Lord, teach me. . . .

For where God built a church, there the devil would also build a chapel.  –Martin Luther When was the last time you were up late Saturday night, and stopped for a moment to wonder: Why do I get up so early on Sunday, just to go to church? After all, we live in an age where people no longer claim a religious faith. Many classify themselves as Nones (having no preferred belief), or SBNR (Spiritual, But Not Religious). We joke about God meeting us on the golf course during the week, or reflect on times when we felt so close to the Universe—and we were miles and miles away from any church building. It was Solomon, a man of great wisdom, who built an astonishing temple for the Lord God; yet at its dedication, Solomon proclaimed, “The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built?” ( 1 Kings 8:27 ) So why do we do this? Why do we build amazing edifices, dedicate them to God, and trek for miles to meet there if we ...

Abundance is not something we acquire; it is something we tune into. –Wayne Dyer The Psalmist in the Bible regularly speaks with great awe about the generous heart of the Lord. Most memorably, in Psalm 23, he writes: My cup overflows! These words reminded me of when I was little, and Mom would come around with milk or Kool-Aid and tell us to say “when.” She would pour slowly, waiting for us to speak that magic word. Sometimes we would actually say when ; other times, we would giggle and watch, and see if Mom would stop if we didn’t tell her to. I can remember her carefully pouring until physics kicked in, and the surface tension made the liquid stretch above the rim of the glass, just a bit. Oh, the challenge of getting that very full glass to our lips without spilling! But every once in a while, she’d overshoot, and bright red liquid would dribble over the side onto the table (or our laps). It happened so unexpectedly, sort of—after all, why would we ever think Mom...

Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, it humbles my heart, for You are everywhere.  –Guillermo del Toro Sometimes, we as Christ followers can get so caught up in having a “personal relationship with Jesus” that we can shrink God down to a pocket-sized god. We want to have a friend in Jesus, to have a Lord that walks with me and talks with me in intimate communion. That’s certainly one way to relate to the Almighty, but there’s so much more . Stop for a minute and think about God. Try, even for a minute, to wrap your human mind around the idea of God who is everything—and more besides . God who has been around before time, is around now, and will be around after time no longer exists. God whose very existence and essence is Love—for all of Creation . No exclusions. God who, even on your very worst day, when you feel ugly inside and out, looks at you with adoring eyes and actually wants you t...

How strange this fear of death is! We are never frightened at a sunset. –George MacDonald I learned something interesting earlier this week: Costco, home of just about everything your heart could desire, also sells . . . caskets. The most popular one starts around $1300, and they will even expedite shipping for your convenience. (Thanks, Molly Baskette!) Interesting that finally, it seems, we have begun to treat death as a normal part of living, isn’t it? And yet—do we, really? As Easter has come and gone again; we have rejoiced at Christ’s deliverance from and victory over death. But have we truly allowed ourselves to be changed by this victory? Once the final Hallelujah has been sung and we have gone home with our lilies and tulips, once the family goes their separate ways and our day-to-day tasks resume, do we do any of these things any differently? Even with a promise of eternity, we still seem awfully fond of this life, don’t we? We celebrate when we get a ra...

The glory of God is a human being, fully alive. –Meister Eckhart So we just celebrated Resurrection Sunday, Jesus’ eternal victory of life over death. Now we enter the season of Easter, fifty days leading up to Pentecost. It seems only fitting that after forty days reflecting on Jesus’ wilderness journey, now we have fifty days to celebrate the glory of God—and what that means for us. Throughout Jesus’ brief ministry, people desiring healing, wholeness and hope took a chance. The paralytic’s faithful friends invested their time, energy and faith to bring him closer to Jesus ( Mark 2:1-12 ). The woman with the bleeding problem took a risk, reaching out to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe ( Mark 5:21-34 ). Even Peter, the trusted disciple, risked it all, stepping out of the boat in an act of faith ( Matthew 14:22-35 ). Once these people began to understand that Jesus was completely, fully invested in them—despite their broken and messy lives—they, in turn, chose to trust, a...

Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening. --Mahatma Gandhi Prayer is vital to a believer’s spiritual health; I think at one point or another, we have all discovered that. Prayer is spiritual oxygen: breathing in the Presence of God, we are filled and able to exhale the Love of the Creator, breathing God’s Presence into the world. But sometimes, we have so many things in our hearts, it’s hard to focus. Or sometimes we have trouble coming up with anything we think is worth offering to God. What to do, what to do. There must be some way to help us organize our minds as we come to prayer time. . . . Years ago, someone suggested to me using the fingers of one hand when praying, as a mnemonic device of sorts. This is helpful in a number of ways. On the days we come before God with a basketful of requests and needs, limiting ourselves to a handful of thoughts reminds us: we cannot change the whole world. We can, however, focus on our corner of it....

We can be certain that God will give us the strength and resources we need to live through any situation in life that God ordains. The will of God will never take us  where the grace of God cannot sustain us. –Billy Graham We had the pleasure recently of attending an Interfaith Passover Seder meal at a local Jewish temple. We met up with several hundred friends we hadn’t met yet to take part in some of the rituals of the celebration. We asked the Four Questions, awkwardly sang and prayed in Hebrew, and sampled the traditional, symbolic foods of the Seder. We came away feeling like we had truly experienced something special, and like we knew a little more about Jesus the Jew. And we also learned about dayenu . Dayenu captures the idea that God is so generous, so gracious that God provides so much more than we need—and less would have been enough . Had God only led the Hebrews out of Egypt— dayenu. That would have been enough to bring us to gratitude, but God d...