How Are You Growing?

How are you growing? This is a question that I have been asking myself lately. Not how am I growing physically (they tell me that I am done growing now- try telling that to my finger nails or hair in my ears)but how am I growing spiritually? It is a fair question. Do you feel closer to God today then you did yesterday? Do the thoughts and tapes that plagued you yesterday plague you today? Are you more gracious today then you were yesterday? Or are you still hard on people and still struggle with forgiveness? How are you growing?
John Ortberg, in his book “The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God’s Best Version Of You” discusses how you grow as a follower of Jesus. He writes,
“I will tell you what I think happens. I think that often people are moved by the vision of Jesus, they are overwhelmed by the hope and beauty of his promise, and they say yes to it. For a time, there is a kind of spiritual honeymoon period. They are filled with love for God and they are drawn to the Bible. They want to tell other people about their faith. They love to worship. And some things change. Maybe coarse language gets cleaned up. Maybe certain habits get overcome.
But over time this sense of progress stalls out. Instead of life flowing with rivers of living water, I yell at my children whom I love. I worry too much about money or my job. I grow jealous. I use deception to get out of trouble or to get what I want. I pass judgment on people easily, casually, arrogantly. My prayer life is up and down. I am stuck in a gap.
God’s plan is for you to become the best version of you, but right now there are two versions of you. There is the you God made you to be- and there is the you that currently exists.”
Is this you? Are you today the best version of you? Ortberg explains that a life of freedom and joy is available right now but that our main job is to stay connected with God.
This book has been a breath of fresh air for me. My bookshelf is lined with books on prayer and Bible study methods- not that this isn’t bad. But often I find myself struggling with “Have To’s” instead of “Get To’s.” This book has allowed me to be gracious with myself and really look at how I connect with God. I have made some discoveries about myself. One is that I love to run. And this running is not only a physical thing but a spiritual thing as well. When I run I love to pray about different situations at church and in my family and think great things about God- this is when I do some of my best memorizing of scripture- because it elevates my mind to think about the things of God. This isn’t the sitting at home- in my prayer closet kind of thing, but it connects me with God. For you, the prayer closet may be the thing. I have also found that I need good friends in my life to hold me accountable and help me to have perspective about myself and my gifting. This pursuit of friendships is a spiritual thing too!
So, how are you growing? Think about it. Give this book a try and explore how you grow best, then do everything to step out and grow closer to God.

Be Still

Psalm 46:1 For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. According to alamoth. A song.

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.

5 God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.

6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

7 The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

8 Come and see the works of the LORD, the desolation’s he has brought on the earth.

9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire.

10 “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

11 The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

I think I mentioned awhile ago that one of the things that I like to do while I run is to memorize scripture.  I just carry a 3X5 card with me, each one with a new psalm on it and from time to time look down to test myself.  I have really enjoyed doing this and it has really helped me concentrate on God’s character and less on the pain I feel as I plod along.  This is one of the most recent memory verses.  Do you notice how this psalm is loud and crazy?  Words like…  “earth give way”  and “mountains fall” or “ uproar” or “breaks bows” or “shatters the spear” give one the mental picture of chaos.  In fact, I think this is one of the loudest psalms in the Bible.  But then, in the last couple of verses, we are told to “Be Still, and know that I am God.”  Now I have lived in Alaskan earthquake country, I know what it is to have mountains quake and tremble and the feeling of waking in the middle of the night with the house shaking and Janel and me running to check on the kids making sure they are OK.  I have stood on the shore in Hawaii during a storm and watched the waves roar and foam and thought that surely the island wouldn’t withstand this torrent. But nowadays most of the chaos and shaking in my life comes from within myself, from deadlines or interruptions or texts or phone calls, or self inflicted emotional worry or angst.   (This blog was one of those deadlines… it seems like I ran out of room in my day- and I kept on putting this off.)    I have trouble “being still” and knowing that God is God.  I seem bent to think that I have to be the one to make things happen and so I push myself to perform or do or meet deadlines or organize my day in such a way that I get more done.  This isn’t working!  In fact, there are some close to me that have lovingly cautioned  that I seem more filled with angst than ever before and less Godly then ever before.  So, I feel the call of God to be still.  Being still, in God’s presence allows me to give him the ordering of the day.  Being still allows me to look- really look- at that ways he is working his plan in my life.  Being still allows me to trust less on myself and my abilities to get things done, but to trust on God to get things done.  That’s how I want it..  I know that when God moves things happen, when I move… well, you know!

I don’t currently how this is going to wash out.  I don’t know what I am going to have to do to re-orient my life so I am still before God. Times in the past, when I have tried to be still.. my brain was working a mile a minute- other times, I’ve fallen asleep!   I’ve started thinking through my days and talking to wise people about planning quiet times  (isn’t it a shame that I have to plan “quiet times”…  sounds like kindergarten or something).  But I do want to change- I think God is asking me to change.  I think God is telling me- through this psalm- to change. I’ll tell you what, ask me and I’ll tell you how it is going.  In fact, I blog again in a couple of weeks and I’ll let you know how it is going.  Blessings.

Seasons Issue

I am just now recovering from a nasty case of “Iwantititus”.   This disease actually attacks the brain.  You know you have it when you start perceiving the things that you do have- as suddenly insufficient, and unattractive, old and outdated.  I know exactly when the symptoms started, several weeks ago, when I happened to be walking through our living room and Oprah Winfrey’s show was on.  This wasn’t just any old Oprah show but this was her “Favorite Things” show.  You know this is the one where she surprises the audience and talks about her favorite things- then gives one to everyone in the audience. She was giving away boots and coats, Beechers Mac and Cheese, dutch ovens, chicken pies and even a cruise.  I got quite a kick out of the responses of the folks in the audience hooting and hollering over the things that they were going to get. Can you imagine, thinking you are showing up for a talk show and going home with thousands and thousands of dollars of merchandise?

That’s when it happened.  Suddenly everything in my life wasn’t enough.  I needed new running clothes, my car sucks, those pots and pans, you know the ones we got last year, just don’t do the trick… and Janel’s chicken pot pie, the one that I normally rave over- just wasn’t as good as the one that Oprah likes. I mean it, I really had it bad.

Now I am not here to bash Oprah.  I think that it would be a real neat thing to be able to give away that much stuff to people- just because.  I don’t hold that against her at all.  But I am more concerned with the cure.  Maybe you have the same thing that I have? How, especially around Christmas can we escape this common malady?

Well, I’ll tell you two things that worked for me.

I took a run (you don’t have to run but something where you get away from the TV or the radio or the newspaper) and I started listing all the blessing that I did have.    Psalm 40 verse 5 reads, “O LORD my God, you have done many miracles for us. Your plans for us are too numerous to list. If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them.” I really tried to get to the end of them; I couldn’t.   After about 4 or 5 my mind started clearing and at the end of my time with the Lord I had stopped focusing on myself and my needs and had started focusing on God and his goodness to me.

The second thing that I did was continue giving.  Jesus said once that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.”(Acts 20:35)  I know that Hollywood has a heyday with this- but bottom line is if Jesus said it, then is has to work.  So I continued with my giving to Grace, set something aside for other folks, started not whining whenever Janel asked me to do something.

That did the trick. Now I can live without the clothes that Oprah really liked- that bag wasn’t my style anyway.  Janel’s chicken pot pie?  Still the best!

Thank you God for your gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.  Merry Christmas to you!

The Bible: Just Stories?

I can still remember my first college paper.  I was a freshman at Seattle Pacific University and I, like hundreds of others, had signed up for the introduction to the Old Testament taught by Professor Frank Spina.  It was an introductory class, which was good for me, because I only knew a spattering about the Bible.  Despite attending church regularly, despite the presence of good Godly people all around me, and despite their efforts to help me encounter God through scripture; the Bible was unexplainable, a mere “how to” manual for living.

This first paper was to be a reaction to what we had been learning over the first couple weeks of class.  I don’t remember what I was reacting to, but I remember one sentence out of that paper and Dr. Spina’s comment.  I wrote… “…..the Bible is a history book filled with stories…”  Dr. Spina circled that sentence and wrote “just history?”

That question really hit me at the core. At that time, the Bible was just stories; nothing grabbed me, nothing about this book held me. I didn’t see how it could be anything else but only the history of Israel and the story of Jesus.  Thankfully, that question and a ton of other questions that year, eventually grabbed hold of me and I accepted Christ that semester at an SPU chapel.  Since then, the Bible has become much more to me. Yes, it still has tips for how to live life, but better yet it is a vehicle through which God has communicated his love for me over and over again. Just days ago, I was memorizing psalm 46 as I was on an early morning run  (memory card in one hand- two dogs attached to leashes attached to the other hand- this is about as safe as driving and texting).  God spoke to me clearly that I needed to be silent and know that He was God.  Months ago, in an early sleepless morning, God reminded me that He was my Shepherd, that he would lead me to rest if I let him.  That is how God communicates to me through his word now.

Recently I read something from my old Prof Spina, you know that guy who was instrumental in starting this whole thing… I’ll leave it with you to cogitate on…  “Ultimately, Torah (what we know as the Old Testament)  is a story, a liturgy, and a way of life. It recounts a story of incredible divine grace from a number of fascinating angles. It teaches the community that reveres and finds its identity in this story that worship of a gracious and holy God in both a broad and a narrow sense is a hallmark of its existence. And, finally, it teaches that everything the community does comes under the category of loving and serving this gracious and holy God in every facet of life. This community, in continuity with the Church, the Body of Christ, is to be instrumental in God’s reconciling, redeeming, and restoring the entire created order.:”

Think about that. If you aren’t finding some time to read God’s word today you are missing out.  Gerry

An Answered Prayer

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