An Impatient Bulb

Good Morning, Lord.

Every morning the sun rises, or the earth turns to greet the sun. Regardless light spills across the cracked cold earth. And for a few hours the warmth of the sun penetrates the layers. Winter still holds on like an old woman with gnarled and clawed hands—unwilling to give up so easily.

But light will break. Eventually winter will give way to spring. The rotation of the seasons will come. And I thank you. I have not understood this winter. I have not been able to fully embrace the dormancy and stillness you have beckoned me to entertain.

I am like a bulb in the ground waiting. Waiting for my thick skin to crack open and allow the slim green shoot to push upward through the cold, packed dirt. I am trying to force the bulb. Attempting to recreate warmth and light so that I will bloom sooner.

Bloom sooner.

But your timing is perfect, and lest I forget please remind me.

Your timing takes into account things and events and circumstances I cannot see. I cannot foretell. Some I can’t even imagine. If I push my tender shoot through the soil too early then there’s a chance I will succumb to late frost. I just don’t understand; I can’t see far enough ahead.

But you do, Lord. You are far ahead of me.

Help me to be still in this season. Help me to rest in this Sabbath just a little while longer. Enable me to have patience to finish the season. To allow you to do your work in me. To surrender to your tending hand.

I have grown impatient. And with impatience grows discontent. With discontent I fail to see the goodness. I fail to see the gifts. I fail to count as your servant, Ann, suggests. With impatience and discontent my spirit is no longer fallow soil for your to plant your seed. Father, may Your Holy Spirit cultivate patience and contentment in me—even in this season that seems so barren and bleak.

And so I count:

1.      Thank you for furnaces that run, and vents that produce heat.

2.      Thank you for the early morning light that spills across the kitchen floor.

3.      Thank you for dogs curled together in tight balls.

4.      Thank you for spooning and warm beds.

5.      Thank you for hot chocolate.

6.      Thank you for fireplaces in friends’ homes.

7.      Thank you for warm, red coats.

8.      Thank you for the stillness outside, and the stillness in me.

 

Amen and amen.

Blind, Deaf Beggars

Father God,

This morning I think about the words you gave me through John. Words you know would penetrate my heart and speak to me, reveal to me your truth. Thank you for his willingness to be your conduit.

Father, I pray today that I would be salt. I pray that every offering that I lift up to you would be sprinkled with salt…that it would be pleasing to you. I pray that you would help me be salt—in whatever manner you require I ask that you restore all my saltiness to me. And I pray that you would help every conversation and encounter I engage in to be seasoned with salt, with grace.

Father, I think about being blind, deaf beggars. All trying to help each other find bread—our gnarled hands extended, groping to find sustenance, nourishment. The blind often leading the blind. But you came to remedy this.  You came to make the blind see. To make the deaf hear. To turn these pauper beggars into adopted children.

Father, you do not mean for us to grope, fumble and stumble in darkness. You do not mean for us to eat the crumbs from beneath the table.

Father, please help us to understand this. Help us to comprehend that you sent Jesus to change the reality of all these. You came to change our reality.

But, Father, sometimes we don’t know how to live in that reality or how to embrace it. We still walk around and deal with life as if we are blind, deaf beggars. We continue to look at the world and not see. We continue to hear your truth and not listen and we beg when all that we have ever wanted or needed is already ours.

Remind us that you have changed our reality. Help us live in this reality so we can reach out and take another beggar’s hand and lead them to you.

Amen and amen.

Watching Jesus

Father God,

This morning I come into your throne room. I come because Jesus made it possible. I come because he willingly died for me. Before I ever even knew him. Before I ever acknowledged him. Before I ever recognized him. My sin was and is a part of why he chose to be the lamb.

My sin not in part but the whole.

All because you did not want me (us) to remain estranged from you. You did not want your people separated from you. You did not want the gap to remain. You did not create us for such. You did not create us to be on one side of the ravine and you on the other. You created us to be in fellowship with us. To be in relationship with us.

Thank you that you chose not to leave us in this place. You planned and carried that plan to its fulfillment. You sent Jesus.

Father, I watch your Son. I watch how he treats people. How he interacts with those around him. I watch how he cares and has compassion. And yes, I say watch rather than watched. When I read the words of your good news it is alive. A moving picture in Jesus.

Paul said that Jesus was the exact representation of you. The exact. And if I watch him then I am watching you. You fleshed out. You tented among your people. You walking among you people. You speaking to your people. You filled with compassion for your people. You weeping for your people. You dying for your people. And I love you even more. I fall in love all over again.

I praise you today. I lift you up as high as my feeble arms can. Strengthen them so that I might lift you higher. I want people to see what you have done and are doing. I want people to know you. I want them to know the goodness of you. And Jesus shows us.

Help us to watch Jesus. Help us to read your word and watch your Son. Help us to see you in him. And help us to see him in us. Father, I want to look like Jesus because I want to look like you.

I love you this morning.

Amen and amen.

Forgiveness

Father,

It’s Monday.

Mondays can be hard.

And perhaps we complain far too much.

But this morning I come to you confessing sin. Asking you for forgiveness.

Over and over this weekend I have thought about the woman who broke her jar and poured its perfume at your feet…she knew she had much to be forgiven for. She left whole.

Father, I need forgiveness. And I ask for it. Ask that you would wash me. Wash away all the impurities, all the filth, all the grime and residue.

I ask for forgiveness for claiming I have a servant’s heart and then when I am treated like one I balk and bristle. And hubris manifests.

I am so sorry. When I think of you bending down on one knee—willingly, intentionally—and washing your men’s feet my spirit aches because of my own posture. You bent, You the Son of God, bent down and picked up the feet of your disciples and washed them. You didn’t complain. You didn’t bellyache about how their attitudes should have been better. You didn’t point out their flaws and their ugliness. No, you just fleshed out who you really are. You told us you came to serve and not be served and that is exactly what you did.

I am sorry that I say I want to serve and then I bellyache about the lack in someone else. I need your forgiveness. I need your washing of my feet so that I might be clean and begin again this day.

Father, forgive me. I did know what I was doing. And I am sorry.

Amen.

A Child's Construction

Father,

I praise you this morning for watching us through the night. You do not sleep. You do not slumber. You do not grow weary in your vigil over us. And I am thankful. So grateful that even in my sleep you never leave or forsake me.

Thank you for being so faithful. Your faith astounds me. I can never quite fully comprehend it. Never quite understand the reach of it. I am so often unfaithful and those around me are so often unfaithful that your faithfulness seems almost surreal, and yet it is the most real of everything.

Father, today prepare us for the weekend. Fill our weekend with your Presence. Show us where you are working and help us join you there. I pray we would set aside our own agendas and embrace yours.

Show us how, Father.

We are like such little children. We bumble and fumble thinking we know how to do something and all the while we are attempting to build mansions out of Legos. Father, we need you. Many times I have built something and stood back proud as punch about my efforts only to come back later and find it fallen and broken. A child’s construction.

Help us to build so that it will last. Help us to build to meet eternity. Heavenly Father, we want to build what will glorify you and last.

Only you can teach us how. Please help us to have teachable spirits.

Amen

REGARDLESS

God, Our God. 

I pray for you to illuminate our darkness. I ask, Father, that your light would shine even in and around the deepest and sharpest of corners of me (of us)--that you would shine your light in these dark places--so that darkness will have to flee. All things hidden in the darkness will be exposed...and exposure to the light cleanses. It heals. So, I do pray for all the hidden and jaundiced places in us to be exposed to the light.

Exposed in order to heal, not in order to shame. Exposed in order to cleanse, not in order to condemn.  

Father, please hold us in the palm of your engraved hand. Please hold us close to your strong side. Cover us with the HESED of your love which is covenant love and is based on regardless. This covenant was established in blood. And it is only because of the promise of that blood that we can rest in the regardless. We can rest because You made your promises and you are faithful (whether we are or not)—that is the REGARDLESS. It is not that we cause anything to be in place for the regardless. NO! It is Jesus' and his sacrifice, his blood, that bought the regardless for us. We may not understand it. We may not comprehend it. We may not even believe it at times...but the regardless was rooted and established in the covenant promises of HESED. 

Help us today to see. To see the regardless and that it was meant for us. All we have to do is ask. 

 

Father, I want the regardless. I want to live in the blessing of regardless. Help us to abide there.

Amen

Sap Rising

Father,

Winter has taken its toll, frozen the sap of me hard and immovable. Winter is now a guest stayed far too long, and we are annoyed with her once funny antics and whims and idiosyncrasies.

But today the sun shone. Beams of light warmed my face and I am renewed. I walked today and the wind blew gently on my face. I needed no coat. The air did not sting my cheeks. And the stiffness of my body and my spirit softened. For a brief moment pliable. And this quickening reminds me I am alive.  

Thank you, Father. Thank you.

But this morning, Lord, I woke and the day has been full of sunshine, warm and bright on my face. I feel the sap stir. Just a bubble. But this bubble is hope that says winter doesn’t stay forever.

Joy bubbled today. And I thought about Nehemiah—building the wall. How often his sap must have run cold, thick. As he looked out at the city, the great city of God, and wondered how the wall would ever be completed.

But he said it. Nehemiah who had his men build with tools in one hand and weapons in another. He declared the joy of the Lord is our strength.

Now, isn’t that just like you, Almighty God? That you would put such an unexpected element in the compound of strength? We expect fortitude and courage and stamina and power. But joy?

That wonderful, delightful unexpected ingredient.

The joy of the Lord is our strength.

The joy.

Thank you for the sap that rises in the trees. Thank you for sunshine. Thank you for the quickening just when we thought our spirits would never stop hibernating.

Thank you for joy.

Amen

Refilling

Good morning, Father.

You kept me through the night, through the midst of bad dreams and minor stress. I woke this morning battling my demons, my idols dancing ugly in my mind. Residual dregs of my mood from the night before lingered—this bruised feeling.

Father, I am weary of the battle against my idols, against the emptiness that comes because I forget and neglect coming to you for your filling. I am so tired of dancing with these idols—they wear me out. They suck the life right out of me.

Your Spirit reminded me you offer new mercies each morning. You supply salve for the bruising and balm for the soreness. And you set me free. Every morning.

At night I often go to bed empty. The contents of me spilled, spent or poured out during the day. And when I wake you await (Why, Oh God, would you wait for me? It is I who should always be waiting for you!) ready to pour your grace—pressed down, shaken together and running over—into me.

And then I am no longer empty. I am no longer an empty water jar, but instead am filled.

This morning, this day, help us to come to you long before we are empty, long before the contents of us are broken and scattered, spilled and spent.

Holy Spirit, remind us to ask for a refilling before the bottom is dry. Remind us we can’t fight battles empty.

Amen and amen.

New Clothes

Father,

Good morning! Oh, hear my prayer this morning as it rises to you in your sanctuary. Let the sounds it carries be blessings to your ears. I long for the thoughts and meditations of the heart that fuels it be pleasing to you.

This morning I ask for us to allow you to grow and manifest the fruits of the Spirit in our lives. In these daily encounters, in these hourly routines I pray you would clothe us in the garment that is Jesus. Help us to slip our arms into the softness and sturdiness of Him—that we would be clothed with his righteousness, with the attitude of his mind and the bent of his spirit.

Give us the courage today to exchange our worn out, tattered and soiled rags for the robes you have waiting for your children. We tend to forget who we really are. We want to hang on to the rags, wrap them around our nakedness hoping fervently they cover more than they really do. Shredded and faded they hang on us and we cling to them. Don’t let us cling to these threadbare garments. Help us to shrug out of them and leave them behind.

Leave them behind and stand gloriously bare. Stripped.

Naked before you—like a child waiting for her mother to dress her. Enable us to lift our arms and allow these garments to slip down over our thin arms and over our drooped heads.

Father, I praise you this morning because these garments do not wear out. They do not tatter. They will not soil. They do not become threadbare. They are not ripped. They are not tainted with the grime and dirt of our daily living. Thank you that this is how you choose to clothe your children.

Let us be like the sweet child who came to me the other day and said, “Look at me. Look at this!” and she spun and twirled before me. She wanted me to see how her dress rose and fluted and fluttered out before her. She was so pleased. Help us to be like this sweet child, Father.

Pleased. Satisfied. Content with the clothing you have provided.

Bless you this morning. Thank you this morning. Praise you this morning!

Amen and amen  

 

 

Holy. Holy. Holy.

Oh God, my God.

What a privilege to call you such. You are not just an impersonal deity bent on controlling the fates in your favor, caring only for people because of what they can do for you.

No.

You are my God. You are my Savior come to free me. My Redeemer come to purchase me back from an enemy and remove me from enemy territory. You are my Kinsman-redeemer come to enter into covenant with me to save me and my family. You are Lord, my head, to protect me from the systems of this world. You are my Shepherd come to lead this little ewe-sheep into green pastures and beside still waters even though she is constantly getting tangled and caught in the bramble bushes.

You are more than god. You are Creator—Elohim. You are the great I AM who is immutable, eternal, immortal and invisible. You are the only wise God.

You are worthy to be praised. Worthy to be exalted above all we deem valuable. And please let it not only be the seraphs who cry holy, holy, holy.

No, this morning I cry and join my voice with them:

Holy, Holy, HOLY is the Lord God Almighty.

Holy, Holy, HOLY is the One Who Was, Who Is, and Who Is to Come.

Holy. Holy. Holy.

Set apart. Distinct. Separate. Different than all others.

You are holy.

Holy. Holy. Holy.

Let this be my inner litany and liturgy today.

 

Holy. Holy. Holy.

Holy. Holy. Holy.

Holy. Holy. Holy is my God. 

 

Amen.

Sighings

Father,

This morning I rejoin the land of the living.

This morning I come out of my seclusion, out of the cocoon that sickness and worry create.

I praise you, Father, this morning. This is your day; the day you have made, and may I (we) rejoice in it. Perhaps, today we can learn and know what that really means. May we count gifts and blessings and yes, even the trials as a means to rejoicing.

Teach us what it means to be content in all circumstances. Teach us how to live a life of honest rejoicing.

Father, this morning I pray for the sick, the hurting, the confused, the angry, the lost, the sad, the bitter and the happy. I pray for us all and ask that we would come to you with every one of these and allow you to be present in them, to allow you to work through all of them and to allow you to use each of them as a tool to shape the clay that we are.

Father, I pray that you would hear our sighings, our groanings and moanings. When we have no words, when our minds and tongues cannot articulate the inward places, the interiors of us, please interpret our sighings for us. Thank you that the Spirit prays for us. Thank you that your Son intercedes on our behalf.

Thank you that you hear. Thank you, Father, that you hear and that you move on our behalf. Father, often times we don’t see that movement, the ripples are too deep. Often we don’t detect the provision you are offering because we are in the middle of the swirling eddies of all our circumstances.

Enable us to see. Remove the scales of doubt, cynicism and discouragement from our eyes.

Enable us to hear. Remove the wax of routine, noise and selective hearing from our ears.

Enable us to taste. Remove the film of blandness and tastelessness from our tongues.

Enable us to feel. Remove the numbness and the deadness from our fingers.

Wake us up, Father. Help us to recognize what you are doing. We want to see you. We want to trace your hand. We want to participate with you. We want to rejoice—show us how.

Amen and amen.

Breaking Heart

OH Father God,

My God.

My heart is broken this morning. Broken, cracked and split open. And if mine is how much more yours? If I who love your people haphazardly, crookedly and conditionally, if I love them and am moved by the lostness, how much more are You?

How much more you must hurt when you see your little children, these little lambs, devoured by wolves? How much more do you weep than me. Me, who sits here this morning with tears streaming down my face?

Father, how can I help? Please, please how can I help?

The pain, the utter emptiness, that echoes in the voices and souls of a people led astray, of a people deceived by the liar breaks my heart.

My heart is breaking this morning. We, the Church, have acknowledged your power, but we do not ask you to employ it. We ask for band aids when we need surgery. We ask for a sip when we need an IV.

Oh, God.

This seductive world pulls and draws and promises. And yet it robs, deceives and strangles once it holds our hands. This world and the prince who commands the air around it is swallowing up people whole.

And  your people sit and judge and criticize and dismiss. We analyze and theorize. We suggest and offer antidotes. But God, you call us to enter the fray. To get dirty hands. To have calloused knees and muddy shoes and crusted clothing. But we are far too concerned about remaining pristine in case you come. We leave the man on the side of the road because we have duties to fulfill and obligations to carry.

And they are bleeding and wounded and we walk right on by—because those who are wounded shout and yell. They try to hide their hurt and their pain and cover it with loud bravado and blatant rebellion. They are hurting. Wounded. And we walk right on by because we think they are just shouting to be heard.

Show me what to do, Lord. Show me how to honestly, truly be the Good Samaritan. How to be the one who does not walk right on by. Show me how to be the one who will stop and carry your little lamb to the inn.

Please, my God. My God. Please.

Amen and amen

Boats and Squalls

Father,

This morning I pray for your people—the ones I know and the ones I have yet to meet. I pray this morning for all the ones who feel that their boats are being swamped in a storm. They have found a leak in the hull and they are bailing as fast as they can. I pray for them in the overwhelm and the flood. As the squall continues and rises in intensity I pray for peace.

I pray we would know your peace in the middle of chaos.

Today I ask you would help us to remember that you are in our boats with us. Perhaps we are frustrated and irritated that you seem to be asleep, but help us remember that when your disciples called your name you were already present. And you took care of their need.

This morning as our boats tip and dip and lean please make us aware of your presence. Help us to speak your name and allow you to still our waters. Some of us, Lord, seem to thrive on the chaos believing it to mean we are important and indispensable. We like to be busy because it keeps us from having to think or actually deal with or confront the issues. The storm causes us to handle the immediate and the urgent, but it often shifts our focus from the eternal—from YOU.

Today, stand up in our boats. We ask you to stand up and tell the winds and the waves to be still. And help us to listen. Help us not to stick our oars in the water stirring up froth and foam. Help us to just be still and listen to your voice. Hear your directions.

Amen

Teach Us

Father,

This morning I pray you would teach us to laugh.

To laugh at ourselves. To laugh at the days to come because we do not fear them because you hold them in your hand.

Teach us today to hold things lightly. To hold things tentatively.

Teach us today to release everything to you. To let you do your work in and through us.

Teach us today to allow you to use every situation, regardless, for our good and your glory. Not for one minute allow us to think that something can’t be used or worked out through your sovereign power.

Teach us today to place all things in your hands that you might use them, discard them, sift them, repair them, strengthen them and rearrange them so that they become tools and benefits in the holy economy of your Kingdom.

Teach us today to trust you. That once we have released and relinquished these things to your care that we do not reach for them back, that we do not try to retrieve them from your hand.

Amen and amen.

Morning Mercies

Father God,

I am so thankful you meet us in the morning. I am so grateful that you renew your mercies to us each morning when we open our eyes—they are waiting for us. Stretched out and broad and oh so deep.

Your mercies extended to us BEFORE we even meet the day. Your forgiveness is offered to us before we sully the day; your grace is granted before we put our not so lovely mark on this allotted twenty-four hours.

This morning I am thankful. So thankful for this blessing. This is what I wake up to knowing. There are mornings I forget, and mornings I choose not to see. But you remain faithful. Thank you.

This morning, Father, I ask for you to create pure hearts in us. I ask for you to renew our spirits—turning and bending them toward you. I ask for you to not cast us from your presence or to remove the Holy Spirit from us today. We want the joy of your salvation restored in us today. We want the willing and obedient mind of Christ today.  

Your word says you will conform us to the image of your Son—then I pray today, Father, please shave off the hard edges and sharp corners of us. I pray for the anointing of the Holy Spirit to soften the crusty and callous centers of us that we might be receptive and malleable in your hands.

I pray today you would help us to surrender to this conforming and you would enable us to understand that it doesn’t cause us to be less like our individual selves, but it frees us to be more than ourselves.

Father, today shape my mind to be like Christ Jesus. In recent days my outlook has been far from his. Forgive me for fighting and for resisting. Forgive me for nursing and feeding this ugly attitude.

Jesus relinquished every right he had to do what you willed for him to do.

We are recipients of your daily grace and morning mercies because of his attitude. Because of his obedience.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Amen

Wasting Away

Father,

Good morning, Lord.

May we wake this morning and come to a full realization that your mercies are truly new every morning. And they are extended to us without measure. They are given to us because of your deep love for us.

Father, teach us that there is so much more to life than just what is visible. Teach us what is eternal. Show us how to invest in these lives of ours so that when our days are finished the investments weighs heavy in eternity. Create a hunger in us to live our lives knowing that they are just a vapor in relation to eternity, but that this vapor is of value to you. Show us how to live this life vapor in such a way that has an impact on eternity.

These shells of ours will fail. They will become weak. They will grow old. Help us to truly embrace and understand Paul’s words: 

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.                                                      II Corinthians 4:16

 Please don’t allow us to lose heart. Increase our faith in you. Increase the faith that you will keep your promises. We are wasting away—moment by moment. And many of us do not want to admit or hear this. We declare it morbid; we are young and we don’t have to think about such. But Father, this mortal tent, is wasting away. But the promise that though the outside, the shell, is deteriorating the real us is being renewed.

Father, we are banking on this promise today. We are counting on this being the truth and reality.

Amen and amen.

 

Do You Love Me?

Father,

Sighings and groanings. These are what seem to be manageable this morning. These are the words in my spirit that can’t seem to articulate past my dry tongue. This morning I feel the inadequacy of words. Often I depend way too much on the ability to string them together like a strand of pearls—one beautiful right word after another.

This morning, Father, I can’t even find the string. I’ve lost the end of it. Words are hollow. There are so many people hurting around me. So many who are suffering and struggling and fighting to breathe. To survive. To live. Literally and figuratively.

Father, I find myself searching for something, anything, to make it all better. To fix each situation. To comfort. To encourage. To bolster. Yet, I seem to fail.

I pray through blurred eyes—faces rising into my vision. Each face so precious. And I want so much for them to be healed, to be made whole. To be assured of who they are in you.

Yesterday, I asked you what you want. What do you want, Father? And I hear your Son’s conversation with Peter:

Peter, do you love me?

Yes, Lord I love you.

Then take care of my little sheep.

Peter, do you love me?

Yes, Lord I love you.

Then feed my sheep.

Tamera, do you love me?

Yes, Lord. You know all things. You know that I love you.

Feed my sheep.

I’m trying. Please show me how, Father. Please teach me how to be a good shepherd. Teach me how to care and watch and love this flock of yours. I am woefully inadequate. I am so lacking in wisdom. I have so little experience.

But you are the Good Shepherd. Please teach this little ewe-sheep, so that she might take care of your people.

Amen and amen.

What Do You Want?

Father.

The rain comes down this morning. Beating against the sides of the house. Pelting the windows. And I dread going out into it. It’s cold. It’s wet. It’s uncomfortable.

Yet, the rain is saturating the ground and the soil preparing it for spring. Readying it for the growth of green, of the growth of seedlings and leaves and fruit.

But I don’t like it right now. I don’t want to be wet and cold. I want to be warm. I want to be dry.

Father, help me to accept the rain. Enable me to understand what it is doing in the soul of me.

I just don’t want it to rain, and yet I understand that the rain is needed. Needed to penetrate the hard, cracked and cold ground.

I want the sun to shine. I want winter to end. I want…I want…I want…

I’m sorry, Lord. Forgive me.

What do you want?

What do you want?

Amen.

Help Me to Bless

Good Morning, Lord.

I am not sure what today holds. Not sure of who I will see. Who you will bring across my path, but I pray this morning that you fill me with Jesus.

This morning I ask for your guidance today: in the words I say, in the actions that manifest and in my thinking processes. I ask for your word to be the light on my path today, that your lamp would guide each next step I am to take.

This morning on a Saturday that I don’t want to anything but close my doors and hibernate I pray for you to enable me to be a blessing. I ask for you to help me bless every person I come in contact with today regardless of where I want to be and what I want to be doing. Bless them with a hug, a smile, a word, an understanding, an encouragement. Whatever is needed to bless today, please fill me to the brim and help in spill over.

A blessing. That’s what I ask today.

In Jesus’ name.

Amen