In my last post I talked about being willing to be willing.  But what about our doubts?  What do we do with those?

Get used to them.  I know, its not what you might expect a Pastor to say.  But faith exists BECAUSE of doubt.  We grow spiritually when we figure out how to carry both our doubts and our faith at the same time.

As my spiritual life has grown over the years I’ve notices a few things. Doubt doesn’t go away.  Some of my doubts do subside, but they are quickly  replaced by new doubts and uncertainties.  Many are the same doubts I started with, only different.  Different because they are smaller (or my faith has grown enough that they seem smaller).  Some of my doubts feel different not because they have changed, but because they are so familiar.  Those familiar doubts remind me of a boulder in a river:  over time that boulder is shaped by the currents. It’s still there, it’s just that both the boulder and the river have been shaped by its presence.

Somewhere along the way, I decided to say yes to faith. In the face of those doubts I decided to trust and see where that led me.  I thought, over time, faith would teach me to set down my doubts.  For some of them that was true, but most of my doubts are still with me: good companions on a lifelong journey.

What has been true is that, as my faith grows, my doubts and my faith live together inside me at more and more peace with each other. That peace blesses my whole life.  What about my doubts?  I cherish them.  Because my doubts remind me to treasure my faith.

Spiritual growth takes one ingredient.  It’s not belief.  It’s not church.  It’s not daily quiet time.  It isn’t worship.  Or Scripture reading.  Or even prayer. It isn’t generosity.

Nope.

Spiritual growth takes one thing: willingness.  We need to be willing to be willing.

No one can make your grow.  Or trust.  Or believe something.  Or make time.  Or find a faith community.  Or go to church once you join.  You can sit in church all your life and never once worship.  You can read voraciously and never discover what you believe.  You can believe a lot of things and never choose to reach for a life of the Spirit.  A life with God.

Spiritual growth happens when we are willing.  When we make a decision that we are going to say, “Yes.”  “Yes I want my life reshaped.  Yes I want to grow spiritually.  Here I am, God, if you are out there.  And I am willing to be willing.  I don’t have all my questions answered.  I am not sure where to start.  I am scared that if I try to reach into a spiritual place, inside me or beyond me, I won’t find anything.  But, I am willing to try.  I am willing to say yes.  I am willing to grow.  I am willing to take whatever next step I can.  I’m not even sure what that step is.  But I am willing to ask, ‘What is my next step?’ until I get a sense, a prompting, a tug in that direction.  I am willing to be willing.”

Are you willing to be willing?  Does something tug at you?  Have you ever asked the question, “Is this all there is?” or “Might there be something more?”

Then just start sharing what is on your heart.  Sure, it might sound like you are having a conversation with yourself, but what is so bad about that?  You just might be surprised by what you discover.

In my last post I pointed to a few questions that, taken together, can give us a pretty good snapshot of where we are spiritually. 

What is it you long for?  What are your greatest desires?  (Be honest!)

And: What drives you?  Why?

The second two questions,”What drives you?” and “Why?”, oftentimes can lead us to notice or understand when our list of longings or desires is out of whack. 

You see, God doesn’t drive us, so much as lead or beckon, coax or cajole.  When something comes from God we are called, not driven. 

Drive comes from our broken places.  It emerges from our fear.  Our hurt.  Our anger.  Our mistrust.  Figuring out what drives us leads us back to our broken places.  It helps us to see how our hurts and disappointment, our wounds and our worries direct our lives.  And it allows us to work on healing those places enough so that they quit taking control of the direction our lives are headed. 

Ask the questions: “What do I long for?” and ”What are my deepest desires?”.  Then line those questions up against these: ”What drives me?” and ”Why?”.  Your answers to these questions will give you some important information about the life you are living vs. the life you long to live. 

Next look at how you spend your time. Look at how your invest your creativity.   Are your longings, those God given hopes and dreams that you carry, are your longings leading your life?  Or are you being driven by something instead? 

I know a man I’ll call Bob.  Bob’s life was driven by a need to control.  It’s no wonder.  He grew up in an abusive home.  He had to take contol of the situation so often when he was little just to keep his mom safe.  But the pain of that time in his life, and what he did to survive it, created a legacy of control and mistrust that held his own family, his wife and children, hostage to that old hurt. 

It was a long road for Bob to recognize the pattern.  He thought he was just taking care of everyone.  He’d blow up if anyone challenged his right to make choices on his own.  Other times he’d simply ignore his wife when she’d ask questions.  “I’ve got it covered,” he’d think.  “Why can’t you just trust me?” 

But as Bob grew more and more in his faith, he began to ask the questions: “What are my deepest longings?”, “What are my greatest desires?”,  ”What drives me?”, and ”Why?”.    He knew what drove him: he needed to keep himself and his family safe.  He needed to direct their destiny.  But as his faith grew, something happened inside him.  He began to recognize that his need to control the situation was more about fear than anything else.  “Iwas afraid if I didn’t do it, everything would fall apart.  I didn’t want anyone to make any decision except me because I was afraid to trust anyone.  I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t take care of everthing.  Fear was driving my life.  Not love.  I wanted – longed for - something more.”  He decided to take a leap of faith and trust.  Over time, he even began to learn to let go. 

“I’m not the man I was before,”  Bob says.  “I was so rigid and controlling because I was so afraid.   Over the past few years, my faith has grown.  Eventually I got to a point where I was able to take a good hard look at why I was so controlling.  I wasn’t that way because that’s just how God made me.  (I used to like to say that.)  Iwas that way because of what happened when I was a kid.  Because I was still scared and afraid to trust.  To trust my wife.  To trust myself even.  I couldn’t even imagine trusting God.  Somehow, in the midst of all that I found I was able to change.  I wanted – longed for – my relationships to mean more.  And I had this nagging sensation that in order for them to mean more, I had to trust more.  I can’t believe I made that decision - to trust - but I did.  And what I have now is something I never had before.  I have peace.  And in the places I used to have fear, there is joy.  That feels great.” 

If you’re being driven by something, what can you do to reconnect to the longings God has placed in your heart?  And how might you pray your way to a place where you were reaching for what you long for instead of running from whatever is driving you?

What is it you truly long for?  What are your greatest desires? 

What drives you?  Why?

Taken together, these questions are a great way to orient where you are right now spiritually. 

What is it I truly long for?  10 years ago I was with a group of ministers.  The pastor who was leading our group that day asked the question: “What do you want people to say about you when you die?  What do you want your life to have meant?”  It’s another way of getting at the question, “What is it I truly long for?”  My answers at the time were all about being a good family member (wife, mother, daughter. . . ) and a good friend.  I wanted to be know for the quality and capacity of my love.  But, if you had lined my life up against those desires you would have found a disconnect.  I was working really hard at something I didn’t really long for at all.  I was working really hard at . . . work.  

Don’t get me wrong.  There isn’t anything wrong with hard work.  But when it comes at the expense of loving the people we’ve been given to love, something’s gotta give.  You’d have thought I would have had some important moment of self-realization all those years ago, but, even when we take the time to have deep personal insights, we still have to decide to do something about those a-ha moments. 

9 years later I say down to answer for myself these questions:

What is it I long for?  What do I truly desire?

What drives me?  Why? (See my next post for this part.)

I wrote down my answers honestly.  It was immediately clear why I hadn’t changed my priorities all those years before.  My longings and my desires conflicted with each other.  I longed for peace.  Love.  Joy.  Contentment.  But my desires . . . well they lined up with all that mostly, except for one thing: they were in the wrong order.  Success was at the top of my list.  Then came wanting a strong marriage, to be a good mother and raise my children well, to stay connected spiritually, and finally to love God.  I could see right away what the trouble was.  My list was upside down.  There wasn’t anything wrong with the things I wanted.  They were just in the wrong order.  If my leading desire was success and my last desire was to be close to God, well. . . . that is very backwards.   Particularly for a Pastor.  (I’m just saying. . .)

But the excercise was great.  It was clear that if I wanted to get what I longed for: peace, love, joy, contentment, I needed to reverse my list.  Maybe even omit “success” entirely. 

So, for the last year I have been doing just that.  I started to live with God at the top of my list.  (Maybe, just maybe, this is the secret to getting things in the right order in any case.)  I committed to my prayer life in a new way, and even sought out a friend who would encourage me and help hold me accountable to my walk with God.   After God came family.  Faith and family come first.  All the time.  A year later, I am amazed at the reordering of my life.  I am amazed by the outcome of those choices.  These days, I have this peace that comes from knowing I am spending my days ordering my life in ways that will lead to what it is I long for: a life with peace, love and joy.  And you know what?  My marriage is better than ever.  I’m spending the kind of time with my family that I want to.  My friendships have grown deeper, and new friendships have emerged.  The strength of the love around me has grown a thousand times.  Life is good.  I am happy.  Isn’t that success after all?

Soul Revolution by John Burke – He’s a biblical literalist, but in that framework he loves people in a radical way.  I like his comprehensive approach to spiritual practice.  The theology isn’t universalist, but the process he describes challenged and changed me.

The Inescapable Love of God by Thomas Talbott – theological perspective of Christian universalism.

If Grace Is True by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland – a very accessible read.  2 universalist pastors describe why they are and what it means to them.

God loves everyone. No exceptions. It’s that simple.  When people ask me what my theology is, what I think about the nature of God, this is what I say.

I believe God loves and God’s love is for everything. No matter what. God relentlessly loves me. God relentlessly loves my “enemy.”

These days I am trying to attend to God moment-by-moment in my life. I am trying to stay connected to God: to remember and recognize God’s love all the time throughout my day. The experience of God’s love is the experience of Grace, and I know that amazing things happen when Grace, gets unleashed in the world.

When people experience Grace, and somehow God’s love manages to get unleashed in people’s daily lives, things change. Deep wounds can be healed. Reconciliation can happen between people, in families and even among nations. Grace creates forgiveness. Grace is the kind of Love that leads us to peace, and offers into our lives a soul-shifting joy.

God loves. Love is relational. God loves. So God loves me. God loves. Love is relational. So God wants a relationship with me. Is that true? Might that be so? Hmmm.

People are made to be relational – we are designed to be in relationship with one another. It seems to me that, if life is designed to be relational and interdependent, then God must be relational too.

What if God’s greatest desire is for a relationship with me?

A few months ago I decided to live as if that were true: to live as if God wanted a personal relationship with me. That decision, to live with a trust in God’s love for me personally, started to shift things around inside me in ways I still don’t fully understand. I just know that everything I thought I believed was “out there”, was with me and in me in a different way. A different kind of peace and joy and trust became available to me. Not all at once. Not all the time. But little by little things inside me have shifted. I won’t say I have changed. But I am different. Me-ier.

Of course there are times I forget all this.  There are times when I stop paying attention. Times when God seems far away. In those moments now, though, I tend to notice the disconnect sooner and I try to remember: God loves.  God loves me.  God loves the world.  And I remember to trust again. Sometimes, when I feel pretty shaken, I don’t just need to remember to trust again, I need to decide to trust all over again.

Paying attention, hour by hour, to God’s presence in my life had reminded me just how quickly I forget. Its also given me a lot of chances to be grateful, particularly when I remember that I’ve decided to trust. I decided to be willing to say yes to God. To believe in a God who loves all people. All the time. No exceptions. It’s that simple.

At Micah’s Porch we are taking a journey as a church that will hopefully be a “Soul Revolution” (John Burke) for some. For the next 6 weeks our small groups will be trying to pay attention to God in a new way….
What would it be like if we were attentive to God’s presence not just for an hour on Sunday, not just for a few moments in the morning, but throughout our day? What would it be like if we decided to try to open up the lines of communication with the God . . . and keep them open? Would it make a difference? What changes might we see in ourselves? Would we begin to see the world in a different way? If you want to find out, join us!

Beginning today and continuing for the next 60 days we are going to try a spiritual experiment. It started with a Pastor, John Burke, in Texas. He challenged the people in his church to try to stay connected to God throughout their day. To not pray or meditate so much as have an ongoing conversation with God. His idea: wear a watch with a timer, or set your phone, to chime every hour. On that chime you might simply ask, “Here I am God, what next?” Or “How are we?” Perhaps you say a prayer. Pour out your doubts and questions. Share relentlessly. Whatever you do, its your moment to reconnect with the trust that God is everywhere, all the time. With us and among us. Its your moment to pause and listen. Or stop and talk.

A few months ago I decided to take the challenge. I got a watch with a timer that could chime every hour. I set the timer when I got up in the morning and turned it off when I went to bed. Those chimes were a reminder of God’s unshakable love, a reminder of miracle of life, even at times a reminder of the frustrations of being human! I started to live as if God was with me throughout my day. And slowly but surely there was more peace. There was more joy. It’s not that I don’t get scared or anxious, I do. It just that the spiral of worry used to seem endless to me. Now, when I stop and share how I am doing I can find a peace through the anxiety, and trust in the face of my fears.

Because I am more and more attentive to God throughout my day, I am living more and more the life God intends for me to live. I am making good choices. More and more my life is organized around the things that really matter to me: around the people I love, the talents I have to share, and the gifts I want to offer. That feels good.

I hope you decide to take the challenge too. Set a clock to chime every hour. Put some post its around your office, in the bathroom, in the kitchen to remind you: maybe write 60/60 of them for every 60 minutes for 60 days. See what happens.

I’ll be blogging about what we are up to every day, and together we can share a conversation here about our experiences. Come back and check out the blog and add your perspective. Lets get started!

I don’t think the Source of Life, the Mystery and Majesty that creates and upholds life is just something to notice in the big ah-ha moments of life. No. I think that creative power that sustains and upholds life, is something to pay attention to all the time.

Lately I have been trying to do that: pay attention to the Holy all the time. I am trying to stay connected to God throughout my day.

When I was little I thought believing in a personal God was ridiculous. There was no way anything – even “the Great Whatever” – could pay that much attention to that many things at once. The whole of creation’s prayers? And mine – specifically? No way. It didn’t make sense. But I am coming to see, bit by bit, that God isn’t just the majesty of creation to be encountered on mountaintops or in sunsets. God is in the details of life too.

It started with a leap of faith, really. A decision to invite God into my life, to be aware of the Holy throughout my day. To try to keep the conversation going, not just when I stop to pray, but as I live. I am noticing something as I do this . . . I am different. I feel like the person I truly am, the one I was created to be, is emerging in ways that hadn’t been true before. I am becoming more and more who I have longed to be.

Decisions get easier to make. Risks are easier to take. And I have also notice, as I pray, that I am not just sharing and listening (How can there be so much silence?!). I’ve noticed I am being coaxed. Encouraged. This God presence in my life is a leading Presence. And when I follow, I find peace. And more love. And joy.

It doesn’t mean that life is perfect. Far from it. It just means that the life I am living these days feel more like the real deal. My life as God intended.

May you find that too.

In faith, Pastor Jen

What happens when we begin to trust God? 

Its a good thing to try to find out.  Sometimes our trust in God grows slowly, bit by bit.  And then there are moments when that trust just takes over and floods our lives.  We “let go and let God.”  It might sound like the second way is more exciting, clearer and therefore must leads to more life change.  But I am not so sure.  The stories I have heard of people letting go and letting God are usually more harrowing.  Hitting rock bottom.  A barely escaped run-in with death or disaster.  I think a relationship with God is a dance between bit-by-bit trust and jumping-in-the-deep-end trust.  We need them both to life faithfully over a lifetime. 

So what happens when we begin to trust God?  In my own life I find that my decisions get easier, my fears begin to subside. . . and my prayer life grows like crazy. 

To trust God means being willing to be in conversation, in prayer, with God.  When I offer my prayers of confession and confusion, hope and petition, thanksgiving and praise, pain and loss, I am sharing the story God already knows about me, and I discover something wonderful.  God is with me.  And I get to see, as I pray, the difference between how God seems me and how I see myself.  Coming to see that difference is freeing.  Sometimes I find that God find delight in parts of me I hadn’t really noticed much and I am reminded to pay more attention to those parts God loves.  Sometimes I feel responsible or bad for something and I discover that God does not share my sense of harsh judgment.  And when there is something I have done that falls short, I have found that God loves me in those places, which make them easier to face and make right as I can. 

How do we begin to trust God?  By being willing.  By saying yes.  Not just once, but over and over again.  These days I am finding I have to remind myself to stay willing so many times throughout the day.  I wish it were easier for me to be faithful.  But I am grateful that I have decided to say yes.  To trust.  I want to live the life God had in mind when I was designed.  I trust that if I stay willing I will discover what that life is. 

May you decide to be willing.  To trust.  To say “yes” to faith.  And in doing so discover the life that God had in mind when you were made. 

Grace happens.

Our job is to be willing to see it and seize it.

In faith, Pastor Jen