Category: Devotions

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So, I have been chewing on something since Sunday.  Not with my teeth.  In my mind.  Gnawing on it mentally.  In this particular case, I’ve been ruminating on a podcast by award-winning journalist Krista Tippett called, On Being.  In it, Tippett is having a conversation with author Resmaa Menakem.  They are talking about racism and Tippett’s quest for wisdom in light of the horrific killing of George Floyd.  And as they are talking the topic of white supremacy comes up.  And as it does, Tippett shares that she feels herself physically brace.  She says she has this experience of tensing up.  She feels uncomfortable and reacts physiologically.  To which Menakem says – noticing such bracing is exactly where we have to begin to live differently.  In other words, change starts with recognizing where we are uncomfortable.  And being willing to stay in that discomfort.  We may want to walk away.  We may even have a physical reaction.  But if we leave there is zero chance of growth or reconciliation.

I’ve been thinking about that in light of all that is going on in our country right now.  And how as a follower of Jesus Christ, I am called to do justice.  Micah 6:8 – “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

How do I that?  Where do I start to act justly?  I can’t speak for others.  But for me, I confess that as a privileged white man, it is easy to let myself off the hook.  To claim confusion or plead ignorance about how.  The truth is, there are many ways to act justly.  Everything from giving credibility to the voices of those who suffer discrimination, to standing in solidarity with them, to calling for reform, to voting for legislation of equality, to seeking greater diversity in my workplace, neighborhood, and circle of friends, to working with non-profits that fight for justice, to educating myself about racial justice, to teaching our children and grandchildren about the reality of racial injustice.  To name a few.  There are many hows.  But it starts with paying attention to our own uncomfortableness.  It begins with the willingness to stay in a difficult conversation.

In a large part, this is why I called our church family to fast this week.  Fasting is often associated with food.  Which makes some of us reluctant to practice it as a spiritual discipline.  I love what Christian author Brian McClairen says about fasting.  He says that when he fasts, he doesn’t feel closer to God.  He feels closer to pizza.  And tostado chips.  But fasting can take a variety of forms.  From fasting from media to fasting from discretionary spending.  The power of the fasting is not in the specifics.  The power is found in creating space in your life to listen and recognize what is going on.

This week, I am fasting from the news.  This may not seem like a big deal for you.  But I am a news junkie.  I read the news feed first thing in the morning.  And I read it throughout the day when I have a moment of downtime.  Already I have started to pull up a news website at least 72 times.  I am discovering that knowing the news plays into a false sense of control over what is happening my the world.  It fires me up when I read about political news and keeps my adrenaline pumping.  So that life constantly has this frenetic feeling.  And it distracts me from interacting with other people.  With the news constantly at my fingertips, I don’t have to ask others what it going on in their lives or our world.

By eliminating a constant stream of news, I have created space to listen.  And in particular to listen to what is going on in my heart.  And to listen to what God has to say about it.  Including those places that I am uncomfortable.  And there is a lot to feel uncomfortable about right now.

As you think about what is happening in our country.  And particularly what our brothers and sisters in the Black community have experienced and are experiencing.  Where do you tense up?  What makes you physically brace?  I suspect that it is only as we stay in that discomfort that we will finally start to lay the foundation to act justly.  Noticing such bracing is exactly where we have to begin to live differently.

Won’t you join me in listening?  How can you create the space in your interior life to hear God and to hear yourself?  Are you willing to set aside and give up in order to live differently?

Next Wednesday evening we will be hosting a zoom conversation about our experiences of fasting.  And what God has called our church to do to act justly.  I pray you will join us.  Until then keep chewing!  In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Friday, June 12

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Thursday, June 11

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Wednesday, June 10

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Tuesday, June 9

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Monday, June 8

During this time of pandemic, I am looking for hope (as I’m sure many of you are also). Our pastors have even titled our theme for this time as Finding Hope Together. I got to thinking about what Hope Together means. You know, it seems that together we’re a bunch who are trying to follow Jesus and we’re bound together as a FUMCWP family. So, at least that’s a start.

We’re a family, but we don’t always agree on everything – just like any other family. We can disagree on politics, the greatest athlete ever, the best barbecue, the best way eggs are prepared or who is better: the Beatles or the Stones. However, we did sign up to be a part of THIS family and work TOGETHER (just like a family usually does) to love one another and fulfill the mission of the United Methodist Church – that is, to create disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. So, what are the basics for doing this? I ask this especially as we are weeks since celebrating the ultimate sign of hope – the resurrection of our Lord and Savior.

To understand better what the basics are for living and working to bring hope to this world from a United Methodist perspective, I went to my friend Google. Google found a page on the umc.org website that helped me understand how we United Methodist Easter People can apply God’s Hope in our lives to help transform the world. The text appears below. I challenge each of us to think and pray about how to use the gifts and talents God has given us in the places where God is leading us to be a Jesus disciple.

The funny thing about this text is that it comes from the United Methodist Member’s Handbook. Maybe I should get a copy – who knows what else I might learn.

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Our Christian Roots: God’s Reign

Christian faith is, in part, a matter of hoping. We believe in and trust the Lord of the future, and we lean into the future that God has promised. God goes before us, beckoning us into the new world that is already being created, calling us to join in the challenging work of fashioning it.

However, when we’re confronted with personal disasters or with the daily horror stories of society’s ills, we may falter. Hope may seem to be unrealistic, naive optimism.

Yet our hope is not in trends. Our hope is in the Lord of all creation and all history — a God who is still in charge and is actively at work transforming the world. How do we know this?

The coming shalom

The Bible is a book of God’s promises. It may seem to be about the past, but its outlook is toward the future. From promises in the Book of Genesis to Abraham and Sarah for a new land, a son, and countless descendants (chapter 17), to promises in the Book of Revelation of a “new heaven and a new earth” (21:1), God was helping biblical people live into the vision of creation’s ultimate goal.

The Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) uses the word shalom to describe God’s future. We often translate this word as “peace,” but it means more than that. Shalom means a world of plenty, of personal and interpersonal harmony and righteousness, of liberation, of just economic practices, and of ordered political relations.

The coming kingdom

For Jesus, the shalom of God was the kingdom of God, the coming reign of God in human hearts and in all human affairs. In fact he proclaimed that this reign already “has come near” (Mark 1:15) and that the decision about one’s part in it was an urgent necessity: “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).

In the resurrection of our Lord, his amazed followers recognized that God’s reign was breaking into their lives: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The old regime of hostility, greed, injustice, and violence was obsolete and dying. The new order was coming in: “See, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). For those who see with the eyes of faith, it is apparent that our common human future on earth is indeed the promised reign of God.

The church as a sign of the future

There are signs of the coming Kingdom all about us — from random acts of kindness by individuals to the worldwide family’s growth in tolerance and cooperation. In particular we see the church as a sign of the Kingdom. Imperfect as it is, the community of believers nevertheless provides the best clue we have to God’s vision. Day after day, we see deeds of Christian courage, of compassion and reconciliation, of integrity in the face of temptation, and of witness for truth and justice.

Our part

And what is our role — to sit back and simply wait for God’s kingdom to arrive? By no means! We are to pray earnestly for the Kingdom to come on earth (Matthew 6:10). We are to watch faithfully for any signs of its coming (Matthew 25:13). We are to put away our old selves and clothe ourselves “with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). As renewed people, we’re to do “the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:12). As Easter people witness and serve, we take part in the Kingdom’s dawning. Thy Kingdom come!

From United Methodist Member’s Handbook, Revised by George Koehler (Discipleship Resources, 2006), pp. 90-91.

Friday, June 5

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Thursday, June 4

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Wednesday, June 3

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Tuesday, June 2

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Monday, June 1

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Friday, May 29

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Thursday, May 28

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Wednesday, May 27

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Tuesday, May 26

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Monday, May 25

Friday, May 22

Thursday, May 21

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Wednesday, May 20

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Tuesday, May 19

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Monday, May 18

Last year, I became a composter.

I’ve always thought, and said, yard work is for suckers. It doesn’t matter to me what the people driving by think of my lawn. But with young kids in the house, I began throwing out an enormous amount of food. Bananas, tainted by a brown freckle only visible through an electron microscope. The inch around the peel and the core of an apple. Rejected blackberries that don’t taste as good at our house as they did at that birthday party. As a result, I started trench composting. This just means, instead of throwing plant waste into the trash, I dug a hole in the backyard and buried it. That seemed easier to me than a pile. I don’t know why.

Eventually, I got tired of digging, so I did my research and started a pile. (It required 10 minutes setting up a 20 dollar mesh off Amazon. Lesson learned.) This led to me composting my eggshells, coffee grounds, Amazon boxes, and the 9000 flyers that come home from my kids’ school. Then I asked for a compost tumbler for my birthday. Had my first grubs move in, wept with pride.

It’s a weird hobby. But I love its flexibility. With zero-knowledge, I still reduced my weekly trash and improved my soil quality. My yard was the only one around with dozens of earthworms that summer. I can collect extra scraps from local apartment-dwellers, carefully balancing the “greens” and “browns,” grab coffee grounds from Starbucks and turn it daily to improve aeration and discourage ants. Or I can get busy and not go in the backyard for a month. Or two. Or three. Summers are hot here y’all. Either way, things will slowly turn to dirt. I can speed up the process and optimize the nutrients for my garden, or I can do nothing. Decomposition doesn’t depend on me. And that’s the kind of grace I’m looking for in my life. Lesson 1: Do your best, but trust that the world will spin on without you.

Compost was also responsible for my first ever avocado sprout. I have put dozens of those seeds in a glass with three toothpicks over the years. Dozens. And I am here to tell you, people who say they grew one that way are rotten, dirty liers. “Oh I grew one that way!” Leave a picture in the comments friend. Because I’m not buying it. But I chucked one mushy avocado in the compost bin, and next time I went to turn it, bam! Roots and sprout poking up. Lesson 2: If you are in the right environment, your growth will be sudden and astonishing.

I was thrilled. I put it in a Groot tiki-cup we have and moved it carefully to my windowsill where I could water it and talk to it daily. I watched videos about how to care for a baby avocado while ignoring my human children’s request for snacks. Grimacing, I cut the stem I had worked so hard for in half when it reached 6 inches so that more sprouts would grow, certain I had just Marie Antoinette’d my pride and joy. But a few agonizing days later, it did begin to regrow stronger. Lesson 3: What doesn’t kill you, etc, etc.

Finally, Groot was big enough to go outside. I picked a sunny place of honor right in front of the house so I could see it often and eventually our grandchildren could pick us avocados as they came in to visit. (Did I mention avocado trees are not fast growers?) I dug a hole and put up a little divider and mulched and prepped, then I half-buried the seed and let it be. Every day it grew. I was overjoyed.

Then that fall, about 3 months later, one of the neighbor kids kicked a soccer ball into it and snapped the stem. I know, right!? Devastating. I actually cried. It had been almost a year since the thing had sprouted. I was so very sad. I couldn’t even bring myself to move the remains or plant something else there.

Until New Year’s Day. I was loading the kids in the car, and I glanced over and saw a stem. And five leaves. I couldn’t believe it. Like its Marvel namesake: resurrected! To me, it signalled a season of rebirth and new growth. Forgiveness. Miracles. And it taught me my final lesson — give it time, don’t despair, and keep the friggin neighbors off my lawn.

~ Laura Paquette, Family Council Chair

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So, I lost it the other night.  It was about 10:30 and I was in bed.  That’s really early for me!  I was super tired.  I had just drifted off to sleep when I was awakened by this thudding noise.  And yelling.  When it didn’t stop, I dragged myself out of bed to find out what was going on.  Evidently, child number 1 – I am not using pronouns to protect the innocent – child number 1 had turned of the wi-fi router to reset it.  Said it wasn’t sending out much signal.  Only child number 1 had turned it off without warning.  Which unexpectedly interrupted whatever child number 2 was doing on-line at the moment.  In response, child number 2 decided that banging on the door was the best way to express frustration with child number 1.  Which child number 1 countered by standing in the middle of the kitchen and yelling at child number 2.

Let’s just say I wasn’t terribly sympathetic.  I don’t have vast reserves of compassion on a good day.  After being woken up, my compassion tank was empty.  And truthfully, I’m pretty much done with this whole idea of wi-fi.  Spending hours and hours on-line.  Zooming and teaming and meeting.  So, I did the only thing a responsible wise parent would do.  I yelled.  I yelled and then I yelled some more.  And then just to drive home the point I yelled again.  Just because I could.  It wasn’t pretty.  Let’s just say the longer this season of pandemic goes on, the lower my tolerance for the petty squabbles and minor interruptions of life.

Thankfully, we have a Shepherd who cares.  In verse 5 of Psalm 23, David talks about God’s antidote to the irritations of life.  “You anoint my head with oil.”

Phillip Keller was born in East Africa and spent his life in wildlife management.  A man of deep, faith he wrote over 40 devotional books based upon his experience of being a shepherd.  In A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, Keller shares that a shepherd cares for the sheep by putting oil on their heads.  Turns out, summertime is fly time in sheep country.  Warble flies.  Botflies.  Heel flies.  Black flies.  And Deer flies.  They like to deposit their eggs in the damp membranes of the sheep’s nose.  If they are successful, the eggs hatch in a few days to form small worm-like larvae that crawl up the sheep’s nose and burrow into its brain. Okay, I made that last part up.  But they do burrow into the nasal cavity of the sheep and cause infection.  And the sheep just have to take it!  I mean, it’s tough to pick your nose with hooves!

Anyway, Keller says that an infected sheep will bang its head against trees, rocks, or brush.  They will roll and thrash around in the soil.  Sometimes they will go blind.  It is only after the shepherd applies an antidote of oil and Sulphur to the sheep’s head that the flies will abate.  And peace returns again.

Thankfully, we don’t experience the same kind of torment from actual flies.  But we do know the annoyance of the little irritations that are a part of daily life.  The petty squabbles and interruptions that become burning issues.  Consuming us and leading us to bang our proverbial head against the wall.   Especially during this time of isolation. We too need to be anointed with the oil of God’s Spirit.  Not just once but repeatedly.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control.

In Luke chapter 11, it says – “…how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”  And in John 14:15 it says – “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth.”

In other words, we too can know the love and the peace and joy – not to mention the patience and the kindness and the self-control that comes from being in the presence of God’s Holy Spirit.  It is ours for the asking.  In fact, Paul says that the Holy Spirit is already in you (1 Corinthians 6:19).

How is your tolerance for interruption?  How well are you handling the petty squabbles?  As this season of pandemic wears on, are your weathering the minor irritations?  Or are you yelling.  And yelling some more?

I pray that this week you will encounter an even greater awareness of God’s Holy Spirit in you.  And that you will be filled with the love, the joy, the patience and the self-control that comes from being in the Spirit’s presence.  In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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Friday, May 15

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Thursday, May 14

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Wednesday, May 13

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Tuesday, May 12

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Monday, May 11

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Eight!  The world record for number of rattlesnakes held in one’s mouth at one time is eight!  Which is crazy!  I mean, I could see six rattlesnakes.  Maybe seven – tops.  But eight?  That’s just dangerous!  Did you know that the world record for fastest 100-meter hurdles wearing swim fins is 22.35 seconds?  Or that the most spoons ever balanced on one’s face is 17?  Clearly, I have been spending a little too much time on the web. 

So why would anyone want to hold the world record for most rattlesnakes held in your mouth?  Or the highest number of spoons balanced on your face?  My guess is significance.  We all want to want to leave our mark.  We all want to be known.  To feel like we are unique.  And that we are important.  Why else would we endure 37 weeks of little league sports for a plastic trophy worth $2?

I was thinking about this the other day.  I was reflecting on Psalm 23.  And I came to that verse that says – You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Psalm 23:5

Up until this point, Psalm 23 is all about green pastures and still waters.  About the comfort of the Good Shepherd.  And the protection of His rod and staff.   But now, the Psalmist turns to enemies.  I love that he does this.  The Psalmist has known failure.  He has lost.  His life has not been easy.  And he has enemies.  This is not a psalm of pious hopes and false platitudes.  This psalm is real.

Especially, if we consider the Hebrew word he uses for enemies,  Tsarar.  It means affliction or oppression.  Specifically, it refers to those things we struggle with internally.  Things like insecurity and confusion and addiction.  Things like loss and fear and weakness.  It’s right in the middle of these enemies that God prepares a table before us.

The location is crucial.  The Psalmist says that the banquet is prepared BEFORE US!  Not before Him.  Where the grass is green, and the waters are still.  And all enemies are vanquished.   Rather, God throws a lavish party in the midst of the mess.  God meets us right where we are.  Even in this season of pandemic.  We have always known insecurity and fear and loss.  Now, they are here all the more.  And right in the middle of it is God’s banquet table.

And the host is significant.  Our Creator, the designer, and sustainer of the universe, the giver of life, the source of all hope and joy and love, has prepared a feast for you!  Why?  Because you matter to Him!  Not because you can hang 17 spoons on your face or run the 100- meter hurdles in swim fins.  But because God made you.  He had you in mind from long ago.  He knitted you together in your mother’s womb.  He gave you life.  And ever since, God’s Spirit has been at work within you.  And that makes us significant!

That is something I need to hear right now.  And it’s something that our children and our grandchildren need to hear.  And it’s something that our neighbor needs to hear right now.  As this season of Pandemic drags on, it is becoming easier and easier to feel insignificant.  To feel powerless.  And afraid.  Author Elizabeth Gilbert says that of all the species on earth, human beings are the most anxious.  Because we have the greatest ability to envision our future.  How easy it is for us to project the suffering around us onto some imagined future for us.  What if, instead of focusing on what might happen, we focus on the banquet table before us?  What if, rather than dwell on our vulnerabilities we were to dwell on the presence of the Shepherd and our significance to Him?

Today, I invite you to sit down with God and take delight in the goodness that He has set before you.  That you may know His peace.  In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.