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.
A Prayer for Easter Sunday
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?
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
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
6 Spiritual Practices Giving Me Life Right Now
In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.
But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action. (James 1:21-25, The Message)
In my early years as a Jesus follower, I tended to focus mostly on what I thought or believed about God. After all, “ What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” (A. W. Tozer)
I had so many false beliefs about God, lies that infected my God view, there was plenty to keep me busy just learning about God.
But before too long, I found myself in great danger of being merely a hearer of God’s Word, rather than actually living differently because of Him. It is a danger I face to this day. In American Christian culture it is so easy, if not encouraged, to let the whole of our lives with God be defined by where we are on Sunday mornings and what we say we believe about God, rather than actually living out of truth.
I want to run far away from “letting the Word go in one ear and out the other.” I want to live this call in James 1 to let God landscape me with truth like a good gardener. I want to act on what I hear, stick with the truth until it bears the fruit of delight and affirmation. Read more
On the Front Porch with Jesus {Prayer}
At some point in my twenties, my friend Anne mentioned sitting in silence with Jesus, a concept she’d read in one of Jill Briscoe’s books. Anne is a godly (and super fun) older woman and I’d heard Jill Briscoe speak, I trusted both of these women as a voices that would consistently encourage me to put my roots deep down into the Living Water Jesus offers. So I thought, “Sure, I’ll try it.”
I was skeptical when Anne said she had trouble making it to five minutes, despite much effort: How hard could sitting be? But when I tried sitting in silence with Jesus myself I found even two minutes nearly impossible. I think I tried it once. And then I went back to my previously scheduled “quiet time” routine of Bible study, journaled prayers, and reading every book I could get into my hands. Usually with some sort of music playing in the background. Those habits served and still serve me well, but perhaps there is some irony in the fact that my “quiet time” contained so much activity, and so little quiet?
Fast forward to the twenty-teens and contemplative prayer and “sitting with Jesus” are popping up in sermons, blog posts, books, podcasts, and in the lives of several close friends and co-workers. After hearing the three hundredth person extol the helpfulness and benefit of sitting with Jesus, I decided to try it again. Read more
The Call of Jesus: Abide
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5, NASB)
I have loved John 15 for years, but I tend to see this portion of John’s story like one of Shauna Neiquiest’s books: a collection of loosely related essays.
But it’s actually a narrative, one story. And I don’t think it’s an accident that we find this section on ABIDING sandwiched between our two greatest teachings on the Holy Spirit.
John 14:16 I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
Before Jesus calls His followers to abide or remain with Him… He’s promised His spirit to remain and be with Them.
As a young Christian, I learned to articulate my faith story as “I invited Christ into my life”. But I’m learning that God is the GREAT INITIATOR.
He ALWAYS goes first. He is inviting ME. Read more
The Call of Jesus: Come to Me and find REST
“Come to Me, (JESUS SAYS) all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11)
I have always understood this invitation “come to Me and I will give you rest” by itself, as if Jesus is saying “Come to me, TAKE A NAP. I’ll do everything else.” And Jesus has done it ALL. All our spiritual needs are met in Him. The search is over. When we find Jesus, we’ve found God. And there’s nothing wrong with a good nap.
But a spiritual nap is not what Jesus is promising here. Because to find the promised REST, we have to “take His yoke upon us and learn from Him”. Read more
The Call of Jesus: Come to Me and learn Sonship
Growing up, my value system was unknowingly ruled by 3 main things, 3 ways I managed life in order to know that I was OK.
Achievement. I was a hard worker, not for the sake of hard work or because I valued excellence really, but because I valued being thought well of. I was driven by reputation.
Relationship. I felt good about myself because of who my friends were. And I was a good and caring friend – sometimes at the expense of my own needs, and in spite of my better judgment. I was a good and caring friend so that people would like me. Because I needed them to be my friend, I needed them to like me.
Responsibility. As the oldest child in a broken home, I felt responsible for others, aware that the younger ones were watching, that I was expected to be a good influence. I was always aware of my responsibility. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now I see that I thought I could overcome the hurt and pain and unpredictability in our family for myself and my siblings, by the power of my own responsibility and reliability. When I went off to college and left this role, predictably I went a little wild.
This was my value system, my way of managing life and being OK: Reputation, Relationship and Responsibility (and I was much better at being responsible for others than I was for myself.) That is how I was OK in the world.
Then, halfway through college, I met Jesus. I fell head over heels in love with Him, He filled up empty spaces I didn’t even know I had.
For years, this is how I shared my story: Before Jesus, I found safety, security, LIFE in relationships & reputation. But then I met Jesus and learned to find safety, security, life in Him.
I had been a Christian and telling this story for over 10 years before I realized it was a lie. Read more
Broken Mirrors {Living on the Rock}
This week in my Living on the Rock Bible study, we studied about who we are in Christ, seeking to finish the sentence, “Since God is my source of security, I AM…”
Deuteronomy 33:12 About Benjamin he said: “Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders.”
I LOVE the picture in this verse: Of the one who is LOVED by the Lord, living in safety, shielded by the Lord, resting between His shoulders.
But all too often, my life is not reflective of this picture of security – I don’t live this TRUTH. Too often my experience is insecurity, not security. This should not be – for me or for you, for any child of the King.
A few years ago, the Lord had me on a journey finally really doing battle for SECURITY. It lasted months, and in many ways I am still learning.
As I spent so much time thinking about our battle with insecurity as women, I kept returning to the image of MIRRORS. A good mirror is going to tell us (accurately) what we look like. It’s good because it tells the TRUTH. But an old mirror, a broken or damaged mirror gives us a skewed view of ourselves.
That is such a perfect picture of the things we look to for SECURITY. We all want security, value, worth, acceptance. And from childhood we learn to find security in lots of ways. We look to the world, to other people, to our own success or abilities to REFLECT security, value, worth back to us.
If I’m looking to something for my security (my value, my worth, my identity), I’d better make sure it’s something that’s going to accurately reflect where my security comes from.
All too often, the things I’m looking to are LIES… I am looking in a broken mirror.
The battle for security has to begin by looking at our broken mirrors. If I don’t know the lie I’m functioning out of, I can’t replace it with the truth. We have to ask: Where are we looking to find our security, and is it going to give us an accurate reflection?
Sometimes we look for security in areas we can’t control and aren’t naturally strong in – that becomes an area of insecurity (appearance, boys’ response to me). That is a problem. But I find it relatively easy to identify those areas.
Heaven help us if we look for security in areas where we are naturally strong, where we have the illusion of control. Because even when we GET a sense of security or acceptance from something, it’s still lying to us. It is false security. And those lies are a lot harder to recognize!
And If we’re going to OVERCOME insecurity, the first thing we need to do is recognize the places where we’re insecure. I’m guessing a lot of you are like me – I don’t know I’m in danger, until I’m IN THE PIT. Once my insecurities have been triggered, it’s awfully hard to talk myself back into security.
One of the reasons INSECURITY is such a trap is that we don’t even realize that we’re looking at a broken mirror. We learn early on to find our security/identity/worth in other things – and then rather than REPLACING our broken mirrors with Jesus (who He is and what He says about us), we try to just stamp Him on top of them (write?). Then we don’t know why we keep ending up in these pits.
I’ve been trying to know myself and see where my danger areas lie – what are the things I look to for security? If I can figure that out before the Lord and let Him heal me and replace those broken mirrors (LIES) with Himself (TRUTH), then I can avoid falling into the pit of insecurity in the first place.
Our focus on externals is a big trap.
HOW HAS FOCUS ON EXTERNAL THINGS CREATED AREAS OF INSECURITY FOR YOU?
I think you can begin to see some of these things by thinking about what you were complimented about or criticized for when you were a child.
If you were criticized for something as a child, it makes sense that you’d grow up with that as an area of insecurity – something that makes you feel bad about yourself.
What were those areas for you? For me, this was my appearance (no one in my immediate family ever said this, but I grew up feeling like my sister was “the pretty one” and I was “the smart one.” Unfair to both of us.) Also, my weight – looking back, I was not overweight, but I was the biggest member of my family, built curvier and sturdier than my mom, stepmom or sisters. Add to that the fact that my mom, stepmom, and sisters were all chronic dieters and it was a recipe for insecurity.
It may sound strange to you that you could develop insecurity about something you’re complimented for. But there is actually documented research about this, surrounding what happens when children are complimented as being “smart.”
I’ve seen it happen with “pretty” too. You like that people like you, attention – but you can’t control how others think of you. And soon you figure out that the world is full of people who are prettier than you are – fake images, magazines, on TV – and you learn that sexy is what’s important, which is objectification. This is a vicious cycle, and creates a brittleness, a place of insecurity.
What are the areas you were complimented on as a child, areas where you learned to find security? For me, this was being obedient, a good girl. Being a good student, an achiever, a pleaser – I did what was expected of me, and to this day the feeling of being “unapproved” by authority figures is a giant insecurity trigger.
My next question is: WHAT AM I LOOKING FOR?
Where am I looking for security? In my own life, I see this where a WANT becomes a NEED. Where a DESIRE becomes a DRIVE. For example, I desire good, faithful friends, companionship. But if I NEED you to be my friend, if I need you to like me and always treat me well, then I’m creating a pit of insecurity for myself.
Some other areas where DESIRE becomes DRIVE:
- I want to feel cute, pretty, good about myself. Or am I DRIVEN to find confirmation of this – either from compliments… dressing in order to get a certain reaction/response from men… obsessing about my appearance, my weight, being completely put together?
- As a single woman, I desired companionship, the fun of dating/relationships. Or do I NEED to have a boyfriend? Am I willing to do anything to be in a relationship?
- As a married woman, I desire Matt’s attention, pursuit, tenderness. And I expect him to treat me well. But do I NEED him to do and say certain things to prove to me that he loves me, that he’s attracted to me? Is he my source of security and acceptance?
- I like structure/routine, I like to have a plan and goals. Or am I DRIVEN by the need to have a plan, fearful of unknowns, refusing to take any risks or walk by faith?
- I want to succeed/do my best. Or do I HAVE to succeed? Do I have to be THE best? Am I crippled by the fear of failure because I HAVE to succeed?
These broken mirrors we look to – they are broken because they CAN NOT give us security. My safety, value, worth, identity will NEVER be found in any of these things… Not in appearance…a plan…a certain weight…being approved or liked by others….any relationship.
There’s only ONE secure place, only ONE place I can dwell securely. In the Lord Himself, and what He says about me. That is my BIRTHRIGHT as a child of God. Security is my BIRTHRIGHT as a child of God!
It’s our birthright. The only way anything takes our security away is when we GIVE it. And I want us to stop giving our security away.
- Maybe I weigh more than I want to, but I will not give away my security or allow my weight to determine how I feel about myself. I AM SECURE NO MATTER WHAT I LOOK LIKE.
- Maybe my heart has been broken in a relationship. You may reject me, but I will not allow that to tell me that I am a reject – even if you don’t want me, I am WANTED. I AM SECURE WHETHER I AM IN A RELATIONSHIP OR NOT.
- I may fail. But I will not allow that to make me a FAILURE. I heard a great quote recently: Everyone experiences defeat. But defeat is always a temporary condition. What makes it permanent is GIVING UP. I want us to refuse to give up our security. MY SECURITY DOES NOT LIE IN MY SUCCESS OR FAILURE, IT IS NOT BASED ON MY PERFORMANCE.
In order to do this we need to stop using the people and things around us as mirrors. There is only ONE PLACE to look for security: IN GOD ALONE. He is security.
Psalm 59:1 Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; Set me securely on high away from those who rise up against me.
Only God Himself can deliver us from our enemy – insecurity. Let’s ask Him to set us securely on high!
Renee Davis Meyer 