Category: Devo180

Noticing the Fullness (September 27, 2012)

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

…Opening To…

The glory of God is the human being fully alive. (St. Irenaeus)

…Listening In…

Then Jesus took the bread. When he had given thanks, he distributed it to those who were sitting there. He did the same with the fish, each getting as much as they wanted.When they had plenty to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather up the leftover pieces, so that nothing will be wasted.” So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves that had been left over by those who had eaten. (John 6:11-13; context)

…Filling Up…

Whenever we feel fully alive, God’s presence is not far away. In fact, it is so near us that we might have trouble recognizing it for what it is, like when you see a super magnified picture of a button or a bit of Velcro, but can’t readily identify either. (One of the question types in the game Cranium is about that, I think.)

If we believe that God is the foundation for all fullness of life, then it just makes sense to start looking for God whenever we feel fully alive. If you feel fully alive after the hike up the mountain, then, when you’ve paused at the peak to look at the patchwork valley, remember to give thanks to God for the opportunity to hike and the breathtaking view. If you feel fully alive after holding the newborn baby, give thanks to God for each piggy little toe and for the indescribable scent of the top of the infant’s head – the scent of new life.

Notice that the best way to invite God into the fullness that God created in the first place is to give thanks for it. When we offer our thanksgiving to God, we not only show our appreciation for these full moments of life, we also put ourselves in proper relationship with God. The act of thanksgiving reminds us that we didn’t create the fullness. We merely participated in it. We are on the field playing the game, but God created the field, invented the equipment, and made up the game, as well.

When Jesus feeds the five thousand people, he give thanks before breaking the meager offering of bread. This act of giving thanks is the key to the story. By giving thanks, Jesus acknowledged God’s presence in that gathering. Then Jesus proceeds to give the bread and give it some more and give it even more until everyone there was full. Thanksgiving opens our eyes to God moving when we feel fully alive.

And this trains us to notice God when we don’t. More on that tomorrow.

…Praying For…

Dear God, source of all life, you instill in me the desire to thank you for every gift you have given to me, including all the moments when I feel your fullness. Help me always to offer those moments back to you with gratitude. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, rejoicing that you constantly yearn to draw me more deeply and more fully into life.

The Foundation of Fullness (September 26, 2012)

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

…Opening To…

The glory of God is the human being fully alive. (St. Irenaeus)

…Listening In…

Yes, goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the Lord’s house as long as I live. (Psalm 23:6; context)

…Filling Up…

Yesterday, I asked you to think about a time when you felt fully alive. And judging by my own reflection on that question, I then wondered about how often our feelings of “full life” intersect with our awareness of God’s movement. So I’ll begin today with a premise and we’ll go from there. The premise is this: God is the foundation of all fullness of life.

Wait just a second, you say: what about those destructive instances you mentioned yesterday? Right, I’m glad you brought that up. Destructive forces like drugs and alcohol simulate true fullness (or they just keep you from caring), and thus keep us from pursuing the healthy, good ways to reach fullness. Other destructive forces give us something akin to fullness by taking it away from someone else. Therefore, fullness is also simulated in these cases because what we perceive as fullness is someone else’s emptiness, and thus when you add them together, it’s a wash.

So, you cannot find true fullness through chemical stimulation, nor through taking someone else’s fullness away. And with that, we return to our premise that God is the foundation of all fullness of life. Now we must ask ourselves, “On what is this premise founded?” Well, like all other things having to do with God, the premise is founded (when you get right down to it) on God alone. Yes, God is the foundation of the foundation. But let’s move a few rungs up the ladder just so you don’t think I’m dodging the question.

My own life of faith has brought me to these thoughts today: All life comes from God because God created and is creating everything that is, has been, or will be. God yearns for all life to find the fullest potential for which God created it. Other species find this potential when they do the things that they do best of all, the things that they just seem to be created to do. God created us humans to love God and be reflections of God’s love in this world. We realize our fullest potential when we participate in God’s movement in our lives, which always seems to play out in such a way as to make us better at loving. Therefore, God is the foundation for all fullness of (human) life.

When we feel fully alive, the best thing we can do is to try to become aware of how God is moving in that fullness. But that’s a topic for tomorrow.

…Praying For…

Dear God, source of all life, you yearn for all of your creation to participate in the fullness of your grand design. Help me to be aware of your presence and to give thanks for the fullness you shower up me. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, rejoicing that you constantly yearn to draw me more deeply and more fully into life.

Fully Alive (September 25, 2012)

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

…Opening To…

The glory of God is the human being fully alive. (St. Irenaeus)

…Listening In…

Praise the LORD! Let my whole beingpraise the LORD! I will praise the LORD with all my life; I will sing praises to my God as long as I live. (Psalm 146:1-2; context)

…Filling Up…

My question is this: when have you ever felt fully alive? I ask because I’m really curious.

I assume that many answers will tread the path of the natural and the poetic. Perhaps you felt fully alive when the sun first peaked from under the ocean’s blanket and bathed you in the newness of dawn; or when you reached the peak of the mountain after a long hike and now you see the patchwork farmland stretching for miles in the valley below; or when you went outside on the first truly cold day of the year, saw your breath, and felt the chill air sting your cheeks until they turned rosy red.

Or might the answers wander a more relational path? Perhaps you felt fully alive when you first ventured to hold the hand of your crush, and (how incredible!) your crush held your hand in return; or when you scored the game-winning run and your team swarmed you at home plate, lifted you onto their shoulders, and chanted your name; or when you held a new baby for the first time and counted her tiny toes or offered your finger for him to hold onto with his tiny hand.

Or might the answers walk along the path of “what if”? You feel fully alive in the moments after narrowly avoiding a collision with another car. What if you hadn’t reacted so quickly? Or maybe you feel fully alive after a nasty bout of flu and you’re finally up and about. What if you had gotten sicker instead of better?

Or might the answers go down a destructive path? You feel fully alive only when you’re high or drunk; or when you’re racing down a straight road at midnight going 100 mph; or after fighting with your girlfriend just because you like the energy of conflict.

There are so many answers to the question; truly, they could fill volume upon volume. But I wonder how many of us would answer the question by bringing God into it? Might our answers travel the path of God’s movement? We’ll pick up that question tomorrow.

…Praying For…

Dear God, source of all life, help me to see what brings me the feeling of fullness in my life, and grant me the grace to see how you are moving in that fullness. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, rejoicing that you constantly yearn to draw me more deeply and more fully into life.

Organic Constructs (September 24, 2012)

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

…Opening To…

The glory of God is the human being fully alive. (St. Irenaeus)

…Listening In…

The days of a human life are like grass: they bloom like a wildflower; but when the wind blows through it, it’s gone; even the ground where it stood doesn’t remember it.  (Psalm 103:15-16; context)

…Filling Up…

In a few moments, I’m going to ask you an odd question, so I feel the need to prepare you for it first. Perhaps, the preparation will make the question seem less odd; only these intervening paragraphs will tell. Because I am in the act of typing this and (in an indeterminate number of temporal increments down the timeline) you are in the act of reading it, I feel quite confident in diagnosing both of us as “alive.”

Now, of course, you might have jumped out of the pages of a scifi/fantasy novel and thus might not be alive, but if that were the case, I imagine you’d be out looking for brains or thralls or something and not reading this reflection. But I digress.

So we are both alive. But I wonder what we really mean when we claim this. I am biologically alive because my respiratory system is working to bring air into my lungs, which then oxygenate my blood, which then travels to my heart, which then pumps it out into my organs, which then continue their never-ending routine. When these organs and systems cease functioning, I will no longer be alive.

But there must be more to being alive than the complex machinery of my body working in concert with the fuel that I ingest to keep the machine running. Biological life – the fact that I am a semi-autonomous organic construct that responds to some sort of stimuli – must only be one part of what makes me alive or else I wouldn’t have ever thought to reflect on it.

And this brings us to the quotation above from St. Irenaeus, who lived during the 100s in what is modern-day France. “The glory of God is the human being fully alive.” In our discussion of biological life, it would seem that being alive is one half of a binary state. We are either alive or dead. But if we take what Irenaeus says seriously, it would seem that life could be lived with more or less fullness, and the fuller a life is lived, the more of God’s glory is shone.

So my question is this: when have you ever felt fully alive?

…Praying For…

Dear God, source of all life, thank you for creating the perfect set of circumstances for life to flourish on this planet and for the circumstances that have transpired to make me the person I am. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, rejoicing that you constantly yearn to draw me more deeply and more fully into life.

Foundation (September 21, 2012)

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

…Opening To…

Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve.
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe. (Anne Brontë)

…Listening In…

I love you, O Lord my strength, O Lord my stronghold, my crag, and my haven. My God, my rock in whom I put my trust, my shield, the horn of my salvation, and my refuge; you are worthy of praise. (Psalm 18:1-2)

…Filling Up…

God is the One in whom we can always rest our weight. God is the One who never fails to keep a promise. Therefore, God is the one whom we can always believe. When we reserve the word “believe” for God alone, we can begin to recapture the majesty that the concept of belief has lost through overuse in unworthy situations.

If believing is about resting your weight on something, then belief means knowing and trusting the something that takes your weight. This is your foundation. Every foundation that is not God is not a foundation at all, but a structure built on God, who is the ultimate foundation. God is, so to speak, the ground upon which everything rests. Believing in God is all about not being content until you find that ground, that deepest foundational level, upon which to rest your weight.

Through metaphors about rocks and strongholds, the people who wrote the Bible express this understanding of God being the foundation. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expresses this same understanding when he tells the story about two people, one who built a house on sand and the other who built a house on rock. Of course, the house built on the rock weathers the storm. The next time you use the word “believe,” ask yourself if the context surrounding that word is your rock and your foundation. If not, I invite you to try a different word.

…Praying For…

Dear God, you are my rock and my foundation. You are the ground on which I walk, the One walking with me, and the One to whom I am destined. Help me believe in you so that I may see your road laid out beneath me; in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are the foundation of all truth. You believe in me, which allows me to believe in you.

Always (September 20, 2012)

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

…Opening To…

Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve.
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe. (Anne Brontë)

…Listening In…

After eight days his disciples were again in a house and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus entered and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here. Look at my hands. Put your hand into my side. No more disbelief. Believe!” (John 20:26-27; context)

…Filling Up…

On Monday, I mentioned that belief is a tricky concept. It’s tricky for several reasons. Here’s one. Yesterday, I used the image of jumping into a parent’s arms on your first visit to the pool. You jumped because you believed what your parent said. He or she would catch you, no matter what. Equating this belief with belief in God is where everything gets tricky. Here’s the problem.

There is a chance, however slim, that your parent would fail to catch you.

No matter how earnestly we believed in a parent’s infallibility or a coach’s perfection or a teacher’s omniscience, those people turned out to be…well, people. They were all stricken with the gene for human failure. Of course, not being perfect didn’t make them bad people. It just made them people. When we equate our belief in humans with our belief in God, we often make the mistake of hedging our bets were God is concerned. We apply to God the expectations we have when we believe in other people, thus unwittingly reducing God’s power and glory to the levels that fit comfortably in a human body.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not telling you to cut off all human contact because those fallible humans are not to be trusted. Human beings are fundamentally good. We usually do the right thing. We usually live up to the trust others have in us. What I am saying is this: there is no “usually” with God. God always does the right thing. God always lives up to the trust we place in God. So when you speak of belief, remember that God is the One in whom you can always rest your weight.

…Praying For…

Dear God, you are present in my life and you are constantly breathing creation into being: help me to believe in you so that I may see your movement in my life and help others to see your movement in theirs; in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are the foundation of all truth. You believe in me, which allows me to believe in you.

The Edge of the Pool (September 19, 2012)

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

…Opening To…

Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve.
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe. (Anne Brontë)

…Listening In…

Unbelief is as much a choice as belief is. What makes it in many ways more appealing is that whereas to believe in something requires some measure of understanding and effort, not to believe doesn’t require much of anything at all. (Frederick Buechner)

…Filling Up…

As we discovered yesterday with the story about the farmer in the Amazon River basin, to believe in something is to rest all of your weight on that something. Think about the first time you ever went to the pool. The older kids who knew how to swim were doing cannonballs into the deep end and playing Marco Polo in the shallows. The teenage boys were casting furtive glances at the lifeguard in her red one-piece, sunglasses, and layers of tanning lotion. The adults were laying in reclining lawn chairs around the edge of the pool, far enough away to be out of the splash zone.

But you took no notice of any of this. You were too busy contemplating your next action. You were standing by the edge of the pool, your toes curled over the cement lip of the shallow end. You had your arms crossed in front of you and your knees bent in. Your teeth chattered – from either fear or cold, you couldn’t tell. And there was your Dad standing three feet from you. He was standing waist deep in the water like a titan, impervious to Poseidon’s attempts to plunge him under. And he was extending his arms out to you, beckoning you to jump. He would catch you, of course, he said. You would not drown. You would be safe. You would have fun once you got used to the water. All you needed to do was jump into his arms.

You had a choice to make. You could waddle back to the safety of the towels and the bag with your older sister’s change of clothes in it. Or you could jump, believing with all your might that your Dad would catch you, that you could rest all of your weight in his embrace.

…Praying For…

Dear God, I believe that you hold your hands out to catch me whenever I begin to fall. Help me to remember that when I take a leap of faith, you are both the water into which I plunge and the hands that help me float. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are the foundation of all truth. You believe in me, which allows me to believe in you.

Resting my Weight (September 18, 2012)

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

…Opening To…

Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve.
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe. (Anne Brontë)

…Listening In…

Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:1-2; context)

…Filling Up…

This week, we are working to reclaim the natural habitat of the word “believe.” I think that the habitat finds its place in God alone. Saying “I believe” about anything else waters down the word. The best way to talk about the word “believe” is to tell a story. Here’s a version of one that I heard a priest friend of mine tell a while back (and he heard it from someone, too, so there’s no telling to whom this story belongs).

A Bible scholar trekked deep into the heart of the Amazon River basin, and there he found an indigenous tribe that had barely had any contact with the outside world. Like any decent Bible scholar would do, he set about learning the language of the people in order to translate the Good Book into the local tongue. While staying in the village, he lived with a farmer and his wife. For months, the scholar worked and worked: he listened to the people talking, made notes, slowly built a lexicon, and then set to the task of translation. He spread his papers out over the rough wooden table in the kitchen of the hut and put pen to paper.

But soon he stopped. He was stuck. In all his study, he had never heard the villagers use a word that seemed to him synonymous with “belief,” which was, after all, an important word in the Bible. He put his pen down and sat there, just thinking and feeling sorry for himself. Just then, the farmer came in from the fields all hot and sticky from a hard day’s labor. He sat down in the chair opposite the scholar, leaned back on two legs, propped his feet on the table, and let out a grateful sigh. In halting words, the scholar asked the farmer what his word for “believe” was. The farmer didn’t understand. The scholar tried to explain using other words, and comprehension dawned on the farmer. “Do you see me sitting here,” he said in his own language. “I am leaning back in this chair after a hard day’s work. My feet are up. I am resting all of my weight on these two legs.”

And the scholar found his word.

…Praying For…

Dear God, you are the source of my belief and the foundation upon which I rest all of my weight. Thank you for being a sure and steady foundation; in Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are the foundation of all truth. You believe in me, which allows me to believe in you.

The Word “Believe” (September 17, 2012)

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

…Opening To…

Oh, help me, God! For thou alone
Canst my distracted soul relieve.
Forsake it not: it is thine own,
Though weak, yet longing to believe. (Anne Brontë)

…Listening In…

[The LORD] brought [Abram] outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:5-6; context)

…Filling Up…

For several years now, I have tried to reserve the word “believe” and use it only when I’m talking about God. This is tricky because practitioners of modern English rarely treat the word with that kind of discretion. Every once in a while, a conversation partner asks me some variation of the following question: “So, do you believe in _______?” Unless the fill-in-the-blank happens to be God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit, I either ask for clarification or say “no,” which generally elicits a quizzical look and a raised eyebrow. Here’s an example.

Other person: “So, do you believe in the Bible?”
Me: “Um…what do you mean?”
Other person: “Ya know, the Bible – do you believe in it?”
Me: “You just asked the same question. Still don’t know what you mean.”

In the end, I find that I have to explain that I try to use the word “believe” only when talking about God. It’s tricky to reserve a word like “believe” for God because the word is so commonplace. But its commonness is a result of the word “believe” becoming watered down and losing its definition. Indeed, “believe” is somehow now synonymous with “think something is okay.”

This week, we are going to explore the word “believe,” and work to reclaim some of its meaning and weight. In the verses from Genesis above, the word is powerful. God just told him that he and his wife Sarai would be parents, despite their old age. God promises Abram that he would be the founder a huge family. Abram believes God, and this belief changes Abram’s life. Be conscious of the next time you say the word “believe”: does the context surrounding the word have the power to change yours?

…Praying For…

Dear God, you have given me the gift of believing that you are present in my life. Help me to live that life in a manner that displays the joyful, generous, and welcoming affects of that presence; in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are the foundation of all truth. You believe in me, which allows me to believe in you.

Go Towards the Light (September 14, 2012)

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

…Opening To…

Look upon me, O Lord, and let all the darkness of my soul vanish before the beams of your brightness. (Saint Augustine of Hippo)

…Listening In…

Night will be no more. They won’t need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will shine on them, and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:5; context)

…Filling Up…

Light expands to fill all the space it can reach; darkness finds no purchase where light is shining. Light allows us to see all the beautiful variety of the visible spectrum; darkness cannot steal away color where light is shining. Light warms us; darkness brings no chill where light is shining. The light of God shines into our hearts and out of our hearts, making us windows through which to see God.

And, after all that, light points the way home.

Perhaps, you are walking down your street at night and you notice that your mother left the porch light on for you. The lamp’s reassuring glow brings you to the safety and warmth of your own house. Coming into a dark house can be a scary proposition, but turning on even a single light changes the experience.

Perhaps, you are driving home from out of town. It is night. It is dark. And the headlights shine only so far in front of you. But they shine all the while: they shine far enough out in front of you to guide you all the way home. Is this not how our walks with God work, as well? Jesus Christ walks one step in front of us and we follow as best we can. Like the headlights, he shines just far enough in front of us to show where to put our feet. But he brings us home.

In the end, darkness never has and never will overcome light. God’s light shines in our lives, which prompts us to shine in the lives of those we meet. The old story says that when you die, you see a white light – the light that people say ushers you into heaven. But the truth is this: that white light doesn’t shine only when you are about to die. That light shines all the time. The Lord shines on all of us, and shines throughout our lives. The Lord shines on us as the sun and as the headlights and as the porch light. The Lord shines on us, pointing the way home to God.

…Praying For…

Dear God, thank you shining on me throughout my entire life. May I soak in your light and reflect it back to all those I meet. May I be a vessel of your holy light, aglow with your presence and aflame with your Holy Spirit; in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, knowing that you are a light that never goes out. You are always shining on the path that takes me home.