In the work I do with pastoral counseling, we discuss the past and the way it has shaped our view of ourselves today, as well as our views of God. I do believe there is validity in doing this analysis to a degree, as it allows us to know why we do what we do presently, and also how to do something different as we move forward. So often we need to know the problem before we can allow God to heal the problem.
I do, however, believe that there is a limit to this, as continuing to go over and over the past ends up getting our eyes on the hurts and not on the way through. We must allow God to take the hurts of the past and replace it with our new identity. He has already done this, but we get to recognize how that plays out in our lives. Instead of continuing to believe we are worthless, shameful, unloved and unacceptable, we get to move into the reality that Jesus has made us worthy, shame-free, loved enormously, and acceptable completely. The more we focus on the past, the more stuck in it we become. So, it becomes a fine line between understanding the past and the effects on today and letting the past continue to control our present and future.
Mike Wells used to say that dwelling on the past and our pain for too long is incredibly boring. We get bored just over-analyzing all of it and getting nowhere. I want better, more and new. I don’t want to allow whoever hurt me to continue to control where I go now, both mentally and physically.
I have been intrigued by David and his life quite a lot this year, and have loved watching his emotion be expressed in so many of his psalms. He is angry, sad, depressed, confused—so many emotions we tend to stuff and pretend God doesn’t want to hear about. David is very honest about all of them, and I love that God receives it. The other thing I’ve noticed about David’s writings is how much He focuses on praising God, even in the middle of less than ideal circumstances.
This man had a rough life. He was running away from people who were trying to kill him often—sometimes they were enemy armies, and sometimes they were people who were supposed to be allies but betrayed him. His own son ended up making him run for his life. David made a lot of mistakes, and the Bible is very honest about too. We are never under any fantasies of David being perfect with a perfect life. But still he praised God, and thanked Him for His love and faithfulness.
I read recently that studies have shown that anxiety and gratitude cannot coexist in your brain. If we are focusing on gratitude and praising God, even in the middle of suffering and struggle, we don’t let the anxiety have the run of our brain. Praise actually becomes one of our greatest brain weapons. We are able, no matter the circumstance, to stop and praise God. We may not be thankful for the situation, but we can thank Him for His love and faithfulness just like David did. We may be in physical pain, in mental anguish or in emotional upheaval, but we can still worship Jesus and lift our spirits. I find it fascinating that Paul and Silas in Acts (***) were singing praise to God WHILE in prison. Yes, God busted them out, but they were singing before that happened!
My friends in Haiti are isolated from the world again after the gangs fired on a commercial plane and the airport was closed this week. They were ousted from their homes for over a year while fighting raged around them and they went into hiding. They have shown up for teen and preteen kids who are watching their friends die, and who are still healing from their pasts. I am so blown away by their faithfulness.
I speak to several woman who are raising kids while dealing with debilitating illness and chronic pain in themselves. They show up for their families in the ways they can while desperately surviving their own health journeys. I know they often feel like they are failing, like they can’t do what other moms can do. But I stand in awe of their faithfulness to keep showing up.
Several years ago, my husband and I were camping in Moab, Utah with our one-year-old son. Camping is probably a generous term—we did have a pop-up camper and weren’t really roughing it. We did, however, drive about half an hour outside of town on a dirt road to the middle of nowhere, and then parked the camper at the top of a rocky hill. The views were spectacular, and we would only see another car on the dirt road about once every few hours. It was a little taste of the wilderness, with only us and our little camper. No cell service, no toilets, and no other people around.
This seemed like a fantastic experience until we decided the next day to head back into town to get a few groceries. After piling in the truck, my husband tried to start the vehicle, but it wouldn’t start. The truck’s battery was dead. And the wilderness experience that seemed like a lot of fun became quite scary.
I started to panic, wondering how we would ever get out of there. No cars came by on the road, and it was at least a day’s walk to get back into town with a one-year-old and only so much food for camping. Finally after a bit of worry, my husband brilliantly figured out that he could use the camper batteries to jump the truck battery, and we were finally moving again.
But what about the figurative wildernesses in which we find ourselves where we can’t figure a way out, and we sit and wait with no resources and no hope? Wildernesses are a real experience in life, and one which often catches us by surprise. I’m not sure why, as so many of the people in the Bible went through years and years of wilderness, sometimes figurative and sometimes quite literal. There are stories of prison, hardships, desert-living, wandering, frustration, hopelessness, disbursement and aching for home.
I get questions a lot of times about why I love and serve God even when He doesn’t always give me what I want. A lot of people wonder why I continue to pursue relationship with Jesus, and consider it old-fashioned or burdensome. So, I wanted to write a post about why I choose Jesus.
It’s definitely not because of the people who call themselves Christians—although some are a wonderful gift to me and I’m so grateful for them. But the people in the Church are messy just like everyone else, and when we expect them to be perfect or to never hurt or reject us, we will be disappointed. I know, though, that people who believe in Jesus recognize they need something other than themselves to do life. So, as they are dependent on Him, they love people well. When they are relying on their own self-righteousness or rule-following, they end up in a place of religion which is toxic and downright abusive sometimes. The word religion means to bind over and over again. When we bind ourselves up in trying to please God without the power He has given us to do so, we are in a bigger mess than if we deny Him entirely.
I also don’t pursue relationship with God because I was raised to believe Him and brainwashed into doing so. In fact, I have had many reason NOT to pursue relationship with Him over the years, and it would actually be easier for me and make more sense to drop the whole thing! I could make more money, have easier relationships and not experience nearly as much rejection.
Instead, I love Jesus because He loved me first, not when I met His standard or expectation. He reached out to me in love with no strings attached. I don’t have to accept His love, and He experiences rejection more than any other person I know as many refuse Him.
You don’t have to keep running.
You don’t have to keep fighting.
You don’t have to keep searching for the “cure.”
You don’t have to keep trying.
I know you are tired,
And ache for something more.
I know you just want to sit down,
Letting the weight you’re carrying fall.
The idea that you will get a place
Where it makes sense to rest
Is a fallacy and will continue to drive you
Crazy and exhausted and weary.
Rest is almost a foreign concept in our culture these days. We are so busy, and fill our lives constantly with productivity, hoping that the busyness will make us feel strong, superior or like we are at least doing life in a way that makes others think we have some value. I think sometimes we are trying to prove ourselves worthy of our own lives. We run at such a pace that we don’t have to stop and think, fostering true relationship or accepting the peace that rest brings.
Rest has almost become equated with laziness. I think often of how in Luke 10, Jesus spoke to Martha when Mary was sitting at His feet, and I wonder how anything practical was supposed to get done with people just sitting around! I would have had the same exasperation as Martha, and have had it in moments of stressful preparation. Jesus wasn’t criticizing Martha’s practical bent, I think, but rather saying that work must come from a source of rest, intimacy and relationship.
Sometimes I believe I have a handle on all that I need to get done in a day, and I’m stressed immediately with anything I see as an interruption in this schedule I see as necessary to get so much accomplished. I think God might purposefully send me interruptions on these days in order to remind me that productivity is not its own source. I must have something that provides strength, wisdom and direction, or I’m just spinning my wheels to accomplish what I have put on my list.
This last week I got to speak to a MOPS group about anxiety, and the impossible standards or expectations we so often place on ourselves that result in this anxiety and overwhelm. I thought it might be helpful to share some of this here on a blog post as well, as I know it isn’t just moms who struggle with these feelings.
As I was flipping through social media recently, I found “10 Things You Are Doing Wrong With Your Kids”, “5 Ways To Make Your Body Look Like You Never Had a Baby “(not really, but that’s what they were saying), “3 Things to Do Right Now With Your House To Make It Look Like a Designer Lives There”, “What Your Husband Really Wants and How You Can Be That Desirable”, and (maybe the worst) “What God Wants You To Do To Be The Best Christian You Can Be.“ I know this kind of pressure isn’t just found on social media, but can come from impossible standards you feel from your parents, your church, yourself, and God.
I like to identify these expectations we put on ourselves so we can choose to do something different, and to listen to a different voice. There are so many voices that scream at us about what we should be doing, what we should be afraid of, and what we are doing wrong. I want to be a voice that reminds us all that God never put these expectations on us—we did that ourselves or accepted the ones that others put on us.
Do you ever feel burned out? Like you’d just like to pack up and run away from your life? Maybe it’s work, or maybe it’s the kids, the marriage, the bills, the house issues, the health problems, the recovery from trauma. It kind of feels like a little kid running to hide under the covers to protect them from the monsters in the closet—it probably won’t really change anything to run away, but it feels like it might be helpful somehow.
I feel that way sometimes. I want to hide from the parts of my life that feel too hard, too painful, too much work. Hiding doesn’t fix them, but at times it feels like the only way to deal with it all.
The communication from the world is generally—keep going, don’t quit. The communication from the church sometimes is—keep working, don’t let anyone see you are hurting. The communication from our own selves is—keep trying, your worth is tied up in not quitting.
I am invited into a friendship.
The kind I’ve not known before.
No rejection or conditions,
And weakness is my qualification.
My Shepherd wants to take my cares,
My worries, my struggles, my fears.
He lifts them off my shoulders—
I feel so lightened and free!
My Shepherd is tender and gentle.
He catches every tear in my eyes.
He is compassionate and caring,
Never impatient or condemning.
My Shepherd is an oasis of refreshment.
He nourishes and provides for every need.
He ushers in the weary,
To renew their strength and help them walk.
Have you asked someone how they are doing and had the common response “busy”? I know I’ve given it myself, and it’s supposed to imply that you are important and productive. Except we forget that just because we are busy doesn’t mean we are doing what God has called us to do. That’s a tough one to admit sometimes. In the North American culture, we equate busyness with productivity and worth. It’s not the same, though, and really hinders many of us from entering God’s rest and understanding our worth as defined by Him.
I have learned that when I am getting overwhelmed or stressed because my life is too full, I need to stop and ask a few questions:
1. Am I called to do this? Of course, I am called to Jesus first, not to a task. But from there, sometimes God calls us to do something, and sometimes He doesn’t. When we assume that everything that’s in front of us is a calling, we can tend to get overcommitted and overwhelmed. First, we stop, slow down and really question God on whether or not this task or commitment is something He has for us, or if we are taking it on to try to prove worth or meaning.
When Joshua and the Israelites had conquered the land for seven years, they set up the place of worship to God at Shiloh. It had been a crazy time, watching miracles of waters parted, major enemies defeated by the power of God, and some pretty rough losses as well when they didn’t do things as God had directed. Shiloh means whole, sound, quiet, secure, health or abundance. This sounds like a good place to me, especially to get away and just have time with the God who was leading their nation.
I often want this quiet place to get away, and sometimes I get time for it. But what I fail to realize when I focus on a place is that Jesus is our Shiloh now, and I can go anytime I want as He lives within me. I want the place of worship to be external, and sometimes it is. But no one can take that access from me, even if a church is destroyed, circumstances have limited us, or we feel as though we are imprisoned.
Edith Eger wrote about her time in a concentration camp during World War 2 in her book The Choice. What she credits with getting her through this time of horror was something her mother told her before they were imprisoned: Just remember, no one can take away from you what you've put in your own mind. She kept pushing into the internal because she couldn’t find freedom in the external.
Anyone else a little weary? I find myself tired sometimes before I even start the day. Political conflict, divisive arguing, virus protection and discussion, people’s problems and our own—all of it makes us exhausted and spent very quickly.
Sometimes, I forget to remember that my worth is not defined by productivity, or stick-to-it-ness. Sometimes when I’m weary, I end up berating myself with guilt on top of things—and it’s a terrible perfect storm to make it even worse. Instead of walking in step with Jesus, and being the branch on the Vine that requires His Life to do anything that sows into the Spirit-life, I get distracted thinking it’s all up to me and I better get with it. As much as that looks like sowing good seed, it’s actually my flesh trying to sort it out on my own, and it’s unproductive.
I was chatting with a friend recently who gave me a great reminder. She told me that her friend had made her a little sign that asked “What are we doing today, Jesus?” My friend hung it across from her bed, so every morning when she woke up, it was the first thing she saw. What a difference it makes to wake up in step with Jesus and to keep coming back to that, rather than pushing off on our own agenda of what we think we need to accomplish today.
Just keep walking, a little step at a time.
Sometimes that’s all I’ve got to do.
One foot in front of the other,
Without knowing what is next,
I just keep walking and waiting
For the way God’s making ahead.
Some days the walking seems drudgery,
And I want to stop and rest.
He reminds me that rest is constant,
If I will just trust Him and ask for His strength.
So, one foot in front of the other,
Walking continually onward.
When Moses walked forward, the Red Sea parted,
Giving God’s people an escape.
When Joshua walked forward, the lands were given,
Everything his feet walked on was theirs.
When Jesus walked forward, the water held him up,
Showing how nature worships its Creator.
When I walk forward, I am tuning my ear,
Listening for God to call out right or left.
He often doesn’t give me the whole set of directions,
But directs as the moment calls for it.
Sometimes I stomp my feet at this waiting,
Wanting control and knowledge rather than dependence and trust.
As we close out 2019, I am reflecting on the word God gave me this year. I don’t do a word for the year often, but this one was incredibly prominent throughout the year for me. He gave me the word “rest” and I wanted to tell you what He’s taught me about rest this year.
When God first told me that “rest” was the theme for the year, I laughed because of all I had to accomplish this year. It was not the year I would have picked for rest. But what He was showing me was that rest wasn’t about what I had to do, but the Source from which I operated. When I realize that everything I need for the Christian life comes from the Life of Christ within, I don’t have to overexert, overcommit, or overwork to try to make it all happen.
I recently watched a TED talk in which Shawn Achor discussed happiness and success. He pointed out that if we measure happiness by successes in our life and external determiners, we have to keep upping the ante. Thus, we are never really happy. If we reach the goal that determines success, we have to push the standard higher or come up with a new goal. We start over and are always lacking. If, however, we turn it around and learn to be content in our circumstances, we can be happy before we become “successful” in whatever terms we use for that.
Sometimes I throw temper tantrums about my life.I might as well be a 2-year-old with the fits I can have concerning all the things I feel I should not have to be experiencing, the comparisons I make to find myself lacking, and the struggles of others I want to wish away. I get mad at God, at the situation and at myself. It’s really hard for me to understand rest in the middle of struggle.
Do you ever feel the pressure of living out your calling, and wonder how you are going to be what everyone needs or wants you to be? How are you going to raise these kids? How are you going to preach on Sunday? How are you going to show up to a marriage which requires so much? How are you going to do one more day in a menial, thankless job that barely pays the bills? How are you going to love a person in your life who keeps responding in bitterness? How are you going to listen to the question of an aging parent and answer with patience for the hundredth time today?
I don’t know about you, but I often forget the incredible pursuit of the love of God. I forget that He reached out to us while we hated Him, while we were sinners—our filthy rags of “righteousness” and of outright rebellion all mixed together in a mess and even still He did not turn away. He walked right into that mess and declared Himself victor as He willingly laid down His Life.
January and February are not my favorite months of the year. They are still definitely winter, but the fun of the Christmas season is over and they often just seem bleak and cold to me. I thrive in spring and summer—the green shoots coming up that I’ve planted and nurtured, the warmth of the air and the smell of new life.Recently, though, God’s been reminding me of the importance of winter.
So many people I’ve talked to recently speak of feeling “beat up” especially after the holidays. Family time has been scathing and torturous rather than enjoyable. Relationships you thought you could count on have turned on you and left you feeling betrayed. The days you looked forward to because of what they are “supposed to be” as portrayed by our culture have stung you like a scorpion hiding in a shoe.
