The Losses we Don't Talk About

 If you've ever walked through the loss of an important person in your life, then you know that we don't handle grief well as a society. It makes us uncomfortable. We often try to rush people through stages of grief, as if they are a linear process we can just move through to get past the grief.

We expect people to grieve the loss of someone. And for the firsts without that person to bring sadness or anger. We may not be completely comfortable with it, but we expect it.

But, in the last six months, I've noticed that we don't really talk much about the other losses we face. And we don't expect them to be long journeys with grief. Nor do we realize that sometimes all we see is the big loss & we don't realize the many smaller losses that are rolled up in it.

I think the best way for me to explain what I mean is going to be to share my story of the last six months.

Six months ago, I unexpectedly lost what I thought was my dream job at the time. In the days & weeks that followed people generally expected me to not be okay. But, as the months went on & I started a new job, I noticed that many people seemed to assume I would be okay now. And were generally surprised when I told them otherwise.

I have more days when I'm okay than days where I'm not now. I feel like I can genuinely enjoy things, smile, & laugh again. But, I also still have many days - sometimes one, sometimes multiple days in a row - where I'm just not okay. That's the reality of grief.

I've also discovered it's not just the loss of my job I'm grieving. It's a long list of things tied to it that I'm grieving.

I lost may of the people I had spent my days with for the better part of 17 years.

I lost the purpose that came with the work that I did.

I lost the familiarity of what I did everyday.

I lost the sense of how my work really changed the lives of people. 

I lost the security of knowing what I did.

I lost the confidence that I could do my job.

I lost the vision of what my future would look like that I had.

I lost my trust in those I work for & with.

I lost many more things than I can name right now.

And most losses, are actually a whole lot of "smaller" things rolled up into the big loss that's obvious.

But, these aren't the losses we like to acknowledge or talk about. Because they're the harder ones to walk through.

If the only loss I was dealing with was the loss of my job, then finding a new job would been all I needed to move on. It's all those little things that mean I'm still grieving.

In his book "Grieve, Breathe, Receive" Steve Carter writes:

"You don't journey through grief, you journey with grief."

Rather than looking for people to be done with grief, we need to learn how to be okay with the uncomfortableness of grief.

How do we do that?

The most helpful thing we can do, is to let people be not okay for as long as they need. And that means we need to be willing to sit with people - even when they're maybe not the most fun to be with.

And we need to remember that grief isn't linear. The commonly referred to stages of grief are helpful in describing the various ways people will feel as they journey with grief, but we can't expect people to move through them in a linear fashion or to just have those feelings come up once.

Space for Quiet

 Do you ever make space for quiet in your life?

I started wondering this as I sat outside a coffee shop (where I have been spending a lot of time the last few months).

When I arrived, there was a loud truck cleaning out the grease trap of a nearby restaurant. The noise of the truck was all you could hear for a while.

When the truck finished & drove away, I was struck by the quiet that descended & the things it had drowned out.

The chirping of the bird hopping across the sidewalk, looking for crumbs dropped by customers.

The laughter in the conversations around me.

The leaves of the trees rustling in the gentle breeze.

The little things you only notice when it gets quiet.

This made me start to wonder about our spiritual lives & hearing what God might be saying to us.

We say we want to hear God's voice. but we have so much noise going on in our lives that it becomes easy to miss His voice. There isn't a moment when we actually slow down enough, where we turn off the noise to hear.

Even if our noise is good things, it can interfere with hearing God's voice if we don't ever turn it off.

Do you make space for quiet in your life?

Seeing People as God Sees Them

 What do you see when you past an unhoused person in your community?

Who do you see in the people involved in the drug deal you saw happen across the parking lot?

Do you try to ignore or walk more quickly past the person doing drugs on the sidewalk?

How do you react when someone whose behaviour doesn't fall in the boxes of what's normal walks into the space you are in?

I've had a few conversations recently that made me think about questions like these. They're not easy questions to think about or answer.

We all have an initial reaction. And I would guess that for most of us, it's a pretty judgemental response. Even as someone who works at an organization where we interact with those who are unhoused, people struggling with addiction and mental health challenges, and those whose lives don't fall within society's norms, I can be pretty quickly judgemental of what I see.

But, God is gracious enough to remind me that every person I see, no matter what their life looks like has value and is loved and is far more than what others see.

He reminds me as I hand a cheque to someone I grew up with, knowing they're going to go straight to the cheque-cashing place down the block to cash it to buy drugs. The money belongs to this person, so I have to give it to them. As I do, I remember how they found the humor and made everyone laugh all the time growing up.

God reminds me as I run into someone else I grew up with and they thank me for how I handled our last interaction. The last time I saw them they were very drunk and stumbling. I didn't push them away; instead, I wrapped my arms around them in a hug as they fell towards me. They didn't remember our conversation from that day, but they remembered that I put my plans aside and grabbed a couple coffees and sat with them while we waited for a safe ride home for them.

I didn't see in the moment of these situations how God was gracious to me in them. If you'd asked me at the time, I would have told you that I wished they hadn't happened. But, in the last few years, I've become incredibly grateful for these interactions, because they've taught me a life-changing lesson.

Genesis 1:26-27 says:

"Then God said, 'Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness' . . .So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them."

All of humanity is created in the image of God. It's part of our DNA. It's part of who we are.

The fall has buried that. It's difficult to see in probably most of the people you see on a daily basis. But it changes everything when we remember that.

These two people I grew up with were created in the image of God and they're loved by God.

The person who is unhoused is created in the image of God and they're loved by God.

The people involved in the drug deal are created in the image of God and they're loved by God.

The person struggling with addiction is created in the image of God and they're loved by God.

The person whose behaviour doesn't fit in is created in the image of God and they're loved by God.

When I remind myself that every single person I see in a day is created in the image of God and loved by God, it changes my thoughts and, as a result, it changes my actions. I don't look at certain people with disgust; I see them with compassion and love, as people who are worthy of respect simply because they're people created in the image of God and loved by God. I no longer wish harsh realities or death on people.

Instead of seeing the things that are easy to judge people for, I begin to look for glimpses of who God created them to be and call them out in them- even as they struggle and circumstances may not change.

So, I leave you with the question I'm continuing to wrestle with: How would you see and treat people, who you normally judge, differently if you reminded yourself that everyone is created in the image of God and loved by God?

What We Need to Say & Do Instead (Part 8)

 I've spent the summer talking about things we need to stop saying. As summers draws to a close and my list of these things is all written about, I feel like it's important to take a moment to look at the other side. If we're supposed to stop saying some things, we need to have something to do or say instead. I know I wrote about that in some of the posts, but the others were more difficult.

As I wrap up this series, I'm realizing that it all comes down to actually taking time to have a real conversation and really listen to what someone is saying. So much of the time, we end up challenging situations because we're not really listening to each other.

Or, what the person is saying makes us feel uncomfortable, so we respond with a platitude hoping that will end the conversation on that topic and our discomfort with it. But, while our comment may end the discomfort, it perpetuates the pain, the struggle, and the desire to really be seen and heard by the other person.

Our culture doesn't teach us to listen well, or to engage in conversations that bring discomfort. We learn how to distract ourselves and disengage from these conversations. But, that actually is why there are so many thing we need to stop saying. We only sort of listen most of the time and get in trouble because of what we miss.

Ultimately, we need to take the time to actually pay attention to the other person in the conversation. Instead of looking for a quick response and a way out of a conversation that might be somewhat uncomfortable for us, we need to take the time to have a real conversation. To really listen. To ask questions to understand more. To care about the other person in the conversation.

What Do We Do Now?

 Horrifying. Saddening. A light shed on the atrocities committed.

This news has continued to come over the last couple months. The horrors of children ripped from their homes, and ultimately being buried in unmarked graves. Missing the dignity of a proper burial and a chance for family and friends to say good-bye. The terrible reality of things done in the name of country and in the name of God.

Things that never should have been allowed. Things we quickly condemn when we hear about them happening in other places. Things that break the heart of God and should break the hearts of those who claim His Name today.

As I've watched this unfold. Heard the news. Read the reactions. I've wrestled with how to respond myself. With how to even try to make sense of any of this. How do I respond? What can and should I do?

To be honest, it's only in the last few years that I've become more clearly aware of this lengthy part of Canada's story. I wasn't trying to ignore it, but I'd never heard much about it.

It's unfortunately easier than I thought to come up with explanations and reasons. To keep it at a distance that means I don't have to do anything. 

But, I don't want to do that. I don't want to continue in the patterns of the past. It doesn't do any good for anyone.

While I would never compare what my family went through leaving everything behind when they fled the persecution they were facing and came to Canada. But, I did learn an important lesson from stories my great-grandparents told about their experiences or the experiences of their parents.

I learned how important it is to really listen and care about another's story. Not listening to confirm your opinion or understanding. Listening to hear the other person and what they're saying.

I had a quote from Beth Moore come up again recently that explains what I'm trying to say better than I can:

"We cannot have compassion if we don't go sit with people and enter in to how they see it."

As we grapple with what has been discovered - as a country, as a church, as individuals - we have to learn to sit with people and enter in to their experiences of this part of history. Not to analyze, or argue, or convince them of something. But to learn what it was and is like for the other person.

This isn't easy. It takes hard work. It's hard to hear. As Danielle Strickland writes:

"Presencing yourself to enter into the other person's experience. To be part of the joy and the pain. This is the most transformative part of listening and the hardest one to allow yourself to do."

But it is exactly what we need to do. We need to really listen to those who are still living with this. To those who still deal with the results of this terrible part of Canada's story. To those who live with the pain.

We cannot ignore this. Or try to pretend it didn't happen or it wasn't that bad.

It's only in really listening that we can begin to heal. That we can begin to move forward.

What Can I Do?

What can I do?

How can I fix things?

These questions, or some variation of them, are the most common questions I've been getting recently from people, mostly married, who have read at least some of what I've been writing.

I've tried to offer practical suggestions as I've gone, but sometimes I haven't had a specific answer for what I've written. I'm still not sure I do, but I've come to one conclusion that applies universally to all of this. Really, it applies to any interaction with any person in our lives.

Before I get there though, I want to address an unspoken and probably unrealized implication of these questions. Asking about doing or fixing makes it sound like a project of some kind. Like there's some sort of "one-size-fits-all" solution out there that just has to be applied and everything I've written about will just go away.

Guess what? That solution doesn't exist . . . because this is about people and relationships, not projects to fix or complete.

Gina Dalfonzo puts it into words better than I could:

"Single people aren't projects to be fixed. We're fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, making the journey through life alongside the rest of the church, and dealing with a set of circumstances and experiences that take a lot of grace and strength to handle - which can't always be easily fixed with advice, scolding or rules." (One by One: Welcoming the Singles in Your Church)

I\m not sure that first sentence can be emphasized enough: "Single people aren't projects to be fixed." Approaching things this way doesn't help - it actually hurts all involved.

So, maybe, instead of "what can I do" or "how can I fix it" we need to ask a completely different question. One that goes beyond just looking for a solution and gets to the heart of the relationship and community aspects all of what I've been writing is really all about.

Maybe the better question is actually:

What do we all need to do differently on our part to move through these challenges?

The answer is really not that hard to say. But, living it actually proves to be much more difficult.

Dalfonzo writes:

"If I could take one guess at what the single person is your pew might say to you, given the opportunity, I would guess that it's this: listen. Please listen. Take the time to ask questions, to let the person answer, to hear without judging or jumping in with canned Christian formulas or buzzwords." (One by One)

Listen.

Ask questions.

Don't just look for the quickest advice you could give. Most of the time, advice isn't even necessary.

It's really as simple and as difficult as that.

When I'm in a conversation with some and I say something about being lonely, I'm not looking for advice or instruction on what I should do to change that. And I'm definitely not looking for advice on how to find someone to marry so "I'm not lonely anymore." I don't need to be told that I should be content with life right now.

In that moment, I'm just looking for someone to acknowledge that I feel that way and that it's hard. I just need someone to care. If you can make plans with me to do something to help with that feeling of loneliness, great, that's bonus I'll always appreciate. But, if you just listen and acknowledge how I feel, you've done more than most. And it makes a bigger difference than quoting Scripture or other people's advice at me.

I have a few friends who are really good at listening, asking questions, and caring. They're the ones I'm going to reach out to what I've struggling with some of the things I've written about recently. And I hope I do anywhere near as well as they do when they're coming to me with a struggle they're having that I may not have experienced.

Listening is key. It's where we have to start. It's what we have to keep doing. It really is the answer to what we can all do to make a difference as far as loneliness and the connection with others we need goes.

Slowing Down to Listen

We live in a world of constant noise and activity. There's always something we can do or listen to that fills the time and the silence. We've actually become really bad at being quiet or being still.

But, I wonder what we're missing because of it? I wonder what the real cost is?

Obviously, we can see and experience the physical cost. The most common thing we talk about about is how busy we are. Often followed by how tired we are.

There's a relational and emotional cost. Relationships with people take time we say we don't have. And when we're constantly on the go, our emotions can easily overwhelm us.

But, I wonder if we really stop and think about the spiritual cost of all this busy-ness and noise? Or, have we become so used to it we no longer realize there's a spiritual cost?

Just as relationships with people take time and energy from us, so does our relationship with God. Just as we need to take time to sit quietly and listen to those we want to have relationship with, we need to do so with God.

But, in our busy-ness and the constant noise of our lives it can be easy to forget this. We try to substitute a quick devotional thought or listening to a preacher while we do something else for the time we actually need. But, in doing so, we miss so much. The spiritual cost of doing so is high.

It's a trap we can easily fall into. I know I do it more often than I want. And we have to intentional about slowing down enough to listen. We have to be intentional about turning off the noise do we can really hear what God is saying to us.

It's actually one of the reasons I look forward to the month of January at my church. As a church, we set aside 21 days for prayer and fasting. The specifics of what this time looks like may be different for all of us, but we get intentional together about slowing down and being quiet enough to hear God's still small voice speaking to us. Taking time to re-calibrate our lives as we being a new year.

I guess the challenge I have for you as I finish this is to reflect on whether you need to slow down and turn off the noise to listen again?

Have you gotten so caught up in the busy-ness and noise of our world that you're paying a spiritual price you don't even realize?

Do You See ___________?

In the last little while, I've been struck by how little we often see the people around us. I'm not talking about realizing there are people around. I'm talking about something more, something deeper.

It's easy to go through life and make quick judgements of people based on what we notice at a glance.

They're . . . . . busy

             . . . . . rude

             . . . . . homeless

             . . . . . addicted to drugs

             . . . . . annoying

             . . . . . pushy

             . . . . . not worth my time.

I make those judgements easily, as I'm sure most of us do. But, they're never the full picture. We're making them hastily and they're incomplete.

Do you see ___________?

How would those judgements change if we took a bit more time? What if we started looking beyond the fast, easy label we could put on someone? What if we really started to see people?

Jesus asks this question to a Pharisee in Luke 7. The end of Luke 7 recounts Jesus at a Pharisee's house for dinner. A woman with a sinful reputation comes and pours perfume on Jesus' feet. Simon, the Pharisee, judges this situation. Jesus see  Simon's hear and challenges him on what's going on it. Simon took one glance at this woman and judged her as sinful and someone he would not want to touch him.

Jesus asks Simon, the Pharisee, an interesting and challenging question in Luke 7:44. Jesus turns toward the woman and asks Simon, "Do you see this woman?" Jesus isn't asking Simon if he noticed the woman was there. He's asking a deeper question. He's challenging Simon on what he notices when he looks at others.

And in the same moment, Jesus is telling the woman that He sees her. That He sees beyond her reputation. That He wants to free her for more. Jesus isn't excusing her sinful reputation, or saying it doesn't exist, but He's saying there is more to this woman that just her reputation.

Jesus does the same thing in Luke 8:42-48. A woman who had been bleeding for twelve years touches Jesus' garment and is healed. When Jesus asks, "Who touched me?" it's not because He's upset with her or trying to figure out who did it. Jesus is asking because He wants to let the woman know He sees her. For a woman who had been a societal outcast for twelve years and had people ignore her and stay away, this would have been life changing, just as the physical healing was. Jesus was truly seeing her and calling others to as well.

Both of these accounts challenge me on how I do at seeing people. AM I making judgements based on a quick glance and some assumptions? Or am I taking time to really see people?

Maybe those few seconds of pause where we look at someone again and change our response will change everything.

Do you see ______________?

Speak Lord

Speak Lord

Your servant is listening

Seeking Your guidance

Desiring to know Your ways

Speak Lord

Your servant is listening

Pursuing You

To know You more

Speak Lord

Your servant is listening

Teach me to hear

To recognize what You say

Speak Lord

Your servant is listening

I want to follow You

To obey what You have to say

Rest

Running

Constantly running

From one place to the next

No time to pause

No chance to catch your breath

Will I ever get to rest?

Hurrying

Always on to the next

Never stopping to really see

The people you are passing

Blind to need, to pain

Will I ever get to rest?

Busy-ness

A calendar too full

No space to breath

No times for those you love

No time for laughter

Will I ever get to rest?

Slowing down

Making space to stop

Slowing down

Creating time to breath

Slowing down

Taking time to see

Listening

To people all around

Hearing

What they're really saying

Loving

Walking alongside

Resting

Escaping from the busy-ness

Resting

Something we really need

Resting

A beautiful gift from God

Going our Own Way

"This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says:
In repentance and rest is your salvation,
          in quietness and trust is your strength,
          but you would have none of it.
You said: No, we will flee on horses.
          Therefore, you will flee!
You said: We will ride off on swift horses.
          Therefore, your pursuers will be swift!
A thousand will flee
          at the threat of one;
at the threat of five,
          you will all flee away,
till you are left
          like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
          like a banner on a hill.
Yet, the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
          therefore, He will rise up to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
          Blessed are all who wait for Him!"
                                                   -Isaiah 30:15-18

God told Israel what to do - how to live their lives under His blessing. They chose to do something else. God was laying out for them the consequences of their behaviour. But, even then, God hasn't given up on them.

As I read these verses, I'm struck by how much this same scenario can play out in my own life. I think it's common in the lives of many - sometimes in big ways, but more often in little ways.

God tells us what He has for us to do in this time. He gives us the way to find the salvation and strength for everyday life that we are looking for. We might have even asked Him for it. But, we don't want it that way, so we refuse. We rebel and choose disobedience to God.

Our rebellion and disobedience has consequences in our lives. God doesn't just let it slide. He will let us live with the consequences of our choices.

But, there is still good news for us. Even when we refuse to obey and our dealing with the consequences of our sine, God still longs to show us compassion. If we turn back to Him and His ways, He will be gracious and we will experience His compassion.

Is there an area in your life where God has shown you what to do and you've decided to go you own way instead?

Are you living in the consequences of your disobedience?

Will you confess it to God and turn from it?

Once we have done that, we are able to walk forward in the life God has planned for us.

Refusing to Listen to Truth

I've been studying the prophet Isaiah recently and I've been struck by some thing in Isaiah 30. The words in this chapter relate quite well to our lives as Christians today.

Isaiah 30 is titled "Woe to the Obstinate Nation" in my Bible. And it's a chapter detailing some hard lessons Israel would learn for their turning away from God.

As I've read and studied this chapter, I've realized there are some important lessons we can learn through it.

 Isaiah 30:10-11 says,

"They say to the seers,
          'See no more visions!'
and to the prophets,
          'Give us no more visions of what is right!
Tell us pleasant things
          prophesy illusions.
Leave this way,
          get off this path,
and stop confronting us
          with the Holy One of Israel'."

                                   
How often do we say these things?

How often do we refuse to really hear the truth because it's not what we want to hear?

I think we do this more often that we would admit. If not with our words, than with our actions. If it's hard or unpleasant, we want nothing to do with it. We push it away - often at great personal cost, because it's what we really do need to hear.

It is the truth that comes from God that is the only thing that can set us free. Sometimes the truth will be hard to hear or it won't be what we wish it was. But, even then, maybe especially then, we need to listen to the truth being spoken and work through it to see how it needs to change us.

We don't want to get to the point Israel had in this chapter of Isaiah. They were trying to silence those who spoke the truth because they didn't like the message. We don't want to become so opposed to the truth that we try to silence those who are speaking the truth.

Is there some truth God has been trying to tell you that you don't want to hear?

Are you willing to listen - even if it's hard?

When you hear a hard truth, take the time to ask God about it. Ask Him to help you understand it. Talk to another mature believer about it. Don't assume just because it's hard, it must be from God.

But, let's not be people who run from the truth when it is hard.

When Prayers Don't Seem Like They're Being Answered

How many times have you prayed for something only to feel it wasn't answered the way you wanted and were praying for?

If you're like me or others I've asked that question to, the answer is probably more than once.

When this happens, it can shake our belief in the power of prayer. We can begin to wonder if the time and energy we invested in the prayer was worth it.

I've been in this place a few times and I've had to wrestle with the questions that came, trying to make sense of it. In some of those instances it has seemed like it would be easiest to just give up. But, then I'm reminded of all the times I've seen prayers answered and it reminds me of who I keep praying.

During these times of questioning, I've come to realize a few things about prayer and what seems to happen in response to our prayers.

God made us with the ability to choose in every situation and He doesn't remove that just because someone is praying. God will provide the opportunity and He will use people and circumstances to point people to Him and the plan He has. But, those we pray for still have a choice to make that will decide what the situation looks like as it plays out.

Our prayers still play an important part. There is a spiritual battle we can't see, but is always going on. Even if we don't see the outcome we were praying for in a situation, our prayers were important because they are fighting that spiritual battle. They were a part of the removal of obstacles to the people we were praying for being able to hear God. Yes, that person still had a choice to make, but our prayers helped to remove the obstacles to hearing.

I don't know about you, but that reminds me that my prayers are important no matter the outcome of a situation.

Calming the Storm

That day when evening came, He said to His disciples, "Let us go over to the other side." Leaving the crowds behind, they took Him along just as He was in the boat. There was also other boats with Him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke Him and said to Him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
He said to His disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"
They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him."
                                                                                                                 -Mark 4:35-41

I can find it hard to imagine what it would be like to be in the boat when Jesus calmed the storm. One minute you're in the middle of a violent storm and the next everything is completely calm. All because of Jesus' words. I get the disciples' reaction to it.

This isn't just a thing of the time when Jesus was on earth. His words still have the same power to calm the storm today. It's not always a physical storm, in terms of wind and waves and danger of drowning. The storm can be the circumstances around us, the emotions of a situation. All sorts of things can be the storms of our lives.

When we're listening for His voice, we hear Him speaking to the storm.

When we cry out to Jesus, as the disciples did, we can hear Jesus' voice speaking.

. . . Speaking peace when worry, anxiety, and fear over things we can't control is raging.

. . . Speaking truth when lies are dragging us down a dangerous path.

. . . Speaking encouragement when it feels like too much for us to keep on going.

. . . Speaking guidance when the path to take is obscured.

. . . Speaking courage when fear of the storm has pushed us into hiding.

Jesus continues to speak to the storms in our lives to calm them. Even if the storm continues to rage around us, His words can be the calm that keeps us persevering and clinging to Him.

What storm in your life do you need Jesus to speak to right now?

Will you take the time to listen for His voice speaking to it?

The Right Soil

The Parable of the Sower in Mark 4:1-20 is a familiar one.

A farmer goes out to scatter seed. There's four places the seed lands:

• Path - where the birds eat it up right away
• Rocky Places - where it springs up quickly but doesn't last when the sun comes because there is no root
• Thorns - where it gets choked by the thorns growing around it before it can really take root and grow
• Good Soil - where it takes root, grows, and produces a crop

Each of the soils represents a heart and how receptive it is to the Word of God.
In some hearts, it will be snatched away before it even try to grow.
In some hearts, it will begin to grow, but won't last when hard times come.
In some hearts, it will be choked out by the worries and anxieties of life.
In some hearts, it will take root and produce fruit in their lives.

I've always heard this parable spoken of in regards to salvation. It's a pretty clear application.

As I was reading it recently, I was struck by how this applies to more than just salvation. The same concepts continue to apply to our hearts after salvation as well.

We continually have a choice in how we'll respond to God's voice in our lives. When He speaks to us, our hope may be that those words will always take root in our lives and bear fruit, but that's not always the case. Those words can land on any one of these types of soil when we're believers as well.

Sometimes we've wandered away and given Satan access he shouldn't have and he uses this to grab the words before they have a chance to grow.

Sometimes we're not will to deal with the sin in areas of our lives and when the word speaks to those areas it grows quickly but doesn't last because there's no way for the roots to go deep.

Sometimes our focus shifts and we get so focused on the worries and anxieties of life that they choke out the words of truth God is speaking.

Sometimes our heart is receptive to what we're hearing and we respond in a way that brings what God desires those words to bring in our lives.

What kind of soil is your heart right now?

One Deadly Thing we do Too Much

Comparison kills.

It kills . . . friendships.
            . . . ministry opportunities.
            . . . joy.
            . . . satisfaction.
            . . . our relationship with God.

I was reminded of the deadly role of comparison recently. It didn't seem like it was a big deal. It was just a passing thought. But, a few hours later, I realized that momentary thought was having a deadly impact on my ministry in this situation.

As I sat with a group of people praying together, the thought crossed my mind that the other people in the group seemed to pray more eloquently and with more smoothly flowing words than me. I quickly dismissed the thought as being ridiculous - I mean, why would anyone compare that?

It wasn't until a few hours later that I realized the impact of that passing thought. I didn't pray much in that group after I made that comparison. Even a fleeting comparison of my prayers to others' prayers had killed that time of engaging in prayer ministry in that situation. And, if I'd left it undealt with would have eventually killed any prayer ministry opportunities in the future.

Comparison is an insidious plan from Satan to kill what God wants to do in and through us. In the moment it seems harmless. We think nothing of it. We often miss the impact it has on us until later.

Comparison keeps us held back in fear. We're not good enough. We'll never do it as well as someone else. Comparison leaves us cowering in a corner trying to protect ourselves, rather than living the life God wants us to live.

John 10:10 says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full." Satan is the thief that comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Comparison is one of the tools he uses to do this. It's an effective tool in his arsenal because it can seem harmless in the moment.

Jesus offers us life - an abundant life - if we choose to follow Him. He invites us into a life we couldn't imagine on our own. We have to step out and trust that He is with us in it - that He will never fail or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Even when comparison would kill us, when we're facing our own insecurities about how to do something, we choose to trust God and go with Him.

I fight each day against falling to the comparison game that always leaves me wanting. It kept me from doing what God asked me to do for far too long. Now that I know what comes when I don't give in to comparison, I don't want to do back. But, it's still a choice I make daily and I still have to deal with moments when I give in to the comparison game again.

The difference comes when we choose to go to God with it when we begin to make those comparisons. Instead of giving into the fear, the need to protect ourselves, the death that comes with comparison, we need to seek God's perspective on the matter.

When I realized the comparison I had made was having a negative impact on things, I instead asked God for His perspective on what He was seeing there. I asked Him how He saw me in that setting. As my perspective changed, I realized that it's not eloquent or smoothly flowing words that make prayers effective, it's the heart behind them. And that meant my comparison was worthless and an attempt by Satan to steal, kill, and destroy in my life.

Then I had a choice to make. I could continue to believe the lie that came from the comparison, or I could choose to believe God and see things from His perspective. But, I had to choose. I couldn't be passive about it. I had to make a choice and act from that point.

We all have that choice when we realize we've gotten caught in the comparison trap. We can stay there and allow that comparison to kill. Or, we can ask God for His perspective and change our view on the situation. What will you choose to do?

Do You Doubt God's Voice?

I've often doubted if what I thought I was hearing was really God's voice. Or if it was just my own thoughts. And I've talked to others who feel the same way.  We know God speaks, but we doubt it's actually Him when He speaks to us.

As I've been reflecting on the Christmas story these last few weeks, I've been struck by how so many of the people involved heard God speak in some way and they knew it was God. Scripture doesn't record that doubt kept them from believing that it was God speaking to them. And this after 400 years of silence from God. Even then, they still believed God about some things that may have sounded a little crazy and scandalous.

An angel appeared to Zechariah in the Temple to announce that he and his wife would be the parents of John the Baptist. He didn't believe perfectly, but he knew that it was God speaking to him. Luke 1:11 says, "Then an angel of he Lord appeared to him . . ." Zechariah knew it was God speaking to him - even if the message brought sounded impossible.

Luke 1 goes on to provide the account of the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary to announce that she would be the mother of Jesus - the promised Messiah. Mary had questions about how it would happen, but she did choose to believe. Verse 38 records her response to the message from God the angel brought, "I am the Lord's servant, may your word to me be fulfilled." Again, she heard God speak and she believed him.

Now, it could be easy to dismiss these two examples because the appearance of an angel seems like it would be easier to believe the words. But, in both of these situations, the message brought would be challenging. A son in your old age. A son when you're a virgin. Not exactly the easiest things to believe.

And then there's Joseph. God spoke to him as well, and he chose to believe God and follow through on what he was told. Matthew 1:20 tells us that "the Lord appeared to him in a dream." God's words to Joseph to take Mary as his wife even though she was pregnant wouldn't have been an easy message, but Joseph didn't doubt they were from God.

Luke 2 talks about a man named Simeon who was at the Temple when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus as required by the law. He has been told by God he wouldn't die until he saw the Messiah. When he saw Jesus at the Temple, he knew exactly who this baby was.

If Zechariah, Mary, and Joseph believed these messages from God when they heard them, what made them sure they were from God? What gave them the confidence to trust that these hard and scandalous messages were actually from God?

I think some words in how they were described provide the key to that.

Matthew 1: 19 described Joseph as "faithful to the law."

Zechariah and his wife are described this way in Luke 1: 6, "Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commands and decrees blamelessly."

Mary is described as being highly favoured by God by the angel who came to her in Luke 1:28.

Luke 2: 25 described Simeon as righteous and devout.

All of those descriptions speak of people who chose to follow God - to seek God and to know Him. It's because of their relationship with God that they had learned to recognize God's voice. They knew Who He was. They knew what He had said in the past. And because they knew that, they knew this was God, and they knew they could trust what He was saying. This was where their confidence to believe and to act on what they heard came from.

This challenges me in my own walk with God. To be continually seeking to know God better. To develop a relationship where I more easily recognize God's voice and am ready to believe and act on what I hear.

How do we Hear God's Voice?

It's not often we're pointed to the truth of God's Word and God's ways on popular TV shows. But I was reminded of the importance of listening for God's voice and learning to recognize it a few times recently as I was re-watching a few seasons of one of my favourite shows.

In a few of the episodes I've watched recently, the topic of God speaking to us and how do we know if it was God or not has come up. I think those are questions we can often wrestle with ourselves:

• Does God speak to us?
• How does He speak to us?
• How do I know if it was God speaking?

I know those are questions I've wrestled with in my own walk. And they're questions that I think are ones we continue to to learn more about all the time.

As I keep growing in my relationship with God, I become more convinced that He speaks to us. And I learn more about how He speaks and how to know if it was God. It's a journey where I don't expect to arrive at the end while I walk on this earth.

When it comes to relationship, it's something where we're always learning and growing. With our friends, the longer we call them friends and the more we take the time to get to know them, the more we recognize things about them easily. The same is true in our relationship with God - the more time we spend with Him, the more easily we will recognize when He is speaking to us.

In the TV show I was watching, one of the characters said something about asking God and then listening carefully for His response. That line stuck with me because I think it's the key to all of this. We have to create space to listen for God's voice.

Just as we create space to listen to our friends, we have to create space to hear God speak. We can't just quickly pray and then move on to the next thing. We can't just quickly read a few verses in our Bible and then run to the next activity we have planned. It our time with God is just to check the next things off a "to-do list," we don't recognize God's voice speaking to us.

To recognize God's voice when He speaks, we have to create the space to learn to listen for His voice.

We begin by learning to linger over our prayer and Bible reading.

We begin by intentionally creating space.

And as we learn to recognize God's voice more in these intentional times, we learn to recognize God's voice when He speaks in the midst of the busy moments of our lives as well.

Five Minute Friday: Turn

Joining in with the group over at Five Minute Friday this week. This week's prompt is "turn."

When do I get a turn? Why do I have to wait for my turn? Do we always have to wait for our turn?

We don't wait well for our turn. We get impatient when we're waiting. It doesn't come naturally to us to wait for our turn. 

Yet we often find ourselves having to wait until it is our turn for things. We're standing in line waiting for our turn. Or maybe we've heard something from God about what is coming in our future, but we still have to wait for our turn for it to happen, because someone else is in that role right now.

Maybe we often need to wait our turn because God has something He wants to teach us in the waiting. Instead of getting impatient while we wait for our turn, maybe we need to learn to look for what God is teaching while we wait.

Learn to Stop Running so we Can Listen

"I really need to take a break and get away."

"I'd just like a few moments of quiet, but I don't know if I can find it."

"I know it's important to take time to get quiet and listen to God, but I just don't know how to fit it into my day."

"I can't put my phone away for any amount of time. What if someone needs an immediate response form me?"

How often have you said those things? Or though them?

I've noticed that we like to talk about our need for rest from the daily demands of life. We can articulate the reasons why we need it. We can point to Scripture that says we should do it.

But our practice of it doesn't seem to line up with our talk. We don't do well at practicing what we talk about. I don't do well at practicing what I talk about sometimes.

I've been challenged in this area of my walk with God this summer (as many of my recent posts indicate). And as I've learned how to step into this more, I've realized just how much we miss when it's not a regular part of our lives.

It's only when we stop running and silence the noise of our lives that we can hear from God. In the midst of our fast-paced, noisy culture, doing so is difficult. We're conditioned to expect an instant response and to try to do multiple things at once. Putting off the response to that text or email until later and doing only one thing at a time takes practice for us to learn how to do it well.

The danger comes in never learning to do it well or even to do it at all. We try and it feels too hard, so we quit trying. Or, we try it and the interruptions keep coming, whether other people or our own thoughts, so we give up trying.

But, this is something we have to learn because it's counter-cultural. It will take time to learn, because it's counter-cultural. Instead of expecting to do it well the first time, we need to begin expecting we won't do it well, expecting to get distracted.

Then we'll begin to discover the value in taking the time. That's when we'll realize a desire for it. That's when it becomes a regular part of our lives and our actions will begin to match up with our talk.

We can't begin expecting it to be a lengthy time. That's not realistic when we're learning anything. We have to teach the muscles what to do and how to do it repeatedly. We build the strength and endurance slowly over time.

We have to start small when we begin to make it a regular part of our lives. And build it from there.

I've always looked up to people who could take days or a week or longer and spend it with God - having shut off the distractions and noise of the world. I wished it was something I could do. I wanted God to give me the ability to do it right away.

But in the last few years, I've discovered it's something developed over time. It starts with a small chunk of time and it grows as we practice it more. As we develop the muscles and endurance for it.

Where are you at with this?

Is it time to start the regular pattern of time to rest? To start small with lots of grace for yourself as you learn and develop the muscle?

Is it time to take the next step in this? To take more time and stretch yourself? All while still offering yourself grace as you grow?