January 2010 | Elaine Olsen

on "going public" with Jesus…

January 17, 2010

“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’” (Matthew 3:16-17).

Today we celebrated “the Baptism of the Lord” in our worship service. I didn’t know that this particular event in Jesus’ life received a Sunday all its own, even though I’ve been doing this “liturgical” dance with the Methodists all of my life. Christ’s baptism certainly is worthy of remembrance as are all his moments, but this one in particular marked the beginning of something special.

It marked Christ’s beginning journey to the cross—his public ministry on this earth. What began in the Jordan would climax at Calvary. When John baptized Jesus in keeping with the fulfillment of Scripture, God introduced his Son to the world with a few words of sacred commendation. With his affirming love and with his “well-pleased.” The Holy Spirit lighted upon Jesus in the form of a dove, empowering him to walk the earthly road assigned to him.

Today, my preacher (a.k.a. “my man”) admonished us to “remember our baptism” as well. To acknowledge that moment from our past when we first “went public” with the grace of God. My public moment came as a young adolescent, kneeling at the altar railing of the Wilmore United Methodist Church. Dr. David Seamands spoke the moment over me. I remember my white dress, the one I desperately searched for because it was so very important to me to look pure—to be adorned in white raiment in keeping with the sacred occasion. A few friends joined me at the altar that day. They other details have long since faded from memory, but I do remember thinking that this occasion was something more than in keeping with religious protocol. It was a day that marked the beginning of something bigger in my own journey… a walk to the cross of sorts, where my heart and life identified with the heart and life of Jesus Christ at a deeper level.

Long before I ever felt the “wetness” of Dr. Seamands’ hands upon my head, God’s grace was working on my behalf. There has never been a time in my life when Jesus wasn’t real to me. He’s always been present; always been part of my thoughts. He began the sacred conversation with my soul at the earliest of ages. It continues to this day, and I cannot imagine my life without him.

I suppose there have been seasons when I tried… tried to live free from him. Times when I deliberately chose flesh over faith, but even in those moments of willful rebellion, the conversation continued. Muffled some days because of my freely chosen decisions, but present nonetheless. Jesus Christ has kept me, friends, all the days of my forty-three years. He is the reason I have peace in my heart. He is the reason I gather with the saints on a Sunday morning to reflect and remember, rejoice and relive the single truth that has claimed me and transformed me.

Today I remembered Christ’s baptism. I remembered my own. I dipped my hand into the water and clutched remembrance to my chest. I knelt at the altar again and considered my “long ago and far away.” I considered Christ’s as well, and I was thankful for his “entering into” that Jordan River so that I could, one day, enter into my very own moment of “going public” with God.

Please don’t misunderstand me. Baptism, for me, exceeds religious practice. I understand the huge denominational divide that separates our views along these lines. I simply don’t get hung up on it. God’s grace and his Son’s moment at the Jordan are too big to allow me to linger in my limited understanding therein. Some of you are dearly devoted to Jesus Christ and have never had a moment of “going public” with your heart. No water has sprinkled its wetness upon your head; your body hasn’t been submerged in a baptistery, much less the Jordan River. Let me assure you of this…

You are no less precious in our Father’s eyes. If Christ has entered into your broken and weary estate, if you have received him as your Lord and Savior, then you have “gone public” with your Jesus. You have been baptized with the renewing power of his Holy Spirit. When it comes to the matter of our hearts, we answer only to One. And if your heart belongs to the King, then all of heaven rejoices and bends low to offer their chorused applause. Your wetness on the inside far exceeds any public display of “wet” on the outside.

Does that mean that “baptism” is nothing, that it accomplishes nothing, isn’t important or not an appropriate response to the working of the Holy Spirit within us? Not at all. Baptism is an outward and visible sign of an inward working of grace. It is one of the ways we “go public” with our Jesus and our profession of faith. And I happen to believe that “going public” with Jesus is always in keeping with his plans for the crucified life. A life that identifies, in part, with the Savior who went public with his commitment to the cross so that you and I could better walk our commitment accordingly.

Today I remembered my baptism, I remembered Christ’s as well. Tomorrow I pray to remember the same—to never walk a single day without the grace of Calvary pulsing through my veins. I want my life to be the lavish expression of the life that he lived and breathed and walked and surrendered some 2000 years ago on my behalf. To offer any less to him, is to live less. And the last time I checked, “less” didn’t fit with God’s agenda of more.

It’s been a long time since my “long ago and far away” moment of “going public” with Jesus. There are few remaining persons in my life who actually remember that moment. I don’t imagine they think on it very often. The water that poured down my head has long since dried up, and the godly man who put it there? Well, he walked home to Jesus not long ago. But there is One who thinks on it very often. His memory is clear, and his rejoicing still resounds throughout all of heaven to announce that I am his, that his working grace continues on my behalf, and that the indwelling power of his Holy Spirit has found a good and spacious rest within my soul.

{lisa leonard designs}

I am the living temple of God’s living Spirit. So are you. In wearing him, we wear our “going public” display of his witness for all the world to see.

Wear your baptism this week, friends. Remember it well, and walk it into a world that needs the pulse of Calvary moving through its midst. As always…

peace for the journey,

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PS: Friends, please refrain from allowing our comments to become a heated debate regarding the practice of baptism. This is not my intent with this post, but rather to allow us remembrance and reflection regarding the importance of wearing our “baptism”–whatever that has been for us–as a living witness to the world. Shalom.

"Over-easy, please…"

January 15, 2010

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

“Over-easy, Lord. That is how I’d like my eggs this morning…”

Anybody else?

I’m afraid I’ve little words of importance for you this A.M. except to say that a night’s worth of worry has cost me. Indeed, it didn’t add any hours to my life; instead the worry that kept me awake and that has my stomach in knots this morning has extracted from my life. I can’t have back the previous eight hours. All I can do now is surrender them to a life lived “less” than what my Father had intended.

And then I move on. Move on with a better perspective about the hours that lie in front of me.

God’s burdens, his worries and concerns over his creation?

Easy, light, well within his capacity to deal with them… all of them. So taking his cue, I’m laying them down in his lap, and I’m pressing forward. I give him my “well-done” portion of worry that’s been simmering in the pan overnight in exchange for a plate that’s filled with over-easy. I cannot afford another eight hours like the previous ones. How about you? Could you use some over-easy this morning… this day?

Then join me at the table of grace and give thanks to God for his expertise in the kitchen. I understand that eggs are his specialty.

I love and appreciate you, each one. Your investment in my life makes me want to be a better writer, thinker, friend, pursuer of Peace, and sojourner on the road of grace. May you find them both, Peace and grace as you walk your life these next eight hours. As always…

peace for the journey,

PS: The winner of Shirley’s book (your choice) is #23, Christy Rose! Congrats, Christy. Please send me your snail mail, along with your choice of book. To find out more about Shirley and her books, click here. Shalom.

Mike

January 13, 2010

He’s found his way into my thoughts this morning. I can’t imagine why. I certainly wouldn’t have brought him to my remembrance on my own accord. I had other plans for my devotional time with God, but then I read these words from Sarah Young’s Jesus Lives:

“In the presence of a loving, strong father even the most frightened child eventually calms down. You have a perfectly loving, infinitely strong Father, so bring your fears freely to Him.” (Sarah Young, Jesus Lives, Thomas Nelson-2009, pg.28)

And then there he was. A boy named Mike. A boy from my adolescent years. An “unlovely” boy. Smelly, unkempt, poorly dressed, even more poorly mannered. His impulsive behavior and inappropriate responses to those around him quickly labeled him as the “creature” amongst us. Most of us feared him; not because he was overly mean or vindictive in character, but simply because he was different. Mike didn’t fit the high school “norm.” In that season of my life, it was a stretch for me to think of him fitting into any kind of societal “norm.” Mike was the most abnormal boy I knew. I never really saw him as anything more, and I was content with the labels that we had assigned him.

Until that day. The day he rode the bus home with me.

For whatever reason, the bus schedule had been revised. When Mike got on my bus at the end of the school day, we all assumed he’d made a misstep in his afternoon routine. The driver assured us otherwise. Mike would now be on our route for pick-up and delivery. I don’t remember talking to him that day. Most days I avoided him for fear that any interaction between us might signal to him my desire for something further. I do remember smelling him that day, wishing quietly to myself that he had chosen a seat further back on the bus. After what seemed to be forever, the bus stopped on a dusty road, and Mike made his move to the front door.

He exited, and I watched him as he went. Watched him for a long time as he walked along that one-lane path which would eventually land him home—a small farm house barely fit for human consumption. In that moment, I realized something I hadn’t realized before.

Mike had a home. Had a life apart from all the teasing and trouble that followed him throughout the school day. Had a family who loved him, claimed him, and did their level best to support him despite his struggles at being “normal.” The Mike I witnessed everyday at school was only a scratching at the surface of who he really was. There was so much more to this person that I didn’t understand. So much of a life that existed apart from me… a life I would never know, all because I was too afraid to cross the great divide that existed between my world and his.

I wish I could say that Mike and I became friends. We didn’t. I do remember my being more courteous and kind to Mike after that day. Saying hello; waving good-bye, occasionally including him in casual, bus conversation. Mostly, I kept my distance, but now with a little more love and understanding in my heart for him. More grace and more compassion.

I don’t know what happened to Mike. Maybe some of you who shared those days with me do. I’d love an update. But this one thing I do know.

Mike is everywhere. We don’t have to look very hard to find a person who makes a strange fit with our “norm.” The smelly, unkempt are right beneath our noses, within reach and more than ready for some love from someone who has taken the time to imagine them beyond the labels that consume them. Someone who is willing to cross that great divide and offer them the hand of fellowship and the heart of God.

And while my tangible, physical life never cried out for rescue as Mike’s perhaps did, my inward life cried out in accordance with Mike’s voice. For someone willing to cross that great divide and to offer me the hand and heart of sacred fellowship. And because Someone did, I realize that Mike and I aren’t as different as I once thought we were. All of us, every last one of us, are in need of that kind of rescue, friends. All of us need a safe place to run home to—a family who loves us, claims and supports us, most days in spite of us.

God has given us one another to be that body of grace. We are God’s church. A church not based on denomination and regulation, but rather on the one truth that cuts through all the peripheral rest of it to stand alone as the sole requirement for membership into God’s kingdom.

Faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in who he is and in what he has done through his shed blood on the cross.

Jesus is the common thread that links all hearts to home. Perhaps the reason my heart stirred for Mike nearly three decades ago as I watched him exit his school life to embrace his safe life. It certainly is the reason my heart stirs this morning. For all the Mike’s of this world. For those who’ve yet to realize that there is a safe place to land at the end of the day… at the end of this life. And lest we think we’re so far removed from them, all of us at some point in our journeys were the smelly, unkempt, poorly mannered creatures roaming God’s earth in need of God’s rescue.

How thankful I am for the Savior who found me, who bridged the chasm between my great need and his great grace to say “hello” to me and to invite me into the sacred conversation that continues to this day. It’s been a good morning to ride the bus with Jesus, friends. If you’ve yet to climb aboard, there are plenty of seats awaiting your need. As always…

peace for the journey,

~elaine

PS: I will draw a winner to Shirley’s book with my next post. I haven’t forgotten…

the elephant in the room…

January 11, 2010

“Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD until he comes and showers righteousness on you.” (Hosea 10:12).

He spoke some words to me this morning, somewhere between my dreaming and my waking.

Not God.

An elephant.

Yes, that’s what I wrote. An elephant. Yesterday’s headline news about a woman and her child being killed by a mother elephant intent on protecting her African turf somehow made its way into my dreaming. Instead of this woman being chased by an angry elephant, I was the object of his fury. Funny how that happens. Reality merging with the subconscious, all playing itself out upon the stage of our slumbering. All making sense in the moment, calling on emotion to interject its full witness throughout.

The emotions in that moment for me?

Panic. Fear. Retreat.

Thank heavens for the makeshift rest area that existed feet away from my frightful encounter. It sheltered me in one of its two, crudely fashioned stalls, concealing my presence from the formidable beast which seemed, for the moment, a bit confused as to my whereabouts. I practiced being hidden until she rudely entered in. Apparently bamboo doors aren’t equal to the strength of an angry, momma elephant.

I kept quiet, eyeing her mammoth frame through the narrow slit in the stall door. Rather than knocking the entire structure to the ground, she turned her head and drew near to my fright. Her eye was big. Her eye was penetrating. Her eye was eyeing me, dressing me down and reading me through that narrow slit—a space now ample enough for her intervention and my swift destruction.

She didn’t go there; instead she spoke there.

“Run, run, back to the place where you came from. Then this country can go back to being what it has always been, drab and undisturbed.”

An elephant’s exact words to my slumbering soul. I’m not kidding, and for what it’s worth, I wrote them down. In fact, I carried them to church. Been thinking about them all day long.

~About drab and undisturbed ground.

~About the brave few who are willing to walk its breadth in faith believing that their feet were meant to go there.

~About breaking up the unplowed ground of a dreary and untouched soil.

~About an angry elephant who’d rather leave things as they are; keep the “baby” protected and unaffected by outside influence.

~About lives that live out their days unaltered because no one dared to step out for their sakes… speak up for kingdom’s sake.

~About those who let the threats of the enemy keep them immobilized in fear and from moving into the spacious place deeded to them by a gracious and very good God.

~About a country that remains as it is because no one dreamed beyond its borders.

Stuff like that. All marinating inside my head and ruminating within my heart for an entire day. And tonight I’m wondering where that line is between dreaming and waking. Between what’s imagined and what’s real. Between voices that author from heaven and threats that author from hell. Located somewhere in an elephant’s words to me, I find them both… hell’s threat and heaven’s hope.

“Run, run, back to the place where you came from. Then this country can go back to being what it has always been, drab and undisturbed.”

Hear the threat. Hear the hope.

The hope precedes the threat. Without hope—without the anticipation of what might be discovered because of what will be disturbed—then there would be no angry elephant in the room. And lest we haven’t noticed in recent days, there’s an angry elephant in the room, friends. Rather than sidestep him, avoid him and pretend that he doesn’t exist, don’t you think it’s time we deal with him? His threats? His false impressions regarding what’s his and what’s not?

Makeshift stalls are poor excuses for spiritual progress. They are exactly as they were created to be… a temporary dwelling to stall your forward progress. If fear is what has led you there, what is keeping you there, then an elephant’s anger has raged successfully. You’re right where she… where he wants you to be. As he wants you to live.

Unproductive. Ineffective. Incapable of “disturbing” the ground beneath your feet, unplowed or otherwise.

It is time to disturb the ground beneath your feet, sisters and brothers in Christ. It is time to face the elephant in the room. Time to look the angry momma squarely in the eye and echo back to her some familiar words…

Run, run, back to the place where you came from. Then this country can go back to being what it has always been.

God’s.

I don’t know what that means to you today. It’s meant a great deal to me. I have a feeling it just might be the right encouragement for someone who’s stuck in a makeshift stall right now, stuck in fear and more than willing to concede some sacred ground to an angry elephant rather than claim that soil as kingdom inheritance. If so, then receive my dream as yours, and carry the truth of its witness into your week. You and I were empowered with God’s Spirit to deal with our elephants. Let us not walk God’s earth in fear. Let us, instead, disturb it for his sake and for his heaven’s gain.

In the name of the Father who created us, the Son who paid the highest price to redeem us, and the Holy Spirit who tabernacles within us, Amen. So be it.

peace for the journey,

my half-lived day…

January 7, 2010

We all woke up this morning with a message written across our hearts, either penned by our hand or by God’s.

What was your message? Mine?

Well, I’m gonna live this day better than yesterday, Lord. Through your strength and by your grace, I’m gonna live this one better.

And I have lived it better. God’s presence has been genuine and his hands gentle to me. It’s only 2:30 in the afternoon. I’ve made my bed, done some laundry, wrote 1,400 words in my WIP, ran four miles, and had a bath. Oh, I almost forgot… I’ve also had numerous e-mail chats with my Kentucky friend, Shirley, who is graciously lending her creative eye and photographs to a project I’m working on. Have you ever stopped by to visit her to read her heart and to see our world through her photographic lens? You’re missing something if you haven’t. She’s as home grown and genuine as they come. I’m not sure how our paths first crossed; perhaps, through Exemplify. Regardless of the prompt, I’m glad it arrived. She is a gracious portion of God’s love on this earth. I am the better for having her life intertwined with mine.

I don’t know how the rest of this day is going to play out. My kids arrive home in swift order. There will be homework to manage. A meal to make… well, to imagine (oh Billy, sweet man of mine, what’s on the menu tonight?). Dishes to clean. Baths to administer. Books to read and perhaps a movie to watch with my older boys before their pilgrimages back to college. Yes, I’ve got an “idea” as to how this day is going to end. Getting there from this moment seems a short leap, but when I do… when I close my eyes on this day, if I don’t do a single thing more than what I’ve currently done up to this point, then today has already been a better day than yesterday.

Today, I woke up to a good message. Tomorrow, I pray to wake accordingly.

What was your message this morning? Cut honestly through to the truth of the matter, and wrestle with your answer. Did you wake up to pain? To heartache? To joy? To expectation? To your “here we go again, Lord” or “I can’t possibly face my life right now.” Your answer tells you a great deal about who is holding the pen.

If your morning message wasn’t what you wanted it to be, then re-write it. Yes, re-write it. Right now. If you could do your 6:30 AM wake-up call all over again, how would you want your message to write?

How thankful I am for a God who allows me re-writes, right smack dab in the middle of my day. I don’t have to wait until tomorrow to start again. Neither do you. God is the Author of our blessed “do it better’s” no matter the time of the day we feel his prompt along these lines. The key to doing it better resides with God’s pen, not ours. So do yourself a favor…

Hand him the pen. Allow God his moments with your heart in order to re-write the rest of your day. It matters not if you’re reading this at 10:00 PM or 10:00 AM or any other hour in between. What matters is the moment you call right now and the message you want attached to your right now.

I value your right now. So does our heavenly Father. May his lavish love and continuing presence be your portion as you march your way through the rest of this day, living the message he’s written onto your heart.

Now, let’s see…

I can add “writing a blog post” to a day that continues to live better than yesterday. I’m on a roll. There is more day left to live. I think I’ll get busy living it. As always…

peace for the journey,

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PS: Leave me a comment about the “message” of your heart this day, and you’ll be entered to win one of Shirley’s latest photo/devotional books, Meditations of an Autumn Heart or Simply Light (your pick). You can preview them by clicking on these links. Also, take time to visit Shirley and her work at Sketches of a Common Life. She’s anything but common, friends. Shalom.

Monthly Archives: January 2010