Star Words Year 1 - Guidance

2017 was the first year I had a word for the year, a star word (read more about where these came from here).  On the Sunday we celebrated Epiphany, we each drew a star out of a basket.  My star said, “Guidance.”  I blogged about the irony of that here.  I noted these two scriptures:

Psalm 16:8 came up the very same day:  "I keep my eyes always on the Lord."
Psalm 25:9 came up the next day: "Humble people seek guidance."

And I wrote Psalm 16:8 on the easel pad in my office…at Westminster

Presbyterian Church in Galveston, TX.  I’m writing today in Sterling, KS where I now serve United Presbyterian Church.  It’s been quite a year of seeking God’s guidance!

In my first blog about star words, I wondered whether this meant guidance for me (receiving) or guidance for others (giving).  I’ve found through the course of the year that I have to keep both in view.  I need it, and I inevitably give it, and not always intentionally.

For the first six months of 2017, we were reading a Psalm a day together as a church, and with whoever was following the 6 Months In The Psalms Facebook page.  I blogged about how this endeavor connected with my star word here.  I did not know when we began, or even by the time I wrote that blog, that by the time we finished reading the Psalms, I would have accepted and started a new call.

I was just beginning to see towards a new call when I posted this blog about guidance and about my goal of remembering and helping others to be in love with God.  I also mention there how God uses Facebook memories to guide me and remind me of lessons already learned that need revisiting.  I posted a lot on Facebook this year with the hashtag “guidance,” but it turns out not to be so easy to collect all those.  I did, however, find a few.  Click the links to read them full size, and note the comments as well as the post.

 

John 15:5 read post here

James 1:19 here.  

Psalm 73:23-24 here

In looking at these I see how God speaking to me became God speaking to others, as well.  I also noticed how the interaction on some of these posts was also God speaking back to me.  God gives us guidance in so many ways, and through so many different people.  I am thankful for the amazing conversations I get to have with people about God and faith and life.

I am also thankful that the Bible continues to be foundational in giving me guidance.  I began the year doing a read-through using The Daily Message, a daily devotional Bible using the Message version.  It was good at first, but it got to be too much to keep up with alongside the daily Psalm reading.  (The previous year, I did a read-through using The NRSV Daily Bible.  I liked its format better, and was more successful with that one.)

I continue using the Jesus Calling series of devotionals.  This year I used the sequel, Jesus Always.  Sometimes the redundancy gets annoying to me, but most of the time it's good for me to be reminded to keep focusing on Jesus and trusting him, and to keep working on thankfulness and joy and prayerfulness.  

This year CREDO, a retreat for new pastors, was again a factor in God's guidance.  I learned so much about myself at the first half back in 2016.  This year the second half was encouraging and affirming in many ways.  There were lots of opportunities to spend time seeking God.  One one of my walks, I found this little weathered gem stuck to a signpost. (See pic at right)

Over the course of the year, my biggest lesson has been to be mindful of going God's speed.  Sometimes he's moving faster than I expect, sometimes slower.  It's not always easy to keep pace, but when I do, the results are much better and the answers much clearer.  When it seems that he's not speaking, so often it's just because we haven't gotten to the next signpost yet, kind of like driving in the country.  It's easy to get lost on rural roads because there are fewer intersections and fewer landmarks. Sometimes getting to a directional sign will mean continuing to drive on, even if it might be the wrong direction, until a sign appears.  Sometimes it turns out we were going the right way already, and sometimes we discover a course correction is needed.  

One of my big aha's this year generated this meme, which captures something I say a lot and includes some scriptural foundation for saying it. Isaiah 41:13 continues to be instrumental for me, but now it's much less connected to overcoming fear.  So thankful to God for that bit of growth.

In these days of GPS, we have become accustomed to being able to know where we are all the time, but even now there are places where there is no GPS.  But there are no places where there is no God.  Even when I don't know what's coming, God does.  There have been some amazing surprises from following God this year - a new call, our first house, deepening of old friendships and the making of many new ones, and I'm certain that the more we seek him together, the more we will grow in love and grace, and in the joy and peace of Emmanuel, God with us.

Thanks be to God.

Prayer for New Life and New Hope

What are you thinking about as we move into the new year?  I can only guess that you are looking ahead to Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, Easter, school events, work deadlines, and a host of other things.  As you think about these things, would you also pray for your church?  You might be saying, “Of course.  I already do.”  Wonderful!  Let’s pray even more.  This quote from an article I read recently is why I am asking you to pray:

“How can we renew the life of the church? This question itself may arise from . . . the suspicion that we alone are responsible for the future of the church, and if we do not get it right, we have failed ourselves, our people, and God. Yet the good news is this: We do not renew the church. Just as we are not responsible for raising Christ, we are not responsible for raising the church from death. We are responsible to testify to what we have seen: that God brings life out of death, and we live in that hope.” –Martha Moore-Keish, associate professor of theology at Columbia Theological Seminary

 

We are responsible to testify that God brings life out of death.  To testify to hope.  We testify in many ways—through our words, our actions, and our prayers.  Ultimately it is God who is doing the work—in us, through us, around us, and sometimes even in spite of us, and as we turn to God in prayer we are acknowledging and participating with God in this work.

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

God promises to hear, forgive and heal.  Healing can happen in so many ways.  We heal a little each time we find that God has given us the strength to keep going in the midst of a difficult situation, or that God has given us loving words to say to someone, or that God has given us a vision for seeing a need and a way to help someone.  We heal a little every time we thank God for another day, another hour, another moment.

How have you seen God bring life out of death in your life?  How does that give you hope?

Every season brings something new.  We do not know what is around the corner for us, but we do know that God promises to be with us.

“I, your God, have a firm grip on you and I’m not letting go.  I’m telling you, ‘Don’t panic. I’m right here to help you.’”  (Isaiah 41:13 Message Version)

Let’s pray and thank God for all that he has done, is doing and will be doing!

New Beginnings

My pastor friend has a 12-day prayer group in Facebook that I’m following.  Today she greeted us with this post:  Happy 2014! Genesis 2:3 "and God rested from all the creating he had done." How do we allow for rest?

This one struck a chord with me today because I struggle with this.  I have a hard time staying off the merry-go-round of second guessing myself--am I doing enough, am I studying enough, am I praying enough, am I meeting expectations enough, is my house clean enough.  Of course the answer is always no and it probably always will be no.  There’s always more that can be done.  My church treasurer told me when we were filling out the Board of Pensions enrollment document, "Full time nothing.  You're 24/7."   True in so many ways, because I don't think I ever stop thinking about the next sermon, the next whatever, or praying about the people in the church.

So how do I allow for rest?  Maybe it’s those five to ten minutes at the end of the day when I play the silly word game on my Kindle until I get sleepy. At the core, though, I think rest is trust.  What C.S. Lewis says is true:  "Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done."[1]   And every day is a new beginning and a new opportunity to trust God to guide me through the day, and to trust that whatever happens in this day is just what needs to happen, whether it fit my plan or anyone else's plan or not. 

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[1] C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

Change

I love this time of year for many reasons, but one reason I particularly like the week after Christmas is that it is a time of change. We have new stuff, we're anticipating a new year, and we're getting rid of the Christmas decorations.

At our house, we always decorate for Christmas right after Thanksgiving. I'm not a Martha Stewart type, so this is the only season for which we radically change our decor. All the usual nic nacs and many of the pictures get put away and replaced with nativity scenes, angels, Santas, holly, garland, and all that stuff. It's a pretty radical transformation, further impacted by the addition of a tree to our already crowded living room. Then, right after Christmas, we take it all down. Sometimes we put everything back the way it was before and sometimes we don't. Either way, it feels fresh and new because it's been different for a whole month.

Making this change to our house is great preparation for the new year. There's something refreshing about newness, whether it's a new furniture arrangement or the prospect of new adventures in the coming year. We hope for something more out of it, in whatever form that might take. We embrace change in a way we might not at other times of the year. We're ready to let God do something new in our lives.