Three Steps to Hope

Posted by RJ Thesman

Psalm 37 has long been a favorite passage. Outlined and highlighted in various versions of my Bibles. A familiar place to reflect on the variety of its meanings.

This year I returned often to verse seven and found a three-step formula to ease me through the cold gloom. A stairway opened toward Hope.

Be Still. The exact opposite of how so many of us live our lives. Until we are forced by sickness or vacations or circumstances to stop the frantic pace.

But more than a physical slowing down, this concept shifts us back to first gear. The ‘Be Still’ step indicates a mindset reboot.

To cease striving for perfection
To stop trying to figure out why prayers are not answered
To trust that a higher motive will provide the acceleration when it is time to move or change

Being still is that place of ultimate trust where we rest in the love that will not let us go. And know that God’s desired outcome will be the best for us.

Wait Patiently for God. Many Type A’s like me do not do well with the idea of waiting. It feels too passive. Too scary to wait until someone else or something else determines a direction.

Yet this waiting is not a passive work, for patience requires an inner ‘whoa’ when we most want to act.

Patience again reminds us to trust the process. To be careful with our interpretations of ‘Go.’ This waiting determines to be grateful for the pause. Sincere about letting God’s work have its ultimate timeline.

This step forward lives without regret because we anticipate the day we can say, “Oh, that’s why it took so long.”

Do Not Fret. ‘Fret’ is rather an old-fashioned word, but I like it better than ‘worry.’ It implies more anxiety, an actual mind-racing and finger-snapping type of stress. Like the worry stones we used to wear down with our thumbs.

Like when my mother said, “I’m sure stewin’ about that.”

To cease from fretting means we inwardly step back. Let our worried souls unplug. We purposely commit to be still. To wait patiently. To move to the place where we no longer even think about the problem.

To not fret takes an intentional leap toward a trustful gratitude. It releases the problem and refuses to grab it back. It believes the issue will eventually resolve as all problems must — one way or another.

Be Still. Wait Patiently. Do Not Fret.

Three steps that lead us toward a hope-filled peace. A result that creates healthy soul care when we need it most.

Follow these three steps through the devotional book, Day by Day: Hope for Senior Wisdom.

Hope in the Queue

Posted by RJ Thesman

While typing and printing off documents, my printer suddenly decided to morph into la-la land. Electronic devices are wonderful — until they don’t work. Then we’re stuck.

Frustrated, I tried several times to print the last document, not realizing what was happening on the other end of electronic cyberspace. After rebooting, unplugging, and still not printing, I turned everything off and quit for the day.

The next morning, the printer decided to resuscitate itself. It spewed out page after page of my document that had been hiding in the queue. Eventually, it stopped — but not before I added several inches to my pile of recyclable scrap paper. Sometimes, the electronic world imitates life.

How many times have we prayed and prayed, waited and waited, while it seemed heaven itself lived in an introverted silence?

Nothing happens for weeks, months, even years. Our prayers seem stuck in the queue of God’s waiting room. Then suddenly — an avalanche of answered prayers, all bunched up at the same time. We gasp at the range of unexpected blessings and rejoice in the assurance that God surely loves us.

As a writer, sometimes my words get stuck in the creative queue. I’ve never experienced a complete writer’s block, but I do know how to procrastinate and avoid sitting in the chair. What I have discovered is that the discipline produces its own fruit.

Although I may slug through a paragraph or two, if I keep going, keep making the words happen, keep moving my fingers — the creative gift kicks in. I’m in another world for hours.

So what can we learn from our moments stuck in the queue?

Persistence is a Worthwhile Virtue. The best writing evolves as a result of self-discipline. When we give it our best and keep at it, day after day — eventually, we produce good fruit.

Persistence in prayer is a worthwhile venture. Although we may not see the results for a while, eventually the discipline we have learned will result in a stronger soul. Hopefully also a deeper faith in the One who decides how and when to answer those prayers.

Nothing worthwhile happens easily. Even Jesus had to count the cost and persist until his task was finished.

Persistence Requires Patience. Persistence and patience are twins. They sometimes look alike and often require the same disciplines to feed them. But the persistence twin is a process while the patience twin reveals a quality of life.

Patience reminds us to wait, then wait more. When we can no longer stand the wait, persistence digs deep. We learn how much strength authentic waiting requires.

Patience is the months-or-years-long battle, waiting for the chemo to take effect and save a life. Patience allows the preschooler to tie his own shoes even while the school bus honks.

Patience sits beside the Alzheimer’s resident and hears the same questions again and again, then responds with a gentle spirit. Patience gives grace when the addiction festers, but the victim still tries to recover.

Patience learns through the passage of time because it cannot be hurried. If we want the best result, we must not deny the waiting.

The Best Action may be No Action. For planners and doers like me, it feels better to do something. To hit that print button over and over. To unplug and try again and again. But sometimes, the cyberspace universe has to first get its pixels in order and find its missing megabytes.

I don’t even understand its language. How then, can I make it do something?

When we’ve prayed and prayed, waited and persisted yet nothing happens — we can use the prayer of release. Oh God, I can’t stand this, and I absolutely have no clue what to do. Please take over and do whatever you need to do to mend this problem. Help me to rest in you and trust that you know exactly what’s wrong and how to fix it. I give up.

The prayer of release feels counterintuitive to what we’ve been taught about productivity. But even the Psalmist portrayed the same advice, “Be still and rest in the Lord; wait for him and patiently lean yourself upon him. Fret not…” (Psalm 37:7 Amplified).

Be still. Unplug. Stop trying to figure it out. Don’t worry. Let go and let God salve your weary soul.

If we don’t learn how to be still, then we end up with a heap of nothing: wasted words, frustrated prayers, piles of worthless paper.

As we wait in the queue for God to restore and redeem what is so wrong, we can know with faith’s certainty that God does indeed know what he’s doing.

Maybe he’s just waiting for us to unplug and trust him so he can finish the task.

Waiting is often a daily practice. Learn more about it in Day by Day: Hope for Senior Wisdom.

Hope in the Silent Timing

Posted by RJ Thesman

Since God is timeless, it is always a sweet surprise when I discover him working — right on time.

A year ago, I bought a lovely journal to add to my stash. Never enough journals for a writer, you know. This particular journal caught my eye because the cover was a quiet country scene with wildflowers and the verse from Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.”

In one version, the imperative is to “Cease striving.” Still another version underscores the words, “Let be and be still.”

But my favorite is the Amplified version of a parallel verse in Psalm 37:7, “Be still and quietly rest in the Lord, wait for him, and patiently lean yourself upon him.”

Just before one of my New Mexico vacations, God pointed me toward this verse. It became a visual for my morning meditations and a jumpstart for hope.

Be still. As I sat beside the clear mountain stream and listened to its melodious splashing over smooth rocks, I practiced being still. I allowed the sounds and textures of the Southwest to speak to me, to bring solace to my stressed soul.

No need to utter a prayer. Just sit there and enjoy God’s presence, highlighted by his creation. The stillness became its own prayer.

It is an important spiritual practice — and an emotional gift — to be still. To shut out the noise. Turn off the TV. Set the phone aside and be still. Solitude is a friendly teacher which often reveals the exact message our souls need. In the perfect timing.

Rest quietly. In our electronically-designed world, we have lost the ability to rest quietly. It takes intentional purposing to retrieve it.

During my time in the mountains, cell service was sporadic. A gift. No need to watch TV when we could go hiking on mountain trails or fish at the stream. On vacation, I leave my laptop at home. No Facebook posts, tweets, or emails reach me.

The monastics called it “The Grand Silence.” Every evening they disciplined themselves to cease speaking and curtail activity so they might clearly discern the Divine Whisper.

Saint Benedict, the father of the monastic way wrote, “Therefore, because of the importance of silence, let permission to speak be seldom given to perfect disciples, even for good and holy and edifying discourse.”

In silence, we learn more about ourselves. Why we fidget. What stimulates us and prevents sleep. Which noise-makers plant seeds of anger or cynicism which affect our faith.

On Sundays, I observe an internet Sabbath and the last hour before bedtime is a time of silence. It restores my soul and prepares me for the new week.

Wait for him. As we rest quietly and wait for God to share whatever secrets he wants, the discipline of patience asserts itself.

God’s timing is, of course, perfect. When we step out of his boundaries, we find ourselves stressed, burdened, and puzzled that our peace is disturbed.

But as we wait, our souls anticipate when God WILL speak, how he WILL instruct us, and show us the way that is best for us. He always has our best in mind. As the Alpha and the Omega, he determines the end from the beginning. Then he fills in everything in between.

On the last evening of that vacation, God showed up. I walked past the river and around the man-made lake where other vacationers fished and fed the ducks. In the movement of walking, I thanked God for the week of quiet and opened my soul’s heart to hear his response.

Several paragraphs of instruction flowed through my soul, along with the warmth of divine love. A reminder to obey the final phrase of Psalm 37:37, to patiently lean on God for future plans and next steps.

As I pulled out my journal to write and process God’s promises, I glanced once again at the cover. The country scene with wildflowers in the foreground. A quiet setting, serenely focused on the surrounding land, far from the noise of the city and its fast-paced intensity.

And that verse, engraved boldly on the grey background, “Be still and know that I am God.”

Yes indeed. God showed up — right on time — with an underscoring of hope. He will do the same for you, as you quietly rest in him.

On this Valentine’s Day, consider sharing hope with a single mom. Just for Today: Hope for Single Moms.

Hope Craves Balance

Posted by RJ Thesman

Like a delicate scale tipping toward the stress side, balance remains a challenge. Work takes the main role. Responsibilities scream, “Do me first. No time for play.”

But without play, creativity is a leftover.

It fights against the stress and becomes its own version of writer’s block. Not that the words cease, but the sentences are no longer filtered through the divine whisper.

Instead, they sound like clichés as the craft becomes lifeless to the writer.

Without play, stress wins. Because more tasks always appear, more places to go, more projects to complete, more responsibilities to wear us down.

Play pouts in the corner, unable to garner attention yet plaguing us with its silent screams.

In a corner of my office sits my tote bag filled with colorful pens, crayons and the latest Mandala. But work calls through the filter of stress, so I ignore the bag even while wishing for a just a few moments of playful joy.

In her book about recovering balance, Finding the Deep River Within, Abby Seixas writes, “We must break the cultural habit of sacrificing our inner lives for our outer lives, of giving up depth in deference to speed.”

Stress and its deceptive sister, Speed, require that we work hard to complete more tasks. Finish everything before the end of the day. We do our work quickly so we can accomplish more, then check our to-do lists for the satisfaction of completion.

Yet with speed, we sacrifice the beauty of rest that ultimately feeds our souls. We give up our need to go deep and find our most intimate selves.

We lose our place, sitting in God’s lap where he whispers, “Be still and know me.”

The delicate scale balances precariously toward burnout. But the solution is not that difficult. We all have 168 hours each week to figure it out. Yes, work is important. But so is play.

It takes merely a smidgeon of self-discipline to stop multi-tasking, to cut away at the distractions, to invite soul time.

To breath deeply, close the eyes against the computer glare, and embrace solitude. And in that embrace, we learn to love again — our own souls as well as the Divine One who made us in the first place.

To make the decision for more balance brings hope to that inner place where the child still waits for the adult. Where memories of laughter, colors, and sand castles still thrive.

I commit to that decision, embrace hope, and gather my toys. Because hope shines when we commit to play.

Be still and know with a devotional book for seniors. Day by Day: Hope for Senior Wisdom.

Hope Reveals Timing

Posted by RJ Thesman

Since God is timeless, it is always a sweet surprise when I discover him working—right on time.

In one version, the imperative of “Be still” is to “Cease striving.” Still another version underscores the words, “Let be and be still.”

But my favorite is the Amplified version of a parallel verse in Psalm 37:7, “Be still and quietly rest in the Lord, wait for him and patiently lean yourself upon him.”

As my vacation began in the mountains of New Mexico, God pointed me toward this verse. So I started to meditate on its meaning.

Be Still. I sat on the condo’s porch in the early morning, sipping my tea and listening to the birds. Practiced being still. I allowed the sounds and textures of my favorite place (Santa Fe) to speak to me and bring solace to my soul.

No audible prayers were necessary. I just sat there and enjoyed God’s presence, highlighted by his creation.

Rest Quietly. In our electronically designed world, we have lost the ability to truly rest. Not nap time or early bedtime, but the peaceful resting in God’s presence. A place of total trust.

During my time in the mountains, I forced myself to rediscover rest. Seems like an oxymoron, but it worked. My laptop remained at home, and I refused to deal with social media. No Facebook posts, tweets or unnecessary Google searches.

I survived, even thrived in the solitude. The absence of my usual bustling world became a gift.

The monastics called this type of rest, “The Grand Silence.” Every evening, they disciplined themselves to cease speaking and curtailed activity so they might clearly discern the divine whisper.

Saint Benedict, the father of the monastic way wrote, “Therefore, because of the importance of silence, let permission to speak be seldom given to perfect disciples even for good and holy and edifying discourse.”

Wait for God. As I rested quietly and waited for God to share whatever secrets he wanted, the discipline of patience asserted itself.

We so often want God to be on our timeline. But as we wait, our souls anticipate the time when God WILL speak, WILL instruct us, and WILL show us the way that is best. As the Alpha and the Omega, he determines the end from the beginning, then fills in everything in between.

After a week of being still, resting quietly and waiting patiently, God DID show up. My journal entries included some of his yearnings for me. I received his words and am committed to patiently lean on God for next steps.

Back home, I pulled my journal out of the suitcase and glanced once again at the cover. The country scene with wildflowers in the foreground. A quiet setting, serenely focused on the surrounding land, far from the noise of the city and its fast-paced intensity.

And the verse, engraved boldly on the grey background, “Be still and know that I am God.”

God showed up with his hope—right on time.

Spend some quiet time resting in God’s love for you. Check out Day by Day: Hope for Senior Wisdom.

Finding Hope in the Queue

Posted by RJ Thesman

While printing off documents, my printer suddenly decided to morph into la-la land. Electronic devices are wonderful — until they don’t work.

Frustrated, I tried to print the last document, not realizing what was happening on the other end of cyberspace. After rebooting, unplugging and still not printing, I turned everything off and quit for the day.

The next morning, the printer decided to resuscitate itself. It spewed out page after page of documents hidden in the queue. Eventually, it stopped — but not before adding several inches to my pile of recyclable scrap paper.

Sometimes, the electronic world imitates life.

How many times do we pray for something, wait and wait longer while heaven lives in introverted silence? Nothing happens for weeks, months, even years.

Our prayers are stuck in the queue of God’s waiting room.

Then suddenly — an avalanche of answered prayers, all bunched up at the same time. We gasp at the range of unexpected blessings, certain once again that God does indeed love us.

What can we learn from our moments stuck in the queue?

Persistence is a worthwhile virtue.

The best writing, the purest answers to prayer, the most productive days evolve as a result of self-discipline. When we give it our best and keep at it — over and over — we eventually see the results.

We may not currently see the finish line, but it WILL appear. Persistence produces results — one of the key principles of life.

Nothing worthwhile happens easily. When we have to work for it, we fully appreciate the results. We are then energized to persist with more fervor.

Effective Results Require Patience.

Patience and persistence are twins. They sometimes look alike and often require the same disciplines to feed them.

But the persistence twin is a process while the patience twin reveals a quality of life.

Patience reminds us to wait, then wait more. And when we can no longer stand the wait, we dig deep. We learn how much strength authentic waiting requires.

Patience is the months-or-years-long battle, waiting for the chemo to take effect and save a life.

Patience allows the preschooler to tie his own shoes even while the school bus honks.

Patience sits beside the Alzheimer’s resident and responds to the same question again and again.

Patience learns the passage of time, because the process cannot be rushed. If we want the best results, we must not deny the waiting.

Patience turns off the printer, instead of continuing the process of frustration, adding more documents to the queue which then wastes paper. Lesson learned.

Sometimes the Best Action is No Action. For planners like me, it feels better to do something — anything — to help the process along.

But sometimes, the cyberspace universe has to arrange its pixels and find its missing megabytes. I don’t even understand its language. How then, can I make it do something?

When we’ve prayed and prayed, waited and persisted, yet nothing happens, we can use the prayer of relinquishment. I don’t always understand God’s language. I cannot make him do something, so I relinquish the problem to him.

“Oh God, I can’t stand this. I have absolutely no clue what to do. Please take over and do whatever is needed to mend this problem. I give up.”

This prayer seems counterintuitive to what we have been taught about productivity, but the Psalmist declared the same advice, “Be still and rest in the Lord; wait for him and patiently lean yourself on him” (Psalm 37:7 AMP).

Be still. Unplug. Stop trying to figure it out. Don’t worry. Let go and let God salve your weary soul.

If we won’t learn how to be still, then we end up with a heap of nothing: wasted words, frustrated prayers and sometimes — piles of worthless paper.

But if we let go and let God figure it out, then we return to the task refreshed, ready for whatever he will give us and grateful for lessons learned.

Waiting in the queue is rarely easy. We may tire of the time required before something happens.

But God knows what he is doing. Maybe he’s waiting for us to trust him so he can finish the job.

Pastor Tanner struggles with what to do. He can’t make himself well, even by praying about it. And his cat thinks he’s a bit weird. Check out The Year of my Redemption.

New Mexico Calls with Hope

Posted by RJ Thesman

What is it about New Mexico that calls to me?

Surely it is more than the memories of 22 family vacations in the historic mining town of Red River.

Could it be the combination of sights and sounds that provide a sensory experience each day?

The pine scent of tall trees, dressed in breath-taking greens
A chipmunk daring me to hold out another handful of peanuts so he can stuff his cheeks
Hummingbirds dive bombing for a bit of sweet nectar
Aspens clapping their leaves in fluttering applause
The babbling river that cleanses both the stream and the sediment of my soul

Although my family vacations in Red River, Santa Fe and Taos are my favorite Southwest cities with their terracotta textures, the diversity of their people and the history of fine art.

It is no wonder Georgia O’Keefe chose this land to live in, to find solace in painting its various colors and tones.

Yet this year, I needed the mountains in a new way. Before we climbed into the van for the eight-hour trip, God instructed me that the object of my vacation was to follow the words of Psalm 46:10.

“Be still. Rest quietly. Wait patiently for God.”

As we drove over the last summit and looked below at the town’s quiet repose, I knew it would be a special vacation – a gifting of rest.

Although seven of our family members bunked together in a condo, I purposely made time for solitude. Every morning, I carried my mug of hot tea and feasted for precious minutes with the divine One.

In the wonder of worship, I sat beside the river and entreated God to replace the murkiness of my soul with clarity and fresh intimacy with him. red-river-stream

I looked upward at the mountain crest – my mountain – at the crevasse carved there, as if God had dipped his hand in it during the second day of creation.

His signature of intense power. A reminder for generations of pilgrims that only God could create such grandeur yet dare to be personally involved in our lives.

God rarely spoke during these morning vistas as we quietly sat together and enjoyed the cool air. As we communed in silence, I embraced the beauty of solitude and the intimacy of being in his presence without speech.

Once again, I breathed deeply of the spiritual fervor of New Mexico, forgot the trials and burdens I left behind and gratefully received the solace God offered.

New Mexico is called the Land of Enchantment, but for me – it is the healing irony of mountains and desert, Native Americans and Hispanics, turquoise and coral – somehow blended into a symphony of texture and diversity that rises in a spiritual explosion of praise.

How sweet to experience how it also became a quiet haven for individual retreat where I once again learned to be still and acknowledged that He is God.

This post first appeared on “Travel Light,” by SuZan Klaasen.

RJThesman.net

Author | Coach | Speaker | Editor

Be still and know

Three Steps to Hope

Hope in the Queue

Hope in the Silent Timing

Hope Craves Balance

Hope Reveals Timing

Finding Hope in the Queue

New Mexico Calls with Hope