Pastor's Corner January 16, 2023
Be with Jesus
This past weekend, I flew to Georgia and back marking two of my eight flights in a four week period. On the plane ride back, I listened to the first chapter of a book called "Love, Henri: The Letters on the Spiritual Life." It is a collection of letters written from Henri Nouwen to various friends, strangers, and family. Henri Nouwen is one of my favorite authors for a number of reasons. But two things I love about Henri Nouwen is his devotion to being in God's presence and his balanced life of academic theology and Christian Mysticism. The first chapter actually had nothing from Henri, but instead words from the person who compiled all of the letters and the foreword. Both of which spoke to Henri's devotion to being in God's presence and encouraging others in their walk with God. In the foreword, Brene Brown spoke to Henri challenging people to take time to devote themselves to pursuing Jesus in the everyday life, to make time in our busy schedules and to realize that we can be with Jesus anywhere and anytime.
Brown then shares the gravity of that challenge now 20+ years since Nouwen's death in 1996. She speaks to how the world has changed so drastically with cell phones, laptops, work schedules, personal schedules, and the like. She shares a sense of being overwhelmed due to the competing interests in each of our lives and how time has seemed to run away from all of us. Do you feel like that? I certainly have. For centuries or maybe even most of human history, death has seemed to be the great enemy in life. But now, I think it feels like time is that great enemy. We often feel like we are on the slow march towards death, and yet it feels fast because we always have things competing for our attention, energy, and time. The amount of sleep we get has fallen drastically over the last 200 years, but with the decrease in sleep, we feel like we have less time than ever before! Crazy, isn't it!
I don't have the solution to the problem of time. Jesus has given us victory over death and one day soon death will be a thing of the past when we enjoy eternity in Jesus' presence. But until then, time is the enemy to the Christian's spiritual life.
So let's talk about the foundation of our spiritual life. BE WITH JESUS. Sounds simple and easy, yet it requires far more intentionality and sacrifice than we may realize. Think about how intentional you have to be to spend quality time with your friends or family nowadays. We have to put everything in schedules or calendars to fit things in and sometimes that means other things are thrown out or sacrificed. In your daily rhythms of life, do you often feel like time with Jesus is being sacrificed? I hope you don't feel condemnation if the answer is yes. I think for many of us we would have to be honest with ourselves and recognize that that is often the case for each of us. In the modern world, especially the West, our busyness, our schedules full of things has become the tool by which Satan convinces us that we don't need God nor have time for him. I personally think one of the reasons why we have seen a move away from organized religion and particularly Christianity in the West is because people are doing so much and doing 'what makes them happy' to the point that they become their own god. Humanism is one of the fastest growing "religions" in part due to this. And much of the growth that we have seen in Christianity in the West has centered around a marginal association with Jesus. We want to be Christians in that we want our sins to be atoned for, we want the abundant life that Jesus offers, and we want the good that God gives. However, we stop there. We don't want to pick up our crosses, an instrument of horrific torture and death, to follow him. We don't want to make sacrifices to spend time with Him. We want the easy way out.
Being with Jesus is simple, but it is not easy. The Gospel of Jesus is simple, and definitely not easy. The good news of being with Jesus is that it doesn't need to be elaborate or a Moses like experience at the mountain everyday. No, instead, being with Jesus can be as simple as taking five minutes in the morning to read and pray, five minutes on our drive somewhere to worship, five minutes in our afternoon to contemplate God's goodness and presence with us so far that day, five minutes before dinner to listen to God by asking where he was with you today and what he thought of how things went, and maybe five minutes in the evening to read and pray again. Or maybe the five minutes where you are washing dishes, or your lunchbreak, or maybe shoveling snow as we have had to do a lot lately. Maybe you need to develop structured time in your day, week, month, year where you intentionally spend regular time with God doing a specific Spiritual Practice. These may include reciting or reading scripture, praying a specific prayer whether it is from Scripture, the book of common prayer, a prayer that you write out, or something like that. It may include practicing silence and solitude to separate yourself from others to hear from God. It might include fasting which is the physical denial of food for the spiritual nourishment of Jesus through the recognition that what you hunger for most is God's loving presence and embrace. It might include meditation where you chew on specific words or verses in Scripture as you consider their meaning and how it impacts God's people and you personally. There are even more I could list. Being with Jesus is simple, but not easy. And yet, it can all start with little practices and rhythms of devotion knowing that to get through our busy schedules and busy lives, we need to be with Jesus to keep us sane, to keep us rooted to him, to abide in his love, to be his disciple.
Be with Jesus in the single most important aspect of our spiritual walk. It is the foundation by which everything else comes. Jesus did not invite us to simply receive him then do this life on our own. Instead, he is our God with us who walks alongside us, who guides us, who dwells in us, who wants to hear us and speak to us, who wants us to be with him now and forever.
What do you want to do this week to be with Jesus? What rhythms can you develop to intentionally abide in Christ's love? What do you find most difficult in intentionally spending time with Jesus? Who can you ask around you for help in growing your spiritual walk? What weekly activity do you find to be the worst that you have to do? How can you invite Jesus into that activity?
This past weekend, I flew to Georgia and back marking two of my eight flights in a four week period. On the plane ride back, I listened to the first chapter of a book called "Love, Henri: The Letters on the Spiritual Life." It is a collection of letters written from Henri Nouwen to various friends, strangers, and family. Henri Nouwen is one of my favorite authors for a number of reasons. But two things I love about Henri Nouwen is his devotion to being in God's presence and his balanced life of academic theology and Christian Mysticism. The first chapter actually had nothing from Henri, but instead words from the person who compiled all of the letters and the foreword. Both of which spoke to Henri's devotion to being in God's presence and encouraging others in their walk with God. In the foreword, Brene Brown spoke to Henri challenging people to take time to devote themselves to pursuing Jesus in the everyday life, to make time in our busy schedules and to realize that we can be with Jesus anywhere and anytime.
Brown then shares the gravity of that challenge now 20+ years since Nouwen's death in 1996. She speaks to how the world has changed so drastically with cell phones, laptops, work schedules, personal schedules, and the like. She shares a sense of being overwhelmed due to the competing interests in each of our lives and how time has seemed to run away from all of us. Do you feel like that? I certainly have. For centuries or maybe even most of human history, death has seemed to be the great enemy in life. But now, I think it feels like time is that great enemy. We often feel like we are on the slow march towards death, and yet it feels fast because we always have things competing for our attention, energy, and time. The amount of sleep we get has fallen drastically over the last 200 years, but with the decrease in sleep, we feel like we have less time than ever before! Crazy, isn't it!
I don't have the solution to the problem of time. Jesus has given us victory over death and one day soon death will be a thing of the past when we enjoy eternity in Jesus' presence. But until then, time is the enemy to the Christian's spiritual life.
So let's talk about the foundation of our spiritual life. BE WITH JESUS. Sounds simple and easy, yet it requires far more intentionality and sacrifice than we may realize. Think about how intentional you have to be to spend quality time with your friends or family nowadays. We have to put everything in schedules or calendars to fit things in and sometimes that means other things are thrown out or sacrificed. In your daily rhythms of life, do you often feel like time with Jesus is being sacrificed? I hope you don't feel condemnation if the answer is yes. I think for many of us we would have to be honest with ourselves and recognize that that is often the case for each of us. In the modern world, especially the West, our busyness, our schedules full of things has become the tool by which Satan convinces us that we don't need God nor have time for him. I personally think one of the reasons why we have seen a move away from organized religion and particularly Christianity in the West is because people are doing so much and doing 'what makes them happy' to the point that they become their own god. Humanism is one of the fastest growing "religions" in part due to this. And much of the growth that we have seen in Christianity in the West has centered around a marginal association with Jesus. We want to be Christians in that we want our sins to be atoned for, we want the abundant life that Jesus offers, and we want the good that God gives. However, we stop there. We don't want to pick up our crosses, an instrument of horrific torture and death, to follow him. We don't want to make sacrifices to spend time with Him. We want the easy way out.
Being with Jesus is simple, but it is not easy. The Gospel of Jesus is simple, and definitely not easy. The good news of being with Jesus is that it doesn't need to be elaborate or a Moses like experience at the mountain everyday. No, instead, being with Jesus can be as simple as taking five minutes in the morning to read and pray, five minutes on our drive somewhere to worship, five minutes in our afternoon to contemplate God's goodness and presence with us so far that day, five minutes before dinner to listen to God by asking where he was with you today and what he thought of how things went, and maybe five minutes in the evening to read and pray again. Or maybe the five minutes where you are washing dishes, or your lunchbreak, or maybe shoveling snow as we have had to do a lot lately. Maybe you need to develop structured time in your day, week, month, year where you intentionally spend regular time with God doing a specific Spiritual Practice. These may include reciting or reading scripture, praying a specific prayer whether it is from Scripture, the book of common prayer, a prayer that you write out, or something like that. It may include practicing silence and solitude to separate yourself from others to hear from God. It might include fasting which is the physical denial of food for the spiritual nourishment of Jesus through the recognition that what you hunger for most is God's loving presence and embrace. It might include meditation where you chew on specific words or verses in Scripture as you consider their meaning and how it impacts God's people and you personally. There are even more I could list. Being with Jesus is simple, but not easy. And yet, it can all start with little practices and rhythms of devotion knowing that to get through our busy schedules and busy lives, we need to be with Jesus to keep us sane, to keep us rooted to him, to abide in his love, to be his disciple.
Be with Jesus in the single most important aspect of our spiritual walk. It is the foundation by which everything else comes. Jesus did not invite us to simply receive him then do this life on our own. Instead, he is our God with us who walks alongside us, who guides us, who dwells in us, who wants to hear us and speak to us, who wants us to be with him now and forever.
What do you want to do this week to be with Jesus? What rhythms can you develop to intentionally abide in Christ's love? What do you find most difficult in intentionally spending time with Jesus? Who can you ask around you for help in growing your spiritual walk? What weekly activity do you find to be the worst that you have to do? How can you invite Jesus into that activity?
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