Deeper Still by phil mccallum

Scripture
This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” The Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be still, for this is a sacred day. Do not grieve.” Nehemiah 8:10-11

Observation
There is a path that can lead us from and old season and into a new one. It is not a simple process of stepping out one door and into the next.  There is always a hallway between rooms; there is always a process between seasons. Spring and autumn give prep time for summer and winter. There are principles we need to embrace daily, weekly, even monthly as we move from one season and into another.

Re-mind. A friend of mine said once, “I laid in bed this morning and I had to re-mind myself.” He accented heavily the word “mind.” We literally need a new mind, so we must re-mind the old one. By reminding ourselves of the promises of God we are making our mind new. Our greatest enemy during change is not external, it is always internal. There is an internal conversation in our thoughts. If it does not align with God’s word we will misinterpret the season. We will have suspicions, when we should have faith. Just as carefully as we chose the music we play in our car, we need to select with care our thoughts. The word of God will “re-mind” us and give us a fresh way of thinking.

Re-joice. “Re-joicing” is recycling old answers of prayer into new words of praise and thanks to God.  When current conditions demand more and do not yield as many reasons to praise, we need to turn to the archives of our past and “rejoice” by remembering again what God has done. In this way we begin to trace his trail, and can see, though we cannot see the destination that we know that God is steadily making a way.

Re-store. “Re-storing” is letting God fill up our inner warehouse for the future through sabbath rest. Convalescence is tedious. Outwardly we feel fine and anxious to move ahead. But inwardly there are deeper things to heal. When it seems that nothing is happening, God is doing everything. The inner warehouse is filling up with new supplies of grace.

Re-new. This step is different from the others. We can do nothing to make newness come, except to believe that “behold I make all things new.” Newness is a human longing. Fresh paint, new carpet, cut grass all touch something inside of us. “Re-newing” mean that God takes old things and makes them new from the inside out. He can bring us back to an old spot and we can find it unrecognizable. In this step we can do not except believe. This is all of God’s doing and none of ours. We can only offer him faith.

Prayer
Father, I write these things today, not because I’ve never heard them but because I need to constantly do them. Let these things become a reflexive part of my living so that all things can become new. Amen.

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Press the arrow to listen to Nichole Nordeman sing “Gratitude” as you read today’s devotion about change.

Scripture
Moab has been at ease since his youth;
He has also been undisturbed, like wine on its dregs,
And he has not been emptied from vessel to vessel,
Nor has he gone into exile.
Therefore he retains his flavor,
And his aroma has not changed. Jeremiah 48:11

Observation
I am thankful for the many changes in my life for they have kept me from the curse of sameness. I pastored a retired woman who had lived in the same house since 1927, and from the looks of the place the furniture had not moved since then either. I couldn’t bear that stagnation.

I’m thankful for the twenty-one homes I’ve lived in the past 46 years of my life. I’m thankful for the eight local churches I’ve called home over that same length of time. Every change has improved my flavor. In me in the  spices and aromas of many places.

Application
To be honest, on hard days I’m not very thankful for any of this change. There is a part of me that envies the woman living in a house since ‘27. Somehow to me that seems more respectable. That is until I sip the wine of my life and roll the flavors around on my tongue. Change does have its advantages.

There is a wine master of my life who is pouring me from barrel to bottle and back again until the mixture of my life pleases him. I need to interpret change well. Change is what makes me who I am; it does not keep me from whom I am supposed to be. I’m not going to resist the keeper of the wine cellar as he works on my aging process. I’m going to cooperate because the results are worth it.

Prayer
Father, I don’t ask for change, but I do ask that you would make the most of it when it comes. Amen.

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This round barn was a labor saving Shaker design. The haywagon could circle up to the hayloft for easy off loading. The circular design allowed for easy care of animals.

What the Bible Says

Lord, my heart is not proud;
my eyes are not haughty.
I don’t concern myself with matters too great
or too awesome for me to grasp.
Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself,
like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk.
Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, put your hope in the Lord—
now and always. Psalm 131

What My Mind Thinks

I grew up in a church in Niskayuna, New York. Just down the road from our Wesleyan Church was the birthplace of one of America’s odd religious groups. They were called the “Shakers” and are famous for their minimalistic furniture, labor saving designs and simple view of life. They gave us the circular saw, the flatbroom and the washingmachine, so they weren’t all that bad.

Their church theme song sums up the Shaker outlook:

‘Tis the gift to be simple,
’tis the gift to be free,
’tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
‘Til by turning, turning we come round right

There is a simplicity of life that comes when we pare away the externals and come to the simple basics. God knows, we do not and it is enough just to be near to him. The Shakers took this simple view of life right into the workshop where they designed their famous furniture. My father has a Shaker rocker in his livingroom. Like all Shaker furniture it is simply beautiful. The extraneous is removed, and what remains is both useful and beautiful. There is something comforting about rocking that chair because life comes down to it’s basics.

Yes we would like to get ahead, find out the future and to know all sorts of things that are smarter than we are. But the Lord invites us to the place of simplicity where we do not have yet what we want but we have him and that is enough.

Listen again to those words:

When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
‘Til by turning, turning we come round right

There are many turns in life and much bending and bowing. But we won’t be ashamed if we just live simply. Jesus is enough for me today.

What My Spirit Prays

I can’t say I’m harmonizing yet totally with Psalm 131. There is still some kicking in screaming in me. I’d like my bottle. But the Lord calls me to leave difficult questions with him and to just content myself to be with him. So I’ll look for that place of simplicity today.

What My Heart Says

Father my restless soul seeks rest in you today.

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We visited this canyon around Bryce Canyon, Utah a couple of weeks ago. A sign nearby showed an old farmer who had homesteaded the region with the quote, “It was one heck of a place to lose a cow.”

Scripture
See, I care about you, and I will pay attention to you. Ezekiel 36:14

Observation
God’s people bruised in exile in Babylon lived with the trauma that their lives were ruined and it was their own fault that it had happened. Their condition was not unlike many who discover part way into life what life is all about.

I’ve seen divorced men in their 30’s coming back to church only just discovering what marriage is about.

I’ve worshiped with prisoners in prison who have faced themselves in a concrete prison wall and found God in a locked room.

I’ve seen it in myself when I reflect over 25 years of full-time ministry and wince over the mistakes I’ve made that showed me at times things inside of me that I didn’t want to see.

Because Jesus is our Savior as well as our Lord, we find him not just in the highest place in the throne of lordship authority, we also find Christ saving souls at the bottom. God’s people found him in exile. We will too when we look into the mirror and finally see the person who has been giving us the greatest problems in life.

Listen to the voice of God to those swimming in the grounds at the bottom of the coffee pot of life, “See, I care about you, and I will pay attention to you.”

The Lord says two things to us when in the basement of our failures; when at last we discover how to live life but have no life to live.

First, when nothing seems to be happening the Lord is up to something. He cares about us. He is paying attention to us. The people who thought God had forgotten them in fact had their picture on God’s refrigerator door. Okay, okay, so the Creator of the universe probably does not have a Frigidaire, but get the picture. We really matter to God, and when he sees us at the bottom looking up he begins working on plans to rescue us.

Second, God makes our finish line his starting point because change begins wherever we chose to turn around. Any road can become homestretch if we just about face in the right direction. What a wonderful gift repentance is! I marvel at this gift from God. No animal can repent. Dogs can’t. They can make you feel like they have repented but deep in their doggy hearts they still want to do it their own way. Forget about cats. They don’t even pretend to repent. But humans stand alone as the only creatures who can change from the inside out. Only God can do that and repentance is a beautiful thing when it happens.

Application
God is here and he is willing to start with me right where I am. He brushes past my failures and says to me, “See, I care about you, and I will pay attention to you.”

Prayer
Father, today I know that you are gracious and merciful, but only my repentance allows you to show that grace and mercy to me. Lord I believe that you care for me and are attentive to my need. Let change begin in my life right where I am no matter the condition around me. Amen.

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