Thanksgiving in the Day of Distress

2009 has been a difficult year.

In Sioux Falls, applications for food stamps is up 48%.

At church we have given helping hand funds at a pace that has been unprecedented in our 15 year history.

This morning a friend shared an email exchange between her extended family members. The exchange was rather tense and each writer was sure that their life was more stressful than the life of the other and that the other had better be nicer. (sounds like a fun family Thanksgiving!)

Life is stressful! Talking with as many people as I do, it seems like life is inundating folks at an outlandish level. If you are not in this category, you’ve got things to be thankful for! But if you are in the “Life is really, really hard right now” group, Thanksgiving might seem ill-timed this year.

These feelings of frustration or ingratitude or simply at a loss to find anything to be thankful for build huge amounts of guilt in the Christian heart.

But that is the enemy! God knows exactly how you feel. Jesus was human and felt emotions too.

When these thoughts hit me, I go straight to the Psalms. If David, a man after God’s own heart, could say things like “God, why do you stand far off and hide yourself in the day of trouble?” (Psalm 10) or
“How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Psalm 13) or “O my God, I cry out by day and you do not answer; and by night I have no rest.” (Psalm 22) Then we as followers of Jesus can cry out too.

The thing that must counter balance it all is found in Psalm 42:5,11. “Hope in God for I shall again praise Him.” It is ok to say, “Lord here I am in the midst of a mess and it is really hard to be thankful and praise, BUT I promise that I will praise you again. I will go “along with the procession to the house of God, with the voice of joy and thanksgiving”. (Psalm 42:4)

Psalm after psalm after psalm declares the troubles and tribulations of the psalmist, but the psalmists never end on the bad note. Psalms provide the contrast of here’s where I am now, here’s what I am expecting God to do.

This is hope. This is faith.

Loneliness

Once again, God has taken one topic and highlighted it a couple of times and in different ways to me.

At lunch on Sunday we were talking about the “connectedness” people have through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, yet with all these “friends” and “followers” who has true face to face friends? Isolation breeds loneliness, through many technological methods we have found a hollow candy coating to disguise the true state of our hearts.

Even if you are surrounded by people you can be utterly and devastatingly alone. A wise woman told me years ago that the loneliest place in the world can be the space between a husband and wife in bed. Just doesn’t matter if it seems like life has given the greatest support system, family or friends. Others can look at your life and have no idea how isolated your life might be.

I’ve known and know loneliness. It pops up at the most unlikely times. And in this post, I’m not knocking my husband, kids or friends, but I’m learning to look at loneliness in a new way. My thoughts here are just the beginning of my processing. So jump in and comment over the next couple of entries.

I’m not interested in the lectures about “getting out there” or getting involved in activities, because I think I’ve found some amazing new teaching on the subject of loneliness. And I won’t write about the guilt producing, finger pointing solutions to loneliness at all. But I think I’m learning that loneliness can be something to be embraced and something that can actually enrich my life.

Merry Christmas

I’ve tried all day long to figure out this angst in my heart.

It was a good day. Everyone was happy – though slightly under the weather. The gifts were good. There was no quibbling between siblings. It just wasn’t Christmas.

One of my gifts was an amazing book called the Christmas Sweater.

One sentence at the end of the book caught my heart, and actually I added more than Mr. Beck had intended when he wrote it.

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of the Christ child, but by doing so, sometimes we miss the real meaning of the season. It is what that infant boy, then perfect man did at the end of His ministry that makes the birth so special.

Without His death, the birth is meaningless.

It is so very, very true. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has been the focal point of history. It’s power changes lives, forgives sin, makes a relationship with God possible, brings joy and hope to everyone who receives the great gift.

But there is more…so much more. Because He isn’t done. He’s returning and coming back to set everything in order. “To make wrong things right.” “To make all things new.” There is a second Christmas if you would want to call it that.

That’s my longing today. The second Christmas. I love my family. You blessed me today. I love being your mom and wife. But the thing I long for most is just Jesus. The power of that longing surprises me and is more than I can put words to. And praying into that and preparing the way for that moment, and preparing God’s people for it, I think that is now my life’s goal. This isn’t just a one year resolution. It is the longing of my heart.

Even so Lord Jesus, quickly come!

2 Peter 1:10 – Diligence in Intimacy with Jesus

Here’s a link to a great blog about being diligent in our relationship with Jesus as the key to “working out our salvation with fear and trembling”. (Philippians 2:12)

Intimacy as the Way to Salvation

Unapologetically recommended by the author’s mother.

2 Peter 1:10 – Diligence

Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble;

Guess what? What I wrote yesterday isn’t always that easy to do. Making “certain about His calling and choosing” isn’t easy. It takes diligence. The dictionary says that to be diligent is to be “constant in effort to accomplish something; attentive and persistent in doing anything”.

If I want to walk with Jesus through life without stumbling, I need to be diligent (constant in effort, attentive and persistent) to be certain of his calling and choosing me. Hmmm…sounds a lot like Ephesians 6 where Paul tells us to “stand firm” three times in four verses.

The confidence born of certainty makes the holding on in adversity, trial and testing simply a matter of time until the purposes of God get worked out. My own personal story bears this out. When life is painful and hard, I look back to the assurance that God chose me and that what I am doing is what He called me to do. Then I stand firm with the shield of faith (Hebrews 11:1 – now faith is the assurance/certainty of things hoped for and the conviction/certainty of things not seen) and extinguish all the flaming arrows (doubts and fear) of the evil one.

Which all leads back to where this whole discovery of 2 Peter 1:10 began. The armor of God. “now put on the helmet of salvation”. What is the thing that protects my mind and my thoughts about myself and about my life? The confidence of my salvation. The confidence that the God of the Universe not only knows me but chose me despite myself. And the confidence that He and His purposes for my life have been ordained. These I diligently seek and He promises that when I seek Him with my whole heart, I will find Him.

2 Peter 1:10 – You are Called. You are Chosen

Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble;

So what is it that Peter tells us will make us sturdy on our feet in the face of adversity?

Being certain of His calling on our lives and that He has chosen us.

When I know that God chose me, I am humbled under his mercy, but honored all at the same time. How could the God that created EVERYTHING want to be in relationship with me? How could He in all His perfection ever stoop to talk to me, to use me for his purposes. It makes my heart yearn for Him all the more. As David said in Psalm 139: “such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high. How can I attain it?” But they are truth. If you are in need of knowing that God chose you, there are many scriptures and we would love to help you.

But you also need to know that God doesn’t just choose you and the story ends with “happily ever after” at that point. If He chose you, He also called you. There is a destiny over every life. There is a God-breathed calling for which you were created.

Knowledge of these two things are the deciding factors in whether or not we stumble.

KNOW YOU ARE CHOSEN. KNOW YOU ARE CALLED AND TO WHAT YOU ARE CALLED!

Personality Quiz

Did you ever find personality quizzes in magazines? Ones that would tell you what kind of person you are by the colors you like, or what kind of priorities you have or what kind of person you should be looking for in a spouse?

I used to take all of them. A friend emailed me about a book she was reading that talked about how we are created in different ways and that those different personalities worship/reach God in nine different way. I was able to peg myself pretty quick. Below you will find the listing of the different types and then a link to the on-line “quiz”. Later on in the comments, I’ll tell you what I scored. See if you can peg yourself.

Sacred Pathways: Worship Style Assessment – Nine Spiritual Temperaments

Naturalist, ..they learn more from watching an ant colony than reading a book or listening to a sermon… ” they may find they enjoy parables and Psalms most in the Bible.
Sensate, they want worship to be filled with sights, smells, architecture, classical music, formal language, likely to be moved to tears at Handel’s Messiah
Traditionalist, they enjoy historical dimensions of faith, ritual, symbols, sacraments, and sacrifice, regular church attendance. They might find unstructured things confusing or unfulfilling.
Ascetics, they want to be left alone to pray. Solitude and simplicity. They get uncomfortable if they can not “listen to the quiet”.
Activist, they love God through justice, standing against evil, truth equals confrontation.
Caregivers, love by serving, what might wear someone else down charges the caregiver. IE: Mother Theresa
Enthusiasts, loving God through mystery and celebration. They don’t want to just know concepts they want to be moved by them.
Contemplatives, loving God through Adoration, loving the divine romance
Intellectuals, live in a world of concepts, likely to be found studying.

Free On-Line Quiz to determine your worship temperament.

Prayer Streaming – #21

Finally the end of the book.

The final chapter to this book gives the key to making every single word of this work in our lives:

Just do it!
Just do it!
Just do it!
We cannot however learn to pray without ceasing unless we pray.
It takes on-the-knees training. We can only learn to pray without ceasing by ceasing to study the copies!

Maybe that is why most books about prayer irritate me so much. Why would we want to learn about Jesus by looking at him in a mirror, if he were standing right behind us? I just want to pray. I just want to study his face. I just want to find myself back in that place that is so familiar (but not familiar enough). Don’t tell me about prayer; I just want to experience prayer that is life changing forever and ever. Amen!

Prayer Streaming – #9

Prayer Streaming – the Abiding Heart

This chapter is so good, that I can’t quite process all my thoughts without writing the great American novel. It also connects to the post I did on Friday about being a prisoner of hope. So here’s a little testimony to go with the abiding in Him chapter.

Last fall we got notified that the IRS was going to audit our 2005 income taxes. Even when you have not done anything wrong, the word audit is pretty intimidating. I got all in a snit and a bother and the stress of this weighed heavy on me for several weeks.

One Saturday morning, I came to prayer and my dear friend Gay came up to me with something in a bag. She told me that she had been in Walmart and God had told her to give this to me. I opened the bag and inside was a coffee mug with a penguin on it. Penguins are my FAVORITE and I really appreciated the fact that of all the mugs in the store God had directed her right to the one I would have picked up for myself.

But God wasn’t done with me. I went home that afternoon and as I was cleaning, I felt the LORD tell me to look at the mug. Then it hit me again that penguins are my favorite, and that I am God’s favorite. It blessed me and I thanked Him for the reminder. But God wasn’t done with me yet. He said to me, “LOOK at the penguin.” And it hit me. This penguin was praising God. He had his little face turned to the sky and his wings were lifted up. God showed me through a gift that if I will turn and praise Him no matter what is going on, that since I am His favorite, He will take care of me.

So the discipline of learning to always look up and praise (or abide in Him) even when I am afraid or the circumstances around me look like the waves did to Peter when he got out of the boat is a huge lesson for me. I have been working on this daily since the end of November, and you know what – it’s working. The fear and anxiety are not the hallmark of my days. And somehow the hard times seem to be shorter than they have in the past.

Oh and by the way, even though 75% of the people who get audited end up having to pay more taxes, the IRS ended up owing us $147 since we had under-reported our church giving. Hmmm…giving to God paid out in the end.

LOVE this verse

I had never noticed this verse before it popped up on the Elijah List today.

Return to your fortress, O prisoners of Hope. Zechariah 9:12

I Love that verse. Allowing God’s perspective on what I see as a prison is really the fortress where He safely keeps me until appointed times is like medicine for my soul. And the last part of this entry has this sentence: You may feel hopeless, but really it is the condition of helplessness that is causing you pain. God wants you completely dependent on Him, and He will keep you a prisoner of hope until you are. That puts so much of what I think is happening to me into perspective.

Go read today’s post featuring this verse here. You will have to scroll down a bit to find it, but it worth the read.