Not your battle to fight

In one of the quieter corners of the Old Testament, rarely visited by Sunday preachers, lived a king of Judah called Jehoshaphat.  Faced with a vast enemy, thoroughly outnumbered, Jehoshaphat responded by calling the nation to fasting and prayer, “For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us.  We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.”

God’s answer through the prophet was this: “Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army.  For the battle is not yours, but God’s.”

The next morning, they went out towards the battle.  Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendour of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying “Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.”  It was less a march to battle as it was a procession of worship.

By they time they came to the place that overlooked the battle field, all they saw was a dead army awaiting plunder – the enemy had fought among themselves and so destroyed each other. (Retold from 2 Chronicles 20)

My enemy is within me.  My anxieties well up in me, wave upon wave, threatening to overwhelm me. I try using the breathing and relaxation techniques I’ve learned from my counsellor, but find myself me praying, shaking and trembling, tears streaming down my face.  I have no power to face this.  I don’t know what to do. I’m scared, but my eyes are upon you, God.

This is not your battle to fight.

My default setting is to think “Here is a problem, I must do something to solve this.”  I now have two problems to solve: the original stress that has triggered this, and then the anxiety and fear, which often seems bigger than the original issue. 

This is not my battle to fight.  It’s not about fighting back against the anxiety, but shifting my focus to worship, “Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.”  I’m to change my approach from a march into battle to a procession of praise.  It’s a letting go of the need to DO, and Trusting instead.

Easier said than done.

Don’t be afraid or discouraged.  This is not your battle to fight.

Achieved

I can do this.
Six months working towards this.
I have now achieved my first half marathon.

The route took us through the city then out to the residential red zone.  The quietness of the Avonside area was eerie. 

My devotional reading this night before the run included this passage:

"Even youths grow tired and weary" - I've been feeling that a lot so  far this year.  The background tension that's been building up in me I'm only now starting to learn how to let go.  Letting go of that tension means learning more how to trust.  

Running has helped with this.  As I run, I find a rhythm and pace I can maintain, and strangely enough it helps  my brain to relax. Sometimes I can pray as I run, more I just focus on the moment, take each step, each stride, each pace as it comes.

I'm not quite at the "run and not grow weary" stage.  My legs are certainly telling me all about it the day after! But I feel good that I've achieved my  goal. 

I can do this.

(If you are really interested, my official results are here)

Face to Face

© Claudia McFie, May 2015

I pull down the walls,
    throw my mask away,
Open and broken
    but no longer afraid,
To soak in your love,
    to know your embrace
I will see you.

Higher and deeper
    I will seek your face
Into the Holy of Holies
    you opened the way
Your word stands true
    when this world falls away
I will see you.

Father and King,
    we meet face to face,
Lover and Friend,
    in this cool of the day
Here in this garden
    you call out my name,
I will see you.

Love Your Bible!–Guest post by Gary Neal Hansen

 

 

When I went to work on my new book, I thought the counter-cultural bit was asking 21st century Christians to learn from a 12th century monk. I had no idea that the biggest stretch would be the invitation in the first part of the title: Love Your Bible! Alas, many do not.

There are lots of reasons loving the Bible seems like a stretch today.

• Many of us are under such constant pressure between work and family that opening the Bible just doesn’t come to mind.

• Many have spent years following Christ, whom we know in our hearts; we just haven’t picked up the habit of Bible reading.

• Still others are put off by a book written thousands of years ago in distant cultures and foreign languages.

• And those who want to ask hard questions and wrestle with answers dislike the superficial way many Christians do read the Bible.

Is it surprising that the people who find it hard to love their Bible are real Christians, people who follow Jesus with passion? Surprising or not, it is a loss--a crippling loss that keeps us from flourishing as disciples.

It is not that we need to know the Scriptures so we can have snappy answers to the world’s pressing questions. Knowing the Bible does help you understand your faith and the good news that needs to be shared. But I’m talking about something deeper.

The Bible is not given to us as an answer book or a user’s manual. The Bible is intended to lead us into the presence of the living God.

So here’s the risk: if we don’t find a way into the Bible, we may not find our way into God’s life-giving presence. We may end up following a figment of our imaginations, or a projection of our own neuroses.

We need the real God who so loves the world, the same God who called Abraham and Sarah, and who came in person in Jesus. His words and acts have been preserved for us in Scripture. His Spirit is whispering there still.

What we need is a faithful guide who knows the way.

In Love Your Bible I suggest a 12th century monk as that guide: a fellow named Guigo, who wrote the go-to book on the ancient Christian practice of lectio divina or “divine reading.”

You may have heard of lectio divina. Lots of Christians are exploring classic approaches to spiritual disciplines these days (I recommend ten of them in my earlier book Kneeling with Giants: Learning to Pray with History’s best Teachers).

Commonly lectio divina is presented as a group process in which a text is read aloud three or four times and people listen for words and phrases that jump out evocatively. That can be helpful, but it is a far cry from the classic form of the practice.

Guigo teaches a much more serious practice. Joyful, prayerful, gentle--but fully engaged. It starts with careful study of a biblical text, and moves with the text through meditation and prayer to the very presence of God.

Guigo didn’t invent lectio divina. By the time he wrote, Christians had been honing the practice for centuries. Monks were instructed to spend a couple of hours a day at it.

Every day they encountered the Bible in ways that were intellectually rigorous and spiritually engaged.

• Every day they went from the text of Scripture into the presence of the living God.

• It shaped their minds to the Gospel--often when you read the writings of medieval monks they are virtually a patchwork of biblical quotations.

• And it shaped their hearts and their lives. Dwelling with God through Scripture turned monks into the missionaries and leaders that spread the faith across Europe.

Lord knows, we need to drink deeply from those living waters today.

Lord knows the world needs a new generation of disciples formed by the Word and empowered by his presence.

I hope you’ll give classic lectio divina a try. Isn’t it time to find a way to Love Your Bible?

You can get a free copy of the eBook at my blog by clicking here, or you can get the paperback at Amazon.com or The Book Depository.

____________

Gary Neal Hansen is the award-winning author of Kneeling with Giants: Learning to Pray with History's Best Teachers (InterVarsity Press, 2012). On his blog, GaryNealHansen.com, he mines the Christian past for wisdom in the complex changing present and future. He serves as Associate Professor of Church History at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary.

 

 

Giveaway!

Gary has kindly offered a free paperback of Love Your Bible to one of my readers.  To enter: comment on this post with your experiences of Bible Reading in the past and how it affected your life and faith.  Winner will be selected randomly from the comments on 10 May 2015.

Lies

The lies are telling me I’m unimportant and insignificant.

At least I’m pretty sure they’re lies.
I think they might be lies.
I hope they’re lies.

It’s getting harder to resist the discouragement.  The lies are getting more subtle – where they used to be things that were blatantly untrue, now they are twisting and distorting the might-be-trues and even some actually-did-happens.  A thought will trigger a knife twisting kind of emotion.  It takes all my effort to not let the emotion drag me down and to refute the trigger-thought.

I know how to fight this: it takes prayer, thanksgiving, praise and worship. 

I had overlooked one thing: the support, prayer and encouragement of other believers.  When I could no longer stand on my own, I sent out a prayer request email.  What took me so long?  The best weapon in the battle against discouragement in encouragement.

I’m not yet 100% better, but the intensity has reduced.  I no longer stand alone, for I know now there are others standing with me.  And that makes all the difference.

It’s Friday… but Sunday’s a-comin’

 

Says it all really.

Look at me and know you are loved

I've been trying to figure out what I could DO for God.  

Every time I find something I can do to serve Him I start thinking "maybe this is it, maybe this is how God will use me," then when things don't work out the way I hoped I'd decide that isn't how God wants to use me after all and start looking around for something else I can do.  

Over the last while, I've been having constant battles with the "I'm not good enough" feelings whenever I'm reminded of these kinds of disappointments.  While I know in my head that "I'm not good enough" isn't true, I'm still feeling the emotions triggered by that thought no matter how hard I try to convince myself.

So what I'm in the process of realising, is that with all the energy and effort I'm putting into trying to find something I can be "good enough" at to serve God with, my energy and focus is on myself and what I can or can't do. 

My attention has turned away from Him.

God said to me last week:

     Look at me and know you are loved.

This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice for our sins.

The night he was betrayed, Jesus said, "No one has greater love than to give up one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends" 

This is how much you are loved: God through Jesus died for you.

     He says: Look at me and know you are loved.

His love is eternal and unchanging.  

My finite mind can grasp only a small portion of the infinity of His love.  

But as I contemplate His love for me, my heart responds with growing Love for Him.  

As I sit still and let his love flow over me, it can begin to flow through me into my love for others.  

This is what Jesus commanded: Love God and love one another.

     He says: Look at me and know you are loved.

There's an old song from last century: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”

A more modern song:  “When the music fades, and all is stripped away, and I simply come”... and goes on to: “I'm coming back to the heart of worship, and it's all about you Lord.”

I've been a Christian 25 years so far and I'm still in the process of learning this. It may be that I'll spend the rest of my life still in the process of learning this.

What he says to me, perhaps he's saying to you: Look at me, and know you are loved.

Let that love flow over you, surround you and embrace you.  

Receive that love, and respond with your love to him.