Tag: grace

My Empty Heart

Those That SeekLeave a comment

Compassionate Lord,

Thy mercies have brought me to the dawn of another day,

Vain will be its gift unless I grow in grace,

          increase in knowledge,

          ripen for spiritual harvest.

Let me this day know Thee as Thou art,

          love Thee supremely,

          serve Thee wholly,

          admire Thee fully.

Through grace let my will respond to Thee,

Knowing that power to obey is not in me, but

   that Thy free love alone enables me to serve Thee.

Here then is my empty heart,

   overflow it with Thy choicest gifts.

This prayer from the Valley of Vision reads like poetry. The first line calls to mind Lamentations 3 but does something interesting by flipping the wording. The Lamentations passage acknowledges that God’s mercies are never-ending. They are new every morning. This passage is always a breath of fresh air when we feel like we’re at a roadblock, when things aren’t going our way. We recall this to be reminded that it is God who sustains and blesses us. We’re reminded that things can be better.

However, in this prayer the author takes it a step further to remind us that it is a mercy all its own that gets us to the new day in the first place. This is both a sobering reminder that we are not guaranteed tomorrow and a catalyst to action because we have been gifted another day to serve and worship Him.

But how are we going to do that? Historically, people don’t have a great track record at extending kindness in the midst of a pandemic. We’re captured by fear and suspicion. Sure, there are stories of selfless people sacrificing everything for others. Nevertheless, I fear that these stories are the exception. Things can quickly move to an every person for themselves mentality. What a great reminder for the mercy of a new day, “vain will be its gifts unless I grow in grace.”

This is not a call to ignore the dangers of this thing and to put other people at risk. Part of what it may mean to love our neighbors at this time is to remain distant from them. We use wisdom during these moments, but whatever we do, we don’t stop loving, caring, and showing people that they are not forgotten. This is, however, a call to be aware of your attitude toward those around you. How are you continuing to relate and grow in empathy rather than close yourself off and grow in distrust?

So, let us know and love God for who he is, and let us serve him faithfully by our love, extended not just vertically to God but horizontally to our neighbors as well. 

Prayer and Reflection

Pray that God instills in us a desire for grace rather than suspicion. Open your hearts and offer the empty vessel to the Lord that it may be formed into His likeness and filled with the Spirit’s fruit. Which of those fruits do you need most right now? Ask for that.

Beautiful Things

Those That SeekLeave a comment

Ephesians 1:7-10

7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

This theme is similar to much of what I have covered in other posts, but I want to specifically dig into the idea of unity and how we can better understand what is means that God wants to unite all things.

Unity

It is the revealed mystery of God’s will, His purpose, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth. This is a pretty significant idea in understanding what God is doing and in better understanding who God is. God is about the unity and reconciliation of all things.

When I was in college, my small group leader consistently asked us a question that is still one of the first questions that I try to answer when attempting to understand a passage of Scripture. He would ask, “what does this say about the character and nature of God?” Whenever we read statements made by or about actions ordained by God in the Bible, we know that they are communicating something about who He is. If God’s purpose is to unite all things in Him, then it stands to reason that God is not about causing division. God is about relationship. He’s about pulling the broken in closer to himself and about repairing divisions that sin has caused in our relationship with Him.

To better grasp the idea of what this means, let’s look at the Japanese art of Kintsugi. This tradition takes broken pottery and repairs it into a new work of art by piecing the broken pieces and using a gold, silver, or platinum lacquer to put it back together. The results are stunning. The new piece has a spider web of gold fingers reaching across the ceramic. Some of the best pieces actually look like they were intentionally designed to be that way. Kintsugi stands in contrast to most western traditions, which tend to repair something like this by making it as close as they can to what the original looked like. Kintsugi, on the other hand, uses the broken places of the pottery to create something that is unique and beautiful in its own right. Kintsugi forces you to see beauty in the broken parts of the object. In some ways, this is how I understand what God does with our broken places.

The broken places of our lives are chasms that often keep us from God, but the work that God is doing is much like the work of Kintsugi. He is uniting the broken pieces within us to make something new. He’s using the broken body of Christ on the cross to make us new creations in His kingdom. One of the most amazing parts to this is not just that he is repairing the fractures in both you and me, but in all who believe. He is reconciling the world to Himself through the global church with the help of the Holy Spirit.

What does this say about the character and nature of God? It says that He has a plan and a purpose. It says that He is about reconciliation and about relationships. It says that He is generous with His grace and His forgiveness. God is not about hiding the flaws in our characters, but about reconciling us and healing us so that we are seen by Him as righteous. It’s a system where the brokenness of the body of Christ brings us into relationship with Him. It’s a system of redemption and of love. God is about uniting rather than dividing.

Prayer and Reflection

Think about Kintsugi and what it means that the brokenness is repaired for use and beauty. Where might you be broken? Ask God to repair that brokenness and be reminded that He will view it as something new and beautiful.

I’m reminded of the song from a few years ago, Beautiful Things, by Gungor. Give it a listen.

It Is Well

Those That SeekLeave a comment

In 2010, author Shane Claiborne published a book called Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals. I like the book. It’s designed to guide the daily prayer life of a group or individual. I’ve used it, like other things, as an off-and-on devotional since we bought it. I happened to pull it out this morning to use it for my personal reflection, but not necessarily for the blog, however, here I am. I’m going to use a simple quote from the March 1 reading in conjunction with the lyrics of a song from a concert that Hannah and I attended last night. I want to write it off as coincidental, but this endeavor is about seeking. So, let me break these moving parts down for you and see what you think.

Yesterday, Hannah and I had a doctor’s visit. She’s now 39 weeks pregnant. We’re completely aware that we are well into the birth range timetable, but things have progressed in such a healthy way that we haven’t been too worried about how things have progressed. Hannah and our boy have remained healthy throughout the duration of the pregnancy, and we’ve counted it a significant blessing. Yesterday though, there was a slight hiccup in a pretty routine visit. Our doctor wasn’t overly concerned about it but needed to run some tests to rule out possible complications that could change some of the details of our birth plan. Given how the pregnancy has gone up to this point, it seems unlikely that it will turn into something more serious. Nevertheless, this was the first instance in the 39 weeks that we’ve had to do something like that and in the moment it felt jarring.

We had tickets to a concert last night, The Lone Bellow, at a venue near our home. We saw them once in Chicago a couple of years ago and loved the energy they brought to their live performance. On the heels of the news from our prenatal visit, we were unsure whether we should attend. We want to do whatever we can to reduce stress at this stage and make sure we’re proceeding responsibly. We decided to go but would sit in the back and just enjoy the music.

Lone Bellow

The band added their stop here in Memphis late to their tour, so the setting was intimate. We saw a few friends and found some seats in the back corner. We couldn’t see the stage very well, but at different parts in the show could easily make out the upper quarter of the musicians. They were good. The Lone Bellow is not explicit about their religious beliefs, but there are certainly elements in their song writing that strongly suggest that they are people of faith. It’s possible there’s an interview somewhere in which they talk about it, but I haven’t searched that hard. Either way, there was an interesting moment in the concert last night during their song May You Be Well when the frontman Zach Williams, during an instrumental interlude in the song, raises both of his hands and clearly mouths the words “May you be well” multiple times with eyes closed. It was an odd sensation. It felt out of place, which is weird because it was a concert where a singer was singing the words to his own song. It felt out of place because he clearly wasn’t singing. It looked like he was speaking those words. It looked, very much, like he was praying those words over the crowd.

It seems somewhat unlikely that this is actually what was happening, but I couldn’t shake it. It felt so much like the moment in a worship service when the singer repeats parts of the song as a prayer under his breath. Fast forward to this morning and the aforementioned Claiborne book. There’s a quote for today’s entry from fourteenth century Christian mystic Julian of Norwich.

The worst has already happened and been repaired. . . . All Shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

I’ve stated previously in this blog that sometimes pain will last a lifetime. We aren’t promised reprieve during our lives, but we hold on to the hope of the life to come. The refrain here of “all shall be well” is unavoidably similar to the lyrics of the song last night. I can’t help but feel encouraged. Even though I know that we aren’t promised that bad things won’t happen to us, and even though these types of moments are easily written off as coincidental, I’m not going to do it with this one. I’m going to choose to believe that it’s the Spirit. I’m going to take the connection and rest in the comfort it provides.

Simeon Temple

Prayer and Reflection

What connections might you have written off recently as coincidence? Could they be something more? Pray that God gives you the courage and ability to see what he’s doing in your lives. Pray for God to remove the cynical spirit that keeps us from living in the joy he provides.

Within You

Those That SeekLeave a comment

Ephesians 2:1-10

1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

As we’ve already established, to some degree, Lent is a time for us to come to terms with the human condition. The focus is often on the brokenness in each of us as well as the brokenness around us. As I’ve mentioned before, we embrace our brokenness and look for truth in the midst of it. We “endure suffering” as 2 Timothy 4:5 states. Yes, Lent is a time to crack open the shells of our lives and peer into the inner workings of who we are, but besides brokenness, what might you also see?

Is it not true that we were created in the image of God and given a task to tame the wildness of creation in such a way that promotes flourishing, to use our creativity for His glory (Genesis 1:26-31)? We may be broken, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t valuable. We may not have earned God’s grace, but that doesn’t negate our value. It doesn’t mean that God didn’t create us for a purpose or that we weren’t made with intention.

Verse 8 is clear that salvation doesn’t come from anything that we’ve done. It’s a gift from God. His grace is a gift, but just because we didn’t do anything to receive the gift doesn’t mean there isn’t something for us to do. We were created for good works. We were created to seek the flourishing of other humans, to “be fruitful and multiple.” We often think of this phrase as a commandment to reproduce, but what if it’s broader than that?  What if we’re called from the very beginning to participate in a world that promotes health and care and love for everyone?

The human condition is broken, but at the same time in our brokenness, in our death, we were loved and saved so that we could live into the good works that God planned for us from the beginning. We seek healing. We seek reconciliation. We seek justice. We seek love. We seek the welfare of the city. These things may not be perfected until He returns, but we can catch a glimpse of what His glory is like and help others do the same.

I’ve mentioned that I want to make Lent about introspection. I want us to shed the weight of our idols and see what’s left. What’s left might be broken, but it’s also the workmanship of God. He took care in creating each of us, so maybe the cracks are there on purpose. What might we see when we peer into the inner workings of who we are?  Maybe when we hesitantly peek into those broken spots, we’ll be surprised by what we find. Maybe we’ll find that we were fearfully and wonderfully made. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll find the kingdom of God.

Prayer and Reflection

Pray for guidance in better understanding how God can use you for the flourishing of those around you. Pray that you will find hope, love, and value in the brokenness of your life.