faith

Why Christmas Reminds Me to Hope in God

I hate waiting. That’s why I have Amazon Prime. ‘Tis the season of waiting. We wait in lines, for packages to arrive, for family, friends, parties, planes. In the Bible, the word wait is often translated hope. They are intertwined. We must wait for the objects of our hope. Hope feels deeper. We don’t just hope for that gift we want for Christmas. We hope for marriage, children, jobs, for needs satisfied. Wrapped up in our hope is expectation. We have ideas of how we want our hopes realized. And when we are asking God to step into our hope and meet it, we put those expectations on Him. What does it look like to hope in God? We place our fragile hopes in His hands, but too often the waiting is long, the expectations unmet. We fear disappointment. Sometimes it’s easier not to hope. The Israelites knew a little about waiting. They waited in slavery, in exile, for the Promised Land, for a Messiah. In their waiting, they hoped. Their expectations grew. They longed for a leader, a savior, one who would protect them from their enemies and carry them to victory. For hundreds of years, they waited and hoped and expected rescue. And then Jesus came, and He wasn’t anything they expected. But when I look at His birth, I’m reminded why God is worthy of our hope. In Christmas I see that: God keeps His promises Jesus fulfilled every prophecy about the Messiah. “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him, the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians 1:20 He has promised us so much – that He will never leave us, He will work all things for good, He will give us abundant life. We can hang our hope on His promises. He meets our deepest needs Four men lowered their paralyzed friend through a roof, but instead of healing his body, Jesus forgave his sins (and then healed him). The Israelites thought they needed a leader; God knew they needed a redeemer. We think we know what we want, but God wants to give us what we may not even know we need. Christ’s birth reminds me that not only does He knows my needs, He can also meet them. His ways are not our ways The Israelites probably would not have chosen an unwed, teenage mother or a poor carpenter to parent the ruler of the universe, or have made Him a Nazarene. So many of the chapters of my life I would not have written the way God did, but looking back, they are so good. We stumble the most when we hold too tightly to the ways we think God should answer our prayers. Like the Jewish people, we might miss His answers entirely. He loves us more than life One of my favorite songs a few years ago was "Touch the Sky," by Hillsong United. It…

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Freedom – guest post at Mudroom

It was in that Bible study that I realized I was not free. We were eight couples, all of us fresh into our time as expats in Singapore, struggling to find our footing in what we jokingly called “Fantasy Island.” That group was a lifeline in the midst of our turbulent transition to a new country, yet I often walked away from times with them feeling insecure and unsettled. Why? Read the rest of the story at The Mudroom blog, where I'm guest posting this week.

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Living a Better Story

When I look at this next month, I'm tempted to think, "How am I going to get through this?" My fallback is, "With a lot of caffeine and chocolate," but there's probably a better option. This is my point of need, and it is a good place. When life feels overwhelming, when the waves are just a little higher than I'm comfortable, and the current is strong, it is tempting to switch into battle mode and just barrel through. The problem with that style is that I tend to leave people in my wake. I get short with my family. I am not present with people. My body responds physically to the stress of swimming harder. My focus becomes "I just have to get through." I miss so much. This morning, as I stare down this week when I know that sitting will be a luxury, there probably won't be actual meals on the table, and if we looked at what we're spending in tolls we would cry rivers, I know I don't want the story to only be, "We made it." There's a better story I could write this week, because God is in the picture. All morning He has been reminding me that this week is an opportunity. This is my point of need, where He wants to show His power in my weakness. He wants to carry us. He wants to give us the strength and peace and patience and joy to do this week like it's the best week ever. It begins by laying down my own efforts. If my worries become prayers, my task list becomes my places of dependence. It can happen if I navigate this week by the power of His Spirit alive in me, and not by anything I bring to the table. If that's where I'm resting, then I can love my family. I can be present with people. I can breathe rest into my body. My focus can be, "Let's see what He can do with this week." I don't want to miss Him in it. We can write a story of dependence this week. We can write a chapter that says, "I can't do it, but He can." We can write love and joy and peace and glory, if we remember where to look for all we need. He is bigger than whatever I face this week, whatever you're facing. We don't have to live any differently in the deep waters than we do in the places where our feet can touch. We can live a better story. Related: Just Show Up  When You Just Have to Do One Day at a Time 

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Called to Do Today (And Just Today)

  I wake up in the morning and the world weighs down on me. There is so much to do. I have goals to accomplish, dreams to make happen and lives to shape. There's a future athletic trainer to develop and a hopeful rocket scientist to challenge. Before that they need to graduate and learn independence, to drive (Lord, have mercy) and get jobs. There are hearts to be molded and relationships to strengthen before they go. That's just in the house. Out there is a husband trying his very best to do what God calls him to do. Right now it's hard and discouraging. So there's a foxhole to hunker down in together while we do all the heart molding, relationship strengthening, independence building and future shaping. In the foxhole, there's cheerleading, listening, believing and praying that needs to happen. I love it, but it's a battle. There is a world of injustices I want to right. Hearts need awakening. Friends are in messy places and I want to sit there with them. Books and blog posts beg to be written. Speeches seek a voice. Coaching and leading and creating and loving call. It's all good and necessary, and I love it all more than life, which is why I want to see it done well so very much. Called to do today But as I walk this morning and lift my weary eyes to God, inquiring what to do about this heavy weight, He reminds me that we are only called to do today. Our energy needs to cover what is in this sunrise to sunset. He will direct and sustain it, and give us what we need for it. He sees the future them, the foxhole us, and the world of needs. He's got it all covered. So I take all that energy I thought needed to cover the next 10 years, and I know it is the portion He gives me for this. Not all it takes for all that I see in the future - just enough of what I need for today. My soul breathes a sigh of relief. The weight lifts because it was never mine to carry. It is His. He's got this. He's got us. We are called to do today. href="https://www.gcx.org/ginabutz/files/2015/08/calendar.jpg">   Related posts: Just Enough Light The Battle Belongs to Him  Get Quiet Enough to Listen

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Keep On Loving

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I am not one for espousing my political views on my blog. Truth be told, in part it is because I am afraid - I don't like arguments. It's also because I think most of the inflammatory topics discussed on the internet are painted too black and white, and are better left for discussion by rational beings in personal contact, rather than bold statements thrown out by faceless people. But today I feel compelled to say something. I've seen about a thousand articles in response to last week's decision regarding gay marriage. I've read some of them. I had no desire to add to the mix. But in my heart, as someone who does believe that gay marriage isn't something God designed, I have been unsettled. Unsettled because I don't know how best to respond. It feels sometimes like there are two camps: outrage or acceptance. I don't believe God wants us to pitch our tents in either. As I prayed about this issue last week, I asked God how He would like me to respond, and this is what I believe He said, "Keep doing what I've always called you to do: love. Love people well. Move toward them with grace and compassion and truth and respect. Keep believing that I am God and I deeply love people and want them to know that, regardless of how they live. Know that I am not dependent on governments to accomplish my purposes. I never have been. There are plenty of places where governments and societies are against Me, against you. I still work there, because I still love there, and I will not stop. In fact, it is often in those hard places that I am most glorified. So you keep believing that my love is good and that people need to hear about it. Nothing changes." At least that's how I heard it. So I will do it: keep on loving.

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Hope in a Broken World

  A friend's father loses his battle with cancer. News of an impending divorce. The unexpected death of a young man. Abusive words spoken and then rationalized as biblical. One after another, over the span of a week. Broken. We live in a broken world. I desperately don't want it to be. I want to have a world where fathers don't die so young, and people keep loving one another, and children stay with us and people bless and don't curse. I want families intact and relationships strong. I want safe, trusted, constant, faithful. But we live in a broken world. So I take this reality to God and say, "What do I do? How do I pray? How do I live in this?" And He reminds me that he promises to be close to the brokenhearted and to heal them and bind them up. He tells me that He weeps with us and endures with us and walks the hard roads with us, that His compassion is endless and overflowing and His mercy starts all over again every morning. He tells me to trust in this. So I say, "Come, Lord Jesus." Come into our brokenness. Come and be all that you promised to be so we have a solid place to stand in it. We live in brokenness but we are not without hope. My hope is not that the world will stop being broken, but that we will meet the lover of broken hearts in the midst of it. We will experience Him healing and binding us, bringing beauty from ashes, redeeming the darkness. We will cling to the hope that one day there will be no more brokenness, and every tear will be wiped away. All will be right. So we keep walking through the brokenness, not in defeat but in hope. Hope in the one who is close to the brokenhearted. "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God."  Psalm 43:5 Related Posts: Finding God Hard 

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Get Quiet Enough to Listen

Years ago, a speaker named Dave shared a story that stuck with me. He and his friend, Pete, worked for a logging company, the details of which are fuzzy to me, but it involved getting logs into a stream. On occasion, for fun, they rode the logs down the stream for a bit. One beautiful lazy day, they lingered on the logs a bit too long and realized they were in rough waters. So rough, in fact, they weren’t confident they could get to shore. Dave asked Pete what he was going to do. Pete, having been a swimmer in college, decided to try for shore. Dave saw that, even with his skill, it was a struggle. He thought, “What am I going to do? I can’t swim that well!” Meanwhile, the water became faster and more turbulent. Pete ran along shore, encouraging Dave to try to swim. Seeing the danger ahead, Dave made a break for it and paddled as hard as he could for shore. Despite swimming frantically, he got nowhere. Pete ran alongside, shouting at him, though the words were lost in the sounds of  frenetic splashing and raging water. Finally, Dave decided to give up. He could see the rapids ahead. He was a goner. Why fight it? So he went limp. At that moment, he finally heard Pete’s voice. Pete was shouting, “Stand up, Dave! Stand up!” So Dave stood up and walked to shore. Whenever I recall this story, I see myself. I see how I frantically try to work to get life in order, to get to solid ground, when all the while it is right there underneath me, if I would only rest in it. God, for some reason, chooses to speak to us in what Elijah experienced as the “gentle whisper.” We can’t hear it when we are scrambling on our own. This past month, everywhere I look I am reminded that I am someone who tries to overcome the uncertainties of life by grabbing them by the horns and wrestling them to the ground with all my strength. I fight to keep control over situations that are so beyond me, (the spiritual lives of our children, for example) as though if I just try harder I can conquer them. The result is a tense, overworked, overwhelmed soul who fails at being God. It's time I went limp. Anne Lamott says it well, “It helps to resign as the controller of your fate. All that energy we expend keeping things running right is not what keeps things running right.” God calls us to resign as God, because we are not good at it. He calls us to let go of our frantic ways and trust. Trust that He is our solid rock, our peace, our salvation, our guide. He will keep things running right. We just need to get quiet enough to hear Him. "In quietness and trust is your strength." Isaiah 30:15

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The Soul Needs

My husband traveled 4 out of the first six weeks of this year. I've built up some pretty strong "traveling husband" muscles over the years, but I have to admit it wore me down. I felt needy. I don't like to feel needy. Needy feels small and weak and helpless, which is scary. It feels vulnerable. What if no one wants to help me? What if they look down on me for my neediness? Needy gets a bad rap in our world. We glorify people who are strong, self-sufficient, wildly capable, not a "burden." We are impressed with them. You know who isn't? God. I have searched scripture, and never once have I found a verse where God says something to the effect of, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have managed to pull yourself up by your own boot straps and to rely on no one, not even Me! I'm proud of you for not asking anyone to step in and minister to you in your weakness. Enter your rest, you've earned it!" Which is such a bummer, because I'm really good at all of that. We tend to respond to tough situations by working harder, toughing it up, slogging through, as though God gives us tough circumstances to see how strong we can be. He doesn't. He wants to bring us to weakness. He wants us to own our neediness. Neediness doesn't mean we've failed. It means we're human. What always gets me about Jesus is his humanity. He got tired. Hungry. Lonely. Overwhelmed. He knew need. He knew hard. He calls us to own our humanity as He did. So I'm learning, in those needy times, to say it out loud. Not to complain about it, but to call it what it is. And to invite others in to walk with me. I've written about a lot of the needs of the soul, but the bottom line that we have to own is that the soul is needy. Period. The end. It looks different on different days, but the fact is: We have needy souls. It's how He made us. And the beauty of it is that we can answer each others' needs with love and grace. This is the gift we have in the fellowship of believers. [ictt-tweet-inline]Is your soul needy today? Bring it to Jesus. [/ictt-tweet-inline]Bring it to others. The soul needs. It's meant to need. And others are meant to meet it. "Carry each others' burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." Galatians 6:2 Related: Embracing Weakness

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Why We Should Fall More Often

“I don’t want to fall.” “I did it without falling!” “I can’t end the day on a fall!” These are the kinds of phrases that frequently came out of our kids’ mouths last week as we braved the ski hills of Vermont. To them, the goal is not to fall. In fact, a fall in their minds negates anything that came before it. Falling is ruinous. I confess, that’s often my main objective too. At the very least, I don’t want to fall when small children are deftly skiing past me. Or watching me from the chair lift. So I happily stay on the hills that boast "Slow. Ski Learning Area" signs. No shame. But when our focus is on not falling, something happens to us mentally. Fear increases. Enjoyment decreases. We take fewer risks. Stick to the smaller hills. We miss out. Our falls begin to define how we view the day, rather than being blips in an otherwise fun time. They tell us we have failed, rather than informing a better way to ski. I wish this problem stuck to the ski hills. Too often we take this stance in life. A fear of falling gives us tunnel vision. We don't want people to look, laugh, judge. We want to do it well every time. Looking at the risk causes us to pull back. We forget that we're still learning to do life, and that with bigger challenges comes bigger potential for mistakes, failure, and stumbling. Most of all, we forget that falling is actually a good sign. Falling means we're trying. It means we're going out of our comfort zones. We're braving the harder paths, forging new places where we're not sure. Falling is a natural part of learning to do anything - walking, running, biking, skiing, parenting, loving, writing, friendship, life. Falling is good because it is proof that we are living openly. So where do we need to risk falling today? "Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!" 2 Corinthians 6:11, The Message  Related posts: Do It Scared

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Word of the Year 2015

The other day, a friend of mine asked me how I did with my word of the year for 2014. Uh . . . ok so it started out well. I chose the word Abide, and I did think about it quite a bit for the first few months. After that, when it came to mind, it was usually in the form of imagining a hobbit house. Seriously. Because abide means to dwell and I feel like dwelling happens best in a little hobbit hole. I don't know why. Part of my downfall, if we can call it that (and I think we should) is that I did not have any practical ways to pursue my word, aside from painting a cool visual of it to put in my office closet. I don't how much it helped but it looked awesome. This year, I debated declaring anything at all. I thought about a few words, but what came to mind was a phrase. It might not be a surprise to you, if you read this previous post about my mint plant. No, my phrase is not mint plant, but "Keep your soul well." Keep Your Soul Well I haven't been able to stop thinking about this phrase since reading John Ortberg's book Soul Keeping. I can put so much energy into what is happening outside and around me, and neglect my soul. Our souls are needy. They need nurturing. They need feeding. And also truth, love, guidance, restoration, redemption. These needs take intentionality. So I have a few practices, habits, that I hope will keep this phrase fresh in my mind and active in my life. I'll probably post about them in days to come. Hopefully in weeks to come, as I plan to carry this one further into the year than last time. Of course, the first order of business is to create a cool visual. What about you? What's your word? Related posts: Word of the Year 2014: Abide Word of the Year 2013: Content

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