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Too Much Time On My Hands

What should I do with the extra time I have now in light of COVID19: This is a question I have been hearing from many these last weeks. For many people working from home, and those who unfortunately simply can’t go to work due to the governmental restrictions issued to quell the spread as quickly as possible, they are faced with more “idle time” than they have ever had.

Sure, you could binge-watch all kinds of shows on Netflix, which I know many people have been doing, but there are many other more life-giving things you could do with this nation-wide long-lasting “snow day” of sorts.

The current reality has created an opportunity for us to go deep with God and those closest to us. However, I know that the vast majority of people will not maximize this potential life-changing time because we lack the understanding and often the discipline to harness any time for the benefit of our soul.

The Apostle Paul gives us this sage advice in the letter he wrote to the church in Ephesus:

“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” ~Ephesians 5:15-16

Paul is making an assumption that he feels he needs to address. People often don’t make wise choices thereby missing divine opportunities that could change their life and bless a dark world.

In the book “Ordering Your Private World,“ author Gordon MacDonald writes about the LAW of UNSEIZED TIME. To his thesis, he relates that there are four laws about our extra time.

LAW 1: Unseized time flows toward my weakness.

 LAW 2: Unseized time comes under the influence of the dominant people in my world.

 LAW 3: Unseized time surrenders to the demands of all emergencies.

 LAW 4: Unseized time gets invested in things that gain public acclamation.

Right now we are moving through a moment that we have never been in before. So not only are we struggling with the change, we are confused about the unknown waters our lives have drifted into. Since there is not a specific end date to all of this, most people will simply waste the gift of time they have been given, and will most likely regret it later.

LAW 1 states that unseized time flows toward my weakness. This is so important to understand. MacDonald knows that we move toward the things we use to medicate our pain, the things we do numb out from the tension, or the things that are time wasters when we have an excess.

What is the weakness in your life that you gravitate toward?

What things do you tend to use to fill available minutes or hours?

Becoming aware of this is half the battle, but not the whole battle. Knowing where your unseized time flows wakes you up to the shadow that would betray and reduce you, however, you don’t have to let that win the battle. As your awareness is ignited you realize that you now can choose differently, and think differently.

Here are some powerful quotes from MacDonald:

“If my private world is in order, it will be because I have made a daily determination to see time as God’s gift and worthy of careful investment.” (68)

“Disorganized Christians rarely enjoy intimacy with God. They certainly have intentions of pursuing that camaraderie, but it never quite gets established. No one has to tell them that time must be set aside for the purpose of Bible study and reflection, for intercession, for worship. They know all of that. They simply are not doing it. They excuse themselves, saying there is no time, but within their private worlds they know it is more a matter of organization and personal will than anything else.” (72)

“If my private world is in order, it will be because I have determined that every day will be for me a day of growth in knowledge and wisdom.” (96)

The second LAW which states: “Unseized time comes under the influence of the dominant people in my world,” is also true. I promise you that if you don’t have a plan for your time, someone else does! Other dominant people will begin influencing your time allocation. This is especially true if you are a people pleaser.

Our current crisis is an opportunity for you to seize your time and leverage it for spiritual growth in the garden of your soul. To this end, MacDonalds states: “If my private world is in order, it will be because I regularly choose to enlarge the spiritual center of my life.” (124)

Your spiritual garden needs a gardener and that is you! To tend your spiritual garden well you need to know your rhythms of maximum effectiveness, have good criteria for choosing how to use your time, and budget your time far in advance just like you would your money.

DANGER: When we allow our unseized time to flow towards our weakness we lose some valuable privileges such as:

  • We will never learn to enjoy the eternal and infinite perspective on reality that we were created to have. Our powers of judgment will be substantially curtailed.
  • If the spiritual center of our private world goes undisciplined, a second privilege we will lack will be a vital, life-giving friendship with Christ.
  • A third privilege undisciplined spirits will lose is the fear of accountability to God.
  • Letting the spiritual center fall into disrepair means, fourth, that we lose the awareness of our real size in comparison to the Creator.
  • Finally, a neglected, disordered spiritual center usually means that we have little reserve or resolve for crisis moments such as failure, humiliation, suffering, the death of a loved one, or loneliness. (129-130)

A final thought…

One more reason many don’t use their unseized time to culture the spiritual garden of their soul is because they are afraid of intimacy with God. “What if God doesn’t like me if I show up?” “Ya know, God and I have this safe distance kind of relationship where I don’t ask too much of Him and He doesn’t ask too much of me, so we just kinda let it be.” Or, “If I enter stillness, silence and God’s presence, I am just simply afraid of what might percolate up from the deep waters of my life. Things I haven’t dealt with, things I am bitter about, things I have not forgiven, or even things I have wrongly done to others.”

If this is you, know that God is love, and His love will begin to dissipate the fears in your soul. He is longing and waiting for you to slip into His presence and receive His grace. There is no fear in love, for perfect love casts away all fear the Apostle John reminds us.

While our world is in COVID19 driven crisis, many have also been given a gift of time that can create the shalom we are longing to experience.

The choice is yours, don’t let your weakness win the current gift of extra time that sits before you.

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A Runners’ Prayer

“I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast!
And when I run I feel his pleasure.” ~Eric Liddell

Christians have been slow to the game. For a group of folks who talk a lot about prayer, the statistics show they rarely practice it. When they do, it is primarily a “Hail Mary” kind of moment hoping the divine will get them out of their current jam or to meet a specific need that that lives in the land of illusivity.

Most other world religions connect prayer to some physical act be it breathing, yogic positions, stretching, or as the Hopi Indians do, running.

When you link some type of activity to prayer, you begin to focus better, notice your humanity more, and connect to God’s voice and inspiration in a fresh way. 

If you know the story of Eric Liddell, he was the main character in the classic movie “Chariots of Fire” which centered around his gold medal Olympic race that almost wasn’t.

Liddell was known for and was to compete in the 200-meter race. However, that particular race was scheduled on a Sunday. Liddell experienced a crisis of faith when he found out. His strong conviction told him that he should go to church and worship God on that day. So, he declined to run the race he had prepared for.

Can you imagine that?

Training for an Olympic event and then declining to run because it interfered with his personal priority of going to church. In a time when people decline going to church because it is raining too hard, or it’s too hot or or or….I think you get my point. Liddell decided he would run the next race which was the 400-meter.

This wasn’t his normal race, nor what he trained for, but he decided to run it, and the rest is history as they say. He won the Gold Medal. After the race he said,

“The secret of my success over the 400-m is that I run the first 200-m as fast as I can. Then, for the second 200-m, with God’s help, I run faster.”

If you haven’t seen the movie put it on your list. The story is much bigger and beautiful than I can describe, but I have always been inspired Liddells’ famous quote in the movie: 

“I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast!And when I run I feel his pleasure.” 

I believe Liddell best connected with God while running. This discipline became a deeper prayer connecting his body, soul, and spirit to God.

I have many friends who are about to undertake a beautiful goal of running a full or half marathon to raise money for World Vision to bring clean water to areas where there is none.

A physical practice to achieve spiritual and physical goals. I believe God will meet them in a special way as they train. As they run they will notice how their focus sharpens. They will begin to hone in on the immediate moment whether it is because of fatigue, burn, or hard-breath. Their inner world will calm as they better unite with their outer reality. They will also have many “God I need you now” moments too!

With the right intention, their running will become for them a deeper spiritual experience, connecting them to God in a different way while making an impact for those who have no clean water. To me that is so good.

So for my marathon friends, here is a prayer I came across written by Lewis B. Smith Jr. he called his running prayer.

This is my running prayer Lord.
I run in praise of you.
I praise you with my motion.
You sustain my breath
That I may sustain your praise.
All creation joining in
Nothing in creation is still.
My world revolves as I run across it.
The heavens move as I run below them.
Everything moves in praise.
I move as I run.
I run a trail of blessings,
Giving and receiving both.
As I run I am blessed,
With moisture in the air
To cool my straining body,
Plants and trees nourish my breath,
That I may run further.
With birdsong to cheer me on.
Joining in unending praise
With the supportive murmur,
Of the flowing creek.
With passion in my arms and legs,
With burning in my chest,
That I may know that I am alive,
To have more to praise you for.
I leave blessings in my turn.
Water for plants,
Breath for trees.
This run may end.
The prayer will not.
I may slow.
I shall praise you still.
Your praise carries me.
To the limits of my body and beyond.
Hands outstretched in praise,
I run and collect bounteous blessings,
The rhythm of the pavement sings
A percussive song of power.
Not of my might.
Not of my strength.
But of the persistence of your spirit.
A regular rhythm of irregular melody
Breath in windy counterpoint
Still I run.
Still I praise
Ever the prayer runs on.

God gave us our bodies not only to live our mission through, but to experience His presence, purpose and power through.

When we integrate all of who we are we experience God in a whole new way. Let your body, created by God, help your spiritual journey and experience the kingdom of heaven that is within you and all around you.

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Light: Finding Francis part two

“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”
~The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi

Mic drop right? And Francis walks off the altar.
Francis masterfully links the images of physical light and spiritual light. This, he believes, is the gamechanger in the herculean struggle against darkness. Dark world, dark soul, dark depression, darkened hope, dark, dark, dark.

Current polls reveal that people who live their lives outside of the church or faith world are not choosing to come inside the church. Today, more than at any other time,  fewer people believe in God and many others who once filled a pew seat are living as spiritual nomads no longer seeing the church as the answer to their spiritual quest.

Why the decline?
Why is the church often the last place people go to find help and answers?
Why has the church lost her once unassailable position as a sanctuary in our turbulent world?

A drumbeat of answers heard playing out in response to these questions from church-goers and church-leaders generally say the problem is with our culture, our world, our politics or our theology.

“We are slouching to Gomorra!” “The end is coming” “We need new politicians” “We just need the Bible and prayer in schools again!”

However, if we are living as light, and instructing our kids to live as light, the presence and power of God should be everywhere we find ourselves whether Bibles or prayer are sanctioned or not. True we need ethical politicians, and I know many who are, but darkness still seems to roll in like a sleepy fog inching its way over the desolate moors of the political landscape even when they are elected.

If Francis is right, the answer is in the quality of a person, not the designation of a person. So, I wonder if it might have something to do with light or lack of it.

When you enter a space or room that is utterly dark a natural tendency is to start rubbing your hands along the wall where you intuit a light switch should be in order to splash on the light. If you are stuck in the dark, unable to find the switch, you will try anything to capture the smallest sliver of light. Without thinking you quickly grab and ignite your cell phone or instinctively squint your eyes hoping to seek out and capture shades of light. When that doesn’t help we go back to the drawing board desperately running our hands along the wall like a mime trying to find the switch, right?

So, I am thinking that if we feel darkness is so bad, no matter who you are, light is something you want.

Here’s where it gets tricky yes? If the church is supposed to be the bearer of light radiating out the beauty, grace, and love of God to people who are desperately mucking about in dark swamps, moors, and deserts, shouldn’t churches be packed with people?

Maybe the light that people are encountering these days isn’t actually light.

When people see followers of the light stand up for and defend darkness it’s no wonder they flee…
When sexism is promoted by demeaning and suppressing women, limiting their divine calling it extinguishes the light…
Saying “Come as you are” but really meaning “only come if you have no apparent and glaring sin or lifestyle difference” extinguishes the light…
Focusing on politics to the exclusion of what the Gospel of Christ commands (compassion, mercy, love, forgiveness) extinguishes the light…
When the message is one of hatred, bigotry, and isolationism, it extinguishes the light…

Francis danced in the light. He knew that it wasn’t about producing light, or creating light or enhancing light. He simply longed to be bathed in the Light. He knew in and of himself, there was darkness…until…the light of Christ filled him. With his soul full of divine light, his goal and driving purpose was to allow that light to lead him and illuminate his every breath.

On another “light” thought, Francis also said “A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.”  Here he declares the power of light is greater than the power of darkness which is wonderfully intoned in his famous prayer when he writes:

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;

Frances knew that we are light-bearers who cause darkness to evaporate simply by showing up, having been prayed up, and willing to be used up. When God’s light spills out of a full human cup, it’s fragrance is grace, peace, joy, compassion, forgiveness, and love. To these, darkness flees.

Francis’ love of God so wonderfully spilled over into his love for all that God created. Mountains, trees, birds, streams, stars, and people. Even in his love for creation, the light was the pinnacle. In the Canticle “Brother Sun and Sister Moon” he writes:

“Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him. And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor! Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

The sun simply shines…
Day in and day out she illuminates our world…
Her warmth is given to everyone without distinction…

The sun shines because it exists much like God loves because God is love. God cannot be other than He is. I cannot imagine the sun determining to stop giving light to a certain region any more than I could imagine God withholding love from anyone. The sun is light and warmth, just as God is love. When love becomes the inner fuel of God’s presence you will light up your world.

There is a cavernous difference between thinking you are light, telling people you are light, and actually being light. Jesus told His followers to “…let their light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16),

So, when we live out the light that is in us, people notice. But not only do they notice, Jesus tells us that they see the goodness of Christ within and give God glory.

Thinking that I am light can lead to an inflated ego…
Telling people I am light can lead to divisions and perceived judgmentalism…
Being light because you are filled with light is self-forgetfulness at its best. To be light is to acknowledge that you aren’t the light, but humbly long to be immersed in the light. This was the secret Francis found, and it changed his life and the world.

The light metaphor links us back to the sun. The sun warms, sustains life, and allows sight. The sun is an image of passion, consumption and purifying presence

The ancients asked, “Why not be totally changed into fire?” This was the goal of the Light of Francis. Not just an aid for the spiritual journey, but the consummation of the spiritual encounter with Christ. Why not be engulfed in the passionate, consumptive, light that is God revealed in His love?

I wonder if Francis allowed the closing words of the Revelation to form his thoughts on light?

I saw no temple in the city, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light. 24 The nations will walk in its light, and the kings of the world will enter the city in all their glory. 25 Its gates will never be closed at the end of day because there is no night there. ~Revelation 21:22-25

Did you catch that? It seems that when all things are finally redeemed, healed, and made new light is at the center of this new beyond Edenic reality for our eternity.
There will be no need for the sun, moon or stars. There will be no need for your powerful flashlight on energy creating centers. There will be the awesome, majestic, beautiful, sustaining presence of God revealed in light.

So, good…

May we choose to be totally changed into fire, may we choose to be light.

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Finding Francis: part one

I spent the year 2017 meditating on the writings of St. Francis of Assisi. It was a truly inspiring journey for me. I also read numerous books about his life and faith adventure. I experienced such good disruption in my soul as a result that I decided to work through my “Francis Encounter”  by writing a blog entry each week. I plan to expound on a thought, quote, or concept that I learned from Francis along the way trusting that it will aid you in your journey.

I believe the way of Francis is the best way to reclaim a world gone over the edge.

He launched a Reformation before the Reformation…
He saw the macro story of God in the micro story of all things…
He revealed his faith in God through his actions and his worship…
He cared little for the power structures and systems of his day…
He longed, with all his soul, to be united to Christ through love, devotion, and intimacy…

In his 44 short years of life Francis reformed the church and showed us how to be human, not super-human. So many of the stories surrounding Francis of Assisi paint a picture of a man who wandered through life-like a magnet of love. The creatures of the forest would gravitate toward him, eating scraps from his outstretched hands. A spiritual master who easily slipped in and out of heaven with little effort. A saint who floated over the trials of life will little effect, A sage who spoke the language of the stars and the insects and the unknown tongue of God.

Images such as these make Francis inaccessible, unapproachable, and too “other.”  They make him more divine than human, making it easy to dismiss the earthy, real, human life and invitation he offers to us all. As I have poured over his writings, and stories about him, I was thankful to meet a different Francis. A Francis who struggled and didn’t always get it right. A Francis that got angry, got real and suffered deep pain. But the remarkable thing about Francis was how he continued to lean into God when he fell off the path time and time again, getting back up, and stepping into the newness of grace each time.

It is this Francis we can follow. This is the man of earth, with dirt under his fingernails and regret in his gut. He helps us get up again, recommit our awkward spirituality to God with humility and hope, and experience a real life. It is in his authentic, raw, and broken humanness that we see his wonderful holiness.

The allure of Francis crosses the borders of believers and doubters, skeptics and faithful. He wasn’t trying to gain a following, in fact, the growth of his movement was somewhat of an irritation for Francis. He welcomed followers but didn’t really want to lead them. His longing was to immerse himself in the life of Christ so that he might swim in the unity of Trinity which would result in living a life of compassion, love, and justice. A life-like Jesus.

Francis knew that the spiritual world was significantly larger [if that term can even be justified] than the tangible world. That what we see in the physical is a portal to the spiritual. There was no binary thinking for Francis. His world was God’s world, everything seen and unseen. There is no dark corner where God’s presence does not also exist, including the darkened rooms of our sin affected soul. For Francis, the dualities which run our world were illusions to be dissipated through faith in the one who is everywhere and is everything good.

So, if the kingdom of heaven was somewhere out there, it was also in here, in us, with us. To experience the deeper places of God meant to more fully meet Him in our humanness. In order to reach into heaven, one must stand on earth. This gave Francis an amazing sense of God’s mercy which allowed him to approach the newness and grace that comes to us from God with every breath we take.

In his book “Eager To Love” Richard Rohr writes:

“Francis knew that if you can accept that the finite manifests in the infinite, and that the physical is the doorway to the spiritual (which is the foundational principle we call “incarnation”) then all you need is right here and right now–in this world. This is the way to that! Heaven includes earth. Time opens you up to the timeless, space opens you up to spacelessness, if you only take them for the clear doorways that they are. There are not sacred and profane things, places, and moments. There are only sacred and desecrated things, places, and moments–and it is we alone who desecrate them by our blindness and lack of reverence. It is one sacred universe, and we are all a part of it. You really cannot get any better or more simple than that, in terms of a spiritual vision.” (pg. 6)

In our day and age, people are hungry for something more… just as Francis was in his day. The current menu of moralism and ritual offered up by the church has by and large been received by the seeking multitudes in the same way broccoli and brussel sprouts cause a three years olds nose to crinkle up in disgust.

Men and women who hunger for something that they haven’t known or seen are looking for answers anywhere but the church, so it seems. When a Christian lives, speaks and interacts with love, grace, and humility, she is either seen as the exception or considered to be a pretender. The church lives in the land of duality but Jesus didn’t. The church seems incapable of living a “both-and” or a “now-and-not-yet” theology as Jesus and Francis did. The mindset of duality creates an “us” versus “them” mentality where we become a label factory identifying who is in and who is out. One main problem here is that every Christian tribe labels different kinds of people, well, differently. This leaves many confused, angry and disillusioned.

For Francis, there was no label maker, just the compassionate call to love those people God placed in his path the best he could, regardless of who they were, what their sins were, or even what their socio-economic background was.

Our world is longing to feel, be embraced by, and swim in the ocean of God’s love, but they aren’t finding it in the followers of Jesus often enough…so, they look elsewhere.

Francis cared for the poor.
Francis cared for the sick.
Francis cared for the earth and creation.
Francis cared for the hungry.
Francis cared for the seeker.
Francis cared for the marginalized.

This is the apologetic our spiritually starving world is waiting to see. They know it was in Jesus, some know of Francis, now they are waiting to see it in you and me.

Francis was free from the political, religious, and consumeristic machinery of his day. Faith, simplicity, compassion, and love were the driving force of this reluctant saint. Yet, he wasn’t always a saint. He was raised with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. His childhood home was one of wealth and status. He was born in the town of Assisi in 1181(2) to the given name Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone. His father was a cloth merchant which afforded Francis the opportunities to pursue pleasure and popularity. After a somewhat failed and short military career, Francis began a conversion process of faith in God which put him at odds with his family.

In 1206 Francis heard the voice of God when he was in San Damiano. The voice told him to “Go and rebuild my Church.” This invitation consumed Francis until he died at the age of 44 in 1226.

Francis lived out what he believed and taught. He was radical in his approach to faith and life. His love for Jesus consumed him and stoked the fires of his passion and mission. His message and his method are divine navigational stars for this generation to sail the seas of God’s kingdom here, with us, in us, and around us.

I’ll close this entry with Francis’ Te Deum (Praises to God). He wrote this for a friend, Brother Leo, who had been struggling with some form of temptation. When Francis heard of his friend’s struggle, he asked him for a piece of paper and wrote out the following praises to encourage his dear friend. May they encourage you too.

Praises To God

You are holy, Lord, the only God.
You do wondrous things.
You are strong.
You are great.
You are the most high.
You are the almighty king, holy Father, king of heaven and earth.
You are three and you are one, the Lord God of gods.
You are good, every good, the highest good, Lord God, living and true.
You are love.
You are wisdom.
You are humility.
You are patience.
You are beauty.
You are meekness.
You are a stronghold.
You are rest.
You are joy.
You are hope.
You are justice.
You are all one needs.
You are all the riches we require.
You are beauty.
You are meekness.
You are strength.
You are refreshment.
You are hope.
You are our faith.
You are our only love.
You are all our sweetness.
You are our eternal life.
Great and wonderful Lord,
God almighty, merciful Savior.

On the other side of the parchment he wrote a benediction to his friend Leo which said:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be
gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give
you peace.
May God bless you, Brother Leo.

…and may God bless you today too…Grace and peace.