Scripture

Going on a supernatural carpet ride–Psalm 95

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All the life--on one dead log!

All the life–on one dead log!

I’ve been reading Psalm 95 regularly these last few weeks. I’m not sure how I landed on that particular psalm. It’s not one that has special connection with my current life events, and it’s not a really well-known psalm (other than its phrases about being “the sheep of his hand”). But I’ve still been drawn to it, to reading it at the starts and ends of my days. It’s a divided psalm, beginning with praise for God’s care and creativity and then abruptly shifting to warning.

All the life--inside one dead log!

All the life–inside one dead log!

I read it really late last night, when I was very tired, and I imagined myself kneeling on a prayer carpet, doing exactly what the psalm says–praying, thanking, and praising God–making the “joyful noise” it refers to. As I read the next verses, which give the image of our great King holding the deep places in his hands, forming the dry lands…, I imagined the prayer carpet rising in the air (hmm–a supernatural prayer carpet!) and visiting these places the psalmist mentioned. First it took me to the “deep places,” to caves filled with glowing stalactites and flashing jewels. Then it swooped up, up, up to the highest mountains, to peaks covered in snow and massive rocks, balanced one on top of another. Then it was down, down, down again, through the waves of the sea, swimming alongside great creatures of the deep. It then rose to the shallows, swooping in and out of beautiful coral beds. Finally, breaking through the surface, the carpet swept inland, to where the great hand of God was forming hills and valleys, scooping out canyons and sweeping flat the plains.

After “seeing” all that, I was in awe and so ready to shout the next verse: “Oh come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.”

The carpet moved again, taking me over a gentle valley, where contented sheep grazed and lambs played, all under the watchful eye of a wise, careful Shepherd. I read, “We are the people of His pasture, the sheep of His hand.” The God who created the massive, sweeping universe I’d “seen” on my carpet ride cares specially for us, the small, the weak, the foolish. The same hand that scooped out valleys and fashioned the tallest peaks clasps our heads to His chest, holds us close, carries us next to His heart.

The carpet jerked then, unsettling me from my imagination. It dropped to the ground with a thump, and the next words came strong and firm. “If only you would listen to his voice today! The Lord says, “Don’t harden your hearts as Israel did at Meribah, as they did at Massah in the wilderness. For there your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw everything I did. For forty years I was angry with them, and I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts turn away from me. They refuse to do what I tell them.’ So in my anger I took an oath: ‘They will never enter my place of rest.’”

The carpet was gone. I was left to ponder this warning that did not seem to fit with what I’d seen and read before. And then I understood–at least part of it. The Israelites, too, were given a supernatural carpet ride. In the ride of my imagination, the laws of gravity and my lungs’ need for oxygen were suspended, but the Israelites truly experienced the supernatural. Through all the plagues in Egypt, the pillar of fire in the wilderness, the Red Sea crossing–God had made Himself and His power known. They’d seen, felt, and experienced the reality of God.

Yet they still hardened their hearts.

The warning–coming directly on the heals of praise–is necessary because I, too, am fully capable of hardening my heart, even after I’ve experienced a “supernatural carpet ride” kind of time. I’ve had quite a few of those times when God has broken into my life in extraordinary ways, going before me, leading me as a cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night. He has opened up my way at times so it is as if I have walked through a sea on dry ground, the walls of water piled up on either side.

Yet I still doubt.

“Listen to my voice today! Don’t harden your heart!”

I must remember the awe and wonder. I must stay there.

I must return, if need be,

And experience the rest of the pasture.

p.s. I used the Amplified version of Psalm 95 in some spots above and the NLT in others. The link at the very top of the post takes you to a side-by-side of those two translations.

An excerpt from The Healing Presence

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soli deo gloriaI’ve mentioned in an earlier post that I am crawling my way through The Healing Presence by Leanne Payne. I read it with my Bible open on one side and my journal on the other, and a pen ready for underlining or commenting (mostly underlining!). Today I simply want to share a great quote from this book and what I prayed after reading it. The unitalicized words in parentheses are my notes.

“As we practice the Presence of Christ (clearly the entire book is about this topic; in a pithy nutshell, Payne means we step into the new life Christ has made ready for us AND we invite Him into ourselves), we make every thought ‘our prisoner, captured to be brought into obedience to Christ.’ Our entire being is thus consecrated to God, wholly committed, given over to Him. We become channels of His life; we carry the cross. (Payne’s definition of ‘carrying the cross’ is included in this sentence; it is ‘being a channel of Christ’s life to others.’)

This life manifests itself as both fruit and gift of the Spirit. As fruit of the Spirit, the character and the nature of Jesus is shown–kindness, faith, humility, love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, discipline. As the gifts of the Holy Spirit, this life manifests itself as the power to say, to do, and to know. Such are the tools with which we work the works of Christ. The fruits are the way of love, that most excellent way in which all the gifts are to operate.”

Father, this is the life I want to live, filled with the Spirit’s fruit–the very character of Jesus–and carried out in the Spirit’s power. I cannot do it on my own–I confess I too often try. Christ promised the Spirit would abide with us forever and said we would know and recognize this Spirit, for the Spirit will live with us and in us. I want to know and recognize the Spirit more and more–beginning right this very moment. Thank You.

REST

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flowers on asphaltA few years ago, the pastor at the church we were then attending preached through the book of Ruth, and I got fixated on one word.

REST

I studied the word; read commentary on the Biblical passages where it appeared; and talked one of my friend’s ears off about it during our morning walks.

Let me review the context of that word in the story. Naomi, the mother-in-law, has lost her husband and both her grown sons while she is living in a foreign country. She tells her foreign daughters-in-law she is returning to her homeland, Judah, and instructs them to stay in their own country, where she hopes and prays they will each experience rest in the home of a new husband. One daughter-in-law, Ruth, refuses to let Naomi return to Judah alone and joins her. Back in Judah, the two women struggle to survive until Ruth catches the eye and heart of a wealthy landowner named Boaz who “just happens” to be one of Naomi’s relatives. Naomi then tells Ruth, “My daughter, shall I not seek rest or a home for you, that you may prosper?”

Naomi, sure Boaz will say yes, sends Ruth to propose to Boaz, and the two are married, giving both Ruth and Naomi the rest Naomi prayed for.

The commentary I read on “rest” in Ruth focused on either the rest we find in relationship with Christ (because the story is a beautiful picture of the Gospel) or the rest/security God wants husbands and wives to find in marriage.

All beautiful stuff, but somehow it felt incomplete for me, as if there was something more I had to learn.

Yesterday all my wonderings on “rest” came rushing back. I was reading The Healing Presence by Leanne Payne. Chapter 12 discusses the idea that when we are able to truly believe in God as REAL and all He says He is, we are also truly able to live as His creations. We let go of the idea that we can create or figure out our own selves, and we are set free to focus on God and on others—to turn our gaze outward rather than inward. Payne says we are then “free to be.” The phrase that popped into my mind was this: we are free to REST.

One paragraph in particular made me think specifically of Ruth and Naomi:

To be is to experience life firsthand, to live in the present moment. The person who has the disease of introspection, who thinks painfully, constantly, and in circles about life, lives always in the painful past and for the future. In this way, he squanders his present by trying to figure out a more secure or less painful future. The future, of course, never arrives, for it is in the present moment that we “live and move and have our being.” (p. 192) 

Rest, I thought, is freedom from what Payne described. Rest is being secure not in the moment/circumstances but in the One who holds the moment and circumstances. This is true rest.

Oddly enough, though Naomi prayed for rest for Ruth, the person who really needed it was Naomi herself. Ruth seemed to be one of those rare people who have the gift of “being/resting” even in painful circumstances. When we read her story, we see evidence that Ruth was at rest even in the pain of her widowhood, even in the pain of living and journeying with a sorrowful, broken Naomi, even in the uncertainty of living as a vulnerable foreigner in a strange land. She lived fully right in her present moment.

Naomi, though, was living in her painful past, as described in Leanne Payne’s paragraph above. She was focused on creating a different future because the present was unbearable. She even changed her name to reflect this. When she returned to Judah, her former friends were shocked by the change in her appearance. “Naomi?” they asked, making sure it was still the same woman they’d known so many years before.

“Don’t call me that,” she said. “Call me Mara.” “Mara” means “bitter.” Who can blame her? She’d lost her husband and both her sons. I cannot even imagine that kind of pain. My heart breaks for Naomi. So much had been taken from her.

But in the midst of her loss, God shone the light on an incredible gift she’d already been given: Ruth.

Ruth helped Naomi walk into rest, into grasping neither the past nor the future but in being in her present time and circumstances. I’m sure Naomi never returned to being the woman she’d been before she lost her husband and sons–she wasn’t meant to–but she was no longer held captive by her sorrow. She was able to rest in the present, experiencing its joys, knowing its gifts, “living, moving, and being” in her timeless Creator.

Reading Psalm 3 with new eyes

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I wish there were a tie-in to today's post, but I simply thought these grasses were gorgeous.

I wish there were a tie-in to today’s post, but I simply thought these grasses were gorgeous.

Psalm 3 is an affliction psalm, with some vindication thrown in. It’s not one I readily identify with. I don’t have hordes of human adversaries rising up against me (verse 1) nor are multitudes plotting to overthrow me (verse 6). These things were literal for King David when he wrote this psalm, so his plea, “O my God; surely, you will strike all my enemies across the face, you will break the teeth of the wicked,” seems understandable.

But for me, a middle-class mom working part-time from home in a safe neighborhood, it doesn’t seem to fit.
Or does it?
Today, as I read the first verse of Psalm 3, an image rose in my head. I was under attack, not by human enemies but by the many, many things that want to drag and keep my attention off the Lord. Fatigue, materialism, pride, doubt, self-focus, hard-heartedness, security/safety, comfort, control, fear. Some of these enemies were directly in front of me; a few hovered around my head like giant bees; some lurked in the shadows.
grasses with backgroundIn the first chapter of James, sin is described like this kind of enemy; verse 14 speaks of sin enticing me, dragging me away, killing me. In I Peter, Satan is also described as an enemy—specifically, a lion—who longs to devour me, a wily antagonist who uses all those other forces and sins against me in some very creative ways.
Suddenly the image in my head wasn’t so far off from the psalm!
Psalm 3
*Lord, how many adversaries I have! How many there are who rise up against me! My selfishness and hard heart keep me from loving You and others. My fear keeps me from believing You are working in and through me. My sin attacks me from all sides. It never gives up.
So it is understandable that Satan tempts me with doubt and says to me, “There is no help for (you) in (your) God.”
But I refuse to believe that lie because you, O Lord, are a shield about me; you are my glory, the one who lifts my head.
This gives me the confidence to call aloud upon the Lord, and You answer me… I lie down and go to sleep; I wake again, because (You) sustain me.
I do not fear the multitudes … who set themselves against me all around. No matter what sin attacks me, whether it is from within or without, I do not have to fear.
Rise up, O LORD; set me free, O my God; surely You will strike all my enemies across the face, you will break the teeth of the wicked. Yes! This is what I need. You tell me to lay aside the sin that so easily ensnares me. You tell me to put it to death, but YOU then provide the power and will and weapons to do that.
Deliverance belongs to the Lord. Your blessing be upon your people. Bless us now, Lord, to stay strong in this battle, covered in Your armor. And thank You for this sure knowledge: we will not have to battle sin for eternity. You will break the teeth of the roaring lion. You will stomp Your heel on the sharp-toothed head of the enemy. You will deliver!
Amen!
*The italicized phrases are from Psalm 3. Every verse is included.

Small things–and my dream job

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Rez's New Name team members standing behind the gifts donated by WA girls' soccer team

Rez’s New Name team members standing behind the gifts donated by WA girls’ soccer team

I’ve decided what job I want in heaven.

It came to me as I sat with a few other women around a table covered in toiletries, jewelry, lotions, and other small gifts. These items had been donated by the girls on the Wheaton Academy soccer team my husband, Dave, coaches. An annual tournament they play in encourages every team to create a service project, and for the past two years the WA girls have supported New Name, a local ministry that partners with area churches to reach out to and walk alongside women in sex trafficking and adult entertainment industries. Last year they made cards to go into the gift bags that New Name teams deliver. This year they went a step further and purchased items to go into the gift bags. Dave gave up a practice for the girls to shop and then gather back at school to make cards and listen as I told them about New Name’s ministry.

gift driveA few days later the members of my church’s New Name chapter unloaded all the purchases at Church of the Resurrection, and we organized them and packed gift bags for outreach.

We oohed and aahed over the pretty soaps and the jewelry, and I told the group, “You know, one of these gifts may be used specifically by God to open a woman’s heart to Him. In a few weeks the girls who purchased these may not even remember what they bought; they might see what they did today as a small thing, but they may discover when they get to heaven that this very lotion”—I held up the bottle in my hand—“may make an eternal difference. Won’t it be awesome to trace it all back! To see how all our stories connect into the Big Story!” It hit me then, and I said, “That’s the job I want in heaven—to follow the stories of people’s salvation and growth in Christ back to all the ‘small’ things that played parts in it. What an awesome job it would be to write down the creativity of God in weaving it all together!”

In chapter 4 of Zechariah, the angel of the Lord visits Zechariah and gives him a vision that encourages the Israelites to keep on with the slow, laborious work of rebuilding the temple. This new temple is a very small accomplishment when compared to the temple that was destroyed, but the angel says, “Who dares despise the day of small things…?” and he goes on to tell Zechariah that the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth and see each act of obedience.

In Matthew Henry’s commentary on this passage, he wrote, ”In God’s work the day of small things is not to be despised. Though the instruments be weak and unlikely, God often chooses such, by them to bring about great things. …Though the beginnings be small, God can make the latter end greatly to increase; a grain of mustard-seed may become a great tree.”

Don’t despise the small things you’re doing. Don’t get discouraged. Keep doing them! Encourage others to persevere as well. Listen as the Spirit leads into seemingly “small things.”

And maybe in heaven I’ll get to write down one paragraph of God’s great story, and we’ll see that each of our “small things” has great significance.

New Name checkBy the way, the tournament directors awarded the top three service projects with a cash prize, and the WA team won first place! They’re donating their $1,000 prize to New Name.

Come, Holy Spirit (a reflection from a recent Taize service)

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DSC_0883We sat near the front, the great dome of the church almost directly above us. Two wide strips of green fabric crossed the dome, one nearly at its very top, the other just above the rim of the dome. The green signifies “ordinary time” in the Church calendar, the time of hope and growth that follows the Easter season. In Ordinary Time the truths of Good Friday, Easter, the Ascension, and Pentecost are to move us into renewed life in Christ.

I noticed the green banners as we entered but then forgot about them as the service began.

Midway through it, the children came to light our candles, and the cantor led us in singing a Psalm with Alleluia. Afterwards we walked to the cross and placed our lit candles around it. When I returned to my seat and settled into the silence that followed, I saw movement above me. The rising heat from the candles was billowing the green fabric banner at the rim of the dome. The green cloth rose and fell, twisted and swung. The heat rose higher, and the banner at the top began to sway.

I couldn’t stop watching them. They were alive with candle breath, rippling, their color made deeper, richer with the movement.

They were beautiful.

“Come, Holy Spirit,” I whispered. “Come with Your breath, Your wind, Your flame.”

The banners still swayed when we filed out, and in the car, I asked little Emery, my friend’s daughter, if she’d noticed the waves of green overhead. She had, but didn’t know what caused it. Her mother and I embarked on a science lesson, that heat, rising, disrupts the cooler air, causes currents.

It’s been several days now, but I can still picture those billowing banners. Luke 24:32 comes to mind. The two disciples who walked the road to Emmaus with a risen and un-recognized Christ have just realized the identity of their traveling companion. “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked … and opened the Scriptures to us?” they said.

The Holy Scriptures…

Fanned into flame by the presence of God.

Come, Holy Spirit, like a tongue of fire, a violent wind, a breath, and fan into flame the Living Word.

And with the heat that rises,

Stir me,

Disrupt me,

Move me.

Ephesians 3:14-21

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I have long loved the prayer found in the third chapter of Ephesians. Either I have never read it in the Amplified version or it bloomed with new meaning for me today (such a wonderful aspect of the living nature of Scripture!). Either way, I wanted to share it with you. It spoke to me today in terms of identity: the living God desires to fill and flood me with Himself–how do I get fooled into thinking that a self-determined identity (and is there really such a thing?) could be better than THAT? This passage is long in this version, and there is so MUCH in here, but my prayer is that you find a particular verse or even a phrase that speaks to your soul.

wild violets“For this reason [seeing the greatness of this plan by which you are built together in Christ], I bow my knees before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, … 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 of0 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).”

Want to read this passage in a different version? Click here to see this passage with the AMP, NLT, and the NIV side by side.

Isaiah 50:10

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I read this verse in Isaiah this morning and felt strongly that I was supposed to post it–just it, no commentary. I’m praying it speaks directly to the heart of someone who needs this verse, this day.

“Who is among you who [reverently] fears the Lord, who obeys the voice of His Servant, yet who walks in darkness and deep trouble and has no shining splendor [in his heart]? Let him rely on, trust in, and be confident in the name of the Lord, and let him lean upon and be supported by his God.” Isaiah 50:10, Amplified version

Odds and Ends: a recording, a verse, a suggestion

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A RECORDING: If you didn’t read the last post, a poem by Wheaton Academy student Tyler Jackson, please scroll down below this post to see it (or follow the link above). The more I read her poem, the more I am influenced by it, so I made a recording of it in case any of you would rather hear it (poetry so often has a different effect when it’s listened to) or listen as you read along. Here’s the recording:

A VERSE: In my latest post in the Confessional Living series, it was implied but not actually stated that the Holy Spirit most often uses the very Word of God to make us aware of our hidden (or not so hidden) sins. Hebrews 4:12 is a oft-quoted verse about the power of Scripture. I’m putting it here in the New Living translation because it makes the verse new and fresh even to those who have quoted it since they were children. I am also including verses 13-16 because the Gospel, hallelujah, goes beyond our sin to the Savior who rescued us through His own sacrifice.

Hebrews 4:12-16 For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable. 14 So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. 15 This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. 16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

*Here is Hebrews 4:12-16 in several different versions/paraphrases.

A SUGGESTION: Are you wanting to read Scripture more and allow God to use it to change you? Bible Gateway has recently added a section to its website titled “Scripture Engagement.” Here’s the first paragraph on that page: “This section of Bible Gateway, created in partnership with the Taylor University Center for Scripture Engagement, outlines a set of practical exercises and activities you can undertake to interact more meaningfully with the Bible.” I would encourage you to check it out by following the link above.

Odds and Ends

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This is a purposely random post. It includes further thoughts on a recent post; one quote; and one Scripture passage (in three versions) that I found beautiful.

Last weekend, as I was walking just after our first snowfall, I saw this bud lying on the ground. I brought it home, set it in the snow on our patio, and shot a picture. I changed my header picture to this shot because it certainly describes this strange transition of weather we are in. Down to 12 degrees one night, and then five days later it's back up to 50!

Last weekend, as I was walking just after our first snowfall, I saw this bud lying on the ground. I brought it home, set it in the snow on our patio, and shot a picture. I changed my header picture to this shot because it certainly describes this strange transition of weather we are in. Down to 12 degrees one night, and then five days later it’s back up to 50!

1. A couple days after posting the Meanderings on Being piece, I heard a radio interview with James Bryan Smith about his book The Good and Beautiful God. He shared this wonderful illustration from his book: A 19th century Russian Orthodox priest named John of Kronstadt was terribly bothered by the alcoholics he saw passed out in the gutters on his way to the church where he served. Unlike the other priests, he could not simply walk by them. Compelled by love, John would lift up the “hungover, foul-smelling people from the gutter, cradle them in his arms, and say to them, ‘This is beneath your dignity. You were meant to house the fullness of God.'” When I heard that amazing story, my mind jumped to my thoughts about the “God-blank” I wrote about in the Meanderings piece. Hmmm. “You were meant to house the fullness of God.” Oh, I like that.

2. If you live in the U.S. and used Google today, you saw the funky artwork at the top with a quote in it from Corita Kent. Here’s the quote:

“To understand is to stand under

which is to look up

which is a good way to understand.”

I like that, too. When I read the Google blurb on Kent (1918-1986), I learned she was a nun, a teacher, and an artist known for contrasting the idea of consumerism with spiritual concepts drawn from her religious background. I found one article on her in which a friend described her as “a Boston lady who understands friendship and ‘who quietly waits for the gentle inner voice to whisper’ where it will take her next.” An artist whose friend described her first in terms of FRIENDSHIP–and then referred to her as a thoughtful artist: that’s a good model!

3. Here are the verses: Psalms 16:5-7. I’m pasting it in here in the Amplified version (of course), but the reference link will take you to a Bible Gateway page with the ESV, Amp, and New Living translation side by side. (I love that tool!). This verse, too, informs my “meanderings on being.”

5 The Lord is my chosen and assigned portion, my cup; You hold and maintain my lot.

6 The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; yes, I have a good heritage.

7 I will bless the Lord, Who has given me counsel; yes, my heart instructs me in the night seasons.

Thanks for reading.

Jen