Sweet Sundays, Part 1

January 22, 2013

Sweet Sundays, Part 1

When my grandmother was a girl, Sunday was a day for taking the team of horses to her little white country church in North Dakota. Her father did the bare minimum of chores around the farm—like milking the cows before the sun came up—but all other work ceased. Even knitting was a borderline activity, since some people argued the creative aspect of it constituted work.

When my mom was growing up, most stores and restaurants were closed on Sundays, and on the rare occasion when her family had to go to the drugstore to pick up an emergency item, her father would apologize to the cashier for making him work on the Sabbath.

A generation later, when I was a kid, Sundays were family day at my house. We’d have brunch together after church, and then we’d go on a walk in the woods or play games together. No getting together with friends, no organized sports.

Now that I have a home of my own, I’m shocked to find how much our culture (and me with it) has changed in its attitude toward the Sabbath. Work has now infiltrated every part of life—it’s on our laptops, on our phones, at our very fingertips. While previous generations had to physically go out to the field or in to the office, work now finds us. We have to go to great lengths if we want to avoid it.

For the most part I’ve looked at God’s instructions about the setting aside a day of rest as something of an anachronism—rules that were meant for people in the Old Testament but didn’t really apply to us today. In fact, somewhere along the way I even got the idea that it was more righteous to have a strong work ethic, to be productive—even on Sundays. But the more I’ve looked at what the Bible says about the holiness of rest, the more trouble I’m having rationalizing away those commands. And the more I’m realizing, to my surprise, how much the instructions smack of delight rather than duty.

Keep the Sabbath day holy. Don’t pursue your own interests on that day, but enjoy the Sabbath and speak of it with delight as the Lord’s holy day. Honor the Sabbath in everything you do on that day. —Isaiah 58:13

Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” —Matthew 11:28

I’m also recognizing that while Jesus was criticized by the religious leaders of his day for breaking the Sabbath, he wasn’t throwing out the concept altogether. When he did things that enraged the religious leaders—most often healing the blind and the lame and the deaf—he wasn’t disregarding the Sabbath; he was rejecting the legalism of the manmade rules surrounding it (see here for an example). He was getting at the heart of the day of rest—setting aside time to slow down so we can honor the Lord, catch our spiritual breath, refocus on what’s really important.

So what does a grace-based view of a day of rest look like? I’m not entirely sure, but I want to find out.

With my bent toward legalism, I’m not sure the best idea would be to make a bunch of Pharisaical rules for Sundays. And I don’t want it to be a day focused on the negative—what I can’t do. I want it to be about what I can do—what brings life and freedom and closeness with God.

So here are the two litmus-test questions I plan to use to determine if something is a worthy activity for a Sunday:

Does it feel like work?
Is it life-giving?

I don’t know exactly what this adventure will look like, but I invite you to join me in reserving a weekly day of rest. I invite you to explore what it might look like for us to cease work and discover things that fill us with life and peace.

I’d love to have your feedback and help as I embark on this quest.

What do you need to turn off or stop doing to allow yourself to rest?
What feels like true rest for you?

Recommended reading: Matthew Sleeth’s book 24/6 was instrumental for me in kick-starting this journey toward rest. I highly recommend it—it’s an easy, engaging, grace-filled read.

“Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it rests in Thee.” —Augustine of Hippo

January 15, 2013

Up Close to Greatness

Thanks to a generous friend and a friend-of-a-friend who has season tickets to the Bulls games, Daniel and I were the recipients of an experience we never would have splurged on ourselves: eighth-row seats to a real-live NBA game.

I’ll never forget the moment the players stepped onto the court to warm up. I sucked in my breath as they walked toward us. “They’re not this tall on TV!” I kept whispering to Daniel. I’m sure it got old after I repeated myself for the eighth time, but I couldn’t get over how goliath they were in close proximity. “I think I come up to the waistband on number 13’s shorts!”

I’ve been a basketball fan for years, but being at a game in person—and in row 8, no less—was like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time after years of merely looking at photographs. Everything was bigger, faster, louder without a screen separating us. I could hear Nate Robinson announcing the plays, I could see the look in Luol Deng’s face when he was calling for the ball, I could hear the players’ yammerings with the refs, I could see just how fast Taj Gibson moved his feet to deke his defender.

Shoot, we were so close I could practically smell the players’ sweat.

At halftime I found myself considering how much easier it is to take in a game secondhand. You don’t have to fight the traffic, you don’t have to find parking, you don’t have to fork over any hard-earned cash. You just turn on your TV and watch the game from the comfort of your couch. But that ease comes at a price—you also lose the grandness of the firsthand experience.

I wonder how often I try to take the shortcut in other areas of my life too. It’s more effort, more time to get together with a friend, so I take the easy route and send a message or post a quick note on her wall. There’s nothing wrong with those convenient methods of communication, of course—as long as they don’t creep in to become a cheap replacement of the real thing.

And what about my relationship with God? How often do I settle for a secondhand relationship with him, content to hear about him through a sermon or a book or a friend without taking the extra effort to go deep myself?

“Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth….[Christ] waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.”

—A. W. Tozer

The Bulls, by the way, experienced a rather ugly loss to a team they should have beaten soundly. But it didn’t matter all that much. Just being eight rows from greatness was gift in itself.

In what areas of your life are you settling for a secondhand experience?

January 11, 2013

The Gift of Pain

The other day started out with one of those crazy mornings. I had to switch the cars to get mine out of the garage, then I had to do some interesting maneuvers to back the cars—both of them—around our neighbor’s SUV on one side and the recycling bins on the other. To add insult to injury, half the world was cozy in bed, still on winter break, while I was scraping off the car in the icy darkness. And to top it all off, I was running late.

It was in the midst of these mental distractions that I slammed my car door. With my finger still in it.

It was strange because I didn’t feel a thing at first…and that’s what made me most nervous. Surely the top of my finger had been severed at the knuckle.

My pain-free bliss lasted about ten minutes into my commute, when suddenly I felt the most intense throbbing I’ve experienced since dropping a jumbo-sized bottle of hot sauce on my big toe in the third grade. Yep, my finger was still there all right. It was also bleeding profusely into my mitten.

But in the midst of my grumbling and complaining, this thought struck me with such force that I felt compelled to say it aloud: “The pain means my finger is still there. The pain means I’m very much alive.”

In his brilliant book The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

Pain as God’s megaphone.

In the past year there have indeed been moments when my heart felt like it had been slammed hard in the car door, and it throbbed like the dickens (for more on that, take a look here). For the most part I nursed my wounds, grumbling and complaining, scheming about how to anesthetize the pain as quickly as possible.

But what if Lewis was right? What if those times when we experience pain are actually God’s way of getting our attention? What if the pain is an indication not only that we are indeed alive, but also that something may be off kilter in our lives?

Without pain, we keep going through life on autopilot, utterly distracted. But pain snaps us into focus, helps us reprioritize.

We don’t have much choice about when the pain comes, but we do have a choice about what we’ll do with it. Will we numb out as quickly as possible, thereby missing what God may be trying to tell us through the pain?

Next time I get slammed in the proverbial car door, I pray I’ll listen. I pray the megaphone will get my attention.

September 28, 2012

At the Intersection of Weeping and Joy

I fell in love with Daniel over a steaming bowl of Pad Thai.

It was our second date, and he had done his homework. He knew I loved Thai food, and he’d scoped out the perfect spot—a cute little restaurant near my house called Bistro Thai.

As we chatted over our watermelon juice (one glass, two straws), I was struck by all the things we had in common and how blue his eyes were and how he could make me laugh and how blue his eyes were. Did I mention how blue his eyes were? Still, I was telling my heart to take it slow.

I knew I was in trouble, however, when Daniel pulled out the big manila envelope, saying he had a surprise for me. Could this be what I thought it was?

By way of background: Somewhere between date #1 and date #2, Daniel and I had exchanged some playful banter that went something like this: he found out I did some writing and asked if he could read something I’d written. I made an offhanded comment that he’d have to give me some equally sensitive information in exchange, such as, say, embarrassing childhood photos. The conversation moved on, and I thought that was the end of it.

But sure enough, Daniel contacted his dad, eight hours away, who secured an envelope full of embarrassing childhood photos and delivered them to Daniel in time for date #2. (I later found out his dad had stayed up until 1 a.m. scrounging through shoeboxes for all the best pictures.)

As Daniel and I pored over the photos, with the scent of peanuts and cilantro mingling in the air, it was official. I was smitten.

And so every year since, to mark the anniversary of our first dinner at Bistro Thai, we’ve gone back and ordered the same thing, reminiscing about the now-famous photo incident.

Last week my friend was visiting, and I decided to introduce her to my favorite little restaurant. As we walked up to the building, a series of observations came to me one at a time, in isolation, leaving me somehow unable to process them as a unit. Strange, I thought, there’s nobody here. Followed shortly by, The front window is completely gone! And then, Hey, why is there a big orange notice on the front door?

I realize there are real tragedies in the world, like when people lose their houses and everything they own in the wake of a hurricane, or when people are displaced from their families and homelands due to the ravages of war. But in that moment, the “For Lease” sign in the window of our restaurant felt like a state of emergency. I suppose it was partly sentimental, but maybe it was also a microcosm of those grander losses in life—that sense of remembering what once was and knowing that as hard as you try, you can never quite go back to the way things once were.

The book of Ezra recounts the significant event when a wave of Israelites returned from exile and started rebuilding their beloved temple. After it had sat in ruins for 70 years, there was much to celebrate as the new foundation was laid:

“He is so good!
His faithful love for Israel endures forever!”

Then all the people gave a great shout, praising the Lord because the foundation of the Lord’s Temple had been laid.

But many of the older priests, Levites, and other leaders who had seen the first Temple wept aloud when they saw the new Temple’s foundation. The others, however, were shouting for joy. The joyful shouting and weeping mingled together in a loud noise that could be heard far in the distance.
—Ezra 3:11-13

Maybe you’ve lost something precious to you—perhaps a place, a relationship, or a dream has been stripped away—and you know that things will never be the same again. Even if, by some miracle, that sacred place is rebuilt or the relationship is restored or the dream is redeemed, you know in your heart that it will never be as glorious as the original version. And when that happens, when you’re standing on the rubble of the old and on the cusp of the unknown, I think the only thing to do is weep it out.

More and more I’m realizing that life doesn’t usually come at me one tidy emotion at a time—weeping for a season, then joy for a spell. No, it’s usually tangled together in a messy jumble—“joyful shouting and weeping mingled together,” as with the Temple round two.

One day there will no longer be a need for a Temple of any kind, because Christ himself will be the Temple (Revelation 21:22). In Christ, we have the hope that one day God will bring restoration and redemption on a grander scale than we can even imagine. But until then, there just may be times when our weeping and our joyful shouting will swirl together, heavenward, in a loud noise.

Meanwhile, I’m holding my breath that one day there will be a new restaurant where Bistro Thai once was. Maybe, despite the loss, it will also be the foundation for something new. Something full of joy.

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

September 18, 2012

The Most Daring Act in the World

Louie Zamperini did a lot of daring things in his life. As I devoured the pages of Unbroken, which chronicles the story of his life, I found myself continually amazed that the book is nonfiction. How could one person bravely withstand so many hardships…and live to tell about it?

As a bombardier in World War II, Louie valiantly embarked on missions in the Pacific, knowing that his craft could be shot down at any moment by Japanese planes or face the equally dangerous prospect of mechanical failure over the vast ocean. But his battles in the war were only the beginning. He survived a fiery plane crash. He fended off sharks with his bare hands. He faced starvation, extreme heat, and enemy fire. He endured emotional and physical torture in a POW camp.

But in my mind, none of those things, heroic as they are, constitute his most daring act.

No, his most daring act was that he hoped.

Louie hoped when it was ludicrous, possibly even insane, to keep on hoping. Every time something good comes his way and you think he’ll finally get his break, things blow up in his face. Yet somehow he never gives up hoping.

When the few chocolate bars—the only food left for the three men stranded on the raft—was scarfed down in a single sitting by one of his fellow survivors, Louie didn’t give up hope.

When their precious bait was snatched up by greedy sharks, he didn’t give up hope. When he managed to grab a large seabird with his bare hands and the meat turned out to be inedible, he didn’t give up hope.

When the plane that flew overhead turned out to be enemy aircraft instead of their salvation, he still didn’t give up hope—not even when the plane opened fire and their raft became riddled with bullet holes.

It wasn’t long before Louie’s friend and fellow survivor Mac gave up. But still Louie held on:

Given the dismal record of raft-bound men, Mac’s despair was reasonable. What is remarkable is that [Louie], who shared Mac’s plight, didn’t share his hopelessness….It had not yet occurred to him that he might die.

Yes, this was Louie’s most daring act: he hoped against all odds, against all evidence to the contrary.

At first blush, the book of Lamentations seems to be strictly a chronicle of sorrow and hopelessness. Jerusalem, God’s chosen city, and even the holy Temple have been destroyed. The people have been taken into captivity at the hands of the Babylonians. As the prophet Jeremiah looks bleakly into the future, he is consumed with grief:

For all these things I weep;
tears flow down my cheeks.
No one is here to comfort me;
any who might encourage me are far away….
I have cried until the tears no longer come;
my heart is broken.
My spirit is poured out in agony.
—Lamentations 1:16; 2:11

This is pretty much what you’d expect from a book with a name like Lamentations, what you’d expect from someone who is mourning the desolation of his beloved city. The shocking part—the daring part—comes out of nowhere, in chapter 3. In the midst of the prophet’s laments, he suddenly does a 180 and bursts out with an incredible yet:

Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:
The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in him!”

—Lamentations 3:21-24

Like Louie, the prophet dared to hope when those around him could see only despair.

Today I pray that you will make the daring decision to hope. Against all odds. Against all evidence to the contrary.

May you have hope that your tragedy will end but that the Lord’s love never will.

May you have hope that the morning will come again, and so will his mercies.

May you have hope that his faithfulness is greater than whatever struggle you’re up against.

And when all hope is gone, may you have hope that he will plant new hope in your soul again.

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

May 8, 2012

God’s Tear Jar

My husband, Daniel, has given me many gifts in the nine months we’ve been married, but one of the most gracious is the way he handles my tears.

Over the years I’ve prided myself in my ability to handle things pretty stoically, at least to all watching eyes. But somehow since saying, “I do,” I’ve found I’m much leakier than I used to be—perhaps because I’ve found in Daniel such a safe place.

One of my favorite images in the Psalms is the picture David paints in Psalm 56 of God collecting all our tears in a bottle. David was no stranger to sadness. For all that his life was charmed—what with giant killing and a promotion from shepherd to king—he still had plenty to feel down about along the way.

It seems significant that David wrote about God’s tear jar when he did: just after being rejected by two communities. First, by King Saul, whom David had served faithfully, both with his music and in battle, risking his very life only to be repaid with a spear aimed at his head. On the heels of that rejection came another one: this time from the Philistines, whom David had been fighting with side-by-side since his exile. It was in that moment of feeling alone that he cried out to God:

You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book.
—Psalm 56:8

When I picture heaven, I envision one room that’s filled with shelf after shelf of jars—jars of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Each one is labeled with a name, and on the inside are all the tears that person sheds during his or her time on earth.

Something I love about the tear jar image is what it says about God’s view of our suffering. He doesn’t tell us to suck it up; he doesn’t instruct us to plaster a fake smile on our faces; he doesn’t wag his finger and rebuke us for being babies. He tenderly collects every tear, validating each stab of pain we feel. No teardrop is too bitter. No sorrow too small. Each one is lovingly guided into the jar.

When Daniel and I first got married, I found myself frequently apologizing for my tears. Especially when they felt weak or unnecessary or just plain silly. But each time Daniel would put his arms around me and find the nearest napkin or paper towel or sleeve to wipe my runny mascara. Then he’d say, “You don’t have to be sorry. The Daniel-and-Stephanie team is okay with tears.”

God’s team, gratefully, is the same. The jars in heaven with your name on it is proof.

“Where there are tears, we should pay attention.”
—Frederick Buechner