spiritual practices

Nothing Remains Hidden

/ Will N. / Leave a comment

In Mark 4:22, Jesus makes a startling declaration, “For there is nothing hidden which shall not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light.”

As we look at our own lives, does this revelation from the mouth of Jesus comfort or frighten us?

If you are like me, there is no shortage of situations in the world I do not understand. Despite this fact, I take comfort in knowing while I cannot always discern motives or circumstances, I am not given that responsibility. My role is not to judge or commentate or dismantle the mindsets of those around me; my God-given task is to love others and to serve in ways that both help them and honor God. It is important to realize that neither you or I are alone in this calling- for all the negative things that are often out front in our world, there are countless actions of faithfulness unknown to you and me, yet fully known to God.

The revelation of who we truly served is one aspect of final things that is going to surprise and shock many. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells His hearers in refusing to help others we have in reality refused to help Him, and in serving others, we have actually served Him. One aspect of this passage that is often overlooked is the fact that neither group, those who refuse nor those who help, knew that their attitudes and actions toward “the least of these” were their responses to Jesus Himself.

Jesus comes to us in the circumstances of our daily lives and in the people who cross our paths- in the sick, the broken, the lonely, the hurting, the fearful, the abandoned, the addicted. We are not commanded to accomplish great, impressive feats for others, but we are called to faithfully take action in the opportunities placed into our trust.

No good that we do is ever lost or ever wasted. Even when the external reactions we see appear mixed, small, or hostile, there is value in giving our lives in submission and service. The best part of spiritual work is the part that is known within our hearts and visible only to God. Better to do small actions with good motives than pridefully seek praise and recognition for the good that we do. There will many saints unknown to history who will be rewarded for graciously offering a cup of water in the name of Christ while others who have been praised for piety will be sent away empty.

If we can come to appreciate that no action is unseen by God or forgotten by Him, we can begin to cease striving for others’ constant approval. We can work without fanfare and without the need for acclaim knowing that what seems small and hidden now is fully seen by our good Father.

We usually think of hidden things being revealed in the sense of the classic expression, “your sins will find you out.” While it is true that judgment will reveal the darkness in us all, it will also reveal the many people who have served in quiet, humble, seemingly-forgotten ways and, sometimes without fully realizing it, were serving Jesus all along.

As a disciple, my awareness that God sees me and knows my deepest motivations should cause me to live in such a way that each person I meet can come to see the presence of Christ in all I say and do.

Can You Be More Specific?

/ Will N. / Leave a comment

With the arrival of the new year, many of us are seeking to form new habits or renew practices to strengthen our walk with Christ. For the believer, prayer forms an important aspect not only of communication but deeper communion with God. Despite our acknowledging the essential nature of prayer, we often struggle to pray consistently.

What reminders can we apply in prayer to reengage when our prayer life has drifted to the dry or stagnant?

When we cannot seem to move beyond the laundry list of needs we often bring to God, it is powerful to stop and rejoice over the many blessings we already experience. Far too often, we give thanks in generalities. While we are indeed grateful for “all our many blessings,” we would grow in gratitude if we approached God at times with no other motive in prayer other than to say “thank you” for the blessings we now have. Rather giving thanks in summary before quickly moving to our remaining needs, I believe it would humble us to count, as the old hymn says, our many blessings, name them one by one, and see what God has done.

In addition to specific thanks, specific requests are vital as we enter God’s presence in prayer. While we certainly appreciate the reality that God knows our needs, the intimacy and comfort found in coming to God is increased when we are not content to pray in the abstract. While we understand the need to for broader, shotgun-like prayers in public settings (“We pray for all those grieving this week.”), our personal, private prayers can be filled with rifle-focused requests (“Lord, I lift up Mary from my high school class who lost her husband of 52 years last week after a long period of poor health. Strengthen her in her grief and in this new reality she is facing.”)

Not only does this specificity connect us more deeply to the people we pray for, but in praying this way, we come to see opportunities to add direct action to our prayers. Remembering people in more specific prayer naturally brings their needs to mind and may lead us to send a card, make a call, pay a visit, or perform a kindness.

Abstraction creates distance. If we pray for “the poor in our community,” we can keep struggling folks at arms-length. If I sit down and begin praying for Mrs. Smith who I know lost her son and is dealing with unexpected funeral expenses, I am much more likely to reach out to help. Both government and large-scale charity organizations are useful for the sizeable problems in our world, but the followers of Jesus must not turn away from praying for and seeking to serve our neighbors.

If we keep people in impersonal categories (the poor, the hypocrites, the liberals, the foreigners, etc.), it makes us much less likely to genuinely pray for or sincerely seek to serve them. The tendency to judge and generalize others is ancient, and it proves to be a damaging and destructive mindset for the people of God in every generation. Intentional prayer that leads us to serve breaks down these barriers and helps us imitate Christ in caring for individual souls rather than faceless crowds.

If we want to give ourselves to prayer in 2024, we make a good start by being more specific- both in the blessings we celebrate and the requests we offer to God.

God knows our hearts, but putting our thoughts into specifics helps us to know ourselves and those we would bless more fully.

Come aside and rest awhile…

/ Will N. / Leave a comment

We have all experienced situations where we could sense the momentum of the moment was shifting dramatically.

The excitement swelling up in a crowd at a concert when the first chords of the band’s hit song are struck. The rush taking over in a crowded gym as one team enters the zone where they can do nothing wrong and the other can seem to do nothing to stop them. The shift moving through a tense meeting when one idea rises to the top and soon carries the conversation.

In such moments of excitement and power, we often feel both a sense that we cannot let the opportunity pass and also a feeling that we are caught up in something far bigger than ourselves.

I believe wanting to act on momentum while still appreciating the real danger of being overwhelmed by activity was an issue in the early church.

These believers were truly on the cutting edge of a movement that in the span of one lifetime “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6), and yet most were common, everyday people without formal training in either theology or ministry (Acts 4:13).

It would have been easy to get caught up in the momentum that accompanied the miracles and mission work and to lose their grounding as servants of Jesus.

In our own time, we do not have to look hard to see men and women committed to God’s work who have become battered by stress, overwhelmed by burnout, and collapsed under moral or relational failure.

How did Jesus respond during His earthly ministry when His disciples brought news of the skyrocketing momentum and constant activity in their ministries?

In Mark 6, Jesus commissions His apostles to go out in pairs to teach, heal, and share the good news in the power of the Spirit. Almost immediately, these efforts yield huge results as the sick, possessed, and hurting are brought to them and restored- opening the door to their preaching and teaching.

The crowds are flocking to receive blessing and hear the truth. When they report back to Jesus later in the same chapter (Mk 6:30), they relate to Jesus all that is happening through their teaching and miracle-working.

In the midst of a thronging crowd so dense they did not even have time to break to eat, Jesus says, “Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest awhile.” (Mk 6:31)

In a moment of great momentum and excitement, Jesus calls for them to pull back and to rest and refocus.

This strategy is certainly opposite of what we would expect of a charismatic leader or any public figure today.

Rather than pushing them to bigger numbers and pressing into deeper and deeper activity, Jesus discerns that their incredible report calls for intentional rest.

The crowds can, and in fact do, keep coming, but Jesus acknowledges that there is a danger in becoming overextended- even in the best of all possible causes.

Connection with Jesus Himself, rather than the signs, the wonders, and even the doctrine, proved to be the essential element needed to maintain and grow health and holiness among the first disciples.

I would suggest that the same is true for us as followers of Christ today.

Momentum is a blessing, but it can never be allowed to become the primary factor in building and sustaining a ministry or a movement.

Spiritual maturity and deep relationships will always sustain us longer than passing momentum and exciting circumstances.

Momentum yields powerful fruits and blesses us in certain seasons, but our long-term connections with Christ, Scripture, and fellow believers provide the roots that continually equip us with the subtle strength we will need for a lifetime of faith.

“It’s just so unfair!”

/ Will N. / Leave a comment

“We just want things to be fair for everybody.”

How many times have we heard a parent, teacher, coach, or politician express the idea that fairness in life is not only desirable, but an achievable goal in a given situation?

Certainly, if we are talking about people having an opportunity to succeed or a chance to follow their dreams, fairness may be an ideal to strive toward. Day to day, however, we quickly realize that challenges- some we actively cause and many we do not- impact access to opportunities and create an uneven path to fairness in many areas of life.

In the midst of our world’s clamor to be fair, Christians are called to be grace-filled, forgiving, and compassionate.

Often when those around us demanding things should “just be fair” are actually seeking advantage for themselves, but believers are reminded that success for the Christian is not defined in terms of worldly status but in faithfulness to Christ. As we live in a world focused on gaining more and promoting the fear driven by perceived scarcity, disciples are to live a life that is open-handed and gracious to all.

This attitude of grace is not formed from our natural inclinations or under the influence of our dominant culture. Grace toward others can only be truly extended by those who have experienced God’s grace in their own lives.

Believers know the world is not fair- and we should be extremely thankful for it.

Because of Christ’s gracious gift, we are relieved of the massive burden of our sin. The Person who was not responsible for the world’s brokenness comes to us in lovingkindness and takes our hurts and harm upon Himself. If life was fair, the Bible (and humanity itself) would end in Genesis 3 with the first sin, but because of God’s unfair grace, we are given another opportunity to start again. This scenario of sin, hurt, grace, and hope repeats across the millennia of Scripture as well as in our own lives each day.

We should not long for fairness from God- in the light of His perfection, who could honestly claim we want what we deserve?

It is so hard to admit mistakes and confess our inability to sort out our lives in our own strength.

As we feel that we are beginning to grow in grace, the frustrations of life seem to rise in response. God’s grace is abounding, but so often we limit our own ability to share in this abundance. Rather than freely sharing in the divine bounty that is available, we focus instead on defining the terms of grace and building borders around God’s intended blessings.

We often give the impression that if God’s grace gets out of control, the lack of boundaries will cheapen our own bond with Him.

Until we come to acknowledge and appreciate God’s grace toward us, we will continue to struggle to share His love to those who need it most.

Ultimately, I must resolve to let God be God and to accept both His love for me and to appreciate His grace toward others.

We are to be ambassadors for Christ and ministers of reconciliation rather than gatekeepers of grace.

The message of the gospel is that we receive God’s grace we could never earn rather than the wage of death that our sin deserves.

Through Christ, all people are offered the opportunity to share in the riches of grace- it is not fair, but it truly is good news.

Intentional Practices in Distraction

/ Will N. / Leave a comment

We often find ourselves in seasons of distraction.

While we may be moving rapidly through full, busy days, we find our actual focus dulled by the summer heat, numerous activities, major health challenges, or unending preparations for upcoming events.

Distraction becomes a subtle destroyer- we may still get everything done, but little is done well or enjoyed fully as we take on more and more.

Even if we recognize this problem, we often do not want to burden others with our challenges, and because of this social silence, we tend to think we are the only ones distressed by the busy pace. In our desire to avoid awkwardness, we actually create more opportunities for our distress to grow and potentially lead to lasting spiritual harm.

Unless we acknowledge the challenge, we cannot employ intentional practices to overcome the fatigue and frustration created by our distractions.

In distracted seasons, we need to recenter our lives with intentional prayer.

In overwhelming busyness, it is difficult to take time to truly pray. The idea of setting aside time to pray in the midst of an already hectic life seems counterintuitive.

“Why pray when I could be doing?” “Rather than a certain time, can’t I just pray as I move through my busy day?” “Isn’t spontaneous prayer really more heart-felt anyway?”

While we can pray at any time in any place, Scripture reveals that some spiritual victories come only in response to a disciplined life (Mt 17:19-21). It is Satan’s design to disconnect us from God, our Source of spiritual strength.

As the saying goes, if the devil cannot make us bad, he will make us busy.

When we move to pray, we are taking a step toward returning our relationship with God to the center of our lives.

It is in life’s most hectic times when we feel least like praying that we often most need to pray.

We keep track of the most important appointments/events in our lives. We mark down what we do not want to miss- doctors’ appointments, weddings, reunions, recitals, concerts, and ballgames. It is not that we would always forget, but that we want to be certain to prioritize the most important things and set that time apart. What could be more important than a daily appointment with the Lord that we prepare for and commit to keeping amid the busyness of life?

A set time of prayer need not be seen as a surrender to legalism, but simply a personal discipline that seeks to shape our busy days with more time purposefully spent with God.

Along with prayer, we need to reengage in intentional fellowship with others.

While a restored connection to God through prayer is essential, we also need the support of other believers as we seek to establish balance and boundaries in our lives.

As human beings, we are created for life in community- both socially and spiritually.

In times when our own fire is dimmed and dying out, we can draw warmth and light from the believers gathered around us. We may feel like we are the only ones struggling, but when we give voice to our fears, we find others too are overwhelmed by life’s hardships. Such honesty serves as a gateway to the strength that comes only when fellow disciples join together to listen, pray, and bear one another’s burdens.

In Christ, we have access to our Heavenly Father and the comfort of the Spirit throughout our lives- even in seasons of increased busyness and distraction.

In the face of life’s distractions, we can choose to embrace the practices of intentional prayer and active fellowship in order to refocus on God and draw strength from the enduring bond we share in Christ.

Search Me, O God…

/ Will N. / Leave a comment

In our all-too-frequent moments of national crisis, religious leaders often declare that God’s people need to pray BIG prayers.

Prayers that will change our nation. Prayers that will revive our churches. Prayers that will halt gun violence and cure racism. We are told again and again that these are just the type of big, broad, and bold prayers that will bring our sin-sick society back to God.

While there is nothing wrong with offering such prayers for our hurting world, I believe the prayer with the most potential for lasting change is to ask God to truly show us the more personal challenges and compromises that so often rise up within our hearts and displace Him from His rightful place in our lives.

In Psalm 139:23-24, the inspired writer offers the words, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (KJV)

This prayer is both expansive and intimate, both personal and daring. In praying these words, we are not asking God to change the world in a instant or to overwhelm our lives with more material abundance- we are instead taking the difficult, yet necessary, step toward a closer walk with God by openly confessing our own limitations and admitting our vulnerability and frailties before His perfect holiness.

It is important to note what is being asked in this two-verse prayer.

When we ask God to search the heart, we are asking for one of the most intimate and intense experiences possible. We know from Scripture that the human heart without God’s presence is “deceitful about all things…desperately wicked” (Jer 17:9). In a world where evil is attributed to various combinations of environment, heredity, chance, social issues, and bad choices, believers realize that there is a spiritual component to the darkness in our world. Such darkness is not only abstractly thriving “out there” in repeated tragedies like mass shootings, ongoing heartaches like the opioid crisis, and broken social systems that promote racial/class/religious divisions, but this spiritual darkness is also present to some degree within each person who inevitably does wrong and sinful things each day.

When Paul says, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” he truly means all of us (Rom 3:23).

When we consider the words of Psalm 139, it is essential to observe whose heart we desire God to search and expose. When my neighbor hurts me, I want to know why. When my spouse is unkind, I can dream up all sorts of reasons for the behavior. When someone cuts me off in traffic, I want him to see the error of his ways, yet the psalmist’s prayer is not focused on the hearts or actions of others.

“Search me” is an invitation for God’s eye to be trained upon my own thoughts and motivations.

Unless I am willing to acknowledge God’s right as my Creator and Sustainer to search me and to reveal my own character, I miss out a vital tool in my spiritual growth. People often say “God knows my heart,” and while that is certainly true, we need to also ask God to reveal the secrets and subtleties of our own hearts to us.

Only with such God-centered discernment can we ever see ourselves truly.

We cannot know ourselves without the faithful presence and perspective of God. When we fail to see ourselves truly, we inevitably yield to compromise and self-centeredness.  We become indulgent of our own faults and embittered toward the failings of others. Our own hearts are incapable of maintaining an honest perspective without the refining presence of God. When we allow God to truly search us, see us, and reveal our true nature to us, we will receive clarity and insight that may be hard to hear, but will serve to mature our faith.

With God’s vision, we are empowered to both admit our errors and allow ourselves a greater measure of grace.

The greatest treasures in the life of faith can only be revealed when we allow our greatest hurts to be healed by God’s love. And such healing demands both the awareness of our wrongs and the admission of our need.

Unless we open ourselves willingly to God’s refining judgment, we miss out the growth and gains that can come only from the ever-flowing provision of His grace.

God does know our hearts, and He longs to reveal them to us as well.

When this revelation of our own reality occurs and is acknowledged, genuine humility is experienced and genuine healing can begin.

A Prayer in Changing Seasons

/ Will N. / Leave a comment

You, O Lord, are good and do good.

You have prepared every good gift we experience in this life.

You have guided, sustained, and filled our lives with good things from the beginning of all creation until now.

Without Your humility in coming to us, we could never know You- much less dare to appeal to You in prayer, and yet You instruct to ask, to seek, and to knock.

Through Jesus, You have promised the answer, the revelation, the open door, and so we continue to lift our voices in gratitude and praise and petition before You.

Father, hear the prayer we offer this day.

We stand, Lord, on the brink of yet another new season- another time of change.

By Your Word and through our own experiences, we know that nothing stands still in this life.

In each season, we lack any certainty in ourselves, yet we crave greater clarity and constancy than our physical senses can provide.

Give us, Bringer of the seasons, the ability to acknowledge and accept the cycles of change that always accompany the passage of time.

Free us from the bitterness of hurt and anger and grief, and instead let us raise up grace, peace, and joy in our hearts- even if we are called to build upon the foundation of the hardships we all face in this life.

Strengthen our hands to be quick to the work You have called us to in this season of our lives.

Lift our eyes to see the opportunities that are present now, and encourage us to redeem the time we have been given to make the most of the gifts You have placed before us in this moment.

Grant us the ability to see the beauty of budding trees, opening flowers, and singing birds.

Help us, even in our finite limitations, to see Your hand and presence in the daily unfolding of our lives.

May the springing forth of new life in creation signal the resurrection and renewal within us and hasten the passing away of resentment and anger from our hearts.

Let our harshness cease and glad songs return after the long, bitter darkness of winter.

Draw us together again into the fellowship of the community, and in drawing us together, allow us to be more and more comforted in Your embrace.

Bless us with the perspective that time alone can bring, and grant us the grace to offer patience and compassion to those in our lives whose understandings lead them to different perspectives, positions, and points of view.

Allow us this greater grace, accompanied by genuine desire, that we might long to extend Your grace to others.

Help us to love one another deeply, for from such love, we will seek to heal offenses, help our neighbors, and continue to hope in Your unfailing goodness.

Let the old bitterness born of self and selfishness die away, so that our hearts might be prepared for renewed life in this season of new beginnings.

Hear our prayer and heal our hearts that we might seek to serve in Your name.

Through Christ, the Eternal Unchanging One, we pray, amen.

Embracing a daily spiritual practice…

/ Will N. / Leave a comment

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.