Hope

Day #18: In the desert with Jesus: Traveling

 Sheep watching

Right now, I am sitting in an office center at the Clarion Hotel in San Angelo Texas. There is a party going on, I think it may be a “Quinceanera” in the ballroom. All I hear is the “thump, thump, thump” of the base and Beyoncé’s voice saying “If you liked it then you should a put a ring on it……….” The day of traveling was like the movie, “Planes, trains and automobiles.” We had to run from Terminal 8 to Terminal 92 (no joke) at the Denver airport. We had to spend a little extra time with TSA with E’s Dad’s remains though the checkpoint. Then when we got to Midland/Odessa the luggage was already off the carousel. There was another guy on the same flight and they sent his bags to some other town. We went back to ticketing/check-in and handed over our baggage claim ticket to the smiling lady behind the counter and then she disappeared behind the double doors. We held our breath and said a prayer. Both bags were there. Thank you Jesus!

Then, when we got into our rental car we noticed there was a crack across the entire windshield. So back I went. We got another car and headed down the road. Around 100 miles east to San Angelo to take Elaine’s Dad’s ashes to his final resting place here on earth, the place he loved. A mission of love and a promise……his only request. So tomorrow we will take him there and say another goodbye.

Tonight the three cousins shared stories and I listened and laughed along with them, and somehow, it all fits. This mission we are on fits with this journey of Lent. Sometimes its good to go back to your roots, the place you grew up and had your first memories. And sometimes it’s fun to come along while others revisit old times, old memories, old stories.

The stories are what hold us all together after all. I am thinking that Jesus was probably doing some reflecting about His own growing up years during those 40 days in the desert. It touches me that Jesus went back to where His own cousin John the Baptist preached after he was thrown in prison. I wonder if he was thinking about growing up, and cousins, and family and his hometown.

I didn’t have much quiet time today, we were on the move from 5 AM until just about an hour ago. Tonight, I will reflect on today’s events and be thankful I have clothes.

And the beat goes on in the ballroom. They have switched to Spanish music now.

Blessings from the road……………San Angelo, Texas tonight.

Fact: San Angelo was once the biggest producer of wool in the world. (In case you were wondering why the sheep picture)

Day 17 in the Desert

Monday blessings....

It’s always easy when you’re striding along that wide sunlit road and things are going well. It’s easy to sit sanctimoniously here in my safe place when everything’s going just fine and shout encouragement up to you as you’re desperately scrambling on the rocks. I shout, “Hey you there, I’ll bring you some water when you come down! You can do it, I know you can, keep up the good work, bro!  You barely glance my direction for you’re too busy concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other.

But I have been through enough to remember that hard path, and for that I am thankful. And so I scramble up to you and side by side, we make it together. I hand you a canteen and I can see you are grateful.

There have been too many times I have passed people by, too intent on my own story to find out about theirs.

I’m wondering, on this 17th day in the desert with Jesus, if I’ve ever really sacrificed anything for the sake of the cross.

My heart goes out to those today in the persecuted church. The list grows long…….China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Africa, Ukraine. All over the globe people are losing their lives, and not just for the cross. In some cases, just for being different brand of religion or people group.

And right here in America…..it’s getting more unpopular isn’t it, to call yourself a Christian. I like what they went by in the early church, “Followers of the Way.” Yes I like that very much. Every day here in this land, people are waking up with flickering candles, trying desperately to keep them lit no matter what. They cup their hands pretectively around them, against all odds.

I see people, brave ones in difficult situations; making the right choices when it’s neither easy or popular. I see the worry on their faces, wondering how far the paycheck is going to stretch and still not hesitating to give when they see someone else in need. Taking care of sick kids, sick parents, sick friends. Everyday they light their candle of hope and set out again courageously on paths that are steep and getting steeper.

We may not always be exempt from real persecution or threat here in America and I can only hope and pray that we will be good stewards of our safe shores.

And help me, Lord, be one to blow a little breath of encouragement to keep my neighbor’s candle lit instead of being one who snuffs it out with negative attitudes and cynicism. Or grumbling and complaining. I want to be one who flickers the flame to life.

A hope bringer to a world that needs it desperately.

There can be no faith without doubt, no hope without anxiety, and no trust without worry. These shadow us from dawn to dusk, indeed, they appear even in our dreams. As long as we withhold internal consent to these varied faces of fear, they are no cause for alarm, because they are not voluntary. When they threaten to consume us, we can overpower them with a simple and deliberate act of trust: “Jesus, by your grace I grow still for a moment and I hear you say, ‘Courage, It’s me! Don’t be afraid.’ I Place my trust in your presence and your love. Thank you.

Brennan Manning

 

This next week will be interesting since I will be traveling and access will be hit and miss. Posts may be a bit “different” So I thank you in advance for your patience. Lori

photo: google images

Lent Day #15: Arise O Sleeper

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“Arise o sleeper and let the light of Christ shine on you.” Ephesians 5:14  

In fact, let it shine on every dark area of our lives.

Well, God is amazing, that’s all I have to say this morning. Yesterday’s post was such a struggle and today I awoke with this Scripture right away and the words just came along with it. Sometimes the Holy Spirit just blows through like the wind and our task, or challenge I should say, is to be ready and receptive. I am not always but He woke me early today so it was much easier for me to hear in the dark, before the sounds of life came crashing in.

I was thinking about different kinds of waking up this morning. Many are waking to routines, the sleepwalking, mind numbing ones. Others are waking to sickness again, sick of being sick. They wonder how they can get through another day of it. Others are springing out of bed with emotions like joy and exultation. My guess would be those are people without aches and pains, or maybe they’re in love. In that “honeymoon” season when all colors look more vibrant and the world seems more like a Hallmark card than Rottencards.com. My guess would be that most of us are probably somewhere in the middle.

Laying there in the dark, I remembered this. I was waking up in our old red canvas tent in Yosemite where we went every summer and fall for much of my life. The sounds always amplified as they echoed off those steep canyon walls. More real than they ever were, I can still hear them all these years later. I hear tent pegs being pounded in, car doors slamming, a campsite waking up. I hear the scolding call of the Stellar’s Jay from the pines above, going from tree to tree……….and tent flaps unzipping to the brace of cold morning air and the hopeful sound of a crackling campfire. And walking out to greet the sun with a mug of steaming heaven.

I also remember times of waking up through a terrible mantle of grief so heavy it seemed it would smother me. I wondered how I would ever get through another day. But I also remembered something else. That moment right before I remembered that terrible crushing thing when all I was conscious of was waking.

That little space before I remembered is where the light of Christ waited for me.

Maybe that’s the answer, maybe we could learn to live in that little space of hope where Jesus waits. I pray that His light may shine on you today wherever you are and however you are waking this morning. It’s day 15 in the Desert with Jesus.

For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6

 

Lent day #12: The Weight of Time

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It’s the 12th day of Lent and I can’t shake the notion that stretching ahead of me are 28 more. Right now that seems like a lot. I wouldn’t normally give it a thought, but there is this writing thing, this faith project I have entered into. I could give it up right here and now except that it would be like saying that God has no more words to give me……and I know He does. He always does. That is if I am quiet long enough to hear.

I’m out in the shop attempting to wipe the slate of my mind as clear as the screen of the iPad balancing on my lap. It’s relaxing out here. As I sip my tea, I hear the plaintive cry of the quail making their way through between the houses. I have a strong sense that God is trying to get me to focus only on today and not look at how many days there are to go.

I am struck by the thought that before these days are through, this Lent lesson will have carved out an indelible place of importance in my walk with the Lord.

But still, I wonder if I will last. And I wonder how many readers will see this through along with me. But really, isn’t that the whole point of Lent? To travel this journey not on our own strength but on God’s alone. Anything we try to do or not do for 40 days is going to be a challenge.

Today I find myself preoccupied with thoughts of time. So immersed are we in the constraints of it that we feel it heavily, every waking moment. Well, I do anyway. I didn’t think much about time when I had a lot more of it ahead of me. I wonder how Jesus dealt with it?

He who was timeless was plunked down into the middle of this aging planet and immediately had to deal with the fact that He had only 33 short years to complete His mission. It boggles the mind to think that while Jesus was here, He was fully conscious of the timeless place He was going back to.

Everything we do here on earth from the time we get up until the time we go to bed deals with the passage of time. When I start my workweek I am already looking ahead to the end of the week, and I think I can speak for all my co-workers that they feel the same. We put in our time, but real life starts when we get home.

But what if we practiced being fully immersed in time here and now, but also fully immersed in Eternity like Jesus. Is that even possible? And how would we live differently? What would be expedient and what wouldn’t matter as much?

I think God wants us to be fully present in the here and now, and yet always keeping alive our hope of an eternity spent with Him. I think that’s the best way we can honor God. Jesus walked this earth handing out that hope and healing to everyone He encountered. In fact, He was that hope. And nothing would make Him happier to know that we were doing the same.

We put in our time here with the hope……………Knowing real life starts when we get home.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the Heavens and on earth. visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything………..For it was the Father’s good pleasure to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in Heaven. Colossians 1: 15-19
 

Lent Day #10: Joining God in the Present

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“Your future looks uncertain and feels flimsy – even precarious. That is how it should be. Secret things belong to the Lord, and future things are secret things. When you try to figure out the future, you are grasping at things that are Mine. This, like all forms of worry, is an act of rebellion: doubting My promises to care for you.” Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

One of the things God is teaching me during this 40 days to Calvary is to be fully aware of the present even as my mind veers off  relentlessly toward a reckless road somewhere in the future. He is telling me not to miss the moments because all around me there are people who don’t have many left. And the ones they do have are precarious at best.

It seems God keeps bringing me these examples lately. Two co-workers on the Intel memorial page……..gone. One from a heart attack the day after surgery and the other I am not sure about. Then, later in the day I inquired about someone else on our Shift because he wasn’t answering his work phone. Today we found out he is in the hospital with cancer. All of them around my age and younger. It seems God is saying…….”Slow down. Pay attention. When you wallow in worry you steal from your present and I didn’t create you for that.”  

The best way we can glorify God is by standing with Him right here in the present without wasting precious time immersing ourselves in the past or worrying excessively about events we have no control over.

This morning, I was rushing out to the car to get in some quiet time; (whooshing by people in order to get out to the car and think God thoughts mind you) and on the way I saw my buddy Gilbert who does maintenance here at the site. I stopped and asked him how he was and he paused as he looked down at the floor a minute. “Oh”……he said, shaking his head. “I have been up since 4:00 AM. My daughter called because my ex-wife had kicked her out of the house to let her son move in. She didn’t have anywhere else to go.” He said she had all her belongings there in her car.

Sometimes, the best way we can pray is by closing our mouth and listening to someone else pour their heart out.

I am so glad I didn’t rush by him so I could go out and do something “Holy.” Not that there is anything wrong with that. When I left, we were both smiling and joking. I hope I made him feel just a little bit better.

By the time I got to my car, my bagel was like rubber but I didn’t care. That, and my coffee tasted like communion. I opened the sunroof on my car and birdsong greeted me. And Jesus has been in the wilderness 10 days now.

He must be so hungry.

Lent Day 8: When we tell God He’s not enough

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Each day I choose to give in to fear and anxiety, I am telling God He is not enough. It all begins with a choice doesn’t it? Faith is an everyday active choice of opening our eyes to what’s right in front of us and actively saying:

Despite the circumstances, the uncertain road ahead, the panic and indecision that threatens to smother my soul, I am choosing right now this day to open my eyes to the gifts you have given me today. I am making a conscious choice to live a life that says, “You God, are more than enough.”

When we are preoccupied with everything that might happen if we make a wrong choice we make ourselves God. We are telling God that He’s not big enough to make something wonderful come out of it. When we wake up under a cloak of fear, we rob the people around us. We are less than God wants us to be. The people I care about deserve more than that. I don’t want to rob them or myself of being less than what they deserve: A conduit of God’s love and grace. I don’t want to miss what God has for me today.

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The Christian life more than any other, should be full of optimism, hope, life, joy…….laughter should come easy. (Thankfully most of the time, that is one thing that does come easy for me.) Lent for me this year is becoming a process of emptying myself of all the junk that threatens to pollute my spirit and replacing it with what God wants to put there.

When I started this 40 day journey I didn’t know where it would lead. I still don’t know if I have enough words to do this 40 days straight. It’s a process of waiting each day until the Holy Spirit moves me to write. Honestly, today I felt pretty empty. But God showed me how incredibly vast my fortune was. I couldn’t ignore it.

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But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Matthew 6:33,34

 

And thank you Elaine, for the “Mini-Daffys” they make me smile……..

Lent Day #6: Living with Loss

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Part of being human is actively living each and every day with a certain amount of loss. We carry it about like an anchor. It’s like paddling around in a boat that we know is leaking, taking on more water, more loss with each passing day. We look at that picture and it hurts to see the smile, we only feel the pang of passing years too many. More water, more loss.

We get so used to it we don’t realize just how much we are taking on until it gets to the alarming level and now it’s chilly and covering our legs.

It’s crucial now to do something.

At first glance it seems there are only two choices, we either bail faster or give up to despair. There is a third and best answer and that is to find the repair kit to fix the leak. God is the repair kit. Not only can He fix the leak that enables us to stay afloat, He can also repair the damage that was caused by the taking on excess water. He can take our pile of losses.

We don’t have to let our bad choices, past regrets, missed opportunities and the loss of so many people we held dear completely overwhelm us. Satan loves nothing better than to taunt us with all that. To get us to focus on how badly we screwed up, and how there is nothing we can ever do to fix it. To get us to dwell on everything we don’t have instead of everything we do have……right here and right now.

During this Lenten season, try to be still and listen to what God wants to say to you.  Let Him quiet your fears. The loss has happened and it will continue to happen, but the Holy Spirit can fill that sorrow flooding your heart and tearing down your soul.

And each day we live, He is actively working toward our healing. The culmination of which will be complete perfection when at last we stand before Him. Jesus lived His whole life in the shadow of the cross, yet He didn’t waste a single moment dwelling on it.

He loved, he laughed, he healed. He knew the end of the story. And it was the happiest ending this world has ever seen or will ever see. And we can be part of it!

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:19

Lent Day #5: The Wilderness Echoes

And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. Matthew 4:1

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Sometimes you just have to go out like Jesus did.

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you need to go out and let the wilderness speak its grand silence………………

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Sometimes we just need to be reminded that He is still in control, because the flowers are still blooming.

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And nature is still doing what it does best……….

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By glorifying the God who created all things.

That’s what we saw today, that’s what we were reminded of. That no matter what, everything will eventually be okay.

Now and forever. And though there are always thorns in life, we needn’t be distracted by them.

For the beauty of hope always grows right alongside.

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For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison…….2 Corinthians 4:17

Lent day 3: For the overworked and underwhelmed.

My future belongs to Him

 

My post today is for all the “doers” out there. You know who you are.

While the rest of us are sitting around scratching our heads trying to figure out which direction to go, you’ve already finished the task and finished it well. For you, there is a line drawn out for every day, and each day you put yourself at the end of it while propelling others forward.

While we ruminate, pontificate, busily arranging our words by the light of the blue screen or the bedside table, you “doers” are working behind the scenes and on the front lines, doing all the stuff that wouldn’t get done otherwise.

And they aren’t just meaningless tasks to you, for love is the force that motivates each one.

You might think what you do isn’t noticed.The world may not applaud you for it seeks the loud, the brash, the flashy. And though your glory sings as bright as the sun, too much of the time it reverberates against empty walls. It can be a lonely place. You make it look so easy and effortless that when you finally collapse against the burden everyone around you is shocked into silence.

You find yourself identifying with the Psalmist when he questions, wondering where your help is coming from. You long for the times when life was simple. You crave that rest for the body, mind, soul and spirit that Jesus talked about.

Know that He understands. In fact, He was one of those “doers” while He was on earth. There were times when He longed to get away from the demands of life, the press of the crowds. And He did. He knew the value of hiding Himself away for a time to be with His Father.

I don’t know about you, but I can really identify with that Jesus. As much as I like the group I work with, there are times when I would much rather work with a roomful of cats or dogs. I don’t think Jesus ever felt like that.

But He did feel like you. Right now where you sit, stand, or work. Sit idle for just a moment. Take a breath and expect that peace to come. He will hollow out a little place of peace in your soul so that you can go on. He has promised it, and He never breaks His promises.

And take heart, for everything you do has the weight of eternity behind it, God says it will last forever.

“And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.” Matthew 10:42

Image from Google

Wandering, Lent Day 2

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“But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4

I have a feeling Satan didn’t waste any time trying to tear Jesus down on His way out into the desert. I can imagine him doing just what he does to us. Using our own humanity against us. Reminding Jesus of all that He lost, all that He left behind, all that He still had to suffer.

Can’t you just hear him?

I can’t believe you actually went for this crazy plan……..these people aren’t worth dying for…….God wouldn’t care you know, if you turned just one of these tiny little stones into bread.

He tries to defeat us in our minds first. Then he goes for our physical needs. Our humanity. What’s your weakness today? Right now. Mine was insomnia and worry last night. I stared at the ceiling fan going around and around and looked at the clock which taunted me. I was feeling fearful about the future and sorrow crept in. Tears came in the dark.

I started with the 23rd Psalm which is the one thing I always fall back on when I can’t sleep:

“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want”……and then I stopped. Do I really believe that? Do I actually believe that God is all that I need in every single circumstance, no matter what? It’s easy to believe that when everything is going smooth. When everyone I care about is okay. But is my faith real enough to believe that even though I can’t fix people and situations I can still feel peaceful because God is in control and loves them even more than I do?

The gentle purr of the cat resting on my shoulder lulled me. I thought of Jesus in the desert. I believe that He was thinking of us during those 40 days and for us, He didn’t give in.

And right now today, He is interceding for us still. He has been through His desert so we wouldn’t have to. But so many times we put ourselves there anyway don’t we?  

Jesus focused not on what He didn’t have during those 40 days, but what He did have. And I can see HIm stopping to rest in the shade, tired and weary and seeing these little flowers and thanking God for His perfect plan.

Because all He could see was the victory at the other end. All He could see was me.

At every moment you have to decide to trust the voice that says, “I love you. I knot you together in your Mother’s womb.” (Ps. 139:13); “Stop wandering around. Instead, come home and trust that God will bring you what you need,” “For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you;” “The root choice is to trust at all times that God is with you and will give you what you most need.” Henry Nouwen