Jeremiah 29

God’s got a plan for ya! (Thank you and Fuck you.)

September 13, 2021 — Leave a comment

The last thing a person wading through waiting wants to hear is, “God’s got a plan for ya!” “Thank you so much for sweeping right over my present emotional state and desperate cry for help by reflecting some Sunday school truth that only makes YOU feel better! Thank you so much for smacking me in the face with a block of promise that makes God feel disappointing, slow to work and absent. Thank you for ignoring the human in front of you for the desire to be some sort of faithful sounding hero. Thank you so much! Thank you.”

I’m not frustrated by your pithy saying because I don’t believe it. I’m angry and sad because I do believe it so fully while feel like a scared desperate child. Yes and yes. I know God has plan for me. I have to believe that or why bother going on in this world that feels on the verge of a global explosion. I’m angry and sad because when you say, “God’s got a plan for ya,” I am reminded of my inability to control the future, my exhaustion from trying to predict the future and my need for a god who does have a mighty magical plan for me. I am sad and scared and I have great faith that things will pan out. I am angry and tired and hopeful that being present right now leads to the next right thing.

Humans spoon out trash sayings and advice. However if we allow it, egos aside and our radar for best intentions on, even that can become treasure. God has a plan for me. Right now I am feeling eh and expectant in the plan.

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.

CBG COVID Challenge: #3

March 23, 2020 — Leave a comment

It seems like even in the midst of rhetoric reminding us to slow down, be still, take notice…there is A LOT OF advice, newsletters, even devotionals to help us through this time. I am not excused from that latter. I do not want to add more TO DO’s, more alliteration bullet pointed advice (although I do love alliterations), more noise to the quiet we have been challenged to become comfortable with. Take a breath. In the name of Jesus, release any guilt or need to accomplish more, to achieve more, to have answers for why this season exists. The amount of content shoved down our throats, from news to meditation tips is our humanity trying to feel less helpless in the face of uncontrollable circumstances.

What if this time to be present is a space to expand our seeking without an agenda, our curiosity and our capacity to live in questions? What if we finally can acknowledge how vast the world, our lives and our community are as the unanswerable things become the normal? What if we finally see our own humanity in the presence of a huge God? Have we forgotten that God is that big in the midst of our plans? Have we forgotten God’s promises in the midst of our own desires and schedules? Have we forgotten our truest purpose in the midst of really great callings we’ve discovered in our enneagrams and personality tests?

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, and when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 29:11-14

I must love the questions

themselves

as Rilke said

like locked rooms

full of treasures

to which my blind

and groping key

does not yet fit.

Alice Walker

Prayer: God, I want to find you. I want to know you. I want to hear you. I want to sense you with all my being. I want to feel your presence in me, around me, before me. How are you expanding how I experience you during this time?

Creative: Break out the colors (on nails, on paper, in the pan…)

Brave: Thank someone you haven’t in a while.

Generous: Reach out to a small business to see how they’re doing.