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Gray Seasons

June 10, 2011 in Faith, Life with 18 Comments

I sit and I think.  I offer whispered prayers upward.  I cogitate every angle.  I ask for signs, believing that asking isn’t wrong and you must ask to receive.

I stare at the scale, the balance of what is and what could be.  I search my heart to discover if I’m hearing His voice or my own selfish one.

It’s a difficult task, searching for the needle in the haystack of thoughts running through my mind.

In a circumstance that theoretically has no right or wrong answer, how do you make a decision?

In the waiting for an answer I find peace as my heart feels pulled in directions I’m not sure it’s supposed to go.

With daily (every breath) I lift these prayers Heavenward.  I remind myself to trust.  To remember that gray seasons have just as much depth and meaning as black and white ones.

When you face circumstances with no right or wrong answer how do you make a decision?
How do you turn up the volume of His voice over yours, when your desires aren’t wrong?

Yesterday Was For Me

May 30, 2011 in Faith with 7 Comments

I’m gonna be honest.  I did NOT want to go to church yesterday morning.  It’d been a beautiful, lazy anniversary weekend [the kind where I was in my PJ's all day Saturday until we got ready to go to dinner & even then I think I could have gotten away with the yoga pants & tank top] and I wanted it to carry over to Sunday morning.

I stood and sat there my mind telling me the songs were out dated, that there are newer/fresher ones.  With eyes closed I did my best to focus my worship and attention on the one who deserves them.  Reminding myself over and over that He is delighted, and these are not meant for human ears or human hearts.

I was tired.  I wasn’t expecting.

I was simply fulfilling my Christian duty to go to church.

It’s sort of funny.  It’s in those moments that God shows up with a mighty force.

God gift wrapped Ezra 5 & 6 and dropped them into my lap.

Mere moments into the message I sat there, staring and thinking this is for me.  This is for us.  In the midst of the chaos, in the midst of the waiting.  When I did not even expect to hear from Him, God met us where we are at.  Every part of what was spoken, spoke to our tired hearts & soul.  Promises that we are not forgotten.  That He will give us counsel.  That He will lead us.

The evening before was wrought with arguing over these circumstances we find ourselves in.  Emotions high.  Aggravations and fears that awoke on my shoulders that just wanted to stay in bed.  Frustrations that were slowly worked out over bagels and whispered feelings.

It’s just like our creator and the lover of our soul to arrive and whisper to us, “I know.  I’m not forgetting.  I will lead you.”

 

Rehydrated Faith

May 17, 2011 in Faith with 21 Comments

We reach with nimble fingers.  Trying to grasp that which seems fleeting.  When we think we have hold, like a sieve faith slips through.

With tears we fall.  A hard thump on to dusty, cracked soil.

The difficult moments of life always seem to hit at once.  Gathered into a pothole on this road are loss, pain, exhaustion, confusion…and the list goes on – until we find ourselves drowning in everything.  It jumps us up.  Detours our otherwise peaceful life.

We are not necessarily doubting that
God will do the best for us; we are
wondering how painful the best will turn
out to be. – C.S. Lews

This week.  The past seven days have been hard.  Have been stress-fllled.

With two car accidents in less than 36 hours.  Tensions that arise in marriages because of such situations.  Friends who experienced attack after attack in the span of less than 12 hours because they are pursing what God has called them to do.

We reach.  Our nimble fingers sore.  We fall.  We cry out to Jesus.  The one we always need.  At times our faith seems as dry as the ground we’ve just collapsed on.  We see brokenness and chips where lush green grasses once filled our hearts.

And as we lay there.  Tears that stain our cheeks and our hands slowly seep into the dustiness, rehydrating our brokenness.  Faith comes in, in the stillness.  Between the sobs for mercy.  She rests her never weary hand on our shoulder, then takes our hand.

Surgery

May 6, 2011 in Faith, Life with 20 Comments

Sometimes the truth hurts.  Sometimes it cuts like a dull knife working its way through lies that your heart wants to hold on to.  Millimeter by millimeter it slowly severs the tendons of the lies.

It’s not always easy.

…………but it’s always necessary.

Sometimes it’s so much easier to believe the lies the enemy tells us.  That God won’t answer our prayers.  He plants seeds of doubt that bloom into giant trees of discouragement.

Sometimes it’s just easier to believe the lies, than to trust God’s faithfulness.

In the last 24 hours a mass accumulation of discouragement from multiple things came down upon me like a rock.  I filled up a page in my journal of all my feelings.  Line after line of I feel’s.  I’m not discounting my feelings or discrediting them, but if you were to read them you’d see my lack of trust & my lack of faith.  You’d see that it’s easier for me to believe the lies than believe the truth.

So right now – with the prayer of faithful friends & a godly husband – I’m undergoing the scalpel.  I’m trying to believe the truth in the midst of the easy lies.

Would you pray that I (we) would have increased faith and disbelieve the lies the enemy tells?

Selfish Lamentations

May 4, 2011 in Faith with 7 Comments

I lament my situations.  I complain in my trivial pressings – whether aloud or screaming to myself in my head.  Exhaustion, stress, the sick-and-tiredness of having to be an adult and have grown up responsibilities.

How I wish to swing on the air and feel the wind whip across my face.  To run away and sit in my pity party.

To dwell in my selfish lamentations.

I forget the non-trivial situations that others live with daily.  Those who choose joy when their only travels are through internet explorations.  Or those who don’t measure their worth by the material possessions that where whipped away by mighty tunnels of wind.  These who cry out like Paul that their momentary strife is nothing compared to knowing Jesus and finding their worth in Him.

I am reminded again of my selfishness.  Of the sin that still dwells within me.  And it is that – my sin – that I should lament.

Hope Rekindled

April 25, 2011 in Faith with 14 Comments

I can’t imagine the sorrow that hung on the disciple’s shoulders as they made their way to Emmaus.  A seven mile journey that must have felt like a hundred.  Their Rabbi, their hope, their friend had been nailed to a cross and tortured three days before.

Hadn’t they just a week prior rejoiced as they entered Jerusalem, pregnant with hope preparing to celebrate God’s deliverance from Egypt?  With shouts of hosanna they believed Jesus would once more deliver Israel from the power that burdened them.  Only to have their hope miscarried a few days later as they watched Jesus carry the cross towards Golgotha.

Oh the heavy weight of grief they wore.

And when a companion joined them, what encouragement they must have felt as He explained all the prophecies.  I wonder if they began to toy with hope again.  If thoughts of, “could this be true?  could He have really risen?”, entertained their hearts.  I love how they say their hearts burned within them.

When all hope was lost for these two men Jesus literally came and walked beside them.  He quickened their hearts for hope.  And they wasted little time returning to Jerusalem.

How have you experienced hope born out of a situation you thought was hopeless?

 

Crucify Him, Crucify Him – Moe

April 21, 2011 in Faith, Guest Blogging with 44 Comments

He was unlike any man. There was nothing dangerous about Him. He brought hope that was never seen in anyone ever before. He spoke differently. He uttered words with compassion, yet with authority. He spoke as if the very words were His — truly they were.

In my eyes, he was no threat. He didn’t have an army or government. He didn’t even have a place to rest his head. His very friends betrayed Him and so did this crowd.

“Crucify Him, crucify Him!” they cried out.

They let their Messiah slip away right under their noses. He did greater things than any prophet, any man that ever lived. His compassion threatened them. His love scared them. His words often angered them. “A simple carpenter’s son” they cried out. With the same breath they gathered against him, yelling:

“Crucify Him, crucify Him!”

The people gathered impatiently witnessing his trial. There was no charge worthy of death. He wasn’t guilty of any crime. But the crowd cried out for justice… fake justice:

“Crucify Him, crucify Him!”

How can they be so foolish?

“Crucify Him, crucify Him!”

But… why?How dare they demand death?

“Crucify Him, crucify Him!”

I grew angry, and confused. How dare they condemn Him? How dare they demand death?

“Crucify Him, crucify Him!”

I was angry!

After trying to make sense of this event, I began to understand one very important truth. We blame the crowds for the crucifixion of Jesus. But that is not a correct assessment of the greater picture.

That crowd didn’t kill Jesus. The Romans didn’t kill Jesus. The Jews didn’t kill Jesus. He himself said:

“No one takes it [life] from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” (John 10:18)

If I want a second chance at living as God had intended from the beginning, something had to be done. That something is to have Jesus, the messiah, bear the burden of my sin. That burden was death!

So, I too had to join this crowd. There is no other way I can get God without His crucifixion. It was my sin to pay. The father had laid my sin upon His shoulders. This sin had to be punished, had to be atoned for. Only Jesus was the perfect lamb of God.

If I wanted God, I needed Him to die. This was the only way. As much as I hated to hear those awful condemning words:

“Crucify Him, crucify Him!”

I understood that this was the only way to get God.

I joined that crowd, “crucify him, crucify him!” because by this very act (and later his resurection), I get a second chance at life. I get God. All of Him. Forever.

Moe is a God lover & fearer, husband & father who in his spare time living in NYC writes at Beta Christian and shares a modern look at Biblical figures every Friday (as well as teaching his children gang signs at dinner much to the dismay of his wife).

To Be A Dad Every Day – JC Wert

April 20, 2011 in Faith, Guest Blogging with 10 Comments

It’s not good blogger etiquette to put the main point of the entry at the beginning.  We’re supposed to tease you, massage you, guide you and then hit you with the point like Mike Tyson at the end of the drum break in Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight.”  We’re not supposed to be hostile, pointed or really risk offending anyone until well into the piece when most people think “well, I’m this invested, I’ll rest the rest anyway.”  But I can’t do that.

I think people who don’t value second chances are idiots.

We live in a world where your likelihood to get a second chance is in inverse proportion to your age and whatever you did that necessitates that second chance.  A twelve year old who steals something from a store?  They’ll take some heat, a slap on the wrist, perhaps some juvie time if a prosecutor wants to make a name for themselves but most people will say “he’s a kid.  Give him another chance.”  The 40 year old dude who steals something?  You might as well have Chris Hansen walking around behind him waiting to drop the hammer.

I know in my life, I’ve blown a lot of second chances.  Thirds.  Fourths.  Probably six hundred fifty-thirds.  However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see the rarity of second chances and the value that comes from grabbing them by the lips and yanking them as hard as you can.

When I went through my divorce and had little choice but to let my sons live with their mother because one son needed therapy where we had been living at the time, it was like someone cut off body parts.  I love my sons.  Every day when I wake up and don’t hear Eli saying “good morning, daddy” I get sad.  When I don’t walk into the living room and find Dale on the Wii I get a twinge of pain.  They are daily reminders of how I screwed up and contributed to the downfall of a marriage.

And then I feel the painful thump on my lower back.

And then I hear the giggle.

And I hear Julie’s mother say to her “did you ask if you could jump on daddy’s back?”

And usually, I’ll just say “she’s fine” even though Julie never asks permission to jump on my back.

You see, Julie biologically isn’t mine but she calls me “daddy.”  Before her mother ever broke down and realized she needed to lower her expectations of a husband and thus marry me, Julie was calling me “daddy.”

Julie gave me the second chance to be a daddy every day.  Her choosing me made me realize the value of second chances on a level that I never truly appreciated before that day.  It made me realize what an idiot I had been for the times I took a second chance and ran it into the ground in the pursuit of my pleasures or wants or what I thought was “right.”

Now, for the Jesus Juke.

Prudy mentioned to me in an e-mail that she believes Easter is “epitome of second chances.”  I could not agree with her more.   Jesus’ resurrection and giving us the chance to spend eternity with God is the biggest chance we can have with our lives.  The opportunity to take all the sin that stands between us and Holy God and make it essentially disappear.

But I’m not going to Jesus Juke you on salvation here…I’m going to Juke you on what you do with it.

Because if you have accepted Christ, you’ve been given that second chance.  To love.  To give.  To care.  To share.  To be God’s hands and feet to the lost, the hurting and even the person sitting next to you in the pew on Sunday morning who doesn’t realize turtleneck sweaters went out of style in October 1983.  (November 1983 if they were a nice cashmere.)

Do you value it?

Jason is a father, husband, and God lover living in the light of God’s second chances.  He writes at the Mustard Seed Year.  Daily essays on God’s work in his life.

Ugly Broke Hungry

April 11, 2011 in Faith with 8 Comments

I’d seen him many times before.  Sitting in various parking lots in the busy restaurant, mall area near work.  Dirty, with torn clothes holding his sign:  “Ugly, Broke, Hungry”.

In selfishness I always averted my eyes, never wanting to meet his gaze.  Knowing if I did I’d have to deal with my selfishness.

This day though, I saw him.  Somewhere he acquired two dogs.  I don’t think he had them previously.  They lay patient while he sat.  I drove by and as usual my heart caught.  The spirit said give, and I remembered I had $5 in my wallet.  What was I going to do?  Drive straight ahead out of the parking lot or turn around.

As I pulled up near him and he approached I took note of his shoulder length beard.  I saw his tatted arms.  I saw he sought to take care of his dogs – a bowl of clean water sat there for them to drink from.  I saw the man underneath the dirt and the label of homeless wasn’t ugly.  In fact he was handsome.

He blessed me as I handed him the money, and I in turn blessed him.  Not as an insincere waste of breath but as a prayer.  I don’t know what circumstances led to him being homeless.  Whether it was choices he made or the infractions of others.  I do know he is loved and created in the image of God.

I pray that my heart would cease to be selfish.

Fighting to Wait

March 30, 2011 in Faith, Grace with 6 Comments

It hit me recently that being a Christian requires me daily to put my faith in God.  Our faith doesn’t reach perfection the moment we believe.  It requires renewal moment by moment.

Life seems so fragile lately.  I wear exhaustion like skin.  It seems to touch every fiber.  So many times I’ve wanted to give up.  My cries to God echo off the walls.

It’s times like these that it’s hard to trust, hard to have faith.  To remember that He isn’t finished and that He delights to see the form He is molding me to be.

The more I talk to friends, the more it seems we’re all in a season of wait.  Our circumstances are all different.  Some are waiting in singleness when their hearts desire a spouse.  Some are waiting in childlessness.  Some waiting on job changes, while others are waiting on God to simply provide a job that was lost.  But we’re all waiting.  We’re all trying to remember and have faith that God will provide.

The Psalms have been a balm to me these last several weeks.  The times that I’ve been at the bottom – that broken person on the cold floor – He’s poured salve on my weary frame.  Just enough that I can hope, and trust at least one more day.

But may all who search for you
be filled with joy and gladness in you.
May those who love your salvation
repeatedly shout, “God is great!”
Psalm 70:4

When they walk through the Valley of Weeping,
it will become a place of refreshing springs.
The autumn rains will clothe it with blessings.
Psalm 84:6

As you wait, in what ways does the Lord apply healing to your weary heart?

 

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