving...to practice saying no at least one day a week

Around the house...are two candles to represent Rest and Freedom in Jesus on my Sabbath days

I am looking forward to...studying this book with the ladies in my Wednesday night group

I am appreciating...how God worked that out—it’s the same book I’d already chosen to work through for my One Word 2013: Jesus.

I am reading...The Bible as Improv and Accidental Pharisees

I am pondering these words...“What if we’re asking the wrong question? …Questions always frame the possible available answers. Different questions yield a different pool of possible answers.” – Ron Martoia

I am hearing...myself *attempt* to recite Psalm 71 so imperfectly but personally

I am praying...for a clear diagnosis at Mayo for my precious friend Danette, for deep healing for special friends struggling with addictions, for as gentle as possible but thorough treatment for an awesome sister in Christ with newly discovered breast cancer

One of my favorite things...is that Canon agreed this week to repair Jenna’s camera free of charge (Go, Canon! Go, Jeff’s negotiation skills!)

I am going...to two showers for two nieces in the next few days

A video to share...from my daughter Jenna’s faith community—very moving

Easter 2013 – Death to Life from Church of the Highlands

* * *

What’s happening in your day?

The Simple Woman's Daybook
...where every day is a blank page

Past Daybooks

Take it personally

Twelve times.
That’s how often the author of Psalm 71 (supposedly David) cries out familiarly to God.

O LORD. O my God. O Lord. O God. O Holy One of Israel.

It’s personal.

When we approach God, is he personal to us, too?

The Lord doesn’t want us just to know about him. Knowledge alone is never enough (1 Corinthians 13:2; James 2:19; 1 Corinthians 8:1-3).

He wants us to know him—for personal reasons. So we will love him. Be loved by him. And love others.

I want to mean it personally when I recite Psalm 71:

• In you, O LORD, do I take refuge. (Psalm 71:1)
• For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth. (Psalm 71:5)
• O God, be not far from me; O my God, make haste to help me! (Psalm 71:12)
• I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. (Psalm 71:22)

I don’t have a keep-your-distance, hands-off, passive Savior.

My God is the one who came in the flesh and lived with us. The one who gave us the right to be born his children. The one who says we can know God when we know Jesus.

And because we know him—not just what he is, but who he is—we have greater peace, greater joy, greater love. We live in him; he lives in us.

Forever we can call out to him, “My God!” over and over and over.

I take that personally. Because God is very personal indeed.

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What’s a favorite scripture you take personally?

I’m still working on memorizing Psalm 71. Not easy, but easier today at the beach where my God is SO apparent.

The practice of saying no: Observe and remember

A being is free only when it can determine and limit its activity.
KARL BARTH

On Friday nights, observant Jews light two candles for the upcoming Sabbath, their day of rest.

1. A rest candle, for the Shabbat commandment “to observe”
   Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Deuteronomy 5:12
2. A freedom candle, for the Shabbat commandment “to remember”
   Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
   Exodus 20:8

In my year of One Word 2013: Jesus, I’m choosing April to practice saying “no” one day a week. As Barbara Brown Taylor says in An Altar in the World:

I have made a practice of saying no for one day a week: to work, to commerce, to the voice in my head that is forever whispering, “More.” One day each week, More God is the only thing on my list.

So I hope to light two candles once a week to remind me to say, “More Jesus, please.”

1. By observing rest
   Rest is God’s gift to the tired. Tired of catching up, tired of working hard, tired of learning more. Instead, rest in the finished work of Jesus. It is done.
2. By remembering freedom
   I’ve been set free from slavery to my own works. I want to remember and celebrate my liberation by living as if I truly am free: free from worries, free from condemnation, free from self.

If God could rest from his work, how much more should I be able to rest from mine.

When you live in God, your day begins when you let God raise you up, when you consent to rest to show you get the point, since that is the last thing you would do if you were running the show yourself.
BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR

* * *

Do you observe a day of rest each week? How easy or difficult is it?

RELATED:

• March 2013: The Practice of Wearing Skin
• February 2013: The Practice of Slowing Down
• January 2013: The Practice of Waking Up to God