Tag Archives: worry

Everyday worry: God’s love in uncertain times

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As I look out my high-rise window right now, I can no longer see the Philly skyline. After a week of rain, we still have showers! — today the clouds are so low I am looking into one. Last year I think we had a drought, this year a deluge.

I felt like I was in a fog long before the clouds descended. I’m not alone. You might also feel like a dark cloud has dimmed the light since Trump took office and issued 150+ executive orders. Sometimes this thunder and flurry of paper feels like a storm cloud, but more often it just obscures our view of the future. I won’t go into the latest from his trip to the Middle East and the awful budget bill, the impact of tariff nonsense, general corruption, and Stephen Miller. I’ve done quite a bit of that lately.

Regardless of the details, the descent into authoritarianism is a cloud of worry over most of us. The other day I looked out into my life landscape and my generally positive future seemed nowhere in sight. I had the usual worry about clients and my relationships — but what about the country? What is happening to the church? Selling my condo has been Trumped. Other business interests are beginning to be impacted. The 27% of my zip code neighbors who live below the poverty line are being squeezed even more.

Worry is not good. There is help.

I was having trouble turning into the presence of God as I looked out my window and prayed, so I looked for some help. What I found might help you, too.

First, I went to the book I am reading: Companions on the Inner Way by Morton Kelsey. I thumbed back to s spot I had underlined. Kelsey notes how Jesus called God “Abba” and told us to do the same. He says “Abba” should be translated “Daddy,” not just Father. It is affectionate, familiar.

My own father was not as warm as I would have liked, so I have always relished my somewhat “secret” relationship with God I developed when I lived with him, which still feels warm. I am grateful for that.

I think many of us like Jesus the most when we see him with his disciples saying, “I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you.” I feel great sympathy for my clients who never had a parent who could be relied upon to show up in ways that communicated love to them. I have lamented with 30somethings who are still waiting for love to “happen” in their lives. They are still like children in the cradle waiting to be picked up. Or they are really “over” not getting picked up and will tell you they’ve given up on true love.

I was enjoying my relatively easy relationship with God when a stray thought wheedled its way into my mind. My somewhat passive acceptance of  God’s love is great, but I decided I needed to add some conviction to it. Lounging in God’s arms is good, especially when I am worried, and such repose should be constant. But in a day clouded with alarm everywhere I look, I think the feeling needs some kick.

Receiving grace should meet our conviction

My mind turned to the wonderful Romans 5

We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. (vv. 1-2)  

There is Abba gracing me with that wonderful safe place to stand every day and delight in the hope of glory. But Paul goes on with the kick.

And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (vv. 3-5)

There is the conviction we need to apply. God’s love has been poured into my heart, and I’ve got plenty of affliction. Paul thinks that reality is going to result in something good. The Spirit is activating the conviction zone. I think of conviction as a response to the Spirit nudging me — that’s a good reason I discipline myself to pray every day, so I can get nudged.

Even more, conviction is the passionate action I take after I’ve turned into God’s embrace. My football coaches taught me this by saying (well, yelling at me a lot), “White, it is great you know the plays. But you don’t block and tackle with enough conviction (they probably said balls, or guts, and they really meant malevolence). If you don’t act with passion, nothing good will come of your understanding. I apply that lesson to loving. Love is a gift we experience from God; but it does not become something we live until it meets with  conviction and becomes our passion, too.

Love received. Love given.

I have so much experience with the Bible, I could then pull up two more places that guided me further. (Therefore, learn the Bible people).

I did not even try to remember where the phrase “mountains falling into the sea” was in the Bible. I Googled it. I guess I did not really need to find it. I knew the gist because I was experiencing it. I feel like the mountain of the U.S. I am used to is falling apart. It is unraveling before our eyes. A lot of us are watching it or trying to ignore it. And millions of us are convicted to respond. (Were you out on the street last Saturday? What are you planning for June 14?).

Google pointed me toward the famous Psalm 46. Here is the part I was looking for from Jonathan Alter’s translation:

God is a shelter and strength for us.
a help in straits, readily found.
Therefore, we fear not when the earth breaks apart,
when mountains collapse in the heart of the seas.
Its waters roar and roil,
mountains heave in its surge.

As I pondered that poetry in the middle of my dire straits, an old song rose up. It was very popular in the early days of our former church.

Even if you did not take the time to listen to it, just try on this mantra. It is the prayer of love meeting conviction:

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders.
Let me walk upon the waters
wherever you would call me.
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander,
and my faith will be made stronger
in the presence of my Savior.

These lines are a jolt in the middle of the song. When we sang it as a church, we would get progressively louder and more convicted as it repeated.  Glorious. I was glad to recall the experience the other day when mountains were falling and the waters were rising. I am called into new things in my old age. I need stronger faith for stronger worries.

Truly alive in the middle of uncertainty

I love how Oceans is a mash up of Psalm 46 and the story of Peter being called out of the boat in the storm. When we sing it, we start out being comforted by God in the middle of straits frothing as mountains crumble into them. Then the mantra reflects Peter seeing the Lord walking on water and getting out of his storm-tossed boat. I didn’t go to the Bible to find Peter’s story. I did not really need to, since I’ve heard it from flannel graph to commentary. What’s more, I’d just seen it on YouTube in an excerpt the creators The Chosen have uploaded. It is moving.

Even if you did not watch the scene, know that one of the good things about this video rendition is it does not shy away from the fact that we experience a lot of uncertainty and trauma which undermine our faith. We will always want to cry out and have Jesus save us and not leave us alone, just like we wished our parents had been more adept. God will not leave us orphans. At the same time, we will always need to grow out of our old selves and into our new – need to keep our eyes on Jesus and get out of the confines of our present understanding. Affliction produces endurance and endurance produces character.

Character is the fruit of conviction. We are not orphans. Great. But can you imagine a better time in history to have the love of God meet you in your trouble and energize your conviction to be truly alive in the middle of it and even make a difference? I keep telling myself “Endure the worry. Jesus is with you. The love of God is alive in you, even if the storm seems long.”

Wildness and worry: How Paul puts them together

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The ruins of the Council House in Philippi where Paul and Silas may have appeared before the Magistrates before they were thrown in prison.

A boring picture of rocks, then two pieces of the New Testament letters of Paul is not the most exciting way to begin this blog post. I hope it gets better for you.

I am trying to describe how wildness and worry go together in us.  And I mean both words in their best sense, since some of you may think both or either are not that attractive.

  • Wildness, when we are thinking of the Holy Spirit, is alluring — at least it is attractive in people who are free enough to experience and express God’s presence.
  • Worry, on the other hand, is usually seen as unattractive — and it should be when it is all about our fear. I am thinking of it as an inevitable feature of caring for others and for the redemption project, as you will see.

Here are the two Bible portions on my mind:

2 Corinthians 11:21-29

Whatever anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast about. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?

Galatians 4:19-20…5:7-13

My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you! …The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty. Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.

When I was on my pilgrimage recently, following the Apostle Paul through Greece, I had a recurring fear: “If I tell anyone how much I identify with this man, will they label me a grandiose fool?” But last week I had to admit to my spiritual director that Paul has been my spiritual guide from day one of my faith. As I have the vantage point now to look back on many years, I can see how much that is true. I think the parts in bold, above, are key elements of his teaching, and I have tried to make them key to my life.

My new Paul icon from Berea

I identify with both Paul’s wildness and worry

You can decide if the Spirit speaks through Paul, or not, as he would heartily agree you should. So I offered two little portions of his letters today that demonstrate something I recently put together for myself, as well: There is a connection between his wildness and his worry.

My director was parsing out meaning in my deluge of storytelling the other day and he noted how I spoke with delight about how I stood before the “bema” in the ruins of Philippi, undoubtedly near where Paul stood himself, and loved the wildness of the whole scene. Then I was talking about my worries about the future of Circle of Hope and he noticed such a change in my demeanor that it was striking, “What are these two things? Do they go together?” I think he wanted me to stop worrying and move with my bliss.

I eventually told him, “It is all part of the same story.” I had been talking a lot about Paul so I said, “I think I can connect these two things to Paul, want to see me try?” He did. And I remembered today’s verses.

In our dialogue, I had been alluding to our Church Planting Summits last year, when we had all sorts of scenarios for the future of our movement. My director was surprised at how wild we are, since he has been a Presbyterian for a while. For instance, when Presbyterian pastors end their service in a local congregation (like I did in 2016), they are generally sent packing and have a strict no-contact clause in the ending agreement. Circle of Hope did not do that with me. So there I was last summer leading a discussion as Development Pastor about how we should connect as congregations (association, aggregation or composition?) and helping us consider combining congregations if they would be better together than struggling as small groups apart. He marveled at the flexibility! He could see the benefit of being one church in many locations. He said, “Most churches just try to survive and most of their energy goes toward protection, not freedom.” You are rather wild.

But I am also rather worried – quite often. I sometimes think I would rather buy a beach view and practice my well-earned inner peace apart from worries. But then I realize that I hooked my wagon to Jesus and God is very concerned about the earth. It is not so much that the Lord is just worrying over us like something shameful or terrible is going to happen to his creation – he knows the end. But he is worrying like a mother hen might brood over her eggs until they are hatched; and the Lord is fussing like a human mother whose children are just getting mature enough to drive a car.

The wildness of creation is at work. Re-creation has been set loose by Jesus. The sentient, loving beings who carry the heart of it all are yet to be fully revealed. Will they all make it to the good end? I am worried with that kind of worry.

Paul demonstrated both his wildness and worry when he wrote

You can see the complementary nature of wildness and worry in the Spirit in the verses I shared. The passages are often consigned to the “worry” category: “You dear Corinthians with whom I spent so much time. Are you really going to divide up and think you are more special than your teacher?” And “You dear Galatians who responded so favorably to the gospel, are you now going to listen to people who teach you need to be Jews first so you can be Christians?”

I can relate to the worry side. I often think it is wrong to worry — and mistrust in the end is probably wrong. But I might say, “Circle of Hope are you going to squander your community and alternativity now that it is so sorely needed? Will you really think about yourselves first and not imagine a future of mutual trust in Jesus?” Maybe we all relate more to anxiety, so when we see it in Paul we remember it.

But the wildness is also in these passages. I mean that very attractive Spirit-driven wildness that makes Paul such a notable and world-changing guy. I suppose if he walked into the Sunday meeting we’d either adore him or be scared to death by him. The way he makes his point to the Corinthians is to list all the wild things that have happened to him because of his calling in Jesus. Prison, floggings, shipwrecks, bandits, hunger, it goes on. When I was following his journey, just the amount of walking he did seemed daunting to me. The prospect of entering a new town in a car provoked enough anxiety in me! — when I was in Philippi, I was complaining that it was too hot and I was glad to get back to my air-conditioned vehicle! Paul was entering a new continent with a brand new message expecting God to work a wonder – and repeatedly that is just what the Spirit did.

To the Galatians he appeals to their highest, wildest selves in contradiction to teachers who had come in and appealed to their lowest and enslaved selves. He speaks so boldly people have been criticizing him for being too aggressive ever since. But Paul feels free and he speaks freely. And he thinks the Galatians can handle their freedom in the Spirit without being reduced to the Jewish law, which was just a tutor for their adulthood in the Spirit as the children of God. When I thought of Paul being hauled up in front of the magistrates, I was reminded of how much faith he had in the work of the Holy Spirit Jesus unleashed!

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A “celebration of what can be” by David M. Kessler

I can’t seem to have wildness without worry, either

I am not sure I convinced my director, but I began to convince myself that my wildness and worry went together. There is no way to take risks unless I hope they will make a difference. There is no way to exercise my freedom without hoping others experience the joy of it. There is no way to be part of a cell or team and not long for the fullness they represent or despair over the trials they face. There is no way to build the wild thing called the church and not worry over its future and brood over the fragile new birth springing up in it all the time. Paul was not just traveling around Greece for the sheer exhilaration of exercising his thrilling new freedom to do so! He was nurturing a people who would be set upon, almost immediately, by their own unprocessed sin and by people ready to redirect their movement into channels that suited themselves more than Jesus!

The movement of the good news in Jesus keeps on rolling in about the same way it did in Paul’s time. As I look back on how Jesus has led me, it makes me happy to think my mentor from the past was so influential. I wish I could be more like him, even now. But I am delighted the same Spirit who moved him made me like him at all! — intrinsically wild and often worried for good reasons.