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hearing God, soil
hearing God, soil Entries from November 1, 2010 - November 30, 2010
Monday's Meditation: Watering the Soil of Our Hearts
Monday, November 29, 2010 at 09:35AM 
Just because we have heard something before doesn’t mean we should pass it by. Watchman Nee observed that patience in the face of the familiar is a sign of spiritual maturity. I need to ask your patience as I revisit and revise a post from April of last year, because it’s on my mind again:
“The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop--thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown." Mark 4: 14 – 20
Let me tell you about the first time I ever heard this parable. The night after I became a follower of Jesus a speaker used this parable to challenge us to put our roots deep into this new life. I just naturally assumed I was the good soil. How could I be anything else? Sitting next to me that night was a friend from high school who had also just turned to Jesus. After the message she wept and wept, and wept some more. Finally she composed herself enough to sob, “I just don’t want to let Jesus down. I’m afraid I might turn out to be one of those other types of soil.” I had assumed that I was the kind of person who was naturally good and would bear fruit, while she was moved to tears, crying and asking for the grace to live up her calling. At that moment I realized after just one day she was already way beyond me in her walk with Jesus.
This isn’t just any parable--it’s foundational. Jesus asked his disciples, "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?” (v 13) He cautioned his students that this parable was critical to receiving the Kingdom of God (v 11).
As a young Christian I thought Jesus was describing a fixed reality: too bad for those with hardened hearts, rocky soil, or lives full of weeds, I thought. Thank God I was the good soil! It never occurred to me that his words were a call for me to tend my own heart, or that he was describing a continual process of every time he speaks into our lives. Over the years I’ve discovered I’m never further away from the Kingdom than when I think his words are for someone else, but not for me.
This week I invite you to ask, What about me? Have I watered the spoil of my heart with tears that cry out for his continued grace in my life?
13 Thanksgiving Meditations
Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 12:47AM "I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder." ~ G.K. Chesterton
"Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world: It is not he who prays most or fasts most, it is not he who gives most alms or is most eminent for temperance, chastity or justice; but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, who receives everything as an instance of God's goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it." ~ William Law
“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” ~ John Milton
“A thankful heart cannot be cynical.” ~ A.W. Tozer
"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice." ~ Meister Eckhart
"We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?" ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“A sensible thanksgiving for mercies received is a mighty prayer in the Spirit of God. It prevails with Him unspeakably.” ~ John Bunyan
"Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint. I can choose to grateful when I am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness. I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly." ~ Henri Nouwen
"If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled." ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon
"Receive every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life; meet every rising sun with such sentiments of God's goodness, as if you had seen it, and all things, new-created upon your account: and under the sense of so great a blessing, let your joyful heart praise and magnify so good and glorious a Creator." ~ William Law
"I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed and not I who robbed." ~ Matthew Henry
"When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?" ~ G.K. Chesterton
“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” ~ Paul, the Apostle: I Thessalonians 5: 16–18
Here's last year's list, too. Happy Thanksgiving!
Monday's Meditation: Can We Choose Our Emotions?
Monday, November 22, 2010 at 09:27AM I’ve always been intrigued when the scriptures command an emotion:
- Let the priests, the Lord's ministers,weep between the porch and the altar (Joel 2:17)
- Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! (Philippians 4:4)
- Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. (Colossians 3:15)
Some events--and the emotions that go with them--are beyond our control: unexpected loss, good news beyond all expectation, hurt inflicted from a loved-one. Yet in the everyday-ness of living, I believe that our emotions are largely the result of our habitual thoughts. If we could discern the map of our heart and mind, I suspect we would discover the well-worn pathways of our thinking and feeling. Expressed another way, we train ourselves to think and feel in certain predictable ways.
(This is where I should cite studies from the Journal of Psychiatric Studies or some such authoritative-sounding publication, but no: I’m just going to share what I’ve observed about myself and others during my few decades of living.)
I believe the reason we find repeated exhortations in the scripture to think and feels certain ways is because God has given us the capacity to rule our thoughts and emotions. Consider his very telling exchange between God and Cain, just before Cain chose to murder his brother:
“Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” (Genesis 4: 6-7)
Genesis, the book of origins, tells us the story of our first encounter with anger, jealously, and feelings of rejection. Contained in this story is revelation about our own psyche: we are responsible for our emotions, and each of us has been given the capacity to choose a healthy emotional response. In this story are the seeds of hope for a fallen world: God comes to us in our anger or hurt, and encourages us to choose wisely. He believes in us more than we believe in ourselves.
Is there any better meditation for the week of Thanksgiving? Is is possible that we can redirect the pathways of our heart? If we give ourselves time and space in this holiday, I believe we will hear the voice of our Father encouraging us, “choose thanksgiving--it’s the best thing for you.”
Everyone's Entitled to My Opinion: About Thanksgiving Movies
Friday, November 19, 2010 at 11:47PM Is there any subject Hollywood hasn’t covered? Genres multiply faster than starlets coming to L.A. Except in one area: Thanksgiving. So this Saturday morning, as a service to the readers of Students of Jesus, I offer a handful of Thanksgiving-themed movies.
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: John Hughes’ 1987 tale of two misfits trying to get home for Thanksgiving still fits like a pair of bedroom slippers. Steve Martin plays Neil Page, an uptight businessman thrown by outrageous fortune into the care of the eternally traveling salesman, Dell Griffith, played by John Candy. The two men bond in ways both manly and true. Beyond the comedy is a yearning for home, and the final scene of the film not only welcomes both of them to the banqueting table, but us as well.
Pieces of April: A wayward daughter invites her dying mother and the rest of her estranged family to her apartment for Thanksgiving dinner. In 2003 Katie Holmes, (before she became the subject of Scientological speculation) plays April, who discovers that family means more than she imagined. Patricia Clarkson, the best-kept secret in movies, plays the dying mother. The final sequence presents a view of family that shows all of us at our best. And for one day--Thanksgiving--they all get the relationships right.
Home for the Holidays: Jodie Foster has only directed three movies in her career, and she chose this tale of a dysfunctional family’s annual gathering at Thanksgiving. Holly Hunter loses her job, makes out with her ex-boss, and heads home to face the music, wonderfully supplied by Anne Bancroft, Robert Downey, Jr. and Charles Durning. This film, by the way, has one of the most interesting opening-credit sequences I’ve ever seen. It will also make you genuinely grateful for your family, because next to this crew of misfits, nearly any family looks great.
Come Christmas time I’ll suggest a list of Christmas feel-good films--like Die Hard--but until then everyone’s entitled to my opinion about Thanksgiving movies, and these three are the best of a very small bunch.
Thanksgiving and the Will of God
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 04:34PM 
Thanksgiving posts always seem to sound like such a scolding: we ought to give thanks.
Think about all the things you have and all other people who have nothing.
There, now: give thanks.
Don’t concentrate on what is missing, be grateful for what you have.
There, now: give thanks.
Ungrateful people are losers.
There, now: give thanks.
The problem is, guilt is a terrible motivation for giving thanks. When I read Bible passages instructing me to give thanks, it can sound the same way:
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5: 16 - 18)
On my grumpy days I feel like talking back to the scripture, “Don’t tell me to be happy! Do you think I could put it on from the outside?” (Here’s a happy-coat, why don’t you put it on?) And yet, giving thanks is the will of God. So if it’s the will of God shouldn’t I simply try harder, be obedient, and say thank you?
For example, frequently we teach children to say please and thank you as a matter of courtesy--as a way of teaching them how to get along in society. It’s the price they must pay to get their milk and cookies. We’re more concerned with the outward performance of good manners than we are with true gratitude.
As we approach Thanksgiving in the United States this year, I’m beginning to discover there’s a difference between giving thanks and having a thankful heart. I’m also beginning to discover that the Father cares more about thankfulness that flows from the inside out than obedience we wear like a cheap suit.
Paul’s words in Thessalonians have something to teach us about the will of God: does the Father want outward compliance or a heart capable of expressing his will and doing it naturally? Of course, it’s always better to obey than not to obey, but I think he’s after more than mere obedience--he knows thankfulness is the best thing for us. He knows that when our hearts respond with prayers of joy and gratitude to the situations of life, we are responding out of Christlessness and not simply parroting the company line.
Rather than hearing thankfulness as a command, perhaps we can hear it as an invitation:
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. Colossians 3: 15 - 16)
God is not honored when we tell him what we think he wants to hear--even though we don’t believe it. He knows better. He is honored (and we are healthiest) when our hearts and minds flow naturally with his. In this season we do well to recognize that included in the flow is a heart-condition called thankfulness.
