Shelter in Place

By Phil Wood

   "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

   When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

                                                                                    Matthew 7:24-29

I've been staring out the window a lot lately, reverting back to a practice from my childhood when my mom would make me stay in the house because it was raining, or I had a cold, or I'd been bad. Our sofa was set along the wall under the front window, so I would jump up on my knees, with my belly against the back of the sofa, and stare out the window for what seemed like hours.

There wasn't much to look at out there, just the houses across the street in a somewhat dreary, inner-city Detroit neighborhood made even grayer by the ever-present clouds and rain. But there was a deep longing in my heart.

Although the view is different now, the longing remains. Yet I have come to realize that, even as I gaze out the window, what I'm longing for isn't really out there somewhere. It's in here.

And by here I don't mean here inside our warm, cozy house where I feel so safe and sheltered from the storm. Picture me holding my fist against my chest. What I'm looking for is in here.

In here, where God is.

In here is my true shelter in place. This is where I'm safest from the driving rain, the rising streams, the winds that blow and beat against my house, and the evil virus that prowls around outside. This house is built on the rock.

I like to think that our earthly home, this physical structure that Marianne and I have shared now for 34 years, and where we raised our wonderful son, is also built on a rock. But it's not immune to disaster. It's not impervious to viruses. I still stare out the window longing for something else.

The only shelter that truly keeps anyone safe is the one that's built on Christ. And it's not made out of wood, or stone or concrete or steel.

A couple weeks ago, there was a blizzard that, overnight, covered our region with about ten inches of heavy, wet snow. The homeless people in Arvada, who normally come to our son's church for shelter at times like this, had to be turned away because of the corona virus and the need to keep the volunteers and congregation safe. Ten heartbroken volunteers, spaced six feet apart, had to distribute blankets and food, trust God, and turn people back out into the storm.

The saving grace was knowing that, in God's hands, with Christ as their rock, those people would be alright.

A prayer.

Lord Jesus, I long to get back out into the world, go where I want to go, do what I want to do, be with friends and family. But we are called to shelter in place. And I can't think of a safer place to shelter than "in here." Thank you, Lord.

Lord Jesus, help me remember that my deepest longing is really for you. I long to lie down in green pastures and walk beside quiet waters with you. Only here do I lack nothing. Only here do I find restoration for my soul. Only here do I fear no evil. Because you are here. Thank you, Lord.

Lord Jesus, at a time when no man-made shelter is totally safe, and even a structure we call God's house cannot provide refuge, may we all find shelter in you.

Amen

Be Still

By Pat Russell

This has been our first week as an on-line community.  I encourage you to find some private moments today and take stock of several things. You might grab a piece of paper and write some of these thoughts down.

First of all, step back from yourself and make an overall inventory of your thoughts this week. To what has your mind turned during this time? If you are worried about things, write down what worries you. If you are afraid of the future, write down what makes you afraid. If you have found yourself thinking about the goodness in your life, write that down. If you have had so much to do and your thoughts have been centered on making things happen, write down how your mind functioned while being busy.

Now, let’s take stock of your feelings from this week. What stands out as your overall feelings? Loneliness, confusion, happiness, peace, anger, no feelings (those are feelings)….

What about your body? How has your physical body been acting this week? Are you sleeping, dreaming, having more aches and pains, sensing strength or weakness or someplace in between? Have you been eating more than usual or less or about the same?

Then, think about your spirit. This is perhaps the most difficult to “read.” Here are some questions that might help: How have you experienced the presence of God in your life this week? How have you heard His voice through prayer or Scripture or through the devotions that Pastor Bruce sent out - something comforting or instructive or encouraging. What has your communication with the Lord been like - what are you telling Him or hearing from Him? How have you experienced PAC = Peace, Accessibility, Confidence with the Lord (from last Sunday’s sermon)?

Stopping along the way to take stock helps us know to what we might need to pay more attention in our life these days.

The other day I was walking my two furry friends around the circle near our home. As we moved along, I found myself occupied by getting my heart rate up, stopping my dogs from visiting every road marker, thinking about what I was going to make for supper that night etc. And then I saw “it.” The sky was our beautiful Colorado blue and the Ponderosa pines stood like green sentinels along the roadside, the breeze was blowing, and it was wonderfully fresh. No virus surrounding me. It seemed that out of the pure air came the words, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

These words are from Psalm 46. Maybe you have memorized this psalm. It is a great one for these days. “Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations; I am exalted in the earth.” How reassuring that is to me! He has got it; He has got me, the United States, Italy, the whole earth!

Notice where the comma is. Notice the present tense of the verbs. We will see Him in these days IF we will choose to be still. At times I need to still my busy thoughts, choose to let my feelings stand beside me, bring my body to full stop and wait on the Lord. “Be still, and know that I am God.” “Be still, and know.” “Be still.” “Be.”

My Invisible Friend

From Pastor Bruce

Let me share some thoughts from award winning author and retreat speaker Joyce Rupp. This story of the spiritual stirrings of her early childhood reminds us that there is "Someone" who is always with us in spite of our temporary confinement and isolation.

"When I was a young child of eight years old, I lived on a beautiful farm in Iowa. Like my other siblings, I had chores to do after school. Mine consisted of feeding the chickens and gathering the eggs. I didn't like doing this because my free spirit wanted to be out in the grove playing or down by the creek watching tadpoles and catching minnows.

"But one day all of that changed for me. I learned that I had a secret companion who always kept me company, even when I was doing the daily farm chores. Hidden away deep within my heart was a loving being named God who would always love me and would never leave me. It was at this time that a wise teacher taught me about friendship with God. She assured me that l would never be alone because l was carrying the very life of God within me. I was enthused about this discovery. I could sense that "Someone" was there. I began carrying on endless conversations with this Friend. Walking home from school, doing my chores, playing in the grove — all of these activities became opportunities to be with my "special Someone." This was the beginning of my relationship with God.

"And as l grew older, I recognized this inner presence as a dynamic source of guidance and consolation. I became ever more deeply rooted in the belief that this indwelling God loves me totally and unconditionally. To this day I draw comfort and courage from the belief that l am a container holding the presence of God. This awesome and humbling gift of the Divine indwelling constantly enlivens my spiritual path and seeds my transformation."

All We Need Is Love...and a Little Listening

By Marilyn Travis

In times of uncertainty we need more love than ever! Now is a good time to talk or correspond with one another. Though we are not able to be physically present with many of our friends and family members, we are still able to communicate with them. Mitch and I were touched by two fellow members of our church who checked in on us via social media and email Sunday. A group of dear friends, my old teaching team now retired, have decided to use a live connection to play some games and enjoy some fellowship. We have a unique opportunity to comfort one another, listen to concerns and fears and offer comfort through God’s word and His love.

Love is a big deal. The concordance in the back of my Bible has over 600 entries for the word “love.” 1 John 4:7-12 says:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent His only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.

This type of love is not passive. It requires action. Jesus tells us, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and prophets hang on these two commandments.”  (Matthew 22:37-40)

Part of this active love involves listening. At the transfiguration described in Mark 9:7 God says of Jesus, “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to Him!” If we do listen to Jesus, we learn we also need to listen to each other. Henri Nouwen describes such love this way:

From experience, you know that those who care for you become present to you. When they listen, they listen to you. When they speak, you know they speak to you. And when they ask questions, you know it is for your sake and not their own. Their presence is a healing presence because they accept you on your terms, and they encourage you to take your own life seriously.

In the same way, God invites us to grow in the quality of our presence to others so that they might experience his love through us. (Day by Day, Peter Scazzero)

David Augsburger writes, “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable.”

If we listen to God, and act upon his word, He will teach us to listen. He will teach us to listen to Him and to each other. He, in turn, will listen to us to us as we pray.

We are a community, a family of believers. We already love one another, and we enjoy each other’s company. We are physically separated from one another, but we can stay emotionally close. I encourage each of us to connect with several people this week. Let’s listen, and spread a little love.

I’d like to close with a prayer from Day by Day by Peter Scazzero:

Father, we are so easily distracted and preoccupied…, but we each long to be the kind of person who genuinely listens and is fully present. We ask that you would change us so that we can be a powerful presence for others. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Community – Unity & Diversity in the Body

By Brooke Momblow

1 Corinthians 12 NIV v.6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. V.7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. V.18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. v.19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? v.24 But God has put the body together,  giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it v.25  so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. v.26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Want to go deeper? Read 2 Corinthians 13:11, Philippians 2:1-5.

We are Christ’s body, each of us a different member unique to God’s purpose for the whole.  Sometimes we can lose sight of this and only see ourselves and the parts we play or don’t play.  ‘The Hands’ might look at ‘The Feet’ and think, “Gee, those Feet sure are shaped funny and their viewpoint from way down there is so distorted from what it is up here. In fact, I really can’t relate to them at all.”  So the Hands hang out with other hands. And the Feet group up only with other feet.  The Eyes and Ears might find themselves in the shadows, isolated and alone.  None of them realizing Christ’s Hands can’t serve without the Feet to take them there, the Feet are unable to do the work of the Hands, and neither one knows where to go or what to do because they can’t hear the words of the Father or see what it is He is doing. C.S. Lewis said: "We like to think we’ve chosen our peers, but as Christians there are no chances. Christ has placed us and reveals to us the beauty of others."

Questions to Ponder  

-How do we live in unity together and work together, when God has made us so diverse from each other?

-What if relationships weren’t designed to make us happy? What if relationships were designed to make us Holy?  

Prayer

Heavenly Father,

Lack of interest or concern is what amputates members, distance and indifference dismember the body, and we are all desperate to stop feeling abandoned and cut off. Help us to be the Re-membering people. You have charged us to do life together, teach us how. Show us what it looks like in the details of our lives. We are the fellowship of the broken Christ. The miracle happens in the breaking… Help us to trust our brokenness to others who are also broken, that we would be broken together with You Lord. Enable us to share in the intimate communion that comes from allowing the body to share in our suffering and our joy. We want to live given to each other the way you lived given for us and that means nothing less than radical humility and expansive trust. Continue the work you’ve begun in us. Together in Jesus we ask this, Amen. 

(prayer adapted from Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way)

God Is With You

By Phil Wood

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have summoned you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and when you pass through rivers, they will not sweep over you.

When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned;

the flames will not set you ablaze.

For I am the LORD your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

The passage above, from Isaiah 43, has become my life verse. I honestly believe I heard Yahweh call my name when I was a boy. It woke me in the middle of the night. "Phillip!" The big, booming voice startled me awake; the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck were all standing on end. Long pause... "What?" I whispered timidly. But he was gone, sweeping over the housetops I suppose, calling others by name as he went.

When I came across this passage for the first time, many decades later, it hit me right between the eyes. Oh, my God! It really was you! I suspected it all along – believed it on faith even – but now I know for sure it's true. You called my name. I am yours. And you have faithfully kept your promises. I've been through some very scary times, but when I passed through the waters, you were with me. The rivers did not sweep over me. When I walked through the fire, I was not burned. Thank you, LORD, my God, my Savior.

So, am I special because I heard him call my name, and you, maybe, did not? No, because the passage is speaking to all of Israel – all of God's people. But because I've personally experienced the truth of these promises, I feel very comfortable assuring you that it's true for you.

In this time of crisis the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior is with you. He has always been with you. He will continue to be with you.

John Ortberg calls this the central truth of the Bible. It's the way he created things in the Garden. And later, Ortberg says, "The promise came to Enoch, who 'walked with God.' It was made to Noah, to Abraham and Sarah, to Jacob and Joseph and Moses and David and Amos and Mary and Paul and too many others to list."

David said, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me."

"When God himself came to earth," Ortberg points out, "his redemptive name was Immanuel – God with us."

When Jesus left the earth, his promise was this: "I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

He is with you now.

And it seems to me that now – in this unexpected quiet time at home, away from many of the world's distractions, with the new-fallen snow all around – would be a really good time to turn off the TV, silence all the coronavirus updates, meditate on the Scripture above, and embrace the presence of the LORD our God, the Holy One of Israel, our Savior. This is exactly why he made us.

A Perfectly Safe Place

 By Pat Russell

“With this magnificent God positioned among us, Jesus brings assurance that our universe is a perfectly safe place for us to be.”  The first time I read this in The Divine Conspiracy (ch. 3, p. 66), I wrote “WOW!”  in the margin. After I heard Dallas lecture on this at the Renovare Institute I thought, “Hmmmm… Can this truly be? Dallas, what do you do with all the ‘injuries’ that come to people on this earth? Specifically, what do you do with all of my life experiences that have not felt safe?” Today, a few years later I think, "What would you do with something like the Corona virus?"

After discussing Jesus' words in Matthew 6, “My advice would be not to worry about what is going to happen to you…,” Dallas writes in his book, “This bold and slyly humorous assurance about all the basic elements of our existence – food and drink and clothing and other needs of life – can only be supported on a clear-eyed vision that a totally good and competent God is right here with us to look after us. And his presence is precisely what the word heaven, or more accurately the heavens in plural, convey in the biblical record as well as through much of Christian history… Nothing – no human being or institution, no time, no space, no spiritual being, no event – stands between God and those who trust him. The heavens are always there with you no matter what, and the first heaven, in biblical terms is precisely the atmosphere or air that surrounds your body.”

I must admit that I come to this idea with two thoughts: the first is very cerebral, “Yes, of course, God is present everywhere and watches out for me.” The other thought is from my life experience of two cancers and a major heart issue, not to mention several life dreams that have never been realized. It goes something like this: “Can I really believe that he notices me, that he is out for my best. I have not really been safe from pain and major disappointments. And it may be that I will not be safe from the Corona virus, either!” 

But then, maybe I have been safe. After all of the onslaughts from being on this earth, I find that my soul is still intact. My mind is more grounded in the reality of the statement by Dallas, "I am an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God's great universe." My body is not in the best shape, but I sleep with less worry and that in turn nourishes my body. And my emotions are moving into a more positive direction as I dwell on His steadfast love and mercy. Hmmm, maybe “safe” is not the “safe” I have expected out of life. Maybe it is something much bigger and deeper and higher and wider than I ever comprehended. 

Lately I have been spending time meditating on Paul’s conversation with the Athenians in Acts 17. I am so taken up by his quote from their own poets as he explains the unknown God to these thinkers: “For in him we live and move and have our being.” I have walked out onto the Colorado hillside next to our home in the early morning hours just as the sun is coming up. I stand under a beautiful blue canopy, sometimes bedded in clouds that are like the hands of God gently covering me. He is as near as my breath and nearer. I live and move in him. In truth, I cannot fully take that into my being, but sometimes, sometimes I feel so very, very safe.

How do you understand Dallas’ comment about the universe being a “perfectly safe place for us to be”?  What has happened to you that makes this statement believable or unbelievable for your life?