Posted on by Renee Meyer · 1 Comment

Quieting the Noise: 6 Things I learned from giving up social media for Lent

Usually I give up something food related for Lent, since that is my greatest area of excess. This year as a Lenten fast, I decided to give up social media. I am a fan of social media, particularly Facebook, and am very grateful for the way social media helps me to feel connected to far flung family and friends. But I had found myself a bit bruised on the internet lately, more easily getting my feelings hurt, accidentally offending others, spinning into cycles of ragey response to what people post, or sliding into judgmental thoughts.

And I was craving quiet. Desperately needing God’s voice and values to be louder than anyone or anything else. So I stepped away, only checking my social media accounts once a week, on Saturdays.

As usual with my Lent experiments, I had varying degrees of success. I’m never as committed as I want to be, and I too often forget the reasons I gave something up, what I’m hoping to accomplish.

But I did learn some things about myself and social media.

Quiet the Noise

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Posted on by Renee Meyer

A Prayer for Easter Sunday

For those of us who find ourselves locked in rooms of fear…. 

My Easter prayer is that we would find 

Jesus locked in there with us, 

Speaking PEACE 

And breathing His Spirit on us. 

Posted on by Renee Meyer

A Forgiveness Crossroads {Good Friday}

As I sat in the quiet at a Good Friday service today, I was distracted by hurt, a recent injury, an ongoing “discussion” (fight) I am having with someone in my head.

I worked hard to focus in on the story, the great drama of Good Friday. But my injured feelings kept intruding.

And then I read Jesus’ words,

Father, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing.”

I guess I have always skipped over those words before, “Jesus forgives. Check.”

But today they are new. Today they are for me.

“They do not know what they are doing.” But those who betrayed, tortured, murder Jesus did know what they were doing, right? It seems pretty intentional.

And those who hurt me also knew what they were doing. It isn’t betrayal, torture or murder, but it is a deliberate choice. It seems pretty intentional.

But do they know? Perhaps those who betrayed, tortured, murdered Jesus lost sight of His humanity. And had they known they were turning over and slaughtering the Messiah, the Son of God, surely they would have made a different decision?

And perhaps the wrongs I struggle to forgive also come from those who “do not know what they are doing.”

One way or another, I am faced this Good Friday with a choice. A forgiveness crossroads. Can I read Jesus’ words and not apply them to my own situation?

Posted on by Renee Meyer

What does it mean to be a Christian? {Easter Thoughts}

Am I a Christian because I go to church on Sunday (and many of the other days)? Am I a Christian because of what I think about Jesus? Because I celebrate Christmas and Easter? Because I was raised to be a Christian? (I wasn’t, actually.)

I am a Christian because I believe Jesus is the Son of God, He is MY God. I have answered the great call to Follow Jesus. But as we slide down the last days of Lent into Easter weekend, I thinking about how easy it is for Christians to live as functional non-believers – myself included. We say we follow Jesus, but our lives bear no mark of Him. What better time than Easter weekend to contemplate what it really means to be a Christian, to follow Jesus.

Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.

Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded…

So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.

Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. (John 13:1-17)

Jesus loved by lowering. John sees the love of Christ in the kneeling, serving Jesus. Jesus stripped, laying aside the garments of leader and teacher and taking the costume of a servant. Jesus washed even the feet of His betrayer, demonstrating love and service even for the hands that would slay Him. Read more

Posted on by Renee Meyer

When it is hard, and feels like the death of something

I am in a hard season. Some hard things you see coming, but this one took me by surprise. After months and years of daily ups and downs in a relatively safe and happy routine, we woke up to a different world. There is pain here, and loss and change and a whole bevy of unknowns, all those things we spend our lives trying to avoid. I am having to die to some things right now, especially the illusion of my own control and security.

I am not alone in this season, not the only one facing a sort of death. I am here with a neighbor facing a biopsy. A dear friend dealing with chronic pain and illness, and another facing the loss of her job and calling. I am here with friends in life long mental health battles and more than one friend walking through mental illness and the resultant questions and behavior with their children. And I am here with friends who uncovered abuse in their children’s lives.

That is an awful lot of hard, a lot of pain, a lot of death. Meanwhile we come to the end of the Lenten season, as the worldwide church prepares to relive and reenact the great story of the Christian faith, life out of death. Read more