Just as he had always done

Daniel 6:10 When Daniel learned that the decree had been signed and posted, he continued to pray just as he had always done.

What an example of steadfast loyalty and consistency of practice! Daniel's enemies in the Babylonian court have convinced the king to issue a decree ordering that anyone caught worshiping a god other than the king be put in the lion's den, but even this decree doesn't throw Daniel off his game. I can see him up there, sitting on his roof, facing Jerusalem three times each day, through rain and storms and blistering heat. Sort of like the US Postal Service. That's to say nothing of the inner storms that might be erupting at the prospect of facing a hungry lion. Through it all, Daniel continues his practice of prayer, a practice of praise, worship and thanksgiving.

And here I am, tossed by my own inner storms of such a mild nature compared to Daniel's--just the agitation of meeting life's challenges, the anxieties of living every day. When I find myself too susceptible to these inner and outer storms, I can look to Daniel as an example, and ask: Am I being consistent with my practices of prayer and contemplation? Am I reading and reflecting on scripture often enough? If I do these things consistently -- and I do some more consistently than others -- they form a foundation for my life, a house built on rock that cannot be shaken. If I abandon them, I abandon myself. Then the house of my life is built on sand, susceptible to every breeze, ready to be scattered in all directions by the first difficulty that comes my way. So I need to remind myself to make these practices an integral part of my life, every day. I have a community that practices contemplative prayer together, and that is a huge support to my own practice. When life gets too busy, and I start to neglect my reading, it really shows. And when difficulties arise, and my emotions get stirred up, when I can keep with these practices it really makes a difference. Reminds me what I am about, whose I am, and that with God at the helm, everything is going to be all right. God will give me what I need to deal with whatever comes. My practices of prayer and contemplation are the outward expression of that faith, that certainty.

Prayer: Dear Lord, Help me to turn to my contemplative practices for grounding in the face of life's storms, and to keep my gaze fixed on you whatever comes my way. Amen.

A homesick soul

Deuteronomy 28:66 God will give you a restless heart, longing eyes, a homesick soul. You will live in constant jeopardy, terrified of every shadow, never knowing what you'll meet around the next corner.

Moses is on the plain speaking to the Israelites; here he is describing what will happen if they fail to follow God and God's commandments. This struck me as a perfect description of what life is like without the foundation of faith, of God, at least what it was like for me and many others I meet. The restless heart is looking for rest in God, the eyes longing for a vision of God, the soul looking for a home. It is to be beset with fear and worry about the future, about what comes next – and goodness knows, even with faith it is easy to be taken over by fear. But fear and faith are mutually exclusive, they can’t occupy the same space. Where I have faith, fear does not enter; where fear takes over, faith is hard to find. That is why the practices of faith are so important.

Deuteronomy 28:9 God will form you as a holy people to Him, just as He promised you, if you keep the commandments of God, your God, and live the way He has shown you.

Here Moses is describing the blessings that will come as long as the Israelites remain faithful to God. And it is precisely in the practices of faith – prayer and meditation, reading scripture, service to others, being in community, and following the commandments to love God and our neighbor with all that we have and all that we are – that over time forms us into the holy likeness of God, a loving and compassionate presence toward all creation. Just as the water crashing on the rocks gradually softens their sharp angles and eventually pounds them into sand, so these practices slowly, gradually, inch by inch change us, mold us, open our hearts in compassion to the world around us. And therein lies true fulfillment. It is all preparation for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which enables us to live out our calling. The paradox is that when I am truly emptied of myself, and filled only with God, then and only then do I become the fullness of all that I am and can be.

Prayer: Dear God, I thank you for the gift of Your practices, the call that invited me into this life and the many small and subtle ways You continue to form my heart. Let me know the joy of total surrender to Your will that I may fulfill the plan you have laid out for me. Amen.

God was with Joseph

Genesis 39:20b-21a But there in jail, God was still with Joseph.

God was with Joseph from the beginning. It aroused the jealous and enmity of his brothers who sold him into slavery. It aroused the lust of Potiphar's wife, which got him thrown into jail. But God stays with him through thick and thin, eventually bringing huge bessing out of Joseph's suffering. We shouldn't conclude, though, that just because God is with him, life is easy for Joseph: he had to avoid temptation, maintain his integrity and work hard to prove his capabilities to his captors. He is fully aware of the desperateness of his circumstances: he refers to the jail where he has been put in charge as a "hole", and later refers to his hardship and sorrows. But he trusts in God anyway, remains faithful despite all the adversity that comes his way until God's mysterious purposes begin to be worked out.

Some people look at faith like an insurance policy or a good luck charm. 'If I believe in God,' they think, 'if I have faith, than nothing bad will ever happen to me.' We might call this the Gospel of Security, a close cousin of the Gospel of Prosperity. God, however, makes no such promise. Unfortunately, as a result of this false belief, many who find themselves in difficult circumstances see that as evidence of God's abandonment, and then they themselves abandon faith, abandon God.

Faith isn't about protecting us from life. Faith is an action, a series of practices, a discipline that gives us the tools to engage in life more fully, to experience all that life has to offer, the sorrows as well as the joys, the hardship as well as the abundance, tools like endurance, resilience, steadfastness, gratitude, compassion, peace. Such faith equips us for living; it doesn't keep us above the fray, but plunges us more deeply into it. It enables us to experience our own lives more fully, and to be present with others as they walk in the shadow of death. So develop your faith not to avoid things, but to live the full, abundant and rich life that God has prepared for you, for all of us.

Prayer: Dear God, It is hard to remember when times are tough that you are always with me. Help me remember to turn my face to you when all else seems lost, to have joy in your presence and gratitude for the gift of grace, even when I can only find it in the shelter of your heart. Amen,

Isaac whom you love

Genesis 22:2 He said, “Take your dear son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I’ll point out to you.”

The Message

I don’t think there is any piece of scripture harder to deal with than this one: God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, God’s gift in Abraham’s old age and the carrier of the promise that he will father a multitude. It’s enough to make some people swear off God altogether. Some take the allegorical route, pointing out that we have to let go of our children, they don’t ultimately belong to us. (But do we sacrifice them? On the altar of what?!) Others point out that child sacrifice was part of the Canaanite religions of Baal and others; this is God’s rather dramatic way of putting an end to this horrific practice. But none of these ideas address the human experience of Abraham, going with his beloved son, Isaac, whom he loves, step by step to a place of death. Kierkegaard, in his essay on this story, talks about Abraham operating on two planes of experience. On the human plane, there is no hope at all; the death of Isaac is also the death of everything Abraham longs for and has been promised. But on the spiritual plane, the supernatural plane, Abraham takes a leap to faith, that somehow, in some way, if he is faithful, God will make it all work out. In the end, God stops the knife just in time, provides a ram for the sacrifice, and all is well.

When I look at it this way, I wonder where God is calling me that requires the sacrifice of what is most precious to me. What would that be? Where might God be calling me to do something that is harsh, cruel even, but may be necessary? I think of times I have been brought to very dark and difficult places, wondering where God was taking me, only to come through it with some understanding that I couldn’t have gotten any other way. How is Abraham different by what he has gone through? No one said this walk was easy. How is God challenging me today so that I might access a faith as deep, strong and powerful as the one Abraham lives through in this story?

Prayer: Dear God, I know you call me to put my life entirely in your hands. Teach me to trust in you even when all seems lost in darkness, as well as light, so I might enjoy the full richness of life you offer me. Amen.

God gave him what he asked.

1Chronicles 4:10 Jabez prayed to the God of Israel: “Bless me, O bless me! Give me land, large tracts of land. And provide your personal protection—don’t let evil hurt me.” God gave him what he asked.

All right, I couldn’t resist stopping and commenting on the Prayer of Jabez. I know someone’s written a book on it – how you, too, can pray for a big estate and a fancy car, and God will provide! It’s the same idea as the Secret – the law of attraction, which says if you think about a BMW you’ll attract a BMW – but better not let in any thoughts about a VW bug! (Worse, maybe you’ll attract it when you’re crossing the street!) And there are other versions of what I would call a Gospel of Prosperity. There’s nothing wrong with prosperity; in fact, it is a great blessing all who enjoy it need to be thankful for. The principles behind these ideas are true – but this take on what the Gospel, prayer, God are all about is just 100% wrong. In the same way that some Pharisees of Jesus’ time took the Law of Moses and made it into a measuring stick to beat others up with and ensure they came out on top, this use of spirit, while accurate, completely misses the point.

The abundance that Jesus talks about is a spiritual abundance. It’s not about having more stuff; it’s about having faith in the face of disaster, knowing that somehow God will see you through. Jesus spoke of being in the world but not of it. Using these spiritual principles purely for material gain is adopting the world’s values of materialism and wealth as your own; it is trusting in stuff that is not God. There’s a reason Jesus said it was hard to impossible for a rich person to enter heaven; I believe it’s because when you’re rich, it’s really hard not to think that your riches are the source of your security, instead of God. Then they become the center of your life. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be, too. Jesus calls us to seek spiritual treasure, so that we can face changes of fortune with equanimity, resting in the Presence of the One Unchangeable Immoveable Eternal Dynamic in all creation: God.

Prayer: Dear God, You have blessed me with prosperity; let it not be a stumbling block in my journey to You. Let me be grateful for your bounty, yet ever mindful that the only Source of true prosperity lies in You. Amen.

Dedicated to God

Today we start the saga of the Prophet Samuel, with the story of his mother, Hannah. Eugene Peterson (The Message/Remix) says in his introduction to 1Samuel, that the stories in the Bible are "immersions into the actual business of living itself; this is what it means to be human." And there is no story more human than the story of Hannah longing for a child.
1Samuel 1:26 I prayed for this child and God gave me what I asked for. And now I have dedicated him to God. He's dedicated to God for life. 1Samuel starts with the story of Hannah, taunted for her childlessness, who prays for a child and is answered. In gratitude and thanksgiving, she offers him to be dedicated to God, serving Eli the old priest in God's Temple. Oh, but that must have been hard! Here she has her beloved child, her beautiful son, that she has longed for so fiercely, and she has to leave him at the temple. As the story unfolds, it must have been so clear to her how right that was, and she must have been proud -- and God comforts her with other children to love and care for, but how hard it must have been to walk away that first time, leaving her beloved boy behind. Hannah does this incredibly hard thing -- and it turns out to be amazing! -- but she doesn't know that here. So what difficult tasks does God call me to do? Do I embrace them and follow through regardless of the difficulty because I know God is calling me and for not other reason, or do I shy away, pretend I don't hear, postpone and procrastinate hoping I won't actually have to do it? There are lots of stories like that in the bible, too, often followed by consequences much worse than they might have been. So I wonder, do I have Hannah's courage and faithfulness to do the hard things that God calls me to do? Prayer: Dear God, I know that I am weak and cowardly and it is only through you and in you that I find my strength. Give me the clarity to recognize, the courage to confront and the faithfulness to follow through on the difficult choices you call me to that I might be led not to see you in my story, as Peterson says, but to find my story in you. Amen