Monthly Archives: April 2017

Father, Thank You

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Woman on pier. Text reads "Father Thank You"

by Lydia Floren

The following prayer is on the first page of my thanksgiving journal. It blesses me, and I thought it might bless you too.

Father, Thank You…

  • You give me identity. You made me and gifted me with all the wonderful qualities I possess.  You have helped me see them and explore them. To understand them better. To cement them into a better understanding of who I am. 
  • You give me belonging. My place to belong. With no judgment or condemnation. Just acceptance, love, arms open wide. This place/home is

– with You. Every day. Where I am, there You are as well. And where You lead me to be is where I belong at the moment. And I am safe wherever that is.

– with other true believers, including those who have gone before, (like Nouwen, C.S. Lewis, Solzhenitsyn, St. Francis, Brother Lawrence, Hannah Whitehall Smith), and those in the Bible. And those in my life right now.

– And in eternity, my forever home.

And because of this true place that I belong, I can be content in the place that I am, wherever You have led me to be that day.

  • You give me immeasurable value, an innate sense of true worth that has nothing to do with any accomplishment. Just with the reality of who I am – my inherent and unique spirit. You didn’t come to save me for my usefulness, but simply because I am important to you. I was worth coming for and dying for, simply for the joy of my company with You forever.
  • You give me a sense of significance. A unique place of service and influence in this world. You invite me into the world every day to love people, and to serve them and minister to them. To be a part of what You are doing to redeem the world, and to restore it.  In Your power. By Your direction. With Your wisdom and discernment. And because it is in Your power, and by Your direction, I don’t need to fret about the details. I can just trust the process and the plan I have prayed thru with You, knowing that You will adjust and redirect me when needed.
  • You give me safety and provision. Protection. Safe passage wherever You lead me in life. And the understanding that You will provide everything that I need, including contentment in whatever circumstance I find myself. And the ability to face pain and walk through it. And You give me the security of knowing that You will come find me if I wander off the path, and will lead me back in the direction I need to go.
  • You give me guidance, and fellowship/company along the path You have set out for me, every day practical guidance in healing, in ministry, in growth, in self-care, in tending what I have been given. Even guidance in how to plan, to strategize. Guidance in the spontaneous. Guidance in how You want to work thru me to bless others.
  • You give me Yourself.  The greatest and best gift, and the most enduring one. The ongoing joy of knowing that I am continually in Your presence/company. Continually loved/cherished. Continually wanted, and included. Continually protected. Continually supplied with everything that I need. Continually being healed, renewed, empowered, challenged, encouraged.

Father, thank You for the joy of knowing that I can trust You with my whole heart and my whole life. 

But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth.  John 16:8 

Dreading Easter

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Stained Glass church windows with title "Dreading Easter"by Lydia Floren

When I was little kid, I had very mixed emotions about Easter. I loved the part where I got to decorate eggs, eat chocolate, and dress up in a pretty new outfit. But, I dreaded going to church on Easter.  They said the Easter story was good news, but it didn’t seem good to me. It was the story of how mean people made fun of Jesus, and beat Him up, and then killed Him, and that somehow, it was all my fault.  What was good about that?

But I know something now that I didn’t know then: I didn’t kill Jesus.

Jesus made the decision to die entirely on His own. In fact, He could have changed His mind anywhere along the way.  For example, I can easily imagine this scenario happening in the middle of Jesus’ torture:

Jesus lifts his chin and focuses straight ahead.  Suddenly everything stops, suspended mid-motion. The roar of the crowd turns to silence. The razorlike whip, a mere 2 inches from His torn flesh, dangles in midair like strands of Spanish moss. He rips off His cruel crown and tosses it aside. In three long strides, He reaches the men stooped over his robe. He grabs the garment from frozen hands, donning it as He walks away, slicing through the stilled crowd like a hot knife through butter.  

This could have happened.  Jesus had plenty of power to do this and more. But He didn’t.  Every single moment of His life, and every second leading up to His death, He made the same decision over and over again. To stay. To endure. I can almost see Him gazing at each person in that vicious crowd, and as their eyes met, His murmuring, “You are worth it.”  He is still saying it to each of us. “I love you. You were worth it then, and you are worth it now. I have called you by name. You are mine.”

This Easter season, stop at the cross for a while, not to pile on guilt, but so you can be rid it. Let God banish those lies swirling around in your head: “You are worthless.” “You are a screw-up.” “You don’t deserve to be loved.”   Ditch the lie I believed as a child, “I killed Jesus.”   Stay at the cross for a while and absorb the truth: “Jesus chose to die because He loved me, and wanted me with Him forever. That’s how important I am to Him.”  “I am totally worth it.  He said so with His words, and by His actions.”

Shed the lies. Accept the truth. And then move on. Live your life in the freedom that Christ paid so dearly for. Freedom from condemnation and shame. Freedom in the knowledge that you are loved, valued, wanted, and worth dying for.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:1

It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Gal 5:1

There is no dread in Easter. Only joy.

His joy is us.

Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2 NASB

Our joy is Him.

I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. John 15:11