“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?”
– Jesus, Luke 12:25
Eternal One
Overcoming One
Author of Life and New Life
Free me from worry
Break the chains of dread
Loose the doors of perspective
So I may see your path of hope
and follow
Luke 13:10-17
Jesus Heals a Crippled Woman on the Sabbath
Lord of the Sabbath
King of Glory
Lift up our face
We are bent
Bowed low in stature and spirit
So much is out of our control
So much we have brought upon ourselves
What can we see with our eyes on the dust?
You see our need
Your blessing twisted
Your word weaponized
Fear and Falsehood
Shame and Gatekeeping
Lord of the Sabbath
King of Glory
Lift up our face
Enter in with Your blessing
Your welcome
Your healing
Your strength
Your truth
Your salvation
Your glory
_______________
For the next few months, I’m reading a chapter from the Gospels each day. This is part of the Summer in the Scriptures reading plan sponsored by the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church. Click Here for the reading plan.
As part of the Facebook group, I’ve been supplying prayers based on the day’s reading. Feel free to post your prayers and observations based on the readings here or there as well.
May the grace of the Gospels, the challenge, and the call, inspire us to great faith and great good works in Jesus’ name. – Lisa <
Recently, I began following Amber Rae on Instagram @heyamberrae. Again and again, I’m inspired by her gift for sharing wisdom and life helps in simple and effective ways.
Her Amazon bio says it well, “Her writing blends raw, personal storytelling with psychology and neuroscience, and has reached over 5 million people in 195 countries.”
I know of so many who struggle with this side of forgiveness, including me. We can forgive others, but we continue to withhold that same grace for ourselves.
When we withhold forgiving ourselves, its actually a form of pride. We’re saying our sin, our mistakes, are greater than what Jesus can offer us. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I pray these reminders from Amber Rae will help you claim forgiveness and freedom in Christ. – Lisa <><
4 Ways to Practice Forgiving Yourself
1. Use guilt as a compass.
Guilt shows us that our actions conflict with our values. It helps us course-correct.
2. Watch out for shame.
Guilt = I made a mistake.
Shame = I’m a mistake.
Forgiveness = I’m learning.
Wisdom = What did I learn from this?
3. Imagine what forgiveness feels like and try this:
write yourself an apology letter. You let yourself down, too.
4. Let go of what you cannot control.
Do your part, own your mistake and let go. We can’t control how others receive our apology or how they forgive.
Olive Wood carving of the Woman at the Well from Jerusalem. We brought this treasure back with us from our recent trip.
Sermon Series: There’s More to Life
Message 2 of 5: Woman of Samaria (Woman at the Well)
Scripture: John 4:3-26
Notes from a message offered Sunday, 3/31/19 at Trinity United Methodist Church, Sarasota Florida.
Rebekah Lyons testimony of God’s unconditional love. Rebekah is the mother of a child with Down syndrome.
The Woman at the Well
In the ancient world, your place as a woman was defined by your connection to a man:
Father, Brother, Husband, Son. We’re not just talking about social status- we’re talking access to what’s needed to survive.
Shelter from the extreme heat and cold of the desert
Food in your belly and clothes on your back
Loving relationships to weather you through the cruelties of life
Access to water on a regular basis
Where is her father? Most likely deceased.
Where is her brother, her sons, her children? Maybe she had none.
Where is the husband? Scripture tells us she’s had five husbands. Could it be in this harsh and cruel environment she’s lost five husbands to death? Maybe.
Could it be that because men in this time and culture controlled marriage and controlled divorce, could it be that she’s been thrown away five times? Told to go, you are not wanted.
The man she’s with now will not claim her legally. She has been shared and shamed, a survivor of cruelty and abuse.
She is an outcast in her community. We know this because in the ancient world went to the well based on their status. The most respected admired women would visit the well first, and she’s drawing her morning water at noon.
She is alone. Not in the company of the other women. Not enjoying their camaraderie and community.
This unnamed woman is barren of security. She’s been thrown away, driven away, shared and shamed, outcast, isolated.
She finds herself at Jacob’s well and today there’s a man there. He is Jewish. She is Samaritan. I imagine what is going through her mind and heart: How much more shame and disgrace am I going to get today? Jews and Samaritans don’t hang out. Am I going to hear from this man’s lips, “Half-breed! Heretic!”?
No. She hears from the lips of our Jesus respect. Good News.
They’re at a well, so Jesus uses the metaphor of water to share the Good News of Living Water, cleansing, refreshing, restoring, new birth. It is available to her.
He gives her a chance to reveal herself and she does. She’s honest and truthful. He recognizes it. The conversation could have gone any direction, at that point and she dives in deep theologically.
Jesus sees her, not what people label her. He sees how she’s been abused, her great need, her wounds, and yet he sees her giftedness. He sees her keen mind.
They begin a discussion like rabbi and to rabbi. Where do we worship and how do we worship and is there a place for me in worshiping God?
This is the longest theological discussion in the four Gospels. This unnamed woman of Samaria.
Deep down, deep down, deep down the question she is asking and the question each and every one of asks is: Does God want me and does God love me?
That is the core question. My community threw me out. They’ve shamed me and abused me. The Jews say I’m not worshiping in the right place in the right way. The Messiah is coming …
The core question: Does God want me and does God love me. The answer is always Yes! Always!
It is yes to the woman of Samaria and it is yes to us.
No matter what the world names us. No matter what circumstances we find ourselves in. No matter what we’ve done to survive. The answer is always Yes!
The love of God is unconditional love. The love of God comes without judgment. “God sent his son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” (John 3:17)
This emptiness, this dryness, this wilderness, can only be quench by Jesus’s living water, Jesus’s saving love.
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God
Oh, it chases me down, fights ’til I’m found, leaves the ninety-nine
I couldn’t earn it, and I don’t deserve it, still, You give Yourself away
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God – Chorus of Reckless Love by Cory Asbury
This week the Towery boys found it and claimed it for themselves. Rebekah Lyons saw it in the unconditional love of her son with Down syndrome. A great gift that he’s sharing. The woman at the well finds it in Jesus and shares it as well. She becomes one of the first evangelists. She runs back to the people who’ve been awful to her and says, “I think the Messiah is at the well.” They come, Jesus stays with them for days and many are saved.
Closing Prayer from Ephesians 3
Repetition of the word love
17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Insert your name or someone else’s name as a prayer of blessing that you/they would know the unconditional love of God and place their trust in Jesus as their Leader and Forgiver (Lord and Savior).
Father, out of Your honorable and glorious riches, strengthen ___________. Fill ___________’s soul with the power of Your Spirit so that through faith the Anointed One will reside in his/her heart. May love be the rich soil where ________’s life takes root. May it be the bedrock where ___________’s life is founded, so that together with all of Your people, he/she will have the power to understand that the love of the Anointed is infinitely long, wide, high, and deep, surpassing everything anyone previously experienced. God may Your fullness flood through __________’s entire being. Now to the God who can do so many awe-inspiring things, immeasurable things, things greater than we ever could ask or imagine through the power at work in us, to Him be all glory in the church and in Jesus the Anointed from this generation to the next, forever and ever. Amen.
Growing in Resilience
Day 13, Read Isaiah 52
Reflection: Rise and Run, based on Isaiah 52:1-2, 7, 11-12 and Hebrews 12:1-3
I was struck by the similarities between Isaiah 52 and Hebrews 12:1-3. Running, rising, moving forward, freedom from sin and captivity, putting off the old/sinful and putting on the new/good, persevering, enduring, God going before and making the way, joy, sacrifice, strength, purpose, intentionality, salvation…
Isaiah 1-2, 7, 11-12
Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion! Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for the uncircumcised and the unclean shall enter you no more. Shake yourself from the dust, rise up, O captive Jerusalem; loose the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter Zion! … How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”… Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of it, purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the Lord. For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
Hebrews 12:1-3 NRSV
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.
You are surrounded
With great and good companions
With witnesses who ran the race before you
Now cheering you on
Inspiring you with their courageous faith
With witnesses running beside you
Churning up the dust of this well-traveled-path
Encouraging you with the steady beat of their beautiful feet
Rise and run
Lay aside every weight
Every shackle
Every excuse
Every inner critic shouting against inspiration
Lay aside the sin that clings so closely
Every self-serving motivation
Every self-medicating choice
Every weak thing you’ve trusted more than God
Lay them aside
Shake off the dust
Rise and run
Run beloved, run
Run with perseverance the race
Daring
Enduring
Awake
Free
Run
Looking not to the dust, but to Jesus
The Pioneer and Perfecter of your faith
Look not to the right or to the left
Look to Jesus
Focus
Follow
Jesus is The Way, opening the path
The Truth, clearing the clutter
The Light, blazing the trail
He runs
He endures
For the sake of the joy
Of setting the joy before you
and in you
Run
Run remembering
Joy is your strength
Good News is your song
Rise and endure
For this race comes with a cross
A course of blood and tears
Mocking and piercing
Take it up
Disregard its shame (that ancient enemy)
Let it fall by the wayside
Tired scraps on the breath of new life
Take it up and run
Depart! Go!
Sit down in the next life
Not this one
Rise and run
Following and looking and remembering him who endured
So that you may not grow weary
Or lose heart
For your strongest, most beautiful step is yet to come
Growing in Resilience
Happy Trinity Sunday! – Lisa <><
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