Presby-Musings

Today we'll be reflecting on Psalm 42 and what it means to struggle when it seems like God is absent.  You can read Psalm 42 HERE .  “Faith is not the absence of doubt, nor is it the constant awareness of God's presence. Faith is the willingness to keep turning toward God even when God seems silent, trusting that the silence itself is not abandonment but another way God teaches us to seek.” — Frederick Buechner Some of the darkest and most challenging seasons of my life have been marked by what I can only describe as the silence/absence of God's presence.   As a pastor, I have taught, preached, and written about how God is present with us in every moment of our lives, even the ones when it feels like we are alone and abandoned.  But it's one thing to say that to others, and quite another at times to apply the same teachings to myself.  Over the years. I have grown to take comfort in the fact that even Jesus, when he was suffering on the Cross, cried out to ...

Today's Daily Devo reflects on how praying/reading the Psalms can help us when we are feeling absolutely wrung out and exhausted.  We'll be focusing on Psalm 62, which you can read HERE . “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Christ does not invite us because we have finally become strong enough. He invites us because we are tired enough to admit that we cannot carry life alone.”— Reflection on Matthew 11 by Henri J. M. Nouwen Over the past few years, I had some dark times when worry and anxiety so consumed me that I lost the ability to get good rest.  I dreaded nighttime because I knew I would undoubtedly awaken in the wee hours and have a hard time falling back asleep.   I tried all kinds of sleep remedies, but nothing seemed to work.  I was exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally, and it didn't take long for spiritual exhaustion to set in as well.   Even when I was able to sleep soundly...

  Today we continue our reflection on how to read/pray the Psalms when we are experiencing intense emotions.  The Psalm that we'll be reflecting on today is Psalm 103, which you can read HERE .   Today's Daily Devo focuses on gratitude, and what it means to live each day finding ways to express it, even when things aren't going as well as we hoped.   I know that I have struggled with this over the years, and I'm learning that it requires intention to find things to be grateful for and to express that gratitude to God.   The more gratitude becomes an intention, the more it can become a habit, and when it becomes a habit, you find yourself experiencing gratitude on a daily basis.  My fiancé and I have adopted the practice of praying simple prayers of thanks before every meal. At this point, you should resist the urge to say, "Awwww, isn't that sweet!"  I admit there's a sweetness to it, but that's not why I mention it.  These simple p...

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the judgment that something else is more important than fear. Faith does not ask us to deny what frightens us; it invites us to discover that God's presence is greater than whatever threatens us.” — Ambrose Redmoon  Today we will continue our reflections on how to use/pray the Psalms from the Hebrew Scriptures when we are feeling intense emotions or feelings.  The Psalm we'll be exploring today is Psalm 27, which you can read HERE .  This past week, I went on a camping trip with my three boys to Colorado.  We were camping in a fairly primitive campground in the Arapaho National Forest, at the most remote campsite.   On our first night, at around 4 AM, we were visited by a bear, who took a liking to my flattop grill and also made attempts at opening my large box full of camping gear.  She dragged my grill top around, sat licking it for a while, and then made her way over to the tents.   My two oldest bo...

  The Season of Pentecost & Summer Sermon Series These stories aren’t about perfect people. They teach us to trust God even when we cannot see the path ahead.   Today, we’re going to study a story about plural marriage, wedding night switcheroos, and a family divided by deceit, favoritism, and jealousy.   I know, right?  This was the original Sister Wives show.   Seriously, though...  Among the many things that we can learn from these stories in Genesis is that we don't have a corner on the market when it comes to family dysfunction.  It's been going on for a very long time.  I'm certain that there are a lot of us here today who have our own stories, our own personal pain over broken relationships within our families.  The pain might be fresh or decades long, but we feel it deeply, and maybe we have let it come to define us.   What I hope we will learn today, though, is that despite our best efforts to mess things up, God...

This week in the Daily Devos, we will explore some Psalms from the Hebrew Scriptures, particularly those that deal with intense emotions.  The Psalms represent centuries of Hebrew poetry, prayers, and liturgies meant for worship and individual prayer.   I'll be providing links to the Psalms that we'll be reflecting on so you can read them easily before you read the reflection.  Today's psalm is Psalm 13, which you can read HERE .  As you can surmise from the title of this Devo, our topic today is how to learn from the Psalms when you are dealing with anger.  To begin, there's an amazing quote I'd like to share from the late Eugene Peterson's book Answering God:  “The Psalms teach us that every human emotion can become a conversation with God. Nothing is too raw, too painful, or too honest to be prayed. The miracle of the Psalms is not that they eliminate our anger or sorrow, but that they refuse to let those emotions have the final word. They lead us, ...

  “Well done, good and faithful servant.” — Matthew 25:23 “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” — Dale Carnegie We're going to end our reflections on the quiet virtues this week with faithfulness.   I think it's best to start with an important question: How do you define faithfulness?   You could say that faithfulness is all about being steadfast, loyal, and constant.  It can be defined by fidelity, allegiance, and the ability to hold what we have been entrusted with.   It can also be marked by simply showing up, being present, giving of yourself, and being attentive to others' needs.   I've known so many faithful people in my life.  They are the ones who were rarely in the spotlight, mostly working behind the scenes, content to do what needed to be done without jockeying for control.   Far too many of us struggle wi...

  “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” — C. S. Lewis I'm not ashamed to admit that I love watching old reruns of Little House on the Prairie from the late 1970s.  I used to watch it when I was a kid, and it's kind of nice to rewatch it.  My fiance and I typically watch little snippets of episodes when we eat breakfast and lunch, so the episodes last a lot longer, but that's okay.  In contrast to most of the other shows you can stream, Little House always has a positive message, and the shows always end well, no matter what.  I'm going to say this unironically:  You also learn some valuable lessons each time you watch.   For example, the other day, one of the characters delivered this amazing gem of wisdom: "Swallowing your pride doesn't give you an upset stomach."  After I heard that line and exclaimed over it, my fiancé said, "That's probably going to end up in one of your Devos."  She was right...

  “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” — Simone Weil One of the great challenges of modern life is learning how to pay attention. I struggle with this something fierce at times.  I think when I was younger, I had more capacity to multitask and still listen to what someone was saying, but in recent years, that seems to have gone out the window.   I get distracted by so many things throughout the day, most of which are related to my phone.   I'm having to learn to be more present and to put down what has been aptly called "the silicone obsession" (my smartphone) to ensure I'm attentive.  I'm learning what it means to be more fully present and aware.  It's not an easy thing to master, truth be told.   I feel like there are more than a few of us out there dealing with this.  Our days are filled with distractions. Notifications compete for our focus. We multitask constantly. Even when speaking with others, our min...

  “Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.” — Francis de Sales When I was a kid, I learned this memory verse in Sunday School from the book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Scriptures that went like this: “A soft word turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." Proverbs 15:1 Like many of those short, memorable Bible verses from my youth, this one stuck with me.  But while it may have been committed to memory, it hasn't always been something I put into practice.   Reponding gently to criticism, insults, and other assorted verbal assaults is not something most of us do well.  The idea of offering a "soft word" in response to someone else's hard words is not my first instinct, and I'm guessing some of you may resonate with that.   Acting gently is something that I have to work at every day.  Gentleness does not come easy at times, especially when we feel threatened, misunderstood, or dismissed by others. ...

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson This week in the Daily Devos, we're going to explore what I call the Quiet Virtues — practices that are often undervalued in the culture we inhabit but are essential to living a life filled with meaning and purpose.   Today, we're going to focus on the Quiet Virtue of Patience, which for many of us (including me) is one of the more difficult to master.   I'm reminded of an old adage that I've heard many times over the years about patience that goes something like this: "Be careful when you pray to God to give you patience, because God will teach you patience by giving you all kinds of situations where you have to learn it the hard way."  I'm not entirely sure that it works that way, to be honest.  But I do believe that there are countless opportunities for us to have our patience tried and tested all around us, all the time.   Even a simple trip to the grocery store can p...

  “Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.” — Martin Luther King Jr. Twenty-five years ago, I found myself at a crossroads. I was on a path to become a British history professor and was just finishing a semester at Christ Church College in Oxford, England.   I was tasked by my major professor to spend the next eight years of my life earning my Master's degree, then a PhD, focused on an obscure 17th-century Presbyterian parliamentarian about whom very little was written.   The weight of that mind-numbing and soul-sucking task had taken all the joy out of what I thought I wanted.  As much as I loved British history, I found myself wishing I'd stuck with a Creative Writing major.  All I knew was that the life I'd been planning for wasn't going to be the life I lived, and I didn't know what to do.   One of the most difficult aspects of grieving the life we thought we would have is that we rarely know how the ...

  “Although no one can go back and make a brand-new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand-new ending.”— Carl Bard When I was serving a church in Florida some years ago, I had a wonderful church member who lost her husband after a prolonged illness.  She had been his primary caregiver for several years, devoting herself to his care.   In the end, she was exhausted, filled with grief over his loss, and spiritually drained from all that she had been through.   All of the dreams they'd had of how they would spend their retirement together were dashed, and I remember talking to her about what might come next, and she was too weary to even think about it.   For years, all of her energy had been focused on her husband, and after he was gone, she couldn't seem to think about anything else.   Grief has a way of narrowing our vision. When we focus on what has been lost, it can become difficult to imagine what remains possible. The f...