Blog: Glimmers in the Fog by Kim Stiver

Building A Spiritual Backbone

8/29/2018

The Holy Spirit infuses our spiritual backbone with the character of Christ.

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My spine isn’t straight, but most people don’t know that about me. From a casual glance, the untrained eye would have no idea that I have a significant spinal rotation that makes the muscles on the right side of my back and core weaker and less efficient. And while that may sound like a significant issue, it hasn’t held me back from any of my usual physical activities. I’m not a great athlete, my balance isn’t stellar, and I’m definitely a klutz (I’m not sure whether to blame that last one on my spine or not!), but overall, my deformity is not something that’s altered the course of my life.

Until recently, I’ve rarely even thought about this hidden issue. While I have my suspicions, I don’t even know for certain how or when it occurred, which really blows my mind. One would think that if something happened to damage my spine, it would’ve produced enough pain to drive me to the hospital. But the medical professionals I’ve talked to through the years all say it is possible to suffer that kind of spinal trauma and not realize the severity. But as I’ve gotten older (sigh!), the imbalances caused by the rotation are starting to catch up with my mobility and interrupting my sleep. So off to physical therapy I go to re-activate, teach, and strengthen some muscles that have become shorter and weaker ever so subtly day by day, year by year. What once was a hidden, ignored, and unobtrusive oddity quietly morphed into a life-altering, obvious problem that now requires a substantial amount of my time, focus, and energy to correct.

Just as our spines are designed to be the balancing rod of our bodies, so our spiritual backbones are intended to keep our souls pointed in the right direction. The human spine is made up of more than 30 individual bones, all symbiotically connected to the main spinal cord, and our spiritual backbone is no different. There are multiple components of a healthy spiritual spine, from trust and love to patience and purity, and they evolve, respond, and hopefully improve throughout our lives. Of course, the healing of our spiritual injuries and deformities is not as simple as scheduling our next session of physical therapy because God’s rehabilitation of our lives involves every aspect of our beings — bodies, hearts, minds, and souls. And just like my current list of PT exercises, the disciplines God lovingly designed to keep us pointed toward Him are sometimes required in greater dosages.

Although every person is born with a spiritual backbone — the very imprint of the Creator Himself — it is rarely given the attention it deserves and often deteriorates quickly as life bombards us with its challenges, disappointments and temptations. Just as our bodies sometimes cope with stress by making unhealthy adjustments, so our spiritual backbone can rotate or curve, throwing our life out of balance, clouding our judgment, and eventually sending us into a place of atrophy. Most of our culture today is severely lacking any spiritual fortitude and is dominated by fragile emotions, minimal commitment, and self-indulgence. On the other hand, when the soul is rightly aligned, endurance, honor, life balance, maturity, and emotional stability become hallmarks of our lives.

Depending on how we handle life, the hardest of times can leave us with hidden, sometimes irreversible damage. For example, my spiritual backbone bears the marks of deep-seated worry and anxiety, for which I have learned to apply God’s PT repeatedly. Whether its permanent damage from systemic anger, bitterness, doubt, addictions, abuse, lust, greed, control issues, or pride, we all wrestle with one or more chronic weaknesses. Like Paul who battled a “thorn in his side” throughout his ministry, my inclination toward worry may never go away, but through the gradual, repeated application of God’s remedy, my primary weakness has become one of my greatest teachers.

Is your spiritual backbone strong? Is it aligned with Christ? Are there parts of it not facing the right direction? Are you suffering from permanent damage? Most importantly, have you asked the Holy Spirit to reveal your hidden injuries? We all have them in some way, but spiritual health, mobility, and strength can never occur if we don’t ask God to give us the eyes to see how far off we are, to believe in the only true cure, and to understand how to apply the right Biblical therapies and disciplines.

When we are actively trusting in and abiding in Jesus, the Holy Spirit offers us a soul infusion of Christ-like characteristics, even when there has been extreme damage in the past. Galatians calls this infusion, which spreads to every corner of our being, the fruits of the spirit.Galatians 5:22-24 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” In the Holy Spirit’s power, we can move toward the spiritual backbone God originally intended us to have, regardless of our weaknesses, failures, and mistakes. Our lifestyles will be marked by endurance, committed relationships, compassion, a thirst for holiness, humility, honor, and self-sacrifice for others. But the Great Healer will never force us to take the prescription. He wants us to submit willingly out of complete love, trust, and gratitude for the ultimate sacrifice He made through Jesus on our behalf.

Paul made peace with the thorn in his side, yielding his desires to God. When he did so, he discovered all sufficiency in Christ to the point where he could boast about his weaknesses. Can you imagine walking into a crowded party of both your friends and strangers and loudly proclaiming your greatest weakness? This is the dichotomy of spiritual balance: to accept our weaknesses, but never excuse them. We are called to strive for change and growth, but to learn to be content where God has placed us. 2 Corinthians 12:7-12 (The Message version) puts it so beautifully and clearly:
Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,
“My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.”Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.

Having a spiritual backbone is making peace with your weaknesses, not ignoring them or indulging them, and then letting Jesus transform them into a strong collection of dynamic characteristics that move in concert to more fully believe, trust and love God. When we do, that love will naturally overflow to others around us, inspiring them to develop their own spiritual backbones.
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Going Barefoot with God

8/22/2018

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I almost never fall off my paddle board, so very early on one cool summer morning, I decided that the lake looked too perfect to miss even though the temperature outside was still hovering near 55. Since my toes turn into human ice cubes when cool air is combined with moisture, I decided to try wearing water shoes while paddling. Although I had never worn shoes on my board before, I had seen other people do it, so it seemed like a win-win to me — warm toes and a little extra padding for comfort. At first, they were quite comfy. In fact, for a moment I thought wearing shoes on the board might become my new norm. I certainly felt warmer, and everything seemed stable. But that train of thought went off the rails the first time I shifted my weight. I might have felt comfy and stable, but when the need for adjustments came, I quickly discovered that I had significantly underestimated the impact on my balance of wearing shoes. Without direct, bare contact with the board, my ability to feel the slightest movement was dramatically minimized. The extra layer between me and the board nearly threw me in. Far more than my toes almost turned into ice cubes, not to mention how bruised my pride would’ve been.

Sometimes we add things to our lives in the name of self-protection, happiness, or comfort, yet they turn out to be entirely unnecessary and occasionally even harmful to our spiritual health. Because our humanity pushes us to rely on our own senses, feelings, and experiences, we end up layering on all kinds of requirements, habits, methods, etc. But often God wants to expose us to the elements for a reason. While these add-ons may be helpful for a season (or not), they can often end up interfering with our sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and God’s intention for our lives.

In a similar fashion, we read in the Bible that the Pharisees had added much to the Torah (the Jewish Scriptures) with endless rules and regulations for people to follow to be right with God. But then Jesus showed up on the scene and boiled faith down to two simple things: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36-40). It’s easy to forget how revolutionary the words of Jesus were at that time and still are today. But that’s exactly what he intended. He came to upend us. Imagine the widespread shock and counter-cultural backlash to His declaration that all the laws of the prophets could be reduced to two simple things. That would be like the country’s top lawyer proclaiming that our entire body of laws, from traffic ordinances to tax law, can be reduced to just two requirements. When Jesus said that pleasing God comes down to something so seemingly simple, it literally threatened to rip the very fabric of the Jewish culture. The disciples and most of Jesus' followers were raised and taught to revere and follow all the laws of their faith. And what Jesus said upended everything — their entire lifestyle was turned upside down.

Changing the way we think is not easy. Bucking the predominant culture is difficult. Doing a 180 pivot from what your parents, other relatives, and teachers ingrained in you is downright arduous. Allowing yourself to be defenseless… raw… vulnerable… and completely real with Jesus is nothing short of a miracle. It is a work that only the Holy Spirit can do. It is something we see modeled in scripture time and time again, and if we are truly pursuing God above everything else, it is something that the Holy Spirit will keep leading you to do. And just when you think the layers are finally gone, He’ll show you another one… and another one.

If this sounds exhausting or discouraging, reject that thought immediately because it’s a human reaction. It’s a feeling that Satan knows how to stir up in you, throw in your face, and eventually condition you to obey so that it becomes your normal pattern. But it’s not normal in God’s pattern. We were created in the image of Him, which means when we surrender back to God what He designed from the beginning to commune with Himself, we find what He intended as not only normal, but also powerful and exhilarating. Every layer we allow the Holy Spirit to reveal and peel back is one step closer to God's original design for us. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image.” The work of the Holy Spirit, which He asks us to partner in, is not an exercise of never-ending exhaustion, but a most beautiful and exciting journey toward splendor. With our human layers, we cannot see this future glory, but by yielding to the Holy Spirit’s power, a deep-seated “knowing” begins to burn within us.

Paul understood this more than we can ever fathom. Scholars estimate that he was about 30 years old when Jesus appeared before him on the road to Damascus. Saul, as he was known at that time, was on his way to find, publicly scorn, and kill Christians. His upbringing, his advanced learning, and his incredible intelligence were all working in perfect concert to make him an efficient, cunning, and passionate litigator and assassin. In one swift move, Jesus ripped away all of Paul’s layers in an instant and then left him to recuperate with the very group of people he had been determined to destroy. As the Holy Spirit worked to rebuild Paul out of the ashes, He outfitted him to be the catalyst that reached the rest of humanity — the vast majority of the earth who knew nothing of the religious layers required by the Pharisees. If Paul’s conversion had not been so radical, so complete, his eyes would’ve never roamed outside of his Jewish world. He would’ve never seen the image of God imprinted on the hearts of people who were not like him.

Likening our journey with God to that of a race, Paul said in Hebrews 12:1-3, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

Do I think that Paul never got tired? No, he was still human. He may have been walking closer to God that most of us, but prison, shipwrecks, snake bites, and social ridicule wear on any person. But any time he became discouraged, we know where he found the strength and the hope to continue. He focused on the future splendor that burned within and asked God to remove yet another layer so that he could feel the warmth of its glow even more. Just like us, when he needed strength, he recounted the stories of the faith warriors who went before him. Just read Hebrews 11 and you’ll know exactly what Paul’s pep talks sounded like. He starts it off with, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Another of his most famous pep talks is found in Romans 8. In this amazing passage we are assured of God’s love for us, promised our future destiny as heirs, given a vision of the glory that’s to come, supplied with the secret to finding strength in our weaknesses, and triumphantly bestowed the new identity of conqueror in Christ. Now that’s a pep talk!

The shoes of comfort, obligation, and skepticism only keep us from sensing the Truth and responding to the direction of the Spirit. The layers in our lives may feel good and seem to promise protection. They may have even served a good purpose for a season. But anything that keeps our souls from being bare before Jesus, will eventually be targeted for removal by the Master Surgeon. We can participate in the search and willingly embrace the surgery, or we can run away to only have Him bring us back to it again and again. Like a marker in our lives, we can either keep circling it until our feet have worn a deep groove of unbalance in our faith, or we can yield to the Spirit’s leading and make it a monument to our growth and healing. As a believer in Jesus, your spiritual feet are already standing on the road to glory, but moving forward means leaving your shoes of self-preservation far behind.
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Taming the Force of Habit

8/15/2018

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For almost six weeks this summer, my house was like a B&B with a string of out of town guests. Believe it or not, I had a great time playing hostess, baking early morning wild blueberry scones, making sure that each visitor had all the essentials, and checking the weather for any impact on our plans. Now, I don’t really consider myself overly gifted in the hospitality department, but I have to admit that my inner Martha Stewart emerged just a tiny bit, minus the over-the-top decorations and crafting projects. At the end of each day, I wanted to go to bed knowing that they had a good time, ate some amazing food, and felt comfortable enough to truly relax.

Despite this, after about the third week of welcoming family and friends, I was surprised to find myself struggling emotionally without the familiar comfort of some of my usual habits. In order to accommodate the desires and schedules of a houseful of vacationers, there were some routines I just had to temporarily give up. A few of my emotions were far stronger than I would have anticipated, and this realization made me stop and ask myself if I was just becoming too set in my ways (i.e. old!) to be flexible or if the power of my repetitive behaviors was far greater than I realized.

Then I recalled a quote from a research-driven book that I read a few years ago called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg: “(Habits) shape our lives far more than we realize — they are so strong, in fact, that they cause our brains to cling to them at the exclusion of all else, including common sense.” Phew! It’s not necessarily that I am getting old. I felt immediately better. But now I still had to figure out what to do about the emotions I was wrestling with since my life wouldn’t return to normal for several more weeks and, above all, I wanted to make everyone feel comfortable. I mean, who would want to come back to a cranky person’s house for vacation?

As I pondered this, I came to realize how many of the habits I was missing at the moment had a direct connection to my sense of place… my home. When I’ve gone away on vacation, it’s always been easier to forgo some of my routines because I am simply not in the usual place where they occur. This fact is actually a detriment to some of my good habits that also go out the window when I’m traveling, like eating right. Sigh. But being out of routine in the place where you dwell is naturally unsettling and both our bodies and minds immediately experience dissonance when a familiar environment becomes inhospitable to our habits. This is exactly why changing our bad habits is so hard in the first place. We are conditioned to them and our minds and bodies naturally return to them, especially in times of weakness, stress or sadness. According to Duhigg, “Habits, scientists say, emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort. Left to its own devices, the brain will try to make almost any routine into a habit, because habits allow our minds to ramp down more often.”

Hebrews 12 is one of my favorite scripture passages about the importance of keeping good habits and working to change the bad ones. In verse 11, we find incredible encouragement: “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Being watchful of our habits and making tough changes to our routines can only be done through continuous training. I placed this verse on my wall above my computer last year following a major career shift in my life. After 25 years of ingrained work patterns, disciplines, and routines, my productivity was virtually paralyzed without familiar surroundings, expectations, people, or schedules. Knowing that Jesus was working to bring about “a peaceful harvest of right living” inside of me, as the New Living Translation phrases it, sustained me through months and months of feeling like a fish out of water even though I was sitting in my own home office.

Paul goes on to say in verse 12: “Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.” The Holy Spirit is with us to lift us up, empower us, and give us the endurance to make hard changes and then stick with healthy habits of all kinds, no matter whether they are spiritual, physical, or relational in nature. Paul had firsthand experience with replacing bad habits with new ones. Imagine the changes that he had to make when he abandoned his life as a Jewish persecutor of Christians and became a Christ-follower himself. Every habit, schedule, expectation and routine he possessed needed to change. And when you’re facing a mountain of changes all at once, there’s nothing Satan wants to achieve more than to bring you down and make you feel weak in the knees. That’s when we lift our tired and weary hands regardless of our emotions and sing praises to the One who will always lift our heart and our hands. Psalm 64:10 says to make praise your habit because God is always at work, and Psalm 3:3 says He is the lifter of our heads.

We are promised success when we honor God with our lives as living sacrifices, which is the same thing as turning our daily habits, goals, resources, and time over to Him to direct and manage for His purposes. 1 Timothy 1:7 says, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” As believers, we have the power inside of us to change any habit and cultivate lives that point to Jesus. I am reminded of this everyday before I exercise. I don’t want to exercise. As a matter of fact, I dread it. Daily. But there’s no room for laziness when committing to a good, but a difficult habit to maintain. If I let just one day go, with the exception of simply being unable to exercise due to something like illness, then I suddenly find that it’s even easier to let the second day slide, and the third day after that… and before I know it, I’ve fallen off the fitness wagon and onto my couch… with a bag of chips. And maybe some Ben & Jerry’s. Not good. Mental habits are no exception to laziness either. As a continually recovering worrier, I must exercise the muscles of my mind every day to avoid sliding into anxiety or negative thoughts. Yes, there are days I fail at exercise and at cultivating a peaceful heart, but deep diving into scripture meditation and prayer are good habits that also act as guardrails to keep me from completely sliding off the cliffs of laziness, complacency, and discouragement.

So I bet you’re still wondering how I avoided turning into Oscar the Grouch with my guests. Well, like any would-be novelist with a strong imagination, I simply pretended. For the last few weeks, at least in my mind, we were all on vacation together at a rental house that I picked out with our specific guests in mind. I still felt somewhat responsible to entertain and accommodate, but I suddenly wanted to do all the things I loved on vacation too, like getting lost in a really good summer novel. I ended up being more relaxed and less bothered by my missing routines.

Now I sit here writing this in an empty house, with one of my favorite afternoon habits — a cup of hot green cinnamon tea. The instrumental music is playing to help me write… everything is quiet and everyone is gone. Back to their jobs, schools, homes… and their own habits and routines. And I am back to mine. Only this time, I have determined to set fresh eyes on my habits with renewed inspiration to make some adjustments. One of my favorite quotes is from David Mathis who wrote Habits of Grace, “Your habits are, in fact, one of the most important things about you. Those repeated actions you take over and over, almost mindlessly, reveal your true self over time as much as anything else.” Being reminded of how powerful my habits are and how important God’s calling should be in my life, has made me realize the very things I don’t usually think about are some of the most critical things to actually spend time thinking about. Taming our habits is certainly not easy, but yielding to the Holy Spirit to help us do it gives us a power that’s even greater than the force of the habits themselves.

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Knotholes in the Fence of Life

8/8/2018

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Prayer Reveals Knotholes in the Fence of Life

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The time we have on earth is a lot like living in a big backyard surrounded by an unscalable wooden fence. As believers, we know that an eternal life waits for us on the other side, light years better than anything we can see or understand from our vantage point here in the backyard. But because we can’t see through the fence, we depend on faith to assure us that there is indeed much more in store for us than the routines, struggles and earthly pleasures of our everyday lives.

Every now and then, however, we are blessed to come upon a knothole in the fence. It might be something someone says at the perfect moment, a fleeting sense of wonder, or even a momentary vision, but these often unexpected knotholes give us tiny, yet enlightening, glimpses into God’s miraculous work behind the scenes on our behalf. Sometimes we find them right after a difficult trial when our eyes are suddenly opened to see why God allowed certain events to occur. Other times, a glimpse happens right out of the blue through the power of a scripture passage, a timely word from a friend, or a moment of worship. Like precious evidence in a scientific investigation, these small insights build our faith over time and encourage us to keep going through the toughest of seasons.

Prayerful stillness is one of the best ways to find knotholes, especially if you find yourself sitting in the backyard staring in frustration at the fence line, instead of flourishing where God’s placed you. We’ve all been there… frustrated, discouraged, or maybe even feeling betrayed. We believe God must be working, but we’re tired of only looking at that big, stationary fence. We long for movement, change, improvement… anything, really. And if we’re not careful, our longings will eventually eclipse our desire for God Himself, and then we risk camping out at the fence line forever. And this is where prayer comes in — not with a goal of finding the knotholes, but with an aim of knowing and depending on our Heavenly Father more and more whether we can see what’s on the other side or not.

We can spend hours, days, weeks and even years asking why, when all God wants us to do is be still before Him, humbly listen, and then obey. Even when we take the time out from our jobs, commitments, and chores, we often remain busy in our minds. The to-do lists, over analysis, and worries, spin in our head, drowning out any chance of hearing His voice, feeling His comfort, or seeing His hand move. Prayer, scripture meditation, and solitude in God’s presence are the antidotes to an obsession with staring at the fence line and asking why over and over. God can reveal deep things in our prayerful stillness that we simply cannot perceive, or receive, when we’re busy with life’s demands or consumed with worry.

Stillness is hard. Solitude is practically a lost art. And if you’re an extrovert, like me, these spiritual disciplines are even more difficult to cultivate. But the “whys” of life will never stop. As soon as one unknown is revealed, another one will always pop up. The Enemy of our souls knows this and uses the crazy busyness of our lives and our minds to make sure we never find peace in the storms of fear, doubt, and unanswered questions that flood our backyards. But Jesus says, “Peace, be still” to our hearts, minds, and souls. In fact, peace is mentioned more than 400 times in the Bible, and Jesus talked about it repeatedly with the disciples. He knew that our tendency toward busyness would choke the life out of our spiritual health, so He modeled the practice of stillness and solitude (Luke 6:12, Matthew 14:13). Jesus wanted to make sure the disciples understood that nurturing a deep intimacy with God the Father, was foundational to the abundant life He promised them. Repeatedly, He left the busyness of ministry and the demands of His closest companions to be alone with God.

It took me many years to realize that the reason I couldn’t see many of God’s divine knotholes was that I was focusing on the storms themselves instead of keeping my eyes on Jesus, despite the unsettling circumstances swirling around me. I used to expect Him to make everything go away, rather than holding my hand through the struggles and unmet expectations. I used to keep myself so busy I could ignore the storms on the horizon, rather than being still with Jesus and letting him teach me, prepare me, and then lead me through them. Every time a new trial comes, I struggle to keep from reverting back to my old habits, but God has always been faithful to make me stronger when I trust Him.

In the gospel of Mark, we see Jesus’ habit of quiet time with God at the very beginning of His ministry. “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, He departed and went out to a desolate place, and there He prayed. And Simon and those who were with Him searched for Him, and they found Him and said to Him, ‘Everyone is looking for you’.” (Mark 1:35-37) Notice that Jesus went far enough away from them to truly get alone with His Father. Also, He didn’t give in to the mental busyness associated with His work or relationships. We often forgo quiet time with God when the expectations of people around us are particularly pressing or close-by. Jesus’ example in this passage especially spoke to me, as I have had a series of summer house guests for more than a month. While I tried to carve out the time and a place to be alone with God daily, it didn’t always happen. But on the days it did, I had abundantly more grace, joy, generosity, and love for those staying in my home. And exhibiting the love of Jesus to my guests was far more important than how much lobster they ate, swimming they enjoyed, or the wildlife they observed.

Jesus, of course, didn’t need knotholes in the fence of earthly life to know what His Father was up to. We read in John 5:19, “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, the Son does likewise’.” So if Jesus Himself needed solitude with His Father, then how much more so do you and I need it to get through the days, months and years? As Jesus was one with the Father, His sacrifice ensured that we could also be one with God through the gift of the Holy Spirit (John 14:26, 16:7). When we’re open to the movement of the Holy Spirit, we just never know when He’ll stir our hearts and awaken some new, previously unknown corner of our spirits. Whether clear and strong or muted and gentle, the Spirit moves to help us grasp or experience His truth, direction, and presence in life-altering ways. No matter how the knothole appears or what form it takes, it will most often come in a moment of stillness. The Psalmist said, “Be still and know that I am God,” (46:10), and Isaiah urged, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. (30:15)”

The backyard of your life might be a thriving pleasant landscape, or it may be undergoing a major renovation. It might be a place filled with weeds or as barren as a desert plain. But no matter what its condition, God planted you there or is allowing you to linger there for a reason. You may not see any knotholes in the fence and even feel like the boundaries are getting smaller, but He longs to create an oasis for you right in the middle of it all. Through intimate moments alone with Him, your heart can overflow with gratitude, sink into deep peace, and laugh with joy, whether you’re enjoying a season of plenty or climbing a mountain of hardship. The backyard of life can only have one Master Gardener, but we have to let Him come inside to do His work on a regular basis.

Questions for Reflection and Spiritual Journaling

Read Psalm 46 and Mark 1:35-37. Spend some time praying and asking the Lord to reveal Himself to you. Write down what the Holy Spirit whispers to you.
How often do you practice complete stillness before the Lord? How do you think you could work more of this practice into your lifestyle?
Reflect on a time when God revealed something to you in prayer or meditation. How did you know it was from God? How do the habits of Jesus encourage you to spend more time alone with our Heavenly Father?
One of the most powerful ways to spend time with Jesus is to imagine yourself in His presence. Take some time to envision yourself having a conversation with the risen King. What would you say to each other? What kind of setting is most appealing to you and why?

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How to Fill Every Longing in your Heart

8/1/2018

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Birthdays. I often wonder if Jesus celebrated his. Did the disciples ever attempt to throw Him a surprise party or did they realize early on that any attempt to sneak up on Jesus would fail? If they did try it, did Jesus pretend to be surprised to make them feel appreciated or would He have considered that the same as lying? One thing is for sure, I believe Jesus exuded good humor and happiness in His time here on earth. And I have a sneaking suspicion that He loved to laugh. After all, He’s the only perfect human to ever exist, and He embodied all the joy of His Heavenly Father. So if the disciples did throw Him a birthday celebration, I bet He was the life of the party… quite literally.

This past weekend, I celebrated my own turning of another year, and I couldn’t help but ponder what God thinks of our traditions. Most people celebrate birthdays with gifts. A good meal is universally required. And many people make a wish (or 5, or 10, or more!) when they blow out the candles on their cake. And although I can’t specifically recall a single birthday wish from my last 46 years, I am certain that all of them have been minuscule, miscalculated or misdirected longings compared to the immense pleasure and satisfaction that God truly offers.

C.S. Lewis, one of my favorite authors, said in his sermon The Weight of Glory, "Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us… like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by an offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

One of Satan’s sneakiest ploys is to corrupt the joy of a Christian’s heart by making him or her think that following Christ should be primarily defined and visibly marked by self-sacrifice and deprivation of our deepest of longings. Yes, self-sacrifice is clearly required in the Christian life, but God never asked us to make it the aim of our relationship with Him. No, He makes it clear that the ultimate goal of our relationship with Him should be delighting in Him. When we find ourselves in the rut of duty and self-denial as the end game — a way of just checking off the spiritual to-do list — we are in dangerous territory. Sure, we may be helping others and doing good things, but if the primary outcome isn’t an overflow of pure pleasure and spirit-driven exhilaration, then we could be missing out on the greatest happiness known to man and falling prey to Satan’s greatest deception.

I grew up in a culture that emphasized the disciplines of faith more than the joy of a relationship with God. As a result, I spent many wasted years honing my skills in Biblical study, prayer, self-sacrifice for others, and scripture memorization. Now, of course, all of these things are very important and valuable, but my upbringing led me down a dangerous path of duty to God versus desiring God. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit led me to discover John Piper’s writings on Christian hedonism and the refreshing reminder that the disciplines of my faith should flow out of me like living water because I love God and others, not because duty dictates my service. Since I was one of those kids that always followed the rules (yes, I was a nerd), it had never clicked in my brain that God wanted me to focus all of my being on delighting in Him and letting the disciplines naturally follow in time with His empowerment, not mine.

Even more astounding, as I determined in my heart to not do anything — not a single “duty,” like reading devotions or volunteering — unless the Holy Spirit created a desire in my heart to do so out of pure love for God, I found that the longings in my life began to radically change over time. It didn’t happen overnight, but I was willing to turn off the voices in my head from my upbringing, and instead take God at His Word. At first it was downright strange to stop doing certain spiritual habits — almost like going to bed without brushing my teeth (just the thought makes my skin crawl!). But I knew in my heart that I had just been following a routine and going through the motions to check things off my list like prayer and quiet time. And then, little by little, as I asked God daily to teach me how to delight in Him, to replace the desires of my heart with His, and to empower me to love Him above all else, He was faithful to create within me a longing like I had never known to spend time with Him. No longer did I have to set a calendar reminder to read the Word. Just like physical hunger, the Holy Spirit was literally changing my nature to crave time with God.

This is the essence of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 11:28-30 when He said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The oxen analogy is so brilliant because He’s telling us that while it does take effort to live our lives for Him, when we are surrendered to the Spirit, as illustrated by a farmer driving his team in the fields, the work brings with it a deep satisfaction we would never find on our own. When we go out to plow the fields of life by ourselves without being tethered to a team driven by the Shepherd, everything will seem harder. Through our hard work, our longings may be temporarily satiated, but the deepest desires of our hearts will never go away. We will always crave something more, something bigger, something different. This is why it is fruitless to do good just for good’s sake. One of the most difficult concepts for people in Western culture to grasp is that we were created to be happy, contented, joyful and satisfied. It is not only okay to desire to feel that way, but it is commanded and encouraged by God. “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4)

Most of us, however, have a hard time separating the concept of pleasure as a goal from the twisted and contaminated version associated with sinful behaviors and selfish desires. And because it’s counter-cultural to the way most of us were raised, it’s too uncomfortable or difficult to ponder what it might mean to live our lives pursuing the pleasure of God. Even worse, we don’t really believe in our deepest places that the enjoyment of God can hold a candle to the pleasures of indulgence, wealth, fame, or any other worldly or physical pursuits. That’s because all of the pleasures we typically experience reward us in a way that makes us feel better in some way fairly quickly — if not instantaneously. The pleasures of God, however, take much more time to cultivate and our lack of belief, patience and endurance often get in the way before we ever see them come to fruition.

John Piper put it this way: “Christian joy is a good feeling in the soul, produced by the Holy Spirit, as He causes us to see the beauty of Christ in the Word and in the world.” He goes on to explain that delighting in God, which produces real joy and pleasure, is indeed an emotional response we cannot control as the Holy Spirit makes us into a new creation over time. It is true that faith is not a feeling, but the pleasure that comes from our faith is. We cannot fabricate this emotion, nor can we force it — it is supernatural. And it is amazing. It’s worth whatever it takes to experience it. And that’s the beautiful truth of our partnership with God: we commit our hearts to love Him above all else, and He does all the work to make us truly happy about that decision.

If you’re curious to study more about finding pleasure in pursuing God, check out John Piper’s six-part video series on Philippians entitled: Jesus and the Journey to Joy.
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