The previous chapter in my life has ended. And another one has began.
Through it all, God has sustained me. He didn't change, He didn't abandon, and He never moved. Not one bit.
The question is... did I? How much? What was I supposed to see? What am I supposed to see now? What is the takeaway? How do I grow closer to my Father in Heaven as a result?
Right now, as I begin to look back, I don't want the last three months to have been wasted. They've been rough. Agony, at times. But I don't want them to be for nothing.
And also... I'm grateful for all those who prayed for me. And also those whom I didn't know were praying for me. I can't imagine what might have happened if they hadn't. Prayer does move mountains.
Lord, show me what all this was for.
Monday, May 11, 2015
Thursday, May 7, 2015
"Let Me Pray for You"
When I was a student at Hope, we had Chapel in the morning on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and The Gathering on Sunday evenings. No classes were held during Chapel so you could certainly go, and the cool part was attendance was certainly encouraged but definitely not required. It was a major factor in why I liked Hope over a lot of the other Christian liberal arts institutions. Hope believed in the mentality that you have to make your faith your own rather than goading you into it, but they were more than willing to provide a place to help you grow as a Christian. I appreciated that.
One of the things was we had guest speakers at Chapel on a regular basis. The band would rock out, Dwight or Josh would close us in prayer, we'd sit down, and then Trygve or Paul would intro a stranger listed on KnowHope for us.
Sweet! A new person.
As I look back, one thing that sticks out to me was, without fail, Trygve or Paul would look at our guest and say, "Let me pray for you."
And then that's what would happen. It wasn't anything necessarily long or even complex, but a gesture that as I look back meant more than I saw then. Speaking in front of a group of people that you might have never even seen in your life (or even if you have) is nerve-wracking. When Trygve and Paul took that short moment to pray with these guests, I can see where not only were they lifting the message and us as a congregation in prayer, but the person as well when they likely needed it immediately.
That's the takeaway I see now. So often, we hear, "Would you pray for me?" or "I really need prayer for this." A wise friend of mine has appropriately stated there is never a shortage of people who need prayer. In light of that, why would we wait? I personally have the mind of an artist. I can memorize the repertory for a recital or choir tour and sing it back for you, yet I can't even remember what five things I'm supposed to get at the grocery store for my family (was it milk, bread, eggs, cheese, and onions? Or was it juice, coffee, butter, apples, and cereal?).
Keeping it all and who straight is a near-impossible task for my chaotic mind. I get bummed when I think, "Oh. Yeah. I didn't pray for him." I guess my point is don't just walk away from someone when they need prayer. We're not supposed to approach life as a bunch of individuals. We're a family in Christ. I've always been grateful when I have asked and been prayed over in that moment and in turn, I've seen the gratitude come back when I've prayed over someone in their moment of need.
One of the things was we had guest speakers at Chapel on a regular basis. The band would rock out, Dwight or Josh would close us in prayer, we'd sit down, and then Trygve or Paul would intro a stranger listed on KnowHope for us.
Sweet! A new person.
As I look back, one thing that sticks out to me was, without fail, Trygve or Paul would look at our guest and say, "Let me pray for you."
And then that's what would happen. It wasn't anything necessarily long or even complex, but a gesture that as I look back meant more than I saw then. Speaking in front of a group of people that you might have never even seen in your life (or even if you have) is nerve-wracking. When Trygve and Paul took that short moment to pray with these guests, I can see where not only were they lifting the message and us as a congregation in prayer, but the person as well when they likely needed it immediately.
That's the takeaway I see now. So often, we hear, "Would you pray for me?" or "I really need prayer for this." A wise friend of mine has appropriately stated there is never a shortage of people who need prayer. In light of that, why would we wait? I personally have the mind of an artist. I can memorize the repertory for a recital or choir tour and sing it back for you, yet I can't even remember what five things I'm supposed to get at the grocery store for my family (was it milk, bread, eggs, cheese, and onions? Or was it juice, coffee, butter, apples, and cereal?).
Keeping it all and who straight is a near-impossible task for my chaotic mind. I get bummed when I think, "Oh. Yeah. I didn't pray for him." I guess my point is don't just walk away from someone when they need prayer. We're not supposed to approach life as a bunch of individuals. We're a family in Christ. I've always been grateful when I have asked and been prayed over in that moment and in turn, I've seen the gratitude come back when I've prayed over someone in their moment of need.
Friday, May 1, 2015
Abandonment
I've written on this before, but it's a topic of relevance and worth revisiting.
Hope College has a beautiful worship space in Dimnent Memorial Chapel. It's this lovely Neo-Gothic space made of stone built in shortly before the Great Depression. It's tall, has big beautiful stained glass windows of some of the great figures in the Old and New Testaments on either side, a lovely rose window over the main entrance, and another big beautiful window in the chancel. The pews are old school - all wood, well-worn from years of students gathering to worship together and countless music events. The sound carries in the space and has been put to good use for Chapel Choir recordings. There's a constant stream of music - the Skinner and Pels and Van Leeuwen pipe organs and a couple of wonderful Steinway grand pianos grace the space.
Hope College is indeed blessed with a wonderful place to worship. I still miss worshiping alongside my friends there, both for the incredibly strong sense of community we had and also because... yes, we have a great place.
In 2007-2008, Trygve's inspiration for his sermon series at The Gathering was the windows in Dimnent Chapel. We had these lovely little booklets for the first semester and I took one and kept notes for some of them.
On week 5, the teaching was on the prophet Jeremiah, "the weeping prophet." In some ways, I've struggled with this guy. Like with anything in the Bible, there's much to take in and peeling back the layers reveals more and more, but the bigger picture isn't a lot of it isn't good news for God's people a lot of the time. It can be a bit of a bummer.
In this particular instance, Trygve focused in on Jeremiah 8:18-9:1. He reminded us of the historical context-indeed, it was a rough time to be in the divided kingdom of Israel.
"Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
not been restored?" (vv. 22)
Trygve paraphrased this, "God... where are You? Where are You in the midst of all of this?"
Tough question. And definitely a worthy one in Jeremiah's days. They wanted and needed answers and weren't seeing many (spoiler: the kingdom of Israel didn't have a good ending and neither did the kingdom of Judah)
I remember fall 2007 being a tough semester (really, a tough year-my senior year at Hope was the craziest among my four years). But as he continued, my pastor explained that this is a question that needs asking.
When we're willing to ask this, it keeps God front and center.
Right now, I'm left wondering why life has taken the turn it has. There's so much I can't understand between work, relationships, having one of the best missions experiences I could have asked for in Belize and already having a deep longing to return, this deep aching to invest in our Belize mission partners while not down there, thinking about other places I'd love to visit and serve, serving in ministries at church here at home, looking at what the future holds and wondering how everything fits together.
I dream. I wonder. I get frustrated, nervous, scared, angry, and upset. Why am I in this place right now? What's the point?
I've been here before. What am I supposed to take away this time, anyway?
It might not look like how life looks for some of my new friends in Belize, but by no means has this been a picnic (and honestly, it's a whole different set of problems) and at times... I've felt abandoned, even if I know deep down I'm not.
Why is there suffering there? Here? In whatever ways we deal with them?
Why the pain?
There's no complete answer that magically fixes it all (we wish for that stuff), but Trygve did teach in this sermon that Christ has suffered. He walked with His people. And His Spirit is still in the suffering.
As I've revisited this lesson over the years, I continue to be reminded that in those valleys of darkness that lamenting, crying out to God, asking where He is *IS* what we should do.
Seek Him, even when the darkness is as a moonless night. He is still there.
Hope College has a beautiful worship space in Dimnent Memorial Chapel. It's this lovely Neo-Gothic space made of stone built in shortly before the Great Depression. It's tall, has big beautiful stained glass windows of some of the great figures in the Old and New Testaments on either side, a lovely rose window over the main entrance, and another big beautiful window in the chancel. The pews are old school - all wood, well-worn from years of students gathering to worship together and countless music events. The sound carries in the space and has been put to good use for Chapel Choir recordings. There's a constant stream of music - the Skinner and Pels and Van Leeuwen pipe organs and a couple of wonderful Steinway grand pianos grace the space.
Hope College is indeed blessed with a wonderful place to worship. I still miss worshiping alongside my friends there, both for the incredibly strong sense of community we had and also because... yes, we have a great place.
In 2007-2008, Trygve's inspiration for his sermon series at The Gathering was the windows in Dimnent Chapel. We had these lovely little booklets for the first semester and I took one and kept notes for some of them.
On week 5, the teaching was on the prophet Jeremiah, "the weeping prophet." In some ways, I've struggled with this guy. Like with anything in the Bible, there's much to take in and peeling back the layers reveals more and more, but the bigger picture isn't a lot of it isn't good news for God's people a lot of the time. It can be a bit of a bummer.
In this particular instance, Trygve focused in on Jeremiah 8:18-9:1. He reminded us of the historical context-indeed, it was a rough time to be in the divided kingdom of Israel.
"Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
not been restored?" (vv. 22)
Trygve paraphrased this, "God... where are You? Where are You in the midst of all of this?"
Tough question. And definitely a worthy one in Jeremiah's days. They wanted and needed answers and weren't seeing many (spoiler: the kingdom of Israel didn't have a good ending and neither did the kingdom of Judah)
I remember fall 2007 being a tough semester (really, a tough year-my senior year at Hope was the craziest among my four years). But as he continued, my pastor explained that this is a question that needs asking.
When we're willing to ask this, it keeps God front and center.
Right now, I'm left wondering why life has taken the turn it has. There's so much I can't understand between work, relationships, having one of the best missions experiences I could have asked for in Belize and already having a deep longing to return, this deep aching to invest in our Belize mission partners while not down there, thinking about other places I'd love to visit and serve, serving in ministries at church here at home, looking at what the future holds and wondering how everything fits together.
I dream. I wonder. I get frustrated, nervous, scared, angry, and upset. Why am I in this place right now? What's the point?
I've been here before. What am I supposed to take away this time, anyway?
It might not look like how life looks for some of my new friends in Belize, but by no means has this been a picnic (and honestly, it's a whole different set of problems) and at times... I've felt abandoned, even if I know deep down I'm not.
Why is there suffering there? Here? In whatever ways we deal with them?
Why the pain?
There's no complete answer that magically fixes it all (we wish for that stuff), but Trygve did teach in this sermon that Christ has suffered. He walked with His people. And His Spirit is still in the suffering.
As I've revisited this lesson over the years, I continue to be reminded that in those valleys of darkness that lamenting, crying out to God, asking where He is *IS* what we should do.
Seek Him, even when the darkness is as a moonless night. He is still there.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
