But Thomas said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in His hands… I will not believe.’ — John 20:25
As Christians, we are all familiar with the story of Thomas, which we usually understand to convey the lesson that doubt is the opposite of faith and is therefore sinful and wrong. Can doubt be seen not simply as faith’s wimpy opposite, but instead as a sign of a faith that is alive, vibrant, and in authentic relationship with God? For today’s devotional, let’s take a closer look at the scriptural story of Thomas to see if that is really what the scripture teaches, or if there is more to the story.
The disciple named Thomas speaks only twice in the Gospels. A lot of Christians give Thomas — whom many call “doubting Thomas” — a bad rap, not so much because of what the Gospels say about him, but because of the faith-law that gives doubt a bad rap. In the gospel of John, when Jesus appears to the disciples after His resurrection, no one recognizes Jesus right away. Mary Magdalene, the first to glimpse Jesus at the tomb, mistakes Jesus for the gardener. When Jesus appears later to the male disciples, they don’t recognize Him either until Jesus “showed them His hands and His side” (John 20:20). But Thomas wasn’t there for this; so when the disciples tell Him about these incredible visits from Jesus, he says he won’t believe that they “have seen the Lord” until he sees “the mark of the nails in His hands,” puts his “finger in the mark of the nails,” and puts his “hand in His side” (John 20:25). When Jesus shows up again, He addresses Thomas first thing by saying,
Put your finger here and see My hands. Reach out your hand and put it in My side. — John 20:27
Thomas does this and then cries out,
My Lord and my God! — John 20:28
What outlaw Christians notice in this story is not the one and only line we are taught to notice — Jesus’ command, “Do not doubt but believe” (v. 27). First, we notice that everyone else in the story fails to recognize Jesus also, but for some strange reason, only poor Thomas gets labeled “doubter.” This suggests the “doubting Thomas” interpretation is an unfair reading that probably misses the point. Second, while everyone else in the story seems to have forgotten Jesus’ suffering (and crucifixion) in light of His glorious resurrection, there is only one person who remembers it — and asks about it.
Thomas, in other words, is the only person who remembers Jesus’ whole story — all the hurt, and the hope too.
Thomas believes redemption is more than just an erasure of pain.
For him, redemption involves the way people live on in spite of the fact that they still carry scars on their skin. Thomas expects scars. If the guy in front of Him doesn’t have scars, Thomas will know He can’t be the Jesus he knew — because the real Jesus suffered something awful. Thomas is the only one in the room brave enough to remember that a friend’s painful wounds still remain without having to be shown them first. He remembers that the suffering of Jesus is real, just like our own suffering.
This radical new reading of Thomas helps us make sense of why in the only other Bible story (John 11) in which Thomas speaks, he is beyond a shadow of a doubt — pun intended! — portrayed not as a faithless loser but as the bravest, most loving, authentic friend Jesus has. When Lazarus dies and Mary and Martha beg Jesus to come back to them in Judea, the disciples try to talk Jesus out of it by saying,
The Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again? — John 11:8
But Thomas — and only Thomas — pipes up and says,
Let us also go, that we may die with Him. — John 11:16
All the other disciples fear for Jesus’ life and their own, but Thomas is willing to die alongside Jesus.
It’s so sad that we label Thomas “doubting Thomas,” but ignore the fact that he is also “willing-to-die-with-Jesus Thomas.” What is the ironic point of the story? Could it be that scar-sharing is the solid foundation for any authentic friendship? That no one really knows who we are until we are brave enough to show our scars to them? That the people who have put their fingers and eyes on our scars and still stick with us anyway are the people who understand best how to love us? Thomas’s story teaches us all of these lessons and more. Those people in your life who accept and name suffering for the wounding thing it actually is are the only friends who can ever override the fear of walking with you down all life’s paths of pain. Only people who believe your wounds are real in the first place can ever imagine placing their wounds next to yours. On the cross, God places God’s story of woundedness next to yours.
Have you ever considered the telling fact that the Latin word stigmata that Christians have used for centuries to describe Jesus’ scars is just the plural of the English word stigma, meaning a mark of shame, disgrace, or humiliation? Here, our very language exposes the teaching that all scars — even Jesus’ — are stigmas. How many of us have been wounded by this terrible lie and faith-law! Jesus, however, refuses to see His scars as a source of humiliation or shame, or even as a thing to keep hidden. Instead, Jesus readily and boldly shows His scars to His friends. As I see it, Jesus flat-out rejects the idea that we should be ashamed and secretive about the unjust and terrible things other people have done to us.
Not only is Thomas unafraid to ask Jesus about His scars, but Jesus is also unafraid to show them to him. Both are heroic actions.
Why then are we so terrified of showing our scars or asking anyone about theirs? Are we missing the point of the story, which might just be that scar-sharing brings resurrection? Thomas is like that character in the novel Little Bee who says in one of my favorite quotes: “A scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty…. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.”
While many Christians remember Thomas as the loser who doubted Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance, outlaw Christians remember Thomas instead as the bold friend who, because he refused to believe scars were stigmas, cared enough to ask Jesus about His scars that He survived. Inspired by Thomas, let’s go and do likewise with our friends.
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Thomas: Surviving Our Scars by Jacqueline A. Bussie, Outlaw Christian
Sunday, April 3, 2016
The Opportunity for Great Joy by Ann Voskamp, from One Thousand Gifts Devotional
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. — James 1:2
“What in the world were you thinking? How many times have we said no running? I am just...” I’m spewing and it’s ugly and the words are so frazzled with frustration they fray midstream. I can feel the slow smothering, the tight choking, and I can feel it in the throat, rising.
My knees are stiff and it’s jarring, how peace can shatter faster than glass, the breakneck speeds at which I can fall — and refuse to bend the knees at all.
I look into the faces of the guilty and a son arcs his eyebrow, shrugs his shoulders, nonchalant.
I hold my head in my hands and ask it honest before God and children and my daily mess:
Can we really expect joy all the time?
I will struggle to heed this until I am no more: “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy” (James 1:2), and I will listen and again I will listen and I will wrestle to put skin on it: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4).
I gnaw my lip. The body howls when joy is extinguished. The face shrivels pain, the voice pitches angry cry. “No man can live without joy” is what Thomas Aquinas wrote. And I confess, it is true, I have known many dead waiting to die.
The glass lies everywhere broken.
I may feel disappointment and the despair may flood high, but to give thanks is an action and rejoice is a verb and these are not mere pulsing emotions. While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving.
I know it well after a day smattered with rowdiness and worn a bit ragged with bickering. Joy doesn’t negate all other emotions — joy transcends all other emotions.
Only self can kill joy.
I’m the one doing this to me. The demanding of my own will is the singular force that smothers out joy — nothing else. Dare I ask what I think I deserve? A life with no discomfort, no inconveniences? What do I really deserve?
God does not give rights but He imparts responsibilities — response-abilities — inviting us to respond to His love-gifts. And I know and can feel it tight: I’m responding miserably to the gift of this moment. In fact, I’m refusing it. Proudly refusing to accept this moment, dismissing it as no gift at all, I refuse God. I reject God. Why is this eucharisteo always so hard?
I had thought joy’s flame needed protecting.
My own wild desire to protect my joy at all costs is the exact force that kills my joy.
But flames need a bit of wind.
I hadn’t known that joy meant dying. I can trust.
I can let go.
Joy — it’s always obedience.
I know it deeper now: This eucharisteo is no game of Pollyanna but the hard edge of blade.
Only self can kill joy.
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. — James 1:2
Devotionals Daily
The Opportunity for Great Joy
by Ann Voskamp, from One Thousand Gifts Devotional
Meet Ann Voskamp
Proverbs 12:16
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. — James 1:2
“What in the world were you thinking? How many times have we said no running? I am just...” I’m spewing and it’s ugly and the words are so frazzled with frustration they fray midstream. I can feel the slow smothering, the tight choking, and I can feel it in the throat, rising.
My knees are stiff and it’s jarring, how peace can shatter faster than glass, the breakneck speeds at which I can fall — and refuse to bend the knees at all.
I look into the faces of the guilty and a son arcs his eyebrow, shrugs his shoulders, nonchalant.
I hold my head in my hands and ask it honest before God and children and my daily mess:
Can we really expect joy all the time?
I will struggle to heed this until I am no more: “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy” (James 1:2), and I will listen and again I will listen and I will wrestle to put skin on it: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4).
I gnaw my lip. The body howls when joy is extinguished. The face shrivels pain, the voice pitches angry cry. “No man can live without joy” is what Thomas Aquinas wrote. And I confess, it is true, I have known many dead waiting to die.
The glass lies everywhere broken.
I may feel disappointment and the despair may flood high, but to give thanks is an action and rejoice is a verb and these are not mere pulsing emotions. While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving.
I know it well after a day smattered with rowdiness and worn a bit ragged with bickering. Joy doesn’t negate all other emotions — joy transcends all other emotions.
Only self can kill joy.
I’m the one doing this to me. The demanding of my own will is the singular force that smothers out joy — nothing else. Dare I ask what I think I deserve? A life with no discomfort, no inconveniences? What do I really deserve?
God does not give rights but He imparts responsibilities — response-abilities — inviting us to respond to His love-gifts. And I know and can feel it tight: I’m responding miserably to the gift of this moment. In fact, I’m refusing it. Proudly refusing to accept this moment, dismissing it as no gift at all, I refuse God. I reject God. Why is this eucharisteo always so hard?
I had thought joy’s flame needed protecting.
My own wild desire to protect my joy at all costs is the exact force that kills my joy.
But flames need a bit of wind.
I hadn’t known that joy meant dying. I can trust.
I can let go.
Joy — it’s always obedience.
I know it deeper now: This eucharisteo is no game of Pollyanna but the hard edge of blade.
Only self can kill joy.
I take a long deep breath. I step from the stairs, stairs that have led all the way down into this.
I kneel down into a mess of glass.
Eucharisteo makes the knees the vantage point of a life. I bend, and the body, it says it quiet: “Thy will be done.” This is the way a body and a mouth say thank you: Thy will be done. This is the way the self dies, falls into the arms of Love.
This is why. This is why the fight for joy is always so hard.
“No one who ever said to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and meant it with his heart, ever failed to find joy — not just in heaven, or even down the road in the future in this world, but in this world at that very moment,” asserts Peter Kreeft. “Every other Christian who has ever lived has found exactly the same thing in his own experience. It is an experiment that has been performed over and over again billions of times, always with the same result.”
I am kneeling in glass and my memories of shattered glass and Jesus comes soft — “Thy will be done” is My own joy story, child, from beginning to end.
And I hear it soft too, what all His life speaks: Joy is in the acquiescing.
A circle of children stand around me, watching, waiting. Long slivers of transparency, blades, lie before me, catching light.
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. — James 1:2
Devotionals Daily
The Opportunity for Great Joy
by Ann Voskamp, from One Thousand Gifts Devotional
Meet Ann Voskamp
Proverbs 12:16
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. — James 1:2
“What in the world were you thinking? How many times have we said no running? I am just...” I’m spewing and it’s ugly and the words are so frazzled with frustration they fray midstream. I can feel the slow smothering, the tight choking, and I can feel it in the throat, rising.
My knees are stiff and it’s jarring, how peace can shatter faster than glass, the breakneck speeds at which I can fall — and refuse to bend the knees at all.
I look into the faces of the guilty and a son arcs his eyebrow, shrugs his shoulders, nonchalant.
I hold my head in my hands and ask it honest before God and children and my daily mess:
Can we really expect joy all the time?
I will struggle to heed this until I am no more: “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy” (James 1:2), and I will listen and again I will listen and I will wrestle to put skin on it: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4).
I gnaw my lip. The body howls when joy is extinguished. The face shrivels pain, the voice pitches angry cry. “No man can live without joy” is what Thomas Aquinas wrote. And I confess, it is true, I have known many dead waiting to die.
The glass lies everywhere broken.
I may feel disappointment and the despair may flood high, but to give thanks is an action and rejoice is a verb and these are not mere pulsing emotions. While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving.
I know it well after a day smattered with rowdiness and worn a bit ragged with bickering. Joy doesn’t negate all other emotions — joy transcends all other emotions.
Only self can kill joy.
I’m the one doing this to me. The demanding of my own will is the singular force that smothers out joy — nothing else. Dare I ask what I think I deserve? A life with no discomfort, no inconveniences? What do I really deserve?
God does not give rights but He imparts responsibilities — response-abilities — inviting us to respond to His love-gifts. And I know and can feel it tight: I’m responding miserably to the gift of this moment. In fact, I’m refusing it. Proudly refusing to accept this moment, dismissing it as no gift at all, I refuse God. I reject God. Why is this eucharisteo always so hard?
I had thought joy’s flame needed protecting.
My own wild desire to protect my joy at all costs is the exact force that kills my joy.
But flames need a bit of wind.
I hadn’t known that joy meant dying. I can trust.
I can let go.
Joy — it’s always obedience.
I know it deeper now: This eucharisteo is no game of Pollyanna but the hard edge of blade.
Only self can kill joy.
I take a long deep breath. I step from the stairs, stairs that have led all the way down into this.
I kneel down into a mess of glass.
Eucharisteo makes the knees the vantage point of a life. I bend, and the body, it says it quiet: “Thy will be done.” This is the way a body and a mouth say thank you: Thy will be done. This is the way the self dies, falls into the arms of Love.
This is why. This is why the fight for joy is always so hard.
“No one who ever said to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and meant it with his heart, ever failed to find joy — not just in heaven, or even down the road in the future in this world, but in this world at that very moment,” asserts Peter Kreeft. “Every other Christian who has ever lived has found exactly the same thing in his own experience. It is an experiment that has been performed over and over again billions of times, always with the same result.”
I am kneeling in glass and my memories of shattered glass and Jesus comes soft — “Thy will be done” is My own joy story, child, from beginning to end.
And I hear it soft too, what all His life speaks: Joy is in the acquiescing.
A circle of children stand around me, watching, waiting. Long slivers of transparency, blades, lie before me, catching light.
I humbly open my hand.
Without a word, one by one, they come to the outer edges and they kneel too.
And I humbly open my hand to release my will to receive His, to accept His wind. I accept the gift of now as it is — accept God — for I can’t be receptive to God unless I receive what He gives. Joy’s light flickers, breathes, fueled by the will of God — fueled by Him.
A shaft filters through an afternoon window and the cracks of the aged wood revive in sun.
I pray.
I let go. Lay the hand open. The sun slides across old hairline scars.
My palm holds light.
Lord God, You ask me to give thanks in all things today — because You know that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving. Today, cause me to do Your will, not mine — and let me release my desire to protect my joy at all costs. Today, open my hand to joy in surrendered obedience.
*Eucharisteo is a Greek word that means “to be grateful; to give thanks”
“And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them…” (Luke 22:19). In the original language, “He gave thanks” reads “eucharisteo.” One of Christ’s very last directives He offers to His disciples is to take the bread, the wine, and to remember. Do this in remembrance of Me. Remember and give thanks. This is the crux of Christianity: to remember and give thanks, eucharisteo.
“What in the world were you thinking? How many times have we said no running? I am just...” I’m spewing and it’s ugly and the words are so frazzled with frustration they fray midstream. I can feel the slow smothering, the tight choking, and I can feel it in the throat, rising.
My knees are stiff and it’s jarring, how peace can shatter faster than glass, the breakneck speeds at which I can fall — and refuse to bend the knees at all.
I look into the faces of the guilty and a son arcs his eyebrow, shrugs his shoulders, nonchalant.
I hold my head in my hands and ask it honest before God and children and my daily mess:
Can we really expect joy all the time?
I will struggle to heed this until I am no more: “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy” (James 1:2), and I will listen and again I will listen and I will wrestle to put skin on it: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4).
I gnaw my lip. The body howls when joy is extinguished. The face shrivels pain, the voice pitches angry cry. “No man can live without joy” is what Thomas Aquinas wrote. And I confess, it is true, I have known many dead waiting to die.
The glass lies everywhere broken.
I may feel disappointment and the despair may flood high, but to give thanks is an action and rejoice is a verb and these are not mere pulsing emotions. While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving.
I know it well after a day smattered with rowdiness and worn a bit ragged with bickering. Joy doesn’t negate all other emotions — joy transcends all other emotions.
Only self can kill joy.
I’m the one doing this to me. The demanding of my own will is the singular force that smothers out joy — nothing else. Dare I ask what I think I deserve? A life with no discomfort, no inconveniences? What do I really deserve?
God does not give rights but He imparts responsibilities — response-abilities — inviting us to respond to His love-gifts. And I know and can feel it tight: I’m responding miserably to the gift of this moment. In fact, I’m refusing it. Proudly refusing to accept this moment, dismissing it as no gift at all, I refuse God. I reject God. Why is this eucharisteo always so hard?
I had thought joy’s flame needed protecting.
My own wild desire to protect my joy at all costs is the exact force that kills my joy.
But flames need a bit of wind.
I hadn’t known that joy meant dying. I can trust.
I can let go.
Joy — it’s always obedience.
I know it deeper now: This eucharisteo is no game of Pollyanna but the hard edge of blade.
Only self can kill joy.
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. — James 1:2
Devotionals Daily
The Opportunity for Great Joy
by Ann Voskamp, from One Thousand Gifts Devotional
Meet Ann Voskamp
Proverbs 12:16
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. — James 1:2
“What in the world were you thinking? How many times have we said no running? I am just...” I’m spewing and it’s ugly and the words are so frazzled with frustration they fray midstream. I can feel the slow smothering, the tight choking, and I can feel it in the throat, rising.
My knees are stiff and it’s jarring, how peace can shatter faster than glass, the breakneck speeds at which I can fall — and refuse to bend the knees at all.
I look into the faces of the guilty and a son arcs his eyebrow, shrugs his shoulders, nonchalant.
I hold my head in my hands and ask it honest before God and children and my daily mess:
Can we really expect joy all the time?
I will struggle to heed this until I am no more: “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy” (James 1:2), and I will listen and again I will listen and I will wrestle to put skin on it: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4).
I gnaw my lip. The body howls when joy is extinguished. The face shrivels pain, the voice pitches angry cry. “No man can live without joy” is what Thomas Aquinas wrote. And I confess, it is true, I have known many dead waiting to die.
The glass lies everywhere broken.
I may feel disappointment and the despair may flood high, but to give thanks is an action and rejoice is a verb and these are not mere pulsing emotions. While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving.
I know it well after a day smattered with rowdiness and worn a bit ragged with bickering. Joy doesn’t negate all other emotions — joy transcends all other emotions.
Only self can kill joy.
I’m the one doing this to me. The demanding of my own will is the singular force that smothers out joy — nothing else. Dare I ask what I think I deserve? A life with no discomfort, no inconveniences? What do I really deserve?
God does not give rights but He imparts responsibilities — response-abilities — inviting us to respond to His love-gifts. And I know and can feel it tight: I’m responding miserably to the gift of this moment. In fact, I’m refusing it. Proudly refusing to accept this moment, dismissing it as no gift at all, I refuse God. I reject God. Why is this eucharisteo always so hard?
I had thought joy’s flame needed protecting.
My own wild desire to protect my joy at all costs is the exact force that kills my joy.
But flames need a bit of wind.
I hadn’t known that joy meant dying. I can trust.
I can let go.
Joy — it’s always obedience.
I know it deeper now: This eucharisteo is no game of Pollyanna but the hard edge of blade.
Only self can kill joy.
I take a long deep breath. I step from the stairs, stairs that have led all the way down into this.
I kneel down into a mess of glass.
Eucharisteo makes the knees the vantage point of a life. I bend, and the body, it says it quiet: “Thy will be done.” This is the way a body and a mouth say thank you: Thy will be done. This is the way the self dies, falls into the arms of Love.
This is why. This is why the fight for joy is always so hard.
“No one who ever said to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and meant it with his heart, ever failed to find joy — not just in heaven, or even down the road in the future in this world, but in this world at that very moment,” asserts Peter Kreeft. “Every other Christian who has ever lived has found exactly the same thing in his own experience. It is an experiment that has been performed over and over again billions of times, always with the same result.”
I am kneeling in glass and my memories of shattered glass and Jesus comes soft — “Thy will be done” is My own joy story, child, from beginning to end.
And I hear it soft too, what all His life speaks: Joy is in the acquiescing.
A circle of children stand around me, watching, waiting. Long slivers of transparency, blades, lie before me, catching light.
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. — James 1:2
Devotionals Daily
The Opportunity for Great Joy
by Ann Voskamp, from One Thousand Gifts Devotional
Meet Ann Voskamp
Proverbs 12:16
Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. — James 1:2
“What in the world were you thinking? How many times have we said no running? I am just...” I’m spewing and it’s ugly and the words are so frazzled with frustration they fray midstream. I can feel the slow smothering, the tight choking, and I can feel it in the throat, rising.
My knees are stiff and it’s jarring, how peace can shatter faster than glass, the breakneck speeds at which I can fall — and refuse to bend the knees at all.
I look into the faces of the guilty and a son arcs his eyebrow, shrugs his shoulders, nonchalant.
I hold my head in my hands and ask it honest before God and children and my daily mess:
Can we really expect joy all the time?
I will struggle to heed this until I am no more: “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy” (James 1:2), and I will listen and again I will listen and I will wrestle to put skin on it: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4).
I gnaw my lip. The body howls when joy is extinguished. The face shrivels pain, the voice pitches angry cry. “No man can live without joy” is what Thomas Aquinas wrote. And I confess, it is true, I have known many dead waiting to die.
The glass lies everywhere broken.
I may feel disappointment and the despair may flood high, but to give thanks is an action and rejoice is a verb and these are not mere pulsing emotions. While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving.
I know it well after a day smattered with rowdiness and worn a bit ragged with bickering. Joy doesn’t negate all other emotions — joy transcends all other emotions.
Only self can kill joy.
I’m the one doing this to me. The demanding of my own will is the singular force that smothers out joy — nothing else. Dare I ask what I think I deserve? A life with no discomfort, no inconveniences? What do I really deserve?
God does not give rights but He imparts responsibilities — response-abilities — inviting us to respond to His love-gifts. And I know and can feel it tight: I’m responding miserably to the gift of this moment. In fact, I’m refusing it. Proudly refusing to accept this moment, dismissing it as no gift at all, I refuse God. I reject God. Why is this eucharisteo always so hard?
I had thought joy’s flame needed protecting.
My own wild desire to protect my joy at all costs is the exact force that kills my joy.
But flames need a bit of wind.
I hadn’t known that joy meant dying. I can trust.
I can let go.
Joy — it’s always obedience.
I know it deeper now: This eucharisteo is no game of Pollyanna but the hard edge of blade.
Only self can kill joy.
I take a long deep breath. I step from the stairs, stairs that have led all the way down into this.
I kneel down into a mess of glass.
Eucharisteo makes the knees the vantage point of a life. I bend, and the body, it says it quiet: “Thy will be done.” This is the way a body and a mouth say thank you: Thy will be done. This is the way the self dies, falls into the arms of Love.
This is why. This is why the fight for joy is always so hard.
“No one who ever said to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and meant it with his heart, ever failed to find joy — not just in heaven, or even down the road in the future in this world, but in this world at that very moment,” asserts Peter Kreeft. “Every other Christian who has ever lived has found exactly the same thing in his own experience. It is an experiment that has been performed over and over again billions of times, always with the same result.”
I am kneeling in glass and my memories of shattered glass and Jesus comes soft — “Thy will be done” is My own joy story, child, from beginning to end.
And I hear it soft too, what all His life speaks: Joy is in the acquiescing.
A circle of children stand around me, watching, waiting. Long slivers of transparency, blades, lie before me, catching light.
I humbly open my hand.
Without a word, one by one, they come to the outer edges and they kneel too.
And I humbly open my hand to release my will to receive His, to accept His wind. I accept the gift of now as it is — accept God — for I can’t be receptive to God unless I receive what He gives. Joy’s light flickers, breathes, fueled by the will of God — fueled by Him.
A shaft filters through an afternoon window and the cracks of the aged wood revive in sun.
I pray.
I let go. Lay the hand open. The sun slides across old hairline scars.
My palm holds light.
Lord God, You ask me to give thanks in all things today — because You know that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving. Today, cause me to do Your will, not mine — and let me release my desire to protect my joy at all costs. Today, open my hand to joy in surrendered obedience.
*Eucharisteo is a Greek word that means “to be grateful; to give thanks”
“And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them…” (Luke 22:19). In the original language, “He gave thanks” reads “eucharisteo.” One of Christ’s very last directives He offers to His disciples is to take the bread, the wine, and to remember. Do this in remembrance of Me. Remember and give thanks. This is the crux of Christianity: to remember and give thanks, eucharisteo.
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Redeem the Time by Joel Osteen
One day I decided to quit...I quit my job, my relationship, my Spirituality. I
went to the woods to have one last talk with God. "God", I said. "Can
you give me one good reason not to quit?"
His answer surprised me." Look around", He said. "Do you see the fern and the bamboo?"
"Yes", I replied.
"When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them. I gave them light. I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from the earth. Its brilliant green covered the floor. Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo. In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and plentiful. And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo."
"In year three there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit. In year four, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. I would not quit," He said.
"Then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth. Compared to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant...But just 6 months later the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall. It had spent the five years growing roots. Those roots made it strong and gave it what it needed to survive. I would not give any of my creations a challenge it could not handle."
He said to me, "Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots? I would not quit on the bamboo. I will never quit on you."
"Don't compare yourself to others." He said. "The bamboo had a different purpose than the fern. Yet they both make the forest beautiful."
"Your time will come", God said to me. "You will rise high"
"How high should I rise?" I asked.
"How high will the bamboo rise?" He asked in return.
"As high as it can?" I questioned.
"Yes." He said, "Give me glory by rising as high as you can."
His answer surprised me." Look around", He said. "Do you see the fern and the bamboo?"
"Yes", I replied.
"When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them. I gave them light. I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from the earth. Its brilliant green covered the floor. Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo. In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and plentiful. And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo."
"In year three there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit. In year four, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. I would not quit," He said.
"Then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth. Compared to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant...But just 6 months later the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall. It had spent the five years growing roots. Those roots made it strong and gave it what it needed to survive. I would not give any of my creations a challenge it could not handle."
He said to me, "Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots? I would not quit on the bamboo. I will never quit on you."
"Don't compare yourself to others." He said. "The bamboo had a different purpose than the fern. Yet they both make the forest beautiful."
"Your time will come", God said to me. "You will rise high"
"How high should I rise?" I asked.
"How high will the bamboo rise?" He asked in return.
"As high as it can?" I questioned.
"Yes." He said, "Give me glory by rising as high as you can."
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