"But when the time had fully come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman . . ." (Galations 4:4).
At the risk of over-doing "non-anxious presence" I wanted to share this thought I had about Christmas:
From the first promise of a savior as anounced in Genesis 3:15 until the birth of Jesus was no less than four thousand years. Over those many years there were countless prayers for God's intervention to deal with the problems of His people. In some cases He did miraculously, but only according to His covenants. God is not emotionally driven, though He is emotional; it is according to His purposes that He intervenes in the lives of humanity. So, it was when the time had fully come--when the time was right, that He sent forth His Son.
God doesn't use quick fixes to meet our whims and make us feel better. God takes the long view toward bringing about healing. God doesn't "zap" us with a cure. He is willing to spend what ever it takes to give true healing to us. He will not give to us that which costs Him nothing. The great salvation that is given to us was bought and paid for by our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of Him we will have a very merry Christmas!
Grace&Peace;
Tom
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
THE NON-ANXIOUS PRESENCE 4
"For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations" (Isaiah 61:11).
Much has been written about the necessity of leaders manifesting a non-anxious presence in the presence of conflict, chaos, tragedy and sorrow. Does "non-anxious presence" mean that a leader shouldn't be emotional? No! We weep with those who weep! We rejoice with those who rejoice! We are shocked at immorality! Non-anxious presence is not emotionless, it is the appropriate display of the emotions in a given situation. Those who do not display their emotions are probably the most anxious of all because they are afraid of allowing someone else to see into their heart.
To be a non-anxious presence is to model God's presence. Do you know who you are, what you believe and act consistantly with that in spite of opposing pressure? As a result of your presence do you inspire praise, love and righteousness? These are some of the facets of non-anxious presence.
Grace&Peace;
Tom
Much has been written about the necessity of leaders manifesting a non-anxious presence in the presence of conflict, chaos, tragedy and sorrow. Does "non-anxious presence" mean that a leader shouldn't be emotional? No! We weep with those who weep! We rejoice with those who rejoice! We are shocked at immorality! Non-anxious presence is not emotionless, it is the appropriate display of the emotions in a given situation. Those who do not display their emotions are probably the most anxious of all because they are afraid of allowing someone else to see into their heart.
To be a non-anxious presence is to model God's presence. Do you know who you are, what you believe and act consistantly with that in spite of opposing pressure? As a result of your presence do you inspire praise, love and righteousness? These are some of the facets of non-anxious presence.
Grace&Peace;
Tom
Friday, December 15, 2006
THE NON-ANXIOUS PRESENCE 3
"How long, O Lord? Wilt thou forget me for ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all the day?" (Psalm 13:1-2).
"By his wounds you have been healed" (I Peter 2:24b).
Our expectation of God is that He would be to as a genie to grant our wishes. We bring our requests to Him and, to quote a great American philosopher,* "boom" we have what we want. If we do not get what we want, what is the use in trusting Him? For what reason should we worship Him? We tend to be pragmatic; if it works, do it. If it doesn't work , "shoo"it.
What is interesting to me is that God never worries that some one will not believe in Him because He does not grant their request. God goes about His business according to His nature and according to His covenant, working out what is right and best for us. What is right and best for us may not square with what we think is right and best for us. We are frustrated when our pain isn't relieved; when we feel like God isn't around.
What I want you all to remember, God is the great physician, He is not the great magician. It is not wrong to bring all of your requests to God--many times over! He who has the hairs on your head numbered is very interested in you and will give to you just as a responsible and loving earthly father gives to his children.**
Grace&Peace;
Tom
* John Madden
**One of the reasons I believe this is from reading the Psalms. In Psalms God allows the expression of the whole range of human emotion. Our loving Hevenly Father is not threatened by our requests or by our emotions. Truely, He is a non-anxious presence.
"By his wounds you have been healed" (I Peter 2:24b).
Our expectation of God is that He would be to as a genie to grant our wishes. We bring our requests to Him and, to quote a great American philosopher,* "boom" we have what we want. If we do not get what we want, what is the use in trusting Him? For what reason should we worship Him? We tend to be pragmatic; if it works, do it. If it doesn't work , "shoo"it.
What is interesting to me is that God never worries that some one will not believe in Him because He does not grant their request. God goes about His business according to His nature and according to His covenant, working out what is right and best for us. What is right and best for us may not square with what we think is right and best for us. We are frustrated when our pain isn't relieved; when we feel like God isn't around.
What I want you all to remember, God is the great physician, He is not the great magician. It is not wrong to bring all of your requests to God--many times over! He who has the hairs on your head numbered is very interested in you and will give to you just as a responsible and loving earthly father gives to his children.**
Grace&Peace;
Tom
* John Madden
**One of the reasons I believe this is from reading the Psalms. In Psalms God allows the expression of the whole range of human emotion. Our loving Hevenly Father is not threatened by our requests or by our emotions. Truely, He is a non-anxious presence.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
QUICK ANSWER TO BL & HUSKER RED
"Jesus wept. So the Jews said, 'See how he loved him'" (John 11:35-36).
God isn't some Spock-like personality who has no emotion but is only logical. I think the Bible and Jesus himself clearly demonstrate the emotion of God. Is God anxious? Probably not like our anxiety. Some of our anxiety has a positive benefit. It makes us put on deoderant, brush our teeth and wear clean clothes because we worry about what people will think of us if we don't.
God's ways are not man's ways. His understanding is infinite while ours is bound by the finite. Trusting His ways are a matter of faith in what He has revealed to us in Scripture. In our prayer life we may ask Him for requests that seem to go unanswered--it seems our prayers go no higher than the ceiling. God is not anxious that we will no longer believe in Him if He doesn't answer. He will do what is right even though it may not seem right to us. He is the great Physician, not the great magician to bestow on us our every whim, but gives us the healing we really need--sometimes the medicine can be bitter.
Grace&Peace,
Tom
God isn't some Spock-like personality who has no emotion but is only logical. I think the Bible and Jesus himself clearly demonstrate the emotion of God. Is God anxious? Probably not like our anxiety. Some of our anxiety has a positive benefit. It makes us put on deoderant, brush our teeth and wear clean clothes because we worry about what people will think of us if we don't.
God's ways are not man's ways. His understanding is infinite while ours is bound by the finite. Trusting His ways are a matter of faith in what He has revealed to us in Scripture. In our prayer life we may ask Him for requests that seem to go unanswered--it seems our prayers go no higher than the ceiling. God is not anxious that we will no longer believe in Him if He doesn't answer. He will do what is right even though it may not seem right to us. He is the great Physician, not the great magician to bestow on us our every whim, but gives us the healing we really need--sometimes the medicine can be bitter.
Grace&Peace,
Tom
Friday, December 08, 2006
THE NON-ANXIOUS PRESENCE 2
"Problems are not solved until we attack them as intelligent beings. We suffer in our attempt to escape his obvious fact. Wailing about diphtheria for centuries got us nowhere. Robert Koch began to grow bacteria on his wife's kitchen stove. The end was diphtheria antitoxin, and diphtheria has been practically wiped of the face of the earth. Perhaps this was the answer to centuries of prayer. My father, a very devout man, believed a striving to the limit in a worthy cause constituted the most eloquent form of prayer" (Arthur E. Hertzler, M.D.).
"Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy" (Psalms 126:5).
I know a psychologist who understands non-anxious presence. His practice is to not speak until his client speaks to him. A client came for an appointment and didn't say anything. The client walked to the corner of the office, lay down on the carpeted floor in a fetal position and stayed that way for the fifty-minute session. No words were ever spoken, but just having some one understand and be accepting is powerful. God is that way. He does understand our pain and He loves us inspite of our failures, sins and mistakes. The Bible describes the Messiah as the Wonderful Counselor. The Holy Spirit is another counselor who is the Paraclete, the one who walks along side, the Comforter. The Bible is clear, God is love and He loves every human being.
It is also true that we live in a world that is, in the words of Paul, "in bondage to decay." It is a fallen world in which we live. There is sickness, there is hate, there is death, there is greed, there is lust, there is unfaithfulness, and there are weeds, to name a few. God allows this. He has given us freedom to deal with this fallen world in practical ways. That is why we have civil law, science, medicine and herbicides.
Suppose God always dealt with our prayers by a miracle or direct intervention of some sort. We would have never learned, progressed or achieved except in learned helplessness. Think of the blessings we enjoy as a result of the sweat, pain and sacrifices of those who have gone before us. Perhaps one of the reasons God wants us to deal with the effects of the fall in these ways is so that we will understand that salvation and wholeness can not be brought about without pain, sacrifice and death.
Am I saying that God has not been involved in the progress that we have enjoyed on this planet? No! But His non-anxious presence has provided the comfort and sustenance necessary for the achievment of the comforts and blessings of our lives today. Soren Keirkegaard is said to have said, "Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays."
God's non-anxious presence changes us.
Grace&Peace,
Tom
"Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy" (Psalms 126:5).
I know a psychologist who understands non-anxious presence. His practice is to not speak until his client speaks to him. A client came for an appointment and didn't say anything. The client walked to the corner of the office, lay down on the carpeted floor in a fetal position and stayed that way for the fifty-minute session. No words were ever spoken, but just having some one understand and be accepting is powerful. God is that way. He does understand our pain and He loves us inspite of our failures, sins and mistakes. The Bible describes the Messiah as the Wonderful Counselor. The Holy Spirit is another counselor who is the Paraclete, the one who walks along side, the Comforter. The Bible is clear, God is love and He loves every human being.
It is also true that we live in a world that is, in the words of Paul, "in bondage to decay." It is a fallen world in which we live. There is sickness, there is hate, there is death, there is greed, there is lust, there is unfaithfulness, and there are weeds, to name a few. God allows this. He has given us freedom to deal with this fallen world in practical ways. That is why we have civil law, science, medicine and herbicides.
Suppose God always dealt with our prayers by a miracle or direct intervention of some sort. We would have never learned, progressed or achieved except in learned helplessness. Think of the blessings we enjoy as a result of the sweat, pain and sacrifices of those who have gone before us. Perhaps one of the reasons God wants us to deal with the effects of the fall in these ways is so that we will understand that salvation and wholeness can not be brought about without pain, sacrifice and death.
Am I saying that God has not been involved in the progress that we have enjoyed on this planet? No! But His non-anxious presence has provided the comfort and sustenance necessary for the achievment of the comforts and blessings of our lives today. Soren Keirkegaard is said to have said, "Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays."
God's non-anxious presence changes us.
Grace&Peace,
Tom
Friday, December 01, 2006
THE NON-ANXIOUS PRESENCE
"After more than sixty years I can still hear the eloquent prayers that filled the countryside when epidemics of diphtheria appeared. One tube of antitoxin will do more good than all of these" (Arthur Hertzler M.D.).
"Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me" (Jesus Christ, Jn. 14:1).
I'm sorry it has taken so long to make another contribution. I caught a cold during the holiday, and it has taken this long to feel like writing. Helen and I went to visit her parents for Thanksgiving. Since we were already in Kansas, we made a quick trip (150 miles west) to Abbyville, where we visited loved ones from our first pastoral ministry of 31 years ago. Our travel to Abbyville took us through the area where Dr. Hertzler practiced medicine a hundred years ago. It reminded me again of his book, HORSE AND BUGGY DOCTOR, which is one of my cherished posessions. Dr. Hertzler's father was a Mennonite lay minister, but the doctor was skeptical about prayer, Christians and how they practiced Christianity, though he did believe in God.
According to family systems theory, if a person can maintain a non-anxious presence in the presence of anxious family, church members or co-workes for a sustained period of time, then that non-anxious presence will change the family, church or workplace. It is easier said than done because none of us are non-anxious, only God is, though some are more non-anxious than others. A non-anxious person knows who he/she is. Non-anxious people live consistently by their values and faith and do not allow themselves to be drawn into gossip, destructive criticism, defensivness and emotional reactivity ("you've got to do something now!").
God, being the only non-anxious presence there is, is not stampeded into action by our anxious prayers. One of the things that made Hertzler skeptical about prayer was that God did not answer in the way he thought He should. His childhood experiences with prayer and shallow Sunday school teaching had a profound effect on his adult life. Hertzler did finally adopt his father's understanding of prayer as the diligent pursuit of a worthy cause. In this way he said diphtheria antitoxin was an answer to prayer.
While in Kansas we were able to watch BRUCE ALMIGHTY on cable. Bruce was given Divine power to answer prayer. He answered all the lottery players prayers with a "yes." The forty thousand winners received almost no money. How confusing the world would be if God answered every prayer with a "yes," though there are some prayers that God will always answer "yes" to. Care to guess what they are?
God brings change through His non-anxious presence.
Grace&Peace,
Tom
"Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me" (Jesus Christ, Jn. 14:1).
I'm sorry it has taken so long to make another contribution. I caught a cold during the holiday, and it has taken this long to feel like writing. Helen and I went to visit her parents for Thanksgiving. Since we were already in Kansas, we made a quick trip (150 miles west) to Abbyville, where we visited loved ones from our first pastoral ministry of 31 years ago. Our travel to Abbyville took us through the area where Dr. Hertzler practiced medicine a hundred years ago. It reminded me again of his book, HORSE AND BUGGY DOCTOR, which is one of my cherished posessions. Dr. Hertzler's father was a Mennonite lay minister, but the doctor was skeptical about prayer, Christians and how they practiced Christianity, though he did believe in God.
According to family systems theory, if a person can maintain a non-anxious presence in the presence of anxious family, church members or co-workes for a sustained period of time, then that non-anxious presence will change the family, church or workplace. It is easier said than done because none of us are non-anxious, only God is, though some are more non-anxious than others. A non-anxious person knows who he/she is. Non-anxious people live consistently by their values and faith and do not allow themselves to be drawn into gossip, destructive criticism, defensivness and emotional reactivity ("you've got to do something now!").
God, being the only non-anxious presence there is, is not stampeded into action by our anxious prayers. One of the things that made Hertzler skeptical about prayer was that God did not answer in the way he thought He should. His childhood experiences with prayer and shallow Sunday school teaching had a profound effect on his adult life. Hertzler did finally adopt his father's understanding of prayer as the diligent pursuit of a worthy cause. In this way he said diphtheria antitoxin was an answer to prayer.
While in Kansas we were able to watch BRUCE ALMIGHTY on cable. Bruce was given Divine power to answer prayer. He answered all the lottery players prayers with a "yes." The forty thousand winners received almost no money. How confusing the world would be if God answered every prayer with a "yes," though there are some prayers that God will always answer "yes" to. Care to guess what they are?
God brings change through His non-anxious presence.
Grace&Peace,
Tom
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