Archive for January, 2010
How Hungry are You?
Posted by: | CommentsWhen we fast, we get hungry. Ravenously hungry. Our flesh screams at us – EAT! Our mind and emotions kick in to tell us why we should break the fast. In fact, it is just plain funny how much hungrier we get if we are fasting than if we just skip a meal because we are busy.
And we become aware. Awareness is one of the purposes of fasting. When we fast, we quickly become aware of the power our flesh has. That is a good reminder for us. Flesh is powerful. Seasons of denying the flesh are profitable for us for many reasons.
Awareness is important for us to live a life in tune with God. As God made us body, soul, and spirit, He created us to be aware of our physical needs, our emotional needs, and our spiritual needs. We have many enemies of that awareness, including busyness which is chief for most of us. We learn to ignore the signals our body sends. We learn to ignore the signals our emotions send, and even more sadly we learn to ignore the signals our spirit sends.
Fasting ups our awareness. Jesus said that those who hungered and thirsted after righteousness would be filled. So my prayer for us all today is that our hunger and thirst would make us aware of our need to depend upon God and of the need for our flesh to be crucified. I pray that our hunger and thirst would increase our desire for righteousness for that desire leads to being filled. And nothing can satisfy us like God for we were created to be filled with Him. Allow your fasting to remind you that there is someone who can fill your deepest hunger and quench your deepest thirst.
The Life of Faith
Posted by: | CommentsMore than once Jesus told his disciples to follow him. For the disciples to follow Jesus, they had to embrace a lot of change. Change in their everyday lifestyle. Vocational change. Change in family relationships. Change in religious beliefs. But those changes were a really just a reflection of deep inner change.
Signing up to follow Jesus means signing up for a lifetime of change. Change of heart. Jesus spoke so often about the heart because it is central to everything. What we do and say and believe and teach and model all flow from our hearts.
On one occasion, Jesus got into a boat and his disciples followed him. Sounds fun, huh? A day at sea or a journey to the other side. A huge storm suddenly appeared and the disciples found themselves in a boat which was literally becoming covered with waves. I would be afraid, wouldn’t you? They naturally looked to their leader. He was asleep. I don’t think they hesitated to wake him up. They said, “Lord, don’t you care that we are dying?” Makes sense to me. They have committed their lives to following Jesus. They followed him into this boat. A storm has arisen. Jesus must be unaware. After all, he is asleep.
Thirsting for God
Posted by: | CommentsMany times I find myself reading in the Psalms, and many times I find “myself” in the Psalms. Their beauty leads me to do what they themselves often recommend. Selah. Pause and think about it. Layers and layers of truth and richness. The entire range of human emotions. The entirety of the Psalms including the Psalms of David express a true picture of humanness. Love and hate. Joy and grief. Praise and cursing. Ah, David, a man after God’s own heart, unafraid to feel and express his heart.
One of my favorites is Psalm 42, a Psalm written to describe one’s yearning for God in the middle of distress. The depth and truth of the Psalmist’s longing resonates within my heart.
As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul for You, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
The picture is of a mature deer, not a Bambi, a powerfully beautiful animal thirsting, longing for running, moving, living water. And then the Psalmist declares, “God, that is how I long for you! My soul, my inner being, my emotions, long for an encounter with a living God.”
Maybe there are two ways we learn about thirst. One is by natural processes of our humanness. We need water to live and thrive. Secondly, once we experience the power of having our thirst satisfied, we are forevermore dissatisfied with any other experience.
Who Wrote the Book of Love?
Posted by: | CommentsIn the late fifties, a group called the Monotones wrote and recorded a song called “Who Wrote the Book of Love?” I woke up singing that old song this morning which led me to thinking about who really wrote the book of love. Of course, you know that I am referring to God. But I wonder sometimes if we really understand that the Bible is the book of love. Yes, we may give mental ascent to that. God is love. But knowing the love of God is totally different than having a head knowledge that says that God is love.
Knowing the love of God has changed my life more times than one. For me, the knowledge of God’s love has come bit by bit, piece by piece. When I committed my life to Christ as a very young girl, I distinctly remember wanting to avoid hell. And of course that is important. But my journey to knowing the love of God has been a life-long one. In my early twenties, I was overtaken by the love of God when I first knew that God had called me into ministry. I was so overwhelmed by the fact that God wanted me. I became consumed with knowing Him. I read the Word for hours and hours. However, in a few short years, I became drained by religion. I had somehow equated knowing God with keeping a list of rules (i.e., read five chapters of Psalms every day, 1 chapter of Proverbs, and part of the New Testament; keep a prayer journal which covered all the needs of the world and everyone else I knew, etc.) Now the rules represent important principles but living for the rules replaced living for God and I found myself hopeless. You can be sure that God doesn’t lead us into hopelessness.
Why Fast?
Posted by: | CommentsAs we end our first week of this season of fasting, it is a good time to reexamine why we are fasting and what happens during a fast.
We are fasting because we feel led to by the Holy Spirit.
We are fasting as a voluntary means of submitting ourselves to the purifying work of God through his Holy Spirit believing that fasting can bring to light matters of the heart that need addressing.
Many of us are fasting food or drink. Others are fasting something else such as TV, shopping, etc.
What can we expect from God? Well, we can expect God to be who He always is. Faithful, holy, loving, patient, kind, gentle.
And we can expect that He will do as He always does, respond to our hearts.
It’s not about Him responding to our actions, but about His response to our hearts.
Our hearts which say we realize that the things of life often have unhealthy holds on our soul.
It is about His response to our hearts as we say, “Lord, I don’t know my own heart as well as You know it. Please purify my heart.”
And as our hearts are purified, we can see God; we can hear God. We can move in the world with God’s heart, and “The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.” Isaiah 58:11
