Devotions

I have often struggled with New Year’s resolutions—primarily because I rarely succeed in following through. But over the years, I’ve realized that one reason I fail is that I tend to aim too big. I bite off more than I can chew. Then, I beat myself up. Another issue: I expect results to happen much sooner than they actually happen. “I’ve been at this for three weeks now… Why am I not skinny yet? Gahhhh!”

Here’s the thing: I think we often approach our spiritual lives the same way. We decide we’re going to grow in our faith, so we pile on commitments: praying more, reading our Bible daily, joining a study, giving more of our time to this, and donating more money to that. These are all wonderful goals, but sometimes we don’t realize just how much time and energy they’ll require. Or we assume that by doing these things, we’ll feel like completely transformed people overnight. When that doesn’t happen, we throw our hands up in disgust with ourselves.

Have you ever seen What About Bob? starring Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss. The first time I watched it, I despised it. “Bob,” played by Murray, got on my last nerve. I’ve since grown to appreciate the movie—especially its iconic one-liner: “baby steps.” Before we can even take big, adult-sized steps (not to mention leaps), we need to start with small, baby steps, and that’s okay. That’s true in our physical lives; it’s also true in our spiritual lives.

As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3:2,
“I gave you milk to drink instead of solid food, because you weren’t up to it yet.” (CEB)
There’s grace in that.

Even though John Wesley noted that it was possible with God’s help for someone to experience a complete transformation of life in an instant (I mean, God is God, and all things are possible with God!), he noted that for most of us, it takes time. Change is incremental, and that’s okay. That’s grace. And know this, God doesn’t sit around waiting for us to change all on our own. God is continually taking the initiative to invite us to make baby steps of change and giving us the ability to do so! That, too, is grace.

But Wesley also believed that refusing to take those baby steps is to refuse God’s gift of grace, grace that nourishes us and enables us to grow.

So, what’s my point? If you made resolutions to grow in your faith this year and feel like you’re failing, give yourself some grace, because God is giving you lots of grace! Take some time to reevaluate your hopes and goals. Were they too big? It’s not a failure to adjust them. In fact, it’s wise.

Consider inviting someone you trust into your discernment. Do you have a pastor who is willing to walk with you? Is there someone who you go to church with that you respect and trust? Is there someone you have journeyed through life with that you find inspiring or helpful?

And remember: don’t compare your faith journey to someone else’s. The baby steps that work for me may not be the steps God is inviting you to take. That’s okay. Some of us may make first steps by starting with prayer, Bible reading, or study, while others may need to begin with an act of service. The important thing is to take your step, not someone else’s.

That said, don’t dismiss opportunities too quickly just because they may not seem like the “perfect fit.” I encourage you to give new things a solid try. And if they don’t work out? It’s not a mistake. God’s grace is present in every step, and God can use anything—even what feels like a detour—to help you take your next (baby) step of faith. That’s grace.

Then the one seated on the throne said, “Look! I’m making all things new.” He also said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Revelation 21:5 (CEB)

At the church I currently serve, I developed relationships with two members named Luke and Gerritt. One of the things I most enjoyed about them was that we’d play guitar and sing together. For a long spell, we got together almost weekly to jam. Sometimes, we simply played. Sometimes, we were prepping for opportunities to share our musical fun with others (i.e. a wedding; a fundraiser for Imagine No Malaria; sharing music in worship), but most of the time we were just playing music. This consistent practice of making music with others made me more consistent in playing on my own to learn parts of songs we were working on. To me, this was a real spiritual practice (even though we seldom did “Christian” music) that enlivened me, helped put me in a better place, and helped me to connect with our creative God.

First, Gerritt and and his wife, Melanie, accepted an opportunity to move to California. Then Luke and his wife, Abby, got the chance to move back to North Carolina. Then, I was at a loss. I just couldn’t find a reason to play guitar as I no longer had something to practice towards. So, I seldom picked up my guitar.

Then COVID hit. I had seen some friends and family doing virtual “concerts,” so I decided to do that. I did about three, and then Facebook declared, “Unless you have the rights to perform a song, don’t perform it on Facebook,” thus ending that. But something had changed. Suddenly just the music itself was reason enough to play. Don’t get me wrong, I still miss playing music with others; there is real creative joy in being able to feed off of other musicians’ licks and phrasings. But suddenly, I just wanted to play.

For years, I had wanted to try to play jazzy fills like Oscar Moore did in the Nat King Cole Trio, so I worked on that. I’m a big T-Bone Walker fan (many of Chuck Berry’s iconic licks find their genesis in Walker’s licks), so I started trying my hand at some of his takes on the Blues. I’ve long been enamored with the way session guitarist Reggie Young played (he played guitar on Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away” and Billy Swan’s “I Can Help” to name a few of the 150+ cross-genre hits he played on), which led to trying to learn some of his phrasings. I’m a long way from mastering their styles, but it has added to my repertoire and reinvigorated an important spiritual practice for me.

One of my seminary professors, M. Eugene Boring, brought home an important distinction about the above verse. It says, “Look! I’m making all things new.” It does not say, “I’m making all new things.” That’s the thing about resurrection. God doesn’t simply make new things. God transforms what is existing. And resurrection is more than something that happened to Jesus in the past or something we hope for in the future; it is a daily occurrence with God.

I do believe that there are times that spiritual practices have run their course, and it is perfectly fine to find something new. But on this day of celebrating resurrection, could it be that a spiritual practice that you’ve found meaningful in the past simply needs to be transformed or re-envisioned, not replaced? My hope is that you will take on or transform meaningful spiritual practices – or maybe realize you already have one.

Keep on practicing, because practice makes possible. Happy Easter!

How beautiful upon the mountains
   are the feet of a messenger
   who proclaims peace,
   who brings good news,
   who proclaims salvation,
   who says to Zion, “Your God rules!”

Isaiah 52:7 (CEB)

I lay there in amazement for a few moments thinking, “Wow! I can fly! I can really fly! I want to do that again!” And suddenly sadness set in. I had been dreaming.

It was a rare Sunday afternoon that I got to take a nap – an actual, intentional nap on our bed, not the dose off in the chair nap where I wake up with a neck ache. It was not more than an hour and a half, but it was enough to experience what is probably the most vivid dream I have ever had with an exhilarating sense of flying. Actually it was more like skating through the air as that was the motion I was making to fly high above and around the hospital where Micah had been born with a birds-eye view. But I awoke grounded.

Today we continue a celebration that started last night, a celebration: of angels appearing, speaking, and directing lowly shepherds to witness a child’s birth; of shepherds finding their voice and joyfully telling of this birth; of a bright star in the sky directing foreigners to find that child when so many of his own people failed to notice.

But we wake up and wonder, “Was it all a dream?” Though we are told that the world has changed, the world really doesn’t seem all that different than before. There is still meanness, hatred, fighting, ignoring, obscuring, greed – just to name a few of our ills. It’s all so short lived. Even an Elvis Christmas song asks, “Oh, why can’t every day be like Christmas?” Things seem so cheery and perfect for a fleeting moment, and then it’s back to normal. Where is the good news?

   “How beautiful . . . are the feet of a messenger. . . .”

On this day, we tend to focus on the birth of a child. We focus on God’s gift to us. But how often do we focus on the gift of invitation to us that comes from this birth, this gift? Do we realize we are invited to be messengers as the angels, shepherds, and magi were? Do we see that Jesus came not simply do to things for us but to invite us to into a way of life in which we follow him with our cross (Luke 9:23), doing the same works that he did (John 14:12)? Jesus offers us the Cup of the Covenant, and covenants always place obligations on all parties.

One of my favorite songs by blues singer Lowell Fulson (sometimes credited as Fulsom) is “Sleeper.” “Nothing comes to a sleeper but a dream,” he sings. It’s time to wake up and get to work. It’s time to live into God’s dream for the world. God invites us into the work of making God’s dream come to fruition, working with God so we all become the people – as individuals and communities – that God created us to be. I believe that it is in this beautiful work that we find our joy, joy that can last all year long.

Merry Christmas!

Where could I go to get away from your spirit?
Where could I go to escape your presence?
If I went up to heaven, you would be there.
If I went down to the grave, you would be there too!

Psalm 139:7-8 (CEB)

It was not supposed to go like that.

The day before, the senior pastor had talked to the terminally ill church member on the phone. She was weak and knew the end was near, and she wanted the pastor to drop by for a visit.

This person was a dedicated wife, mother, and church member who truly inspired us all. Though I couldn’t know what was going on internally, on the exterior she faced down her cancer diagnosis as if it were just one more step on the journey. If she had doubts she’d survive, she didn’t show the majority of the church. In fact, she tried to have fun with it, turning up week after week with wildly different wigs on her chemo-induced bald head. None of us expected cancer winning.

I had literally only been on a church staff for about 2 weeks, my newly minted title being “Ministerial Assistant.” As such, I had never even done a pastoral hospital visit before; so, the senior pastor thought it would be a good learning experience for me and the youth director to tag along. When we arrived the morning after the phone call, we realized that her prognosis had gone from a few days left to minutes.

I remember the pastor asking the husband and daughter if they would like us to leave, but we were invited to stay. We joined hands around her while each of us staff members said part of a short prayer, then we stepped back for the family to be close.

Not only had I never done a pastoral hospital visit before, I had never been in the room of a dying person. Let me just begin by saying it was surreal. For some reason, I felt a deep sense of joy that I truly could not explain and for which I was feeling guilty. How could I dare feel joy in such a sad happening? I remember looking at the pastor and seeing a gentle smile on his face and wondered why he had that.

Now, had he still just been my pastor (I had attended this church for a few years before they created this position for me), I probably could have talked to him about this strange feeling, but now he was my boss. I simply couldn’t go there. So, I meandered around for weeks in this strange, silent guilt for feeling joy.

Then, one day in my pastoral care class in my first semester of seminary, a hospital chaplain was visiting. I’ll never forget these words he said, “When you are in the room of a dying person, you are standing on holy ground for Christ is in that room.” In that instant, I knew the source of the joy I was feeling – a joy that I suspect the family couldn’t quite feel – but I knew without a doubt that God in Christ in the Holy Spirit had showed up for them, for us as the pastoral staff, and for this dedicated woman.

As I have struggled with feelings of guilt for not being with my Dad when he passed (and anger for not knowing he was that near the end), I take comfort in knowing that God was there. Dad was not alone. The God who never leaves us shows up in just the way we need God. God always shows up.