It's Like Herding Cats
The life of someone loved by God
Saturday, January 27, 2024
Laying that burden down
Thursday, January 25, 2024
Mr. Lincoln's Devotional
A good friend, now with the Lord, was culling his possessions prior to moving into assisted living. He brought some things to our church rummage sale. Among them were several books. When I saw this one, I knew I needed it. I've always loved History and admired Abraham Lincoln (growing up, that would have been a highly unpopular opinion in my home town).
There's been a lot of speculation about Lincoln's relationship with God. Just as now, if a person's faith doesn't line up perfectly with the tenets of a particular denomination or group, the person can be viewed as everything from heathen to heretic. And conversely, people hoping to move opinions about a person's faith can seize on any quip or reported quote to make a person like Lincoln more than what he was.
The majority of people do see Lincoln's faith as Christian. He was seen on numerous occasions with a little book on his person, "A Believer's Book of Days" which was a devotional guide published in the mid-1800s by the Religious Tract Society of London, England. When I think about what Lincoln endured in his presidency, as a believer myself, I cannot imagine how he made it day to day with the burdens he carried. Carl Sandburg, who wrote a forward that's often included in the reprints of "Lincoln's Devotional" wrote “... it is new testimony that he was a man of profound faith.”
When you look at a devotional guide, look for not just comforting thoughts, but the scripture and how the editor pairs it with the commentary. Lincoln himself told a friend in the toughest period of the Civil War "Take this book (the Bible) upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a better man."
Today's entry that Lincoln would have read, "There is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:1 Followed up by this poem:
O LOve, thou bottomless abyss!
My sins are swallowed up in Thee;
Cover'd is my unrighteousness,
From condemnation now I'm free;
While Jesus' blood through earth and skies,
"Mercy, free boundless mercy!" cries.
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
The little red book
Books. Yeah, I have books. The little red book that rests on my desk drawer is not like the others. It's been a source of inspiration, a catalyst for serious reflection, a challenge and a comfort - for decades. Today I opened it, and written at the top of the page is written in pencil Jan 28 - Feb 4 2002. That was on my first time through it. There have been many times I've picked it up since then - and it has helped me.
"Disciplines for the Inner Life" is its name. It's a collection of prayers, scripture readings, songs and commentary on the practices that help form a soul to reflect Jesus Christ. I've recommended it to several over the years.
For me, it was a revelation, because it had many contributors that I hadn't known of except in passing. Going through the denominational pipeline has advantages and disadvantages. One I discovered was the narrowness of focus. Over the years I've widened the breadth of what I read when I prepare. No regrets at all except not beginning sooner.
People like Annie Dillard: "No one escapes the wilderness on the way to the promised land."
Or Brother Lawrence: "“The difficulties of life do not have to be unbearable. It is the way we look at them - through faith or unbelief - that makes them seem so. We must be convinced that our Father is full of love for us and that He only permits trials to come our way for our own good."
Or Henri Nouwen: “I have found it very important in my own life to try to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. I am finding that when I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen for me. (Finding My Way Home)”
They've become my trusted and faithful companions on the Way. Who are yours?
Friday, June 05, 2020
It's Us
It's Time - Past Time
I reread the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" yesterday, and what struck me about it this time through was that it was written in 1963, but the "fierce urgency" he wrote about is still here. I've thought and prayed about it off and on ever since and I think there are some things I need to confess and one I need to repent of. It's past time that I did. So here goes.
It's time for me to say that most of the history I was taught in the public schools of Bibb County Georgia was biased toward a white-European perspective. I had little exposure to other cultures and didn't begin to gain any until I went back to college in the 1980s. I've learned more since beginning to teach 10 years ago than in all the other years. But I still have a lot to learn. Not only about other cultures, but about the parts of American culture that were hidden from me, even when they were happening.
It's time for me to say that the Civil War was clearly about slavery, and that the people of the South fought to perpetuate that sin. You can say they fought to live as they always had, but that way included owning other people made in God's image. That's a sin. Those men I looked up to and admired - men like Lee, Jackson, Gordon and others were traitors to the Union. No matter what virtues they might have had, they were complicit in the sin of slavery by their actions to prop it up. The cause was evil. At the core. And they, and my ancestors were wrong to fight to keep it going, and I was wrong to honor that.
It's time for me to admit that I have no idea what it's like to worry if I'm pulled over about anything other than a ticket. Or no idea about being followed in stores, or treated differently because of my color. I have always bristled to hear the word "privilege." I understand what it means now. I have that, even if I still don't think the word captures what it is. It has to end. White supremecy has no place in our culture and is anathema to the teachings of Jesus.
It's time for me to admit that I don't suffer the disadvantages of my color, and that I gain from advantages I don't even realize I have always had.
For all my ignorance, insensitivity, and lack of interest in the pain that my black brothers and sisters have endured I apologize and ask your forgiveness. I stand with you in the desire for justice - equal justice - for all.
My heart is broken over what has happened and is happening in our nation. I've been shocked again and again by the rank evil that the police and racist indiividuals have perpetrated on innocent black men and women. I will work to make a change for as long as God leaves me here. His Kingdom come.
Tuesday, May 05, 2020
Lord Have Mercy
"When we discern that people are not going along spiritually and allow the discernment to turn to criticism, we block our way to God. God never gives us discernment in order that we may criticize, but that we may intercede." - Oswald Chambers
It happens sometimes without our even realizing it.
A person we know, we relate to, we care about - comes to an opinion or position that immediately leads us to believe that all is not right between them and God. And lets say, for the sake of my proposal, that their opinion or position conflicts with our own settled facts about the matter.
"Well," we say to ourselves (at least until we can get to Facebook to write some subtle dig, rant, or other "instructive" post that casts us in the very best light and them in shadow), "hopefully God will convict them of their sin."
Hmmmm....
I seem to recall an event where a rich and religiously well connected man, and an outcast of a collaborator both come to pray. One takes the time to remind God what a great catch He made when He convinced Mr. Piousity to come on board. The other, shaking as he cried, knowing his sins were as scarlet, and his life itself unworthy, said this, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner."
Jesus, who knew sinners and religious people well, and tended to hang out with the sinners, pointed to the outcast as the one who went away justified.
Friend, you and I cannot walk away justified from a categorization of anyone as a sinner. What we can do if we are led to believe another is walking the wrong direction is pray for them, What we can do is love them. What we can do is live our lives as proof that even a sinner like us can find hope and redemption in Jesus.
Now who are you going to pray for? That is after that "Lord Jesus, have mercy on me a sinner" part.
Friday, May 01, 2020
The Questions
There's a old red devotional book next to me here at my cluttered desk. I got it almost 20 years ago at a yard sale. It and I have been in a relationship ever since. There are times when it's a pretty constant companion and part of my daily routine - and even more often some days. And there are weeks, even months some years that I just drift away from it for a while.
Yet within it are some passages and quotes that lift me. That shake me. That probe me and my faith.
Do you have friends like that? Everybody should, I think.
There are so many examples of what I encounter there, by so many writers and sources I could share, but because this morning some people who might be wondering and wandering are on my heart, I'll share this.
"I want to beg you to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try and love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now try to seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you wouldn't be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
- From Letters to A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
If you could only see how many times I search the Scriptures, break down the text, read the ancient commentators and trace the years through what men and women have written as they too "lived the questions" maybe it would make a difference for you.
What resonates with me about this is the "live along some distant day into the answer."
How many times have you stopped short having realized after many years just why your father or mother did something a certain way. I know marriage and having children of your own bring realizations like that for many.
But walking with Jesus does too.
If you'll keep walking.
Will you please keep walking into the answers?
Your companion on the journey,
David