Seeker

I Can’t Find My Hope! Have You Seen It?

/ Lori Lawe / 1 Comment

I wiped the sweat from my brow, and sat on a rock nearby, breathing hard from the exertion of the climb. I grabbed a swig of water from my dusty canteen and looked around.

No view.

How long until I reach the summit, I wondered? I had no idea. I sat back on the rock, leaned my head against the dusty slope, and closed my eyes. I was tired.

I could just see – what that the sunrise? – cresting over the mountain? Renewed, and excited, I hurriedly put the lid back on my canteen bottle, tightened my loosened boots, slung my small dirty pack over my shoulder, and clamored with fresh vigor.

Hope enlivened my steps.

The weariness seemed to fall from my limbs when hope arrived, like light dissipating darkness. Darkness has no power where there is light. So the burdens of our lives fall off of us where hope lies within our reach. Or perhaps it is our muscles that grow stronger, our strength that returns, where there is anticipation.

There is no view in the valley bottom. Only the sweat, dust, and hard slogging of the climb reward us with hope. How had I been satisfied in the valley bottom for so long? I wonder at my past self, a being alien to me now. How could I have been happy with the odd pine-comb I found there, the odd mushroom, most of them rotten or poisonous?

How had I lived a distracted life for so VERY long?

I am stronger now, both physically and mentally from this spiritual climb.

You see, I am following someone I heard about.

Have you seen him?

He is the one who encouraged me to climb, to begin this journey.

There are no fellow travelers, as each one of us has our own path to follow. However, I have met many whose hearts have been knitted with mine for a time, a season, as we stopped at a cabin along the path to rest.

Is He calling you, too? Do you hear him? Come on, then, let’s walk together for a while.

The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward [hope] to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple. The Message

In your moments of rest ask God, “Where have I lost my hope? Can You help me find it?”

God Is Handing Out Destinies – Do You Want Yours? (Part 2)

/ Lori Lawe / 4 Comments

I was frantically searching through a box of clothes, trying to find myself. Would I wear this outfit more often, the career woman’s attire? This outfit with spit up still on the shoulder, to volunteer more frequently in the children’s ministry? My lounge pants to relax and enjoy an afternoon martini a bit more regularly (OK NO – I don’t drink martinis. But don’t you want to be the kind of person who does, sometimes?)

All of the outfits were too tight or were ripped and unusable. I even bought martini supplies and then returned them to the thrift store a couple of years later (True story! My inner James Bond didn’t emerge, disappointingly). The point? Ah yes, the point. Who am I becoming, and what is new, in this next season? A mentor suggested that I ask God this very question.

“God, how do You see me,” I asked. He showed me a picture of me in my daughter’s red gown, dancing again, free. Huh? I didn’t get it. The following week, my daughter wore that red gown when she was chosen as the Princess of the city, a City Ambassador.

This was the exact same title that I was given 30 years earlier. She was asked an impromptu question and the question was about… me! She had the same sponsor as.. me! There were several other coincidences. I brushed off the co-incidences though many people remarked about them.

God often speaks through co-incidences. “Could He be speaking here?” I asked a mentor. When she spoke, tears ran down my cheeks. She spoke of freedom, a belief in the possibilities over my future that I once had as a youth, that had been lost. She spoke of the freedom that I felt when I wore the red gown for a few minutes, remembering that anything is possible with a God who has dreams for all of us, even us – ahem – older ones – for all of us, even, yes for me.

I am older, yes, but if my heart is beating, then God has a vision for me that is stretched out so far into the horizon that I can’t see its effects. That is His way. Will I reach forward in faith, a blind person with arms stretched out in front to block obstacles? Will I let Him guide my arm because I can’t see what lies ahead?

Will I trust Him, to teach me to dance, with Him? Will I throw away the old rags of fear and complacency that I was wearing? Will I humbly bow before a God who asks me to stand, hold the scepter, and declare “Your Kingdom Come”? Will I step into the Princess robe? Will you?

Wake up, wake up! Pull on your boots . . .! Dress up in your Sunday best . . .! . . . Brush off the dust and get to your feet . . .! Throw off your chains, captive daughter . . . The Message

Lord, please take off the eye patches covering our eyes that make us unable to see the bright future You have planned for every one of us. Help us to believe, that just as you used stumbling clods throughout all of history, You can use us, too. Let us take our eyes off the filthy rags we have made for our own clothing, and have the courage to touch the silk gowns of promise that You hold before us, as we align our lives with Your purposes.

After a few minutes of thanksgiving, ask God “How do You see me?”

God is Handing Out Destinies – Do You Want Yours? (Part 1)

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When no one was looking – and shhh! Don’t tell anyone! – I closed the door to my bedroom and put on the dress. No, not my dress. My daughter’s dress. And yes, the red ball gown. I couldn’t leave it on the hanger. It was calling, calling to me. Wear me! Put me on! Dance in me! And so I obeyed it. The gown and I were friends already.

I swayed to and fro watching the material billow on either side. Then I twirled and “snap!” My husband took a picture of me. I laughed and continued dancing. I was a young girl again. Possibilities were endless. Who would I become?

A few minutes later, it was time to return the dress to the hanger. To give it back to its rightful owner: the one with a future stretched out so far in front of her, the horizon is still a blur. Don’t they give scholarships and opportunities to the youth?

Aren’t “they” searching for youth to raise up, to hold their hand on the giant escalator roaring into the sky? “There are opportunities for you”, the dress reminds. “Who you are is much more beautiful than what you recognize in yourself on an ordinary day”, the dress said to her.

So I went back to the dishes. To the laundry. To scrub the floor. (Wait – I never scrub my floor but don’t ruin the effect).

I surrendered my identity, the identity that God was whispering to me to remember when I took off the dress. “Gracefully surrendering the things of youth,” I thought stoically. I am mature now. Time to pass on the torch to stronger runners, to those without back pain.

Maybe it’s time for me to get out the TV and to stare numbly for the next few decades (Wait – I don’t have a TV either, but again… keep the mood!).

The point is, who am I? Am I the young girl, dancing in freedom, wondering what new doors of opportunity will open for me tomorrow? Am I catching hopes and dreams wherever I wander, storing them in a basket that I carry with me, overfilling with possibilities?

Or am I me? The has been, has gone. I had my opportunities. Am I the flower, wilted, with a bit of brown at the edges? Am I a cactus? Come too close to me with a balloon of freedom and I will pop it? Am I living in a box when God wants me to be free? Are you?

“Who knows? Maybe you were made queen for just such a time as this.” The Message

Lord, help us to stop groveling on the ground like common beggars. Help us to stand, while leaning on Your strength. Wash us in your love. Help us to have the courage to take hold of the royal robes that You hold out to us. Let us never live in the lie, that just because we are beggars, we aren’t also daughters and sons of the King. Thank You for adopting us into Your love. May we run free into our destinies, we pray.

After a few minutes of thanksgiving, ask God “What blinders am I wearing, so I am unable to see the next thing You are showing me?”

How To Love To Read The Most Influential Book Of All Time

/ Lori Lawe / 3 Comments

Which book?

According to Guinness World Records as of 1995, the Bible is the best-selling book of all time with an estimated 5 billion copies sold and distributed.

Have you read it?

If you have a copy, could dust be blown off the cover?

Yeah, mine had that problem too.

In fact, J.I. Packer, in Knowing God challenges us to admit it if we don’t love reading our bibles.

To not put our backs to our dusty bibles and to our vague feelings of guilt. “I SHOULD love reading this book but ACTUALLY,” we think…

I realized that even though I have been a Christian for decades, I hated reading the Bible.

(!)

This honesty, like all honesty, proved key to finding my true joy.

I asked for help from the older couple in the church.

You know the ones.

They have been sitting at the back of the church for decades. They attend the prayer meetings. They loved you the first day you arrived.

I asked them why they love to read their Bibles.

At their encouragement, they suggested that I read The Psalms and highlight words that seemed to stand out to me.

How do we read the Bible with Holy Spirit at our sides, nudging our elbows as we read? How does the Bible come alive in our hearts?

I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t handle them now. But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. The Message

I diligently highlighted a mishmash assortment of odd words that seemed to be highlighted in my soul as I read: Deep. Water. Heart.

And I was still confused.

“God! If you are trying to speak to me, could you please be clear!!”

But [the disciples] didn’t get it, could make neither heads nor tails of what he was talking about. The Message

If the disciples were always confused when Jesus was speaking, why couldn’t I also expect confusion when Holy Spirit may be speaking to me?

But speaking He was.

When the guest speaker showed up at our church many months later singing a new song that she had created, with the theme of many of these words that I had highlighted in my Bible, I knew God was whispering to my heart.

That is His way.

God delights in concealing things The Message

He doesn’t want to bark a clear order to obey, but to pour a little rain into our parched souls, that awakens our hearts and gives a spring to our steps. His words refresh as His love sinks a little deeper into the soil of our hearts.

He clothes His words in love so that we have to come to Him again and again, asking for understanding. And a little of His love sticks each time we run back to Him.

And without our knowing it, as we allow the rain to sink deep, fruit is produced in our lives.

This fruit nourishes us and others.

And makes us run back to His word again and again.

We are hungry.

And we receive nutrients from His word.

Are you hungry? Do you also, like me, need to come off the baby’s diet of milk, and learn to eat?

You’re . . . capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. The Message

And when we learn to enjoy solid food, then reading the bible and prayer gets exciting.

Joy is coming. Do you feel it?

Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? The Message

Prayer Is More Fun Than Saturday Night Dancing

/ Lori Lawe / 3 Comments

Five steps to grow to love prayer are:

1. Be still and listen. Expect him to speak. We expect the unexpected. What is on God’s heart as we come humbly to Him with our empty plates, our stomachs rumbling again? We learn to discern the words of God from the mumbo jumbo that our inexperienced ears hear by opening His Message to us, the Bible.

2. Love our bibles. How? I used to hate reading my bible, though I felt guilty as I had been a Christian for decades. Now, I love my Bible and treasure it more than any other thing. How to learn to love our Bibles will be discussed in a future post.

3. Worship and thanksgiving clean out our ears. Prayer does this too. Most of the gunk that weighs us down seems to rest in our ears. When we clean out the gunk, our whole selves can lift like a helium balloon up to the loving Father.

Treat my prayer as sweet incense rising; my raised hands are my evening prayers. The Message

Then we can simply open the door when Jesus knocks. We are in a state of rest, not striving

4. Remind Jesus what He has been saying and ask for more. What is on His heart as He tries to wake us, spiritually? These are the things that he has been saying to us. Similarly, we remind Him of our empty plates, our growling bellies, and of our need for Him to fill our plates with His promises.

5. Surrender to His plan for our life. What is God saying that we get to obey? What flower will grow on our plants as a result of this obedience, is the question of hope that keeps us running back to Him. Prayer brings life.

God, just like Froot Loops that don’t satisfy us two hours after we have eaten them (No offense Big Food but your food really stinks), God you have oatmeal for us to eat. The really good stuff. The stuff that keeps us satiated for hours. Change our taste, Lord. Help us to love to eat that which is good.

Teach us to pray.

May we seek and search until we have found that precious jewel that is You.

God’s kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic—what a find!—and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field. The Message

Help us to recognize the difference between junk food and healing food. We pray.

“But there is nothing more dreadfully unimpressive than extemporary prayer which leaps about on the surfaces of things, a disorderly dance of empty words, going we know not whither,–a mob of words carrying no blood, bearing no secret of the soul, a whirl of insignificant expressions, behind which there is no vital pulse, no silent cry from lone and desolate depths.” The Preacher His Life and Work

Happy Easter (Every) One!

/ Lori Lawe / 1 Comment

It’s kind of disturbing to me that my post with the most readers (and you know who you are – shame on you!) was a post where I had written the smallest amount. Take that to its logical conclusion! Are you trying to say that the less I write, the better it is? Huh?? Huh??

I’m joking, of course.

I love all one of you.

Well, actually back at Christmas time, I only had one reader, but now I have many more!

Yes, many of them live in my household, and I do cook for them, so yes, I do have manipulative capital. “Have you read my post yet? No, you can’t eat.”

I’m not saying I would do that (family members – no comments, please) but that is one strategy to increase readership!

It’s OK. I’m actually having so much fun writing this stuff that I don’t seem to care much if anyone reads it because writing is proving cathartic to me.

Maybe I should pay you to read this stuff because I feel so much better after I write?

Ha! Nice try!

Wow. Marketing is everywhere!

Now, let me get back to ignoring you so I can write properly.

What were we talking about? Oh yes, Easter.

Happy Easter!

And since my most enjoyed post was the shortest I’ll leave it at that.

May your heart long for more, spiritually, in this season. May chocolate eggs no longer satisfy. May everything else that you have put your hope in, like a bridge that will eventually collapse with too much weight, be seen for what it is. May we learn to cast our burdens, cares, anxieties, and joys upon Jesus, His back broken for our sin.

And because He was broken, because it is Easter again this year, we have a strong arm to grasp hold of as we walk through the tribulations of this life.

Lift up your eyes! He is risen!

I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains? No, my strength comes from God, who made heaven, and earth, and mountains. He won’t let you stumble. The Message

Don’t Be Ashamed That You Hate To Pray

/ Lori Lawe / 2 Comments

We all RUSH to the prayer meeting, right? We all LOVE to pray, right?

Now, I know- I hear groans of guilt emanating from your gut. I know, I know. We SHOULD pray more, but we don’t.

And maybe by opening up the problem layer by layer, we can discover the root of the issue.

Exposure is the place of healing.

Please – let’s remove the guilt or shame and look at the true longings of our hearts dispassionately.

The How To Be A Good Christian handbook, which is several hundred pages long that every Christian receives on the first day they get saved, says on Page 1, “A good Christian person reads their bible every day.”

Great advice, right?

The only problem is that there is no record of Jesus doing that every day.

And yes, yes, let’s set aside the fact the Gutenberg printing press hadn’t been invented yet in Jesus’ time, and all that.

What we do know is that Jesus PRAYED.

A LOT. He valued prayer more than sleep.

Let’s start there.

[Jesus] dismissed the people. With the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night. The Message

Our How To Be A Good Christian handbook SHOULD instead say on Page 1 that every Christian should PRAY.

But that is too hard, so we cross out PRAY and substitute READ THE BIBLE.

We don’t like prayer.

Ah! I said it out loud

(It’s OK. God already knows)

YOU DON’T LIKE TO PRAY!!

And look, God didn’t run from you offended, but He drew nearer, offering you His hand. He knows that we don’t initially love to pray. Us trying to hide the fact with spiritual embarrassment only keeps Him at bay.

He is the God of truth and He promises that the truth will set us free. Yes, even about this.

He will draw near to us, put His arm around us, and tell us to rest, in His arms, as small children do. We can stop trying to build a mansion when we are 2 years old, or similarly, to try to wear the armor of a prayer warrior that is too big for us, yet.

We will only frustrate ourselves. Thankfully, the expectations the 2-year-old has for himself are not the expectations the parents have for their child. It’s the same with God.

He just expects us to sit, to be still with Him, and to receive nourishment from Him, as a baby receives milk from her mother. What word of scripture nourishes you, this day?

Can we simply sit, with that scripture passage, and rest in His arms, meditating on His word, on His spiritual milk?

God, I’m not trying to rule the roost,
I don’t want to be king of the mountain.
I haven’t meddled where I have no business
or fantasized grandiose plans.

I’ve kept my feet on the ground,
I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.
Like a baby content in its mother’s arms,
my soul is a baby content.

Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope.
Hope now; hope always! The Message

This resting in the arms of our loving Father is true prayer.

Are you ready to be comforted?

Five steps to help us learn to truly love to pray will be discussed in the next post.

(After the Easter Bunny visits us, that is).

Three Attitudes To Usher in God’s Kingdom

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Photo Credit: Washington Post

I was in my living room by myself one evening, minding my own business, when God’s spirit ushered into my life and shook me. Wake up, He seemed to be saying. There is more.

It reminds me a bit of Asbury, Kentucky. If you haven’t been following the news, a bunch of regular kids attended a church service. It was an uneventful day. But God‘s spirit rushed in and grabbed them, gently shaking them with a deeper awareness of Him. There is more, He seemed to be saying. The kids stayed and worshiped.

We know someone who attended that event. She said that the sense of God‘s presence was palpable as soon as you entered the building.

I guess others felt it too.

Over 50,000 people came to the sleepy 6,000-person town over a period of two weeks because God‘s presence was felt in a more tangible way.

In the sermon that was preached just before this outbreak at Asbury, the speaker said, “Make sure you experience God‘s love. Don’t leave this building. Don’t graduate until you have experienced God‘s love.”

The time when God touched me, powerfully, exactly like what is happening in Asbury, I also experienced a deeper understanding of God‘s love just prior. I had listened to a sermon by Rolland Baker. He said that many of us are seeking outpouring, seeking even what is happening in places like Asbury, but what we need to seek is simply God.

God himself. We don’t seek the experience of God, we simply seek God.

And so this touch of God that is shaking the world at Asbury, that is waking us up to say, there is more, is possible within each of our hearts and in our homes. Many of us have experienced something similar.

And so how do we escape the judgment of God, and help to usher in His Kingdom instead?

1. Thirst. We become thirsty for more of God, for more of what God wants to say, for more of God’s love.

2. Honesty. We confess our sins. The outpouring of God‘s love at Asbury has been characterized by a deep confession.

There are many marriages on the brink of break up that easily confess the sin of the partner. My partner did this wrong. My partner is a jerk. This is not the kind of confession that brings healing to a marriage.

The confession that brings healing to the marriage is the humble confession that admits that I have done wrong. I have failed.

In the same way, the kind of Christianity that brings cultural healing is the Christianity that says I have done wrong. Not pointing fingers at others and saying they have done wrong.

3. Surrender. We need to obey what Holy Spirit is saying to us, as He whispers when we draw near to Him. That’s it. It’s not complicated.

Christianity is not God plus our agenda. Fill in the blank for what that agenda could be.

God asks rhetorically, “Who among us can survive this firestorm?” Are you ready for the next few lines?

The answer’s simple: Live right, speak the truth, despise exploitation, refuse bribes, reject violence, avoid evil amusements. This is how you raise your standard of living! A safe and stable way to live. A nourishing, satisfying way to live. The Message

God help us to put down our metaphorical guns, our finger-pointing. May we focus instead on the mess within our own hearts. We lay down our agendas for what Your Kingdom looks like. May we instead follow Your love, giving away the extra love we cannot hold as we journey.

Let’s Not Hide From God’s Fatherly Correction – Find Joy Instead

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Who among us can survive this firestorm? The Message

God loves to surprise us.

He will not be molded into our own image.

The wise men, who brought their gifts to baby Jesus, expected a ruling King. Everyone did. But Jesus did not live up to expectations.

Instead of assuming His rightful role as king, Jesus befriended outcasts and then died so we would have a ticket to his Kingdom.

He will not be who we expect.

Christian culture, at times, loves to accentuate certain parts of the message and neglect other parts of the message.

Our modern sermons are full of speech about the love of God.

And so it should be.

If humans could grasp even a drop in the waterfall of God‘s love for us, and pour out this love from our overflow, we would enjoy more cultural heaven on earth.

But God is often fuller and greater than a culture chooses to see. In the same way, there is an analogy of blind men who describe an elephant. One describes the ear, one describes the leg, one the tail, etc. No one person can grasp the fullness of the elephant in this metaphor.

The ear of the elephant, or for example, the consequences dished out by God our Father, has been preached frequently in former epochs. The sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God preached by Jonathan Edwards, in 1741 feels like a different religion from the sermons that we listen to.

But this sermon was a catalyst for a global spiritual awakening.

Perhaps the sermon was a piece in the puzzle that helped that generation understand more about who the true God is?

Our culture doesn’t want to talk about God judging us. It doesn’t easily fit into our modern worldview.

God is the Father of love.

Because He is the Father of love, He is also the Father of consequences.

It’s the child he loves that God corrects; a father’s delight is behind all this. The Message

And if we are, potentially, living in a season of consequences for our actions being played out within our culture, then how do we live in joy before a holy God?

The way forward, the way of joy in the presence of a holy God, is to seek spiritual thirst, honesty, and surrender. These three attributes will be discussed in the next post (maybe not the VERY next post because we need a funny post soon. All of this end-of-the-world natter would get me down if I actually re-read what I wrote . . .

Are you allowed to joke when you’re talking about the end of the world? Maybe I should edit these posts? . . . Nah too much work. . . )

Ahem . . . back to a serious topic . . .

Lord help us be aware of the times that we live in. Help us to long for your rebuke as a wise child seeks correction from a loving father, we pray. After a moment of stillness, consider asking God how he may be calling you to awaken our culture, both outside of and within the church.

Take a lesson from the fig tree. From the moment you notice its buds form, the merest hint of green, you know summer’s just around the corner. So it is with you: When you see all these things, you’ll know [the Son of Man is] . . . at the door. The Message

Do You Hear Thunder? Is Lightning Coming?

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Like the three-year-old, cutting, pasting, and gluing pieces of paper, we make things. We mold the clay. The stubborn clay doesn’t bend when we ask it to. We add more water, pushing, and pulling. The clay will be shaped into our own image. Clay squeezes out in the wrong places and between our fingers. The clay does not obey us.

It is impossible to mold God into our own image.

And yet we try.

Our sweat is visible. We push and pull the clay. “You must obey us!” we yell to the clay. Finally, we give up in despair and sit beside our clay. Finally, we ask for help. When we remember our humanity, we are ready, finally, to hear from God.

We have forgotten who God is because He doesn’t look like us.

We don’t point the finger at one another and judge.

And so we try to create God into our own image, as One who does not judge.

“Don’t Judge Me!” we yell indignantly.

Then we remember sheepishly that we’ve been talking to God, the potter, not God the clay.

What if we set aside our expectations about how God should act and listen to what God is saying about Himself? God describes Himself as fire.

God is . . . actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won’t quit until it’s all cleansed. God himself is Fire! The Message

Is God as a fire a good thing or a bad thing?

Sometimes God uses fire to judge His People when they are stubborn. His fire is sent to clean up the place, mostly our hearts.

And yet, we can’t read God like a child’s picture book either. His ways can’t be distilled down to an essential oil, a fragrance that allows us to say with certainty – cause and effect – “When this happens, God will do that.”

Sometimes fire is evidence of God’s favor. Sometimes His fire is sent to guide us. And so, we can’t figure out God or create a checklist to foreshadow how God will react.

All we can do is examine our own hearts, and ask Him, humbly, to show us the charred regions. Lord, are the wildfires, so rampant in Canada, California, Australia, and many other places, the seeds, or evidence, of your judgment of us, as a culture? What do you think He is saying?

Now I’m glad—not that you were upset, but that you were jarred into turning things around. You let the distress bring you to God, not drive you from him. The result was all gain, no loss.

Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets.

And now, isn’t it wonderful all the ways in which this distress has goaded you closer to God? You’re more alive, more concerned, more sensitive, more reverent, more human, more passionate, more responsible. The Message

Dolly Parton recently had a dream about God on a mountaintop speaking to us, as a Father speaking sternly to his children, saying, “Don’t make me have to come down there.” She wrote a song about it. What are your thoughts?

And so, if you search your pockets and find only a bit of change there, and you don’t find enough wisdom in your pockets to know how to live with a holy God, a God who may be judging us even now, then read on to the next post, which outlines three ways to live with a clear conscience before a holy God.