We Mourn. We Wait.

Written by on April 22, 2011 in Passions - 1 Comment

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection,

not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time.  ~Martin Luther

There is not room for Death,

Nor atom that his might could render void:

Thou – Thou art Being and Breath,

And what Thou art may never be destroyed.  ~Emily Bronte

The joyful news that He is risen does not change the contemporary world.  Still before us lie work, discipline, sacrifice.  But the fact of Easter gives us the spiritual power to do the work, accept the discipline, and make the sacrifice.

~Henry Knox Sherrill

Sweet Honesty

Written by on January 11, 2011 in Daily Life With Jesus, Passions - 2 Comments

If ministry teams were like sports, I’d be playing Division I. The team of volunteers I serve alongside are amazing. If you had the pleasure of being at our staff meeting last night, you’d be struck by the fact that these people are hilarious, caring, smart, and pretty darn cute. If you hung around for a while, you’d probably be jealous you weren’t on the team, whether you love student ministry or not.

But if you stayed a little longer, you’d see another side.

When you get around a group of people who love to have fun, there’s a lot of joking and laughing, especially when we break out the Just Dance Wii game.

Being the one to get serious in a group like this can be like projecting Just Dance on the wall so 100 high schoolers can get down, and then mistakenly pausing it so that the whole room groans loudly and gets mad at you. That also happened Sunday, but that’s another story. A perfect analogy though, for what happens when everyone’s having fun and you ask a question like:

What hinders you in your relationship with God? What keeps you back in ministry?

I’ve yet to be at a meeting where someone throws a joke after a question like that. (I mean, it could happen. I wouldn’t put it past my Division I team.)

In the silence after that question, we broke into teams of five to confess to one another and then pray. And although we love to have fun, choosing  honesty is taking it to a whole new level. I looked around my little group and realized that we liked each other but we didn’t know each other. A choice was made in that moment: would we choose honesty?

Each of us has to make that choice. When we get around people we like and admire, we naturally want to be liked and admired. So showing the side of us that’s less cute, um ugly, well crazy honest is a choice. When it was my turn, I had a hundred different directions I could have gone, but the brave honesty of the guys before me helped me choose honesty. Sweet honesty.

I get discouraged easily. I am myopic in my view of life. I can let my emotions turn my beliefs as quickly as the mood in the room during the Just Dance fail Sunday Night.

In the minutes that followed in our mini-group, I think all of us chose honesty. And then we, one by one, prayed for each other. Prayer together is like an invisible yarn that creates something permenant. Even this morning, I forget about alot of what was said yesterday. But prayers spoken in sweet honesty knit a beautiful reminder in my soul.

Our prayer time was ended with a shout from another room: “Are you still praying?? Who wants ice cream????”

And so it goes, on our team.

When confronted with the real questions of life, do you choose honesty?

Vision for Life

Written by on December 29, 2008 in Passions, spiritual disciplines - No Comments

“Without vision, the people will perish” Prov. 29:18

My dear pastor Pete Bowell has taught me two things about this verse.

1. Everything we do needs vision. I remember being a young youth-staffer learning how to plan a retreat. We were talking about what kooky game we were going to start the first meeting with, and Pete kept pressing us to tell us what the purpose of the game was. I was thinking, “hmmm….the purpose is to act silly and be ridiculous together?”

Actually, there was a reason.
Pete’s concept of vision for the retreat was that every moment should serve a purpose. A game where the youth staff let loose and acted silly was a disarming way to connect with the kids, to let them see how much we enjoyed being with them. Even though I would roll my eyes and sigh when we planned minute-by-minute, I quickly saw the fruit of such planning. And now that I’m in leadership for women’s ministry, I see how important that prayerful planning really is.

2. Our personal lives need vision. Pete also taught me that his wife Meg uses this same verse as justification for her girls’ weekends away. A strong wife and mother is the glue of a family. I believe that time away is a mandatory component of vision-casting for women. That break from life is a chance to sit back and see the importance of the minute and mundane aspects of family life. Plus, there is no greater use of bible verse extrapolation than a weekend away! Ha!

3. As I apply this to my own life, I think about vision for each of my roles: wife. mother. counselor. teacher/writer. Each of these is directed and fully dependant on my devotion to Jesus and my desire to glorify him. Do I fall short? Every day. But having a vision gives me the opportunity to pause, to take each decision and life direction and consider how they fit into my God-given call. It takes some of the emotion out of the mandatory no’s and disappointments that each year brings. And it focuses me to continue to press on toward the goal, to take hold of that grace that Jesus Christ took hold of for me.

Vision for Life

Written by on December 29, 2008 in Passions, spiritual disciplines - No Comments

“Without vision, the people will perish” Prov. 29:18

My dear pastor Pete Bowell has taught me two things about this verse.

1. Everything we do needs vision. I remember being a young youth-staffer learning how to plan a retreat. We were talking about what kooky game we were going to start the first meeting with, and Pete kept pressing us to tell us what the purpose of the game was. I was thinking, “hmmm….the purpose is to act silly and be ridiculous together?”

Actually, there was a reason.
Pete’s concept of vision for the retreat was that every moment should serve a purpose. A game where the youth staff let loose and acted silly was a disarming way to connect with the kids, to let them see how much we enjoyed being with them. Even though I would roll my eyes and sigh when we planned minute-by-minute, I quickly saw the fruit of such planning. And now that I’m in leadership for women’s ministry, I see how important that prayerful planning really is.

2. Our personal lives need vision. Pete also taught me that his wife Meg uses this same verse as justification for her girls’ weekends away. A strong wife and mother is the glue of a family. I believe that time away is a mandatory component of vision-casting for women. That break from life is a chance to sit back and see the importance of the minute and mundane aspects of family life. Plus, there is no greater use of bible verse extrapolation than a weekend away! Ha!

3. As I apply this to my own life, I think about vision for each of my roles: wife. mother. counselor. teacher/writer. Each of these is directed and fully dependant on my devotion to Jesus and my desire to glorify him. Do I fall short? Every day. But having a vision gives me the opportunity to pause, to take each decision and life direction and consider how they fit into my God-given call. It takes some of the emotion out of the mandatory no’s and disappointments that each year brings. And it focuses me to continue to press on toward the goal, to take hold of that grace that Jesus Christ took hold of for me.

Five Reasons to Write

Written by on November 30, 2008 in journey, Passions - No Comments

Whew! So I made it through my thirty-day posting challenge and I have to say that it’s been pretty easy, except for maybe 4 or 5 of those days. So in honor of completing my month of blogging, I want to challenge you with five reasons why YOU should write somewhere, on a blog or in a pretty journal or a old-time spiral bound notebook:

5. It helps you hear the voices in your head more clearly.
If you write unedited material, step away from it, and come back, you are likely to run across a line or two (or twenty) that makes you stop and say, “Hey! That’s not me. How did my mom get in here?” or something along those lines. We are constantly barraged with so many messages that occasionally a few sneak in there that we don’t bargain for.

4. It helps you hear TRUTH more clearly.
After you get through with all those other voices, the ones of fear, shame, condemnation, pride, you get to the good stuff, the part of YOU that wants to listen, hear, obey God’s voice. You step away from it, come back, and see that there is truth to be uncovered. Sometimes the truth ain’t pretty, but it’s the crucial component of relationship with Christ.

3. It gives you remembrance.
Hey, remember that time you had a really bad week, and you prayed that God would send you a sign that he was real, and then the next day, you got that sign? Remember? Oh, you don’t? Yeah, I don’t either if I don’t write that stuff down. In the moment it will be so glorious, and you just know, you know to the bottom of your boots that God really did something, and then the memory fades…and you begin to wonder if it was just coincidence, or if He did work it wasn’t ALL that great, etc. We are just like the Isrealites in the desert, wanting sign after sign that God would take care of them, forgetting the many signs he had already provided! I don’t want to be that way, and I bet you don’t either. Write down your God-moments.

2. It makes you notice.
If you make writing a discipline for your soul, then you begin to notice life around you. Unless you want to write in your journal something like this:

Today was good. After I dropped Cameron off at preschool I folded some laundry. Then we had chicken for dinner. Dave and I watched a stupid TV show. Then we went to bed.

You might start writing like that, but you will get bored with yourself and your life and you will be forced to notice the world around you. What about that thing your kid said that disturbed or convicted you? What about the bagger at the grocery store that made you think about your own life? What about that flower made you stop and notice? When we force ourselves to notice the unseen in our day, we begin to see God.

1. It gives you history.
A few months ago I popped open an old journal of mine. I saw an entry, about four years old, and it sounded like I could have wrote it that very day. The same sin patterns, the same frustrations, the same questions of God. At first I was bummed and frustrated. “Geez, Nicole” I said to myself, “way to be living a transformed life. Has anything changed with you?” But I stewed on it a bit and I began to recognize grace in the midst of it. Yes, I have my core struggles and they probably aren’t ever going to change. Something in me just began to accept that I have to take the good parts of my personality along with the bad, and that the “bad” stuff is my place to be desperately dependnet on Christ in my life. Those are my “sore spots” . And I’m OK with that. Maybe in another four years I’ll be pleased with my progress, but until then, I think I’ll just keep on writing.

Five Reasons to Write

Written by on November 30, 2008 in journey, Passions - No Comments

Whew! So I made it through my thirty-day posting challenge and I have to say that it’s been pretty easy, except for maybe 4 or 5 of those days. So in honor of completing my month of blogging, I want to challenge you with five reasons why YOU should write somewhere, on a blog or in a pretty journal or a old-time spiral bound notebook:

5. It helps you hear the voices in your head more clearly.
If you write unedited material, step away from it, and come back, you are likely to run across a line or two (or twenty) that makes you stop and say, “Hey! That’s not me. How did my mom get in here?” or something along those lines. We are constantly barraged with so many messages that occasionally a few sneak in there that we don’t bargain for.

4. It helps you hear TRUTH more clearly.
After you get through with all those other voices, the ones of fear, shame, condemnation, pride, you get to the good stuff, the part of YOU that wants to listen, hear, obey God’s voice. You step away from it, come back, and see that there is truth to be uncovered. Sometimes the truth ain’t pretty, but it’s the crucial component of relationship with Christ.

3. It gives you remembrance.
Hey, remember that time you had a really bad week, and you prayed that God would send you a sign that he was real, and then the next day, you got that sign? Remember? Oh, you don’t? Yeah, I don’t either if I don’t write that stuff down. In the moment it will be so glorious, and you just know, you know to the bottom of your boots that God really did something, and then the memory fades…and you begin to wonder if it was just coincidence, or if He did work it wasn’t ALL that great, etc. We are just like the Isrealites in the desert, wanting sign after sign that God would take care of them, forgetting the many signs he had already provided! I don’t want to be that way, and I bet you don’t either. Write down your God-moments.

2. It makes you notice.
If you make writing a discipline for your soul, then you begin to notice life around you. Unless you want to write in your journal something like this:

Today was good. After I dropped Cameron off at preschool I folded some laundry. Then we had chicken for dinner. Dave and I watched a stupid TV show. Then we went to bed.

You might start writing like that, but you will get bored with yourself and your life and you will be forced to notice the world around you. What about that thing your kid said that disturbed or convicted you? What about the bagger at the grocery store that made you think about your own life? What about that flower made you stop and notice? When we force ourselves to notice the unseen in our day, we begin to see God.

1. It gives you history.
A few months ago I popped open an old journal of mine. I saw an entry, about four years old, and it sounded like I could have wrote it that very day. The same sin patterns, the same frustrations, the same questions of God. At first I was bummed and frustrated. “Geez, Nicole” I said to myself, “way to be living a transformed life. Has anything changed with you?” But I stewed on it a bit and I began to recognize grace in the midst of it. Yes, I have my core struggles and they probably aren’t ever going to change. Something in me just began to accept that I have to take the good parts of my personality along with the bad, and that the “bad” stuff is my place to be desperately dependnet on Christ in my life. Those are my “sore spots” . And I’m OK with that. Maybe in another four years I’ll be pleased with my progress, but until then, I think I’ll just keep on writing.

Passion

Written by on July 2, 2008 in Passions - No Comments

True passions are measured in patience and perseverance.

If this passion is true, worthy, noble, and one of the ways to love God with your strength, then it will not fade in time. It will grow stronger regardless of circumstances.

What is your passion? How do you love God with your strength? Or as Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message, how do you love God with your energy? What energy fuels your fire?