Blue Hope

Autumn is walking us toward winter these days. Night hangs on a little longer and lets go a little more stubbornly with each passing day. It seems a little harder to shake off sleep in the morning and to rejoin the Land of the Conscious.

The sky was deeply gray as I left home last week. Rain fell steadily. The thunder which accompanied it was more grumbly than powerful, and even the lightning seemed weak. It was one of those mornings.

Then, about halfway through the trip, I noticed a small hint of a blue hue in the distance. By the time I reached Bountiful, that small hole in the clouds had grown enough for a stream of sunlight to shine through.

Life is dreary sometimes. But even when the sun seems to disappear for a time, it is never gone.

Camp

I am constantly amazed that youth camp works. Hundreds of junior high students gather for one week, divided into cabin groups of around 10-12 campers led by 1-2 volunteer staff. These groups, often formed by combining people who do not know each other, coordinate within and beyond themselves to establish living spaces, meals, shower times, and so forth while also playing, learning, worshiping, and talking together.

It takes extra planning, extra patience, extra kindness. This alone is a great reason to come.

More Space in Between

In The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway), someone asks Campbell how he went bankrupt. His reply? "Gradually, then suddenly." It is a classic and well-known line, brilliantly packaging a key insight into humanity.

How did your marriage fall apart? Gradually, then suddenly.
How did you wind up having an affair? Gradually, then suddenly.
How did your business come to ruin? Gradually, then suddenly.
How did you return to a known addiction? Gradually, then suddenly.
How did your children grow up without you noticing? Gradually, then suddenly.

Jon Acuff paints a picture of the "gradually" part in this post. Check it out, and read the comments.

I found it challenging, and would love to hear your thoughts.

Nobody Flies for Nothing

"How was your trip?" Sadly, I often interpet this question in light of snafus and annoyances - troublesome weather, lost luggage, late arrivals, missed flights, and so forth, and if there wasn't much of this, the trip was "fine." But perhaps a better, more important, more active question is this: "Who did you encounter along the way?" This is one of those things I am (slowly) learning from Mom - to really look around and see the many people with whom I am sharing these in-between moments in life.

"Nobody flies for nothing." That's what she told me after she and Dad spent many hours stuck in an airport far from home after severe weather disrupted air travel all across the country. There were a lot of tired people, with the frustration, irritability, and discouragement which often accompanies such times. Mom was not oblivious to the problem, but also was not oblivious to the opportunity. The airport particularly needed a loving spirit that day, and she had one to offer. She reached out, made friendly conversation, invested herself in their lives even if only for a short time. She gave the people around her opportunity to share some of their stories, particularly about where they were from and where they were going. People often fly for weddings, funerals, honeymoons, adoptions, family times. And nobody flies for nothing.

The crowds have begun to arrive for the 27th General Conventions and Assembly of the Global Church of the Nazarene. By Sunday, there will be tens of thousands gathering from around the world to worship, learn, reconnect, and take care of business. I want to see this opportunity through Mom's eyes of loving curiosity, and I wonder who I will encounter along the way.

Cartoon Murder

I learned many Bible stories as a child. These were often accompanied by kid-friendly pictures to look at and pictures to color. Those drawings helped us remember the stories, of course. But they also became my mental images.

The first two chapters of Exodus briefly describe how the Israelites' status among the Egyptians shifted from favored foreigners to oppressed slaves, and how Moses - an Israelite - grew up with favored status even while his people were in slavery. But that changed, too, when Moses killed an Egyptian and fled for his life.

The kid-friendly images in my mind don't show slavery very well. They break down completely when it comes to murder. "[Moses] saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand" (Exodus 2:11-12) It's like interrupting my mental show on the Cartoon Network with a gruesome scene from CSI.

It is good to see this, because I (and you) resemble this very human, clearly fallen person more clearly than the two-dimensional character I seemed to see in childhood stories. The complex character of Moses is one I can relate to.

Prayer and Common Sense

More from Oswald Chambers:

"Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer; He had the boundless certainty that prayer is always answered.... God answers prayer in the best way, not sometimes, but every time, although the immediate manifestation of the answer in the domain in which we want it may not always follow. Do we expect God to answer prayer?
The danger with us is that we want to water down the things that Jesus says and make them mean something in accordance with common sense; if it were only common sense, it was not worthwhile for Him to say it. The things Jesus says about prayer are supernatural revelations."

Joyful Abandon

"Do not worry
about your life, what you will eat or drink;
or about your body, what you will wear.
Is not life more important than food, and
the body more important than clothes?"
(Matthew 6:25)

A mostly-paraphrased section from Oswald Chambers:

What we call "common sense," Jesus may call unfaithfulness. The Holy Spirit nudges as we go through life -- Where does God fit into this relationship? Into this holiday plan? Into these other details? -- and he does this persistently until He becomes our first consideration. Until we reach that point, there is confusion.

"Do not worry..." Basic provision isn't your problem to worry about. In fact, to take on such worries shows that you don't trust God to take care of the practical details of your life. Do you remember what Jesus said would choke the word he puts in? Not the devil, but the cares of this world, the little worries. [See Matthew 13.] Faithlessness begins by deciding I will not trust where I cannot see, and the only cure is obedience to the Spirit.

Jesus invites us into a life of joyful abandonment.

For This Reason

"For this reason... I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers" (Ephesians 1:15-16). For what reason? The verses prior paint a wonderful picture: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ... chose us... to be adopted... glorious grace, which he has freely given us... in accordance with the richness of God's grace that he lavished on us.... And you also were included..." That whole section is a powerful proclamation of God's love and grace in the lives of all who choose to follow Him. It is indeed reason to celebrate.

And what is Paul's prayer? "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe." We are called, first and foremost, to relationship with God. We are invited to know God.