The best and sweetest flowers of paradise God gives to His people when they are upon their knees. Prayer is the gate of heaven.
– Thomas Brooks
Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds
My heart is confident in you, O God;
no wonder I can sing your praises with all my heart!
Wake up, lyre and harp!
I will wake the dawn with my song.
I will thank you, Lord, among all the people.
I will sing your praises among the nations.
For your unfailing love is higher than the heavens.
Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
Be exalted, O God, above the highest heavens.
May your glory shine over all the earth.
(Psalm 108: 1-5 NLT)
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Toward the Bright Mountains
Sometimes I feel like a Hobbit -and not a young Hobbit. I like the Shire; it’s cozy. But one day a tall man talked to me about going on an adventure. Then dwarves showed up and ate everything in the pantry.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Toward the bright mountains… but first we turn left and go through some valleys and forests and meet beings you are not familiar with. Some good, some not. But you won’t be alone. ”
“And how will this turn out?”
“Here’s the Book. Read it yourself.”
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The Unforced Rhythms of Grace
Turks and Caicos
For some reason (haha! maybe because it’s January in Canada and here, late in the afternoon, it is already dark) I am remembering a beautiful day on the most beautiful beach I have ever seen – Grace Bay on the island of Provedenciales in the Turks and Caicos. It’s aptly named. Warm turquoise water, clean white sand, soft Caribbean breeze, no crowds, no hurry…. It’s a place graced with beauty.
On cold days like this it’s heart-warming to remember lying in the sun, listening to the rhythm of the surf. Eugene Peterson used the phrase “the unforced rhythms of grace” in his paraphrase of Jesus’ words in Matthew.
Jesus resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. “The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I’m not keeping it to myself; I’m ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen.
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:27-30 The Message paraphrase)
The unforced rhythms of grace. I like that. Like breathing out and breathing in. No matter our circumstances, (or the temperature in our real world) living in grace means living freely and lightly.
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Painted Fire
Look, as a painted man is no man, and as painted fire is no fire, so a cold prayer is no prayer. -Thomas Brooks
The Spirit of God not only maintains this hope within us,
but helps us in our present limitations.
For example, we do not know how to pray worthily as sons of God,
but his Spirit within us is actually praying for us
in those agonizing longings which never find words.
And God who knows the heart’s secrets understands, of course,
the Spirit’s intention as he prays for those who love God.
(Romans 8:26-27 Phillips)
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Small c conservative
The problem with taking risks is that sometimes you will be wrong. Sometimes you will be unsure. Sometimes you will be disappointed.
The problem with not taking risks is that all the growth is in the past.
And the past has a shelf life.
Then he (Jesus) said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed? (Luke 9:23-25)
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Treasures
But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.
(Luke 2:19)
Grandmothers have them -little treasures labeled with memories- daughter’s first shoes, mother’s salt and pepper shakers, son’s first woodworking project. Depending on tolerance for visual clutter and willingness to dust, they may be displayed on a shelf or tucked in a box under the bed.
Folks caught in the flood in High River tell me their most painful losses were photos and personal trinkets and heirlooms irretrievably saturated in mud and sewage. At least they still have their memories. I watch my elderly father desperately grabbing for precious memories as they are sucked into the muddy mess of dementia. His frustration in trying to recall a name is because that name is attached to the memory of a person whose significance he realizes is fading. His memory treasures are being de-cluttered down to the essential ones -his wife, his children, his God.
It’s not necessary to have objects to help us remember, in fact when too many things carry memories for us we can easily become hoarders and block our own paths to the future with junk from the past. A lot of memories need to be tossed, but sometimes a jar that carried precious spice a magi gave your baby can be pretty special. I wonder if Mary kept it or if Joseph sold it to finance their sojourn to Egypt.
It’s really the memories of God-moments that Mary treasured. She pondered them, meditated on them, tried to understand the significance of them.
Sometimes God has shown up in my life and handed me something I don’t know what to do with, but know it’s significant, so I store it on a shelf in my mind. Sometimes I take it down and ponder it, looking at it from all sides, then put it back. Later, when I’ve almost forgotten, it comes in handy and suddenly makes sense.
About a year ago I had a dream in which I saw a leather-covered box with long leather tethers attached. In the box I saw pieces of paper with scripture verses written on them and I had a strong sense that I would need these. I pondered this dream when I woke up and realized the box was like the phylactery boxes orthodox Jews tie on their foreheads and arms. At the time I was waiting for O.R. time so my surgeon could do a biopsy on something that had all the signs of serious advanced cancer. Fear gripped my mind; it almost paralyzed me. I remembered all the promises and significant Bible verses that stood out to me in the previous few weeks and wrote them down on coloured sticky notes. I didn’t have a leather box, but I read them over and over applying them to my mind. Even when I had trouble hearing them -(By His stripes we are healed; Bless the Lord and forget not all his benefits -who heals your diseases and renews your youth; Trust in the Lord with all your heart... and many more) I tied them on my head figuratively speaking, as weapons against the monster of fear that waged war in my mind. Metaphorically I tied them on my arm as a reminder to continue to choose to act in the light of His words, believing in God’s faithfulness.
By the time the biopsy was done I was at peace. My doctor was totally surprised when the procedure revealed a benign growth that could be easily removed. God was not surprised. But this whole exercise was just a warm-up for the next battle.
Before we left to go to our granddaughter’s birthday I saw the pile of scripture verses on my dresser. They had become precious, ponderable treasures to me and for some reason I grabbed them at the last minute and tucked them in my suitcase. Later that week, when our son-in-law was comatose in critical condition and doctors were privately giving him 0% chance of survival, I pulled out the verses and read them over him in the hospital room. My daughter borrowed them and in the battle for his life read them as well. I sometimes saw her pull them out of her pocket and lay them (now worn and curled) on the counter with her keys at the end of a long day. I saw her faith grow. I saw my faith grow. Together we, and an entire community, saw God miraculously restore her husband to perfect health in away that totally defied all predictions.
Mary didn’t understand a lot of the things she witnessed and experienced in her life. It’s easy in hindsight to put the puzzle pieces together, but God didn’t give her the complete picture all at once. He told her she was highly favoured and that the message she carried in her body was for the salvation of the world. Who could possibly fathom how that would work? Who could possibly comprehend that the pain she suffered — the gossip and rejection, the refugee flight, seeing her son shamed and executed as a criminal– were all signs of God’s favour? So until the day when her son rose from the dead and became her own Saviour she treasured the promises and pondered the memories on the shelf. When the time was right, in God’s good time, they all made sense.
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Mountain-Shaper
Look who’s here: Mountain-Shaper! Wind-Maker!
He laid out the whole plot before Adam.
He brings everything out of nothing,
like dawn out of darkness.
He strides across the alpine ridges.
His name is God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies
(Amos 4:13 The Message paraphrase)
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The Prosperous Soul
Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. (3 John 1:2)
I returned from a trip once to discover one of my houseplants drooping over the sides of a clay pot on a shelf in the corner. Somehow “Violet” had been overlooked by the friend who watered the rest of the plants, brought the mail in and let the dog out. I poured water into the poor dry pot, then sorted through the pile of envelopes on the table. I turned around when I heard the sound of dripping on the floor. The water I had just poured into poor Violet flowed over the edge of the shelf and onto the floor leaving a grey puddle on the carpet. In her neglected state her desiccated soil lacked the ability to absorb anything. Her thirsty roots could not take hold of the water meant for her and instead it poured out the bottom.
Some people are like that. You can encourage and give and “pour into them” over and over, and they still droop — perpetually, it would seem. Kind words, generous deeds, encouraging actions –all seem to merely puddle on the floor, beneath them. Yet they crave more.
I confess I’m like that sometimes. I’m not just talking about difficulty receiving compliments, but about receiving the love God pours out on me. Sometimes it seems too good to be true and I’m sure that, given my history, He surely must be sick and tired of me, at least part of the time. I find it hard to receive.
I’ve been meditating on Ephesians 3 lately. This part caught my attention: “May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love that you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God’s devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it];”
Paul’s prayer was that folks would have the power and strength to apprehend and grasp God’s love. It seems that being the recipient of God’s generous goodness requires strength. It requires exertion to hold it and keep it before it moves on.
When Violet couldn’t retain moisture I took her pot from the shelf and set it in a bowl of water for a couple of days until the soil drew it up and became saturated. In other words, she needed to soak in abundance for a while.
John addressed the familiar greeting and prayer for physical prosperity to his friend, Gaius. He said he knew Gaius’ soul already prospered because he walked in truth. He soaked in it.
Many of us lack prosperous souls because we have we have histories of feeling neglected. It’s hard to have your need for love met by parents raised by generations of parents who also suffered from love deficits. We have believed so many untruths, and been hurt or disappointed by so many people we ought to have been able to trust, that when the real thing comes along we don’t really believe it. We’ve been deceived by flattery before. We’ve had love withheld when we failed to measure up. We’ve been passed by as blessings and approval went to others. Neglect is so common, in fact, that religion has taught for centuries that we have to merit the merits of Christ. We assume love is meant for someone else but, as the song says, “not for me.” Religion always tries to qualify definitions of grace with a “yeah, but…”
Yesterday I listened to Bach’s setting of Mary’s prophetic song in Luke 1. One of my favourite songs of all times is Mary’s humble declaration, as J.B. Phillips translated it: “He has deigned to notice me.” (“Quia respexit humilitatem” in Bach’s version.) Mary was most blessed among women because she had the inner strength to accept and carry the ultimate expression of God’s love — His Son. Her response was one of praise.
Then Mary said, “My heart is overflowing with praise of my Lord, my soul is full of joy in God my Saviour, for he has deigned to notice me, his humble servant and, after this, all the people who ever shall be will call me the happiest of women! The one who can do all things has done great things for me—oh, holy is his Name! Truly, his mercy rests on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has swept away the high and mighty. He has set kings down from their thrones and lifted up the humble. He has satisfied the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away with empty hands. Yes, he has helped Israel, his child: he has remembered the mercy that he promised to our forefathers, to Abraham and his sons for evermore!” Luke 1:46-55
We will never be the vessels God designed us to be if we neglect to send our roots down deep into His love and learn to drink deeply. A productive life of beauty, pleasant fragrance, and good fruit is entirely dependent on learning to soak up God’s love, on responding to his attention and believing and knowing in an intensely intimate way that His love is not conditional or manipulative. His Love is Truth. Without his love flowing through every fiber of our being we droop. We starve in the midst of abundance.
When God said,”Be still (cease striving) and know that I am God,” in the middle of a Psalm about battle, he used the same word that described Adam’s relationship with Eve -an intimate, profound, restful knowledge.
A prosperous soul is a soul that knows it is deeply loved and cherished and can rest in that love. Everything else is poverty.
May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the [Holy] Spirit [Himself indwelling your innermost being and personality].
May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love,
That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God’s devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it];
[That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!
Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]—
To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen (so be it). (Ephesians 3:16-21 Amplified version)
As we enter a new year, my prayer for you is that you may prosper in all things and be in health -as your soul prospers. A blessed and prosperous New Year to you!
God is love. He loves you and sent His Son for you. Let that soak in for a while.
Charis: Subject to Change 