How to find new direction

Elijah was at the end of himself. He had no where to go. He had just done more than was imaginable. He had shown the entire nation of Israel how to follow God. He slew 450 prophets of Baal. Then Jezebel turned her full wrath on him.

If you read 1 Kings 18 and 19 carefully you will discover a few things:

• God didn’t ask Elijah to take on the Baal prophets.
• Elijah knew what it would take to turn Israel to God and stepped up to the task.
• Elijah knew Obadiah personally, yet had turned so myopic that he still thought he was the only prophet left.
• Elijah eventually even sent his servant away.

Elijah appears to have been very cerebral and had the ability to isolate inside his own head.  However, in his isolation, when he was at the end of himself, he knew how to find new direction.

Elijah ran.  He didn’t run away, he ran to the mountain of God.  At the mountain of the Lord, God engaged Elijah in a discussion.  I don’t know about you, but when I go to God for direction, I really wish he would give me a 1, 2, 3 approach.  God cares so much more for us than this.  God engaged Elijah in conversation.

“What are you doing here, Elijah?” God asked. Not once, but twice.  In between the two questions, God gave Elijah an object lesson.  “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” God says.

What do you expect when you pray for God to show up in your life?  A mighty wind whipped through the mountain.  Then an earthquake shook the ground.  Finally, a firestorm swept away the rubble.  I think a lot of time we expect mighty moves of God that shake our world and clean it up.  But God wasn’t in any of the devastation.  They were mighty precursors to His presence.

When God showed up, it was in the form of another soft, gentle conversation.  “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Elijah had lost his focus, but he knew where to turn.  Then God helped him narrow his focus.  The wind, earthquake and fire helped him determine the answer to God’s repeated question – what do you want from God?

Once Elijah’s body was rested and his heart was focused, then gave him his new direction.

• Here’s your new tasks for Israel
• Here’s your new tasks for Judah
• And by the way, you aren’t alone, I’m the one in charge

Many of us have found this is the time in life to refocus our lives.  Here are the steps:

1. Run to God
2. Wait on Him
3. Ride the Storms
4. He will Answer, He will help you refocus and He will give you new direction
5. Wait for Him time, and be ready for His answer to come suddenly

Stripped Naked

This week huge catastrophes have hit the world, again.

Jobless reports came out this week, and officials are no longer sure that we are ‘coming out of it’ quite as fast as previously reported.

There is an article in the NY Times  – Preoccupations – In Hard Times, Fear Can Impair Decision Making.  Hard times cause us all to hold onto what we have – it is a natural fear response.

Hard times tend to strip us to our basic selves.  They show us who we are.

There are some people that fascinate me in the Bible.  Elijah stood up against a nation, and then ran to the mountain of the Lord because he thought he was alone.  1 Kings 19:4 tells us that he wanted to die.  He reached the point of physical, mental, spiritual and emotional exhaustion, and the only thing left to do was to let God refresh him.   What would have happened if he had just curled up in a hut somewhere instead of running to the mountain of the Lord?  He gave everything he had, and God replenished him.

Next, Shadrack, Meshack and Abednigo – these guys amaze me.  They stood before the most powerful ruler in the world of their time.  They weren’t rude or belligerent.  They just stood in their beliefs, as respectfully as possible, and chose to honor God.  They expected God to do the rest.  They didn’t get their miracle until after they had passed through the mouth of the furnace.

Then, you have the woman, caught in adultery, thrown to the ground at Jesus’ feet.  How did she find the ability to straighten up enough to look around her and see that her accusers had left?  From what deep part of herself did she reach to find her voice to respond to Jesus’ question?  Where did she go afterwards?  Who gave her a cup of tea and helped her clean up?  Did anyone talk to her?

When we see devastation so far away, part of us wants to withdraw – so that we won’t get hurt, so that (our superstition tells us) we won’t be damaged by whatever wrath has been poured out on them.  Yet I saw tsunami warnings hitting the US west coast.  We aren’t so far away.  Devastation is here, it is us.

What brings destruction?  For Elijah, it was giving his all to God.  For Shadrack, Meshack and Abednigo, it was serving God in an impossible situation, for the woman caught in adultery, it was sin – hers and someone else’s.   We need to face our fears and put them aside.  We are all humans, on planet earth, facing our own type of destruction – some much more cataclysmic than others.

It isn’t safe to stay away, it is the equivalent of curling up in a hut.  Out of these times of destruction come new perspectives and new opportunities.  We can be a part of it, if we are willing to lend a hand, to be there and walk alongside.

Do you want to be the one to give a cup of tea and help put lives back together?  Do you want to be at the dinner with Shadrack, Meshack and Abednigo and hear about their time in the furnace and how they saw the face of the Son of Man?  Do you want to walk with Elijah and see his new, fresh take on life and ministry?  As people emerge from disasters, they bring stories of God’s deliverance and fresh perspectives on life and ministry – they see life differently because of what they have been through.

We learn not just from our own past, but from the stories of others.   We have much to learn from those who have faced these disasters and lived.

Want to help?  Check out Convoy of Hope and Samaritan’s Purse.

How Can I Forgive?

I’ve been thinking about forgiveness since Sunday.

David had a tumultuous relationship with Saul.  Saul was his king, yet Saul was on a rampage, trying to kill him for many years.  A careful review of scripture shows that David did not let anger and bitterness take root in his heart.  He lived in this difficult relationship, yet walked in an attitude of respect and showed that he was working for Saul’s good.

How did he live in forgiveness and display godly love when Saul was throwing javelins and sending soldiers after him?

I think the key is in Psalms 11-14

1. God is God, and we are not.
2. Have a real relationship with God and don’t pull any punches – ask God the tough questions.
3. Be honest with your feelings, don’t pretend to be ‘holy’.
4. Trust God – explicitly.
5. God is the vindicator, trust Him.

This point of view allowed David to glimpse himself in the mirror and see the commonality he shared with the person who threw the javelin.  The difference was that he trusted God.

It was this reflection that allowed him to hold forgiveness and compassion and resist bitterness.

Without God, we are all worms, we are all helpless and hopeless.  Hurting people hurt people.  God wants to show us something.

Every action causes a reaction. When a hurting person lashes out, if we lash back, we have created an increasing momentum swing.  However, if we take the hurt and lay it at Jesus’ feet, we free ourselves up to act in forgiveness and compassion. We have stopped the negative actions and begun a cycle of positive action.

Mini European Vacation a la Taproot

Two years ago, I went to Europe for two weeks.

Last Friday night, I went to Taproot Theatre in Greenwood to watch Enchanted April.

Taproot has created a mini-European vacation for the simple price of admission.

Enchanted April is based on the 1922 book by Elizabeth von Arnim.  It is the story of two women (and their two traveling companions) who escape their war-torn, rain-soaked dreary English lives for a month of sunshine in Italy.  As the four women begin to blossom under the warm Mediterranean sun, their souls, too, begin to flourish.

This is truly an incredible cast.  No cast member outshines the others (or lags behind) – they are all simply fantastic.  Transporting us to the early 1920’s, they let us see the inner lives of people devastated by war and loss.  As they enjoy the sunshine of Southern Italy, a freedom of expression comes over the group, and each person discovers a new focus and zest for life.  The audience roars with laughter throughout the play, and we are each left a little richer, perhaps refocused, having had a mini-vacation from the struggles we are living in today.

One thing that is particularly impressive about this play is the set design – it is a step above Taproot’s usual sparse design, with a complete revision at intermission.

Pay-what-you-can night is September 30. Tickets are available by calling the box office at 206-781-9707 or at the theatre’s website.

Baffled?

I read the news this morning.

People seem to be in limbo.  The boomers were going to begin retiring, but then their retirement went up in smoke.  So now, they are continuing to work for a while.

The workplace is trying to prepare for a mass exodus of workers, so there aren’t as many jobs anymore.  The post office is laying off – the Post Office – the one place you could never get fired from.

Because the world is changing – and changing rapidly.

The steps to transition are:

• know what you are losing and say goodbye to it.
• a place of confusion and unrest where you have no direction, but it is here that you redefine who you are without what you lost.
• find a new direction.

No matter where you are in the process, there is a solution.  God knows where you are, and He has a solution – He wants to help define you for the next stage of your journey, and He wants to be the director of what you are doing.

Nature is full of examples:  A catapillar going through metamorphasis to become a butterfly; a dandillion becoming a whole new flower and blowing away as seed; the flowers on a fruit tree turning into fruit.

Each season of life feels like an end, but needs its own form of patience to bring new beginnings.  God has a purpose for your tomorrows. 

Today, He has people for you to love and deliver His care to.  Start by asking Him to help you hear His voice and have patience to wait for His answer, His perspective.

Isaiah 30:20-22 (message)

Cry for help and you’ll find it’s grace and more grace. The moment he hears, he’ll answer. Just as the Master kept you alive during the hard times, he’ll keep your teacher alive and present among you. Your teacher will be right there, local and on the job, urging you on whenever you wander left or right: “This is the right road. Walk down this road.” You’ll scrap your expensive and fashionable god-images. You’ll throw them in the trash as so much garbage, saying, “Good riddance!”

Among the Living

There are some seasons of life where it is a lot harder to mentally stay among the living purposefully face forward and live in joy.

Today I want to spend a moment and remember my dear friend, confidant, and mentor, Joyce Peretti. 

Joyce showed me what the Joy of the Lord is.  She loved God and loved people.  She showed me that not everyone over a certain age was stoggy,  and gave me hope that a backwards person such as myself might be okay afterall.

After reading Frank’s book on bullying, I had an inkling that things were as wild in her house at one time as they were in mine, so I went to her for parenting advise.  She looked so shocked that I would ask!  “I was just the parent each one needed when they needed it, I guess,” she said, after thinking about it for a few moments.

Joyce went to be with Jesus on Monday.  I am so sad for me, and all who relied on her wisdom.  There are some holes that just can’t be filled.  I’ll be happy for her in a day or so – I know she is singing His praises now.

Vacation

We are back from vacation.

Five days.

One day in the sun.

Rain.

Rain where it isn’t supposed to rain.

Laughter.

Family.

Friends.

I like my kids and I am so glad I get to be with these people as I age.

More laughter, Caitlyn driving, a mall (due to the rain).

Finally the fire ban lifted, we enjoyed friends, a fire, smores and Wes on the harmonica.

Now we are home.

School begins tomorrow.

Forgiving…Me

Just about 18 years ago, someone said something to me that really set me back.  I had been going through a rough time, was making mental progress, and then they said something that made me feel like a nothing again.

All these years I’ve felt two things about that event -

1. Regret -  I just wished the event hadn’t happened.

2. Frustration – I have always been frustrated that I didn’t have the skills to do better.  When that bomb exploded in my head, a mental block happened and I didn’t follow through on a promise.

Today I found out that someone is dead – like, not here anymore, but long since in heaven – dead.

It suddenly occurs to me that all the regret and frustration won’t help anyone and I’ll never be able to relive or fix that moment.

I have long-since forgiven that poor woman with the misspoken words, but I now need to forgive the immature, hurt person that I was.

Why am I still carrying all this stuff around anyway?

Release, Renew, Rejoice.

Communication 101

The subtitle for this post is “Can you hear me now?”

Not long ago, I asked my youngest child to take her sisters’ folded clothes to their room.  Instead, somehow, she marshaled the troops, and within two minutes, had them both in my room, picking up their own laundry to put away.

Now I know very well that if I had hollered “come pick up your clothes,” they would have sat.  In fact, if I had asked her to ask them to come get their clothes, they would have sat.  However, since it had become her chore, she was now motivated to make sure it got done, and she motivated them.

Communication is a funny thing.  There are parts of the world where if  daughter has bad news, she never tells father, she tells some other family member, who tells father, and the details of how to solve the problem are all figured out without the daughter and father ever having to talk.

There are family systems where everyday communication uses meaner language than I would use with my worst enemy…and they are being loving!

However, across the board, there is a basic.  It is called the communication cycle.  The communication cycle looks like this:

• Picture in my head
• Goes through my brain matter and translators
• Comes out my mouth
• Goes through the air (and can get garbled via outside noise)
• Goes in your ear
• Goes through your brain matter and translators
• Makes a picture in your head

The communication cycle isn’t complete until the picture in my head is the same as the picture in your head.  Here are some of the common places things go wrong:

1. Never actually saying what is going on in your head (people can’t read your mind) – this is my most common fault btw.
2. Only describing the picture in your head and not taking into account your audience’s translators (there is a reason that elementary school teachers teach every subject five different ways).
3. Distractions – if you have your discussion in a place where there are too many distractions, others won’t hear you.
4. Leaving the discussion “up in the air” and not trying to reassemble the picture in your listener’s head
5. Not finishing the loop by providing a process of feedback to make sure the loop was complete.

Well, that’s my thing to work on for the week.  Gotta run!

I Don’t Like Them!

(picture borrowed from somewhere on the net - it's been in my computer for years)

What happens when social rules clash?

If you brought a dynamic leader from 200BC forward to today, there would be a huge clash of culture.  Charisma draws its own audience, but the people of that era lived by entirely different social rules.  Some of the things that were loving and right for them are really wrong and down right evil to us.

Things aren’t always this traumatic.  They show up in much milder forms.  When my kids were little, I discovered that it was easy for them to break other families’ social rules.

Once, while at a friend’s house, one of my kids asked an adult they didn’t know what authority they had to tell them what to do.  In our house, that is a valid question.   We had taught our kids to assess the person giving directions before following them because not all the adults in their lives were, well, adult.  In the house where they were spending the night, children always obeyed every adult.

When people marry, they bring their love, hopes, dreams and two completely different sets of societal expectations.  The farther apart the societal expectations, the more work the relationship takes to form solidity.

You know, God knew all this to begin with.  Time travel is out, but in our world that is now so small, it is easy to see present-day cultures collide from differences in societal norms.

In Genesis 11, God confused the language of the people.  Why?  Because they had become obsessed with themselves and forgot to make Him part of the equation.

Along with different languages came different cultures, different interpretations of the right ‘rules’ to follow.  The only way to find sanity is to make Him the center.

Do you need help finding common ground in your relationships?  Do you have people in your life that just rub you the wrong way?

God is the answer.  If you put Him in the center and look to Him for answers, He will work on the other side of the equation.  You can’t change other people.  They have spent a lot of time and energy becoming who they are.  However, God knows them from the inside out.   He is inside their head and inside yours.  He can bridge that gap and make the communication work where it hasn’t before.

Relationships aren’t easy. In fact, they take a lot of work.  Sometimes, those that are closest to us take the most work.  Thankfully, God sent His Holy Spirit to help us, teach us and guide us.  We can count on Him to give us good answers and bridge those relationships.