encouragement

Today’s Word: Journey

Steve · August 25, 2013 · Leave a Comment

For me, the best descriptor of a life of faith has always been “journey.” Like a great road trip along a classic highway like California 1, what happens and what we see along the way of faith is as important as the paradise we discover at the end. So while we’re all shooting for heaven, we have a responsibility (and a privilege) to use the journey to build the kingdom for others and draw ourselves closer to God along the way. Whether we’re cradle Christians or newer to the faith, the journey to and with God is what makes us who we are.

We don’t become Christians in one brief, emotional moment. Neither do we become “complete” in a sacramental instant, however important and meaningful that may be. We are loved by God from our moment of conception, but the journey home to God — our life of faith and family — is the legacy we leave to all those we eventually leave behind. When we arrive home with God at the end of our lives, we will claim our treasure and inheritance as children and heirs of God. But the journey along the way will stand as witness and testimony to the life we have lived and the lives we have touched.

Ask yourself in silence: Where am I in my journey to God? If I died tonight, what would the legacy of my journey be? What do I need to change in my life?

Today’s Word: Vocation

Steve · August 24, 2013 · 4 Comments

Historic schoolhouse, West Branch, Iowa. SJG photo.

“Vocation is where our greatest passion meets the world’s greatest need.”
– Frederick Buechner

The word vocation has, unfortunately, become all too familiar. We use it synonymously to mean, “what we do for a living.” And while that might be true, it only tells part of the story. The word comes from the Latin meaning “call” or “summons.” Thus, our vocations are not just what we do but what we are summoned to do. Summoned by whom? That’s up to the listener.

As people of faith, we hold to the idea that this call comes from God and reflects God’s desire and will for our lives. It is one of our great responsibilities to prayerfully discern our call and then respond. Importantly, it’s good to remember that we are perhaps called to different things at different times over the course of our lives. What we are called to in later life may be quite different from the call we responded to (or didn’t respond to…) when we were much younger.

Like any call, the answer to our vocation question can be found by listening. We need to listen to ourselves and trust our hearts. We need to listen to those who know us best. And we need to listen to that still, small voice that whispers (and hardly ever shouts): “Follow me, I’ve got something for you to do.”

Ask yourself in silence: To what are you sensing a call? Has there been a call you ignored because it seemed inconvenient? Do you have a passion that meets a great need in the world?

Today’s Word: Rise

Steve · August 21, 2013 · 10 Comments

Last weekend while on retreat, I took a walk along the railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill near the river. While walking, I noticed dozens of railroad tie spikes just lying loose between the rails, and I wondered why they were there and where they all came from. Then I noticed that some of the spikes that were still “in place” were in varying stages of rising, so to speak, of being loosed, no doubt by years of pressure and vibration from passing trains. In short, they seemed to be freeing themselves. Free at last.

And I wondered: Can we, too, free ourselves from the holes and the tight places into which we have been driven? Can we be liberated from those people and circumstances that have perhaps left deep and painful marks on our lives and on our psyches? Can we repair the damage of past hurt?

We can, but we can’t do it alone. Like a railroad tie spike, we work our way free from our damaged pasts by responding to the vibrations and movements of an outside force. When we open ourselves to the movement of God in our lives and let go of aching parts of our past, we rise above the pressure and the rawness of these wounds and allow ourselves to rise, slowly and surely, to freedom and new life. We rise because God moves us toward freedom. We rise because we allow God to work on us, to inch us ever forward in faith and trust. Free at last.

Ask yourself in silence: From what in my past do I need to be freed? What piece of my history needs healing? What if I were to respond to the movement of God in my life? What would change?

Today’s Word: Fruit

Steve · August 15, 2013 · 5 Comments

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I love your Christ but not your Christians, because they are so unlike Christ.” All too often, this is so true. I’m not calling out any individuals here, and I’m not pointing fingers. We’ve all fallen short at one time or another. We’ve all failed to show those around us just what it is that this Christ means to us. Maybe we got the words right — or think we have them right — but we fall short on the way we live out the words. We’re missing the fruit of our faith.

If the Christ we see and learn from in the gospels is to be seen and known through us, it will be through the fruits of the spirit working in us. These fruits are not correctness, judgment, self-righteousness, or orthodoxy. These fruits are not liberalism or conservatism, and they are not the property of any one religion, creed or nation. The fruits of God’s spirit are found in the small deeds and actions that govern our lives and in the ways we love our families, our friends and even our enemies. They are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22). These fruits speak for themselves, and no one will ever fail to find Christ in us if we nurture these fruits in our lives while pruning back the vices and sins that separate us from God and from those around us.

Ask yourself in silence: When have others failed to see the fruits of the spirit in my life? Do I nurture these fruits or have I let them wither on the vine?

I’ll be taking a break for a few days as I head out tomorrow for a few days of solitude at the Vision of Peace Hermitages in Pevely, Missouri, nestled on the banks of the Mississippi River just south of St. Louis. I’ll be back on Monday with some new words and plenty of new photographs.

Today’s Word: Grace

Steve · August 14, 2013 · 1 Comment

Grace is one of those words we use almost without thinking about it. We say someone is graceful. We say grace before meals. We have a grace period to pay our bills. And, of course, we sing that most famous and well loved of all Christian hymns: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…”

But grace, especially in its Christian meaning, is a word that deserves our attention. The grace we receive from God through Christ deserves to be mulled over, contemplated and prayed. We shouldn’t toss it off like a found penny, unaware of its deep meaning and power. For if we have a relationship with God, it is only because God initiated that relationship by his grace — by his free and undeserved communication and union with us. God’s gift to us is grace, and our ability to accept it is the work of grace.

We are surrounded by grace as fish are surrounded by water, unaware that it is there at all even though we would die without it. God’s grace is pervasive and complete in our lives — our very life and breath are, after all, gifts and not mere happenstances. Once again, I’ll give a contemporary songwriter the last word today. John Mark McMillan writes in his beautiful song “How He Loves”:

And we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.

Ask yourself in silence: If not God’s grace, what have I surrounded myself with? Am I trying to earn God’s love and grace, or am I able to just accept the free gift being offered?