Help for a worry addict

November 8, 2024

Maria Meditation, Philippians 4, Prayer, Renewing, Sin, Thoughts, Trusting God , , , , , , 2 Comments

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Philippians 4:8 ESV

I’ve resolved to attack this sin of worry any way I can!

That is not a new decision, but one that dates decades back to when I became a Christian in my early twenties. Sadly, as motivated as I can be, I have easily slipped back into that well-worn groove of pondering and stewing over current situations and feeling bad.  Yes, despite having ‘given them over’ to Jesus.

You see, I simply forget that I am cutting a new path through the wilderness, this jungle of my thought life.

To help me, I realized yesterday that I should PRAY early in the day, asking the Holy Spirit to help me remember my true desire.

This morning, he brought a device to mind, a resource that  might just be what I can use to not forget my resolve to kill this sin.   

In his letter to the Philippians, who apparently were believers prone to worry like me, Paul offered a path for our thoughts after we have handed over to Jesus what weighs us down. It’s a verse I memorized some years back.

I excitedly turned to Philippians 4:8 thinking that just maybe there were seven topics offered on which I could focus my thoughts in lieu of stewing.  That would be cool if there were seven, the number of ‘completion’, allowing me continuously to cycle through one a day.

But there are eight. 

I googled, ‘significance of the number eight in the Bible’. And voilà, up popped this gem of an article spelling out the wonder of eight.

It turns out that eight communicates ‘a new beginning, order or creation’.  How cool is that!  The author relates at least 10 different places in the Bible where 8 is meaningful.  Mentioning just one of the early ones, eight people on the arc were saved out of the flood.  You should read the rest of examples in Scripture.  As a teaser, David was Jesse’s eighth and last son.

Do you remember how Paul exhorts us to be changed completely by renovating our minds, by changing our thought patterns?   The Bible declares that we are new creations. But just as we are considered forensically or legally righteous in Jesus since believers are covered by his blood, we still have to grow into what we are in practice.

Today, waiting in my physical therapist’s office for my time slot, I shunned my phone, choosing instead to use today’s Word, “true” and meditate.  I started to think through all that I knew to be true. I had time for about 15 facts before Phil called me back. Such truths as:

  • I have a Father
  • He created me on purpose
  • I have worth in his sight
  • He is sovereign over every detail of my life
  • He IS handling my needs and my requests

Not only do I need a daily focus, if I’m to direct my thoughts away from what I have handed over to the Lord, I want also to use the daily meditation focus as a way to sift my thoughts.

Here is how I see this filtering tool. From early this morning, I was armed and ready to clobber any thought threatening to sink me with the help of my shield. Before I let a potentially enemy though get close to me I was ready with a probe: Is that thought TRUE? 

I pray I can get practiced at remembering and challenging myself as I protect my new path of God-honoring thoughts. If you think of me or run into me in person, please feel free to ask me what my pondering focus for the day is.  Or call me out on a comment I make that dishonors, condemns, or isn’t true, lovely, right or praiseworthy.   

“What a cacophony of negative thoughts! Just how many of YOU ALL are there running through my head?”

June 6, 2024

Maria God's gifts, Meditation, Prayer, Thankfulness, Thanksgiving, Thinking , , , , 1 Comment

Something I read in Oswald Chambers the other morning (4 June) struck a chord.  “Am I simply repeating what God says, or am I learning to truly hear him and then to respond after I have heard what he says.”  What the Holy Spirit did with his words is pull back the curtain to show me how many fleeting, but negative notions circulate daily in my mind.  His revelation to me doesn’t directly connect with Oswald’s quote, but it’s what Jesus directed me to examine.

Holy cow!  I really do look at or evaluate my life as a glass half empty. You wouldn’t pick that up about me, for I present as an upbeat, positive encouraging gal. Even my husband registered surprise when I told him. 

Two of these running, disparaging and negative ‘tapes’ that I choose to play over and over are: 

  • We don’t have as many friends as most people…. or

We should do more with friends…. or Are we engaging enough with friends?

  • We don’t grandparent as well as others…. or What can we do to stay more in touch with our grandkids…. or What plans can we make right now to be with our grandkids?

With that God-directed realization of bad thinking, I asked Jesus’ forgiveness for declaring (even if just in my mind) and meditating on what is false, what is not true.

In reality, if I’m being objective, Mike and I actually DO have lots of friends and stay in contact with them. In fact we are traveling to England this summer specifically to see and be with friends.  And as far as our 6 grandchildren who don’t live near us, we DO see them when we can.  We DO keep in touch with them. We DO pray for them and let them know that.

What do you do when you find yourself consistently ruminating on negative and probably false thoughts? How do you escape? Because if we don’t do anything, we simply live in that dark place.

As I reflected on Oswald’s words, especially the second half “… am I learning to truly hear him and then to respond after I have heard what he says?”, the idea to thank Jesus for the friends and grandkids he has given us struck me.

Sitting out on our back patio, with the crowded birdfeeder busy with God’s hungry creation, birds and squirrels, I started a stream of thanksgiving. It was easy.  Immediately I felt lighter and my mood lifted.

That was a lightbulb moment, for sure.  All I had to do was switch the perspective. Actually, say the opposite. I found it easy to add on numerous other gifts the Lord has offered me.  

Here’s another example. Sometimes I feel squeezed and downhearted thinking about all the tasks I have self-assigned. So, I started thanking God for the time he has given me as well as other blessings:

I’m retired. I have the freedom to plan my days. I GET to grocery shop weekday mornings.  I GET to clean house with Mike on a weekday, instead of weekends. I GET to maintain contact with the many friends I have.  I GET to practice my languages and meet new people.

Over the past 3 days, I have turned my resolution to ‘take every thought captive’ into a prayer. “Father, help me to NOTICE persistent negative thought patterns so I can declare the exact opposite and turn them into thanksgivings.”

So far, this is working.  At the gym this morning, I caught myself stewing about ‘grandkids’.  And by grace, I was able to immediately turn that around and thank God FOR these precious children.

I know it’s going to take some time and much practice to create new grooves in my brain. But it’s never too late. And the immediate relief I get from thanking our good Father is reward enough for now.

How do you meditate and what affect does it have on you?

October 12, 2023

Maria Fear of the Lord, Meditation, Psalm 112, Psalm 119, Uncategorized , , 1 Comment

I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. Psalm 119:15 ESV

The other day a fragment of scripture came to me, ‘he is not afraid of bad news’. That’s the kind of gal I want to become, for sure! I don’t want the dread of something that might happen gloom up my day.  Curious, I searched and found that description in Psalm 112.

When I read the entire psalm I thought, ‘there’s so much other goodness packed into this small testimony of a godly person! I don’t want to gloss over rich promises, isolating just one part.’ So, I decided to meditate on the Psalm. Slowly. A bit each day.

Here is how that practice has helped me so far, on Day 4.

With the help of my Blue Letter Bible app which opens up all the possible Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic meanings and other verses containing the term. I rewrote verse 1, for me.

First, here is an authorized translation:

Praise the LORD! Blessed is a person who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in His commandments. Psalm 112:1 NASB

When and why do I rewrite a verse? If the particular wording doesn’t connect with me, I go to the original language and attempt to find a different translation for each term, one that connects with my heart.  Seeing a word or phrase used in other contexts amplifies the possibilities and gives me a way into God’s truth.  You probably do this yourself, maybe out loud, when you pray, spring boarding off of a scripture.  I find my vision is illuminated through writing.

Here’s what I wrote on Day 1:

God, you’re amazing! How happy is the one who lives in awe of you, fascinated and drawn in every way to your BIGness, your MUCHness.  Because he magnifies you and remains mindful of who you are compared to him, he loves to read, study and think about all your words.  

Translating it into Maria’s version meant that it stayed front and center throughout the day.  There was an immediate application later that evening when I did something without thinking and hurt Mike. I had assumed he felt a certain way about a matter, because of an early event.  So, when the matter came up again, I led with my assumption.  In hindsight, I realized I should have asked him first.  Sure enough, I found out afterwards when he expressed hurt that my assumption had been incorrect.

You might say, ‘Well, that happens to all of us, don’t make such a big deal about it. You learned something useful.’ True enough, but I have gotten really good at replaying a script and beating myself up for it, creating Shame Stew.

Thanks be to the Holy Spirit, who brought to mind my version of Psalm 112:1! I quickly saw that I was meditating on the wrong matter!  Shifting my thoughts back to God brought relief. I talked to myself, saying ‘Let me magnify the Lord who is SO much bigger than any created thing or event’.  You know as well as I that no peace is to be found in ‘delighting’ in practicing worry or self-shaming.

So, that was that day.  What happened in the following days?  Each morning, I have rewritten the initial verse and then added the succeeding one.  Today I rewrote verse 4 for me.  Afterwards, I saw something even bigger than what was in the day’s words.

I realized how all the other verses hinge on this initial one, right there in the beginning. It’s a principle, a key to contentment and joy in the midst of a world that reels from one evil to the next. When focus on God and drink from his character and his wonders, both past, present and promised, we feel better. A kind of settled calm settles on us.  That NEVER happens when I rehearse possible solutions to a problem or fantasize in how bad something could get.  

Writing and rewriting have the effect of slowing me down. But you might not have that kind of time, depending on the stage of life God has you, or your present circumstances.  But you DO have enough time to take one verse each day and chew on it, roll it around in your mind, discuss it with a family member, a roommate or a friend.  You could text it to someone else and ask, ‘How does this intersect your life, right where you are this morning with all that is going on in your day?’

I remind myself, ‘Maria, you DO have the power, through the Holy Spirit to change our thoughts.’ It just takes some initial effort. We’re lazy and we have an enemy who rather distract us with something ‘pressing’. Anything to keep us from pondering eternal truths.

Personalize scripture by rewriting it for yourself

September 2, 2023

Maria Meditation, Psalm 32 , Leave a comment

For me to meditate on scripture, I have to write it out in words I can understand. But lest you think I just make up words, I don’t.  I use the website, Blue Letter Bible.  There, I can see the Hebrew and the Greek (or Aramaic) words with their multiple shades of meaning.  Furthermore, I can check out where a term is used elsewhere in Scripture.  This app/website is rich in resources and I consult it daily.

To give you an example, here is how I personalized the following 4 verses from Psalm 32 this morning.  First, the original NIV translation:

You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble

and surround me with songs of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you. Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him. Psalm 32: 7-10 NIV

After reading the verses, I spent some time investigating the different ways certain terms have been used, and where they pop up in other verses.  Next, I addressed myself, writing advice to Maria based on what I found in this segment of the psalm, but not in the order each verse appeared.

Verse 9:  Maria, don’t be like an unruly mule who must be controlled by the rider.

Verse 8: Choose, instead, to stay aware of and close by to Jesus, as near as possible so you can hear his instructions and catch his eyes that go along with his words.

Verse 10:  Why? For your protection and security and sense of well-being. For it is FACT that steadfast love surrounds those who position themselves close to the Lord. Not only does he want you that near, he actually walks about you.  All those who trust him, he guards with that attentiveness, giving them direction. You, Maria, little sheep that you are, this includes you, for you have learned to position yourself near your Teacher.

Then from verse 9, I responded to all this good news by writing TO the Lord:

Thank you, that you walk about me. I know full well that you are my refuge in times of trouble. And as you encircle me you shout and cry out words of deliverance. I can hear your voice in my mind’s ear.

How long does this take?  Not long at all.  I probably spent a good 10 minutes this morning pulling out some riches from these verses.  My particular way of digesting them is to write what I see.  You’ll also notice that there were some verse segments I didn’t even address.  This morning, what I most needed was assurance and comfort of the Lord’s nearness.

For me, this is both fun to do and deeply satisfying. But don’t worry if you are not a writer or a journal scribbler. I can also imagine someone simply doing this out loud. No need to pick up pen and paper.  I just find it easier to process through the writing process. Whatever causes us to slow down to savor the promises, will enrich us.

Fighting fear, one breath at a time

August 25, 2022

Maria Fear, Gratitude, Job 27, John 20, Meditation, Trusting God, Worries , , , 1 Comment

As long as my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils…Job 27:3 ESV

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” John 20:22 ESV

Fear, discouragement and shame are Satan’s weapons of choice because they usually work. We look around us, take in our circumstances and listen to Satan’s false interpretation of events. For good reason he’s called the liar, the deceiver.

Over the past weekend, Mike and I retreated to a cabin in the woods of North Georgia.  We spent four days resting, restoring, reflecting and hiking.

Thanks to our newish daily practice of using biblical apps to meditate on God, I’m beginning to notice more often each individual breath I take in. This growing morning routine of observing my intake of oxygen causes me to know that at that moment, all I need, all my body has to have is this next breath.  And the Lord is providing it.  I am 100 % dependent on him. He alone will decide when I no longer need that physical sustenance.

The secular world has used meditation and mindfulness for years. What is different for us as Christ-followers, that is those who aspire consciously to abide in union with Jesus, is that we use Scripture as the content for guided meditations.

A few days before our trip, the speaker in the Encounter app Mike and I use mentioned that each breath is a gift from God who knows just what our body needs, moment by moment. As obvious as it sounds, I had never consciously connected God with each inhale.  Most of the time, I breathe without thinking.

While section hiking the Appalachian Trail with Mike, God gave me plenty of time to pull back from fear.  When the trail became less steep, my mind would wander forward into the coming days.  All of a sudden, the Holy Spirit would alert me to my fear-filled thoughts and I would ‘run back’ to Jesus who inhabits my very breathing. I’d confess my sin and huddle closely to him, breathing in thanksgiving and exhaling fear.  It was during our last full day, while hiking up to the summit of Blood Mountain, that I actually began thanking God each time I caught myself worrying and projecting.  Each fear thought became a trigger to return and enumerate with gratitude the Lord’s numerous blessings to me. I realized that I can’t multi-task.  I can’t nurture fears while naming the gifts God provides. 

For me, this ordering my thoughts, this submitting them to God to govern is new.  That is why I keep talking about this recently-acquired spiritual discipline of biblical meditation.   All the uncertainty regarding my mother-in-law’s care weighs heavily on me. I realize that I have become an expert in ‘futurizing’, that euphemism for ‘worry and fear’. My best friend Joyce has rightly named it for what it is.  This projecting into the days ahead is also sin.  I know, for the Bible teaches, that each time I indulge in fretful imagining of what might happen, I grieve the Holy Spirit who is in me.

This morning, something struck me from Hebrews 13:20-21: ‘May the God of peace…..equip you with all you need for doing his will…’ (NLT)

“Oh”, I mused, “you really are preparing me for the future!”

A daily ‘spiritual retreat’ of 15-20 minutes has become a precious part of my morning routine.  I am learning to be present with Jesus. This early meet-up is where I hand over all that concerns me and my family. Then I arise once again, to follow closely on his heels. I imagine myself often stepping on his heels, so near to him I want to be.  I don’t believe he minds.

God uses hairdressers to provide grace

August 18, 2022

Maria Grace, Hebrews 13, Meditation , , , , 4 Comments

How the Lord used hairdressers to help us

Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Hebrews 13:16 ESV

Have you ever considered that passing on useful information or ideas to someone else is a way to share what you have? God, who exhorts us to care for others, has not just given us helping hands and material resources, but words and possible solutions to bless others. Fresh suggestions involving different ways to solve a problem might be just what someone needs to hear from you.

The most valuable tangible help that we ever received came from my hairdresser in Newport News, Virginia.  For decades Mike had suffered from a stress-induced physical symptom that no doctor or psychologist could relieve. Like a gray cloud that hung over our family, this ‘thing’ dogged us.

Did we pray about it?  Of course!  But as developing, growing Christians, we didn’t have a lot of spiritual depth.  Nor did we worship in a denomination that viewed God’s word as true and living. 

Hairdressers make great listeners.  Women benefit more than guys, because they spend longer in their coiffeur’s chair and visit regularly.  A woman’s relationship with her hairdresser can last years. 

One day I was sharing Mike’s condition with my gal and how the ‘on-going-ness’ sapped him of joy.  To my surprise, she responded, “Honey, what Mike needs is Buspirone.  It’s an anti-anxiety med that really works!” Before long, my husband had switched over from his ineffective anti-depressant to Buspirone. It was like a miracle! We still thank God to this day.

That was about twelve years ago. We live in north Alabama now and James is my hair guy. Three weeks ago, as I sat in his chair, he offered unbidden, “Let me tell you about this great meditation app I’ve been using!”

As it so happened, Mike and I had just completed our first experience with meditation apps, using John Eldredge’s Pause app.  Thirty consecutive days incorporating this spiritual practice had instilled in us the desire to keep it up.

Talk about God’s timeliness! With all the churn we are going through with Mike’s mom as well as his impending retirement, we NEEDED to add regular guided biblical meditation to our lives.

I marvel at how through each day’s Bible passages forming this 15–20-minute experience, the Lord guides, corrects, comforts and encourages me, depending on what he knows I need.  I can’t wait to bring James up to date on how impactful his suggestion has been. Thank you, Lord, both for prompting James and for causing him to be obedient to you!

So, what useful information might you be sitting on that God intends for someone needy?   The only way to know is to engage with people throughout the day.  When we show sincere curiosity, strike up conversations, get out of ourselves and leave our circumstances in God’s hands, we often see how what we have or know might help someone.  God uses all of his creation to provide grace.  You and I are part of that grace meant for others.

Are you pessimistic like my mother-in-law?

August 24, 2019

Maria Bible Reading, Isaiah 55, Meditation , , , , 2 Comments

Isaiah 55:2b – Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.

Are you around pessimistic people, folks who think our country is ‘going to hell in a handbasket,’ as my dad used to say?

Each week I call up and chat with Mike’s mom. Her end of the conversation often focuses on the state of our country and American society. My mother-in-law, who is 90, lives far from us in Seattle. Her two-bedroom apartment is in an upscale retirement complex.  As a very outgoing widow she does enjoy all the social activities offered to residents. However, she does find it awfully quiet when she closes the door to her 6th-floor apartment overlooking Lake Union.  That fact combined with a life-long TV-watching habit means that she likes to keep the TV going for about 5-6 hours a day.

What does she watch?  For 4 of those hours, she’s tuned in to ‘newsy’ programs.  If you know anything about human nature, then you’ll agree that people are more drawn to bad news than to good.  Content creators of these news shows take advantage of this fact and create what people will watch.  I get that. But absorbing negative news for 4 hours a day, together with digesting all the articles in a typical big city newspaper can’t help but color one’s outlook.

What my mother-in-law watches, reads and discusses with others who form part of her retirement community feeds her soul, her thought life. It follows, then, that what comes out of her mouth is negative.  What we dwell on we talk about.

This morning, I came across the familiar exhortation from the Father to his people via the prophet Isaiah about good food.  I immediately saw the connection between what we eat and the ideas we allow to enter and dwell in our mind.

Just as food is tasted, savored and chewed up in our mouths, so too is news (both cheery and depressing) tasted and experienced.  By nature, we image-bearers like to share with others both what delights us and appalls us. Hence, every weekly conversation with Mike’s mom invariably touches a horrible national event, a further rip in societies institutions like the family or school or an international crisis.

Yesterday, I innocently asked, “Have the public schools started back up since it’s the end of August?”  That led her directly to complain about the scandal of teacher unions and how teachers and families and children and society…..are not like they used to be.  When she was growing up.  I tried to say that human nature doesn’t change; that there are still plenty of caring people in the world showing kindness, working for justice; that most news shows report just the bad; that God is sovereign and we can trust Him and pray……

She brushed my responses aside. Mom is a kind-hearted elderly gal, BUT she is very pessimistic.  Although a Christian, she hardly takes in any good news from God.  Her church focuses on social justice. She reads a devotional written by clergy in her denomination and she prays.  Bible ‘food’ comes in a few Sunday tidbits of scripture read before the homily and the words of hymns and repeated liturgical prayers.

In short, Mom is starving. What she eats of the ‘food that is good……the richest of foods’ is but a bite here and there.  NOT enough to change her soul health.

Dear, dear fellow Christian and laboring sojourner – you and I need to eat up, fill up, take in REAL food, LIFE-GIVING food that God gives us through His Word.

What is your daily fare like?  What do you allow into your mind? Are you living on a concentration-camp ration of good food?  Then that might explain some of your outlook.  We’re called to ‘DELIGHT ourselves in good food.’

May you and I eat to satiety, fill up, take in, savor, roll around in our mind’s mouth, letting God’s Word flow through each and every molecule in our spirit.

 

Meditating on half a verse is enough

June 22, 2019

Maria Envy, Food, God's Glory, Meditation, Proverbs 30, Psalm 16 , , , 2 Comments

Proverbs 30:8 Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me

Just that a portion of this verse was enough to teach and encourage me!

Mike and I read through the Bible each year, following a chronological plan.  That means sometimes we are reading 3-5 chapters at a time.  We gain so much by studying and discussing God’s storyline year after year.  More sinks in through the repetition.  But it is also good to slow down and meditate on just a small portion of God’s Word. I did that this morning from our assigned chapters, Proverbs 30 and 31.

Here are some riches I gathered from 10 minutes max of thinking and checking the Hebrew of the highlighted snippet above:

  1. Feed me: The writer understands that we are incapable of feeding ourselves in the spiritual sense.  He asks God to nourish him.  The Hebrew word for ‘feed’ means a tearing into little pieces.  I pictured an animal momma preparing bite-sized morsels for her young.  I need to remember, that daily, even hourly dependence on God is how I am to live.
  2. with the food: I can think of all the wrong kinds of ‘food’ I am apt to grab.  Others’ life’s circumstances that look ‘happier’ and travel photos that I wish were mine, to name two.  Neither promote contentment nor rest and trust in Jesus.
  3. that is needful: Again, another corrective: I’m not wise enough to know what is needful, what is good.  But God is! The Hebrew for ‘needful’ has the sense of: proscribed, appointed, assigned.  Reminds me of the psalmist’s assertion about pleasantly placed boundary lines in Psalm 16: 6
  4. for me: Ah, the individual love that our Father gives us.  What I need is different from what you need.  Sure, we all need God’s rescue, His heart surgery, and sustaining grace. But because He fashioned me and placed me, an individual, in THIS epoch, in THIS geographical area, in THIS family, in THIS physical body, He knows precisely what I require to grow more holy, like Jesus. His purposeful arrangement of circumstances and events are what He calls GOOD for me.  Remembering this fact, I let out a breath, and settle down into His care.

What was my overall take-away from meditating on just this partial verse?  That I can unreservedly submit to God, that He knows just what I need, at every moment, and that He gives me the perfect quantity of chosen circumstantial ‘necessaries’.  All to the end of preparing me to share in the happy glory of His forever Kingdom.

The few minutes of this kind of deeper engagement with a small portion of text makes me more apt to recall His sustaining Word throughout the hours of this day.

 

 

Vitamins and minerals against anxiety

August 20, 2018

Maria Anxiety, Isaiah 26, Meditation, Peace, Praise, Prayer, Thankfulness, Thinking, Trusting God , , Leave a comment

You will keep him in shalowm shalowm* whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in You.  Isaiah 26:3 (*Hebrew for perfect peace)

Years ago, in our 20s, Mike and I sold Amway products.  One item that we whole-heartedly promoted was their top-of-the-line vitamin and mineral supplement named Double X.  I’m not sure what the X stood for, but whatever it was, twice as much good stuff was packed into those green little shapes.  Double X was pricey, even back then. We grew accustomed to budgeting for vitamins.  Daily exogenous micronutrients still form part of the healthy way we cook and eat.

With school starting this month, I’ve engaged in the ‘good fight of faith’, pondering how to resist the temptation to worry.  For me, it’s always about ‘having enough time’ to give to those extra-curricular activities important to me like writing this blog, reading and creating my ‘English without Fear’ videos.

One of my go-to-verses to battle fear and worry is the one above from Isaiah.  Original Hebrew or Greek words always draw me in.  So, when I read that ‘perfect peace’ is really shalowm shalowm, I rejoiced!  You all know that shalowm is far more than peace and tranquility; it includes welfare, contentment, soundness, health, quiet and safety.

Who doesn’t desire all that?

So, what’s the catch?

Oh….just the habit of keeping our thoughts FIXED on God.  That’s all.

Right!

But just as the Spirit of God brought my Isaiah fighter verse to mind, so, too, he brought a devotional that same night. The author penned almost as an afterthought that for every thought we invest in regrets or excitement or discouragement concerning earthly, transitory details, we ought to commit 100 times as much of our thought life to ALL WE HAVE IN CHRIST!

I have to confess that I don’t even apportion 2 to 1 of my thoughts and emotions to what Jesus has given me!  The writer’s exhortation not only pulled me up short but has stayed with me all week long.

So how do we DO what he recommends?

One technique I’ve used in the past, occasionally, is to go through the alphabet, letter by letter, and just praise God out loud for all the words I can think of about Him.  I do this on hikes with Mike when we can go for long stretches of time without talking.

For example:

A:  Father, I’m so glad that you are always available, that you have adopted me into your forever family, that you are always the same, that you have altered my reality by giving me new life, that you adore me, that you arrange all the details of my life, that Jesus argues with the accuser that He has taken care of my sin problem.

I just point out as many things to God as I can think of beginning with that letter.  And then I move on to the next letter.  Sometimes halfway through the alphabet, I’ll add another deed or characteristic that I’ve already prayed about. No matter.

What other ways can you think of that we can think about God’s good eternal gifts to us?

Of course, I haven’t mentioned ‘the trust you’ part, but I see my praises for his deeds and attributes as ASSUMING a trust in him.

Father, may you give us your grace to rejoice and be glad in who you are and who we are because of you.  Thanks to Christ, Amen!

Do we work for our salvation?

June 5, 2016

Maria God's Word, Meditation, Philippians , , , , , , , Leave a comment

“….Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,  for or it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good pleasure.…” Phil 2:12b-13a

Work out your salvation

Do you ever feel like you’re on the outside of a certain Bible passage, looking in? Like you can’t unlock what the verses mean, no matter how much you chip away at the word meaning or greater context?  I’ve felt that way for a LONG time, about MANY verses that seem too short and too cryptic.  Recently John Piper explained what is beginning to happen to me.  And it’s a welcome change.  Let me share a recent example and maybe you’ll find some hope for how you, too, can be rewarded with nuggets of gold after some hard-core mining.

A piece of that reward arrived this past Sunday as I was poking around Blue Letter Bible to research the Greek meaning of ‘work out’ in the cited verse.  In that rich soil, God brought forth a new ‘aha!’ moment as He opened up my understanding of Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians.  I’ve always struggled to understand two aspects of his ‘strong suggestion’.

  • what are we working out?  are we actually working toward our salvation?
  • what does working out one’s salvation have to do with what God is doing IN me?

What I have found is that some of the Bible seems to be written in a shorthand form.  A lot of explicit explanation just isn’t there.  Reminds me of poetry, which often stumps me. Or maybe some of these puzzling lines are like the parables Jesus told, meant to keep out those whose only interest in Truth is passing.

But I WANT to know, to understand, to OWN more and more of God’s Word.  So I dig around and soak in the Bible A LOT.  And after 18 1/2 years, things are beginning to ‘pop’.

What got me soaking all those years ago?  I started actually STUDYING the Bible systematically through an in-depth Bible study called Bible Study Fellowship (BSF link here).

I had become a Christian 16 years earlier, but my scripture reading was hit or miss and except for about a year in a British Anglican church, we weren’t around ‘Christians’ who actually believed that the Bible was God’s authoritative Word, alive and full of power.

BSF changed all that.

So now, although we have moved and don’t find ourselves near a BSF class, we continue to read and study our Bible and belong to a church that submits to the authority of the Word.

And I’m beginning to reap my investment of time and energy.  Verses and passages which previously remained closed to me are now opening up.  And it’s exciting!

So what about the WORKING OUT conundrum?  Here’s what I figured out or WORKED OUT from reading the Greek meanings of katergázomai/work out.  When we take something and think it through and see how it applies, then it becomes OURS.  We’re fashioning it to fit into what we already know.  It’s like making room in your house for a new painting.

I was relieved to conclude that NO, we don’t do works to earn our salvation, but we have to renovate our entire understanding of who we are and why we exist in the first place by yielding to God as our Creator, Redeemer and Happy Master.  And the comforting good news is that God does not leave us to do this home renovation on our own!  Look at Philippians 13:a.  It’s God Himself who is at work in us both to DESIRE (will) and WORK to please Him.  What a sweet deal for us.

Knowing God so far, it’s safe to assume that He has many more treasures for me.  If I stay rooted like a tree, near His living and life giving water, then as I draw up cool refreshing nourishment, I will continue to grow.

Tree by a stream

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