echoes

What does the Lord ask of you?

/ Marissa / Leave a comment

I have been reading through the Bible in 2015.  A week or two ago, I came across a passage I liked…

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,  and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
Deuteronomy 10:12-13

As I was underlining it, I was thinking- “Great! Cliff’s notes!” And (because I am me, “This would make a great piece of art…”)

What does the Lord require of you?

  • Fear the Lord your God
  • Walk in obedience
  • serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul
  • Observe the Lord’s commands

What a great list.  Something to aspire to.  Something you can take, put in your pocket (bind to your forehead?) and check yourself against daily.

But as I was sitting with this verse, a voice whispered…  but this is the old covenant…

Let me start off by saying, there is nothing WRONG with this list.  It is scripture!  Words from God!  But, as I was reading this list, I was reading about ME.  What  I can do to make myself right with God.  How I can ensure that my walk with God is ‘correct’.  How I can give myself a daily grade that ensures that I am being a good enough Christ follower.

One thing God has been teaching me lately is that my faith is much less about me and my efforts than I think.  Rather, it is so much more about GOD, and what He has done for me.  I have been trying to live out a faith based on the old covenant- my perfection, my efforts.

I think it is so very… human of us to want to be in control of our relationship with God.  Are spiritual practices good?  Of course.  But they do not control how much God loves us.  Whether or not he will bless us.  Instead, God’s blessings are given freely.  And don’t always take the form we believe they should (read: money, happiness, easiness of life).  In fact, God’s blessings can sometimes take the form of thorns in our sides, things that we must endure and grow through.  Things that force us to turn to Him.

So what does God ask of us?

And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
1 John 3:23

Belief. Love.  Actions rooted in love and belief are SO much more grace filled than those born out of a sense of obligation or striving.

Can it be this simple?  Can our faith, and faith practices, be built on love and belief instead of guilt and striving?  Do you, like me, find yourself tempted to live out of the Old Covenant?  If so, take a few moments today to pause.  To allow yourself to feel loved, wholly and holy, just as you are.

Son of Encouragement

/ Marissa / Leave a comment

I talked in the last post about how the Holy Spirit is our Paraclete, our encourager, advocate, comforter.  As I continued my search through scripture on that word, I realized that it was used in another key passage in scripture…

Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”)…
Acts 4:36

Barnabas, the son of encouragement.  The word encouragement here is parakletos, a derivative of Paraclete.  Here is a person, an early church father, nicknamed the Encourager.  Called by the same terms as the Holy Spirit.

Finding this made me think.  What is our role as believers when it comes to encouragement?  We humans are created with an insatiable thirst for encouragement.  We have an indwelling God who is our full time encouraging, and yet we still hunger for affirmation.  How do we as brothers and sisters in Christ, live into this space?

Something started pinging in the back of my brain… Romans 12, one of my favorite passages…

6 In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. 7 If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. 8 If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.

If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging.

Encouragement is a spiritual gift.  Something God values enough to list in one of the three main spiritual gifts passages in the New Testament.  This is clearly something important to Him, something He desires to see happening in his kingdom?

So why don’t we experience this more?  Why does the modern church have a reputation for being judgmental and harsh, not a place of encouragement and solace?  Where are the sermons preached, the classes taught on how to encourage others?

And, if we Christians have an indwelling Paraclete, why aren’t we using that gift of encouragement for those who do not; unbelievers who are so very thirsty for words of truth and affirmation?

I don’t know.  But this I do know.  When I take time to intentionally affirm others, I am encouraged in the process.  When parents take time to formally bless their children, those children begin to view their lives as a legacy ad not just a passing of time.  Encouragement matters.  It is powerful in a way that defies logic.

And I, for one, am going to try to intentionally engage in acts of radical encouragement.  When my life is over, may I be called a Daughter of Encouragement.   Care to join me?

Leave a Bite

/ Marissa / 2 Comments

To the true disciple a miracle only manifests the power and love which are silently at work everywhere as divinely in the gift of daily bread as in the miraculous multiplication of the loaves. ~Fredrick William Robertson

I have noticed a trend in my life lately.  God has taught me in my life thus far that if I notice a trend, an echo, to stop and to pay attention.  That this is somewhere where He is at work.

This is what has been happening… recently, whenever a friend asks me how they can pray for me, I have the same answer…

Daily Bread.

This isn’t an intentional answer, or a rehearsed response, but instead the heartfelt response to what I need in that moment.  When it happened today for the third time in a week, I realized that there was something deeper happening here.  What is it that I am asking for?

There are only a few things in my life that I know in my bones.  Just a handful of lessons that were so hard-fought that I do not doubt them at all.  God’s unwavering faithfulness is one of those truths.

So what is it that am I asking for?  I know that God will provide, so what is it that I need?  As I look more deeply into the request, I realize that I am not so much asking for God’s provision (which I know will arrive).  Instead, I am asking for the clarity to see that provision for what it is.  The daily miracle.  Blessings given by my Father, instead of just things working out as I hoped they would.  I want to have the eyes to see.  To be attuned and expectant so that when the daily bread arrives, I see it for the blessing that it is.  To stop and be thankful, instead of taking things for granted.  To hear the whispers of God’s answers when I am straining so desperately to hear.

But here is another thing.  When the Israelites were in the desert, they had the literal miracle.  Miraculous bread from the sky, to be gathered at dawn.  A daily delivery for 40 years.  And still, they tried to hoard it.  To gather a bit more than they needed, a buffer against hard times.  I do this too.  Hoping for more than just the energy and patience to get through the day.  Wanting more than just a moment of time by myself in prayer, or with my kids before bedtime.  I am always hungry for more.  And yet God is in the business of giving exactly enough.

One place where I see this show up so often is at the table.  I am blessed, so very blessed to be a human on this planet who does not have to worry about having enough to eat.  I can eat to satisfaction at any point during the day.  And yet, with each meal, I find myself eating more than enough.  One more bite.  One more taste.  One more treat.  Why?  I don’t have a reason.  Or my reason is… because it is there.

So my challenge to myself is this: Leave a bite.  It seems so small, so trite, when I write it down.  But I have a feeling this one may be the hardest one I set for myself this year.  Leaving a bite on the plate is a metaphor, an act of trust, of walking in faith that God will provide.  But it also may break the weird hold that food has over me.

Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Matthew 6:25

My life is so much more than food and clothing.  Yet both of those things are where I turn for comfort.  To boost my mood or cheer myself up.  Calories or commerce.  Those are my two crutches.  Leaving a bite of food is an act of defiance to my secret sin.  It is me saying… no.  I choose to look elsewhere.

Also, the principle of self-sacrifice has been something that has resonated with me lately.  Leaving a bite, for me, seems like the first step in that direction.  Here are the words from John Ortberg’s Soul Keeping that have got me thinking in this direction…

Sometimes the smallest acts of sacrifice or self-denial can break up hard soil. A friend of mine sent me a few sentences from an article she saw online on “How to Stay Christian in College”: . . . make small sacrifices. Make a vow to wake up and go to breakfast every morning, even if your first class isn’t until eleven a.m. Choose a plain cheese pizza rather than pepperoni. You’ll be surprised how these tiny sacrifices work an interior magic, shifting your focus ever so slightly away from yourself.

What would happen in my life if I was less focused on myself and my needs, and more focused on others?  I think it may be time to try and find out… IMG_1759

Sacred Echoes

/ Marissa / 2 Comments

“Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper.  When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.
– 1 Kings 19:11-13

God speaks.  People who follow him know this well.  But His voice is not easy to discern; it’s something you have to listen for, and tuning your heart to His frequency is often a lifelong journey.  Margaret Feinberg wrote a book called The Sacred Echo that helped me frame my idea for how I often hear God-

“I call them sacred echoes because I noticed that throughout my relationships, daily life, and study, the same scripturally sound idea or phrase or word will keep reappearing until I can no longer avoid its presence.” -The Sacred Echo”

I do think this is a way that God speaks.  Thoughts.  Concepts.  Words.  Convictions.  Things that repeat over and over in your life until you realize that these concepts are something you need to hear, need to implement, need to learn.  Once you recognize an echo, it often becomes hard to ignore.  God’s whispers turn to shouts.  Yet how do you train your heart to listen?

I don’t know exactly, but I hope that this blog is a part of my obedience to the process.  Here is the place where I want to share my echoes, the scraps of wisdom I am picking up from God’s gracious hand as I live my life.  It is an act of obedience, a choice to be vulnerable and share my words with the world, not something that comes easily to me.