A Mind that Stays

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” Isaiah 26:3 

Does your mind “stay”?

Some friends brought their dog to our place one day, and since our yard at the time was safely fenced in, they let the dog off its leash. Immediately it dashed to the furthest corner of the grass, sniffed the perimeter for about 1.5 seconds, and wormed its way right off of our property through a small gap in the posts. So much for a peaceful afternoon.

Everyone jumped up, frantic. We shouted the dog’s name, chased it all over the neighborhood, and our friends yelled at it to “stay!” as they ran out of breath. Not a chance. He wouldn't stay.

And my mind won’t either. All of the what-ifs from the other side of the fence spark my imagination and beg for exploration, and my mind runs wildly. For me, this is especially true at night, when darkness closes in around me. How can we experience this truth from Isaiah 26:3 when we have minds that wander more than they stay?

First, I look at each word in this verse. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon (unless otherwise noted) gives these insights for better understanding:

Keep: “guard, watch over” 

Perfect peace: “shalom shalom” (repetition is the Hebrew way to emphasize a concept)

Mind: “imagination, frame of mind” 

Stay: literally, “to place or lay something upon any thing so that it may rest upon and be supported by it” -Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon

Trust: “have confidence in” 

If I were to use these definitions in application to my own struggle, the verse would sound like this: “You stand guard with your extra-wide shield of peace over me when my imagination lays its head down on you, because I’m confident in you.” 

When my mind tugs relentlessly at its leash in the middle of the night, I’m securing the fence posts around my imagination with a simple practice: Picture every post painted with a letter of the alphabet,  A, B, C, etc.  Each letter represents a truth, whether it’s a verse that begins with that letter, or an attribute of God himself, or something for which I’m thankful. 

Hammer the A post deeper into the grass: God is All-seeing

Pound the B post so it’s not going anywhere: Every spiritual Blessing is mine in Christ

Stake down the C post with: “Cast your cares on Him, because He cares for you.” (bonus for 3 c’s!)

I keep going around the border of my mind, letter by letter, so that it’s only bound by reality and resting on God. And those parameters leave me free to be shielded by peace that comes from staying.

Questions I ask myself: 

Is my imagination supported by God or by something else? 

Do my thoughts filter through a framework of confidence in God?

Am I so eager for the reward of peace that I’m willing to train my mind to “stay”?

P.S. Yes, the dog was eventually found, and I’m sure our friends keep a watchful eye on the condition of their fence;)

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.”

Motherhood

Yesterday was my last Mother’s Day with both boys in high school, because our oldest graduates in just a couple weeks. Being a boy mom (or a mom of teenagers), you never know if they’ll take a moment like this seriously or if they’ll try to make you laugh, and yesterday they chose the latter.

As we sat together wrapping up the day, Nate said to them, “Let’s each list 3 words that describe Mom”. Their mental wheels started to spin, and they exchanged grins. The first few adjectives they immediately came up with were:

Female

Maternal

Motherly

Minority

Motherhood is such an adventure! 

I was asked to share my heart on motherhood for a few minutes yesterday in church, so I’ve attached the link here if you’d like to listen in. The morning message begins at 39:35, starting with our pastor’s introduction, followed by our women’s ministry director’s portion, and then my portion.

Our women’s ministry director speaks openly about the lies we tend to believe as moms, and it’s a heart-check session!

Here’s a brief summary of my outline: Motherhood is about being, not doing

Be invisible with your Father 

(Matthew 6:1-18)

Be in step with the Spirit 

(Galatians 5:25)

Be increasingly less so Jesus is more 

(John 3:27-30)

Happy Mother’s Day, and I hope this encourages your heart!

It could be Today

Nehemiah 2

When we were newly married and fresh out of college, Nate accepted a job as a pastoral intern. Apparently we didn’t hide our age or naïveté very well, because the pastor looked at the two of us and said kindly, "Being in ministry is the ministry of preparation.”

I’m not sure how many times over the past two decades that phrase has been both motivating and consoling to me. It’s motivating, because it begs the question, “What ministry are you preparing for right now?”, and it’s consoling, because when there is no tangible position, title, or opportunity that I can see, God is preparing me. Often, my own act of preparing and God’s act of preparing me, coincide.

Without preparation, there is - at best - less to contribute. 

With preparation, there is - at best - a life to contribute.

Chapter 1 of Nehemiah closed with his expectant prayer, “Give success to your servant today…” 

I wonder if Nehemiah prayed that prayer every day during the four months that passed between the end of chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 2. How many days did he wake up thinking, “it could be today that God gives me success”? And 120 days went by. 

No doubt, expectation was building, and as it did, preparations for rebuilding took shape. This was Nehemiah’s ministry of preparation: untold hours calculating supplies, manpower, and legalities; late nights, distracted daydreaming, and the risk of being misunderstood when it all started to show.

Since it could be today, let’s embrace the ministry of preparation like Nehemiah did:

Pray to God

Plan the details

Present the idea

Discerning a Calling

Maybe you’re familiar with the concept that whatever breaks your heart could be the difficulty, situation, or topic where the world needs your voice and presence the most. It’s the idea that when you find yourself deeply grieved by a situation, and you hear yourself saying, “It shouldn’t be like this”,  God might be calling you to change things.

I see this process at work in the life of the Old Testament prophet, Nehemiah. 

Nehemiah was exiled a thousand miles from his Jewish homeland, serving a Persian king. If you’ve ever lived far from your native country, your hometown, or your family, you know that distance stirs up questions about the people and places you love. These questions range from curiosity to concern, random to persistent.

Question marks are heavy. Not knowing what’s going on, not having an answer, and not hearing a word, are burdens hard to bear. Whether questions linger about physical, spiritual, or emotional matters, they feel like carrying around a backpack of bricks or walking under storm clouds, thick with rain.

For Nehemiah, the only way news traveled was by foot - a reality we can barely imagine today - so when a band of brothers arrived in Susa from Jerusalem, he went straight to them for updates about escapees, survivors, and the capital city. 

What they shared only weighed Nehemiah down further, as they unloaded on him all the trouble, shame, brokenness, and destruction in Jerusalem. But how Nehemiah responded to the news, can serve as a template for us; when our hearts cry out, “It shouldn't be like this”, Nehemiah shows us what to do about it:

He sat down

He wept

He mourned for days

He fasted

He prayed

If you’re bearing a burden of “it shouldn’t be like this,” follow Nehemiah’s five-fold response, found in chapter 1, and see how God might actually open doors to a calling on your life.

For more on fasting, check out this article.