Ann Voskamp's Blog, page 112
November 26, 2018
Easiest Way to have the Most WONDERful Little Christmas — Instead of a Stressful Christmas
So this turns out to be the tenderest relief, just 5 Mondays from Christmas Eve:
When the holidays hit this year, we’re all choosing holy days more than hyped-up days.
Holy days — over hyped-up holidays. Falling in love — over falling in debt. Wonder — over worry.
When the holidays hit this year, we’re all not choosing to fall more in debt because of consumerism, but were choosing to fall more in love because of Christ.
When the holidays hit this year, we’re all not going to be hit by all the worry — we’re choosing to be hushed by all His wonder.
Holy days — over hyped-up holidays. Falling in love — over falling in debt. Wonder — over worry.
The wonders of His love are everywhere — if you are in love with the wonder of Him. This is how the brilliant live.
So when she opens it up, I stop everything, and kneel right down.
“Look, Mama!” She laughs like a shower of stars.
Our baby girl’s eyes are saucers — awed.
I’m lit by her brazen wonder, her unabashed enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm always blazes within the best life — because enthusiasm comes from entheos — which literally means “God within.”
She holds this book wide open with contagious, igniting enthusiasm — God’s within, God’s within.
The book she’s holding in her hands, I wrote as a surprise, when she was just a prayer I was holding in my heart for all I was worth.
And now the wonder of her is here with us — and she’s holding this book for all her pudgy little fists are worth: “The Wonder of The Greatest Gift.”
When the holidays hit this year, we choose wonder — because wonder is one step toward choosing a wonderful life.
Nothing wonderful happens in our lives without wonder. Wonder makes this a wonderful life. Wonder nurtures wisdom.
If the next generation is to have any wisdom, then this generation must choose wonder now.
Wonder now over grace and mercy and the ways of Jesus, because we have never needed His ways more than now.
And I grin, witnessing her fascination over that rising tree. Because the legacy we’ve got to leave, to centre the next generation, is the knowing that at the centre of our Garden Beginning and His Christmas Coming and our Calvary Saving, there always stands a tree that roots them forever and sets them free for eternity.
And nothing stands firmly anywhere, unless its rooted in the very beginning and the tree of Calvary, and the wonder that we’re grafted into the family tree of God.
She leans over the open book, her little fingers groping along the edges of the Advent flaps, one by one — wide-eyed, wonder seeking.
God’s within. God’s within.
Behind one of the 25 Advent flaps, she finds an ornament — a tree stump with reaching green shoots — to hang on her risen tree.
Him shall the nations, and the next generation, seek.
This Christmas, the nations, and our generation, and the next generation, are ultimately seeking, not more plastic, not more pixels, not more products — we are seeking, whether we know it or not, more of the presence of Jesus — the Greatest Gift.
She’s turning the more than 100 pages of that booklet behind the first flap, that tells story after story from the Greatest Story ever told, from Creation to the Creche — of how nothing ever has stopped His love from coming for us.
“Nothing is worthwhile compared to this—searching Scripture…seeking the truth of God’s Word,” Elie Wiesel once said.
For the nations— and the next generation — to seek Him — this generation can seek nothing less.
And I nod, knowing— this is the year.
This is the year to forget whatever the bombardment of ads keep trying to pummel us all into believing.
This is the year to give the wonder of living in the land of the living.
Forget burying our kids in more plastic trinkets, forget piling the debt and a culture of death on them, forget giving them what cannot last.
Nothing is more important than leaving to the next generation the land of wondrous living, and nothing is more at risk. Just turn on the news.
The legacy we, the people, want to leave to our children, the next generation, is the wonder of dwelling in the land of the living, a land where our roots are nourished in the truth of miracle of Whose we are, and the shattering grace of where we come from, and the astonishing hope of who we’re meant to be.
This is the year — we give our people the gift of our story — so they know the story — their story —their family tree. Right from our genesis beginning to our King’s coming under Bethlehem’s star — this is our story.
And I lean in and kiss the of my baby girl’s head. She will know who she is, Whose she is and she will know her story.
This story is our inheritance — The Greatest Story ever told. And we will claim our inheritance.
When we reclaim the wonder of Christmas — we reclaim the wonder of living.
The wonder of living in the land of the real, wondrous living. W e could get to live a wonderful life.
Our baby girl grins a whole world wide as she turns back the 25th flap and pulls out that star.
She’s bursting, tangible joy as she leans in to places that glowing atop her own tree, her own crowning, Christ-formed story.
What matters more? Our children will know their whole story, know their beginning, know their roots, know their place in the family tree of God — there, right next to His heart. Beloved.
God’s within. God’s within.
This is the year: The way to get our Christmas MOJO back — is More Of Jesus Only.
Christmas is about: JOMO for MOJO — the Joy Of Missing Out (on all the pressure!) — for More Of Jesus Only (all of His presence!)
#JOMO for #MOJO
JoyOfMissingOut …. for … MoreOfJesusOnly
When she smiles over at me, I blink it back — she’s holding her own story — and the Wonder of the Greatest Gift.
And it’s hers. All of ours.
Christ came and claimed us and we claim our inheritance of the land of the really living and all the wonders of His love.
This is a gift of hope, of love, of wonder — that all of our hearts long to be captivated and captured by — and released into the gift our hearts want most– HIM!
This is an heirloom, a Christmas tradition —- a wonder for the child in all of us!
And there’s all this golden light flooding the place, lighting up her very own tree — the Tree for all of us.
All this wonder that all those living too long in the shadows — can now feel a great light dawning.
She laughs.
The enthusiasm — the wonder.
God within. God within.
This year, let His wonder to awaken you again, captivate you, capture your heart!
More Of Jesus Only — and have a STRESS-FREE, WONDER-FULL Christmas.
Just a little invite? Come experience a Christmas like you’ve always dreamed?
So come Christmas morning, you haven’t missed Him?
So come Christmas morning — you’ve unwrapped the greatest gift you yearn for — more of Him.And here is an heirloom, a Christmas tradition, a wonder for the child in all of us!
Gather around the Greatest Story this year for the whole family with all 3?
The Greatest Gift (adult edition),
Unwrapping the Greatest Gift (family read aloud edition),
and The Wonder of the Greatest Gift (pop-up edition with your own 14 inch tree, 25 days of readings, 25 day advent flap calendar, hiding all 25 Biblically inspired ornaments! For any age)So you don’t miss out on Jesus this year & the The Greatest Christmas.
November 24, 2018
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [11.25.18]
Happy, happy, happy weekend, JUST BEFORE ADVENT!
Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you right here:
Jelena Simic Petrovic
Jelena Simic Petrovic
Jelena Simic Petrovic
you’ve gotta just take a minute to take in all the wonder of this life
choked up here : kindness is everywhere
can’t get enough of this one this week
for your encouragement: 4 ways to raise kids who love Jesus
heart kinda undone
Sabrina Boem The Catographer
Sabrina Boem The Catographer
Sabrina Boem The Catographer
she captures the love and logic of monorail cats
what a story – and it’s only just beginning: “I was just following God”
You should come!
Live in St. Louis? St. Paul, MO? New Berlin, WI? Palos Heights, IL?
Come to the best way to start off this Christmas season?
Come see us both at Night of Hope Tour: A Family Christmas!
just. so. much. love.
10 Years After Loss. Ways God Used the Death of Our Daughter…For Good
inseparable friends are the best kind of friends
Finding Hope in the Ashes:
How to Respond to the California Fires
This could be the Christmas to just be kinda crazy grateful for all the gifts around us everywhere
this is just too good to miss:
The Traveler’s Guide to iPhone Photography
Let us always remember: Time is a crazy, beautiful gift
Joni Eareckson Tada Receives New Cancer Diagnosis:
“Jesus is ecstasy beyond compare and if new hardships draw us closer to Him, I’m more than content with it.” ~Joni
this beautiful wedding walk sorta defied all the odds
amazed: Without Limbs He Conquered the Impossible
4 Life-Changing Holiday Words…
because we’re all trying to figure out Holidays? Life? What’s Next? Where To Go?
And these 4 Life-Changing Words Are a Compass Forward.
Wish I had known just this far far sooner
He loves us, restores, us, makes us clean: this Christmas find freedom, this Christmas be seen.
JoyWares
JoyWares
JoyWares
JoyWares
… that wonderful time of the year to pull out one of our most favourite family traditions:
Our 24 hole wooden Advent wreath, with Mary on a donkey, headed toward the manger and the coming of Emmanuel.
could not love this more: don’t give up. He’s always listening.
watched and sent to a few people we love: Love…is a gift
POST OF THE WEEK FROM THESE PARTS:
Why It’s Okay For the Holidays to Start Feeling Dark
on repeat this week: Noel: the story of amazing love
yeah… just a little invite? to come experience a Christmas like never before?
Come experience a Christmas like you’ve always dreamed of…
So come Christmas morning, you haven’t missed Him?
So come Christmas morning — you’ve unwrapped the greatest gift you yearn for — more of Him.
…so it kinda looks like: the one thing we must pray to be great at is thanksgiving — because it’s the one thing that makes God great in our lives.
And it kinda looks like: No matter what the headlines shout, the world only has two stories: bless God or curse God.
No matter what the world tries to sell, we all only get to choose from two shelves: Give God thanks or Give God the door.
No matter what we’re facing, there are always only two roads: thanksgiving to God or dismissing of God.
And you know — if you let something steal your thanksgiving, you let something steal your joy, and if you let something steal your joy, you let something steal your strength.
Let nothing steal your thanksgiving to God – so that in everything you can stand strong in God.
Bottom line: We will give thanks to God not because of how we feel, but because of who He is.
No disaster, no storm, no cancellation, no termination, no catastrophe will stop us from giving thanks.
Because we know:
No matter where we are, every thanksgiving always brings us home — because giving thanks always bringing you home to the heart of God.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
November 23, 2018
Why It’s Okay For the Holidays to Start Feeling Dark
It keeps lighting me, what a friend tells me in the weeks before Advent.
How she’s been sitting with all this trauma everywhere.
The darkness of now may appear like failure — but Advent waits for His appearing.
“I’ve pulled out all this trauma and am looking it in the face — and it’s like a million frayed wires.”
A little flame of a boy whose name means “God is good” — Toby, he’s laying in a hospital bed with a still open chest and traumatized lungs after open heart surgery. We join the global tribe who writes Toby on our hands, a shattered heart plea to God who carves us into His own hands.
I’ve begun meeting with a counsellor who leans forward so I can read these charts of hers about response mechanisms to trauma and she tells me it’s going to get better and I’m mustering up a handful of hope to believe.
In the middle of the same week, I hold our little girl’s squeezing hand as we walk through the city pediatric hospital of wide-eyed sick kids, to sit with her cardiologist, who asks us to pick an actual day on the calendar for surgery to get their hands on her one beating little broken heart — and now I squeeze her hand back the tightest.
The Most Wonderful Christmas Tradition: 24 hole Wooden Advent wreath with engraved Mary silhouette from JoyWares
And then in the corner of an old stone church at prayer gathering, we try to smooth out all this tangled knot of trauma at the foot of the Tree. The foot of a tree where a pummelled Man hung arms outstretched, stark naked, bare back pressed into bark, to take on all the brutal trauma that ever’s been.
No matter how we feel the depth of the darkness — we have a God whose devotion to us is deeper.
At the end of our farm table in front of the warming hearth, we string up this mess of strung wires, light this Christmas tree, and we’re kinda the fools who’ve gone ahead and set out a tree in every room, because I’m of the thinking that this is the season to behold what matters, and be held by the One Who matters most.
Our littlest girl, when she stretches by to the tree to hang more of those ornaments that tell the Greatest Story ever told, I can see it right there, that raised scar from the previous open heart surgeries, right there down the middle of her chest. What I can’t see is the hidden scars of her adoption into our family half a world and a whole ocean away from where she was born.
As her little fingers touch the tips of tree limbs of, touches the beads of glowing the lights wrapping tree, the room itself kinda lights and the darkness I feel kinda cracks — and a whole world of Christmas trees testify:
We are all the traumatized and wounded and cut down. We are all the weary and the limping and the stumped ones, our hope kinda hacked up and axed down.
But…
But every Christmas tree testifies — we are all ones grafted in, grafted into His line and lineage and love, adopted and grafted into a family tree, grafted into the grand Story of the Tree that knows the axing down and yet resurrects.
Every Christmas Tree offers us the form and shape of our lives — cruciform. Cross-formed, love and limbs and life, outstretched to the world.
This is us. In a season of trees and trauma, her and I sit at the foot of a Christmas Tree, the wounded and grafted together ones, grafted into His Family Tree and I see:
Every Christmas Tree offers us the form and shape of our lives — cruciform. Cross-formed, love and limbs and life, outstretched to the world.
On the brink of Advent, and in the midst of a world of trauma, sure, it’s true, I may want to echo with Him Who hung on the Tree: Why in the name of all of us have You forsaken us?
Where in the world is God? Is God blind and deaf and dumb to our trauma and all this pain and loss?
And through the dark of Advent, there is hope that whispers: God is here; He is hidden in our hurt. God’s hidden in our grief. The Trinity enfolds all trauma into their encircling love. God is our Father hidden in our failure, like the Cross appeared to be a failure — before the Rising appeared.
The darkness of now may appear like failure — but Advent waits for His appearing.
The people of the Cross always live in only Advent — always preparing for the Coming of Christ.
She reaches again for my hand and I take her palm and open, reaching vulnerability, and I can even feel how this is what is true, especially now:
All the apparent failures are failing at failing — because our Father is relentlessly working every failure into good, and His Son is coming to rip back all the dark. We check the bulbs on all the wires, light all the cut and grafted trees, and believe:
Christmas is cheapened when it’s about fast-forwarding to the Light — instead of being willing to sit in the depths of the darkness so that we fully feel the blazing brightness of the Coming Light.
When we are willing to watch and wait in the darkness until the Light comes — we practice being willing to sit with brokenness until resurrection comes.
This raises and resurrects something in me and it feels like hope, even now.
The Most Wonderful Christmas Tradition: 24 hole Wooden Advent wreath with engraved Mary silhouette from JoyWares
“You think it’s beautiful, Mama?” She cups my face in her little hands.
“You like the Tree and all the little lights?” And I nod and fight back this watery blurring.
Christmas comes for our grief. Christmas comes for the sadness we can’t speak out loud, Christmas comes to crush all our dark, Christmas comes for our wounded ache.
Because Christmas is about how Jesus came down, shut out the darkness by moving into our space, the babe of heaven, the Son of God, moving right in front of the darkness — and eclipsing all the night with His Light.
Her and I can just do this:
Advent fearlessly faces the deepest dark — because only then are our faces urned and waiting to feel the first warm rays of the coming, glorious light.
No matter how we feel the depth of the darkness — we have a God whose devotion to us is deeper.
And because all things are possible with God — we can have hope in all things.
When my friend turned to me and said: “I’ve pulled out all this trauma — and it’s like a million frayed wires” — I leaned forward right there by our Christmas tree, and I felt the ache of words first spread across my chest, before they found their way into the world:
“In the midst of the trauma, I just think —
If you still at at the foot of the Cross — Christ untangles all those frayed, crossed wires… and wires all things to bring light.”
Epiphany.
Epiphany upon epiphanies.
Advent promises:
Christ’s rewiring all the world — watch for the coming Light.
Advent promises: Still and wait in the dark — and the epiphany will come.
Advent promises: All the wounded and grafted ones can take their places around all the grafted trees, that take their stands to watch and wait through all the aching dark — for the Light Bringer to gloriously rewire all things.
And I watch how one Little One hangs ornaments, how she keeps gazing up, and we all front row seats, to sit right here now:
Eyes ablaze in the light of the Tree makes all the weary hearts burn with hope.
This year, let His wonder to awaken you again, captivate you, capture your heart!
More Of Jesus Only — and have a STRESS-FREE, WONDER-FULL Christmas.
This is an heirloom, a Christmas tradition, a wonder for the child in all of us!
Pick up the Pop-Up Advent book, “The Wonder of The Greatest Gift” —
with a child’s very own 14″ pop-up tree,
25 Bible-inspired ornaments hiding behind 25 Advent doors,
a new family read-aloud of 25 Advent devotionals,
and a star for the top of the tree!Gather this year with all 3? The Greatest Gift, Unwrapping the Greatest Gift, and The Wonder of the Greatest Gift — and don’t miss out on Jesus this year & the The Greatest Christmas.
(AND OH! You should come!
Live in St. Louis? St. Paul, MO? New Berlin, WI? Palos Heights, IL?
Come to the best way to start off this Christmas season?
And Christy Nockels (!) will be in the building — leading us into the very heart of the season.
Come see us both at Night of Hope Tour: A Family Christmas!
November 21, 2018
4 Life-Changing Holiday Words [Figuring out Holidays? Life? What’s Next? Where To Go? These 4 Life-Changing Words Are a Compass Forward)
So this kind woman turned to me last week and asked me where I wanted to go.
What did you want to see, what do you want to do — what way have your set your broken heart on?
And before I could really think, the words were out of my mouth, like breath that only just the moment before had been in the lungs, giving life.
Just four words:
“No expectations. Only gratitude…. because all is grace.”
And the woman tilted her head like something, everything, had shifted.
She reached out and touched my arm and we paused, stilled.
“What if we just lived that?”
Then she whispered the quartet of words like a steadying refrain, like a line that could realign everything precariously leaning.
“No expectations. Only gratitude.” Because all is grace.
Words can come from beyond, from out of thin air, like the moment itself is a thin place, God Himself glancing nearest where we’re stretched right thin.
She says it again, but as she says the words —
I am back remembering how I once ran away to the shore, sat with my feet at the edge of the water, and dreamed of a different life, one with easy, wide roads.
Why did it take me so long to find out that none of the worthwhile roads are wide?
I have traced the edges of my broken heart: When I expected things to go a certain way, entitlement became my way.
Now, sure, it’s true, and I’ve known it both ways: When you don’t think others are treating you well — sometimes other’s behaviour is deeply wrong — but sometimes it’s your own thinking that is wrong.
When God exceeds all expectations, why have any other expectations? Why want for anything more — when Jesus is everything now?
Sometimes when you think God’s not working your life out well enough — you decide to cut yourself another piece of the pie. And no one tells you: When you decide to cut yourself another piece of the pie, you can end up cutting your own heart. Are old wounds always fresh wounds if they won’t stop bleeding?
When I think back, the story, for me at least, has always been:
Every temptation speaks the language of entitlement.
The soul’s enemy has always hissed entitlement: “You deserve it.” And it’s turned out: Deciding you’re deserving, can lead to your destroying. I have traced all kinds of scars of my own doing, and I have quietly wondered if:
It’s not an overstatement to say that the root of all kinds of evil is entitlement.
I have sat in the dark under stars and wished with all my broken heart that I had known only that far sooner.
The choice for every heart is always, always, always this:
Live feeling entitled to things — or live entrusting everything to God.
God’s enthronement or my entitlement.
Live feeling entitled to things — or live entrusting everything to God.
Entitlement devastates, suffocates, incarcerates.
Contentment liberates.
My friend smiles and winks: “Well, it we’re just going to make that our compass for the day: No expectations — only gratitude — because all is grace. So I think, then, where we should go, what we should see — is just kinda simple — let’s just head to the windmill!”
And when we end up standing under the windmill’s sails, watching the gears of things, the way of things, the unpredictable movement of wind through the being of things, I feel this letting go:
Expectations are next to entitlement, and gratitude is next to godliness.
And there’s light in the trees if you look up, there are all these raised limbs, and there’s this way of the wind through the world: “Our God, no one can compare with You. … You think of us all the time with your countless expressions of love— far exceeding our expectations!” (Ps 40:5)
When God exceeds all expectations, why have any other expectations?
Why want for anything more — when Jesus is everything now?
You can always expect grace to meet you, carry you, remake you, save you.
It’s the one thing you can always count on, always expect:
Always expect grace.
You can always expect grace to meet you, carry you, remake you, save you.
No expectations, only gratitude….
Because all is grace.
And the sails of the mill turn, surrendered to the ways of the wind —- and no matter how things move, there is always grace that moves the willing to give their wholehearted thanks to the One who moves all things.
November 20, 2018
How 1 Unlikely Man Stopped the Stealing of Thanksgiving
So there this Farmer.
Yeah, he could have been an electrician, a mechanic, a vet —
and a story like this could have easily been about a salesman, a mother, a nurse, a teacher, a trucker because we’re all kin with stories that are kind of the same and we’re all the same kind of different.
So, yeah, there once was this Farmer — and the guy knew dirt.
He had dirt.
And yeah, there’s not one of us that doesn’t.
When he found out that this is the way it goes — that he had to work out his own salvation – he stood on the edge of the field and looked across it like a man trying to find his way.
He could rest in it: You don’t work for your salvation, like you have to earn it — but you have to work out your salvation, like you have to turn over the earth, like you have to work dirt.
He’d work out his salvation like he’d work out in the fields – turning over the earth, turning up his open his hands. He tied on his beat-up steel toed boots. He pulled on his bent up John-Deere cap. He did this and went out every day. He broke up hard ground.
He plowed. The sun beat down. He believed in seeds. He believed the small things would yield. He said thank you a thousand times, the earth breaking up slow under the steely glint of the mirrored edge of the furrow.
The bills stacked on his desk. The dog died. One of his boys rebelled like he was part mule, part rattler. The kick and the sting of the whole thing just about killed him. He plowed anyways, his lips chapped and burning under the sun, murming his brazen thanks.
His wife held him in the dark. He clung to prayers.
He was tempted, but he didn’t get in the pickup and head west in his own cloud of rebellious dust. He was brave and he stayed everyday. He went out and did his work and he gave thanks when it made no sense because his God knows no bounds. God had to be in the hard, so he’d give thanks in the hurt – that he hadn’t been left alone, had never been left alone.
When the corn came up, a late frost killed every stalk. He planted again. He counted blessings and let thanksgiving be planted deep in him. He opened his hands. He received what God gave – and he gave thanks. His eyes opened and he got joy.
When the beans started to pod up, an army of aphids ate the crop. He plowed them down. He bowed his head and plowed his field and murmured thanks in sheer defiance of everything in him and around him that said this finally proved God wasn’t good. He opened his hands. He received what God gave – and he gave thanks. His heart opened and he got joy.
He gave thanks when it made no sense because his God knows no bounds.
When the wheat was right ripe, a hail storm laid it flat and rain came down hard and made the kernels mold, and the Farmer brushed away whatever was falling down his cheeks and he turned over his hands and he gave audacious thanks as a subversive act against the dark that tortured him to scoff at God.
He opened his hands. He received what God gave – and he gave thanks. His life opened – and he got joy.
He’d let himself be broken up like a field. He let himself be made soft and open. He’d let himself be tilled til there was harvest.
His wife held him in the dark.
And he lay there in black and whispered how he could still see: Thanksgiving to God is the only thing that heals our view of the world.
She could hardly wrap her arms around him, his heart had grown so large. She could see how he kept going, how he kept seeing to keep going: Without thanksgiving, the world distorts.
He held her hand every morning before he went out to work out his salvation, before he went out to work his field his life. He would pull her close and whisper what they could not forget: The one thing we must pray to be great at is thanksgiving — because it’s the one thing that makes God great in our lives.
The Bread of Life Collection
Come and experience our farm & harvest this year:
In the pressures and stresses — giving way to giving thanks — gives you the abundant life. Video credit: Levi Voskamp
They were simple people, but they knew it because they had lived it:
Without thanksgiving, the world distorts.
No matter what the headlines shout, the world only has two stories: bless God or curse God.
No matter what the world tries to sell, we all only get to choose from two shelves: Give God thanks or Give God the door.
No matter what we’re facing, there are always only two roads: thanksgiving to God or dismissing of God.
They would let not hard times steal their thanksgiving. They would not let hard sells steal their thanksgiving. They would not let hard knocks steal their thanksgiving.
Because the people living plain and down to earth knew it— if you let something steal your thanksgiving, you let something steal your joy, and if you let something steal your joy, you let something steal your strength.
we will give thanks to God not because of how we feel, but because of who He is.
The Farmer and his wife would let nothing steal their thanksgiving to God – so that in everything they could stand strong in God.
Simple people – keeping it simple. Sometimes they would pull each other closer in the dark and laugh quiet and brave, and she could feel the smile in them: we will give thanks to God not because of how we feel, but because of who He is.
No disaster, no storm, no cancellation, no termination, no catastrophe would stop them from giving thanks. Because the Farmer and his wife knew it:
No matter where they were, every thanksgiving always brought them home —
giving thanks always bringing you home
to the heart of God.
What we need to know is how to make our Thanksgiving into a way of living … to make a thanksgiving holiday — into all of our days.
How do you find the way that lets you become what you hope to be?
How do you know the way forward that lets you heal, that lets you flourish, the way that takes your brokenness — and makes wholeness?
How can you afford to take any other way?
The Way of Abundance — is the way forward that every heart longs for.
November 19, 2018
How to find joy in the land of unanswered prayer
When his oldest son was diagnosed with severe autism, pastor Jason Hague found himself trapped, stuck between perpetual sadness and a lower, safer kind of hope. This is the common struggle for those of us walking through the Land of Unanswered Prayer. Life doesn’t look the way we expected, so we seek to protect ourselves from further disappointment. But God has a third path for us, beyond sadness or resignation: it is the way of aching joy. It’s a grace to welcome Jason to the farm’s front porch today…
My son Jack was two when my friend Nathan made an offhand comment: “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever actually made eye contact with Jack.”
The observation puzzled me at first. Really? Was Jack becoming distant?
I thought over it and became further unsettled.
He wasn’t becoming distant. He had already been distant for months.
He wasn’t just avoiding Nathan’s eyes; he was avoiding everyone’s eyes.
Most of us take eye contact for granted. It’s such an easy reflex, we can’t imagine how precious it really is.
“Jason, I think Jack has autism and you are in denial.”
Even before sounds can ever form themselves into words, words into sentences, and sentences into sentiments, eye contact is the primary medium of interpersonal understanding. For a dad and his two-year-old mini-me, it is the bridge to relationship itself.
Losing that bridge was catastrophic to me.
It was the first stab of the knife, and the cut went deeper than I could have ever thought possible. I was too immature, at that time, to think beyond that one form of connection. All I knew was it hurt.
We didn’t know much about autism then, but people began whispering the word. We did a little research, but since we didn’t see all the symptoms we read about, we dismissed the possibility.
“He’s just a late bloomer,” my wife and I decided. It became our little mantra. He was fine. He would come around.
It was my own praying mother who put a crack in my defenses. She did it in an email that cut straight to the issue:
“Jason, I think Jack has autism and you are in denial.”
Anne Nunn Photographers
Anne Nunn Photographers
I laughed at the words, thus proving her point. In my heart, I think I knew already.
When Jack was three, the diagnosis read “moderate autism.”
At seven, it read “severe.”
Our prayers weren’t working. Jack’s condition was getting worse.
It seemed to me I had two choices: I could either live in perpetual sadness, or I could lower my level of hope.
For ages, I embraced the first option, but it was costly. I became distant and numb, and my family was suffering because of it. I had to pull out of that for all of our sakes.
The only option left, then, was for me to lower my expectations and embrace my new normal in hopes that God might salvage something out of it.
But how could I be satisfied when my son was still distant from me? Why hadn’t he emerged from that dim place? Where were the sunbursts of language? Where was that relationship he was made for? And, dear God, what would happen to him in the tomorrows?
Today, I am still living in the country I fell into: the land of unanswered prayer.
It lies just east of Acceptance and west of Breakthrough.
Maybe you’re here too, living with lingering pains, and with troubles that refuse to resolve.
Maybe there’s an illness. A death. A severed relationship. Whatever it is, it’s not going away, and you want to know why God hasn’t made it better.
Your heart throbs, maybe with anger, maybe with hurt, but almost certainly with disappointment.
Maybe you feel like you’re facing the same choice I did: either you can climb back up to the invisible path of forced smiles, or you can stay on this parched earth and wallow in your broken state.
But of all the false binaries in our modern, angry world, this one might be the most damaging.
Why must we decide between happiness and sorrow, denial and despair, the joy and the aching?
It is a wrong idea that exaggerates both the bright side and the dark: the bright side full of sunshine and the dark side grim as death. The premise requires that we pledge allegiance between two extreme views of the world, two straw men that can offer nothing more than safe, intellectual predictability.
But the sighs of safety and predictability are such small prizes.
What if there was a third way forward that offered more than mere predictability?
The way is out there. And it does, indeed, offer much more.
In fact, there are treasures waiting to be found. God promised this through His prophet Isaiah: “And I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness—secret riches. I will do this so you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by name” (Isaiah 45:3, nlt).
On this journey with Jack, I have found treasures in my darkness, and the greatest of them all was this: aching joy.
The Lord taught me how to sigh in pain, how to weep in gladness, and how to trust during days of hope deferred.
It was not an easy road to walk. It still isn’t easy, and it isn’t safe.
Rather, it is a confounding country full of myths and mirages. Here, faith resembles denial, settledness looks like surrender, and hope is the scariest creature of all.
If you are with me here in this land, you know all about discouragement.
But look up, friend. The path before us is paved with secret riches.
To embrace it is to embrace the terrifying tension of God’s inaugurated but unfinished Kingdom: the already and the not yet, the treasure in the field, costing us everything but giving us even more.
It is the place where I thank God for my son, who is enough, and in the next breath, I beg God for more.
The road ahead is dangerous but not barren.
There is sustenance here, because Christ Himself is here, and He goes before us.
He walked this path already, this Man of Sorrows, and endured all that we must endure and more.
But He did it all for the joy set before Him.
In the land of unanswered prayer, we follow His lead.
He does not hover above us on the winds of false expectations.
Rather, He stands next to us with His own humble scars, beckoning us forward.
Jason Hague lives in Junction City, Oregon, where he serves as the associate pastor for Christ’s Center Church and chief storyteller for his wife and five children. He writes and speaks regularly on the intersection of faith, fatherhood, and autism, and he chronicles his own journey using prose, poetry, and video at JasonHague.com.
In the way of aching joy Christ Himself is with us, beckoning us toward the treasures hidden in the darkness.
Aching Joy: Following God Through the Land of Unanswered Prayer is an honest psalm of hope for those walking between pain and promise: the aching of a broken world and the beauty of a loving God. In this place, rather than trying to dodge the pain, we choose to feel it all―and to see where Jesus is in the midst of struggle. And because we make that choice, we feel all the good that comes with it, too.
This is Jason’s story. This is your story. Come, find your joy within the aching.
[ Our humble thanks to NavPress for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
November 17, 2018
Only the Good Stuff: Multivitamins for Your Weekend [11.17.18]
Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you right here:
www.bluras.com
www.bluras.com
www.bluras.com
www.bluras.com
www.bluras.com
maybe take the road less traveled in the quiet moments this weekend
at 80? we were smiling
Only yarn… and something to see: Former Graffiti Artist Creates Sentimental Yarn Installations Inspired by His Grandmother
yup: never, ever, ever give up
a most powerful story: I could have died & a stranger offered comfort
smiling through tears as these beautiful souls celebrate snow for their first time
onlygirl4boyz.com / Instagram
Dear White Moms: here’s what I need you to know
heart bursting at what they did for their deaf custodian
some good thoughts here… How to Start a Conversation about Jesus
so who knew?!? Tucked away in Poland’s beautiful Tatra Mountains lives a 15th-century cheese making tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation
how this community is pulling together to help their local donut shop owner?
this dad confronted his son’s bully with kindness and it was eye opening… #BeTheGift #TheBrokenWay
they’re on to something here: This Elementary School Classroom for Parents Has Dramatically Improved How Kids (and Adults) Thrive
because really: we all need a hug
are we coming to a city near you?!?
it would be a humble grace to meet you at one of these upcoming Christmas events!
an interview with a 9/11 NYC firefighter survivor: don’t ever give up
cheering here: this new pilot program will bring some needed relief to the homeless this winter
YES, yes, yes: we all need each other…
@boebaty_photography
@boebaty_photography
@boebaty_photography
can you even?!? how he photographs the world?
because love? is everything
a bride and groom who walked down an aisle of rubble to an altar of broken concrete
this teen is bringing light and voice to those who suffer with hidden disabilities
my heart: The Little House of Brave
Four Heroes of the Orphan Crisis in Beijing, China
9 promises for every anxiety
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Post of the week from these parts here
House Flipping + You + Our New Fair Trade Store = World Fixer Uppers
…turns out, all our Homes tell a story. Our homes are always either telling fair trade stories or unfair stories.
Every blanket, every mat, every spoon, every plate — in every one of our homes — began somewhere in the world, was made by someone in the world, and somehow changed a bit of the world’s story — for better or worse.
What if your home could tell a story of grace?
Grace given, grace received, grace passed forward and given again.
You can flip the story of your home today
on repeat this week: Wherever I Go…
Home — maybe the most powerful word we know. So it matters — eternally — how we make our homes.
And it turns out?…all our homes tell a story.
What if we could make homes into holy places
and make holy places into welcoming homes
And —
Make tables into altars —
and make altars into tables
because He who is our bread
invites us all
to be a celebrating, banqueting people who:
Make space at tables
Break bread at tables
Recognize Him at tables
Feast till the very end of time at tables
And invite more to the Table.
Today, let’s lay out the welcome mats.
Set the tables.
Make the tables long, so more know they belong.
Tear down the gates and lay out more plates.
Today, let your home tell a story of grace.
Grace given, grace received, grace passed forward and given again.
[excerpted from our little Facebook family … come join us each day?]
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
November 16, 2018
We are all in the process of becoming: how we can learn to accept ourselves
Janice Peterson and her late husband Eugene Peterson are very special people. They have so lovingly given themselves away as they practice spiritual friendship, even with me. Here, Jan talks about the value of hospitality in building rich, meaningful friendships. I think these words will be a literal gift to your heart and soul. Masterful and luminous, you will be inspired and encouraged to do the hard and holy work of digging deep into true community using simple acts of giving yourself away. It’s a grace to welcome Janice to the farm’s front porch today…
O
ver the course of my life, I have learned to accept that I am still in process.
Choosing to accept whatever work God is doing in my life has helped me be open to new experiences and new ways of seeing myself and my relationships.
One year, Eugene suggested that the two of us go to Kirkridge Retreat Center in the Poconos Mountains of Pennsylvania for a weekend retreat on leisure time with the Quaker writer Douglas Steere.
Over the course of my life, I have learned to accept that I am still in process.
I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but any time away from the church and family and alone with my husband was a welcomed invitation. We made arrangements for my folks to stay with the children.
We drove up, arriving for the retreat late afternoon on a Friday. The retreat started with dinner and the first gathering was right after.
Douglas had us introduce and tell a little about ourselves—where we lived and worked and any other description that would be helpful to each other.
Then he spoke for forty-five minutes or so about leisure time with God.
He said the busyness, the distraction, and all the involvements of our lives often left out the most important part of our Christian life and faith.
The Great Silence
And then he called us into silence for the whole weekend.
I told Eugene at bedtime (even though we were supposed to be in The Great Silence) that I didn’t think I could not talk for the whole weekend.
He comforted me by saying, “We can take a walk together on the Appalachian Trail tomorrow afternoon and talk some then.” My dear husband, holding a carrot out before me.
The next morning, we all ate in silence through breakfast.
After Douglas spoke for a time, he sent us out to walk, journal, write, do whatever by ourselves.
While at first I dreaded the prospect, this time was a whole new, wonderful beginning for me, for engaging with my inner life and learning how to be comfortable with me—Jan.
As Eugene and I walked around the retreat grounds, others were doing the same. As we passed one another, I felt something between us that I had never felt before.
We didn’t greet each other as we might have done at the post office or grocery store.
We were in silence—in The Great Silence—and it was good. Our spirits connected without saying anything or smiling at each other.
Eugene and I did take our walk on the trail in the afternoon, and we talked a little. But with no demands to make conversation, I found I didn’t want to break the silence with my voice.
The mealtime was an eye opener. The colors of the food, the reds and yellows, the greens and oranges just seemed so intense leaping up off the plate at me.
Eating in silence is not what we normally do, but I found I enjoyed the food and the quiet in a way that seemed almost natural to me.
Refreshed and Renewed
On Sunday morning, we came out of The Great Silence to share what transpired for each of us.
I had been praying the Psalms during the weekend and had noted some phrases that had stayed with me:
I build on those past experiences and find I really do need to be quiet in the presence of God and to be alone with Him.
“Thou dost show me the path of life; in thy presence there is fullness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures for evermore” (Psalm 16:11, RSV); “Answer me when I call, O God of my right! Thou hast given me room when I was in distress. Be gracious to me, and hear my prayer” (Psalm 4:1, RSV).
We returned home deeply refreshed and renewed, and I returned home as a different person.
I had been introduced to something that was too good to keep.
I shared about the experience with my Bible study group and suggested that we go on a day of silent retreat together. We started our annual silent retreat that June and look forward to it each year.
I have become a much more introspective person, which I think probably happens naturally to extroverts as we age, but it has also been an intentional journey of accepting how God has grown me.
I build on those past experiences and find I really do need to be quiet in the presence of God and to be alone with Him.
And I think this just might be God’s way of preparing us for the end of our days on earth—for one day being with Him with no interruptions.
Seize the Silence
The experience of becoming more introspective has impacted me greatly over the years.
In order to approach these relationships with open hearts, we need to learn to accept ourselves.
With all the technological“stuff” around us, I feel we should seize these kinds of opportunities whenever we can.
We can do this kind of thing in home groups for just an evening. We can start small!
By learning to connect with God in the silence, learning to become more introspective—no matter our personality—we become more able in understanding and accepting of ourselves, which leads us to become more accepting of others.
When we’re relating with friends, we accept them for who they are and what they talk about.
But in order to approach these relationships with open hearts, we need to learn to accept ourselves.
Accepting how God has created us will allow us to invest in our relationship without jealousy or judgment.
None of us can change overnight.
We are all in the process of becoming.
Janice Peterson is the wife of the late beloved pastor and author Eugene Peterson and the mother of three. Becoming Gertrude: How Our Friendships Shape Our Faith is her first book.
Here, Jan introduces us to her neighbor of long ago, Gertrude, and the tall drink of friendship that that has poured out from Jan’s life, all starting with that first glass of lemonade. Janice reveals the cords of caring, accepting, serving, offering hospitality, and encouraging others. These five strands weave a well-lived life colored with spiritual friendship that will help you to follow Christ in deeply relational ways.
[ Our humble thanks to NavPress for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
The post We are all in the process of becoming: how we can learn to accept ourselves appeared first on Ann Voskamp.
November 14, 2018
House Flipping + You + Our New Fair Trade Store = World Fixer Uppers
On the edge of the equator, on the edge of a slum — I sit with a woman at a loom.
This is the woman who would unexpectedly start to flip our farmhouse.
I’d never met her before.
All our Homes tell a story.
But she’s the actual woman who wove the welcome mat that’s been laying just inside the backdoor of our farm house this last year.
I reach out to shake her hand. All our Homes tell a story.
Claris and her woven welcome mat is part of the story of our home. I watch Claris’ eyes.
Every blanket, every mat, every spoon, every plate — in every one of our homes — began somewhere in the world, was made by someone in the world, and somehow changed a bit of the world’s story — for better or worse.
I step closer to watch how Claris weaves.
Claris shuttles the threads through her hands, moves the weave of things with her feet. I lean forward and ask Claris what runs through her mind when she runs the whirl of loom.
When you’re following the pattern of Christ, you’re always about how hands and feet really move together — just like His.
“Always I’m thinking,” she says, her hands not leaving the shuttle and the long mat she is weaving. “I will only have the right pattern, if my hands and feet keep moving together right. I just have to keep my hands and feet moving together just right.”
I watch Claris’s holy work, the way her hands and feet move, and something in me is deeply moved. I reach out to touch her shoulder.
When you’re following the pattern of Christ, you’re always about how hands and feet really move together — just like His.
In the middle of a Nairobi slum, in a singular shaft of light from the relief of an open door, I sit in the suffocating heat of a tin shack, with Claris who has invited me — into her home.
The only welcome mat Claris has is her warm smile.
But she invites me right to her table.
In a slum in Nairobi, I sit in the home of a woman who’s uniquely woven herself into part of my home, and I sit under her roof, at her table, and I start to name that in me which is deeply moved:
Let your home tell a story of grace.
Make homes into holy places
and make holy places into welcoming homes
And —
Make tables into altars —
and make altars into tables
because He who is our bread
Invites us all
to be a celebrating, banqueting people who:
Make space at tables
Break bread at tables
Recognize Him at tables
Feast till the very end of time at tables
And invite more to the Table.
Lay out the welcome mats. Set the tables. Make the tables long, so more know they belong. Tear down the gates and lay out more plates.
Let your home tell a story of grace.
Grace given, grace received, grace passed forward and given again.
Home — maybe the most powerful word we know. So it matters — eternally — how we make our homes.
Claris passes cups of tea around her table and she tells us: She is the aunt of Lillian and she’s now Lillian’s guardian. Because Lillian had been passed around from slum shack to slum shack, from man to man, raped and assaulted and disposed of, until she found herself pregnant and in the the safe refuge in Mercy House’s home. A safe home for young girls raped in the slums — a safe home for vulnerable girls to become mothers.
When Lillian now visits the slum with her giggling baby boy slung on her hip, men down the alleys call out her name, call out threats, call out a price. But Lillian keeps walking. Because now? Now Aunt Claris is a full-time weaving artisan with Mercy House and she can afford safer housing, a better home, she can put food on the table, and Lillian’s in school and being offered vocational training through Mercy House.
So now? Lillian can walk home.
Home — maybe the most powerful word we know. So it matters — eternally — how we make a home.
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
I tell Aunt Claris that my Farmer husband says her mat at our home’s back door is the best one we’ve ever had, and he asked where I got that mat, and I think how all our homes long to tell the very best story.
Our homes are always either telling one of two stories: fair trade stories or unfair stories.
The welcome mats under our feet, the steaming mugs in our hands, the full bowls on our tables, could tell a grace story — a story of fair trade, a story of life change, a story of saving, Gospel grace. Stories that empower a sister, change the lives of a whole family, free another soul from darkness, offer the sheltering roof of amazing grace.
I ask Aunt Claris what story she wants the people who stand on her mats to know?
“I want you to be happy and your life to be changed.” She takes my hand in hers.
“Because — because of that rug, all the rugs — I am happy and our lives are changed.”
She’s weeping happy. And I fling my arms around her. What if all our lives kinda flipped, our paradigms flipped, our perspectives flipped, our priorities flipped, our homes flipped — because the stories in our homes flipped — from unfair stories — to fair trade stories?
Claris and Lillian’s whole lives have flipped…. Because of the dignity of work, because of becoming a creator, an artisan, because of fair trade.
And I look her in the eye:
What if all our lives kinda flipped, our paradigms flipped, our perspectives flipped, our priorities flipped, our homes flipped — because the stories in our homes flipped — from unfair stories — to fair trade stories?
Flipped to a story that you would want to know, a story you’d want to tell — not a story of oppression or exploitation, but a story that deeply respects every artisan with the dignity of a quality work environment, that fully honors their craft with empowering, fair compensation.
That gives grace back to the world the grace we’ve so lavishly been given.
If our homes aren’t telling a fair trade story — are our homes telling an unfair story?
And there’s no better house flipping — than flipping your house’s story — into a fair trade story.
Make the most eternal investment by House Flipping — by flipping house scripts — from a house full of unfair stories to a home full of fair trade stories.
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
When I walk in the back door of the farmhouse — I step onto that welcome mat — and into the story of Claris, the story of Lillian, into a story that’s changing the world. I smile.
If our homes aren’t telling a fair trade story — are our homes telling an unfair story?
Be happy! All our lives are changed! Watch how all our hands and feet can move — reaching out to each other — to invite each other into more and more Grace.
When we sit down to eat — we share a kind of communion with the world, with the hands that grew our food, with the hands that made our plates. Tables become altars and altars become tables.
Make tables into altars — and make altars into tables, because He who is our bread invites us all to be a celebrating people who make space at tables, break bread at tables, recognizes Him at tables — and invite more to the table.
A Grace Crafted Home tells a grace story — that all, everywhere, are invited to His table. Into His life-changing home.
Wherever there is a place of Grace —
we all find more of Home.
A place where we show grace. Give grace. Pass on Grace.
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted Home
Grace Crafted HomeGrace Crafted HomeWherever there is a place of Grace — we all find more of Home.
And I laugh when I flip over that mat in the mudroom — laugh and tell the Farmer that when the chips are down, let’s flip houses that do nothing less than gain more grace for more of the world.
The man grins a mile wide and winks and it’s my that heart flips — and our lives and stories and unfair stories and all our homes can all flip.
On the edge of a room, on the corner of a mat, I stand on a soft weave in bare feet, because a fair trade home like this could become a bit of holy ground.
Because — nothing ever flips the script like grace.
Welcome Home.
To (our New Fair Trade Store!!) Grace Crafted Home —
the kind of home you’ve always longed for.
Your home can tell a story — that’s changing the story of the world.
Every piece in our Grace Crafted Home collection is:
* fair trade
* dignifies, honors and empowers the artisan
* has a good story to tell — a story you’d not only want to know, but a story you’d want to tell — so you are part of changing story of the world for better
* 100% of all funds not only empowers artisans around the world, but partners with Mercy House Global to support several homes for young women and their babies in crisis pregnancies in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya
* 100% — every penny — of your Grace Crafted Home is giving grace back to those in need — and writing a grace story not only in your home, but around the world.
Choose to craft a home that is not only beautiful —
but crafts a meaningful, powerful and beautiful story in the world.
Choose a Grace Crafted Home.
The post House Flipping + You + Our New Fair Trade Store = World Fixer Uppers appeared first on Ann Voskamp.
November 13, 2018
If You’ve Been Asking for God to Give You a Message: Here it is
Such a traveler has moved on to the far better beyond. I confess, since I heard about Eugene, I’ve often fought tears. I love the man. I met him only once, sat in the Colorado mountains, a few of us in a log cabin, with Eugene and his bride, Jan, for an hour or two. I will never forget his mirth, the way he laughed and his eyes danced. Eugene and his gentle joy. I thank God for Eugene’s faith battle that helped countless of us win more of ours. We were all graced with one of the great saints of the faith. For 18 months, John Blasé and I poured over every word, of every line, of every page of The Message and countless times my heart ached with the question: When will one like this pastoral giant ever pass by our way again? Maybe today even the trees of the field applaud, and we nod, bravely smiling through tears — we have not lost one of the greats… with Eugene, we all only gained. It’s a grace to welcome my friend, John Blase, to our farm’s front porch, as we share the journey of our “work” with Eugene over a year ago.
Alexander Pope said it: “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
Then Elvis came along and sang it: “Wise men say only fools rush in.” (You’re probably singing that in your head right now.)
Reading His Word is not about getting Him to love you… but about getting yourself to the place where you can hear Him tell you He loves you.
When NavPress approached the two of us about working on some revisions for The Message Devotional Bible in celebration of its twenty-fifth anniversary, we hesitated for about a minute — then said yes.
Foolish? Maybe.
Why take such a beautifully influential creation and tinker around with it, with at least a fair chance of messing it up?
That’s a good question, and one we asked ourselves. But we knew it was an opportunity to play the smallest part in the ongoing lyrical approach to God’s Word inaugurated by Eugene Peterson.
In other words — it was a chance to be a part of the music.
The Message Devotional Bible has played a significant role in both our lives, from being the text read round the farming family’s dinner table in the evenings — to being one of the reasons we’ve still got our “eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward – to Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).
So, fools or not — we rushed in.
We were instructed to approach any edits with a light hand. This was not an effort to take an engine apart and then put it back together. Besides, we’re not mechanics.
Without the lens of the Word, the world warps.
Steep in it, meditate on it, return to it, carry a verse of it, don’t begin the day without it.
No, it was more a thorough reading to determine if there were words or phrases which, over time, had become un-contemporary. Such words and phrases were tagged, compared to other translations, then wrestled with to see if we could suggest not something better, but something similarly different.
If you don’t think this was a humbling labor, then you might just want to pinch yourself and wake up.
Trust us — it was quite the daunting assignment. One angels might have even refused. But we’re not angels either, so we put our hands to the plow.
We’d love to say there was some divinely inspired plan we used to decide who would take what books to work through. The only problem is there wasn’t. We started out working on the same books in an effort to see if we were complementary as opposed to contradictory. We were, thankfully, the former, both seeing many of the same things and feeling a unison about suggesting possible edits.
Don’t try to face the day, until you’ve sought the face of God.
After a few books together, we felt confident to adopt an approach of “you take Galatians, I’ll take Ephesians.” And that worked. There were also those times when one of us would indicate a desire to work on a specific book. And that worked too.
At the conclusion of each “batch” of Scripture, for example Paul’s letters or the Minor Prophets, we would look over each other’s work and comment or challenge as need be. All of our work was done from a distance, one of us on Canadian farmland — and another along Colorado’s Front Range.
To say working on this project was one of the highlights of our lives would be an understatement.
Our suggested edits were submitted to the NavPress editorial team, then forwarded to theological scholars for their review — then on to Eugene for final approval.
There were about as many times we would conclude, “Yes, let’s suggest an edit” as there were times we would concede, “You know, Eugene got it right. He really did. Let’s leave it as is.”
His Word made the heavens — and His Word remakes our hearts.
Those moments of concession were wonderful to realize, for they evidenced a man truly in a rhythm, highly attuned to just the best word or phrase to communicate Scripture’s intent to today’s ears.
Time after time, page after page, verse after verse, it was clear that Eugene Peterson is a man who loves God’s Word and intensely desires people to read it.
And that was one of the additional joys of this project – a thorough reading of God’s Word, from beginning to end. The all-too-common practice of cherry-picking not just verses, but even words, leaves the body of Christ poorer and our witness sorely at risk. This is God’s message to us — all of it.
The steady beat of His Word is the only thing that gives a strong rhythm to our days.
Reading His Word is not about getting Him to love you… but about getting yourself to the place where you can hear Him tell you He loves you.
Start in that place every day — the place where you open His Word & hear Him tell you He loves you. Don’t try to face the day, until you’ve sought the face of God.
“The skies were made by God’s command;
He breathed the word and the stars popped out.
He scooped Sea into his jug,
put Ocean in his keg.
Earth-creatures, bow before God, world-dwellers—down on your knees!
Here’s why: He spoke and there it was,
in place the moment he said so.” Ps. 33:6 MSG
Open His Word and feel His breath close on you… God’s doing it right now: His Word made the heavens — and His Word remakes you.
In the midst of social media streams, all that quenches is Living Water. In the midst of all our feeds, all that satisfies is feeding on Living Bread.
If anyone is thirsty, let him come not to the habit of going to the tap of distraction,
to the fridge of immediate gratification,
or to the water-well of modern escapism,
where you keep swallowing it down, but never feel well,
but come to the Word
— the pitcher & beauty of Jesus —
and drink deep & long, to the soul’s deep quenching content.
For as the well of The One Good Book says, “Streams of life-giving water will fill & brim & overflow from anyone who comes to Him when overwhelmed.” [paraphrasing John 7:37-38]
In the midst of social media streams, all that quenches is Living Water.
In the midst of all our feeds, all that satisfies is feeding on Living Bread.
As Eugene rendered Matthew 11: 28-30 — (We did not suggest any changes in these particular verses. We pray we’re not complete fools.)
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to Me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest.
Walk with Me and work with Me—watch how I do it.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me —
and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Get away with Him: Without the lens of the Word, the world warps. Steep in it, meditate on it, return to it, carry a verse of it, don’t begin the day without it.
And in this daily opening of His message to us — there is this learning of the ‘unforced rhymes of grace,’ there is this keeping company with Christ — and finding that we are kept in Christ.
And we get to, especially now, live in the rhythms of grace, always grace — all the music of this living freely and lightly.
Ann Voskamp and John Blase were commissioned in 2016 by NavPress to undertake an “aesthetic revision” of Eugene Peterson’s The Message in advance of its twenty-fifth year of publication.
Filled with notes and reflections from Eugene H. Peterson, The Message Devotional Bible invites you on a journey. You will wander, sometimes plod, and even soar through the Bible alongside a fellow traveler, discovering again and again the surprise and wonder of God’s love and devotion to you.
From the pastor who translated the entire Bible, The Message Devotional Bible sets you on the right path—devoted not just to the Bible but to God, who, in Jesus, became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. It includes over 600 scriptural insights, 52 contemplative readings, introductions to the books and genres of the Bible, more than 400 reflection questions, and 9 neighborhood-themed articles.
[ Our humble thanks to NavPress for their partnership in today’s devotion ]
The post If You’ve Been Asking for God to Give You a Message: Here it is appeared first on Ann Voskamp.
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