Do Ye Now Believe?

Jesus knows that his disciples will desert him: "A time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone" John 16:32. He knows their frailty and that, though they believe him to be sent by God and love him dearly, they will fail him. Still, his love for them remains firm, unchanged. He goes forward into his death for them and has their well being foremost in his mind: "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" John 16:33.

This same love applies to me. He has no illusions about me. He knows my limitations and that my love for him is flawed. He does not love me for what I can become, for my potential, and I have not been fooling him with my ideal Barbara act. He does not love me because I am dutifully obedient. He loves me for reasons of his own which are frankly unclear to me at this point. His death on the cross covers my sin and brings me into relationship with him. My well being never slips his mind. This must be the basis for my acts of obedience -- my gratitude, my love for him. I must always remember that his love came first. I do not earn it. I already have it.

"We have put our sense of duty on the throne instead of the resurrection life of Jesus. We are not told to walk in the light of conscience or of a sense of duty, but to walk in the light as God is in the light" -- Oswald. I must not fall into the older brother's trap -- a sense that God owes me something because I have been so good, so obedient. For starters, I cannot be that good, but more importantly, duty negates relationship. God and I do not have a contract -- my obedience in exchange for his love. No, we have a relationship -- he loves me, and to the best of my ability, I love him in return.

Impoverished Ministry of Jesus

The well is deep -- the well of sorrow, of disappointments, of forgotten joys and dreams, but especially the well of longing.

"We limit the Holy One by remembering what we have allowed Him to do for us in the past, and by saying, 'Of course I cannot expect God to do this thing'" -- Oswald.

Here is what I want: I want to wake up every morning and get the Point. And, at least fifty percent of the time, I'd like to be excited about the Point. I want to understand what the authors of the Westminster Shorter Catechism meant when they wrote the first question and answer. Q: What is the chief end of man? A: The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. I want to know the answers to these questions: How can I -- a weak, tired, sinful, overweight, often disillusioned, sometimes angry, 50-year-old woman -- glorify God? How can I enjoy a Being whom I cannot see or hear or touch? I want God to reveal Himself to me with unmistakable clarity. I want -- both for myself and the people I love -- to understand and internalize the amazing love of which Paul writes in Romans 8. And I want to live every moment of my life under the influence of the above knowledge.

Here's the rub: I cannot be sure that this is also what God wants, so as Oswald describes, I struggle with the pail and rope trying to get the water for myself. At least that's what I've done up to now. Today, I'm going to begin something new. I'm going to assume that these desires have been shaped by God and that they are therefore good desires, desires that he wants to fulfill, and even though my personal history might indicate otherwise, I'm going to believe fulfillment is possible.

Truly, the well of my incompleteness is deep, but I choose to believe in a loving, almighty God with limitless resources.

Inferior Misgivings about Jesus

"I have no misgivings about Jesus, only about myself." I have said words very similar to these innumerable times. Oswald dismisses them as stemming from "pious fraud." Pious meaning religious, marked by reverence or false reverence, sanctimonious. Fraud meaning deliberate deception. And since I know I am not deceiving God, I can only be attempting to deceive myself.

I wrote those lines this morning and couldn't get any further, so I took a walk and had the clear sense that this is it -- the breaking point which I have been trying so hard to avoid.

Today's devotional is based on Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well in John 4. First, Jesus asks her for a drink. She replies with surprise that he, a Jew, would ask her, a despised Samaritan, for a drink. In verse 10, he says: "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." I imagine her trying to hold back laughter, "Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep."

If I knew who he was . . . The woman at the well could not know; she and Jesus had just met. I, however, am without excuse. This is only the fourth chapter of John, but already, the mounting evidence in this book alone is extraordinary. The Spirit descended on him in the form of a dove. He not only saw Nathanael sitting under a fig tree before they ever met, but he saw straight to Nathanael's soul: "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false." Likewise, he saw deep within Peter and gave him a new name, a new identity, "Rock." He changed water into wine. He made a whip of cords with which he drove long-established traders out of the temple and answered their angry demand for justification with this outlandish claim: "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." The next chapter contains an equally bizarre demand of one of the Jewish leaders: "You must be born again." This is who he is -- One who does not play by the old rules, One for whom there are no impossibilities, One who sees straight to my soul, One who makes outlandish claims and outlandish demands and has the power to bring them about.

What exactly is the basis for my doubts about his work in my life? Oswald is right: "My misgivings arise from the fact that I ransack my own person to find out how He will be able to do it." I limit him with my own limitations: "I have not believed in Thy wits apart from my own; I have not believed in Thine almighty power apart from my finite understanding of it."

Jesus, you see straight to my soul. You know me like you knew the woman at the well, know every thing I have ever done. You can change my very substance, destroy me and rebuild me, give me new life and a new name. My case is not too much for you. It is I who has nothing with which to draw.

The Destitution of Service

"Natural love expects some return" -- Oswald. I'm not sure I love anyone without some expectation of return. My love for my children comes closest, but even with them, there has always been reward for my efforts. Before they could verbalize or even really give hugs, they nuzzled my shoulder, and before that, there were bubbly smiles, and before that was the innate response of their bodies next to mine. Now, there are actual thanks and phone calls and thoughtful gifts on occasion -- although I confess long intervals and umpteen loads of laundry can pass between acknowledgments. I wonder how long my love would last without some measure of return.

Paul says that he does not care whether the Corinthians love him or not. He also does not care what his love for them costs him. I have been trying to ignore Oswald's use of the phrase "broken and poured out" for days. It seems severe, unreasonable, extravagant, but Oswald repeats it again and again. Though I wish to dismiss it as quaint and from another time, I cannot. Paul and Oswald (and, in fact, Christ) seem to be saying: "I want you to love your child, your neighbor, your co-worker, your enemy even, without regard for their treatment of or attitude toward you. I want you to break open your own soul for them, be honest, be transparent, be vulnerable to them. I want you to serve them at great cost to yourself. Don't be concerned with how they or anyone else perceives you. You might look like a fool. Who cares? Love recklessly and with abandon."

This is very hard indeed. I am not up to the task, and yet, the call remains.

The Delight of Sacrifice

I'm afraid I have only random thoughts this morning.

1) The literal translation of 2 Corinthians 12:15 according to my Wycliffe Commentary: "But I, I will most gladly spend and be utterly spent out for your souls. If more abundantly you I am loving, the less am I being loved?" Paul's words are all the more true of Christ. How am I responding to this abundant love? When he seeks me out and invites me to dine with him, am I grateful for the invitation or angry that the party isn't in my honor?

2) "When the Spirit of God has shed abroad the love of God in our hearts, we begin deliberately to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ's interests in other people, and Jesus Christ is interested in every kind of man there is. We have no right in Christian work to be guided by our affinities" -- Oswald. Some people are so much easier to love than others. Last night, my daughters and I served a special appreciation dinner for the men at the Mission where I work. These men are easy to love. They have been humbled and broken. There are few pretenses among them, and they are enormously grateful for every kind gesture. The challenge for me is much greater with my fellow workers, but Oswald admonishes me not to make distinctions. "Jesus Christ is interested in every kind of man there is." So must I be.

3) "Paul spent himself for one purpose only -- that he might win men to Jesus Christ" -- Oswald. On how many purposes do I spend myself? How many are really necessary?

4) "We are apt to be devoted, not to Jesus Christ, but to the things which emancipate us spiritually" -- Oswald. I'm not sure what Oswald means by "emancipate us spiritually" -- make us free in spirit? -- but in my case, I'm taking it to mean that I am apt to be devoted to those things which make me feel good about myself. I was struck by the parallel meaning in 2 Corinthians 12:14: "What I want is not your possessions but you" or from The Message: "I have no interest in what you have -- only in you." Lord, help me to have such pure motives -- to want You, not what You can provide, and to love people for Your sake and theirs, not for how they make me feel.

The Determination to Serve

Don't you hate it when you know you're identifying with the wrong characters in one of Jesus' stories -- like the older brother in the prodigal son parable or the grumbling laborers in the vineyard at the beginning of Matthew 20 from which today's verse comes? These men have done manual labor since early morning, and then some guys come along at the very end of the day, work for an hour, and get paid the same amount as the guys who started at 6 a.m. No wonder they cry foul, and yet, Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like this landowner.

The rest of Matthew 20 includes Jesus' prediction of his own death, the mother of James and John coming to Jesus to request top positions for her sons in his kingdom, Jesus' explanation of what it means to lead through service, and finally, Christ giving sight to two blind men sitting on the side of a road -- men whom the crowd were attempting to silence.

Jesus often offends our sensibilities of what is right. I'm inclined to get caught up in the parable at the beginning, but the whole chapter is anchored (as is the entire gospel) by two verses in the middle: "The Son of Man will be betrayed . . . They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!" (vv. 17-19) And I'm worried about a few underpaid/overpaid workers. When God becomes man and, in the middle of ministering to the weak and blind and hungry, is nailed to a cross in absolute hatred, fair and sensible go out the window. Throw away the old rules. We're playing a whole new game. And that, I think, is the point.

We are dealing with the Creator of the Universe. It all belongs to him -- all the resources, all the power -- and there is no shortage to his generosity. I must not insist upon a day's wages for a day's labor. I must not begrudge my brother God's abundant gifts, and I must not demand my due. That's part of the old system. By which we all came up short. Jesus ushered in a new one.

"Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (v. 28).

The Discipline of Spiritual Tenacity

"Sons of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!"

I have always loved this speech given by Aragorn, King of Gondor, at the Black Gate of Mordor toward the end of Tolkien's Return of the King, and I think it is a good example of the tenacity of which Oswald writes: "Tenacity is the supreme effort of a man refusing to believe that his hero is going to be conquered." Aragorn's task was to distract the huge armies of the enemy, Sauron, so that his hero -- a humble hobbit creature named Frodo who was behind the Black Gate, deep in the heart of Mordor -- could destroy the ring of power. Numbers and odds were against them both, but they refused to give up. They operated on the thread of hope that good would win out in the end.

We have more than a thread of hope. Our Hero has already conquered, and we are fighting on the winning side. "There is nothing noble the human mind has ever hoped for or dreamed of that will not be fulfilled" -- Oswald.

The problem is that reality does not always line up with what we see before us. We see the wicked prosper. We see our dreams dashed and noble ideas losing. We see the people we love struggle. And we ourselves struggle with despair. Hear God's call to spiritual tenacity:

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging . . . The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress," Psalm 46:1-3, 7.

I wish I could end there, but a second problem presents itself. My day-to-day existence scarcely resembles Aragorn's noble call to battle. My life does not appear to be fraught with life-and-death matters, and the battle lines are not so clearly defined as men against orcs. Tenacity, however, is still required. Perhaps more so. Remember Oswald's words from a few days ago: "Drudgery is one of the finest touchstones of character there is." The battle -- whether visible to me or not -- does wage and I am a warrior in it. The enemy wants my life, my soul, and he wields the weapons appropriate to the particular struggle -- jealousy, boredom, despair, idols.

God's call to tenacity remains the same: "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth," Psalm 46:10.

Have You Ever Been Carried Away for Him?

"If love is always discreet, always wise, always sensible and calculating, never carried beyond itself, it is not love at all" -- Oswald.

Sometimes Oswald surprises me. Like today. And sometimes God does. Like yesterday.

I mentioned book group in Friday's post and the discussion about blessing our children. What I didn't mention was that my negativity included a tirade about how difficult it was to give what I had not been given myself. I struggle with feeling loved and valued by God. Part of that may result from a lifelong effort to internalize my earthly father's love. My dad was raised by two of the most non-demonstrative people I have ever met. Compared to them, he has certainly made progress. He hugs me when I see him. He tells me he loves me before he hangs up the phone on our bi-weekly conversations, but those same conversations tend to stick fairly close to the surface and rarely deal with anything resembling emotion. My dad was born in 1929; it goes without saying that being raised during the Depression had an impact on him. He is not always sure how to relate to me, his youngest daughter. I have often wished that he would ask more questions, be more talkative, more openly expressive of his love and interest in my life and the lives of my children. This probably isn't going to happen. It is not who he is. Sometimes I do a better job of accepting this than others. At book group, I wasn't even trying to accept it. I was like a child -- wanting what I wanted -- a father who reads my blog (and, in fact, everything I write), gets excited about my ideas and wants to discuss them, affirms me, values me, adores me and my children.

Yesterday, one of my friends from book group excitedly told me about a piece of art she had just seen at a show that reminded her of me. It was a batik entitled, "A Gift from My Father." I had a day full of meetings, but at the end of the afternoon, I snuck out early to go see this painting and meet the artist, a member of the Masai tribe who has been studying in the US. As I stood looking at the painting of a Masai warrior placing a necklace around the neck of his young daughter, the artist spoke to me about a father's tender love for his daughter. He assured me, though he was meeting me for the first time and does not know my story, that my father did indeed love me and suggested that, in my stubborn insistence on specific demonstrations of love, I might be missing the obvious. I wept. And I did an extravagant thing -- out of character for me -- I bought that batik. I bought it because I knew it was a message from God to me through a Masai artist. It was a message to me about a Father's love for his daughter.

This might seem like a different kind of extravagance than Oswald was writing about. I bought something for myself, yes, but in a mysterious way I'm not sure I can explain, my purchasing that piece of art was also a gift to God -- a gift of trust, a gift of acceptance, a gift of relinquishing anger. It wasn't sensible. With two boys in college, I have no business buying original art. I was indeed carried away.

That purchase was for me an act of abandonment to God. Every time I look at it, I will remember that I am His and He loves me. Dearly.

The Initiative Against Dreaming

Note: Oswald's caution is not directed toward dreaming in general, but rather dreaming when one ought to be doing -- "always beware of giving over to mere dreaming when once God has spoken." Oswald has, in fact, extolled the virtues of dreaming in other entries.

Yesterday's Scripture passage adds meaning to today's devotional for me. "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn," Isaiah 60:1-3.

There is an urgency in Isaiah's words. People are wandering about in thick darkness, searching desperately for love, acceptance and a sense of purpose for their lives. They are sitting in the shadow of death. We have the Light. God's glory has broken in upon the darkness for us. All we have to do is walk out into the darkness and shine with the Light that is already present in us.

I have long struggled with the concepts present in John 14: "If you love me, you will obey what I command . . . Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me . . . If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching . . . He who does not love me will not obey my teaching." I have always heard a call to performance in those words, but I am beginning to hear something else.

Oswald wrote: "If you are in love, you do not sit down and dream about the one you love all the time, you go and do something for him." But he also wrote: "Leave Him to be the source of all your dreams and joys and delights." Here's how I'd like to rewrite Oswald's charge for my own life: If you are in love, it is not enough to simply dream about the person from afar. That isn't love, it's a crush. No, love involves an active pursuit of relationship. You want to know the person, be with the person, listen to his voice, understand what makes him tick, and ultimately, walk alongside him in life. He becomes a part of you and you of him. And when the Person with whom you are in love is Jesus Christ, his light shines out from within you, and the fact that he came to bring light to a dark world drives you out into the darkness yourself. Not to blend into it but to draw nations and kings and children and mothers and friends and neighbors to the Brightness of our Dawn.

The Initiative Against Drudgery

I am blessed. I did not see this last night when I felt remarkably like a wrung-out, sour-smelling dish rag. I went directly to book group after a horrible day at work, and part of the book discussion centered on blessing our children and grandchildren. Here was my attitude: Really? I'm thinking about how to survive, keep my job, pay the bills and not hate absolutely everyone, including myself, in the process, and you want me to say blessings over my children?

But today has been a nearly perfect day for healing. OK, it started out a little less than perfect when, after dropping my girls off at school, I got a speeding ticket for going 47 in a 35 mph zone (that street really doesn't feel like a 35-mph street). And then the officer had the nerve to make a joke about my glove compartment needing a little spring cleaning. Hasn't experience taught him that people receiving $154 tickets aren't really in the joking mood?

Speeding tickets aside, however, it is a gorgeous spring-like day. Blue skies after weeks of gray and a bright yellow ball shining overhead. I took my walk for the first time in weeks, and Oswald's words were like the balm of Gilead to my weary soul. I received them as a personal gift from God -- via Oswald -- to me:

"When the Lord does a thing through us, He always transfigures it. Our Lord took on Him our human flesh and transfigured it, and it has become for every saint the temple of the Holy Ghost."

Remember the grungy dish rag that was me? He has blessed me and transformed me so that, yes, I might bless my children as well as be blessed by them.

Barbara

The Initiative Against Despair

It's after 10 p.m., and I've had a rather emotionally draining day, so I fear I may not do Oswald justice. I read yesterday's passage from I Kings 19 and today's passage from Matthew 26 first thing this morning, then I went to lie on the couch and pray but, ironically, fell asleep instead. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Oswald's advice: Do the next thing.

I am going to fail. I am going to disappoint myself and others. Christ's friends let him down in the most crucial test of loyalty, but there is no going back. They cannot undo it. To dwell on the failure only brings despondency. I cried at work today, for which I hate myself -- so unprofessional. I want to be a big girl, separate myself from my writing, and listen to any and all criticism with a detached objectivity. News flash, Barb. It's not going to happen. You are a passionate perfectionist. Also, you are not always nice. You have prickles. You can be hurt and you can hurt other people. GIVE UP ON THE INSANE PERFECT BARBIE DOLL IDEAL ALL READY. It ain't gonna happen. And no matter how many times you go over the events of the day, you cannot change them. They are literally history. Listen to Oswald and move on.

What is the next thing? For me, right now it is bed and a fresh start tomorrow.

The Initiative Against Depression

I love the normalcy with which Oswald addresses depression. Rocks don't get depressed. People do. It results naturally from having a full range of emotions. Just as we have the capacity for ecstasy, we have the capacity for despondency. It doesn't mean we are low on faith or spiritually weak. We shouldn't beat ourselves up for being depressed. As crazy as it sounds, I do it all the time, and believe me, it is counterproductive.

I also love the ironic truth in Oswald's prescription. When I am down, I despise what I see as the mundane and meaningless tasks of my life. The sheer volume of them mocks my hunger for significance. How can one imagine she is special and talented while she folds underwear, vacuums cat hair and washes grease off of pots? And yet, the rhythm and familiarity of those same tasks brings healing.

Oswald makes one important distinction -- motivation. If we engage in the ordinary tasks of life -- making dinner, cleaning the toilet -- out of duty or in order to alleviate our depression, we will deepen it. But if we turn to God, listen for his Spirit, and obey his simple commonplace commands, he will lift our spirit.

The Inspiration of Spiritual Initiative

I wrote my husband a note the other day to say I felt as if we were waking from a long sleep and, in a mix of metaphors, that it was time to start dreaming again. Perhaps that sounds crazy for two 50-year-olds, but I saw confirmation in Oswald's words today.

The Nineties were a bit of a wild ride for Frank and me:

1990 -- Ours sons were born, one in February, one in October.
1991 -- My mom died.
1992 -- We opened a restaurant with our best friends' parents.
1993 -- Frank's dad died. We lost our restaurant; the partnership failed.
1994 -- Our first daughter was born, and we moved halfway across the country.
1995 -- Frank changed jobs. We moved again.
1996 -- We bought a house.
1997 -- Our youngest daughter was born. Frank changed jobs. We moved again.
1998 -- I had a mini-meltdown and spent two weeks as an outpatient at a psychiatric clinic.
1999 -- Frank changed jobs. We moved again. But this time we stayed put. We have been in Spokane, Washington for almost 11 years.

Beginning in 1995, we homeschooled our children. The boys transferred to public high school in 2004 and 2005, the girls, public middle school in 2006 and 2009.

Somewhere in the midst of the births and the deaths and the moves, Frank and I moved into survival mode. Please don't misunderstand. That decade included some of the best times of our lives -- the births of our children, their first words, chef and Cinderella and spaceman parties, long hikes in the rain forest. We discovered the Oregon Coast as a family. For one year, we lived three blocks from the beach. We walked on it almost every day -- in rain and wind, searching for agates, as well as in sun and blue sky, building sand castles. No, it wasn't that the times were bad, but rather that Frank and I were holding on for dear life and our personal dreams seemed like relics of the distant past. Now that things are not moving at such breakneck speed (our boys are in college; our girls in full-time public school), we have the opportunity to look about us a bit.

"We all have any number of visions and ideals when we are young, but sooner or later we find that we have no power to make them real. We cannot do the things we long to do, and we are apt to settle down to the visions and ideals as dead . . . God has come to say, 'Arise from the dead'" -- Oswald.

Life is not over. "We are able to arise from the dead and do the impossible thing."

Barbara

Am I My Brother's Keeper?

Cain first asked the question of God after he had killed his brother, Abel, and it has since become a casual quip to deflect personal responsibility. Seldom, however, does the speaker seem to grasp the irony that the truthful answer is affirmative. Cain assumed ultimate responsibility for his brother's life by depriving him of it.

Almost all of my actions -- and many of my thoughts -- impact someone else. Some of these are blatantly obvious. I got halfway through painting my house, changed my mind about the color and couldn't decide on a new one. Time got away from me, and now my neighbors have been looking at a half-painted house for almost two years. I am not terribly organized. I don't keep a day timer or a blackberry or even a basic calendar very well. It is not uncommon for me to double-schedule myself. I end up having to back out of something or just plain forgetting, which doesn't just impact my schedule but several others, as well.

Other reverberations are less obvious. When one of my sons was just a little over two years old, he started having the most incredible temper tantrums. He would scream until his face turned deep scarlet and he couldn't catch his breath. His mouth would be wide open, but for 10, 15, 30 seconds, no air would be going in or coming out. When I tried to pick him up, every fiber of his being went rigid with anger, and he would end up lying on the ground wherever we happened to be -- the park, the grocery store, the sidewalk. I couldn't see any rhyme or reason to it, and I had no idea what to do. So I called an older, wiser mother -- expecting perhaps a step-by-step method for dealing with tantrums -- but she surprised me. She asked, "Is there something you are angry about?" I think I actually stuttered: "Well, yes, my husband and I are losing our restaurant, and our relationship with our partners is extremely strained. I'm angrier than I ever remember being in my life . . . and at a whole bunch of people." Meanwhile, I'm thinking, But my son is two years old. He has no idea what's going on. It didn't take my friend long to convince me that my son did indeed have some idea what was going on -- not the reasons perhaps, and I've never been a yeller, so there were no adult tantrums, but somehow my anger was being communicated. If I wanted to deal with his anger, I had to deal with my own.

I think it's possible to take this too far. We are not responsible for other people's behavior. We are only responsible for our own, but our behavior -- our thoughts even -- have a sometimes profound impact on the people around us. We do not liveth unto ourselves. We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. We are part of a larger body -- our families, our churches, the Body of Christ -- and when one body part boils with anger or languishes in despondency or rejoices in God's creative work, it impacts us all.

Barbara

The Discipline of Heeding

Humiliation as a gift. Now that's a new idea. "He gives you the gift of humiliation which brings the softness of heart that will always listen to God now" -- Oswald.

My pastor's sermon this morning was entitled, "The Glorious Defeat," and I was installed as an elder at my church. It's Valentine's Day, which also happens to be two of my children's birthdays. I'm trying to put all this together -- trying to listen for God in my life.

The text this morning was from 2 Corinthians 12:9: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." As I was listening to the questions for ordination, I was struck by how appropriate that passage was. I am not up to the task -- the task of being an elder, the task of parenting teenagers, the task of bringing glory to an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving, majestic Being.

We all want to be winners, Pastor John said, but winning may very well not be what God wants for our lives. We think we are going to succeed based on our strengths. God's power is made perfect in our weakness. What a paradox. Oswald's passage today comes from the book of Matthew when Jesus is sending the twelve disciples out to preach in his name. He tells them to expect tough times. I wonder if they realized that the tough times would, in part, be due to their own weaknesses, that they wouldn't really be up to the task.

Give me, Lord, a soft heart -- one which is ever aware of my frailty and hence hyper-sensitive to my need for you. I want to be a listener.

Barbara

The Devotion of Hearing

"The way in which I show God that I neither love nor respect Him is by the obtuseness of my heart and mind towards what He says" -- Oswald.

Ouch. Between the Scripture passage and Oswald's daily words, I always find My Utmost to be instructive and my time here invariably feels well spent, but today's message is like the stiletto of which he wrote on Thursday. I am pierced. I do not have the devotion of hearing. My mind and heart are dull to God's voice. And it is not because he has not been speaking.

Why have I not been hearing?

• I have not been expecting him to speak to me. As I have addressed in earlier posts, my thinking about revelation is partially responsible. I have not allowed that God could speak to me in any way other than Bible reading/Bible teaching and perhaps, at a distant second, through nature. Even here, I distrusted my own interpretation because, as Scripture says, the heart is deceitfully wicked. Perhaps I would only hear what I wanted to hear.
• I have not left space for listening to God. I place a high value on productivity -- getting things done. When I'm not getting things done, I tend to escape into other worlds -- books, movies, Facebook. Then there's the noise in my head -- the constant chewing of the cud -- What did that person mean? Could she have misunderstood what I meant? Replay compliment #2. Replay and replay and replay insult #4. I need to cultivate solitude and a quiet brain, to lay aside the constant critique of my performance.
• I am always afraid of condemnation. What if God is not pleased with me? Can I bear to hear that?
• I have not trained myself to recognize his voice -- to distinguish the shepherd from those who would lead me astray; to isolate the still, small voice from the earthquake or the mighty wind.

My assignment: Begin to take advantage of already established patterns of solitude -- the ride to and from work, for example. Turn off the radio and invite God to speak to me. Use the daily Scripture passages as a starting place. Ask him to breathe life into the words so that they speak to me throughout the day. Come to him boldly under the assumption that I am loved. Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

It is a start.

Barbara

Must I Listen?

I am trying to reconcile fear and love in my mind.

Here is the message Moses conveys from God to the Israelites in the early part of Exodus 19:

"You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

Then, as God prepares to descend on Mount Sinai, he tells Moses to warn the people:

"Be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. He shall surely be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on him. Whether man or animal, he shall not be permitted to live."

Next, the people witness God's descent:

"Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder."

Finally, in chapter 20, they speak the words Oswald uses in today's reading:

"When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, 'Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.'"

God is awesome and powerful and, in many ways, scary. God loves us and calls us his treasured possession. How do I bring these two thoughts together in my mind in such a way that I can relate to him? I am reminded (as I often am) of Jill in C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair. She is dying of thirst, but to get a drink from the stream, she must approach the fearsome lion. She wants some assurance that he won't eat her, but he tells her that he has swallowed girls, boys, entire cities. I am reminded also of Job who said, "Though he slay me, I will hope in him. Nevertheless, I will argue my ways before him."

I think the Israelites' reluctance to hear directly from God makes perfect sense. His effect on the mountain was like an earthquake and volcano combined. Moses had an unearthly glow after meeting with him. What does not make sense is that they could witness his power, hear of -- in fact experience -- his love and turn to a golden idol. And yet, I know I do this every day. I turn from the face of God -- both fearsome and full of love -- to seek approval and worth and comfort in idols of my own making. I never doubt his power. I have experienced his tender care. But I run in search of other streams to quench my thirst. There is no other stream.

Is Your Hope in God Faint and Dying?

Imagination: the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality (Webster Online).

I wish I knew something about Hebrew, so I could understand the word which Oswald translates "imagination" and most modern versions translate "mind." I was able to gather from my Hebrew dictionary that it is a different word than several others also translated "mind." Many of those words carry the sense of intellect, feelings or will while this word has earthier origins and relates to something framed, fashioned or formed, like pottery. The connotation is organic and active -- not staid and passive -- and Oswald echoes that throughout today's reading: Put a stiletto in the place where you have gone to sleep. Provoke yourself. Bring every thought into captivity.

The Amplified Bible translates Isaiah 26:3 like this: "You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind (both its inclination and its character) is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You."

I wonder if translators shied away from the word "imagination" because of its association with make-believe. I confess that initially I wondered if Oswald was encouraging me to visualize God or visualize myself in the presence of God, but that seemed inconsistent with what I know of Oswald. The word "mind," however, seems too narrow and passive in its meaning. Oswald conveys an active pursuit that engages all the senses in this pushing and pulling and shaping toward God:

"Learn to associate ideas worthy of God with all that happens in Nature -- the sunrises and the sunsets, the sun and the stars, the changing seasons, and your imagination will never be at the mercy of your impulses, but will always be at the service of God."

"Your imagination will not be starved any longer, but will be quick and enthusiastic, and your hope will be inexpressibly bright."

Is Your Imagination of God Starved?

"In every wind that blows, in every night and day of the year, in every sign of the sky, in every blossoming and in every withering of the earth, there is a real coming of God to us if we will simply use our starved imagination to realize it" -- Oswald.

Well, that's just about perfect. I'm not sure what I can add, but this is supposed to be my words, my journey, so . . .

All day long as I sat at work yesterday, I wanted to be somewhere else -- anywhere else. It was all I could do to stay in my chair and try to concentrate. Words, ideas, creativity were elusive. It seemed dollars ticked by like minutes, mimicking my lack of productivity, and as soon as 4:30 came, I practically jumped out of my chair. On the drive home, the twin siren songs of food and murder (of the PBS variety) came to me, and I recognized the familiar desire to escape -- from myself. I said to my soul, Why are you downcast? Why do you plague me so?

"The test of spiritual concentration is bringing the imagination into captivity. Is your imagination looking on the face of an idol? . . . Then your imagination of God is starved, and when you are up against difficulties you have no power, you can only endure in darkness. If your imagination is starved, do not look back to your own experience; it is God Whom you need." -- Oswald.

It is God whom I need. Not praise for my writing. Not money. Not people telling me I'm wonderful. "Go right out of yourself, away from the face of your idols" -- Oswald.

"Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these?" Isaiah 40:26. The same God who placed each ball of flaming gas in the sky, who created birds as diverse as the hummingbird and the horned owl and gave them each the ability to fly -- that same God loves me, values me, and gave me a job to do.

It is the Lord Jesus Christ whom I serve, and he will make me able for all that is required today.

Barbara

Are You Exhausted Spiritually?

"To whom will you compare me?
Or who is my equal?" says the Holy One.
Lift your eyes and look to the heavens.
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one,
and calls them each by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.
Why do you say, O Jacob,
and complain, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the Lord;
my cause is disregarded by my God?"
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:25-31

Today, Lord, let me take my strength from you.

Instantaneous and Insistent Sanctification

Oswald uses the phrase "are we prepared" eight times in today's devotional reading, but notice who does the action in the corresponding Bible verses: "May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it," I Thessalonians 5:23-24.

God does the work, but I am not a passive bystander. Oswald asks if I am prepared. What if I am not? "It will cost everything that is not of God in us." What if I have not counted the costs? "Sanctification means intense concentration on God's point of view." What if I am distracted by the world and the requirements of holiness take me by surprise?

For me, the answers to those questions are not theoretical. I have proven again and again that I was not prepared to pay the price, that I wasn't even clear on what the price was, and my concentration has been very weak. I have been bothered about a great many things unrelated to God's purpose. Looking back, I see that God has done the narrowing and broadening, and he has brought me to this place where my longing for him is intense. Like C.S. Lewis' protagonist in A Pilgrim's Regress, it has been a strange journey, circuitous to say the least, and I feel in many ways that it is only just beginning. But I do not feel his whip or scorn. I feel his mercy, and though I cannot see them, I know his arms are outstretched.

Jesus was ruled by a love for the Father. May I be so ruled.

The Discipline of Dejection

I have been on a journey with Oswald today. I read the assigned entry from My Utmost right after my shower this morning. I knew I was in trouble from the second sentence: "Anything that savours of dejection spiritually is always wrong. If depression and oppression visit me, I am to blame; God is not, nor is anyone else. Dejection springs from one of two sources -- I have either satisfied a lust or I have not."

My first thoughts were of protest: What about brain chemistry -- misfiring synapses and sluggish receptors? What about temperament and hereditary factors? What about nurture and modeling and the sins of the fathers being visited on the second and third generations? . . . But I ran out of steam pretty quickly. Who really wants to argue for the right to be depressed? Still, I found Oswald's words both harsh and over-simplistic: "Dejection spiritually is wrong, and we are always to blame for it."

The thing is, I have struggled with depression for most of my adult life and, for many years, risen to a functioning level only through the aid of anti-depressant medication. I'm not prepared to beat myself up for those years, nor do I desire to criticize -- or minimize the pain of -- anyone in the same position. That said, I feel like Oswald has earned the right to be heard, so I took his words with me throughout the day. I examined both his expression and my response.

• "I am to blame." Those words don't seem quite so devastating to me as they would have a few weeks ago. I am not obliterated by the suggestion that I am responsible. Oswald's teaching that we should not be overly concerned about our own righteousness has begun to bring about a change in me -- a loosening of bonds. This morning we sang the hymn, "Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy." Note the words of this final stanza: "Let not conscience make you linger, not of fitness fondly dream; all the fitness He requireth is to feel your need of Him." I feel a need of him. I know the despair that crouches hungrily at my door.
• I also remembered these words from McCasland's biography on Oswald. Biddy, Oswald's wife had just expressed concern about a dying friend, and Oswald replied: "I don't care what God does. It's what God is that I care about." Now, note what the author wrote about Biddy: "Biddy smiled. She knew the heart of love and concern from which her husband had spoken what might seem a callous remark. He cared deeply what happened to Miss Ballinger, but he knew that God's actions could be very confusing, while the Lord himself never was." Oswald on the written page can come across more harshly than perhaps was his intent. Each reading requires a larger context of understanding.
  
• At 18, Oswald wrote a poem that suggests his own struggle with dejection, and we are sometimes harshest in our criticism of our personal failings.
  

LONDON

Sad heart, why art thou weary
With anxious strivings drear?
Thou hast no cause for sadness,
No cause for restless fear.

Thou longest for Thy Master,
Then cease and be at rest;
For shall not He who made thee
Know what for thee is best?

• Today's verse comes from the Road to Emmaus passage -- three days after the crucifixion. While Jesus scolds the two men for their failure to understand the prophets, he also walks with them, eats with them, and explains "all the Scriptures concerning himself." The two men want him to linger: "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road?" Yes, they missed the point, but Jesus communes with them. He stays with them until their eyes are open. There is no condemnation here.
• Finally, the truth of Oswald's closing sentence resonates with my heart: "One of the most amazing revelations of God comes when we learn that it is in the commonplace things that the Deity of Jesus Christ is realized." On the road to Emmaus. In the breaking of bread.

I believe God is showing me that much of my depression has been rooted in an over-concentration on my own righteousness. Dale Bruner was the speaker at the retreat I attended this weekend. I shared a piece of my journey with him and his wife, Kathy, and I'll close with two nuggets of wisdom they gave me. Dale's came from Martin Luther. I paraphrase: Sanctification is simply taking justification seriously. Cathy's related to the rhythm of breathing: We breathe in grace. We breathe out confession of sin. We breathe in grace.

Are You Ready to Be Offered?

I thought I was finished with this question after yesterday, but apparently not.

"Tell God you are ready to be offered, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be" -- Oswald.

I do not want to be like the unfaithful servant who said "yes" when he didn't really mean it. If I say "yes," I want to mean it, and I don't know that I can or do. On the other hand, I'm not sure I can say "no" either, so I am perplexed.

Frank, my husband, Izzy, my youngest daughter, and I are at a weekend retreat. Frank is doing the cooking, and last night I helped serve; but today, I have been free to attend the sessions, to hike with Izzy, and to rest. This morning, the speaker focused on a passage in John that he said perfectly illustrated "by faith alone -- in Christ alone -- through grace alone." God, he said, delights in us.

This afternoon, Izzy and I read a couple chapters of The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis. One of the chapters was the one where the dwarfs kept insisting, "The dwarfs are for the dwarfs!" They certainly were not going to be offered up or taken in, and as a consequence, they could not enjoy the beauty around them. Their eyes could not see and their ears could not hear the wonders that awaited them.

Again, I am reminded of Jim Elliot's words: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

"God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be."

Are You Ready to Be Offered?

"Are you ready to be not so much as a drop in a bucket -- to be so hopelessly insignificant that you are never thought of again in connection with the life you served?" -- Oswald

In all honesty, no. My reaction to two recent events came quickly to mind as evidence against me on this score. First, I recently found out that a young friend (not yet 30) is about to have her first book published. Certainly, a piece of me was happy for her. She is a talented writer with an important message. A larger piece, however, was jealous. There is no way to sugar coat it. I thought, That should be me. Secondly, I did not receive acknowledgment for a small project in which I was involved. Gr-r-r-r-r went something scary deep within me. I am thirsty for recognition. Add to those my disproportionate elation over every little thumbs-up or "I like it" my words receive, and it becomes obvious how far I have to go on the road to humility.

"Do everything without complaining or arguing (or expectation of recognition), so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life," Philippians 2:14-15. These are the verses that precede the one Oswald chose for today, and I see them as a kind of starting place. I question whether I will ever reach the mindset Oswald describes in today's reading, but today, I can choose not to complain, and I can go to God with my need for significance.

Barbara

The Overmastering Majesty of Personal Power

I'm not wild about many of the daily titles in My Utmost. I would have titled this one, "Compelled by the Love of Christ" after the selected Bible verse.

"For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died," 2 Corinthians 5:14, NIV. Oswald uses the King James Version: "For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead."

Constrain: to force, to compel; to restrain; to coerce; to oblige

Compel: to exert a strong, irresistible force upon

And to what is Paul constrained or compelled?

Verse 9: "So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it."

Verse 11: "Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men."

Verse 20: "We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God."

Oswald argues that spiritual maturity will lead us to be witnesses -- not merely to what Christ can do, which he calls "an elementary witness," but witnesses to the Person of Christ. This brings to mind an earlier entry in which he emphasized the difference between the blessings of God and the character of God. Am I striving solely to see his hand in my life or am I striving to see him? Am I bearing witness solely to my story or am I bearing witness to his?

The passage from Oswald which struck me with the greatest force today: "Paul says he is gripped by the love of God, that is why he acts as he does. Men may call him mad or sober, but he does not care; there is only one thing he is living for, and that is to persuade men of the judgment seat of God, and of the love of Christ."

I feel as though I am straining through a fuzzy mobile connection to understand what both Paul and Oswald are saying today. And I think the interference may be caused by my failure to fully comprehend the love of Christ. Paul's full comprehension of that love compelled/constrained him to act and live as he did.

Lord, I understand a piece of your message. Help me to grasp the full picture.

Barbara