Category Archives: freedom

Lessons from the Lunchroom {the next 24 hours}

It’s Sunday evening. A table usually reserved for meal times has, instead, become a makeshift teacher’s desk. Lesson plans strewn about, books, DVD’s, grade books, red pens, and unsharpened pencils litter the oak top, alongside my tiredness. I put my head down, realizing again, the enormity of the task in front of me. I haven’t graded papers over the weekend, haven’t prepared for the week ahead.

Week four, our 16th day of homeschooling. Yes, that’s where we are. Marking off days on the school calendar, fully entrenched in a new routine that feels less new now, more normal. I sigh, and then I remember . . . a lesson I learned not long ago. A life-learning that came to me under the teacher named Cancer. That lesson?

The capacity and the great willingness to live within the context of a twenty-four hour time frame. To not look beyond today, realizing that today is all I’ve been given. Today holds enough worry of its own. No need to borrow beyond this day’s allowance. Should tomorrow arrive for me, I’ll have enough time and enough determination to deal with it then. But as for today, I’ll keep my attention and focus on the task at hand, give myself permission to rest here, and establish the boundaries that prevent me from going further.

It’s a good way to live. I’ve not always applied this lesson to my life. I’m not sure I really learned it in my younger years. Certainly, I heard it . . . from the pulpit, from my parents, in my readings and with my studying. But application of truth is sometimes best learned firsthand, away from prescriptive learning while entrenched in the labors of practical living—applied living, where the tenets of our faith are hammered out on the pavement of everyday life.

The capacity and great willingness to live within the context of a twenty-four hour time frame doesn’t become our default until we’re required to go there, to live there for a season. A time when twenty-four hours is enough, when living through those next twenty-four hours is the gift. Sometimes we live ahead of the gift. We strive to hold more than our daily allowance, wanting to have it all figured out, leaving little wiggle room for the contingencies that frequently interrupt our best laid plans.

Best laid plans are rarely lived plans. Certainly, a well thought-out, established plan is a framework for success, allowing us some measure of control over the outcome. But at the end of the day, even in the middle of our day, and occasionally in those beginning moments of our day, there comes a scenario we didn’t consider during our Sunday evening planning sessions. Sometimes, life takes a turn we didn’t anticipate while charting out our weekly agendas, and it’s probably a really good thing we weren’t forewarned about its arrival.

Can you imagine what our planners might look like had we known that “it” was coming (whatever that “it” is for you)? Sweet mercy, there wouldn’t be enough white-out to fix the mess! When life gets derailed, it’s better to keep the pencil and the eraser handy, rather than the pen. Sometimes, perhaps, throwing them both aside is the best course of action . . . just let it happen, let life come, without trying to control it all on the front side of its advent.

This is, perhaps, the grace in it all—the joy of finally being able to let go of all the striving, to release the expectations of daily life, and to live fully in the realization that these next twenty-four hours are all that our precious lives were meant to handle. This doesn’t mean that we don’t look forward to tomorrow, that we don’t plan a little, control a little, and pray a ton. It simply and profoundly means that we save tomorrow’s striving until tomorrow and live the gift in front of us.

And so, I lift my head from this table, and I acknowledge that I won’t be able to fully plan my week in these moments. Instead, I’ll lock into the urgent, that which is pressing, that which is called tomorrow morning. It feels good and right to downgrade my focus, to keep it small, thus freeing up some space in my heart and soul for the contingencies that might work their way into a loosely planned schedule.

The capacity and great willingness to live within the context of a twenty-four hour time frame.

Are you there yet? Are you willing? Can you whittle your plans, your thoughts, and your worries down to the next twenty-four hours? Nothing more is required of you. Why not live this freedom in this moment? Why not grant yourself permission to fully live here, to stop here, and to travel no further down the road, save for the next step in front of you?

It’s a beautiful way to live a day. It’s a trusting way to live a life.

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” –Matthew 6:34

Beginning Days… {the ocean is still free}

Beginning Days… {the ocean is still free}

 

The ocean is still free. So I said to myself this past weekend while spending a few days on the shores of the Atlantic.

The ocean is still free. Free to roam. Free to breathe. Free to birth. Free to be.

Mankind has tried to control it, has sloppily put its fingerprints into it, but mankind has been unable to stop it. Freely the tide rolls in; freely it retracts. The ocean keeps a pace all its own, unwilling to cede ownership to anyone but its Creator. The ocean knows to Whom it belongs. The ocean remembers its 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

Beginning days. God, darkness, and deep waters. Indeed, the ocean remembers its beginning. Do you remember yours?

” —the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. … But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.’ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” –Genesis 2:7, 20-25

Beginning days. God, dust, breath, man.

Beginning days. God, man, rib, woman.

Beginning days. God, man, woman, one flesh.

a beautiful momen to watch taking place… just God, the preacher, man, woman, and a couple of curious on-lookers

 

Life was simpler back then, in those beginning days. Life was perfect. Life was, as God meant for it to be.

But then, life changed. Less perfect. Less edenic. Confused and greatly burdened by sin’s curse. Somewhere between those beginning days and these days… our days, life got very messy and our remembrances of Eden mostly forgotten. And when Eden is forgotten—when beginning understanding and truth are traded in for modern day theory—then our nakedness no longer matters. We no longer notice it; instead, we’re hell-bent on exposing it… all in the name of personal freedom.

But this isn’t freedom, friends. This is bondage. This is being chained to our flesh, and this is when we find ourselves in grave danger of missing the great point of our lives—to surrender our flesh over to faith and back into the hands of the One who created it… in the beginning. To not allow our flesh to master us but, instead, to master our flesh through the blood-stained covering of Christ’s cross and through the transformational work of the Holy Spirit’s willing presence and power in our lives. This is freedom… God’s way. This is why the ocean is still free. The ocean is still willing to let God be in control.

The ocean is still free because the ocean has not forgotten its beginning. We would do well not to forget ours.

Peace for the journey,
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burning the bridge to Egypt..

“The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.

So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the LORD your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul—then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.” –Deuteronomy 11:10-15
There is a thought I’ve been chewing on for a couple of weeks now… a truth from God that is beautifully emphasized by this photograph I found online (although I’m fairly certain the photographer had few intentions of it doing so). It is titled The Old Bridge Passing Through the Jordan River. Funny thing… I can’t even see the Jordan River. I can only see what man has built across it—an accessible passageway between two parcels of dry land.

No more struggling through flood-stage waters to get to the other side; only a casual walk-thru. What once would have required more strength, more intention, and more faith has now become less of a requirement. Man has found a way to manage the crossing of the River Jordan, thereby making the trip from Egypt to Canaan and back again an easier journey. Problem is, God doesn’t mean for us to return to our Egypts. He means for us to stay with him in Canaan.

For the Israelites, a trip back to Egypt was met by a formidable barrier—the Jordan River. For us, the barriers are lessened by the bridges we’ve built. We thought we were doing everyone a favor—giving easy access to Canaan so that others might quickly make entrance into the Promised Land. But something is lost when easy access is given to Canaan. Christ is lost in the process. Man-made bridges do little to keep souls connected to the kingdom of God. Man-made bridges allow for a return trip to bondage. Only in the bridge made by Christ and his cross are we able to make the pilgrimage into freedom and stay there.

And in the cross of Jesus Christ, there is always struggle. Always strain. Always choice. Always pain. This is the way of the crucified life. Faith is forged in the Jordan. Saints are birthed in the walk toward freedom.

For the children of God, there is a difference between Egypt and Canaan. At least there should be. A noticeable change between how life used to be and how life currently lives.

In Egypt, life is less. Less freedom; less abundance; less assurance; less hope. In Canaan, life is more. More freedom; more abundance; more assurance; more hope.

In Egypt, God is dismissed from the growing season. In Canaan, God is in charge of it.

In Egypt, self reigns. In Canaan, God rains.

In Egypt, the slave master keeps watch. In Canaan, God keeps vigilance.

In Egypt, obedience is mandated. In Canaan, obedience is chosen.

In Egypt, love for God is half-hearted, half-focused. In Canaan, love for God is whole-hearted, singularly focused.

In Egypt, there is stale bread and bitter wine. In Canaan, fresh bread and new wine.

In Egypt, the ground is hard, void of color and flavor. In Canaan, the grass is growing and green.

In Egypt, the view is horizontal. In Canaan, the view goes vertical.

In Egypt, the landscape is fixed. In Canaan, the landscape is limitless.

In Egypt, man possesses man. In Canaan, man possesses the kingdom of God.

Indeed, there is a difference between life in Egypt and life in Canaan. For the children of God, the contrast should be obvious, our choice of residency all the more. All too often, though, we’re tempted to access the bridges we’ve built between the two countries. A walk backward to Egypt (back to the captivity of our once bitter complaint) takes less energy these days, less intention than it did for our spiritual ancestors. It only takes a moment to return there. A single decision for less. None of us are exempt. Our flesh keeps us tethered to that one possibility. Until we drop this covering that holds our inward parts together, we’ll always have access to Egypt.

Time to burn some bridges, friends. Time to make it harder for our hearts to go backward. Time to, instead, live in the freedom that is ours as children of God. Time to saturate our lives with kingdom words, kingdom songs, kingdom walks, and kingdom company until the bridges back to our yesterdays fall prey to the waters of the Jordan and no longer serve as a convenient catalyst to captivity.

Where are you living today? In Canaan, in Egypt? On the bridge in between?

Do what you have to do to stay with God. God is in Canaan. Do what you have to do to get there. Do what you have to do to stay there, and make sure to burn any bridges that would allow you to leave there.

My match is lit. My heart resolved. My faith most certain. It is good to keep company with the King in Canaan. As always…

Peace for the journey,
elaine

on Christian "calling"

“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)
 
 
Calling.
 
Yours and mine.
 
You know the word. If you’re immersed in pop-Christian culture, then you’ve heard it before, probably even received some preaching about it from the pulpit. It certainly is the topic of many current best-sellers, Bible studies, devotionals, and self-helps all determined to aid you in your exploration toward discovering what yours is…
 
Your calling.
 
I can hardly abide the word. It makes me bristle each time I hear it used in casual word-toss amongst Christians. Not because I don’t believe in its validity—that, in fact, each one of us has a calling—but rather because of the way its intentional “push” is leaving so many of us feeling diminished. As if, somehow, we’ve missed the mark when it comes to our relationship with Jesus and just exactly what that means for us as it pertains to our doing something for the kingdom in keeping with our conferment.
 
Over and over again, I receive e-mails and comments regarding the issue; words like:
 
I’m afraid I’ll miss my calling.
How do I know what my calling is?
I know that God has called me to something, I’m just not sure what it is.
 
Words like that. And I feel the pain of those who utter such confusion, because I, too, have spoken similar uncertainty in recent years. I’ve spent a lot of time researching the issue, sweating through the issue, praying about the issue, purchasing and working through the issue via some valuable resources, all to arrive at a similar conclusion about the issue of my calling: that, apparently, I’m not there yet. That what I’m doing for Jesus doesn’t match up with what the experts are saying. That according to them, I’ve yet to really take hold of what my calling is because there remains a restlessness within my spirit. That because I don’t have clearly defined goals in place and that because my “passion and pulse” have yet to be fully determined, then I’ve got some more work to do. That if I’ll just keep reading more, practically “applying” more, jumping through spiritual hoops more, then maybe, at the end of it all, I’ll find what I’ve been longing for—God’s more for my life.
 
Oh my good friends, what a dangerous and willing slope we often stand upon when it comes to God’s “calling” upon our lives. What a tragedy to live beneath the weightiness of such burden. We’ve made God’s calling upon our lives a cumbersome yoke around our necks. We’ve made it too hard to understand, too glamorous, too glitzy, too elite to attain. We inadvertently have reserved it as something for those who are seemingly more seasoned in their walks with God—those who hold the market on righteousness and faithful living—all because we have decided that our spiritual temperature isn’t yet hot enough to warrant kingdom effectiveness.
 
Instead of feeling relieved after our careful examination of the Christian “calling,” we often conclude such contemplations feeling diminished. Less than. Under used and as having “missed the mark” when it comes to our Father’s plans for our lives. We dangerously compare ourselves to others, wondering that if somehow we could be more like them, then surely, we’d have some peace regarding the issue. But the truth is, the more closely we examine our lives in relationship to others, the more willing we become to concede our limitations and minimize our worthiness.
 
And then there we are… stuck in confusion, pained by our ponderings, and begging the Lord for clarity regarding our callings.
 
And then there, too, is God… stuck in our confusion, pained by our ponderings, and longing to bring clarity regarding our callings, because he, unlike the experts of today, has kept it pretty simple.
 
His theology isn’t weighed down by a lifetime of good study, marketable research, fads and trends and buzz words. Unlike us, God has little regard for five-step programs or carefully administered checklists when it comes to his calling upon our lives. God doesn’t need the benefit of our wisdom and our well-intentioned efforts as it pertains to helping ourselves and others determine his intentions for us. God, simply and profoundly, boils “calling” down to two words.
 
Know me.
 
That’s it, and it’s enough… at least it is for me. When I came to this realization a couple of years ago, I was freed from the burden of my “calling” as it was being purported within Christian circles. I no longer carry the struggle of having to figure mine out, because in knowing God, I know more and hold more than I will ever be able to fully administer to others in my lifetime. I don’t have to go searching for my calling and what that will look for me in the days to come. I simply have to know him more today than I did yesterday and then, out of that knowing, lead others to know the same.
 
It’s what Jesus Christ prayed for in his garden moments before his crucifixion. That we, believers in a season yet to come, would know him and his Father… intimately (John 17). That we would share in the love and knowledge of a relational God who longs to reveal himself—his character and his heart—to his children. That the overriding “passion” and boast of our hearts would not be regarding our wisdom, our strength, and our riches, but that instead our boast would be in our understanding and knowing God (Jeremiah 9:23-24).
 
And that with that being said, even more so lived, we walk in our callings. Not perfectly, but more fully as God intended. Daily stepping alongside Truth, so that with every breath we take, every thought we think, every word we speak, we do so knowing that God hovers in close proximity to our frames, making sure that we get it right. Get Him right.
 
Knowing God, and then out of that knowing, leading others to know the same.
 
This is my life calling. My freedom shout. My willingness to believe it’s just as simple and as beautifully profound as it writes and reads and sounds. May God grant me, perhaps even you, the courage to walk his depth and breadth for as long as the earthen sod tarries beneath our feet. May you know God more today than you did yesterday, and may you harbor the expectation of tomorrow’s knowing as sweet promise in your heart.
 
Knowing God. If you are headed in that direction, friends, then you are walking your calling.
 
Keep to it. Keep to the glorious revelation of our King. I’ll meet you on the road. As always…
 
Peace for the journey,

the elephant in the room…

“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,

Copyright © January 2010 – Elaine Olsen

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