Devotion: Inside Out

 

Inside Out

 

Luke 11:39-40   ³⁹ Then the Lord said to him, "Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.  ⁴⁰ You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also?

 

Right now, there are two coffee cups sitting on my desk.  They look the same from the outside, but if you were to walk up and take a peek into them you would realize that one of them has stale coffee from a week ago encrusted into its porcelain while the other has never been used and is sparkling clean.

Neither of which is what God intends for our lives: 

One of them looks good from the outside but the inside is a mess.  The other has never been used for its mission and has sat passively on my desk.

God, rather, intends to restore us and then use us in the world. 

God has chosen to come into this world, to love, care, die, and be restored for us.  This makes it possible for all of us to experience an amazing love that fills our cup, in order that we may live our lives as a response to God’s love.

God seeks to clean up the mess within our own lives.  He does not want us just to look good from the outside, but also to be made whole inwardly so that God can place us into difficult situations where we pour out the love of God to those around us; where we can demonstrate a life filled with God’s mercy and grace. 

What areas of your inward life is God seeking to clean up?  What ways are you allowing or preventing him from entering that mess?

What ways are you being used by God to pour into the life of another person?  Who may be someone around you in need of a word of hope?

 

 

Devotion Whirlwind

A few weeks ago I sent out very personal email to some friends letting them know about things in my life. For the next three days I wondered why no one had responded; no simple “congrats” or “we’re praying for ya.” Instead my inbox remained empty. What I discovered is that somehow the email never got sent. What I assumed others had heard went unheard.

It reminded me of one of the biggest challenges with praying. There rarely is confirmation from God that he heard our request. At times it can seem like prayers go into that same blackhole as unanswered emails and text messages.
I find the story of Job an interesting lesson of this. Job had lost his children, his job, his wife, his friends and his health. Everything but Job’s life had been taken from him, so naturally he would cry out to God in prayer. Yet those prayers seemed to go unheard—until eventually God spoke to him from a whirlwind. The symbolism of God speaking from a chaotic windstorm suggests that it is precisely in these life changing, disappointing, and tragic situations that God was speaking and guiding Job.
In the closing section of the book it says that God “restored the fortunes” of Job.

It is important, however, to note that Job could not have gotten back precisely everything he had lost—for his children had died…and there was no mention of his wife. So while Job did not receive precisely what he had been crying out to God for, his confrontation with the God of the Whirlwind revealed that even in the chaos of life, God is speaking and sending us in a new direction. While it may seem that our prayers are going unheard, in reality God hears them and is trying to open our ears to hear his voice calling to us from some of the most unlikely of places.
What whirlwind are you in the midst of? How might you hear God’s voice calling from within it?

Where Have I been: Meeting Some Goals

This year has been very different then last year. But like years past I have a list of goals--2 months here is a progress report for those interested.

1) Run 1000 miles: 178.1 miles (check)
2) Read 50 books:

Eat This Book

Sacred Marriage

50/50

Casino Royale

God Whispers

The Shack

Acts: Interpretation Commentary

Irresistible Revolution

Acts: Interpreter's Bible Study
3) Run two Races: running a half marathon this weekend
4) Get something published:
painting of mine showed up in the Princeton Alumni Magazine, but also working on an article for the Outlook.

March Madness? Snow in Charlotte