by Elizabeth | May 19, 2015 | Learning Story
Last night I dreamed that I was in an earthquake. (I live in Florida, where hurricanes are not uncommon, but earthquakes are). It was easy to trace seismic activity in my dreams to current stories in my life and the world.
Whether it is the Nepal earthquake, criminal motorcycle gangs, or children’s lives changing rapidly, the good news is that God never changes. Here are some quotes from Charles Spurgeon’s Morning Meditation, paired with visuals. I hope these words and pictures (taken with an Iphone 5s at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens) will encourage your heart when your world seems to shake.
(The full-text of the hymn he quotes can be found here).
The Good News: God Is in Control
The Good News: God Is God
The Good News: God Gives Peace and Gladness
The Good News: God Forever Reigns
by Elizabeth | May 11, 2015 | Learning Story
Last week, I wrote about the disorientation many graduates may be experiencing in this wild season.
With the swirl of May activity and the whirl of concomitant emotions, I’ve enjoyed some sweet restoration sitting still, closing my eyes, and listening to the lovingly sung prayers of Sandra McCracken’s new album, Psalms.
Underneath each picture is the link to the related psalm song from Sandra McCracken.
by Elizabeth | May 5, 2015 | Learning Story
Tis the season – graduation invites are dropping in my mailbox like flies on watermelon juice, so I am re-visiting some of my previous thoughts on the season.
(This year, our third child, second daughter is graduating from college — and getting married 3 weeks later, and moving, and starting a new job….! So, once again, I want to write some new thoughts, but it turns out the old ones still apply — and I have to make a day-trip to our youngest son’s college today, so…we’re returning to 2013.
I want to write some new thoughts about graduation, I really do.
But the fact is, I have to figure out how to print return address labels for his invitations, go to the post office to get the “additional postage required” because I didn’t know the invitations we ordered were an “odd-size,” and buy more laundry detergent, because our household is again filled with kids who have laundry (and do it themselves).
Human experience includes those dangerous and difficult times of dislocation and disorientation when the sky does fall and the world does come to an end.” Walter Brueggemann, on the Psalms
I was reading this great Brueggemann quote this morning, and it hit me. My daughter (and every other senior) is disoriented. Please don’t hear what I’m not saying — it’s not like she’s doing crazy things like wrapping the school up with caution tape or lying around the house all day watching old episodes of Gilmore Girls (well, she is doing that!).
It’s just that she, and every other senior, has arrived at one of those times when a world has come to an end.
I’ve been focusing on how disorienting it is for me to have my third of four graduate from high school, but this morning I decided to turn the tables and think about what the seniors are wondering. Here are six questions disoriented graduates may be asking:
- Who am I now that I’m not…the class clown, the All-A student, the “most-likely-to-be-tardy,” the state wrestling champ…?
- Will anyone here miss me? Will they remember me?
- How will they get along without me? Who can fill my shoes in the part I played in this world?
- Who will be my new friends along the next part of the journey?
- What IS the next part of the journey?
- Will I make it in the “real world”?
For the graduates and their parents, siblings, and friends, reading and praying the Psalms of orientation and disorientation remind us that in the midst of a season of uncertainty, God’s unchanging love and all-knowing plans bring a sense of security.
by Elizabeth | Mar 31, 2015 | Learning Story
It’s Holy Week. As I thought about this blog, I realized I know a lot about “Palm Sunday,” “Maundy Thursday,” “Good Friday,” “Silent Saturday” (or “Easter Eve”), and “Resurrection Sunday.” These are the biggies, (they even have names), and preachers, teachers, and bloggers tend to focus on them.
But what about Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday — what happened on those days? I often forget. So I did a bit of research. I considered what Jesus did, and I thought about what we learn about the gospel, the story of God’s grace, through them. Here are four happenings from Monday and Tuesday. I’ll follow up with Wednesday tomorrow. Here is a short list of some of the events of those days:
Fig Monday (yes, apparently it has been so named:-)!
1. The curse of the tree: Matthew 21:18-22; Mark 11:12-14: Jesus curses the fig tree for not bearing fruit. His disciples were confused. What did the fig tree do to deserve this?
- Gospel implication: In Jeremiah 8:13, a fig tree represented Israel, God’s chosen people. In this final week, God is unveiling the truth — his very own people deserve judgment, death, for their sins. And Jesus will be dying in their place.
2. More moneychanger trouble: Mark 11:15-19: We don’t often see Jesus apparently lose his cool (he doesn’t really lose it), but here, filled with righteous indignation at the religious leaders and moneychangers, he starts turning over tables.
- Gospel implication: The religious folk are requiring payment for temple entry. Jesus is about to die for the sins of the world. Jesus teaches us that the only way to gain access into God’s presence is by trusting in him as Savior. Not taxes, not sacrificial animals, not good deeds.
Teaching Tuesday(?) or Trap Tuesday(?) (Okay, I made these up:-)!
1. Jesus teaches the disciples: Mark 11: 20-25: Passing the cursed fig tree on their way back to Jerusalem, the disciples notice it is now withered. Jesus gives a brief but significant lesson on faith, prayer, and forgiveness.
- Gospel implication: The disciples will soon face a task that will seem far more impossible than praying a mountain into the sea. Jesus’ dark-houred death will demand faith that hope will rise again. And they will come to know that indeed, Jesus’ death and resurrection profoundly changes their story — they are forgiven, freed of sin, guilt, and death, and they are empowered to forgive others.
2. Jesus teaches the religious authorities trying to trap him: Mark 11:28-12:40, Matthew 23:39. The religious leaders question Jesus’ authority — who authorized him to take the actions in the temple?
And in the sections that follow, Jesus pulls out all of his teaching stops — questions, parables, illustrations, and finally, the provocative “woes” of Matthew 23:1-37 (WHOA!). We might say Jesus had a “come to Jesus” meeting with them.
- Gospel implication: Jesus, knowing his teaching will further enrage them, persists in pointing them (and us) to their/our desperate need for a Savior. The only cure for their hardness of heart, self-righteous attitude, and stubbornly blind eyes is God’s grace.
Well, whoops! As I got into this, there was obviously more story to tell than room to tell it, so I’ll continue with “Spy Wednesday” tomorrow (you’re dying to know, aren’t you:-)!
To read more about some of the specifics that occurred on these two days, check out the wonderful Holy Week series by Justin Taylor and Andreas Kostenberger, also now compiled in book form.
Get the entire Holy Week series: Sign up for blog posts now!
by Elizabeth | Mar 24, 2015 | Learning Story
On March 22, 2015, Kara Tippetts’ dying ended; she now lives forever with Jesus.
The 38-year-old wife of a church planter and mother of four, a vivacious and truly gracious woman by all accounts, Kara Tippetts was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer in 2012.
She and her husband Jason chose to live their story of grace in front of a watching world. On her blog, Mundane Faithfulness, and in her compelling book, The Hardest Peace, Kara wrote out her wrestling, beckoning us to join her in the journey.
Cancer and life threw her and her beloved its worst, but she kept rising again (by God’s grace alone, she would say). Through this war, Kara, her husband, and her community kept pointing us to The Story — the painful, joyful reality of the Cross we celebrate in this season (SPOILER ALERT!) –
Because of Christ, agony and suffering don’t win. As Sally Lloyd-Jones puts it in the Jesus Storybook Bible, one day “everything sad will come untrue” (Revelation 21).
The ministry of Living Story is about training our eyes to see God’s story of grace – in Scripture – and in real, raw, lived lives. Kara Tippetts was such a living story to many. Today, I share excerpts of one of her pieces that informs us of what it means me to live the gospel in midst of suffering.
When Kara heard that 29-year-old Brittany Maynard had opted for doctor-assisted suicide in the face of a terminal diagnosis, her heart ached. So she composed a letter. From a place of faith, hope, and love, she urged Brittany to hear the possibility of redemption.
- Faith is based on remembering God’s rescue in the past to trust God’s goodness and redemption in the present.
Kara’s faith:
Brittany, I love you, and I’m sorry you are dying. I am sorry that we are both being asked to walk a road that feels simply impossible to walk.
As I [prayed] for you, I wondered over the impossibility… that one day the story of my young daughter will be made beautiful in her living because she witnessed my dying.
- Hope. Christian hope is based on a memory of the future, the day when Christ will return and restore all broken things.
Kara’s hope:
Dear heart, we simply disagree. Suffering is not the absence of goodness, it is not the absence of beauty, but perhaps it can be the place where true beauty can be known.
Brittany, when we trust Jesus to be the carrier, protector, redeemer of our hearts, death is no longer dying. My heart longs for you to know this truth, this love, this forever living.
- Love. Christian love takes the grace that God has extended to us and extends it to others.
Kara’s love:
More importantly, will you hear from my heart that Jesus loves you. He loves you. He loves you. He died an awful death upon a cross so that you would know Him today [and] no longer live separate from Him. He died and His death happened, it is not simply a story.
He died and He overcame death three days later, and in that overcoming of death He overcame the death you and I are facing in our cancer.
Brittany Maynard did not change her mind. But Kara left a legacy for us. I thank my God in my every remembrance of this living story I never actually met.
Want more Living Story? Subscribe to the blog. Gospel encouragement will arrive in your inbox once or twice per week.
by Elizabeth | Feb 5, 2015 | Learning Story
In my ongoing study of Ephesians, I continue to be happily confronted with God’s story of grace. Join me today for a quick look into the gospel call of Ephesians 4.
Gospel realities:
Through Christ we are made right with God.
We can’t do anything to make God love us anymore than he already does.
Also, gospel reality:
We are called to “walk in a manner worthy of our calling” (Eph. 4:1).
My son and I recently helped my 81-year-old dad select and acquire a new cell phone. His current phone is a beige cordless with an antenna sticking out of the top. He has an answering machine, which he checks to see if he wants to take a call. He does not own a computer; he’s never even used one. Learning how to use an iPhone was going to be a learning challenge, to say the least.
A retired English professor, my Dad knows how to teach – and learn. After we gave him a brief but somewhat chaotic lesson, he took the iPhone for Seniors tome we provided and scheduled self-study sessions. Each day he devotes one hour to reading the book and practicing technique. He’s catching on.
The time eventually came when my Dad had to apply the knowledge in real-life situations. (You should hear how surprised he is when he phones me and I say “hello”!) As he uses the phone, he discovers what he knows and what he doesn’t know. He returns to his book and his weekly lessons to answer these questions, then he attempts some more real-life situations.
(Have I mentioned how proud I am of him?!:-)!
In Ephesians, Paul talks about the process of learning and living the gospel. For the first three chapters, he lays out their new story, telling them who they are as a grace-renewed people. Once cursed in sin, believers are now grace-soaked in spiritual blessings (Eph. 1:3). Once the walking dead; they are now spiritually alive (Eph. 2:1-5). Once alienated and alone; they are now joined together as a kingdom, a family, and a church(Eph. 2:19-22). By God’s grace, they have been saved through faith (Eph.2:8).
In Chapter 4, Paul urges them to do something far more profound and challenging than using a new iPhone. Here’s how Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message:
In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel.
We can’t simply soak in the warm heat of God’s lavish spiritual blessings (Eph. 1); we must live as humble, gentle, patient, forbearing, loving people (Eph. 4). We can’t take the gifts Christ gave for the sake of the body and play with them in a corner; we must share them with others. We noses can’t desert the face — it would look ridiculous!
Yes, we will fail to live in the manner worthy of the calling. We will constantly need to back to the story that tells us who God is and what he’s done and who we are because of it. We will need the Spirit to teach us the lessons of humility and forgiveness, and we’ll need to feast regularly at the table that reminds us Christ’s body was broken for us. And as we continue to learn and live in love, we will be walking in a manner worthy of our calling.
This is part of the Ephesians Bible study I am writing. Once it is complete, I will make it available as an e-book. Please sign up to receive newsletters in order to know when you can get your free copy!
