Are You Poor Enough?

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Verla Wallace

Some of my more jaded journalist pals have been taking bets about which words are considered golden in “moving the needle,” (gaining voter support) in this rancorous election season. The word jobs, of course, is a biggie. But so is any mention of poverty or the poor. 

Everyone seems to think they know and care a lot about the poor (or, conversely, don’t care, because they think the poor have made their own lousy bed and now must lie in it.)

How much do you know about the poor in the United States? The Census Bureau says 46.2 million people currently live in poverty–more than 16 million children, one in every four children under age six.

Do you personally know anyone who qualifies as poor? Or do you picture most poor people as welfare cheats and lowlifes trying to scam the system? I’ve met several people lately who don’t fit that profile.

Scene #1: A suburban Bible study where I met a average-looking stay-at-home mom. Her husband had lost his job and their savings in a bad business decision and couldn’t find another job. Her family, including three kids, had moved into her mother’s basement, which turned out to be a disaster. They needed to move, but no shelters in the area would take a family of five, so they were considering whether living in a tent or in their van was the best option.

If you’re already thinking about how to fix her problem, that’s not the point. Try to feel what it is like to be in her shoes.

Scene #2: An ice cream shop where I met a man who is being squeezed out of his profession due to age and a bum knee. He can’t afford surgery because he can’t even afford the co-pays on his health insurance. He wore a cap to cover the fact he has no money for a haircut. He wore reading glasses from the Dollar Store because he can’t afford the prescription bifocals he needs. He’s desperately searching for work but isn’t qualified for the work that’s available. He moved to low-income housing and is trying to survive off a modest social security check. Can you feel his creeping desperation?

Scene #3:  A city bus trip through a poor part of town, a trip my husband and I took to get a taste of what life is like without a car. A single mother struggled to climb aboard with a baby in a stroller, a young child in tow, and two sacks of groceries. A man in a wheelchair waited while the bus driver lowered the ramp that would allow him to get on the bus with his oxygen unit, then reverse the process later when he got off the bus. It was cold and windy. No one was smiling. Can you feel their fatigue, their self-consciousness?

The poor are not just statistics. They have faces and names. They are people who weep when they cannot heat their home and suffer embarrassment when their kids have no book bag or snow boots. They need more than a turkey at Thanksgiving and a toy at Christmas. They need people who will come alongside them with compassion and understanding, people who understand we are all poor in some way and we need each other.

The Potter’s House serves 11,000 people (6,500 of whom are children) who live in the world’s largest dump in Guatemala City. The organization knows a lot about the poor. They say poverty is complicated and takes many forms:

  • Spiritual Poverty: Lack of relationship with God
  • Intellectual Poverty: Lack of access to knowledge
  • Poverty of Affection: Lack of love
  • Poverty of the Will: Lack of self-control
  • Physical Poverty: Lack of health
  • Poverty of Support Network: Lack of family and community
  • Poverty of Civic Involvement: Lack of community cooperation
  • Economic Poverty: Lack of resources

Have you considered that you, too, might be poor in some way? Do you understand that the most devastating poverty is spiritual? Spiritual poverty means you have no relationship with the One Person who will stand with you in whatever poverty you face.

When you know your poverty and feel poor enough to run to God, not only will you find the comfort you need. He promises enough comfort to share with those who have not yet found him and who desperately need hope, not judgment.

“Praise be to…the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (II Cor. 1:3-4)

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Browse our archives at http://www.pilgrimontheloose.com for more encouragement in your spiritual journey.

Posted in Compassion, Self-righteousness, The Poor | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

What Facebook and the Bible Share in Common

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Verla Wallace

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with Facebook. It’s no substitute for real life (although some people live on Facebook like it IS their real life) and any relating on Facebook is shallow and fleeting. Deep relationships take face time and nurturing. It’s not going to happen on Facebook.

Nevertheless, it’s fun to connect with friends, acquaintances, business associates and distant relatives from every stage of my life, going all the way back to childhood.

Some live in far-flung places like Germany, England, Niger, Kenya, Bahrain, India, Japan, Guatemala and all across the U.S. I would never be able to keep in touch with most of them without social networking. It’s a way of learning a little about what matters to them, how they’ve chosen to live and with whom, what they believe and what they’re now doing with their lives.

One of the things I especially like about Facebook is how it’s a lot like the Bible, with a few important caveats. Both are written by a bunch of different authors and both cover every topic imaginable. Both sometimes seem disjointed and messy. But, hey, life is disjointed and messy.

I mentioned the similarity to a couple of friends of mine who are not Christ-followers and they didn’t see the connection. They think Facebook is entertaining, while the Bible is boring and full of rules, with nothing to say to them. To which I reply, “Are you kidding me? Have you read the book? It’s ‘Survivor,’ ‘Scandal,’ ‘Dr. Phil,’ the History channel, the Discovery channel, and ‘World News Tonight’ rolled into one.” (Okay, so maybe there’s no parallel to “Ice Road Truckers.”)

The Bible covers births, deaths, divorces, inspirational stories, job wins and losses, how-to lessons for life, speech training, wars, homosexuality, politics, murder, rape, intrigue, judgmental people, grace-filled people, rich and poor, glass half empty people and glass half full people, the bold visionaries and the crazies. In other words, the same kind of things we find so intriguing when posted on our Facebook wall!

Of course, there are differences between Facebook and the Bible. There’s a Big Picture to the Bible. Unlike Facebook’s helter-skelter content, the Bible has a point. It’s God’s story of humankind–from the moment God called us into existence until the day Jesus returns to finally reclaim his world and those who love him.

And, like every good story, it has fleshed-out characters, a plot that pulls you in, conflict, heartache, a change agent (Jesus), the characters are given the power to choose, there’s a chance of redemption and transformation and, finally, a dramatic denouement.

Unlike Facebook, however, don’t expect it to make sense if you drop in on the middle of the story for a quick sound bite. God’s story takes a lifetime to fully appreciate. Did you ever drop in on page 200 of War and Peace or Moby Dick and find yourself mesmerized by the story? Did it make sense? Of course not. The Bible isn’t snack food. It’s a banquet. It takes time to fully appreciate it.

Then there’s the fact that the Bible was written by people commissioned by the Holy Spirit, which means you can trust that it’s all true. That makes it a lot different from Facebook.

And, finally, the Bible was written for us…all of us. God had us in mind on every page. It’s why he wrote the story in the first place. Facebook, on the other hand, is all about the people who post–what matters to them, how they want to be seen and what they feel is true.

Facebook is fun but, in the end, it’s more like postcards from a friend. But when it comes to impact on my life and a lasting take-away, I’ll stick to the Bible. Besides, God accepts all “friend” requests.

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Surviving the Life You’ve Always Wanted

Posted on September 22, 2012 by Verla Wallace

I just finished reading a feature-length article in Vanity Fair that bills itself as a behind-the-scenes look at the life of the Barack Obama. New York Times writer and best-selling author Michael Lewis reportedly spent six months with “unprecedented access” to the President to research the story.

While the story does talk about the history-altering decisions made each day in the Oval Office, what interested me more were the personal issues discussed.

The article showed that even if you are President of the United States and living your dream, there are important self-management principles you must practice daily to survive and thrive. I thought if the leader of the free world has to do it–despite all the power and perks of the office–how much more important might it be for us to do the same?

A couple caveats: This is not a post about politics, so everyone can lay down their weapons. Secondly, I’m not naive. It’s obvious that all parties involved in this profile had a political agenda. Nevertheless, I still believe there are non-political take-aways worth noting.

Here’s my agenda with this post, my only agenda: Everyone has personal responsibility for managing their life, even if they are President. Are you managing your life well or are you giving outside people and forces too much control over your health, your attitude, your decisions, and how you spend your time?

Here are a few of Obama’s self-management practices worth examining:

  • Take care of yourself physically–Obama exercises every morning and plays an aggressive game of basketball a couple of times a week with friends who aren’t invited back if they cut him any slack. It’s crucial, he says, to maintaining the stamina required for his job. Are you physically taking care of yourself, so you can be fully present each day to God, your family, and your employer?
  • Minimize the distraction of trivia things–Research shows that the simple act of making any decision–large or small–can degrade a person’s ability to make further decisions. Therefore, Obama pares down mundane daily decisions. For example, he always wears blue or gray suits to minimize the time required to decide daily what to wear. “You need to focus your decision-making energy,” Obama says, “You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.” What trivial decisions sap your best energy? What can you do about it?
  • Acknowledge the personal and professional limitations imposed by the life you’ve chosen. For Obama, one loss was the ability to be spontaneous. “You don’t bump into a friend in a restaurant you haven’t seen in years. The loss of anonymity and the loss of surprise is an unnatural state. You adapt to it, but you don’t get used to it.” What things in your present life came as a surprise to you? What do you need to do to either change those limitations or make peace with the losses?
  • Filter personal criticism. Decide which of your detractors make a legitimate point and which ones are just the haters, stirring the pot. At one point in the interview, Obama walked into a room where a talking head on TV was knowingly explaining why Obama had taken some particular action. “Oh, so that’s why I did it,” he said and walked out. “You have to filter stuff, but you can’t filter it so much you’re in Fantasyland.” Have you sorted out whose opinion in your life should hold weight and whose should be ignored? Trying to please everybody is a fool’s errand. Move on.
  • Accept that not all decisions will be perfect. “Nothing comes to my desk that is perfectly solvable,” Obama says, “…or someone else would have solved it. So you wind up dealing with probabilities. Any given decision [has] a 30 to 40 percent chance it isn’t going to work. … You can’t be paralyzed by the fact it might not work.” You will not make perfect decisions 100% of the time. You’re not God. Can you learn from your mistakes and let go or do you expect perfectionism of yourself and those around you?

What does God have to do with all this? God is not just interested in your spiritual life. He’s interested in your whole life. He knows that self-management determines if you will finish well. It’s why he gave the Holy Spirit to guide us and his Word to offer specifics about how to live and to respond to the pressures around us.

Reread Proverbs. It’s loaded with advice about the rich, the poor, those with power, those without it, the power of our words, the value of humility, how to deal with conflict. It’s all in there. And it’s a whole lot more objective than Vanity Fair.

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What Our Stuff Says About Us

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Verla Wallace

We were out to dinner with friends the other night on the eve of another short-term move. It’s another chapter in our ongoing saga to get permanently relocated to our new home in Florida. This unexpected multi-part journey to get us from here to there has offered repeated opportunities to think about the stuff we accumulate or discard…and why.

Our friends joked they’ve lived in their house 30 years and didn’t dare move because it would take a year just to sort through the stuff in their basement. The husband, a self-described pack rat, has saved every pay stub he ever received, every checking account statement, every everything!

A psychologist might speculate our friend wanted a tangible reminder of how he had been increasingly successful in his career. Or maybe he can’t let go of the past. Or maybe he simply thought cleaning out the basement was a boring way to spend his free time!

Another friend recently moved her parents into assisted living. They had lived in their home for 40 years. The problem with their stuff was the lifetime of memories it represented.

Her mother had six sets of china–unused for decades but precious to her, nonetheless. Each set of dishes was a loving purchase made by her husband to celebrate his wife’s gift for hospitality and the way she made their home a welcoming place.

Her father had a leather-inlaid poker table, also untouched for years and buried under boxes in the basement. It was a symbol of Friday night games with his buddies. They weren’t just poker games. They represented friendships that endured marital issues, parenting issues, sports rivalries, heart attacks and job losses.

The couple’s possessions were clearly now an encumbrance but it was hard to discard them. They wanted their stuff to matter to someone else as much as it did to them. They wanted people to acknowledge what that stuff represented. It wasn’t going to happen.

I’m not a pack rat and I don’t collect china or save unused furniture. But, trust me, I have plenty of stuff. I accumulate books, for example–mostly non-fiction. I don’t like Kindle or Nook. I want to hold an actual book, pull it down off the shelf and reread it, underline liberally, and tab treasured sections for future reference. Our moves in the past couple years have forced me to do something about the book issue. I gave away hundreds of them…but it nearly killed me.

What’s the problem? I thought. Books are just books. Paper and ink! But the books said a lot about who I am. The titles were a practically a catalog of the various seasons of my life–what I was learning, where I was growing, what brought delight, where I struggled. In some inexplicable way, discarding the books felt like discarding my life. It caught me completely off-guard.

Our stuff–whether treasured or ignored–speaks loudly about our fears, where we’re stuck, what matters to us, and how we measure our lives. But we have to pay attention to what it’s telling us, if we’re to benefit.

What do you save and why? Which things are life-giving and which things encumber you, cost you time, money and energy, take up space, and slow the forward momentum of your life? Are you weighed down by your stuff? 

Hebrews 12:1 encourages believers to throw off everything that hinders us and the sin that so easily entangles us, (my emphasis) so we’re free to fun the race God marks out for us. Everything.

In other words, sin isn’t the only thing that entangles us. Sometimes it’s the stuff in the basement.

Posted in Christian Living, Spiritual Growth | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Problem with Angels and Politics

Posted on August 25, 2012 by Verla Wallace

Both Republicans and Democrats will gather in the next couple weeks to nominate their candidate and kickoff the official presidential campaign season. What? You mean it hasn’t really started yet?

I’m already up to here with the vicious political advertising, the ranters on radio and the talking heads on TV, who demonize their opponent and predict disaster if their own candidate loses. Social networking sites amp up the rhetoric with charts, and videos from people aggressively supporting their candidate. It’s hard to imagine how the decibels can get any louder.

Frankly, I think the noise level is the least of our worries.

Consider what’s happening:

*   Disproportionate influence. There are now more than 300 Super PACS (political action committees) in the U.S. Unlike previous presidential elections, deregulation allows these super PACS to raise unlimited sums of money for political purposes from individuals, corporations, and unions. Donor names are public and analysis shows fewer and wealthier people and organizations bringing a disproportionately greater influence on the election outcome.

*    Disproportionate anonymous influence. There’s also a marked rise in non-profit 501(c)4 organizations. Like the Super PACs, these “social welfare” organizations can legally pour unlimited dollars into political causes, as long as it’s not their “primary” activity. But, unlike Super PACs, they do not have to make their donors’ names public. That’s why some political watchdogs call the contributions “dark money.” This means fewer, wealthier, and anonymous donors have a disproportionately greater influence on the presidential election.

According to ProPublica, a non-partisan watchdog group, two such organizations–Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity–have already spent nearly $60 million on the campaign, outspending all the Super PACs combined.

*   Disenchantment and fatigue of the voters. It’s been a tough five years since the Great Recession began. We all hoped the hard times, the pain, the bumpy recovery, would be over by now.

At the gas station and grocery store, in church and in offices, a familiar theme underlies comments I hear about the election: Someone must be blamed. It takes the form of character assassination (on both sides) or repetition of a phrase lifted from something heard on a talk show or received from one of those pass-along emails. But if you drill deeper with them, many of those same people understand very little about the details of the issues or the accuracy of what they’ve heard–whether it’s immigration reform, health care, taxes, jobs or whatever. They just know they’re hurting and they want it to stop. And someone must be blamed.

This does not make for an informed electorate.

Bottom line? We face the possibility our next president will be elected by partially informed voters who are influenced by a few people with a private agenda who don’t want us to know their name. Are you worried yet?

So what does all this have to do with a blog that talks about life and faith and God? Everything.

While supporters of both candidates claim to be on the side of the angels, God is not a Republican or a Democrat and he’s also not a one-issue God. He loves the poor. He respects women and, in scripture, repeatedly fought for them. But he also loves the unborn. He loves justice. He loves aliens (immigrants). He hates things that are hidden. He doesn’t judge people by their wealth, position or the color of their skin. He loves outsiders and insiders, but has no tolerance for insiders who use their power unrighteously. He speaks the truth but always with love. And Scripture tells us to be like him.

So, selecting a president this November is complicated…because neither candidate scores 100 on God’s scorecard and because we’re still “works in progress” when it comes to acting like Christ.

Therefore, I have one request: When you go into the voting booth (and every day until then), lay down the anger, the war of words, the certitude that borders on self-righteousness. Stop and turn up your palms and say a simple prayer: “Lord, help me. Help our nation. We’re coming off the rails and we can’t figure this out on our own.” In God we trust.

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Click here for information about a new app, created by MIT’s Media Lab, designed to judge the truthfulness of claims made by Super PACS in their TV ads.

Click here for information about a new app, created by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, that tracks the money spent in political campaigns.

Ask questions. Become an informed voter. Pray. Make your own decision.

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The Curse of Expectations–Yours, Mine, Ours

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Verla Wallace

The summer Olympic games are already a distant memory. Now that the hoopla has died down, I’ve been thinking about another part of the Olympic experience that never gets much ink. It’s the athletes who went home with crushed expectations and no medals.

It’s hard to understand how not medaling could be considered a crushing defeat, when just making it to the Olympics is an incredible achievement. But remember what happened to gymnastic phenom Jordyn Weiber on the first day of competition? She finished fourth among her U.S. teammates in qualifying for the All-Around competition and she was devastated.

It was not her only chance to shine during the games, as she later proved. But she had openly stated that winning the All-Around was a primary goal. And why not? She was practically born on a pommel horse. Before the games she was featured in TIME and USA Today as one of America’s best hopes for gold. But then a couple tiny missteps and the dream was gone. Her tears said it all.

Then there was Michael Phelps’s stunned look when he finished fourth in his first event. He was supposed to be a shoo-in for the gold. How could this happen? 

That’s the problem with expectations. They spur us on through laziness, fatigue, self-doubt, and weakness, to help us overcome and win the prize. But when we fall short–fairly or unfairly–they can turn on us and whisper messages that kill the soul.

You let us down. How could you let that happen? You should have been able to handle that. You could have done more. You would have surmounted this obstacle if you had been strong enough, not given up, tried harder. Fill in your taunt-of-choice–whether you’re an elite athlete or simply a person working for a promotion or fighting through a personal problem and struggling in a tough relationship.

There’s a fine line between expectations that call out the best in us and expectations that induce shame. Self-imposed shame can be the most toxic of all, birthing in us the need to be perfect and place too much dependence on performance to feel okay about ourselves. It devalues us and it’s the opposite of grace.

I’m really good at self-imposed shame. I call it high expectations. But when I don’t meet those expectations, my deep disappointment shows I’ve got a lot to learn. I paid close attention to how top American Olympians handled their dashed expectations.

1) They listen to the right voices.  Heart-to-heart pep talks from her coach and one of her teammates helped Jordyn Weiber recover from her crushing disappointment and come back strong. She listened to those who knew her best and had been with her through all the ups and downs. She knew they were trustworthy. Whose voices influence you? Do they have your best interests at heart? Do they share your values?

2) They know themselves well–what’s true and what’s not. When gymnast Gabby Douglas faltered in her last couple events, after winning gold and stealing our hearts in earlier events, she calmly said it was fatigue. It wasn’t because she didn’t get enough sleep but rather because she pulled out all the stops like she always did and she was just plain empty. “I’m human,” she said. Fact, not shame.

Was she happy about it? Probably not. As someone once said, the truth will set you free but first it will make you miserable. Nevertheless, she owned it, acknowledged she might need to train differently in the future, and moved on. Do you know yourself and your limitations? Do you treat yourself fairly?

3) They set expectations that are realistic, sustainable…and their own. In the end, what keeps us going is if the dream is ours. Are you living momma’s dream or your own? Are you engaged in activities that give you life or taking on things because you need someone else’s approval and can’t bear to disappoint them (“We can’t do it without you.”) or because you’ve let others shame you into things (“We’ve always been able to count on you before.”)? 

In the end, the one place you can always go to get the truth about yourself and your expectations is God. He may be disappointed for you because of choices you’ve made, but he’s not disappointed in you. Shame is not his game.

He knows you better than anyone. Bring him your disappointments and all the ways life has not turned out like you planned. Talk it over. You’ll never go home a loser.

Posted in Expectations | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

What If Words Were Banned?

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Verla Wallace

What if you were told you couldn’t talk for the next 30…60…90 days or longer? Or that you were at least severely limited in what you could say? Would you be willing to do it, if it was preparation for something that might usher in a whole new chapter in your life? Or if it would help you get unstuck from your current life circumstances?

It would mean no trash talking about your favorite team or kvetching about your boss. No yelling at the kids. No bragging about where you’ve been or what you’ve done. Not even grandiose or overwrought expressions of love. You’d have to find a non-verbal way to show your affection. What would it take to get you onboard?

Unfortunately, quiet and fewer words doesn’t get much respect in our culture. We have to be instructed to be quiet in theaters, libraries, and hospitals. Parents must order a timeout for their children.

Even the Securities and Exchange Commission prescribes a “quiet period” for privately held companies who register their intent to go public with an IPO (initial public offering). For several days before and after the first day of public trading, key players in the stock offering are severely restricted in what they can say about the company. The point is to protect investors from artificially inflated stock prices that have been hyped by grandiose company projections in advance of the stock launch.

Even though the rules for the “quiet period” have relaxed in recent years, it’s still universally hated. Apparently, no one likes to be told they can’t talk or that they must say less.

King Solomon, often called one of the wisest men who ever lived, wrote in Ecclesiastes 3 that there’s a time for everything, including “a time to be silent and a time to speak.” It doesn’t mean you drop out of your life and join a monastery. But there may be seasons when it’s appropriate to reign in the words.

We treat our journey through life as if it’s “The Amazing Race.” We run at Mach 1, certain that the slightest pause will cause us to lose the prize at the end. There is constant drama, action, high emotion, competition, putting ourselves in harm’s way to win.…and always lots and lots of words.

We act as if every ounce of air must be populated with as much blah blah blah as possible to maintain our forward momentum.

I have a painful memory of such a time in my own life. My prayers became more shrill and God felt more distant. I felt so frustrated at one point I said, “Are you listening, God?” The answer came back clearly in my spirit, “Oh, I’m listening. I’ve heard it all. Would you like to listen for a while?” Embarrassing.

Now I try to pay attention to those seasons when there need to be fewer words. Life still goes on. But it’s a time to give God extra space, so he can clear the deck of those parts of me that don’t fit anymore (like “shoulds” and “oughts” that weren’t his idea in the first place). And he has my full attention, so he can prepare me for the rest of the journey.

Does it all sound like too much mumbo jumbo? Try it. Talk less. Listen more. Build some unstructured time into your life to get alone with God. Tell him it feels awkward and you’re not sure how this whole quiet thing works. He’ll take it from there.

Posted in Our speech, Renewal, The Wilderness | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Best Part About Having No Clue

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Verla Wallace

The winner of Most Repeated Comment I’ve Heard the past two weeks is, “What’s going on? It feels like the world has gone mad!”

Colorado’s Waldo Canyon wildfire swallowed up 27 square miles of woodland and 347 homes–one of more than 50 areas around the country where wildfires raged.

In one week alone, more than 2,000 high temperature records were broken in the U.S. as an historic heat wave left hundreds of thousands without power and took the lives of at least 60 people.

Tropical storm Debby–the fourth major tropical storm of 2012–dropped 20″ of rain on Florida and spawned 21 tornadoes, even though hurricane season didn’t officially start until July 1st.

Citizens in Egypt and Mexico elected new Presidents in response to escalating drug wars and genocide. In the Middle East, a brokered peace initiative offered a glimmer of hope that Syria’s bloodbath may soon end.

Those are just the most top-of-mind headlines. Our world seems to be convulsing with pain and destruction.

Some argue the world has always been full of pain and destruction; the Internet simply dumps it all into our inbox in real-time massive doses. Others say we’ve made terrible individual and collective choices and the natural laws of the universe are playing out the consequences. Still others insist God has allowed some of these things to happen to get our attention, which raises a whole different batch of uncomfortable questions.

Answers to the big why questions are above my pay grade, but if you read the Bible, if you know anything about history, and if you pay attention to what’s going on in the world, some things are obvious:

* We’re not in control of the Big Picture. Have you been slapped around enough yet by life to figure that out? There is only one Master of the Universe and it’s not us.

* God has plans for times like this. It’s his chance to come alongside, when we feel most vulnerable, and re-establish his pre-eminence and influence in our lives. We tend to pay more attention when times are tough.

* When nothing makes sense and we can’t figure out what comes next, it’s a good time to review whether our relationship with God needs a tune-up. Do you see him as the Divine Wus, who benignly pats children on the head and spouts platitudes? Or do you see him as God, the disciplinarian and great Cosmic Thumb, only interested in spoiling your fun? Is he God, the aloof and scary deity, who performs miracles when he feels like it…but never gets around to you?

God wants you to know he is also the passionate, lovesick Creator who’s been eternally obsessed with making possible an intimate relationship with him, even when you weren’t interested. Wilderness seasons, when nothing makes sense, give him the chance to draw you close and remind you that you are his Beloved and always will be.

Remember when God freed the children of Israel from Egyptian slavery and promised them a new home, a Promised Land, that would flow with milk honey? They were pumped. Bring it, God!

Years later, when they were still wandering in the wilderness, with the Promised Land nowhere in sight, the true nature of their relationship with God was exposed. They had  reduced God to a combination Superman/Santa Claus, who existed to rescue them, feed them, get them to the Promised Land…but not meddle in their lives. When the going got tough, they grumbled and whined and even begged to go back to slavery. It was at least something they knew!  They didn’t understand anything out there in the wilderness.

They were missing the point. God was in love with them. They didn’t have to understand everything as long we they were with him. He would get them where they needed to be…and right on time. But, first, there would be a detour to straighten out a few things.

When they reached Mt. Sinai (the “mountain of God”), the furthest point from the Promised Land, God met Moses face-to-face to renew his covenant relationship with his people and remind them they, too, had responsibilities, if they were to honor and nurture the intimate relationship he offered. (Click here to read Hosea 2:14-20 in The Message, another time in history when God wooed his people all over again.)

No one enjoys the wilderness. It feels like we’ve lost a lot of ground and a lot of time. What we want is the Promised Land! But God can use the wilderness to expose the ways our relationship with him may have gotten off track, to remind us of his love for us, and to show us what’s our part in keeping that love relationship alive.

What happens in the wilderness can change everything.

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Life Above Niagara Falls

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Verla Wallace

Verla--head onWhen Nik Wallenda successfully walked across Niagara Falls Friday night, I was among the 13 million viewers holding their breath. In the end, what blew me away was not the feat itself–though worthy of all the praise it received–but his breathtaking focus.

I accept that daredevils march to a different drummer when it comes to risk. Wallenda is a seventh generation tightrope walker. He’s walked the high wire since the age of two. He was driven by a desire to restore the storied legacy of the Flying Wallendas–a legacy interrupted by the death of his great-grandfather on the high wire in 1978. In other words, Nik Wallenda was doing what Wallendas do.

In the same way, ABC was doing what networks do. They turned the 25-min. walk into three hours of commercial-laden overkill. Minute-by-minute meteorological updates on wind direction, precipitation, and weather-related details you never knew existed. Sports analysis, complete with charts and graphs, to demonstrate the athleticism required for the feat. Reports on the history of the Wallendas and the two-year effort to gain the permits required to do what no one else had ever done–walk directly over Horseshoe Falls.

Once the extravaganza began to unfold, am I the only person who was thinking, “Would everyone please shut up and just let the guy do his thing?” I really went ballistic when the walk was finally underway and, at what appeared to be the most dangerous part of the walk, ABC co-anchor Josh Elliot decided to have a little chat with Wallenda about how he was feeling. I kept hoping Wallenda would say something like, “Uh, I’m a little busy right now! I’ve got this life-or-death thing going on. Could you go get a latte or something…and check back later?

I know, I know. Ever the savvy showman, Wallenda (and ABC) knew that chatting mid-risk would heighten the excitement. And he was never at risk of dying. ABC insisted he wear a harness, in the event of a fall. But that doesn’t take away from the mental focus needed to walk 1,800 feet above the fastest-moving falls in the world…on a 2-inch wide wire…in slippers…through swirling winds and rain-soaked mist…at night!

Spiritual analogies flooded my mind as I watched the whole thing play out. Our journey through life with God can feel like a high-wire act, with hype and noise and distractions pulling us in all directions at every point along the way. It’s easy to lose sight of our ultimate goal. During the toughest parts of our journey, when circumstances whip us so relentlessly we think we won’t make it out alive, it can also feel like there are as many people trying to throw off our focus, for their own ends, as there are people who want us to finish well.

I realize there’s nothing about Wallenda’s walk that represents “normal” life. But how he handled his extraordinary circumstances and maintained his focus can be useful in normal life, especially the life of faith.

He prepared. He anticipated where he was most vulnerable and planned in advance how he would deal with those situations. Where are you most vulnerable to “falling?” How have you prepared yourself mentally and spiritually for those possible challenges?

He maintained a steady consistent walk.  He said it minimized the risks posed by weather and other circumstances. Are you reading the Bible, spending time in relationship with other believers, and talking to God on a regular basis about your life? It steadies you in the storm.

He prayed continually. Wallenda credits his constant prayers while on the rope with keeping him calm. It reminded him who and what was bigger than his challenge.

He listened to his father’s voice. Wallenda’s own father provided constant reassurance, guidance and encouragement during the walk, through an earpiece. Your heavenly Father will do the same for you, if your ear is listening for his voice.

He kept his eye on the destination, not the circumstances. The only time Wallenda broke focus was when he couldn’t resist looking down briefly at the majestic Horseshoe Falls. The circumstances were frightening and he said to himself, “What am I doing!” and quickly forced himself to refocus on the goal. Some distractions are not just informational or entertaining, they’re dangerous.

I’m not holding up Nik Wallenda as some kind of perfect role model. But every day in a thousand ways God uses the people and events in our path to teach us truth. The whole world is his learning lab. This time, for me, he used a tightrope and a daredevil with a dream.

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The Cliche` That’s Actually True

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Verla Wallace

Verla--head onMy husband and I recently saw “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” a charming movie about seven seniors from wildly different backstories, who choose to retire to what was billed as an exotic, upscale senior community in India.

It’s run by an idealistic young Indian man, long on vision and sales skill but short on business acumen. He dreams of turning a ramshackle old hotel into a place so beautiful the elderly will “refuse to die.” Of course, he has no money and the place is a mess.

Enter the seven seniors, looking for a fresh start after lives that didn’t turn out as they hoped.

There’s a widow whose husband never told her about the mountain of debt he incurred that left her penniless. There’s a cranky, prejudiced woman who lost a beloved job because of her age and has come to India for a cheap hip replacement. A retired respected judge, bored with his buttoned-down life, harbors a burdensome secret. Another man tries to be something he’s not. A female gold-digger is on the hunt for a rich husband. And there’s a couple, married 40 mostly miserable years–the husband soldiering on and the wife acting out her misery with endless bitterness.

In the hands of less capable actors, the story would be all cliche` and caricature. Instead, without using cinematic crutches like car chases, special effects, violence or gratuitous sex, they play out issues of disillusionment, disappointment, rejection, loss of purpose, rash judgments (by them toward others and vice versa), while looking for ways to numb their pain legally.

When they realize the hotel is not what they were promised, one of them yells at the young Indian, “I demand you take me to the hotel described in this brochure!”

We do the same thing with God sometimes. Haven’t you ever found yourself saying to God, “This isn’t what I signed on for! Take me to that place you promised, where everyone gets along and no one is sick and life is fair?”

In the movie, the Indian entrepreneur cheerfully tells his irate guest, “We have a saying in India: ‘Everything will be alright in the end. So, if everything is not yet alright, it is not yet the end!'”

Moviegoers may find his line a bit too cutesy. After all, when we suffer a betrayal, a job loss, a health setback, a wrong turn in life…and we make drastic changes to do something about it, only to have it blow up in our face…we’re not in the mood for bumper sticker wisdom.

But, as the story plays out, the characters begin to reach out to help each other, they face their pain, make new choices, and learn they’re stronger than they thought. They don’t end up where they expected but they are happier and better off as a result of all that has happened.

It’s not that different for those of us living the life of faith. There is much we need to learn about how to handle life’s tough times. But we don’t learn much if life is easy (which, by the way, was never promised). Rather, God uses every difficult minute and circumstance between now and when we die to grow us, because he already knows how the story ends and it’s all good.

So, if everything is not yet alright, it is not yet the end.

Is your heart too heavy to feel hopeful at the moment? Click on these links for encouragement. The music is contemporary but the words reflect truths straight from the Bible. Mercy Me challenges us to “Hold Fast” because help is on the way. And Faith Hill reminds us, “There Will Come a Day” when heartache will be a distant memory. He promised.

 *   *   *

“I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this

world you  will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” 

John 16:33 NIV

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