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Read more about the article Manna for the Moment

Manna for the Moment

  It's safe to say we're all worn a little thin these days. As Bilbo Baggins said, "Like butter scraped over too much bread." Sometimes it's just because we're looking down the road and we see all that's ahead. We're at the beginning of diagnosis. Getting our kids to college feels daunting. We wonder how we'll keep our heads above water with all the work we have to do. Sometimes life comes at us hard. We're reminded of our frailty, of how little we can actually control in our lives, or in the world. I felt that way a few weeks ago, burdened by the weight of a situation in my life. I realized the anxiety I felt was because I wanted the grace, not just for this moment, but for all the moments. Looking ahead, I wanted all the grace for all that might happen in this area of my life. And God said, "I only give you manna for this moment." What Is Manna? Manna, the bread the Israelites were given as they wandered in the desert. The bread that literally made them say, "what is it?" I mean I'm not a foodie, but the thought of that same old same old every day for years sounds blech. And yet it sustained. It was enough. From the hands of a God who knew what they needed, it was just right. But it was daily provision. Not "store up for tomorrow" or "store up for when you really need it" provision. Manna for the moment. So when that anxiety tried to creep back in, I went to God to remind myself that I don't need now what I will need then. I only need Him to give me what I need for where I am right now. And a few hours later, still-manna for this moment. I thought of it again a week later when I stared ahead with anticipation to a new project I started at work. It was to start on a Thursday. I worried about it on Monday, and God said, "Are you doing this today?" "No." "So I will give you manna for today. And when we get to Thursday, I will be there too. I will give you the grace you need when we get there." Manna for Each Moment It's such an invitation into trust that not only will God be there but His grace will be too. It doesn't run out. His storehouses don't empty. We don't have to store up out of fear that we will lack later. Perfect provision for the place where we are. But gosh, it's hard, this moment-by-moment dependence. It keeps us close to our need, aware of our lack. But it's also this amazing opportunity to turn our eyes off our weakness and onto His strength, His sufficiency. Whatever circumstance we're in today, God will give us the grace we need. Not for what comes tomorrow. Just for what we see today. Because then tomorrow we…

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Read more about the article Training Our Eyes to See the Good
Photo by Andrew Ly on Unsplash

Training Our Eyes to See the Good

  Have you ever played a game driving where you look for a certain color car? Like you say, "Let's count all the blue cars." (this may or may not be something only parents trying to entertain young children can relate to). When you start looking, suddenly they're all you see. Try it. Choose a color, and look for it around you. You notice it where you didn't realize it was before. It's everywhere, right? I've realized gratitude works the same way. The Practice of Gratitude As we come upon Thanksgiving, I wonder if we are struggling to find things to be grateful for. It's been a wild year. It would be so easy to focus on the negative, on what we lack, on what we've missed. And gratitude is something we often do when we feel like it, or when it's expected. Like after the giving of a gift, or when someone lends a helping hand. (Are people giving gifts right now? Anybody helping someone else in person?) It's not something we always think to do. But I'm also learning that gratitude is something we have to practice. It has to become a liturgy in our lives, something that flows out of us like breath. And when we do, when we start looking for the good in our lives, we start to see it. We're training our eyes to see God at work. It's not that He hasn't been there all along. We just weren't seeing it. This fall our pastor led us through the book of Ruth. There's a point in the story where the author says, "she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz." It got us talking about this phrase, "It so happened." We say it sometimes. But really, does anything just so happen?  Those "it so happened" moments are God. We need to train our eyes to recognize that fact. Training Our Eyes to See the Good So when we make a habit of saying "thank you, Jesus," about the good gifts in our lives, we begin to see that He is at work all around us. We recognize that those "it so happened" moments didn't just so happen. God never stops doing good to us. For me, it helps to start at a granular level. I have breath in my lungs today. There's a roof over my head. I have clothes on my back and food in my belly. Every one of those things is a gift of grace I did not earn or deserve. When we start there, we see good everywhere. We see it in a timely text from a friend, a blessedly cooler day here in central Florida (it's November for Pete's sake!), in satisfying work. It's our kid getting through another day of online classes, a moment of feeling normal in the middle of a pandemic, seeing a familiar face on a call. There's so much we take for granted every day, so many ways…

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Read more about the article Cancel Culture and the Gospel

Cancel Culture and the Gospel

  These days, as I said in my last post, I avoid social media most of the time. It's just not good for my soul. Every once in a while though I will jump on Twitter and see what's trending. All too often, I see a hashtag that includes the word, "cancel." We like to cancel people these days. More often than not, it's a comment or an action from that person that offends in some way. Sometimes it's justified-we need to call out wrong behavior. But more often than not, it seems, it's something that person simply didn't think through well enough before it happened; if they had, they might have refrained. Worse yet, maybe it happened years ago. Decades ago, even. Back when their brains weren't fully developed, or before they carried the cultural gravitas they have now. Back when they were unknown, or before they changed their mind on an issue (yes, we can change our minds and our behavior). Certainly, before everyone's every movement could be documented and displayed for the world to see. But too late! It doesn't matter when or why, it's in the world now, and enough to make a blanket judgment about you. You are voted off the island, eliminated from the crowd, erased from existence. And not only you, but anyone associated with you. I'm all for holding people accountable for their words and actions. There's a growing recognition that much of what happens in our society has been and continues to be damaging to many. That must change. On certain issues, we cannot remain silent or we add to the problem. But this idea that we will cancel someone because of one moment-this I cannot reconcile with the gospel. Cancel Culture in the Bible Cancel culture paints the world in black and white. You are good or bad, weighed on a scale. You tip out of favor with one wrong move, and there's no coming back from it. The gavel has come down and you are irreversibly in the "bad" category. The good/bad split doesn't account for the reality that we are complex people, capable of great blessing and harm, each of us. It doesn't account for redemption. It doesn't recognize the gospel. I think of Zaccheus. There's a man we would cancel today. He betrayed his own people in his job as a tax collector. The woman caught in adultery? Canceled. Peter denying Jesus three times? Canceled. When we don't have the lens of the gospel, it makes sense that we would cancel. We create our own moral code, a tenuous assumption of goodness until we prove otherwise. The world waits with its scarlet C, ready to judge. The Gospel of Grace But the gospel says there is redemption. There is hope for those who fail. Grace for the fallen. New life after the wrong-doing. It says our goodness isn't measured on a scale, that forgiveness is possible, and change can happen. The gospel says there is no one…

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Living in Reality

  "You don't get to decide reality. You just get to enter it." That's a phrase a friend of mine shared years ago, and it changed my life. Reality is what is true. It's true whether or not we believe it to be true, whether or not we want it to be true. It just is. How We Respond to Reality I think of this a lot, as I see people choosing the parts of our current reality they want to embrace. Not all of it-just what fits the picture we want to hold onto. Some of us prefer optimism-let's find the silver linings and look on the bright side. There's a benefit to that, but not when it's delusional. Not when it turns a blind eye on the plight of the less fortunate. Some focus on the gravity of the situation, with just cause. We can't look away from the reality of the pain this is causing so many, including ourselves. We can't avoid the hard truths, but in doing so sometimes we miss the good that is happening. Sometimes it's not optimism or pessimism that keeps us from reality. It's just willful ignorance. A stubborn refusal to name what is real. Like an athlete who says, "No, I'm good to play" when they are obviously injured. This reality isn't one that any of us would have chosen, but it what we have. We don't get to decide if we want it, but we do have the opportunity to enter it with Jesus at our side. My friend Iris recently said, "Jesus will not meet us in fantasyland. We meet Jesus at the foot of the cross in reality." Our current reality is rough. Each morning I wake up and wonder if maybe this pandemic is a nightmare we can shake off. We can't. So if we can't shake it off, how do we enter it? How Do We Enter Reality We enter it honestly, confessionally. As with any trial, we are being stirred. This situation shows us where our idols are-where we hold too tightly to comfort, security, control, success, peace. So as we recognize them, we confess them. We agree with God about the hold they have on us. We speak honestly about our emotions. So many are stirred in us in situations like this-anxiety, grief, anger, frustration, discouragement. God wants our unedited hearts. He can handle them. We speak the reality of how we feel, knowing that He will sift through it and bring us to His version of what is happening. We don't pretend that things are better than they are. Nor do we take God out of the equation and predict despair. We look suffering in the face and see God standing with us in it, holding us, comforting us. The more we are willing to enter suffering, the more we can minister to others in it. We enter it knowing that while we are all in this together, we are experiencing different realities.…

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Leaning into Mystery

  Last summer at a spiritual retreat, the question was posed, "How do you feel about the idea of mystery?" The woman next to me took the words out of my mouth, "I like the idea of mystery, just not as it applies to me." I'll have what she's having. While there's something about mystery that intrigues and invites us, leaning into mystery can be frightening. It's unknown, unpredictable and uncontrollable. And God is mysterious. Pondering the idea that there is so much about Him that is beyond our comprehension, that He is a being unbound by our limitations, is exciting. It's an invitation to experience awe, wonder, the miraculous. That's what I like about the idea of mystery. It's humbling in a way that frees us. We don't have to know everything-we can trust what is simply beyond us. But leaning into that means letting go of whatever modicum of control we might think we have. It calls us to surrender to something we can't grasp, something greater than we can imagine. We have to submit to a God whose ways are often unpredictable and incomprehensible. We cannot shape Him in our own image anymore. My friend Catherine McNeil, in her new book, All Shall Be Well, says, "We're dying to leave the mystery behind for an idol, to form God, life, and the future into something that makes sense . . . sometimes we just can't handle the wildness of it all." Like I said, less appealing when it applies to my own life. But everything about God screams mystery. He says Himself that His ways and thoughts are so much higher than ours. Would any of us have written the redemption story the way He has? Would we lead people to wander in a desert for 40 years or make predictions of a Messiah 400 years before His birth, or send that promise in the form of an infant? But think of what all that mysterious work has given us. Would I substitute my salvation for a knowable, predictable god who does exactly what I ask? When I balk at mystery, what I think I'm really doing is thinking somehow that my version of the story would be better. It never is. Leaning into mystery is contingent on a dogged faith in the love of God for us. To believe that, as C.S. Lewis said with regard to his Christ figure Aslan, "Of course he isn't safe. But he is good." I can have a safe God or a good one. I will not allow myself to be caught up in mystery if I'm not convinced that the Mystery is relentlessly committed to loving goodness toward me. 2019 was a mysterious year in many ways. I didn't understand what God was doing with my health. I wondered how this book would turn out in the end. We waited on answers to prayer, wondering what on earth He would do. How easy it is to want to grasp…

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One Hurdle at a Time

  Publishing a book is a daunting process. It's a little like running hurdles. You keep running the race, and then along the way, there are tasks that ask more of you. Each hurdle requires a measure of courage, grit, and humility. Any one of them has the potential for failure or rejection. It seems the further we go in any endeavor, the more hurdles we face. The challenges get greater. They ask more of us than we may think we can offer. While it can be exhilarating to pass one and realized, "I made it!" the journey itself can be tiring and anxiety-producing. I had one of those hurdles earlier in the process. My marketing director (how did I get a marketing director?) called to talk about my launch team. Big hurdle. So I prayed. A lot. I prayed that I wouldn't feel overwhelmed. I prayed I wouldn't feel behind. Walking into that phone call I knew I needed to remember Whose I am and how much He is with me and for me, no matter what. And I wasn't alone. I asked others to pray for me too. They too prayed that God would give me what I needed to jump that next hurdle. And you know what? It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, thanks to God and others. I felt their strength and encouragement (and it helps that my marketing director is a great person who is for me). Crossing Each Hurdle When the temptation to be overwhelmed arises, I have to stop and do a little soul work. I acknowledge the lies that are creeping in-that I have to prove myself, that people are watching and waiting for me to mess up, that I am alone in this. Then I feed my soul the truth of who I am, and remind myself that this is for His glory, not mine. I look at my day and say, "God, what do you have for me to do today? Will you give me what I need to do it?" I think this is what Jesus meant when he talked about daily bread. And not worrying about tomorrow. Casting all your cares. Taking up your cross daily and following Him. That the truth will set us free. This is where the rubber meets the road. While it's tempting to look ahead and see the whole race, I'm reminded that He gives us just enough for today. For this hurdle. This thing that feels like it's more than we can do, He walks with us. He strengthens. A New Year of Hurdles As we venture into this new year, there will be hurdles. There will be things that ask more of us than we think we have. More of us than we do have. Thank God we don't have to do it alone. May this be a year of daily, peace-filled dependence on the One who gives us manna. May we stay close enough that we feel…

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Rest for the Sake of Others

  This spring I began a program of spiritual formation through The Transforming Center. "Formed to the image of Christ for the sake of others" is the phrase guiding this process. It's that last phrase, "for the sake of others" that keeps running through my mind. Who we are and what we do is not in isolation. There is power in how we live to impact those around us. Take rest, for example. I have always been someone with a high capacity for activity. I'm ambitious. I often bite off more than I can chew. For the longest time, I was unaware of the impact that pace had on me, to the point of outright denial. It's like the popular meme I've seen lately, something like this: Me: Why do I keep getting tension headaches? My body: because you're doing too much. Me: And why are my shoulders so tight? My body: Because you're doing too much. Me: I wish I knew why I got these stomach aches. My body: Please for the love of God, slow down. Me: I guess we'll never know . . . Only in my case, it wasn't just my body telling me. It was my doctor, my dentist, my chiropractor, my friends, my family. I used to think I could just tweak some things-plan a little better, delegate more, stay in front of the ball. But after a while, I realized I was being unkind to myself. So I started slowing down. Leaving more margin. Talking to the little monsters in me that drive me to perform. Giving them permission to stop. Breathing more deeply. It's been good. Yet, at the end of the day, I'm still tempted to push through busy days. One more task checked off. A little more productivity to get me ahead. The resistance to rest is never far off. For the Sake of Others Except now, when this phrase keeps resonating in my head, "for the sake of others." And I realize that while I might be able to power through, I have to ask what it does to those around me. Am I the person I want to be for them when I am strained to my limits? What does it communicate to them about how they ought to live? Does this pace form me to the image of Christ? I never want others to look at me and think, "I can't keep up." I want to live my life at a restful pace and to invite others to it as well. May they never feel under the pile by the pace I set. One morning recently, I woke up early because my body is physically incapable of sleeping past 6 am at the latest. My first thought was, "Hey, church starts later today. I could work for an hour." And then in my Facebook memories, I found this quote from my friend Ken Cochrum: "I feel it when I am not hurried to finish a conversation, a…

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Finding God in the Wilderness

  In March, I spoke at a women's conference about finding God in unexpected journeys. I talked about the Israelites as they left Egypt (when a season isn't the good you expected), wandered in the wilderness (when God makes you wait and you don't know why), and experienced the promised land (when life is just the way you want it to be). Last fall, when I was writing these talks, I was living in a pretty good season. I resonated with the promised land experience. And then God invited me back into the wilderness. Suddenly, I need to listen to my own words. Finding Myself in the Wilderness I warned the retreat attendees about this: our real promised land is ahead. God doesn't leave us long in those seasons. He has more for us to learn. Hence, the journey back into the wild. See, for most of 2019 so far, I've experienced bouts of dizziness and headaches that at times have been debilitating. At the least, they are rarely completely gone (thanks for nothing, new year). Finally, after an MRI (thankfully clear) and a trip to the neurologist, I was diagnosed with basilar migraines, a diagnosis that still leaves me skeptical, but at least gives me some direction. It's been a strange season to walk through. It's hard not knowing how I will feel from day to day, how long it will last. I've wondered what He is doing, what He wants to teach me through this. Like the Israelites, once I realized I was back in the wilderness, I started asking God for the shortest way out. Sure, You can teach me something, but could you make it fast? And easy? It's hard to be in a place where we realize we aren't the ones in control. The wilderness is tiring, humbling, and at times confusing. A friend of mine put it recently, "God has you in a fog." Indeed. I don't know about you, but I can't see well in the fog. Yet as I said at the retreat (curse my words coming back to haunt me!) we can find God in the wilderness, no matter how foggy it is. Better yet, He can see through the fog. He knows the way out of this wilderness. So I'm looking for God in all of this. And I'm finding Him. Finding God in the Wilderness He is using this season to slow me down even more (I swear pretty soon I'll be going backward). As much as I hate doing less, He reassures me that it doesn't diminish me. Prayers I have prayed are being answered through this (be careful what you pray for!). In my hardest moments, I have heard His voice speak tenderly and consistently to me words of comfort and invitation. He has felt closer than ever. Friends have stepped in and wrapped my weakness, fears, and grief with love and care, and in the process taught me more how to let others care for me…

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Leaving Our Kingdoms Behind

  I heard once that Jesus talks about the kingdom of God more than anything else. More than love, or the resurrection, or peace. Why? Recently, my mind has been fixed on the kingdom. Or rather, my kingdom vs The Kingdom. I know that there exists a kingdom of my own making. You have one too. It's in our nature, to build a world for ourselves, to find what Buechner calls, "our place in the sun." I also know that we need to leave our kingdoms behind. I've been in a slow process of doing so for many years. God started it. He always does. We aren't meant to live in our own self-made domains. He loves us too much to let us live there. But what do I mean by this kingdom creating? I mean the systems we create to provide for ourselves, to protect us from pain, to find love and belonging. Our kingdoms have rules and values, ways of operating. And unfortunately, they usually run counter to the uppercase Kingdom. That's where we get in trouble. The Trouble With Our Kingdoms See, in Gina's kingdom, I take care of myself. I do a pretty good job of taking care of others too. I perform to, or even exceed, the expectations of others. My reward is admiration and recognition, which kind of feels like love. If you bump up against my kingdom, you might feel the pressure to live up to those expectations too. If I'm too wrapped up in my world, it might be hard for me to notice if you're doing ok-after all, I don't expect others to pay attention to my emotional well-being either. But in God's Kingdom, there's no taking care of self, because it is prideful.  There, perfect love drives out the fear that He won't show up for me. In His way of living, there is no striving, only resting, when it comes to finding worth. There aren't expectations on performance, just a hope that we will live gladly and purposefully in light of His love. The troubles we encounter in life often center around the places where we expect others, including God, to live by our kingdom rules. If the banner of my little self-made land is performance, but your world is focused on everyone being positive and having fun, and someone else's dominion is ruled by order and perfection, and on and on, well, you can see where we might all have trouble living in peace with one another. Because deep down, we all think our dominion is the right one and the best one. After a while, they aren't kingdoms anymore: they're prisons. And our kingdoms need to crumble. Letting Our Kingdoms Crumble Jesus talked about the Kingdom so much because He knew we would try to make our own, and they would be lousy places to live. He knew we would resist living in that true place He offers, so He wanted to give us a solid picture of…

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God’s Long Term Growth Project

  When I was about 20 years old, I thought, "I feel like God's done a lot in me. I don't know that there's much else He wants to change. I think I'm pretty much done." Like for REAL, I thought this. And the Lord, in His mercy, chose not to strike me down. Decades later (has it really been decades?), I am more than aware that I was not done then, and I'm still far from it now. God continues His work in me. If you've read my blog for a while, you might remember my yellow coffee table. When we first had it custom made overseas, it came to us traffic sign yellow (not what I ordered). Some might have looked at that table and said, "Good enough." But I believed under all that eye-blinding yellow, my real coffee table existed. So I sanded it down. Better. Three months later, I sanded it down again. Still not quite there though. So, a few months later, I tried again. When my daughter witnessed me doing it, she asked me why. "Because this is what I do now. This is my life. I sand this table for a living." Actually, I did it because I had a vision of something greater. (Truth be told, in the end, I stripped it completely. It's white now. Sometimes we need a complete overhaul). The whole process causes me to think about the process of growth in our lives. It's easy to look at the surface and think, "Yep. Good enough!" But God has a bigger vision for us. God's Bigger Vision for Our Growth That vision involves a lot of stripping and sanding and polishing to get to what is underneath. He knows our layers, what lies beneath, where the real stuff is. He won't stop until He is satisfied that we are the way we are meant to be. It's a long process. Tiring. Baffling. So often I want say, "Good enough, God. This is good enough. No need to keep working." But He does. And what it's reminding me today is that He is faithful. He will never stop working on us, bringing us closer to Him, molding us in His image. His ways are higher and bigger and better than what I can see. He sees what lies beneath, the layers of our hearts that even we don't know. He is determined to reveal every part of us. God is relentless. He never gives up on us. He doesn't settle for "good enough" or "close enough." What He began in us He will complete. And He is patient. However long it takes, however much it takes, He will fulfill His promises to us and in us. We are his long term project. "He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus." Related posts: Seeing the Growth Redeemed . . . or DIYing Again

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