Retreat Recap

I spent the weekend of September 12-14 with about 250 women at beautiful Lake Ann Camp in Michigan. Together we addressed the apparent dissonance between the God-centered requests and the need-centered requests that Jesus teaches in The Lord’s Prayer. Is it possible to be God-centered when we have so many needs?

When I began studying The Lord’s Prayer, I wondered whether hallowing God’s name could ever be a desire in the middle of a practical need like daily bread. I questioned whether a longing for God’s kingdom would be possible under the burden of broken relationships in this immediate world. I asked whether doing God’s will on earth - a hostile place full of temptation and very unlike heaven - could ever truly be possible.

But if we allow God’s holiness to inform us about bread, His kingdom to teach us about relationships, and His will to be our path of deliverance, something in us changes. What we discovered over the weekend is that as Jesus teaches us how to pray about our needs, he teaches us how to live in our neediness.

I’ve attached #3 of the four sessions, which brings together the second set of requests: “Your kingdom come…forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

But, Yet, & Nevertheless

Nehemiah 9

Israel’s history looks like a seesaw - an up and down, back and forth pattern where two sides function in opposing ways. On one side are the people, and on the other, God himself, and their teetering relationship rests on these words at the fulcrum: but, yet, and nevertheless.

God moves closer, but Israel runs further.

God leans in, yet Israel leans out.

God remains steady. Nevertheless, Israel turns away.

The contrast is obvious, and it’s amplified by another conjunction: and. God’s actions on their behalf add up like a problem from a page in a math book: God did this, and that, and also gave this, and knew that, and provided that, and brought this...

“But they stiffened their neck and did not obey...” 9:16

“Yet they acted presumptuously…” 9:29

“Nevertheless they rebelled, cast your law behind their back, killed your prophets, and committed great blasphemies…” 9:26

It seems that these three connecting words signal doom for Israel and that there’s no way to reverse them. And yet, even these dreaded words can mean redemption when what follows them describes God:

“But you are a God ready to forgive…” 9:17

“Yet you have been righteous in all that has come upon us, 

for you have dealt faithfully…” 9:33

“Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, 

for you are a gracious and merciful God.” 9:31

If Israel’s but, yet, and nevertheless sound like your story with God, know that the but, yet, and nevertheless of God form the fulcrum of our relationship with Him. In Christ, they tip the scales in our favor, because his grace outweighs our sin, his faithfulness is greater than our disloyalty, and his mercy runs deeper than our pride.