In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts know the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. –Paul.
Surface level stuff seems good in my life, but I have an aching that I am missing something deeper. Perhaps like Martha I’m distracted from spending time with Jesus, sitting at his feet, infusing the rhythms of his life with mine. When people sleep, events are over, activities at rest the emptiness consumes me.
I wanted to pray today and couldn’t. Where are the deeper things? I’d like to think I drink of the deep well of God’s love, but I haven’t felt the refreshing of it.
The next few weeks I will seek to find the deep where I can anchor my anxiety. Hope compels me. I tried to pray today and couldn’t. So I wrote.
Just an update to say that we’re moved in and doing well.
Will be posting stuff soon as I get more comfortable and settled. I have a post at John Dobbs’ site today. Click on his link to the right: Out Here Hope Remains.
I like to occasionally direct you to blogs, books or articles worth reading. I found one this morning and I believe it has the chutzpah and punch to catalyze the type of shift in thinking and action churches need.
Mark Hamilton (PhD – Associate Dean, Associate Professor of Old Testament, ACU Graduate School of Theology) has written an incredible piece dealing with the demographic crisis in church culture. Read and start a conversation in your context.
My family and I are leaving Hobart to go work with the Skiatook Church of Christ. We’re excited. I will be doing youth work again and can’t wait. There are so many things I can say but don’t know where to begin.
For those of you who know me (and know why some of the things have happened recently) let me simply say the church in Skiatook knows as well and have embraced my family and me. When we visited I sensed a deep awareness of God’s presence. They have agreed to provide a place of healing and transformation as we work together to find God’s activity and join up.
Thanks to God and to you all for remaining with my family and me.
Stayed tuned as I will soon begin sharing on the blog my journey with Skiatook.
I’m on a streak. Two days in a row I’ve ran. I need to stay on top of my health and everyone I know that runs loves it, so…
I still hate it but am making myself learn to love it. Any runners out there want to share some advice? Best time to run? Form and technique tips? Shoes? Etc.?
Also, be sure to check out John Dobbs blog tomorrow. Click on the link for Out Here Hope Remains to the right.
The song blows me away…”If I can change I hope I never know.” How many live with these feelings?
I’m still baffled by the short film. It’s powerful but in a way that words can’t explain. And this is why I believe that those who follow Jesus must wrestle with art expressions such as this video. Yes, we’ve often done a great job of engaging our intellect as we attempt to discover the human condition. But what about engaging our soul? Our emotions? Have we thrown in fully, (emotionally, spiritually, soulfully) to find solidarity with the society in which we find ourselves?
What people in our neighborhoods, schools and jobs face often defies articulation. Can we meet the mess of life without words? Yes, but.
Doing so means that we must open the emotions of our life to the vulnerability of being torn deeply by things to painful for words. Will we wear the scars of a neighbor’s wounds?
Recently I teamed up with John Dobbs in writing. His blog Out Here Hope Remains has had a profound impact on people. He writes with honesty and from a place of deep faith. He has experienced excruciating pain and yet, still, hopes in the resurrected Messiah. He is an inspiration to many. I’m glad to be a part of what God is up to through his blog ministry. So go on over and check it out.
I’ll remain posting here but only on some short thoughts and perhaps a bit of commentary on pop culture here and there. I’ll go a little deeper every other Friday at his site. Have fun and stay tuned. And thanks John!
Ministering means helping others find thin places. I first read about thin places in a book by Marcus Borg. It stuck and I haven’t let go of the concept. Thin places exist when heaven and earth come wonderfully close to slamming together, where only a trace of humanity’s fall remains. They are moments when a person can sense the divine within the mundane. They are experiences where things of earth seem flooded by the energy of heaven. In the moment of a thin place, a person can feel the tug of God’s presence.
Imagine you were injected with liquid metal and studded with magnetic particles. Now envision that throughout the day you were required to pass between a sheet of metal and a life-sized magnet. Both warp and lunge your direction as you walk through. You feel the impending collision ahead of time as each piece forces millions of invisible, molecular particles into your path. That’s the force of thin place.
Prayer. A certain song. A smile. Birth. That old recliner. A lover’s embrace. A glass of wine shared among friends. Psalm 23. Worn spots in the shroud of humanity’s fall.
Ministry, then, ought to encompass an intentional effort to lead others into thin places. It is God alone that can heal and mend broken hearts, and in a fallen world that bars his full disclosure we must encounter him at the thin spots, at least for now. So I understand ministers as once-broken veterans of thin place exploration, discoverers of the renewing force of God’s presence, who go back and share their discoveries with those now-broken.