God in my yard

It’s not your typical spiritual discipline. 
But I’m trying it.

L. L. Barkat invites her readers of God in the Yard to spend time daily in outdoor solitude for 12 weeks. The goal? Spiritual growth.

I’m in week 3.
I dig a little in the dirt. I dig a little in my soul.

Here’s what I uncovered this week.
Do any of these lessons bear fruit with you, too?

1. Carry the beauty with youIt starts out there, but you bring it in here. We learn about God from many places and in many ways, but the real beauty grows when we bring Him inside.

Take what you learn outside of you and grow it on the inside. 

2. Slow down to hear moreWhen I first go outside, I notice only car noises and airplanes. But after 10 minutes, I start hearing how loud the birds are and how the wind sings through the trees. Sometimes it takes awhile to hear what God is trying to tell us.

Be willing to sit with Him long enough to tune out the street noise and tune in to His voice.

3. Let the details amaze youI admit I think Muscovy ducks are horribly ugly and I wish we had none on our lake. But when I really stare at their feathers, they are totally amazing. Don’t be afraid to look for God in the details of any situation you’re in.

It may look ugly at first, but God is in deep doing a beautiful thing. Keep looking.

4. Expect obstacles I’m paying a price for being outside all week—sneezing, runny nose, itchy eyes. But it’s worth it; it will pass. Anticipate costs on your way to rewards.

Discipline may be painful but if you keep your eye on the goal, the Lord will help you run your race.

5. Let joy find you This may be the hardest lesson for me: remembering I’m not outside just to pull weeds or plant flowers, but to be still and know. I’s too easy to define success by accomplishment, but that’s not how God does it (1 Samuel 16:7).

Don’t use all your time in the doing; let Grace find you in the being.

* * *

Which lesson hits home with you?

Were you able to spend time outside this week where you live?

Complainer or Encourager?

While we shouldn’t categorize people too rigidly, at times I do. Sorry.

Mark Batterson does it, too, in In a Pit with a Lion. He uses Complainers and Worshipers. For horizontal relationships, I use Complainers and Encouragers.

I began noticing the difference the most when I needed encouragement myself. In consciously seeking it, I was often surprised at who excelled at giving encouragement. And who didn’t. 

So now whenever I go through times of stress, I know who I need to hang around more for positive, spiritual encouragement. And who to avoid. It makes a difference.

A bigger problem though is in which category I have to place myself. Both. I don’t want to be a complainer, but I know sometimes I am. It’s ugly. A bitter edge is never attractive.

Over the season of lent, I committed to fast from complaining. I failed.

But I succeeded in better learning what triggers it for me. And maybe how to resist it a little more with the help of Christ’s Spirit. I want my first impulse to be to encourage others. And to worship God. Categories worth aspiring to.

The Practicing Church features this clip on their blog today about religious innovation. But I use it here to demonstrate (and laugh at) how ridiculous our complaining often is.

Comedian Louis C.K. on The Conan O’Brien Show:

Lent Math

Okay, so all of us don’t observe Lent. I know that. I hadn't even heard of Lent until I was a teenager, and I still didn’t know what it was even then. (I also didn’t know any real live Catholics until middle school, when the Turri family moved into our neighborhood from Michigan.)

But now that I’m all grown up (well, sort of), I can voluntarily observe Lent if I want to. Even if my slice of the Christian world doesn’t. And trust me—it doesn’t. That’s okay. We'll quote some verses in Romans to each other and let it go at that.

What I’ve discovered on my own, though, is that seasons of reflection are good for me. They draw me closer in, to hear not only the shouts but also the whispers of why I worship Christ. They provide a focus for me that I can lose if I just drift throughout the year. They connect me to a Person and a relationship instead of settling for an organization and a routine.

"Holy days" encourage me to think holier thoughts.

To prepare for the upcoming Lent season, I’ve prayed about what to give up and what to put on. One aspect is just as important as the other. It’s not just letting go of one thing; it’s grabbing on to something else. Don’t subtract without adding back in. I don’t want the demons to bring their party into my freshly vacuumed living room; I want to be in charge of the guest list myself.

So I’m subtracting some internet time and adding in the gospel of Matthew. I’m (hopefully, prayerfully) curbing a complaining spirit and encouraging a contented spirit with an “enough as is” attitude. I’m stopping “work” earlier and starting A Call to Die sooner.

40 days. 40 mini-chances to more vividly remember Who I love and why. Eyes open. Ready, set, day 1...




March 3, 2009

P.S.

I just read an excellent list of "technicalities" to think about regarding giving up something for Lent.

It's very funny (naturally--it's by Prodigal John at Stuff Christians Like), but also very insightful. Check it out.

Toys Made Real (Thoughts from "Mere Christianity")

Come to Life
I remember pretending with my raggedy, stuffed “Donkey” friend long past a socially-acceptable age. Even when his stuffing started spilling out, I sheltered him far away from where Mama could reach the attic.

Perhaps it was because I read and re-read Margery Williams’ The Velveteen Rabbit, Or How Toys Become Real. The Rabbit doesn’t quite understand “real,” so the Horse, who has already become real himself, explains:

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

~ THE VELVETEEN RABBIT

Likewise, it is only because God REALLY loves us that he brings us to “Real” or Zoe life. Any other way of living is imitation.

Show Me Real
But like the Rabbit, how can we understand Real, when we’re not? We need someone already Real to explain it to us.

And Jesus did. He not only explained it, he demonstrated it. As C. S. Lewis so aptly states in Book IV of Mere Christianity:

The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a fetus inside a Woman’s body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.

~ MERE CHRISTIANITY

Jesus humbly entered our shadow world to show us what being Real is all about. He showed us Truth and Life.

And the process to become Real? It's the Way, Jesus himself, because he REALLY loves us.

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6

Are All Toys Real?
But if God loves everybody, why isn’t everybody Real? Why don’t all the toys come to life?

Because only the toys that believe they can be made Real are made so.

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. John 6:47

Perhaps Lewis read The Velveteen Rabbit, too. In his “Chapter 5: The Obstinate Toy Soldiers” of Mere Christianity, his toy soldiers, unlike the Rabbit, fight the process of becoming Real and prefer to remain toys.

Which is more realistic? To desire to be Real, or to fight against it?

We see both types. To cross over into Real, we first have to voluntarily die to our old man. Not all agree to do that, or see the advantage of it, or listen to the Father calling us to it. They prefer the temporary fun in fake, unaware of the everlasting revelry in Real.

But those who do accept God’s love, change. As from a stone statue to a breathing man.

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10b

A man who changed from having Bios to having Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man. And that is precisely what Christianity is all about. This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.

~ MERE CHRISTIANITY

At the end of The Velveteen Rabbit, the Rabbit was made real:

Instead of dingy velveteen he had brown fur, soft and shiny, his ears twitched by themselves, and his whiskers were so long that they brushed the grass. He gave one leap and the joy of using those hind legs was so great that he went springing about the turf on them, jumping sideways and whirling round as the others did, and he grew so excited.

~ THE VELVETEEN RABBIT

Me, too. I’ve been made Real.

[Others' thoughts from Book IV of “Mere Christianity”]

Sacred Wounds

When I find myself nursing regret for the fifteen years that my active alcoholism stole from my life and bemoaning the late start of my career as a writer, I try to remember Larry Lee’s graceful, grateful way of accepting the circumstances of his own deeply troubled life. He sees those circumstances as probably the only way that a hardheaded young man could have found the grace of God.

I try to remember that arrogance, selfishness, isolation, and fear of life ruled my thoughts and actions before alcohol brought me low.

The wound alcohol inflicted was a sacred one that enabled me to find the humility to open myself, however hesitantly and intermittently, to life’s beauty and God’s truth.

I don’t believe that there’s a single person on Earth who doesn’t bear a sacred wound. We all carry the pain we need to humble us and open us to joy.

How to Believe: Teachers and Seekers Show the Way to a Modern, Life-Changing Faith
~ JON SPAYDE

Jon Spayde’s use of sacred wound draws me. Maybe it’s because of my own coming-to-terms with chronic pain; maybe it’s because of the sacred wounds of others I’ve been reading in spiritual autobiographies.

God has a way of using even the ugly things in our lives to turn us towards him. He allows no wound or pain too big to love him through and in.

I draw confidence from 1 Corinthians 10:13:

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

Temptation often comes to me wrapped in a wound. Physical. Or emotional. Or mental. But none are beyond my ability to resist—thanks to God’s faithfulness to me. My faithfulness to him follows in verse 14:

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

To endure my sacred wounds in faithfulness, I need to run away from self-pity, self-centeredness, self-anything, and draw near to God instead. It is there I find healing.

Submit yourselves therefore to God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
James 4:7, 8a

Notes from a highway...somewhere

I breathe deeply out here. Lots of turned-under fields. Lots of bare trees. Lots of wide open spaces and reflecting lakes.

I like space. It’s easier for me to think with wider margins. Not so easy surrounded—tightly—in clutter. Mentally, I know God works in both places, but I breathe in and out more freely with Him here. More in rhythm, without the closed-in pressure of other life stuff.

Our environments affect us in different ways, some intentionally, some not. I got a lesson Sunday about life in rural Iowa from some natives... No fire ants. No termites. Corn fields don’t have to be picked in the summer. Schools in the county close quicker for snow than in the city (it’s all relative—no schools close for less than 6”). The men can negotiate tight turns in snowy driveways in 4-wheel-drive trucks with trailers with minimal back and forth moves. More beards. More gloves. More cars with rust.

And lots of open space.

Where’s my space? While I can’t manufacture open fields around my house or create flyways for migrating geese so every time I look up I see a flock, I can reduce the clutter where I live. It’s a job I work often. Prioritize. Discern. Let go. Consciously and prayerfully, I trade and negotiate this and that to keep open space in my life. Sometimes successfully; sometimes not.

I don’t want to miss anything that God wants to teach me because I’m too buried in the noise of the clatter and clutter of life. So now and again, remind me with a big empty sky with a million stars that I breathe better when God has room to move around.

Plant the seeds

Proverbs 20:4
The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing.

A wasp is in my bedroom. He’s buzzing behind a blind, trapped by the slats and cords. He’s a sign of my negligent plowing. Because he’s not the first wasp. His brother appeared a few weeks ago, then another friend after that. What did I do about it? Nothing. I didn’t investigate their entry point because it was just one wasp that slipped in, right? Who cares? But one led to two, led to three, and now the wasp in my bedroom is probably #4 or 5.

The Message:
“A farmer too lazy to plant in the spring has nothing to harvest in the fall.”

Sometimes the planting can be boring and laborious—and appear purposeless. As I trudge through my daily Bible reading, Isaiah is weighing me down. Why not skip it? Why keep memorizing? Why keep praying for the same situations over and over that aren’t changing?

Because those are seeds. I can’t imagine the harvest from reading Isaiah, but I’ve farmed long enough to know that it’s there. When I wonder, “Why?”, faith answers, “Reaping lies ahead.”

One by one I killed the wasps. Wouldn’t it have been less work to plug the hole? Plant the seed?

I’ll keep reading Isaiah...

It's ugly

Selfishness is the source of most interpersonal conflict. Someone is taking something from us (materially, emotionally, socially, etc.) that we don't want to give, and we fight to keep or gain our desires. Unselfishness is the source of most interpersonal harmony. Think about the people you really like - even famous people you don't know personally. Usually the reason you like them is because they are gracious and kind, and give of themselves. If you want to be a harmonious, likable person, you must be unselfish.

~ Quiet Walk Daily e-Devotional

Selfish is ugly.

As I go about my day today, I’ll try to think about potential conflicts as a result of my own selfishness. And that the only way to succeed in selflessness is to replace self with Christ. Instead of self-centered, Christ-centered. Christfulness—full of Christ.

Philippians 2:3-5
       Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
       Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
       Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

Start. Stop. Start.

Monastics have a practice called statio that means stopping one thing before beginning another. Rather than rushing from one task to the next, pause for a moment and recognize the in-between times. Before dialing the phone, think about the conversation and the person. After reading a book, pause and think back through what you learned and how you were moved. After watching TV, pause and ask what it contributed to your life. Before reading the Bible, pause and ask for a spirit of attention.

Reaching for the Invisible God, PHILIP YANCEY

Um, statio is not something we’re well-versed in.
We do rushes.
We don’t do pauses.

But Jesus does. When he was here, he practiced statio. He took time to finish each thing well. We don’t read of him scurrying from one place to the next, quickly healing one person just so he could get immediately race to the next. He sat. He taught. He listened. Back then, and right now.

I’m thankful that I never feel rushed in his presence. It’s as if he has all the time in the world for me. And actually, I believe he does.

What's My Ebenezer?

Here I raise my Ebenezer:
Hither by Thy help I’ve come;
And I hope by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home

“O Thou Fount of Every Blessing”

I confess: I keep forgetting what an “Ebenezer” is. I deduce from the context that it’s a good thing, and that I need to raise it. Beyond that—I got nothing.

“The Stone of Help.” Now I know. And I have some of those. They are markers—physical markers—of spiritual times. Times when God’s presence was so unmistakable that a physical reminder was inevitable. A souvenir. A keepsake. A trophy.

One stone is in the shape of a card on my dresser. Appropriately enough, with a picture of a gushing fountain. Among the words scribbled inside are a prayer: “I’m praying that you will experience the refreshing, living water of our Lord in a mighty way this week!” A Stone of Help.

Another stone is a tiny wisp of fine black hair behind glass on the living room wall. Evidence of God’s loving attentiveness to the smallest detail, even for children only here for an hour. A Stone of Help.

Other stones could be mistaken for yellow sticky notes covering my mirror. Love notes from the Father, through his children, down to me. More stones are thin and round and fit perfectly in a CD player. Music flows round them on an endless circuit of forgiveness and grace. Stone after Stone of Help.

My stack of Ebenezers is high. Tangible tokens of intangible blessings and mercy undeserved. Of help and support invisible. Of love and compassion everlasting.

My Stones of Help. May I remember to remember...

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, "Till now the LORD has helped us."

~ 1Samuel 7:12

4 Keys to Success

Simple can be good. These are good.

Four habits for success:

• Always say “please” and “thank you”
• Be on time
• Keep your promises
• Finish what you start

~ J. MICHAEL SMITH
in The Homeschool Court Report

Lord, little things are big. But without you, I can't do them. I need you today to help me be faithful in all things.

Ladders to be climbed

I don’t recall ever hearing of Clyde Kilby. But if this English professor were still alive, today would be his 106th birthday. He espoused these “Ten Resolutions for Mental Health”, which are very good advice indeed.

Here is a taste of #3 , 5, 9, and 10. The rest can be
read here.

3. I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence, but just as likely ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.

5. I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.

9. I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, "fulfill the moment as the moment." I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is now.

10. Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life on the assumption that this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course I shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the architect who calls himself Alpha and Omega.

Is there room?

A Carmelite priest said, “Where God finds space, He enters.”

In our shallow, sensual way of looking at life, we tend to measure God’s Presence by the kind of emotion we feel. Happy feelings that make us want to sing, we assume, are evidence that God’s Spirit is present. We think a sense of lostness or confusion or struggle indicates His absence.

But the Spirit’s invitation to experience God appeals to something deeper than easily produced emotions. It appeals to a capacity of soul that in many modern Christians has dried up through disuse, a capacity that carries us toward a higher dimension than mere emotions can reach.

Shattered Dreams
~ LARRY CRABB

Lord, may I open up space for you to enter. May I offer you unrestricted access into the deepest crevices of my soul. May I uncover my heart to expose it to your Spirit. And as you penetrate the quintessence of my spirit, may I surrender to your request for abiding presence.

No "Aha"?

I like to find the “aha!” statement in a book or story or life. But in reality, it’s rare. A great life is built on day-in and day-out faithfulness in little things.

Here’s a nice list of big "little" things from a missionary doctor working with Muslims in an Asian country. He confirms that there is no “golden key” for instant success in expanding a ministry. “It’s mostly just hard work—the stuff expected of everyday Christians.”

• Consistently show up at work on time and do a good job.
• Express appropriate grief and mourning when there is a death in the neighborhood.
• Build a reputation (and it can take years) of being a godly man, a holy man, with a god-fearing wife.
• Drink a lot of tea (or coffee, etc.) with your friends. Many cups a day, day in and day out, for years.
• Be known as a "Bible man." Memorize Scripture and quote it regularly to your non-believing friends. Try to bring up Jesus or the Bible within two minutes in every conversation (time yourself if you must).
• Bathe everything you do and say in prayer.

"One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much,
and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.
If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth,
who will entrust to you the true riches?
~ Luke 16:10, 11

Be nice until 10 a.m.

John Maxwell asserts that we need to make right decisions early, and manage those decisions daily. He says maintaining the right attitude is easier than regaining the right attitude.

In The Difference Maker: Making Your Attitude Your Greatest Asset, he offers these thoughts from a Chinese proverb:

“Assume a cheerfulness you do not feel, and shortly you feel the cheerfulness you assumed.”

Or as editor and publisher Elbert Hubbard says, “Be pleasant until 10 a.m. and the rest of the day will take care of itself.”

What's your Olympic event?

I'm so enjoying watching the close races and the amazing feats and the intricate teamwork in Beijing 2008. And beaming with pride when we get the gold. ["We" being figurative--I include myself only because I live in America, not because I've put in the sweat and years of training.]

So then I look at myself and feel a little fat and a lot lazy in comparison. But the article from "Desiring God" blog this morning makes me rethink it. It's worth checking out.

2 Kinds of Outdoing
by Sam Crabtree

"...Years of sweaty workouts, aching muscles, burning lungs, painful bruises, and bleeding calluses will see them in a breathless puddle of exhaustion and perhaps tears, the well-known agony of defeat.

When it comes to outdoing others, are national pride and personal ambition the only motivations?" (read more...)

This is on my refrigerator...

I’ve seen this around for awhile, but it’s still good advice.

Not just for kids, but for everybody. For husbands and wives. For employees and employers. For grown-ups and kids in church buildings. For teachers and students in classrooms...

If it’s broken, fix it.
If it’s empty, fill it up.
If it’s open, shut it.
If it’s out, put it away.
If it’s messy, clean it up.
If you can’t, then report it.
That’s honor.

“Spiritual Growth” is a red flag?

The paragraph below from Jesus Man of Joy caught me by surprise.

“Spiritual growth” sends up a red flag? But I see what the author is saying. If we perceive our growth = we are getting bigger or becoming more, then we’re going the wrong direction spiritually.

"So the last will be first, and the first last."
~ Matthew 20:16

But if my “growth” means less of me (which is shrinkage, actually), and more of God, then may I “grow” smaller every day.

“When I hear people talk on the subject of “spiritual growth” I send up a red flag. I can’t help it. I know there is such a thing as spiritual growth, and I salute it and believe in it. But in my own life I have learned that a lot of such growth consists simply of my getting out of God’s way. It is actually shrinkage rather than growth. I am certain that God does not want me to develop into a spiritual giant in my own eyes, even if I could. He wants me to become a spiritual pygmy so He can handle me. He wants me poor in spirit so He can do something with me without His having to contend with ever-present darling ego.” (p 71)

~ Sherwood Eliot Wirt (© 1991)

Why Change?

In John Maxwell's Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success (© 2000), he comments on page 146 on what makes us actually make a change in our lives, large or small.

"People change when they...

*** Hurt enough that they have to,

*** Learn enough that they want to,

*** Receive enough that they are able to. "

Take the Pain

Dr. Laura Schlessinger in Stop Whining, Start Living (© 2008) says that most people underestimate their ability to face pain (p 7).

We think of ourselves as wimpier than we even are. One reason is because we're surrounded by advertising that encourages us to eliminate pain at its first sign. Don't live with it at any cost.

But as Dr. Laura points out, "sadness, fear, disappointment, embarrassment, loss, frustration, etc., are just a part of normal life, and need to be endured as a feeling, and appropriated with solutions, if possible."

Is it really in our best interest to eradicate normal, but painful, parts of life?

I live with pain. Some physical, some emotional. I'd rather not.

But a little pain isn't an immediate reason to reach for the medicine cabinet. In fact, a little pain has life lessons--compassion for others, appreciation for when you have no pain, indication for a problem you need to address before it becomes bigger pain,...

[Hmm...reminds me of a great book I read a few years back: "Pain: the Gift Nobody Wants" by Philip Yancey and Paul Brand. Maybe I'll recycle around to read it in again in the next few months.... I highly recommend it.]