Category Archives: spiritual exercise

Cornfields, Pumpkins and Worship

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Cross and Corn

My daughter, Christina, is home from her college in Pennsylvania and worshipped at our outside service on Sunday.  She commented afterwards, “It is so amazing having worship beside a cornfield.”  She went on to say that many of her eastern classmates think Minnesota is covered with cornfields, so our worship reinforced that stereotype. I reminded her that just north of Bailey Road is a golf course and thousands of suburban homes.  Still the cornfield stands out.

Perhaps the cornfield can serve as a symbol of the vibrant life in Christ.  Jesus often used the image of seeds to communicate the growing aspect of our life in him

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat (or corn?) falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24

The cornfield also reminds us that we are called to grow together.  The cornstalks are stronger and more resist to wind if they grow in a field together.  Yet each cornstalk is unique in it height, breadth and yield.  We are all unique creations of God, wired with our own dependable strengths, passions and callings.

The cornfield also connects us to a key petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us today our daily bread.”  God uses the farmer, millers, bakers, merchants, and financiers to move the corn in the field to the food on our table.   We can be thankful not only for the food but for all the people who work to feed us.

Scott H tilling the soil

Near the cornfield is the pumpkin patch that our church is  utilizing to grow pumpkins for our harvest festival in October.  Scott Hanson is working the field, trying to keep the weeds down and the vines growing.  It is truly amazing to watch how the vines in such a short time have covered the field.   Pumpkins are rapidly growing into ripe fruit.  I am reminded that God first put Adam in the garden of Eden to till and keep it (Genesis 2:15).   Our patch may not be Eden, but it is direct descendent.

How do you celebrate the wonder of summer growth?

Early Pumpkin

God of the harvest,
I celebrate the earthiness of potatoes just dug up,  the sweetness of corn,
the beads of dew on tiny gourds,
 the orange glow of ripe pumpkins,
 green cucumbers and zucchini,
the garden full of life, health and bounty.

Rain Down Your Love

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Campers Smiles Tell It All

I am at Camp Wapogasset near Amery, WI with 40+ campers.  Yesterday and today have had frequent thunderstorms.  We lost electrical power this morning and had to eat breakfast in the dark.  The kids have not been able to play the big outdoor games nor swim.  Yet the staff has been creative seeking ways for the youth to be active and positive.  Afterall, the theme of the week is community in Christ and this kind of adversity can build stronger bonds of friendship and faith.

This morning for chapel the kids raced in prior to a downpour.  The staff had connected a generator to the sound system so that the kids could sing praise and hear scripture.  They had the youth movin’ and groovin’ to contemporary praise songs.  The skit centered on Matthew 25 and how Jesus comes to us through the needs of others.  Benny gave a short talk about how Jesus was able to work through his disability for God’s glory.  The love of
God was raining down all around.

How do you handle challenges when your expectations are not met?

Lord Jesus, work in my life today, through any challenges or rain.

Racing towards our Goals

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Human psychology baffles me often, but one thing I know is that having a clear goal makes me work harder.  A recent goal for me has been to reestablish my running routine after a year’s break due to injury.  This morning I was able to run 5 miles in 45 minutes, which is close to my daily running routine of two years ago.  Now that I have reached this goal, I am looking for my next one.

For me a road race is a great goal for me.  I know that I will not be ready for another marathon for at least a year, so I have chosen to run a race on Saturday, September 17, the Run for a Mission, sponsored by the Union Gospel Mission in St. Paul.    I am inviting all runner and walkers to join me for the 5K or 10K run in Shoreview. Volunteers are also welcomed and all proceeds go to help the homeless in St. Paul.

Goals are not only beneficial in physical exercise, but in spiritual disciplines as well.  To have a daily time of prayer and devotional reading is a great goal to focus your time with God.  Set apart 10-15 minutes in the morning or evening to seek companionship with the Creator of the Universe, who cares about you.  Perhaps you leave 10 minutes earlier for work or you seek 15 minutes quiet after putting the children in bed. Mine is the first 20 minutes in my office to seek God’s guidance for the day, and compassion in all my personal encounters.   Jesus took time early in the day to pray to his Papa in heaven.  

In the morning , while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place to pray. Mark 1:35

Jesus prays at Gethesmane by artist He Qi

At the end of his ministry, he took time to pray in the Garden.  Jesus modeled the Vibrant Life of Faith for us today.

I am off to Camp Wapogasset  to be with nearly 50 campers from Resurrection. Thanks for all the prayer support.

What goals are you setting this week, month, year?

Lord Jesus, I seek to be your disciple this day.  Help me to seek goals that please you and your kingdom. Amen

Spiritual Adventure Run

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Running in the heat at RAGNAR Relay 2008.

The present heat wave has me wondering how to plan my running and cycling workouts. I cancelled my YMCA membership since I had not gone for two months and needed to economize. I will probably go late this evening near sunset so as to have some cooler temperatures, but I will need to be careful: shorter run, walking breaks and lots of water. Plus I will need to heed the adage “listen to your body.”

Almost any marathon or race training program will have that statement somewhere in its literature. No training program can realistically know how you will specifically respond to each training stimulus. Your body may be great at doing the long distance, but needs extra rest after a hill or speed work-out. Or you may be able to run 4 days a week with no problem, but to do 5 days spells trouble. You need to “listen to your body”, to see if you are over reaching.   If your legs seem to be dead and heavy, or your sleep is not good, it could be your body’s way of saying, “adjust your training.”

Just as we need to listen to our bodies, we need to listen to our spirits as well. God created us as spiritual beings, to be in relationship with Him. God loves to be with his children; so why is it so hard for us to give God the time and place to interact with us? If your life is busy and hectic, may I recommend that you take one of your daily walks, bikes or runs and turn it into a spiritual adventure. Use the time to pray, inviting God (or Jesus) to run beside you. Share with God all your joys and sorrows, all your hopes and fears. And then take time to listen, to ask God to speak to your heart and give you the wisdom you need. I don’t believe every run needs to be “spiritual”, but I do suggest that you intentionally make some of your runs a focused spiritual exercise.

Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually. Psalm 105:4

How do you make time/space to listen to God?

Lord Jesus, walk beside me this day and open my ears and heart to hear your voice.

Running with the Truth and Joy

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You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.  John 8:32 

When Jesus said this, he was not talking about a kind of philosophical truth that only deeper thinkers would find.  Rather Jesus was saying that he was the source of all truth and that knowing him would give us the freedom to live fully alive.  Later in John’s gospel, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”   Knowing Jesus as friend and savior guides us to knowing the truth about ourselves, our world and our relationship with others and with God.  Jesus is the true source of a vibrant life.  

Running with Joy is TRUE Running

Truth as personal knowledge of Jesus is similar to how I understand running.  On a biological and psychological level I can know that running is good for me, but that rarely gets me out the door and on the trail.  Rather I need to experience the benefits first hand, feel the joy of lungs breathing deeply and legs turning quickly.  As I run I experience the real truth about the benefits of running. My head clears and my spirit soars (at least on the good days.)  Now that I can run four miles again, the joy is especially sweet. 

The same is true with knowing Jesus, only as I run with him and experience him in my own life do I discover that he is the truth.  Jesus is not some collection of doctrines to comprehend, but a true friendship that keeps me moving along the road of life.  He is a true friend who seeks to guide, encourage, warn and embrace us.  

How true and real is your friendship with Jesus today?

Lord Jesus be real to me this hour, this day.

Go in Peace, Serve the Lord

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Yesterday morning our youth mission team left for a mission trip to Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota.   They will be serving among the people of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux tribe in both children’s programs and work projects.  I ask for your prayers as they live out our congregation’s mission statement: trust, live and serve.   They bear witness to the vibrant life of faith in Christ by their trusting in Jesus, their living in daily community with the Word of God and prayer, and by serving others. 

Launching our Mission Team for Service

We had a prayer of blessing as they prepared to leave.   As I reflect on their departure, I realize that this is a graphic illustration of what a congregation should be every week: a launching pad for ministry in the world.  This week our youth team is doing that in a very intentional way. 

I believe mission trips are vital to a congregation’s vitality.  Such trips provide opportunity for intentional reflection upon our place in God’s kingdom.  Participants  interact with people of different cultures and socio-economic backgrounds.  They discover how their unique gifts and dependable strengths can be used to help others.  And each day the team has devotions and conversation so that they can integrate their often physical experiences into their spiritual, emotional and mental lives.  Such trips can truly be life-changing.

Yet Christian service is not restricted to mission trips.  We can serve God by loving our neighbor wherever we are: in our homes, workplaces or community.  As we love our children or spouse, as we work with our staff and customers, as we visit with our neighbors, we can be God’s hands, feet, voice and heart in the world. We all can be servants of God in our daily lives.  A mission trip trains the heart and mind for such daily service.

At the end of worship each Sunday I announce. “Go in peace. Serve the Lord.”   The congregation responds, “Thanks be to God.”  I love this sending.  I just wish that some Sunday we would take time to report on how we serve the Lord this past week.  I am confident that our youth team will have some stories to share.

What helps you  to serve?

Lord Jesus, we ask you to bless and encourage the youth of Resurrection as they serve in your kingdom.

Jonah the Gardener

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Pure speculation but I think Jonah was a gardener prior to his call as a prophet. 

"Sower with Setting Sun" by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

How else can the reader understand his roller coaster of emotions in chapter four?  When God is merciful and does not punish Nineveh, Jonah plunges into despair and wants to die.   He pouts outside the city.  God causes a “bush” to grow up rapidly.  Its shade provides Jonah comfort; “so Jonah was very happy about the bush” (v.7).  The next day God sends a tiny worm to attack the bush so that it withered.   Without the bush, the hot sun and sultry east wind hit Jonah so that he wants to die (v.8).  Jonah’s passion for a plant reminds me of a gardener’s deep identity with her garden.

Castor Bean Plant

Scholars speculate as to what kind of bush it was.   The Hebrew word here is qiqayon which is used nowhere else in the Bible.   Some think it was castor bean plant which can grow very quickly, up to ten feet in a few months (but not overnight, which is God’s doing in the story). Whatever kind it was, Jonah immediately sees its value.  He has it for a day and then it is gone.

After the bush dies, God confronts Jonah again, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?”Clearly Jonah valued the bush and its comfort and he makes the judgment that he is angry enough to die.  God challenges Jonah’s perspective and judgment.

God said, “What’s this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night.  So, why can’t I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than a hundred and twenty thousand childlike people who don’t yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?”   Jonah 4:10-11 The Message

The book of Jonah ends with this question.  The tension between God and Jonah is left unresolved.  It is as if God is now the gardener, planting a seed of compassion and mercy in the reader’s heart to see if it will grow.  Will it grow in you?

Lord Jesus, Master Gardener, plant and water the seeds of compassion and grace in my life.

Body Mind Spirit

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As I continue my return to running, my mind has been reflecting on my body.  Twice in his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul states that our human bodies are the temple of God’s Spirit.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?  I Corinthians 3:16.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God and that you are not your own?  For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body. I Corinthians 6:19-20

Paul writes a rhetorical question, as if they already know the answer but have forgotten it.   Have we forgotten as well?  I fear that our American culture has compartmentalized everything, so that we do not see the connections between the body, mind and spirit.   We have gyms and pools to exercise the body, classes and books to educate the mind, and worship and prayer to nurture the spirit, but we rarely work to integrate these three components together.  Can exercise and prayer, meditation and study work together?

Post-Run Stretch

I recently read an article by John N. Sheveland in the Christian Century titled “Is Yoga Religious?”  The article touched on how most Americans see yoga simply as a physical exercise consisting of poses that has no spiritual content.  The Hindu American Foundation is working to change this misconception by reasserting the Hindu roots of yoga as a religious practice.   In turn, the push to reestablish yoga as a Hindu practice has caused some Christians to reject yoga as anti-Christian and harmful. Sheveland seeks a middle way. 

Might asanas (postural yoga) influence a Christian’s understanding of herself as a physical body created in the image and likeness of God and thus an object of unutterable dignity, held in being and redeemed by God?  Might postural yoga, with its well-documented physical and mental benefits, help me to better understand my stewardship responsibilities to my own body—which Paul says is not my own—and to other bodies in creation? So too, the effect of asanas on the mind can demonstrate to Christians what they already know to be true, namely, that body and spirit are one.

Can other physical activity beside yoga have spiritual and mental benefit?  How do we help integrate these benefits into our daily lives?

Lord Jesus, teach me to be a good steward of my body, mind and spirit.

 

Try A Little Kindness

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I am guessing that many think kindness is a great virtue. It is listed as a fruit of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5:22. Stories about stopping to help a stranded motorist or ailing neighbor pull at our heart-strings. Frequently when we read about a natural disaster hitting a community, we also read how members of the community reach out in kindness to one another, providing meals, shelter, and cleanup activities. Kindness is something we value, but we often neglect. Why?

I think there are at least two things that stop me from being kind. One is my busyness. To express an act of kindness to an individual in need means that I need to suspend my agenda for a time and focus on the concerns of someone else. Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 is a prime example. The traveling Samaritan gave up his agenda to help the person wounded and bleeding at the side of the road.

The second thing that holds me back is that I am unsure what to do. In a natural disaster, there are clearly identifiable needs, but with my co-worker who is having a bad day I’m not sure what kindness looks like. Perhaps it is just a listening ear, a kind word of encouragement, a cup of cold water? Perhaps the simplest way to act is to do unto others as I would like them to treat me.

Kindness is not so very hard, yet I struggle with it every day. I pray that God will make my heart and my schedule open to acts of kindness for others. For in acts of kindness we see the heart of God. “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water (or lemonade) to one of my children will not lose their reward.” Matthew 10:42.

When has an act of kindness touched your life deeply?

Lord Jesus, help me to perform at least one act of kindness this week-end.

Name That Commandment IIb

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Yesterday I made simplistic remarks about our capitalist economic system, especially the principle of supply and demand.  Fortunately a reader, a professor of economics, gave me a gracious critique of my explanation. She wrote,

I’m not sure if it is society today or human nature which creates the demand for more.    Hobbes contended people operate based on self interest while Locke didn’t believe this was always true.  . . .  The law of demand and supply are not causal models as much as they are descriptive models or this is simply what we observe in the world.  It is true that suppliers only supply what people want but it isn’t true that they have unlimited powers to make this happen as the many failed products and services can attest.

My critique is not on capitalism per se. God made us with wants and desires that are not evil in themselves.  I appreciate how the market allows us to enjoy an amazing amount of products: from Guatemalan mangos to Korean cell phones. I appreciate how the market can reward hard work.

My critique is on the pervasive nature of marketing and advertising.   I am not against all advertising.  My father worked as a newspaper advertising salesperson most of his life.    I like to know when a new product can enhance my life or where I can find a favorite product at a cheaper price.   What I struggle with is the constant barrage of messages that seem to tell me that my life story is incomplete or empty unless I have this product.   Coca Cola has been doing this in its television commercials for years.

In the novel, The Gospel According to Larry, 17 year-old Josh Swenson starts a website that attacks the consumer waste that he sees.  Josh decides to have only 75 possessions, counting all clothes, school supplies, recreational equipment, and software. He has an exact list of how many possessions he has. If he wants a new CD or book he has to sell an old one or trade for it. This means every purchase is a major decision and he takes it seriously.  The novel helped me reflect on the wants and needs of my life.

You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy. Psalm 16:11

Do you think our culture overemphasizes consumption?

Lord Jesus, teach me to be a good steward of my material blessings.