Humility and Glory

As part of Advent, I like to contemplate the mystery of the incarnation. I am coming to understand that although we think that we'd never do whatever horrible thing we heard someone else did--we really could have. Each one of us is immeasurably closer to the worst of us, than any of us are to Jesus. Ponder this for a moment--it's incredibly humbling. I prefer to think that I'm more like Jesus than I'm like the worst sinner, and skip over the humility involved in being human.

And then consider the mystery of Jesus choosing to share in our human condition. How humbling is that! Our sin was so egregious that the Son of God Himself had to die to rescue us.
What miserable offenders we are.

But that's not all we are. Each one of us was worth Christ's humiliation, sorrow and suffering. In the mystery of the incarnation, we also learn of our glory. Yes, we shall be glorified. We shall have glory...we shall have the approval and affirmation of the Father and we shall shine like the Morning Star.

In pondering the incarnation, I am shrunk down to size, and, my value explodes. I am a  human, but I am not a mere mortal! And neither are you. Each human, each and every one of us, will live forever.
Thanks be to Jesus that he took on human flesh and died in order to welcome us into His home and rescue us from the fate we deserve.

>

My proper place

Solitude teaches me my proper place in the universe.

I am only a human. I am not God and I am not the master over anyone else--I've only been called to master myself and the more I try, the more I realize that I'm woefully incompetent at it.

>

May Jesus Christ be Praised

My friend is living in such difficult circumstances: her husband just died, her daughter's struggling with mental illness, she can't afford to stay in her home so she has to move. And yet she emails me: "May Jesus Christ be praised." Where did she learn to praise the Lord even in the midst of such discouraging circumstances? She's putting me to shame.

The hymn writer in 1734 captures her spirit beautifully and his words convict me of extent to which I have become a "beautiful morning only" praise person. If it's cloudy, and the sunrise is gray, all I feel like doing is complaining. I want to see the beautiful colors light up the sky.

1. When morning gilds the skies,
   My heart awaking cries:
   May Jesus Christ be praised!
   
   
2. Does sadness fill my mind?
3. A solace here I find,
4. May Jesus Christ be praised!
5. Or fades my earthly bliss?
6. My comfort still is this,
7. May Jesus Christ be praised!
8. The night becomes as day when from the heart we say: May Jesus Christ be praised!
9. In heav’n’s eternal bliss, the loveliest strain is this, May Jesus Christ be praised!
10. Let earth, and sea, and sky from depth to height reply, May Jesus Christ be praised!
11. 
    

I can see that I need to develop a regular habit of praising the Lord and I need to broaden my vocabulary. What did the pilgrims praise God for on that first Thanksgiving after a year of unspeakable hardships? If the only things I know how to praise the Lord for are His blessings, how will I ever find a place of gratitude when difficulties come?

1. 
   

>

Embraced and Loved

We know the experience of being with a bunch of people and yet feeling all alone. Henri Nouwen asks: Can we imagine the opposite? Being all alone and yet feeling embraced and loved?

That's the invitation of God to each one of us...to receive deeply the fullness of God's approval and admiration and appreciation and love for us....that we might grasp the width and length and height and depth of His love, and be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph 3:18-19)

As I look back, I realize that I didn't learn about His love for me when I was running around trying to get everything done. Knowing His love has come gently, hour by hour, watching the sunrise and letting its beauty whisper, "The Lord really loves you."

>

A little rain

It's hard to believe that the California foothills, so brown and dead in late autumn, will blossom into a Monet soon. All it takes is just a little rain. Isaiah says that we live in a dry and sun scorched land.

What acts like rain for your inner life?

Sometimes we discount the value of activities that don't seem very "spiritual," but what if God created us to respond to Him in a whole variety of ways, like having coffee with a friend, or walking the dog, or enjoying the beauty of the light just before sunset, or surfing, or watercoloring. What if we paid attention and valued and gave time in our week to those activities that truly nurtured our souls and let God pour down His rain on us. Would we blossom and flourish in ways we can't imagine? And if our souls were well-watered, would we come alive spiritually and find we crave the gift of solitude because it freed us to truly worship?

Word of God speak, would You pour down like rain, washing my eyes to see Your majesty

To be still and know that You're in this place
Please let me stay and rest in Your holiness--Word of God speak

I'm finding myself in the midst of You
Beyond the music, beyond the noise
All that I need is to be with You
And in the quiet hear Your voice

I'm finding myself at a loss for words, and the funny thing is it's okay...

>

Crossing the threshold

We are all feeling the strain as American culture is moving increasingly toward an "open door" lifestyle, where there are no walls between our workspaces and no boundaries around our time. We carry our phones and make ourselves always accessible, basically saying, "Walk in, interrupt me at any time."

But Jesus say, "go into your room, close the door..." (Matthew 6) and we watch him doing just that, going to the mountains or a lonely place, and shutting the door.

It takes special effort to protect the sacred mystery of our lives. Instead of always being "open," we need time that is set apart for being alone. There is so much to be gained from leisurely hours of solitude, time when we do not have to take care of anyone else, time when we can simply be with Jesus. We need blocks of time, even a day or two, when we can give ourselves permission to shut the door.

I think it's good to question why we feel we need to be connected. Sometimes it comes from a boss that demands 24/7 access to us, or a concern that our family needs to be able to get ahold of us. Sometimes it comes from an underlying fear of loneliness: we feel compelled to stay "open" when in fact no one is really requiring that we do. They tell us that they can live without us for a few days, but we still don't unplug. Why? We may be uncomfortable at the thought of not having anything to do and no one to talk with. It's helpful if we can exchange that worry about being alone with an anticipation of being drawn close to Jesus where we experience His love and our souls are satisfied. Maybe we can learn to envision being all alone as a threshold-- when we cross it, we enter into a deeper intimacy with Jesus.

>

The gift of friendship

Nouwen says that when we sense that there is no one in our life who truly cares for us and offers love without condition, and there is no place where we can be vulnerable with being used or rejected, we feel intensely lonely.

But the gift of loyal friendship, the kind that won't ever be revoked or fade away, can create a safe place where loneliness gives way to the warmth of trust and love. Loyal friendship is the sunlight that allows the seeds of loneliness to be transformed into the fruit of solitude.

>

Living with Heaven in View

I've been reading the Puritans' prayers and they have a different perspective on how they view the world. For them, living with Heaven in view means, at least in part, that we seek to live our lives here intimating what our lives will be like there.

So, if our experience in heaven is that God will be our sun, then they sought to live today fully realizing that He is our true source of energy and life.

If our experience in heaven is that God will be everywhere present, all powerful, all-knowing, then they wanted to live confident of His attributes: when they prayed they wanted to pray believing God is all-powerful; when they were alone they wanted to embrace the truth that we are always "with Christ"and under His protection and care.

If in heaven we will gladly accept God's will, the Puritans would ask, then shouldn't we live today with the heartbeat: Thy will be done. If we really believe that in heaven God's will is perfect and good, then it only makes sense that His will for us today is also perfect and good. So shouldn't we surrender our illusions of being in control and receive His will for our lives?

Jesus certainly lived His earthly life with kingdom vision and values. When He tells His followers to "Take up your cross and follow Me" He's telling us to live in the kingdom of heaven today as He is. He calls us to give up any practices and the mindset that sees this world as our home, He says we need to die to that wordly mindset (take up our cross), so that we might follow Him, embracing today what our experience of heaven will be 'up yonder.'

>

Developing our Capacity

What's the value of solitude? When we are alone and don't have to carry on a conversation or check our phones, we are freed from the distractions of life. In the quiet of solitude, if we can also quiet our inner noise, we become aware that God is with us...and our thoughts can become conversations with our Father....prayers.

Learning to "be still" with God, develops our capacity to be alone without feeling lonely, because the quiet of solitude is transformed into the fullness of solitude.

And transforming loneliness into solitude has another promise....in our later years when loss and grief and isolation naturally become part of our experience, if we have developed our capacity to be alone with God, we'll know that even though we may be alone, we aren't really alone because we are with Him.

>

Sacred Solitude

I can get freaked out when I'm all alone. Once I was telling a close friend what a scared-y-cat I am, and found out that before she became a Christian, she went to bed with a bottle of vodka and a loaded gun--even when the kids were home. I realized that I wasn't the only one that didn't like to be all alone.

So driving four hours by myself, in and out of cell phone coverage, especially driving after dark down the windy unlit highway those last 30 miles to get to St. Anthony's was unnerving. I tried to be brave, but it freaked me out. I was always so glad to drive up their driveway, having arrived. I hate being overcome with fear.

And then one day as I was driving to The Springs and I was overwhelmed with joy. Euphoria set in. It puzzled me. I had no idea what was going on, so I knocked on Sister Danelle's door, and asked if she had time to talk. She gently asked a few questions, and listened. I told her I was worried that something was wrong, I never felt free when I was alone. She said, "Perhaps there's nothing wrong, perhaps you are learning to trust." I knew as soon as she said it, she was right. I was learning to trust. I was being changed as the "with-ness" of God became a reality for me.

I was free because I knew I wasn't alone. Through prayer, my lonely place had become sacred Solitude.

>

Loneliness and Solitude

Luke tells us that Jesus intentionally went to a lonely place to pray (Luke 5:16). I don't like lonely places, yet Jesus sought them out. Why? I don't think He ever felt all alone...not until the Cross. He knew His Father was with Him so the lonely place wasn't lonely for Him--it was rich, deep, full, alive....it was solitude. The lonely place provided Him the opportunity to be free of distractions and the continual interruptions and noisiness of the crowds. There, alone in the desert, Jesus could commune with his Father. The lonely place offered Him the gift of solitude.

The lonely place offers us the possibility of adoration, getting lost in worship, enjoying friendship, intimacy, even union with Christ without interruption. It's when we are all alone that we can learn we are never actually alone. And that is a very important aspect of our spiritual formation.

Sometimes everything in our lives becomes dark. We feel all alone, maybe even abandoned, and fears immobilize  us. The Lord desires to replace our profound sense of loneliness with the rich knowledge that He is with us.

On vacation I have the opportunity to get up two hours before dawn and watch the sunrise. One morning dark clouds filled the sky, blocking my view of the first light of dawn. I sat in the darkness, no moon, no stars, no hint of dawn. Then the skies opened and I was in the middle of a huge tropical downpour. It poured down rain for at least ten minutes. But then, in just one tiny spot, the clouds opened,  revealing blue sky and the brilliance of sunrise beyond. I realized that in much the same way, we can be in the dark.We can think that we are all alone. The clouds of doubt and disappointment can block our view. But God is always there. Even when we cannot see beyond our intense loneliness, He is there. Always.

It seems that a significant aspect of our spiritual growth is learning to enjoy being all alone so that we learn we are never alone but always with the Lord. Receiving the gift of solitude is the beginning of the process of prayerfully allowing our lonely place to become a place of solitude, where the fear of being abandoned is replaced by the knowledge that Jesus is with us. We can pray and let our conversation with Jesus be so immediate, like friend speaking with friend, that we know we are not alone.

Grant, O Lord, that we learn to love the lonely place because it is there that we have the sweetest, unbroken communion with You.

>

Returning to Awe

“I had lost my awe of God in the busyness of ministry. I am so refreshed to be reminded of His perfect love of me and that as I surrender to it, this awe of Him returns to my life.”  

--Becky Austin

>

It's Time to Celebrate!

The Springs retreat was started in 1998, and we've met twice a year in Redlands, Sierra Madre, and for the last 10 years at St. Anthony's in Three Rivers, California.

To mark our 10th anniversary at St. Anthony's, we thought it would be fun to have a little reunion and invite everyone who has ever been to the Springs in northern or southern California to come a day before our fall retreat. We want to catch up with each other and to celebrate all that the Lord has done in our lives.

If you can, please join us on Tuesday, Nov. 1 for our 10th Anniversary Celebration. We are going to have a great time!

Go to www.newim.org and click on Events to learn more -- or on Store to register.  Cost is $80 for 1 night, private room and bath at St. Anthony's, 3 meals, and the program.

>

April 2016 Retreat

April 2016 Retreat

The weather was perfect as 22 gals gathered at St. Anthony’s for a retreat focused on Psalm 25 and God’s lavish love for us. Track 2 focused on “listening to Scripture.” Several gals came in a day early to settle in before the retreat began. The small group prayer time was very meaningful.

How did the Lord use this time at The Springs?

“The Lord deepened my understanding of His love for me in this beautiful place.”

“He reminded me that I am he “beloved” daughter. I can come to Him “just as I am” anytime, anywhere.”

“He calmed my mind. Allowed me to rest in His presence after a very long time. I feel so refreshed and so loved. I am truly blessed. I am His Beloved and He is mine.”  - Supriya Sargunaraj

“The time of personal quiet time and solitude was centering for me. I feel as if I’ve experienced a “divine appointment.”  My favorite Bible verse is Psalm 46:10 about being still and quiet, so that we can “hear” God. This verse has “come alive” for me at St. Anthony’s retreat. I have experienced its wisdom for me personally.” – Charlotte Jones

“The Lord taught me to be alone because truly you are never alone. God is always there. I learned how to keep a journal and that you should pray before you start the day. Also, we all go through seasons.” – Brianna Mills

>

Devotion

It's amazing how in love I can be with the Lord, and then one morning, I decide I need to do some work, and then the next morning there’s something else I need to do, and before I know it...my whole devotional life is shot. I've reduced my relationship with the Lord to a business partnership. 

My challenge is that I can think I have decided to love God by preparing to lead a Bible study or work on a neighborhood BBQ. But ministry is not always the same as loving God. Sometimes it may be, but most of the time ministry preparation is studying and writing and organizing...not receiving the truth of Jesus’ lavish love for me.

Devotion comes from remembering He is drawing me and has invited me to come be with Him.

Devotion comes from knowing His love and choice of me, even in my brokenness.

Living passionately in love with the Lord every day begins with putting up a hedge and not letting work creep into my devotional time. It's so tempting for me to give up spending time just being with the Lord, focused only on loving him when I need to get stuff done. The focus of my quiet time is very different if my goal is to increase my love for the Lord than if my focus is to get stuff done.

It takes intentionality to return to practices that can seem like wasting time just loving God, especially when I don’t feel like it. Spending ten minutes receiving the truth of God’s love for me is essential to having a vibrant relationship with Jesus, but what a challenge it is to have work, especially Christian work, become secondary. However, drawing away to be loved by Jesus for ten minutes will awaken my love for Him. And it isn’t long before those ten minutes are the sweetest time of my day.

>