Waiting

Waiting is not doing nothing. Waiting is not sitting idly by watching for God to drop our dreams in our laps.

Waiting means getting ready. It means preparing your fields for rain so that in due time you may reap a harvest.

Waiting means an open mind, a listening ear, and a softened heart.

Waiting means trusting in God’s perfect timing, not forcing anything or speeding things up, but actively trusting that God knows what He’s doing and that what He’s doing is for His glory and for your good.

Waiting means letting go of what you’re grasping with clenched fists to receive what God is preparing you for. It means possibly letting go of something good to receive something better.

Waiting is not something you can learn about by reading up on it or studying other people who wait. You can only learn to wait by waiting, by experience of trial and error and frustration and impatients that finally resolves into peace and serenity and the faith of a child.

Waiting means living with tension and notes that don’t resolve. It means being content with not having answers, but only silence to your myriad of questions.

Waiting is to be still and know that Yahweh is God. He’s in control and His plans will prevail.

Waiting the right way is never in vain and never without its rewards, among those the being greater knowledge and closer intimacy with God. That and that alone is worth the costs that come with waiting.

There’s a lot more to learn about waiting that will take a lifetime to master, but I know this: waiting is a good thing.

 

Silence

I saw a silent movie tonight at the Franklin Theatre. Well, mostly silent. If you want an explanation, I recommend you rent or stream a movie called The Artist to find out.

It was a bit strange watching a movie with (almost) no spoken lines in a movie theatre. I think only one other silent movie has been made since Hollywood went to talking pictures back in 127.

Silence can be uncomfortable.

On occassion, I try to be still and silent to better be able to hear God’s voice. It’s harder than it sounds (and I get the irony in that last statement). I last maybe a minute or two until the ADD kicks in and I forgot what I was supposed to be silent and still about.

The culture we live in is addicted to noise. TV, radio, iPod, or excessive talking. It doesn’t matter. We can hardly go one second without noise, even if it’s background noise that we tune out.

But silence is golden. There’s truth to that cliche. The believers of old practised the art of silence. They took vows of silence and took retreats where they didn’t speak the entire time. I think they knew something we didn’t and consequently, many had a deeper, fuller walk with God.

Silence is also one way God speaks to us. Many times we want answers and God gives us silence. We say, “If only I knew that I wasn’t supposed to get married, I could move on with life” or “If only I knew I was supposed to look for a new job . . .”

We think silence is unanswered prayer. Many times, silence is God’s way of preparing us for something that is too big for us to receive right now. It’s like He is saying, “I’m holding out on the good right now so I can give you something great later on.”

Learning to be comfortable with silence is a sign of spiritual maturity. Too many times, silence seems deafening. We have too many voices in our heads screaming at us that we need to drown out with noise.

But when the voice of Jesus speaks, all other voices are stilled. We have true peace, perfect silence.

May you and I learn to be still and know that He is God.

 

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.

Lessons From the Not Yet

Maybe you remember back in high school and college when you wondered if that special someone who caught your eye reciprocated your interest. It would have been so much easier to have one of those grade school forms that went something like “Do you like me? Check Yes or No.”

Some of us are still there, in a perpetual state of singleness, wondering if the one we want to like us really does. It’s frustrating not knowing. Even a rejection would be easier to handle than the not knowing.

So many times, we want answers. Even answers we don’t like are better than no answers at all.

I really think that maybe being in a place where we’re waiting for answers is a good place. I think that’s where we learn the most precious and valuable lessons from God. That’s where we learn to really trust and rely on and cling to God.

I’ve heard it said that faith may not always know where it is being led, but it trusts the One leading. You may not know the outcome of what you long for and pray for, but you know that God still works all things together for good for those who love Him.

I think when we only want answers, we short-change ourselves. God is offering the opportunity for us to have all of Him and and to know Him and fellowship with Him. That’s so much better than the answers to a few questions.

Learning to trust in the absence of answers is hard. Learning to be still when every instinct in you is screaming to take the matter into your own hands is difficult.

Growing is painful and slow. Maturity doesn’t come microwave-style in a matter of minutes, but over months and years.

You will know your faith is mature when you realize that you will never get answers to some of your questions and you still choose to follow anyway.

Oswald Chambers once said, “Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One Who is leading.  It is a life of faith, not of intellect and reason, but a life of knowing Who makes us “go.”  The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success.”

The endgame is not answers to your questions or even getting what you desire. It’s character. It’s becoming like Christ. It’s becoming every single part of who God made you to be– your deepest, truest self.

That, my friends, is worth waiting for.

Word Now Breaking Heaven’s Silence

“Bring your peace into our violence
Bid our hungry souls be filled
Word now breaking Heaven’s silence
Welcome to our world
Welcome to our world” (Chris Rice)

Maybe you’ve experienced silence recently. The kind of silence that is almost deafening and that pervades every part of you.

The silence of a friend who deserted and abandoned you and you’re still wondering why.

The silence of a parent who cut you off and doesn’t want anything more to do with you.

The silence of a prodigal son or daughter who, despite all your pleas and prayers, still won’t come home.

The silence of a spouse who decided you weren’t worth the effort anymore and left you.

The silence of a loved one who left you too soon and you had to say your final goobyes to a marble headstone.

The silence you feel in the middle of the night that keeps you awake with the fear that all that you are and have and do will never be enough and you will never be good enough for anyone, not even yourself. Much less God.

This Advent season, we celebrate the end of Heaven’s silence. For 400 years, God didn’t speak through prophets. For 400 years, the people waited and waited. Some lost hope. Some were barely holding on.

Then on a dark night in a remote village, a sound broke through the silence once and for all. It was the cry of an infant born to an infant virgin teenager in a backwoods village just south of Nowhere.

In that tiny cry, God was speaking to you, saying, “I’m here. I will be your God and you will be my people. I will never ever leave you or forsake you. I have set my affections on you and I will never take them away.”

It is the still small voice that speaks good things about you, that says that you are more than good enough– you are worth dying for. The voice that calls you Beloved. The voice of your Abba Father.

Remember this Christmas, we celebrate more than just a day. We celebrate the one event in history that changed absolutely everything. We celebrate the birth of hope that never dies, of joy that no one can take away, of peace nothing can shake, and of love that never lets you go or leaves you. We celebrate Jesus, the Word breaking Heaven’s silence.

Why I Am a Fan of Henri Nouwen

“In solitude we can slowly unmask the illusion of our possessiveness and discover in the center of our own self that we are not what we can conquer, but what is given to us. In solitude we can listen to the voice of him who spoke to us before we could speak a word, who healed us before we could make any gesture to help, who set us free long before we could free others, and who loved us long before we could give love to anyone. It is in this solitude that we discover that being is more important than having, and that we are worth more than the result of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended, but a gift to be shared. It’s there we recognize that the healing words we speak are not just our own, but are given to us; that the love we can express is part of a greater love; and that the new life we bring forth is not a property to cling to, but a gift to be received” (Henri J.M. Nouwen).

Henri Nouwen wrote that every single person ever born deals with aloneness, because every single one of us is unique and no one else will ever have our exact problems and issues and hang-ups and phobias.

He said we can either see our aloneness as a wound and thus turn it into loneliness or view it as a gift, where it becomes solitude. In solitude is where we can learn to be still and quiet and know that in truth, we are never really alone. God is with us.

Solitude makes us better people, better neighbors, better friends, better spouses, better lovers, and better disciples. We’re not clinging to each other out of a desparate need to not be lonely, but because we are finally comfortable with who we are in the times when we are alone with no noise to drown out our own thoughts.

That is my own wording of what I’ve been reading in The Only Necessary Thing, a compilation of Nouwen’s thoughts on living a prayerful life. Seriously, if you don’t read another one of my blogs, but read one of his books, I will be supremely happy. He’s that good.

That’s all for tonight. Let me know what you are reading that touches you deeply at the soul level. Maybe it’s a book that will do the same for me. And may the God of the earthquake and the God of the thunder also be the God of your silence and the God of your solitude. Amen.

Sitting Still

Today I had an epic fail. I was supposed to meet a friend for the 11 am service. I thought I had plenty of time to get one of those white chocolate mochas with a shot of hazelnut (which are fantastically good and you should try one some time). It turns out I did not.

By the time I got my awesome beverege, I was already ten minutes late and not at all in a reverential mood. More like impatient and frantic and stressed and mad at myself. By the time I got to the sanctuary, there was no way I was going to be able to find my friend, so I ended up sitting in the balcony.

But God reminded me of the sermon I had just heard about Mary and Martha. Martha was the one frantically scrambling to get everything just right and Mary was sitting silently at the feet of Jesus in the posture of a disciple. Martha had good intentions, but Mary did the better thing.

I took a moment to steady my thoughts and quiet my heart. I prayed for peace to replace the chaos and I took a few deep breaths. Then I was fine.

We often get so caught up in school, work, play, and doing things for God that we have precious little time for God. But if we want our desire to be more like Jesus to go from wishful thinking to reality, we must make time to sit at His feet and be silent.

I am the worst. When I try to be silent and still, my brain doesn’t want to cooperate. I will conjure up  whole conversations in my head, hear snatches of songs, and think of things I forgot to do or that I still need to do. In other words, my ADD kicks in with a vengeance.

But the more I come to sit at Jesus feet, the more I am learning to capture my anxious thoughts and give them to Him. The more I am learning to let everything else go and listen to the Voice that still says good things about me.

Come to Jesus all you who are at the breaking point of exhausting. Come, be still. He will give you much needed soul-rest even in the midst of a busy day. He will speak peace and healing over you. He will refresh your spirit and renew your mind.

So just come.

God, I’m Sorry

God, I’m sorry that I took even a single moment of the time I had today for granted. I’m sorry I forgot that every moment of this life is sacred, for You inhabit all of it.

You’re in every frame of every scene in my life, speaking to me through the Word, through your people, through circumstances, and loudest of all, through the Silence that echos the calm before the storm.

I’m sorry I failed to give you as much room to work in the lives of  my friends as You took to work in mine. I’m sorry I doubted them and mistrusted their motives instead of looking for and believing the best about them and giving them the benefit of the doubt, as You taught and showed me how to do.

I’m sorry that I listened to my fears instead of to You, and they lied to me. I’m sorry that I believed what they said: that eventually all the people in my life will find out what I’m really like underneath my plastic smile and decide that I am simply not worth the effort and they will walk away. I name that lie and give it to You for good.

I’m sorry I was living my life at the I-level, living in the me-story and focused on all things Greg. I forgot that what You have for me is so much bigger than me and what my little world can hold. Your plans are God-sized and the God-story You are telling me is so much better than mine (thanks to Karla Worley for the imagery).

I’m sorry that tomorrow, I will need to be reminded of this all over again. I will forget You and how constantly You have taken care of me.

Thank You that You are slow to anger, steady in love, and ever patient with me, never wearying in reminding me of who I am and Whose I am. Of how much stronger Your voice is than all the other voices that speak to me and that Your voice is saying good things about me and calling me Beloved.

Thank You that You won’t give up, give in, let go, let me down, or turn on me. Thank You that you will absolutely finish what You started in me and then it will all have been so much more than worth it.

Thank You. Amen.

For All the Phonies in the World

Let me ask you something. Just between you and me (and the world wide web). Do you ever feel like a phony?

Do you ever hear yourself giving Sunday School answers to real life questions? Do you ever feel that you’re praying what you think God wants to hear instead of what’s really in your heart? Do you ever lie awake at night wondering what would happen if the people around you knew what you were really thinking? What you were really like?

There’s good news that sounds like bad news at first. God knows. God knows it all. He knows all the faux-prayers and the religious jargon you talk sometimes. He knows what you do and what you think when no one’s watching. That seems like bad news until you get to the clincher. He loves you anyway.

He loves you at your phoniest. He loves you at your meanest. He loves you at your darkest moments in the middle of the night. He looks at you and doesn’t see phony. He looks at you and sees Jesus and what Jesus did in your place. He sees the perfect life Jesus lived instead of your own very imperfect existence.

Best of all, God sees you for who you will be instead of who you are. He sees what He designed you to be. He promised to not stop working on you until you’re 100% real and complete.

In the meantime, it’s okay to be real and honest and admit you have made a mess of your life. It’s okay to confess you don’t have all the answers, or even all the questions. It’s really not about how much you know or how well you act but how much you are loved.

I raise my glass and toast to all the phonies who are stepping forward to take off the mask and be honest about themselves. I drink to all the pretenders who just got real. I salute all of you who are letting down the walls on what God is doing in your life so others can see grace at work and how love can transform a person. That’s where the freedom is. That’s where I want to be. I hope you do, too.

Grace: What a Year of Blogging Has Taught Me

I think I’ve been blogging for about a year or so. It was some time last July that I started this crazy venture. Ok, so I don’t have millions or even thousands of loyal followers, but I have readers. Tens of readers.

The idea was never really about numbers. It was always about an outlet for me to express myself. Especially when it comes to the grace of God. Cause when it comes to grace, I am the #1 fan.

Grace walks in the back door when friends walk out the front door. Grace comes in when I’ve failed again after I promised I wouldn’t. Grace is a good thing.

Grace has led me safely thus far and grace will lead me home, or so says the old hymn. Grace really is amazing, isn’t it?

Grace says that God is strong and He loves me. Grace says that love won’t ever go away, no matter what I do. Grace is a good thing.

The more I try to describe or define it, the more I realize how hard a job that is. I can’t tell you what grace really is or how it works; I can only tell you that I desperately need it and I find it available at just the right moments.

 The older I get, the more I believe in my heart that there’s no such thing as good or bad Christians. There are only those who were lost and are now found. There are only those who deserved to die and got to live. There are only those who deserved hell and got Jesus instead.

In the end, none of us measures up. None of us is good enough. None of us always does what is right and avoids temptation and never fails. We all fall short. We all need grace.

That’s why I have no patience for impatient Christians and I am judgmental toward judgmental believers. I guess that makes me just like them. Darn. I really wanted to have the superior high ground for once. Oh well.

What draws people in the end is not perfect doctrine (which no one has), or mastery of morals, or a vast intellect, or the gift of eloquence. It’s grace. They see what grace has done for us and they want it.

May we all be trophies of grace each day and help people see that it’s okay to be broken and messed up and not have life figured out or everything together, because grace will lead us home.