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