August 1

Scripture focus: "You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule." Matthew 5:3 (The Message)

Eugene Peterson was interviewed about his work in translating the bible The Message – you can find the very lively discussion on YouTube. During that interview, he recounted a story about his efforts to translate Matthew five, a familiar passage of scripture commonly referred to as "the beatitudes." Peterson wanted to replace 'blessed' with lucky – and some of the editors reportedly wouldn't have it. They said that 'lucky' was a concept that wouldn't sit well with Christians. He submitted to their wisdom, and we end up with the translation "blessed."

I'm left pondering why a discussion over "lucky" or "blessed" was the issue.

What's not sitting well with me is the concept that when I am at the end of my rope, I'm instructed to believe that I am a lucky duck. Usually, hanging by thread makes me feel more lost than lucky.

Clearly God's ways and mine are not always synchronized.

One of the reasons for this disconnect is my own personal confusion over boundaries. I get confused and start thinking my life is about my own personal happiness. I forget that God doesn't stand on tippy toe at the precipice of eternity, wringing his hands in consternation every single time my life doesn't go according to MY plans.

This month we're going to devote a few minutes each day to thinking about boundaries – what are they, why are they good for us, how we acquire or repair them, and a few tough truths about the injurious nature of boundaries gone badly. We will rely heavily on the works of Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend – two men who are boundary gurus. You can visit their website, buy their books, watch their DVDs. You will find materials that relate specifically to all sorts of relationships – in marriage, at work, with children, etc. I hope you'll take advantage of those materials and enjoy their biblical, clear teachings.

During this devotional series, we're going to consider how this information could actually help us feel downright lucky – even when we are at the end of our rope.

Recommended reading: 2 Samuel 1-3

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 31 - God's at home with you

Scripture focus: But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells--even though you still experience all the limitations of sin--you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's! So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us--an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him! Romans 8:9-17 (The Message)

I remember hearing many a sermon challenging me to make my heart a place where God's Spirit could feel at home. I actually liked these messages. They gave me a sense of direction, a path to trod. But inevitably, I'd find my commitment to housecleaning diminishing, and soon I'd be right back at that low-lying black cloud living place.

One of the lowest, blackest days of my life was the moment I realized that I'd never ever be able to clean my house well enough to provide an appropriate home for the living Lord.

But then something really neat happened; I came to an understanding about God that was much bigger than my shame about myself. Somehow -- through continued study, prayer, community and defeat -- the Lord taught me that housecleaning was his department. My job was to be willing to invite him in.

God's Spirit, living in me, taught me that I don't owe him a do-it-yourself life. He isn't asking me to redouble my efforts and clean the corners of my life out with a toothbrush and a bucket of strong detergent. God's Spirit beckons. It cries out and invites me to receive a resurrection life from God. He'll show me who I really am. Both good times and hard times are part of the process. The hard times are not meant has an indictment and instruction to get busy cleaning. The good times are not meant to stir up feelings of arrogance and complacency. In all times, we are called to trust God. May today be a sweet time of fellowship as we all put down our scrub brushes and ask, "What's next, Papa?"

Recommended reading: Jude

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 30 - Risk Factors

Scripture focus: Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them--living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored. Romans 8:5-8 (The Message)

There are documented risk factors that experts tell us are hinderances to the recovery process. Here are a few of those roadblocks that can stymie our transformation:

• Lack of community and a network of support
• Maladaptive coping skills
• Prolonged exposure to stress
• Substance abuse
• Family history of suicide
• Unhealthy social environment
• Extreme guilt reaction
• Sense of hopelessness and helplessness

One suggestion: prayerfully consider asking an unbiased, experienced, well-trained person to assist you in evaluating your risk factors.

One hope: When we invite God's Spirit to live in us, we can trust that God will intervene on our behalf. It may or may not seem like a miraculous instantaneous intervention. God heals one stitch at a time, and usually healing takes time.

One warning: Self-absorption is equivalent to ignoring God. That's never a good thing!

One prayer: May you discover today the living and breathing God, who has come to heal our afflictions and cure our diseases.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 30-31

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 29 - Continuous, low-lying black clouds

Scripture focus: With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us. Romans 8:1-4 (The Message)

Because the human body was not equipped to handle sin, shame and betrayal, the effects of sin, shame and betrayal are felt in body, mind and soul. Some common types of trauma that result in suffering include: assault, serious car accidents, other accidents or injury, natural disasters, life threatening illness, sudden death of a loved one, learning about another's trauma.

Trauma is so serious that even listening to someone else's story can trigger PTSD, depression and anxiety disorders. In fact, trauma is so stressful to the human experience that these three conditions can co-occur. Did you know that panic attacks, agoraphobia and other phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder and general anxiety disorders, separation anxiety, depression, mood disorders, and bipolar disorder can all be triggered by an encounter with trauma?

These continuous, low-lying black clouds have physiological and spiritual components.

It really freaks me out when well-intentioned folks suggest that our low-lying black clouds will blow away and reveal blue skies of happiness if we just have enough faith, pray more and up our quiet time commitment. Trusting God is absolutely key to the clearing of the air and acquisition of the freedom we desperately seek.

God in his infinite wisdom uses a multitude of ways to provide deep healing. He uses faith-based communities to provide support and encouragement, gifted therapists to help us see ourselves clearly and provide tools for transitioning from victim to survivor, sometimes medical interventions are needed. These are just a few of the tools that God has had his disposal to help us recover our lives.

For today, it's my prayer that you will embrace what the Spirit is doing in you -- in every form that that aid takes. May the eyes of your heart recognize the rescuers God sends your way!

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 28-29

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 28

Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself--after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 (The Message)

Abuse of any kind is a terrible thing. Whether spiritual, physical, verbal or emotional -- all abuse is an affront against God's command to love him with all our prayer, passion and intelligence and love others in the same manner. It's easy to throw stones at the bad guys in stories of abuse.

I want to remind us of something. Sometimes we're the bad guys and we may not recognize that about ourselves.

Things go wrong deep within us, but we may not recognize our wayward ways. We may not realize the rage that shows on our faces, or is manifested when we behave passive-aggressively towards another. Like Adam and Eve, we try to find some clever fig leaf to cover our compulsion to control, intimidate or manipulate another person.

What if we are the bad guys and don't know it? Here's a thought -- we can ask God to show us the truth about ourselves. We can ask him to reveal ways we've rejected, ignored, terrorized, isolated or corrupted others. We can ask him to point out when we are behaving in ways that are controlling, intimidating or manipulative of others.

It's hard to face the truth about our own selfishness when it's so easy to point out ways that others have hurt us. But I'm praying that today's scripture passage will remind us that the answer, thank God, is that Jesus can and does set things right in our life -- even when we're the bad guys.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 25-27

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 27

Scripture focus: But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master. Romans 6:22-23 (The Message)

Since our bodies and minds are not equipped to handle sin, sexual abuse causes tremendous damage. It also inflames shame. Shame, once inflamed, tells us to hide and isolate, keep secrets and cover our wounding. This plays right into the abuser's plans, and decreases the chance of receiving help and rescue. Below are some statistics for your consideration. These are just the reports of harm done. As you consider these facts, ask yourself: is there some sexual issue that I need to address in order to become whole, healed and able to experience a put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way?

• One in five girls report being solicited for sex on the Internet prior to age 18.
• 20% of U.S. men report being sexually abused prior to age 18.
• At least 20% of women and 12% of adolescent girls have experienced sexual assault or rape.
• More than one woman per minute are sexually assaulted per year in the United States.
• Close to 100,000 men are raped each year. (These are just the ones reported.)
• Two thirds of rape victims had a prior relationship to their offender.
• 70% of reported assaults are committed against victims 17 years or younger.
• Between 50 and 85% of American females will experience some form of sexual harassment during their lives.

Rape -- non-consensual sexual penetration obtained by force, threat, or during a time when the victim is incapable of giving consent (mental illness, developmentally delayed, or intoxication for example).

Sexual harassment -- when one person is treated as the object of another's sexual prerogative in the workplace.

If you or someone you love has experienced sexual abuse or harassment, they have suffered from betrayal. Could this be an area of past wounding that needs healing? If so, loving communities must seek to be a sanctuary for all who are suffering -- whether abused or abuser -- and hurting people must consider asking for help in their time of need. It's my prayer that you will find your place in God's story of redemption as God's people seek to be the kind of refuge that is restorative.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 22-24

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 26

Scripture focus: So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness? As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end. Romans 6:15-21 (The Message)

I was telling my confidant and dear friend about all the things that I believe about myself that are negative –- and there is a long and nefarious list. On a bad day, even the thought that a different, healed and expansive life enveloped in holiness seems like a shaming thought.

Maybe that's why I love God's word so much, and appreciate knowing that God's grace not only saves but transforms.

I've learned that experiencing the emotion and belief of shame -- that feeling that I’m broken beyond repair, suitable for being called a long list of negative adjectives -- is more a form of arrogance than true humility.

It's also a stumbling block to transformation. If I can get stuck in the self-pity party of feeling "less than," then I certainly don't have time to explore my potential and embrace God's prevailing purposes as a roadmap for right living.

When I get specific about my self-seeking ways of how I have actually behaved in an uncaring manner toward God, self and others –- I create a list that illuminates the defects of character that I'm willing to acknowledge –- which frees me to invite God to have his way with me.

As our devotional days continue, we'll continue our discussion about specific examples of harming choices. It's my prayer that this may jog a memory, stir an insight or hasten a moment of clarity –- so that each of us can be more specific about how we have lived an unholy life. But we won't stop with the confession –- we will invite God to heal, redeem and restore to us the joy of our salvation.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 19-21

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 25 - Name the dead end

Scripture focus: So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing--not caring about others, not caring about God--the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness? As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end. Romans 6:15-21 (The Message)

When we ask God to take control of our lives, we take a crucial step toward freedom. But that doesn't mean we automatically acquire all the skills, knowledge and discipline to live a free life. Our decision to trust God provides us with the capacity to experience freedom -- an act of grace and a gift from God to us. But the giving doesn't stop with that single act of acceptance. God continues to give us the grace to experience transformation. I've realized after years and years of studying the transformation process that sometimes we get stuck along the way. Sometimes we don't even know we're living in bondage to something -- so therefore, we aren't looking for a way out of our cage. Even though we suspect sometimes that our life experiences aren't the best, we may not have the necessary information to know that some things we call normal are definitely not normal nor are they healthy. One form of abuse that we might minimize or fail to recognize is sexual abuse. Any sexual activity that we engage in without consent is sexual abuse. It doesn't have to require a physical touch. It can be visual or verbal. Remember that children are never able to consent. It is never okay to expose a child to conversations that include sexual content -- even innuendo. It's not right for children to have access to any observation of sexual activity -- whether it is in print or video or person. When children are exposed to sexual content it has serious consequences. Most sexual abuse of children is perpetrated by a family member or someone known to the child. 80,000 of these cases are reported each year. But I must hasten to add. In my many years of hearing people's narratives of their own abuse, and I've heard plenty, I've never heard one single story where the abuse was ever reported. Can you believe that? Thousands and thousands of life-altering sexual encounters are never reported. Is it possible that you have either been abused or have abused someone? In order to be done with the old tyranny, this is an area where we must seek out help for healing.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 16-18

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 24 - Life saving resurrection

Scripture focus: So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace--a new life in a new land! That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country. Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life--no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did. That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time--remember, you've been raised from the dead!--into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God. Romans 6:1-14 (The Message)

Wow -- this is good news -- sin can't tell us how to live once we've entered this new country of grace. Does that mean that we can just forget about all the betrayal and suffering that we have experienced in a life lived independently of God? Are we saying that once we're accepted into the kingdom of God we will no longer experience trials and tribulations on planet earth?

Life saving resurrection is not suggesting that there is no more need to acknowledge and ask for healing from our suffering. A new way of life brings with it the promise and potential for healing from our past hurts. We can fail to experience this rebirth, even though we are in fact reborn, if we don't learn how to trust God with ourselves -- the good, the bad and even the ugly.

More on things we need to acknowledge and ask for help with in tomorrow's devotional.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 13-15

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 23 - Hope in the face of hardship

Scripture focus: You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we're in-- first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn't sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it. Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man's sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God's gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do! There's no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides? Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right. All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life--a life that goes on and on and on, world without end. Romans 5:12-21 (The Message)

In the next few devotionals, we're going to talk about some very difficult subjects. These are designed to help us see the truth of our current situation with regards to sin. But before we go to this dark place, let us not forget that all sin can do is threaten us. Grace invites us into life.

The bottom line is this: at some point those of us who are suffering must make a decision about whether or not we are going to choose life. So I ask you -- on this day, what do you choose? To be defined by your hardships, or by the hope that Jesus did it right and got us out of a world of hurt?

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 10-12

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 22

Scripture focus: By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us--set us right with him, make us fit for him--we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand--out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary--we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit! Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we're at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah! Romans 5:1-11 (The Message)

Ways we prove our need for a Messiah:

• Physical abuse -- the use of physical power to control, manipulate, or intimidate another person.
• Verbal abuse -- the use of verbal power to control, manipulate, or intimidate another person.
• Emotional abuse -- tearing down of another person by rejecting, ignoring, terrorizing, isolating or corrupting them.
• Spiritual abuse -- distorting the word or character of God from a position of spiritual power, position or information to control, intimidate or manipulate others.

If you or someone you love is suffering as a result of abuse (either as inflicted or inflictor), understand that it is not okay to plod along without acknowledging the truth of the situation. This may require some professional support and careful intervention. Ask for help.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 7-9

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 21 - Does abuse define who you are?

Scripture focus: That famous promise God gave Abraham--that he and his children would possess the earth--was not given because of something Abraham did or would do. It was based on God's decision to put everything together for him, which Abraham then entered when he believed. If those who get what God gives them only get it by doing everything they are told to do and filling out all the right forms properly signed, that eliminates personal trust completely and turns the promise into an ironclad contract! That's not a holy promise; that's a business deal. A contract drawn up by a hard-nosed lawyer and with plenty of fine print only makes sure that you will never be able to collect. But if there is no contract in the first place, simply a promise--and God's promise at that--you can't break it. This is why the fulfillment of God's promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God's promise arrives as pure gift. That's the only way everyone can be sure to get in on it, those who keep the religious traditions and those who have never heard of them. For Abraham is father of us all. He is not our racial father--that's reading the story backward. He is our faith father. We call Abraham "father" not because he got God's attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn't that what we've always read in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, "I set you up as father of many peoples"? Abraham was first named "father" and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, "You're going to have a big family, Abraham!" Abraham didn't focus on his own impotence and say, "It's hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child." Nor did he survey Sarah's decades of infertility and give up. He didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That's why it is said, "Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right." But it's not just Abraham; it's also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God. Romans 4:12-25 (The Message)

Physical, spiritual, verbal, and emotional abuse leave the abused feeling impotent. I've also had abusers report that they also feel powerless to stop these behaviors that they know are wrong. Isn't it great that God doesn't expect us to live well before he'll choose to love us? Abuse is serious business. But it does not have to become a defining moment for either abused or abuser.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 4-6

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 20 - Abuse

Scripture focus: David confirms this way of looking at it, saying that the one who trusts God to do the putting-everything-right without insisting on having a say in it is one fortunate man: Fortunate those whose crimes are carted off, whose sins are wiped clean from the slate. Fortunate the person against whom the Lord does not keep score. Romans 4:6-9

• Between 25 and 30 percent of all children suffer physical abuse.

Yesterday I witnessed a father pick up his young son by the neck of his shirt, shake him, draw his face to him nose-to-nose, and scream at him for acting his age. This little tyke did a dangerous thing -- he ran out into a busy parking lot. I know the dad was frightened. But his reaction to his stress may be causing as much harm as a spin in traffic without a helmet. He physically abused his son. This fundamentally changes how this child will view his world and his place in God's grand epic adventures.

• 31% of adult women in the United States will experience one episode of violence at the hands of a husband or partner. Every day more than three women are murdered by their significant other. Pregnant women are more likely to be murdered than die of complications related to pregnancy. Abuse can occur without leaving a mark on the victim.

But when abuse occurs, it causes great harm to the spirit. If you experience abuse or become abusive, then acknowledging the truth of this is a much needed first step to recovery. Abuse is never okay. Whether you see a mark on your skin or not, it is a killer of the abundant life.

We are fortunate that God does not keep score. But this does not mean that we should not act in the face of abuse. Sometimes we don't have the way or the means to intercede. But one thing we can all do is carry a message of hope to the hurting -- whether victim or victimizer.

God doesn't keep score. He wipes our slate full of sin clean.

But in order for him to act, we must first trust. We must confess our sin without insisting on having a say in how God chooses to put things right. We don't get to excuse the sins of self or others with pithy platitudes.

We must acknowledge the reality of sin, and trust God to show us the next right step.

Betrayal, trauma and grief aren't cured by time. They are healed by using our time wisely -- trusting God with the truth of our suffering and seeking help from those whom God uses as his instruments of restoration.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 1-3

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 19 - Powerless but not without resources

Scripture focus: So how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our first father in the faith, into this new way of looking at things? If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we're given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. What we read in Scripture is, "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own." If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it--you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked--well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift. Romans 4:1-5 (The Message)

I don't know how to recover life after severe crisis, trauma, betrayal and grief. Oh sure, I can study the stages of grief and memorize all the scripture verses that speak to me about how God comforts us, heals us, restores us and transforms us. I love the image in scripture of my youth being renewed. I enjoy good news. What I cannot do is take the good news out of my head and plant it into my heart.

Only God does that. It is a sheer gift.

For those of us who have been used to working hard and receiving our daily wage, it might come as quite a shock when we are faced with trials and tribulations that leave us powerless. It's times like this, when a job seems too big, that we are tempted to run from the reality that there are some things that only God can do. We employ all our coping strategies and go out in search of new, improved models for coping. For the smaller sufferings, perhaps this helps. But for the really big stuff -- only trusting God to do in and through and with us what we cannot do for ourselves will suffice. Those of us who prefer to pay our own way and refuse to trust God are forced to accommodate reality -- and deny the severity of the circumstance -- if we want to handle our burdens on our own.

For the next few days, we will explore some of the types of abuses that are occurring on a daily basis in homes across the country, situations that cannot be patched up with a few improved coping strategies and they will refuse to be denied or ignored.

I present these to you with a request. As you study, ask yourself if any of these situations apply to you or someone you love. Consider whether this might be one of those situations -- the kind that will require a sheer gift from God in order to restore peace.

Recommended reading: Ephesians 4-6

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 18 - Stuck in grief mode

Scripture focus: "If you grow a healthy tree, you'll pick healthy fruit. If you grow a diseased tree, you'll pick worm-eaten fruit. The fruit tells you about the tree. You have minds like a snake pit! How do you suppose what you say is worth anything when you are so foul-minded? It's your heart, not the dictionary, that gives meaning to your words. A good person produces good deeds and words season after season. An evil person is a blight on the orchard. Let me tell you something: Every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation." Matthew 12:33-37 (The Message)

Traumatic circumstances and unexpected losses -- especially when betrayal is an element of the story -- can produce an extreme form of grief. This can mimic the indicators of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). Examples include: extreme emotional responses, survivor guilt, depression, thoughts of suicide, intense sensitivity, and compulsive intrusive thoughts. People stuck in extreme grief may experience difficulty talking about the event, obsess over themes of death and loss, have disrupted sleeping and eating patterns, become self-destructive, isolate, have impaired functioning and extremely reactive and irrational responses to normal life events.

This extreme grief response doesn't make us a blight on the orchard. But it does leave us vulnerable. If enough time passes, all these disruptions may stir our feelings of shame. Our pain may cry out to be medicated and soothed in an unhealthy manner.

If you or someone you love is stuck in their grief, it's very important to NOT rush back into normal activities without allowing for normal grief. My happily grieving friend implied that my grief was not normal. I personally didn't find her judgment helpful. But if I do acknowledge that if I find myself slipping into a prolonged state of unremitting grief, I hope that those who love me will take notice and gently encourage me to seek more community support. Extreme grief needs to be addressed and treated. I'm praying for all of us who are suffering, and for those around us who want to help, but sometimes don't know how. May we join together in taking care with how we suffer, and the way in which we comfort others in the midst of suffering.

Recommended reading: Ephesians 1-3

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 17 - Good grief

Scripture focus: We know that none of the God-begotten makes a practice of sin--fatal sin. The God-begotten are also the God-protected. The Evil One can't lay a hand on them. We know that we are held firm by God; it's only the people of the world who continue in the grip of the Evil One. And we know that the Son of God came so we could recognize and understand the truth of God--what a gift!--and we are living in the Truth itself, in God's Son, Jesus Christ. This Jesus is both True God and Real Life. Dear children, be on guard against all clever facsimiles. 1 John 5:18-21 (The Message)

I was having a casual conversation with a person who was going through a similar suffering as me. We were sort of trading suffering notes, until she said something that ended the conversation. "I'm a Christian, so although this terrible thing has happened to me, I'm filled with the joy of the Lord. He is my strength. So I can't understand why you seem to feel sad at all. Probably you have some unidentified sin." I shut my mouth, finished my latte, and tried to listen politely as she chirped on cheerily about how her faith filled her with holy happiness. I'm happy for her. But my grief experience is following a more predictable course. The grief cycle usually includes:

• Shock -- initial paralysis
• Denial -- avoid the reality
• Anger -- release of all the overwhelming emotions that were absent during the shock/denial phase
• Bargaining -- seeking a way out of the crisis through the illusion that a person can do something to change the course of the crisis
• Depression -- reality of the loss
• Testing -- accepting reality enables us to practice new ways to go on with an altered life
• Acceptance -- discovery of a way to move on

Although I've experienced shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing and more -- I've also experienced moments of peace in the midst of the process. I don't believe this is sin. I don't feel shame about my sadness. I'm on guard against clever facsimiles, including the need to pretend or lie about my life experience. When we experience grief and loss it's part of real life. It's okay to say that without feeling like we've disappointed God.

My happy friend is making a point -- there are different ways to grieve. My point is that just because we grieve differently, doesn't make one of us sinful. However, there are times when we get stuck in our grief -- and that's serious business. More on that tomorrow.

Recommended reading: Ruth 1-4

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© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community