Morning Meditation: Three Truths Jesus Taught About Bearing Fruit

Morning Meditation: Three Truths Jesus Taught About Bearing Fruit

by | Oct 5, 2015 | Encouragement, Morning Meditation

“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:4-5

I grew up in a pastor’s home. This meant many things, not the least of which was a certain familiarity with spiritual vocabulary. For instance, the use of the phrase “fruit bearing” was a normal part of language for me. I remember giving my high school basketball coach a card at the end of our season thanking her for a very fruitful year. This was so weird. What high school junior calls a basketball season fruitful? Well, me. Totally me. Because bearing fruit is a concept I was raised on, and this carried over into my basketball seasons, apparently. The word fruitful might not have gotten any more mainstream since my high school days, but it’s a word I pray will define my life.

When Jesus talks about bearing fruit, I believe He’s talking about the impact our lives are meant to have. 

This past weekend I was in Michigan speaking at a retreat when I happened upon this apple tree. (Please appreciate my climbing skills). One side of the tree’s branches draped over a lake, bombing gorgeous apples into the water. The ones dangling over land and within reach had vanished to other visitors. In my zeal to not leave the state of Michigan without picking one fresh apple I deftly shimmied up a branch. (This was actually not at all how this went, but just imagine me light and agile.) This prompted a reflection on John 15, and three things I learned about bearing fruit.

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1. Remain in the Vine

One of the things that strikes me about a fruit tree is its ability to stand so quiet, without strain or mayhem, while getting things done. I mean, how does a branch produce fruit without the swirl? Do you know what I mean by the swirl? It’s the striving and chaos and energy I often leave in my wake when trying to make things happen, sometimes even for God. In this passage Jesus presents us with an entirely different way.

The word “remain” (abide or dwell) in the Greek means: “not to depart; to continue, to be present; to be held, kept, continually; to continue to be, not to perish, to last, endure” (Vines). The idea is that this is a very restful place to be. If we as the branches remain in Him as the Vine, we draw energy and marrow to produce the fruit He longs to bring about in our lives. It’s all about our attachment and connectedness to Him. This doesn’t mean our lives will be void of activity or the expending of energy, simply that we’re able to draw everything we need to bring forth meaningful fruit that will last. As restfully as a tree beside still waters, because have you ever seen an apple tree freaking out?

2. Embrace The Pruning

Earlier in the chapter Jesus points out that God the Father is the One who prunes our lives so we will be even more fruitful (vs 2). The problem for me, historically, has been quite simple: I don’t always enjoy the pruning process, turns out. Maybe you’re in one of those places where God is refining your character by cutting out a massive tumor of greed or pride. The disease of bitterness is being scraped back. Perhaps that particular false god you were really quite attached to just got lopped off, plummeting to the ground in a most unpleasant way. As I’ve learned a bit about gardening over the years, pruning spares the nourishment of the vine for the branches that are most viable. If God is paring back an area that is presently painful, it is only for the bearing of more fruit—A life of greater impact for His glory (vs 8). So let God do His work and have His way in your life. Don’t resist the hard good He is doing.

3. Expect A Harvest

When Jesus says that if we remain in Him we will bear fruit, this is a promise. Part of the beauty of a fruit tree is that its prolific bounty is an annual and rather predictable offering. No one on the camp grounds seemed all that taken with the fact that this tree had fruit hanging from its branches. In October, the Michigan apple is to be expected. You can count on it. Essential pieces of our existence—like apple cider, apple pie and cider donuts—depend on this reliable reality. How much more can we rely on the spiritual premise that remaining in Jesus means bearing fruit that will last?  In other words, as we abide in Christ we can confidently expect the fruit He will bring about.

May we abide in Him so our activity is peaceful and not full of strife. When the Gardener sharpens his shears, may we let Him have His loving way with us. And as we dwell in the Vine, let us expect the certainty of bearing fruit. Fruit that will last.

Fruit more sure than the autumn apple.

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The Power To Believe You Are Loved

The Power To Believe You Are Loved

by | Sep 28, 2015 | Encouragement, Missions, Morning Meditation

Morning Meditation, September 28, 2015

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge…” Ephesians 3:18-19

This passage of Scripture is not new to me, and perhaps not to you either. It’s one of the “hit” verses of the bible—to know how wide, long, high and deep is the love of Christ. Who doesn’t want to know this kind of love? And yet we often find God’s love for us incredibly difficult to grasp. We just know ourselves too well. We go to bed swatting away critical thoughts, fear consumes us, we’ve given in to our wayward lusts, or maybe it’s the shame of something from our past that seems to be the metal shield off of which God’s love for us will forever ricochet. It’s just so hard to believe sometimes that He really loves us. And even if we believe it in our heads—like we believe our mothers think we’re pretty, because they sort of have to—we don’t know how to coax it into our souls.

Given this common struggle I was intrigued when I noticed a word in this passage I’d never seen before. It’s the word power—as in, the power to grasp the love of Jesus. The Greek word is exischyō and is used only one time in the New Testament. Once. Right here. And it means, “to be eminently able, to have full strength, entirely competent.” In other words Paul is praying that we would have the power, the ability, the strength to grasp God’s overwhelming love because he knew it wouldn’t always come easy.

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Photo courtesy of www.juleeduwe.com photography

 

Paul prayed for the strength to grasp God’s love

Paul prayed that the church at Colossae would be able to grasp God’s love. This tells me that God’s love is so beyond us that we will need His help to receive it on meaningful levels, to truly understand it and believe it in our bones. This inspires me to pray for those who can’t seem to receive the tender love of our Savior, even if they intellectually believe it. It inspires me to pray for myself, that the Lord would give me the capability to more fully grasp how wide, long, high and deep is the love of God. Though God’s love is a gift He lavishes upon us, being able to comprehend that love requires a certain strength, and Paul reveals that he prays for that strength. I believe we should, too.

God’s love is best understood within the community of believers

Notice Paul writes about being rooted in love together with all the saints. Believers in Jesus who isolate themselves from the body of Christ will have difficulty grasping Christ’s love for them, because part of comprehending His love is experiencing it within the community of Christ. I have a friend who’s been going through a hard season with health issues, her husband lost his job, and she and her new baby were recently in a car accident. She told me how our home church has reached out to her in such overwhelming ways that she’s receiving the wider dimensions of God’s love for her in places she’s had difficulty accepting it before. It’s taken the body of Christ to help her experience God’s love for her more fully.

God’s love surpasses our finite knowledge

I see another insight into why I sometimes have a hard time internalizing God’s love for me, really letting it seep into my being. This passage tells us that God’s love surpasses knowledge. And isn’t it typically our knowledge that stands in the way of us believing in God’s love? It’s the knowledge of the hurt in this world, the loss of a loved one who God could have healed, the guilt we can’t believe can be washed away. It’s all this knowledge of our circumstances that sometimes makes His love hard to grasp. Yet at this precise place, the love of Christ surpasses our limited, finite understanding the way a winning runner flies past the competition. Our knowledge, intellect, reasoning, understanding will never, not ever, be able to beat out His love. His love will always surpass what we know.

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The Amazon River in Manaus

My friend Kari recently returned from a trip to the Amazon. When I asked her what her most profound moment was she explained how the Amazon is simply the most vast thing she’s ever witnessed. “I’ve never seen a more magnificent river than the Amazon”, she said. “Overlooking the river reminded me that the love of God is wider, longer, higher, and deeper still.”

And still He gives us the power to grasp it.  

 

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A Birthday and Three Gifts of God’s Faithfulness

A Birthday and Three Gifts of God’s Faithfulness

by | Sep 21, 2015 | Encouragement, Morning Meditation

Morning Meditation, September 21, 2015

 “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23

I turn a year older this week. What is it about birthdays, especially the adulthood ones that make you reflect on God’s faithfulness? Cherish it, actually. Realize you wouldn’t be here without it. Last night I sat on a friend’s porch over dinner with two of my closest, longest-time friends. We were working on putting the final pieces together for Justice and Mercy International’s Benefit Gala (an organization I partner with in the Amazon), and it suddenly hit me—that we’re the adults in the room. We plan stuff. People occasionally want our opinion. I don’t know exactly how or when I got old enough for this to happen.

The marker of another year causes me to look back on the path from whence I’ve come, aware that all my choices for obedience don’t add up to having gotten me to where God has brought me. In other words, grace fueled any obedience I can claim and made up for everything else. All of us have glimpsed around the room of our lives—be it a job we never dreamed would be ours, a child so unique we couldn’t have imagined him or her up, the ministry calling so beyond us—and realized we just couldn’t haven woven all this together, not to mention redeeming the bad stuff for good. When it comes down to it, there’s really just one word to describe God’s hand on our lives: Faithfulness.

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The prophet Jeremiah points to three facets of God’s faithfulness:

We Are Not Consumed

We have not been snuffed out by our guilt and shame and selfishness. I admit the idea of, awesome, I haven’t been consumed today is not the first grace I think of when I consider God’s love. Still, Jeremiah’s words are both sobering and relieving. My sin could have taken me out a few different times—or as my friend likes to say in Old Testament terms, I could have gotten smote. So just the reality that I am writing these words, and you dear sister are reading them, says we do this because we have not been consumed. Because we are alive. Because of His great love for us.

His Compassions Never Fail

There’s just no telling who or where I’d be right now, or what my community would look like, if the Lord’s compassions were to have failed me at any point. They would have had only fail for a moment, at the wrong time, for things to look so very different. You may feel the same. I think in my younger years I presumed upon the Lord’s compassions, as if they were there for me like oxygen—paradoxically too plentiful to be seen as a treasure. But now I realize God’s never failing compassions are why I have anything at all. As I become more aware of the fragility of life, I am keener to the reality of His mercies. The fact that Almighty God bows His head toward us with compassions is deeply meaningful, but the fact that these compassions never fail is what keeps us alive.

His Mercies Are New Every Morning

It’s the daily dose of His morning mercies piled up from thousands of daily servings that have, one by one, carried me to today. Carried us all here. If the Lord had dolled out His mercies in one lump sum I may have used them all up, clean gone. If there were a limit to His tenderness, I may have outrun it. But every morning brings a fresh batch out of the oven. They are new. They are here today. They will rise on the wings of the dawn tomorrow.

So this week I will turn another year older. I’m looking forward to being with family and friends and perhaps strawberry cake. And I will breathe deeply these surroundings because I have not been consumed, because God’s compassions are present and they do not fail, and because His mercies will be new that morning, and every morning for as many days as God gives me.

Great is His faithfulness.

 

 

 

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How To Be Fully Known (And Know You Are Fully Loved)

How To Be Fully Known (And Know You Are Fully Loved)

by | Sep 14, 2015 | Encouragement, Morning Meditation

Morning Meditation, September 14th

Psalm 139:1, “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.”

I used to watch the Cosby show as a kid and I’ve never forgotten this exchange:

Boyfriend: “I think I’m going to just spend some time trying to find myself.”

Cliff: “And how long do you think that’s going to take?”

Boyfriend: “About five or ten years.”

Cliff: “In that amount of time you could find yourself and a few other people.”

I remember thinking this was funny but also wondering what in the world this meant. How could someone be trying to find himself? Didn’t he know who he was? Wasn’t he just who he was and that was that? This was before I grew a little older and realized that knowing who I am is more complicated than I once thought.

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Hannah Smith Photography

God Knows Me Even When I Don’t Know Myself

In high school and college, discovering who I was seemed determined by what I liked: sports or theatre or spending time in the library. Who my friends were said a lot about me—or who I wanted to be. But all this shifted around a lot and made me wonder where I fit and who I really was.

Even now I have days where I don’t know why I reacted so harshly to that innocuous comment, or why someone’s kind smile left me sad, of all things. I wonder why I’m anxious in an environment that’s supposed to make me happy, or why some days I’m not quite sure what I even want. Today during my Pilates routine I teared up, for no apparent reason, when a hymn came on the radio (that I listen to hymns while exercising is another phenomenon altogether). What I’m telling you is that I can’t always explain why I think this or feel that, but I should be able to. Right? Because, after all, it’s me. Not fully knowing who I am is such a strange thought because I want to say to me, Hey Kelly, it’s you. Don’t you know you by now?

When I can’t understand myself, God says, I have searched you, I perceive your thoughts, I am familiar with all your ways. (Ps 139:1-3) 

God Knows Me When People Can Only Know Me So Far

Proverbs 20:5 says, “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.” I adore people who do this for me. I am crazy about these people who—when I can’t get a handle on what I’m thinking or feeling— reach into the swirl of my being and tug on the one piece of yarn that unravels the whole mysterious ball. So, that’s why I’ve been feeling this way! But people have their limits. Even the super wise, prophetic, godly ones can only reach so far.

When people can’t reach any further into my soul, God says, I created your inmost being, I knit you together in your mother’s womb. (Ps 139:13) 

The Lord Knows Me Even When I’m Afraid To Be Known

Haven’t we all wondered that if we’re fully known we might not be fully loved? Or if we’re fully loved we’re afraid it’s because we’re not fully known? I lived so many years hiding from God what He already knew. My frame was not hidden from Him (vs 15). I was sure the darkness I sometimes felt in my heart, because of what I’d done or what had been done to me, was too dark for Him to peer into. But even the darkness is not dark to God. (vs 12).

I’ve wondered that if I were fully known could I be fully loved? And the whole of Psalm 139 says ‘yes’ to this ache in our hearts with a crescendo. “I praise you,” the Psalmist says in his naked exposure and vulnerability, “because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (v14).

When I’m afraid of what being fully known means, the Psalmist says, The thoughts God thinks about me are precious and vast. (Ps 139:17) 

To be known more wholly than we can know ourselves. To be known more deeply than others can know us. This is the knowing with which God knows us. But do not be afraid…for He loves us wholly still.

 

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Three Ways to Help Our Children Love God’s Commands

Three Ways to Help Our Children Love God’s Commands

by | Sep 7, 2015 | Encouragement, Morning Meditation

Morning Meditation, September 7th, 2015

 Deuteronomy 6:6-7, “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

The social media back-to-school pictures are reminding me of my own days of spiffy lunch boxes and snappy new shoes, the backpacks that look like they’re carrying adults in them. My favorite post to date is this picture of my friend Martin. Please love this with me.

We get so much less applause as we get older

We get so much less applause as adults.

I should begin by saying that I am not a mother, but I was a child once. And I have nieces and nephews who I hope will one day look after me, so all this has to count for something. In this post when I speak of “our children”, I mean the ones we’ve birthed, adopted, or who simply hold dear places in our lives.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 tells us to teach these little ones as we go along the road, all the time. Little of this manner of teaching will be the stuff of chalk and blackboard. It will rather be lived by example in all the places where everyday life meets our faith. Out in those wide-open spaces and in the quiet corners of our houses, where our children will see what we really believe based on how we really act.

1. Our Children Will Only Want What Comes From Our Hearts

Before God told the Israelites to impress His commandments on their children, He told them to make sure those commandments had first landed on their hearts. This is the difference between regulation and relationship—and our children can discern between the two. So much of what I learned about God’s ways was by watching how my Mom and Dad’s faith colored every area of their lives, both public and private. God’s commands weren’t merely a to-do list they kept up with, or a behavior management metric, they were a heartfelt conviction. Even if they didn’t always get it right, I knew their faith was real. When they were lying down or getting up.

2. We Can Only Talk Conversationally About What We Know Experientially

Revel in the nearness and practicality of what it means to share with our children about God’s ways through every movement—sitting, walking, lying down, getting up. It was never hard for my parents to talk about what it meant for them to live according to God’s commands because they’d had history with them. They had stories to tell us about how sometimes they wanted to respond to that critical person in anger, but they chose love instead; how when it seemed advantageous to shade the truth, they decided for honesty. Their faith spoke into their daily experience and those experiences left them with stories they could talk about. Whenever we sat down.

3. Our Instruction Should Be As Natural As Breathing, But As Pointed As An Arrow

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The word “impress” in the original language—as in “impress upon their hearts”—means to pierce or sharpen a sword. I get the idea that the way I pass down God’s instructions to the children in my life should be able to cut through all the fuzz and blur of ambiguity and deception. (Hebrews 4:12 says God’s Word is sharper than a double edged sword, able to divide between soul and spirit). A child can tell if I’m simply repeating religious rhetoric or if I’m speaking meaningful wisdom that transcends their circumstances. My Mom used to pray with my brother when she drove him to elementary school—teaching along the way—and he can still tell you the specific answered prayers that came to pass during those years. Those were penetrating experiences for him where God’s Word pierced into his reality.

As another school year begins, may we teach our children from the heart, teach from experience, and impress God’s truth on their souls—all along the way. Because His commands are meant for every road we’ll ever walk on.

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What Is Greater To You Than Jesus?

What Is Greater To You Than Jesus?

by | Aug 31, 2015 | Encouragement, Morning Meditation

Morning Meditation, August 31st

 “Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself…?” John 4:12

For the Samaritan woman, nothing was loftier than the symbolism behind Jacob and his well. He was a patriarch of the Jews, he represented Israel’s legacy and heritage, he wrestled with God and rose to his feet with a blessing. Who could prove greater than that? Certainly not this man who was striking up conversation with her (Jews and Samaritans didn’t interact much), who had no water and no means to get any water. Finally, after He’d claimed the power to offer living water, she couldn’t take it anymore. She had to ask the question, are you telling me you’re greater than our father Jacob?

The woman at the well asked Jesus a question we’re still asking

“Jesus, are you greater than…? 

My friends and I took to the Harpeth River the other weekend with my brother, his wife and their two kids under the age of four—just go ahead and envision how much fun this was. The friends and I were in kayaks and the family was in a canoe. And let’s just say the river was lower than normal. We found this out approximately 27 seconds into our excursion when the current whisked our kayaks downriver then slammed us into boulders—or rocks if you’re less dramatic. My friend April tipped over just enough for the river to enter her kayak, which in scientific terms results in sinking. Several of us appeared to be permanently stranded on mini rock islands, attempting to free ourselves in profoundly unattractive positions. Harper, my three year-old niece, who is typically tough and optimistic and easily pacified with snacks from Trader Joe’s, looked on with horror.

My brother David and his wife Megen assured, cajoled, comforted and passed out popcorn, wielding their ores deftly around protrusions. “Harper, you’re fine”, my brother was on repeat. “Daddy’s here.” This did nothing. She scowled at every passerby, like this was the dumbest “surprise” trip of a Saturday she’d ever heard of: People getting soaked and crashing into things. She cried and asked to go home for the brief span of pretty much the whole trip. David rowed up to my kayak exasperated. “When we were kids, it didn’t matter what the situation was, if Dad was there I felt safe.” Thoughtful pause, “Guess I’m not cutting it.”

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This is one attractive crew

Of course he was, this is just a three-year old for you. And it’s just the idea that hitting those doggone rocks had grown bigger to Harper than her Dad’s capabilities, which in reality wasn’t truth. In essence Harper was asking, “Daddy, are you telling me you’re greater than these rocks?”

Or put another way,

“God, are you bigger than my looming circumstances?

My past?

The way things have always been for me?

Or as stated by the Samaritan woman, “Are you trying to tell me you’re greater than our father Jacob?”

We wonder if Jesus is really greater than…, or more capable than…, or more loving than…(and this is where you get to fill in the slots for yourself.) For the Samaritan woman, if someone was going to claim the ability to disperse living and eternal water he’d have to be greater than Jacob. Because the belief was, Jacob had dug the thing in the first place. In those parts, he had credentials. And this is where we tend to get stuck: right at that point of believing someone or something—right in the dead center of our lives—is greater than Jesus. Or the reverse, that Jesus is not as great, loving, or powerful as whatever it is we’re hoping will quench our thirst or quell our fears or satisfy our longings.

The answer is yes in Jesus

The woman at the well found Him to be greater. Even than Jacob. Jesus knew the details of her present and the sordid stains of her past, and still His living water washed her clean and new. I pray you’ll ponder the account of John 4. Perhaps consider the personal question:

What appears greater than Jesus in my life?

And then trust He’s greater than the rocks.

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Three Things I’ve Learned About Legacy

Three Things I’ve Learned About Legacy

by | Aug 24, 2015 | Encouragement, Morning Meditation

Morning Meditation, August 24, 2015

For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 2Timothy 4:6-7

My parents are still at the church I grew up in and the one they started 41 years ago. I was in that church last week for a funeral honoring our family’s friend Bill, a man who’d served as the Reston Bible Church mission’s director for nearly thirty years. He was sixty-one; The lives he touched are immeasurable.

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My dad and niece. I can’t take it.

The auditorium was packed with faces I’ve known since childhood. I can’t recall another time I’ve been in a room so thick with heritage. Sitting to my left were my favorite missionary couple who’d planted a church in Milan 31 years ago, the ones who brought me chocolate bars when I was a kid. I ran into a doctor and former elder who is now tending to his ailing wife with the same level of integrity with which he practiced medicine and church. Directly behind me sat a couple that planted a congregation in the next town over after meeting Christ at my parent’s church decades ago. Our family’s adopted uncle had flown up, his 81 year-old smile as contagious as the day he met the Lord, as the days he would take my sister and me to the ice cream parlor. My junior high youth leader was there, now with eight grown children of her own, still serving. The three year-olds I’d taught in Sunday school class when I was a sophomore are now twenty-somethings toting kids of their own, some biological and some from diverse parts of the world through adoption.

It was a sliver of heaven where the saints gathered and celebrated the only life worth living: one totally and completely sold out in service to the Lord. And it got me thinking about how a godly legacy starts, is sustained and secured. Because when I get to the end of my life, it’s all I will care about leaving.

Legacy begins with surrender

I’m not talking about our moment of salvation though this is vital to godly legacy. I’m talking about that time—or times—when we say to the Lord, You have me all the way. Not my way but your way. I’m ready to do what you ask and go where you take me. I’m in. In 2 Timothy Paul is writing near the end of his life, certainly remembering the moment he accepted God’s call to the Gentiles. Paul’s answering that call wasn’t what secured his salvation—that’s all God’s grace—but it is what began his legacy. Yesterday’s service made me want to forget being driven by temporal agendas or committed to fleeting successes. I want the Lord to pen my legacy and this comes at surrender.

Legacy is built over time

Paul uses the fitting metaphor of running a race because a race starts as quick as a gunshot but running that race takes endurance. And usually a lot of time. When I considered Bill’s life and the lives of those in that room I realized that all that heritage and ministry hadn’t happened over night. For some, legacy included lonely months on the mission field, estranged loved ones, sickness, persecution, strokes, even seasons marked with some pretty big sin—the kind the self-righteous like to point out—all dotting the pathway, but ultimately, everyone I know in that room is still running. They’re in the race. They haven’t given up.They’re on their way to finishing. They’re fighting that fight (because dear sisters, we’re in a fight). Every day they make a hundred choices for God, whether it be the sacrifice of prayer, the discipline of being in the Word, taking the extra minute to throw the football with their kids at the bus stop, forgiving an offense, and in so doing, one step at a time, their gait continues toward the finish line. None of us gets to helicopter in.

Legacy lasts for eternity

As I glanced at the faces around the room, baby’s flesh to grey heads, so many stories I knew intimately, immeasurable reaches of ministry along with some breathtaking blows, I saw a whole bunch of people saved by grace who’ve given their lives to tell others about that grace and disciple them in the ways of Jesus. When these saints go Home, when I go Home, when we’re all with Jesus, the legacy God’s scripted with our lives will still be at work. As Bill’s four children so richly stated, “We would not be followers of Jesus without our Mom and Dad, and our Mom and Dad would never have made it if not for knowing Christ.” Bill’s legacy will live on in his family and also in the countless lives he’s served, because what we do for Christ is eternal.

Sitting in that service reminded me that absolutely no agenda I’m holding onto can possibly rival the story God desires to write with a life fully surrendered to His purposes. I was encouraged to persevere because legacy doesn’t happen in an instant; Paul’s race boasted sufferings and triumphs and every mundane thing in between, but after a long earthly while, a legacy was built. His race was completed a step at a time, and so is ours. And after we finish our race God preserves the work. Godly legacy begins with surrender, is built over time and lasts for eternity. 

Thank you Bill for inspiring us to live all-out for Christ. We do not trust in our ability to run this race, but we trust in the One who’s called us to it.

 

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Morning Meditation: How To Find Fullness By Letting Go

Morning Meditation: How To Find Fullness By Letting Go

by | Aug 17, 2015 | Bible Study, Encouragement, Morning Meditation

Philippians 2:3, 5-6 “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves…. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped…”

I don’t think humility has ever been easy to come by but you could make the case that in our modern society humility is at a real disadvantage—hardly anything is helping this virtue along. We live in a staggeringly individualistic culture where making our selfies seen, voices heard, accomplishments known feel vital to our existence. Everything from relentless comparisons to the unsustainable expectations we try to attain so we can hold our pride intact work against the gem of a humble disposition.

How do we possess the humble mind of Christ when everything is working against us?

Ask yourself what it is you’re holding onto

In verse 6 of our text Paul explains that Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped—or seized, carried off by force, held as a prize. For Jesus to have humbled Himself in the form of a servant He had to forfeit the inherent rights He possessed as God’s equal. If Jesus had considered equality with God something to be clutched He wouldn’t have humbled Himself to the point of the cross. Jesus let go of what was rightfully His—enjoying the benefits of equality with God—for the higher good, His ultimate calling. When humility feels impossible we have to start with the question: what am I grasping onto?

My Rights? My Being Right? Seen? Celebrated?

 That person I’m trying to impress?

 More money? The chance to get my way? The upper hand?

 What’s rightfully “mine”?

Release your rights and agendas to God

I confess to you, dear reader, that sometimes I find my panicky little fingers practically arthritic around some form of achievement or advancement I think is necessary to my happiness. I can choke my version of success in my grip until it’s gasping. Other times I grasp onto people to meet my heart’s longings. (No one enjoys this, in case you were in any way curious). Being seen as right or having done the right thing—or simply being right—become all consuming measuring rods leaving us feeling smug or small.

Finding freedom from my pride always requires a releasing. I must let go. Yes, of pride, but of what’s specifically in my hands.

Open your hands to receive what can never be taken from you

Humility seems like a study in emptiness, but I’m convinced humility is the only avenue to God’s fullness in our lives. The HCSB Dictionary says, “It is a ‘great paradox in Christianity that it makes humility the avenue to glory.’”

In humility Jesus released equality with God, came to earth, died on a shameful cross. But He was never empty handed. Jesus let go of what was rightfully His to hold little children in His lap. Touch the skin of a leper. Take the hand of a twelve year-old girl. Put an ear back on a soldier’s head. Feed the five thousand. Pass the cup of communion. Open his hands to be pierced by nails. Flip fish over a fire where He restored Peter after His resurrection.

And God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name above all names.

What are you grasping? Humility says, you don’t need to grasp what this world values. Humble yourself, let go, and see what God will put in your hands. And when He does you won’t even have to choke or clutch what He gives you, all His blessings will remain.

Photo: Hannah Smith Photography

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The Surprising Path of Freedom

The Surprising Path of Freedom

by | Aug 10, 2015 | Bible Study, Encouragement, Morning Meditation

Morning Meditation, August 10th, 2015

Psalm 119:32 I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.

I am writing to you, the one who feels crushed under the requirements of God’s commands. You, who craves to be filled, who longs to lose yourself in the pleasures within your reach, no matter if they are good for you or the people around you. You know the path of obedience but it has grown tired to you. Stale as beige. The right way feels like the path of suffocation and the wrong way—which you’ve debated may not actually be so bad after all—appears positively pumping with life.

You are on my heart: the one who knows what to do but doesn’t want to do it anymore. The one who knows where to go but is on the brink of slipping away to somewhere else.

I recently returned from a small town in Maine. One of the local shops was selling t-shirts that said, What happens in Winter Harbor stays in Winter Harbor…but hardly anything ever happens here. This was my former view of what the Christian life with its all its commands and rules had to offer. A life that boasted all the freedom you wanted except nothing was really going on there. The party was always someplace else. But believing that unbridled indulgence leads to freedom is a mindset immutably cracked and costly. There is a way that leads to heartsickness but God’s ways cannot lead to anything other than life.

I am writing to you because at moments I wasn’t sure if I really believed this. I have deliberated at the fork of passionless obedience versus exhilarating sin, and I have never been more grateful for being on this side of obedience. Because in all our frustration and confusion and desire to fly off the trail a psalmist is moving past us like a gazelle, full of breath and endurance, light as a dandelion puff on the air.

And he is running.

If we’re honest he is on a most peculiar path. We’re surprised to see him so unharnessed, so unencumbered loping down the trail that winds and leads at the contours of God’s commands. To our modern ears this feels a bit embellished. We have heard from the corners of culture that obedience to God is narrow and close-minded. That if we follow the bible’s truth we will, best case scenario, miss out on all life has to offer. Why, if you could soar down any road of your choice, would you choose the one whose defining attraction is God’s commands?

The runner gives an answer.

God has set his heart free and God’s commands are the fulcrum of that freedom.

The Hebrew verb ‘to set free’ here is rachab and it means to widen, enlarge, broaden, make room. When we run according to God’s commands wide-open spaces become our surroundings. We run without guilt or regret crashing against our conscience. We no longer stumble through relational entanglements nor are we haunted by past choices, which is the landscape of every other road. Peace and contentment is our strength.

I am writing to you because the psalmist reminds us that God’s commands are not His way of capriciously holding out on you. The One who frees you loves you. The One who loves you wants you to run uninhibited on the path that boasts holy parameters yet paradoxically has no end. The psalmist knew that to cleave to God’s Word and ways was the only way to be free. And once he’d tasted that freedom he couldn’t help but run.

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Morning Meditation: When It’s Time to Move On

Morning Meditation: When It’s Time to Move On

by | Aug 3, 2015 | Bible Study, Morning Meditation

The Lord said to Samuel, ‘How long will your mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way’. 1 Samuel 16:1 

The people of Israel had rejected God as their King having pined for what everyone else had—a human king who sat on a tangible throne. (What is it about ‘normal’ that we as humans tend to want so badly?) God listened to Israel and appointed Samuel to anoint Saul as king. Samuel poured a flask of oil over Saul’s head, kissed him and so their journey began. The storied history the two of them shared would be difficult for either of them to walk away from. Theirs was no casual friendship. It was spiritual, significant and impacted the lives of a nation. A coupling of a prophet and king had been bound together in God’s story—No one wants to be the one to ever sever something this divine.

Down the road Saul’s heart rebelled against the Lord. He spared the best of the Amalekite’s cattle for an offering even though the Lord had commanded him to destroy the whole lot of them. Saul’s version of sacrifice became more important to him than God’s definition of obedience. To obey is always better than sacrifice. As a result of Saul’s rebellion God rejected him as king over Israel.

And Samuel mourned.

Because we mourn for our broken relationships. We long for what could have been. What was supposed to be! We lament for the pain such tearing away will cause ourselves, and the way it will affect others. We wonder if God will be able to replace him or her or this utterly divine plan that seemed so perfect in the beginning. We ask what went wrong? A million times, what went wrong? And we can’t bear to say goodbye.

And then God says, How long, dear one, will you mourn?

Fill your horn with oil.

Be on your way.

I have something new for you to do.

This is not justification for abandoning ministries or marriages or motherhood, or for walking away from what is simply hard. Often obedience means sticking it out. But in this case God was moving Samuel on because He had already moved on. God would deal with Saul but this was no longer Samuel’s business. Even though Samuel had stopped visiting Saul we’re told he still mourned for him  (1 Sam 15:35). Even though Samuel was no longer tied up with Saul in person, his emotions were. His thoughts and his energies were still mired in grief, binding him to a dream now done.

I remember the Lord delivering this passage to me during a time when I couldn’t let a relationship go. It was dead in the water. It bore no fruit. It brought the Lord no pleasure. It saddled me with misery. Still, it was getting the best of my heart and thoughts. And then God brought me to 1 Samuel 16:1. It was time for the new thing. Time to find a horn and some oil and get on with it. New relationships and opportunities lay ahead.

No sense in spending the precious present mourning for the past when God has already moved on.

For Samuel, God had a new king for him to anoint and he couldn’t do this while lamenting the old one. A shepherd boy was unwittingly waiting in the fields for Samuel to relinquish what had been so he could be part of what was to be. King David was part of Samuel’s future but he couldn’t have gotten there while still mourning Saul.

What new thing is the Lord asking of you? Is there anything old or cold you’re still giving your thoughts, emotions or energies to? Do you need to let go of something in the past so you can embrace the present? May you hear the beautiful and unwavering words of the Lord this morning, Be on your way… And any way in which the Lord is leading you promises to be a good way, indeed.

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