poor in spirit

Lately I have had a lot of chances to say “you are right” and “that was my fault.” And I’m not talking about a co-dependent whiney sort of victim line. I mean to speak the truth and mean it. It is somewhat difficult. Try it right now if you dare. Say: “I could be wrong.” Try: “That was my fault.” It kinda gets stuck in your craw, doesn’t it? That’s southern-girl talk for hung up in your throat. Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” The phrase “poor in spirit” is only used once in the Bible, here in the beatitudes found in Matthew 5.

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carry me

This morning Sam woke up barking like a seal. He had swim lessons yesterday and I think the pool chlorine irritated his airways. His asthma makes him more sensitive like that. He asked me, like he usually does first thing, “Mom, do I have school today?” 

When I responded “yes,” he began to cry. Little whimpering cries required some effort on his part to maintain. I knew time would heal his airways and he would clear the drainage. And he did. 

But when he began to cry, I picked him up and just held him. His head nestled into my neck and rested on my shoulder. He is still small enough to cuddle and I can hold him and walk. We made our way to the chair where we sit in the mornings. Skip rested on the edge. My Bible was already open. The chair is large and holds Joshua as well when he pads in later in the mornings. 

I wrote in my journal... Lord I am fretful.

See I have a big meeting today with some people who have a little earthly power bequeathed to them by a title. Really, I have nothing to lose in this meeting. The only “bad” thing that could happen is they may choose not to believe me. It’s as if the Lord is saying to me... “Gigi, who will you choose to believe? Me or them? Will you believe what I say about you is true? Will you fret over what these people MAY think about you?”

Later today after I fed Joshua a hardy breakfast so he is ready for his tests, and after I dropped Sam at pre-school; I called a dear friend. I told her of my angst. She lead me to a verse in Deuteronomy.

The LORD your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.'

I thought of how I carried Sam this morning in his momentary distress. And so now, I lift my arms up to my Abba. And I say, “Carry me.”

Update on 04.16.2011 by gigi

Thank you to everyone who prayed for my meeting. God's Presence was very real to me during it. I am grateful that I went and for all that He is teaching me through it.

worship

In a word, life’s purpose is distilled to ONE THING. 

Worship is our wonder-filled response to God’s Essence. 

If wonder is the first step to surrender, surely the second is to drop to our faces. 

Simply put, worship happens when I descend from a higher place to a lower place. Once I have seen the Power and Majesty of God, I cannot help but fall down on my face. Over and over, the Bible says that folks fell down and worshiped. John even says he fell down as a dead man.When we see Him as He really is and we see ourselves, we are undone before Him.

I want to worship God in Spirit and Truth but so often I am bound by the confines of this body. Last week I attended a Christmas concert. The Spirit of God electrified the small venue. My spirit desired to stand with hands toward heaven. But I remained seated obeying social pressures and fear -  polite, conventional, bound. I missed an opportunity to be foolish and undignified before the Lord as my body desired to personify what my spirit felt.

Of course this is a metaphor for my life. I desire to follow Christ but continually choose other gods - little g. 

I believe the path to worshiping in spirit and truth is one of accepting my creature-hood.  Not hiding, dodging or denying it. When I pretend that I don’t have these limits, I puff myself up and God has no dwelling place in my full cup. However, in repentance, my soul is in the proper posture before God. Face down. 

What is His response to this prostration? He reaches out his right hand and lifts me up. 

Even in attempting to name the process, I risk bypassing mystery. Worship is not an empty box on my to-do list that I check off during the day. Often, I find am surprised by worship. Sometimes it’s like invisible fingers wrapping around my heart and opening my eyes to feel the awe and wonder that is God. He is the Great Initiator. His grace fuels even the slightest turn of my soul toward Him.

A few weeks ago, Bill set up two chairs here - the Supposed-To-chair and the Get-To-chair. He explained that we sit in one or the other as we relate to God. I saw the truth about my heart. The shame dissolved in worship as I agreed with God about my sin. In that process, I recognized a spark of desire growing. I want to love the Lord more. I want to worship Him in Spirit and Truth. I want to want to read the Word and treasure it. From that spark, a Living Fire grew in me. I felt God multiply my desire to a great flame. And so goes the cycle... An unraveling and a waiting, a welcoming and a wonder at the re-forming.

To worship God is to ascribe to Him His worth - His place in the world. My life is an offering to Him. He doesn’t need me to worship Him. But I get to.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, "Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. Revelation 1:17-18

wonder

To know wonder is to tangle with terror. I lived just such a moment when we we hiked behind Pulapanzak, a waterfall in Honduras. Understand that safety and often good sense do not abound in public parks in a third world country. No fences, boundaries or safety walls exist. A random “guide” ambled up to us on this day and asked if we wanted to hike behind the waterfall. Ignorantly, we followed the stranger toward a cliff. 

My friend Val nearly fell to her death as we navigated the path down to the bottom of the Fall. In a motion undetectable to the human eye, the guide grabbed her placing her back on the narrow path. As we blindly moved toward this fixed hurricane, I lost grip on my son Matthew’s hand. The guide held onto me. I was unable to talk and insist that he help Matthew who was 11 instead of me.  At one point, I could not breath. It was like having a fire hose stuck down your throat on full throttle. My Teva’s found one slick rock after another as we bouldered toward the monsoon. I lost sight of Matthew and only prayed that he was not being blasted down stream. The guide held an iron grip on my arm. I mustered up the courage to break free to turn back and at that exact moment the wall of water disappeared into a small cave. My lungs clamored for oxygen. My right eye was blurry and for a split second I thought I had lost my eye-ball. The deluge had blown one contact out of my eye. With my good eye, I focussed in on Matthew safe and smiling. Words cannot contain the elation I felt at the confines of that small cave. 

A different person emerged from that waterfall. On the way out, we hiked downstream and jumped off some giant rocks into turbulent water. My soul opened to something bigger than me. I mean, I still struggle with control, but my vision is changing. I am beginning to see that my demand to “understand” is an impediment to embracing the mystery of Christ.

To wonder is to encounter majesty and terror in the same moment and to never get over it. Unless I acknowledge a God whose power blows away my elementary understanding, I will have no need to adhere to his commands.  In the face of Sovereign Power, my puny facade of control evaporates like little droplets of water. Unraveled, we are pushed to admit that a larger story holds us. When our hearts are full of wonder and awe, all that we can do is lift our hands in surrender. And so begins the journey into the arms of our Loving Father. 

welcome

To welcome is to give space to someone. As I wait, I welcome Jesus to my life, to my reality, to the chaos, to this moment.

The King of the Universe, the One Who spoke stars and planets into existence entered our world as an infant - a dependent and vulnerable baby. Is there any greater paradox? If so, I don’t know it. This King doesn’t need my welcome, mind you. But in another paradox, He waits for me to welcome Him. 

Given my pace of life and the intensity, one could assume that the point of Christmas is lost on me. The lists, the menu, the coupons, the sales; all add up to the notion that if I don’t to it, Christmas won’t happen. 

I may welcome Christ into the first 20 minutes of my day. Often, sadly, I have the attitude: Use this 20 minutes, Lord, because I am busy later. 

But do I welcome Him when I realize that I have put 3 tablespoons of baking powder in the rolls instead of 3 teaspoons? What is the posture of my heart when I am negotiating with my brother-in-law who will spend Christmas where? 

Usually I quickly calculate how I will get it done. What will be required? How long will it take? How many other people will I have to involve? Rarely do I stop and say, “I am the Lord’s handmaiden. May it be as you have said.”

This Christmas, as I shop, as I bake, as I love my family well; I want most of all to welcome Christ into my space - to be a womb for the Son of God to dwell. 

Mary’s response to the angel changed her life to be sure. Her “yes” grew from a microscopic zygote to a man who won forever the war on sin and evil. His life, death and resurrection changed the world. May I have the courage, May you have the courage to say “YES” and create a space for God to come and dwell. Our hearts are enlarged in the waiting, in the welcoming.

 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells - even though you still experience all the limitations of sin - you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!

Romans 8:9-11