The Disputable God

Why is it that everything God does can be disputed? I just read the Pentecost account where the people came running to see what had happened because they heard the “mighty rushing wind.” At least fifteen different people groups were represented in those who heard the 120 disciples speaking in unlearned languages. Each of them heard their own language. And yet, some said, “They’re drunk.”(Acts 2)

Even after the resurrection of Jesus, when he’d been with his followers for forty days, eating with them, teaching them, letting himself be touched–some doubted. (Matt.28:17)

And when my sciatic nerve pain was healed through prayer with the laying on of hands, was that God? It hasn’t come back in many years. Feels like God to me. And yet, others would say it was coincidence or I did something else that caused the pain to resolve.

Don’t you have a dozen places in your journey where you’re sure you’ve been touched by the God who is there and active, that others would question?

Believing these are God touches is about faith, of course, but why is faith important? The phrase came to me: “He wants to be wanted.” When I searched for that phrase, I learned that A.W. Tozer already said it. God wants to be wanted. He wants to be desired. He wants our genuine, heartfelt love.

Just like us. We want to be wanted. Seems to be one of the ways in which we are made in his image.

Jesus, we want to want you today. We want to want you as you deserve to be wanted. With whole hearts and active minds and hot pursuit.

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Me: “Do you really want to let the bicycle trailer to stay out in the weather all summer? What about putting it in the shed?” He’d lifted the fabric-covered carrier off it’s hooks inside the back door and locked it to the outside of the screened porch.

Jerry: “There might be room, but the shed is behind the Kousa Dogwood tree. It’s hard to get it in and out back there.”

Me: “What about the garage? We could hang it above my bike.”

Him: “You’re not the one who has to lift it down.”

Me: “Oh. But in three years, I am the one who’ll have to replace the the sun-damaged fabric.”

Him: “Yup!”

Uh, do we love each other? Absolutely. Well, sort of absolutely, except where we love ourselves better. Like when I want to save the fabric but don’t mind him having to struggle with the carrier. And when he doesn’t want to hassle with hanging the carrier but doesn’t mind my challenge to sew and install new material.

You can hear the discussion of this morning’s conflict. What you don’t hear in this exchange is the laughter. What you don’t see is, as we uncovered the deeper issues, we were snuggling with each other. So, yeah, love does have something to do with it.

It’s love made of commitment and prayer that has brought us here to this place of conflict resolution backgrounded with laughter and hugs. God’s commitment, our prayers.

Here’s three I’ve often prayed. “Lord, help me understand why “X” hurts him so much.” “Help him understand how “Y” hurts me so much.”  And my favorite, all-purpose, marital prayer in the midst of conflict:  “Lord, soften our hearts toward each other.”

Lord Jesus, thank you for your love for us and the love you’ve given us for each other. Lord, soften all our hearts toward each other, especially men and women who have pledged their lives to each other and to you.

Thin Places?

Flowers saved me. Not like Jesus saves me, of course. But that’s what ran through my mind yesterday as I bent to smell the fuchsia peony. The scent of the flower next to the sidewalk took me back to my mother’s garden. In the emotional barrenness of my childhood on the farm, her peonies, lilies, and roses spoke to me of another reality. Peonies still speak to me today.

In my childhood whiff of another place, I sensed a life I longed for. A life of hugs and belonging and affirming words. I didn’t have those words for that experience then. Just a vague sense. Only looking back can I put words to the bit of hope that carried me through that desert.

Mary DeMuth’s new memoir of her difficult childhood, Thin Places, describes those experiences where she sensed God’s hope, where the boundary between earth and heaven was “thin.”

Flowers continue to be a thin place for me. Snuggling with my sweet husband is a thin place. Group singing of worship songs is often, though not always, a thin place.

What saved you in childhood? What strengthens your hope now as you long for the Kingdom fully come? Where are your “thin places”?

Jesus, thank you for those scents of you. Those that carried us through and those that are still thin places.