Author: Will N.

Embracing a daily spiritual practice…

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Embracing daily spiritual practices should not be seen as an attempt to earn God’s grace or to increase His love for us- in Christ, we already have those blessings in abundance and no action on our part can merit more of God’s saving grace or bountiful gifts.

Spiritual practices should instead be centered in our desire to know God more fully and our desire to then seek His will for our lives more faithfully.

Realizing this difference changes our perspective.

When we are occasionally tired and fail to pray or busy and fail to study, we are not afraid of God’s wrath at our weakness, but we instead miss our time spent in His presence.

We are so connected to Him that to not spend time in devotion causes a loneliness in us and a longing hunger to renew our commitment to Him.

I want to grow in intimacy with God not out of some passionless sense of duty or fear, but out of a genuine desire to spend time and communion with my Father and my Friend.

When we reach this point relationally with God, devotion becomes a conversation we long for rather than a hurried errand we feel pressured to fit into our already packed day. We will long to meet the Lord in the morning and to come into our quietness with Him each night.

Rather than driving us toward isolation, such private times serve to deepen our relationship not only with God but with other like-minded believers. As we maintain daily intimacy with God, our times of gathered worship with others are not just a religious chore to be checked off but a centering of our lives celebrated in community with fellow Christ followers. When we find greater joy in the daily sharing of time with God, the strength of that personal relationship should stir within us a longing for the collective worship we find in His church.

As we mature, each believer will recognize the need for different approaches and rhythms in private devotional life, yet all of us can come to love God more deeply and see His will for us more perfectly through faithfully spending time each day in His presence. When we love being with Him and make growing our relationship with God a priority, we are better equipped to take the inner strength gained in solitary devotion into the daily tasks of life and to become more closely attuned to the spiritual needs of others.

Back to December…

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I have never lived in a town of more than a couple of thousand people. 

I like rural life, and while I love to travel to cities and appreciate the conveniences of larger towns, I have chosen to live my life in small, familiar places. 

A little more than a year ago, a major tornado ripped through our little community and left destruction in its wake.

City hall gone.

Fire station gone.

Businesses gone.

Offices gone.

Church buildings gone.

Homes gone.

All gone in a moment.

As deep as the scars of the physical destruction have been, the damage has not all been visible- a breaking took place that has both divided and bonded our community in ways we cannot yet fully understand and may never fully know.

I have been reading Wendell Berry’s fiction as a treat to myself following the end of grad school, and in A Place on Earth, he describes the valley that flooded outside his fictional community of Port William, Kentucky- how the local landmarks were rearranged and erased and how nothing was ever the same- except that it was all still exactly the same.

Small places- maybe all places- are like that. 

Always both foreign and familiar.

Never seeming to change, yet never staying quite the same.

I took a drive to pray, to reflect, to give thanks, and to allow myself to feel the weight that this year especially has brought.

To discern what needs to be remembered and what is better forgotten.

To pause and pray at church graveyards and cemeteries.

To consider what has passed on and what remains behind.

I love the holiday season and the hope of a new and better year ahead, but it was a lovely day to be quiet and still before we leave the old behind and stretch forth to embrace the new.

I am grateful for this life, this pace, and this place.

And the December sunset over Sharon was not a bad nightcap- even if it did happen at 4:45 PM.

Coffeeshops & redeeming the time…

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For Jarrod Bailey

At times, I overhear some pretty intense conversations in coffeeshops.

Some are romantic, some are financial, and, of course, some are religious.

With each passing year, I realize more and more that now in my late thirties, I am just starting to truly learn to listen with less judgment and more grace. At times, I hear echoes of my own old bravado and the absolute certainty so present in younger voices- a boldness that I now recognize so often hides pain, shame, and fear.

We tend to get louder when our own arguments start to cave in around us.

Assurance seldom shouts.

Now when I hear arguments I might have tried to win 20 years ago or may have rolled my eyes at ten years ago, I just seek to listen and try not to interfere too much with the process of growth in others.

My faith is central to me, but life is teaching me- mostly through its trials and my own errors- that presence and patience and the passage of time often prove far more essential to lasting clarity than my knee-jerk sharing of self-pious platitudes or one-size-fits-all certainties. Growth and maturity almost always seem to take time, experience, and some good old-fashioned failure.

I can’t endure that process for anyone else.

Neither can you.

At this point in my life, it’s becoming less and less about winning arguments or calling out every perceived act of arrogance or error, and it’s becoming more and more about showing up faithfully, listening patiently, and loving fully.

It’s that simple and it’s that hard- and, as a friend of mine would say, it’s amazing and it’s awesome.

I can do it, and you can too.

There’s always a seat at the table, and the coffee’s always on.

Time marches on…

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Earlier this month, I graduated with my Master’s degree in ministry after beginning my undergraduate studies 20 years ago. As I approach the last full year of my thirties and with time’s gathering to glory of more and more family and friends in recent years, it seems like a good moment to reflect as the calendar page turns yet again. This photo fell out of an aging album a few weeks ago during Thanksgiving festivities, and in looking at my younger self, it seemed like a story come full circle.

I am sure this shot was taken at a Vacation Bible School decades ago (probably around 1990 or so), and my first thought was that Mrs. Johnnie Bell Webb would have been at her post passing out Kool-aid and cookies in the fellowship hall. Paper plates overflowing with her signature saltines and peanut butter would be stuffed into our mouths as we bolted from crafts to playground and back again.

Mrs. Johnnie Bell passed away a few weeks ago, but I realize more and more that she was one in a long lineage of unsung heroes who form the mortar that holds the church tight and together without being singled out for praise.

I have been blessed to be able to spend my life sharing Jesus with others for many years now, and I am grateful for each opportunity, but I know too well that much of the Christian influence in my own life came from those faithful believers who showed up after work to glue popsicle sticks, who spent their Saturdays draining baptisteries, and who cooked countless casseroles to feed the grieving and the lonely.

The church is a body with many parts, yet we who stand week to week on platforms and in the pulpits often get a disproportionate amount of the praise. More than ever, I am coming to see that the quiet, committed disciples who show up and do whatever is needed are among the church’s greatest strengths. 

In Christ’s kingdom, there is no greater honor than to be, as He was, the servant of all.

.

Come to this table…

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Growing up, I did a lot of homework and ate a lot of meals around this old library table that had been saved before the demolition of the old Alamo High School building and served as my grandparents’ dining table for as long as I can remember.

I was in Alamo bright and early recently to visit my aging grandparents, and while they napped, I even managed to squeeze in a little early morning , last minute grad school work at the familiar table.

Come to this table. You are welcome at this table. You are loved at this table.

Things often really do come full circle. 

No matter how far I have wandered or how often I have strayed, I knew this place existed.

A place of care.

A place of love.

A place of acceptance.

Reflecting during this holiday season, I am ever thankful for my family members who have loved and encouraged me all throughout my life. They taught me to love learning, to respect others, to do what was right, and to take responsibility when I failed to do so. They taught me that we are so much more than our greatest successes or our biggest mistakes.

Any good I have accomplished in my years of Christian ministry springs from the two constants of God’s grace and their love- often times experienced right here at this very table.

I am truly blessed.

I pray that my own life is always experienced as a place of love, welcome, and encouragement for others.

May our communities, our congregations, and our homes ever be places where love is felt and all are welcomed.

A Prayer for 2023

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O Eternal God, we who live in time, cry out to You at this turning of the year.

We ask for Your hand of care and protection over us- over our world, our country, our communities, our congregations, our families, and over our own hearts.

Give us a sense of both our smallness in this world and our preciousness in Your sight.

Grant us, we pray, the ability to see ourselves more fully and more truly.

Help us to submit our time and our service to one another out of our ultimate desire to submit our entire lives to Your will.

Help us to rise up each morning with a desire to serve You and with the intention to seek out and acknowledge the day’s opportunities as they come.

Extend to us humility that we require so as not to trust in our own understanding.

Let us be content to lean on Your perfect will and Your enduring word rather than on our own imperfect and limited vision.

Allow us such a measure of divine vision to see Your face in our neighbors, in our coworkers, and even in our enemies.

Grant that the name of “Christian” might be worn with a self-aware humility before the world rather than a self-righteous air of superiority.

May we who are called by Your name be always a beacon that draws seekers to You rather than a glare that blinds and wounds those who even now live in darkness.

Help us to remember that our desire is to be conformed to One who was poor that others might be made rich.

Let the mind be in us that so filled the mind of Christ.

As He left glory to live His uncommon life in a common place, let us be willing to leave our comforts and conveniences to serve those who struggle.

Send us, Lord, into our lives each day with the resolve to reflect the love and compassion of Christ to those who most desperately need it.

Help us to see people as Jesus saw them- not as endless statistics but as eternal souls.

May we not seek to build up kingdoms for ourselves, but to extend the offer of His kingdom in each interaction of our day.

Let us realize the value of our faithful witness to Your presence in our chaotic world.

Let the old, the young, the poor, the sick, the troubled, and the lonely be lifted up even as the powerful, the abusive, and the corrupt are humbled by Your truth.

Help our love be toward the lowly and despised and guard our hearts from the seductions of earthly power, human wisdom, and oversimplified judgments.

Strengthen us in You that we may seek to strengthen others in Your name.

Affirm our call to share good news and glad tidings in our despairing world.

In all we do, may we seek to be conformed to Jesus. In His holy name, amen.