Tag Archives: Relationship with God

Spiritual Vacuum

Love the otherLiving in the Spirit
July 18, 2016

Scripture Reading: Hosea 1:2-10

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.’ So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

 And the Lord said to him, ‘Name him Jezreel; for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.’ Hosea 1:2-5

It seems that the prophets view the problems of the world as symptoms of a spiritual vacuum in the lives of God’s people. Such a vacuum often results from our shaping our religion to worship a God made in our image. We pick and choose ways of being that fit us comfortably as God’s ways and what others do as being outside of God’s spectrum.

I hate the ads on TV that illustrate someone eating a favorite food to excess that routinely makes them sick and then taking the magic elixir being advertised that relieves the resulting pain. Isn’t that sometimes how we treat our religion?

The way we live and the way we love makes a difference. We create most of our problems, and we are capable of creating solutions. It does require us to be intentional about our relationship with God learning from Christ’s example what God’s love is all about, and trusting God’s mercy to show us a better way. It does require us to take the beam out of our own eyes and let Jesus handle any judgment on others.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us when we fail to meet our obligations not only to love ourselves but to love all your children. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.

Being a Psalmists

psa-51-12Lent
February 24, 2016

Scripture Reading: Psalm 63:1-8

O God, you are my God, I seek you,
   my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
   as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
   beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
   my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
   I will lift up my hands and call on your name. –Psalm 63:1-4

This is my Psalm. I don’t really remember when I stumbled onto it at a time when it was exactly what I needed. Funny, I am sure it was a desperate time for me, but the desperation of the event has slipped into the annuals of not so significant. Yet, I have been blest by this Psalm ever since. I memorized it in the NIV version and thus it is awkward for me to read it aloud in any other version like this NRSV. I keep wanted to insert other words. I am also apt to do that with the verses I learned as a child from the King James. I still prefer the King James 23rd Psalm and John 3:16 flows readily from by tongue in its seventeenth century words.

While translation versions change, God does not change standing always ready to feed our thirsting souls. I, however, have changed in my willingness to seek God, now to trust without verification more often than not for I have beheld God’s glory. I saw it in the joy of the homeless woman testifying that she had found a home, a place to live; I have seen it in the trusting eyes of the children at my own church as they experience God; I hear it most often in music which speaks a language words cannot express; and I know it in the silence of deep meditation. Do you have a Psalm?

Prayer: Lord, thank you for the gifts of the Psalmists whose words have stretched through the eons to open our hearts and minds to your love. Help us to be psalmists for others transferring to each person whose lives we touch the joy of your salvation. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.

Cleaning our Granaries

WinnowingEpiphany
January 9, 2016

Scripture Reading: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ –Luke 3:15-17

We pause now in our discourse on baptism, for a brief side trip into keeping our granaries clean or letting the Messiah keep them clean. Although I was raised on a farm, we did not have a granary and I have no experience of cleaning one. I was at one-time adept at the periodic cleaning of our chicken house, and even though I have no experience of granary upkeep, I can assure you that cleaning chicken houses is much worse.

The art of being whole includes the winnowing of all the clutter from our life we pick up along the way inhibiting our being fully who God is calling us to be. First, I think it is important that we recognize that chaff in its origins is necessary and useful. The chaff is the part of a plant, like a corn husk, that protects the seed in its developmental stages. As the seed matures it must be separated from the chaff to be useful. Life events sometimes result in our building protective shields against threats to our wellbeing, which at the time might have been necessary, but can become crippling if made permanent. Often we become so use to these shields we do not recognize that they still are in use. Even when we do see them, we cannot turn them loose. Our relationship with Jesus Christ can free us of that which holds us back.

The start of a New Year is a great time to clean house to get the clutter out of our lives particularly that which is choking our hearts and minds, bodies and spirits and sapping our strength. Take some time for reflection and meditation. Give up to God those things that are impeding your being you.

Prayer: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10) Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.

Discerning God’s Way

Desires of your heartLiving in the Spirit
July 13, 2015

Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 7:1-14a
Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, ‘See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.’ Nathan said to the king, ‘Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.’ But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? –2 Samuel 7:1-5 

We bandy about discussions on the will of God and following the will of God as if it were a tangible reality, if we could just figure it out we would be like God or, I fear, we might feel we are God. In many instances today dedicated Christians end up disagreeing, mightily sometimes, on exactly what the will of God is.

The phrase is not used specifically in the Hebrew Bible, appears only twice in the gospels, and 15 more times in the remainder of the New Testament. The word “will” is derived from the Greek thélēma (from 2309 /thélō, “to desire, wish”) – properly, a desire (wish), often referring to God’s “preferred-will,” i.e. His “best-offer” to people which can be accepted or rejected.*

Rather than being a fixed reality as if carved in stone never to be changed, the relationship Nathan displays in our scripture today is more one of pondered dialogue with God, dynamic in nature, and understanding of the need for humans to seek and act on God’s good counsel to shape and target our own wills into productive outcomes.

I have been described as a strong willed persons and believe me that can be considered both a good thing and a bad thing. David was a strong willed persons. His tenacity led the Israelites into many years of prosperity and peace; his lust led him into adultery and murder.

As followers of Christ we are not only called to discern the way of God for ourselves but working together to be the Body of Christ in the world today discerning God’s desire for all God’s children and working diligently to make it a reality. We must find ways to bridge the gaps among us and work toward productive outcomes.

Prayer: God we thank you for sharing your desires with us. Help us to learn you love enabling us to live in your ways. Amen.

*http://biblehub.com/greek/2307.htm
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Holy “Sprit”

Sail boatEpiphany
Celebration of God
Manifested in the World
January 9, 2015

 Scripture Reading: Acts 19:1-7

On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied— altogether there were about twelve of them.  — Acts 19:5-7

 Many years ago my church challenged each of the Sunday School Classes, adult and children, to make a banner for advent. It was surprising how everyone, young and old, got into the project. We planned to hang them across the wall in front of our balcony at the back of the church. On the day the crew arrived to put them up, we all got a good laugh out of the one done by the first grade class. They had done a three-D picture of a pregnant Mary with the words, Mary was found to be pregnant by the Holy Sprit. Someone had left one of the “I’s” out of the Spirit.

We hung the banner anyway. It was pretty, but it also had an inadvertent message. A sprit is actually a word defined as a spar that crosses a fore-and-aft sail diagonally from the mast near the tack of the sail to the upper aftmost corner that it extends and elevates*. A most apt description of the Holy Spirit don’t you think for it has to do with using the wind for power and guidance. Even more important is the message that if we leave ourselves out of the equation of our relationship with God through the Holy Spirit, we have already missed the boat.

We may be like those first graders who are still at the stage of life where everything is real, concrete to them. The Holy Spirit for most of us is the ultimate in abstraction. The Holy Spirit is like love, we may or may not be able to see it, but we know it when we experience it.

Prayer:
Holy Spirit, truth divine,
 Dawn upon this soul of mine;
 Word of God and inward light
 Wake my spirit, clear my sight. 

Holy Spirit, love divine,
 Glow within this heart of mine;
 Kindle every high desire;
 Perish self in Thy pure fire.**Amen.

* http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/sprit
**From Hymn Holy Spirit, Love Divine, words by Samuel Longfellow

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 

 

Wandering in the Wilderness

Rough placesAdvent
December 2, 2014

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 40:1-10

A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
   make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
   and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
   and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
   and all people shall see it together,
   for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’ — Isaiah 40:3-5

When I read the above quoted part of our scripture today, I began to wonder what it would be like if we had no mountains to climb and no sharp rocks or hidden holes in our paths. What is it we are working toward in this Kingdom of God anyway?

We are called to prepare the way for God to be revealed and realized among us. We, after all, are often the creators of the mountains and the rough plains that separate us from God. If not the creators ourselves, we are the ones who accept the presence of the mountains and rough places that get between us and God and do not work to smooth them out. In many instances these mountains and rough places are found in interpersonal relationships and international relationships that require us to deal not only with our individual dependence on God, but also with our interdependence on God and each other. God calls us to a higher ground where our interactions with God and with each other creates synergy not available without God. The Kingdom of God is now and is becoming a whole new way of being. And it is good.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
 How Jesus the Savior did come for to die.
 For poor on’ry people like you and like I…
 I wonder as I wander out under the sky.*

Prayer: Lord, help us clear the clutter from our lives that separate us from you and from each other as we journey once again toward the realization of the meaning of your coming to us. Amen.

* Words and Music collected by John Jacob Niles
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.