by Elizabeth | Jan 8, 2011 | Learning Story
Every day is a day to sing this grand redemption song. Today seems particularly right. Thank you, Matthew Smith for this gorgeous reminder:
Through the love of God our Savior, all will be well
Free and changeless is His favor, all is well
Precious is the blood that healed us
Perfect is the grace that sealed us
Strong the hand stretched forth to shield us
All must be well
Though we pass through tribulation, all will be well
Ours is such a full salvation, all is well
Happy still in God confiding
Fruitful if in Christ abiding
Steadfast through the Spirit’s guiding
All must be well
We expect a bright tomorrow; all will be well
Faith can sing through days of sorrow, all is well
On our Father’s love relying
Jesus every need supplying
Yes in living or in dying
All must be well
by Elizabeth | Jan 7, 2011 | Learning Story
Understanding God’s Story changes our prayer; prayer changes our understanding of God’s Story.
I wrote this sentence two days ago as part of a lesson on Praying Story. I wish I had more time to take you through this, but I am thinking the brief outline I sketched and the exercise that follows might be helpful. Read through this, and if you have time, do the exercise and tell me what would make it better.
1. It tells us there is a bigger story. If life is only about the here and now, our little story, if there’s nothing more beyond what I can touch and see or you can touch and see, why would anyone pray? It would be instead, what someone told me they did after Hurricane Opal – “I stayed inside and thought happy thoughts.”
It’s odd to me – why would anyone pray if they didn’t think there was a bigger story? But the fact is, people do, all the time.
2. It shows us how to pray by revealing the contours of the bigger story: What should we pray for?
Relationships (Lord, help that woman! Genesis). Confess sin [Gen. 3). Yell complaints [Psalms, Job] Pray for redemption (New Testament). Jesus to come back. (Revelation).
3. It gives us a basis for praying. Pray for restoration of broken things. Not broadly. Right here, right now. Lord, restore my dog because you are a restorer of broken things.
4. It gives us specific stories that inform our stories and show us how to pray – “Lord, don’t let me be like Sarah and be a cynic when I’m believing you won’t show up in this situation!”
Exercise 1
Let’s try it out.
Take 5 minutes. Write down a situation in your life or the life of someone you know, perhaps something you’ve been praying for.
Connect it to the Big Story of Scripture. Here are some sample questions you can ask to do this:
Where do you see the image of God? Is there any shalom?
What brokenness exists?
Is there a movement toward another god to make life work?
What redemption has taken place? What redemption are you praying for?
Are there prayers based on the ‘one-day’ of the new heavens, new earth life?
What prayer forms as you think of this?
Here’s what I came up with:
My shoulder to heal. God is a god of restoration. God did not remove Paul’s thorn in the flesh. God uses all to redeem hearts.
Lord, I want my shoulder to be pain-free and move well. I ask you to do that for me because you are a merciful God. If you don’t choose to answer the prayer that way, help me to hang in there, to believe. “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”
by Elizabeth | Jan 5, 2011 | Learning Story
Awesome book, this Bonhoeffer biography. I can’t help but share some of the great thoughts. This one is abut Bonhoeffer’s strong conviction about the “incarnational aspect of the Christian faith.” I would simply add to what he said, and I am sure he would agree, not only must a marriage be a ‘yes’ to God’s earth (I think he means ‘creation’ and ‘present life here on earth’) but also a ‘yes’ to the God-created lives we’ve been given. What ‘yes’es'(??), passions, convictions, are you living out today?
“God wants to see human beings,’ he said, ‘not ghosts who shun the world.’ He said that in the ‘whole of world history there is always only one really significant hour – the present…if you want to find eternity, you must serve the times.’
His words presaged what he would write to his fiancée from his prison cell years later: ‘Our marriage must be a ‘yes’ to God’s earth. It must strengthen our resolve to do and accomplish something on earth. I fear that Christians who venture to stand on earth on only one leg will stand in heaven on only one leg too.’” Eric Metaxis, Bonhoeffer, 81
by Elizabeth | Jan 3, 2011 | Learning Story
Henri Nouwen on listening to and telling true stories:
“In this context pastoral conversation is not merely a skillful use of conversational techniques to manipulate people into the Kingdom of God, but a deep human encounter in which a man is willing to put his own faith and doubt, his own hope and despair, his own light and darkness at the disposal of others who want to find a way through their confusion and touch the solid core of life.
In this context preaching means more than handing over a tradition; it is rather the careful and sensitive articulation of what is happening in the community so that those who listen can say: ‘You say what I suspected, you express what I vaguely felt, you
bring to the fore what I fearfully kept in the back of my mind. Yes, yes – you say
who we are, you recognize our condition…'”
by Elizabeth | Jan 1, 2011 | Learning Story
YEARS END
O love beyond compare, Thou art good when thou givest, when Thou takest away, when the sun shines upon me, when night gathers over me.
Thou hast loved me before the foundation of the world, and in love didst redeem my soul; Thou dost love me still, in spite of my hard heart, ingratitude, and distrust.
Thy goodness has been with me during another year, leading me through a twisting wilderness, in retreat helping me in advance, when beaten back making sure headway.
Thy goodness will be with me in the year ahead; I hoist sail and draw anchor, with Thee as the blessed pilot of my future as of the past. I bless Thee that Thou hast veiled my eyes to the water ahead.
If Thou hast appointed storms of tribulation, Thou will be with me in them; if I have to pass through tempest of persecution and temptation, I shall not drown.
If I am to die, I shall see Thy face the sooner, if a painful end is to be my lot, grant me grace that my faith fail not; if I am to be cast aside from the service I love, I can make no stipulation;
Only glorify thyself in me whether in comfort or trial, as a chosen vessel meet always for Thy use.
From The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotion
by Elizabeth | Dec 31, 2010 | Learning Story
Last night, I asked what seemed like a rather innocuous question of my son’s good friend: “Are you all ready for the New Year?” His response startled me, not because it was startling but because it made me nervous. He said, “Yeah, I still have to work on my resolutions. I have one, but I want to think of a few others.” (Well, okay, it was also startling because the young man who said this is only 21, and he is doing some deep reflecting about his future. Then again, Will goes to M.I.T.)
Here’s the part that made me nervous. Resolutions. I don’t usually make them. Every now and then, maybe, but not usually. Why? Because they make me anxious. Because they feed right into my performance mentality. Because I get real busy trying to accomplish them for a few days, then fail, then feel bad about myself, then try to work up the gumption to try again.
I thought about this review I read in Christianity Today yesterday. Christopher Benson, writing about Philip Cary’s new book: Good News for Anxious Christians, said
Because “experience is formed from the outside in,” the goal of the book is to get nail-biting, brow-wrinkled, and sleep-deprived Christians outside of themselves to hear: “The good news of the gospel is that God has already decided to do something about our lives—whether we let him or not, whether we do anything about it or not, whether we believe it or not.” God is italicized here to emphasize that our transformation is always divinely wrought, not humanly contrived. That’s why Martin Luther prayed, “I will remain with thee of whom I can receive but to whom I may not give.” Cary submits that the Lutheran doctrine of sola fide (faith alone) offers a powerful corrective to the strangely Catholicized and psychologized evangelicalism that oppresses us.
How do we follow the commandment to not be anxious about anything (Phil. 4:6)? The gospel, Cary argues, gives us permission to ignore anxiety-producing techniques because Christ is enough, period. Finding ourselves in Christ, as opposed to finding Christ in ourselves, means we’re equipped—through the flesh of Christ, the Word of God, and the life of the church—to persevere in “the trial by existence,” invoking the title of Robert Frost’s poem. Instead of “bearing it crushed and mystified,” as the poet says in the final line, we can bear any vicissitude with the love, obedience, wisdom, virtue, and beauty of our Savior. (To read the rest, go to Christianity Today)
There are patterns of my heart, tongue, and mind that need change. I would like to resolve to change them. But something in this article draws me not to be passive, but to actively pursue Christ, to urge him to change me, and to remember that nothing I do or don’t do can stand in his way. And nothing I do or don’t do can keep him from loving me. AMEN!
