keeping the fire lit

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to take part in a unique community: keepers of the fire. A friend connected me with his friend who had built a fire on her property on January 1. She was inviting people to come out for 48 hour turns to keep the fire burning. Along with stoking the flames and feeding the fire pit with logs, she asked us to pray.

It was a beautiful location with three cabins built in the 1800s surrounding the pit. It sat atop a hill and looked out over a beautiful Tennessee valley. It was peaceful, quiet, and cold. 

While there, I wrote this meditation:

The fire is lit.

We each have a part in contributing to the fire. It didn’t start with me, it doesn’t end with me. It is useful for warmth and food. It is contained. It is powerful and can bring destruction. We draw near, worship.

Alone, but city lights on the horizon. Barking dog in the distance. 

Outside:

cold, warm
big, small
alone, community
tired, rejuvenated
silence, sounds

Paradoxes prove to be teachable moments. Close to You. You are always close to me. I drift.

Light, dark. Moon is bright. Clouds thin. Clear skies reveal fiery stars and make for chilly mornings. Retreating inside. Feeling safe in four walls. Roof tucks us into the evening hours. The silence and solitude felt, enveloping.

Moments for prayer and walks and songs and Word. 

all night long

Do you ever feel like that you are working against God? Do you feel like your plans and God’s plans for you are at odds? 

You are not alone! 

The Bible is full of candid moments in which men and women struggle with God along these same lines. Like you and I, they have an idea or a vision for how they want their life to unfold. As clear as this may be to them, they believe that God is either working against them or is indifferent to their plans. 

Of all the characters in the Bible that this is true for, Jacob stands out. His struggle results in an epic wrestling match with God that lasts all night long. Once the sun rises, he emerges from that struggled on the river's edge with a limp and a new name. Moreover, this wrestling match that came on the eve of his reunion with Esau, his brother whom he had double-crossed all those years before. 

This paragraph is from my forthcoming book, Go Outside: The Adventure of Knowing and Being Known by God (Lucid Books).

Jacob’s encounter with God on the eve of his most dreaded hour resulted in a limp. Instead of it being a curse, the limp, for all of its pain, was a blessing. And, so it is with God’s grace for all who by faith take hold of it. God grace is a force that will not leave us alone. It reorients and restores. God’s grace renames us as those who are loved by God. By God’s grace we are all brought into the family who trace their heritage back to Jacob. Once named for his cheating ways, by grace, he becomes known as one for whom God had struggled in order to save. Incredibly, at the end of his life, Jacob, now Israel, upon meeting the Pharaoh of Egypt, says that his life has been relatively short and difficult. Then, with those words, he reaches out to bless the Pharaoh in the name of the Lord (Gen. 47:9–10).

Instead of Jacob’s struggle leading to death, it leads to hope and salvation, albeit with a limp! This side of eternity we may limp, but we know that the struggle with God builds faith and hope and will result in all things made new! For now, that limp — that sign that while things are good they aren't perfect — is a blessing and the ache it produces in you and I will one day be satisfied when Christ returns.

We, like Jacob, can take the final stanza of Psalm 23 to heart...

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life, 
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (English Standard Version)

God is not ashamed of you

Faith is convinced that God troubles himself about the smallest thing. (Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling)

I felt it this week. The trouble of this world washed ashore into our lives threatening our safety and security… again. It’s like the tide that threatens our fragile sand castles. I could feel myself feeling normal about the whole thing, which is alarming. The look of fear in the eyes of the victims of Las Vegas shooting begged me not to settle, not to be okay with this madness.

I also heard others reassure them that their pain and fear was real and legitimate. Stories were told that have been forged in suffering, not broken apart. Hope emerged, even if the journey to recover from violence require time… and friends. We must walk the road but we need not walk it alone. Others want to help.

God is not ashamed of our frailties nor of our desire for something more permanent. 

The following excerpt is from my forthcoming book, Go Outside. In these 2 paragraphs, I’m focused on how God is not ashamed of those who are faithful and who want more. There’s no need to hide desire, or numb it. We can place it before God and rest in His promise to fulfill it in and through Jesus even if we wrestle with Him to take hold of it.

The people in God’s story who were faithful wanted more. These are the people who are mentioned in Hebrews 11. Starting with Abraham, the writer tells how Abraham set out from his home country and all his kinsmen and followed God to a promised land where he pitched his tents. His faithfulness, the writer points out, was an indication that Father Abraham “was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10). But, like Abraham and all the others in this roll call of faithfulness, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city” (Heb. 11:13–16, emphasis added). 

If God is not ashamed of my wandering and longing, then that means I can experience His love and presence in my searching. When my expectations are not met in this world, God is not telling me to lower my expectations. He is stoking the fires of desire in my gut. If I, like the people in Hebrews 11, continue hoping for more, I will experience God’s pleasure and will not be disappointed. I can be both honest about how far short this world falls in my hopes and dreams. And, I can look forward with great expectations! (From Go Outside: The Adventure of Knowing and Being Known by God (Lucid Books))