faith | Elaine Olsen

A Good Day

May 24, 2009

Good days.

I don’t know if we get a quota on them—like one good day a week … a month … a year … until we reach the max, and then we’re done. I know that there have been seasons in my life that seemed to portion out like that. Times when no matter how I turned things, wished for things, and even prayed for things, good remained hidden.

But not today. Today was a good day any way you turned it. In fact, this week has spent in good measure. Full and rich and close to perfect. Yes, there have been moments of chaos and times when my mind wandered beyond the boundaries of certainties. Tears have found their home upon my cheeks, and a pain or two has whispered its insistence into my heart.

But as I stand this night on the threshold of a seventh-day pause, I do so with a backward glance that yields a satisfactory nod to a week well-lived and to a God who isn’t capable of authoring otherwise. We sometimes think that he does … author otherwise. When pain, hardship, heartache and questions are our requirement, it’s difficult to reason the good of God.

I understand. Life has afforded me a few occasions for arriving at that conclusion. But life and the pursuit of all things sacred have also afforded me something else.

A growing understanding and knowledge of God.

For every comprehension that eludes me, for every question that surfaces in my heart to challenge the integrity and goodness of the God whom I call Father, there is an overriding and overwhelming anchor that pushes my thoughts through to the other side of my confusion.

Faith and the certainty of all things therein.

That is where my conclusion lies. In the unseen and unimaginable wealth of a God who is willing to sustain my breath a day longer in hopes that I will arrive at a declaration concerning his incomparable goodness. Regardless of the mitigating factors that collect and gather to beg my thoughts in another direction, God is after my acknowledging him for his goodness.

Some days, like today, it’s an easy reach … an easy write … an easy prayer of thanks. Some days, not so much. Perhaps for many of you, there’s been nothing easy about this day. I’ve heard from a few of you. I want you to know that I walk with you. I covenant with you in prayer for some easy and some identifiable good to work its way onto the scene of your life. But just because we don’t always see God’s good doesn’t mean that it has been diminished because of our difficult.

This faulty theology cannot stand up to the truth of who our Father IS. We can spend a lifetime blaming him, labeling him, squeezing him into a box that “fits” our need to have everything make sense, but at the end of the day … at the end of this life … no seemingly justifiable scrutiny on our part will keep God from being good. He simply and profoundly cannot help himself.

Good is what God IS. Good is what God does. God’s good is what woke you up this morning. God’s good is what will safely see you through another night’s rest. God’s good cannot be fully explained nor can it be completely measured. Still and yet, we get the privilege of trying. And for me, today, it was an easy find.

Today was about as good as I imagine an earthly good to be. Tomorrow holds a good all its own. When I get there, I pray for the willing eyes to vision its unfolding and the expectant heart to receive it all the more. I earnestly and sincerely desire the same for you. Would that we all could get to the end our week with the overriding and truthful conclusion that our God is good and worthy of all our praise.

Sing him well in your Sabbath tomorrow. From my pew, I’ll be listening for your voice alongside mine.

So shall he. So shall he.

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Leaving Seasons

May 8, 2009

“‘ … Come now; let us leave.’” (John 14:31).

Leaving seasons.

Have you had one lately? A moment when you’ve distinctly heard the voice of your Savior calling out his command for you “to come and to leave”?

They go together … coming and leaving. Moving on to a “next” requires the relinquishment of the “prior.” Obedience is the bridge that stands between the two. Otherwise, we remain stuck—trapped in the comfortable, wrapped in the familiar. Little does it matter if that familiar is draped in difficulty; often we reason it better than the risk of the unknown. Accordingly, we’re stuck.

Staying stuck is a deliberate choice; we may think differently. We may conclude our options as limited; it’s a rational response when our walls begin to shrink and our resources know depletion. Rather than move beyond our safety zone, we choose the confinement of its comfort, hoping for a better outcome; believing that in our hiding and through our tearful pleas we will be able to manifest a change in the situation.

The problem with this thinking is that change almost always initiates from another location. Another direction and another understanding. Change comes with a knock on the other side of the door and offers its voice of invitation and hope.

Come now; let us leave.

Not, come, it’s time for you to leave, but come now; let us leave.

There is a difference between the two; so often we miss the mark in the matter. We forget that when God issues his command for us to the leave the cloaking of our current, he does so with an “us” in mind. Never does he vacate the process; rather, he initiates it and asks us for faith enough to open up the door and to walk through to the other side.

For the disciples it meant leaving the confinement of a holy moment—a night’s long dialogue and final meal with the man they called friend … Jesus … Christ—the Son of the living God. It would be a difficult leaving; the uncertainty about what awaited them on the other side of the door was enough to warrant their concern, at least some confusion.

As far as their minds could reason, the situation wasn’t matching up with their imagination … with how they envisioned this journey with their Jesus to end. The painful resignation to the truth of what they were hearing was a difficult swallow. Talk of death and sorrow and returning to a Father’s glory sounded heavy and weighed fully upon their hearts.

Jesus understood; it weighed fully and in heavier measure upon his. Like the disciples, Jesus wrestled with the conclusion. Still and yet, he came to earth to do what his Father asked him to do; everything else—every feeling, desire, fleshly want and temporal satisfaction—fell prey to this overriding mission.

Accordingly, Jesus opened that door, and in doing so, made a way for us to mirror the same. Jesus walked his faith; he intends for us to follow his lead.

Come now; let us leave.
Come now; let us get on with the “getting on.”
Come now; let us be about the business of our Father.
Come now; let us take to the road of faith, believing that as we go and while we trust, we will behold the truth of a better moment.
Come now; let us not be afraid of an unseen obedience.
Come now; let us move forward, leaving the past where it remains.
Come now; let us believe in the One who made us, who loves us, who shapes us, and who keeps us.
Come now; let us take hold of all of that for which I have taken hold of you.
Come now; let us hope. Let us live the truth of our salvation. Let us move beyond the comfort of our today to embrace the wide and the wild of a trusting grace that was always meant to walk; not hide.

I don’t how if you needed to hear this today. I did. I’m experiencing my own sort of “leaving season” right now. I thank God for the courage that he has given me to walk through a pretty heavy door. My comfortable “difficult” was no longer a cup I could abide; it was keeping me stuck, friends, and I don’t like being stuck inside when there’s so much life to live beyond its confinement.

Can I clearly see the road ahead? No. In fact, very little. But there is someone who visions quite clearly. My Jesus. My companion. My faithful friend whose gentle knocking was recently replaced by his firm command.

Come now, elaine; let us leave. It’s time for the “getting on” and the moving forward.

Maybe today, you’re hearing his voice more clearly than before. Maybe today marks the beginning of your leaving season. If so, I walk it with you. I understand the amount of faith that’s been required to get you to this point of trusting our God; I applaud your confidence in his holiness. So does he. Nothing pleases God more than watching your faith blossom into an intentional obedience. This is what the “ancients” were commended for—believing when they couldn’t see, but always certain that, one day, they would see.

They have seen, friends, and so shall we. Come now, and let us leave our “prior” and move on with our God to his next. His intention for our lives exceeds our own. May we all have the willing trust and the certain faith to take him at his word. Thus, I pray…

Give us courage to move beyond our shut doors, Father. May the unexplored and promised vistas of a forward faith be the anchor that moves us outward in obedience. Clearly sound your voice so that we might be able to discern your truth. Where we are comfortable, prod us. Where are complacent, poke us. Where we are fearful, calm us. Where we are weak, strengthen us, and where we are faithless, show us … teach us what it means to walk in sacred trust. Shape us, Lord, for we are a people longing for more. Amen.

Copyright © May 2009 – Elaine Olsen

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PS: In honor of all the women that we will be celebrating this upcoming weekend, I will be giving away a copy of Celia Whitler’s “One Wish for You”–a beautifully illustrated book paying tribute to the women in our lives, along with a CD that includes five songs written and performed by Celia. You can click here to listen to a sample of Celia’s music. She’s new to me, but I love her earthy, raw voice that beautifully weaves its tender chords into the accompanying music. Celia also has a book/CD combo for graduates and others. Please take time to visit her website and leave a comment here to enter the drawing. Have a blessed and “full of Jesus” kind of weekend. I love you, friends. Shalom.

Paying Attention

May 3, 2009

“While he [Peter] was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!’ When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them. ‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid.’ When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.” (Matthew 17:4-6).

I didn’t want to go to sleep last night.

Not because I was scared of the dark but because in doing so … in succumbing to a night’s slumber … I was concerned about missing something. A Jesus kind of something. A something that sometimes comes to us in the deep of night when the rest of the world has kindly found its quiet so that we can find our God.

Last night I tossed and I turned and I thought about God. He was there, ever present before me and stirring my imagination in incomparable measure. I couldn’t shut him down. I didn’t want to, so I fought it. Vigorously. Painfully and willfully, until I could no longer force my flesh to the contrary.

My sleep was fitful; I had the “groggies” and the dark circles to prove it this morning as I rolled out of bed to prepare my heart for worship. But it was worth it. Who needs sleep when Jesus is on the brain? Who indeed?!

I’m not sure how I arrived at my late night wrestling, but I have a clue. Prior to going to bed, I spent some time perusing some of my favorite blogs. I came across this one. Its author always makes me pause. She’s eloquent in her delivery of her heart and never ceases to stop me in my tracks and make me think. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I laugh, but most of the time, I simply read and absorb and speak my whispered “yes” to her pen and to my God.

It’s not that her life is overly fantastic. Like most of us, she’s a “day in, day out” kind of person. Her life doesn’t live on the stage nor does she wear a title of fame and fortune. She simply walks her days and writes her thoughts and allows her readers to join her on the road. Even though we’ve never met, I feel the tug of the thread that ties our hearts together despite the miles and choices that separate our journeys.

I thought a long time about my friend last night … about the connection that we share and why her words strike a chord within me. And in the midst of my pondering, just as clearly as I’ve ever sensed the voice of God speaking to me in my spirit, I heard him saying this…

Laura pays attention to life.

“What? Could you say that again, Father? I’m not sure I heard you correctly.”

Laura pays attention to life.

“What does that look like, Father?”

Like details. Like pausing long enough to consider the noises around her. Like being willing to bend to those noises and to pay homage to the moment. Like wrapping up all the truth of a single encounter and writing its worth with all the tenderness a heart can hold. Like finding me in the details. Like…

paying attention to life.

“Well then, Father, teach me to pay attention. Teach me what it means to bow to the moment and to live my life with a richer understanding that you can be found in each one of them.”

And with that, friends, my night’s contemplation began. A conversation with God. A face to face encounter with the only God who can be known and who longs for us to feel the rhythm of his heartbeat as we go and while on the road.

Paying attention to life. It starts for us even as it started for the Apostle Peter.

“Listen to him.”

When we do …

when we stop our mouths from running and our selfishness from needing,
when we refuse our agendas their consumption and our preferences their pleasure,
when we silence our minds from chaos and our determination from willful control,

then we, like the privileged three, will look up and see our exceptional and only Jesus in all of his glory, knowing that we have stood in the presence of sacred moment.

Paying attention to life. Stopping long enough to pay homage to a single moment. That is when we will see our Jesus unfolding his extraordinary kingdom into our ordinary everyday. And to hold that? To walk the soil of that kind of sacred sowing?

Well, for that, my fellow pilgrims, I will labor to fight sleep. I will entreat a night’s wrestling in hopes of receiving a Father’s beholding. I will toss and turn and struggle to override my flesh so that I can take hold of the face of God and carry his glory with me down the mountain into the valley below.

Oh, that we would fix our gaze in intentional pause before our God this day. How he longs to show himself faithful to each one of us when we do. Thus, I pray…

Father, help me to pay attention to life; stop me, pause me, push me and prod me to my knees and to my silence until I can no longer see me but only you in your extravagant splendor and holiness. Embed your glory within my frame. Splash the truth of your living witness all over me until I’m dripping wet with you, Jesus. Forgive me for thinking that my words, my agenda and my needs, are more important than your presence. Break through the clouds this day for my friends, and show them your glory. Penetrate the enemy’s schemes to steal, kill, and destroy, with the awe-inspiring and conquering witness of who you are. Surround our lives with your presence, and then move us forward in obedience to share your truth with a world that needs to stop talking and to start paying attention. You, alone, are worthy of our heart’s pause. Humbly, I concede mine to your revelation this day. Amen.

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PS: In honor of my friend, Laura, I would like to honor her with one of the give-away books, “Finding an Unseen God” by Alicia Chole. The other two winners (randomly drawn by my youngins’) are Joanne at Blessed and Sharon at Sit With Me Awhile. Congratulations ladies. Please send me your snail mail via my email, and as soon as I receive the books from Alicia, I will send them to you.

The Amazing Confrontation of Grace

April 27, 2009

“On hearing it, many of his disciples said, ‘This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?’ Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, ‘Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.’” (John 6:60-64a).

I made a two-year-old cry this morning.

I didn’t mean to make her cry. Singing about the amazing grace of God isn’t supposed to bring one to tears, at least not her kind of tears, but this morning … it did.

Perhaps I sang it too loud. Perhaps too shrill. Perhaps too full of a truth that exceeded the silence of the moment. Regardless of the reasons behind her tears, they came in full measure toward the end of my song, accompanied by her tender proclamation to her grandma, “I don’t like that song.”

It made my heart smile, and then it made my mind think.

The amazing grace of Jesus Christ is a confrontational word. It is meant to stir a response in the hearts of those who sit within earshot of the proclamation. Jesus Christ didn’t go all the way to Calvary and back to keep us paralyzed by its truth. Grace is meant to evoke a response in each one of us.

For some, grace swallows sweet. For some, it’s a longer chew. For others, grace doesn’t swallow … amazing or otherwise. It’s simply too big of a bite for a stomach that is content to gnaw on the stony rations of an uncomplicated understanding.

Just ask them—those “followers” of Christ who were eye-witnesses to the real-time unfolding of grace’s “amazing.” Some would immediately take to its unwrapping. Some would live with it for a season before coming around to acceptance. Some would simply balk at the weight of it and run in the opposite direction. The “them” of Jesus’ day are no different than the “us” of this day.

We like to think that our responses to Jesus would have been different had we been there. That somehow we would have immediately taken to the truth of his living witness. But I don’t think the benefit of a 2000 year hindsight has birthed a better faith in most of us. Why?

Because we have the truth of Christ’s living witness in our midst. He is here among us; he didn’t vanish on a hillside to never be seen again. He’s been presenting himself and his amazing grace to humanity throughout the existence of time. You and I sit on the backside of grace’s redeeming finish; still and yet, its truth isn’t an easy cloaking for many. It is a “hard teaching” in our time, even as it was during its genesis on a Judean soil so long ago.

Does this mean that grace no longer works? That the amazing of John Newton’s 1779 penned reflection lacks in its truthful punctuation about the completed work of the cross? That our many words about the Word have somehow lost their potency … their capacity and strength to transform?

Not at all.

Grace is still amazing. Two thousand years of testing its waters hasn’t diminished its effectiveness. Grace’s truth remains, despite man’s neglect to the contrary. But grace is as grace has always been.

Confrontational.

Thus, some will receive it and some won’t because confrontation pushes the issue of our consent for God’s holy consecration of our lives. Grace stands at the door of a heart and knocks and pleads and invites and offers, but never will it hammer its insistence into the heart of unwillingness. The cross of Jesus Christ will never force its grace into the will of an unbeliever. It only forces a choice in the matter.

Acceptance or rejection. There is no middle ground when it comes to the amazing grace of an amazing God. Hearing his truth requires a response.

As a teenager, I walked my definite response to an altar on a wintry night in Alabama during a youth retreat. In some ways, it was a familiar walk; from my earliest days I have believed in a great big God who loves me beyond reasonable limits. It wouldn’t be the last time I would walk a pilgrimage of surrender. I’m still walking it. I did so today.

Not because I have finally come to the conclusion of what an amazing grace means, but rather because grace and all its amazing is worthy of my bended knee and a heart’s pause that cries out a prayer or two of unashamed thankfulness.

Even when it’s loud. Even when it’s teaching is a hard swallow. Even when it elicits unsuspecting tears. And especially when the fullness of its truth exceeds the worth of a world’s silence to the contrary.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound!
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.[i]

How glad I am for the amazing confrontation of God’s grace with my heart. May I never lose the wonder behind its unwrapping. May I always speak the witness of its truth. I pray the same for you. Thus, I offer my plea this day to the One who created us with grace in mind…

Intersect our hearts, Father, with grace’s amazing witness this week. Fill our mouths with the sweetness of its taste. Loudly knock its truth upon the door of our wills so as to drown out the world’s insistence to the contrary. When it’s hard to understand, when it’s difficult to accept, paint grace for us in a way that swallows easy and that portions fully. May our tears pour the witness of understanding rather than the wet of confusion. Gently wrap our faith in the mystery of Love’s redeeming work and then give us the ample courage to tie the bow accordingly. What we now know in part, we will one day fully grasp. Keep us in revenant anticipation of that final revelation. Amen.

[i] Robert J. Morgan, “Amazing Grace,” Then Sings My Soul (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003), 78-79.

Walking the Earth

April 23, 2009

Today I walked the earth. Rather, it walked me.

Normally I run it, but a ferocious northwest wind coupled with last Saturday’s face plant at the Great Outdoor Provision Company (I’m not kidding) necessitated my compliance. Two years ago, I severely injured my ankle while out running. It would take a long season of healing before I would, once again, feel the earth beneath my pace.

I was reminded of that today. And while my ankle and my pride have survived the embarrassment of an awkward fall, I felt a twinge of reminder as I took to the road. My ankle would have absorbed the weight of a mild jog, but when I felt the added resistance of a tempestuous wind, I decided to give myself a break.

And here’s what I’m thinking…

Some days we get a pass, friends. Some days it’s better to walk it then to run it. Some days … some seasons … in our lives are so full of some “stuff”—some good and some not so—that it seems wiser to walk the race rather than to run through our paces with the maddening intent of a fast finish.

Are you with me?

I’m a fast finisher. Always have been. Get to it, get it finished, and then get on with the moving on. Thus, when life interjects the wisdom of a slower cadence, I’m quick to walk my way around it; at least until I’m forced to bow before it.

Two years ago, I bowed. My running wasn’t an option. Today I did the same; this time, however, not because I had to but rather because I’ve seen the beauty of what an intentional slow-down can bring. Today I walked out of my “want to” rather than my “have to,” and in doing so, received the gift of sacred perspective.

As Christians, we are well-familiar with the Apostle Paul’s spiritual metaphor of “running the race.” It’s a pulpit favorite, a devotional favorite, and one in which I’m sure I’ve interjected my own two-cent’s worth. A worthy word because, indeed, you and I have been given a spiritual journey that is worthy of a heart’s best efforts at completion. Accordingly, we should take to the road with all the truth and confidence of heaven to back us as we go.

Some days the course runs smoothly. Some days the wind runs at our back, buoying our steps and moving us in fast progression to the next corner. But then there are those other days. Days that run ragged. Days that take our breath away and that force our sweat and determination at a level that begs to differ. Days when the wind engages our steps with a frontal assault and with the ferocious fury of hell’s intention. Rather than finding our stride, we fight to stay upright and in forward motion.

It’s all we can do to walk it through … sometimes even finding our crawl to make it through. I know. I’ve got the calloused knees to prove it. I boast the swollen fragments of a hard fought faith that has, at times, sought to get the best of me, but in the end, has acquiesced to the least of me. The tiny, mustard-seed part of me that was willing to hang on and to push through because I understand that this is the journey that I’ve been given to complete.

No one else will finish it for me. It’s mine to pilgrim. You’ve been handed your own to walk.

Accordingly, it’s good to know that some days (when we need it the most) we get a pass to walk it through with all the patience and beauty of a slow-going, yet forward moving faith that will eventually land us at the end of the road. Whether we run it, walk it, or crawl it through to the finish, all of us will come to that end.

When we do, we’ll have the beauty of a backwards’ glance that validates the steps taken to get there. It won’t matter how they paced; what will matter is how they finish. And as for me and my heart, I’m after a “well-done”—an “all is well that end’s well” because my life was lived well … with intention and on purpose.

Today, I walked the earth. In turn, it walked all over me, and the sacred perspective that was birthed between the two is enough to warrant my continuing trust for the road ahead. How I pray for the willing strength to keep pace with a gracious and willing God who has allowed me my footprints upon his earthen sod at such a time as this. Yours too.

Ours are the intended footprints of a perfected plan—an extraordinary gift of everlasting proportion. Thus I pray…

Let the markings of my feet, Father, be a trail of faith for others to follow in the days to come. Strengthen my feeble frame for the straight and the narrow path and keep me to that path all the days of my life. When I run, when I walk, when I stumble, and when I crawl, may the wind of your Spirit be with me to push me forward with all the dignity and grace of heaven’s acclaim. I cannot finish well without you, Lord. Keep me mindful of my need. Keep me humble all the more. I’m coming home to you. Pace my steps accordingly.

In the name of the Father loves me, the Son who carved the path for me, and the Spirit who is faithful to follow after me and to fill me with the truth and strength of my forever, Amen and Amen.

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PS: I want to direct you over to an incredible post I read this afternoon at Jennifer’s “Getting Down with Jesus” blog. She’s new to me, a fabulous writer, and has a great story to share with us about waking up the earth. I loved it for so many reasons. Check it out when you have time. Shalom.

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