Notes of Faith January 20, 2024

Notes of Faith January 20, 2024

Hoping through Grief

Mike Nappa’s book Reflections for the Grieving Soul was written after his dear wife, Amy, passed away from cancer. Mike sought refuge in Scripture when bereavement became his constant. Here’s a little of what Mike wrote in forward for you:

If you’re reading this book, your world has been irrevocably changed by the death of someone you love.

I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

You are in an awful time. And you deserve help as you grieve.

Right now is unbearable, I know. Forget about “one day at a time,” right? Let’s shoot for “the next ten minutes” and see how that goes. That’s why this book exists. For you, for me, for the next ten minutes.

So this is my prayer for you now, after the funeral:

May God be noticeably near to you. May the promises and pains of His Word comfort you today as they did for me yesterday. And may they give us both the strength we need to wake up and face tomorrow. Or at least the next ten minutes.

*

I hope that when I’m gone, you’ll still see God’s goodness. Still see His love for you. Still find joy in each day. ~ Amy Nappa, Journal entry, July 8, 2016

But God knows the way that I take, and when He has tested me, I will come out like gold. — Job 23:10 NCV

Before she died, I asked Amy to write her own obituary. I just couldn’t do it. I told her I would put in the appropriate dates, but she had to do the rest. So she did.

May God be noticeably near to you.

This is how she wanted to be remembered...

Amy Wakefield Nappa was born on November 10, 1963, in Portsmouth, VA, to Norm and Winnie Wakefield. She moved to Heaven on Sunday, September 11, 2016.

Amy was a sister, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and a friend. She loved her family and her friends dearly. Her greatest joys were to spend time with family, to hang out with her friends, to laugh, and to mentor those a little behind her in the journey of life.

Amy loved Jesus with all her heart, and her greatest desire was to be remembered as a woman who shined the love of Jesus.

Looking at this now, months later, I feel a touch of pride. She was everything she said in this obituary — and much more. She left out the parts about how she was a successful business executive, a bestselling and award-winning author, a woman whose published works influenced the lives of millions of people in nations all over the planet, a speaker to thousands, and (because she ranked it highly in her life) an annual volunteer at the “Imagination Station” of our local VBS productions.

Amy changed the world. I’ve asked myself how she did it, how one little woman living an obscure life in a small town in Colorado could make such a difference for millions of people. The only answer I can come up with is this:

Amy’s greatest desire really was to be remembered as a woman who shined the love of Jesus.

That was just who she was; it was natural for her. And God used Amy just being herself to shine His love through her and spray it out into the world. And when she suffered, when her body failed her and her faith was tested in the extreme, she was still just Amy being Amy, shining His love on all of us who were near.

It was the worst time of my life.

And the most extraordinary time I’ve known.

God knew the way that Amy took, and like Job of old, at the final end she came out shining... like gold.

PRAYER FOR TODAY

Dear Father, I think I’d like to shine — just a little bit. When I’m tested today, may Your Spirit be the help I need to come out of everything shining. Like gold.

Amen.

Excerpted from Reflections for the Grieving Soul by Mike Nappa, copyright Nappaland Communications, Inc.

There is great loss and grieving when we lose a loved one. But God knew all along when these things would take place and has plans for the one left behind. May you be blessed in knowing that you are in God’s hand and that He cares for you!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 19, 2024

Notes of Faith January 19, 2024

Jesus’ Favorite Subject

There’s something we’re all yearning for... and it’s about to happen.

So let’s talk about this “Kingdom of God” thing. It’s a phrase that freaks people out (“Is this a political or theocratic thing?”), but it’s also perhaps one of the rare terms that can be simultaneously alarming to some while being incredibly boring to others.

For a lot of church people, the Kingdom of God is a topic that doesn’t move the emotional needle. I think I understand why. I’ve noticed religious talk can become like wallpaper to me if it seems like it doesn’t relate to my daily life.

So what is it? The Kingdom of God is wherever the things God wants to get done get done.

When Jesus taught us how to pray, He told us to ask for more of it.

Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.

— Matthew 6:10

We all have our own kingdoms. And sure, your kingdom, or my kingdom, might be a small sphere of influence, but we all have one. The Kingdom of God that Jesus described is stunning, surprisingly subtle, and the exact opposite of boring. It’s life-giving.

I think when we really get it, we go from being freaked out or bored by it to loving to talk about it. Jesus sure enjoyed it. In fact, it was Jesus’ favorite subject.

I tried to make this point when I was a guest speaker for a big gathering of high schoolers and faculty in a Christian school gym. In retrospect, I don’t think I did it very well. In retrospect, I see that perhaps I shouldn’t have said what I said quite the way I said it. Yes, in retrospect, I can see clearly now.

I asked them, “So what was Jesus’ favorite subject? What did He talk about more than anything else?”

Some brave kids hazarded some good guesses. “Love?” “Oppression?” “Hypocrisy?” “Money?” “Hell?”

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

“Wait: Nobody knows Jesus’ favorite subject that He talked about all the time?” I asked. And then I said that thing I maybe shouldn’t have said, now that I think about it: “What kind of ‘Christian’ school is this?”

In the ol’ rearview mirror, I probably shouldn’t have said that. Hindsight is 20/20, et cetera. I meant it as a joke, but... yeah... they were real nice people, I’m sure. Sorry I said that thing I said. My sense of humor is dry and odd. And the bluntness? I’m not above blaming the Asperger’s. In fact, I think I’ll do that right now: it was totally the Asperger’s.

But even though I didn’t say it quite right, and even though they never asked me back, it really is true: the Kingdom of God really was what Jesus was here to tell us about. He said that’s why He was sent, to “proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God” (Luke 4:43). But few seem to know it.

Jesus kept trying to explain it to us. Over and over. He unpacked it by telling stories about it and comparing it to things we can understand.

The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed...

The Kingdom of God is like a pearl...

It’s like a man who holds a wedding feast...

It’s like some yeast that a woman took to mix with some flour...

He was not just giving us dry theological concepts. He was describing something, something worth giving everything for. It’s something worth falling in love with.

For Jesus, “The Kingdom is here!” isn’t just good news. It is the good news.

It’s the gospel. It’s the whole point, and it’s a point I’m afraid we’re missing.

When God is in charge, healing happens. Chaos turns to beauty. A field of trash and ashes is reclaimed, and it becomes a place for the rejected and broken to dance.

This Kingdom is really, really good, and here’s my theory: we all want it, deep down, even people who won’t admit it and don’t even believe in it.

And here’s another of my weird theories — one indicated by goose bumps: we all get brief flashes of it in life, fleeting impressions that leave us moved or yearning for more. We may not even be able to explain why. There’s a German word for this, because they have a word for everything: It’s fernweh, which literally means “farsickness.”1 It’s feeling homesick for a place you’ve never been.

C.S. Lewis wrote about this desire for our own “far-off country.” He said he even felt shy talking about it, because it’s so deep within us it seems like we shouldn’t even name it. We’re not quite sure what the yearning means, or where it came from. We might be a little embarrassed by it.

But for some reason, he wrote, we do have this longing for something that’s never actually happened to us. It’s not enough to just relive something beautiful we’ve encountered in the past.

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was long- ing. These things — the beauty, the memory of our own past — are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.2

When a writer for Atlas Obscura asked readers what places evoke this sense of farsickness, a lot of people mentioned Irish coastlines or the highlands of Scotland. But many others responded with poetry, or fictional places like Lewis’s Narnia or Tolkien’s Middle-earth.3 (I would go with the Shire. I don’t even have to think about it. But that’s me.)

Good filmmakers, I believe, know exactly how to tap into this. They can combine sound and image to evoke this nostalgia for places we’ve not been. We tear up. We get goose bumps.

I believe this is part of our longing for our real home. It’s the Kingdom of God, where every tear is wiped away from our eyes. Where things are finally set right. Where everything sad becomes untrue. Where reunions happen.

We all want to go back to Eden. Even if our minds deny the idea of Eden, our souls simply can’t. Our souls are hungry for the Kingdom, to get back to the way things ought to be. Based on my observations, I’d say we humans are even obsessed with it.

We physically react to it.

Here’s a small example: I’m not a particularly emotional guy. I’m a little robotic. But show me one of those videos where a dad or mom returns from serving in the military and surprises a little girl or boy and... I can’t handle it. I recently saw one where Dad snuck into a classroom in his fatigues, and when his daughter opened her eyes, he was right there. She didn’t immediately hug him. She just sobbed and sobbed, overwhelmed and overjoyed, before finally throwing herself, limp, into his arms.

I almost can’t type now. Gets me every time.

It doesn’t even have to be a kid. Have you seen the “soldier reunited with dog” videos? The car door opens and the dog comes bounding out of the house in a tail-wagging frenzy? Yeah. I can’t handle those either. It’s too good.

Imagine that... multiplied. The Kingdom of God in its fullness, when people are reunited with those who have gone before. Once lost to us but now found. Together again. We all long for it.

People around the world watch the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies. They see the nations walking in peace and a massive, diverse crowd joyfully celebrating. And all over the world, people get goose bumps.

When I was a kid, I watched our Olympic hockey team beat the Russians. It was an upset no one saw coming. Just a bunch of scrappy college kids, amateurs, against Russian pros. The crowd went wild. Everyone was in tears. We love upsets, and not just for our favorite teams. People love Cinderella stories in the NCAA basketball tournament each March.

When the impossible happens, the underdog wins? Goose bumps. There’s something about the last suddenly being elevated to first. The world turns upside down, which we intuit is really right side up. It’s another theme of the Kingdom of God. The humble are exalted.

There’s another sign there, I think, pointing to the place we’re nostalgic for.

I recently saw a video of a girl being able to hear for the first time. Shock. Laughter. Tears. And again: goose bumps. There’s just something about healing and restoration. As I say, healing is an advance trailer of Heaven, and so, I believe, are these other goose-bump moments. Just little glimpses ahead.

“The Kingdom is here,” Jesus said. And then He reached out... and people were healed. Life was set right. The way they were supposed to be. The way they were always supposed to be.

We can all feel it.

Excerpted from Life Is Hard. God Is Good. Let’s Dance. by Brant Hansen, copyright Brant Hansen.

I do think of wonderful places I have experienced. I do like the fictional places mentioned above. But the glory of heaven that awaits those who belong to the Lord, though it may well be like Eden, before sin entered the world, I believe it will be even better and more glorious! Our minds cannot imagine what God has prepared for us. It is indeed a place that I have not been that my heart yearns for! I pray that yours does too!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 18, 2024

Notes of Faith January 18, 2024

Think Big... No, Bigger!

Think about the things that are good and worthy of praise. Think about the things that are true and honorable and right and pure and beautiful and respected. — Philippians 4:8 NCV

It’s not easy to put on a happy face when it feels as if nothing in your life is coming together. You’ve prayed and believed and acted in all the ways that make sense to you, but nothing has changed. You begin to wonder if God even knows about the mess you’re in, the burdens you bear. Maybe God doesn’t care or He’s too busy with the rest of the world to bother with you and your troubles. Where does that leave you?

When you’re going through a rough patch where everything in life feels upside down, you may be struggling to hold on to hope. When even your friends don’t know how to comfort you, you might slip into negative thinking that tries to convince you that you’re not on God’s list of favorites. But you can change your thoughts!

If you want to step out of the doldrums and move forward into God’s promises and peace, start by changing your heart and mind. Stop counting your miseries and start counting your blessings. That’s a great place to start.

You only need to shift your focus so you can see God’s hand at work right now.

The writer of Philippians suggests that we open our minds to new possibilities by thinking new things; we can alter our perspective by thinking about big things — and even bigger things! Recall what you’ve experienced that made you feel joyful and aware of God’s gracious hand at work, and then give God the praise.

You only need to shift your focus so you can see God’s hand at work right now.

Once you start counting your blessings, you’ll have nowhere to go but up.

Your face will feel the warmth of the sun, and your heart will be quickened by the knowledge that God is near. You will notice how your thought patterns change, shifting from negativity and disappointment to thankfulness and hope.

Change your thoughts today and reflect on all that brings you genuine joy. Look for God to show up right now and shine His face upon you, ready to make all things new. Keep thinking bigger and bigger — brighter and better — because you serve a great big God, and He makes all things possible!

Lord, I get caught up in the swirling frustrations and miseries noisily bombarding my mind, and I forget how to quiet them again. I know that all I really need is You and the gentle reminder that You have bigger plans for my life. Help me to meditate on the big things that are possible for an even bigger God. Amen.

Excerpted from It’s Still Possible by Karen Moore, copyright Karen Moore.

We should never stop dreaming the dreams of a child. What could be, what might be, if only . . . Great things happen through great dreams and ideas. No matter how old you are you can think and dream what’s next. What can I do through the grace of God to increase His kingdom and bring Him more glory! Your opportunity may be only a dream away!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 17, 2024

Notes of Faith January 17, 2024

Make Space for Hope

Lord God, hope sometimes feels so costly, yet our hearts can’t live without it! You are the God of all hope and the giver of all good gifts. Let hope arise within me on this day! Not wishful thinking or positive thoughts; I want redemptive hope — a pure, confident assurance that You are up to something good and soon my eyes will see it. Heal the places in my story where disappointment still lives. Help me plant fresh seeds of hope, knowing the harvest will come in due time. Thank You, Lord. Amen.

We were out to lunch recently with our son Jake and his precious wife, Lizzie. They’re the ones who’ve battled infertility for many years. I’ve watched them graciously play with nephews and nieces on the floor and enter into family times with a heart hospitality that’s left me breathless. I’ve watched holidays come and go with no signs of a breakthrough. Still, they’ve stayed engaged in their relationships. They buy thoughtful gifts for birthdays and Christmases. They pray for the rest of us when we walk through hard times.

I’ve marveled as I’ve watched them. I’ve cried out to God more times than I can count. I know He hears us, but this has been heartbreakingly painful.

They’ve tried hormones, IUI, and IVF and are now walking through the process of something called snowflake adoption. Over lunch, I told Jake, “I’m praying for an acceleration of your paperwork. That you’ll be matched with a baby sooner than you expect.” Jake’s eyes welled with tears, and he reached for my arm. “Mom! Don’t pray that way for me. That’s not what I want. That’s not helpful right now. I don’t need this process to speed up. I need my heart to heal.

Our hopes have been dashed so many times; I need a heart that has space for hope.”

Ugh. I choked back the tears and said, “Of course, honey. That makes so much sense. That’s exactly how I’ll pray.”

I asked Jake and Lizzie if I could share this part of their story, and he said, “One of the ways we can partner with God for the renewal of all things is to use our story to help others.” I love that boy.

I can think of countless times when I was willing to bypass hope and just wanted relief. More than relief, God is after the full redemption of our story. We just want a break, but God is after a breakthrough. Jake’s prayerful plea was bursting with wisdom. It’s not enough just to get what we want when we want it. God wants life to spring up in every aspect of our story. He wants our hearts to have lots of space for hope.

God knows our end from our beginning. He’s written out all our days before we’ve lived even one. He knows the way we take, and He knows we’ll come through our trials as gold, as ones purified by the fire.

Let hope arise.

If hope feels too expensive for you, don’t despair. Just whisper a prayer to the One who loves you, holds you, and will never let you go. He is your faithful God, and He knows what you need and even what you strongly desire. His plans for you are good. Really, wonderfully good.

“I know the plans and thoughts that I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans for peace and well-being and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

— Jeremiah 29:11 AMP

The word translated as “well-being” in the verse above means peace in relationships with others and God, soul prosperity, health, safety, and wholeness.1

Let your heart rest in His goodness. Dare to trust Him with the most vulnerable parts of your story. He’s tender with your weakness and compassionate with your hurts. He’ll surround you with His favor as with a shield. You can trust Him.

Let hope arise.

FAITH DECLARATION

Jesus is my Lord.

He holds my heart.

He gives me hope.

He renews my strength.

He is always good to me.

Excerpted from Waking Up to the Goodness of God by Susie Larson, copyright Susie Larson.

God is good all the time, and all the time God is good!

James 1:17

Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. NLT

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 16, 2024

Notes of Faith January 16, 2024

When Grief Goes Deep: Facing Your Emotions

Read: Genesis 37

When Jacob learned of his beloved son Joseph’s (supposed) death, he did five striking things in response to his grief: he tore his clothes; he put on sackcloth; he mourned many days; he wept; he refused to be comforted. Our tendency might be to dismiss some of his reactions as culturally different, unusual. These reactions to grief, however, were common in ancient Near Eastern cultures. After observing our culture, I wonder if we might learn something from Jacob about facing grief.

We have intriguing expressions in American culture about showing grief and other strong emotions. They include “falling apart,” “losing it,” and “breaking down.” We also assign emotions to either positive or negative categories. We place grief in the latter. Our language constructs our perception of grief and our preference for turning from grief rather than facing it.

What if expressing grief is actually “coming together” rather than “falling apart”.

I remember visitation at the funeral home following the death of my younger brother, Dick. When my friend John C. came through the line, he hugged me and I wept. Later, someone who had observed my reaction described it as “Dave lost it.” After hearing this, I didn’t want to make others feel uncomfortable, so I chose to hide my grief. I got the cultural message and let it shape my response to my grief.

What messages have others given you about grief? How did they affect you?

In Dr. James Pennebaker’s book Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotion,1 he cites several studies which indicate that we gain protection against harmful internal stress when we express emotions. We also gain the long-term benefits of decreased risks of future diseases and increased health in our immune system.

Jacob not only faced his grief but also embraced it. He put on sackcloth — a culturally accepted way of expressing grief — which was typically coarse black cloth made of goat’s hair, much like wearing black in some cultures today. He wept and he mourned; he became a person who was acquainted with the pain of grief.

Jesus is also “a man of suffering, and familiar with pain” (Isaiah 53:3) — or as the King James Version puts it, “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” He wept when His friend Lazarus died. God wants to develop the heart of Jesus, a man of sorrows, in us. What if not facing and embracing our grief means we are resisting this development?

What if expressing grief is actually “coming together” rather than “falling apart” — our heart and spirit coming together with our body?

Dear Jesus, I choose to trust You. Form Your heart in mine. Amen.

~Dave Beach

Excerpted from When Grief Goes Deep edited by Timothy Beals, copyright Zondervan.

My father has been with the Lord for 41 years. I was 28 at the time. I held in my grief, partly because dad had suffered with cancer for 2 years that we knew he had it and we experienced his dying and were grieving during that time. Ten years later, some would say I had a breakdown…driving on the freeway by myself, I suddenly started crying, no sobbing would be a better description. I had to pull over and continued full body, muscle contraction, fists clenched, heartbroken. I have felt healed ever since. Yes, dad is still gone, but my memories and love and trust and faith in God have taken my earthly loss to heights of eternal gain. This taught me to grieve with others, to help them to grieve and express to God the pain and loss. For most that I share with, they already know God knows their suffering and trust Him to get them through each day…but it is still hard. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Jesus gave us these emotions and expressed them Himself!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 15, 2024

Notes of Faith January 15, 2024

If Uncle M.L. Could Tweet

We need to remember that every age of every generation is the modern age. When we are born, there are things that humanity had either never seen or that had happened so long ago that we don’t remember. That’s why each new generation often thinks that the wisdom of the generations before is old-fashioned.

For instance, when I was born, television had only been invented a few years earlier. When my father, uncle, and aunt were born, automobiles were just a few decades old. When their grandparents were slaves, we all know how the way of their world was. Now, today, my children and grandchildren laugh when it takes forever for me to use technology they cut their teeth on. Yet while some things seem to change, some things never do. “History merely repeats itself,” said Solomon. “It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

In the early twenty-first century, social media is all the rage. I keep racking my brain for a way to communicate the message of the ages that my dear Uncle M.L. and indeed our whole Williams–King family have embraced: how faith, hope, love, and prayer are the keys that unlock the blessings of heaven. Suddenly, it came to me.

What if Uncle M.L. could tweet?

So for all the tech-savvy brothers and sisters out there, this collection of quotes comes from the timeless messages and prayers of Uncle M.L.

We are all one human race, destined for greatness. Let us live together in peace and love in a Beloved Community.

I’m just a symbol of a movement. I stand there because others helped me to stand there, forces of history projected me there.

We are made for the stars…

Let us join together in a great fellowship of love.

Heavenly Father, thank You for life, health, rewarding vocations, and peaceful living in this turbulent society.

God, teach us to use the gift of reason as a blessing, not a curse.

God, bring us visions that lift us from carnality and sin into the light of God’s glory.

Agape love, repentance, forgiveness, prayer, faith: all are keys to resolving human issues.

God, deliver us from the sins of idleness and indifference.

Lord, teach me to unselfishly serve humanity.

Lord, order our steps and help us order our priorities, keeping You above idols and material possessions, and to rediscover lost values.

Lord Jesus, thank You for the peace that passes all understanding that helps us to cope with the tensions of modern living.

Creator of life, thank You for holy matrimony, the privilege You grant man and wife as parents to aid You in Your creative activity.

Dear Jesus, thank You for Your precious blood, shed for the remission of our sins.

By Your stripes we are healed and set free!

Dear God, You bless us with vocations and money. Help us to joyfully and obediently return tithes and gifts to You to advance Your Kingdom.

Deliver us from self-centeredness and selfish egos. Dear Heavenly Father, help us to rise to the place where our faith in You, our dependency on You, brings new meaning to our lives.

God, help us to believe we were created for that which is noble and good ; help us to live in the light of Your great calling and destiny.

Lord, help me to accept my tools, however dull they are; and then help me to do Your will with those tools. [Paraphrased]

Our Father God, above all else save us from succumbing to the tragic temptation of becoming cynical.

God, let us win the struggle for dignity and discipline, defeating the urge for retaliatory violence, choosing that grace which redeems.

Remove all bitterness from my heart and give me the strength and courage to face any disaster that comes my way.

God, thank You for the creative insights of the universe, for the saints and prophets of old, and for our foreparents.

God, grant that people over the nation rise up, use talents and finances that God has given them, lead the people to the promised land.

God, increase the persons of goodwill and moral sensitivity. Give us renewed confidence in nonviolence the way of love Christ taught.

We are made to live together.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for the ministering, warring, and worshipping angels You send to help keep and protect us in all our ways.

We are all one human race, destined for greatness. Let us live together in peace and love in a Beloved Community.

Have faith in God. God is Love. Love never fails. It is our prayer that we may be children of light, the kind of people for whose coming and ministry the world is waiting. Amen.

Excerpted from King Rules: Ten Truths for You, Your Family, and Our Nation to Prosper by Alveda King, copyright Alveda King.

However you are experiencing this day, I pray that you share the thoughts, hopes and dreams of Martin Luther King. He knows that all things work together for good to those who love God to those who are called according to His purpose! One day all believers and followers of Christ will be gathered together to our heavenly home and live in perfect harmony as intended when God created the first human beings. May we seek peace and love with all people until that day arrives!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 14, 2024

Notes of Faith January 14, 2024

Habits of the Household: What Is Your Normal?

It’s a hard question to answer, because normal things are usually the invisible things. Your everyday habits are precisely the habits you don’t notice. That is, until a crisis reveals them.

It was a kids’ bedtime that first revealed to me my normal as a dad. A few years ago, I was putting my four boys to bed, and everything was going the way it always did. There was bathwater everywhere. The boys were escaping bath and wrestling on the floor of their room. I was shouting orders with increasing volume. No one was listening. I threatened severe bodily harm if teeth were not brushed. It didn’t really work.

I finally muscled everyone into bed, turned off the lights, murmured something about I love you and God does too, and then closed the door.

Standing in the hallway that night, the Holy Spirit suddenly revealed something to me: This is your normal.

Like all moments of grace, it was at first startling. It was convicting. Standing in the hallway with one hand on the doorknob of the boys room, I realized that it was totally normal for me to yell and shout my kids to bed. My evening routine was a liturgy of anger and frustration. Again, like all moments of grace, I suddenly realized I should change that.

A few weeks later after sharing this with one of my pastors, he gave me the idea to try a “bedtime liturgy” with my boys as a way to shake up my bedtime routine.

Below is what he wrote.

The first time I did this, it was not smooth. At first, I forgot what I was going to say. Then they took the “Can you see my eyes” as an excuse to poke my eyes. When I asked if they knew I loved them no matter what bad things they do, they were confident the answer was, “No. You clearly do not.”

We had a lot of work to do, but at least by that time in my parenting career, I knew that nothing is normal until it is. A good parent perseveres with a habit.

Then came a night a few weeks later where one of my sons, laying in bed, asked if they could have their nighttime blessing. We exchanged these words of God’s unconditional love for us, no matter how our behavior went, and I shut the door and had another moment hallway reflection.

Nothing about my circumstances had changed. The boys were still little children that got a lot of bathwater on the floor again. They still fought over the toothbrushes. They still had trouble listening. But I was different. I was no longer driving the night towards a moment where I could shut the door and say goodnight, I was driving towards a moment when we could talk about how we are loved by God no matter what.

I realized that is the power of a good parenting habit.

By changing our knee-jerk reaction to ordinary circumstances, God opens up new pathways of grace to guide our hearts, and our children’s hearts, into new patterns of life together.

We all have habits. Why not try to let the Lord reshape them into new normals?

The Spiritual Power of Habit

Soon I began to see this everywhere.

Habits are the things that shape us even when we don’t notice it. That’s why they are so powerful. Christians have a spiritual word for this, we call it “liturgy.” Liturgies are the patterns of worship we do over and over, semi-consciously to unconsciously, because we want to be shaped in the image of the God who loves us.

But notice how similar habits and liturgies are. They are both things that we do over and over, semi-consciously to unconsciously, and they both shape up. The only difference is that liturgy “admits” that it is centered around worship. Our daily habits often obscure what we worship, but that of course doesn’t mean were not worshiping something.

We were created by God to be people of worship. We can’t help but worship. So the question is not whether we’re worshipping in our daily habits, the question is just “What are we worshipping?”.

Habits of the Household

Here is a thought for you: “We become our habits, and our kids become us.” If that has any truth to it, then our habits of the household are one of the most significant parts of our children’s spiritual formation. And usually, we don’t pay any attention to it!

After my bedtime fiasco of realizing my “normal,” I started to think about this everywhere. Habits of the Household: Practicing the Story of God in Everyday Family Rhythms is what came out of those years of refection.

My boys are still quite little. We have four of them, from pre-school to middle-school, and if you came into our house you would find it as messy and loud as any house. However, I hope you would also notice some rhythms that to us, have become normal. And yet, they shape our days in powerfully spiritual ways.

They are all little things: We begin dinner by lighting a candle and proclaiming “Christ is light.” It’s a small way to call kids to dinner (as it turns out they like fire) but a big way to shape their theological imagination in the truth that Christ animates all of existence.

Before leaving for school in the morning, we pause at the door and all recite a sending prayer: “Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thank You for this day. Bless us as we work, study, and pray. Be present with us, in all we do, may we bring glory and honor to You.” It’s simple and short, it even rhymes a little. But it’s a way to make our moment before school a little less of a rush, and a little more of a missional moment where we all walk out into the world to glorify God.

After discipline, we have liturgies of saying, “I’m sorry,” “I forgive you,” and then hugging to reconcile. This has been a really important one for us, as I’m confident me and my boys get more opportunities to apologize and reconcile than most. But it’s a wonderful way to remember that conflict amongst sinners is not unusual. What’s unusual is forgiveness and reconciliation.

Letting God Make “New Normals”

All of these things are little, and yet the Lord has used all of them to reshape our day to day interactions in meaningful ways.

We all have habits. Why not try to let the Lord reshape them into new normals?

But remember this: Habits won’t change God’s love for us. But God’s love for us should change our habits.

1. I am indebted to Paul David Tripp’s excellent book Parenting: Fourteen Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016) for this key idea.

Excerpted from Habits of the Household by Justin Whitmel Earley, copyright Avodah, LLC.

Habits CAN be good. It is just that we so often have bad ones that need to be changed. And they can be changed through the power of God and His Spirit within us. Let God change you for His glory and your good!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 13, 2024

Notes of Faith January 13, 2024

Facing Doubters, Deniers, and Defenders

To understand John 3:16 — indeed to understand Jesus — this title is required reading: “... one and only Son...”

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. — John 3:16

Jesus, the one and only.

The Greek word for “one and only” is monogenes, an adjective compounded of monos — “only” and genes — “species, race, family, offspring, kind.” When used in the Bible, it almost always describes a parent-child relationship. Luke uses it to describe the widow’s son: “the only son of his mother” (Luke 7:12). The writer of Hebrews states: “Abraham... was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac”

(Hebrews 11:17 NLT).

John employs the term five times, in each case highlighting the unparalleled relationship between Jesus and God.

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. — John 1:14

No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made Him known. — John 1:18

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. — John 3:16

Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. — John 3:18

This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. — 1 John 4:9

In all five appearances the adjective modifies the subject “Son.”

“Monogenes,” then, highlights the singular relationship between Jesus and God. He is a Son in a sense that no one else is. All who call on Him are children of God, but Jesus alone is the Son of God. Only Christ is called “monogenes,” because only Christ has God’s genes or genetic makeup.

The familiar translation “only begotten Son” (John 3:16 NKJV) conveys this truth. When parents “beget” or conceive a child, they transfer their DNA to the newborn. Jesus shares God’s DNA. He isn’t begotten in the sense that He began but in the sense that He and God have the same essence, same eternal essence, unending wisdom, tireless energy.

Every quality you give God, you can give Jesus.

Jesus claimed:

Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father! — John 14:9 NLT

And the epistle concurred:

This Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature.

— Hebrews 1:3 The Message

Jesus enjoys a relationship with God that is unknown and unexperienced by anyone else in history; He claims to occupy the Christ the Redeemer perch. Through the pen of Matthew He gives two features of the relationship.

My Father has entrusted everything to Me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. — Matthew 11:27 NLT

Via these words He calls Himself the One and Only Ruler.

My Father has entrusted everything to Me. — Matthew 11:27 NLT

With that holy authority came power. Power to condemn, power to forgive, and the wisdom and discernment necessary for both. The Son understood this responsibility. Never more so than one day at the temple . . .

The voices had yanked her out of bed.

“Get up, you harlot.”

“What kind of woman do you think you are?”

Priests had slammed open the bedroom door, thrown back the window curtains, and pulled off the covers. Before she felt the warmth of the morning sun, she had felt the heat of their scorn.

“Shame on you.”

“Pathetic.”

“Disgusting.”

She scarcely had time to cover her body before they marched her through the narrow streets. Dogs yelped. Roosters ran. Women leaned out their windows. Mothers snatched children off the path. Merchants peered out the doors of their shops. Jerusalem became a jury and rendered its verdict with glares and crossed arms.

And as if the bedroom raid and parade of shame were inadequate, the men thrust her into the middle of a morning Bible class.

Early the next morning [Jesus] was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and He sat down and taught them. As He was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.

“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do You say?” — John 8:2–5 NLT

Stunned students stood on one side of her. Pious plaintiffs on the other. They had their questions and convictions; she had her dangling negligee and smeared lipstick. “This woman was caught in the act of adultery,” her accusers crowed. Caught in the very act. In the moment. In the arms. In the passion. Caught in the act by the Jerusalem Council on Decency and Conduct. “The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”

The woman had no exit. Deny the accusation? She had been caught. Plead for mercy? From whom? From God? His spokesmen were squeezing stones and snarling their lips. No one would speak for her.

But someone would stoop for her.

Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust. — John 8:6 NLT

We would expect Him to stand up, step forward, or even ascend a stair and speak. But instead He leaned over. He descended lower than anyone else — beneath the priests and the people and even beneath the woman. The accusers looked down on her. To see Jesus, they had to look down even farther.

He’s prone to stoop. He stooped to wash feet, to embrace children. Stooped to pull Peter out of the sea, to pray in the garden. He stooped before the Roman whipping post. Stooped to carry the Cross. Grace is a God who stoops. Here he stooped to write in the dust.

Remember the first occasion His fingers touched dirt? He scooped soil and formed Adam. As he touched the sunbaked soil beside the woman, Jesus may have been reliving the Creation moment, reminding Himself from whence we came. Earthly humans are prone to do earthy things. Maybe Jesus wrote in the soil for His own benefit.

Or for hers? To divert gaping eyes from the scantily clad, just-caught woman who stood in the center of the circle?

The posse grew impatient with the silent, stooping Jesus.

They kept demanding an answer, so He stood up. — John 8: 7 NLT

He lifted Himself erect until His shoulders were straight and His head was high. He stood, not to preach, for His words would be few. Not for long, for He would soon stoop again. Not to instruct His followers; He didn’t address them. He stood on behalf of the woman. He placed Himself between her and the lynch mob and said,

‘All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!’ Then He stooped down again and wrote in the dust. — John 8:7–8 NLT

Name-callers shut their mouths. Rocks fell to the ground. Jesus resumed His scribbling.

When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. — John 8:9 NLT

Jesus wasn’t finished. He stood one final time and asked the woman,

Where are your accusers? — John 8:10 NLT

My, my, my. What a question — not just for her but for us. Voices of condemnation awaken us as well.

“You aren’t good enough.”

“You’ll never improve.”

“You failed — again.”

The voices in our world.

And the voices in our heads! Who is this morality patrolman who issues a citation at every stumble? Who reminds us of every mistake? Does he ever shut up?

No. Because Satan never shuts up. The apostle John called him the accuser:

This great dragon — the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world — was thrown down to the earth with all his angels. Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the Heavens, ‘... For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down to earth — the one who accuses them before our God day and night’. — Revelation 12:9–10 NLT

Day after day, hour after hour. Relentless, tireless. The accuser makes a career out of accusing. Unlike the conviction of the Holy Spirit, Satan’s condemnation brings no repentance or resolve, just regret. He has one aim: “to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10 NLT). Steal your peace, kill your dreams, and destroy your future. He has deputized a horde of silver-tongued demons to help him. He enlists people to peddle his poison. Friends dredge up your past. Preachers proclaim all guilt and no grace. And parents, oh, your parents. They own a travel agency that specializes in guilt trips. They distribute it twenty-four hours a day. Long into adulthood you still hear their voices: “Why can’t you grow up?” “When are you going to make me proud?”

Condemnation — the preferred commodity of Satan. He will repeat the adulterous woman scenario as often as you permit him to do so, marching you through the city streets and dragging your name through the mud. He pushes you into the center of the crowd and megaphones your sin: This person was caught in the act of immorality... stupidity... dishonesty... irresponsibility.

But he will not have the last word. Jesus has acted on your behalf.

He stooped. Low enough to sleep in a manger, work in a carpentry shop, sleep in a fishing boat. Low enough to rub shoulders with crooks and lepers. Low enough to be spat upon, slapped, nailed, and speared. Low. Low enough to be buried.

And then He stood. Up from the slab of death. Upright in the tomb and right in Satan’s face. Tall. High. He stood up for the woman and silenced her accusers, and he does the same for you.

He is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us.

— Romans 8:34 The Message

Let this sink in for a moment. In the presence of God, in defiance of Satan, Jesus Christ rises to your defense. He takes on the role of a priest.

Since we have a great priest over God’s house, let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith, because we have been made free from a guilty conscience. — Hebrews 10:21–22 NCV

A clean conscience. A clean record. A clean heart. Free from accusation. Free from condemnation. Not just for our past mistakes but also for our future ones.

Since He will live forever, He will always be there to remind God that He has paid for [our] sins with His blood. — Hebrews 7:25 TLB

Christ offers unending intercession on your behalf.

Jesus trumps the devil’s guilt with words of grace.

Excerpted from In the Footsteps in the Savior by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.

Jesus is God. He claimed to be One with the Father! Anyone who claims that Jesus is not God does not know God and the truth is not in him. Jesus is our all in all…Savior, Lord, King, great High Priest, lover of our soul, our eternal God that walks with us for all eternity!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 12, 2024

Notes of Faith January 12, 2024

Water Into Wine

Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” Then he told them, “Now draw some out.” The master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He called the bridegroom aside and said, “You have saved the best till now.” — John 2:7-10

It’s a simple fact that actions can speak louder than words. We can say we care, but that’s hard to believe if we are never available to help, to listen, to serve.

At this early point in Jesus’ ministry, now His actions would start to reinforce the truth that He is the Son of God. Yet what an interesting first miracle Jesus chose to perform!

Jesus — fully God, fully man — acted.

Consider the setting: a wedding reception as opposed to a life-or-death situation. Consider the need — or was it more of a want? The wine was running low. And Jesus — fully God, fully man — acted. It was not a crisis or an emergency or a necessity, yet Jesus showed His concern. And He was concerned enough to act, yet He kept His action pretty low profile. The servants and His mother knew the source of the wine. The master of the banquet and the bridegroom might not even have known the wine was running low.

Jesus constantly shows He cares about the details of our lives. May we not miss seeing His acts of love.

Excerpted from The Story Devotional, copyright Zondervan.

If you believe in the God who turned water into wine, you must believe that He can provide for you. No, God does not give us everything we want…thankfully, we would likely become worse off than before. But God can and does provide for us with things that we miss seeing, taking for granted God’s provision in so many ways. Let us praise Him and give thanks for His amazing love, care and provision.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith January 11, 2024

Notes of Faith January 11, 2024

Joy Through Sorrow

The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first. — Job 42:12

Job found his legacy through the grief he experienced. He was tried that his godliness might be confirmed and validated. In the same way, my troubles are intended to deepen my character and to clothe me in gifts I had little of prior to my difficulties, for my ripest fruit grows against the roughest wall. I come to a place of glory only through my own humility, tears, and death, just as Job’s afflictions left him with a higher view of God and more humble thoughts of himself. At last he cried,

Now my eyes have seen You. — Job 42:5

If I experience the presence of God in His majesty through my pain and loss, so that I bow before Him and pray, “Your will be done” (Matthew 6:10), then I have gained much indeed.

God gave Job glimpses of his future glory, for in those weary and difficult days and nights, he was allowed to penetrate God’s veil and could honestly say, “I know that my Redeemer lives” (Job 19:25). So truly: “The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first.” (from In the Hour of Silence)

Trouble never comes to someone unless it brings a nugget of gold in its hand.

Trouble never comes to someone unless it brings a nugget of gold in its hand.

Apparent adversity will ultimately become an advantage for those of us doing what is right, if we are willing to keep serving and to wait patiently. Think of the great victorious souls of the past who worked with steadfast faith and who were invincible and courageous!

There are many blessings we will never obtain if we are unwilling to accept and endure suffering.

There are certain joys that can come to us only through sorrow. There are revelations of God’s divine truth that we will receive only when the lights of earth have been extinguished. And there are harvests that will grow only once the plow has done its work.

It is from suffering that the strongest souls ever known have emerged; the world’s greatest display of character is seen in those who exhibit the scars of sorrow; the martyrs of the ages have worn their coronation robes that have glistened with fire, yet through their tears and sorrow have seen the gates of heaven. (~Chapin)

I will know by the gleam and glitter

Of the golden chain you wear,

By your heart’s calm strength in loving,

Of the fire you have had to bear.

Beat on, true heart, forever;

Shine bright, strong golden chain;

And bless the cleansing fire

And the furnace of living pain!

~ Adelaide Proctor

Excerpted from Streams in the Desert by L. B. E. Cowman, copyright Zondervan.

I must admit that I have never asked God to bring suffering or pain into my life that I might be drawn close to Him. Yet, in the struggles of life I have noticed that in the better days I may walk away from that closeness because “I don’t need God.” Of course that is not true, but all too often we feel that we don’t need God because things seem to be going our way. They are going our way BECAUSE of God. Let us work at drawing closer to the giver and sustainer of life eternal, worshipping, loving, obeying, serving, every day that we are given!

Pastor Dale