Category Archives: faith

adoring faith…

Faith.

Mine has been challenged as of late. My spirit has been burdened by a great many things in recent weeks. I suppose the challenge to my faith has always been there—alive and present within me. But as I’ve paid closer attention to faith’s cultivation, to its proving genuine in my life from the “inside-out” rather than the other way around, I’ve noticed a shift in the temperature. The heat is on, and God is in charge of the thermostat.

Anytime one makes a commitment to growth in and with Jesus Christ, God’s going to run with it—all the way through to a good and final finish. When we put our hands to the plow and our hearts to the task of personal sacred transformation, God is faithful to do the same. His hands and his heart operate from pure intention, and he, better than us, understands the length and breadth and depth of what is required to “fit us for heaven to live with him there.”

When we offer our lives to the refining fires of faith, we make a costly surrender. Rarely will it be a smooth ride; instead, it will be a journey fraught with difficulty. Not because our Father delights in our pain, but rather because he delights in our perfection—in our drawing ever closer to his image. Thus, he takes the dailyness of our routine and interjects it with ample opportunities for faith’s cultivation.

We can squander them, or we can throw out the welcome mat to them believing that their entrance into our lives is good training ground for kingdom come.

I don’t know about you, but I want some kingdom come in my life, friends. Some “down the road” kind of glory that shines with the witness of a life that matures with the struggles rather than breaks down beneath their strain. I don’t want these past few weeks in my life to “read” as wasted, unaccounted for, needless and without purpose. Instead, I want God to strengthen me with his power, his resolve, his might, and his fierce determination to make it all count.

I may not like the “tests,” but I adore the One who allows them their work in me. I hang onto that truth when nothing else makes sense and the pain of it all nearly scatters my faith to the wind. Nearly. When my faith threatens its retreat, when it screams its resistance and its questions all the more, I cling to this anchor that has held me, kept me, grounded me, and sustained me through some of the darkest seasons of my journey.

The one fact that doesn’t retreat, doesn’t resist, doesn’t ask questions.

I adore my Father.

I don’t always understand him, but I adore him. I can’t always hear him, but I adore him. I may not always be able to see him, touch him, feel him or find him, but I always adore him. And because of that I adoration, I choose to bow to him. I choose to fall forward rather than backward. To look ahead instead of behind. To believe that today’s adoration is enough to carry me through to tomorrow’s continuation of the same, and that whatever agenda finds its way into my faith’s cultivation, it won’t be enough to shake my adulation of the Divine.

I may not have the certainty and surety of how this season in my life is going to finish, but I am certain of my adoration for the One who will finish it with me. And, perhaps, that adoration says more about my faith than I currently understand. Perhaps my faith is stronger, more potent and more vibrant than it currently feels.

Perhaps adoration is the precursor for exponential growth in and with Jesus Christ.

If so, then I’m on my way to something bigger, friends. Something grander. Something far beyond what my faith presently believes. Tonight, I’m anchored in my adoration for my King. I cannot escape my love for him; I can only give in to it and offer it to him as the best and truest witness of my heart. All else may burn to ashes, but my love for God remains.

From today until tomorrow. From this year until the next. From now until forever.

I adore my God. Thus, I pray…

Thank you, Father, for being so easy to love. For the certainty of my adoration toward you that weathers my faith’s cultivation. I cannot explain the depth of what I feel for you. It precedes sense and surpasses human understanding. I am thankful for its continuing anchor in my heart that solidifies my progression toward you and that answers all of the doubts I have concerning my refining process. Keep me to my adoration, to my love and to my worship of you, despite the many challenges to my faith. Faith, hope, and love remain, but the greatest of these (for me and according to your Word) will always be love. Let my love for you be the guiding light to lead me home. Amen.

~elaine

Copyright © December 2009 – Elaine Olsen

the darkness before the dawn

Morning is breaking.

I am ready for its arrival. The night’s pause has been a restless one for me. And while I’m not ready for the noise of a new day, I’m ready for the security of its light.

The quiet and dark of night often startles me. I hear things in the night that I don’t hear during the day. Bumps and creaks… fragile sounds that force my notice—force my trust. I cannot always determine the source of those sounds. My imagination tries its hand at identification, but it is not reliable.

Imagination is tricky business. Imagination creates. Imagination births. Imagination cultivates the seeds of my thoughts, and therein lies the rub. What my mind thinks is what my imagination grows.

I cannot help but think in the restless ache of a long night’s retreat. When sleep eludes me, thoughts invade me. When thoughts invade me, sleep eludes me. It’s an unforgiving cycle of give and take that sometimes depletes me for a next day’s living … sometimes energizes me for the same. My night’s imagination has served me in both directions.

Honestly, I’d rather be sleeping, but most nights I don’t. Instead, I grapple with this restless ache on a regular basis, trying to decide what to do with the time that exists between the darkness and the dawn.

Between the darkness and the dawn—a good soil for a good growing … a faith’s growing. A bridge between that which cannot be seen and that which is readily visible. That which is imagined and that which is reality. That which is shrouded in darkness and that which is unveiled in daylight. That which is secret and that which is revealed.

A night’s ending and a day’s beginning is a good edge to stand on if one is longing for faith’s interpretation. Faith teeters between these two extremes.

Faith accepts the mystery of the night while anxiously stepping toward the daylight.

Faith struggles with the unseen noises of the night, pondering their authorship and authenticity.

Faith looks intently into the darkness rather than retreating behind closed eyes.

Faith writes new words, new chapters in the darkness because the night insulates and isolates the “pen” from competing, daytime distractions.

Faith walks through the night because faith is certain about the morning.

Faith allows the night her witness because faith has seen the brilliance of its contrast.

Faith grows in the darkness because darkness has always been a good soil for faith’s good beginning.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (Genesis 1:1-2)

The first darkness before the dawn.

The pregnant pause before the proclamation.

The cultivation before the coronation.

The imagination before the illumination.

The faith edge I’m teetering on in this moment—between night’s grip and day’s break.

I’m almost there. Morning is breaking. The light is beginning to filter in through the blinds, arriving just in time to strengthen my understanding. To validate my night’s wrestling. To buoy my faith and my steps for another day’s journey until the sun and moon collide, once again, to wrestle out their witness within my soul. How I long to embrace the beauty of them equally. Thus, I pray…

Hold me, Father, in the in-between times—those moments between the darkness and the dawn. Cultivate your strength in me as I struggle to reconcile my imagination with your truth… my questions with my faith. When the night seems too long, too dark and too confining, lighten my spirit with the witness of your eternal flame. Burn it strong; burn it certain. Settle my heart in sacred confidence regarding the surety of the day’s arrival. And should I falter in my fear before I get there, find me in my struggle, hold fast to my frame, and pull me through into your morning’s light.

Dawn. Proclamation. Coronation. Illumination. Where I want to live in faith, sweet Jesus. Amen.

~elaine

Copyright © November 2009 – Elaine Olsen

 

Contending

“Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.” {Jude 3}

I ran across it this morning; rather, it ran across me. All over me. In me. Through me. Within and without of me.

A verse. A single Scripture that my desperation cried out for like a beggar plowing through a garbage bin for the scraps from yesterday’s fine dining. A yesterday’s fare that still tastes fresh and rich and full of all the nutrients a hungering soul needs.

God’s Word is like that. It feeds our wanton estate with the richest bounty of heaven. All that is required from us in the matter is our willingness to entreat the bounty with faith enough to believe that what we’re looking for will be found in ready supply. With God’s Word our souls never go hungry, never leave empty, never walk away with “less” than what we had prior to our arrival at the table.

God’s Word feeds fully.

Today, he fed me with this verse from Jude. He told me to contend for the faith that he has entrusted to me. To “strive and to fight” for the faith that has been “delivered, handed down” to me. Those words shot through me with a clarity I’d not seen before. The previous underlining of them was a good indicator that I’d read them before, but for whatever reason, today they packed a punch and forced my pondering.

Interesting that this “contending” in the Greek is the opposite of the word eireneuo which means “to keep the peace or to be at peace” (and you know how I feel about that particular topic…). I am not to be at peace with my faith… to be a casual attendee on the road of faith. Rather, I’m to be vigilant in my efforts at faith’s cultivation. At growing and further developing the initial belief that was first transferred to my heart from a loving God who entrusted me with faith’s safe-keeping.

It doesn’t make sense to me to have been entrusted with such a gift. God knows just exactly how many times I’ve failed him in this department. Times when I’ve chosen doubt over trust. Selfish control over selfless release. My shifting manipulations over his tried and true. My plans, my thoughts over his. Indeed, it seems another saint might be a better fit for God’s gift of faith.

Still and yet, he calls me his saint, his “set-apart and his consecrated.” He tells me that faith is mine for the keeping. Not to contend with it, but to contend for it. Why? Because faith isn’t a gift that warrants my rebellious fists. Faith is a gift that deserves my open hands. My willingness to receive, to hold, to absorb, and to clothe myself in the cause of Jesus Christ.

A gift so precious is a gift worthy of my best contending.

Day in. Day out, until all of my earthly days are done and I come open-handed to the throne of my Jesus where I return to him the package of faith I’ve been given. He will put the punctuation mark on this journey he’s authored in me. In that moment, there will be final perfection—an end that serves as a fitting conclusion to the story that he and I have been writing together for the past forty-three years.

How I contend for my faith now is directly linked to how I will be commended for my faith then.

They won’t measure out equally, for there is nothing I can do here in the present that will match what I’m going to receive from God in the future. His grace and blessing will always trump my efforts at the same. But I do believe there is something more to be gained from my contending for the faith on this side of the eternity that will matter for the other side of eternity. Something better … something further … something grander because I was willing to go to the mat for my faith and for my Jesus until my final breath.

I don’t want to peacefully find my way to heaven. I want to go there contending for the One who was willing to go to the mat for me on a hillside 2000 years ago. Who looked down through the ages and saw a young girl named Faith Elaine and decided that her life was worth his. That her heart could be trusted with faith’s impartation, with faith’s safe-keeping. A risky calculation in my estimation, but not enough to keep Jesus from making his altared surrender.

I want to honor that surrender with my honest contention. My best efforts at forging ahead with my faith. These are the days when we must move forward in our faith, friends. We are not to shrink back in our belief. We must not waver in our understanding regarding our finish … our end. God is that end. He who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it. He serves as the bookends to all faith journeys, but we must be vigilant in our walking the “in between.”

Faith steps ahead, not behind. For faith to grow there must be movement beneath our feet and progress within our hearts. Otherwise, we’re stuck.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to finish this race stuck. This is the tragedy of an infant-fed faith. Do you realize that we could spend the rest of our spiritual lives stuck right where we are, right now? When we close our eyes on our earthly days, if all we have is an initial belief in Jesus, then we’re going to make it home to him. But I don’t want to just make it home. I want to make it home with something more to give him—a package of faith that was well-contented for and well-lived. Not some half-hearted attempt at the process.

Thus, I choose striving over peace-keeping. Moving on rather than staying stuck. Keeping the faith rather than casting it to the curb. Pressing in, pressing further, pressing through until my faith becomes my eyes, and I hear the commendation that my heart is contending for even today.

A good fight for a good faith all the way through to a very good finish. Keep contending for the King, friend. He still contends for thee. As always…

peace for the journey,

there will come a day…

~Alex Christopher Mercado~
Your day has come… rest in the sweet arms of Jesus, precious boy! I’ll meet you there soon.

PS: For those of you who haven’t read the previous post, this is the young child who inspired my heart-felt response. Apparently, yours as well. Thanks for weighing in with your thoughts and support.

Hold onto your faith, friends … there is coming a day.

sacred preservation…

sacred preservation…

I was fully prepared to write another post today, a post that God has graciously allowed me to tuck away for a season; maybe forever. Today he gave me a “pass” on something. Today his favor has come to me and my household in tangible measure, and I am humbled and grateful for his notice.

This is my man.


He is my strength and has been my able arms over the past week. We’ve created a beautiful home together. When God gave me Billy, he gave me a portion of heavenly grace—love as love was meant to be received. I’ve never known a better earthly love. Sure, my parents love me unconditionally. Parents do that, at least they should. But when another human being makes the choice to love unconditionally, well, that’s the stuff of earth’s movement, of hell’s frustration, and of heaven’s notice.

Our love has deepened over the past week; I look forward to more seasons with my man. To marking our grey hairs together and our ills and aches as well. I love you, Billy.

These are my children.


They are the reason behind my pressing on and pressing in to Jesus. The more I know him, the more I’m able to give him to them. They deserve my faithful pursuit of God. They are and will continue to be the recipients of my earnest chase and capture of the Divine. I love you, Nick, Colton, Jadon, and Amelia.

And you, blog readers, you are my friends. I have no doubts that the peace I’ve known over the past week has come to me in large part through the prayers of the saints. You are those saints. You know who you are. I called upon you for prayer, and your prayers have been felt … been heard and been answered.

Today I got a “pass” from God, and that is enough for me. Day to day living with Jesus is all that is required of us. Not tomorrow; not next week, but this very moment we hold in our hands. God reserves the right to all of those moments, no matter their length of earthly time.

When I awoke in the early morning hours, God impressed upon me a few words that I would like to share with you as I close. I thought them profound, even before I got my “pass.” I still think that to be the case…

“It doesn’t matter how long God chooses to preserve my earthly life. What matters is how I choose to preserve him in the earthly life I’ve been given.”

Preserve him well this week, and I will do the same. Nothing in this life, and I mean nothing, is worth losing the flavor of Jesus in us, on us, through us, all around us. Nothing. Tend to his divine preservation within your heart this day, knowing that the aroma you spread has the capacity to shake the foundations of hell. In doing so, the heavens sing their refrain, as our Father bends low for a listen. As always…

peace for the journey~

~elaine

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