God is There

On the way home from visiting friends in the Twin Cities, I heard an amazing song.  It came right in the midst of me trying to figure out exactly how I was going to work my sermon for tomorrow, and why I chose to do it on Psalm 46 instead of preaching a standard sermon on Luther's view of Grace and justification.

All of a sudden this song came into my world and left me speechless.  For me it was a reworking of Psalm 139, just as 'A Mighty Fortress Is Our God' was Luther's reworking of Psalm 46.  It reminded me that God's words are not stagnant.  They are alive and it is not just preachers who get to help other's understand them.  It was a powerful reminder of God's grace in action.

The song is God Is There by Diamond Rio.  (Yes I listen to country a lot!)

Surrounded by the darkness

It all came down to soon

Longing for redemption in this cold hospital room,

God is There.

What will she tell her family

Still her daddy’s little girl

She can’t believe she’s showing

Carrying the weight of the world

God is there

Where you think he wont come to

That’s where he’ll be

Waiting for you

God is there

In the middle of your night

In every single moment

In every single light

He’s reaching for you 

Right where you are

The God of the impossible is never very far

Oh, imagine a place He would never be

No height nor depth

Not life nor death separate you, ever separate you, ever separate you.

God is there

in the middle of your night

In every single moment

In every single light

He’s reaching for you right where you are

The God of the impossible is never very far

Oh, imagine a place where He would never be,

God is there.

Ooooh, God is there.

Circular Life

We have probably all heard the phrase, ‘the circle of life’.  It is a thought, a philosophy, a lesson for life.  It is used to describe the cycle from life to death.

However, within our lives, within that circle that extends from birth to death, there are various other circles within our life as well.  Times come when, in the midst our daily lives, when events circle around to us again.  I have had this experience more than a few times, usually through people who come back into my life.

Today while attending the Fall Theological Conference for the Southwestern Minnesota Synod of the ELCA (in which I am doing my internship) I have yet again experienced this circular way in which God deals with His Children.

I hold fast to the idea that God brings people, events, and thoughts into our lives for specific purposes, and often can and does bring those same people, events and thoughts back round to us again.

One of the presenters here at this conference, Susan Briehl, has played that role in my life on several occasions.

When I was still in college, getting ready to graduate and had decided that I longed for a ‘normal’ life with a career teaching and a family so I had thrust the idea of seminary and being a pastor far from my mind, I went to Holden Village with a group from my Lutheran Campus Ministry.  Susan was the director of Holden at the time.  When she greeted our group at the beginning of our stay, she briefly mentioned the role we play in the ministry of God, and encouraged us not to put away thoughts of a change in our roles in the future.  They were good words for others, but I knew with the arrogant knowledge of youth that God had seen the brilliance of my plan for my life.

Years later, I came to realize while a missionary in Japan, that I was merely a steward of this life.  The life I had and the path on which I belonged, not to me, but to this amazing God that I could not wait to spend a lifetime serving.  So as I returned to the United States, it was with the faith that God’s voice was now beginning to drown out my own as I took the step to begin seminary.  

With this newfound confidence not in who I was, but in who God was creating me to be, I completed my time as a missionary with the ELCA by attending the Summer Missionary Conference.  One of the presenters at that conference was a member of the committee that was reshaping worship and developing the Evangelical Lutheran Worship book.  The tickling in my mind’s storage closet kept me aware that she was important to my story.  Somehow I knew that in this leader was a connection to who I was and to whom I was becoming.  When she spoke of the way one’s role in ministry changes, and gave her example (including her time at Holden), the closet door sprung open and spilled forth the contents of that long ago retreat.   I took heart at the time, feeling that this was an indication that I was indeed in the right place, at the right time, for the right purpose.  God had redirected, taking my detours and using them to strengthen me for His church.

Four years of seminary, of studying, writing, being emptied, and filled again, later, I have come to the last stage in this leg of the journey.  I am an intern, working everyday in this lifestyle we call ministry.   So it was a delighting and unsurprising surprise, that I realized I was once again sitting and learning from and with Susan, who has been present at so many significant moments of my vocational journey.  

Many would say that this is coincidence, happenstance, or simply a byproduct of being in the same, relatively small church body.  I certainly understand that those are the most likely and logical explanations.  

Yet for me the truth of this occurrence defies logic.  At least it defies human logic.  The truth is that God speaks through the people who proclaim the Gospel.  God works through each and every one of His children in amazing ways.  And God knows how and when to do this work.  God has brought Susan into my life at times critical to my vocation to help me remember who and whose I am.  I am not a teacher, a woman, a leader, a preacher, or a pastor.  I am God’s child, and more specifically I am God’s child of purpose.   

Farmers' Hands

They are often big.  Big, cracked, dry and dirty.  Weathered by time and hard work, these hands show strength.  It is a strength of not only a physical stature, but of time and purpose.  They show a strength of character.  

Hands that shake bankers hands with promise to begin each year.  These hands fulfill that promise with integrity at the end of every year.  These hands shape the land that has been handed down to them.  These hands gamble every spring by sowing the possibility of life into the dirt.  These hands defy the odds by nurturing that life into existence.   These hands plow out a life.  These hands provide life for others.  These hands offer back the life God gave them.

Over the past several weeks I have noticed these hands time and again.  I notice the dirt, the chipped and broken nails, the rough skin.  Above all else I notice the beauty in these hands.  

The beauty comes in the integrity, the perseverance, the nurturing.  The beauty of theses hands I see every week comes from the reflection of God that they show.  These farmers are reflections of their God, who created this world, nurtured it into life, and fulfills daily the promises that He gives.   

Listening

I grab my keys and my bag full of stuff while making sure that I have my cell phones before I head out of the door every day.  And yes I did say phones plural.  

I recently got a blackberry.  Although I know I do not utilize it as well as most do, still I love it.  I am able to text anyone I want, or email people at anytime.  I never even have to use it as a phone to be able to communicate with people. That of course is the way our entire society is.  We communicate now through face-book and twitter, and never even have to hear the voice of the people that we are talking too.

So convenient.  I have to wonder though, what we are missing  with this form of communication taking over our lives?  (Yes I see the irony of saying this through a blog. Still the question is valid, however.)

I really began thinking about this as I traveled with a group of ladies to a larger city to watch The Church Basement Ladies: A Second Helping.  I sat in a van with about 7 other women and I just listened as they talked to each other.  For a person coming into a community what I learned was helpful, as a minister of God’s word, it is invaluable.  Only by listening can I know which of these women act as leaders, and which are content to follow.  Only through listening could I have heard the catch in the voices when the words stated facts that appeared innocuous.  Listening helped me learn about the history of not only the women in the car with me, but about the history of the communities and the congregations that they are part of.  

In my average mad rush to be out the door, to Do all the things that need to be done, do I listen enough?  

This is not just a nice question to keep in mind for relational ministry.  It is a vital aspect to who we are as people of Christ.  The concept of listening is deeply rooted into who we are.  In fact our Jewish ancestors were called to faith with the Hebrew word sh(e)ma/listen.  Listen Israel, God is the Lord, God is one.  Listen.  This word for the Hebrew people means so much more than just to hear the words.  It means to know, to feel, to understand.  It goes into the substance of who they are.  This is the heritage that we come from.  

Let those who have ears to hear, hear.  In other words listen.  Know that Jesus is the Christ.  Jesus is calling us to listen in the same way that God called the Israelites.  Jesus is calling us to listen to him, to our God, and to each other.  After all how can we serve our neighbor if we cannot hear their suffering through our own busy-ness. 

So as we reach for the keys, the phones, the computer, as we rush to check off the next chore, the next meeting, the next good deed, remember that we are called to listen.  Be still and Know that I am God.   Stop your business and listen to God’s voice, know that God is with us.  Still your heart, your mind, and know that God is our Lord, and that God is one.

New in Town

Have you seen the movie?  It is a fairly predictable movie in which Renee Zellweger plays a high powered business exec who is transfered to New Ulm, MN. 

By the time I finally watched this movie with some friends over the summer in Phoenix, I had already lived in MN for the majority of a year.  It was long enough to be able to assure my friends that although the personalities, folksiness, and accents of the characters were greatly exaggerated, the weather was dead on.   Through their laughter over thinking of me while they were enjoying 75 degree days in January, they warned me that I had not yet been in rural MN.  

They are right.  There is another similarity.  You see the other thing I remember about the somewhat forgettable movie was that there was a group of women who opened their lives up and welcomed the new comer with open arms.

That has been what I have found in my time in Southwestern Minnesota.  The people here are more than happy to welcome me in and share their lives with me.  

Just as it was the supporting characters of the movie that made the movie worth watching, it is the supporting members of the congregations and communities here that make Minnesota worth living in.  So although I am not sure I would recommend seeing the movie, New In Town, I do highly recommend living in Southwestern Minnesota.