Giving Up . . . For Now

If you've been reading my blog, thanks. I've enjoyed the journey, and your comments along the way have really encouraged me. The lesson that cannot seem to survive the arduous journey from my head to my heart is one of grace -- that I do not have to be good enough. In my challenge to live with myself, this blog has begun to represent another way to fail, and so, I am suspending my efforts for now. I hope to return and finish the journey with Oswald at some point in the future, but for now, my pilgrimage is heading in a new direction. Thanks, again, for being interested.

Barbara

The "Go" of Unconditional Identification

"If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on having your own way, and always certain that the other person is more likely to be wrong than you are, then there are whole areas of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze" -- Oswald.

I can be arrogant. I can be hard and vindictive. I can be a misanthrope, and I am certain that there are huge parts of my nature that have not been transformed by his gaze. Come, Lord Jesus.

The "Go" of Renunciation

"He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man," John 2:25.

He knows what is in me -- my thoughts, my fears, my desires, my longing, my strengths, my weaknesses, my secrets. He knows. He knows.

The "Go" of Reconciliation

I have only experienced this sort of reconciliation once. I was on the receiving end. My pastor came to my husband and me at the tail end of Sunday school. We had been teaching the three year olds of whom we had two and he had one.

A bit of background: A year before we had been the best of friends -- the pastor, his wife, my husband, me and our four young children. We got together on the spur of the moment -- combining pot-luck style what our frugal budgets could afford, caring for each other's children, sharing plants from each other's gardens, meeting over coffee and dreaming about the future. Then we -- my husband and I -- had gone into business with my pastor's in-laws, and while the business was a stunning success, the partnership was a disaster. My husband and I had suffered what seemed like a death, and now, an ocean of pain lay between our pastor and us.

That particular morning, he was going to be serving communion, and as he said it, he wanted to do as Scripture taught and be reconciled -- if he had done something to offend us. If. If. Hm-m-m. What a powerful little word. We were pretty young at the time, and I've never been good on the spur of the point, but I wish I had had the presence of mind to protest. To say this mess -- for indeed it was one huge mess of mistakes (big and small on both sides), hurt feelings, misunderstanding, and betrayal -- could not be resolved in the five minutes before he needed to be upstairs for worship. But I didn't. My husband didn't. We were taken by surprise. We had no idea how to begin to put the damage into a conversation, let alone a five-minute, neat-and-tidy reconciliation. No, the script for this conversation had been pre-written, and we played our part, said our lines.

Months later, before we left town and moved halfway across the country to start a new life, I sought out a mediator and invited this pastor and his wife to what I imagined might be a real reconciliation -- not neat and tidy at all but by its very messiness imbued with genuine meaning. They declined.

And to this day, honestly, I wonder how it's really supposed to work.

The Divine Commandment of Life

"The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God's life in us expresses itself as God's life, not as human life trying to be godly" -- Oswald.

I found these sentences to be simultaneously comforting and perplexing. Comforting because I have always felt defeated by the words, "Be perfect." How can God command that? He can demand it because he is the Perfect One living in me. Perplexing because what in the world does that mean? How can he live in me? Where? I know we teach three-year-olds to say Jesus lives in their hearts, but really, there is nothing but blood pumping through tissue in that particular section of my chest. Where is he really? In my mind?

Don't be so literal, Barb. OK, I get that. If you spread my chest or crack open my skull, you will not find God there. He is a Spirit, but what does that mean?

Partly, it means this: Mystery beyond my understanding. He is a Person whom I cannot see, hear or touch, and yet, I know he exists. When I try to deny him, make sense of the world without him, I cannot.

So here's where the comfort comes in again: All my do-gooding will not make me like him. If he is to live in me, it will be his doing, not mine.

You want perfection, God? Bring it.

Are You Going on with Jesus?

The thing that struck me in today's Scripture passage is how clearly Christ knows our weakness -- the certainty that we will fail him -- and yet he calls us friends. Oswald jumps off from verse 28: "You are those who have stood by me in my trials." The irony, however, is that these words are said at the Last Supper -- just before the Garden of Gethsemane where his best friends fall asleep when he asks them to pray and then desert him when he is arrested. Peter denies even knowing Christ -- not just once but three times. And Jesus knows all of this -- predicts Peter's betrayal -- when he says the words Oswald uses in today's devotional: "You are those who have stood by me."

Make no mistake, Barb. You are weak. You know it. God knows it. And yet, he calls you his friend. He sees you. He knows you. He remembers you. He loves you. Just as you are.

Missionary Weapons (1)

"God's training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint" -- Oswald.

I am discovering that Oswald has several themes to which he returns time and again. The relationship between the private and public life of the saint is one of these themes. Oswald emphasizes that the private life must be solid for the public life to be of any value. And each time he returns to the subject, I am reminded of how easily I get it reversed -- focusing on my public life at the expense of my private relationship with God. The thing is, public service will flow naturally from personal worship, but it doesn't work in reverse. Not for me anyway. Public service, when it becomes the focus of my effort and attention, drains rather than revives me.

I am currently the elder in charge of worship at my church. I have helped to orchestrate several services where, while people told me they were blessed, I walked away discouraged and exhausted, blue even -- a sure sign, I think, that I was focusing on public service without the training ground of a hidden, personal worship of my God.

First things first, Barb. First things first.

Do It Yourself (2)

My husband and I had an interesting discussion today about the merit of doing things out of duty vs. doing things out of love. I said that doing things out of duty was way better than not doing things at all, and he said he thought I was discounting the cost/the fallout of doing things out of duty -- resentment primarily -- both on the part of the person doing his duty and the person receiving a gift given solely out of duty.

After reading Oswald's entry for today, I'm wondering if part of taking every thought/project captive is taking the time to move from a knee-jerk dutiful response to a love-motivated one.

Oswald: " . . . a person is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation, but is also committed, responsible and accountable to Jesus Christ's view of God."

We must transform our minds, and that includes trading resentment-inducing duty for love-motivated action. Perhaps it will take more time. Perhaps we will get less done. But what gets done will be worth doing -- on every level.

Do It Yourself (1)

Oswald makes two really interesting distinctions today: 1) sin vs. human nature; and 2) innocence vs. holy character. He seems to be saying that while Jesus has done the work of defeating sin in our lives, washing us white as snow, our daily choices move us from what is natural to what is spiritual.

Consider this excerpt:

"The conflict is along the line of turning our natural life into a spiritual life, and this is never done easily, nor does God intend it to be done easily. It is done only by a series of moral choices. God does not make us holy in the sense of character; He makes us holy in the sense of innocence; and we have to turn that innocence into holy character by a series of moral choices. These choices are continually in antagonism to the entrenchments of our natural life, the things which erect themselves as ramparts against the knowledge of God" -- Oswald.

Turning a natural life into a spiritual one. Turning innocence into holy character. Making choices that frustrate my natural inclinations.

What in my life exalts itself against the knowledge of God? What keeps me from wanting to seek him, study him, follow him? Those are the things that need to be destroyed -- even if they don't seem like sin.

Fountains of Blessings

Shortly after we moved to the Portland-Vancouver area in 1995, we discovered the Salmon Street fountain along the Willamette River boardwalk. I had never seen anything like it. A wide circle of powerful water jets shot into the center of an only slightly dipped surface. There was no pool, no off-limits. This was a fountain meant to be played in. Children ran through it screaming. Teenagers stood in the very center, seeing how long they could withstand its power. But it was also a "guessing" fountain. It changed from the outside jets shooting inward to the center jets shooting outward. My husband and I let our 5-year-old boys peel off their Sunday clothes and run through the fountain in their Superman underwear. We took turns running through it ourselves with our 18-month-old daughter in our arms. We squealed, laughed and got soaked. Then we got great big ice cream cones, sat on the benches and dried out a bit before heading home for naptime.

The Salmon Street fountain is the one that came to mind as I read Oswald's entry today. "You are to focus on the Source so that out of you 'will flow rivers of living water' -- irrepressible life." Not just a fountain to be admired as beautiful from a safe distance but a fountain full of giggling, squealing, surprising, powerful life.

The Far-Reaching Rivers of Life

What amazing comfort I find in these words this morning. Focus on the Source. Forget the obstacles. Wow! How terribly simple and how amazingly sweet. Because, you see, I just can't figure out the obstacles. I stare and stare at my depression, my finances, my apparent inability to experience God's joy and peace. My stuck-ness. And I cannot fix any of it. The obstacles, and my meditation on them, produce in me a nearly irresistible desire to retreat.

Focus on the Source. Look at God. The Father, the Son, the Spirit. See the wisdom. The bounty of his goodness flowing over. Trust him with me. Trust him that his waters will flow around or over or through the obstacles.

Words for me to live by today: Eyes off the obstacles. Eyes on God.

The Missionary Watching

"In the Garden of Gethsemane they slept as a result of their own sorrow, and at the end of three years of the closest and most intimate relationship of their lives they 'all . . . forsook him and fled' (Matthew 26:56)" -- Oswald.

I understand the desire to sleep, to escape. Reality seemed to be crumbling around them. Had the last three years all been an illusion? Were they kidding themselves? The present certainly seemed to discredit their belief that Jesus was ushering in a new order. He was predicting a betrayal, his own death. This was not what they had expected when they left their livelihoods to follow him.

For three years, they had what I say I want -- the closest and most intimate relationship of their lives -- and yet they forsook him and fled. Then, in their dejectedness, he came to them and gave them the one gift that allowed them to believe, stay awake and stand firm -- the Holy Spirit.

My relationship with God -- such as it is -- has defined my life. Will I forsake it now because it has not played out as I envisioned? Will I judge the basis of my life an illusion because I don't like the results?

My temptation when faced with what appears to be a crumbling reality -- but is actually a shattering of illusions -- is to sleep. Only the Holy Spirit can give me what is required to stay awake, face my disappointment and stand firm.

His!

"The spirit that comes in is not that of doing anything for Jesus, but of being a delight to Him" -- Oswald.

Someone sent me a note recently: "Just wanted you to know how much I appreciate your person. What you do is icing on the cake." I love the idea, but my sense of myself is so tied up with what I do that I'm not sure I get it. What does someone mean when he says he appreciates my person, and how can I be a delight to God apart from obedience, i.e. performance? keeping the law?

I have been struggling with a whirlwind of emotions over the last few days. When I finally sought out counsel, I ended up spewing a confused mixture of tears and anger and disappointed idealism and jealousy and fear and legitimate points in a hundred different directions. My wise counsel suggested that I attempt to narrow the onslaught into one overarching emotion. Here's what I came up with: "less than." I feel less than.

I continually compare myself not only to the young, beautiful and talented around me but to my own sense of what I should be, and I fall short. This process is so ingrained in me that I do it without conscious thought. I walk into a room, and boom! I intuitively know that I do not measure up. Sometimes it happens before I even enter the room, and I dread going because I know I will not be enough or I will be too much. I will just be wrong. My flight defense kicks in before I've even faced the danger, and all I want to do is go home where it's safe.

I end up being jealous of other people's successes because their successes are my failures. I should have lost the weight. I should have run the half-marathon. I should have written that or suggested that or had that brilliantly creative idea.

I can see the sickness in this, how it is the opposite of what God wants. I think I could even spell out the right way to think, the right way to judge my worth. Only I cannot seem to get there. A friend described her own journey recently as trying to ride a stationary bike cross country. I think that comes close to what I'm experiencing -- lots of work, goal in sight, no progress.

The Sacrament of Sacrifice

I confess that I'm writing this blog out of order. I wrote the blog for September 4 before this one. Hence, it might seem like the light bulb of understanding is brightening in reverse order.

"Our Lord's teaching is always anti-self-realization . . . It is not that God makes us beautifully rounded grapes, but that He squeezes the sweetness out of us. Spiritually, we cannot measure our life by success, but only by what God pours through us, and we cannot measure that at all . . . It is time now to break the life, to cease craving for satisfaction, and to spill the thing out" -- Oswald.

Anti-self-realization. Cease craving for satisfaction. An immeasurable life. Breaking. Squeezing.

God isn't asking me to be the perfect specimen. Just the opposite. He's asking me to quit trying. Offer up the perfect specimen as a sacrifice. Let it be broken and spilled.

Destiny of Holiness

The One Thing That Matters . . .

Oswald: "The one thing that matters is whether a man will accept the God Who will make him holy. At all costs a man must be rightly related to God."

I am going to a conference for work today entitled, "This One Thing . . ." Only I wonder if it will be about the One Thing. I have a feeling it will be about our mission statement and how everything we do should be about serving the poor -- "serving more and serving better" is the phrase I have heard batted about. Good stuff. "Right, good, noble affinities" in Oswald's words.

But the thing is I consistently let the good stuff crowd out the One Thing.

The One Thing: my right relationship with God.

My Joy . . . Your Joy

"The life that is rightly related to God is as natural as breathing wherever it goes" -- Oswald.

As natural as breathing. The opposite of self-conscious. God living through me. Not me stiltedly trying to do his bidding and then evaluating my performance.

"Be rightly related to God, find your joy there, and out of you will flow rivers of living water" -- Oswald. But the rivers won't be my concern. I won't be judging their flow or forcing them or damming them up. I will be living moment by moment ever conscious of God's goodness and my position before him as a beloved child.

Rightly related to God. As natural as breath. Finding my joy in his presence, in his unchanging, unwavering approval. That is what I long for. That is what I pray for.

Am I Convinced by Christ?

In my own words: My usefulness is not the measure of my worth. When I am in right relationship with God -- that is, when I understand at my core that he loves me and I, in turn, love him with all that I am -- then I will fulfill God's purpose for me. I may not hear from anyone. I may not think I've done anything out of the ordinary. I may not write anything that makes an obvious impact. In fact, it may appear that I am a nobody who has done nothing of any lasting value or it may appear that I have created conflict and havoc in one situation after another. It doesn't matter. My usefulness is not the measure of my worth. All that matters is that I keep in right relationship with God. Any work he wants to do through me, he will do, and I might not ever know it because . . . my usefulness is not the measure of my worth. Believe me, the only way that idea is going to get through my thick head is if I repeat it over and over and over. My usefulness is not the measure of my worth. My usefulness is not the measure of my worth.

Sublime Intimacy

All this time -- years and years -- I have thought it was a small thing that I questioned God's love for me. More his problem than mine, as arrogant as that sounds. After all, I've been obedient. Isn't that the important point? Like the older brother, I've been slaving away, walking the straight and narrow. I've got a pretty good record on all the biggies -- lying, cheating, stealing, adultery, murder. I don't use drugs or drink to excess. I go to church regularly, try to use the best of my gifts in his service, speak the truth, put my children's needs before my own, vote pro-life, boycott Victoria's Secret. I've been here slogging it out day after day, a real trooper, but I have questioned whether God noticed or cared -- questioned his love for me.

Gradually, I am beginning to see that what I thought was a small thing is perhaps the only thing.

Here's how Oswald describes faith: "unutterable trust in God, trust that never dreams that he will not stand by us."

If I don't believe he loves me, how can I trust him? And if I don't trust him, how can I possibly have faith that he will stand by me? And if I don't have faith that he will stand by me, what good is the obedience?

Jesus loves me. I need to begin at the beginning. Because without that foundation, without the fundamental, unshakable knowledge that I am loved, I've got nothing. And my obedience is nothing but wasted time.

What's the Good of Prayer?

A few related questions and answers from the Heidelberg catechism:




Q 116: Why is prayer necessary for Christians?

A: Because it is the chief part of the gratitude which God requires of us, and because God will give his grace and Holy Spirit only to those who sincerely beseech him in prayer without ceasing and who thank him for these gifts.

Q 117: What is contained in a prayer which pleases God and is heard by him?

A: First, that we sincerely call upon the one true God, who has revealed himself to us in his Word, for all that he has commanded us to ask of him. Then, that we thoroughly acknowledge our need and evil condition, so that we may humble ourselves in the presence of his majesty. Third, that we rest assured taht, in spite of our unworthiness, he will certainly hear our prayer for the ssake of Christ our Lord, as he has promised us in his Word.

Q 118: What has God commanded us to ask of him?

A: All things necessary for soul and body which Christ the Lord has included in the prayer which he himself taught us.

I was reading a friend's blog where she wrote beautifully about contentment and how she went from seeing her situation in light of all that it lacked to seeing it in light of the abundance God had provided -- not only in terms of worldly goods but in terms of relationships -- and it started me thinking about my own discontentment. I have allowed severe frustration with my job to seep out into the rest of my life, coloring my perspective on everything.

I know myself well enough to know that I cannot just decide to change my perspective. I can make a conscious effort and wear a look-on-the-bright-side suit for a few days, but it will quickly begin to chafe -- to look and feel unnatural. I need God to change me. I need not to just look on the bright side but to be blinded by it.

And, according to Oswald, that's where prayer comes in: "It is not so true that prayer changes things as that prayer changes me . . . God has so constituted things that prayer on the basis of redemption alters the way in which a man looks at things. Prayer is not a question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in a man's disposition."

My Father, who dwells in a place that I cannot see, whom I can neither hear nor smell nor touch, but whom I know loves me as one of his children,
You are perfect. You are loving and wise.
Let me see the evidence of you all around me. Work your will in me and in the world about me.
Please, Father, give me what I need this day to work, to write, to create, to mother, to encourage and love my husband, to deal with the conflicts that will inevitably arise. This day, Lord, let me know what it means to find my identity in you, to abide in you.
Forgive me for turning to all the wrong things for comfort. Forgive me for not trusting you, for doubting your goodness, your interest, your love.
Help me to forgive the imperfections in those around me, rather than counting and admiring the scars I've acquired. Give me glimpses of the scars I've caused -- not as a road to shame but as an escape from misanthropy and a guide to grace.
You know that I am but dust. Keep the steps small and the way clear. Conquer and obliterate the demons of discontentment and depression within me. Open my eyes to your presence, your riches, your work in the world around me.
For you are perfect, beautiful, majestic, the author of all good things, and worthy of my praise.

Amen.

Prayer Choice and Prayer Conflict

I am just beginning to learn how to pray. Of course, I have been learning for a very long time. Perhaps I should say I am just beginning to progress.

Oswald uses two opposite images involving a door to describe what is necessary in prayer:

Open wide the door. Let God in. Yesterday we had a prayer service at church. One of the Taize hymns we sang went like this: "O God, we call. O God, we call. From deep inside we yearn. From deep inside we yearn. From deep inside we yearn for you." We sang those words about ten times. The worship leader explained that the repetition in Taize hymns allows the words to penetrate. I experienced that. I realized how deeply I am yearning for God. It doesn't always manifest itself as obvious longing. Lately, it looks like anger or apathy or hopelessness, but beneath all that is groaning for God to make sense of things, to envelop me at the core of who I am, and give me rest.

Slam the door shut. On all the flies buzzing about my head demanding my attention. Some of the buzzing is duty, work, the jobs I should be doing. Some of the buzzing is the world -- the enticing pleasures by which I am so easily satisfied. Some of the buzzing is doubt.

I want to believe that Oswald writes the truth: "When we live in the secret place, it becomes impossible for us to doubt God, we become more sure of him than of anything else."

Now I just need to find the secret place.

I Indeed . . . But He

"The only conscious experience those who are baptized with the Holy Ghost ever have is a sense of absolute unworthiness" -- Oswald.

Have I ever really come to the end of myself or is there some piece of me that still holds to a notion of saving myself, of being good enough?

The Ministry of the Unnoticed

Note: This should actually have been Saturday's entry.

"At the basis of Jesus Christ's Kingdom is the unaffected loveliness of the commonplace" -- Oswald.

I love that. Now if I can just figure out what it means.

The older brother was involved in the commonplace -- the daily work of managing the land -- but he was always conscious of his duty. He carried his duty, his faithfulness, about like a cross, and when his father came to him, he held it up as though his father now owed him a debt, rather than vice versa.

"I cannot enter His kingdom as a good man or woman, I can only enter it as a complete pauper" -- Oswald. My righteous acts are as filthy rags, and yet I persist in draping them about myself like Miss Havisham in her decaying wedding dress. A few days ago, Oswald wrote about being morally naked. That is what I want to be, but I'm not sure how to shed the dress.

My attempts seem like Eustace's half-hearted attempts to tear away the dragon hide in which he was encased. My attempts seem more like summoning-up-the-gumption decisions rather than yielding. Eustace had to yield to Aslan's claws.

I ask myself: Am I prepared to let his claws have at the old dress?

Completeness

I have no idea what Oswald is talking about today. Really. The absence of self-consciousness? I have never experienced it. I am always the sick man who knows what health is and is striving to get there. I want to believe that God answers prayer, but I am not restfully certain of it.

Oswald says that I cannot overcome my self-consciousness by any common sense method. Jesus says, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." How, Jesus? How do I get where you are? What am I missing?

Self-Consciousness

Two scenes. Both set in Christian environments.

Book group: We are discussing My Life in France by Julia Child. Cathy, our hostess, has prepared a classic French meal from Julia's cookbook -- roast chicken with an amazing sauce made by deglazing the pan, a vegetable dish of roasted eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes topped with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese, country French bread and a tossed salad with vinaigrette. Chilled French wine flows freely. We are out on Cathy's deck on a perfect summer evening. The heat is gone. The moon is out. A piece of classic French cloth covers the picnic table. Laughter. Discussion. Friendship. Love. It is easy to believe that life is good. After the main course, Cathy brings out sliced Valencia oranges, chunks of cantaloupe and a bottle of Chocovine. We watch an episode of The French Chef where Julia is making a spinach turnover with her friend and co-author, Simka. We talk about France and travel and God and food and decide our next book will be Lust for Life -- a fictionalized account of Van Gogh's life. I leave with a sense of connection, of being loved and valued and wanted.

Work: I work for a Christian organization. I am surrounded by Christians. These days, I dread going, and I come home exhausted. Everything about the place seems to suck the life out of me. I struggle to find the truth. I struggle to tell the truth. I struggle to be heard. I struggle for respect. I struggle within myself over whether I'm being unreasonable. I feel angry much of the time. I do not feel valued. Even as the words are coming out of someone's mouth, there is too much evidence to the contrary drowning them out. Much of the time I feel like a freak, and I wonder if I have anything in common with these people at all. Can I even be a Christian if this is what it is?

The comparison is unfair. One is work. They pay me to do it. The other is pretty much my idea of a perfect evening. Still, I wonder, is the Christian life a struggle -- a wrestling match, a race -- or is it a permanent, living sabbath -- resting, abiding in Christ? Can it really be both? Is it supposed to swing like a crazy pendulum weighted heavily to one side? Working, striving for six days, resting for one?

"Learn the unforced rhythms of grace" -- Eugene Peterson translates Matthew 11:29 with these words.

Jesus, please teach me the unforced rhythms of grace and give me rest for my soul.

Have You Ever Been Expressionless with Sorrow?

If I mean what I say . . . Undress myself morally before God . . . until I am a mere conscious human being and then give God that. . . Am I more devoted to my idea of what Jesus wants than to himself? . . . Discouragement is disenchanted self-love, and self-love may be love of my devotion to Jesus. (Oswald's words with the pronouns changed.)

The older brother was in love with his devotion to the father. This is my addiction. I keep thinking I have left it to go into the party, to seek him, to sit at his feet, to finally know him, and then I wake up for a brief moment to find I haven't left it at all. Only dressed it a little differently.

Are You Discouraged in Devotion?

A hard word. Not something I can say this and that about . . .

God's word for me today came through a co-worker and a 3-word plaque given to me for my birthday. My friend Dawn gave me the plaque. Frank hung it above the door where I cannot miss it. Every time I leave the house, every time I stand at the kitchen sink, I will see this simple message: God is good.

The other words came from the young woman with whom I share an office. She is large with child and with mountains of ideas -- colors, images, sketches forming first in her mind and traveling to her fingers. I talk words and she talks images and somehow we connect. Today she gave a short devotional during our team meeting on some words from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. My very inadequate paraphrase: God is reality. Apart from him, there is no reality. It makes no sense to talk about goodness apart from him. We cannot segment our lives into the God parts and the non-God parts. They are all God parts. (This is probably why Jess doesn't like it when people refer to "God moments." They are all God moments, she says.) The thing is, Jess, they don't all feel like God moments. But what are feelings anyway? I hear they can't be trusted.

I do seem to be saying this and that . . . but really, I have no words. My oldest son went back to college today halfway across the country. I started missing him yesterday while he still sat at my table. Son #2 had surgery last week to remove his appendix. You've heard it a thousand times . . . life is fragile.

God is reality. God is good. I have no words.

Chastening

"Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me; sanctification is God's idea of what He wants to do for me, and He has to get me into the attitude of mind and spirit where at any cost I will let Him sanctify me wholly" -- Oswald.

"We get into sulks with God and say, 'Oh well, I can't help it; I did pray and things did not turn out right, and I am going to give it all up'" -- Oswald.

I think I have been in one of those sulks: Well, no one can say I didn't give it a good shot. I went off anti-depressants. I prayed. I spent time seeking God's will for my life -- regular, planned, quality devotional time for close to eight months. I worked at being honest about my feelings, not pretending, being the real me . . . and still, I am no closer to sanctification. I am the same insecure, glass-half-full, needy, oft depressed woman I was when I began. I have the same job with the same problems -- only worse. I am no nearer to holiness or self-actualization or happiness. I am no nearer to God or to knowing Him.

I have seriously contemplated those three words -- I give up. But what then? Eat, drink and be merry? Go back on drugs, back to striving to be the perfect me? I cannot quite bring myself to give up this pilgrimage. I really believe the answer to the meaning of life lies along the path of Christianity, along the path of knowing the God of Scripture.

So, what is sanctification, God? What is your idea of what you want to do with me?

The Sacrament of the Saint

"Sympathy enervates" -- Oswald.

I think Oswald is using "sympathy" as a synonym for "pity." We don't do people a favor, according to Oswald, when we feel sorry for them. Rather, we reduce their mental vigor or lessen their vitality through our sympathy. Worse than that, Oswald says, we blacken the name of God. We imply that he has somehow messed up, that he doesn't have their life in his hands, their best interest at heart. Or perhaps that he was powerless in this instance or, worse, just not that interested.

Still, no one who has just lost a job or crashed her car or experienced some much greater disappointment wants to hear how it's all part of God's plan, how it's all going to work together for good. Not at first anyway.

My life has been relatively suffering free. My mom died the day before my 31st birthday when my boys were both under two years old. My husband and I lost our restaurant -- the big dream of our lives up to that point -- and along with it, most of our friends. My youngest daughter was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at age 8, and I have struggled with clinical depression for most of my adult life. But that's about it. I have brushed up against pain, but it has not rolled over me the way it has some of my friends -- the loss of a child, divorce, cancer.

I never want to be glib about pain, but I don't think that's what Oswald is really saying. I don't think he's preaching against empathy, just pity, and I doubt anyone really wants to be pitied anyway. Still, there is a care that is required here in how we respond to another's misfortune. We do need to keep God's character and omnipresence in the forefront of our minds when we step into their pain. Somehow God is all-good and all-powerful and bad things happen. Our tendency is to want to deny one or the other -- either that bad isn't really bad or that God isn't really who he says he is.

The difficult -- but only truly helpful -- thing is to hold both truths inviolate and operate from there.

Oswald's last paragraph brings up a whole new subject in my mind. One definitely worth exploring, but another day.

Prayer in the Father's Hearing

Oswald has written before about the danger of letting common sense obscure my view of God or limit my understanding of his ways. I haven't taken his words as strongly to heart as I might because I don't think of myself as a commonsensical person. Common sense is what comes to your aid when you're stranded in an unknown place or what keeps you from getting stranded in the first place. Common sense says you spend less than you make and you only plant as big a garden as you can reasonably care for. Common sense is for practical people, and I've never thought of myself as terribly practical.

Today, however, it occurred to me that when Oswald uses the phrase "common sense," he is referring not merely to the practical ability to fend for one self in a variety of circumstances but to human reasoning in general -- to the mind, to a logical, analytical way of thinking, judging, and assessing a situation -- and that reasoning's tendency to oppose/dismiss/minimize the supernatural work of God in our lives.

"Our ordinary wits never worship God unless they are transfigured by the indwelling Son of God" -- Oswald.

Oswald takes today's verse from the passage in John about the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Jesus says, "Roll away the stone and open the tomb."

Martha replies, "But, Lord, there will be a bad smell."

Jesus wants to bring me new life every day, and every day -- in big and little ways -- I argue with him about the smell, the mess, the noise.

Do I believe he can bring me new life? Or does my mind scoff at the possibility?

Prayer in the Father's Honor

I'm back. I missed a week due to vacation -- my husband, children and I went camping on the Oregon Coast. Before that, I missed a week due to being overwhelmed and depressed. So the vacation came at a good time. The beauty and majesty of the Oregon Coast always speak to my soul, and it was beyond wonderful to have all my family together -- laughing, hiking, playing in the sand, exploring tide pools and hunting for agates.

Today's Oswald seems like a good one upon which to re-enter.

"Oh, the clamor of these days! Everyone is clamoring . . . There is no room here for the Son of God just now, no room for quiet, holy communion with the Father" -- Oswald.

Room. I want there to be room in my life. I don't want to scribble in all the margins -- squeezing out any sense of extra space, of quiet, unfilled moments, of expectancy, of waiting. But it is so, so easy to overfill my life -- with time wasters, yes, but with good things, as well. There is my work. For a good and noble cause -- a rescue mission serving the homeless and preaching the gospel. And then there is my perfectionism about my work. There are my children, their various involvements, my husband, my garden, my house and all my household duties. There are friends. And books. And church. There is no end of good things -- recipes, flowers, words -- but they will not all fit.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Oh, God, the world is constantly clamoring. Help me to be wise in terms of what I allow into my life. There are many wonderful things that I cannot see or do or plant or make or read or experience . . .

Peace. I will seek you first. I will make room in my life for holy communion. I will quiet the clamor.

Something More About His Ways

It's not exactly that God has commanded me to leave my children, but more that he has begun a process of separation where I am not meant to be all that I once was to them. Sometimes that scares me, and I do start to debate all the things I've left undone, all the words I haven't spoken, all the holes in my past example. They didn't learn money management from me or how to pick up after themselves or even the rudiments of self-discipline. We were pretty family-centric. What if they have no sense of mission or caring for the less fortunate? And we never quite finished that overview of Scripture. They may not fully understand what it means to be reformed.

Be that as it may, the time has come to begin letting go. To trust God to step into all the cracks and gaps and questions and to be to them more than I ever could be.

Till You Are Entirely His

"Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way," James 1:2-4, The Message.

Note to self: Don't run away from the struggle.

The Discipline of Disillusionment

Illusion: the state or fact of being intellectually deceived or misled.

Illusion #1: Relationships can be idyllic. Picture a coffee house. Lattes all around. Stimulation for the mind, the body, the heart. Warmth and encouragement flowing unhindered from one person to the next. Symbiotic friendships where both individuals give and receive in equal measure, and everyone's needs are met.

Illusion #2: I am fine by myself. I am the only person I can trust. Everyone else has hurt me or will hurt me. The only way to survive is to protect myself from other people.

I seem to bounce back and forth from one illusion to the other. When illusion #1 proves false, I move to illusion #2 where isolation eventually drives me back to pursuing feel-good relationships until I get hurt and withdraw . . .

Oswald writes that we need to be disillusioned, i.e. freed from our illusions, and that "the refusal to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering in human life."

Undeceiving myself: Relationships are not idyllic. They can be great, but I hurt other people. They hurt me. It happens. "If our trust is placed in human beings, we shall end in despairing of everyone" -- Oswald.

The answer, however, is not to withdraw into myself. I am not fine by myself.

The answer is to see myself and other people as we really are -- flawed, sinful human beings who are on this journey of life together. We need each other. We fail each other. We must not give up on each other.

Some days it will look like the coffee house scenario. Most days not.

What Do You See in Your Clouds?

"Is the relationship between myself and God getting simpler than ever it has been?"

I think so. I am less sure of many things. Less dogmatic. Less willing to argue. But I think in becoming less sure of many things I am becoming more sure of the one thing that really matters -- God's presence in my life.

I read a quote the other day about suffering and trials obscuring our view of God the way the clouds obscure the sun: "Measure not God's love and favor by your own feeling. The sun shines as clearly in the darkest day as it does in the brightest. The difference is not in the sun, but in some clouds which hinder the manifestation of the light thereof," Richard Sibbes (English theologian from the 1600's).

Oswald, however, puts a different spin on the clouds, describes them as a necessary companion to God's glory. We could not behold him directly. Through the clouds, we unlearn what we thought we knew.

After Obedience -- What?

I think it is providential -- not coincidental -- that Oswald's message on July 28 reads like a letter from God directly to me. I'm not sure that I can add anything of value to his words. They are clear, direct and powerful: "God's end is to enable me to see that he can walk on the chaos of my life just now."

Today is my 50th birthday. Beginning this year -- beginning this blog -- I had such plans. Such magnificent plans of getting my life together and presenting myself as a meticulously wrapped package of wisdom, devotion and discipline to God. I have no such package to bring. I have a box -- well used and well loved, crushed at the corners, torn at the seams, contents spilling out in all directions. The contents themselves are a motley assortment of memories, fears, dreams,valued treasures and pain.

Here I am, God. Here I am.

Dependent on God's Presence

Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly.

God calls me to walk. To walk and not faint. To walk on the water and through the valley of the shadow of death. To walk in the garden and walk in all his ways.

Oswald's right. There is nothing glamorous about walking. But it can be thoroughly comforting.

I just walked around my block three times at dusk on a perfect summer's evening. I did not really want to go, but I sit at a computer all day. I knew I should rouse the bones, and placing one heavy tennis shoe in front of the other, I went. The hot day had cooled to a refreshing mid-sixties. I heard voices and sprinklers and the gravel crunching under my feet. I watched a flock of quail strut their stuff and then fly into a huge, thick spruce tree, and I thought about Oswald's distinction between a consciousness of God's presence and the reality of it. I'm not sure I understand, but it was nice to think about it. And to walk.

Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly.

Mastery over the Believer

I like the idea of rescuing the word "obedience" from the mire, and I like the idea of obedience being a natural consequence of seeing Jesus. I do not need to add to my list of shoulds and musts. I need to pursue a relationship with God -- seek his face, listen for his voice -- and I will be compelled by his nature to obey.

The Mystery of Believing

Miracle: an event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God.

Mystery: a religious truth that one can know only by revelation and cannot fully understand; profound, inexplicable or secretive quality or character.

Belief, Oswald writes, is both a miracle and a mystery. Inexplicable.

I love to explain things or to have them explained. I like my mind to be neat and tidy with well-traveled pathways of understanding. As Oswald writes, I can control what I can explain. I can explain religion. I cannot explain God.

The Miracle of Belief

I write. I fret over the arrangement of words. I want to communicate, to break open my soul and connect with other souls. I want my writing to be sharp and crisp and sensual. I want people to read it and get it and like it, but also to be pricked in some way. I want my writing to matter, and I believe in some not-easily-explained way God has called me to this. I hold this calling in one hand. In the other are Paul's and Oswald's words: It's not about me.

It's about God.

The Notion of Divine Control

At 16, my oldest daughter, Nora, has moved from childhood into young womanhood. She is driving, working and dating -- seems like a great time to impart some motherly wisdom. Only what do I say? What will stick and not bounce off into that wasteland of words upon words spoken and forgotten? When I read Oswald's entry for today, I thought, this is it. If I had only one message I could give her, this would be it: "God is your Father. He loves you. You will never think of anything that He will forget. Why should you worry?"

My dearest Nora,

You are lovely in every way. You're smart. You're a hard worker. You want to do what's right. You can take a lot of teasing and be a good sport about it. You laugh most every day, and you make me laugh with you -- not always an easy feat. You are loving and affectionate. You have proven that you have the ability to forgive and restore broken relationships. You like to have fun and see others have fun, as well. You are beautiful.

Your father and I thank God for you every day, but as much as we might like to be, we are not the perfect parents. God is. Dad and I will get it wrong from time to time. We are sinners. We are fallible. God is not. Sometimes, when you think we don't understand, we really don't. God does. He not only knows the number of hairs on your head, but the inner-workings of your heart and mind. He knit you together, and nothing happens to you apart from his plan (GP4U). Turn to him. Make his love the foundation of your life. You have inestimable value because he created you, he loves you, he died for you, and he wants to live in constant relationship with you.

"The disciple must maintain an attitude of perfect trust and an eagerness to ask and seek" -- Oswald.

Nora, trust him. Don't worry. Close your eyes and fall back into his arms. The overwhelming message of the Bible is that God is good. Trust him. Seek him. Eagerly ask for what you need.

Love, Mom

The Point of Spiritual Honor

I was watching Dirty Jobs the other day. The host, Mike, was talking to a guy who cleaned old train engines. It looked like a pretty lonely job, and in response to a comment Mike made to that effect, the guy said, "I learned a long time ago that I don't like people." Ouch! Brutal honesty, but if I'm equally as honest, I have to admit that there's a piece of that sentiment that resonates with me.

Consider these points: 1) I really don't like getting hurt. 2) I am easily hurt. 3) People hurt each other. Conclusion: If I mix it up with people, I am going to get hurt, and I'm not going to like it. My response: withdraw. Not terribly different from the lonely railroad guy.

Only as a Christian, I am faced with this clear commandment: Love your neighbor. Misanthropy is not an option for the follower of Christ.

Consider these words of Paul that read like a love letter to the Romans:

"I thank God through Jesus for every one of you. That's first. People everywhere keep telling me about your lives of faith, and every time I hear them, I thank him. And God, whom I so love to worship and serve by spreading the good news of his Son -- the Message -- knows that every time I think of you in my prayers, which is practically all the time, I ask him to clear the way for me to come and see you. The longer this waiting goes on, the deeper the ache," Romans 1:8-11, The Message.

Lest I think that these were just extraordinarily mature Christians -- i.e. easy to love -- Paul adds this in verse 14 (Oswald's text for today's reading): "Everyone I meet -- it matters little whether they're mannered or rude, smart or simple -- deepens my sense of interdependence and obligation."

I cannot cut off the people who hurt me. I cannot withdraw into my safe corner. I cannot profess to love Christ and hate my brother.

The Account with Persecution

"We are always looking for justice; the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is, Never look for justice but never cease to give it" -- Oswald.

Do justice but love mercy. Don't seek to defend myself. Allow people to malign me. Do not malign them in return. When I allow my reputation to take the blow, I protect Jesus. These are hard words -- words that run counter to every last bit of my nature. And I might be prepared to fight against them -- to re-state the well-known verbiage against acting like door mats -- except that I have recently seen the truth of them manifest in a co-worker.

She's being "let go," a gentle euphemism for a devastating act. She's a single mom with four kids to support, and she could certainly make an argument for injustice, but she has not. She has handled the whole affair with grace. She has been maligned, but by and large, she has not maligned in return. Her reputation, her career, has taken the blow. She has not lashed out in revenge or attempted to fight for her rights. When I compliment her strength and express doubt about whether I could be so noble, she says, "It's God. I just keep reminding myself that my worth comes from him."

His character comes forth, and as a side benefit, so does hers.

The Price of Vision

Struggling again. King Uzziah, whose reign lasted 52 years, is considered to be one of the good kings of Judah, but his record was far from blameless. During the latter part of his reign, his pride got the better of him, and he attempted to burn incense in the temple -- a job reserved for the priests. About 80 priests stood against him. He got angry, tried to bully his way past them, and leprosy broke out on his forehead. He spent the remainder of his days in isolation, in disgrace, relieved of his kingly duties. His name serves as a reminder of the imperative of humility -- much like Uzzah's act of touching the ark of the covenant which brought about his immediate death.

Most of the commentaries I looked at treated the reference to Uzziah's death in Isaiah 6:1 as merely an historical placeholder. Oswald seems to invest the relationship between the king's death and Isaiah's vision with a great deal more significance -- "In the year that the one who stood to me for all that God was . . ." I'm wondering if, never having been part of a monarchy, I'm missing something. The king was often referred to as the anointed one. He was God's representative. His death created instability, uncertainty, national emergency.

The importance to which Oswald is referring, then, seems to be that of the king's position rather than personal relationship as I was thinking.

The relevant point for me, however, is probably much more personal. It is my husband who stands most obviously in the position of God to me -- not our president. I long ago ceased to hope in government as any kind of savior. But I do often look to my husband to define my value when everything around me and within me causes me to question it. It is he who demonstrates the unconditional love for which my whole being thirsts. It is he who models forgiveness and long-suffering. I do not want to imagine my life without him.

What does that mean in terms of placing God first, God second, God third in my life?

The Spiritual Society

This one has had me stumped for a bit. Is the Christian life about my personal relationship with God or is it about building up the Body? Both, of course, but how does that work exactly? Is it a chicken-and-the-egg kind of thing? Do I pursue both at once and with equal fervor? Or do I wait for a measure of certainty and strength in my own walk before I go about trying to build up others? These are not really rhetorical questions.

Oswald asks a question to which the right answer seems obvious: "Am I building up the Body of Christ or am I looking for my own personal development only?" But what about his next statement: "The essential thing is my personal relationship to Jesus Christ -- 'that I may know Him.'" Surely I cannot build anyone else up if my own foundation is shaky. Or can I?

To realize Jesus Christ -- not merely what he has done for me. I wish I could ask Oswald to explain more fully.

The Spiritual Saint

I never saw Groundhog Day, but Oswald's entry today made me think of it -- the idea of God bringing me again and again to the same situation that I might choose rightly this time. And the right choice is to find Christ, to know him.

"The spiritual saint never believes circumstances to be haphazard . . . he see everything he is dumped down in as the means of securing the knowledge of Jesus Christ . . . The Holy Spirit is determined that we shall realize Jesus Christ in every domain of life, and He will bring us back to the same point again and again until we do" -- Oswald.

The Spiritual Sluggard

"We utilize God for the sake of getting peace and joy, that is, we do not want to realize Jesus Christ, but only our enjoyment of Him" -- Oswald.

Wow! How often do I do this in relationships in general? I use people to make me feel good. As long as I'm enjoying them (and this could include a wide scope of relational interchanges -- laughing, sharing ideas, working side-by-side on a project, listening, even crying and experiencing the connection of being understood or understanding), I'm in. But when the relationship ceases to be enjoyable (perhaps boring or painful or depressing or labor-intensive), I'm out.

If I want intimacy with God, intimacy with Jesus Christ, the relationship cannot be based solely on my enjoyment of him or about getting something from him, like peace and joy and eternal life. "All these things are effects and we try to make them causes" -- Oswald.

Not that a relationship with God would ever be boring or painful or depressing, but life can be and therefore my experience of God can be likewise tainted.

Oswald writes, "The test of our spirituality comes when we come up against injustice and meanness and ingratitude and turmoil . . ." Our inclination at those times is to retreat, Oswald writes, to run to our feel good place and look for God there.

Hebrews, however, tells us to provoke one another and stick together and look for Christ in the midst of the turmoil.

Intimacy is not about always feeling good.

The Great Probing

"Choose this day whom you will serve," Joshua 24:15.

Choose. An act of the will. The Free Dictionary defines will as "the mental faculty by which one deliberately chooses or decides upon a course of action; diligent purposefulness; determination." Oswald's words from yesterday: "It is a deliberate calculation, not something into which you drift easily." And today: "It is not an impulse, but a deliberate commitment."

I deliberately, purposefully with fore-thought -- considering the options, counting the costs -- and determination -- not lightly or flippantly but with my face set toward opposition -- choose the God of the Bible and his plan for my life.

"You are not able to serve the Lord," Joshua 24:19.

Even as I choose, the picture of failure is before me. Is this the balance between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility? I decide upon a course of action. I put all my eggs in God's basket. I am not hedging my bets, seeking to serve two masters, but I am a frail and fickle servant.

It is not just my eggs but my whole self that he requires. Then he will make of this frail and fickle servant a child, a friend, a bride. He will set me apart and make me holy.

I give him everything I have -- knowing full well that it is not much. That is my responsibility. And, in his sovereignty, he brings about beauty.

The Will to Loyalty

"But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

"Then the people answered, 'Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods!'" Joshua 24:15-16.

Joshua then tells the Israelites that they will not be able to serve the Lord, that he is holy and jealous and that they are rebellious, but they insist, "No! We will serve the Lord." Joshua declares that they are witnesses against themselves. He makes a covenant for the people, writes it down, and sets up a large stone under an oak tree as further witness. This is all recorded in the last chapter of Joshua. Then Joshua dies. We turn the page, and Judges begins, the record of a time when "every man did what was right in his own eyes."

The covenant is broken. The stone bears witness that the people did not hold to their promise.

If I were to rewrite Joshua 24:15 as an address to myself, I might say, "OK, Barb, if you think God seems harsh and distant at times, if Christianity seems too bloody and exclusive, if you'd prefer something more rational and less mysterious, why don't you choose a different God or maybe just go without." The options present themselves.

Atheism -- leaving me with Darwin, the Big Bang, survival of the fittest, and a world of chance. Everything in me screams that life cannot be purely random. Every glimpse of creation bespeaks design to me. Secular humanism -- where man is his own god, capable of the ultimate good, and science and reason reign supreme. Perhaps I'm just too right-brained. While I struggle with mystery, I also cling to it, and I have far too little faith in mankind to hope in us as the Final Answer. The other major religions of the world -- Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism -- seem fraught with the same problems as Christianity -- the problem of evil, a sometimes distant god -- and less plausible answers -- reincarnation, karma, jihad, ever-increasing levels of perfection. I answer with the Israelites: "No, far be it from me to forsake the God of my mother and my father."

So, I choose this day whom I will serve, and I am a witness against myself that I am not always loyal.

All Noble Things Are Difficult

Easy. If I'm being honest, I must admit that "easy" holds a world of attraction to me. I am always wanting things to be easier -- making dinner, gardening, writing, parenting, relationships. If only they weren't so damn hard. Yes, I know that by lots of standards my life is easy, but I don't think that's the really important point.

In literature, in history, the easy road is never the best one. The characters who undergo hardship are the ones you admire, the ones with integrity and depth and a sense of humor. The characters with the easy lives, the ones who have everything handed to them, are shallow, spoiled, insipid.

Trials build perseverance and perseverance character and character . . . I do not want to be shallow, spoiled and insipid. I will try to stop wishing, at every single turn, that life was easier.

Vision and Reality

The vision for me is an intimate relationship with God where he and I are in constant communication. I talk to him not in a vague, I-think-this-is-how-one-talks-to-a-supreme-being kind of way but in a daughter-to-father, patient-to-counselor, friend-to-confidante kind of way. I am absolutely assured of his presence moment by moment. I hear his voice not in my ear but in my heart. I have no doubt of his love and acceptance, and I, in turn, am utterly devoted to him. My life, my work, my relationships have meaning because his life, his blood, his breath flow through me. In the vision, there is no wandering hopelessness, no crying out in despair.

In the valley, the vision sometimes seems like a distant dream, a vapor.

Don't Calculate without God

I wonder what Oswald thought about financial planning. It seems like Christianity and responsible money management are inextricably linked in America today. Everyone in his right mind plans for a rainy day, right? Anything else is poor stewardship -- irresponsible.

Apparently, however, Oswald didn't plan. When he died of complications following an operation to remove his appendix in 1917, his wife, Biddy, and child, Kathleen, were left without any long-term means of support.

When they returned to England, according to David McCasland's book, Abandoned to God, "Biddy was sustained by occasional gifts of food and money from family and friends," p. 275. Even after she started publishing Oswald's work, she was so intent on continuing the work that she put all of the money back into the next project: "Biddy took nothing for herself and Kathleen." And when they did get a place of their own, it was primitive: "They had no electricity, no running water, a coal fire for cooking and an outdoor toilet." Next, she ran a lodging house while putting My Utmost for His Highest together in her -- few and far between -- spare moments.

Biddy did not have an easy life. Perhaps if he had known, Oswald might have wanted to spare her that. She herself said, "Future plans are uncertain, but we all know that there is first God's Plan to be lived, and we can safely leave everything to Him, 'carefully careless' of it all," (Abandoned to God, p. 274).

One of God's Great Don'ts

I am a worrier, and I know I should not be.

"Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way" -- Oswald. Truly, as arrogant as it sounds, I fear that what God wants for me or my future or my children will not be what I want.

"Fretting is wicked if you are a child of God" -- Oswald. I have also heard worry referred to as "practical atheism." If I believe that God is loving enough to want what's best for me, wise enough to know what's best for me, and powerful enough to bring about what's best for me -- why do I worry? My answer is that I see my weaknesses, my failures, my inability to change, and I despair.

"All our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God" -- Oswald. My despair does not take God adequately into account. He promises that his power is perfected in weakness. He promises that he will never leave me nor forsake me. He promises that his plans are good plans, plans to give me a future and a hope.

All of my worry cannot add a single day to my life, but it can certainly subtract. Help me, God, to think more about you and less about me. I cannot change me. I leave it to you.

The Concentration of Personal Sin

I felt Oswald's "concentration of personal sin" as I read today's "Faith & Values" column by Steve Massey in the Spokesman Review.

"Our comfort-craving selves so often tell us to disengage from difficult relationships. The pull to be free from fractured relationships, either briefly or permanently, is both powerful and primal. It is also a damaging, defiant rejection of God's best. . .

"The notion of pursuing peace is critical. It suggests that harmony is something we ought to crave so much we'll chase it down at great expense to ourselves."

When I am hurt, I withdraw. I smile, but I quickly and carefully begin to disengage, to separate and protect myself with thin, clear layers of durable protection. When I hurt, I desperately want it to stop -- so much so that I am willing to cut myself off from the Body of Christ, thereby hurting the Body and preventing my own healing. Keeping people at a distance seems so much safer, but as Massey writes, it is "also a damaging, defiant rejection of God's best."

The Conditions of Discipleship

"Whenever the Holy Ghost sees a chance of glorifying Jesus, He will take your heart, your nerves, your whole personality, and simply make you blaze and glow with devotion to Jesus Christ" -- Oswald.

My whole heart, my nerves, my personality blazing and glowing. It sounds painful, and it sounds right. It sounds like a woman who knows the purpose of her being and has passionately relinquished all right to herself to her loving Savior. It sounds like the first question in the Heidelberg Catechism:

Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?

A. That I am not my own, but belong -- body and soul, in life and in death -- to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

May it be so in me today. Amen.

The Inevitable Penalty

Today is the first day of the last month of my 50th year. When this year first began, I had high hopes of transforming myself into a thinner, sexier, more fit, more disciplined, more organized, more spiritual, wiser, more mature, happier version of me. And, honestly, all those modifiers carried pretty much the same level of importance to me. (OK, maybe "more organized" was a few rungs down the ladder.)

Well, the end's in sight, folks, and I cannot tell you how devastating -- how almost crushing -- it is to find that I am still the same old, unorganized, undisciplined, unfit, overweight, folly-bound, immature, often-unhappy me. And in terms of my spirituality, I am still seeking, still longing, still hoping beyond hope that God is true, but I am not certain that I have a relationship with him.

I cannot sing as my mother did about walking in the garden: "And he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known." I'm sure some people would dismiss that as sentimental gibberish, but I think it's beautiful. And possible. I just don't have it.

Oswald's words today suggest that my failure to find the intimacy I seek might stem from clinging to my right to myself: "The moment you realize God's purpose, which is to get you rightly related to Himself and then to your fellow men, He will tax the last limit of the universe to help you take the right road."

I am still trying to come to terms, then, with the fact that God's purpose may not be to make me the best me I can possibly be -- at least not in any overt way that makes sense to me.

He has shown you, Barbara, what is good and what the Lord requires of you -- to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God (Micah 6:8). I'm making a little progress on the humble part.

Do It Now

"Our insistence in proving that we are right is nearly always an indication that there has been some point of disobedience" -- Oswald.

What is the big attraction to being right? I'm not sure I can answer that, but I know it's huge. We choose being right over relationship time and time again.

To be honest, I see this most clearly in the relationship between my daughters. Much of the time, they are the best of friends, but when they fight, it is mean-spirited, vicious and hateful. When they fight, they have trouble remembering that they were ever friends. To be fair, when they are friends, it's difficult to believe that they were ever so hateful to each other. They make food for each other, watch girl movies, sleep in the same bed, giggle and tell secrets for hours and hours on end. And then, abruptly, they're willing to sacrifice all of that over some small point of contention, over the need to be right. They will insist upon justice -- or their version of it -- as adamantly as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.

Partly, I think, they take it for granted that the other person will always be there, that they can cling churlishly to their point in this moment and not really lose anything. They can be right and have the relationship, too. Only, sometimes when the heat escalates to the boiling point, I wonder, can you really go back? Is something lost in the churlish clinging? Is some small permanent damage done?

Here's the thing I know: I've been able to trace the root of almost every sin I see in my children back to myself. So I ask myself, to what am I churlishly clinging? Where have I allowed my need to be right to take precedence over relationship?

Direction of Discipline

"It is better to enter into life maimed and lovely in God's sight than to be lovely in man's sight and lame in God's" -- Oswald.

I'm not sure that this is right, but here's what I'm thinking . . .

My depression is my thorn in the flesh, my lameness. It keeps me from becoming brazenly independent. Here's my insane pattern of behavior: cry out to God in desperation, receive comfort, pick myself up and strike out again -- on my own, fall, crumble, cry out to God in desperation, receive comfort, pick myself up and strike out again -- on my own. Over and over and over again. It is as though I believe the purpose of the healing is to erase my need for God. How stupid can I be? Well, apparently stupid enough to engage in this merry-go-round behavior for most of my adult life. But sometimes I wonder if the depression is not a gift in disguise (albeit a very good disguise) as it continually drives me back to God.

Apprehended by God

I read the verses around Oswald's chosen passage this morning, beginning in Philippians 3:1, but I got hung up on verse 10:

I want to know Christ. Check. And the power of his resurrection. Check. And the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings. Oh, uncheck. In fact, erase, put down the pencil and run full speed in the opposite direction. I know I should be able to affirm Paul's sentiment, but the words coming from me right now would be incredibly disingenuous. I do not want to share in his sufferings. I do not want to suffer at all.

I want to have fun and laugh and remember why life is good. Why is life -- why is today -- precious?

I lay in bed with my husband last night and discussed how life had become something other than what we thought it would be in our twenties. Less romantic. Less fun. Less sexually charged. More heavily packed with responsibility. Not at all like any engaging movie we had ever seen. Less witty. Less beautiful. Less filled with oh-so-glad-to-be-alive moments.

And that little whining tirade was minus any true suffering. No, I cannot say I relish the thought of sharing in Christ's sufferings. I am weak, and while I tell myself over and over that happiness is not the goal, my self isn't listening. When my feet hit the floor in the morning, bottom line, I want very much to be happy.

The Overshadowing Personal Deliverance

Jeremiah did not have a fun life. He preached a message of condemnation to a people who did not want to hear it. He foresaw doom and destruction for his entire country. He was persecuted, arrested, mocked, thrown in a cistern (something like a well -- deep enough that he had to be drawn out with a rope), saw his life's work -- a scroll which contained all his messages up to that time -- torn to pieces, and had the unwelcome distinction of being right when being right meant ruin. Some historical accounts say he was stoned to death.

An online commentary by J. Philip Hyatt at bookrags.com adds this: "Jeremiah was by nature sensitive, introspective and perhaps shy. He was denied participation in the ordinary joys and sorrows of his fellowmen and did not marry. He thus could say, 'I sat alone,' with God's hand upon him. Jeremiah had periods of despondency when he expressed the wish that he had never been born or that he might run away and live alone in the desert. He . . . even accused God of deceiving and overpowering him. Yet there were times of exaltation when he could say to God, 'Thy words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart.'"

Justice. What an odd and multi-faceted word. Our hearts yearn for it on the one hand, and on the other, we know that none of us could stand in the face of it. God requires us to show it, and Oswald writes that we must not seek it for ourselves.

Today is my brother Pat's birthday, and so as I write this, I cannot help but think about his life in connection with these concepts. If God were to invite me, I might ask him, "Why have you treated my brother so? He is one of the hardest working, most God-fearing, sacrificial men I know. He loves you. He longs body and soul to do what is right in your eyes, and yet he, like Jeremiah, sits alone." God, of course, knows the rest of the story much more clearly than I -- the messy divorce, the betrayal, the pain, the rebellion of his children. Have you taken notice, Lord, of your servant Pat?

The health and wealth Gospel fails so completely to address life as most of us know it. Oswald's words ring so much truer: "If we are devoted to Jesus Christ we have nothing to do with what we meet, whether it is just or unjust. Jesus says -- Go steadily on with what I have told you to do and I will guard your life." Less immediately comforting perhaps, but true.

Always Now

Don't wait, Barb. Pray for grace now. In this moment. Now. You cannot survive a single moment without it. Breathe in grace. Breathe out confession of sin. Breathe in grace.

Now.

Receiving One's Self in the Fires of Sorrow

Oswald's message today is not an easy one. I believe it to be true. I have witnessed its truth, but I cannot say that I eagerly welcome it into my life.

"If you receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people" -- Oswald.

Most recently, I have seen this truth in my friend Sarah's life. Seven years ago, Sarah gave birth to a stillborn baby girl, whom she and her husband named Grace. I write about Sarah and Grace here with extreme caution because I do not want to give the impression in any way that I grasp what my friend has been through or continues to go through. I just know that I see how she nourishes other people from her own pain and loss. I followed her blog during the month of May, the anniversary of Grace's birth, and over the years, I have noted her fierce compassion toward mothers experiencing like tragedy.

Sarah has modeled for me what it means to receive oneself in the fires of sorrow and to be nourishment for other people's souls. I see the beauty that he has wrought in her, but I would never want to justify or trivialize the cost. I think Sarah herself wrote somewhere that she would trade everything -- all the ways Grace's death has stretched and grown and expanded her -- to have Grace herself, alive and well, her 7-year-old, first-grade self.

I think Oswald has hit on a truth, but it is certainly not an easy one, not even a particularly welcome one.

Reconciling One's Self to the Fact of Sin

"You may talk about the nobility of human nature, but there is something in human nature which will laugh in the face of every ideal you have" -- Oswald.

I just started reading Now & Then by Frederick Buechner, and an early quote from one of Buechner's seminary professors, James Muilenburg, seems to complement Oswald's thoughts for today:

"'Every morning when you wake up,' he used to say, 'before you reaffirm your faith in the majesty of a loving God, before you say I believe for another day, read the Daily News with its record of the latest crimes and tragedies of mankind and then see if you can honestly say it again.'"

As Christians, Oswald writes, we are not to be "innocent," but "pure." I take that to mean that our faith should be an eyes-wide-open one in which we acknowledge that "the basis of life is tragic," that sin -- original and immediate -- and its consequences are wreaking havoc round about us, and yet, still, we daily choose to reaffirm our faith in the majesty of a loving God.

Tension and struggle are inherent in such a faith. Hence, the daily reaffirmation. The goal of this faith is not a mastery in which we then proceed on our own. No. No. No, Barb. You are so susceptible to that notion. The goal is to come again to him moment by moment. Though you've wandered away, come again. You cannot make sense of life on your own. You were never meant to.

Acquaintance with Grief

"We take a rational view of life and say that a man by controlling his instincts, and by educating himself, can produce a life which will slowly evolve into the life of God. But as we go on, we find the presence of something which we have not taken into consideration, viz., sin, and it upsets all our calculations. Sin has made the basis of things wild and not rational"-- Oswald.

Oswald's words today made me realize how much I minimize sin, underestimate its power, its effect on the world in general and my life in particular. I tend to think, just as Oswald describes above, that it can be managed and contained, made ineffectual by right living and good choices. What heresy. Sin is so much more than a bad habit that can be overcome by careful planning, goal setting, rewards for good behavior, distractions, and step-by-step instructions.

The presence of sin in the world required the death of Jesus Christ. I can only overcome it in my life today by relying on that payment and the power that proceeds from it. I cannot manage it or plan away its consequences.

To minimize sin is to minimize Christ's sacrifice. I need to recognize it for the formidable enemy that it is -- pervasive, insidious, and capable of morphing from humanism or religiosity into sheer self-interest and back again into behavior that on the surface appears to be morally neutral. No matter the face behind which it masquerades, sin is a vicious, writhing, contemptuous rebellion against a loving God. Ugly and awful in its destructive power.

"He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed," Isaiah 53:5.

I cannot manage my sin. My only hope in life and death is that my iniquities were laid upon him.

The Undeviating Test

Unshaved legs. Blemishes. Dirty ears. Cavities. Extra pounds. Snoring. Gas. Buck teeth. Bad jokes. Bad breath. Bad hair. No hair. Wrinkles. Make-up smears. Fingernail biting. Swearing. Stains. Poor taste. Forgetful. Curt. Impulsive. Flirtatious. Boastful. Accident-prone. Self-absorbed. Lazy. Unforgiving. Disrespectful. Undisciplined. Addicted. Lustful. Angry. Obsessive. Compulsive. Wishy-washy. Jealous. Gluttonous. Stingy. Uptight. Careless. Negligent. Rushed. Oblivious. Fastidious.

I am flawed. The people around me are flawed. We can pick each other apart bit by bit or we can extend the same generous forbearance we hope others will extend to us.

Grace.

The Ministry of the Interior

Like a child.

Izzy had an imaginary grandmother when she was little, and the two of them had such grand adventures. Izzy would tell me how they ate pink cookies, white icing, marshmallows and sugar cubes -- all the time. Her grandmother lived in a treehouse, got hurt by a porcupine, swallowed by a fish and captured by Pink Panther. Together they would jump and dance and twirl together but rarely take naps because her grandma had a jiggle-wiggle bed. Hard to take naps on a jiggle-wiggle bed, as you can imagine. Izzy's grandma broke her back while jumping on the trampoline and had to have all her skin cut off but made a remarkably quick recovery. Izzy, at three, told me about this seeming miracle quite matter-of-factly.

Imagine. I once asked Izzy if I could wear her pajamas, and she replied simply, "Yes, when you get little."

Oswald writes about "the robust, simple life of the child of God" and calls us to "launch out in reckless belief that the Redemption is complete." But the passage tied to today's devotional refers to us as "a royal priesthood." The juxtaposition of what seemed to me like contradictory metaphors sent my thoughts whirling in a variety of directions, and I'm really not certain I can bring them all together.

At the beginning of 1 Peter 2, Christians are encouraged to be like newborn babes craving pure spiritual milk. Eugene Peterson puts it like this in The Message: "Now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God's pure kindness."

The next few verses are devoted to a stone analogy -- Christ as the cornerstone, us as living stones. Then verse 9: "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." And, in his reflections on the passage, Oswald again evokes the beauty of childhood in his description of the Christian as one devoid of self-consciousness.

I watched with mixed feelings as my children's delight at traipsing to the mall in pirate costumes or tutus morphed into horror at the thought. Self-consciousness awoke, and childhood delight seemed to slip away in equal measures. As my youngest, Izzy's transition from childhood to young womanhood is freshest, and at times, I can still catch glimpses of the innocence and reckless abandon that marked her childhood.

We are to be like children. We are priests. I'm wondering if the two roles are more alike than they first appear. Both share the ability to suspend disbelief -- to allow room for mystery, for the supernatural, for life to be more than science or the senses allow. Both drink deeply of God's goodness. Both are freed, at times, from the awkward confines of self-awareness.

When I enter into the Holy of Holies, where God is present, when I sit on his lap and lay my head on his bosom, I am freed from myself. I am a priest. I am a child. I am perfect because I am in Christ.

Have You Come to "When" Yet?

"I have to resign every kind of claim and cease from every effort, and leave myself entirely alone in His hands . . . " -- Oswald.

Again, Oswald reminds me that it is all too possible for me to be overly concerned with my own righteousness: "I cannot make myself right with God, I cannot make my life perfect; I can only be right with God if I accept the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift . . . the thing is done."

1) Christ has done the work.
2) I am a poor judge of my own -- or any man's -- righteousness.

The book of Job has always troubled me a bit. While I love the speeches God makes from the whirlwind in chapters 38-41, the truth seems to be divided amongst the various characters throughout the majority of the book, and I am hard-pressed to explain why one viewpoint is wrong and one is right. I turned to Matthew Henry's commentary this morning for help.

On Job: "Those who are truly righteous before God may have their righteousness clouded and eclipsed by great and uncommon affections, by the severe censures of men, by the sharp reproach of conscience, and yet, in due time, these clouds shall all blow over, and God will bring forth their righteousness as the light and their judgment as the noonday, Psalm 32:6."

On Job's friends: "They had wronged God by making prosperity a mark of the true church and affliction a certain indication of God's wrath. . . Those do not say well of God who represent his fatherly chastisements of his own children as judicial punishments."

One application: "Job was in the right, and his friends were in the wrong, and yet he was in pain and they were at ease -- a plain evidence that we cannot judge of men by looking in their face or their purses. He only can do it infallibly who sees men's hearts."

On Oswald's subject of the day, intercession: "Notwithstanding all the wrong his friends had done him, he is so good a man, and of such a humble, tender, forgiving spirit, that he will very readily pray for them . . . True penitents shall not only find favor as petitioners for themselves, but be accepted as intercessors for others also. And, as Job prayed and offered sacrifice for those that had grieved and wounded his spirit, so Christ prayed and died for his persecutors, and ever lives making intercession for the transgressors."

My charge: Fret not about my own righteousness. Leave myself in God's hands, and begin to pray in earnest for the people God brings into my life. I cannot know (with any kind of certainty or clarity) what he is doing in my life, let alone anyone else's, but I can join in the work through prayer.

Service of Passionate Devotion

What, I find myself asking, is the difference between devotion to the cause of Christianity and devotion to Jesus Christ?

I've joined a number of causes on Facebook, mostly because friends invite me and I hate to disappoint -- causes associated with the pro-life movement, the fight against homelessness and domestic violence, a cure for breast cancer, and others. Of those, I am most passionate about ending abortion and caring for the destitute. Those two have a direct effect in my life: I will not vote for a candidate who is not pro-life, and I work for a homeless shelter. I give financially to both causes on a regular basis.

Neither has as large or as direct of an effect on my life, however, as the cause of Christianity. In fact, both are a direct result of that greater cause. The cause of Christianity has shaped my sense of right and wrong and most of my major life choices -- my decision to marry, to have children -- four children -- and to homeschool those children. My decision to delay the pursuit of a career; my belief that my children needed a full-time parent. And it shapes my smaller, day-to-day choices, as well -- what I allow and do not allow my children to do, how I spend my money, my attitude toward alcohol, anger and forgiveness. What I read. What I watch. I don't shop at Victoria's Secret because I think much of their advertising strategy borders on the pornographic, and because I believe in the value of a woman as a child of God, I find that offensive and wrong.

The cause of Christianity has had a profound impact for good on my life. I'm beginning to realize, however, that the cause of Christianityis not the same as devotion to Jesus Christ; and should the former stand in the way of the latter, the impact ceases to be good, ceases to be life-giving, and actually becomes an agent of death. Strong words, but I think they're true. The cause of Christianity is about principles, not relationship, and we are not saved by principles.

Oswald writes: "A man touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says, 'Now I see who Jesus is," and that is the source of devotion."

Please, Lord, keep me looking up and give me eyes to see -- not just a cause -- but You.

Don't Think Now, Take the Road

The Wind and the Waves: my job, the writing itself, the future, finances, relationships, mini and major responsibilities.

The waves surround me and, in fact, make up the majority of my life: What are you going to wear to work this morning? You really need to lose weight and clean up this room. You can't find anything, and nothing fits anymore anyway. When are you going to fit in a walk? and stomach crunches? How are you going to write that article on the thrift stores? Do you have a creative approach? You're behind on thank-you letters. Think up a new way to say thank you! Your car is out of gas. Did you make an appointment for Izzy with her diabetes doctor? How about that lab work? That was supposed to be done weeks ago. What was her blood sugar last night? Did you ask? Have you filled out the financial aid paperwork for either of the two boys for next year? Do the kids have stuff for lunches? What are you getting your dad for Father's Day? How about your husband? Are your kids moving on that?

The water is lapping at my ankles. One look and down I go. Like Peter, if I do not keep my eyes on Jesus, I am sure to sink.

The remarkable part about this story, however, is that Peter did the impossible. Right along with Jesus. The waves were real. The threat of drowning was real. But still Peter stepped out of the boat. Jesus does not reprimand him for doing the reckless thing -- the crazy, wild, impossible thing. No, there is no rebuke for that bit; it is only after he reaches down and saves him that he questions why Peter doubted.

Peter was reckless, and Oswald encourages recklessness: "You will only realize His voice more clearly by recklessness." What does that mean for me?

The Uncritical Temper

"In the spiritual domain, nothing is accomplished by criticism" -- Oswald. In fact, Oswald states, criticism damages both the person being criticized and the person doing the criticizing.

What criticism does to the one being criticized:

• hurts and wounds
• causes self-doubt and reticence

What criticism does to the one doing the criticizing:

• prevents communion with God
• makes one hard, vindictive and cruel
• leaves one with the flattering unction that she is a superior person

"Beware of anything that puts you in the superior person's place," Oswald warns and refers to the following Scripture:

"I have a special word of caution for you who are sure that you have it all together yourselves and, because you know God's revealed Word inside and out, feel qualified to guide others through their blind alleys and dark nights and confused emotions to God. While you are guiding others, who is going to guide you?" Romans 2:19-20, The Message.

Forgive me for my critical nature, Lord, and help me to extend grace readily and freely as you have so readily and freely extended it to me.