For When You Can’t Sleep

Right about now, I wish I were a cat. I look at my cat, who hops on the bed and curls up on the pillow next to mine and is asleep the moment she lays her little head down. Meanwhile, I am still tossing and turning, wide awake.

I’ve learned a few lessons from a lifetime of difficulty getting to sleep.

I know that at night every worry and fear gets magnified beyond any reasonable doubt. The normal worries of finding the right person turn into “I’ll never get married and will die alone.” The normal anxieties of career transition turn into “I won’t ever get a job because there’s nothing I’m good at.”

The trick is to recognize these lies for what they are and to realize that you don’t think as clearly when you’re tired. That’s why it’s always a good idea to put in a good night’s sleep before you make a major decision that will drastically affect your life.

I don’t have any answers to how to overcome the inability to sleep. He says as he is typing this at 12:40 am.

I know in the past, I’ve used the time to pray over what’s troubling me that won’t let me sleep. Sometimes, I get up and try to find some mindless TV to help relax me. I’ve even gone old school and tried warm milk (though it doesn’t work too well when you overheat the milk and burn your mouth).

I think in a way it’s a good thing I can’t sleep sometimes. It helps me realize that sleep is not a given or an entitlement. It is a gift from God, just like every other good thing in life. So maybe instead of counting sheep, count your blessings instead (as the old song says). Instead of looking at what you’re missing out on, look at all you have.

A Good Reminder to Myself

I talk to myself sometimes. Out loud. I tend to use a British accent so it’s more fun and less creepy.

Sometimes, I have to remind myself of certain things. Repeatedly.

1) You are not your job (or lack of one). You are not your salary. You are not a title or a profession. You are exactly who God made you to be. And He said you were good.

2) God’s in the past where you messed up and where you got hurt, healing your wounds so they no longer bleed into your present (thanks to Mike Glenn for that one. He’s right there with you in your present. And He’s already in your future, waiting on you with plans that will blow your mind.

3) It’s okay to feel scared and unsure. It’s okay to have doubts because faith by its very nature comes with doubting. If we knew with 100% certainty, we wouldn’t need faith.

4) If you are loved and if you have friends, you are not a failure. If God loves you and calls you friend, then you have already won.

5) Whatever happened today, be it good, bad, or ugly, tomorrow is a new day filled with fresh possibilities and a clean slate. You can start over.

Maybe you’re having a great day and you’re loving life and everything is going your way. That’s wonderful. Maybe not. But everybody will at times go through storms. Everyone will go through deserts where your faith seems dead. Everyone will go through dark nights where God seems impossible to find.

No matter what your feelings or senses tell you, no matter what your circumstances tell you, God is there. He has not left you. He has not forgotten you. And He never will.

By the way, this blog is best read with a British accent. It sounds so much more sophisticated that way.

By Faith

I am an optimistic and positive person for the most part. I usually see the glass half full. Unless it’s when I’m really thirsty, then the glass is empty, ’cause I just drank it all.

Sometimes, I have serious doubts. Sometimes, it feels like my dreams and goals are just out of reach and nothing will really ever change. Sometimes, I’m not even really sure what it is I’m reaching for.

Everybody has those times, if they’re honest. Everybody doubts, everybody questions, and as the old R.E.M. song says, everybody hurts.

The question is, Will you still believe even when common sense tells you not to? Will you speak your faith even when you don’t feel it and the words coming out of your mouth feel fake and fraudulent? Will you still hold on?

The old cliche is true. It really is darkest just before the dawn. I’ve found that just when I feel like I’m at my lowest ebb, that’s when I see God moving in my circumstances and in my life.

The promises of God are just as true in the dark as they are in the light. He is just as faithful in the storm as in the sunshine. He is just as near when you can’t feel Him as when you can.

I’ve said it before many times, but it’s true. What you think may lie to you. What you feel may lie to you. But God won’t. Ever.

So many people in the Bible had times when they felt God’s promises were hopelessly out of reach. I think about David and Abraham as examples. David when he was running for his life from Saul and Abraham when he and Sarah were still childless and eligible for Social Security.

But they held on to the promises of God even when everything in them (and probably everyone around them) told them not to, and that faith was rewarded in the nick of time in God’s perfect timing.

May you and I hold on as tenaciously and as stubbornly as they did.

It will be so much more than worth it in the end.

 

Night Volleyball

I participated in a game of volleyball at a Memorial Day cookout with some friends. Needless to say, none of us will probably be making the U.S. Olympic team in 2012 or anytime soon.

From a volleyball purist standpoint, we played the game all wrong. We didn’t set the ball up or even hit it correctly. More times than not, the ball went in the opposite direction of the net or under the net or even into the net.

Whoever invented volleyball was probably rolling over in his grave. Or else he died just so he could be buried and roll over in his grave. It wasn’t pretty.

But it was fun.

We gave each player a do-over on messed-up serves. We complimented each other on near-misses and flat-out whiffs. When the automatic lights went out, one of us would go do our best version of the Riverdance to get the lights back on.

By the time we were done playing, the game was more of a comedy than a competition. But we had fun and laughed at ourselves and with each other.

It was grace in action. Too bad we as believers aren’t that way all the time.

For the moments when I open up my mouth and say something stupid, I need grace.

For the moments when you send the text before you think it through and wish for the next 24 hours you could take it back, you need grace.

For all the times when we break our promises and fail to be light and salt and witnesses of the great God who saved us, we all need grace.

For all the times we screw up royally again after promising God and the world we wouldn’t, we all need grace. For daily falling short of all God meant for us to be to ourselves and each other and to Him, we all need grace. Desparately.

Grace isn’t just undeserved favor. That falls short of what grace is. Grace is undeserved favor in the face of deserved wrath. That’s something I learned recently and something I’m still thinking about.

Grace means that you’re not alone and neither am I. Grace means we walk together, we fall together, and we get back up together. We laugh together, we cry together, we fail together, and we overcome together.

And it took a game of night volleyball to remind me of all that.

Reflections from Radnor Lake

A friend and I met at Radnor Lake today and took one of its more scenic and challenging trails. Apparently, it was the road less traveled.

We met no living souls along the way, aside from a few curious deer and a couple of cardinals. After a day filled with city noises, it was nice to hear the quiet solitude of the forest and finally be able to hear my own thoughts.

It started raining halfway through the walk, and hearing the sound of the rain falling on the leaves of the trees above was hypnotic and meditative.

It was a steep climb, but it felt more than worth it. I almost felt like I was entering the inner sanctuary, close to the holy of holies, where you can hear God more clearly and see Him all around you.

Sometimes, you need to get away from it all. Most of what seems frantically urgent will still be there when you get back, but you will be better prepared to handle it.

Jesus had as much of a busy schedule as anyone who has ever lived, but He always took time to get away and be with His Father. Sometimes, it was early in the morning, sometimes at night. But He made getting alone with God a very high priority.

You will never have time to get to a quiet place with God. You will always have to make time, because you always choose to do what matters to you.

I’ll be the first to confess that I don’t make time nearly enough to really get to know God’s heart. I put so many other things before finding time to be silent before God in a quiet place.

May you and I be transformed by this living God into a people who hunger and thirst after knowing God more than anything else in this world.

Don’t Give Up

This is a word for the faint-hearted and down-trodden. Don’t give up.

You may be close to giving up or throwing in the towel or calling it quits, but don’t.

You may think the storm will never abate and the sky will always be filled with dark and ominous clouds and the sun will never come out again, but it will.

Your marriage may be hanging on by the slimmest of threads. You may dread getting up each morning and going to your job. You may sometimes wonder how your life came to seem so hopeless.

But don’t give up.

You may not think anyone sees or cares, but God does. And He’s already at work.

Somedays, it feels like you’re swimming upstream and wearing yourself out while getting nowhere, but God is leading you to a place that you don’t yet know but once you get there, it will all have been worth it.

Just trust God and take the next step. That’s all.

Take it from someone who’s been there. It will get better.

 

Carried

“When you can’t run, you crawl, and when you can’t crawl – when you can’t do that… You find someone to carry you” (from an episode of Firefly).

I was watching one of my favorite TV series tonight (and yet another great series that the Fox Network killed way too soon– but that’s another blog for another day) and I heard this quote and it made me think of the Church.

The Apostle Paul speaks about us being in a race, a race that we should seek to run well. He speaks about how we train our bodies so we will finish well. Obviously, this isn’t a literal race, but the live of faith lived with a finish line in view.

Sometimes, when we can’t run any longer, we crawl. Maybe we’re exhausted or burned out or wonded or have lost our way. Whatever the case, every single one of us will at times find ourselves crawling.

Sometimes, we can’t even crawl. We’ve come to the end of our abilities and have no strength or energy to move one more inch. That’s when someone else has to carry us. And we have to be humble and honest enough to ask.

Scripture calls us to carry each other’s burdens. Sometimes that means we carry each other. It means we believe for others when they can’t believe for themselves about getting through a trial or tragedy or test.

If you think of prayer that way, it really does change your perspective. Prayer is not saying kind words about someone else to God, but rather taking that person to God. You can almost visualize carrying that person on your back into the very presence of Jesus Himself.

I’ve always loved the poem Footprints and especially the image of only one set of footprints in the sand being the times when God has carried us. If we’re honest, there’s not one moment when we are not completely taken care of, deeply loved, and carried by Abba Father.

May that be the last image you have before sleep and dreams take you tonight.

 

 

Thanksgiving and Gratitude

One thing I need to improve (out of many, many things) is to learn to cultivate a grateful spirit. I am far too often consumed by thoughts of what I don’t have, what I lack, and what I didn’t get.

Lately, I have found myself anything but grateful. I have found seeds of anger and bitterness and impatience welling up in me. I have had fears of what-ifs, such as what if I never get married, what if I never get that dream job, etc.

Tonight, I was invited to a cookout with good friends. I realized then and there just how very blessed I am. I am more blessed than I deserve to know the people I know, and more so that they actually like me back.

I am blessed by good health and a job and family who loves and encourages me and friends who stick around and say nice things about me and live out Christ in a way that challenges and inspires me.

Most of all, I am blessed by the relentless love of a God who continues to passionately pursue my heart and makes me more like Jesus every single day. Even when He allows circumstances I would not have chosen and answers prayers but not in the way I would have answered them, He is still good to me.

Even if I found out tonight that I used up all my allotted blessings and had no more left, I would be good. If I never got one more prayer answered and had all the rest of my dreams evaporate and all my hopes dashed, I’d be okay. Why?

Because I am still Abba’s child and He is still very fond of me. I know that He’s on my side and He fights for me and sings over me in the night.

And that’s enough for me right now.

An Advent Plea Day 3

“Oh, come, oh, come, our Lord of might,
Who to your tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times gave holy law,
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!”

For us who are weak and frail, come to us, Emmanuel, in Your power and might.

For us who keep making promises that we fail to keep and vows that we never fulfill, come to us, Emmanuel, who fulfilled both Your end and our end of the Law.

For us who struggle through bad days where everything goes wrong and nothing goes as planned, where it is all we can do to survive through the next moment, come to us, Emmanuel.

For us who have come to realize that we will never change or break old habits or start new godly ones without Your indwelling Life lived inside us, come to us, Emmanuel.

For us who have a path littered with little golden calves and homemade idols of power, success, fame, popularity and all the other gods we’ve tried to replace you with, come to us, Emmanuel.

We who stumble in the dark need Your Light. We who are drowning in a sea of voices all around us that confuse us and cause us to lose our own identity need to hear Your still small voice that can silence all the other voices and remind us of our true selves, who we are in You. Only You can bid the chaotic waves in our hearts and minds be still and bring peace to our inner world.

Come, Lord Jesus, come to us.

Lights in the Dark

“Everything was created through him;
      nothing—not one thing!—
      came into being without him.
   What came into existence was Life,
      and the Life was Light to live by.
   The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
      the darkness couldn’t put it out” (John 1:4-5)

In a sermon I heard today, I was reminded about the difference between light and dark. Darkness is nothing but the absence of light. It has no inherent power of its own.

All the darkness in the world flees away before the power of one single candle. You never heard of darkness putting out a light before, did you?

The only reason the world is in darkness and people can’t find their way and families are adrift is that the lights aren’t shining. Too many people have lit their candles and stuck them under baskets out of fear or conformity or shame.

The only way that people around you can see their way clearly to God is if you shine. That’s what stars do, after all. They don’t fire cannons or raise banners or sing anthems. They just shine.

We are stars in a dark world. When we shine, we reflect the glory of God and show people what He looks like. If we don’t shine, how will anyone be able to know how good this God is or how strong He is to save?

You may not be able to preach a sermon or recite an entire chapter out of the Bible. You may not be able to lead worship or create artistic masterpieces. But there’s one thing you can do as well as anyone else.

You can shine.

No one can tell the story of what God has done in your life better than you can. No one can walk beside someone who’s going through the same tragedies and heartbreaks and obstacles that you went through as well as you can.

Remember that Advent is all about the coming of the Light of the world. All the powers of hell couldn’t overcome Him and the world has never been the same since.

I pray that you will simply reflect the glorious beautiful Love that Jesus shines on you to others. May you be a beacon of hope to those trying to find their way Home.

I pray you shine!