Missing Church

I miss church.

Psalm 150
"Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him in his mighty heavens!"

 

I miss the spiritual connection of people gathering in a holy place, worshiping a divine Savior.

Matthew 18:20 

"Where two or more are gathered in my name, there I am among them."

I miss the former routine of Sunday worship -  the gathering of friends for Sunday School, the choral call to worship, the busy-ness of the Eucharist, the processional fanfare of candles held high, robes and voices harmonizing, organ pipes, the greetings to one another, light streaming through the stained glass, the prayers, the sermon, the benediction, the fellowship. 

Acts 2:22 And they devoted themselves to the teaching and the fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer.

I miss singing to one another, "May the Lord, mighty God, bless and keep you forever. Grant you peace, perfect peace - courage in every endeavor. Lift up your eyes and see His face and His grace around you. May the Lord Mighty God, bless and keep you forever."

Psalm 95:5 O Come let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.

The Best Father's Day Gift - Presence

I just wrapped a gift for my son for Father's Day. Just a small gift, but wrapped with a heart bursting with love and gratitude for the way he demonstrates love for his two children and strives to be a dad in real time. He's "hands on" sharing the responsibilities of all that parenthood entails - day-care pick-up and drop-off, mealtime, bath time, bedtime, doctor appointments, and a million other responsibilities. All the time, probably wondering if he is doing it well.

If he were to ask, I would tell him he was doing it well because he is doing it. He is actively present in the lives of his children. I pray as they grow up, that presence will be a constant in their lives.

 I was curious about the statistics and while I know there is an absence of fathers in the home today, I did not realize it was so prevalent. According to an article from this source  "More than 20 million children live in a home without the physical presence of a father.  Millions more have dads who are physically present, but emotionally absent.  If it were classified as a disease, fatherlessness would be an epidemic worthy of attention as a national emergency. "

I experienced a father's love. In the 50s that love might not have been so hands on. I don't ever remember my  military career dad reading me a book, tucking me in at night,  or making me pancakes. But I knew the steady, strong presence of a father who worked hard every day, came home every night, respected and loved my mother and daily supported our household. It probably wasn't until I was an adult that my dad (who was orphaned at 14) was comfortable with simply enjoying my company. And as the years went by, we became great friends. I knew that my father loved me, valued my husband, and adored my children. 

It is when I think about these statistics - more than 20 million children living without even the physical presence of a father, not to mention the emotionally absent ones - my heart breaks. What have we allowed to happen? How have we turned our heads to the greater societal problems and supported programs that while intended for good, created this devastation of the family unit?

 It's not that we haven't tried. A recent editorial in the WSJ said that since 1980 our country has spent over $22 trillion dollars trying to fix many of the problems in our society. You can be the judge as to whether we have succeeded. 

This Father's Day, spend some time thinking about the millions of children who have no presence of a father in their daily life. Look around to find a way to help a single mom. And if you are one of the fortunate ones who has a father in your home, thank him. Thank him and encourage him to stay the course.

Train up a child as to how he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.

The Long View

Recently I wrote about living in the present moment. I talked about my state of weariness and fatigue. I lamented over past regrets and worried over an uncertain future. I got nothing accomplished as a result and the day was lost. It resonated with many of you. 

Today I read about "taking the long view" - to think about the effect that something will have in the future. Is that my choices? We set aside resources for the future. I vividly remember my mother working all summer to preserve food for the winter. As a farmer, my father worked daily with a long view - hoping for a successful crop in the future. But today, with the speed of our lives, we want it all today. Just this morning I was disappointed when I learned my anticipated package will take two days, instead of one. And why plant tiny little zinnia seeds when I can buy them already blooming in pots?I don't want to wait for anything. Except maybe Heaven. As the country song says, everyone wants to go, but not today.  We love living in the present, when now more than ever, we should be longing for a better future. It's what the apostle Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 5 - taking the long view.  In his poem, Disturb Us, Sir Francis Drake wrote, :Having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of Heaven."Can we do both? Can we live our earthly life with Heaven in our mind and hearts?Is that what Heaven on earth would look like? If so, what a change in our current world.Ed Stetzer wrote these words in Christianity Today about the long view:

"The Christian life is not about our best life now. To follow Jesus faithfully is an acknowledgment that our best life comes later and our lives right now should reflect this reality. To do that requires four shifts in the way we view life.

1. We need an eternal perspective.

The biblical emphasis on keeping eternity in our view reminds us of the brevity of our existence. The Bible compares life to a vapor that is here today and gone tomorrow. Having this fixed in our mind points us to a reality that goes far beyond the years we may have on this earth. 

2. We need to live in this contrast between now and not yet. 

Paul says we “groan while we are in this tent, burdened as we are” (2 Cor. 5:4). We groan because we are in this imperfect, broken reality, but we look forward to the time when that reality is replaced with something greater. We know this to be true because of our own experiences and those around us. We groan when we hear of the hurt of our friends and family. We groan in our own bodies because of  physical challenges. We all groan, but this groan is for heaven, for an eternal and better place. These groans are temporary. Our best life is yet to come. (Thank God.)

3.  We need a confident hope that should permeate our lives. 

In 2 Corinthians 5:7, Paul says, “We walk by faith, not by sight.” Paul’s point is  currently we live our lives based on faith; we’re holding fast to things we cannot see. Then we’ll walk by sight because we can actually see the fulfillment of God’s promises to us. But for today, in a life characterized by our stumbling attempts at walking without sight, we rest our hope in our currently unseen Savior. One day that hope will be realized into full sight, but for today a confident hope should shape us.

4.  We need a proper understanding of the realities that are before us.

In 2 Corinthians 5:9, Paul writes, “Whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to Him.” Herein is the truth we cannot miss. Paul says we make it our aim to please God both now when we are in our physical bodies and later when we see rightly and live for eternity. For Paul, the promise of the resurrection leads to a current life shaped around resurrection values. We want to please Jesus in our brief time here so that we might worship Jesus for an eternal time there. The hope of personal presence later leads to the desire of personal actions now.

This is not our best life today. There are good moments for which we should praise God, but we know there are challenges, difficulties, struggles, physical ailments, hurt, and pain. The world is indeed broken.(Just review the words of Condolezza Rice from a recent interview on Face The Nation.)  But the good news is Jesus will make all things right, including you and me. For those who follow Christ, we will be in right, perfect-sighted relationship with Him for eternity, and that should cause us to live differently now."

 It should encourage us to take the long view.

We Have Today

Now more than ever we need to understand how to live in the present moment.

You might say, "Which one? The present moment of protecting myself against the threat of Covid-19? The present moment of waiting and wondering if today will bring a stop to the racial and civil unrest in our cities? The present moment of watching a total disregard for life? 

Yesterday I let the news continue to roll and I became more and more morose. 

Agitated and fearful. 

Worried and distracted. 

Conflicted and unproductive, caught up in the past and the future.... and then the day was lost.

Today is not much better.  Even my garden, my favorite scriptures and books don't seem to brighten my spirit. I find I must simply obey the instruction of Philippians 4:6 which says to not be anxious about anything ( viruses, civil unrest, racial tensions, disregard for lives), but to present these concerns of the day to God in prayer, with a grateful heart to the One who knows all things, and then the peace that we will never fully understand will come to us. I know that passage to be true for I claimed it during the darkest days of my life.  I will never understand it (like the scripture says) but it is true.

It's the waiting that is so hard.  I can say the verse over and over, list my prayer requests before God, but then I must trust, watch, and wait. But this is when we need to be on guard, for this is where we lose it and become fearful of all the unknowns. Betty Skinner, in her book The Hidden Life, says this about waiting:

"Waiting is one of the most difficult pieces of a deep, inner spiritual journey. We want to outrun God, but our growth depends on consciously letting go of our fear and allowing our circumstances the space to teach us what God intends....As long as we wait in fear and anxiety, we will not experience growth. "

She goes on to say, "This way of waiting requires we understand that the spiritual life can only be lived in the present moment. Living in the future produces anxiety, worry, and fear. Living in the past produces guilt, bitterness and regret. Many of us never get out of the past or the future and miss the gift that is the present moment." 

So today, what will it be?