I do not believe God wants us to fail. However, I believe God wants us to risk failure to spend time with him, to live life his way. God is calling us to deep relationship, and that requires some time and some sacrifice. It requires trust – trust that God’s way is better than our way.
from Attending to the Trinity blog on “Humble Future 2″

Josh Broward provides an excellent blog for today, Trinity Sunday. You can find it here.

It’s quite long and worth reading the whole blog. If, however, you feel inclined to bail out before even starting, let me suggest that you skip the history at the beginning of the blog and start after the first break in the blog where the author writes “But what does it mean? What is the point?” You won’t have missed anything substantive. Additionally, there are two videos totaling about six and a half minutes. I didn’t particularly like them, but they make the author’s point. Skip them if you’re pressed for time.

But don’t skip the blog altogether. Consider it part of your observance of this special Lord’s Day (Christian Sabbath), Trinity Sunday.

Which of the author’s three suggestions are you going to implement this week? Since this is the second thing I’ve read recently suggesting a practice similar to what he calls the “HOLY 5″ I think that’s where I’ll start.

• Have I begun to take hold of the eternal life to which I’ve been called?
• Have I listened for God’s voice more diligently?
• 8.3% of the year is over! Did I spend that 8.3% glorifying God in all that I did?

I can tell you the answer to the last question is clearly “No, not in all that I did.” Yet, there is a slow, gentle excitement growing in spirit – I can feel God working even though I can’t put my finger on it specifically. I am becoming dissatisfied with “life as usual” and with many of the ways I’ve “lost” time over the past year. Being aware of unhealthy or sinful patterns is the first step toward repenting of them. God is making me aware of such patterns and nudging me toward change.

Two Examples
I’d like to share two examples with you, but I do so with some trepidation. In my heart of hearts, I’d like you to believe that I have it all together! Of course I don’t. And I’d like you to believe that I’m an incredibly mature, godly woman. I’m not. I am a sinner, struggling to apprehend all that God has for me while still needing to overcome my selfishness, laziness and many insecurities. So, friends, I ask that you extend grace to me as I share these examples.

God is Challenging How I Use My Time
A few days ago, I wrote this in my journal:

A new experiment – What would it REALLY look like if I believed that ALL my time was God’s time? If I REALLY believed that God was in control of my time? (And on course, if I REALLY gave Him full control of my time?) I don’t know if I could sustain such an experiment for more than a few hours… What would my life look like if I REALLY trusted God with every minute and followed His leading?

Let’s start now and see what it looks like. I’m scared, that’s true. But let’s give it a try!

I’m sure we’d all like to believe that God owns our time, but when I took a hard look at how I spent mine, I couldn’t in good conscience say that He does. So for a day, I never went from one task to another without pausing to pray and consider what God wanted me to do next. The result? Some normalcy, some rebellion (I did what I wanted to do anyway) and some peace (when I listened to God, not when I did my own thing). The next day I forgot the experiment! (Amazing how much I can forget while I’m sleeping.) But the thought has come back to me periodically and I have been more conscious of how I’m spending my time (or should I say “God’s time”). In my heart of hearts, not only do I want you to believe I’m perfect, I also really want to follow God more closely and be in constant fellowship with Him. He’s beginning to bring that desire to the front of my mind more frequently and I am being obedient to respond to it more quickly – even in the midst of life’s daily priorities, whether they be work priorities, family priorities or my personal priorities.

God is Reminding Me to Listen and Watch for Him
Our small group came up with an assignment for this week: Look for “God Sightings” each day. God Sightings – circumstances in which God is moving or has moved in your life. It might be to bless you, whisper something in your ear, or convict you of sin. Who knows? Just keep your eyes and ears open for “God Sightings.”

If we believe that God is at work in us conforming us to Christ’s image, if we believe that God leads and guides us, and if we believe that God wants to bless His children, we really ought to be able to recognize His work in our lives on a daily basis. Yet for most people, it’s not as it sounds. In grad school I had a class called “Spiritual Formation.” As a part of the curriculum, we were required to journal every day what God was doing in our lives. Again, one would think such an assignment would be easy for grad students preparing for ministry. Few if any of us found it so. Thinking about this over the past several days, I’ve concluded that there are two reasons that I can’t fill pages and pages with God Sightings each day: (1) most of the time I live my life oblivious to the spiritual realm, and (2) I take the things God does for me every day for granted. I don’t want either of those things to be true about me.

Some times God has to hit me over the head to get my attention. I don’t want to be that way. I want to be ever attentive to Him. But that comes with practice and I don’t practice it enough. God is reminding me to practice!

I’m thankful for the woman in our small group who suggested we look for God Sightings this week. I’m pretty sure her suggestion was a God Sighting – His way of reminding me that it’s something He’s been nudging me toward. And I’m trying to be diligent to pause regularly to ask “is this what You want me to be doing right now, Father?” I’m afraid my independent streak deceives me into believing I can do things on my own and make my own decisions. I don’t want to live independent of God.

How about You?
How closely are you walking with God? Is He really in control of your time? Do you see Him working in your life? May I encourage you to spend some time in prayer over the next couple of days? Ask God to help you grow closer to Him. Appreciate and thank Him for the many, many things He does in your life each day. Ask Him to make you more aware of them.

Imagine how different your life would be if you were aware of the things God does for and in you each day!
As I’ve said (perhaps in a round-about way), I want to live in that knowledge. How about you?
P.S. Here’s an example of one woman who sees God in her life every day – it may seem an unusual way to see God every day, but God has revealed Himself to me in similar ways.

¹¹But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. ¹²Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
1 Timothy 6: 11-12

As I read this passage a few days ago, my attention was captured by one phrase: “Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.” What a great exhortation to consider as we look forward to 2010. I looked up the word that is translated “take hold” and found that it is a cousin to the word from which ApprehendingGrace.com gets its name.

The word katalambano is used by Paul in Philippians 3:12, when he says “I press on to apprehend that for which Christ has apprehended me.” (For more on how the blog was named, click here.)

The word used by Paul in 1 Timothy is epilambanomai. It means to take hold of, to seize or to take possession of.

I want to do that with my “eternal life.” I have claimed Christ as my Savior. I have asked Him to forgive me of my sins. I seek to give Him full authority in my life. I want also to fully take hold of the eternal life to which I have been called. To me, that is much more than the eternal life I will some day live out with my Lord. It means living this life differently from those who do not have the promise of eternal life after this life is over:

• It means living this life with freedom from condemnation from myself, others or Satan.
• It means living this life with a willingness to take risks that I might otherwise be too timid to take because Christ is in me and has made many promises in and for my life that have yet to be fulfilled.
• It means aligning my priorities with the priorities of God.
• It means constant dependence on a God who has promised to supply all I need for life and Godliness (2 Peter 1:3) and has promised to never leave or forsake me (Deuteronomy 31:6, et. al.).

Our first series of blogs this year is going to focus on what it means to take hold of eternal life. I know, I wrote a blog earlier in the week in which it looked like God had given me a theme for 2010 –

“Learning to hear God’s Voice more clearly and regularly. Of course that requires listening for His voice, as it says in verse 3 – ‘…the sheep listen to his voice.’ It also carries with it the implication that I will follow His Voice after hearing it.”

The two subjects dovetail quite nicely – living the eternal life means living ever attentive to God’s Voice. And I think combined He has given us a great theme for 2010. I don’t have a nifty catch-phrase or title, or a perfectly gift-wrapped paragraph that defines it yet. But God is developing it in my heart as I type. I’m sure it’ll fall into place soon.

In the meantime, come back regularly as we “flesh out” what it means to take hold of the eternal life to which we have been called. Our next blog in the series will be by a guess blogger, my husband Phil. Watch for it early next week.

¹[Jesus is speaking] “I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. ²The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. ³The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”
John 10:1-5

What struck me about the passage was that the sheep follow the shepherd because they know his voice. It occurred to me that the only way the sheep can know the shepherd’s voice is because he spends the day talking to them. That got me thinking…if that’s true in the natural, it must also be true in the spiritual. The only way I can know my Shepherd’s voice is if he speaks to me throughout the day. And I began to wonder – how much does the Lord say to me that just goes right by me unnoticed? My guess is that the answer is “quite a lot.” I’m guessing that I typically only hear the Lord when He shouts at me or when I intentionally quiet myself to hear Him. Yet if He speaks to me throughout the day, surely I’m meant to be able to hear Him as I live my daily life.

I’ve been thinking about a theme for 2010. Perhaps I’ve found it: Learning to hear God’s Voice more clearly and regularly. Of course that requires listening for His voice, as it says in verse 3 – “…the sheep listen to his voice.” It also carries with it the implication that I will follow His Voice after hearing it.

And that sounds like another adventure to me. 2009 was a tough year for my husband and I, and I know it was a tough year for many others. I have to admit it was an adventure, but not necessarily the kind of adventure I’d choose. Yet, without a doubt, it was an adventure in which God provided all that we needed. It was an adventure of blessings in the midst of trials. And quite frankly, those are the blessings that we tend to appreciate the most.

I am hopeful for a year of adventure with the Lord that has more fun in it than 2009, but it’s years like 2009 that give me confidence that He will be with me whatever the adventure is. I hope you’re approaching 2010 with a spirit of adventure, looking forward with confidence to what God has in store.

From the Mouths of Babes…
One young friend came up to me recently and stood looking at me expectantly. When I asked how she was doing, she launched into a long, animated (in my mind, anxiety-producing) discourse about how busy she was. She didn’t say anything wrong, per se, but remembering the conversation hits me like a slap in the face. As I re-hear her words and remember her demeanor I realize that she was reciting her crowded schedule (which included being too busy for breakfast) to impress me and win my approval.

She is not alone. God brought to my mind other interactions in which teens have recited their busy schedules in an attempt to seem more grown-up or to impress the adults in the room. In each case, the things they were doing were good things, but what has come clearly into focus for me is the very high value that has been placed on having a busy schedule, rather than placing the high value on the activities themselves or even lack of activities so that we can spend more time face to face with the eternal God.

…Come the Values of the Adults
Children learn to value what the adults around them value. Our children are learning that busy-ness carries a high value. I wonder if they also see that quietness is a high value. I wonder if they see that sitting at the feet of God is a high value. I think in many cases they do not, because they see the adults around them willing to overload their schedules and adjust their time with God to do any of a number of things, most of which do not rise to the level of interrupting our time with God.

As I recall these conversations, I’m convicted about the part I’ve played in reinforcing the value of a busy schedule for these young followers of God. I’ve reinforced it by the way I’ve responded to them and by the example that I’ve set. I’ve communicated that having a busy schedule carries a high value. Perhaps more to the point, I’m convicted about what my over-busy schedule says about me.

What Does Your Over-Busy Schedule Say About You?
Our over-busy schedules may say a variety of things about us:

• We need to be busy and involved in many things to feel important.
• We need to fill every moment of every day so that we don’t have time to deal with the hurt that’s inside.
• We don’t know how to identify those things God has called us to so we jump into everything without first attempting to discern how God wants us to spend our time.
• We know what God has called us to, but we don’t know how to say “no” to those things He hasn’t put on our plate.
• We have a large appetite for activity – we enjoy many things – but we haven’t disciplined ourselves to make only the best choices.
• We are unwilling to trust the results to anyone else, including God.

The list surely isn’t comprehensive, but I get stuck on that last one.

Is God All Sufficient or Isn’t He?
An over-busy schedule sometimes denies the sufficiency of God. Too often I realize that my schedule becomes over-busy because I feel like I have to do it all myself. If I don’t do this, who will? If I don’t work on Sunday, who will put food on the table or how will everything else get done? If I don’t plan this church event, who will? If I don’t take the kids to this ball game, how will they get there? The answers may very well be:

• God will provide it or maybe I need to do with less food, things, or activities!
• Someone will step up or the event won’t take place (and that’s OK)! (If no one wants to plan the event, perhaps it’s just another activity that increases our over-busy schedules instead of bringing us closer to the peace of God.)
• Another child’s mom or dad will take the kids to the event or maybe they shouldn’t go! (We begin teaching our children about wise schedule choices when we choose wisely between activities, not attend all events.)

I like most of the things in my schedule. They are there because they have value. But sometimes the value of God is eclipsed by the clutter in my life. And when my highest value is blocked by the clutter, my life gets scrambled and the misfires in my brain increase exponentially.

God Has a Solution
God woke me up early one day last week while and I found myself with a whole extra hour and a half before I had to leave the house. I spent it with Him. It changed the course of my day. I confess that when I got out of bed, I was afraid that getting up so early would cause me to collapse before the day was over, but I consciously trusted God to carry me through the day. I was fine all day. God is speaking to me and demonstrating to me the value of an uncluttered life. It allows me to REST in His sufficiency. It allows me to walk in peace through stressful situations because the responsibility isn’t really on my shoulders.

I’m certain this is the beginning of many blogs about de-cluttering our lives and trusting God with what we can’t do –because we can’t do it all and still keep an uncluttered life. Peace eludes us when we rush franticly from one activity to the next. At least it eludes me. You can’t chase after peace, you must wait for it.

I invite you to join me in this journey toward God’s peace. I’m not sure where it’s leading, but I know that God has grace to carry us through.

And an Assignment
De-clutter assignment for this week: Pick a day during which you will purposefully set aside everything that screams to be done and everything else that you want to do, and sit before the Lord for longer than you would typically spend in devotions. Be sure it’s a place and time that is quiet. Trust God to handle all that needs to be done while you rest with Him for awhile. Read a little more Scripture than you normally would. Listen to the quiet. Breathe in the quiet. Whisper prayers to God. Seek His peace. If you like, play soft worship music in the background (that puts me to sleep, so I don’t do it). Don’t come with a long prayer list. Don’t spend the whole time reading Scripture. Just rest with God. This is a time for you to be restored and refreshed by the peacefulness of God’s presence. Resist the temptation to leave God’s presence too soon. Your goal (for those goal-setters out there) is to experience the peace God can bring into a cluttered life if you push away the clutter to focus on Him.

You might not accomplish your goal! If you’re new at pushing away the clutter, it might be difficult for you to rest in quiet with the Lord. That’s OK. Try it again next week. Spiritual formation is a process. You will get better at it if you commit to it. You will begin to experience the peace God can bring and that peace will do two things:

1. Enable you to face the cluttered life with more purpose and peace.
2. Cause you to desire a less-cluttered life so that you can more easily find God’s peace regularly.

Those are things I want in my life. They outshine the having a brain that misfires because it’s going in too many directions at once. They come with a price – a weeding out of the clutter in our lives. Is it worth the price? You bet!

Grace & peace, friends.

Controlling the Misfires
If you’re like me, you sometimes sit down to be with God and your mind repeatedly interrupts your reading or prayer. I refer to these distractions as “misfires.” Sometimes the misfires are of God, but usually they’re a result of my mind moving forward to all the things of the day, instead of resting with and before the Holy One, because, quite frankly, most of us are much better at moving than we are at resting. Here are some basics to help you quiet yourself so that you can enter God’s presence more regularly:

• Have a consistent time where you meet with God. It doesn’t have to be the same time every day. Although consistency works best, if your schedule doesn’t allow it your “God time” might be at 6am on Mondays and Wednesdays, and at 3pm every other day.
• Have a consistent place where you meet God. I have two. During the week, I usually meet with God at my desk in my home office. On weekends, I have a reclining chair in which I sit when I meet with God. It doesn’t have to be a place that is exclusively for meeting with God.
• Be “legalistic” about meeting with God in your scheduled time and place. (For all you anti-legalistic “freedom” folks, relax, I’ll get to you.) Consistency establishes lifestyle patterns. Over time, you will come to anticipate meeting with God at your “scheduled” time and place. The location and time become “set apart” – holy to the Lord – and simply going there begins to set your mind, heart and spirit in a mode that is receptive to hearing from God.
• Keep the distractions in your meeting place to a minimum. For example, when I meet with God at my desk, it’s important that I NOT open e-mail or look at my to-do list when I sit down. On days when I am more distracted than others, I sometimes cover up papers on my desk that might take my mind elsewhere. When I meet with God in my recliner, I let the answering machine take phone messages for me.
• Deal with distractions creatively. It’s the enemy who is distracting you from meeting with God. Use the distractions for good. When I meet with God in my reclining chair, I can easily be distracted by pictures on the wall or books on the shelves or any of a number of other things in our living room. I can use those distractions as reminders to pray for family members or life situations.
• Find a pattern for meeting with God that works for you. This may require trying several different things over a period of time before you find that pattern that draws you into God’s presence. Don’t be discouraged, don’t quit trying, and don’t limit yourself. The time and place are just the first two elements of the pattern.
  • I like to have a cup of tea and a piece of toast during my quiet time. God and I have breakfast together.
  • You might relax with God better with soft music in the background. For me, that’s usually distracting or it puts me to sleep.
  • You might want to begin with vibrant worship. I love to do this, but I usually can’t make the transition from vibrant worship to quietly sitting with God, so I don’t begin my quiet time with vibrant worship, but it sometimes ends with it.
  • Maybe sitting with a drawing tablet or at an easel puts you in a place to hear God easily.
  • Lighting a candle helps some people quiet their spirit and focus on the Lord.
  • Think about how God has created you. You are probably most easily able to hear from God when you are relaxing in your area of gifting.
• Be sure to have some kind of visual cue that draws you toward God in the place that you meet with Him. This visual cue can help you get back on track when your brain misfires.
• ALWAYS begin with prayer. ALWAYS begin with prayer. ALWAYS begin with prayer. It can be so easy for me to plop down in my place, begin munching on my toast and reading Scripture, just as if I’ve dived into a novel. Ouch! It’s great that I look forward to being with God, but hey, at least be polite enough to greet Him! I’m not saying your beginning prayer has to be a long, drawn out intercession for the world in crisis. I’m just saying that you don’t take God’s presence for granted. Greet Him as if he were sitting beside or across from you, because He wants to have real fellowship with you, not just watch you go through the motions.
• Be honest with God. Struggling today? He already knows it! He’s waiting for you to confess it and ask for His help. You know what? My husband usually knows when I’m struggling, too, but there’s something magical that happens when I turn to him and say, “Babe, I can’t do it today. Will you help me?” Phil might see me struggling, but until I ask for help, any help he gives me will probably be rebuffed because it’s getting in the way of trying to do it myself! Humble yourself and God will honor it by giving His grace.
• Some suggest that you have a piece of paper and pen to jot notes about your brain misfires – making quick notes frees your mind to return to the Lord. This doesn’t usually work so well for me. I find that the act of writing the note takes my mind out of the spirit world and into the daily world of “to-do’s” and my quiet time with God disintegrates after that. I am usually more successful at sharing the distraction with God and asking Him to bring it to mind after we’re done. I am learning to trust that God will bring to mind those things I need to remember. But sometimes I do stop to make notes. And sometimes that’s OK.
• Which brings me to my last point – don’t be too legalistic about your time with God. I am “unlegalistically legalistic” about my time with God. If I’m not legalistic about it, it too easily falls from my schedule. But if I’m too legalistic about it, I get into a rut of “doing” rather than “being.” So sometimes I have to mix it up a bit – change my pattern.

Dealing with our misfires is part science and part art. It’s part spiritual and part nature. So science, art, spirit and nature all shaken together mean that there is no “set” way that you should enter God’s presence. Hopefully, this list helps you find a place in the spirit that pulls you away from the world and into God’s presence.

We often have the misconception that after we come to know the Lord, that things of the spirit should come naturally. Not so, my friend. We must learn and practice spiritual disciplines that draw us deeper into God. It’s not natural for me to sit quietly and wait for God’s presence. I’m the first-born, with a Type A personality. God is rubbing, shaving and chiseling the rough edges off that natural personality, but He does so in such a way that I don’t lose “me.” Who I am in Christ, who He has designed me to be, is “me” way better than I can ever be on my own. But it is still “me,” so the way I meet with God will differ some from the way you meet with God. That means we must each learn on our own (with God’s help, of course), how best to enter His presence.

One final and important thought: Look upon your quest for entering God’s presence as a wonderful adventure. He wants to meet with you. It might take a little effort on your part – no, it will definitely take effort on your part – to have a growing relationship with Him, but what an adventure! The treasure at the end is beyond our expectations and anticipations – but the journey is also the journey of a lifetime! Enjoy it!

Why do I bring this up now? Here’s a few paragraphs I wrote this morning:
It’s 11am –  I started reading my Bible an hour ago…and I’ve just finished my first chapter. Not because it was a long chapter, mind you, or because I stopped often to reflect on what God was saying, or even because I stopped after reading a single verse or two to write a blog. Nope. It took me so long because it was interrupted so often by my brain misfiring in other directions.

Usually I ignore the misfires – mentally set them aside until I’ve finished reading. Sometimes I sense that they aren’t really misfires – sure, they’re headed in a different direction than my planned journey, but they seem to be a “God direction.” Those can be great misfires (obviously making the term “misfire” a misnomer, but I’m going with it just the same). Then there are times like today when it seems that each misfire “needs” to be acted upon, or acting upon a God-directed misfire, I get distracted with other things.

Here’s today’s example: I’m reading along in Ezekiel and I come to this great verse:

Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?
Ezekiel 18:23 – What a gracious God we serve!

I knew I wanted to post it in Facebook. I don’t typically post Scripture in FB, but I suspected this was a God-directed misfire, so I went with it. I made my post, then of course, glanced over the page. There was a comment from one cousin to another about some pictures of her skydiving adventure.  Wow! Of course I had to go look at them – twice! Then I had to add a note to her FB page. I returned to my FB page and saw another entry about a “God-moment.” I had to respond to that. Then I checked e-mail (because, hey, I was in an on-line moment…). That reminded me that I’m going to be out of my office a lot more than usual during the coming week so I sent an e-mail to employees about my crazy schedule. After that I glanced at the time and saw it was getting later, so I did a quick calculation about when I needed to put dinner in the slow cooker (pork roast tonight – yum – but only if I get it in the slow cooker!). Finally, I went back to Ezekiel. A few verses later and I realized that I’ve read…one chapter in one hour! And trying to start the next chapter, my brain is still misfiring. Aargh. So I remembered the blog I started back in July and it seems to be time to revisit it. (While typing this my computer kept clicking – turns out I hadn’t left FB and a friend was IM-ing me from her vacation. I stopped to visit…then closed FB.)

Do you suffer from a misfiring brain when you want to spend time with God?
I imagine we all do at times and sometimes those times are God-ordained (God-directed misfires, as I’ve called them). Most of the time, though, it’s a result of our frantic lifestyle and patterns – slowing down and stopping are things we learn with practice. They do not come naturally to most of us.

How do you unplug?
I unplug in a number of ways, not the least of which is writing. It helps to clear and to clarify my jumbled thoughts. It also provides a record that helps me to see how I ended up where I am. I like that.

I also unplug by becoming a vegetable in front of the television. I don’t like that so much, but obviously haven’t made the decision to change it. Writing has way more benefits than television, but it also requires that I use my mind and sometimes my mind just doesn’t want to be used! Even so, vegging in front of the tube isn’t very edifying and it’s not going to put me in a place to hear from God (usually).

I love to worship and would like to develop the pattern of releasing my mind with worship music in the background – but I’m not very good at that…yet.

Obviously, my cousin unplugs by jumping out of airplanes! Hmmm….I don’t think so.

Purposes of Unplugging
It occurs to me that there are multiple purposes in unplugging and that we might have different methods of unplugging for each purpose.

• To enter God’s presence.
• To focus on any task at hand.
• To release the tensions of the day.

OK, this blog is certainly a reflection of my scattered brain this morning. Unlike my attempt in July, I’m going to publish the blog this time, as a starting point for the blog I’m trusting God will give me to publish on Monday. I’ll pick up with purposes for and approaches to unplugging (I think.) In the meantime, feel free to leave your own suggestions here and I’ll include them in the next blog.

Now I think I’m going to go put the pork roast in the slow cooker.

Oh, BTW, the title of this blog – “Unplugging! Part 1″ – that’s a “by faith” title – I don’t have “Part 2″ yet, but I’m trusting God has a “Part 2″ in mind. Pray that I’ll be able to hear it!

Punch 1) Yesterday, Phil & I drove to Cleveland. As we often do, we picked up a book before we left so that we could spend the travel time reading to one another and discussing what we had read. We picked up a book we had started during our Emergency Room visits and hospital stays while Phil was recovering from his heart attacks. When we returned to a more normal life, the book was laid aside, never finished.

The book is called Worthy Vessels, Clay in the Hands of the Master Potter. The author, Nell Kennedy, spent years learning about pottery from master potters. She then applies those lessons to the relationship between the Master Potter and His clay. We are finding it fascinating reading. It turned out that the last time we read, we left off at the beginning of a chapter about rest and solitude. The chapter included a long narrative about George Washington Carver. Carver spent long periods of time in solitude out in nature and it was during that time that God spoke to him and essentially used him to turn the US economy around in 1921. 

“Rest is a stabilizer that gives balance to life. It is often in the resting that the remainder of life takes on meaning.”
          Worthy Vessels, p. 52

“There is power in being still…It is in the stillness that we hear the voice or God. Through times in which we are forced to rest, God shapes us and uses us.”
          Worthy Vessels, pps. 61-62.

Punch 2) That was yesterday. Today, I went to have my hair cut and colored. Again, I picked up a book to read while waiting. It was a book I had started a long time ago but, like Worthy Vessels, it had been set aside for some time. The book is titled Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation and was written by Ruth Haley Barton. When I opened it to my bookmark, I found myself at a chapter titled “Solitude, Creating Space for God.” In writing about her first experience with extended solitude, Barton says:

“All of a sudden I was awake and alert to a level of overstimulation and exhaustion that I had come to associate with normal Christian living.”
          Sacred Rhythms, p. 30

She goes on to discuss the great toll that technology has on us. She’s not against technology, she simply recognizes that constantly being “available” via cell phones, e-mail, texting, twittering, etc., takes its toll: 

“Constant noise, interruption and drevenness to be more productive cut us off from or at least interrupt the direct experience of God and other human beings, and this is more isolating than we realize. Because we are experiencing less meaningful human and divine connection, we are emptier relationally, and we try harder and harder to fill that loneliness with even more noise and stimulation. In so doing we lose touch with the quieter and more subtle experiences of God within…Solitude is an opportunity to interrupt this cycle by turning off the noise and stimulation of our lives so that we can hear our loneliness and our longing calling us deeper into the only relationship that can satisfy our longing.”
          Sacred Rhythms, p. 36

Do you see the relationship between rest and solitude? Both books addressed both issues, and they are interwoven such that you or I cannot fully experience one without the other.

Punch 3) So feeling a little bruised this evening, I wanted to read a Psalm. I looked at the Resting at the River’s Edge schedule and saw that we are slated to return to Psalms on Wednesday, beginning with Psalm 90. Great! I thought. I’ll just read ahead a little. I came to the following verse in Psalm 90:

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
          Psalm 90:12 (NIV)

 Teach us to make the most of our time, so that we may grow in wisdom.
          Psalm 90:12 (NLT)

I am convinced that in the heart of God, numbering our days aright, making the most of our time, doesn’t just mean planning how we are to accomplish everything on our To Do lists and following that plan well. It doesn’t even mean planning how we are to accomplish everything we understand to be God’s plan for our lives. 

The heart of wisdom is gained not so much by doing for God as it is from being with God.

The heart of wisdom is gained through rest and solitude, when God can speak into the silence and we can hear without distraction.

Lord, I long for more of you that can only be found in solitude and rest. Lord, teach ME to number my days aright, so that I might gain a heart of wisdom.

Having graduated with my masters a few weeks ago, I have been thinking a lot about “what’s next?” I want to pursue more speaking and writing, but I don’t think that’s the whole picture and I don’t have many answers to that question. I am, comfortable resting in God as He unfolds things before me, yet “what’s next?” keeps reverberating in my mind. It’s created in me a more watchful state about opportunities that might appear on the horizon (at right in front of my nose).

It’s also had me thinking very specifically about what I’d like my life to be. I am regularly and eagerly praying “Lord, Your will, not mine – where can You best use me in Your kingdom,” but I am also thinking through what I would like to do in this next phase of my life and asking God to fulfill those dreams.

With that as a backdrop and having been released from “required reading,” I’ve read three fiction books in the past month (!). Interestingly, each has lent its perspective to the process and has made a strong impression on me. Curiously, I didn’t choose any of these books:

• My husband, Phil, picked the first book – one that had been sitting in our library for quite some time and neither of us had read yet. It didn’t appeal to me at first, so I laid beside my bed and it stayed there several days – until I was leaving for an appointment and wanted to something to read should I have to wait. I quickly grabbed the book and was out the door.
• A few days after finishing that book, I picked up another book at the retreat house I stayed at for a couple of nights. Having read Scripture and a devotional book, meditated, prayed and worshipped, I felt ready for something lighter and found a basket of books. I picked up the one by an author I had read a book by almost thirty years ago.
• Finally, two weeks ago, Phil stopped at a discount store and for only $1.99 they had a copy of the first book in a six-book series by my favorite fiction authors. Who could resist such a bargain! Being side-lined a bit after my knee surgery, I’ve had plenty of time to read it.

I’ve provided this detail because it’s so interesting to me that I truly had little to do with choosing the books I read, and each has challenged me in the same way, while weaving stories across three continents and sixty years.

Can you say “God speaks?” One of the way God speaks to us is by the repetition of a theme – it comes up in a conversation with a friend, then we read an article that touches on the same topic, then our Scripture reading that day reinforces the message…or perhaps we just read three books in a row with the same message. Clearly, God is speaking.

Each of these books has made me very aware of the blessed life I lead and even more aware of how warped my definitions of a “blessed life” and “success” are. But I’ll get to that. First, a little about the books I’ve read:

Safely Home, by Randy Alcorn, was the first book I read. It is a story about a Chinese man, educated in the United States and on the fast track to becoming a professor and famous thinker of his time. He is also a Christian and upon returning home, he finds all opportunities closed to him…except that of a lock maker. He becomes the best lock maker, living a life that challenges the reader to make sense of the world in which we live and the purposes of God in one man’s life. “Is this the day I die?” the lead character asks every day as he lives for eternity instead of for himself.

Secret Believers: What Happens when Muslims Believe in Christ, by Brother Andrew and Al Janssen, is the fictionalized account of real people who live in Muslim countries and come to faith in Christ. How are the people in the story to fulfill their calling to strengthen the Church when it is illegal for the Church to exist? It is a story about how believers live, struggle, and glorify God when the place to which they are called is hostile toward them and their faith.
    
    

Jerusalem Vigil, by Bodie & Brock Thoene. The Thoenes are masterful authors of historical Christian fiction. Jerusalem Vigil is the first book in the Zion Legacy series and begins with the creation of Israel is a nation. Jews and Christians attempt to make their home in the war-torn city of Jerusalem as neighbors on all side seek to destroy the nation before it has a chance to live. It is a gripping novel about the lives of those transplanted from safety to a place requiring all they have to give and more – all the compassion, all the strength, all the love, and most importantly all the faith.

In all cases, the main characters lived with great fear and sadness. In all cases, the main characters redefined for me the phrase “blessed life” and the concept of “success.” Both have little to do with circumstances and everything to do with perspective. I am blessed to serve God in my circumstances. Success is a life lived for God with integrity and purpose…regardless of whether that life is lived out in a place my “dreams” would never take me, or exactly in the place my dreams would take me.

I’m reminded of what Paul said:

²⁰For I live in eager expectation and hope that I will never do anything that causes me shame, but that I will always be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past, and that my life will always honor Christ, whether I live or I die. ²¹For to me, living is for Christ, and dying is even better.
          Philippians 1:20-21 (NLT)

²⁰I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. ²¹For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 
          Philippians 1:20-21 (NIV)

As I recall, there is also that phrase in the Bible about sharing in Christ’s sufferings:

¹⁷Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
          Romans 8:17 (NIV)

Wow…we are His children IF we share in His sufferings. And sharing in those sufferings is living for Christ, seeing Him exalted in our bodies. Somehow I think that message gets lost in American Christianity. Lord, forgive us.

Can you pray this simple prayer with me?

Lord, continue to shape and mold my understanding of success and blessing. I submit to Your will for my life…where ever it leads.

On Monday, a blog about destiny…..hmmm, I see a theme here!

     Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
    But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
          Numbers 13:30-33

It seems to me that there will always be giants in the land the Lord has promised us. If there weren’t, there would be no need for us to conquer it.

As I read the passage, the Holy Spirit was whispering a question in my ear. I’d like to share it with you.

“What giants are in your life that you need to conquer?”

Sometimes the answer to that is obvious – you know you’re fighting giants and you’re calling out for God’s help. Other times, though, we get so caught up with life that we don’t recognize the giant that has his hand on our forehead holding us in place while we pump our arms and legs trying to run.

I immediately stopped writing and started journaling – listening to the Lord and praying, then writing what Giants I am allowing to keep me in place so that I am not entering the land the Lord has promised me. I confessed unbelief that I didn’t realize I had, and I expressed confidence in God’s ability to take me into the promised land.

Now it’s your turn. What giants are in your life that you need to conquer?

I concluded my journal with the following simple prayer:

“Lord, You are greater…Help me to walk with confidence into the land, knowing that You have gone before me and have paved the way….Lord, I want to be Joshua and Caleb, not all of the other ten…Lord help me to move to that place beyond faith where I know, despite what I see…”

Do you want to be like Joshua and Caleb or the other ten? I encourage you to take time today to ask God for the vision and courage to fight the giants He has allowed to inhabit your promised land.