how to ensure your words endure {June lessons in listening}

{My one word for 2014 is "listen"... Each month I'm posting the lessons I'm learning - find the rest of my posts on listening here!}

As a writer and an artist, I want to be heard.  I long for none of my words to fall to the ground.  

But as a human, I know that’s impossible.  The limitations of my sin nature, my personality, my background and my experiences ensure that at least some, possibly all, of my own words will eventually disappear. 

I’m still mulling over Mark Buchanan’s thoughtful and refreshing book The Rest of God.  He describes his life as an author, pastor, and speaker, and admits his own similar desire for his words to endure.  

“Either God, God alone, keeps our words from falling and scatters them wide,” observes Buchanan, “or else there is nothing in them worth keeping and scattering in the first place.  Our concern, our responsibility, is simply to hear and heed God…”

John’s gospel begins, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory…full of grace and truth” (emphasis mine).

The only Person whose words are sure to endure is the Living Word Himself.  So, it follows that the only way for me to ensure what I say endures is to make my words the words of God.   

“Our speaking comes out of our listening,” Buchanan continues.  “What we say comes out of what we hear. We have to be people who listen, day and night, to God.  Our utterances ought to be as Jesus’s were: an echoing of the Father, an imitation of him….”

That’s a tall order.  When I read those words for the first time, my heart sank.  Given that I am not Jesus, that feels pretty much impossible!

But the word “echo” stood out to me: I might not be Jesus, but I can surely echo Him.  I can repeat back - pass on - the words I hear from Him in my own heart, the words I read from Him in the Bible, the things He shows me through experience and circumstance.  And if hearing God happens best when I am still, then the practices of Sabbath and listening are essentially connected. 

God is always speaking.

The Psalmist says, “The heavens declare the glory of God… Day to day pours out speech… Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”

God is always speaking, but we’re not always listening.  

“There are so many voices,” says Buchanan.  “And there is such little time to listen, to truly listen: to winnow and test it all, to heed and reflect and respond...

“Sabbath is when we stop.  We slow down.  We play, we rest, we dream, we wonder.  We cease from that which is necessary and turn to that which gives life.  And in the hush that descends, we listen.”

The times when I can hear most clearly are times of stillness and quietness: in other words, when I’m cultivating a Sabbath heart. 

“God isn’t more likely to speak on your Sabbath than on any other day,” says Buchanan, “but you are more likely to listen.”

On the day the apostle John saw the Voice and the vision which became the book of Revelation, there are two key contextual details which Buchanan highlights: 

“One, he was in exile on Patmos.  He was, in other words, under an enforced silence and aloneness, a season of inactivity.  Two, it was Sunday, the Lord’s Day.  It was his Sabbath.  These conditions - the silence, the aloneness, the stillness, the Sabbath - might be beside the point.  Then again, they might just be the point.  It’s possible that they are mentioned because they form the necessary backdrop for true listening.”

~Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God, ch 12 "Listen: Stopping to Hear God"

It is only when we’ve first heard from God ourselves that we have something worth hearing to offer to our listeners.  

In one of Ann Voskamp’s recent posts, she urges her readers to take time every day.  She says, 

“Daily disciplines are doors to full freedom.

“Everyday take time. Everyday take time to feel the sun and the wind and the rain and feel that you are loved — and then let your life overflow with that love so that a thousand others feel that love. 

“Everyday take time to live loved — and live so others feel loved. 

“Everyday take time. Time is there for the taking. For the unwrapping.”

This daily unwrapping of the gift of time, the gift of Sabbath rest, frees us to truly listen, first to God and then to others.  

Ann continues, “Give someone the gift of listening… linger and look into their eyes and really listen and this is free and nobody can buy it and what is better than paying attention to someone with all of you fully present?”

Give yourself permission to receive God’s gift of Sabbath rest - not just the 24 hours once a week when you stop and play and revive your soul - but every day.  

photo credit: I. Winsley

Take time every day to rest, to still your soul and listen.  

In learning to be still enough to hear God, we will learn how to be still enough to listen, truly listen, to others.

photo credits: I. Winsley

counting the hard eucharisteo

Counting the hard eucharisteo.  This is not easy.  At. All.  It’s hard.

In fact, naming frustrations as blessings is completely upside-down and counter-intuitive.  Did I mention, really hard to do?

I wrote this list down in sheer, dogged obedience to the hard eucharisteo, believing Ann’s insistence that ALL is grace, not just the nice poetic moments:

“Thank you, God, for…

1041. Criticism 

1042. Being faced with my sin 

1043. Being humbled 

1044. Failing 

1045. That He promises His strength will be made perfect in weakness 

1046. That I’m not perfect (ugh!) 

1047. That life’s not perfect (ugh!)  

 

And it wasn’t until I got that far, and wearily read back over my list with a sigh, that I saw it.  How all is grace.  It stopped me in my tracks.  

I heard Jesus finish each sentence in my mind with a new ending.

So, I obediently wrote them down.  And with each addition, my joy-spring welled higher.

1041. Criticism - because it forces me to grow 

1042. Being faced with my sin - because IT forces me to grow 

1043. Being humbled - because it’s healthy and Christlike 

1044. Failing - because it forces me to depend on God 

1045. That He promises His strength will be made perfect in weakness 

1046. That I’m not perfect (ugh!) - because Christ can be glorified in me 

1047. That life’s not perfect (ugh!) - because God’s glory can be displayed all the more brightly 

1048. That God is determined to grow me in spite of myself 

1049. Grace 

1050. More grace 

1051. A husband who is usually right, and when he’s wrong, admits it

The FACT is: even my most hateful, nauseating sins and the ugly, frustrating fact of imperfection belong on my gratitude list - because ALL is grace.  Each ugliness can be transformed by grace into beauty.  

And, I get to number this daily miracle.  A front-row seat to glory.  

AND, it's proof that I am not just dreaming about growing; I am actually being made more into His image moment by moment, thanks by thanks, “gift” by grace-filled gift.  

Even the moments that don’t look like gifts at first actually are.  

{pictures of a spectacular frost last month}

of swallows and sojourning

We’re gardening anyway.  We're pretty sure we’re moving, but we don’t know when… Central Asian machinations: the “client” who wants to buy this house has to sell their own house first, so August has been mentioned, but nothing confirmed… 

Despite the up-in-the-air-ness (maybe because of it?), we planted corn, zucchini, yellow squash, pumpkins, parsnips, lettuces, spinach, broccoli, silverbeet (a New Zealand vegetable similar to Swiss chard).  A few tomato plants we were gifted at Easter.  Sunflowers, child height.  I’ve planted basil, oregano, cilantro and rosemary in tubs.  Flower seedlings from the bazaar, more tubs.  A whole row of tubs, to be exact (I’m an all-or-nothing kinda girl)…. a measure of peace in my soul.  

One morning  last week I was doing my three pages of early writing, clearing out my head.  I drew a basket on the page, and scribbled beside it, 

“Into this basket I put all my hopes and dreams and fears for this year and this move -- my parents coming, other guests coming, our short-term teammate, our neighbors, knowing You Jesus, Will going to preschool, keeping up with two sets of neighbors, sharing, recording music, writing, reading, praying, singing, cooking, loving, laughing, playing -- everything my life holds now goes into the basket, and I hold the whole heavy thing up to you.

“And I. Just. Trust. You.  

“I trust You, and I’m going to be thankful for each day as it comes and be faithful to do what You tell me to do.  With You I can do all things.  With You I can scale walls, run up mountains, walk on water.  You will never leave me or forsake me.  I find my home in You.  I find my home in You.  I make my home in You.  Ps 84 How lovely is Your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!  My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God…

And I looked it up, Psalm 84, a poem written by a king who spent the first years of his anointing escaping from wilderness to wilderness, running for his life.  I copied it out, writing ancient words with fresh ink, writing the words on my own heart, writing a plea-bargain with God.

Even the sparrow finds a home, 

and the swallow a nest for herself, 

where she may lay her young, 

at Your alters, O Lord of hosts, 

my King and my God.

I thought of our nesting swallows, who come back each spring to rebuild their nest on top of the naked lightbulb on our porch.

Blessed are those who dwell in Your house, ever singing Your praise!  Blessed are those whose strength is in You, in whose heart are the highways to Zion….

And I thought of the highways to God’s dwelling place being in my heart, of each moment being holy.  Of the hard eucharisteo, receiving each moment with thanks.  How thanksgiving is my moment-by-moment door into communion with I AM.  

For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than...

No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in You!

And then, out fluttered the words to a new song.  

Moving again, and I’m questioning:

how to find rest in this sojourning?

I just don’t have the strength…

You say I am blessed if I trust in You,

You say I am blessed if my strength is in You,

but I’m traveling, traveling,

and it’s hard to see Your hand.

Even the sparrow can find a nest

where she may lay her young;

even the swallow can find a home

at the altars of the Living God,

the altars of the Living God...

I am Your sparrow

and I’ll make You my home

I will dwell in You, tuck my treasures underneath Your wings

You’ll be my roof, my walls, windows and floor,

You’ll be my permanence,

my white picket fence,

and my backyard swing...

Someday I will sing it for you, each of us running from, or into, our own private wildernesses.  And we will rest together under His wings, and remember:

“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?

And not one of them is forgotten before God.

Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered.

Fear not;

You are of more value than many sparrows.”

~Jesus Christ 

(Luke 12:6-7)

A question to ponder today...

What wilderness are you currently running from, or into?  

How can you become more aware 

of God's sheltering wings, and the permanence of His presence, 

right where you are today?

last year, I had a garden...

...my first. It was wonderful. And suddenly, today, it is garden-season again, the brief 6-8 weeks this climate grudgingly gives for planting. All of a sudden, overnight, the snow melts, ground gives up warm, sweet breaths, weeks hang suspended in just the right weather for getting ready.

And instead of being outside in it, I’m inside writing about it.

We don’t have a home past June. This land just. does. not. belong. to us. Nowhere in the world do we own a bit of earth. And up until today, this exact spring day, I haven’t cared much. I’ve reveled in the free-wheeling, footloose, un-tied-down-ness of not owning property. Most days I have lived happily as a borrower; today I am full of ache.

Window gardens. That’s the answer, I think. Portability. And I fill plastic cups with earth and fertilizer and plant flower seeds to germinate in the dark. But I’m not fooling myself-- I’ve no green thumb, and half of them probably won’t sprout anyway. My one house-plant geranium has bloomed one solitary flower in the year it’s lived with me. The house is dark and cool; outside is where the life is. But I don’t own this outside. Past June, a scant eight weeks away, I have no more claim to this particular bit of earth.

I stumble outside, into the blinding 3:30 sun, tell my woes to a sweet neighbor just dropped by, discuss possibilities, options, other homes we could move to, feel the ache in my throat tighten, swell into a lump. She smiles and hugs me and says we can move in with them (not the first time she’s offered), says they’d love having small kids in the house, and I kiss her cheek and thank her, the lump brimming.

She’s pruning her trees and wants to borrow our heavy-duty secateurs, wants to get some outside work done, says her husband will be happy when he gets home. I open the garage, dig through dusty gardening tools… and I ache some more. I’m suspended, like the weather, between hot and cold, between knowing and unknowing, home and no-home.

But there is my son, for want of wind, making his own way to fly a kite. Spinning around, arms outstretched, a rainbow of color… “Mommy, look!” And then, standing stock-still with glazed eyes, “Oooh… I’m spinning around!” Spinning color and living in the moment and not worrying about anything at all. No wind for my kite? I’ll find another way to fly!

And suddenly I spin too, into the kitchen to grab my herb seeds, to the bedroom for my stack of new flower pots languishing empty, to the shed again for the spade… the lock won’t open, though it just did moments before. William, beside me, still spinning colors of faith: “Mommy, Jesus will help you!” And the next second, the key turns.

Rush to change my clothes (revive the old leopard-print gardening costume from last spring!), rush out to last year’s waiting earth. I vacillate: hopeless, hopeful. I dig panicked spadefuls of earth, filling pots with fists of dirt, a handful of fertilizer, another fistful of dirt. Sprinkle tiny herb seeds. Basil, oregano. Rosemary in one pot, cilantro in another. And even as I brush a bit of dirt over, dribble water, I sink down in despair. Will they really grow? I’m so ignorant, such a novice with no green thumb. Can I really grow anything from these tiny seeds inside my house? Can I really grow anything in this heart-garden of mine?

There.

There is the real question, the gnawing. It’s not until this moment, while typing those questions, that I realize my mistake. The question I’ve been asking is, Can I really grow anything? Am I really capable of changing myself? And the answer, of course, is: no.

No.

I cannot grow one single thing myself. It’s impossible! I am not the Author of growth, I have no power, I am helpless. I can do nothing on my own strength. Is that why I’m feeling so hopeless? Because I’m trying to make this gift-counting magic work myself? To force growth faster than the Great Gardener intended? Have I been trying to do the impossible?

Ben toddles around looking for worms. Will involves himself with my process; I’d nearly forgotten he’s there, occupied with my own dramas. My innovative kite-flyer faithfully pushes seeds down with little fingers, spreads dirt over, sprinkles water, carefully carefully. Full of faith that the same Jesus who helped Mommy open the garage lock in seconds will of course make these seeds grow. The thought never crosses his mind that they won’t sprout green and hopeful. He picks up on my discontent though, looking up, worried, watering can in hand.

I’m robbing my son of joy in our seed-planting because I’ve got my fist tight-closed around my own joy. Can’t I keep this particular gift-- this house, this bit of earth-- a little longer, Lord? Clench. Control. Grit teeth. And my son suffers, watching me.

I carry filled pots into my house, “my” house, despairing of a sunny spot to put them, full of doom and gloom. When will I learn to just let go? Just give up and let Him take over? Why do I have to control everything all the time? I preach to myself. So what if we don’t have a house past June? We have a house today. So what if I don’t know whether I can plant a garden outside? I can plant a garden in pots. So what if I don’t understand my own soul? The One who made me does. He understands me perfectly. He is also growing me, and I can not, absolutely not, grow myself. It’s impossible.

It’s while I’m chopping chicken for dinner that it hits me. This. This is the hard eucharisteo. That hard word I’ve just learned how to say and need a lifetime to learn to live. This is my chance to give thanks. To choose to thank for even the hard gifts.

I leave the chicken sizzling in the wok and race back to the computer, catch thoughts, words flooding my mind:

I choose to say thank you... for the uncertainty itself.

Thank You for how uncertainty keeps me supple, flexible. Reminds me I’m a sojourner.

Thank You for the two years we’ve enjoyed this house, and all the - [tears brim] - precious people we’ve enjoyed here, the memories we’ve made.

Thank You for the how possibility of losing something heightens its sweetness, makes me thankful for each moment.

Thank You for William’s circular kite-flying, living out of the box, faith-filled spinning of colors.

Thank You for dirt, for seasons, for seeds, for little boys looking for worms.

Thank You for heart-dirt softening, for soul-seeds being planted, watered.

Thank You for those who’ve gone before, for Ann calling back instructions on how to live out this hard eucharisteo, this joy-offering, this love-sacrifice of thanksgiving.

Thank You for the humbling, for the realizing, for the prying open of this clenched fist of mine that destroys joy by clinging so desperately, hungering for control.

Thank You for grace, for growth.

Thank You for the grace to grow slowly, gradually, into new bloom.

This week I devoured Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. I read it too fast-- it felt like gulping down a roast beef dinner with chocolate mousse for dessert. It was delicious. So now I'm going right back to the beginning, to digest it slowly, learn how to live it. If you're interested in learning how to live out eucharisteo with Ann and I and so many others, or just interested in finding out what eucharisteo means (!), you're welcome to visit:

One Thousand Gifts

The Book Club

Ann's Daily Journal