Lent: Invitation to a Journey with God

Spring cleaning is a wonderful and sometimes traumatic thing. When the weather warms up, The Lovely Joanne opens the house and lets our prevailing westerly wind sweep through, duct-tapes me to the vacuum (just kidding) and we clean things I didn't even know could get

What Was Jesus Doing?

I've spent the last two years or so journaling through the Gospels, a couple of verses at a time every morning. So far I've made it through Matthew and Mark. Now, I don't like "journaling" as a practice, because I can't think of anything to say. But reading the scripture over and over, often writing it out word for word, has been fascinating. 

I've been looking at a couple of verses at a time and meditating over it. I've asked "what was Jesus thinking?" "Why did somebody say that--what was their question or their pain that he needed to address?"  "Why did Jesus choose this action instead of a different one?" "What was the cultural background?" and a lot of other questions. 

Normally when I look at scripture I'm working on a sermon or something else to teach, and I'm asking some technical questions as well as the ones above. But when I'm journaling, using in-depth reading and meditation, it's for myself, not for others -- and the difference is, I'm asking for the mind of God to be clear to me, and when that is clear, then I get a lot of correction and direction from the Lord. And that's why I recommend the practice to others. Including you, since you're reading this. 

So if you haven't done so lately, I suggest reading through the Gospels very slowly. Maybe you'll want to choose one, then read through it a couple of times first to get the overview before you start. And, maybe you'll find that writing on the scripture isn't a good tool for you, and that's okay -- but I suggest giving it a try and see what you pick up. You may be surprised, as I have been, how much there is in those books that you never saw before! 

Core-Strengthening Exercises

The Lovely Joanne and I sometimes exercise together. One of the types of exercise we do is to strengthen "the core" which means those muscles that hold you up, and the ones that hold your innards where they belong. That's supposed to help you sit, stand and move in a more balanced way. There's also a spiritual side to that idea of core-strengthening, that has to do with

Be Still and Know...Part 1

Our neighborhood has half a dozen dogs that take turns yapping at, well, whatever dogs yap at. They seem to like hearing themselves, and each other. They don't seem to have much appreciation

Doing it for Him

My niece is a Registered Nurse. Her career is all about taking care of the sick and the dying, and for her it's a very rewarding career. But she can tell you, the

Taking off the Veil

Spiritual vision involves seeing the way God sees, not the way we humans see (1 Sam. 16:7).  I know several people with
cataracts in one or both eyes. They see the world like they are looking through a veil -- it's indistinct, dark and dangerous. Spiritually, if we can't see clearly, we stumble around, without making spiritual progress. How can we see as God sees? How would that change us?


Perhaps an example will help. In Luke 5, Jesus is calling his 12 disciples out of their own lives to follow him. One of them, Matthew Levi, is a (insert 1st-century epithet) tax collector, assumed to be getting rich by robbing his own people while selling them out to the (epithet) Roman occupiers. Matthew surprises everyone by leaving it all behind to follow Jesus, then invites his friends (some of them are probably epithets too) to a banquet with Jesus, and the Pharisees pitch a fit. Why? Because they thought their job was living by the law and making others do it too, so the nation would be righteous. Jesus took a different approach. He described his mission as extending grace to (epithet) sinners (verses 31 and 32), which he knew the Pharisees wouldn't understand (verses 36-39).

2 Cor. 3:14-18 describes a 'veil' that darkens the spiritual vision of people who, like the Pharisees, see only the way of performance and so do not understand the truth. Only when "someone turns to the Lord" (v. 18) is that blindness removed. "Truth" is defined here as freedom in Christ under that "new way which makes us right with God" (verses 8-11). That's grace, not behavior, and that's how God thinks even if we don't get it.

I remember, 18 years ago this month, when I finally surrendered the survival instinct that told me I had to "do something," admitting that I couldn't save myself from anything, even by my earnest attempts to obey. "All of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord" Paul says in verse 18, and that night I finally began to see the glory of God. I'm still learning to reflect that glory -- that's a journey of seeing the ways I still don't reflect him, and surrendering those also. "The Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him" as we surrender more of ourselves to him. 

Proper behavior is not the path to life with God.  Life with God is the path to proper behavior. In fact, the way of performance is "worldliness" just like the Pharisees' thinking. If you don't see that, I beg you, with all I have, to turn to Jesus in complete surrender and ask him to remove that veil. If you have seen it, then spend some extra time and effort today listening to Jesus and then following him.

Thinking About It

I'm basically a lazy person, especially in the area of physical exercise.  But as I get older, regular workouts become more necessary to keep me strong and able to move around.  The same is true with the human brain:  if it receives regular workouts, it stays more limber, focuses better and keeps its memory better. Clear thinking is also important to a clear path in life; without it, we can't know how to conduct ourselves, or where we might need to change our actions.

Thinking clearly, especially about God, is work. But without it, we can't hear from God.  One of the spiritual disciplines we find practiced in the Bible is meditation, which sounds to some like daydreaming and to others like a weird practice bordering on the occult.  But the real definition of it, according to Richard Foster in his classic book Celebration of Discipline, is "the ability to hear God's voice and obey his word" (p.17).  The references in the Bible refer to placing ourselves humbly before God in repentance and submission, and "changed behavior as a result of our encounter with the living God" (p. 15). 

Jesus practiced meditation as part of his spiritual life. That guidance was crucial to him:  in John 5:19, he says "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does."  One of many places he is described as seeking time alone with the Father is Matt. 14:13.  Being away from the crowds gave him the time and freedom from distractions to hear from his Father.  And though Jesus no longer is physically present on earth, he is still active through his followers and expects us to seek him, as shown many times in the book of Acts.  

Individually, meditation is a growing, familiar relationship with God through his son Jesus, as led by the Holy Spirit's work.  It's a divine-human encounter; God-centered, not me-centered.  It is a driving force behind a healthy daily experience of God's presence and will for us.  If we don't stop to ask God "what should I do?" for our daily routine or for our emergencies and puzzles, how will we know his will?  Stopping to have an internal conversation with God about our lives is one way we can be led and corrected by God.


We can meditate while we are reading scripture; looking at the wonders of Creation; thinking over a problem we face -- and stopping to ask God's direction; during prayer, when we've said all we can say and pause for God's prompting; and many other times and ways.  It's best to avoid distractions, so we could predict that meditating in a quiet place would be more helpful than while driving!  A good way to practice meditating is to start by reading scripture and then humbly praying for God's guidance in applying it.  That's similar to what Luke says about Jesus's mother in Luke 2:19:  "Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often."

Not familiar with meditation?  Today is a good time to start. Worried you won't be good at it?  Nobody is, at first; but as we practice meditation, it becomes more a part of our daily habits and gives us strength for the day's journey.  It's worth the trouble and will give you many spiritual rewards.  Why not start today?