Tag: renewal

Choosing Both Death and Life

September 17, 2022 /

I pulled into the small parking lot by Staring Lake and turned into the same space I parked every morning during a couple of the most tear-filled years of my life. It had been awhile since I visited this “thin place” where heaven met earth and God entered my pain.

On the paved lake path, through leafy trees that, over the years, morphed from yellow to green to red to bare black limbs that looked like witches arms, I walked daily, pouring out my confused heart to God. Begging, questioning, accusing.

It doesn’t really matter the specifics of my circumstances. Probably you too have, or had, or will have a dark season when you realize there’s nothing you can do to “fix” things and make them the way you want or the way you are sure, in a just world, they’d be.

As I walked the path today, with the perspective of almost 20 years, what struck me was life side by side with death. Saplings next to mature oaks, beside rotted logs. Life, death, rebirth, renewal.

Years ago on this path I clung to dreams that were meant to die until I gradually loosened my grip.

I didn’t recognize what the new shoots of growth would become. I had to choose life in whatever small form it appeared.

This holy, ordinary place has made me think of other wilderness spots where people in the Bible ran from God and were met by Him. Hagar in the desert (Genesis 16:13), Jacob at Bethel (Genesis 28:16), Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3), Elijah under the broom tree (1 Kings 19), Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9).

In each of these there had to be a death – death of a wrong view of God, or death of a perception of control, or death of a dream of how life would look.

But there was also new life. It looked different and may not have been immediately recognizable, but there was life, and growth, and it was better. Maybe not more comfortable or predictable or “safe” in a worldly sense, but richer, more meaningful, eternally secure.

Reflect on this continuous process of life and death and life again.

  • What plans are you clutching that you need to let go of?
  • Where is there death that you need to grieve?
  • Where is there evidence (even tiny and even if you’re not sure what it will turn out looking like) of new life that God wants to nurture?
  • Is there a physical place where God has met you in the past that you may want to visit to remember His faithfulness?

One Place God Does Some of His Best Work

February 18, 2018 /

I’ve been thinking about caves. Weird, I know, right? But recently I had the privilege of climbing to (on rock steps – we’re not talking ropes and crampons here) and exploring, a series of huge caves on an island in Vietnam. It got me reflecting on caves in the Bible and why people went there. Caves were places of refuge, but usually a last resort, and often dark and lonely.

Here are a few that came to mind. Can you relate to any of these “cave moments”? 

  1. When you’re distressed and afraid.

When Saul is chasing David and he is running for his life he hides in a cave with others who are disillusioned.

1 Samuel 22: 1-3

David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there.  All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their commander.

 Maybe it feels like circumstances are just too much for you and you’re afraid, or angry or discouraged. You may need to hide in God…curl up in the safety of His presence.

2. When you’re exhausted.

After God uses Elijah to miraculously defeat the prophets of Baal, Jezebel is still after him and he runs away, exhausted.

1 Kings 19:3-9

Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, 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.”Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.

All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.”  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.

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.”  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.  There he went into a cave and spent the night.

Note that the first thing God does is meet Elijah’s physical needs. Have you ever noticed how fatigue affects your perspective? John Ortberg writes, “Sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is take a nap.” Maybe you need both physical rest and the spiritual rest from striving that God can provide.

3. When you need to grieve a death.

Jesus allows Lazarus to die in order that He can show His power to bring life out of death.

John 11:38-39

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.  “Take away the stone,” he said.

Maybe you’ve experienced the death of a dream and you need God to show you where He is going to bring new life. Maybe you’re waiting for Him to roll away a stone that has been a stumbling block for you. Maybe you need time in your cave to pour out your heart in grief.

After all, it was in a burial cave that Jesus overcame death and made a way for us to live forever with Him, right? 

In caves we may have silence and solitude pressed upon us, but it’s a time to cling to Jesus. Maybe we can draw encouragement from what David wrote when he was in a cave. Psalm 142:1-3

I cry aloud to the Lord;
    I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy.
 I pour out before him my complaint;
    before him I tell my trouble.

When my spirit grows faint within me,
    it is you who watch over my way.

 

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