Kelly Minter's Blog, page 12

In the Word In 2016, One Day At A Time

In The Word In 2016, One Day At A Time

Morning Meditation, January 2016

Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.”

 

It’s that first week of January. That week I equally anticipate and dread. The parties and late nights and tins of assorted cookies are so last year, and I’m a little sad about that because I particularly savored the lazy days in pajama pants and the Trader Joe’s holiday section of festive chocolates. Gatherings and punctuations in routine were welcome solaces at the end of a year’s busyness. I relished them late into the night because all was calm, truly quiet, and after short nights of rest when I could have kept sleeping I forced my languid self out of the covers because I didn’t want to miss all that quiet. I mean there was the mall and commotion and parties and such, but the deadlines and general tugs had abated. Maybe you too were like me, nursing those last few weeks in December like the fleeting hours of sunlight in August.

Then the New Year came and a flip got switched. I was ready for a clean slate, a little discipline back in the mix, and a good carrot wouldn’t hurt anyone. And as much as I love a Christmas tree with its lights and sentimental ornaments—when it’s over it’s over. What made me feel all tingly inside a month ago had now become a scraggly fire hazard I’ve been known to single-handedly heave onto the top of my car, tie up and careen to the Christmas tree graveyard out of sheer desperation for it to be out of my house. This is not something you can wait for another person to come help you do. It. Has. To. Go. Then I start vacuuming pine needles. All the decorations get packed and stored in the abyss of my underground basement until next year. The trapdoor slams, and 2016…. here we go. That’s the exterior part anyhow.

What’s going on inside me is a different kind of packing up and putting away and looking ahead. I think a lot about the previous year. All the ground covered, or perhaps lost. Maybe just maintaining was a feat. I journal. I thank God for His faithfulness and consider based on last year where He might be leading in this one. I take a few more walks than normal and pray and ponder, asking the Lord to reveal Himself in greater measure. What should I put my hand to? Is there a new skill to learn or an old one at which to get better? Who is the Lord putting on my heart to encourage, pour into, disciple, or take a mission trip to visit? What do I need to repent of, besides way overdoing it in the Trader Joe’s holiday aisle? Really. What desperately needs sanctification? What parts of my heart have been hurt, calloused over to which I need Him to tend? I process all of this a bit more than the other eleven months in the year, and I’m guessing you do too.

And after all that I usually remember that what will ultimately be accomplished in 2016 will happen one helping at a time, one decision at a time, one hour earlier up in the morning, one prayer meeting, one seed, one meal made, one yes or no…. at a time.

And one page at a time.

Every moment we’re immersed in the Word is a moment with eternal ramifications. All those moments add up, which is why it’s vital to make time for them each day. To have a plan and to guard that plan. I find that having a study I’m working through is helpful because it offers a daily beginning and end, an author as a guide, and all along the way points toward Christ through the Scriptures. If a bible study isn’t what works for you, I would take a book of the bible you want to study and pore over it in a month or two’s time, but set a daily plan. Journal what you’re learning and what God’s revealing. Have on hand a solid commentary as a supplement. Here’s a link to some of LifeWay’s offerings as a starting place.

At the top of 2016 may we allow The Word to give us understanding of God’s character so we can know who He is and how He acts. May it speak to our longings and passions and instruct us how to let them inspire but not rule us. At its feet may we gain wisdom for complex situations and understanding that peels back layers of prejudice, deceit and selfishness. As it says in Hebrews The Word is able to divide between soul and spirit, so sharp it can cut through sinful sinews, or separate good from bad or good from best.

For His Word is a true mirror, refiner’s fire, healing balm, sure rudder, sheltering hull, lamp, light, hope, help, plumb line, comfort.

May we let it do it’s work one day at a time.

The post In the Word In 2016, One Day At A Time appeared first on Kelly Minter.

Immanuel, God With Us

Merry Christmas Friends,

I hope you all are having a meaningful Advent season. I’ve always felt that the holidays magnify whatever state we’re already in. If we’re in love, the season strings lights around our romances; If we’re lonely or hurting, those same lights seem to cast a glaring beam on our ache. And if we’re somewhere in the bell curve of general humanity, we probably have both excitement and longing that are simultaneously being magnified. It is perhaps for this reason that no other name means more to me at Christmas than the name Immanuel, God with us.

This is where I’ve been sitting in the mornings and evenings, contemplating and communing with this God With Us. My tree looked more charming in the lot than it did when I finally steadied it upright next to my fireplace, which isn’t working right now by the way. My chimney is leaking among other problems like it being almost ninety years-old. But the tree and the leaking chimney with the stockings hanging from the mantle will do, because they remind me of Jesus having come.

Consider the significance of having come.

God did not wave a wand or sweep His right arm across the sky or condemn from afar when He could have. Instead, He sent His Son to save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). I sat by this tree last night and this morning, recounting not just my sins but my sinfulness. (David, the Psalmist, the King on whose throne Jesus would eventually reign, claimed in Psalm 51 that he was sinful since birth.) I’m not talking about berating myself at Christmastime, rather I’m just a little more aware of what’s wrong with me, or what’s not right with me, and how much I need a Savior.

I’m aware that in this life we can be as excited and crackling with happiness as cranberries on a skillet, and in the very same day we can wound with our words, jealousy can tackle us from behind and we can be faint with longing. In either state we need a Savior. And so Jesus came. God with us. Not God far away, not God from a distance, not God as one of many. But Immanuel.

My prayer for you and me this Christmas is that we would relish His nearness. Our sins have been forgiven, joyful all ye nations rise. He mends the brokenhearted, O come let us adore Him. He brings His blessings into our broken relationships, far as the curse is found. He frees those in bondage, chains shall He break. Joy to the world, the Lord has come.

I am grateful for each one of you and look forward to seeing many of you on the road in 2016.

Merry Christmas,

Kelly

The post Immanuel, God With Us appeared first on Kelly Minter.

A Monday Memo

Dear Blog Readers –

We wanted to pass along the message that Kelly is out this week ministering (and resting) with dear friends overseas.  She thought you might enjoy this photo from a young adult gathering she had the privilege of being part of in Milan on Sunday night.

Got to share in Milan, Italy tonight with this young adult crowd. The church was started by two dear friends 35 years ago. The last time I was here I was with my mom who had taken me on my first mission trip. I was 14. Tonight I’m celebrating God’s faithfulness.

Also, if you are missing your Monday Morning Meditation today (as we are), we would encourage you to visit the Morning Meditation archives and read back through the incredible installments published over the past few months.  Click HERE to read them all.

May you encounter the Lord in a mighty way today.

Blessings,

“Team Kelly”

The post A Monday Memo appeared first on Kelly Minter.

Opening Our Eyes To See The Harvest

“Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” John 4:35

Jesus spoke these words to His disciples on the heels of a significant encounter He’d had with a woman from Samaria. He’d met her at a well while the disciples were off buying food. When they returned they were surprised to find Jesus talking with a woman, not to mention a Samaritan one with whom the Jews had few encounters. While the disciples had been busy running errands, Jesus had revealed Himself to this woman as the Messiah who had come to redeem both Jews and Gentiles alike. This included her, a promiscuous woman who’d all her life tried to slake her thirst at the wells of husbands and boyfriends and live-ins. She’d finally been found by the One who could satisfy the longings of her heart and who wouldn’t leave her thirsty, or leave her at all. So she dropped her water jar and bolted back to town to tell everyone she knew that the long awaited One, who miraculously knew every detail of her life, had come to town.

The Harvest Is All Around Us

The disciples missed all this, not because they were out doing anything deviant, but because they didn’t know what they were supposed to be looking for. Privately they were wondering why in the world Jesus was talking to a Samaritan woman, and publicly they were concerned He’d skipped lunch. But in a sense Jesus was eating because He explained that His food is to do the work of His Father. What was that work? At the moment it was tending to a woman who was desperately unfulfilled at the end of a long chain of men. The disciples were standing in the midst of a harvest, whose stalks were brushing up against their shoulders, yet they couldn’t discern it. I’m afraid this is me more often than I realize.

The Harvest is Now

Jesus’s choice of a harvest imagery is interesting here because all of us go in and out of sowing and reaping seasons, each demanding a different outlook. When you’re sowing, you’re working and waiting; when you’re reaping, you’re working and gathering what you’ve been waiting for. There’s an urgency to harvest time. The season is swift and you don’t want to miss it. I think the disciples might have mistakenly thought they were in a sowing season, waiting for Jesus to take over, perhaps, as a political or socio-economic powerhouse. In John 4:35 He turned this notion on its head. He was showing the disciples that what He’d really come to do was set captives free, mend broken hearts, wash the stains of sin clean by laying down His life. And the time was now.

Open Your Eyes

Every time my sister Katie visits me in Nashville she spots a celebrity. Every. Single. Time. On her last visit she sent me this text me from a boutique. “Just saw Sheryl Crow, and I haven’t even turned my famous eyes on yet.” When Jesus told His disciples, open your eyes, I think He was saying, turn on your spiritual eyes. Turn on your hurting-people eyes. Be looking in the right places: The Harvest Field. This is simply the people we encounter in our neighborhoods and workplaces, elementary schools and coffee shops, family gatherings and mission trips. People who need an encounter with the same Jesus who changed this woman’s life while she was going about her daily business.

The time is still now. The harvest is ripe and hearts are ready.

We need only turn our harvest eyes on.

 

The post Opening Our Eyes To See The Harvest appeared first on Kelly Minter.

Encourage While It’s Called Today

Morning Meditation

“But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”  Hebrews 3:13

Yesterday I was rushing to get out of the house for an afternoon walk with a friend; I am a professional rusher of a human. (Is it a concern that I frantically walk to get to my walking?) I find that God is also quite adept at slowing me down. As sure as we turned the corner, sweet Miss Corrine, eighty-two years young—and I do mean she’s youthful—pulled into her driveway, rolled down her window and fingered us over. This was not going to be fast.

She had just lost a friend who she’d known since she was six years old—the history on my street is thick. We listened to Miss Corrine empty her weariness as the primary caretaker for the family these past three months. She was plain exhausted, not having slept from watching the horrors of death and being present for the family. After several minutes of conversing with this gem of a woman and neighbor, we told her we’d check on her later this week and sprung across the street. Because we were walking, you know.

And then the reprimand. The place of our failure. The question:

“Now aren’t you two even going to give me a hug?” She said this from the other side of the street with her palms open.

We’re pathetic, I thought. We’re the worst, my friend mumbled. We trotted back across the street and Miss Corrine stuck her wise old head straight against my friend’s chest, her white hair all wrapped up in my friend’s arms. I prayed over her, and then she reminded us of Romans 12:1 about offering our lives as living sacrifices, which is what she’d been doing. It was a sweetness we almost missed: Exchanging words of encouragement while it was still called “Today”.

Encourage Daily and Today

When the author of Hebrews says to encourage daily while it’s still Today, he’s talking about two different things. The daily piece means exactly what we might think: every day we need to speak words that lift the people around us, point out their strengths, pass out the cold water of cheer and comfort that keeps them running toward Christ. We need to do this daily, sometime while we’re in between sunrises. I want to be more this way, to offer the hug and prayer before someone has to chide it out of me.

But what about the “Today” part?

We’re to encourage because we won’t live in “Today” forever, and that doesn’t only mean in the 24 hours we’re currently breathing in. Today is this era of grace in which we’re living where people still have the opportunity to call on the Name of the Lord. We’re alive in a period of history when we can repent of our sin and receive the forgiveness and grace that is found in Jesus. This is on offer now, Today. So we encourage others with a peaceful sense of urgency—while we still can—pointing one another to the heart of Jesus.

Encourage For Soft Hearts

The author of Hebrews gives us an interesting reason for our dispensing encouragement often: so sin’s deceitfulness doesn’t harden our hearts. In some ways I find it surprising that out of all the combatants for sin’s deceitfulness, encouragement is the big remedy. Yet I also find it experientially true. When I reflect on the times in my life when the pleasures of sin felt so perfectly right and fulfilling, it was that good word from a friend or mentor or parent who said, remember God’s good promises, remember who He’s created you to be, remember He rewards obedience, remember God’s ways are always the best ways… I suppose in many respects it has been this encouragement that has kept my heart from callousing, since the encouragement is what often catapulted me to obedience, in turn protecting me from sin having its hardening way.

Encouraging each other is more powerful than we often understand it to be. Click To Tweet

As we were leaving for our walk, Miss Corinne gave us a charge: “Don’t you ever forget us old people. We have a lot of wisdom, you know. And when you pass us by, don’t forget to smile or wave or talk to us. Let us know you see us.”

Indeed, we will, Miss Corrine. While it is still called “Today”.

The post Encourage While It’s Called Today appeared first on Kelly Minter.

Three Truths Jesus Taught About Bearing Fruit

Morning Meditation, October 5, 2015

“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:4-5

I grew up in a pastor’s home. This meant many things, not the least of which was a certain familiarity with spiritual vocabulary. For instance, the use of the phrase “fruit bearing” was a normal part of language for me. I remember giving my high school basketball coach a card at the end of our season thanking her for a very fruitful year. This was so weird. What high school junior calls a basketball season fruitful? Well, me. Totally me. Because bearing fruit is a concept I was raised on, and this carried over into my basketball seasons, apparently. The word fruitful might not have gotten any more mainstream since my high school days, but it’s a word I pray will define my life.

When Jesus talks about bearing fruit, I believe He’s talking about the impact our lives are meant to have. 

This past weekend I was in Michigan speaking at a retreat when I happened upon this apple tree. (Please appreciate my climbing skills). One side of the tree’s branches draped over a lake, bombing gorgeous apples into the water. The ones dangling over land and within reach had vanished to other visitors. In my zeal to not leave the state of Michigan without picking one fresh apple I deftly shimmied up a branch. (This was actually not at all how this went, but just imagine me light and agile.) This prompted a reflection on John 15, and three things I learned about bearing fruit.

1. Remain in the Vine

One of the things that strikes me about a fruit tree is its ability to stand so quiet, without strain or mayhem, while getting things done. I mean, how does a branch produce fruit without the swirl? Do you know what I mean by the swirl? It’s the striving and chaos and energy I often leave in my wake when trying to make things happen, sometimes even for God. In this passage Jesus presents us with an entirely different way.

The word “remain” (abide or dwell) in the Greek means: “not to depart; to continue, to be present; to be held, kept, continually; to continue to be, not to perish, to last, endure” (Vines). The idea is that this is a very restful place to be. If we as the branches remain in Him as the Vine, we draw energy and marrow to produce the fruit He longs to bring about in our lives. It’s all about our attachment and connectedness to Him. This doesn’t mean our lives will be void of activity or the expending of energy, simply that we’re able to draw everything we need to bring forth meaningful fruit that will last. As restfully as a tree beside still waters, because have you ever seen an apple tree freaking out?

2. Embrace The Pruning

Earlier in the chapter Jesus points out that God the Father is the One who prunes our lives so we will be even more fruitful (vs 2). The problem for me, historically, has been quite simple: I don’t always enjoy the pruning process, turns out. Maybe you’re in one of those places where God is refining your character by cutting out a massive tumor of greed or pride. The disease of bitterness is being scraped back. Perhaps that particular false god you were really quite attached to just got lopped off, plummeting to the ground in a most unpleasant way. As I’ve learned a bit about gardening over the years, pruning spares the nourishment of the vine for the branches that are most viable. If God is paring back an area that is presently painful, it is only for the bearing of more fruit—A life of greater impact for His glory (vs 8). So let God do His work and have His way in your life. Don’t resist the hard good He is doing.

3. Expect A Harvest

When Jesus says that if we remain in Him we will bear fruit, this is a promise. Part of the beauty of a fruit tree is that its prolific bounty is an annual and rather predictable offering. No one on the camp grounds seemed all that taken with the fact that this tree had fruit hanging from its branches. In October, the Michigan apple is to be expected. You can count on it. Essential pieces of our existence—like apple cider, apple pie and cider donuts—depend on this reliable reality. How much more can we rely on the spiritual premise that remaining in Jesus means bearing fruit that will last?  In other words, as we abide in Christ we can confidently expect the fruit He will bring about.

May we abide in Him so our activity is peaceful and not full of strife. When the Gardener sharpens his shears, may we let Him have His loving way with us. And as we dwell in the Vine, let us expect the certainty of bearing fruit. Fruit that will last.

Fruit more sure than the autumn apple.

The post Three Truths Jesus Taught About Bearing Fruit appeared first on Kelly Minter.

The Power To Believe You Are Loved

Morning Meditation, September 28, 2015

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge…”  Ephesians 3:18-19

This passage of Scripture is not new to me, and perhaps not to you either. It’s one of the “hit” verses of the bible—to know how wide, long, high and deep is the love of Christ. Who doesn’t want to know this kind of love? And yet we often find God’s love for us incredibly difficult to grasp. We just know ourselves too well. We go to bed swatting away critical thoughts, fear consumes us, we’ve given in to our wayward lusts, or maybe it’s the shame of something from our past that seems to be the metal shield off of which God’s love for us will forever ricochet. It’s just so hard to believe sometimes that He really loves us. And even if we believe it in our heads—like we believe our mothers think we’re pretty, because they sort of have to—we don’t know how to coax it into our souls.

Given this common struggle I was intrigued when I noticed a word in this passage I’d never seen before. It’s the word power—as in, the power to grasp the love of Jesus. The Greek word is exischyō and is used only one time in the New Testament. Once. Right here. And it means, “to be eminently able, to have full strength, entirely competent.” In other words Paul is praying that we would have the power, the ability, the strength to grasp God’s overwhelming love because he knew it wouldn’t always come easy.

 

Paul prayed for the strength to grasp God’s love

Paul prayed that the church at Colossae would be able to grasp God’s love. This tells me that God’s love is so beyond us that we will need His help to receive it on meaningful levels, to truly understand it and believe it in our bones. This inspires me to pray for those who can’t seem to receive the tender love of our Savior, even if they intellectually believe it. It inspires me to pray for myself, that the Lord would give me the capability to more fully grasp how wide, long, high and deep is the love of God. Though God’s love is a gift He lavishes upon us, being able to comprehend that love requires a certain strength, and Paul reveals that he prays for that strength. I believe we should, too.

God’s love is best understood within the community of believers

Notice Paul writes about being rooted in love together with all the saints. Believers in Jesus who isolate themselves from the body of Christ will have difficulty grasping Christ’s love for them, because part of comprehending His love is experiencing it within the community of Christ. I have a friend who’s been going through a hard season with health issues, her husband lost his job, and she and her new baby were recently in a car accident. She told me how our home church has reached out to her in such overwhelming ways that she’s receiving the wider dimensions of God’s love for her in places she’s had difficulty accepting it before. It’s taken the body of Christ to help her experience God’s love for her more fully.

God’s love surpasses our finite knowledge

I see another insight into why I sometimes have a hard time internalizing God’s love for me, really letting it seep into my being. This passage tells us that God’s love surpasses knowledge. And isn’t it typically our knowledge that stands in the way of us believing in God’s love? It’s the knowledge of the hurt in this world, the loss of a loved one who God could have healed, the guilt we can’t believe can be washed away. It’s all this knowledge of our circumstances that sometimes makes His love hard to grasp. Yet at this precise place, the love of Christ surpasses our limited, finite understanding the way a winning runner flies past the competition. Our knowledge, intellect, reasoning, understanding will never, not ever, be able to beat out His love. His love will always surpass what we know.

The Amazon River in Manaus

My friend Kari recently returned from a trip to the Amazon. When I asked her what her most profound moment was she explained how the Amazon is simply the most vast thing she’s ever witnessed. “I’ve never seen a more magnificent river than the Amazon”, she said. “Overlooking the river reminded me that the love of God is wider, longer, higher, and deeper still.”

And still He gives us the power to grasp it.  

 

The post The Power To Believe You Are Loved appeared first on Kelly Minter.

A Birthday and Three Gifts of God’s Faithfulness

Morning Meditation, September 21, 2015

 “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23

I turn a year older this week. What is it about birthdays, especially the adulthood ones that make you reflect on God’s faithfulness? Cherish it, actually. Realize you wouldn’t be here without it. Last night I sat on a friend’s porch over dinner with two of my closest, longest-time friends. We were working on putting the final pieces together for Justice and Mercy International’s Benefit Gala (an organization I partner with in the Amazon), and it suddenly hit me—that we’re the adults in the room. We plan stuff. People occasionally want our opinion. I don’t know exactly how or when I got old enough for this to happen.

The marker of another year causes me to look back on the path from whence I’ve come, aware that all my choices for obedience don’t add up to having gotten me to where God has brought me. In other words, grace fueled any obedience I can claim and made up for everything else. All of us have glimpsed around the room of our lives—be it a job we never dreamed would be ours, a child so unique we couldn’t have imagined him or her up, the ministry calling so beyond us—and realized we just couldn’t haven woven all this together, not to mention redeeming the bad stuff for good. When it comes down to it, there’s really just one word to describe God’s hand on our lives: Faithfulness.

The prophet Jeremiah points to three facets of God’s faithfulness:

We Are Not Consumed

We have not been snuffed out by our guilt and shame and selfishness. I admit the idea of, awesome, I haven’t been consumed today is not the first grace I think of when I consider God’s love. Still, Jeremiah’s words are both sobering and relieving. My sin could have taken me out a few different times—or as my friend likes to say in Old Testament terms, I could have gotten smote. So just the reality that I am writing these words, and you dear sister are reading them, says we do this because we have not been consumed. Because we are alive. Because of His great love for us.

His Compassions Never Fail

There’s just no telling who or where I’d be right now, or what my community would look like, if the Lord’s compassions were to have failed me at any point. They would have had only fail for a moment, at the wrong time, for things to look so very different. You may feel the same. I think in my younger years I presumed upon the Lord’s compassions, as if they were there for me like oxygen—paradoxically too plentiful to be seen as a treasure. But now I realize God’s never failing compassions are why I have anything at all. As I become more aware of the fragility of life, I am keener to the reality of His mercies. The fact that Almighty God bows His head toward us with compassions is deeply meaningful, but the fact that these compassions never fail is what keeps us alive.

His Mercies Are New Every Morning

It’s the daily dose of His morning mercies piled up from thousands of daily servings that have, one by one, carried me to today. Carried us all here. If the Lord had dolled out His mercies in one lump sum I may have used them all up, clean gone. If there were a limit to His tenderness, I may have outrun it. But every morning brings a fresh batch out of the oven. They are new. They are here today. They will rise on the wings of the dawn tomorrow.

So this week I will turn another year older. I’m looking forward to being with family and friends and perhaps strawberry cake. And I will breathe deeply these surroundings because I have not been consumed, because God’s compassions are present and they do not fail, and because His mercies will be new that morning, and every morning for as many days as God gives me.

Great is His faithfulness.

 

 

 

The post A Birthday and Three Gifts of God’s Faithfulness appeared first on Kelly Minter.

How To Be Fully Known (And Know You Are Fully Loved)

Morning Meditation, September 14th

Psalm 139:1, “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.”

I used to watch the Cosby show as a kid and I’ve never forgotten this exchange:

Boyfriend: “I think I’m going to just spend some time trying to find myself.”

Cliff: “And how long do you think that’s going to take?”

Boyfriend: “About five or ten years.”

Cliff: “In that amount of time you could find yourself and a few other people.”

I remember thinking this was funny but also wondering what in the world this meant. How could someone be trying to find himself? Didn’t he know who he was? Wasn’t he just who he was and that was that? This was before I grew a little older and realized that knowing who I am is more complicated than I once thought.

Hannah Smith Photography
God Knows Me Even When I Don’t Know Myself

In high school and college, discovering who I was seemed determined by what I liked: sports or theatre or spending time in the library. Who my friends were said a lot about me—or who I wanted to be. But all this shifted around a lot and made me wonder where I fit and who I really was.

Even now I have days where I don’t know why I reacted so harshly to that innocuous comment, or why someone’s kind smile left me sad, of all things. I wonder why I’m anxious in an environment that’s supposed to make me happy, or why some days I’m not quite sure what I even want. Today during my Pilates routine I teared up, for no apparent reason, when a hymn came on the radio (that I listen to hymns while exercising is another phenomenon altogether). What I’m telling you is that I can’t always explain why I think this or feel that, but I should be able to. Right? Because, after all, it’s me. Not fully knowing who I am is such a strange thought because I want to say to me, Hey Kelly, it’s you. Don’t you know you by now?

When I can’t understand myself, God says, I have searched you, I perceive your thoughts, I am familiar with all your ways. (Ps 139:1-3) 

God Knows Me When People Can Only Know Me So Far

Proverbs 20:5 says, “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.” I adore people who do this for me. I am crazy about these people who—when I can’t get a handle on what I’m thinking or feeling— reach into the swirl of my being and tug on the one piece of yarn that unravels the whole mysterious ball. So, that’s why I’ve been feeling this way! But people have their limits. Even the super wise, prophetic, godly ones can only reach so far.

When people can’t reach any further into my soul, God says, I created your inmost being, I knit you together in your mother’s womb. (Ps 139:13) 

The Lord Knows Me Even When I’m Afraid To Be Known

Haven’t we all wondered that if we’re fully known we might not be fully loved? Or if we’re fully loved we’re afraid it’s because we’re not fully known? I lived so many years hiding from God what He already knew. My frame was not hidden from Him (vs 15). I was sure the darkness I sometimes felt in my heart, because of what I’d done or what had been done to me, was too dark for Him to peer into. But even the darkness is not dark to God. (vs 12).

I’ve wondered that if I were fully known could I be fully loved? And the whole of Psalm 139 says ‘yes’ to this ache in our hearts with a crescendo. “I praise you,” the Psalmist says in his naked exposure and vulnerability, “because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (v14).

When I’m afraid of what being fully known means, the Psalmist says, The thoughts God thinks about me are precious and vast. (Ps 139:17) 

To be known more wholly than we can know ourselves. To be known more deeply than others can know us. This is the knowing with which God knows us. But do not be afraid…for He loves us wholly still.

 

The post How To Be Fully Known (And Know You Are Fully Loved) appeared first on Kelly Minter.

Three Ways to Help Our Children Love God’s Commands

Morning Meditation, September 7th, 2015

 Deuteronomy 6:6-7, “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

The social media back-to-school pictures are reminding me of my own days of spiffy lunch boxes and snappy new shoes, the backpacks that look like they’re carrying adults in them. My favorite post to date is this picture of my friend Martin. Please love this with me.

We get so much less applause as adults.

I should begin by saying that I am not a mother, but I was a child once. And I have nieces and nephews who I hope will one day look after me, so all this has to count for something. In this post when I speak of “our children”, I mean the ones we’ve birthed, adopted, or who simply hold dear places in our lives.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 tells us to teach these little ones as we go along the road, all the time. Little of this manner of teaching will be the stuff of chalk and blackboard. It will rather be lived by example in all the places where everyday life meets our faith. Out in those wide-open spaces and in the quiet corners of our houses, where our children will see what we really believe based on how we really act.

1. Our Children Will Only Want What Comes From Our Hearts

Before God told the Israelites to impress His commandments on their children, He told them to make sure those commandments had first landed on their hearts. This is the difference between regulation and relationship—and our children can discern between the two. So much of what I learned about God’s ways was by watching how my Mom and Dad’s faith colored every area of their lives, both public and private. God’s commands weren’t merely a to-do list they kept up with, or a behavior management metric, they were a heartfelt conviction. Even if they didn’t always get it right, I knew their faith was real. When they were lying down or getting up.

2. We Can Only Talk Conversationally About What We Know Experientially

Revel in the nearness and practicality of what it means to share with our children about God’s ways through every movement—sitting, walking, lying down, getting up. It was never hard for my parents to talk about what it meant for them to live according to God’s commands because they’d had history with them. They had stories to tell us about how sometimes they wanted to respond to that critical person in anger, but they chose love instead; how when it seemed advantageous to shade the truth, they decided for honesty. Their faith spoke into their daily experience and those experiences left them with stories they could talk about. Whenever we sat down.

3. Our Instruction Should Be As Natural As Breathing, But As Pointed As An Arrow

The word “impress” in the original language—as in “impress upon their hearts”—means to pierce or sharpen a sword. I get the idea that the way I pass down God’s instructions to the children in my life should be able to cut through all the fuzz and blur of ambiguity and deception. (Hebrews 4:12 says God’s Word is sharper than a double edged sword, able to divide between soul and spirit). A child can tell if I’m simply repeating religious rhetoric or if I’m speaking meaningful wisdom that transcends their circumstances. My Mom used to pray with my brother when she drove him to elementary school—teaching along the way—and he can still tell you the specific answered prayers that came to pass during those years. Those were penetrating experiences for him where God’s Word pierced into his reality.

As another school year begins, may we teach our children from the heart, teach from experience, and impress God’s truth on their souls—all along the way. Because His commands are meant for every road we’ll ever walk on.

The post Three Ways to Help Our Children Love God’s Commands appeared first on Kelly Minter.