Bringing our Complaints to God

2/22/2013
Day 11
Read: Psalm 13

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God. (v. 3)

When things aren’t perfect, we can be quick to complain. We complain about our jobs, our co-workers, the weather, and anything else that gets in the way of an idyllic existence. We bring these complaints to our spouses, friends or anyone willing to offer a listening ear. Ironically, when we come to God in prayer, we are all too quick to hide our complaints and frustrations.

Prayers of lament seek to bring our whole selves, complaints and all, before God. The Psalms recount the prayers of people who feel neglected, abused, and alone. They don’t put on a fake smile; they lift their complaints to God, saying things such as, “Hear me!” “Deliver me!” or, “Remember me!” They approach God with complaints that the world is not as it should be. This brought Job in Job 7:11 to state, “I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” God cares and wants us to come to him in all seasons of life.

The praying of our complaints can be an act filled with anger, guilt, and frustration, as these are all feelings common to experiences of pain and suffering. Perhaps you’ve been holding back a part of yourself from God–an emotion or notion you believe that as a good Christian you shouldn’t feel or think. God can take it. God loves all parts of you. Take a moment today to pray to God openly and honestly. –Jeremy Kreuze

Prayer: O Lord, hear us and deliver us from the pain and despair in our lives.

Calling Out in Lament

2/21/2013

Day 10
Read: Psalm 13

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? (v. 1)

When things are good it is easy to come to God with praise and thanksgiving. Unfortunately, life is not always filled with occasions for praise. Sometimes life is difficult. Sometimes our situations are more than we can handle. It is in these times we turn to God in lament.

A lament is a prayer that begins by crying out to God from a deep sense that something is wrong with the world. Out of pain and despair we call on God as the psalmists do so often. Our cries do not come from a lack of faith, but are, in fact, a sign of faith. We turn to God because God is the only one who can help us. Jesus turned to God in prayers of lament both in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross when he spoke the opening words of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

During our times of struggle we do not need to hide our feelings and pretend that everything is all right. In the face of the pain and trouble in our world, we have the gift of lament available to us. God calls us to bring our needs before him and promises that our prayers will be heard. Lament is part of an honest, trusting relationship with God. Whatever may be happening in your life right now, know that you can offer it to God in prayer. –Jeremy Kreuze

Prayer: O Lord, help us as we turn to you.

Therefore

2/20/2013
Day 9
Read: Philippians 2:1-11

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name. (v. 9)

I’m always in a hurry when I’m learning something. Whether I am studying English or piano or systematic theology, I am impatient to get through the fundamentals. I want to be sailing in the deeper water. In the same way, in today’s scripture I am tempted to rush over the “therefore” and jump to the “God exalted him.” But there is such an important story behind the “therefore.”

Unlike me, Jesus was in no hurry. His work involved listening, fasting, and prayer to the point of sweating blood. He walked down dusty roads, took time to sit down and talk, really talk, and care for people along the way (John 4:7-26, Luke 19:1-10). He was patient in developing life-changing relationships with uneducated fisherman. He took time to withdraw, rest, and spend hours with his Father, receiving instructions about what to do, who to heal, what to say, and where to go next. That whole life is included in the simple word “therefore” in verse 9.

During Lent, we can be in a hurry to get to Easter, but we too must model the patience, obedience, and posture of Christ. It is only by patiently following Christ through Lent that we may fully follow Christ into the experience of Easter. –Amy Blackledge

Prayer: Dear Lord, next time I am tempted to skip the “therefore,” help me pause and remember that learning to listen for your every word is my best work.

The Journey Through

2/19/2013

Day 8
Read: Philippians 2:1-11

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death– even death on a cross! (v. 7,8)

If you’ve faced a difficulty like joblessness, divorce, financial loss, severe illness, the death of a loved one, or parenting a prodigal, you know the taste of hardship. It tastes like concrete–rock hard and weighty enough to sink the best heart. Somewhere in my own recovery from childhood abuse, I realized that the only way out was to “journey through.” When I tried to avoid the pain in various ways, things only got more difficult.

We often look for an easy way to get around the hardships of life. Yet when Jesus found himself in difficult situations, he didn’t seek the easy route–he sought his Father’s voice. What the Father said, he did. Even when he asked for a different way (Luke 22:42) and the answer was “no,” he still obeyed. The only way out was to journey through: through the contempt of his fellow Jews; through the torture of the Roman guards; through the incalculable weight of carrying all the sin of the world on his sinless shoulders; through the nails and wood and death to glory.

Scripture says that even Jesus learned obedience through the things that he suffered (Hebrews 5:8). Rather than avoid hardship, during this Lenten season we are invited to enter into the darkness while keeping our ears tuned ever more closely for our Father’s voice. –Amy Blackledge

Prayer: When life threatens to undo me, speak to me louder than my terror. Amen.

Humble Obedience

2/18/2013
Day 7
Read: Philippians 2:1-11

…rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. (v. 7, NIV)

People don’t like limitations. We like to constantly improve. Since the Garden of Eden, when we come up against an obstacle, we crush it, move it, integrate it, protest it, or ignore it. The last option almost always would be to submit to it and serve it.

What a sharp contrast to the way of Jesus, who willingly took on the nature of a servant. Because of his unique relationship with the Father, he had the power to call down angels (Matthew 26:53) but didn’t use his power like a trump card when life got hard. Instead, every time someone wanted to elevate him, he lowered himself. He sought out the lonely, talked to the outcast, healed the untouchable, discipled unlikely followers, washed dirty feet, and called religious bigotry what it was. Eventually, he endured the cross “for the joy set before him” (Hebrews 12:2).

Humans buck up against limitations and often seek more power, control, beauty and wealth in efforts to validate our lives. In the world’s eyes, people with these things must be doing something right. But following Christ means embracing our limitations and the Lenten realities that we are sinful, rebellious and lacking in self-control.

Jesus shows us the way to the top is found in humble obedience and service. –Amy Blackledge

Prayer: You made yourself nothing to rescue us. Help us follow you into this great mystery.

The Mindset of Jesus

2/17/2013
Day 6
Read: Philippians 2:1-11

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage… (v. 5-6, NIV)

It is encouraging to hear that, with unlimited power at his disposal, Jesus chose to lay down his heavenly advantage for a life in the dust. In today’s passage, Paul asks the Philippians to follow Christ’s example by having a similar mindset of humility.

Jesus’ humility flowed out of knowing that he was one with the Father. Because he had nothing to prove, he was able to keep his mind and heart free of distractions. He could hear each word that God spoke to him: each nuance, each instruction and each request for obedience that drew him closer to the cross. I think the same is true for us. When we accept and see ourselves bearing the priceless value God placed on us as sons and daughters, we are in a position to love and listen well to others. We are ready to have the mindset of Christ.

Allow this Lenten journey to draw you closer to knowing how deeply you are loved by God. Learn to listen for his voice in light of his great love, undistracted by needing to prove anything. May both joy and humility flow from practicing the mindset of Jesus. –Amy Blackledge

Prayer: Dear Father, draw my heart to the humility of the cross and Jesus, who considered your will there above all else.

Praising the Lord in Darkness

2/16/2013

Day 5
Read: Psalm 113

From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised. (v. 3)

In the morning, as the clouds split open with sunlight, I go running. I often find myself reciting Psalm 19, which says that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims his handiwork. I can’t help praising God when the sun breaks the horizon and sprays the sky with golden light.

Unlike my morning run, the season of Lent is not bright. It holds the promise of the most-glorious morning–Easter– but requires that we wait out the darkness first. Lent urges us to acknowledge our mortality, reminding us of both our beginning and end: “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). The season of Lent can feel like anything but a sunny morning. We spend these weeks considering our sin and reflecting on the death of Jesus Christ on Good Friday and the silence of Holy Saturday. In this time we find ourselves more often in the dark of night than in the light of the morning.

And yet, our God entered into our mortality, our suffering, and our darkness, which allows us to praise him even from the depths of darkness. The psalmist praises God from sunrise into the night because God entered the darkness and then triumphed over it. Knowing this, we can join the psalmist in praising God day and night. –Grace Claus

Prayer: God of light, we praise you for entering the darkness, for submitting yourself to death, and then for overcoming it so that we can be sure of the coming morning.

Like-Mindedness

2/14/2013

Day 3
Read: Philippians 2:1-11

Make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose (v. 2 NIV)

Sometimes I think my kids disagree just to cause me anxiety. I need to stop asking them open-ended questions like, “What would you like to do tonight?” because they will inevitably express opposing views and I’ll be left holding the can of worms I opened. Any parent can relate to such tensionfilled moments and to the corresponding longing for a likeminded family.

Like any family, churches can be ripe environments for disagreement. But also like any other family, there must be a spirit of like-mindedness for the church to function smoothly. Paul says it would make his joy complete for the Philippians to be like-minded. Jesus, as he faces his final hours on earth, prays for his followers, “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one” (John 17:20-21 NIV).

The Church is a large family with a diversity of gifts and plenty of big personalities. As we journey through Lent, remember that Jesus faced the cross with us on his mind, not only as individuals, but as a united body of believers; the Body of Christ. Can we make his joy complete this season by creating unity in his Body? –Amy Blackledge

Prayer: Help me to bring you joy as I use my gifts while accepting the gifts you have given others.

Lowest Common Denominator

2/13/2013
Day 2
Read: Philippians 2:1-11

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion… (v. 1 NIV)

My eighth-grade math teacher preached a gospel of lowest common denominators. I never became a math-convert but eventually caught on to the concept: find the smallest number that a group of larger numbers is divisible by. This was the one fundamental number that connected the others.

This technique is helpful for reducing fractions, and the same principle applies to Christian unity. Paul’s exhorts the Philippians in verse one to find the common denominators between them. The repetition of “if you have any…if any…if any…if any” underscores this point. Paul tells the Philippians, as well as us, to look for encouragement, comfort, shared life, tenderness, or faithful compassion and when we’ve found it, to hold it up and focus our attention on it. It will create unity.

During this Lenten season, we focus on basic truths that connect us: Jesus suffered for each of us; he conquered sin and death; he left the tomb empty. By focusing on these “common denominators” just like the early church did, we become like a fraction that’s been reduced and can no longer be divided.

Look for a way to share the encouragement and comfort you’ve received from God. Practice the same tenderness and compassion God has shown you. –Amy Blackledge

Prayer: Remind me daily of the common faith I share with fellow travelers on this journey. Help me to be a source of encouragement rather than division.

Ashes and Dust

2/12/2013
Day 1
Read: Genesis 3

You are dust, and to dust you shall return. (v. 19)

Today, on Ash Wednesday, we face the truth. We have seen the fire of sin pass through our lives and leave its telltale residue. We have watched our best efforts fall far short of the mark. We cannot deny that our flesh is weak, and that sin and death cloud our existence. As we lower our foreheads to be smeared with ashes, we visibly express our mortality, frailty, and failings.

Yet as we move through Lent, we never fully forget the Resurrection. We confess our sin but know we are already forgiven. We fast from food or drink or entertainment yet know these acts will not and cannot save us. For forty days we dwell in the shadow of the cross, but we celebrate Easter on each and every Sunday. We know we are bound for death, but we never forget that in Christ, death is not the end.

The students who wrote these devotionals knew these things. They struggled over synonyms, wrestled with comma placement, and edited until their eyes were blurry. And still, perfection was beyond their reach. This is the Lenten experience: recognizing that even our best efforts are ashes and dust. They know what the psalmist tells us, that it is God alone who draws us up out of the miry pit (Psalm 40:2).

By sharing their thoughts, these students are embracing the Easter moments that break through the forty days of Lent. They chose to trust God to take their handful of ashes and make something of them. May their example inspire you this Lenten season to find your own Easter moments. –Adam Navis

Prayer: Use the ashes and dust of our lives for your sake, O Lord.