A meditation for confession and redemption

Father in heaven, gracious maker of my being, of all that is seen and unseen; the giver of all that is good, and the sustainer and light of life.

You are the one who is deserving of every ounce of praise and glory and honour I can eke out of these bones, and it is to you that I come in this hour. 

I come naked in my frailty, in my humanness, in my failure, and in my need of you.

An offering of presence in my neighbourhood

Photo by Nina Strehl on Unsplash

In the parable of the good Samaritan Jesus provided a provocative answer to the question, “Who is my neighbour (that I must love as I love myself)?” What Jesus revealed in his story is that there is not a person in this world to whom we can point and say, “He or she is not my neighbour.” The literal answer, though, is that our neighbours are the people who live next door to us, across the street, and down on the next block. 

When seasons change, things may get ugly

This was last week. Last week fall was my favourite season. The colours were at their best, and everywhere you looked there was another glorious scene to salivate over. But then October faded and cued November's cold rain and powerful gales. Today, in my yard, I am fighting despair as I stand almost knee deep in leaves.

Yesterday I could feel the elation of last week seeping out as I drove past a patch of bare forest, naked and brown. I felt sorry for the trees, all stripped of their radiance. Then the thought struck me that the woods were simply in transition. This is temporary, and how lovely is it going to be in our next season, when all that brown will be blanketed in dazzling white and be made beautiful once again?!

Transition in life is often a time when things don't look very pretty. It's an in-between stage where, like the trees, your old wardrobe is being taken away before you get your new clothes.

Roll Call: Who is present?

“At the very beginning God created the heavens and the earth as the place of his presence …. The Scriptures, from beginning to end, tell the marvelous story of God returning his presence to all creation. It was always God’s intent to be with his creation in the fullness of his presence.” David E. Fitch, Faithful Presence 

Photo by The Creative Exchange on Unsplash

Being present in our own lives has become increasingly challenging; there is so much noise all around, so many opportunities and activities available to us, and so many distractions make it so difficult. Being aware and tuned into God’s presence around us can be doubly challenging. I suspect, though, that if we were not distracted to God and what he is up to around us, then we would be present in our lives as well. This last week the prayer I’ve been repeating several times a day is simply, “Help me to be present to your presence.”

Four Things I Forgot

“...do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price.” (1 Cor 6:19, 20a)

I was startled by the words of the Apostle Paul that I read one morning last week.  I’ve read them before, of course, but they startled me anyway. Too often, in my head, I have to be the one reminding God who I am, what my name is, what’s going on in my life and that HELLO... I'm over here!! I feel like I have to implore him not to forget about my details, and plead for a sign that my number will come up at some point. These feelings intensify in valleys where the shadows loom dark, and the voices of fear, worry, grief, and sorrow are deafening. But last week, the tables were deftly turned, and the question of who was remembering – or not – was pointed to me. There were four things from Paul’s words which I needed to remember.

A Thanksgiving meditation

I'll give thanks to the Lord always, and I'll say it again, I give thanks, because God's steadfast love  never ceases and his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness!

The heavens and the earth are filled with his glory; the handiwork of his fingers  is evident everywhere.

I see his glory when I crane my neck to look up into the heavens on a clear night; my mind cannot grasp the vastness of the skies, but he knows every single star by its name.

How powerful is this God?

And when I walk through the forest by day I revel in the blazing tapestries there. 

I think about the miracles in a single droplet of water;

and the complexities of the microscopic worlds within each cell;

and the billions of worlds within this tiny patch of the world, 

invisible to the naked eye and oblivious by-passer, but 

quietly, efficiently, steadfastly, 

season after season, 

carrying out their marvellous functions.

When it's Monday and you already need Friday...

“And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.” Mark 9:2 

This morning I woke up with a lot of clamour in my head. The weekend was busy and noisy and I hadn’t had a chance to process all the stuff going on and get my myself in a good frame on mind to start out the new week. This morning I also woke up feeling burdened and heavy. There are lots of people I care about going through trying times and it had been awhile since I’d been able to unload and release them to God. This morning I woke up feeling disconnected, a bit disoriented, and feeling the need to find my way back to my path again. When I woke up this morning I was aching to get away by myself on a high mountain with Jesus somewhere so I could clear out the noise, pray for my people, and reorient myself and my heart to him again. 

Holy Intersections

"Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!" Psalm 34:8

When I tumbled into belonging to that extraordinarily blessed group of people called God’s children, I was completely unprepared for just how blessed I was to become. “Blessed are the poor in spirit... those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted…” Blessed, right now and forevermore, is anyone and everyone who finds and enters into the Kingdom that is Among Us.

These stones are alive!

“As you come to him, a living stone … you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house..." 1 Peter 2:4(a)

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Twelve large standing stones, hauled up from the bed of the Jordan River, stood on the east bank and cast their tall, rounded shadows on travellers and passersby. It was evident that each stone had been purposefully and laboriously erected at some point in days gone by. They were there as a memorial and a witness to some unusual happening that should not – and could not – be forgotten.

Young children, clutching the hands of their adults as they walked along the way, squinted upward at the towering rocks.

“Why are those rocks there?” they would ask. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles gladly pressed the pause button in their day and sit in the coolness of the shadows for a few sacred moments of story-telling.