Monthly Archives: July 2019
“Overwhelmed”
We all feel overwhelmed at times. Even good things, things we enjoy and feel passionate about, can inundate us with fear and frustration. No one is exempt from being overwhelmed. For example, here is my journal entry for this morning:
Friday, July 26, 2019
So, why have I not been posting more blogs, you ask? Partly, because I have been getting more chances to teach. And while I love teaching biblical subjects, I am more than a little overwhelmed right now. (Can you be a little overwhelmed?)
Here is what I am facing right now. I had done a lot of work on a couple of courses for the fall semester, which is coming up in a hurry. A few days ago, I was asked to switch out those two courses for two others. I thought to myself, well, I need to be flexible. I’m an adjunct. Okay, I’ll do it. Then, I discovered that one class has sixty-one students in it, and the other has twenty-one. I’ve never taught a class bigger than about thirty. So, I need to choose textbooks and get the syllabi together for these two classes, and I have very little time in which to do it.
Additionally, I am currently teaching one undergraduate class, and preparing to teach two masters level classes in a little over a week. These two masters level courses are hybrid classes, which means that I will be meeting with students in person for a very intensive week in early August. One class goes from 8:00 to noon, and the other from 1:00 to 5:00, five days of that week.
So, I have too much to do and too little time to get it done. I need to work on both sides of the equation—the too much to do, and the too little time. I can do two fundamental things.
First, I need to keep doing things that energize me and keep me on the right path. Therefore, I need to continue to exercise and to work at recovery from this addiction. If I “free up more time” by means of refusing to work on bodily health and recovery wisdom, I am walking in neither wisdom nor freedom.
Second, I need to cut back radically on what I “need” to do. Do I really need to do this? That is a question I need to ask myself many times in the course of the day. And I need to follow up with another question: What do I really need to be doing right now?
Right now, a bird is singing outside my window right now, anticipating the dawn. It is a call to worship for Matins, the Morning Song Service for the worship of God. This song is also part of the healthy rhythms of my life. And so is this blog post.
“Firm Commitment and Dedicated Practice”
Hazelden Publishing has some wonderful readings that are both free and radically helpful. Here is one of them for today:
“Sunday, July 21
I wake each morning with the thrill of expectation and the
joy of being truly alive. And I’m thankful for this day.
—Angela L. Wozniak
Being open to the day’s offering, all of it, and looking for the positive
experiences therein, becomes habit only after a firm commitment and dedicated
practice. Today is special for each of us.
These next twenty-four hours will be unlike all others. And we are not the
persons we were, even as recently as yesterday. Looking forward to all of the
day’s events, with the knowledge that we are in the care of our higher power,
in every detail, frees us to make the most of everything that happens.
We have been given the gift of life. We are survivors. The odds against
survival in our past make clear we have yet a job to do and are being given the
help to do it. Confidence wavers in all of us, but the strength we need will be
given to each of us.
In this day that stands before me, I can be certain that I’ll have many chances
for growth, for kindness to others, for developing confidence in myself. I will
be thoughtful in my actions today. They are special and will be repeated no
more.
From Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey.”
I liked this entire reading, but was especially struck by the words, “Being open to the day’s offering, all of it, and looking for the positive experiences therein, becomes habit only after a firm commitment and dedicated practice.”
Firm commitment and dedicated practice: Yes! That is what it takes. And it sounds good. But then, there is the actual commitment and practice. And how do I know I’m truly committed? By practice, practice, practice.
In virtually every area of my life, I don’t like practice. It is hard, boring, and repetitive. But it is also essential. A quote that I’ve heard attributed to different musicians (perhaps by the Polish pianist Ignace Paderewski) goes like this:
“If I don’t practice for one day, I know it.
If I don’t practice for two days, the critics know it.
If I don’t practice for three days, everyone knows it.”
God, help me to practice good stuff today.
“Pursuing God”
“Today, by God’s grace, I am pursuing God with my body, mind, spirit, and soul. I keep pursuing God until God catches me, which he has already done.”
“My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.” (Psalm 63:8, English Standard Version)
The psalmist says that, with his very soul, his very essence, he clings to God. The Hebrew word for “to cling” (davaq) is used for the first time in Genesis 2:24 for the attachment of a man to his lady. It is a rather intense word, to say the least! As Kidner points out, “In the present verse it is strenuous: lit. ‘clings after thee’, as if in hot pursuit. The old translation [i.e., the KJV] remains the best: ‘my soul followeth hard after thee.’”
And yet, the psalmist knows that it isn’t just about his clinging to God. No. In the same breath, he acknowledges that God’s right hand is upholding him. Again, Kidner wisely observes the following: “But it is God himself who makes this possible, and the firmness of his upholding grasp is implied in the allusion to the right hand, the stronger of the two; cf. Isaiah 41:10. There is the same divine-human interplay in Philippians 3:8–14.”[1]
So, is the psalmist in hot pursuit of God, or is God holding the psalmist? The answer is emphatically “Yes!” We are most definitely responsible to pursue God. But we also most definitely need to be aware that God is holding us.
I am reminded of what someone said about human courtship and dating. (I think that I might have heard it first from my mom.) It went something like this: “He chased her and chased her, until finally, she caught him.”
We need to chase God and chase God until God finally catches us. And when God does catch us? What then? Then, we realize that God was holding us all along.
Pursue diligently!
Relax extravagantly! God’s got this. God’s got you and me, too.
[1]Derek Kidner, Psalms 1–72: An Introduction and Commentary, TOTC 15; IVP/Accordance electronic ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 244.
“Hanging on to my Garbage”
A friend of mine said at our 12-step meeting yesterday, “Sometimes, I hang on to my garbage . . .” [And then, he hesitated for a long while, looking as if he was trying to think of a good reason to hang on to his garbage. Finally, he finished his comment] “. . . because I’m insane.”
Right!
Hanging on to garbage is always insane. However, my garbage seems special somehow. No, really it does!
So, I hang on to it. Whether it was something done to me, or something I did, I hang on to it. And, of course, it stinks worse every day I hang on to it.
Once, I was talking with a fellow who had just graduated from medical school. I confessed to him that I liked him, but sometimes wasn’t too sure about doctors in general. “I suppose I should be grateful to them for us living a lot longer these days,” I said.
His response surprised me. “Well, you probably should be grateful to the garbage collectors,” he said. “One of the main things that shortened the life span in the past was plagues that were largely caused by poor sanitation. It is the garbage collectors that are the real heroes.”
Did you know that God is, among many other things, The Great Garbage Collector? There are many verses in the Bible that speak of what God does with our garbage (a.k.a. “sins”).
“10 He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:10-12, English Standard Version)
“I, I am he
who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
and I will not remember your sins.” (Isaiah 43:25, English Standard Version)
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9, my translation)
So, God apparently God collects all our sins, but he doesn’t collect them in order to add them to his collection. He collects them from us to get rid of them.
Why then do we hang on to them? There is no good reason, but there are probably lots of bad excuses. Maybe we’re afraid that, if we let go of the bad things done to us, we are somehow letting the one who harmed us “off the hook.” But if we realized how much damage the person who has hurt us have done to their own selves, perhaps we would give up this excuse.
And as for the harms we’ve done to ourselves and our other selves? Why do we hang on to those? Who knows? Sometimes, I suspect that I have so identified my faults with my “real self” (whatever that might be) that I am afraid of giving up all my garbage. If I set my garbage out at the curb, would there be anything left.
But no matter what excuses I come up with, or what reasons I try to concoct, the insanity of hanging on to my garbage still remains. And the insanity will remain as long as the garbage remains.
Time to set the garbage out, and let God pick it up! I think I hear the truck coming right now! Got to go!
“God Won’t Dump You Now!”
“Meditation for the Day
If you believe that God’s grace has saved you, then you must believe that He is
meaning to save you yet more and to keep you in the way that you should go.
Even a human rescuer would not save you from drowning only to place you in other
deep and dangerous waters. Rather, he would place you on dry land, there to
restore you. God, who is your rescuer, would certainly do this and even more.
God will complete the task He sets out to do. He will not throw you overboard,
if you are depending on Him.” (From Twenty-Four Hours a Day: The Little
Black Book)
“Psa. 40:1 I waited patiently for the LORD;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the LORD.” (Psalm 40:1-3, English Standard Version)
God is a God who rescues, but God is not only a God who rescues. God does not rescue me, just so that I can go back and try to drown again. No. The author of my 12-step reading for today points out this fact.
What would we think of a member of the coast guard who rescued people from drowning at sea, only to let them slip over the railing of a raging sea and drown? I’m not military, but I think that might be called “dereliction of duty.”
As soon as I did the 12-step reading that leads off this post, I thought of Psalm 40. The psalmist praises God for rescuing him from horrible danger, but the psalmist doesn’t stop there. He also praises God for following through. God not only rescues the psalmist from a slimy pit, but also sets the psalmist’s feet upon a rock. And then, God enables him to walk securely.
God’s deliverances are very thorough. God has thought of everything. We need to refuse to be minimalists when it comes to God’s ability to rescue us.
“Leaving out a Crucial Detail”
‘And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”’
(Exodus 32:21–24 The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, https://accordance.bible/link/read/ESVS#Ex._32:21)
I love this story. It is an incredibly human narrative. Moses “lollygags” around with God on Mount Sinai, while the people below get ants in their spiritual pants. The people come to Aaron, the priest, and express their impatience with this slow-poke, Moses. Aaron reacts immediately, instead of responding thoughtfully. And voila: The golden calf!
This is not a funny story. It is deadly serious. And yet, even deadly serious stories can have some humor in them. This one certainly does.
When Moses confronts his brother Aaron, Aaron explains—or excuses his behavior.
‘And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”’
When Aaron is telling the story to Moses, Aaron leaves out a crucial part of the story that the author of Exodus had already told the reader.
“3 So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” (Exodus 32:3-4, English Standard Version, emphasis mine)
When he speaks to Moses, Aaron leaves out the bit about his use of the engraving tool. He says, “I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”
Now, before I, before we, look down our long spiritual noses at Aaron, I/we might want to have a look in the mirror. When we are explaining why we did what we ought not to have done, or have failed to do what we ought to have done, we all tend to leave out crucial details. And in those crucial details are the real reasons why we’ve done what we shouldn’t, or not done what we should.
A crucial part of integrity is honesty, and a crucial part of honesty is being completely honest about our own part in what has gone wrong. It is easy to pretend that something “just happened,” when in fact we happened it.
Healing and transformation can only occur when we acknowledge our own engraving tools. Details matter—especially the details that relate to our own personal responsibility.
“You Can do Something!”
A friend of mine was telling me the other day that he hates the saying, “You can be anything you want to be.” We usually say this to children or young people. My friend thinks that this is a lie. I agree. Where we’re born, whether we’re male or female, born into wealth or poverty, the color of our skin—these things and thousands of others tend to limit our options.
But there is another lie that is equally pernicious: the lie that you can’t do anything worthwhile. In one of my 12-step readings today, I read the following:
“Being the victim is, or was, uncomfortably familiar to many of us. Perhaps some of us are only now realizing we have choices, that we need not let life happen to us. Becoming responsible to ourselves, choosing behavior, beliefs, friends, activities, that please us, though unfamiliar at first, soon exhilarates us. The more choices we make, the more alive we feel. The more alive we feel, the healthier our choices.” (From Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey)
And in my 3-minute retreat this morning, I read these words:
“Turn away from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.” (Psalm 34:15, English Standard Bible)
The key for all of us is to turn from evil, do good, seek peace, and pursue it.
Yesterday was an incredibly good day for me. Why? Because, I turned away from evil—not the evil in the world; only my own evil. I did some good things. I sought after and pursued peace, at least for the most part.
There is no reason that I can’t do the same today. No, I can’t “be anything I want.” But I can do something good. And if I do some good things, I will also be something good.
And if I seek and pursue peace, then peace might just find and overtake me.
“A Fruit-Only Diet”
I have decided to go on a fruit-only diet. Nope! Not talking about apples, grapes, melons, strawberries, and pineapple. (Well, definitely not pineapple only!)
I am speaking of “the fruit of the Spirit.”
My wife and I have been trying to memorize the fruit of the Spirit. Paul mentions them in Galatians 5:22-23. Here is the relevant passage, along with a bit of context:
“22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” Galatians 5:22-26, English Standard Version)
Now, it is not only that my wife and I are trying to memorize the fruit of the Spirit. We/I can’t seem to get away from continual reminders about them.
For example, this morning I used them in the daily affirmation that is part of my daily report to my twelve-step sponsor. “Today, by God’s grace, I will cultivate the fruit of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
Then, I turned to my daily 3-Minute Retreat from Loyola Publishing, and guess what I encountered at https://www.loyolapress.com/retreats/living-in-freedom-start-retreat? Do you really need a second guess? Yep! The fruit of the Spirit—again!
A couple of days ago, in our preparation to be leaders for a “Rooted Experience” group, my wife and I were reading and journaling about (yes, you guessed it) the work of the Holy Spirit, including the fruit of the Spirit.
So, why was Paul reminding the Galatians about this fruit-only diet? He was writing to churches that he had helped to birth. Apparently, Paul had heard that they were eating a lot of spiritual junk food. Some of the believers were adding a lot of stuff to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul says to them, “Look! If you live by the good news of Jesus Christ, and by his Spirit, you’ll live a good life. But if you try to add a bunch of stuff, you’ll end up at one another’s throats.”
But aren’t we a lot like the Galatian believers? We find a good thing, and then we decide that we can make it even better. Sometimes, perhaps, we succeed, but more often than not, we ruin the good thing we’ve found.
Paul says to these mixed-up believers, “If you keep in step with God’s Holy Spirit, good qualities will be evident in your life.” In other words, what you need is a fruit-only diet.
These good qualities, this fruit of the spirit, operate in three directions. Metaphorically, we might think of this spatially—as outward, upward, and inward.
“Outwardly” refers to other people. The fruit of the Spirit is a matter of treating other people with love, joy, etc. This is likely why, in verse 26, Paul warns the Galatians against practicing spiritual cannibalism. If they (if we) are cultivating the fruit of the Spirit, they (and we) will not be eating one another alive.
While Paul doesn’t say this explicitly, there is also the upward aspect of the fruit of the Spirit. When we are cultivating the fruit of the Spirit, it pleases God. I believe that even the desire to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit pleases God. How much more so, if we are actually practicing works of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control! Even in a very rudimentary form, these qualities honor God.
But there is also the inner aspect of the fruit of the Spirit. I’ve noticed that when I am more loving, more peaceful, more kind, etc., I am so much happier. This is certainly true when I am practicing these qualities toward others.
However, there is another side to this inner aspect of a fruit-only diet, and it is this: I need to practice these qualities toward myself. For example, what would my life be like if I practiced kindness and gentleness toward myself? Maybe I should try it and find out.
A good and wise friend of mine often says that he wants to be a person of integrity. He often couples that with being gentle with himself. Yes!
So, I’m going on a fruit-only diet. I’ll let you know from time to time how it’s going. I don’t know if I’ll lose weight, but I suspect that I will gain character.
Come to think of it, diets of every kind are easier if you do them with other people. Care to join me in my fruit-only diet?
“Spiritually Unexplored Country”
“Much of life is spiritually unexplored country.” (Twenty-Four Hours a Day: The Little Black Book, excerpt from today’s reading, July 3, 2019)
When I was a young boy growing up on a farm I southern Ohio, I didn’t have playmates or a lot of activities with which to occupy myself. So, I took up exploring. Exploring meant my mom fixing me a couple of mayonnaise sandwiches and a mason jar filled with grape Kool-aid. I would put them in an old, worn-out purse that my mom had kept. I would also usually include a New Testament and a small notebook and pencil to record maps and all my discoveries.
I gradually extended my range of exploring to the edge of our farm, and eventually, way beyond our farm. Later, when I told my mom how far I had gone as a little guy, she was a bit mortified—if you can be a bit mortified—by how far I had traveled in my peregrinations. I suspect that Columbus and other explorers had to wait until their mothers were dead before they set out.
As with all explorers, I have sometimes gotten lost. Sometimes, I have not treated my traveling companions with kindness and respect. Sometimes, I have not treated the lands or people I’ve discovered in a caring way. Sometimes, I’ve been abusive.
But I continue to explore. I value my fellow explorers much more now, and I treat the places, things, and people I discover with more kindness and respect.
God is infinite. That means that there are no boundaries to God. So, I plan to keep on exploring forever.
Crank out the mayonnaise, grape Kool-Aid, and my wife’s old purse. Today, I’m going exploring!
“A Small Dose of God Revealed”
Today’s post is from a guest writer: my wife. This is her prayer that she read to me after she wrote it for “The Rooted Experience,” a journey that our church family is taking together. The prayer was written as a response to the following prompt: “Write a prayer to God asking Him to reveal Himself to you.” Her writing was so good that I asked her permission to share it with you. She graciously agreed.
“I think it is a scary prayer to ask God to reveal Himself to me. I was sitting at the ballfield while the guys were practicing before the game, working on this study. I thought, I can only take small doses of God revealing Himself to me.
About that time, an older gentleman pulled up in his red Hybrid car. He had come to play ball. He appeared to be in his mid to late 70’s. As he slowly hobbled across the parking lot carrying his bat, I suddenly felt compassion for him.
Is this how God sees us? Yearning for the days of our youth. Broken down and worn out from the burdens of life. And yet, still looking for that spark of pleasure that tells us we’re still in the game.
God sent His Son, Jesus, to tell us we can all still be in the game. This life is not all there is. He is the Ultimate Coach that can bring this team back to life by believing and turning all our old ways over to Him and following His example. The trophy for a well-played game is Eternal Life in Paradise.
Oh, did God just reveal Himself to me in a small dose?”
Postscript: The “hobbler” did an excellent job playing third base for the team I play on. His accomplishments included handling virtually everything that was hit his way, initiating a triple play, and hitting a triple himself. We won!
Everybody wins with Jesus—even those who lose. And thanks, dear wife, for an excellent piece of writing, and a wonderful prayer.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
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