The Body Series: No Body Now But Yours

Probably about four years ago now, I came across this poem by Teresa of Avila and was moved deeply by it: 

Christ has no body now but yours,

no hands but yours,

no feet but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which

Christ’s compassion must look out on the world.

Yours are the feet with which

He is to go about doing good.

Yours are the hands with which

He is to bless us now.

—St. Teresa of Avila

At the time I first read these words, they met me in my sense of calling to be identified with the words of Isaiah 61, which speak of the ministry of Jesus to be one of healing the brokenhearted, comforting those who mourn, giving beauty for ashes, bringing good news, and setting captives free. 

I knew Christ’s heart in me had much to do with offering this tenderness, mercy, beauty, goodness, and hope to others. Being called the hands and feet and eyes and touch of Christ through this poem taught me a little bit more of how I embody Christ on this earth in these precious ways. 

Now this poem is meeting me in a new way, particularly as I continue to reflect on the mystery of the eucharist and how it affects my view of my body. 

For instance, I woke up yesterday morning feeling awful in my body. I’d eaten poorly through the weekend, and I was feeling the result.

I found my spirit feeling sincerely grieved by this — that by abusing my body with my poor food choices, I was not tending with care the body of Christ as I bore his body in me.

I drove around town yesterday, running errands, and I couldn’t stop thinking about this idea of bearing the body of Christ inside my own. Of my body being sanctified through taking his body into mine. Of his body living on earth … through me.

I’m coming to realize that the greatest difference in the way I regard and treat my physical body may have everything to do with my love for Jesus. 

I deeply love him.

The years of sitting in the dark on the floor of my life eventually led to moments of illumination that had everything to do with who he is and how he regards me and all humanity. The person I have become since that journey began has everything to do with him. There is nothing about the person I am now, 15 years later, that isn’t connected somehow to who Jesus has revealed himself to be to me. Finding Jesus changed my life and changed me. 

I love him so.

And so this idea of carrying his body inside of me through the mystery of the eucharist, this idea of being and becoming the body of Jesus here on earth … it’s deeply affecting me. It feels so precious. And it is causing me to regard my body in a new way — in a way that has everything to do with my love for Jesus. 

Caring for my body is a way of loving him. And that, I’m realizing, is going to make all the difference.

How does this poem by St. Teresa speak to you?

The Body Series: Our Bodies, Sanctified

On Friday, I invited us to consider how our participation in the eucharist — ingesting Christ’s body and blood into our own — might shed more light on how we are to view our bodies. 

The word that keeps coming to mind for me is sanctified. 

When, in the rite of eucharist, I am taking the body and blood of Christ into my own body, his being enters my own and becomes even more a part of me. Christ is in me. 

The Spirit of Christ is always in me, but perhaps the taking of bread and wine is a moment when Christ’s embodied life dwells more fully within me than before. I become even more of a dwelling place for my Lord. 

It feels like such holiness, to be bearing the body and blood of Christ within me. It is my body made sacred. 

What reflections have come to mind for you concerning the eucharist in connection to your body?

The Body Series: Eucharisteo

This is My body. This is My blood.

—

This post is coming a bit late in the day, due to a power outage and modem/router meltdown that happened at our house this morning and has taken most of the day to get fixed. So today’s entry will be short, but hopefully it will provide us with something substantial to chew on as we make our way into the weekend. 

How might our understanding of our bodies be influenced by our experience of the eucharist? 

A friend and I were talking about this over coffee last week, and it’s been marinating in my mind ever since.

When we take eucharist, we are taking the elements — bread and wine — into our bodies. We do this as an act of spiritual sustenance, but think also of what those elements represent: 

Christ’s body. Christ’s blood. 

His body and his life source, and we’re taking them into ourselves.

When we do this, we’re saying, in a way, that we want his blood to mingle and flow with ours. His muscles to establish themselves with our own. His eyes and ears and mouth and nose and skin and bones and flesh to meet with ours.

When we take Christ’s body and blood in the eucharist, how might that impact our bodies and/or our view of them?

The Body Series: Grace and Truth in the Body

All he does is suffused with grace.

—

A great deal of my journey into love had to do with learning grace. I just didn’t “get” grace. Why did I need it, really? Oh, yes. I’m a sinner from birth and all of us fall short of the glory of God. We all need it. 

But truthfully? 

That didn’t mean anything to me.

I wasn’t in touch with my “sin nature,” nor was I quite in touch with my actual sins when I committed them. And I most certainly wasn’t in touch with my belovedness. 

And so during that dark season when I sat down on the ground of my life and decided I wouldn’t get up until I understood God’s love for me, it had a lot to do with learning grace. 

Do you want to know what I learned about grace? 

It meant not having to perform. It meant being accepted exactly as I am. It meant not having to watch my every single move to the left or right, constantly gauging whether it was the exact right move. It meant the world wouldn’t fall apart if I didn’t hold it — and myself — together. It meant being allowed to be flawed and still being completely loved.

It was a revelation. God’s grace covered all my “sins” — which, strictly translated, means “missing the mark,” like when you’re shooting an arrow at a bull’s eye target. I didn’t have to hit that perfectly round and narrow mark with every single move. If I “missed,” God’s grace covered the miss.

God freed me from my perfectionism. That’s what God’s grace did for me.

Don’t ever deprive me of your truth. Not ever.

—

The reason I share this with you is because of something one reader, Katy, shared in response to yesterday’s post. She wrote: 

I think that I became more in-tune with my body when I became more in-tune with my emotions … I started paying a lot of attention to how my emotions were affecting my physical health, and how my physical health was affecting my emotions. Now I know that being sad or mad or stressed can give me stomach issues, and that eating low-sugar, high protein meals helps with my anxiety. The better I eat and the more I exercise, the better my mental state.

I read these words and thought, I need to understand that better. 

And the reason I need to understand it better is because my experience of increased emotional health led to gaining weight, to the point of being overweight for the first time in my life. Was I not as emotionally healthy as I thought I was? Did I miss a right turn somewhere? 

I think, for me, this has something to do with growing into a greater balance of grace and truth. 

One of my absolute favorite passages in the Scriptures is John 1:14, which says of Jesus that he was the “fullness of grace and truth.” In his being, he held them both in fullness of measure and perfection.

Grace. Truth. Together.

Sometimes I think the ongoing journey of spiritual formation can be summed up by saying it’s about growing into the fullness of grace and truth together. When I encountered my need to understand grace because the idea of it bounced off me like a ball against a wall, I was way far over on the truth side of things. I know now that I was pretty much like a Pharisee. 

And so I started to learn grace. And once I found it, I bathed in it. Soaked in it. Relished its amazing gift. Fell so in love with Jesus. Bowed down in gratitude. 

To the point where grace showed up in my treatment of my body. I savored rich foods in ways I never had before. I celebrated a lot. I welcomed the enjoyment of a good meal the way I was learning to welcome myself and those around me in full acceptance in the presence of God. 

Just like we can fill up on truth to the exclusion of grace, I think we can do the same with grace: fill ourselves up on grace to the exclusion of truth. 

But Jesus is the fullness of both. And that is perfection and glory and beauty and perhaps the real definition of love. 

On my body journey right now, I’m in the process of pulling truth back into the mix — while keeping grace alive. 

How might you describe your own body journey in the context of grace and truth?

The Body Series: Be Where You Are

Tending Mary.

Taken at the Cloisters in NYC.

— 

This morning I took a yoga class where the instructor encouraged us to set an intention for our day’s practice. She suggested a couple ideas for this, ultimately letting us decide what was best for ourselves, and one of the words she mentioned as a possibility was acceptance. 

I knew immediately it was the word I wanted to carry with me through that time of exercise. 

I was situated near the front of the room, right in front of the main mirror-lined wall. Every time we undertook a forward-facing pose, I saw myself at the front of the class with wider arms, shoulders, hips, and chest than those around me. Many times throughout the class, I couldn’t twist my body very far into a pose. A couple times, my hips blanched a bit. My foot cramped at one point. My arms and legs shook with fatigue in some of the poses. 

There were so many ways I felt tempted to feel less-than. 

Thankfully, the instructor mentioned that word again — acceptance — several different times throughout our time in the class, and I was able to come back to a place of accepting myself where I was in that moment. Taking a class. Stretching my limbs. Challenging myself a bit (and in some ways a lot!). Growing more in tune with my body a little bit every day.

I think our journeys with our bodies need to include a healthy measure of acceptance.

Earlier this week, I mentioned that this can include going gentle with ourselves in our progress — letting every tiny step forward matter and letting the journey take as long as it takes. 

I think it also includes letting ourselves be ready when we’re ready. I’ve known for nearly seven years that my body was changing from the way it used to be and required some level of attention from me because of it. But it wasn’t until last year that I felt a real openness to stepping into that journey, and it wasn’t until now that I’ve been willing to pick up some of those beginning steps from early last year and look at them again. 

We are where we are. And one of the things I love most about Jesus is that he comes to where we are and meets us there. The gospels demonstrate this truth over and over again — that Jesus meets us where we are and is infinitely patient with us there. He waits with us until we’re ready. He converses with us in our current place of being. Then he walks with us, tiny step by tiny step forward, only as we’re ready.

I love that about him. 

How would you describe where you are right now?

The Body Series: Its Formation

Perhaps the most arresting question I encountered when I began exploring how God intends for me to view my body is this: 

Are our bodies meant to experience formation, just as our souls are?

It’s the question I’ve been holding in the back of my mind ever since, and I’m going to put it forward as a tentative thesis for this series as we explore its possibilities the rest of this week.

So, here’s the back story.

The question came to mind as I was reading the introduction to Reclaiming the Body in Christian Spirituality. One single, obscure line — half a line, really — brought it about. The line read: 

“There is every indication that salvation does not mean getting out of this skin, but being transfigured and glorified in it.”

— p. xi

The line made me think of what will happen in heaven. 

As a spiritual formation practitioner, I believe our interior being is meant to form over time, conforming in greater and greater measure into the image and likeness of Christ. Our “work” here on earth is to attend to that formation that God is about in us. We’re meant to participate as God does what God wants to do. 

And then, in an instant in heaven, we will be transfigured into something more. Scripture speaks of creation groaning for the full restoration of that day (Romans 8:18-25). It speaks of the substance of our lives being refined in fire on that day so that only what is pure remains (1 Corinthians 3:10-15; 1 Peter 1:3-9). It speaks of seeing in a mirror but dimly now, but someday we shall see face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12). 

Clearly, something happens to us in heaven that is more than what we experienced on earth and has something to with the people we became while we were here — and the intent is for us to become, while we’re here, all that God intends for us. 

Could it be the same for the body?

I think about Jesus and how, upon his resurrection, he inhabited the same body he carried while a mere human. It was a body that could eat fish (Luke 24:41-43). It was a body that still bore the scars of the wounds he sustained on his hands, side, and feet (Luke 24:40; John 20:24-29).

Yes, it was a body that could walk through walls (John 20:19) and even, at times, appeared different than the body his disciples knew when he was alive (Luke 24:13-35; John 20:11-18; John 21:4). But it was also, clearly, a real body, and it was in some measure the same body as the one he had before. 

Perhaps in just the same way that who we become in heaven will be different — more full — than who we were on earth but also tied in some way to who we were while here. 

And so I am pondering the formation of the body: 

What shape are our bodies meant to take? 

What might growing in the likeness and image of Christ — in our bodies — mean?

I look forward to exploring these questions here with you the rest of this week.

The Body Series: Being Human, Having a Body

The torso of Christ,

taken at the Cloisters in NYC

—

One thought I’ll share with you before we head into the weekend is the idea that there’s something fundamentally human about having a body. 

To become like us, Christ had to assume a body. 

This continues to support the idea that our bodies are good, as Christ assumed a body not only willingly but also as an act of love. He does not disdain what we are but rather moves toward — and even becomes — what we are as fully as he possibly can. So much of this had to do with his assuming a human body.

I’m also intrigued by this idea of there being something fundamentally human about having a body because of what I do. I work in the area of spiritual formation. This means I help people grow in their process of spiritual maturity, and this has to do with becoming more fully who we actually are.

It’s a question, ultimately, about being our true human selves. 

I’m learning that our bodies are a part of that. Having a body means something to the human experience and something to what it means to be human. 

What do you think of this idea that being human is, at least in part, about having a human body?

Finding God in the Daily :: The Everydayness of Jesus

Just some ordinary items.

—

Pennies lost then found. Wheat fields and trees. Mustard seeds and sparrows. Parents giving gifts to children. Friends arriving in the night. A woman petitioning her case. A homeless man hoping for bread. 

The list could go on and on.

So many of the stories Jesus told — maybe all of them? — are grounded in the grit and grind of daily life. Even the images he used to describe his very self fall into the everyday ordinary. Bread. Light. Words. 

And then he met people on the ground floor of their lives. A woman fetching water at a well. A bunch of fishermen hauling nets. Two sisters caught in conflict. Parents pleading the health of their children. A rich man hunting for meaning. 

We could keep going on like this for quite a long time. 

Jesus was grounded in the details. And I love this about him. I love that he came and experienced real life for himself, and I love that he chose to use real life for his teaching tools. He could pull a metaphor or meaningful truth out of any old thing you’d encounter in the course of a day.

What in your ordinary life could be used as a teaching tool by Jesus to teach you?

Redemption Coming to Ground

I’ve been feeling the disparity between life with God and life in the world this week. 

The world is sharp and prickly. It’s loud and oppressive. It’s bent on self-elevation and pride and status and social climbing and pushing others down. 

But life with God is humble. Quiet. Unassuming. Servant-like. Poor in spirit so much of the time. 

And then this morning, I was reading Isaiah 53 — the famous chapter that describes the Messiah, Jesus, to us in all his unexpected, paradoxical, surprising glory: 

Who believes what we’ve heard and seen?

Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?

The servant grew up before God — a scrawny seedling,

  a scrubby plant in a parched field.

There was nothing attractive about him,

  nothing to cause us to take a second look.

He was looked down on and passed over,

  a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.

One look at him and people turned away.

  We looked down on him, thought he was scum.

— Isaiah 53:1-3

It makes so much sense that the world would respond to Jesus in this way. He wasn’t physically attractive. He didn’t possess the charisma of a power-hungry politician. He wasn’t after titles or fame or a worldwide platform of power.

He was here to speak truth. To embody love. To be with us in the realities of who we are. To bridge us to God. To offer us real life, which the world, in all its bankruptcy, never finds. 

It makes sense that even Israel rejected Jesus — Israel, who also came from unassuming, unsuspecting roots, too, and knew well that “nobody” status. Israel, who was unattractive and laughable to the nations around them. Israel, who lived by a code that didn’t make sense to the rest of the world. 

Israel, who decided, in the end, it wanted a king. 

Israel, who decided, in the end, it wanted to be like everyone else. 

Israel, who, in its own religious way, leaned upon power ploys and prestige and status, too.

This Israel “looked down on” Jesus and “thought he was scum.” And then led the parade that crucified him.

Life with God looks nothing like life in the world. It doesn’t make sense. It’s laughable sometimes. Its seeming foolishness confounds the seeming wisdom of the worldly wise. 

And yet it connects us to what is real. What is true. The actual ground of our being and existence. 

Paradoxically, it is where real life is found.

How is your life with God nonsensical through a worldly lens right now?

The Hymn Collective :: "Give Me Jesus"

Earlier this year, when we celebrated a year of faithfulness in this space, one of our readers, Rebecca, requested a series of meditations on special hymns this coming year.

Today we’re launching that occasional series, called “The Hymn Collective,” and we’re starting with one of my favorites: “Give Me Jesus.”

This version sung by Fernando Ortega.

(If you can’t see the video in your email or feed reader, click here.)

This is a very simple hymn. (In fact, can it even be called a hymn? I’m not sure.) It’s got a very simple verse structure and a very simple refrain, and they alternate a few times before the song closes without any fanfare. 

But this song … oh, this song. It gets to the ache in my heart every single time.

I sing it often around my house. Sitting at my desk in the morning, the psalms spread open before me, I sing it over and over while looking out the window at my neighborhood going about its day. Sitting on my couch some mornings, a blanket wrapped over my arms and legs, I sing it in the silence of our home.

And Diva, pretty much without fail, always comes running to hear it, too, sitting real close or even on my lap as I sing the simple lines over and again. (I swear that girl knows Jesus.)

This song gets at my heart’s love for Jesus. 

Some time ago, I remember sitting in a pew at our church for one of the Wednesday noon eucharist services. And in the silence of the sanctuary, before the service began, I could hear a simple prayer repeating again and again in my heart: “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.” 

Over the next few weeks and months, I noticed that same simple prayer cropping up in other moments of quiet — after I’d taken communion and kneeled at my pew in prayer, while sharing times of prayer with Kirk on a Sunday night. Thank you, Jesus. It’s become my heart’s simple, most true prayer, bubbling into my consciousness at times as though to show me my heart beats below the surface, in subconscious places, already and always humming this prayer.

Thank you, Jesus.

This hymn reminds me of that.

It’s been a long time coming, this love affair I have with Jesus. There came a point in my life, 14 years ago, when I didn’t feel any significant connection to this man who had been a part of my life before birth. He was just a figure, fundamental to my life and yet not at all. I didn’t know why he really mattered.

And then, over the course of several years, he slowly became essential.

Now I can’t live without him. Now he is air and breath to me. 

In the morning, when I rise … and when I am alone … and when I come to die … give me Jesus.

He Delights in You

The last couple days, I’ve been camped out in a single verse from Psalm 44: 

We didn’t fight for this land;

   we didn’t work for it — it was a gift!

You gave it, smiling as you gave it,

   delighting as you gave it.

— Psalm 44:3

I keep meditating on this verse in the context of my tree. I mentioned yesterday that I experience these images from Jesus as a gift, and this image of being a great oak tree planted on a jutting cliff, where birds come and find nest in its branches is certainly that. 

So in this psalm, I find resonance. I didn’t fight for this place I’ve been planted. I didn’t work for it at all. It was a gift! Jesus accorded me this identity as a tree, and he led me to the place of my planting. 

And then the psalm says that he gave it, smiling as he gave it, delighting as he gave it. 

Yes. 

I’ve learned that Jesus loves doing what he does in our lives. He loves being present. He loves spending time with us. He loves hearing what we have to say — he really listens. He smiles!

And he loves doing the work only he can do in us: the work of excavation, of restoration, of building up, of leading, and of planting. 

He delights in us and in the ever-new realities he is making of our lives. 

Do you feel connected to the delight of Jesus in you?

He Is Abundant Life

As I’ve been talking with Jesus about the tree that we are together, water has remained close by. I’ve been aware of it as an essential component to this new life Jesus has been preparing to give to me as a tree planted by him. I knew that wherever he planted me, the water of the Holy Spirit would be a necessary presence to nourish my roots and interior system continually.

And sure enough, it’s true.

Yesterday, Jesus planted the tree of me on the jutting edge of a cliff that overlooks the ocean. The beach where Jesus and I have walked together this past year in prayer is not far from view, and the huge, wide, blue ocean stretches out before me. All of that water encircles my cliff foundation, providing sustenance up through the elements and minerals to the grassy plain surrounding my tree, pushing all the way up through the fullness of its trunk and limbs and leaves. 

The water is necessary. 

It carries an abundance of life. 

The Godhead is many things, and one thing it definitely is, is the source and sustainer of abundant life. 

I feel aware that even as Jesus and I are the tree together, he is also the sunlight that nourishes it. He is the water that sustains it. He is its nourishing soil. He is the one who chose its location and planted it where it should be. He is the one who will prune and care for its leaves and bark and branches. 

In my awareness as this tree, Jesus has been and will continue to be the giver and sustainer of my life. And oh, it is such an abundant life he gives — life everywhere, surrounding and filling this tree of me.

How can you find God a source and giver of life in your own life today?

He Is a Haven

My favorite tree in Winter Park.

Jesus and I have been talking a lot about trees lately. (Which is great because I absolutely adore them. I am such a tree girl.)

A lot of this conversation about trees has been in the context of the kind of tree he has been making me to be. But this morning, as he has been showing me more and more of the tree that I am, I got to asking him about his part. 

If I am a tree, what is he?

As I exist as a type of tree in this world, where is he in that image?

He showed me that he’s also the tree. He’s the lifeblood of my existence as a tree. His Spirit is the water that sustains and nourishes my tree. It’s not that I am a tree and he is separate from me in that image in some way. 

We are together. One tree. 

In the context of this conversation, I keep going back to this passage in Matthew that says: 

“The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” 

— Matthew 13:31-32

I love this passage! It’s so beautiful.

But specifically, I keep being mindful of the safe space that the tree in this passage provides for all the birds of the air. It is a place all of them come to make nests in its branches. It provides support. Famliarity. Safety. Home. 

Jesus is that kind of tree for you. 

Do you know him to be a haven like that?

What I've Learned About Suffering

It’s been a long journey, hasn’t it? 

We embarked on the exploration of suffering on May 1, and I can hardly believe it lasted a month. Who knew the unsuspecting discovery of a poem would lead to such an intensive journey for us here? I hope it has been helpful for you.

As I mentioned yesterday, I know this month-long series has fallen far short of examining all there is to be found and learned about human suffering. I am still contemplating a personal writing exercise where I type out all that I want to say and explore about this subject — all that couldn’t fit on those pink plastic tasting spoons in this space each day — just for my own benefit.

Just to see what I see. 

In the meantime, I want to share a realization I’ve bumped up against over and over again throughout this journey: 

The turns in the suffering have so much to do with Jesus. 

At least for me, this has been true.

Every turn in my own experiences of suffering can be traced, like a single trail of red yarn, directly back to Jesus. What he taught me about myself. Ways he helped me see a bigger picture. Truths he helped me learn in place of lies. Love he showed to me in places of pain. 

So much of human suffering creates a monumental court case against God. How could he let these things happen? How could a good God permit so much pain? Did God make this happen, or just allow it? Why would he let that be? 

I have certainly been there. I’ve wrestled with the problem of pain and God’s responsibility in it a lot the last few years. Sometimes it feels like I bear a particular burden about these things, as I’ve chronicled a bit in another of my online spaces. 

But one thing I’ve noticed, at least for myself, is this:

Any healing and wholeness and strength I’ve ever found has come directly from Jesus. 

Whatever God’s role in the world’s suffering is, I know at least one thing to be true: Jesus heals me in my suffering. 

What have you learned about suffering?

All That Happens Is ... Perfect?

I Promise

Has not the Architect, Love, built your heart

in a glorious manner,

with so much care that it is meant to break

if love ever ceases to know all that happens

is perfect?

And where does anything love has ever known

go, when your eye and hand can no longer

be warmed by its body? 

So vast a room your soul, every universe can

fit into it.

Anything you once called beautiful, anything

that ever

gave you comfort waits to unite with your

arms again. I promise.

— Hafiz

A dear friend of mine included this poem in the weekly inspiration e-mail she sent out this morning, and thinking on it has gobbled up my morning.

It speaks of the very things I fiercely believe:

• that our hearts are, indeed, built in a glorious manner
• that they break when we cease to know the perfection of love
• that the shattered pieces of the love we once knew inhabit whole universes of secret rooms inside of us
• that the heart waits, even yearns, to be rediscovered and to heal and to be made whole and connected with our full selves once again

There is a bit of a sticking point in this poem, though. It says that the heart, in the way it was made, “is meant to break if love ever ceases to know all that happens is perfect.”

This implies that everything that happens is, indeed, perfect … even if it doesn’t feel that way. 

I’ve wrestled at various times, for various reasons, with this idea that everything that happens is perfect. I know wounding. I know pain. I know the imperfection of love, for sure. I know this world is pretty fantastically, grievously broken.

So, how can all that happens be, somehow, perfect? Is this poet speaking true?

I think this has to do with believing — trusting — that something greater than the pain is present even in the midst of our being grazed by it. It’s the idea that something holds all things together and has a greater, grander scope than we can see in the midst of our wounded, pain-filled realities.

This is a hard idea. I know.

And when we are in the midst of pain, this idea is the last thing we want to hear.

But here is something true.

I have come out on the other side of hell — several times, actually —  and have discovered, on the other side of it, a perfect love that casts out the fear that doubt implanted. I have discovered a more perfect love that encompasses and heals those painful, disturbing wounds. I have discovered Someone faithful and capable to hold all things, even the most painful realities I have known, in his hands. 

And incredible as it may sound, I have become thankful for the pain. 

It is only because of encounter with the perfect and intimate love of Jesus that I can say today that I am thankful for it. The perfect love of Jesus makes everything — even seeming darkness — beautiful in its time.

But I won’t pretend. This is a really hard idea to hold. It’s one I still wrestle with, in various forms, today.

Here’s a possibility, though, in the midst of the struggle. Perhaps the more we feel the pain and grope in seeming darkness toward the light of love, the more overwhelming and sweet that light will be once we find ourselves inside of it. 

I know, for myself, that the measure of my love for Jesus is inextricably tied to the very personal ways in which he has met me in my distresses. 

What is your response right now to this idea that everything — perhaps all things — are just as they’re meant to be?

What Is Your Simple Prayer?

I’ve started a daily readings process with a good friend of mine. Every morning, we receive a scripture reading (the same each day for a week), and at the end of each e-mail is a simple reflection question for the day.

After spending the week with a passage that reflects on the nature of true prayer, today’s question asked:

What is your simple prayer today?

I’ve been noticing how my simple prayer keeps changing throughout the day so far.

My first simple prayer, upon waking up this morning, was, “Meet me.” I had a hard time getting going in my day and didn’t have much strength or energy to get into the day, but the thought of being met by Jesus at my desk was a great comfort. 

Then, as I sat at my desk for a while, reading and thinking, I kept bumping up against a new prayer:

“I’m low.” 

It was a prayer of request for him to hear the truth of my experience right now.

I’ve continued to live in a season of aloneness with my life’s work, and it’s been quite acute and painful, even though Jesus has been showing me some of his purposes that he’s working through it all. Also, my schedule has changed quite a bit in the last couple weeks, and I haven’t found my center of gravity with the new adjustments. It’s left me feeling pretty discombobulated and perplexed. And then, of course, you already know about the conversations I’ve been having with myself and with God about my body this week. That is all so new and still so mystifying to me.

So, I’m low. So many changes and unanswered questions leaving me low. And my strong desire was for Jesus to know that, for him to see it. 

And now that he’s seen it, my simple prayer is that he would be with me in it. 

It’s doesn’t feel quite comfortable to sit with the lowness, the unanswered questions, the unfinished feeling of so much right now. But, taking my cue from yesterday’s post, there’s no energy around the idea of gearing up and making it all come together with some strength I simply do not have.

The invitation, instead, is to let Jesus be with me in the brokenness. To experience his presence and companionship right here. To let him know me in this low place. To let him listen to me. To let myself listen to him. To sit here together in the truth of it and see what the experience of relationship with him in this place might bring.

Right now, and probably for the rest of today, my prayer is simply, “Be with me.”

What is your simple prayer today?

You Don't Have to Fix Yourself

I’ve been sharing with you this week about my personal health struggles (see here and here), and it’s been a bit of a surprising turn in the conversation for me. I didn’t really expect to lay out in the open with such gritty detail how much I’m personally growing as a wee babe in this area. (I usually leave extended revelations and stories about my own journey for my personal blog, rather than here.)

So I’ve been a bit perplexed before Jesus this morning about that, wondering if I shared too much or why he may have wanted me to share that much personal detail with you. 

And what I heard him saying to me this morning about all this is that he wants you to receive this truth: 

You don’t have to fix yourself. 

I’ve mentioned the principle of indirection here in these last few days. It’s something I’ve written about in the past a few times, as well. In a nutshell, I want to communicate that this the idea that says we can’t change ourselves by sheer will power or conditioning.

Only God can change the very fibers of our being.

This gets at the root of character. For instance, I cannot actually make myself into a patient person. I cannot make myself into a humble person. I cannot make myself into a generous person. I cannot make myself into a loving person. And right now, I cannot make myself into a person who cares about the way I treat my body. 

I cannot change my character. I may be able to direct my behavior, but behavior is different than character, than our nature, than our fundamental being.

And here is the beautiful news:

Jesus wants to make us into new people. 

He doesn’t want us to be people who just behave a certain way. He wants to make us into people who actually are patient, forgiving, grace-filled, generous, loving, respectful, and so on.

And that is work only Jesus can do. In fact, that is the work Jesus is all about doing.

And so this morning, as I sat with a bit of a vulnerability hangover at having shared such detailed pictures with you about my own growing edges in the area of physical healthiness right now, I had this image of coming to Jesus on the shoreline of that beach with a broken toy in my hands. 

In my own hands, the toy was a plastic, broken thing, sharp and useless and cracked into several broken pieces.

But when I handed the toy to Jesus, it became a soft, stuffed doll ripped down the back side, stuffing hanging out, an arm torn nearly right off.

I saw Jesus take that busted-up doll into his own two hands with such loving care and slowly start making it new. Stitch by stitch, with methodical, slow intentionality and mastery, he pushed the stuffing back into place and began closing up the backside with even, perfect rows of stitches. I saw the stitches begin to close up the ragged uselessness of the doll. 

He was making it new.

Jesus closes up our brokenness. He puts everything back in its place. He stitches us back together.

Our part is to let him do it — to bring him our brokenness, to put it into his hands, to stay beside him, watching him do the repair work, letting him put everything where he wants it to go.

We watch and wait with him, and we let him perform the operation. Our part is being with him, handing ourselves over, and complying with his movement. This is the heart of indirection.

How might he want to repair areas of brokenness in your own life right now?

Getting to Know God

Mary Magdalene: “I have seen the Lord!”

When I realized what the title of this post was going to be — “Getting to Know God” — I kind of chuckled and shook my head in amazement. I mean, really — get to know God? The maker of the whole universe? The one who conceived of the reality we know and exist inside each day? Get to know him?

It’s rather incredible that God even allows such a thing, isn’t it?

In this “getting to know God” process, I find myself so thankful for the Scriptures that teach us who God is. There’s a whole massive book written by about forty different individuals, all sharing with us different facets of God’s character and action in the world.

I’m thankful, too, for the created world and how it can teach us about this God. For instance, just yesterday, Kirk and I were talking about heaven. He wondered aloud if we would still have organs in our bodies in heaven. Such an unusual thing to think about, but my eventual response was, “Why not? God created the super-complex and incredible systems of our bodies. Why wouldn’t those remain in heaven? God considered them good when they were first made.” The uber-complexity of our bodies and how beautifully they susbist in their own system teaches us a lot about this God of all being — it teaches us that God is masterful, creative, scientific, mathematic, and precise, for instance.

I find it incredible, too, that the person of Jesus is also there to greet us in the Scriptures as one more way for us to get to know God. God himself! In the flesh! Walking around and talking with and being in relationship with real, live people. Yet one more way that God allows himself to be known to us.

All of this is kind of mind-blowing, if you ask me.

How have you gotten to know God in your own life? What kind of things have you learned?

What Would It Be Like for You to Walk With Him?

Today I’d like to invite you to take a walk with Jesus. 

I don’t mean this literally, although you are certainly welcome to actually go walking somewhere in your neighborhood or in a park or some other place you like to visit. 

I mean it imaginatively. 

If you were to actually take a walk with Jesus, where would you want that walk to be? What would be the perfect place for just such an experience? Take a moment now and ask yourself that question. Then take another moment and imagine that place in your mind. What are the surroundings like? What are the sounds, the smells, the feel of the air like? 

Now imagine Jesus is there with you, walking beside you. What does he look like? Are there any remarkable features you notice about him — his height, his stature, his clothing, his eyes, his mouth, his hands?

What is it like when he looks at you?

As you walk, notice yourself. Do you look at him? Keep your eyes on the ground in front of you? Look ahead or away from him? Do you put your hands in your pockets, swing them freely, hold his hand?

And now I’d like to invite you to discover what the actual walk with him is like. What would you like to say to him? Can you let yourself say it? Would you rather remain quiet? Would you like to listen to him? What might you hear him saying to you?

This has been an exercise in imaginative prayer. If you practice this exercise, I would love to hear what it was like for you to connect with Jesus in this way.

It Requires Safety

Yesterday I wrote about one aspect of the good news of Jesus — that he is about the work of restoring our broken places. I so love that about him. 

But as a dear person recently reminded me, the thought of going back into those broken places is scary. Even turning around on the road to see them there behind us is hard. It can jab us with such sharp pain, just knowing those potholes and drop-offs and broken-up pieces of cement are there, can’t it? 

And the thought of going back into them, even to receive something as wondrous as healing? Terrifying. 

This is why getting to know — really know — the person of Jesus is so paramount first. 

I could not have allowed Jesus to visit those tender and difficult particulars of my life, much less excavate them and begin an in-depth reconstruction project, if I hadn’t first learned to trust him.

That’s just sanity, right? 

But the good news is that he is indeed trustworthy. It takes time to learn this for ourselves — to let the person of Jesus beecome known as real and concerned with us specifically. It takes time to learn what he is like, how he really sees us, how he converses with us, and how he holds us together.

Once that foundation of trust and safety is laid, perhaps we’ll be ready to let him heal us in the deepest of ways. I’ve come to know there is nothing better in all of life than this.

Do you want to get to know this trustworthy Jesus?