Tag: Elijah

The Good Thing About Caves

October 24, 2018 /

I’m not a fan of caves. I mean really, who is? Disconcerting darkness, and bats and snakes and who knows what else. Think of the boys’ soccer team trapped in that flooded cave in Thailand. Can you even???

But we all have “cave” times that can’t be avoided – times when we are isolated, discouraged, weary, disoriented and feel trapped in the dark, amIright?

And yet…

God does some of His best work in caves! Consider the cave of Adullum where God prepared David to take his role as king (1 Samuel 22). He was on the run from the insecure King Saul and was joined by a band of misfits as he tried to respond with godly patience and respect to Saul.

Maybe you’re in a cave of rejection.

Or the cave at Horeb where God refreshed the exhausted Elijah (1 Kings 19). Remember, he ran there and said, “That’s it! I’m done! No more prophetting for me!”

Maybe you’re in a cave of exhaustion.

Or the cave where Lazarus was buried and Jesus showed both his compassion and power (John 11). Mary and Martha had given up, angry and frustrated that Jesus hadn’t arrived in a timely manner and executed their plan for healing BEFORE death.

Maybe you’re in a cave of overwhelming circumstances and you feel out of control.

So how did God show up in each of these caves and make a difference? In each case He provided. He gave unlikely partners, counsel, food and rest, comfort, healing…and next steps.

What’s interesting to me is what He didn’t provide in the cave times. He didn’t give a detailed explanation of why He had allowed the circumstances that drove David, Elijah, or Lazarus to their caves. But He DID provide perfect timing.

A cave is a place to hold your concerns in God’s presence alone, and that’s good, but caves can become too comfortable. The circumstances that propel us there may be painful, but the cave can begin to feel like a safe place where we’re protected from the meanness of the world. Sometimes we’re tempted to hideout instead of step out with renewed power from God.

But in each of these situations, God does His work and then says “Ok, it’s time to leave.”

Eventually, God sends a prophet to David with this command, “Do not stay in the stronghold.” (1 Samuel 22:5)

After Elijah is rested and refreshed, God says, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord…” and then “Go back the way you came…” (1 Kings 19:11)

Once it was clear nothing could be done, Jesus shouted, “Lazarus come out!” (John 11:43). Yes, He spoke to Lazarus, but there was  cave work being done in the lives of Mary and Martha too.

In each of these caves something needs to die. Self-sufficiency, self-centeredness needs to be snuffed out.

When we’re in a cave, often it seems that God is encouraging us to let go of our false self – the part of us that is dependent on talents, titles, triumphs and re-tweets for our sense of worth. Instead, in the cave we are encouraged to abandon ourselves to God.

So, just a few questions we might ask ourselves about caves:

  • If you’re in a cave right now, what has driven you there? Name your cave.
  • What is the invitation from God in this dark time?
  • Has He finished His work and is He nudging you to step out?

As always, I’d be delighted if you’d share your thoughts with the rest of us. To post a comment, if you receive this in email,  just click on the title. That will take you to the post on the website. Scroll down and post away! If this is your first or second time, don’t worry if it doesn’t show up right away…It will.

 

 

 

 

Sandra Bullock & 2 Important Questions to Tether You

October 7, 2015 /

A few years ago I felt like Sandra Bullock in Gravity – untethered, and floating in space.

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We had just returned from a five month sabbatical and I was clueless about how the next season of my life would look.  What was my “place”?  Who was my “tribe”?  Was there anywhere God could use me to add value?

The answers seemed to be “nowhere”, “no-one”, and “nowhere” (again).

Maybe your circumstances are different, but you can relate.  You’re “in transition” (that horrible euphemism for “in a place that feels scary and directionless”). Or maybe you’re just feeling unsettled and under-utilized.

So I prayed.  And I prayed.  And I prayed.  And by that I mean I yelled at God a lot.

And once in awhile between my rants I tried to listen for His whispers.

And when I did, here’s what God said.  “Use the flour and oil I’ve already given you.”

Ok, it went a little different than that, but that was the bottom line.

And actually, God didn’t whisper, it was more like He shouted with clarity through the account of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath.

You remember that story in 1 Kings 17 when God sends Elijah to the widow telling him she’ll supply him with food, but when he arrives and asks for a meal she tells him all she has is a handful of flour and a little oil that she was going to use to make one last meal for her and her son before they die.

Elijah says, no problem, just start baking “from what you have” and God will make it enough.  And yep, “there was food for every day.”  “The jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry.”

So here are two questions I’ve been trying to answer each day: Continue reading

Road Trip – When you need a Rest Stop

July 6, 2015 /

Adventure starts where plans end.-3

As I wrote in the first post of this series, our family vacations were totally homemade-find-a-roadside-rest-stop-no-McDonalds-for-us affairs. And yes, we did eat peanut butter with egg salad sandwiches (those are not two separate kinds of sandwich 🙂 ).

In those pre-seatbelt safety days my dad was sometimes able to leave a narrow cubby hole in the back of our station wagon for one of us to stretch out in, but what’s imprinted on my memory is the three of us side by side in the back seat for hours on end, watching America out the window, playing the Alphabet game, Car Bingo,  and 20 Questions. I’ve tried to convince John that that enclosed, enforced family time without videos is the key to our conflict-solving skills. However it did mean that we were more than ready to stretch our legs and take a break from “He looked at me funny… She touched my foot…Are we there yet…”

Elijah is one of my favorite road trip stories, and it culminates in a rest stop – something we all need.

1 Kings 19:1-3 Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”3 Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. (Road trip!)

When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, 4 while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” (Rest stop)

Elijah wears himself out.

After seeing God’s supernatural display of power in His showdown with the prophets of Baal, and after years of being protected and fed by God, he’s afraid of a middle-aged woman – Jezebel!  He runs, not for his life really, but from his life!  He’s running from circumstances, not to God.  He focuses on circumstances and takes his eyes off God.

But he can’t outrun God. God loves him (and you and me) too much.

Wherever we are on our journey God doesn’t leave us alone.

5 Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep. All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.

Just like a cranky toddler, God knows that Elijah needs a snack and a nap so he provides a “Happy meal” and lets Elijah go back to sleep.  John Ortberg writes about how Americans are the most sleep deprived nation in the world and says “Sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is sleep.”

7 The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” 8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night.

And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

10 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. 

The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

Elijah focuses on the negative and it’s an exaggeration…distortion of the truth.  God says in verse 18 that there are still 7,000 in Israel who haven’t bowed to Baal.  What are the negative “tapes” that play in your head when you get down?

11 The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

Sometimes when we’re lowest God speaks softest – we need to lean in close to hear Him.

13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

I love it when we see God ask questions like this in Scripture!  He KNOWS the answer, but He wants a relationship with us and a relationship involves dialog…interaction…We are invited into a conversation with the Almighty God.

14 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

Elijah repeats his “poor me” speech. He forgets God in his recounting.  He skips over the miraculous powerful way God has shown up time after time. When we get to overstretched isn’t this the same way we’re affected? We lose perspective.

Isn’t it incredible that God can take anything we dish out and is patient with us?  He lets Elijah vent and then calmly gives him new instructions.

15 The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. 16 Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet.

We lose our balance and our joy when our output exceeds our intake, our talk exceeds our walk, our worry exceeds our wonder.

Questions

Bill Hybels suggests an exercise that has been helpful to me. Consider three gauges on the “dashboard” of your life, like gas gauges in your car. Where would you draw the arrows on each of these tanks? Towards the F for Full or towards the E for Empty?

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  • Which tank do you need most to address?
  • Are there ways you can take mini rest stops – a pause to breathe in summer and thank God?
  • Are there things you need to say “no” to that are robbing you of the joy of a balanced life?
  • Can you share some ways that you take “rest stops”?

When You’re Not Enough

November 17, 2014 /

I’ve been feeling a little skittish lately…a little anxious and a little fearful – not like myself at all, but more like a hostess who’s afraid she’s going to run out of food.  Concerned there’s not enough, or that she’s not enough, or that she’s forgotten something important – like the meat.

Ironically, when I’m feeling off my game I usually need to listen most to what I’ve been teaching others.  So this morning when I woke up at 2:00 and again at 3:00 my mind turned to a passage that many of you know is very meaningful to me.  It is one I preached on in Zambia recently.

It’s the passage in 1 Kings 17 where God sends Elijah to the widow of Zarephath to ask her for a drink and a piece of bread.  The only problem is that she only has a handful of flour and a little oil. She’s preparing the last meal for herself and her son and then she figures they’ll die.

When Elijah makes his request she answers, “As surely as the Lord your God lives, I DON’T HAVE…”

Like the widow that’s usually our “go to”.  Think of a challenge you face today – relational, work-related, parenting, health-related – and where does your mind go? Continue reading

Invitations of the Scary Kind

February 26, 2013 /

I wrote yesterday about how I don’t see myself usually as the cowabunga-bungee-jumping for Jesus type.

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But I am trying to be a person that responds to whatever God invites me into.

Sometimes that’s leaning in to hear a whisper and being obedient in one of the million small invitations from God in daily life.

But sometimes there are big scary invites that take us off-guard.

They are as clear as a public marriage proposal booming over the loud-speaker at the Twins Stadium.  And that can be the most disconcerting kind.

So when I got a request to go teach a class to seminary students in middle-of-nowhere-rural Northern Kenya I wanted to put on Bose head phones to drown it out. (Yes. They are clearly desperate.)

I’ve never taught a seminary course and I’ll be alone without John, my best coach in all things challenging.  So the refrain in my head is “Ican’t/I’mnot/Ican’t/I’mnot…”

But like I’ve written before, I’m not, but He is.  And I really can’t ignore this, even though it makes me quake in my boots (or in my TOMS as the case may be).

And I’m inspired by some friends of mine who are responding to an much bigger crazy invite…adopting two orphans from the D.R.C.  You know, Congo, where there’s been horrendous gender violence (that means rape and worse) and warfare and the perfect storm of natural disaster, poverty, and evil.  And yes, you read right.  Two, yes two kids, with two more at home.

This is a big invitation that God has confirmed in both their hearts from the time they were dating until now.  Through scary developments and uncertainty they are trusting God to knit together a loving family of American born biological kids with Congolese babies abandoned out of desperation.

But there are also invitations of a different kind.  Big invitations to rest, that come in the form of end-of-your-rope-exhaustion and require you to say “no” may be just as scary and as the invitations to jump.

Here’s the thing…I don’t think we’re ready to say “yes” to any of the “bigger”, riskier things unless we’ve said “yes’ on the days of small things.

Would David have been ready to say “yes” to God’s invitation to fight Goliath, if he hadn’t said “yes” to the ordinary, boring, everyday stuff of protecting his sheep before that?

Would Elijah have had the courage to say “yes” to a showdown with the prophets of Baal if he hadn’t trusted God to provide food and water before that?

Would Daniel have been prepared to defy Darius when push came to shove if he hadn’t quietly been honoring God daily before that?

So as I prepare to send the email responding to the loud scary-big invite in my life, I’m trying to say “yes” to the whispers of today.  And I’m praying for my dear friends on their journey to respond to Jesus’ invite to come pick up two toddlers in Congo.

Are there ways you’ve seen God use everyday whisper invitations to prepare you for loud riskier ones?

Invitations and the Three Things You Need

February 25, 2013 /

I’m not that person.  I’m not the sell-everything-move-to-the-slums-of-Calcutta-like-Mother-Theresa person.  That’s not the invitation I’ve sensed from God.  Yet.

I’m an ordinary girl trying to follow Jesus where He’s put me and getting it wrong a lot.

But if there’s one passion I have, it’s responding to the invitations God extends, as crazy as they might seem in my ordinary world.

The thing is these invitations rarely arrive in a giant Oscar-like envelope with a red seal screaming “THIS IS IMPORTANT!  PAY ATTENTION!”

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We long for invitation, but sometimes we have to lean close because the invitation is a whisper not a shout.

Recently, Bob Goff wrote,

“Jesus won’t try to speak over the noise in our lives; love whispers so we won’t be confused about who’s doing the talking.”

Sometimes it’s a whispered invitation to stop.  And do something you’ve never done before.  Something a tiny bit scary, or uncomfortable, or potentially embarrassing.

The whispered invitation may come right in your cramped apartment, or in your dysfunctional family, or on the road to work.

The invitation might look like a Jamaican cleaning woman stranded on the side of the road needing a ride,

or an injustice that begs for a note to your congressperson,

or a kid who could use a mentor or a meal.

The other day I saw a friend of mine who responded to the quiet invitation from God to take her aging parent for a delightful afternoon tea out, giving her mom loving attention and a listening ear no matter how confused she got.

Here’s the thing though.  I believe three ingredients are needed if you’re going to respond to these gentle, holy invitations.

An eye, an ear, an hour.

An eye for those in need, an ear attuned to the whispered prompts of God, and the time to respond.

I guess maybe the fourth thing that is needed is a willingness to actually do the work of responding, but the element that I think is most often missing in our lives, the thing that prevents us from responding to God’s invitations, is lack of margin.

A mentor of mine always said, “If you’re too busy to take a pot of soup to someone in need, you’re too busy.”

I know, I know…in some seasons margin is beyond our control.  And maybe the person in need is you.  You’re the perpetual care-giver who, like Elijah after an intense season, needs to respond to the whispered invitation for a snack and a nap.*

Then do that.  Pray. Rest.  Replenish.

But whether God whispers an invitation to be part of some kingdom work, or kingdom rest today, which element is most likely to get in the way of you responding?  An eye to see the needs, an ear to heaven, the guts to respond, or the time to do it?

God, show me where You want to work today, and invite me to be a part of it.  I’m trying to pay attention.

*1st Kings 19

Two Questions to Consider Every Day

September 24, 2012 /

This week is the one year anniversary of the start of this little blog.

A year ago about this time I had nothing.

Ok, that’s “a lie from the pit of hell“, as daughter Maggie would say.  I “had” a lot of things.  A lovely home, and delightful family and friendships I treasured.  But it felt like I had nothing partly because I didn’t have an impressive job title.  Actually I didn’t have any job title.

I felt like an untethered space station floating in the inky cosmos.

We had just returned from a five month sabbatical and I was clueless about how the next season of my life would look.  What was my “place“?  Who was my “tribe“?  Was there anywhere God could use me to add value?

The answers seemed to be “nowhere”, “no-one”, and “nowhere” (again).

Maybe your circumstances are different, but you can relate.  You’re “in transition” (that horrible euphemism for “in a place that feels scary and directionless“). Or maybe you’re just feeling unsettled and under-utilized.

Continue reading

You’ve got this. Kind of.

February 22, 2012 /

A few weeks ago some gifted young women who live in another part of the country, asked me to sort of mentor them.  I haven’t heard from them recently so I think they may have come to their senses and realized this request was kind of like inviting Zacchaeus onto their basketball team.  But anyway, what went through my mind is exactly what has gone through my mind when others have graciously approached me with an invitation:

Wow.  I LOVE them!

I must be special!

Holy Buckets!  What do I have to give them?

What if they expect, you know, wise words whenever I open my mouth and I’ve got, like…NOTHING!?

What if I say I’ll do this and then they’re disappointed in me?  What if they decide I’m a Loser Mentor?

And then God whispers…

You’ve got this.  

Because really…you don’t.

But I do.

And that’s all that matters.

Listen to them.  Listen to Me.  Listen to them with Me and that will be enough.

Because I’m always more than enough.

This was a nice invitation.  However, there are many times when I question my adequacy because there hasn‘t been an invitation.  I don’t feel called, or challenged, or included in anything “significant”  But in those moments God whispers…

You’ve got this.  You’re chosen.  But not because you’re adequate, or even asked by others, but just available.  And I am with you.

And He brings to mind the story of the widow at Zaraphath in 1st Kings who had only a handful of flour and a little oil, preparing a last meal for herself and her son when the prophet Elijah showed up asking for one meal.  And then another, and another.

God’s word to her through Elijah is His word to me and you.  “…make a small loaf of bread from what you have…” And there was food for every day.

Just use what you have.  And I will make it so much more.  

Just respond to the small things I’ve put in your hands.  In front of you.  In your family.  In your neighborhood.  In your workplace.

You’ve got this when you realize that you don’t, because I do.

Where do you feel inadequate?  Where are you afraid you won’t have what is needed?

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