by Christine Sine
Last week was a very unrestful week for many of us. The bombing in Manchester, the massacre of Coptic Christians in Egypt, more deaths in Kabul, the Philippines and now on London Bridge, growing turmoil around the world and the U.S. pulling out of the Paris climate agreement weigh heavily on us. The world seems to be unravelling and we are afraid that God has lost control.
In the midst of such challenges how do we find not just the energy to respond but also the peace that our hearts need to journey onwards? One thing I realize is that rest doesn’t just happen. It must be created. Restful moments throughout the day that restore our equilibrium and flood our heart with the peace that is beyond understanding are a deliberate choice.
About six months ago I purchased a fitbit. Part of what I love about it is its reminder to get up and walk every hour. Initially I just wandered mindlessly around the house, intent on getting my 250 steps but little else. Then I realized that these 2-3 minute stretch breaks could also become deliberate restful moments when I paused to breathe in and inhale the peace of God.
It has revolutionized my day. Sometimes, like this morning, I wander out into the garden and inhale the fragrance of the roses. In unstable times like this, my peace rose in particular reminds me that the fragrance of God’s peace is always with us. Even the rose’s history, inspires me. Developed in France during World War II, it was smuggled out by the French resistance. The naming of the rose as ‘PEACE’ was publicly announced in America by Robert Pyle on April 29, 1945 , the day Berlin fell, officially considered the end of World WarII in Europe. The next showing of the Peace rose came on V-E Day, May 8, 1945. At the very first United Nations Conference in San Francisco, a Peace rose with the message: “We hope the ‘Peace’ rose will influence men’s thoughts for everlasting world peace”, was presented to all 49 U.N. delegates.
Peace rose
These “coincidences” make me feel that God is always at work behind the war and turmoil creating peace. Sometimes it is hidden and needs to be smuggled out as it were to make sure that it is planted in an environment where it can grow and flourish until the time comes when it can be named, applauded and shared so that it can indeed go out throughout the world and bring hope.
So go and plant a Peace rose, or better still plant some peace in God’s garden. God desires peace in our world and I think that the history of this rose shows that.
What Is Your Response?
I enjoyed watching this video today. It made me smile and helped me relax. It is a glimpse of hope for peace and allowed God’s peace to well up within me.
Sit quietly after you have watched it and take some deep breaths in and out. Sit in the peace of God’s presence and think back over the last couple of days. Where have you seen glimpses of God’s peace? What do you need to do to nurture and grow these? Where do you have the opportunity to share these glimpses and allow their fragrance to spread throughout the earth?
They huddled together, mournful and afraid, forgetting that the grave didn’t have the final say. Nor did the resurrection of the risen, ascended Saviour mean He had forgotten about them now. He had spoken of many reassuring things but His absence still left a painful sting.
Now, bereft of His presence, cowed by the authorities, wary of what to say, what was safe or possible for them, they gathered as they were in the habit of doing. And it happened. Taking all assembled by surprise. A sudden, rushing wind arrived as heaven touched earth with bold magnificence.
Quaking, faltering disciples were about to become ardent apostles: joyous, liberated, eloquent Truth tellers, mouthpieces and world shakers for Jesus. Flaming tongues of Holy Spirit fire flared bright, igniting mind and heart, loosening tongues, giving them utterance to proclaim the Good News to others.
Only with God can the fearful become faith filled. Only a touch from heaven is required to light a spark of hope and courage in hurting hearts. Only the Holy Spirit can move souls to speak so powerfully for God, despite the rejection and reprisals it might bring.
An outpouring
A unique bond between God’s risen, incarnate Son
and lowly earth dwellers. A beautiful gift of grace
visibly poured out to satiate thirsty sojourners
A living tie threading lives together in unity
with Christ and one another, whereby sister
and brother become his cherished Beloved
Flaming tongues of fire igniting heart and mind
with heavenly anointing—now rendering weak
human beings into ardent disciples for him
A fire for Jesus, a holy surrender seared
by Holy Spirit’s life-giving energy, guidance, zest
now rests on our hearts like a gentle caress
We sense stirrings within, a call, prompting
to prayer, to follow him, to yield again
and again to the Way that leads to soul Life
instead of death—from whispered words, soft as breath
©joylenton
“God sends the Holy Spirit as a preserving seal to lock in our faith, as an authenticating seal to validate our sonship, and as a protecting seal to keep out destructive forces. The point is that God wants us to feel secure and safe in his love and power” ~ John Piper ‘Live by the Spirit’
We live in the aftermath of Pentecost, with the charismata bearing sweet fruit in our souls and lives. We long for a deeper encounter with God, and Pentecost has paved the way. Holy Spirit takes up residence in every believer’s heart, bringing Jesus to us as constant Soul Companion and Friend.
We don’t have to live weak, defeated lives, because we are given the means of victory due to our faith in Christ. Our hearts have been warmed. Our minds enlivened. Our spirits set aflame. Our tongues loosened to proclaim our Saviour’s glorious Name.
By Lilly Lewin —
The tomb is empty, Jesus is ALIVE! So what now?
The disciples were probably asking the same question the days and weeks following Jesus’ resurrection.
I’m sure that their emotions ran the gamut the days after the Light had returned.
I understand why Peter went back to fishing…
It was familiar, it was what he knew best, it was concrete and made sense!
This “coming back to life after dying a horrible death stuff”
seemed way over the top!
It must have been incredible to see and touch and eat with Jesus again!
It also must have been emotionally exhausting too!
The roller coaster from amazing despair to total joy…and then the blandness in between
and all of the questions!
Is he back to stay? For how long? What happens next? What do we do now? How does he do that?…that disappearing and reappearing thing? and then his question, Peter do you love me?
I have felt many of those things post Easter!
The Light of the world that was snuffed out for my sin…and darkened the planet for three days has marvelously returned!
I too have many questions…
I too am impatient for the answers…
How long? What is next?
What are you up to now Jesus?
As I type this, I hear the Light saying what he said to those tired, excited, exhausted, confused, elated, friends of his after Easter… before he ascended to his Father.
Go back to Jerusalem and wait…
Wait, watch… receive the Gift my Father will give you…
So they went back to Jerusalem.
They went back to that upper room that was so special, so sacred and so familiar and normal.
But they had to wait…
They had to receive …
They returned to their friends and shared the story
They waited, they prayed,
All before they could go out again and share the Light .
All before they could go make disciples around the globe.
Jesus is telling us there’s so much more…
We just need to wait and see!
We don’t need to run ahead of Him!
Instead, we need to wait on Him.
We need to seek Jesus in prayer, the Bible, in Silence and solitude and experience Him in nature.
And we need to receive his gift of the Holy Spirit so our cups, our lives can be filled
And we can pour out his love to those around us!
Take time to wait today.
Use this breath prayer to help you pause.
Use this breath prayer to help you receive the Holy Spirit.
Pray this Breath Prayer:
(sit down somewhere comfortable and relax your muscles.
Take a few deep breaths, roll your shoulders and relax your neck and breathe)
Breathe in God’s Peace
Exhale your fear
Breathe in God’s Spirit
Exhale conflict
Breathe in God’s Peace
Exhale confusion
Breathe in God’s Spirit
Exhale unforgiveness for others
Breathe in God’s Peace
Exhale unforgiveness for yourself
Breathe in God’s Spirit
Allow The Spirit to fill you with new life, new mission and
New hope for the days to come.
Breathe deeply and allow God’s Spirit to fill you.
Breathe, Rest. Be with God.
My husband, Dave, now has a chronic lung disease, a form of chronic obstructive lung disease, often called COPD. Watching him suffer has been one of the hardest things I have ever experienced.
About a year ago, I decided I needed help in coping with the stress of his disease (and a few other stressors), so I started seeing a therapist twice a month. My times with him have been very helpful, and in these next few blog posts, I want to reflect on what I’ve learned.
Before I start, I’ll tell you a bit about Dave’s situation. His life is diminished by his disease because his energy is lower and he is prey to frequent lung infections, but he is still himself and still one of my greatest joys and sources of support. My marriage remains a big net positive in my life, a huge blessing. Still, last year I could tell that watching him suffer was causing me stress on a daily basis, and watching him deal with fevers when he has lung infections was tearing my heart up.
Let me tell you about my typical response to his illness when I entered therapy. I was feeling and thinking a bunch of stuff: feeling sad to see all the adjustments Dave has to make, worrying about how the disease will affect him and me in the future, wondering how long he will live, hoping he’ll live a long time for my sake but wondering if it wouldn’t be better for him to die for his sake so his suffering would end, feeling guilty for having thoughts that dying might be better for him, worrying that I’m not trusting God enough with my thoughts and fears, etc., etc.
These thoughts and feelings would swirl around in my head. I was steadily gaining weight without being aware of overeating. The only way I could explain the weight gain was to see that the spinning thoughts and feelings were creating stress, and I was soothing the stress with a bit of extra food every day.
I would try to stop the swirling thoughts and feelings, but I had no success in doing that. Then I felt guilty for not being able to focus my thoughts and feelings on something more positive. I felt continuously guilty for not trusting God more.
The first suggestion my therapist made was to separate the thoughts from the feelings. No one had ever suggested this to me, and I now see this as a spiritual practice, a choice that needs to be made over and over. In this series of blog posts, I’ll tease out what that looks like in practice. To begin, I’ll write about the difference between thoughts and feelings.
Feelings are a normal, healthy part of daily life. Of course I would feel scared, sad, and angry because Dave is dealing with a chronic condition. What loving person wouldn’t feel that?
But the catastrophic thoughts – What will be the trajectory of the illness? When will he die? What will it be like to be a widow? – are demonic, according to my therapist. They are literally demons that pursue and enslave me. They damage my life.
My therapist suggested dealing with the thoughts like a person would deal with distractions during meditation or contemplative prayer. Imagine them as leaves floating down a river. Let them go. But the feelings are to be felt.
He gave me suggestions for dealing with the feelings, and I’ll write about that for the next two weeks. On the fourth week of this series, I’ll write about dealing with the thoughts.
Always before, I saw coping with my swirling thoughts and feelings as a black or white thing: either I’m disciplining my mind to have positive emotions and thoughts, or I’m being honest and feeling/thinking about the negative stuff. The choice was optimism or honesty.
Now I have a different perspective. I see that “honesty” is not the right word to describe catastrophic thoughts about the future. My thoughts focus on things that haven’t happened yet, so they cannot be honest or dishonest. Catastrophic thoughts are simply unhelpful and dysfunctional, which makes them demonic. And indeed, they do demonstrate lack of trust in God.
However, “honesty” is the right word to use to describe experiencing feelings. When I feel sad, scared, angry and/or guilty about Dave’s illness or about anything else, I need to know what to do with those feelings. Those feelings are indeed present. They are a part of me. I find trying not to feel them simply doesn’t work.
By Mary Harwell Sayler —
Praise God your Lover
Who embraces you
like a blanket wrapped
around the chill of your life
and holds you –
insulated from evil,
protected from attack,
cloistered in comfort,
cocooned in Christ –
until, reassured,
you risk new life
and rise in the lift of God’s love.
Mary Harwell Sayler, © 2017, from the book PRAISE!
By Shannon Martin —
Do you ever wonder if you are, perhaps, the resident nut job at your church?
Our church families are just as complicated as our biological families. We all have that one crazy member that everyone can identify as THAT crazy person. The one that we cringe at when we see them coming (yes, church members are still humans!). We find them harmless enough, but they just don’t know when to stop talking or just have no filter……
I am wondering if that is me.
Over the last several years I have been involved in a variety of projects and served in a number of different ways in different capacities. Last year I realized after soul-searching that beyond being a people pleaser I was also very prone to believe that my identity was found in the things I did.
After a lot of reluctance and stubbornness on my part, I finally surrendered to God’s will and began to step back from some things and give other things up completely. This has put me into a very odd position for me.
I am not currently the person serving in different areas, but I have a ton of knowledge about how things have been done, changes that have been made over the years and why they were made, and other historical type information like that. A repository of mostly useless information at this point.
As a result, I get asked a lot of questions……at least at first……and in a way, my busy-a-holic soul loved this because it kept me in touch with those positions I had given up. I was still in the know……I was still important…….
And then the questions stopped coming……and I had to remind myself that this is a VERY GOOD THING!!! I have successfully transitioned out of multiple roles with just a small remaining role in the worship planning/leading arena.
However, I still seem to stumble upon conversations coming and going at church and I JUST CAN’T STOP MYSELF at times from throwing in my two cents worth.
This is why I am now wondering have I become the resident church nut job? The one who just can’t seem to keep her nose out of things that are no longer her concern?
So just as I have had to become more intentional about prayer times and scripture study times, I must now also become intentional about not picking back up the things that are not my current assignments from God.
I have often complained that I don’t like people stepping on my callings, or feel like I am at times being held back by folks from doing the currently assigned tasks from God. However, if I refuse to let things go, then I am the person stepping in the way and holding others back from their full potential in God’s callings for them.
Letting go doesn’t mean losing a part of me, it instead is actually FREEDOM for me. Freedom to continue to grow and the ability to allow others to grow as well. Freedom to spread my wings and be open to trying new things.
My identity is found in belonging to the one true living and eternal God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. The same God that Deborah, Ruth, and Esther belonged to. This needs to be my focus. This is what I need to be intentional about. I am being prepared for “just such a time as this” (Esther 4:14 – NRSV).
What I do at church does not define who I am in Christ.
My new guiding verse can be found in Isaiah 58:11 (AMP):
“And the Lord will continually guide you, and satisfy your soul in scorched and dry places, and give strength to your bones: and you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.”
Going forward I will speak less and listen more. I will reserve my opinions and keep them to myself unless asked specifically for them. Yes, yes, I know, but please try to contain your laughter at those last two statements…… I will, with God’s strength and guidance, be able to accomplish even this!
So, while I may be a recovering busy-a-holic, and a recovering nut job (okay, may not be any way for me to escape this one!), at the beginning, the middle, and the end of every single day I am a child of the one true King. And that makes me ENOUGH.
I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:12-13 – NRSV)
Shannon Martin and her husband live in North East Ohio with with their teenage son. They attend Midway Mennonite Church. You can also find some of her writings I on her blog Wisdom Wanderings.
Shiphrah and Puah are two of the most minor characters in the Bible, and their story consists of only a few verses. I enjoy their story, though—not only because their actions profoundly influenced the scriptural story of liberation but also because of how they managed to succeed. Exodus tells us that Pharaoh had become uneasy at the population of Hebrews in Egypt, so he instructed the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah included, to kill any Hebrew boys at birth. Rather than refusing outright, a refusal that would probably have just lea to their own deaths, these two midwives took advantage of Pharaoh’s ignorance and told him a tale that no woman would have believed. “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women,” they said, “for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”
This story reminds me of another short story, “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell. In this story, the men overlook evidence that the women are able to interpret. The men, those who possess much more public power than the women do, simply don’t recognize that sloppy embroidery or a dead parakeet is significant. They also don’t realize that they ought to ask the women what they’ve noticed. The men and the women see the same things, but only the women are able to ascribe meaning to what they see. The women save their friend from a possible conviction for murder simply by keeping quiet.
People who possess little authority can seldom overcome their opponents through sheer force. They have to rely on other means—by understanding their oppressors better than they understand themselves, by outwitting those too arrogant to question their own limitations. Exodus doesn’t tell us what the midwives think of Pharaoh, whether they consider him simply naïve or an outright fool, whether they’re just taking advantage of his understandable limitations. He doesn’t question their presentation of the Hebrew women’s character. Why would he? He doesn’t know anything about childbirth. Why would he know? Why would he care to know?
This story offers a lesson in justice, but it also offers a lesson in humility. However much any of us knows, we probably don’t know enough. We’ve probably each stared right at something and overlooked its meaning. And the story suggests that God approves of wiliness, of tricking our opponents when that’s the option we have. Someday, perhaps, we might all live in the peaceable kingdom, none of us grasping after power or so enraged with greed that we accept the harm we cause to get what we want. My faith teaches me that such a thing could happen, though my experience tells me that it won’t likely happen soon. Until then, let’s use these two often overlooked women as our models; when we can’t eradicate evil, let’s try to outwit it.
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