Water in Scorched Places

Posted on March 20, 2012 by admin

Several years ago a friend gave me a Chinese scroll for Christmas. On it are a painting of a tree in delicate lines of green beside a small stream and the words of Isaiah 58:11 in Chinese calligraphy:

And the LORD will guide you continually

and satisfy your desire in scorched places

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,

whose waters do not fail.

A few of my wall hangings became moldy after enduring the steamy heat of several rainy seasons in Jinghong, and they had to be thrown away — but my scroll from Isaiah survived and hangs on my wall on the desert side of Washington today.

I was reminded of the words and the image of the tree by water as I drove through the desert between Balmorhea and Fort Davis in West Texas. Looking out across the landscape, I saw the foothills of the Davis Mountains covered in brush and cactus and yucca, rolling up from Balmorhea at 3,100 feet to Fort Davis at 5,050 feet. Much of this land still bears the charred black evidence of last April’s wildfires that burned more than 310,000 acres.

Here and there along the way a short line of cottonwoods would appear in a burst of bright, fresh green upon the brown and grey and dull yellow of the desert backdrop. From my far-off vantage point, it was hard to tell how a stand of trees could suddenly show up in the desert, how something so tall and so green and so evident of spring could exist in a land parched of moisture. Cross that distance to look up close, however, and you’ll find a small creek or an irrigation canal carving a curve in that corner of the desert. Where there is water, tree roots dig deep.

This afternoon the roots of my heart dig deep and search for Jesus, the living water that satisfies my desires in scorched places.

Book Review: The Virtue of Dialogue

Posted on February 28, 2012 by admin

“Conversation has not been a magical solution to bring us to one-mindedness or to solve all our conflicts. Today, we still do not agree on all the questions that we have asked over the years, but we do agree on more things and have a much deeper sense of trust that God is guiding us and will continue to work in our midst.” (p. 13, The Virtue of Dialogue)

Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to review a few titles for both the print and online versions of The Englewood Review of Books. Today I’m posting a review here on my own site as part of a blog tour for Englewood’s editor C. Christopher Smith’s new e-book The Virtue of Dialogue (Patheos Press), which is available for purchase for your Kindle or Nook.

A substantial portion of the book is the telling of the story of Englewood Christian Church in Indiana, where Smith and his family are members. I love a good story, and this one is well told. Smith traces the history of the church from its beginnings in the late 19th century to present day, weaving in the ups and downs of the congregation’s past, including how it went from a mega-church to less than 200 in attendance within a few decades. The main focus of the story is how both the church and the Englewood neighborhood itself have begun to flourish again and how the church’s “Sunday Night Conversations” played an important role in the recent neighborhood changes.

From the title of the book, I wasn’t convinced before reading it that this wouldn’t be yet another call for churches to have small groups where people can interact with one another and be participants rather than consumers. An important message, but one I’ve heard many times in recent years. That’s not what this book is about.

Through the story’s narrative, Smith tells how the members of Englewood Christian Church as a whole began meeting every Sunday night to talk to one another about their core beliefs and how healing and growth came as they worked at listening to one another instead of tearing one another down. Those same principles of talking and listening (which is what a dialogue or conversation is, right?) soon transferred to how they interacted with their neighbors, and the church became an active participant and leader in the community to keep gentrification from changing Englewood. And lest you think that all they do at Englewood is sit around and talk, I was excited to read about all the things the church is doing in (or rather, with) their community through business and gardening and sustainable food initiatives and real estate.

The Virtue of Dialogue doesn’t give a program or outline for how your church can have the kinds of conversation that Englewood has. It isn’t a prescriptive method with a list of discussion questions that will guarantee your congregation has productive dialogue both within the walls of its building and with others in its community. Smith makes a point of saying more than once that what works for Englewood won’t necessarily work for every church in the same way and that each congregation needs to go through the messy process of stumbling through the early stages of growing in dialogue. That messy process is part of the whole point. We have to get beyond the mindset of efficiency and productivity and realize that not everything in our lives that is good and beneficial for growth can be measured in charts and graphs. Conversation takes time, it can’t be rushed or defined, it doesn’t always have a tangible outcome at the end of every gathering — and that is OK.

Other People’s Thoughts: Hope Beyond the Blue

Posted on February 21, 2012 by admin

Sometimes the only way to return is to go

Where the winds will take you,

To let go of all you cannot hold onto

For the hope beyond the blue

- Josh Garrels in “Beyond the Blue” from Love & War & The Sea In Between

My personality and work style tends toward the type that likes to get things done. Identify the problem, figure out the solution, make a list of steps, put my head down and work until the job is finished.

Some things in life don’t resolve themselves in such a methodical way. Some problems can’t be solved by coming to a pragmatic conclusion and putting in the man hours to work it all out. Looking back over the years of my life as an adult, much of my greatest growth as a follower of Jesus has come when I’m in those types of situations, when I have to let go of my control of a situation, let go of my expectations for how things should play out. Even if what I’m expecting or envisioning or praying for doesn’t seem overly selfish, even if it seems like it would be a good thing and could bring a measure of glory to God, ultimately I just don’t know everything in this life — and my deepest joy comes in the moments when I can glimpse beyond the Right Now into that place “where the winds will take you” when I’m completely surrendered to God.

Check out Josh Garrels’s music on his website. You can get a free download of his latest album — powerful, meaningful lyrics.

God in the Garden: God Works in His Time

Posted on December 1, 2011 by admin

Today I have a guest post for you from my good friend, Laura Solano of Cozy Tops (she’s the one who organized our hat-making venture for the Period of Purple Crying campaign, and she makes the loveliest of baby hats for sale here). She is the gardener-in-charge of the Quinault Community Garden (although she wouldn’t appreciate my calling that attention to her, but I’m just calling it like I see it), and she has written this month’s essay on God in the Garden: God Works in His Time. For previous essays, see “God is Good” and “God is Faithful.”

Thank you, Laura, for allowing me to share your essay!

God Works in His Time:

“The LORD is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9

I love the season of Advent, the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. The waiting, the anticipation of the Christmas joy is tempered by the reminder that even as we remember Christ’s first coming as Immanuel the Lamb, we still wait for His second coming as Judge and Lion. We have been waiting now for two thousand years and the wait seems long. And yet—our impatience is selfishness. Peter assures us in his second letter that “with the LORD one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day” (3:8). What great patience! And the truly wonderful thing is that God’s patience is not for the sake of virtue, but for OUR sake. Indeed, “the patience of our LORD [is] as salvation” (2 Peter 3:15).

God is the good Father and He delights in teaching us to be like Him. Winter, like Advent, teaches us patience. Advent coincides with the shortest days of the year and the beginning of winter. I often wish that we could skip winter altogether and jump straight from autumn to spring. But it is precisely the misery of winter, the cold, the ice, the dead-looking vegetation, that causes my jubilation in the first crocus sighting of spring.

Winter helps us learn not only patience but also the goodness of God’s faithfulness. Spring does follow winter every year and it arrives in God’s perfect timing.

As we wait for warmer weather, let’s enjoy learning godly patience and anticipate the faithfulness of spring.

God in the Garden: God is Faithful

Posted on November 3, 2011 by admin

(This essay is the latest in the series on the Quinault Community Garden — the first was “God in the Garden: God is Good” and can be found here.)

Trust in the LORD, and do good;

Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.

Psalm 37:3

God is faithful. The Bible tells us this, and we would agree with this statement if someone asked. But how often do we take notice of God’s faithfulness in our day-to-day lives? A lot of the time, we get wrapped up in our busy schedules and our work and trying to accomplish what we think is important, to the point that we can forget that God is the one who holds everything together — including our paychecks and our bank balance.

Until something happens and our bank balance and bills don’t match up any more, that is. Then we are forced to ask ourselves, do I really believe with my heart what I say with my mouth about God’s faithfulness? Will my actions during crisis show that I trust God to provide what I need when I need it?

Times of crisis are good for revealing the heart, but we don’t have to wait until we’re at rock bottom to look to God for a display of His grace and wonder and provision. In our community garden, we can see God’s faithfulness being worked out. We come together as a group of workers — as gardeners! — and we do all that we can to prepare the ground, plant the seeds, tend the beds, and wait for the harvest. But it’s God who makes the seeds become plants and the plants produce vegetables. We just can’t do that part. At all. We have to trust that God will do it. And when He does, we will literally be able to feed on His faithfulness, in the form of tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers and carrots and lettuce and whatever else we decide to plant.

Already we’ve seen God’s faithfulness in the garden displayed through His provision of the materials and help we need to get this endeavor off the ground. His provision has come through donations of money for supplies, time and labor for building the beds, and equipment to carry out the work. It is beautiful to wait and watch what God does when we have needs, and we are thankful for His faithfulness.

Other People’s Thoughts: A Sabbath Mood

Posted on February 11, 2011 by admin

Still thinking about the concept of work and faith and God’s grace, a few lines from one of Wendell Berry’s Sabbath poems in A Timbered Choir come to mind:

And yet no leaf or grain is filled

By work of ours; the field is tilled

And left to grace. That we may reap,

Great work is done while we’re asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood

Rests on our day, and finds it good.

The Not-So-Negatives

Posted on February 10, 2011 by admin

In the last post (Doing Work vs Having a Job), I said I would write the next blog entry about the negatives of doing freelance work. As I sat down to write about the negative side of the not-having-a-permanent-job coin, though, I realized that the main thing I originally perceived as a negative is turning out to be a positive.

It has to do with money, you know. And where it all comes from. Sure, as a freelance writer I can take the afternoon off work to be outside in the sunshine if I feel like it, but I go without the assurance of a regular monthly paycheck.

I’m not very far into this whole freelance thing, so my experience with the financial side of it is still rather limited. But the obvious potential risk of starting a venture such as this, striking out on my own in business, is that it won’t be profitable. And eventually I won’t have money for rent or food.

Like I said, my experience is limited, so I suppose that’s all possible at some point down the road. But so far, what I have seen is that God provides for my needs. Which leads me to believe that somehow there will always be money for food and rent, or as has been the case with so many generous friends this past year, a spare bedroom will be provided.

When I say the negative is really a positive, I mean that the potential to not earn enough money and be in a desperate financial situation is real, but the opportunity I have at this point to trust God and to pray for His provision is greater than it has ever been in my life. And that is a good thing. I have missionary friends who raise their own support, and the thought of having to do that has always scared me to death. Funny that God took me out of the overseas missionary life to begin teaching me the lessons in faith that come from asking Him for my daily bread.

I’m still trying to figure it all out, how God’s grace and my faith and His provision and my work all come together. I’ll probably be trying to figure it out for the rest of my life. What I do know for now is that I pray daily for God to give me opportunities to write, for writing jobs that will earn me some money, and then I sit down and do my day’s work. And the stress that I had expected from not knowing for sure if I’ll have enough income two months from now, six months from now — honestly, that stress just isn’t there. I can’t explain it other than I’m learning to depend on God in a way I hadn’t before now.

The point that I want to convey here is not, “That’s cool, she prays and God gives her what she asks for” — because, friend, I have a whole list of things I’ve asked for and didn’t get, some of them quite important. What I really want to convey is that through seeing God’s direct provision in my work, I am coming to know God better. And knowing the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent is ultimately what I want my life and work to be about.

Other People’s Thoughts: Writing by Faith

Posted on June 21, 2010 by admin

I have a good friend who I’ve lived and worked with in China and who I’ve come to know quite well over the years through discussing books and writing letters (e-mails) back and forth about what we’re reading. One thing, among many, that I greatly appreciate about my friend Emily is that if she reads a passage in a book that she thinks I would enjoy or could benefit from, she takes the time to scan it or type it out to send me. I also appreciate when friends send me links to articles online—but in the busyness and fractured attention spans of 2010, when someone types out a passage for me to read from a hard copy of a book, it really means a lot.

A while back, Emily sent me several scanned pages of the essay “One Difference Between Me and Sparrows” by Elisabeth Elliot from 1979. Essentially, the essay is about living by faith as a writer, though the points she makes can be applied to any type of work:

“The Bible says the just shall live by faith. The ‘just’ is not a special category of specially gifted or inspired saints. It is the people whose hearts are turned toward God. The people who know that their own righteousness doesn’t count for much and who therefore have accepted God’s. I belong in that category. Therefore the rule for me is the rule for all the rest: live by faith. So I have been pondering, up here in this quiet room, what it means for a writer to live by faith. It was easy enough to come up with some things it doesn’t mean. It does not mean that my intellect need not be hard at work. It does not mean that I trust God to do my work for me, any more than for a housewife to live by faith means she expects God to do her dishes or make her beds. It does not mean that I have a corner on inspiration that Norman Mailer, say, or Truman Capote don’t claim. (I don’t know whether Mr. Mailer or Mr. Capote live by faith–I haven’t come across any comments by either on the subject.)”

Elliot goes on to talk more about what living by faith as a writer does mean, with these main points:

* It means accepting the task (and the risk) from God.

* It means coming at the task trustingly.

* It means doing the job with courage to face the consequences.

* It means giving it everything I’ve got.

The entire article is only 5 or 6 pages, so you should read the whole thing if you have time—I found it online, otherwise I’d have to send you the scanned pages, which I keep in the file on my computer called “from Emily.”

Rebecca Henderson

writing, reading, living

Tag Archives: faith