Tears have been my food

I am not myself these days.  
Feels like I have trouble finding my footing every morning when I get up out of bed. Finding my equilibrium, my balance, more emotionally than physically but it's all in play. 

Psalm 42 describes my days so very well.

1 As the deer longs for streams of water, 

    so I long for you, O God.
2 I thirst for God, the living God.
    When can I go and stand before him?

3 Day and night I have only tears for food,
    while my enemies continually taunt me, saying,
    “Where is this God of yours?”

4 My heart is breaking
    as I remember how it used to be:
I walked among the crowds of worshipers,
    leading a great procession to the house of God,
singing for joy and giving thanks
    amid the sound of a great celebration!

5 Why am I discouraged?
    Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
    I will praise him again—
    my Savior and 6 my God!

Now I am deeply discouraged,
    but I will remember you—
even from distant Mount Hermon, the source of the Jordan,
    from the land of Mount Mizar.
7 I hear the tumult of the raging seas
    as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.

8 But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me,
    and through each night I sing his songs,
    praying to God who gives me life.

For the choir director: A psalm of the descendants of Korah.

Love unpacked

My calling to a lifetime of ministry has always been very clear and strong in my life. It came with clarity after a summer of ministry in churches and camps, working with people, learning from God. It was right after that and before my third year of college, when He started talking with me about answering a call he had on my life.

The truth was that I was willing to work for Him, full steam. But I didn’t want it to be in Pastoral ministry. Many of my pastors during my teen years were more about their own kingdoms, than Gods. A number of them brought division to the church.

And honestly, I didn’t understand pastors who were about keeping the big wheels turning, more than they were about the people. Pastors who wanted to protect old church systems and old rules, who seemed to care little about people, and Gods church.

Yes I was naïve what with me telling God what I would and wouldn’t do for him. But he was patient with me. I mean, look at me now having completed 39 years in local church pastoral ministry.

Anyway, this morning we were walking and talking. You might call it praying. I was reflecting on the unique pastoral ministry opportunities He’s led us in. Lay pastoral ministry in a large bilingual language and cultural church in southern Ontario. Starting a new church in South Winnipeg. Helping heal a broken church in Saskatchewan. And ending up in a rural country church in a field in Alberta.

He showed me how, over the years He has kept me from pastoral work that was all about systems, structures and keeping big wheels turning. The exact things I never wanted to be involved with. The clarity struck me with such care.

Many times I have wondered why God led me to the churches I have served and not others I thought I might prefer. I expect there are many reasons most of which I won’t know until I see Him face to face. But this morning he did show me something amazing. That none of the churches I’ve pastored have forced me to change my values. I’ve never had to give up my principles of people over systems and structures.

When we demand that the rules of the church become more important than the people who make up The Church, it has become religion. And I’ve never wanted to spend my life propagating religion.

It’s just me

This week I am alone in the field. Lauralea is off to Winnipeg to hang out with our daughter and her twin sons, so I am holding down the fort.

And it’s good.

It’s me out here and it’s the Lord. Other people may come and go but this week it’s just the two of us. And I’m enjoying it. 

We hang out we share life together. I tell him things and he shows me things. And it’s quite lovely.

I’ve taken the last couple of days for fasting. And when I do that, I always am closer to him, and his voice gets clearer, without interruption. And so we walk and we talk first thing in the morning, maybe a bit in the afternoon, and then in the evening before bed. He and I just walk and talk.

I will usually fit a nap or two in throughout the day, because when I’m not eating, I get tired quickly. 

This week is busy already, and I will be glad for the time I had with him at the beginning. There are many needs out there, people looking for a way forward. My point is always that they can have a life, with God, and it’s all the life they could ever handle or want to handle. And as Jesus did we respect their pain and the fact that we are all just humans struggling towards eternity. But yes, there will be plenty of opportunity to do that this week.

The farmers look like they’re just about all done with harvest, amazingly. And just as if it was perfectly timed, some rain starts to fall tonight. It hasn’t rained in over a month, and it’s taken a good month of beautiful days to get the harvest off.  As I say, it’s amazing how that works. 

Anyway, tonight I might treat myself to Sunday Night Football.

You take care of one another out there.

Thoughts on Nine Eleven

Today I watched, or more truthfully, I listened to the talk that Billy Graham gave just three days after 911 happened.  It was in the service in Washington, which America have been called to prayer by the serving president, George Bush. 

His words reminded me of how people had responded to the tragedy back in that day.

People were going to church, to pray, and to look for comfort. People were asking real legitimate questions. 

(I have friends who worked in those buildings on that day, but the tragedy made them think twice about how they were living their lives. One friend of mine redirected her life completely, and is now involved in good ministry.)

The church attendance was noticeably up, and I remember that many of us as pastors were asking "Is this the turnaround that the world needed?"

We were deeply saddened, but it was a flicker of hope there, people returning back to God.  At least for a time.  

Billy's words reminded me of the feelings of that season of my life. Hopeful that God would be able to get through to peoples hearts. That people might actually finally be open to listening. 

While it may have affected some people, certainly those with friends and family involved. Yet the rest of the world seemed to move on. And the attendance blip in our churches went back to a flat line again.  

I honestly don't know what it takes to get through to this world these days. 

But some days I do fear that we are going to find out.