What Questions Would You Live?

When I was taking English Composition as a student at Western, my instructor gave us one of those assignments that have the potential to change a life forever. I don’t know how it affected others in the class, but it shaped me. She had us read Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. One particular page spoke volumes to me. I guess because it made so much sense. Rilke writes:

I would like to beg of you, dear friend, as well as I can, to have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day. (pg. 35).

I don’t know if I could come up with a better definition for the life of faith, or at least what living by faith looks like in a real life. Life in college demands so much faith, because so many things continue to remain unsolved in the heart. Questions like, “Am I in the right major?” or “what will I do when I graduate?” seem to haunt students from the day they first arrive. The good news is that eventually life destinies do get figured out.

I love that phrase, “live the question.” What questions would you live? The really cool thing is that as we live into the questions of our lives, instead of trying to run away from them or give them a quick fix, we ultimately find ourselves living more deeply into God’s life. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). As we seek Him to be all of these things for us, the big questions in our lives find the right answers.

I want to encourage you to be patient to all that “remains unsolved in your heart.” Listen to your heart and know that this is where the Lord speaks the most.

Blessings,

Sami

Need More Power?

In his book ­The Meaning of Prayer Harry Emerson Fosdick has this to say about the “hindrances and difficulties” of prayer: “It does cost to win a life that really can pray.” The truth of this really hits me as I sit here writing to you about Jesus. I guess for me, prayer is the place and time where Jesus takes His place in my life. It is that moment of meeting where the Lord becomes Lord of me. Sometimes I bring desires to prayer that are actually good, but cannot be accomplished because something stands in the way. Usually for me it is because I am trying to jump ahead of the Lord and pray for things that He isn’t ready to give (primarily because I am not ready to receive). To pray further into His will for my life, I have to go further into His will. Usually I will come to Him with my agenda on the prayer list. And He will quietly listen, letting me sit with it. I will leave feeling nothing has been accomplished. And then He will come and visit with me and share what is on His heart: I pray for measurable things; He invites me to know the measure of His love. I pray for immediate results; He invites me to immediately rest in His provision, trusting Him for the rest. I pray to go places and do things; He simply says, “being with Me is the most important place and listening to My voice is the most important thing.”

Not long ago I began chewing on a piece of scripture that caught my attention: Be still and know that I am God (Psalm ). As I dug into the meaning of this scripture, I discovered that stillness is more that not moving. To be still is to “slacken.” Some of the words used to capture the essence of its meaning include: abate, cease, fail, (be) faint, be (wax) feeble, forsake, idle, leave, let alone (let go, let down), be slothful, (be) weak. (See Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, entry 7503 for raphah, in the Hebrew Dictionary). This word “still” is derived from a Hebrew word that means “to mend (by stitching), … to cure” (Strong’s, entry 7495 for rapha, in the Hebrew Dictionary). What a powerful message! As we come to God’s presence in prayer, our best praying happens only when we relinquish our control, surrendering to God fully. In that we find the very thing we are trying to manufacture by our own efforts: healing, mending, well-being, a cure for what’s wrong. The big question is: Am I letting go of every conception I have of what is supposed to happen when I come to prayer and simply letting Jesus be who God sent Him to be, my Savior? Is the reason I am not seeing any fruit from my prayers, because I am fighting against Him instead of flowing with Him?

Over the last few weeks my experience of prayer has deepened. And an amazing thing has happened. As I have surrendered to that place of being held in the Lord’s hands, His power has become manifest in my life in ways I could not imagine. I am seeing Him show up in my daily life, leading my day, directing my plans, and even giving me unexpected Divine appointments that accomplish far more than I ever could on my own. It is truly awesome to see what happens when we create space in our lives for the Lord to work. He still isn’t doing things the way I would have Him, but His way is way more satisfying and is accomplishing much more. I guess it is always about trust more than it is about doing.

Hope you are able in this time of “Fall Break” to truly take a break and be still before the Lord. Give Jesus an opportunity to speak to your heart; listen for a change. You will be so glad you did.

Blessings,

Sami

To Pray for Real

In his book ­The Meaning of Prayer Harry Emerson Fosdick has this to say about the “hindrances and difficulties” of prayer: “It does cost to win a life that really can pray.” The truth of this really hits me as I sit here writing to you about Jesus. I guess for me, prayer is the place and time where Jesus takes His place in my life. It is that moment of meeting where the Lord becomes Lord of me. Sometimes I bring desires to prayer that are actually good, but cannot be accomplished because something stands in the way. Usually for me it is because I am trying to jump ahead of the Lord and pray for things that He isn’t ready to give (primarily because I am not ready to receive). To pray further into His will for my life, I have to go further into His will. Usually I will come to Him with my agenda on the prayer list. And He will quietly listen, letting me sit with it. I will leave feeling nothing has been accomplished. And then He will come and visit with me and share what is on His heart: I pray for measurable things; He invites me to know the measure of His love. I pray for immediate results; He invites me to immediately rest in His provision, trusting Him for the rest. I pray to go places and do things; He simply says, “being with Me is the most important place and listening to My voice is the most important thing.”

Not long ago I began chewing on a piece of scripture that caught my attention: Be still and know that I am God (Psalm ). As I dug into the meaning of this scripture, I discovered that stillness is more that not moving. To be still is to “slacken.” Some of the words used to capture the essence of its meaning include: abate, cease, fail, (be) faint, be (wax) feeble, forsake, idle, leave, let alone (let go, let down), be slothful, (be) weak. (See Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, entry 7503 for raphah, in the Hebrew Dictionary). This word “still” is derived from a Hebrew word that means “to mend (by stitching), … to cure” (Strong’s, entry 7495 for rapha, in the Hebrew Dictionary). What a powerful message! As we come to God’s presence in prayer, our best praying happens only when we relinquish our control, surrendering to God fully. In that we find the very thing we are trying to manufacture by our own efforts: healing, mending, well-being, a cure for what’s wrong. The big question is: Am I letting go of every conception I have of what is supposed to happen when I come to prayer and simply letting Jesus be who God sent Him to be, my Savior? Is the reason I am not seeing any fruit from my prayers, because I am fighting against Him instead of flowing with Him?

Over the last few weeks my experience of prayer has deepened. And an amazing thing has happened. As I have surrendered to that place of being held in the Lord’s hands, His power has become manifest in my life in ways I could not imagine. I am seeing Him show up in my daily life, leading my day, directing my plans, and even giving me unexpected Divine appointments that accomplish far more than I ever could on my own. It is truly awesome to see what happens when we create space in our lives for the Lord to work. He still isn’t doing things the way I would have Him, but His way is way more satisfying and is accomplishing much more. I guess it is always about trust more than it is about doing.

Hope you are able in this time of “Fall Break” to truly take a break and be still before the Lord. Give Jesus an opportunity to speak to your heart; listen for a change. You will be so glad you did.

Blessings,

Sami