The Cleft and the Storm

Father, in  the quiet darkness this morning I hear the thunder rumbling. Lightning sparks and momentarily lights this dim room. And while the storm brews and simmers I sit in the cleft of the Rock--protected. You are the Rock which is higher than I. The solid rock on which I stand and hide.

Father, how often have you protected me in the granite curtains of your rock? How often have I slipped behind the stone veil and waited until the storm passed?

And this morning I am watching--standing at the cusp and edge and aperture of my safe place.

I'm waiting. Anticipating. I am waiting for the whisper. Attempting to hush myself down to silence--of which I am poorly equipped to do. Only You can hush me. Only you can soothe the distraught child in me.

Yes, I am waiting for the whisper. Father, help me. Help others. Help us to listen for your whisper.

What are you saying to us in the midst of our storms today? What are the words that come to us on the winds?  What revelation of You will be given to us today? Like Elijah? What will we see? What will we hear?

Prepare us. Make us ready. Please.

We want to see your face. Perhaps, all we can see, like Moses, is your back. I want to see you face, Lord. But more than anything I want to be aware that you have passed by.

I want to be aware of your whisper...and I want to hear it not only with my ears, but in my spirit. In the marrow of me. At the center of me. And I ask that just as the thunder rumbles and I can feel in to the core of my body...I pray that your voice would do that in my spirit.

In the name of Jesus whose blood has hidden me in the cleft of the rock,

Amen and amen

The Fourth Day

Oh God,

It's Monday morning. The Monday morning after the celebration of your Son's Resurrection.

I wanted yesterday to extend...for the sun to shine a little longer, for the ease of the day to continue, for the worship of the day to continue to soar. I didn't want yesterday to end.

But it's Monday. And the world has taken off their Easter finery. Slipped it back on a hanger and put it in the closet. The eggs are cracked and spilt. And there are aluminum foil candy wrappers strewn across lawns and living rooms...

But Father, the Resurrection isn't just about one day for us--your people. This is life for us: the fact that your Son not only died for us, but you raised him from the dead. Brought him up out of the dark tomb of spiritual and physical death. And I know he endured both for us...otherwise he would not have had to ask, "My God. My God why have you forsaken me?" from the cross.

Father, today is the day after the Resurrection. It is the fourth day.

Teach us to live on the fourth day. Show us how to live like resurrected people. We are to die to sin and ourselves, yes. But we are to live as people brought back to life. People who have been called out of the tomb, out of the decay and out of the smothering tendrils of death. Father, you have called us to live as children of light. Children of the day. Children of promise.

Father, help us to live out the hope of the Resurrection on the fourth day. On the fifth day. On the sixth.

Amen

Resurrection

Oh, Glorious Father,

Glory to your name. You have risen!

You came to tabernacle with us. You became God With Us so you could finish your plan of salvation...you sent the sacrificial lamb and He was slaughtered on Friday, but Father, you did not just send any lamb, You sent Jesus.

He died once and for all. His blood better than sheep and goats and bulls. He became the scapegoat for us. He took our sins and iniquities on his shoulders. He absorbed the hostilities of the world from beginning to end and carried them to the cross. They were nailed there with Him...and WE bear them no more because of your sweet grace and beautiful mercy.

Good Friday was good because of what happened today! Father, your word says you complete and finish what you start and begin. You bring to completion all you planned to do. And Sunday you did. The Resurrection was the crown. Had you not raised your Son from the dead Good Friday would have been a moot point.

Father, I pray we live lives of people of the Resurrection. That we would be living proof of who Mary did not find at the tomb. Father, I pray that we would live lives given over to the power of that Resurrection. That we would understand that the very same power that lifted Jesus from the pale gray of death will life us. Will resurrect our dry bones.

Today is a day of finding empty things and the God who keeps his promises. Please enable your people to reflect this hope, this truth.

We praise you today. We glorify you today. We lift you up today. You are worthy. Worthy.

Holy. Holy. Holy. Is the Lord God Almighty. Who was. Who IS. Who is to come.

Amen and amen

 

Passion Thursday

Father,

On Thursday your heart began to break. You and your Son knew what was coming. You knew what lay in the hours ahead. You knew. And Jesus moved through the hours anyway. He had set his face. For You. For us.

There are many events and details about the Thursday of Holy Week that stand out to me. Judas’ betrayal. The squabbling of your inner twelve of who was the greatest. The bending of your Son to wash the men’s feet—the lowliest of servant’s job. The youngest servant in the house, or the one who had been in residence the shortest amount of years—this task fell to them.

Yet your Son stooped, bent and curved his body close to the floor and took their crusted, broken heels in his hands (hands that would later clench under the driving of the nails) and poured water and watched the eddies of dirt swim in the earthen bowl.

This moves me. Humbles me, Father.

But, there is another scene from this Thursday night that haunts me.

In the garden under the olive trees—bent and gnarled—your Son asked three of his closest friends to pray. To tarry with him in prayer. To beseech you on his behalf and on theirs. He asks them to pray.

Keep watch with me.

He moves a stone’s throw away. That detail catches my attention. Jesus removed himself so that they might not see his anguish up close. Removed himself that they might not see the sweaty blood that seeped and slid down his forehead. Matthew even tells us he fell with his face to the ground.

Can’t you pray just one hour for me?  This question of Jesus’ in the shadow of the olive press breaks my heart. Breaks my heart.

Jesus doesn’t just ask for prayer for himself. He tells them to pray for him and them. He knows the battles that await them only a short time away. He knows what awaits him.

Three times Jesus returned to these inner three.

Three times Jesus returned and requested them to pray with him.

But they did not. They slept.

Even today, Father, I hear Jesus ask this of me.

Tamera, would you keep watch with me?

Father, how often do your people come to us and ask us to pray for them? To pray with them. To tarry five minutes in prayer for them. To keep watch with them.

And we say we will. But we do not. We sleep.

Just like Peter, James and John we have good intentions. But we grow weary and fatigued and forgetful.

How often do we say we will pray and walk away?

Father, I ask you would help us to pray. Fortify us to tarry for a while and pray. Please help us not to fall asleep. Help us not to grow weary. Keep us awake.

Please, Father, help us to keep watch.

Help us not to fall asleep.  

In the precious name of Jesus.

Amen

 

Passion Wednesday

Oh Father,

This morning as I read about your Son’s days in this last week I kept thinking about the fig tree. It may not have happened on Wednesday, but this is what I am thinking about today.

Your Son passed by hungry. He needed to break his morning fast, and in the distance he sees a tree in full leaf. He expects figs; he expects fruit.

And there is none.

No fruit hung from the branches. Appearances said something should be there. Leaves indicated something substantial was hidden in the foliage. But there was nothing.     

Not a fig.

Father, oh my heart is breaking right now. I realized many times in my life I have been like that fig tree—full of appearances, but no fruit.

Father, I pray we would not be like the fig tree on that rocky road to Jerusalem. Father, often we have showy leaves that would indicate fruit. People come to us expecting fruit, expecting nourishment or at least a refreshment.

But there is not a fig on us.

Father, this is not how you want the people who are called by your name to be.

We are to be trees weighed down with fruit. Fruit that is the produce of being grafted into the vine of your Son. Fruit that comes because of time spent in your Presence.

Father, we do not want to be the fig trees of Passion Week: trees with signs of fruit, but none to be found.

Father, grow fruit on us. Let our branches be weighed down, bent over and drooping with the weight of ripe figs.

Let our foliage match our fruit.

Amen and amen.

 

 

Passion Tuesday

How sad it is to me that human nature has not changed a great deal in two thousand years. I read the accounts of your Son.

I see him overturn the tables in the temple. I see him reaching out his hand in your temple and healing the blind and the lame—making people whole. Making people alive again. Making people see again. He was an exact representation of Jehovah-rapha with all the signs and wonders to demonstrate the truth of it. And yet, Father, the religious people dismissed Jesus because they felt their authority was being threatened. The control they had in the religious boxes was knocked over by a carpenter boy from Galilee. This frightened them because this revealed the vanity and emptiness inside.

Father, they questioned your Son’s authority. And we still do today. We ask for his credentials; when he moves in our lives and it doesn’t fit our agenda we question him. When he pushes back the walls of our boxes we question him.

Father, we are in the midst of your mighty hand moving among your people. Instead of lifting our hands in praise and opening our lips in worship as the children shouted in the temple we are questioning you. Asking you what right you have, what authority do you have? We, too, are indignant.

OH Father, the religious rulers and leaders were so indignant about what your Son was doing. They felt so threatened by him. By his teaching. And they knew he had authority; they recognized it, but to acknowledge it they would be accountable to it. And they did not want to be accountable.

They knew.

Father, we know.

And often we act indignant. We behave religiously. We come to the temple blind and lame. We come insecure. We come fearful. And you want to heal us, but we are too busy attempting to look for a way to kill you. To shut down your voice.

Father, forgive us. Please forgive us.  

Amen.

 

 

 

Passion Monday

Glory Hallelujah!

Father, this morning may we lift our hearts in praise to you.

Yesterday on Palm Sunday we dropped our cloaks on the ground to make way for you. Show us how to lift the palm branches to declare your glory and your salvation. You said even the rocks would cry out if we didn't; we do not want rocks to do what we long to do. Show us how, Father.

We threw down our palm fronds, fanned them around you and lifted the air with hallelujahs. But we are often a frail and fickle people--forgetting.

As Palm Sunday rolls into Monday, as the gates closed behind you please, Father, let our temples be cleansed. I pray as we hear you teach we would have ears to hear and eyes to see.

We know at the end of the week we will change our minds if we do not keep our hearts and eyes fixed on you and your purpose and goal. Instead of glorifying and lifting you up in praise we will be mocking and crucifying you in contempt.

Father, please help us. Please help our  minds to not be swayed by persuasive arguments. Help our hearts to not be mesmerized by the gildings of this world.

Father, on Sunday we lifted you up, exalted you but even on Monday we begin to mutter. We are so paranoid you will come into our temple today and overthrow the tables. That you will tell us we are using these temples for what they were never intended for.

Father, at the end of the week I do not want to be shouting crucify him. I do not want to be in the middle of the mob, moved and pulled and screaming things I don't mean. 

Father, today change my heart so that on Friday I won't say things I will later regret. Renew my mind today, Father, so that on Friday I will understand I can't stand with the mob, I can't run away like the disciples.

Father, this is your Son's passion week. But it is ours too. Where do we find ourselves this week? With whom do we align? Are we falling asleep in the garden? Cutting off ears? Kissing our friends? Watching from afar? Denying any association?

Where are we this week?

Show us.

In the name of Jesus. Amen and amen.

Shadows and Realities

OH Father God,

Oh that we would learn that we are living in the shadow of the reality. The reality is in you. In your kingdom, your Heaven and in your Presence. Here we are shadows of that reality.

Father, help us to become reality. As C.S. Lewis discussed in The Great Divorce, I pray we would become more and more real the longer we know you and walk with you. That our spirits would continue to gain and become more substantial. Your Word says that our outer person is wasting away while our inner person continues to grow. Father, please help us to understand this and allow you to do your work in us.

This shadowed place we live in is not what it will be. This shadowy realm that we abide in will not be the place of light we arrive at someday. But until then, may your word be a light to our path. Let your Word be a lamp to our feet as we traverse this road. Father, may we learn the difference between shadow and reality. May we understand that who we are in you, the position we have in you, is because of what Jesus did. He traversed the road first.

Because of what he did we are offered the reality.

Father, I want to know more here and now. I want to know you more. I want more of you. More. To know you more…so much more that the shadows begin to dissipate. They begin to trail away leaving only tendrils and mist—unveiling the Reality.

Father, please. Enable my mind and spirit to absorb more of you. Oh, that I might be filled with you. Until the flesh of me is relegated to the outer edges of me, and your Brightness fills me instead.

Amen and amen

Your Temples

 Holy Father,

Let us see you in your temple...and Father, the temple now is us. We want to see evidence that you abide here in these earth bound places, that your mercy is extended to us. That you abide with your people and where your Presence abides is holy, sacred.

Let us be your temples today. Places of worship, of adoration, of utter gratefulness and praise. Let us lift holy hands and fall prostrate and dance in the streets because of what you have done. How you have saved us. How you pulled us out of the pit. Thank you for saving us from the ugliness that is in us. Thank you that you change it. You transform it.

Call us out, Father. Call us out into the places we need to be crying and making way for you. We are the Elijahs and the John the Baptists today.  Show us how to make the paths straight. Show us today how to build up the highways that others may find you.

We bless you today. We bless you for your salvation...for saving us from much we are not even aware of because you spared us. Thank you for saving us from the ugliness that is in us. Thank you that you change it. You transform it.

Call us out, Father. Call us out into the places we need to be crying and making way for you. We are the Elijahs and the John the Baptists today...show us how to make the paths straight. Show us today how to build up the highways that others may find you.

I praise you for we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Our temples are unique. One of a kind structures being erected to bring you glory. Oh, please do not allow us to inhibit in any way this process and progress. Help us to get out of the way...to make room and way for you.

Father, enable us to follow in your wake. Let us be filled with the urgency of the Gospel. This good news of Jesus; it’s the best news. The greatest news, and I pray we would speak it. Teach it. Live it. Pray it. Share it. Show us how. Teach us how to implement these gifts you have so generously given to the advancement of your kingdom. Father, there is nothing today I want more. Use our teaching, our writing, our encouraging, our praying and our loving and our failing and promote your kingdom...lift up your Son in us I pray this morning.

Amen and amen.