Christian Archives – Facets of Faith

Is 2020 Feeling Blurry?

01.21.2020 by Megan Abbott //

Hi Friends! Welcome back to Facets of Faith this fine Tuesday. I hope amidst all the anticipation of the new year and new decade, you are finding joy in each and every new day. This month we are sharing how we see 2020. How do you see 2020? Take a minute to jump back a couple weeks to Tracy’s post on finding joy, here, and check out Jen’s thoughts from last week on planning for 2020, here. I pray that as we take on a new year here at FACETS, God will be moving in this community, and encouraging each of us.

Last year I had a word of the year—rest. It started as finding time to slow down and sit with the Lord without an agenda, transformed into learning about the sabbath, and eventually was something that gave me space for healing I really needed. When it was first revealed, though, I was honestly a bit frustrated. I didn’t know where it would lead. It was as if the mental movie of my future felt out of focus because the word could either lead a million places, or nowhere. How did God want me to act on “rest”?

Have you ever been there? Where you prayed for what God had in store for you in the season, and the answer was just blurry enough you were left wondering, “What in the world, God? Where are we going?” If I’m honest, I’m right there again this year. I have been in a season of rest that feels like it prepared me for a whirlwind season. I haven’t quite settled on one word, but I feel full of anticipation for the new adventures ahead in this year. Do you know what isn’t so good, though, for jumping feet first into a new adventure?

A walking cast.

How does this make sense? They aren’t exactly made for jumping, or running, and I’m not even entirely convinced they are made for walking! Definitely not for speed or excitement. When I was considering new adventures in the new year, this wasn’t quite what I meant. But here I am taking one wobbly step forward at the speed of a sloth.

SO WHERE ARE WE GOING GOD?

When I’m really confused and don’t quite know how to pray, I usually end up in the Psalms. I know this is maybe a bit more literal than it should actually be taken, but I prayed Psalm 119:105 over and over again as I was trying to figure out where God was leading me.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Psalm 119:105 (ESV)

Praying that I would find clarity in His word for what I should be learning about “rest.” I have been thinking back on it, and the same image keeps coming to mind: trying to find my destination in complete darkness.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND

Several years ago I spent a few years living in a small village in rural southern Belize. There were 254 people, we spoke Q’eqchi, the village was surrounded by rainforest and plantations, and there was no electricity for miles. When the moon was full, or close to full, you could walk around without a flashlight in areas you were familiar with and be alright, but during that new moon time, it was dark. Can’t see the next step in front of you dark. The stars were amazingly beautiful, but flashlights were a requirement for life.

A few things you should know to fully appreciate where we are going:

My bathroom was a latrine about 100ft from my house, and my water spigot where I could wash my hands or dishes was about 50 feet away in a little shed that also housed a tarantula I named Charlotte and often a giant k’oopopo’ (toad);
The shop in my village didn’t sell batteries so if I forgot them on my weekly trip to the market town, I was out of luck;
Batteries die much faster when it is over 100 degrees everyday, and
I didn’t often plan ahead.

UTTER DARKNESS

So I vividly remember what it was like the first time my flashlight died and I tried to walk to the bathroom without it. I also remember the first time I tried to walk down the path using a candle for light. Flashlights light up the whole path in front of you. You can see clearly what you are approaching, and easily find your way. Candles, not so much; they glow in your face. You can see your next step, but not much of anything further than that. I knew exactly where my water spigot was in relationship to my house, but I had no idea where Charlotte would be. When I had a candle, it was one step at a time, and a lot of praying away the tarantulas.

FOLLOW THE LIGHT

I think walking with God bounces back and forth between taking the path with a candle, and taking the path with a flashlight. There have been times where I have peace about decisions, a vision for where I am going, and am confident about the path to get there. There are other times that it is literally minute-by-minute. Either way, God is revealing the path as we go, just sometimes He is using a flashlight, and sometimes He seems to be using a candle. I often want the full moon version where I can see everything clearly.

BY MY VISION

Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” Psalm 139:12 (ESV)

As someone who likes to understand everything, and really know what the plan is, I struggle with only having a candle light the next step. It isn’t comfortable. It is hard. It requires a lot of trust. I have read and prayed through Psalm 139 almost daily for the last week. It reminds me that God knows me, He surrounds me, He protects me, and He is going wherever I go. How comforting are these words:

Even then You will be there to guide me; Your right hand will embrace me, for You are always there. Even if I am afraid and think to myself, “There is no doubt that the darkness will swallow me, the light around me will soon be turned to night,” You can see in the dark, for it is not dark to Your eyes. For You the night is just as bright as the day. Darkness and light are the same to Your eyes.” Psalm 139:10-12 (Voice)

I have to trust the One who sees everything to guide me. The One who, whether it is dark or light, sees where I am going, and surrounds me. It is less about seeing clearly where I am going, and more about trusting the One who is guiding me.

REJOICE IN THE PROTECTION

I wonder sometimes what I didn’t see when I was walking to the latrine, or the water spigot, or to my neighbor’s house down the road after dark. Even with the flashlight I only saw what was lit by the flashlight or candle. I saw what I needed to see in that moment. Sometimes I wonder what all I didn’t see. Men went spear fishing in the river and hunting in the bush in the middle of the night. For a period of time, there was a jaguar that was coming into the village and stealing chickens and pigs from my neighbors pens. Can you imagine if I had seen it all? Every tarantula, person, snake, rat, jaguar... everything that could possibly have crossed my path? Ugh, I never would have stepped out of my house.

STEP BY STEP WE MOVE FORWARD

So let’s back up to the word for the year. I’m not sure what yours is, but mine is something related to anticipation (which is actually kind of funny considering it implies some sort of unknown is involved, I think I just found my word). What if God revealed today everything we were going to experience or learn throughout the year related to our words in one moment? Would it feel kind of like stepping out of my house in the village if every creature was illuminated?

I am going to pray we can rejoice in taking today’s steps today, and patiently trust God to reveal tomorrow’s steps tomorrow. Even if they are wobbly and taken at the pace of a sloth.

Thanks for stopping by today. Let us know what word you are walking towards in a comment below, or at the FACETS Facebook Page. We’d love to hear from you!

Serving From the Overflow

11.19.2019 by Megan Abbott //

Welcome to FACETS, friend. We’re excited to welcome back a guest you may have met before. Megan will be sharing on our question this month, Out of thankfulness, how do we serve? We think you’ll love what she has to share about overflow, so please give her a warm welcome! Don’t forget that you can find Tracy’s most recent post here, and you can find Jennifer’s here. Thanks for stopping by!

When I (Megan) see something that needs to be done, or someone is asking for help, part of me immediately says, “Oh, I can do that.” No questions, just an immediate response to do what needs to be done. Need someone to help rearrange all the chairs? Okay. Someone needs a meal made while their family is having a hard time? I can cook! Even while writing this post, I got a text from a friend wanting help, and my response was, “Yeah, I’m writing, but I could after that.” Meanwhile, my to-do list is 20 items deep of things I have put off all week, and it is already after noon. This desire to help can be such a wonderful thing, but as you can imagine, time eventually runs out.

“When does my serving honor God?”

This is a question I have been wrestling with for a while. Honestly, most of my adult life. As I confessed above, I might jump to “always!” but part of me is learning maybe it isn’t really as true as I believe. Sure, God can be glorified through any act of service, but does His grace, mercy, and love shine through me brilliantly no matter the circumstances? Maybe? I have to think His reflection in me is a bit fuzzy at times.

The Recipe for Service

Let’s imagine you and I are coordinating a meal for that family above going through a difficult time. We decide on a tomato soup recipe that you absolutely love. They are going to have quite a bit of family in town visiting, so we realize it is probably best we each make a batch of soup then meet up to combine and deliver together.

You are attentive to the recipe. You take your time finely dicing the onion into equally sized pieces, checking the recipe before measuring the salt, pepper, and thyme, and combining them just as the recipe instructs. Your soup produces a beautiful fragrant aroma in your household. Meanwhile, I am at home making tomato soup from the same recipe. I read the recipe once and gather all the ingredients on the counter. I dice the onions and sauté them. I add a few spices. I notice a zucchini that has been on my counter long enough it really should get cooked, and think “Ooo, that would go great with this tomato soup!” So I chop it up and toss it in. I see a little rosemary and add a sprig. The smell is wonderful.

When you arrive to my house to combine the soups before we deliver, you notice they look nothing alike. They both smell great and look delicious, but that is about all they have in common. Yours looks like the recipe because you continued to check in and confirm you were on the right track. Mine looks delicious, but clearly shows my disdain for following recipes. I have this love for adding and substituting at random. Who needs measuring cups? Both are soup, but only one reflects the fullness of the original recipe.

Serving and the Goodness of the Lord

So back to my question “When does my serving honor God?”. I think, like the soups, serving can always reflect the goodness of the Lord, but when we don’t have the time, or emotional or mental capacity, to check in regularly through our prayer life, we become like the second soup. A beautiful, aromatic fragrance, but either not fully pointing to our Creator, or not fully showing His greatness. Either way, there is a feast. In one case the soup has a glimmer of what the Creator intended, maybe a few items missing, or a few extras thrown in for dramatic effect. In the other, there is a soup that more fully reflects the glory of the masterful Creator.

Reflecting the Goodness of the Lord

In Exodus 34 we find Moses meeting with God on Mount Sinai, where God asks him to chisel out the second pair of stone tablets containing God’s Ten Commandments. At the end of their meeting, Moses leaves with two tablets containing God’s Ten Commandments. Look at what Exodus 34:29 says about Moses after this meeting:

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.” (NIV)

Moses was radiant. There was no denying where he had been, or who he had been with. God’s glory shone on his face. When he came down the mountain, those he encountered immediately knew Moses had been in the presence of the Lord. He shined His creator. Throughout Exodus 34, Moses repeatedly entered into God’s presence, and each time he came away with his face shining. I think the same happens when we regularly spend time with the Lord. The closer we are to God, the more we resemble Him. We overflow what we have taken in . When we take in time with the Lord, we overflow with His grace, love, truth, and mercy.

The Overflow

What would happen if I learned to follow God’s recipe for my life? Service, rest, prayer, laughter, hard work, fellowship—all the ingredients in balance. This may mean I need to make space for rest, space to say yes, and to acknowledge it is okay to say no. For me right now, it looks like regularly asking: “God, is this a place I can serve You from overflow, or am I at capacity?”

I want to believe God’s glory shines more brilliantly when I follow His recipe.

I have to imagine my thankfulness would overflow. I can’t be around God for any significant amount of time and not end up thankful. Thankfulness for His provision leads to generosity. Thankfulness for His grace produces patience. Thankfulness for His unconditional love transforms the way I love others. Thankfulness for His compassion produces an overflow of compassion for others.

Rather than immediately jumping at every opportunity, assuming God requires our participation in order for His plan to be successful, maybe we check in with the Creator and see where He may be guiding us to serve. If we stay rooted in the word and prayerful, the aroma of our service will fully glorify the Lord, and He will shine through us.

Thanks for reading along. We’d love for you to join the conversation below in the comments or at the Facebook page!

Love and Rescue: What might’ve been—except…

04.10.2018 by Jennifer Howe //

Hey, friend! Welcome to our April topic: What has God rescued you from? This month started off with a heart-felt share from Tracy, and I can’t wait to hear from Kim and our guest author the next two weeks. Check in Tuesday mornings here or at our Facebook Page—April promises to be a celebration of the rescue mission our Daddy-God planned from the beginning of time. For every single one of us!

I (Jennifer) sit quietly in my caffeinated hidey hole, pre-Resurrection Day, and I’m in awe of the intricate strands braided at the cross on Friday. Deepest love, excruciating pain, and hours of suffering twist tightly, not that different from the crown of thorns pressing on Jesus’ brow. Then Friday’s crusty, blood-red thorns were exchanged for a gilded crown forever on Sunday morning. He came, lived, and loved! And the rescue mission was victorious when Jesus rose from the dead and opened the way to eternal life for us all.

A Resurrection made possible by—
Resurrection: God’s power on display. How beautiful! It’s amazing and almost inconceivable—the God of the universe unseated himself from heaven’s perfection, stooped down to humanity’s messy condition, and bore immeasurable pain—all on a rescue mission for the rebel horde (all of us!). The resurrection power could never be, though, without the crucifixion on Friday. That’s a “no-brainer” in one sense, but have you seriously thought about it? We might be tempted to leap past the ugly, bloody, rugged cross to chocolate bunnies and brightly-colored eggs. And that would be natural, I suppose. Certainly the images of the two days and the way we observe them stand in stark contrast.

The rescue mission began in rough, 1-Star accommodations in a manger setting, and included all 33 years of Jesus’ life. Now we zero in on the final week of his life; it culminated in a battle that shook the heavenly realms and a victory for the Christ, the King of all.

Me—like it never happened…
So, how did this rescue mission work out for me, personally? I thought about it earlier this week. A friend gave me a fantastic story idea: What if I met my earlier self down the road from age 23, but the self who chose not to identify with Christ? (Think: parallel universe.) What would happen if the seeds in my younger self had germinated and grown and bloomed? That could reveal what I was rescued from, couldn’t it?

What might’ve been…
I imagine meeting myself at a very different hidey hole.

[Insert 80s television show wavy lines preceding an alternate reality here.]

She’s at a dark corner table taking a short break from a string of two-steps, double-twos, swings, and line dances. A freshly starched southwestern button-down, faded Wranglers, an oversized, silver buckle, and beat-up twenty-five-year-old boots. She looks put-together and fits right into her environment—perfect for playing the game.

A little unsteady on her feet by 10 o’clock with several Bartels & Jameses down the hatch, but she has some of her wits about her. Bottles gather in the middle of the table. An equal number of men wonder how they could buy her a drink and be ignored. She’s not going down that road.

Men are heartache and trouble. There’s no cowboy riding to the rescue. There never was, her inner voice hisses.

She wipes the sweat from a new bottle and offers the man a nod and flashes a disinterested raised brow. The fifth quizzical look chalked up. Another brick and mortar in the wall.

Heartbreak is on her face. The losses are big: children (by choice), her home (by her fiery temper), cars (by repeated “accidents”). The pain and abuse scrawled all over her story shows. Anger, stress, and bitterness fold into every wrinkle. There’s no inquisitive, interested-in-life-and-learning look on her face. It’s sour lemons never made into anything. It’s distrust and disgust.

Colored and carefully styled hair frames her face, and dark emotion seethes behind perfectly made-up green eyes. Appearances are everything. They work for her. But the attractive appearance is in contrast to her social presence once she opens her mouth. She’s all sunshine or summer storm. She chooses word weapons from the arsenal carefully. If anyone hangs around, her grit and salt grinds until their rash begs tending. No one hangs around long. Verbal bricks in the wall against the world.

The “Principle of the Least Interest” is still in play. She works relationships the way she buys cars.

Never let ‘em know how interested you are. You never experience loss or pain publicly if nobody knows. Prepare to walk away. No commitment is safe. It’s better there’s no commitment.

She’s been through loads of “test drives” without signing her life away. Not surprising. The wall is thick. Impenetrable. Unless she wants it.

[End Scene]

Rescued!
Want to know what I was rescued from? I imagine it’s all that and more. No doubt, my hard places could have etched deep creases. Abuse could take its toll. Sad life choices could take over. More importantly, all of it could become deeply-ingrained pathways in the mind, keeping me prisoner to the thought life they drove. The relational patterns, life choices, and conceit could have become a lifestyle merry-go-round. The use of words could’ve been the same and very different. (Different vocabulary, for sure!)

I imagine the internal and external looking different and dark, but something gnaws at me.

What was I really rescued from?
I was rescued from what might’ve been and more! The seething emotional pain, relational distance, and all-about-me ego was part of it, but there was something deeper. The rebel in me at the DNA level stood in futile opposition to God (hot, angry, spewing obscenities, fists clenched, for sure!). That, my friend, could only mean one thing: Jesus could have granted my wish to be separate from the God I didn’t know or want. That’s not what he would have wanted, but in this case, we can have what we want.

[They perish] because they did not accept the love of the truth in order to be saved. 2 Thessalonians 2:10b CSB

[I]t is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones perish. Matthew 18:14

Friend, Jesus rescued me from ME. Daddy-God used every event in life to show me how sweet life could be when I was rescued from certain death to real life with Jesus.

For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish—ever! No one will snatch them out of My hand. John 10:28

Thanks for reading along. We’d love to hear your rescue story. Pop a comment below or visit our Facebook Page. If you believe FACETS is worth sharing, we’d love that, too.

Want to talk more about the rescue? Contact us.