devotional

Fall into a new season

September 8, 2020 — Leave a comment

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

Normally after Labor Day, there is a mental shift to fall. Schools are starting. Denim jackets are coming out. White clothes are put away. But this year, schools have started and closed again. There is sweltering heat in California. Sweats are the only things people are wearing year round. But it can be helpful to transition into a new season, even if it’s telling yourself you’re doing it in the midst of circumstances seemingly the same.

It gives you a chance to reflect on what has happened thus far. How are you different now than when summer first started, when lock downs were first implemented, when you rung in the new year? How have you grown? What have you learned? What have you lost? Who have you lost? What are you not bringing into the next season?

It gives you a chance to imagine and bless this next chunk of time. What do you hope for? Where do you want to be more settled? What changes can take place right now?

Transitioning into a new season also gives you grace for the all the ways you fell short in the last season. It gives you a sense of newness that you actually do have permission to bring into every morning. You are allowed to again be hopeful for things that did not pan out. How can each day feel like a new beginning and a new ending? We are met with new mercies every morning and we have a sanctuary to let things go every night. May we gently use the time in between, trusting that all things will pan out in due time. It’s a level of trust rooted in purpose and in a good God.

The Testing of Friendships

September 7, 2020 — Leave a comment

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ he said, ‘you know that I love you.’ Jesus said, ‘Feed my lambs.’ Again Jesus said, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He answered, ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.’ Jesus said, ‘Take care of my sheep.’ The third time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ He said, ‘Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.’

John 21: 15-17

It doesn’t feel good either to be the recipient or the reason for a broken relationship. A bad conversation. A surprising revelation of one’s character. Two life paths diverge because of exhaustion, unresolved resentment or lack of interest. Relationships build us up and tear us down, and we want the kind that tear down our walls, not our worth.

How often are we like Jesus, the one who was rejected and abandoned, yet also the one who later seeks out reconciliation? How often are we like Peter, set on our timeline of forgiveness and reconciliation and hurt when it doesn’t go as planned?

True friendships are difficult. The ones built to last go through fires, fights and forgiveness. It requires courage and humility to be the first to approach even when you have been wronged. It requires vulnerability to outwardly ask for care and respond with care. The journey of moving through different seasons of relationships often contain hurt, pain, repetition and uncomfortable intimacy. True friendships are worth it because as messy as the relationship between Jesus and Peter is, they exist when two people with the same mission towards humanity find each other. That is rare and testing in these scenarios can only survive if the calling and purpose remain at the core.

If you didn’t hold so dearly to your pride and ego, who would you reach out to? If you didn’t worry so much about your reputation or the sunk cost of friendship building, who would you let go? If you think about your deepest purposes in life, who do you feel safe to share those deepest secrets?

Spacious Heart

September 6, 2020 — Leave a comment

In you, Lord, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame; deliver me in your righteousness.
Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me.
Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me.
Keep me free from the trap that is set for me, for you are my refuge.
Into your hands I commit my spirit; deliver me, Lord, my faithful God.
I hate those who cling to worthless idols; as for me, I trust in the Lord.
I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul.
You have not given me into the hands of the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place.

Psalm 31:1-8

God,
It feels like the world is closing in on me. I feel trapped and scared, helpless to the walls caving in on me, moving in with the purpose of crushing me, crushing the spirit in me. I feel taken under by the feelings that arise: feelings of anxiety, depression, guilt, shame and fear. I wave my arms for help but no one is around to come to my rescue. I wave my arms for help but those that are around are too busy with their own fears and pain to even see me. I wave my arms in surrender, throwing my white flag ready to give up.

I am tired of this constant feeling of discomfort. I am tired of trying to keep growing. I am tired of trying to be compassionate even when it doesn’t come back in return. I am tired of my patterns and behaviors that are harmful yet I don’t know how to change them. I am exhausted seeing my heart and how far I still need to go. I am exhausted seeing the world in pain. I am exhausted saying these things.

I hate the rise of anger. I hate the stirring of heartbreak. I hate the tears always moments away. I hate the loneliness. I hate the battles. I want to hide and I want to sleep and not wake up until the days are better. So God I beg you to hide me in your refuge to remind me of my strength and purpose. In your refuge, can you sing over me who I am in your eyes. In your refuge can you make hope more alive than anything else. In your refuge may you grow the space in my heart for those that make life hard and this life cruel. May you grow the space in my heart to be a forgiving and compassionate and humble warrior of your goodness. Set my feet, my heart and my soul in a spacious place trusting that even as things around me fall apart, I am rooted and I will come out alive in the rubble.

I pray because I have no other weapons. Amen.

Friends for Paradise

September 5, 2020 — Leave a comment

Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with [Jesus]…One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.’ And he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’

Luke 23:32, 39-43

Peter had denied Jesus. Jesus’ closest friends fled. In Jesus’ last moments, he was stuck between two criminals, one who goes down in history sarcastic and pathetic and one whose faith gives him the most important friendship.

How do pain and humiliation lead you to react? Do you laugh it off, deflect and give a finger to the world? Do you own up to your current state and reach for a hope that might seem ridiculous? Do you, like Jesus, experience the pain fully while still making room for compassion? Who we are is most exposed in the limelight of humiliation and when we are recipients of punishment, whether right or not. There is no place where strength, courage and faith are either most displayed or most suppressed.

The three of them were about to die. Death was around the corner. There was no need for survival tactics. We often go around life armored up with survival tools and tactics. Which of these can you set down because you’re actually safe and which of these can you set down because it’s doing more harm than protection? How can you work towards days of more truthful exposure, even when it is scary and uncomfortable?

Instead of his closest friends by his side, Jesus endured his last moments with criminals and soldiers. Sometimes in our battles, the people by our sides might be the last people we’d want. Sometimes our most loyal friends will abandon us. Sometimes our longest friends are the ones least equip to handle us in our current season. I pray we give room to see who God has placed on our sides right now; some will suck, but some might be going into Paradise with us.

The Days In Between

September 4, 2020 — Leave a comment

And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, ‘Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who know whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, ‘Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.’ Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

Esther 4:12-17

After Mordecai’s prompting, Esther decided what she was going to do. Well, Mordecai’s prompting is, you’ll potentially either die with us now or definitely die with others later, your choice. Death and destruction were inevitable; what mattered was which side Esther was going to die fighting on. Between her decision and her action, she called in her community and closest confidantes to fast. She didn’t fast to decide what to do; she fasted to ready her heart for what she is about to do. She knew the consequences of her actions. She needed the strength for the possible worst.

Esther was specifically selected for this time and place, but she was not alone in the process. You are specifically selected for this time and place for the specific actions you are called to enact. Can you have both certainty and flexibility with your plans? You may want to do such, but can you allow for how it will pan out to shift? Who benefits, besides you, for the decisions you are about to make? Who can keep you accountable in that gap between decision and action? Who can you tell that you’re scared, you feel ill-equipped, you feel like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place?

I hope that you have such a person or peoples. I pray that beyond that you know you already have a posse in the Trinity. The Trinity always roots for deliverance, hope and renewal. I’m rooting for you to cross to that action, too!

Into the Well of anger

September 3, 2020 — Leave a comment

My God, whom I praise, do not remain silent,
for people who are wicked and deceitful have opened their mouths against me; they have spoken against me with lying tongues.
With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause.
In return for my friendship they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer.
They repay me evil for good, and hatred for my friendship.
Appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy; let an accuser stand at his right hand.
When he is tried, let him be found guilty, and may his prayers condemn him.
May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.
May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.
May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.
May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation.
May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord; may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
May their sins always remain before the Lord, that he may blot out their name from the earth.
For he never thought of doing a kindness, but hounded to death the poor and the needy and the brokenhearted.
He loved to pronounce a curse — may it come back on him. He found no pleasure in blessing — may it be far from him.
He wore cursing as his garment; it entered into his body like water, into his bones like oil.
May it be like a cloak wrapped about him, like a belt tied forever around him.
May this be the Lord’s payment to my accusers, to those who speak evil of me.
But you, Sovereign Lord, help me for your name’s sake; out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.
For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
I fade away like an evening shadow; I am shaken off like a locust.
My knees give way from fasting; my body is thin and gaunt.
I am an object of scorn to my accusers; when they see me, they shake their heads.
Help me, Lord my God; save me according to your unfailing love.
Let them know that it is your hand, that you, Lord, have done it.
While they curse, may you bless; may those who attack me be put to shame, but may your servant rejoice.
May my accusers be clothed with disgrace and wrapped in shame as in a cloak.
With my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord; in the great throng of worshipers I will praise him.
For he stands at the right hand of the needy, to save their lives from those who would condemn them.

Psalm 109

If you dare to press into the anger, accept and embrace the thoughts that scare you, reveal the venom and bitterness that are living in your chest in a pressure cooker, you may eventually get exhausted, untethered and exposed enough to come before God ready to be a source of healing.

The anger is the armor that needs to be embraced for its protection then slowly broken through.

The anger is as much truth as the truth that God is at the center capable and ready to take it on.

The anger is the layer of reality that reminds you that things are not as they should be.

It takes courage and faith to press into anger, press so deep that it presses into vulnerability. Under the anger is a softness that’s been protected by survival tactics. Under the anger is the innocence that once was and can be with the hope of God.

The goal of the anger is to become comfortable with the wounded and dependent heart, which abide in each of us. God can use that heart. God finds power in that heart. With that heart and surrender, God has the room to show their blessing & worship.

The Lonely Garden

September 2, 2020 — Leave a comment

And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’ And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.’ And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’

Mark 14:32-36

There is a sense of purpose that only comes out of deep loneliness. There is a deep loneliness that exists when walking in steps of purpose.

Jesus’ ministry was bookended by alone time. After his anointing, he was led into the garden to be tempted and right before his death, was in Gethsemane to pray. These moments are more than time alone, (which for introverts is joy and for general humans useful). These were lonely moments. These are times when he knew only he could fulfill the specific task at hand. No one else would fully understand. He was the sole person who had this particular calling. No one else had this path. While he may have community by his side, it was he who would die, he who would rise, he who would change the world. It’s in this loneliness, that the existence and promise of the Father and the Holy Spirit are life lines.

I have dreaded loneliness by whole life, and still do, especially in these times. Even in my grandma’s crowded apartment during holiday meals, I felt alone. Even in the most intimate and fun hangs with best friends, this fog of loneliness eventually finds me. And if we are honest, it finds each of us if we dare pause long enough to not find a quick cover or distraction. In loneliness, I feel like I’m the only one seeing the world the way I’m seeing it right now. It feels like I’m a character misplaced in a world not my own. I am hit by the wave of the world’s ache and my feet are stuck in the ground so I cannot run, cannot hide. These are not pleasant, but they are expansive revelations that each of our lives has a calling and path no one on earth can fully comprehend. They may enter in and collaborate with you. There might even be moments of such deep alignment, you know those moments when you meet someone and think OH YOU GET IT, that you feel so connect. And hopefully on this track of life, there are other runners by your side and fans cheering you on. However, your purpose is yours and yours alone. As each of us fulfills our own purpose, together we’d change the world.

So in your loneliness, in your alone time, I hope along with the ache you feel the immense truth that you matter, and only you can do what is set out for you. God is with you. The Holy Spirit lead you. Jesus went before you.

CBG: 100

July 1, 2020 — Leave a comment

100 posts. What started out as a project for my friend and I became a tracker of my emotions, longings and conversations with God. I gave myself permission to question and to doubt. I let myself be angry and sad, while in the Word. My honesty and my learning are welcomed in the presence of God. How I feel on 3/25 can evolve on 5/25; dear God I hope it will always! While I don’t come to the end of this journey with a burning desire to start my mornings with the Bible and in prayer, I have learned the following.

  1. I don’t need to prove my faith to anyone. God is my judge, and for that I will answer to God when it is my day.
  2. Writing different devotionals on the same verses showed me the power of God to speak beyond words. The Word evolves to translate God’s intimacy and nearness. That is usually what I need to grow and to take action.
  3. God’s Word is active as in it must lead to self-reflection and action, and more often than not, change. This is spiritual conviction — a self-growth rooted in being loved and is demonstrated as outward action for others.

Thoughts as I take the next however long to process:

  • Who have we allowed and not allowed to interpret and teach the Word, and how does this play into greater separation from God?
  • Why do certain populations (which ones) shy away from the Word in times of suffering and pain? How is this related to our current gatekeepers for preaching and teaching?
  • How does our onset insistence on right theology actually prevent the curiosity and safety to get to that same theology?

Because of God, even when I feel alone, I have faith that it might be different in the next minute. Because of God, I have dreams to make this world better. Because of God, I have been freed from generational prisons. Because of God, I know a love that keeps me going when the world falls apart. This is the God I love and I want others to experience. This is my purpose.

CBG: Mercy

June 27, 2020 — Leave a comment

And [Jesus] opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Matthew 5:2-7

What is required in mercy?
A choice.
A sacrifice.
A forgiveness
An opportunity for reconciliation.
Mercy is the journey of being wronged, recognizing the wrong and not asking the person who committed the wrong to compensate for the pain and loss.
Mercy is the faith of taking a temporary self loss for the sake of relational hope.
Mercy is the belief that healing and justice spring from sacrifice and forgiveness.
Mercy is an ownership of one’s own change and growth over enforcing change on another.
Mercy is self-responsibility for making things better regardless if others will do the same.
Being merciful grows one’s capacity for love and forgiveness. Being merciful is radical and does not add up in human mathematics. Being merciful is seeing a greater battle beyond flesh and bones and defeating the evil spirits that seek to divide humanity. In being merciful for others, I see mercy is possible on earth and that will open me to receiving mercy myself. Being merciful helps me to see that I, too, am worthy and capable of the mercy of God. There is nothing so unforgivable that God’s mercy does not cover.

Prayer: God I pray to keep my eyes on the battle against evils. God eradicate any tit for tat sentiments in me. God help me seek justice through mercy.

How has the feeling of “being owed” affected my relationships and how I view my place in the betterment of this world?

If you haven’t read Bryan Stevenson’s memoir Just Mercy, I encourage you to do it now.

CBG: All Body Parts Matter

June 21, 2020 — Leave a comment

They eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

1 Corinthians 12:21-26

All body parts matter. Maybe except the appendix. No one in this illustration is the appendix. If one member suffers, all suffer together. Because the parts are interdependent and connected. When your ear hurts, it may feel like your spleen doesn’t understand it, but because the body hurts over the ear, thus the spleen is affected when the body is not working at its optimal. And if you were the spleen, you might not even know that you’re affected because you’ve been fine hiding in there amongst the other organs that seem to be working. But trauma and pain will eventually reach you and when it does, oof, code blue. So do you have the faith to trust that another body part is hurting even when you are not that body part, or even adjacent to that body part? Do you have the faith and love to see that each body part is necessary and vital to the whole being working. You alone, in your specific body functions, will not be enough. And the parts that you most don’t think are significant to your functioning, are probably the ones you should be focusing on right now. All body parts matter. When you hear that are there some body parts you’re not endowing that truth and experience upon?

May we be spleens that are compassionate and smart enough to shout, The ear matters, and after that, fight so that other body parts believe that as well!

Prayer: God help me to be the function that I was created to live into and do my part for this body.

What is your role in the body?