7 Asleep on the Job

Whoa. 

I'm used to hearing Jesus say, "Why are you so afraid?" That question alone is asked multiple times throughout the pages of Scripture by God in various ways to various people through various means. 

But when Jessica and Kate write, "Jesus might have said, instead, 'I thought you knew me,'" well, that just grabbed on to my heart and wouldn't let it go. 

It reminds me of the experience I had Wednesday night during our time of solitude and silence. We're in week 2 of gathering in the sanctuary Wednesdays from 5:30 - 6:30 p.m. and being silent together. (The sanctuary is plenty big enough to spread out and feel like you're alone!) 

I set up candles on the communion table to watch and to light, then add some papers for prayer requests, a guided reading for a Scripture passage, and a guided prayer to reflect back over the day. 

Last week, I picked this passage from Mark 8:22-29 ...  

They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t even go into the village.” Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 

“But what about you?” Jesus asked. “Who do you say I am?”

Then I added the questions: who is Jesus to you? What your relationship with him? If you could ask him to meet you in your deepest need, what would that look like? 

And I thought about how important it is to know the answer to that question, to know what images come to mind when we think of God, to be able to articulate the kind of relationship that we have with God. 

Kate and Jessica talk about all the things the disciples had seen Jesus do ... and yet, they were still "incredulous" when he appears to them post-resurrection (p 40). Are we too still incredulous? 

Seeing that we ourselves are reading this book in the season of Easter -- the weeks between Easter and Pentecost -- this seems like a question we should linger over longer: who do you say Jesus is? 

And then they ask: Why is it that we so often have "a picture of who we want God to be?" (p 41) And "how we want God to act?" (p 42) that may not match up with what we know of God? (We're getting dangerously close to idolatry again which we already talked about earlier here.) 

We worship a God who falls asleep during a storm. Who calls us to "love the stranger and foreigner and enemy. The one who leads us into chaos. The one who heals some but not all. ... And the one whose presence remains but whose absence is always before us in this broken world. We marvel at the God loves us and stays by our side, regardless of how little we understand or how often we wonder if our savior is asleep" (pp 41-42). 

There's a steadfastness in that that I love, like the "little way of love," that we talked about yesterday.

They don't try to answer the "why" of the questions we're asking; they simply accept that God is bigger than us and so much more than we can ever comprehend. 

"Oh God, comfortable would we be if You gave us formulas and answered prayers and realized hope. But You call us beyond comfort. ... May again and again we be awed by Your presence. That even when we feel like we've hit rock bottom, may we recognize we have fallen into Your arms because there is no place so deep or so dark or so scary that Your presence cannot reach." (p 43). 

Pastor Allison 

I'm curious: 

In the "A Good Enough Step" on page 44, they write: 

"Let is surface - that fear that is just below the surface, masquerading as frustration or irritability or tension. Let it come forward to your mind and sit with it awhile. Then put it into a prayer - something very specific and simple that says, "God, please take over all of this, just for today." Rest. 

Why don't you give that a try today? 

6 Small Things, Big Love

"There are many acts of great love that are great because they are massive, monumental, and earth-shattering. 

"And some are great because they are incremental. Each small act adds up to something really spectacular. 

"Small acts, great love" (p 35). Small acts are good enough to express great love.

Welcome to "the little way" of love. 

In the late 1800s, Saint Therese - knowing that she would die at a tender, young age - wrote: 

Love proves itself by deed, so how am I to show my life? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers, and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love (p 36). 

I started writing this post three different ways, then deleted them all because nothing I could say would have made this simple truth any simpler; my words would have just gotten in the way. 

Lord, help us "to remember that love isn't always in grand gestures or extravagant gifts, but in the small, faithful acts. Help [us] to remember it is in the showing up, in the work behind the scenes, in doing that which won't get us recognition. The one who is first in and last out. The generosity of time, resources, spirit. The one who leaves flowers in her wake. 

"This is the long faithfulness that can change the world" (p 37). 

Pastor Allison 

I'm curious: 

At the end of the chapter, Kate and Jessica refer to Galatians 5:4-6 -- here it is from "The Message" version of the Bible: 

"I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love." 

Those are two interesting sentences to put side by side (what I put in bold). Which do you spend more time thinking about, interior love or exterior love? Which do you feel more capable of? How do they work how in hand? 

And I love the words of the Adam Lindsay Gordon poem they quoted: 

Life is mostly froth and bubble, 
Two things stand like stone, 
KINDNESS in another's trouble,
COURAGE in your own.

What do those words mean to you? 

5 Building a Good Day

“We need to learn how to structure a day that is rich in meaning and joy-producing activities. … How we spend our time defines who we are. There is no magical future. Today is our future” (p 29).

How do you structure your day?

Hopefully by now you’ve got a good enough regula going: some routine for reading today’s Good Enough chapter and this Good Enough blog post and leaving a Good Enough comment.

It may not always happen at the same time every day, but hopefully you’re creating a sacred rhythm of carving out some time and space in your day for time spent with God in prayer and study.

You’ve got to be thoughtful about this because, as they say in the book, a day is a limited thing, only as big as a mason jar (from the opening illustration on pages 28-29). So you’ve got to decide what Big Stones and Small Stones will fit in your day.

If you’re reading this in the morning, don’t start planning today yet. Instead, think back over yesterday. (There’s a sacred rhythm called the “daily examen” that can help with that. It’s a favorite evening ritual of mine.)

If you’re reading this at night, think back over today.

What big loves (big stones) found their way in to your jar? Which ones didn’t but you wish they had? What little loves (little stones) found room to wriggle their way in?

Or, did your jar seem so full of unwanted things (shards of glass and sand), there was no room left for loves, big or little?

What meaningful and joy-producing activities do you wish had been a part of your day? Why weren’t they? How can you change that tomorrow?

I appreciate the point the authors make toward the end of the reading, that in some seasons in life, our jars may be very small, and we may only be able to fit a few things into them. Again, as someone who is living a more limited life now because of health concerns, I cannot cram as many stones into my jar as I used to. (Well, I could, but I’d probably give myself a seizure.)

Some days, it’s good enough to only have a few stones in our jar. 

“To be human is to accept that we are limited and the more honesty we have about that, the better” (p 31). 

(I love that. If you do too, you should read Kate Bowler’s excellent book, No Cure for Being Human.)

Let your big loves in first. Prioritize them. Then let the rest come as they will. That’s good enough.

From “A Prayer at the Start of the Day” (for the early birds among us!):

You are the kindness that runs to find me wherever I have wandered off to. You are the faithfulness I don’t have enough of. You are my safe harbor in the midst of the storm. And in that quiet place, speak gently to me of what needs to change in order for Your freedom to free me, Your love to care through me, and Your faithfulness to strengthen me.” (p 32)

Pastor Allison

 

I’m curious:

From page 33: “Think about the day you’ll have tomorrow. Is there anything you can cross off or kick down the road? Don’t crowd your day.”

“What are your big loves? Allow them to take up space.”

“Then, do it again tomorrow.”

How we spend our time defines who we are. 

Thoughts? Questions? Thoughts on my questions? Share them with me in the comments! 

4 Shiny Things

As Martin Luther famously wrote in his Larger Catechism, “That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your God” (p 24).

Ouch.

Idolatry may just be the sin that’s the hardest to escape. If you peel away the layers of your besetting sin (your “favorite” sin) and the shiny things that take your attention away from God, chances are you’ll find idolatry somewhere at the heart of what’s really going on.

“My sense is that we are more likely to be Judas than Peter. Peter denies God. Judas betrays him” (p 23).

Double ouch.

Using the story of Aaron, the Israelites, and the Golden Calf from Exodus 32:1-35, Kate and Jessica explain that idolatry is creating a false image of the true God (p 23). And while Christians are likely to avoid the big sins like murder and arson, we ARE prone to “take great comfort in our own version of God instead” (p 24).

Anne Lamotte – one of my favorite writers! – once said, “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” (Traveling Mercies)

After thinking about this for a moment or two, ask yourself: do I do this?

Does the God you worship always agree with you?

Who does your God say it’s OK not to love? Not to care for?

(“After all, what is idolatry except beautiful things that do not transform us?” p 25)

Or do you constantly find yourself challenged by what Jesus commands you to do and who Jesus commands you to love?

If you find yourself being challenged, something tells me that you are resisting the sin of idolatry. That’s good enough faith.

“O, how blessed are we who lay it all out before You, oh God, asking to be awakened to our lives as You see them. Asking for the inward renovation that will tear down anything false we worship, and for the outward turning that will make every aspect of our life point to You” (p 26).

Pastor Allison

 

I’m curious:

What do you think idolatry ("shiny things") looks like in your life? Probably not much like a golden calf! It's much sneakier than that! 

In the “A Good Enough Step” on page 27, the authors write: “What do your major life choices point toward? … What is the most beautiful thing you can say about your life when you look at the evidence? … What is a core truth of your life, the straightest arrow you can imagine finding there? Now ask yourself, is it aimed too low?"

Once again, these are pretty personal questions but I’d love to hear your thoughts on this chapter, perhaps in generalities instead of specifics. 

3.5 Mourning a Future Self

Friends, in case you don't see this in the comments on the previous post: 

If this chapter touched you or if your heart aches or resonates at the thought of simultaneous joy and longing, I hope you'll check out this podcast hosted by the author, Kate Bowler. 

Below is the info from Kate's website about the episode ... 

SURVIVAL OF THE KINDEST

How is it that joy and pain seem to coexist at once? Susan Cain (author of the bestseller Quiet) explores this question in her new book, Bittersweet. In this conversation, Kate and Susan discuss:

• How we are literally hardwired for compassion 
• Susan’s advice for pushing back against compassion fatigue
• How that feeling of longing isn’t something to be ashamed of but allows us to see things clearly—the beautiful and the terrible

If you ever feel like you didn’t have a word for the sweetness of longings (and why your compassionate heart is a gift), this conversation is for you.