Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns
If you think Jesus would have come into your home that day and not issued a strong rebuke to the head of household, you are mistaken. These words of condemnation have been haunting me for days now. They aren’t all that different than the soundtrack I play in my head on an almost-daily basis. It’s…
I am nesting. On Saturday I emptied the refrigerator. Last summer’s homemade pickles in their jars. The bread ends that seem to multiply on every shelf. The eggs. The milk. The fruit and veggies. All of it sat on the floor or the counter as I carefully removed the shelves and wiped them down with…
I’ve heard that life is like a highway. And it definitely seems like that sometimes. The pace of life swirls around me at dizzying speeds. We’re all so busy. In such a hurry. Always somewhere to be, something else to do. I’m a get-to-the-point, get-there-quick kind of girl. I don’t like to waste time on…
It is tempting in Christian circles to hold up missionaries and other “heroes of the faith” as prime examples of every spiritual ideal. A young woman who moves to Uganda, starts a ministry, and adopts a baker’s dozen of daughters could easily be thought of as perfect or at least some kind of holy that is unattainable to the rest of us.
But Katie Davis Majors, in her new book Daring to Hope: Finding God’s Goodness in the Broken and the Beautiful, assures readers that she wrestles with faith and doubt, just like the rest of us.
Ultimately, our hidden reach for God counts so much more than our public one. Some people may look at my life and say how amazing I am or what a radical Christian I am, just as some people may praise you because you seem to have it all together, but what really counts will be the quiet devotion practiced in our own homes. What will matter most at the end of our lives are these people right in front of us who get to see all of it, the happy stories and the tragic ones, the pretty good parts of us and the ugliest parts of us. At the end of time all that will count is that we lived the Gospel with our very lives, that we paid attention to the people God gave us and dwelt knowledgeably and hospitably in the place to which He called us. (p. 100)
In this follow-up to her popular Kisses from Katie, Majors recounts many stories of hope and heartbreak in her Ugandan neighborhood, how saying “yes” to God and the people He brings her doesn’t always end happily, the way she thinks it should. She shares with readers what she has learned about God and His faithfulness in times like these and emphasizes the importance of wrestling with God through these circumstances.
She writes:
I think we often look at our lives and see the barren places. It seems the garden is empty, plans dead and withered, dreams laid waste. It is easy to believe the lie that the good is over and gone and maybe God is done working here, in me and in you. … Could we rejoice in the waiting? Could we believe that God who brought Jesus out of the black of the tomb and green shoots out of the hard earth will bring beauty out of our barren seasons? Could we know that beauty is in this whole process, the growing and the pruning and even in the waiting, not just the part with the beautiful flower? (p 69)
The stories and lessons in this book are accessible to anyone desiring to live a life of faith where they are. It is not a book only for missionaries or spiritual leaders or young people. It is for anyone who wonders if hope is worth it when the outcome is unexpected.
You can hear from Katie in the book trailer about what this book means to her, here:
And if you want to read more, check out Katie’s post on Ann Voskamp’s blog.
(Disclosure: I received an advanced copy of the book from the publisher. Review reflects my honest opinion.)
A few weeks ago our daughter brought home a flute. She is now a first-year band student with no previous flute experience (unless you count the recorder she brought home last year for music class). She excitedly told us all about the upcoming concerts–one in December, the other not till April.
On the first day of practicing being a flute player, she was already looking ahead to the performance. There is nothing wrong with her excitement about the concerts, but I gently reminded her that there are a lot of days between now and then and every one of them matters.
If she does not practice each day before, the concert will not be as meaningful.
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I’m going to talk about baseball again.
Our team, the Cubs, made the playoffs again. Last year, as you might recall, they won the World Series, an achievement more than 100 years in the making. After last year’s win, there was a lot of talk and hope from Cubs fans about doing it again the next year. I understand the excitement and I, too, get swept up into the thrill of victory.
But when the baseball season opened this year, all teams started at the same place: zero wins, zero losses. Before the playoffs even begin, they have 162 games to play. Maybe every game doesn’t hold the same importance, but they still have to play every game to earn it. No team gets handed a trophy because they won last year or because they have the best fans. (I’m biased.)
Photo by Jason Weingardt on Unsplash
To win it all, they still have to work for it every day, accumulating more wins than losses.
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“A quick way to make life easier.”
The outside of the envelope blares an outright lie. Whatever it is they are selling, I’m not buying it. While it is tempting to believe there are quick ways to make our lives easier or better, these words are nothing more than a junk-mail promise. Whether it is on the outside of an envelope or blared via television or written online, this message deserves its place in the trash.
I know of few, if any, quick ways to make life easier and even fewer that don’t require work and commitment. And even if the whole rest of the world offered a quick-and-easy solution to life’s troubles, the church should be the last place to offer it.
I am thinking about all of these things because in October, I am teaching a class at my church. For the five Sundays of the month, I will be leading people on a journey toward incorporating spiritual practices into daily life. I’m calling it “Between Sundays” because I am a firm believer that what we do during the week has more lasting impact on our spiritual lives than what we do on Sundays.
Are Sundays important? Yes. Can attending church on Sundays be the sum total of our spiritual lives? I’m going with “no.”
Whether we’re learning to play flute, trying to win a baseball championship, or striving to be a better person, it takes practice. Spiritual transformation is not just going to be handed to us. We are not naturally inclined to love people we’d rather hate, to serve when no one is looking, to give until it hurts, to rest in God’s love for us, to stop trying to earn our salvation.
It is a mystery to me, sometimes, this idea that we cannot work for our salvation but we must work for our transformation. To me, the spiritual practices are not about earning our spots in heaven but learning to live as redeemed people here on earth. That is what takes work.
It is like God has handed us a musical instrument, capable of creating a beautiful sound, but first, we must learn how to play.
Photo by Tadas Mikuckis on Unsplash
And it will not be immediately perfect. The first few practice days for our flute player were at times wince-worthy. But just this week, she played an entire song–“Hot Cross Buns”– that sounded like music. She has a long way to go, but she is on her way.
It will be the same with spiritual practices. It will be awkward and messy and imperfect. We will get it wrong, especially at first. We might not see any improvement.
This is no reason to quit.
It is all the more reason to keep practicing.
Maybe we are not “there” yet but we are on our way.