Category Archives: living God’s truth

The River’s Edge

“He said to me, ‘Son of man, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you.’ As he spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet, and I heard him speaking to me.” (Ezekiel 2:1-2).

 

The Spirit of the living God lifts us. Raises us. Enables us and strengthens us to receive the sacred words from a Father’s throne.

Without the Spirit, our posture remains prostrate, heads buried beneath the weight of an Almighty glory that exceeds our capacity for receiving. Coming into unified fellowship with the presence of God requires the strength and understanding of his Spirit alongside.

Without him, we lie as limp. Without him, we live the same.

God hasn’t called us to limp living—to shuffling our way through this world with nothing more than the cravings of our sinful nature to guide us. No, God has called us to an extraordinary existence with his Spirit as our guide and with his thoughts at the helm.

We will never live God’s “extraordinary” without our first entreating the witness of his Spirit.

Ruwach. The wind and breath of the triune God. He was there in the beginning, hovering and bending over the waters of the dark and deep. Waiting; contemplating, gathering steam and energizing Father God’s thoughts into action.

As New Testament believers, we often chronicle his beginnings with Pentecost. In doing so, we short change the truth of the Trinity. Just because his mention is seemingly less frequent in the Old Testament doesn’t mean that he wasn’t there.

He’s there. He’s always been here. Even as God IS, he IS. There is no separation between God and his Spirit. We receive him fully when we accept his Son, Jesus Christ, unto ourselves.

God is a package deal. Most days, however, we don’t live with that understanding. Instead, we settle for less because our hearts and minds refuse to believe that the God “up there” is actually the God “in here”—within our hearts. We are the place where he chooses to make his home despite our confusion in keeping him abroad.

So often we are like the Israelites who gathered at the River Kebar in their exile with their stubborn unbelief in tow. Like them, we can trace our royal bloodlines; we live with the truth that we are, in fact, the children of God. Still and yet, we refuse the fullness of just exactly what that means. In doing so, we wear the same labels as that of our spiritual ancestors.

Rebellious. Obstinate. Stiff-necked. Difficult. Unyielding. Hardened, and ultimately, exiled.

We miss the mark when we miss the fullness of the triune God. Before long, we, too, find ourselves stranded at the river’s edge wondering as to what went wrong and how many steps it will take for us to return to the Promised Land of our yesterdays.

This week, I’ve stood at the River Kebar, looking into the distance and searching for the presence of my Almighty God. I’ve longed for the breath of his Spirit to blow across my arid soul and to speak life into my “limp and lame.” And just this morning, when I finally bowed low enough and long enough, I felt the flutter of a gentle breeze blow across my heart.

Faint at first but louder with every moment that I kept my silence and allowed God his voice. As he spoke, his Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet, enabling me to hear some truth I’ve been hoping to hear for a long season.

He reminded me that his Spirit is for me. He’s for you too. Without him, we live as limp. friends. With him, we live extraordinary. Why? Because God’s Spirit gives and lives with all the generosity of heaven. He…

Controls us (Romans 8:6).

Enlivens us (Job 33:4, John 6:63, Romans 8:6).

Teaches us (Nehemiah 9:30, Isaiah 50:4, John 16:13, 1 Corinthians 2:13).

Reminds us (John 14:26).

Bears fruit through us (Galatians 5:22-23, Hebrews 2:4).

Intercedes for us (Romans 8:26-27).

Transforms us (2 Corinthians 3:17-19).

Completes us (2 Thessalonians 2:13).

Frees us (2 Corinthians 3:17).

Raises us (Ezekiel 2:1-2, 3:24).

Corrects us (Nehemiah 9:30).

Follows us (Psalm 139:7).

Remains on us (Isaiah 44:3, 61:1, Luke 1:35, 4:18).

Leads us (Matthew 4:1).

Counsels us (John 14:26).

Strengthens us (Acts 1:8, 1 Corinthians 2:4).

Fills us (Acts 4:31, 9:17, Ephesians 5:13).

Reveals to us (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).

Resides in us (1 Corinthians 6:19, 2 Corinthians 1:22, 1 John 3:24).

Defends us (Ephesians 6:17).

Speaks for us (1 Corinthians 2:13, 2 Peter 1:21).

Identifies us (Romans 8:15-16, 2 Corinthians 3:3, 5:5).

Indeed, the Spirit of God raises us up to live at a higher level than what is customary and expected. When allowed—when anticipated and expected—he transforms our everyday lives into his everlasting purpose that exceeds an existence at the river’s edge to engage the roar and pulse of a river’s ride.

That’s where I want to live with God. Riding the river’s wild in sacred trust rather than limping along the river’s edge in temporal doubt. Perhaps, this day, you want to live the same.

If so, I encourage you to further investigate the role of the Holy Spirit in your life by a deeper examination of the list above. Receive the truth and witness of what you’ve been given through the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. Walk in that truth, knowing that even as he hovered over his waters in the beginning, he hovers over your heart just now…

waiting; contemplating, gathering steam and energizing Father God’s thoughts into action.

May you feel the breath of God’s good Spirit beneath your feet today. Rise and partake of his extraordinary presence. As always,

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PS: The winners DJ Cole’s CD, Your Grace, are Lisa from Sharing Life with Lisa (#9) and Heidi (#22). Congratulations ladies. Please send me your addresses once again.

A Fine Child

“Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.” (Exodus 2:1-4).

The Nile is a difficult “letting go.” A hard release. A gut-wrenching surrender.

It was for Moses’ parents. It is for me.

Tonight I stand on the riverbank of the Nile and watch my son from a distance as he boards a plane at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, heading toward the mountainous regions of Bolivia. He will spend ten days at an orphanage, tilling the land, repairing the chicken coops, working on latrines, and playing a pick-up game of soccer on every occasion.

He will bathe little; sleep even less. Stomach Bolivian delicacies and try his best to speak the language he’s been intensely studying as his college minor. He’ll make me proud, of that I am sure. Others will love him, of that I am more certain.

And while all of this makes my heart smile with gratitude for the man he is becoming, there is a pang of sadness for me. Not because I desire to keep Nick to myself, but rather because I won’t be alongside to watch the unfolding of this “fine child” before the eyes of others. Moments and memories that I’d like to scrapbook for myself will be given as a remembrance to those who stand further down the river’s bank, eagerly awaiting his arrival and anticipating his participation in their lives.

I see the bigger picture; it’s been growing in me for a long season. God has amply supplied me with a series of “letting go’s” that continue to shape my heart for sacred surrender. They always make me cry, and I’ve never shied away from their wet. I simply allow the tears a spacious place to land in order to water the growth of my tender soil … my fragile soul. I pray them not to be too much, but rather just enough to seed my pain with some purpose.

It’s a good prayer to pray, especially because our “letting go’s” are going to arrive. It is the way of a forward journey, regardless of our willingness to stand still and not move one moment beyond this one. How much better would it be to allow our moments of “needful release” to birth in us a sacred shaping that will serve a better end—both ours and God’s.

Moses’ parents understood this better than most. They were commended for their faithful release and duly memorialized for it in the Hebrews “hall of faith”:

“By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw that he was not an ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.” (Hebrews 11:23).

By faith, they hid their son. By faith, they released their son. By faith, they watched their son from a distance. By faith, they understood that their son was no ordinary child, but rather a “fine child” destined for a better end than that of most of his contemporaries.

By faith, we should equally trust our Father with the release of our children to the River Nile.

They’re all “fine.” Special and beautiful and worthy of the nod of heaven. Like Moses’ parents, from the moment they’re born, we hide them. Shelter them beneath our wings because we understand that while heaven has marked them with eternity, hell has marked them otherwise. For destruction—as ordinary, expendable, unremarkable, and worthy of the nothing more than a swift slaughter simply because they carry the bloodlines of a King.

But three months passes quickly. Eighteen years for most of us. For a few of us, a painful and difficult less. For a few of us, a painful and struggling more. Still and yet, there comes for all of us a moment at the river’s edge. A time of release when we must find our peace at a distance and trust that Father God has something bigger and something beyond us that awaits our children on the other side of our hard surrender.

We may not see his wisdom in it all; rarely do we catch a full glimpse of our children’s forever. But occasionally we have an inkling—a heavenly whisper reminding us that, indeed, there is a wisdom that exceeds understanding. A “more” that is coming because of our willingness to “let go” and “let God.”

Tonight, I “let go” again of the son I dearly love. It won’t be the last time my heart is called upon to make such a surrender. But I do so in the spirit and strength of my spiritual ancestors who better understood the painful trust of a difficult release. Thus, I speak these words of release to my Nick as he flies the night sky and as I try to find him there, amidst the stars and dark that separates our flesh…

Go with God this night, my son. Sail the Nile with all the trust of heaven to guide you, shape you, strengthen you, and mold you into the man that God has intended for you to be. I will be keeping watch, but my arms aren’t long enough to catch you this time. God has orchestrated events accordingly. He means for me to stand on the riverbank while you engage with the wild and wet of a river that calls for your participation. You are a fine child, and you were meant for more than my arms. You were meant for the world. Embrace it, and it will embrace you. It’s time that others discover the wealth of who you are.

And just in case they don’t, if for some reason they reach any other conclusion, you can be certain that I’ll be waiting at the river’s edge to welcome you home and to remind you of just how extraordinary you truly are. I love you, Nick. I’ll see you on the other side of your river’s ride.

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Prelude to Genesis

“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).

Thought precedes action.

Always.

We may not be aware of the processes that coordinate behind the scenes to fuel our accomplishments, but they are there. Existing and simmering to bring about the plans of our heart … to walk the dreams of our creative impulse.

Thoughts are the stuff of creation. Without them, our lives walk accidental, void of purpose, and full of happenstance. And if that’s the case, if life is but an inadvertent pause birthed through inconsequential measure, then God is no longer needed. Rather, he is relegated to the role of an occasional participant in the Creation story when we need the story to make sense. When our thoughts force us to fill in the blanks of our beginning with some semblance of reason.

How callous we’ve become in our approach to our Genesis—to the whispers of all things Edenic that breathe a story much bigger than the one to which we’ve grown accustomed.

Six days of creative impulse and then a seventh to sit back and to reflect.

Doesn’t quite do the process justice, does it? We think it does. We’ve perfected our telling of said process, and on most days, I am quite content with a faith that walks so simply. But in doing so, in accepting the “flannel graph” version of Creation as presented to me in my youth, I miss the depth and the breadth of a beautiful pondering.

I miss God’s thoughts in the process, and to miss God’s thoughts in any process is to neglect one of his most sacred gifts to us as his children—

to think with the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:9-16).

Thus, rather than sitting on the backside of Creation’s completion … rather than pulling up a chair on a seventh day to sit and ponder the fruition of a week’s hard labor … I carry my chair to the front side of our beginnings. To the moments that gathered and filled and served as the prelude to our Genesis.

They are there, not figments of a wild maybe, but real moments that are yet to be recorded by man’s pen but that are fully scripted in the annals of heaven. Our God is eternal, and with Him is our beginning, our end, and our every breath in between. Accordingly, as the pages of our Genesis unfold, we find Him already present.

Waiting. Hovering. Contemplating the dark and the deep, the formless and the void, knowing that out of his cauldron of wet, he would pour forth and plant the fruition of his thoughts.

Somewhere between seemingly nothing and everything, God lingered with his thoughts and with the endless possibilities that were his to write. To create and to birth. To fashion and to form. To measure and to mold. To perceive and then to paint.

See God there, staring into the face of the deep and monitoring the reflection of his thoughts as they gaze back at him. Pause and consider the moment. Linger long enough and full enough to grasp, at least in part, the magnitude of your beginnings.

There, amidst the ripples of blue skies and earth’s grass, stars and galaxies, flamingos and bluebirds, peach trees and rose bushes, amidst the swirls and inklings of all manner of species, comes another ripple. Your ripple. Your face, presenting itself as a possibility on the canvas of God’s forever. Your life reflecting back into the face of your Creator.

Imagine that moment, and if you’re still standing, find your knees and your gratitude for the truth of such a beholding. Long before you imagined your Father, he imagined you and lovingly decided that, indeed, you would play an important role in his creation. That you would bare his likeness and that his “goodness” would be declared over you, even though he knew you would be prone to declaring otherwise.

Your created life didn’t begin inadvertently. It began with the thoughts of God, long ago and far way in a distant dark and wet that hosted his hovering and that boasted his canvas. You aren’t his accidental impulse. You are his intentional pause—his deliberate holding until such a time as this when your seed of his Genesis’ prelude has finally bloomed into the living witness of his creative genius.

That, my friends, is what pulling up your chair to the front side of creation will get you. A truth that exceeds your sixth day arrival. And while some would argue that God worked up to our creation—that somehow after five days of a busy work week he finally yielded his best—I would say that his best was birthed long before that sixth day ever arrived. Why?

Because thought precedes action.

Always.

In our minds and in God’s. And since his mind exceeds ours and his actions all the more, our faith should grow in the belief that we are and have always been seeded with his eternity. Indeed, it is a story that is much bigger than our occasional flannel graphs and our reasoned grasp. May God grant us the wisdom and the willingness to walk its depth and to speak its grace with the whispers of the Genesis prelude pulsing in our hearts as we go. Thus, I pray…

Thank you, Father, for thinking up me. For pausing long enough to count my ripple worthy of your kingdom canvas. I cannot fathom such grace, such favor on my behalf; nonetheless, you’ve allowed my voice a melody or two alongside yours, and I am undone with the gift. Thank you for the blood of your Son that counts me worthy of any measure of kingdom influence. You, alone, harbor the seeds of my beginning and the punctuation of my end. You’ve seen it all; you know it all, from the prelude of Genesis until now, throughout forever. May I always harbor the certain and secure faith that comes from such a sacred knowing. Amen.

Copyright © January 2009 – Elaine Olsen

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PS: This article recently appeared in the March Issue of “Exemplify” (an on-line ezine). To download the June issue and read other back issues, click here.

Waiting

“I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.” (Psalm 27:12-14).

Today has been a day of routine waiting. From the moment my feet hit the floor, it’s been full speed ahead, pushing the various duties of my life through the motions and then some more. It’s not been bad … just full.

In the midst of my commotion, God gave me a couple of moments. Moments I would have missed had I not been waiting. As I consider them now, they seem a better trade for the stress of my waiting.

First, I met Jenny and her infant daughter, Lily Ann. Like me, they were waiting in the office of a local oral surgeon. I was waiting for a consult with the doctor; they were waiting for “husband and dad” to emerge from his wisdom teeth surgery. After perusing magazines for over an hour, I finally put down the “Good Housekeeping” and made my way over to the couch where they were sitting.

Lily Ann was a delight. At six months old, she coos and smiles at the top her game. I couldn’t escape her drool or big blue eyes. Her mother, Jenny, was quite eager for me to engage with her beautiful daughter. At just twenty years of age, Jenny could have easily been my daughter. We talked and laughed and shared a couch for a good thirty minutes before her being called to pick up her husband at the side door of the building.

Prior to her departure, I told her about our church; she told me that since moving to the area five months ago (they are a military family from Athens, GA), she and her husband have been “looking” for a church. She grew up Baptist; I grew up Methodist, and when she asked me if we were close to being the “same,” I assured her that we were—that, in fact, God doesn’t look at our denominations. God looks at our hearts. I passed her my card, and we parted as friends.

One moment I would have missed had I not been waiting.

Moment two came on the floor of a local resale shop. My son was trying on clothes for his upcoming trip to Bolivia. I was contemplating my tired when a woman emerged from the double doors at the back of the shop. She made her way over to me and asked for my opinion about the two objects she held in her hands.

One was a polka-dotted cookie jar; one was an ornate flower vase, blue with gold etching. With some hesitancy, she stated her request…

“Which one do you think will hold more sand?”

“Excuse me, sand? What are using this for?”

“Well, my brother died yesterday; we’re having him cremated and will be taking him to the river to scatter his ashes. Which one do you think might work better?”

“Tell me what you think and then tell me something about your brother.”

And with that, the floodgates opened as Geneva spent the next fifteen minutes describing to me the events of the previous twenty-four hours. Bill died in his wheelchair while talking with a friend at his assisted living facility. Dead at the age of sixty-two without warning, leaving behind at least one grieving sister who was in search of his “casket” in a resale shop.

I hugged Geneva, told her I would be praying for her throughout the day and then encouraged her to leave the cookie jar and vase behind and head to “Michael’s” for her purchase. If I could, I would have gone with her, but this was not my journey to make. This was simply a divine moment given to me in order to “enter into” someone else’s pain.

One moment I would have missed had I not been waiting.

Jenny, her daughter Lily Ann, and Geneva. Three of God’s precious children waiting for me on the road of life today. I am not surprised by their arrival to my world; instead, I am profoundly thankful for the sacred intersection that allowed me a few moments of connection between my heart and theirs. What a privilege and blessing it was to be able to seed some comfort and love on behalf of the kingdom. God will do with it what he will; I am content to leave the outcome in his best-intentioned hands.

Moments. Split fragments of time that call for our notice and our willingness to engage with the heart of God’s people. We may not see them coming, but when they arrive, may we all have the good sense and the kingdom perspective to call them worthy of our attention and intervention.

Perhaps this day, you’ve known a “wait.” If not, I’m fairly confident that one is on your way. What you do with that “wait” is up to you. As for me, I’d rather spend it on behalf of a people who need to know the lavish love of my exceedingly good God. And while I don’t relish a long lingering in the doctor’s office or an unscheduled stop at the resale shop, I pause today to consider what I would have missed by not receiving their requirement.

I think this day better lived because of them; I think my heart all the more.

Live your moments like you mean them, friends. Make them count for something more than what they seem. As always,

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On Graduation…

I’ve heard it said before that “this life is but a dress rehearsal for the next.” If that’s true (and I happen to think there to be some merit in this understanding), then we are best served by paying closer attention to the scene changes in our lives … to the crescendoing moments that warrant an audience’s notice and applause therein.

When the shifting of a season takes center stage, God offers our hearts an invitation for reflection. We can either refuse its pause, or we can bow our souls to the moment to consider its worth as it pertains to the grander epic being played out in creation. If our “now” resembles in part our “next,” then there is value in the momentary pauses that fill our lives. Through them we hear the eternal whispers and glimpse the grander glories that await us on the other side of a long and, sometimes, fragmented obedience.

Center stage moments are God’s gift to us. I’ve authored a few of my own in the course of my forty-three years on this earth. More than these, I’ve sat ringside to the moments of those whom I love the most. This weekend holds one of those pauses for me. My son will graduate from high school.

I’ve walked this road before, thus granting me the benefit of hindsight. This one doesn’t sting as profoundly as the first one did. Not because this one is less important, less special, or any less embraced, but rather because familiarity removes some of the mystery of it all. I can better enjoy this milestone because the pain behind the first one wounded me deep enough to teach me … to shape and to modify my heart’s approach to the process.

There is worth in this moment. There was worth back then. But back then, I couldn’t see it. All I could do was muster enough strength to get through it. This weekend, I will have the privilege of soaking things in rather than soaking up my tears. Thus, I choose the pondering of a high school graduation and its merit as it pertains to the bigger picture. What is it about “turning the tassel” that speaks of a heavenly tomorrow?

Here’s what I think…

Graduations are launch pads. Behind them? Lots of time logged into the classroom of programmed learning. Ahead them? Lots of time logged into the classroom of experiential learning. One is the necessary predecessor of the other if the “other” is to walk easier—more truthful and more peaceful. Without the benefit of a preceding knowledge, our launching resembles a premature push from the nest that often ends with an unnecessary wounding. Sometimes the wounding is fatal, but more often than not, it leaves us with a limp that slows the process of our becoming.

There is a time to every season in our lives. This is my son’s graduating season. He stands on the launch pad of an incredible “next.” He’s ready to fly, and I’m ready to push, knowing that his wings have been fortified with eighteen years worth of feeding that have prepared him for the highs and the lows of the winds that are certain to follow.

He harbors just enough courage to take this step; I harbor just enough grace to let him do so. And between the two of us and our “just enough’s”, God is faithful to come alongside and offer his portion of “more than enough” to see us through this moment and to move us further into the promises of a better tomorrow.

There is coming a moment for each one of us … a graduation of sorts … that will launch us from the safety of our nests into the mystery of winged flight. The time we’ve logged into our earthly classrooms, coupled with the learning therein, will be the lynchpin to secure our safe passage. Some will launch prematurely, unable and ill-prepared to face the frontier of God’s forever. Some will launch at just the right time, with just enough courage and more than enough grace to land them safely into the arms of a waiting Father.

Either way, all will be required to make that step; thus, what you’re doing right now holds value for what you’ll be doing in God’s next. You may not think that this day’s unfolding matters for much of anything. You may think it matters little. But I think it all matters to God. Every scene of our lives—every mile we walk, every test we take, every prerequisite laid out for us in the curriculum of a heart’s shaping—is significant and necessary as it pertains to the turning of a final tassel when we stand before our Creator.

In that moment, God won’t be looking at the long list of credits that we drag behind us. Degrees and promotions and the applause of man aren’t enough to launch us toward eternal flight. No, what our God will be looking at is the heart that supersedes our fleshly gains. Did it beat for him? Did it walk for him? Did it love for him? Did it die for him? Does it, in any way, look like him?

That is the criteria for our graduation, friends. If we pass that test, then the tassel will turn, the diploma will be given, and the sacred commendation of our Savior will speak a final blessing of truth over our life’s journey…

“Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness.” (Matthew 25:21).

If “this life is but a dress rehearsal for our next,” then there is much to be learned via a high school graduation. I will be paying attention to the details this weekend. God is ever speaking. How I pray for a heart to be ever learning. Thus, I pray…

Keep me as a student in your classroom, Father, all the days of my life. Keep my heart in a posture that is willing to receive your instructions as vital and necessary for the road ahead. Forgive me for thinking that I “know it all”; forgive when I make excuses for “knowing too little.” Teach me just exactly what I need to know, and then fully grant me the courage and grace to walk in that knowing until I get home to you and receive my final graduation. Amen.

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