Category Archives: Invitations to Grace

From Jesus Freak to Evangelism Phobia, Part Two

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In this post—as in last week’s post—I use words like “Evangelism,” “Witnessing,” “Christianity,” and “Religion.” Each reader will have a different understanding of these words, both in denotation and connotation. Personally, I’m in the murky depths, somewhere between a conservative upbringing and an emerging mystical faith, still feeling around for a vocabulary that doesn’t cause pain.

***

“Aren’t you the one with a blog talking about Jesus?” Khalid asked.

I was at the home of my friends, Khalid and Tiffaney. They’d been to a concert earlier that week, which I avoided because of the musician’s evangelistic bent. “I don’t like evangelism,” I said, which prompted Khalid’s question about my blog.

“I certainly hope people don’t think I’m evangelizing!” I deflected the question.

It had not occurred to me that my blog (and my social handle @jesusmyfavoritesubject) could be viewed as evangelism. I have written over 100 blog posts, with the premise that talking about Jesus is one of my favorite things to do. What is that, if it’s not evangelism? Suddenly, I needed to answer this question.

I asked my husband if what I’m doing is evangelism. In his typical style, he looked up the word on his phone and found half a dozen definitions, all of which involved the concept of convincing another person. A Google search tells me that to convince is: to bring (as by argument) to belief, consent, or a course of action; persuade; cause (someone) to believe firmly in the truth of something. Combine this with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and you have evangelism: teaching or preaching about Jesus with the aim to bring about belief or action. Is that what I’m doing? I don’t want to answer.

A gray Jeep with a “Jesus Loves You” bumper sticker kept showing up on B Street last week. I passed it on my way home from school pick-up, and it got me all up in arms. Rather than joy at the sweet reminder of how loved I am, my response was irritation. People have all different conceptions of Jesus; the person displaying the sticker has no idea how many painful ideas he or she is promoting along with the positive ones. “Jesus Loves You” doesn’t see people, it talks at them. It doesn’t have any idea what tragedies or triumphs are on the reader’s mind, and it cannot weep or rejoice with them. The sticker is evangelism. I don’t like that I don’t like it … but I don’t like it.

One Friday afternoon, while chatting with my friend Celina at her dining room table, I brought up the question of whether I’m evangelizing. She asked, “If you’re not trying to convince when you write, what are you trying to do? What do you hope will happen when people read your blog?”

“I want people to feel seen,” I said. “I want them to be able to take a deep breath. I want them to know they’re okay.”

If God is in the picture, I hope people will see God seeing them.

On the eve of my recent 38th birthday, I spent a couple hours making a mental list of 38 people who have influenced me. It included coworkers, authors, family, and friends. Every influence was gentle; not one produced an about-face change in my life. They were quiet but strong: my boss—Jerry Mason—who believed in me, gave me responsibilities I would never have pursued on my own, and whose confidence in me was a steady presence in my life for over eight years; the authors—Gregory Boyle, Barbara Brown Taylor, Anne Lamott—who gave me permission to breathe, to try life open-handed; our mom tribe—half a dozen ladies who see me and allow me to see them. This is the kind of influence I hope for in writing.

I suppose I’m inviting people to be at home in themselves, rather than reject themselves to be at home in Christ. Krispin Mayfield, in his book Attached to God, writes about the Christian experience of sinfulness, and compares it to the pain of disconnection described in attachment theory.

It struck me that the theology I’d been given and the attachment literature I was reading seemed to be describing the exact same thing but offering different explanations. The theology taught that this awful feeling of ‘inner deformity’ was because of things we’ve done—lying to our parents, disrespecting teachers, sneaking extra candy. The psychology suggested that the terrible feeling came from what has been done to us. … (pg. 169)

When we have an insecure attachment, we feel awful inside not because of our sin but because of our unmet needs. It is the feelings of distance and separation that create the intense pain of shame. … (pg. 170)

“We think that if we can get a little bit better, a little less sinful, we will feel better about ourselves. In reality, true connection heals shame. (pg. 173)

True connection. That I might be willing to shout from the rooftops. I want to offer the things I thought I had because I was a Christian, but slowly and devastatingly found out I didn’t have: hope, peace, love, joy. These are almost synonymous with Christianity, but they evaded me for decades. So as I’ve found them, I’ve also found different language. When I share hope, I talk about how it’s okay to not be okay. When I share peace, I talk about disentangling from perfectionism. When I share love, I talk about expansiveness. When I share joy, I talk about coffee and friends.

I guess I’ve always wanted people to know they’re loved, and for a long time I thought telling them about Jesus was the best way to do that. But I was “the blind, leading the blind.” Religion created a structure in which I could feel my way around while my eyes were closed. But at some point I started bumping into sharp corners, and I didn’t feel safe any more. God suggested I sit still and open my eyes. In that terrifying posture of stillness, I learned to hold hands with myself, let myself be loved, and let life be both brutal and beautiful—“brutiful,” as Glennon Doyle would say. The structure of religion was an external protection. The beauty of loving and being loved is an internal strength. I’m learning to be strong rather than safe, and that’s what I want share. Is that evangelism? I still wonder about that.

Ain’t No Love Got Time for That

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I’m on the couch, 6:30 a.m., hungry for the re-membering presence of the Spirit. I feel anxious and sad and heavy. I also feel grateful and loved and okay. The kids were in my office so I came downstairs to journal. Phrank, our cat, is on the couch with me, his foot on mine. He meowed a very loud request to come inside, and I actually stood up and went to let him in.

I am not a high-energy person. In scientific terms, I have inertia. Once I sit down it’s hard to get back up. Once I get going on a project, it’s hard to stop. Everything is a project.

Sedentary pastimes are my go-to: crochet, reading, scrapbooking. I know how to do gardening and canning, but I don’t want to. Long days in the yard and kitchen sound overwhelming. These days my commitments are at a bare minimum. Other than taking my kids to school and participating in several small groups, my time is flexible. I am utterly spoiled, living in the extravagance of an unburdened schedule.

This state of unhurried flow is almost comical, given my upbringing and my high-energy plunge into teen and adult life. I always worked during high school—babysitting, custodial, cashier, fruit picking, door-to-door sales, school office, yearbook editor. I was never idle. My boyfriend in college, whom I married after my sophomore year, pushed me to work a little less and play a little more. Conversely, I pushed him to play a little less and work a little more. Marital conflict ensued. But, eventually I could watch a movie without crocheting at the same time to feel productive, and he could mow the lawn before it got out of control.

At age 27, after five years working full time, I quit work to stay home with our newborn daughter. That was the beginning of the end of having energy. I didn’t know sleep was my drug of choice until I could no longer reach for it at will. I became afraid, always afraid, of not having enough energy. I was too much of a purist to drink coffee, too independent to ask for help, and too naive to realize I was depressed.

Fast forward three years. I had a three-year-old and a one-year-old, who still often woke me at night. Exhaustion was so normal I couldn’t remember any other state. I was resentful and angry. I was too stubborn to consider working instead of staying home full time, too lonely in marriage to lean into my husband, and too resentful to take refuge in gratitude. At this point I became tired enough of myself that I started seeing a therapist. Her name was Beth. Together we turned directly into a swamp of pain that would take seven years to wade through.

It’s May 3, 2023. My babies are ages ten and eight years old. Tomorrow I will be 38. I like myself, more than half the time. I enjoy a hundred things—including hot showers (which I previously hated), my children (whom I previously resented), coffee (which I am no longer too much of a purist to drink), and friends (they’re not as scary as they used to be). I’m taking antidepressants, enjoying life-changing intimacy in my marriage, and practicing asking for help. I write poems of gratitude. I blog for fun. I rarely write a to-do list, and I’ve given up controlling my schedule and my loved ones (at least some of the time).

I am free in a dozen ways—fruit of the last five years spent dredging my murky depths. An ability to hold the stresses of life lightly is one of these freedoms. I could stress out when a friend stands me up on a lunch date, or I could enjoy the rare time alone and the gossipy conversation of sweet-smelling, wrinkled ladies at the next table. I could shame myself for not getting groceries until two days after the milk runs out, or I could enjoy making peanut butter and banana sandwiches for breakfast. I could be angry when a kid wakes up in the middle of the night, or I could be grateful I’m able to be there with them.

Please, please understand this is not about choice. I have very ugly, unresolved feelings toward whoever says we can choose to be happy. Maybe I’m an exceptionally difficult case, but I did not have access to the “power of choice” for many long years. The ability to choose love, grace, and the quirky flow of life—wow, it’s relief, like a warm bowl of soup after gardening in the rain.

I think God is having the last laugh when it comes to my anxiety about never having enough energy. After ten years (ten years!) it is apparent to me that stressing about everyone’s behavior (including inanimate things—watch out if the utensil drawer sticks when I try to close it) takes an incredible amount of energy. Possibly more energy than loving. I know, it’s a long shot. Finding my wholeness has given me courage to take long shots.

Here I thought God was asking me to do more, but actually He was inviting me to do less. My new mantra is: Don’t try so hard, don’t analyzing everything, just live. Love doesn’t have time to mull over every unmet expectation or frustrating inconvenience. It turns out open-handed receiving takes less energy than tight-fisted control.

I breathe, and my oxygen-starved heart says, “It took you long enough.” I smile, because I don’t have the energy to feel bad about ten years of struggle. Ain’t no love got time for that.

Mess to Meadow

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Mess to Meadow

Reflections – week 6

Welcome to week six of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. This is week six of eight.
I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

“Messy.” This word resonated with me as a descriptor of my inner world for most of the past ten years. Also, “Complicated” and “Untrustworthy.” Being at home with a newborn baby introduced me to my inner world, and brought to light a toxic relationship with myself that had been flying under the radar most of my life. Twenty-one months after quitting work to stay at home, my second daughter was born, and in between cuddling warm, squishy babies and washing loads of laundry that left only pink lint in the dryer screen, I learned to hate myself.

Self-hate is like having the world’s worst roommate, and reading only bad news in the paper. On some level it feels normal, but there is always the hope that things will improve. I had no idea what would be involved in learning kindness to myself. Mercifully, it was not a journey I took alone, but in the company of my husband, favorite authors, music, and God.

I didn’t know it, but I needed to learn what parts of my inner world are truest. What parts can influence or control other parts? Why did I feel powerless so much of the time, and why did I increasingly try to control myself, my children, and my husband to combat those feelings of powerlessness?

One aspect of learning to be friends with myself was practicing acceptance of all the parts. This has been a vital key in finding peace. But I still want to know, when different parts are at war, what is the most real part? In a broader sense, who am I?

Gregory Boyle writes, “When the homies arrive, they have not been properly introduced to themselves.”1 I can relate. While caring for two little ones, I was introduced to myself, but it wasn’t a proper introduction. I got acquainted with what Father’s House calls my soul—made up of mind, will and emotions.2 These always seemed at war with one another. I thought my will was the control center, the part of me that could call the shots for everything else. But it didn’t work. My emotions jumped into control, my mind spent most of its time cowering in fear, and my will unceremoniously shoved me through the duties of each day. After a few years of getting to know myself, I was thoroughly done with being me, and I was madder than hell at whoever said my will was supposed to control my mind and emotions. I was also angry with myself. So angry, from trying to control my emotions with my will, and my will with my mind, and failing. Always failing. Defeated, lying on the ground, exhausted, dirty.

In the video teaching for Father’s House Session Six, Rachel Faulkner Brown introduces the idea of a spirit center.3 The soul (mind, will, emotions) is around the spirit center, and is informed by the spirit center. In other words, everything moves outward from my spirit center. This means I don’t rule myself with willpower. I cannot tell you what a relief this is. Willpower is an unfaithful partner, an accident waiting to happen. I either wield it to the detriment of the soft parts of myself and my children, or I don’t use it, also to the detriment of our most tender parts.

A spirit center changes everything. There is a whole and holy part of me, a quiet place, a finished place. After being properly introduced to myself, the haggling between my will, mind, and emotions took its proper place outside my spirit. The authors of Father’s House write, “In the Kingdom, who you are releases what you do. The enemy tries to convince you what you do determines who you are. That’s why Satan attacks what you believe about yourself the hardest.”4 I have been caught in a vortex of doing, not knowing that being comes first. Spirit is my center, and my center is Spirit. I don’t need to control my spirit.

So, the truest—by which I mean the most unwavering—part of me is my spirit center, around which all the other parts find their places, and the whole becomes a residence of freedom and meaning.

Rachel Faulkner Brown suggests that I ask God, “What do You call me?”5 This is Papa’s response: “Meadow. You are now a place of beauty, stillness, rest, wonder, creative activity. Seasons may change the blooms or the flow of water, but you will always be these things.”

Mess to Meadow.

Wrestling to resting.

Despicable to divine.

The coming hours of this day are not a treacherous trudge over land mines, but an adventurous afternoon in a meadow.

Endnotes:
1The Whole Language, page 94
2Father’s House, page 100
3Father’s House, Session Six video teaching
4Father’s House, page 99
5Father’s House, Session Six video teaching

“Holiness is a contact sport”

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“Holiness is a contact sport”

Reflections – week 5a

Welcome to week five of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home, and The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. This is week five of eight. (Next week’s post will also be based on material from week 5—hence, this is 5a and next week will be 5b).
I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

As a good Millennial, I’m not much for limits. Limits feel like judgements. They make life smaller; make me smaller. Any good proponent of limits would tell you that healthy limits actually open up possibilities. Could be. I’m not there yet. I’m still shedding layers of limits that have gripped me too tight. When I come across this question in Father’s House, it triggers my limit-aversion: “Do you think you can ‘fall from Grace’? Read Galatians 5:1-4.”1 Falling from grace definitely does not fit in my paradigm of an expansive God, a Love big enough to hold everything. But okay, I’ll read Galatians 5:1-4.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

“Falling from grace” makes it sound like there’s a limit on grace. I look for a different angle, a way forward that’s not triggering. I have trouble finding an analogy I like. What if grace is air and not-grace is water? I’m breathing air naturally and it sustains me. But if I stick my nose in water and breath in, things go haywire. Breathing in water compromises the flow of air. In the same way, grace is abundantly available and sustaining, but if I stick my nose in performance and good behavior, I’ll no longer be breathing in grace.

Perhaps I’m not able to partake of grace at the same time I am trying to be good enough, get it right, obey the rules. This “fall from grace” is actually a loss of intimacy, a feeling of disconnect that is inevitable when I try to be good.

Oddly, I’m often “good” in order to connect, not realizing it has the opposite effect. I have settled for false, transactional “intimacy.” When I show up as a performer, it’s the wrong currency for connection. No experience has taught me this more than marriage. There is no way to “get it right.” The only way to connect is to show up as me. Damn, I hate that. The curated, filtered, controlled version of me seems so much better than actual me.

Father’s House puts it this way: “Jesus and Father God only relate to you based on the Covenant that you are in, and that is the New Covenant based on His matchless grace and mercy.”2 I can perform all I want, but when I do I’m not occupying relational space with God. Also, “Grace is not a superpower to fulfill the old covenant.”3 Say what? I thought that was the whole point. Faith and grace and Spirit enable me to do what I’m not able to do on my own, and that is to be good! Or not.

I’m not super clear on what I’m supposed to do, if not try to be “good.” But Gregory Boyle seems to have an idea:

What if holiness is a contact sport and we are meant to bump into things?

If we allow ourselves to “bump into things,” then we quit measuring. We cease to Bubble-Wrap ourselves against reality. We stop trying to “homeschool” our way through the world so that the world won’t touch us.

A homie told me once, “It’s taken me all these years to see the real world. And once ya see it—there’s only God there.”

With any luck, we don’t protectively encase ourselves from surprising tenderness. We announce to each other that we are alive and kicking, ready to be bumped into.

We don’t want to distance the secular but always bring it closer. It’s only then that ordinary things and moments become epiphanies of God’s presence.

God holds out wholeness to us. Let’s not settle for just spiritual. We are sacramental to our core when we think that everything is holy. The holy not just found in the supernatural but in the Incarnational here and now.

– The Whole Language, excerpts from pages 81-82

This view of life is about as limitless as it gets. Bump into things. See God everywhere, including in me, sacramental to the core.

So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

– Romans 8:12-14, MSG

Okay Papa God, I’m ready to shake hands on this. I’ll accept Your deal that self-righteousness and good behavior are a no-connection zone, but everything else is on the table: bad behavior, the moment I’m in, my body, the life of each person I know, the tree outside my window.

Maybe “they” are right after all—a healthy limit is freedom.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

– Galatians 5:1

Endnotes:
1Father’s House, page 89
2Father’s House, page 83
3Father’s House, Session Five video teaching

The Evolution of Good News

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The Evolution of Good News

Reflections – week 1

I’m a small-group junkie. I recently started three new small groups, which brings my current participation to a total of six small groups. Some meet monthly, others weekly. Some are ongoing, while others cover specific content and will dissolve when that is completed. In one of these groups, we are studying Father’s House: The Path That Leads Home. This is my second time through this eight-session study, and I will be writing a post relating to the study for eight weeks, beginning today. I am also reading The Whole Language with a small group of ladies, and finding connections with the content of Father’s House. The following reflections are inspired by these two small groups, and in some cases I directly quote the resources.

I’m finding joy here, and I’m pleased you’re with me on this journey.

A Gospel That Speaks

“If it feels too good to be true, you’re on the right track.” This is my favorite descriptive phrase about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Each time I hear it I pause for a moment as my spirit affirms what I hear. Yes. What better way to describe the news of an extravagant God.

I’ve always had a tenuous relationship with the sinners-prayer gospel: I am a sinner deserving of death, God sent His Son to take my penalty for sin, and when I repent I receive Him into my life. I’ve given myself permission to move outward from this version of the gospel. I am curious, open to discovery.

Perhaps the gospel is personal. We call it “good news,” and news may well fit the descriptor “one man’s tea is another man’s poison.” What is pleasant, joyful, or affirming to me may be offensive to someone else. So, at the risk of veering off the beaten path and getting lost in the weeds, I’m on the outlook for a gospel that speaks to me. And I begin to find it—in books, podcasts, quiet time.

Good News

God has returned me to myself, unharmed. I was a house divided against myself, that could not stand. Now I am discovering wholeness and unity, within me and around me.

God did not send His Son into the world—into me—to condemn me, but to rescue me, heal me, and make me whole.

I am perfectly created to relate to God. My heart is wired to connect with Him. My ears are designed to hear His voice. I am made to experience His glory and His extravagant love for me.1

God is not fixing me. He is showing me that I am alive, that what I longed for was not far off, but right here.

I am right where I am supposed to be. I’m not behind. I am open to receive from the fullness of God’s grace.2 His Spirit touches mine and affirms who I really am: His daughter.

It is finished. Jesus completed all the heavy lifting. I begin where He left off, victorious, resurrected, glorious. There is nothing left to do but live together in this finished space They created.

Expanding

I expect my gospel collection to grow and change over the course of my life, as I listen for news that is too good to be true.

My understanding of gospel will be a lifetime hobby, and may well continue into the hereafter. Gregory Boyle repeatedly describes this pursuit in the first chapter of his book The Whole Language:

“At one time or another, we all had a version of God that was rigid. But the depth of our own experience tells us that our idea of God wants to be fluid and evolving. As we grow, we learn to steer clear of the wrong God.”

“We search always to find the deeper current that can finally change our innermost way of seeing.”

“It is our lifelong task, then, to refine our view of God.”

Unlearning

Equally as exciting as the learning, is the unlearning. I unlearn an exacting God, a vindictive, displeased, embarrassed God, tripping over Himself to save me so He can save face.

As Mirabai Starr said, “Once you know the God of Love, you fire all the other gods.”3

Endnotes:
1See Father’s House, page 23
2See Father’s House, pages 14, 22
3As quoted in The Whole Language, page 7

Uncomfortable Extravagance

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And when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table. But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor.” But when Jesus was aware of it, He said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for Me. For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always. For in pouring this fragrant oil on My body, she did it for My burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.”

Matthew 26:6-13, NKJV

Why do we as humans pride ourselves on being calculated, miserly, scrupulous? Why do we look down on extravagance and take effort to make sure we are not associated with it? What is it about excess that makes us so uncomfortable?

We like to keep things small and controlled. Big makes us squirm. I wonder if this woman who poured oil on Jesus tended to live a higher-risk, less calculated life. Or was this her one moment of letting go, carried past sensibility by love?

Maybe an extravagant way of living—even as we observe it in billionaires and deride it—is not to be changed, but simply to be made beautiful by the grace of God and His leading. We are so eager to change things that seem to us a liability. We are quick to criticize.

Perhaps the extravagant person has a gift, a rare talent. What if, even when I disagree with them, I could begin by recognizing the gift?

Where the disciples saw waste and carelessness, Jesus saw love. His existence as a human being on planet earth was in itself a ridiculous extravagance.

Lord, teach me to see love in the extravagant.

Small

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Today I failed. One daughter forgot her lunch, and in the disappointment of losing 40 minutes of my morning to fetch a lunch, I lost it. I called her lunch stupid. I said I was angry. I said I didn’t know if I would even go back and get it for her. Of course after the failure came the even worse mire of shame, and the threat of wallowing through it for the rest of my day. As I drove in the quiet, I cursed at God and begged Him for help all in the same breath. I cried. I wished hormones were not raging. I desperately asked for help over and over, because I knew I needed help and that was about all I could get out.

Navigating failure is not my strong suit. But there’s something you should know about God. He’s not limited by our smallness. A prayer for help is powerful. He met me this morning, and He soothed my heart. He held me as I felt the pain of hurting my child with lashing words. He gave me strength to take responsibility so I can apologize. He encouraged me to tell my daughter I am still learning that it’s ok to make mistakes. He helped me let go of those 40 minutes I felt so angry about.

Sometimes I think I am getting better at life. Or faith. Or parenting. Or something. Maybe I’m figuring things out. I think I have done something good. Or gotten something right. I start thinking I have developed some merit and strength, and I lean on that instead of God. The beauty of failing is that it immediately returns my focus to God. It reminds me that every good thing comes from God (i.e. not me).

Let me never think that I have things figured out, that I know what I’m doing, or that I am able to do God’s work. What He is offering me is divine, not human. It will always be His work, because it is a work no human could ever do. May I not make it smaller so I can have the power. May I always let it be as magnificent as it is, and may I always see my smallness. If ever I feel I have figured it out, let that be a sign that I left God behind. I am the created, and He the creator. I will rejoice in failure, because when I remember I am small, I allow God to be big.

Love Unmeasured

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Lord, when I am tempted to strive, remind me that I already have the prize. You have already given me something far greater than anything I could achieve in a lifetime of good behavior. You paid an unfathomable price to achieve for me something I can never achieve for myself: intimacy with God. God, the King of the world, Creator, Friend, Redeemer, Safe Place, my Rock, and the only One able to make something beautiful and lasting out of our broken lives. As the whole world strives and groans to earn, Your children sit and bask in grace. We have what the whole world desires but believes is too good to be true: unconditional acceptance, lavish love, powerful grace. Let us not sterilize it and neutralize it by attaching conditions. It is meant to be scandalous. Only unmeasured love can save us from all our measuring.

Power

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I am forever trying to earn things with God, and it just doesn’t work. When will I learn not to earn? As Ann Voskamp would say, I have “chronic soul amnesia,” continually forgetting what God has whispered to my heart. In my prayer journal I wrote “In Christ I am already perfect. I don’t need to accomplish anything because He has already accomplished everything.”

Recently I have become aware of how this is true of prayer, both in the listening and in the speaking. When I listen and God tells me something, it’s usually something He is doing for me, not something He expects me to do. It’s hard to explain, because on earth if someone with power tells me to do something, they expect me to do it. But God’s words accomplish what they say. “Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3) “Then He walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. ‘Young man,’ He said, ‘I tell you, get up.’ Then the dead boy sat up and began to talk! And Jesus gave him back to his mother.” (Luke 7:14, 15)

I am no more able to trust or love or stop worrying than that dead boy was to sit up. Jesus’s words carry with them the power of action. When He speaks to me, it is a pronouncement of what He is giving me and doing in me, not a command for me to do something. When He says “Don’t worry about anything” (Philippians 4:6), He is giving me a gift. He’s saying, “I’ve got it covered. You don’t have anything to worry about.” His words bestow things on us rather than expecting things from us.

Likewise, in speaking to God in prayer, I need not think I have to accomplish anything. My whole life I have prayed “help me” prayers. “Lord, please help me be patient today.” “Lord, please help my give my children permission to feel whatever they are feeling.” Recently I realized that this is rather ridiculous. It would be like me, with my business degree, going out to build a house and inviting an expert builder along to “help” me. It would make much more sense for me to ask the builder to build the house, and for me to be available if he needs an extra pair of hands.

In the same way, I can pray “Lord, please give my children permission to feel whatever they are feeling.” He is infinitely better equipped to accomplish that than I am. He may or may not include me in His answer, but it will be much easier for Him to include me, than for me to include Him. If I start trying to do it, I’ve already missed His timing and have no idea how or what to expect of Him helping me. If I leave it with Him, He will do it as He sees fit and involve me perfectly. As an added bonus, I don’t have to be thinking and worrying and trying, because He’s got it covered!

Slowly he is coaxing me out of my armor of good behavior, inviting me to trust Him. And as I emerge, feeling a bit naked, He reminds me, “As a father pities His children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:13, 14) He is not expecting me to get things right. He is expecting me to be weak, and His strength is the perfect match for my weakness. His joy is to provide for me – and you.

 

Place of Grace

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Lord help me embrace the open space that feels unknown in this place of grace. To trust You is to accept the not-knowing. And when I do that, I receive the gift of thankfulness in the present moment. The un-knowing binds me to You, because I must know something, and if it’s not what to do and how to do it and what the future holds, then it is You. I know You. You are my safety. You are my future. You are wisdom. You are comfort. All is wrapped up in You, which allows me to be present. I can be in this moment, because I know You will be with me in the rest of the moments as they come. This is grace! This is freedom. This is the gift of not worrying. I’m sorry I have been slow to surrender. I have tried to place myself in judgement over You. How ridiculous I must look, but You persist in seeking intimacy with me. Thank You.

” ‘He who glories let him glory in the Lord.’ And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” -1 Corinthians 1:31b-2:5