(Originally written for a talk given to a local moms’ ministry, fall 2017.)

Does hope need guarding? What does that even mean?

Peter addresses persecuted churches with this charge (1 Peter 1:13): Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. He says BEING sober-minded (comma!), set your hope fully. A prerequisite to re-focusing and re-aligning our hope is seeing things as they are. Sober-mindedness includes asking ourselves what numbs our minds and hearts to hoping in God, or what mini-hopes to we turn to by default that take his place. What desensitizes us to our need for him?

Sober-mindedness means alertness but when we think of being alert and engaged we often think of moving! and hustling! and getting out! and going places! and serving! and helping! and giving advice! and we neglect just being, listening, sitting, awake to what is really going on inside of ourselves and inside of others.

Sober-mindedness means seeing clearly without turning to the easy compulsions that numb us. For me it includes going first to the approval of others to fill my tank (which does work for a short time. I can go extended periods of time just feeding on that and not realizing I’m about to fall flat on my face).

What does it mean to guard our hope in God? There are plenty of other things we can hope in. What my life has spoken: In coffee I trust. In sleep I trust. In approval I trust. In achievement I trust. In marriage, friendships, happiness, ease, success, in accomplishment I trust, in busyness I trust.

Guarding our trust and hope in God means standing still in slow seasons and hard seasons, rather than trying to escape from them. Standing still to receive empowering grace—and mercy in our very real needs (Heb 4:16). Letting him kindly remind us of our limits and letting him meet us there It is in that realness we reflect him. Jesus meets us when we’d rather just run. And what was an uncomfortable and undesirable place is now where others can come for encouragement.

But HOW. Is there a well-worn path to being cohesive, congruent, on display for him but not on stage? It will take going through some really hard stuff, which Jesus promises will happen, by the way. We will confront our own worth over and over and bump into the idea of identity again and again. This is where we invite others. We don’t hurt in a vacuum and we won’t heal in one. He designed us to do all us this, hurt and heal, in the context of community.

If a prerequisite to guarding our hope is seeing things as they are, being present, being engaged, then that’s exactly where God wants us, in a place of sober-mindedness. It keeps us remembering who we are in him. In standing still where we really are and inviting others in, whatever it may be, we the aroma of Jesus right where we are (2 Cor 2:15). In standing still we guard and preserve our own hope in God, and our stillness reflects him.

Without much thought, we believe that success equals the absence of failure or refraining from displaying strong emotions or expressing disbelief or doubt. “Keep your friends close and your cards closer. Pour yourselves out in service but never require it for yourself. Keep smiling.”

Have we forgotten that Jesus himself had a human mind and a human body and through his humanity brought dignity to every experience and emotion that we could possibly have, including anger, anguish, confusion, abandonment?

Jesus needed a drink on the cross. He didn’t go out in a blaze of glory. He didn’t work himself to death. He died asking for a drink, and then also among his last words were asking why his father abandoned him. In his humanity, Jesus was dependent. He was in need.

To need God and to need others is to acknowledge dependenceand for some of us dependence has brought pain and suffering. We learned that giving ourselves over to the care of another meant sometimes youd be cared forand sometimes you wouldnt..png

Maybe the thought gives you anxiety. To need God and to need others is to acknowledge dependence—and for some of us dependence has brought pain and suffering. We learned that giving ourselves over to the care of another meant sometimes you’d be cared for—and sometimes you wouldn’t. So the answer was self-sufficiency, withdrawal, anger, perfection. Indeed, those things helped you survive. But speaking our need is quite literally following in Jesus’s footsteps in a posture of expectation and weakness. He felt the full spectrum of emotion and welcomed each one. The same is being asked of us as we navigate our circumstances, very much including the ones that give us anger, doubt, cause us to question—it’s in our brokenness people see the hope of Jesus.

Are there parts of your story you’re being INVITED to share with others even now? Not this “come one, come all” invitation. Not necessarily plastering it all over social media. But are there things you’re in the middle of learning, things you aren’t “past” that you could invite others in?

If I’m honest with you, I believe even now that I’m always one little compartment, one disorganized corner away from fully inviting God in, inviting others in, being at peace and being still. If I can just get past this area of unbelief, past this season of doubt or disorganization, past this habit that keeps coming back to haunt me, this area of weakness, this anxiety, this depression, this ailment, this family situation, this interruption.

Have you thought of it like this—while none of what we experience is wasted, is it possible you’re discarding your story by not letting others see your brokenness and see Jesus in it? in the midst of it? the grief parts? the guilt parts? the parts that aren’t cleaned up yet? the parts that might not ever be fully resolved in the way you hope or envision? It’s okay if you don’t have this perfectly packaged version to tell.

Our hope is kept simply, by way of being still with him. This brave and ongoing act of being still is casting our cares and our anxieties on him. Doing this is an act of humility, because we recognize we were never the ones meant to carry the burden.

I can relate it to walking to the car after church or preschool with my son Toby and he demands, he keeps yelling “TAKE IT! TAKE IT!” giving me his hat, his water cup, his discarded snack, his craft activity which has somehow disintegrated into several pieces after leaving the classroom. He doesn’t stop to analyze whether I’m already carrying 13 other things. He has an unspoken expectation that I can handle it because I’m mom. His demands, as grating as they feel in the moment, are how he approaches me with confidence. He just asks and he gives his burdens to me. I think we can apply that back to God. He’s got it. He more “hands” than we do and can bear the load.

Matthew 11:28-30: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to Me. Get away with Me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with Me and work with Me--watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

Let’s take some cues from Jesus himself and expand our vocabulary with one another to include the full range of what we’re going through, and learn how to be present and see things as they are for the sake of preserving our true source of hope.

—

Consider a general or specific time when God led you to circumstances you couldn’t fix, control, or understand. What did you learn? What are you learning?
What does being “still” look like in your current time of life?
What does it mean, for you, to “guard” your hope in God? What obstacles stand in your way?
What ways might God be using your story to encourage others?

(Originally written for a talk given to a local moms’ ministry, fall 2017.)

A few Thanksgivings into being married I decided that I wanted to host at our little place in Colorado. I invited family and friends over to our house for dinner, planned the menu, cleaned the house from top to bottom, lit some candles, turned on music, the works. But here’s how crazy it got.

After going room to room meticulously vacuuming every inch of carpet before my guests arrive, I delicately hose the edges, then I go back again room to room, with socks on, and glide over the carpet with my feet, smoothing and erasing the vacuum lines, which may have taken longer than the actual vacuuming. I want you to see clean carpet, but I don’t want you to think I spent hours before you came over vacuuming my rug, because THAT would be crazy, right? Only crazy people vacuum right before their guests arrive.

Letting your guests know the effort you put into their coming? That’s just bad hospitality. I want you to see perfection without effort, like my house just unfolded out of a pop-up book, ready to go. (It’s like the “no-makeup makeup” look: spend more time on your face to make it look like you rolled out of bed looking like a goddess.)

I made my famous mashed potatoes and the dishes, but my crowning moment would be my very first turkey. At the time I worked for a natural foods store and spent half my life savings on a free-range, organic, hormone-free, house-trained, humanely de-feathered turkey fit for 20 people. I brined, basted, buttered, marinated, massaged. I was practically this turkey’s therapist for the week leading up to Thanksgiving. And what do you know, our dinner table inevitably became that scene from Christmas Vacation where everyone’s gathering around the turkey, you go to cut it, the skin splits (tzzz) and a puff of smoke comes out and everyone gnaws on the turkey like desperate animals in the wild (which is where I wanted to be at this point, in a cave somewhere, in denial...because despite my effort, my turkey was like every other turkey on Thanksgiving.

What did I do wrong? I had the perfect formula, spent extra money, a week prepping this stupid turkey. I fell short and then I let this imperfection poison the rest of the day. I spent it apologizing and muttering non-Thanksgiving-appropriate words. I was no good to anyone, though everyone had moved on and was having fun without me. Instead of slowing down to enjoy the day, I tried mentally maneuvering around it, looking at the situation a number of different ways to both chastise myself and to excuse myself. I didn’t get very far but I wasted a day that was meant to be a gift.

As silly as the story is, it illuminates a somewhat ongoing belief in my heart. If I have the perfect plan, if I’m always a little ahead of everyone else, if I’m impressive, if I take care of you before you take care of me, if I hurry more than everyone else, that the approval of others will finally convince me to approve of myself...convince me of a little something I’d always believed: that I’m ALMOST good enough, but not quite. But I’m here to deliver the bad news: all this fussing hasn’t worked. On this mess of a hamster wheel, the horizon doesn’t change all that much.

Sometimes God leads you to share something you’re right in the middle of learning, which can be incredibly uncomfortable. Sometimes it requires saying, HEY, not only am I NOT on the other side, I don’t know there IS another side, but I’m learning to be okay with that, and inviting you to walk with me through it.

It’s easy to send a quick encouragement to a few hundred friends on social media. We like empowerment, lessons on rising up to meet the challenge. A pot of coffee a day keeps the lazy away—drink more and get ‘er done! We can do that—we’re fluent in that language. We can always try harder. The issue is that more effort is not really the best match for reality. “Try harder” may have worked with that awful long jump in junior high. What about my friend and her baby boy just diagnosed with cancer? You don’t talk to those people and say drink more coffee and get ‘er done because God is on your side. What about divorce? What about your parent or child who’s struggling with addiction (or what if it’s you)? What about plain old fatigue? What about failure?

I know I’m a true beginner when I think I can put off being an encouragement or helping someone until I’m on the “other side” of a tough season or lesson of my own. Wanting to present this perfectly wrapped package “here! Here’s what I’ve learned. Open it, apply it, and you’ll be good.” In that false belief we forget we’re simply invited to BE.