living God’s truth | Elaine Olsen

A Building Matter…

April 28, 2009

“Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD says: You are not the one to build me a house to dwell in. I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought Israel up out of Egypt to this day. I have moved from one tent site to another, from one dwelling place to another.’” (1 Chronicle 17:4-5).

I have little time to be here today, friends. Still and yet, I’ve been stuck in 1 Chronicles 17 for the better part of an hour and feel like I want to say something. Nothing new on my end; “saying” something seems an easy fit with my personality. That being said, not all my “saying” is worthy of the “saying.” Are you following me?

Even if you’re not, there’s something I want to say to you. Something I think that God would like for us to remember as we go about the business of our day, desperately trying to “build” a life that matters. We’re all busy building something.

Careers.
Bank accounts.
Families.
Ministries.
Reputations.
Kingdoms.
Faith.
Followers.
Futures.
Agendas.
Selfishness.
___________________ (you fill in the blank).

Regardless of the “dressing” we’re wearing this morning, whether it be a hard hat, a whistle, and briefcase, some overalls, or, perhaps even our pj’s from the night before, you and I woke up to build something this morning. And while our intentions may operate from the purest of motives, nothing will build as lasting … nothing will frame as enduring… without the hands of God in the mix.

Here’s the deal. As Christians, we’re tempted to think that “If we build it, He will come.” Sometimes it seems to happen that way. But there’s a danger in thinking that the work of our hands and hearts can contain the holy presence of Almighty God. Our “building” may sound good on paper … might even match up with the truth of God’s Word and even receive the prayerful support of a well-intentioned committee or a home-team advantage.

But unless God builds it, we labor in vain … in our prideful attempts at trying to make God happen rather than simply letting God be. Where he will. When he will. Moving from one tent to another as he will.

You and I are that tent. As New Testament believers, we house the presence of the living God in this covering of our flesh—a temporary covering that will soon trade in for the eternal cloaking of a forever structure. Wherever we walk, he walks. God inhabits our flesh in order to build his kingdom through us, most days in spite of us. Most days we get it backwards. Most days we move ahead of God’s process.

We build and then we ask and then we wonder what went wrong. Why isn’t it working? Why isn’t the all-consuming fire from God descending upon our precious altar of hard work and sacrifice and causing it to burn with all the fervor and purpose of heaven? Why do the offerings of my brother or my sister’s heart seem more pleasing to God? Where is my payoff for doing something for kingdom?

Oh friends, we mean well. Really we do, and I believe that God honors our meaning well. We can’t always see on the front side of our laboring which way it’s going to go. Sometimes we just jump in with all the wild and wooly of a well-meaning trust, and rather than smacking us down immediately, God tenderly esteems the “want to” behind our building. He sees our hearts that are eager to do something … to be something … to work toward something that will matter in the end.

He doesn’t balk at our desire. Instead, he simply asks us for the shaping of that desire. For us to bring our desire before him … to sit with him in uninterrupted pause and consider the “building” together. As the “tent holders” of an extraordinary King and his kingdom therein, we carry the weighty responsibility of bringing Jesus into the mix of our everyday doings.

Wouldn’t it be better to consult him before dragging him into the work of our hands? In doing so, we might save ourselves a heap of heartache and disappointment on the front end of a long labor.

Regardless of your current building project, God is with you. Whether you started it in vain or whether you’ve sensed his fingerprints from the very beginning. God doesn’t abandon us mid-stream. He may not be a fan of our plan (and therefore calling us to change course), but God has and always will be a fan of our hearts. He understands that we won’t always get it right. That sometimes we let our dreams about “building something bigger” eclipse his dreams about “building something lasting.”

And I don’t know how you stand on the issue, but as for me, I’m after a “something” that is going to last. God determines the size of the building, and whether it is a big thing or a small fraction of that big, it will be a perfect fit into a perfect plan that constructs a perfect kingdom within a perfect forever.

I can live with that. Indeed, I can run with this one. Thus, I’d better get out of these pj’s and get on with my moving on. God’s got something to build through me; you too. And while we may not be able to see the fullness of the plan in this moment, we can be confident that there is one. May we all have the good sense and willing heart to sit before our Father this day and ask for it rather than assuming our wisdom and strength enough to build it. Thus, I pray…

Forgive us, Father, when we think ourselves worthy of building our lives in isolation. Your hands build everlasting. Mine build to dust. Keep me mindful and humble of the chasm between the two. Keep me thankful for the grace that covers my willful ignorance accordingly. Amen.

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PS: Whew… that’s a lot of saying for someone who doesn’t have much time today! That being said, I believe someone needed to hear it. I certainly did. If you want to take further time with this concept, please read 1 Chronicles 17 and see what God might be saying to you about your current “building” project. Mine looks a whole lot like a WIP (work in progress) near completion, but that’s another post for another day. Shalom.

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.

a mother’s grip … a Father’s shadow

April 19, 2009

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’” (Psalm 91:1-2).

I noticed it today while perusing my family Easter photos.

My grip on my son’s arm. Fingers that were content to grab rather than to gently frame. It is a telling photo, friends. One that speaks a witness as to the current condition of my heart. Mine is a heart gripped by the fragments of a broken trust. A heart that is afraid to believe that all is, indeed, well with my soul and that all will continue to live well in the days to come.

God is my shelter, my rest, my refuge and my fortress. In Him, alone, I need to put my trust. I don’t always do it, but I need to; thus, I will speak it, even if I don’t always fully feel it. Why?

Because it is the truth. God’s truth. And His truth is based on fact, not on emotions. If emotions were the rule of the day—the foundation behind our reasoning—our building of anything is as naught and crumbles to a quick death and dust accordingly. That is why truth exists apart from feeling. Feelings often come as a rich flavoring to truth but cannot be relied upon to paint a whole and accurate picture.

I know. I spent most of my forty-three years painting an inadequate faith. Over the past few weeks I’ve been faithful to add a few more brushstrokes to the mediocrity. It doesn’t paint extraordinary, friends. Instead, it paints usual, average, customary and just plain ordinary. Perhaps even less.

There are reasons behind my less. There always are. We don’t live less faith because we suddenly decide that “less” is a better swallow than “more”; there is always a driving force behind our less, and for me, that force has been rooted in a deliberate and difficult inward pause to examine the passage of time.

How quickly it comes; how easily it goes, and how fleeting is its remembrance once it has passed.

I notice it more profoundly these days. Age does that. Having a son turn twenty does that. Having a second child graduate from high school does that. Having conversations with aging parents does that. Having a daughter who has finally become too heavy to carry does that. Having a reflection that wrinkles and a frame that wearies does that. On and on I could chronicle the ways in which I’ve noticed the uncompromising and severity of a clock’s ticking.

And while I’ve long wished for the passage of time in younger seasons, this is the season when keeping it contained seems more urgent, more pressing and increasingly, more necessary. This is the time when the hugs squeeze tighter, the grip holds firmer, and when the words “I love you” speak clearer. Forty-three years of passing the time have given me a gift of sorts.

The gift of understanding … of realizing just how profound each moment should live. Consequently, when it’s not living … when moments collect and accumulate and are lived like moments to burn … well, I struggle. It seems they should, each one, live better—breathe with meaning and walk on purpose.

Good in theory; more difficult in the carry through. Why?

Because we somehow have fooled ourselves into thinking that time is ours to control. That another day is ours to live. That what was left undone in our today can be taken care of in our tomorrow. That moments can be replicated, redone and replenished because forty-three years have afforded us the witness of their abundance. That tomorrow … that next week and next year … well, there will be more.

That’s the difficult tug of my heart, friends. The struggle of my trust in this season of living. I want more moments that matter. I want to be a conscientious time-spender. I want to capture time, not squander it. I want to profoundly seed my light and influence into the lives of those around me, and then I want to watch them grow and multiply and burgeon beyond my initial investment.

What I want is time. What I’ve been given?

This moment in time. Right now. My isolated heart beat. My breath that goes in and out of me like a vapor. That’s it.

There are likely to be a few more beyond this one, but who am I to say? Who are you to make me that promise? God holds our bookends, friends. Our beginnings and our ends. In between, we are given but a few moments of influence on this earthen sod. They are passing in swift order and will soon be the history of another generation to remember.

And while it shouldn’t make me sad, while God doesn’t intend for me to stay mired in my emotions regarding time, He’s allowed me a moment in this season of living to pause before its authority over my life and over the lives of those I hold dearest.

It is a worthy pause, and as I continue to mine its worth, I do so seeing another picture emerge from an Easter family photograph. Zooming out from my initial grip on my son’s arm, I see something else. I see a shadow. A father’s arm … a husband’s arm that frames both my son and me into the bigger picture. It is a telling photo that speaks a witness as to the current and always condition of my Father’s heart.

A sheltering love; a shadowing rest. A refuge and a fortress Who holds time as a friend, and Who holds me within its grip for good reason and for extraordinary purpose. This is a picture I can trust. This is a faith I can believe. This is the sheltering that I need, thus I pray…

Keep me there, Father, nestled within your shadow and content to abide close near your heart. Frame my life within the timing of your will. You’ve given me my beginning; continue to shelter me as I journey toward my end. You are that end, God. May the moments that I walk forward from this one be filled with the shadowing truth that all moments walked with you, walk living and on purpose. Thank you for a Love that will not let me go. Amen.

Copyright © April 2009 – Elaine Olsen

Go Ahead … Live Your Easter

April 13, 2009

“The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: “He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.” Now I have told you.’”

Now what?

I don’t know about you, but this past week has been one of the busiest I’ve had in a long time. Bible study, two family birthdays, lunch dates, dinner dates, Easter egg hunts, Easter baskets, Easter clothes, and all manner of preparation that surfaces between the cross and the empty tomb. Couple that with the fact that the Easter weekend is “on time” for a clergy family, and, well, you get the picture. And while not quite as chaotic as the Christmas season, this Easter pilgrimage has come pretty close.

Christ doesn’t mean for us to come to the cross with our harried approach at “doing” remembrance. He means for it to sink in … to root deep and to linger long and hard after our well-meaning attempts at fostering reflection have been packed away for another year.

There’s something a bit flawed about the way we remember. Something so seasonal and so liturgically tied to a calendar that doesn’t quite fit with what it means to live the crucified life—an always and “on time” daily walk that never strays too far from a bloody cross and an empty tomb. When we compartmentalize our faith by calendaring our remembrance, we often come to the end of it with a sense of confusion, emptiness, and a question or two that voices the conflict of our understanding.

Now what? Is this all I get for my well-intentioned efforts at reflection? Wasn’t I supposed to feel more? Remember more? Be more profoundly affected by my intentional pause for contemplation? Now what? What’s next? Where do I go from here, and will my “going” necessarily move me any closer to knowing Jesus and to being a woman who is intimately connected to his heart? If not, then why bother?

Good questions; ones that have surfaced for me this day. Not because I don’t see the sacred merit in calendared reflection. We need moments of intentional pause. Left to ourselves, we rarely take it upon ourselves to reflect and to remember. No, my questions about “what’s next?” have little to do with the formalities of my “doing” faith and more to do with the realities of my “living” faith.

Jesus’ followers mirrored some of my angst. If any group of people reserved the right to voice a “now what?” it was them. A couple of days of not knowing … of remembering and of smelling the stench of an egregious death … was enough to warrant a few questions. Weighed down by their grief and confusion, they came looking for answers. What they received would by the lynchpin to secure their continuing faith.

“‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’”

With those few words of angelic proclamation, a people renewed their hope. Their faith was “saved” because their Savior was saved … rescued from the sting of death and “going ahead” of them to prepare their hearts for his resurrected unveiling.

As it was for the disciples almost 2000 years ago, so it is for us.

You and I have a “go ahead” Jesus. A Savior who has “gone ahead” and sacrificially paved the way for our “go ahead.” Jesus Christ hasn’t left us alone with our questions. Instead, He’s drawn the map for the answers. He’s done so because he understands that, left to ourselves, we are but aimless wanderers, bungling our way through life, and tripping over the jagged edges that present their fierce resistance to our further understanding.

Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He’s “gone ahead” of us to prepare for us a place of everlasting permanence. He’s ever on the move, clearing our paths and extending his grace so that when we come to our Galilee, we, too, will see Him in his resurrected glory and will know in our hearts the certainty of an Easter’s boast.

“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’” (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).

Our “go ahead” Jesus holds the answer to that question. He continues to shape our understanding accordingly. Easter, 2000 years ago, should never be relegated to a calendared moment. Instead, it should be the heralded moment that we hold out as our candle to guide us as we go ahead in our following hard after our “go ahead” God.

There is abundant hope and life that comes with knowing that our Jesus has “gone ahead” and readied the road for our feet. He’s cleared the path, friends, and the hem of his garment is within reach … just ahead and close enough to touch if we are willing to move forward in his shadow.

What’s next? Now what?

He’s what.

Thus, may we all have the good and willing sense to fully tread and to fiercely trust as a passionate disciple in hot pursuit of the Savior.

He has risen; He is waiting. Go ahead now, from the empty tomb, and find your resurrected Lord. Today is the day of your salvation. Believe it, receive it, and get moving forward in the truth of Easter this week. You and I were created for such a journey. May God’s Peace be our portion as we go. As always,

PS: My kids are on spring break this week, and I am in need of one also. Accordingly, I’m going to take some time to tend to my youngin’s and to my soul. I’ll be around to see you but won’t be here on a consistent basis. Blessed Easter walk to you all… from my home to yours! Shalom.

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