Tag: Spiritual disciplines

The Discipline of Remembering

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This morning I called my mom for a quick chat and she reminded me that this week was “a bit of an important week…do you remember what happened this week?” Although this kind of conversation is rather typical, I responded that, no, I could not recall the importance of the dates ahead of me, and she proceeded to remind me of two wedding anniversaries, two birthdays and, most importantly, 7/11 day (where you get free Slurpees from 7/11 gas stations). My mother has a steel-trap of a memory; things go in and they never come out. She remembers events with such specific details that sometimes I feel like she must be making it all up. “Anne, do you remember what we were doing 9 years ago today?! We were driving through Utah on our way to Moab! We stopped at that little coffee shop in Grand Junction—oh, you must remember the one!?”

My mom’s remarkable ability has always challenged me to remember. Not in a nostalgic way, but in an informational, you need to know this, kind of way. The kind of remembering that reminds you of your story, where you came from, and events in your life. She has written several accounts of our ancestors immigrating from Norway and Sweden to settle in the mid-west. Her most recent research was dedicated to me, my siblings, and her five grandchildren. Although it is not uncommon to check my email and find the full known story of a Hans or Lars somewhere back in our family tree, reading my daughter’s names in this dedication made this story feel more important, connecting another link in a small, typical family and whispering, you are part of this story. These are your people. This is where you came from. Remember.

Christians have a memory problem. The whole story of Israel can be boiled down to forgetfulness. When we open Exodus we find a people who had forgotten God calling out to a God who had not forgotten them. Much like the cycle of the judges, Israel repeatedly forgets God’s faithfulness and character, and consequently forget who they are. Moses is gone on Mt Sinai for a few days and they forget Yahweh and make a new god. They forgot the plagues, the Red Sea opening before them, the cloud by day and pillar of fire by night, the manna, meat, and water that God provided. They forgot who God was, and because they forgot, they acted like he didn’t exist. Sometimes when I read Exodus it feels ridiculous. How can you forget the pillar of fire that led you each night? Or the mysterious manna that gathered like dew in the desert? How could you forget what God had done? 

But the reality is, we are exactly the same. Remembering is difficult in the midst of our busy days and future plans. But if Christians hope to live faithful, joyful, and Jesus-centered lives, we cannot afford to forget. We must practice the discipline of remembering. Remembering God’s story– for the Christian, our story, is a fundamental Christian practice. Humans are narratival beings. We live in and embody all kinds of stories that shape us, give us meaning, tell us how to live, what to buy, who to associate with–all of our choices and actions demonstrate a story we believe. To be in Christ means you are embodying (or living in) the story of God–  that is what it means to be a Christian. Christians believe that God’s story is true–His account of what humans are for, our purpose, how we are supposed to treat one another, how we use our bodies and our money, how we should speak–all of our actions and choices should align with the story God tells about himself and his people. When we forget God’s story we inevitably start living in another story. These stories rarely reinforce the Biblical narrative, but rather begin to recast where we put our hope and what we look to for identity.

Practicing the discipline of remembering pulls us out of false stories and back into God’s story. The Bible is God’s story for us, so that is the story we must abide in. Scripture is the primary way God ingrains his story into our hearts, minds and actions. If we don’t know the story of God, we cannot live it. The Old Testament is full of reminders about the forgetfulness of God’s people. “But take care, lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery (Deut 6:2). “Remember how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness (Deut 9:7). Remember the Sabbath day” (Ex 20:8), “Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles and the judgments he has uttered” (1 Chron 16:12). Again and again, remember! We must remember what God has done and who he is. His character is always revealed in his actions, so to remember his actions is to remember who he is. 

When I was pregnant with twins the hardest part was abiding in God’s story, and church was often where God’s story was most difficult to remember. When people found out I was having twins a few things would happen—a wide-eyed look of surprise, then the mental math criss-crossing their faces—I have one toddler and I am barely surviving, how are you going to do it with two?, and finally a closing statement that ranged from “I hope you feel really supported,” to “you must be getting a full-time nanny,” to “I’m so glad you are quitting your job,” (I didn’t, I wasn’t, and I wasn’t). One transparent 23-year-old said what most people communicated to me when he exclaimed, “OH NO! I am SO sorry!” 

How people responded to the good news of having two kids at the same time revealed the stories they lived in. You aren’t going to be able to do this. Mothers should stay home. Children are so much work. I am barely surviving. And these stories were coming from God’s people. Where were the reminders of the Christian story that God is sovereign and he gave you twins? That he will sustain you even though this will certainly be difficult? I wasn’t looking for false comfort, I was looking for Biblical comfort–the comfort of firm faith and a loving Father. I wasn’t hearing that story very often. We must be people who remember the story of God and abide in it, not forgetting who we are or abiding in an alternative story. 

When we remember rightly, we are able to hope accurately. The power of remembering is not about nostalgia, it is about the right orientation before our eternal and good God. When our hearts and minds are dwelling in His story, promises, and salvation, we are living in a story of hope. John’s Revelation paints the glorious picture of the new heavens and the new earth. Paul exhorts us to remember the hope we have in heaven and live accordingly. Hope is kind of like future remembering. It is looking at the past, taking account of how God has acted in real time with real people in real circumstances, and applying what we have learned to the future. If we do not know the story and character of God in the past, we cannot envision what he might do in the future. 

Attending a women’s bible study last week, this very question came up. How do we respond to God when it feels like he isn’t here or doesn’t care? Or in other words, what keeps us hopeful when life gets hard? The answer is the story of God. When life is hard, we need the psalms proclaiming the provision of God and accounts of his works. We need the prophets revealing a God who remains faithful. We need the Gospels showing us Jesus who brings life to broken, weary and hopeless people. The story of God is a story that brings life out of death, that sets captives free, that promises (and demonstrates) the authority of the one true God as he acts throughout history. When we feel hopeless, we must practice the discipline of remembering and allow it to recast our vision of what God might do in the future. 

Remembering what God has done, and rightly hoping in what He will do, gives us what we need to abide in Christ today. Today, you and I need to participate with God in his story. Here are three ways we can practice communion with God so that we remember his story.

  1. Read the story every day. One of the easiest ways to abide in God’s story is to read it regularly and allow the words of God to dwell within you, reshaping your hopes, teaching you your history, and revealing more of God’s character. Reading scripture helps give us eyes to see God’s provision and presence because it centers us daily upon Him.
  1. Communion is an act of remembering as a church. “And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19) At this supper, Jesus is inaugurating the new covenant. His body and His blood will be the sacrifice poured out for the atonement of others. Do this in remembrance of me. Jesus is calling all who are in Him to physically and spiritually participate in a meal that will commemorate all that he has done. This humble meal might feel mysterious or mundane, but it points to a greater spiritual reality and reminds us of the work of Jesus.
  1. Rely on the Spirit. “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit…he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” (Jn 14:26) One of the Holy Spirit’s jobs is to bring to remembrance everything Jesus said: the Holy Reminder. Before the Spirit came, Moses tells Israel to wear the laws of God around their necks and to put them on their doorpost so that they wouldn’t forget them (Deut 6). But the prophets promise a new covenant in which God will write his laws on our hearts. The law will no longer be external but will become internal by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. As we participate in Christ by his Holy Spirit we are given supernatural power to remember the Lord in our days. 

The Boundaries Jesus Kept

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Having boundaries is a popular idea these days. Being able to say “no” to things is being championed as a means to protect one’s peace or to practice self-care because saying no is a surprisingly difficult thing to do in our day and age. We have fomo with our friends, we want to be liked at work, there are hobbies to develop, and church events to attend. But here’s a crazy idea—maybe the reason we should have boundaries and say no to things is because Jesus did. 

Jesus led a relatively unproductive ministry. It lasted only three years, he didn’t have a google calendar booked full of healing appointments and temple engagements, he didn’t disciple dozens of people. He hung out in small towns on the periphery of influence rather than declare the kingdom of God to as many people as possible.

Furthermore, he would regularly retreat to be alone to spend time in prayer and listen to the Father, he spent afternoons with outcasts and attended weddings. He was so interruptable, he often just saw and cared for the people who crossed his path. He didn’t even begin his ministry until he was thirty; he was just building furniture and cutting wood for almost his entire life. 

By the world’s standards, the Son of God’s three-year ministry was wildly unfruitful. He could have been so much more if he had just pushed himself harder, thought more strategically, and streamlined his ministry. 

But he didn’t. Why? 

He had all authority and power in heaven and earth, and yet the rhythms of his life are marked by peace, joy, humility, and relationships. He was never frantic or overwhelmed, he never overcommitted himself. His secret? He only did what the Father told him to do. 

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise (John 5:19). And, “I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him” (John 8:26).

Jesus spent every day doing exclusively what he saw the Father do and what he heard the Father say. No more, and no less. That means that every person he healed, every sermon he preached, every meal he enjoyed with his disciples was what the Father wanted him to do at that moment. Jesus lived in perfect harmony with the Father, drawing away to be in his presence and listen to his voice so that he might continue on in perfect union with him.

But Jesus further tells us that he came “down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 5:30, 6:38). Jesus lived in perfect harmony with the Father, but he also lived in unbroken submission and obedience—choosing to live in and do the Father’s will, not his own, at all times, even to the point of death.

Maybe you find yourself asking, why wouldn’t the Father want the Son to accomplish more? To heal more people or transform more lives? The Father is teaching us through Jesus what it means to live as a human beings. Humans who have limitations, who can’t do it all and are not called to do it all, who are made to abide every moment of the day in Christ, and who will flourish when we do. 

A successful and beautiful life is not about maximization, it is about being in the presence of God and walking in his will. This is what we see in Jesus and it is beautiful and compelling. Creation is not utilitarian. What is a flower for? What does a starfish add to creation’s purpose? Humans, God’s crown jewel in creation, are made to worship and enjoy God forever. It’s what Jesus did, and it’s what we are called to as well.

For most of us, our days are spent in a flurry of activity, dropping kids off at school, zooming into meetings, getting work done, cleaning the house, walking the dog, and a million other things. But do we stop to ask the question, what does the Father want me to do with my time today?

If you have a job or are raising kids, the answer will certainly be to attend to those needs. God has given you those gifts to steward and cultivate, but if you’re like me, there are a thousand other things vying for your time and attention, and I often get worn out trying to do a little bit of everything.

I want to pursue new hobbies, go on more adventures, work harder on my side hustles, have more friend dates, more, more, more until I crash and burn. In a world that shouts for more, we need the quiet whisper of the Father saying less. And not simply do less to do less, but do the things I have given to you. Exit the highway and run the path that I have set before you—the path that I want to bless and to give you favor in. The path that develops and challenges your gifts. The path that is obedient to the Father’s will for you. 

It’s no wonder that Jesus teaches us to pray by saying, “Your will be done, your kingdom come.” The Christian life is marked by abiding in Christ, walking by the Spirit, and obeying the Father’s will for our lives, not trying to accomplish our own. Our very salvation depended upon Jesus limiting himself to the Father’s will. Through his limits, we are saved. And when we take up his mantle and embrace what the Father has for us rather than trying to have it all, we participate in the cosmic blessing the Father bestows upon his Son when he says the he is well-pleased with him. 

The question, then, is how? How do we listen for the will of the Father? How do we say “yes” to the things he wants us to do?

We do what Jesus did. We take time to be in the presence of the One who made us, who calls us, and who has plans for us. Jesus regularly took time away to pray, to seek the Lord, and to spend time in silence, solitude, and worship. We must do the same if we want to hear the voice of the Father. We need to become deeply familiar with his voice—spoken through His Son, the incarnate Word, and through Holy Scripture—so we might hear when he speaks. We need to surrender our own wills, choosing to be ruthlessly obedient to the Father. When we do the things the Lord invites us into, we live joyfully—not without difficult circumstances that require sacrifice, but joyfully, filled with the Spirit, and delighting in the fullness and power of Christ.

Imitators of Christ

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We Imitate What We See

Every morning around 6 am I hear the soft thud of four-year-old feet hitting the ground, the creak of a bedroom door, and the secretive steps of one of my girls creeping down the hallway to surprise me. A brown-haired head pokes above the arm of the sofa I sit upon and I gasp in mock surprise as my quiet time with the Lord comes to an end. 

Every morning, my daughters come out of their room to discover my husband and me in our living room with Bibles open, journals covered in scrawled prayers, and theological books strewn around us. We get up at 5 am to have an actual quiet time of prayer, worship, and time in the word. 

Though my faith journey has taken me through many stages and seasons and places, my morning time with God has never wavered. It was ingrained into me far before I could even tell what those hours might mean or what the story of the Bible was or what prayer meant. It was something I saw modeled for me each day by my father. 

Thirty years ago it was my footsteps creeping down the hallway to enter the living room and see my Dad with his leg crossed and eyes closed, Bible open on his lap. He often wouldn’t even open his eyes as I passed through to the kitchen. But he was there, day in and day out, meeting with Jesus. It left an everlasting impression.

Humans are great imitators. We see someone do something interesting, beautiful, funny, or provoking, and we go and do that thing. But because we are so impressionable and so willing to imitate that which we take in, we must be thoughtful about what we choose to fix our attention upon. 

If we’re honest, our attention is often fixed upon people and things that are not going to produce lives of faithful discipleship and deepen our love for Jesus. But if we put on habits and practices that draw us closer to the Lord—reading his word, spending time in his presence, adoring him in worship—we will inevitably begin to look more and more like him. 

This is what Paul invites the Corinthian church to do when he writes to them—to watch the things he does and listen to the things he says and to go and do the same things.

I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ. – 1 Cor 4:14-17

Though you have countless guides, you do not have many fathers. Though we may not feel like the spiritual giant that Paul was, our children will have many guides, but they will only have one mother and father. The things you do, the words you say, the habits you have will shape your children. What a responsibility! But as Paul says, he doesn’t write these things to heap on shame that you aren’t living life perfectly for your children to see. He writes it to encourage us as God’s beloved children whom he is deeply invested in and who he longs to see grow up into maturity in Christ. 

But Paul at one point wasn’t a mature disciple who could tell people to imitate him as he imitated Christ. Paul became a mature believer who fixed his gaze unwaveringly on Jesus when Jesus intervened in his life and transformed everything. When he met Jesus, he devoted his life, his time, and his mind to come in accordance with the things of God. And he was able to do this—to become someone who reflected Jesus in word and deed—because Jesus himself empowered and equipped him through His Spirit.

As we grow in imitating Jesus, our children will grow in imitating us. And like our own lives, it won’t be perfect. It will be full of mistakes and tears and fights, but the thrust of a life lived after Jesus leaves an impression. Today, take heart in knowing that your parenting doesn’t have to be perfect. You are called to a life of following and imitating Jesus before you are called to mother and father your children. And our God, who loves us so much that He would put on flesh and live a life in submission and obedience to the His Father, goes with us. Impressing his love upon our hearts, giving us the words of life, and maturing us into spiritual adults for the sake of His Kingdom—a kingdom that comes in our very homes.

Forget “forgive and forget” – Part 1

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Recently, a friend of mine called in tears saying her boyfriend had confessed to cheating on her. They had been beginning to discuss marriage after dating for a few years, and she was heart-broken. 

But equally upsetting was the internal struggle with what felt like a religious requirement: she is a Christian, so the Christian thing to do is to forgive him. 

Though forgiveness might be necessary eventually, she felt the pressure to forgive him immediately because he was honest, he was repentant, he said he wouldn’t do it again, and he still wanted to be with her. 

“If he repents, I have to forgive him, right?” It felt like a forgone conclusion. It felt like something she had to do. It felt like a transaction that had to take place if she was truly a godly and loving woman. But she was angry, hurt, and her trust in him had been shattered. What does it look like to navigate this kind of situation with godliness and grace, while also being honest about the pain and broken trust that his actions had caused?

At some point, you’ve probably been advised to forgive and forget. There are a lot of idioms that leak into Christian culture but aren’t actually biblical; forgive and forget is one phrase. There is a shade of truth to it, and likely good intentions, but when it comes to forgiveness, it attempts to reduce a robust and transformative process into a transaction.

Christian counselor Dan Allender says, “Forgiveness is all too often seen as merely an exercise in releasing bad feelings and ignoring past harm, pretending all is well…True forgiveness…is a powerful agent in a process that can transform both the forgiver and the forgiven.” 

As Allender points out, we often diminish the work of forgiveness to be about how we feel, but true forgiveness bears all the marks of resurrection hope and power. Christian forgiveness is not about a feeling, it’s about participating in the Triune God who forgives sinners and restores them into right relationship with himself. Christian forgiveness is a scandalous thing, showing grace to the enemy, wiping full slates clean, and demonstrating in action the power of the gospel—that Christ died so that sinners like us could be saved. When we forgive someone else, we show them the power of the gospel in the most tangible way we can.


On one hand, forgiveness might seem straightforward—you just choose to forgive and move forward. But this simplistic understanding of forgiveness condenses a full orchestra of actions and processing into a single line of music.

Real forgiveness requires truth-telling and honesty, rediscovering the humanity of the person who hurt you, navigating reconciliation, reunion, restoration, and repentance. No, forgiveness is no easy task, but we must each learn its rhythms and overtures—not just to protect ourselves from bitterness and resentment, but to follow after Jesus, our forgiving King. 

True forgiveness is nothing short of the power of God at work among us. So when we have a small view of forgiveness and how to do it, we miss the power of God at work in our lives when he forgives us, we miss the power of God at work in the person who hurt us, we miss an opportunity to make much of Christ and his good, good news.

There is so much more to forgiveness than forgive and forget; it’s time we recover a more robust—and biblical—understanding of what forgiveness is and how we do it.

Jesus the Gardener

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I grew up in a small house with a very large backyard, much of which was a meticulously planned and cultivated garden tended by my dad. The garden was such a fixture of my life that I didn’t realize most people didn’t grow up picking raspberries, throwing fallen apples at the big cottonwood tree, harvesting cherries before the birds got to them, and making carrot cake with fresh carrots for my mom’s birthday. 

When we were looking to buy a home a little over a year ago, I told our friend and realtor that I wanted room for a garden—maybe chickens—to which he replied, “you’ve been watching that woman, haven’t you?” 

While I knew immediately which woman he was referring to, Joanna Gaines wasn’t my inspiration for gardening. I had watched my dad daily participate in the life of our land, the growing of foods, delighting in flowers in bloom, and anticipating the ripening of his prized tomatoes. But even more than that, the desire to cultivate and slowly grow beautiful and new things is what it means to participate in the Kingdom of God. 

The first place we see Jesus after his resurrection is in a garden. When Mary goes to Jesus’ tomb in John 20:14-15, she turns “around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know it was Jesus…supposing him to be the gardener.” 

I always flew past this line in anticipation of his revelation to her and her response to realizing her Lord was alive. I always assumed that she thought he was the gardener because who else would be wandering the area at that time? But perhaps this mistaken identity was no mistake at all. Jesus was the gardener; Jesus is the gardener. 

Gardening is a metaphor used throughout the Scripture to illustrate how God interacts with His creation. In Isaiah 5, the gardener destroys the vineyard representing Israel because of their disobedience, but promises that out of the ruins a new shoot will bud, a new life of communion and union with God will grow and will never cease (Is 11). 

Jesus describes himself as the vine and us the branches who are dependent upon him for all of life. He also promises to prune the branches that are not bearing fruit, ensuring that each plant in his garden will reach maturity, flourish, and bear the fruit they are intended to bear (Jn 15). 

Jesus even refers to his coming death in terms of gardening when he says, “Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)

But even more than a metaphor God uses to describe human relationship and development in Him, the story of God begins with the garden, the place that God chose to make for his people and dwell in their midst, and ends with new creation—a restoration of all things, the Edenic glory and beauty and wonder that we were made for perfectly restored. Our heritage was a garden, but it’s our future too. This is why GK Chesterton says,

“On the third day the friends of Christ coming at day-break to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of a gardener God walked again in the garden, not in the cool of the evening, but in the dawn.”

Jesus, our Master Gardener, is doing a new thing. He is recreating the torn down vineyard of Isaiah 6; he is rooting and establishing new life so that it might grow and flourish; he is pruning and tending and delighting in new growth. But he also invites us into his work—to take up his work, to garden alongside of Him as those who also cultivate the Kingdom of God. 

As you pluck ripe tomatoes and grate zucchinis for bread, remember that you are participating in a much larger work. We are laboring with the Great Gardener, tending to the coming Kingdom of God, and delighting in the beauty of God’s creation as we patiently wait for the fullness of all creation to be restored (Rom 8).

The Spiritual Summer Vacation

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The semester winds down, celebrations, endings, farewells, and fatigue sweep us into the early summer days. June always felt like a surprise. The summer had arrived. But the flash flood of the semester left me cleaned out, leaves and branches in my hair, and trying to reorient myself to where I had landed. 

June always felt like a surprise. Surprise! The turning of a season. Surprise! You are another year older. Surprise! You have neglected your spiritual life. Surprise! You don’t actually know how to slow down. 

I worked in college ministry for almost 6 years, and the first few summers were unbelievably challenging. I found myself showing up for our annual staff conference feeling apathetic, undisciplined, and certainly unprepared to lead younger women in their faith. But it turned out that I was rarely the only one. Colleagues struggled too, but students also rarely came back to campus exclaiming about their summer filled with rich community, deepened love of the Word or fuller joy in Christ. No, summers were a desolate place through which students, and I, staggered.

As my second summer approached, I found myself dreading the downtime, the lack of rigorous structure, and the relational solitude, but also knowing I couldn’t continue at the sprinter’s pace of the semester. A classic catch-22. I needed rest. I needed solitude. I needed to take a spiritual inventory. But I was afraid of what and who I would find apart from my identity-giving tasks of preparing Bible studies and having discipleship meetings. The cycle of weeknights out teaching on campus, mornings in the office, and ongoing emotional care was taxing. And yet it gave me tangible meaning. Who was I when I wasn’t doing those things? And for my students, who were they when their google calendars were empty, they moved home to mom and dad and felt their student rhythm screech to a halt. Though I said it regularly to them, we were not so different. 

It wasn’t until the third summer that I got serious about figuring out why I dragged through the off-season. Sure, there were the obvious snares of my identity being too closely-knit to my work, the challenge of actually slowing the train down (objects in motion tend to say in motion, after all), and struggling to know how to practically use my time with so little structure. But those were only the lid to the box. As I started to pray, think, and ask the Lord about why this should be so tough, He answered by helping me see unhealthy habits that land me with my annual June surprise. 

Solitude

Calvin famously began his Institutes with, “Nearly all wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” Though this might sound like a welcome dive into self-discovery or the spiritual validation that our Enneagram number really is critical information, Calvin is suggesting that to know God, we must know the depravity and desperate state of our fallen nature. We need to know our sinfulness to know God’s righteousness. But the fast pace of the academic calendar invited me to ignore stillness and solitude thinking I could slow down later. It is all too easy to be too busy to come face to face with the reality of our sinfulness. 

Solitude is a faithful friend. It is something Christians must pursue regularly, not just when it is forced on them by a season change. Solitude forced me to watch myself wrestle with sinful patterns that had become so ingrained in my daily rhythm that I stopped questioning them. It was, and is, uncomfortable. It was painful to see myself. And yet, as Calvin reminds us, it is essential for our salvation to see our ugliness so we might see the splendor of Christ, and the staggering gift of grace. The author of Hebrews exhorts us, “to lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith,” Heb 12:1-2. But how can we run the race God has set for us when we are too busy running our own course? We must be people who actively slow down (stop even) to fix our eyes on Jesus who both created and will complete our faith. When we are still enough to catch a glimpse of the splendor of Christ and our need for him, we find the hope and desire to strip off the extra weight that clings to us. 

Postponing emotional pain 

Each semester brought emotional bumps. From bearing burdens with another sister to being wounded by them myself, knowing and being known will inevitably cause some pain. When I am hurt or upset or sad, I know I have a tendency to postpone my emotions simply because I have other stuff to do; another meeting to attend, another lesson to prepare– I am the queen of compartmentalizing. But this is not wise. Ignoring emotional pain does not make it go away. It buries it and makes it more difficult to dig up and understand when you finally return to it. It is easy to pretend to be ok, it is hard to allow yourself to feel grief, betrayal, loneliness, or anger. 

Rather than letting a few months worth of emotional processing surprise you, commit to creating space to be honest with how you feel, to bring your hurts to the Lord, and to pursue reconciliation quickly. As 2 Corinthians 5 reminds us, God reconciled himself to us so that we would take up the ministry of reconciliation. When we ignore emotional pain, we deny ourselves and our community the gift and practice of reconciliation and choose to harbor anger, resentment, and bitterness. We create a home for disunity. And it will eventually catch up with us. Summers were hard because I found myself trying to unravel a bundle of emotions that seemed indecipherable. I needed to unlearn the habit of compartmentalizing my emotions, and pursue a faith that was presently embodied–a faith that didn’t deny the necessity of communication, honesty, forgiveness, and reconciliation. If we are in Christ, we have infinite hope for reconciliation, but we must choose to show up for it. 

Connection 

A few years ago a friend of mine said to me at a coffee date that she really wanted to be my friend–wanted to see me more, talk about difficult things, deepen our love for one another. Maybe that sounds like a strange proposition–friendship in our culture is often nothing more than surface-level shared interest, but friendship should (and can) be so much more. Our relationship did grow. It flourished actually. In the busyness of life I knew she was someone I could call on, be honest with, and who would show up for me. I think about that conversation a lot. Her intentionality in wanting to pursue friendship with me made me want to be a better friend, made me want to check in with her, follow up on how a hard week had been, pray for her—all trappings of genuine Christian friendship. 

One of the most disorienting realities of the summertime was the dramatic fall-off in social and relational connection. Despite what student’s often thought, being in their lives was an incredible blessing to me, not just to them. Hearing about challenges small and large, being in scripture together, talking about theological doubts, laughing about how far they had come–all the makings of friendship wrapped up in a mentoring relationship. What I realized over summer was how much I preached the gospel and the word of God to myself simply by reminding others of who Jesus was. Encouraging them encouraged me. I got to live in the story of the Bible day in and day out. I might be feeling discouraged in my own faith, but I found that caring for others, be interested in their lives, and pointing them to God inevitably deepened my own faith. 

I have heard the phrase “out of sight, out of mind” when it comes to friendship. But when you enter a few months of being away from your primary community, that is a time to be intentional, tell them you want to know them over the summer, hear how they are doing and deepen your spiritual friendship even in a season of being apart. Talk to a friend, ask them to pray, ask how they are growing in their faith, ask how they are struggling. Let the word of Christ dwell in your friendships richly. 

Remember who you are and hold fast

Author Paul Tripp coined the phrase “functional atheist” to describe Christians who find themselves living as if God doesn’t exist when something trivial happens. Especially when I am moving quickly and my schedule is full, minor frustrations can turn into day-ruiners. But why? When I am living a “my kingdom come, and my will be done” lifestyle, my identity is primarily defined by either what I do or how I feel, and not by who God says I am. This is dangerous turf. When the busyness stops, I feel down and unproductive, suddenly I am wondering if God even loves me. If He did, why would he let me feel this way? Another dangerous step. When my identity is driven by my performance and emotions, I naturally start to relate to God based on how I feel or perform. 

I need to remember who I am and hold fast to the truth. I love the refrain in Hebrews— let us hold fast to the profession of our faith, for he who promised is faithful (10:23). If you are a Christian, your identity is in Christ. You are who He says you are. You are a chosen person, a saint, forgiven, loved, made holy. I once heard a sermon on just the word benediction. It means “a good word.” God speaks a good word over you. But, as I heard almost weekly in college ministry, I don’t feel it. I don’t feel like I am loved or forgiven. What then? We need to actively choose to live in the story of the gospel rather than one that is about me. We might know God loves us, but we need to whisper it to our hearts, we need to massage the love of Christ into our uncertain chests. We need to decenter the story off of us, recenter it on Christ, and choose to agree with what our God says about us. 

From Suffering to Praise, Together

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On Sunday at church I bumped into a friend on my way to grab a coffee and asked, “How are you?!” “I’m fine,” she replied, although I noticed her teary eyes. Then she gave—”Actually no, I’m not good,” and the tears came. I was honored by her honesty, but it stabbed at my heart during the service—how many others are here today just pretending to be ok?

Does anyone know your deepest pain today? Have you told anyone of the ways you are suffering, struggling with sin, discouraged, or apathetic? I would imagine that the answer for many is no. When it comes to pain, our impulse is to pray and suffer in isolation, only revealing our deepest wounds and hopes in the quiet of prayer. We pray for our desires, but it feels too vulnerable to invite anyone else into the longings of our heart.

But the logic of the church opposes this individualism—the church by nature is communal, an interconnected family to which we belong and are known. As believers, we can’t afford to suffer in isolation because the way Christ is most clearly manifested to us today is in His Body—the Church. As members of God’s body, we need to cast off this individualism and reclaim the beauty and power of being known in our church.

Psalm 22 offers a template for crying out to God in the context of community, situating ourselves in the story of God’s faithfulness in the past, and testifying to the congregation when God answers our prayers. As we practice this discipline, we are formed into the people of God—people who participate in the story of God’s salvation and faithfulness today.

Remembering who God is. Psalm 22 presents a suffering Psalmist, feeling abandoned and alone, but fixing his eyes on God’s holiness—His character—and remembering God’s faithfulness to his forefathers. 

My god my god why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame (1-5).

As in many of the psalms, we see the invitation to cry out to God with honesty, but as we do so to cling to God’s character and the ways that God has demonstrated His faithfulness to His people before. Though the psalmist feels forsaken and like the Lord will never answer him, he leans upon what He knows God has done before. Each instance of God’s provision that came before this moment has collected in his imagination, testifying to a God who has always been faithful. This is why God sits enthroned on Israel’s praises; as God proves his steadfast, holy, and good character again and again in the lives of His people, we do what we were made to do—glorify Him, enshrouding Him in our right worship. When we find ourselves suffering, we must turn to the story of God’s people before us, but we must also turn to God’s people around us.

Praising God in the congregation.

I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you; you who fear the Lord praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel (22-23).

The Psalmist understands the communal nature and responsibility of his current suffering—that when God proves himself faithful, he will testify to God’s work, glorifying Him and participating in the story of God’s people from the beginning. But if we never share our suffering with the congregation, we probably won’t tell them when God answers our prayer. Rejoicing in the Lord’s provision is a community activity in the Psalms, and our participation is not only for our own benefit, but for the benefit of the entire community.

God doesn’t only answer prayers for us—He answers them for our friend, for the woman sitting next to me at church, for the weary moms and disillusioned dads. God answers our prayer for our own good but also for His glory, He wants us to tell of His power and mercy and faithfulness again and again. This is why the Psalmist says, From you comes my praise in the great congregation...The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord (26). When we share our suffering and God’s provision with the Body, we nourish the afflicted who are crying out, and give hope for those who are seeking Him. God uses our suffering and His faithfulness as an encouragement to others, so when we isolate ourselves in a church, we withhold the power of God in our lives from those around us who need it most.

A beautiful inheritance. Posterity (future generations) shall serve him. It shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it (30-31). 

Though a community is blessed when members share their burdens and testify to God’s faithfulness, this practice forms us as spiritual people. As we learn to live in community and again and again see that God is who He says He is, God shapes us into His people—people who are known, who ask for prayer and pray fervently, who remember what God has done, and glorify Him always. In community, we become what Israel was to us—the people who followed God in their context and whose stories we turn to for a reminder of who God is.

As we are formed into people who trust in the Lord in community, we pass on the most valuable gift of our own spiritual formation; we testify both in our words and deeds to the coming generation of who this God is. We become people who proclaim his righteousness to those not yet born. So while we will tell the incredible stories of God’s works to the next generation, the inheritance we bestow on our children and their children is a legacy of seeking God, participating in the body of Christ, and glorifying God in all circumstances. A people formed by these movements will shape the generation following them, creating a beautiful inheritance. 

On the cross, Jesus prayed the opening verses of this psalm. He prayed alone, as one left to die in His suffering. He prayed remembering the Father’s perfect faithfulness to His people. On the cross, Jesus cried out, envisioning the future of God’s people, and died alone so that we might participate in His resurrected Body as people who are certain of His faithfulness and equipped to endure suffering together.

Do You Understand?

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During my time leading Bible studies for college students, a phrase I heard more often than any other was, “What this verse means to me is…”

I’ve said it, you probably have, too, but when it comes to reading, studying, and understanding the Word of God, exploring what a verse “means to me” is a flimsy foundation on which to build our faith. We so want to read a verse or chapter, get a sense for the vibe of the passage, and allow it to mean exactly what we would like it to mean, but when we study God’s Word, our goal must always be to discover what the verse means in the context it is written. 

Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart argue in How To Read the Bible for All It’s Worth, “A text cannot mean what it never could have meant to its author or his or her readers.” We might want a verse to mean something to us, but if it does not align with the context in which it was written, it cannot and does not mean what we want it to mean. And because the Bible is not primarily a tool for self-discovery, we must be willing to spend time in it as such.

When we come to the Bible, we must begin with comprehension—understanding what is actually being said. We often jump to what a verse “means to me” because we have skipped this essential step. When we leave it out, what the Bible says becomes completely subjective and self-centered, meaning whatever we might want it to mean at that time. It’s easy to read a passage and get an impression or jump on one phrase, but it takes time to read a passage, follow the logic and argument, ask questions about a phrase, and study what the author is actually saying. But do this we must. One of the first things I learned in seminary was that “context is king;” you cannot escape, get around or avoid it—to read the Bible, you must go through the context in which it is written.

Context vs. expectation

Any time we read Scripture, we bring our whole selves—how our day is going, our experiences, our emotions, our hopes for this particular moment in God’s Word—and that’s good. It is good to be self-aware, knowing how we are doing, the expectations we have, and what we might be needing to hear on any given day. But without comprehension, we will likely read into the text what we want to see rather than studying God’s Word for what He wants us to see.

Here’s an example. Philippians 3:14 says, “I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me.” I absolutely made this my verse for high school sports, whispering it to myself, and maybe a teammate, when we were losing by 10 in the fourth quarter, because, you know, Jesus will totally make me win this game. But if we read the chapter to understand what Paul is saying, he says he can do anything in Christ who strengthens him in the context of suffering, not always having what he needed, and depending on others to support him in his lack. I might want this verse to mean that I can do and accomplish anything in Christ, but Paul is saying that because of Jesus, he can face any circumstance, especially adverse ones, with joy, because Jesus is his life.  

The good news is that God, through His Holy Spirit, illuminates His Word to us—the Spirit literally opens our minds and hearts to receive what He wants to teach us. Our God is so personal and loving that when we open His word, He promises to meet us, reveal Himself to us, and speak to us. God knows exactly what we need, and if we are willing to listen to what His Word actually says, we might discover that what he has for us is even better than what we were hoping to find. 

Skipping comprehension diminishes who God is

Beyond reading ourselves into the text, when we skip comprehension, we never learn the heart of God for us, we opt out of hard words that might challenge us, and ultimately, we never grow in our confidence of what the Bible really says. When we elevate our situation, feelings, or an interpretation apart from the context, the Word of God becomes a story that is bent around what we want to hear, but it will never be able to stand up to the difficulties we will face. 

God wants us to know him. So when we skip comprehension we don’t allow God to actually speak to us. He wants to reveal himself to us, to teach us, to meet us in our circumstances and struggles. But if we ignore how he has revealed himself to his people before us, we will never know who he is for us today. We need a Bible that that says “You are not your own but have been bought with a price” because I want to be my own master every day. We need a Bible that speaks words that don’t always align with our culture. We need a Bible that tells us what our sin is. We need a Bible that tells us about the holiness of God. We need a Bible that confronts our own agenda for our lives.

As we approach God’s word today, remember that our experience, emotions, and desires are not the center of the universe, God is. And as we read His Word with expectation, we will find ourselves hearing what we need to hear, being challenged in the ways we need to be challenged, and receiving comfort from a God who loves us so much that He makes Himself known to us. 

Singing isn’t just for Sundays

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What is the best advice someone has given you lately? As a working mother of twins, I hear a lot of advice; take walks, make sure you have “me” time, get enough sleep, don’t forget to make time for your husband. While these are all good suggestions, I have found one activity to be the most important re-focuser, mood-booster, and practical tool in the midst of a wild, wild year: singing. 

Scripture tells us again and again to sing; O come let us sing a joyful song to the Lord (Ps 95:1); address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart (Eph 5:19); But I will sing of your strength; I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning (Ps 59:16). God himself sings when he rejoices over us (Zeph 3:17), and as those who are made in his image, who are filled with his very breath of life, we too are made to sing, having our lungs filled with words of praise, supplication, and longing. 

Singing is not just for Sunday mornings, it is a means of discipleship—a way we follow the Lord in our day-to-day lives by choosing to lift our voices in all circumstances to worship. Singing forms us as followers of Jesus, engaging our bodies, helping us process our emotions and experiences, and connecting us to our Heavenly Father who sings over us. Singing is one of the most powerful tools we have, let me show you why.

Singing literally changes our bodies. Singing releases endorphins and oxytocin which make you feel relaxed and happier, lowers stress, and reduces anxiety and loneliness. It also changes your emotional and physical state as musical vibrations move through your body helping you to breathe more deeply and effectively. As the kids might say, singing is a body hack, but as Christians, we know that this is not by accident, it is by design. Our God quite literally hardwired us to be able to change our bodies and emotions through singing—through worship, so we might be comforted when we are in trouble. 

So when the Psalmist says, O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done wonderful things (Ps 98:1), he is inviting us to bring our whole bodies into worship. By lifting our voices, we are changed, our breath united to the life-breathed Spirit that God has given us, our bodies engaged in attention to the God who knit us together, knows us, and speaks to us so that we might worship him with our whole beings. 

Singing brings us out of ourselves. I was reading my girls one of their favorite books while they ate dinner. I was exhausted and annoyed at how much of their food was on their laps and the floor. I wasn’t in a great mood. But we came to a page of the book about which I had made up a silly melody and would sing every time I read it. This time I didn’t. I wasn’t in a singing kind of mood. But, of course, they shout, “sing it, Mommy!” Begrudgingly, I sang it; a few lines in a rhyming story about a farm. But I noticed something immediately: it’s hard to stay angry when you are singing. 

In the middle of three conversion stories, Paul and Silas get thrown in prison. They were in stocks, very uncomfortable, and on top of that, wrongly imprisoned. And yet, we read that around midnight, they were praying and singing hymns to God and the other prisoners were listening (Acts 16:25). The saints that went before us turned to singing, but there is more to singing than heritage; singing is an embodied discipline, something we do on the way as we wait and walk with Jesus the reorients us towards his promises and provision. 

When we think of singing as only a joyful response or something we do in congregational worship, we limit the gift God has given us. Paul and Silas show us how to sing and worship in all circumstances, not simply when we feel like it or are supposed to. Just like singing for my daughters changes my disposition to lean towards them in love, singing to the Lord when we are angry, confused or upset reorients our hearts and minds to make space for the Lord in our circumstances. Singing draws us out of our emotions so that we might situate ourselves in God’s story, remembering his promises and anticipating his faithfulness when we can’t see what he is doing. 

Singing is a physical act of defiance that says, I can and choose to worship in any and every circumstance, not just when I feel like it. 

Singing helps us process our emotions. Sometimes when I start singing, I start crying. It seems that singing has a unique way of allowing hidden emotions to surface and helping me bring them to the Lord. We often struggle to put into words how we feel, opting to feel nothing rather than be honest about how we are doing. But ignoring emotions is an attempt to remove ourselves from reality. When we deny our experience and the emotions they produce, we are effectively saying that God has nothing to say or do here. But God does not make us his children to remain emotionally distant from him; He wants us to come to him with our hurts and brokenness, trusting that he will comfort and encourage. Singing is one way we can do that. 

As an embodied spiritual discipline, singing helps us connect our mental, emotional, and spiritual reality to our physical experience. We typically think of singing as a response to joy, but singing in despair, hopelessness, and sorrow has a long and valuable tradition we should remember. It’s no surprise that in the midst of oppression slaves turned to singing; acknowledging their pain and suffering while steadfastly hoping in a just God who was bigger than their circumstances. Likewise, the majority of the Psalter are not songs of joy, they are songs that express confusion, doubt, and lament. The songbook of the covenant people of God gives language to the full human experience— How long O Lord is the anguished refrain we hear again and again. 

Singing is a tool for all of life; the small hopelessness of a child crying at 3 am and the large hopelessness of grief or depression. And singing in spite of how we feel actually changes us, unearths our emotions, engages our bodies, and tunes us to something that is beyond our present moment. This is how God made us—to sing to him, have our hearts softened and comforted, our anger quelled, and our hopes levied as we remember that even in our tough moments, he is with us, he is for us, and he sings over us in return. 

Singing forms us. A few years ago on a retreat with college students, we spent time in small groups encouraging one another. What struck me most was how the students quoted song lyrics to one another more than they quoted scripture as a means of encouragement. While this opens the door to another conversation about why the songs we sing are important, these students spoke the things of God over one another as they had learned through singing.

Songs have a way of sticking with us in a way that other mediums don’t. We connect the melody and rhythm to words that have value and they become part of us, beating in our hearts and springing to mind unexpectedly, giving us language when we don’t know what to say or how to pray. No bride forgets her first dance song, no teen forgets the song that got them through a breakup; music stays inside of our bodies. But even more, songs that give language to our faith have the ability to shape our theology, the very things we think and believe about God and ourselves. As we sing these words, we speak into being the truths that God has spoken over us; we are loved, justified, forgiven, Spirit-filled children of God. Singing about our Good King is a way of testifying to ourselves the news of grace again and again. 

So today, sing. Sing when your children frustrate you, when you are tired or disappointed, when you are delighted by something. But sing. Sing a new song to the Lord today knowing that as you do, he hears you, forms you, lifts your head, and sings over you in return. 

5 Reasons we skip time in the Word (and 5 ways forward)

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The Christian life is full of tension. But no concept must be held in tension more tightly than grace and works. The conversation I have more often than any other with other believers is, “YOU NEED TO SPEND TIME IN GOD’S WORD! But remember that you are saved by grace and having quiet time does not earn your salvation. But because God loves you so much, spend time in your Bible and get to know him!” There is nothing we can do to earn God’s love, but there is much we can do to get to know him better, to walk in His ways, and be transformed into his likeness. One of these ways is reading the Bible.

I’ve heard many reasons for not reading scripture—I don’t get much from reading the Bible, I don’t have time to read scripture, it’s boring. While these sentiments are common, we cannot let them go unchecked. The Bible is the primary way we get to know God, so if we are going to follow him well, knowing God’s word is critical for our spiritual growth and health. Though everyone has different reasons and difficulties with reading scripture, here are five reasons that I have personally found spending time in God’s word can be challenging, and how to work through them. 

The Bible about God, not you. I always trend towards self-centeredness, so it is no surprise that when I open my Bible, I often want it to be about me. But the Bible is primarily about God, not a tool for my own self-discovery. Something that campus ministry taught me was the importance of other-centeredness. Though I could happily talk about myself in one-on-one meetings with students, I was there for them and to get to know their story. The same goes for our relationship with God. We are his creation and he has made us to know him. 

The way forward: humility. When you open God’s word, focus on learning more about him, his character, what delights and angers him, and the way he has made us. Ask the Spirit to teach you about who you are in the context of your relationship with the one who made you and knows you. 

Misplaced expectations. What do you expect when you open your Bible? An emotional experience? To hear an audible voice from heaven? That scripture will always speak perfectly to your circumstances? The most important thing I learned from pre-marital counseling was that expectations dictate relationships. We must identify our expectations of reading scripture and then determine if they are biblical expectations. It is not wrong to expect God to show up when you read the Bible, in fact, God promises that he will—that his spirit will give us understanding and insight into his word as we read it. But in order to remove disappointment or frustration from time in the word, we must identify what exactly we expect.

The way forward: expecting the Spirit to do what he promises. The Holy Spirit’s job is to bear witness to who Jesus is by teaching us his words, reminding us of what he did (Jn 14:26), and expanding our hearts to love him more (1 Jn 3:20). He also helps us see our sin, leads us to repentance (Jn 16:7-8), and sanctifies us to make us look more like Jesus (2 Cor 3:8). But what this looks like day to day is really simple things: a verse that comforts us, a story that challenges us, seeing something beautiful in the person of Jesus, a heart that repents of sin. These are the everyday works of God; we need to sharpen our vision to see them.

I haven’t addressed my psychology. If I’m honest, I often operate as if God is a little bit annoyed with me. He wishes I was less sinful, holier, more prayerful—he wants me to get my act together. I know that this is not what God thinks about me, but this lie seeps into how I approach God in my quiet time and changes my posture. I find myself edgy, trying to do more or be better, and quickly walking away from the gospel of grace that the Bible sings over me. If we allow our emotions to tell us what God thinks about us, we will hate spending time with him.

The way forward: believing the truth. Answer this question: what does God think about you? Does he like you? Our emotions are important and powerful, but we cannot give them the privilege of telling us who God is. We must rely on God’s own words for that, and he says that he delights in us (Ps 70:4), adopted us as his children (Gal 4:5), forgiven us (1 Jn 1:19), promises to show us grace every single day (Lam 3:22-23), and does not hold a grudge against us (Ps 103:12). We must choose to measure our emotions against the truth, and believe what God says about us.

I don’t feel like reading scripture. The question of authenticity is primary for our generation. If I don’t feel like doing something, I shouldn’t because it wouldn’t be authentic. But this is a short-sighted way of living life. If I only ever did what I felt like doing, I wouldn’t get up in the middle of the night to comfort a screaming child, I would probably lose my job because I don’t feel like working very often, and my wallet would be hurting because I don’t always feel like cooking dinner and would rather eat out. The reality is that much of life is comprised of doing things that we don’t always feel like doing, but we do them anyway because they are valuable, good for us, or make us better. If you are a Christian, your life belongs to God and we must do what he asks of us, whether we feel like it or not. 

The way forward: showing up. Showing up before the Lord, reading his word, spending time in prayer even when we don’t feel like it sows the seeds of a big harvest. The biggest lesson I have learned about spending time with God is consistency. I won’t always have an amazing quiet time, but I have come to love my 30 minutes of time before Jesus. Showing up when it’s hard paves the way for enjoyment and delight in God’s word. 

I’m in a hurry. The easiest reason to neglect time in scripture is because I am busy. But the reality is, I will always be busy, and if I wait to prioritize time in scripture for the day I am not busy, I will never start. In spite of busyness, everyone makes time for the things that they love. I love hiking and running and being outdoors and I will get up early, postpone lunch, and do anything I can to get that time outside. We prioritize and pursue the things we value. So the real question is, why don’t you value time in scripture? This is the much bigger question hiding underneath our claims of busyness and it is the question with which we must wrestle. If you find yourself not making space for God, his word, or prayer in your day, you need to ask yourself why.

The way forward: an honest look at your relationship with Jesus. Being honest with yourself and the Lord is essential and there are reasons for why you don’t make time for God in your day. We each need to identify what those reasons are. Maybe you find scripture confusing, or you are afraid that if you read the Bible you will hear things you don’t like. Whatever your reason might be, you need to identify it, bring it before the Lord, and ask him to help you work through it. We must learn to prioritize Christ in our lives because he is much better and more valuable than anything else we might put first.