But that’s my word for the year (see my other posts on this movement) – train, with the accompanying verse is 2 Timothy 3:16 (about Scripture being God-breathed and useful for training in righteousness). Not exactly the word I was looking for in January, but it kept popping up in my mind, demanding to be heard. Is that from you, Lord? Okay, I’ll accept your gifts. The gift of training. Um, is that really a gift?
Last year, in contrast, I had the rather lovely word flourish, with Isaiah 55:10-11 as the accompanying verse (about the word of God bringing about the flourishing of his people and earth). I don’t know about you, but flourish seems a rather more fun word than train.
For training seems like hard work, marathon or not. (Not.) Sacrifice and graft. Saying no, no, no. Focusing down. But how can we flourish if we don’t train? How can we become the people God wants us to be if we don’t curb our tongues (against false words or too much indulgence or…) or practice our skills or share our gifts?
I’m seeing more and more how flourish and train go hand in hand.
When I first sensed that train was my word for the year, I immediately applied it to my writing life. That first longed-for book, I thought, I’ll have to train to write it and get it done. But of course my vision is too small, and the word doesn’t apply just to that first book, but to the whole of life.
Nearing the finish line, the result of many hours of training.
Who can I become if I train my tongue? One who brings life or death?
Who can I become if I train my body? One fit, able to run the race, or one easily winded?
Who can I become if I train my mind? One who thinks and explores and delves into the riches of God’s wisdom and world or one who atrophies, settling on past revelations and understanding?
Who can I become if I train my emotions? One thrown by the latest wind or fashion or crisis, or one anchored in the truths of God and of his love?
Who can I become if I train my heart? One who loves or one who doesn’t? And not just my family, but can I love people online (that pesky irritant who keeps spamming me), the young mother struggling with feeding her babe, the older gentleman at church who finds walking difficult, the person next to me on the Tube, those whom I come into contact with professionally?
And so on, and so on.
How about you? What comes to mind when you think of the word train? (Thanks in advance to those who restrain from the cheeky responses about wheels and engines and Thomas the Tank Engine.)
Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. (John 7:25–44)
Here Jesus is in the final autumn of his life as he visits Jerusalem for the last time during the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles. This feast was the third in the agricultural cycle, and celebrated the autumn harvest and wine. It also incorporated prayers for rain, as the land would then be affected by drought.
On the final day of the feast, during the climax of the water ceremony, Jesus makes the stunning pronouncement that he is the source of living water; if people come and drink then streams of living water will flow from within them. Those around were divided in their response. Some thought that he might be the Messiah, but others wanted to seize and kill him. Likely they believed he was being blasphemous as he linked himself to Yahweh, for the prophet Jeremiah had called the Lord the spring of living water (see Jeremiah 2:13 and 17:13).
When I think about living water flowing from within, I see a rushing stream with crystal-clear water that brings life to all that it touches. The water is continually moving and shaping, smoothing out the rocks within. And as we saw in the passage from Ezekiel, it flushes out any residue murkiness.
Jesus is the source of living water, and as he lives in us through his Spirit he will provide healing for our hurts and will oil the relational wheels with our loved ones. He will enable us to give a gracious reply even when we are exhausted, and provide a life-giving solution when we are searching for wisdom. His living water in us will leave us cleansed, refreshed and fortified as we engage with those around us. As the rivers flow from within us, we too can take them to this life-giving water.
For prayer: “Let those who are thirsty come; and let all who wish take the free gift of the water of life” (Revelation 22:17).
So said the wise man in Ecclesiastes. And never has that been more true with the explosion of self-publishing, when people can crank out a book in an afternoon, converting to a digital format their academic thesis or that novel buried in a drawer. But who will read all this stuff?
I’ve been asking myself that very question as I bury myself in words as I write my first book. Will anyone care? Do I have anything to say? I’m trying desperately to reserve judgment, or I’ll remain paralyzed.
My journey to book publication has been long and arduous. Sure, I compiled a couple of gift books for Lion Hudson a few years ago, but somehow those don’t seem to count like the First Real Book. You know, the one that deserves capital letters.
About four years ago (or was it even longer?) I set about writing my first book. I wanted to write about learning to see ourselves as God’s beloved, and how that understanding changes everything. I read and researched, went away for some power writing trips to a friend’s house in Eastbourne (thanks Kev), and had no clue how the book would come together. I had a chapter on self-hatred and a chapter on self-acceptance, and bits and pieces of my story. It was a mess.
I was meeting up with the amazing Michele Guinness, she a writing and speaking queen, and I ventured to send her two contrasting chapters to read before our breakfast together. (She in turn sent me early chapters of her marvelous novel Archbishop, which I loved.) As we enjoyed our granola and yogurt, she said, “Amy, why don’t you just tell your story.”
I felt like a light had been switched on. “Wow – just telling my story. Here I am writing about accepting who we are in Christ – who he has made us to be – and I don’t even feel I have the permission to be a writer! To tell my own story!”
I ditched the more prosaic of the chapters and set about ordering my narrative. Wrote and wrote and wrote some more, poring over my journals and reliving some ghastly and funny experiences from my twenties. I dreamed of writing for not only a British audience, but an American one too.
Months later, I knew I was stuck. I enlisted (yes, hired!) the expertise of an editor friend, who helped me to shape and form and put together a proposal. She could see how to phrase things, what the marketing hooks might be, and helped me with a title: Beloved of God.
Research books for Beloved of God.
Finally I was ready to send off my proposal and sample chapters to the literary agent of my choice. Because I’ve worked in Christian publishing for a couple of decades, I’ve had the opportunity to meet more than one of these sometimes hunted-down gatekeepers. I approached the amazing Steve Laube, whom I had connected with some years previously when he was the nonfiction editor at Bethany House and I was an editor at HarperCollins UK. I sent off my stuff to him and was blown away when later he actually said yes, he would represent me.
After a few months of revision and shaping, we sent off my proposal to sixteen publishers, both US and UK. Some of the “no’s” came thick and fast. Others took months to arrive, and some publishers didn’t respond either way (I’m told that’s common these days, but find that hard to stomach). One of the rejections was particularly painful, and I don’t think the writer of the review ever intended for me to see it. Others, however, were constructive. Still hard, of course.
One publisher believed in me, and said yes. When I sat down with their MD (yes, for whom I do freelance publishing work), Steve Mitchell, I said, “Well, I was so aiming for the US market with this book. I don’t have to write it if you want me to write something else.”
I don’t think he’d be a brilliant poker player, for his face revealed all as his eyes shone relief.
Having agreed to ditch my years of efforts, we then had the hard task of finding what book I should write. I wasn’t short of ideas – I’d love to write a book on prayer and a devotional, for instance – but I kept being stymied. I sought the help of an amazing editor friend in the States for direction. She had some wonderful insights, but cultural differences reared their ugly head: What she thought was snarky writing, my British publishing friends thought wasn’t snarky enough. (Snarky? Me, snarky?)
Finally I told my MD that he’d have to be my commissioning editor. I knew I needed the objective outside view of someone like him, who had years of retail experience and now was immersed in the UK publishing scene. We crossed the country to meet in Birmingham, him traveling south and me north, and he set forth the idea that I should pursue: the observations of an American transplanted into the UK.
Research books for View from the Vicarage (much more fun).
As I accepted the writing commission, I realized that I was relinquishing the American market. Okay, we may sell a few copies between those huge shores, but my voice is here in the UK, not there. So I approached my US-dwelling agent, and he graciously agreed to release me. Maybe some years hence we can partner together; who knows?
But for now, I’m relieved not to be reading those angst-ridden journals from my twenties. Instead I’m thinking with love and affection of my adopted people, trying to put into words their quirks and treasures. Why will a cup of tea solve all our problems? Which goes first on a scone, cream or jam? What is the art of queuing? And how can one’s family be kept from gaseous explosions over the Christmas period from all the Christmas cake and pudding?
Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, View from the Vicarage will release October 2015. An unexpected first book. But that reflects our unexpected God. After all, who’d-a-thunk I’d still be living on this small island nearly 17 years after leaving the States?
The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm… The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing. (Zephaniah 3)
Photo: *nacnud*, Creative Commons
Although there were traumas related to the birth and early days of both of our children, what I remember most are the sweet moments of tender attachment and rejoicing during the “babymoon.” As I gazed at our son and then our daughter, I felt deep springs of love pouring out. Amazingly, I didn’t even mind the sleeplessness, for it was a joy to provide for these helpless babes. I started to understand more deeply the Lord’s delight in his people; his love and rejoicing with singing.
We don’t have to be a parent to experience these feelings of great delight. Perhaps we find them through a mentoring relationship. Or through the love we lavish on our nieces and nephews, “adopted” or biological. Or through a close friendship, forged over many years. This nurturing is all rooted in God, and can be seen in his promises made through the prophet Zephaniah during the reign of King Josiah around 600 BC.
Twice Zephaniah says that “the Lord is with you,” and the Hebrew word used here radiates a sense of nearness. Though the Israelites have turned from God, he has redeemed them, forgiven their sins and welcomes them to return to him. He longs to be near them.
This big story of redemption continues, of course, through Jesus. God came near to his people through the incarnation, when his son became man, and again through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. He continues to be ever near to his children through Christ’s presence living in them.
May we experience God’s nearness as he rejoices over us with singing.
Prayer: Lord God, in your tender mercy you gave Jesus to shine on those living in darkness and to guide our feet into the path of peace. Come near, we pray (after Luke 1:78–79).
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Ezekiel 36:24–38 (NIV)
A friend made this pin for me after my broken engagement. See the fish on the bandage?
A painful broken engagement in my mid-twenties was the catalyst to a long journey of figuring out who I was before God. Realizing that I had nearly joined myself to a man who was completely a wrong fit drove me to delve prayerfully into the deeper issues lurking in my soul. In doing so I came back to God’s foundational truths about how he created us, loves us, and redeems us through the death of his son on the cross.
Each morning I woke up early and pored over the Scriptures; the words came alive and I heard God speaking his love and affirmation to me. They felt like food for my soul, and the early mornings didn’t trouble me.
God was giving me a new heart and a new spirit, even as he promised the Israelites through the prophet Ezekiel. He sprinkled them with water to make them clean on the outside, and then effected an internal transformation by giving them a heart of flesh and putting his Spirit in them. This was all for his glory; their opponents would see them changed, made new and restored to their land. And with his Spirit in them, they would be able to follow his rules for abundant living.
God has created us as his own. He wants to transform us, cleansing us from our anger, hurt, or bitterness, and healing our feelings of being unloved. As new creatures we too can know abundant life through his living water that he pours within, restoring and renewing us.
For prayer and reflection: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Psalm 139:13–14).
This new devotional series we’ll be focusing on how Christ lives at the center of his followers, dwelling in their hearts. This idea pervades the Scriptures, found not only in the New Testament but also in the Old. I hope these readings will be a prompt for us to consider the adventure of union with our God who created us, loves us, and lives in us.
But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard. Isaiah 52:1–12
We landed at Heathrow and finally squeezed our luggage in the car, having upgraded to a bigger vehicle. Newly married to my English beau, I was a fresh immigrant to the UK. As we drove northeast to Cambridge, I was dazed with jetlag and with the thought that this was now my home. I was excited but nervous.
Driving on what seemed like the wrong side of the road, I wondered what I had signed up to. As I began to fret about the unknown, however, I felt God’s promise that he would never leave me, and the words from Ruth flashed into my mind, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God” (1:16). This I had promised to my husband in our marriage vows, and this I would live out with God’s help.
God’s promises of never leaving us are reflected in today’s passage from Isaiah; verse 12 in particular illustrates the safety and security we have in him. He goes before us and follows behind us; he hems us in and places his everlasting arms underneath us. He redeems us from our fears and sins, even as he saved Israel from her attackers. The Israelites didn’t even have to flee in the night, for the Lord protected them so completely.
This lovely Old Testament promise of God going before and after us foreshadows the mystery of God living in us, which came with the incarnation – the birth of his son Jesus. When we’re facing a situation where we feel out of our depth, as I did when leaving the States, we can rest assured in the knowledge that God is paving our way even as he follows us up.
Prayer: Lord, you hem me in behind and before; you lay your hand on me. Wherever I go, I am safe in your arms (after Psalm 139:5).
The disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray. He answers with the now-famous Lord’s prayer, and then tells an intriguing story about you needing bread in the middle of the night because of unexpected visitors. You go to your friend and ask, but he can’t be bothered to get out of bed just on the weight of your friendship. But as Jesus says, “Yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need” (my emphasis, Luke 11:5-8).
You’re in dire straights – visitors to feed and no food – and so you receive what you ask for. The door opens for those who knock. Those who seek will find.
And how much more will our Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.
Signing the book contract with Steve Mitchell, MD of Authentic Media. Whoop, whoop!
I’m taking this passage to heart, as I embark on a writing project with a deadline of the end of the year. I’m asking the Lord with shameless audacity for his Holy Spirit, that he may spark ideas and fun and stories to fill this book – that it might be something actually worth reading! (But if it’s trash, I’ll not blame God. I don’t always hear him clearly, and I am trying to train myself away from distractions. Those distractions that could keep me from writing well.)
Oh, what’s the book? I’m glad you asked. Called View from the Vicarage, it’s a loving look at life in my adopted country – tea and all – to be published October 2015.
Do you need a dose of shameless audacity today? What’s your dream that you’ve long wanted to pursue?
“Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” Isaiah 6:8
Photo: Creative Commons, Gideon
I’ve had the above verse hanging on my wall for years, for it reminds me that God empowers us to bring his love to a hurting world. We might not even have to move geographically.
Now that Isaiah has been purified, he of clean lips will speak God’s message to the Israelites. He volunteers for the task, though at times the road will be rocky. For his is a message of God’s judgment, for the people have hardened their hearts. If they repent, the Lord will hear their cries for mercy and will release them from their sin.
During this seven-week series on the prophet Isaiah, we’ve seen how his cleansing experience prepared him for his work of service. When the curtains opened, he was humbled to see the true and living God in all of his glory, and he realized the extent of his sinfulness. But God redeemed him and enabled him to speak on his behalf.
Similarly, God has work for each of us. How is he calling you to use your unique combination of gifts, wisdom, experience, and passions to love his hurting world? Might he have placed you just where you are to love a certain neighbor or colleague? Or might he be calling you somewhere else to start a new work?
May we be attuned to his Holy Spirit, that we might be ready and willing to answer his call.
Prayer: Lord God, send us out in the world to love and serve you, speaking truth and love.
I’m like an addict when it comes to books. Compelled to read, understand, savor, wrangle with, be moved by, learn to live from these silent companions who speak so loudly.
I read dead people. Death is a good barometer for determining true canon, I think, as is overcoming death. Jesus’ own example speaks to such. That doesn’t mean that works by the living aren’t worthy of our attention, but works which continue to speak to us long after the author is gone do so because of their humanity and transcendence. Their words hold power, wisdom and insight, regardless of time or circumstance.
I studied the Romantics because they seemed to live this crazy, revolutionary life and so I thought that quiet ol’ me could taste that vicariously. It worked. But I didn’t expect that particular group of writers to whet my appetite for what CS Lewis coined from the German sensucht, or the longing we all have for our eternal home, for the holiness of God. The Romantic poet William Blake is particularly poignant. I love how he looks the fallen world straight in the eye, how he acknowledges evil and the complexity of human nature, but still threads everything through with the divine.
I’ve been honored and deeply touched to receive many amazing stories of God’s grace from believing readers from all backgrounds and walks. I’ve also received questions and concerns from seekers and sceptics. They remind me how our God is not a fragile God. He graciously withstands our scrutiny; even welcomes it. The answering of some questions only begets more, and that’s the thrill and dignity of the mystery.
My recent book, Holy is the Day: Living in the Gift of the Present, grew organically out of my “leap with faith” in attempting to enter an all more entrusting relationship with God. The experience has given me an entirely deeper understanding and respect for the definition of the only work there truly is, to “believe in the One He has sent.” Sometimes the “work” is merely the default of doing all we can do in that moment. I wanted to explore seeking to trust in all sorts of life’s circumstances, and how that holds the power to challenge and renew our vision, to reshape our priorities and relationships.
I love to read everything. I tend to gorge myself on authors, reading all their work at once. I’m reading Anne Rice’s Of Love and Evil because I’m interested in how she reconciles being a new creation in Christ with her longstanding relationship to the supernatural. I’ve been enjoying Marilynne Robinson’s novels, and I’m on a huge Annie Dillard kick now. She fearlessly yokes together the consumerist reality of the fallen world with the persistent presence of the glory of God. The kind of “terrible beauty” at work all around us, if I am to return to Blake (and Yeats).
I recently reread Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, initially for a collaborative project but then I ended up slipping into savouring it all over again. I love how Jane cuts through hypocrisy in both faith and love with a sort of passionate composure. Now she’s a girl I could have a cuppa with!
Carolyn Weber is a believer, wife, mother, author and professor. She detailed her leap of faith in Surprised by Oxford. She lives in London, Ontario, Canada with her husband and four children. You can connect with her online here.
“See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” Isaiah 6:7
Crucifix, Henri Matisse, Vatican Museum
I love how the Old Testament foreshadows the New. Isaiah has confessed that he is a man of unclean lips and declares that he’s ruined; finished. But God sends a messenger to bring release from his sins. As the God of flame sends a red-hot coal to touch Isaiah’s lips, his sin is atoned for. He is now fit to be God’s conduit of his message. His prophet.
God was sending his message to his people, the Israelites, calling them to repent. Years later he would send his own Son to be his message, again calling his people to repent, turn from their sins, and embrace the overflowing life he wants to bestow on us all.
The cross of Jesus is a place of exchange where we can continue to bring the sins we commit and those committed against us. As we nail them to the cross or leave them at the feet of Jesus, we will find release. In their place, the Lord will bestow on us his love, mercy, grace, peace and joy.
Perhaps you could construct a cross out of twigs or boards. Take some time to ask God to reveal to you anything that you might need to be free of – a false name you have taken on, or burdens of wrongs you’ve done or those done against you. Write them out and pin in – or hammer – them to the cross, knowing that through the power of Jesus’ atoning blood, you are free. Free from the sins or the false names, you can open your hands to receive God’s gifts.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for your amazing sacrifice, that I might live with joy and freedom. Amen.
