by Elizabeth | Apr 20, 2010 | Learning Story
Romans 12:1 “I appeal to, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
Listen to some provocative thoughts from Tim Keller on this powerful word:
“To be “at God’s disposal” fully means: a) actively, to be willing to obey God in anything he says in any area of life, and b) passively, to be willing to thank God for anything he sends in any area of life.
Another way Paul gets across the idea of totality or entirety is by urging them to offer our bodies. This was probably startling to Graeco-Roman readers, who were brought up to believe that the body was negative and bad, and that spirituality was to cultivate the mind and soul. But Paul is saying that God does not just want a purely inward and abstract worship, but a practical and total one. He wants us to give him everything that we do.
“Paul made it plain, in his exposure of human depravity in 3:13ff, that it reveals itself through our bodies, in tongues which practice deceit and lips which spread poison, in mouths which are full of cursing and bitterness, in feet which are swift to shed blood, and in eyes which look away from God. Conversely, Christian sanctity shows itself in the deeds of the body. So we are to offer different parts of our bodies… to God as ‘instruments of righteousness’ (6:13,16,19). Then our feet will walk in his paths, our lips will speak the truth and spread the gospel, our tongues will bring healing, our hands will lift up those who have fallen… our arms will embrace the lonely and the unloved, our ears will listen to the cries of the distressed, and our eyes will look humbly and patiently towards God.”
– John Stott, Romans
The word “living” may mean that the sacrifice is a constant thing. The word sacrifice actually means “to kill.” That makes it a “living killing!” It means that we have to continually renew our position as wholly obedient and at God’s disposal.”
From Tim Keller, Leader’s Guide for Romans Bible Study
by Elizabeth | Apr 19, 2010 | Learning Story
Thank you to many who engaged in prayer warfare on behalf of the 13 women who gathered in Pensacola Beach this weekend to listen and look for God’s story of grace written in their lives. It was, in a word, glorious. Today I post a prayer written by my friend Lalla Pierce in response to my request for prayer. We used this prayer as we opened the retreat, but it is a good one to return to now that our time is over. It’s really a good prayer for us to weave into our thoughts about our daily lives.
Dear God,
Exquisite Women
We come together as women, perhaps strangers to one another, but united by our search for you and your ways.
Lord, open our hearts.
Come into our midst, filling us with your grace, love, peace, and the assurance that we are never alone.
Lord, open our hearts.
Help us enter into this community for the weekend, ready to hear your still small voice, willing to share our hearts and stories, ultimately for your glory.
Lord, open our hearts.
Free us from the trappings and bondage of our lives and world: worries about what we’ve left behind, worries about what we’ll return to, anxiety over what this community will think if they truly knew our hearts, anxiety over what it will cost to fully surrender our hearts and lives to you and live in the terrifying, yet GLORIOUS freedom that brings.
Lord, open our hearts.
Help us hear your invitation to worship: in the whisper of the waves lapping at the shore, in the smell of the salty air, in the stories we’ll share, in the laughter we will hear, in the tears we may weep, in the quiet spaces of our hearts.
Lord, open our hearts.
Give us hearts that are willing to HOPE.
Lord, open our hearts.
Help us hear your invitation to become more FOR YOU and the world. With each prayer above, it is our HOPE that ultimately, all we do and think and say and learn this weekend will not be about us, but about your Kingdom. For when our hearts are truly free, then we are able to live freely for you, and it is that freedom that the world needs to see in order to believe. May this weekend free our hearts in unbelievable ways, mysterious ways, explicable only by your sacrificial love.
Lord, open our hearts.
We thank and praise you for all you have done, for who you are, and for the hope of what we can become, living in the freedom of the Resurrection.
We pray all of this in your Holy name, Jesus,
Amen.
by Elizabeth | Apr 17, 2010 | Learning Story
Sorry this blog is late today — all I can say is we thirteen women have been living the Story of this blog so intensely there has not been time to write. Since you aren’t here to share this glory, I’ll share a bit of our thinking on hope:
Read John 19.
For much of John 19, which describes the final days of Jesus’ life, Mary goes unmentioned. With my mothering heart, I imagine that she was following Jesus through the final days of abuse and mockery, remembering Gabriel’s announcement, remembering Simeon’s words, “and a sword shall pierce your soul,” remembering her son’s first steps and his first words, remembering moments of joy and moments of despair. N.T. Wright says,
But we mustn’t imagine that Mary was a heroine, an Annie-get-your-gun type, grasping the promise of God and riding off with it through all the problems to emerge in triumph at the end. As we saw in an earlier chapter, she must lose her dream before she realizes it. She must watch her Son, whom she thought was to be the Messiah, taking up with the shabby crowd down at the pub. She must watch him being fawned over by the girls of the street, not seeming to mind…When God calls a woman, he bids her come and die – die to the hope she cherished, the hope she suckled, the hope born from her own womb and heart.” (The Crown and the Fire, )
Mary’s story began bursting with hope, bolstered by remembrance of the mighty works God has done. And yet, over the years, the “hope and consolation of Israel” has brought as much confusion as consolation, as much heartache as hope. And now, as he dies on the cross, what is she to do?
In this moment, Mary has no words. Hopelessness can be like that. Into her silence, out of his own suffering, Jesus speaks. He looks at her and says four simple words, “Woman, behold your son,” clearly referring not to himself, but to the beloved disciple, John. He then looks at John and says, “Behold, your mother!” Not many words, but paragraphs of meaning.
All of her life, Mary has struggled with seeing Jesus as Lord, because he is her son. She has wanted things from him that he could not and should not provide, and again and again he has resisted yielding to her selfish demand. Always, he has loved her well by providing for her deeper needs, the need for a Savior, the need for true Hope and Consolation.
In this moment, he does it again. The odd thing about this story is that Mary already has sons who will support her when her eldest dies. She does not need a son. So why does Jesus give John to her as a son? Of course I don’t know, but my guess is that he is saying something like this: “I know you, Woman. I do know you, I know your heart and its struggles, and in the coming days, it will be harder than ever to understand this story. And because I love you and care for you, I am entrusting you to my very best friend, not just because I know he will care for you, but because I know he he will know how to help you hope when it appears that all is lost. All will be well.”
Mary’s story offers no clear formula for how to hope in the face of loss, but it also invites us to hope by honestly expressing our doubts and confusion. In the suffering of hope, Jesus meets us. He meets us in the Cross, and he meets us in the Resurrection. Most of all, he meets us in the Consummation, the coming day when he will finally finish making all things new.
Mary’s story also shows that while there is no formula for hope, there is reason for hope. We DO KNOW the end of the story, and it really is a “happy” ending, in all of the best possible senses of the word. To hope in painful moments of our story or another’s story is to remember the past: God has rescued before, and He will finish the work He has begun. To hope is to wrestle well with the question that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had to sort through her entire life, “Who do you say that I am?” To hope is to finally rest in the answer that Mary came to more fully after Jesus’ death and resurrection, “You are Lord of my life.” Like Mary, we must ultimately surrender in trust that God knows what He’s doing, and in doing so, we suffer hope in seasons of lost shalom.
by Elizabeth | Apr 16, 2010 | Learning Story
Ah, it has finally begun, wonderful, courageous, unique women from varied domains in God’s kingdom, all gathered right here, in Pensacola Beach, for a weekend of worship.
Not worship in the more traditional sense, going to church, singing songs, but worship indeed. We are gathered to know God more deeply in our stories and to recognize and remember the works He has done. We are gathered to name the hard places, to cry out to God as the Psalmists did as we recognize “this is not the way it ought to be.” To move toward thoughts on what it means to live a life of faith, hope, and love.
Last night we considered what it really means that we are created in the image of God with and for delight and dominion and differentiation. We shared stories of shalom, of a time when we enjoyed being enjoyed. I would love to dwell in this place (and perhaps that will be a different retreat), but today we will move quickly to the second part of the Story, the Fall. In doing so, may we see the acute tragedy of wrecked shalom. May we see why we do sit next to the other women in the room and compare ourselves either favorably or unfavorably. May we see why we want to live out little lives as Queens of our Universe.
And yet, as we study the story of the Fall, we see redemption intrude. There is no fallenness God has not, cannot, or will not touch. It is truly an amazing story. To be continued…
by Elizabeth | Apr 15, 2010 | Learning Story
Yesterday I wrote about the concerns some of the women headed to Pensacola Beach at this very moment may be having about devoting three and a half days to focusing on God’s Story of Grace. Some of their friends or family may be asking, “Why are you doing this?” I hope the answer is a loud and clear, “Because God will bring new love and life out of this holy time.” Here is a paragraph excerpted from my Living Story Study Guide which describes our grand goal:
Spreading the grace and mercy God has lavished on us is the essence of loving in God’s story of grace. “We love because He has first loved us.” As we grasp more deeply the story of grace Scripture tells, and as we grasp grace in our own stories, we will be compelled to perform two essential acts of love: to forgive and to live. Grudges and gripes will melt away in the warmth of God’s grace. As they do, we will live freely and love passionately, eager to spread the good news of the gospel to our broken world. The gospel tells us, “A new king has arrived. This king has defeated death and destruction. A rebuilding plan has begun, and as a citizen of this kingdom, you have a part to play in this restoration.” As we consider our own stories, we see not only our fallenness but also how God has created and redeemed each one of us with a unique giftedness. He calls us to bring this giftedness to the kingdom efforts. Loving in God’s story of grace means to live our mission as our message, in other words, to use our stories to grow God’s glory.
by Elizabeth | Apr 14, 2010 | Learning Story
A gorgeous locale for remembering stories
Have you ever reached the moment before the big moment and wondered what on earth you thought you were doing “signing up” for that? Like standing in the two-hour line for the Superfreak Rollercoaster and finally reaching the front and looking to see how humiliating it would be to leave the line? (Which I haven’t done, because I don’t get in line for superfreak rollercoasters!) Or, signing up for a half-marathon, doing the training, but then not being so sure you can make it and considering bailing? (Which I have done, signed up for the Country Music Half-Marathon, because my 18-year-old daughter is doing it, and now I am remembering that the almost 30-year age gap between us means this run will have a different impact on her body than it will mine!)
I have the feeling there are 12 women who may be feeling something of that trepidation today. I, on the other hand, am excited and can’t wait to begin the journey tomorrow. Tomorrow, 12 women from places all over the U.S. — Seattle, Philadelphia, Dallas, St. Louis, Memphis, Nashville, Atlanta — will gather HERE in Pensacola Beach for the Recovering Your Story retreat. Together, we will become a band of — sisters, joined together in a single purpose — to know the Story God has written in Scripture and in our lives. And for what purpose? So that we will know the depth of God’s passion for us, and so that in knowing it, we will live that passion with love for this broken world. 13 women (including me). 13 unique stories. 13 assorted mission fields. This will be quite a story. I can’t wait to watch it unfold. To God be the glory!
Please join us in prayer, especially for any who are wondering why they signed up for such an exhilarating ride!:)
