Faithful Friday: Love is Kind- Part 1

It's been a long period of silence, and I do sincerely apologize.  Two months ago I wrote about patience, and I suppose I've accidentally tested yours as I fell away from blogging after planning to discuss kindness.  I did write that post, but the conviction and the events after made me hesitate to post it.  Today I'm "publishing it" because I've run out of excuses not to.

Thinking about kindness in the context of 1 Cor. 13:4- especially it's placement in defining love as first patient, second kind- well, it blows me away.  It's convicting, because I tend to go around life thinking I'm a pretty good person-but this kind of biblical loving kindness demands so much more than I truthfully want to give.  Months ago, in preparation for this post I wrote this:

"Kindness implies generosity and goodness.  Like patience, it is characterized by gentleness, mildness, indulgence, understanding, and tolerance.  It is also characterized as affectionate, altruistic, amicable, benevolent, benign, bounteous, charitable, compassionate, congenial, considerate, cordial, courteous, friendly, good-hearted, humane, humanitarian, soft touch, softhearted, sympathetic, tenderhearted, and thoughtful. 

True kindness, Spirit-filled kindness, the kind that is supported by patience is miraculous.  It is a selfless kindness to freely give despite one’s suffering and the circumstances that one endures, to be kind when the temptation is to hoard all of one’s resources and energies to overcome one’s own battles.  At the deepest levels, this Loving Kindness responds with goodness, tenderness, and compassion even in the face of maltreatment.  This kindness is not tit-for-tat because love is not tit-for-tat.  This kindness is healing and it's tough.

Love that is patient and kind requires that in our persistence we keep a soft touch- be unwavering but not tenacious.  Love does not return maltreatment for maltreatment. Love requires that our actions and our best selves aren't reserved for specific situations or groups of people, the people whose actions we understand and therefore accept.  

Blessedly, we’re not expected to love like this on our own.  As we are filled with the Spirit and encounter God and his ultimate sacrificial love through Christ we become more adept at loving one another. We learn. Moment by moment. Prayer by prayer.  Opportunity by opportunity.  We will fail, but He will not.  In His grace and forgiveness He will use our failures as teachable moments."

{Continued in Faithful Friday: Love is Kind- Part 2}

Casting Cares: Denial Versus Prayer

There's a fine distinction, I'm learning, between casting cares on Him and casting cares "away."  I am learning that I must be careful to lift up my worries and concerns to the Lord through prayer, and not just push them down.  It is not enough to encounter a problem, new or recurring, and dismiss it, even if we say that it's in God's hands. That is what I mean by pushing something down.   It's passing the buck and it's not communication.  

Like any relationship, one cannot take for granted that something will be accomplished by the other person.  For example: throughout my life my family's general rule was one person made dinner and the rest of us helped clean up.  Despite the division of duties, it wasn't really fair to expect this to always be the case as there were times when it was necessary for the cook to be the cleaner.  Such an expectation might foster feelings of being taken for granted, or it might mean that the work never gets done because of other factors that prevent the assumed cleaner from cleaning.  We set ourselves up for disappointment when we simply expect someone else to do something, without telling them what we expect them to do or how we expect them to help.  Even with our omniscient God as the other person in the relationship, there is still a need for communication, and it's for our benefit.

Lately I've been tempted to think meh, God's got this; I don't need to be concerned about this, and then I fail to pray about it.  When it resurfaces I dismiss it, because God's got it.  Subsequently, I've found that while I'm very good at tricking my own mind, my body is not so easily deceived and it will tell me when I've just been pushing cares down instead of lifting them up.  My dreams get wackier, my neck and shoulders tense up, I can't focus, and I experience other symptoms of stress.  It's not pleasant, but it is a great reminder of my need to pray-that we are beings created to be in communication and relationship with our Creator.

I believe that God is omniscient and in control, but He's not a dictator; He's not "Big Brother."  He's Papa, Abba Father.  He doesn't just want to fix my problems in an impersonal way.  He doesn't just want to give me a fish and feed me for a day, but as a good parent-He wants to teach me to fish.  Yet even that parable falls short, for in learning to fish I may deceive myself into thinking that I'm in control; He wants me to fish with Him.  In other words, He doesn't want to be my backup or my sidekick, not my rescuer but my teammate- Master and apprentice.  As God lovingly and patiently teaches me lessons I'm not expected to keep them to myself, but to humbly help others learn them too.  I have not mastered this lesson yet, but I am learning in the lap of my Heavenly Father.

Faithful Friday: Hope

Each Holy Week is different.  Though the Passion and the Truth remain the same, each year it is a new experience.  I have celebrated Easter in different parishes and denominations which allow for obvious variation in experience, but it goes deeper than surroundings.

Perhaps it is the stage of my life, a year of events that influence my perception.  For instance, being newly married I was more aware of the relationship between Joseph and Mary this past Christmas, particularly the strength and courage of Joseph as he took on this unique family.  This Easter the brightness of hope shines upon me as my earthly family is forced to confront mortality.

Last night in the Maundy Thursday service I watched the altar be stripped bare of its ornamentation.  Piece by piece the rector removed each component.  I watched as a line of women, clothed in black came slowly, one by one to the altar to take away each chalice, linen, crucifix, candle stick, and vase.  Then they took the priest's outer vestments and the altar was left bare-a blank wooden table, with a single overhead light, in a darkened church, while violin and organ played their haunting duet.  Lastly, they placed upon the altar table a crown of thorns, a stark and somber reminder of the arrest yet to come, and they read us the account of the watch of Gethesame.  I keenly felt the loss as our altar was systematically disassembled.  They weren't just taking away things, but vestiges of a life, The Life. 

The next few days will be pierced by solemnity and remembrance just as one mourns the loss of a loved one; yet we remember that the resurrection is coming.  In faith we secure our hope, knowing this separation is only temporary until we are reunited with the Lord.  And what a reunion it is, and was, and will be- full of wonder and joy and understanding as the glory of God is revealed.  

We press on in Hope, not as wishful thinking, but in "confident expectation," in the assured goodness of our God who so loved the world that He sent His only Son.

Faithful Friday

Faithful Fridays are rapidly becoming the only blogging day to which I am, well, faithful.  I do have some works in progress that I'll share soon, but remembering that God is the ultimate artist, let's look at His works in progress shall we?

I laugh about having ADHD, and sometimes I begrudge it- the real problems it creates for me are difficult (but not impossible) to overcome.    There are lots of down sides like hours and days when the fog rolls in and I can't get motivated to do tasks, much less focus on stuff.  The guilt of zoning out when I most want to be present for my friends and family is not fun, and neither is the struggle with memory {sometimes I feel like a goldfish}.  But there are also some upsides like- having lots of energy, being able to see connections between seemingly different concepts, being able to sleep regardless of the recency of my last caffeine fix, and noticing the little details.  

There's something redemptive about being distractable.  It helps me keep some of my childlike wonder at the world.  While my loved ones and acquaintances may have mixed feelings about my, "Oh hey, look, a butterfly," moments, I have to say I'm glad I caught some of those things.  In the busyness and the rush of today's tempo it gets hard to take time to appreciate the small wonders of our environment.  We can easily overlook the small delights around us, like the cheery yellow butterfly wending its way through the garden, or a magnificent sunset glimpsed through a clearing in the trees.

Recently I've been reminded to focus on the good things, to seek them out instead of focusing on my problems for fear that they'll never be solved.  Just as I was promised, the more actively I seek to find the good, the more readily I find it.  The changes in light, the whimsy of clouds, the colors of the sky- we can write them off as scientific, natural processes, but isn't it more fun, more beneficial and beautiful to marvel at them as majestic reminders of God's glory?  Even secular and agnostic sources are promoting an attitude of gratitude.  As believers we get to personally say thank you to the Creator for these visual gifts!  We can let the world tell us that these are just daily environmental occurrences, or we can accept that these things are demonstrations of Gods love for us.  God doesn't need the flowers to blossom or the sun to shine but He lovingly creates them.  They are His artistic expressions.  They are for you as much as they are for me.  Will you allow Him to woe you today?  Will you allow Him to console you in a brief distraction from your problems?  Open yourself to the possibility that that bright beam of sunshine or gentle breeze are His way of getting your attention and reminding you of His presence.

Faithful Friday: Casting Cares

At twenty-sha-ma-na-na-na years old, I'm not where I imagined I'd be as determined by my teenage self.  Like so many others I imagined I'd have it all by now- college education and successful career making lots of money or at least "making a difference," happy marriage, a house, new car, etc. There's nothing wrong with wanting the American dream, but it is exhausting and demoralizing to relentlessly chase it on your own merit.

Reflecting on the life I envisioned for myself, I'm so thankful for ungranted prayers.  A lot of my dreams changed as I met new challenges, no surprise.  Psychology quickly replaced biology as my major when I realized I was more interested in minds than bodies.  My limited dating history, prior to meeting my husband, reads like a comedy of errors. The economy tanked as I left college and many of us are over-educated for the jobs we're working and the house/car/material dreams are harder to obtain.

I had big dreams of being significant for helping people, but here's what I've learned: it is absolutely exhausting trying to make yourself significant of your own merit, holding onto plans so tightly against the push and pull of unforeseeable circumstances.  I got a graduate degree that held so much promise of making me significant to my community, but using it pulled me away from my family, faith community, and the things that kept me grounded.  I spent almost a year of forsaking the things and people that mattered most, giving all my best effort trying to shine on my own.

God doesn't ask me to be my own light source, but to reflect divine light.  Every bump, scrape, scratch, and ding acquired through living and refinement allows me to reflect His light in a new way.  If I shine it's because He polished me; if I am dull it is because I tried to evade His hand.  Refinement hurts and God's not shy about it.  We are tested in a "furnace of affliction" (Isaiah 48:10) and even the wise will stumble so that they may be refined and purified (Daniel 11:35).  It is through refinement, however painful, that we know we are loved (Zechariah 13:9), as a parent disciplines a child out of love.

Refinement is hard; I'm probably not the first to tell you about that.  It was hard giving up a career that made me proud, but disgruntled.  God loves a humble servant, and humble me He does.  Yet here I sit, happier and more blessed, living a life unexpected.  We all face painful circumstances.  It's part of our refinement.  It's painful to accept that sometimes our plans are ill-suited, but when we surrender our expectations God reveals His glory.

How many of life's pains give rise to something more beautiful that couldn't have existed otherwise?  How much more do we appreciate the things for which we labored or that came at a high cost?  Shall we resent the labor and the cost and give up, or press on in hope of victory?  There's a party going on in heaven.  These battles are already decided and won.  We are free to accept today's challenges as enough for today (Matthew 6:34).  Cast your cares.

Faithful Friday- Surviving Spiritual Storms

In the midst of the storm, it is hard sometimes to find hope in the darkness.  God's promise to prosper us and not to harm us (Jeremiah 29:11), to give us a future and a hope can be hard to hold onto as we perceive calamity.  Sometimes we feel like Job- we are going along, living good lives, perfecting our hearts and surrendering and singing praises; until the enemy attacks and takes away a bit of our security.  We may stumble, but we pick ourselves up by holding onto whatever goodness is left, no matter how small.  And sometimes the enemy takes away everything in his power to take away-he strips us bare of our blessings and taunts us to give up our last vestige of hope.  He tries to convince us that God has forsaken us because He has allowed the enemy to take away our blessings.  It is in these times, when the ground slips out from under us, however, that we are most tightly held.  How wonderful to have our distractions removed that we might focus on Him.  Those wonderful blessings upon which we based our happiness and judged our standing with the Lord, cannot hold a candle to the gift of Christ in eternal relationship and salvation with the one true God, and that is a gift that I shamefully confess I overlook too often.  It makes me think that in the midst of my despair as my world feels like it is in upheaval and I face incredible loss, God is righting my priorities.  He tells me to cling to Him first, above all else.  He says, "Watch this, as I play Jenga with your life!  My Spirit will fill the holes and uphold you and you will not topple over because you are Mine."

Each storm I face, I must hold onto the hope that it will make me stronger.  I have to return to the story of Job, who lost everything, and then God revealed Himself, His majesty and divine, ultimate power-and then blessed Job ten fold for all that was taken away.  I know that my God has the power to restore all things, to give me answers to every prayer, and trust me- I try to give Him the solutions to my problems- but I am so thankful that He overrides me. I remind myself that His ways are not my ways and His ways are higher than mine.  He sees the ripples before they form and He knows that my solution is temporary and He uses His powers not to give temporary gifts, but lasting ones.  So I will be thankful for the "no's" I receive, and I will praise Him in the midst of the storm because His will is done and out of it His blessings will flow like a river milk and honey.  Oh friends, I will certainly falter in this life, seeking temporary comfort instead of divine relief.  But, when the haze of shock subsides and I find myself knocked to my knees- it is then that I will realize that I am perfectly poised to pray.  In these moments, surely I am held closer to the heart of Christ who suffered first.  You see, I believe in a creator God, not a destroyer.  Sometimes in life, as in art, in order to create some things must be deconstructed.  That part of refinement can be painful, but the beauty of being made a new creation makes pain worth while.  New creation is exciting.  I am learning not to wring my hands when God moves in my life, but to rub them together excitedly in the knowledge that something good is coming out of this and I have a front row ticket to see God at work.

Yesterday bad news came knocking and then it let itself into my peace of mind and told me how it would alter so many of the things I'd planned and expected for my future.  In the light of a new day though, I can recognize that even when bad news waltzes right in I don't have to lay out the welcome mat and feed it some snacks.  I don't have to get caught up, bending over backwards to entertain bad news and how it might affect each facet of my life.  No. Paul tells me to keep pressing on toward the goal (Philippians 3:14) and reassures me that in all things God works for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28).  When the rivers overflow the bank we can look at the tragic mess that's left behind and forget to move forward.  OR we can look for what was strong enough to endure, what's left standing.  We can be thankful for the fertile soil that's left in the wake of the storm and use it to grow new and better dreams.

In the eye of the storm there is peace.  If you stay where you are the other side of the storm may hit you, but if what if you could move with it?  Who do you think stands in the center of that supernatural peace and conducts the winds of change?