6.13.2020 - week 59
on the power of weak faith
when she recognized peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “peter is at the door! “you’re out of your mind,” they told her. when she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “it must be his angel.” but peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.
weak faith is enough faith when it’s active faith.
i preached this week on a favorite story. in acts 12, the church had a prayer meeting for the express purpose of calling out to god and asking him to release peter from prison. while the meeting was happening, peter showed up at the door. and the instinct of the people was, ‘nah, def didn’t happen.’ they were doing the work of faith even when they didn’t have true confidence in a good outcome. god did a miracle through their willingness to pray even when they were so flimsy as to be shocked that he in fact answered. peter escapes from prison and the church continues to multiply.
weak faith is enough faith when it’s active faith.
my generation is obsessed with motive self-evaluation. do i really like this person anymore? is this job REALLY what i want to do. am i happy? and this habit tends to produce paralysis, because these questions are hard to answer and typically shifting. rather than deciding if we want to do things, we would be better served simply carrying out our tasks faithfully. just do the next right thing and often your feelings follow.
i often feel guilty for my lack of faith. i want to believe that god is working and that it’s for my good and that even though i can’t totally see the story he’s writing, he’s in control. but in my truest heart, i often feel guilty for not having more certainty and steadiness in that belief. like i can talk a good game, but underneath it isn’t totally accurate to my heart. maybe you sometimes feel the same?
if we do the work of faith, even when we aren’t totally ‘feeling it,’ we create great space for god to something miraculous. so wherever your heart is today on the economy, the election, the uprising, the virus, your children, your spouse, your loneliness, your unhealed wounds, your unresolved issues etc … if you just keep moving and don’t throw in the towel, god can and will do great work.
KG Korner
(a few wise words from lady kristen macdonald)
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.”
This week I got to ‘hang up’ my teacher badge so to speak and put back on my ‘mom 24/7’ badge. These last three months of school was a season I felt delighted to complete. Life isn’t always that way simple though, usually there’s parts of each season you can find the silver lining and wish it wouldn’t end. As this pandemic in some ways comes to a close as the world opens back up, we are in the beginning of a change of a season. We will have to all decide what we will take with us from what we have learned in this season that none of us expected. What did you learn during your ‘time to refrain from embracing?’ Was it a season of loneliness? Was it a season of struggle with your spouse? Was it a desert land with your walk with God? Or was it a season of fruitfulness that couldn’t have come otherwise?
I look forward to the time when we get to embrace other people again. It seems like something so simple that we once took for granted and yet we now long for.
We all prefer the seasons of laughing and dancing over those of weeping and mourning but as we have mentioned in this space before, we all realize that the most growth typically bursts through from the dark, seasons where seeds were planted that couldn’t have been there other than through the pain that produced progress.
I think that many people are learning about some of these last ideas of re-working. I have talked to friends this past week that are tearing up ways of thinking they always had and trying to learn a new way, ‘sewing a new pattern’ for those in their home so they don’t follow the same ideas they subtly lived by in the past. They believe that generational change starts with them and how they parent and shape their children can have an effect on our future world.
The book of Ecclesiastes has challenged me the last week or so as Solomon looks through the lens of life under the sun without eternity in mind. A man who was known to be wise and wealthy and yet he reminds those reading to enjoy this life. Obviously we can see further than Solomon, we know that Jesus came as the Messiah and that he made a way for eternity for all of us if we choose the gift of salvation. But as I read another book this week it made a similar point to what Solomon suggested, that many of us live this life as though the ‘golden years’ are coming and not necessarily living as though they are in the here and now. The truth is that this virus has made us all aware of the reality that anything could be around the corner that changes our reality - healthwise, financially, relationally. I’ve been convicted this week from these passages to live more fully in the present.
As life picks up speed, I encourage you to take a minute and to gather up what this last season held and pray big prayers for this next one that you would soak up all it has to offer. This I know: God is over each and every season.
cup of leadership
the system isn’t what i thought it was. it certainly isn’t what it claims to be. in this moment, the tribe i grew up in, white suburban evangelicals, are under tremendous fire. people’s frustrations about the political system and racial injustice have been fashioned into a club and we are an easy target. but rather than react by denying their points or saying it isn’t fair, perhaps we should look inward. here are 5 observations i would make about ‘us’ after a year outside the bubble. not all are pleasant to read, but i believe if we want to get better we need to.
see below for my thoughts on this:
book review
i picked up this book to try and grow my understand of the coronavirus moment by learning about a another recent medical phenomenon: the AIDS crisis. this book is difficult to read. to see the suffering of so many and the needless expansion of the disease because of flat footed medical responses broke my heart. reading this as a christian forced me to put empathy to people who some find it all too easy to caricature. the reporting is astonishing and i genuinely learned a ton. this book is legendary for a reason.
super christian guy
proximity breeds empathy, fwiw
content this week
i really really don’t like when people conflate consequence and trial in regard to racial unrest .. I talk about that a bit HERE.
if you’re more of a listen-on-the-go person, check out my podcast with all my latest sermons and various other episodes.
pieces of good news I saw this week
1. if you like a little background ambience while you study or read, i can’t recommend somniscape enough. from my old friend eric owyoung (future of forestry), this soaringly simple stuff is SPOT ON.
2. i really enjoy michael che doing weekend update on saturday night live. this riff on the all lives vs. black lives thing really made me laugh.