Once Upon a Truth - Consider the Lilies

Once upon a time, back in the day, "when I was a kid"... use all the verbal equivalents of the good old days and drop a pin in the timeline of my life.  I'm officially that age when there are good "old" days upon which to reminisce.  Yes, I walked to school. No, I didn't walk up hill both ways. 

The good old days center around the church for me.  I started serving at 14 by keeping the nursery on Wednesday nights, then playing piano for services, all anticipating the ultimate... turning 16 when deemed old enough to join the choir. 

Church music was obviously different then. No fog machines, no orchestras or even background tracks yet. (Background tracks are the church version of karaoke without alcohol.)  No, it was just a singer and a pianist or piano with organ and choir.  I love modern church music, but I also loved that we really leaned into the full scope of "songs, and hymns and spiritual songs."  Every service the choir opened the service with a rousing chorus meant to get everyone on hyped for what was about to happen. There was congregational singing out of a book (where my mom taught me how to read notes and sing harmony). Another choir song and at last "special music" right before the message to prepare everyone's hearts for the hearing of the Word.  The musical version of dimming the lights for the main event, if you will.  For a family of gifts musicians and singers, it was an opportunity to use your gift and minister to the church family.    

My mom was part of several music groups, and often a soloist right before the message.  One particular Sunday, she was the soloist before the message and had worked on a song called "Consider the Lilies".  It suited her alto voice perfectly and would have been a comforting encouragement to a church family currently looking for a pastor.  Would have been... 

It was a Saturday night, the chores were all done, laundry put away, tacos belly-fied, and the family began the usual Sunday prep. Dad studying a lesson or polishing his shoes, girls doing their nails, and Mom getting her solo ready. But we couldn't find the sheet music anywhere.  She'd worked on it all week memorizing the lyrics, but now at eight o'clock on a Saturday night the music was nowhere to be found.  We had a small and very tidy house so there weren't many places the small spiralbound music book could hide but hide it did.  Very well. 

Eventually Mom grabbed a different book and prepared a different solo which was nice, but we were so disappointed she couldn't bring the song "Consider the Lilies" to our church family to remind them that God was in control of our pastoral search. 

We were so disappointed until we got to church the next morning. 

We were not disappointed - we were quietly relieved that Mom's original choice Consider the Lilies didn't work out because that morning, our smalltown church had a family in town and "candidating" to be our next Pastor. Yes, the sermon following "Consider the Lilies" would have been preached by a pastoral candidate whose last name was Lilley.  The church would literally be considering the Lilley's for our next pastor. The song would have lost all its meaning and just been a joke.  

When we got home from church without even looking for it, we found the lost music book in a most obvious place. The Lord had hidden it in plain sight.  

Here's the truth - God is the God of our inconveniences, of all our disrupted plans, of every pivot and or drop back and punt moment of our lives.  Don't despise them. Don't let them stress you out. The extra five minutes changing your blouse because you dropped coffee on it, might have kept you out of a serious accident. That lost item you have to replace likely put you in contact with someone God wanted you to encourage.  The car that hit you on your way home was driven by someone who needed you to pray for them because there are no real accidents.  And sometimes a lost music book sets up the right message by the right pastor for the church and saves you mom some serious embarrassment.  

Consider the Lilies (or the Lilleys) and know that God is in control.  

Location, Location, Location - Elijah

Why are you here? 

Horatio Spafford's biography is one of multiple tragedies, heartache upon heartache.  A prominent lawyer and real estate investor in Chicago in the early 1800s Spafford lost it all in the great Chicago fire.  Among the losses, the son born to him and his wife Anna.  

He and his wife began rebuilding their lives and their wealth and family bloomed.  But the pressures of the rebuilding drove him to the edge.  The family needed a vacation to get away from it all and planned a trip to Europe aboard the SS Ville du Havre. At the last minute, Horatio was detained by business, so his wife and four daughters went without him anticipating he would join them as soon as he could.  

But the Ville de Havre was struck by another vessel on its voyage killing 226 people on board including all four of their daughters - Annie, Maggie, Bessie and Tanetta. When the remaining passengers finally reached Wales, Anna sent Horatio a simple two-word telegram, "Saved Alone".  On his voyage to meet his grieving wife at the point where his daughters had perished and the cobalt waves of the Atlantic belied its watery graves, he penned the words to the hymn "It Is Well with My Soul".   

If that's all you know of the Spaffords, you would be surprised to know that poem is displayed in the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem. Following their life of losses, Horatio and Anna left the life of prosperity and its wanton pressures to pursue a life they loved. They and several friends built a meaningful life of philanthropy together in Israel including humanitarian relief to Muslims, Jews, and Christians after World War I.  

You may wonder why I would retell this well-known story when the crux of the title is centered on the prophet Elijah. I think we often use the phrase "well with my soul" to imply that we're ok. Life shoves you around or breaks your heart and our resolute response is that "it is well with my soul. I'm alright.  My relationship with God is intact. It'll be ok."  A hymned version of "it's fine, I'm fine, everything's fine" if you will. 

I wonder, kind reader, if the rest of his story has a unique parallel with that of Elijah.   

In the account of 1Kings 19 after the watershed experience on Mt Carmel against the prophets of Baal, Elijah fled. The pressures of Jezebel's threats and Ahab's targets were too much. He slept under a broom tree where an angel came, fed him and told him to sleep. The journey had been too much for him. Elijah eventually went all the way to Mt. Horeb. 

It was there that the voice of the Lord asked him, "What are you doing here?"  Could the underlying inquiry be "Is it well with your soul?"  He had gone a long way, on a little nourishment, against intense pressure and it had driven Elijah a 40-day journey away.  

What WAS he doing there?  Really?

Elijah was living in the fallout of neglected soul care - too much pressure, too high an expectation of himself, too little focus on what really mattered.  Like Elijah, we find neglected soul care will take us everywhere we never wanted to go.  We long for nurturing and peace and comfort, and when we neglect the proper way to receive them - through quiet, solitude, being present, honoring the Sabbath - our souls find nurturing, peace and comfort in illicit ways.  It might look like addiction, or illness, or chaos in our mind or surroundings.  

What are you doing there? 

What I love about the Spafford's story is not the relatable and timeless hymn that we call upon in our seasons of grief and suffering.  It's that following so much tragedy, they turned away from the chaotic life and fed their souls in a life they loved.  A life that was selfless even as much as it was soul-tending.  

Is it well with your soul?  How do you tend to your inner needs?  How do you find nurturing, peace and comfort in the midst of your daily stress?  Look at the landscape of your soul and ask yourself, "What are you doing here?" What are you doing living in a house in disarray, with health declining, thoughts looping, and just.so.tired.  

Take care of yourself.  Tend to your soul.  It speaks far more powerfully than all the poems written in anguish, more loudly than the spectacle of confrontation.  

Is it well with your soul? 

Location, Location, Location - Cain

Where is your brother? 

In the plethora of biblical stories that mirror our current culture, surely one seems more relevant than other.  If so, I'd like to nominate the story of Cain & Abel.  The story of two brothers in the same family, each unique and each in relationship with the Creator.  Both have a heart to please Him, and each chose different means for doing so.  

Abel offered a sacrifice of the firstborn of his flock. Cain brought a sacrifice of his harvest here and there.  God accepted Abel's offering. Cain's He did not, and Cain didn't take that very well.   

Some well-respected Bible scholars will tell you Abel's was accepted because it was a blood sacrifice where Cain's wasn't.  I believe the truer principle here is with regard to a first fruits offering. Abel gave God the firstborn, his first fruits offering, and Cain gave "in the course of time" - a little here and there.  

We all know how the story goes - Cain kills Abel.  Even after a stern and understanding warning from the Creator to master sin rather than be overtaken by it, Cain just couldn't separate his own responsibility to God from his need to be right or better than his brother.  

Sound familiar?  Disagreeing people acting disagreeable, angry, ugly, unholy, full of self-promoting violence?  It's our world.  We live in an age when it is not only fully acceptable to sacrifice people over our opinions, it’s expected.  Cutting people out of your life is applauded. But scripture is still true, hating someone is the same as murder.  Hating someone is the same as Cain and Abel - sin, my friend, is still "crouching at the door." (Genesis 4:7)  

As followers of Christ, we don't get the luxury of ostracizing anyone we do not walk in lockstep with.  And here's why... they are a soul that God deeply loves and wants to enjoy fellowship with. They are a life, and every life has in its core eternity. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)  Their soul weighs in the balance, and so does yours.

If I had a dime for every person I know with a family estrangement or heartbreak, I could retire.  I have my own that, for the life of me, I don't know how to repair except through prayer.  So when God comes to me and asks, "where is your brother?" as He did with Cain, I know my responsibility is before God to love and not hate, to be open to reconciliation not continue estrangement, to value life and pray for their soul.  

Where is your brother? Is there an amends that needs to be made or a prayer that needs to be said?  Romans 12:18 encourages us this way, 

"If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all."

And when it's not possible, we value life.  We pray.   

PS - If we are estranged, I'm sorry it came to this, but the door is always open, dialogue is always welcome.  You're loved and missed. 

Location, Location, Location - Adam

 Where are you?

The world was new, and the idyllic atmosphere can only be imagined as utopian.  There was life - every imaginable plant in its budding and blooming form, fragrant and beautiful, every creature in its wild diversity and docile demeanor.  But even more than the beauty we can only imagine and placidity we can only dream of, there was connection.  Man and woman in perfect regular fellowship with their Creator.  Creation enjoyed Creator, and Creator delighted in His Creation.  

Every evening after the day's tasks, they walked together, shared with one another on a deep level, maybe even laughed.  I imagine it to be like those hushed tones that used to come from the kitchen as mom and dad began the day while the rest of use slept a little longer - peaceful, purposeful, wedded, one.  

Perfection. 

Then imperfection - namely sin, namely Creation finding its satisfaction in self-promoting, self-directed actions that led away from the Creator. 

It was bad; bad enough that they hid in the shadows of the created haven from the Creator of the haven... as if He didn't know every inch of the Garden intimately. 

The sun began to set, the usual calm and settling of the day began.  Time to unwind with the King of the universe. But everything had changed. Forever. 

God entered for the evening stroll, but they weren't waiting for Him this time.  And in a reverberating tone echoing from empty spaces, God asked, "Where are you?" 

As if He didn't know. 

God knew where they were, but the hiding pair seemed suddenly aware of themselves, unaware of Him, and making every effort to avoid the One Who came to them. What is it about us that makes us hide from God at the moments we need Him most?  It's not always sin and shame that chases us from shadow to shadow.  It's often just an unwillingness to be present with Him, to allow Him to enter into our broken world.  Do we blame Him for our messes or just reluctance to process before Him the details that bring us low? 

As we enter the New Year, we ought to listen for the same voice in the same hushed environment in the same all-knowing, ever-seeking tone.  Dear reader, where are you?  

Where are you in relation to the God Who loves you and continually seeks you out?  Where are you in your regular appointment-keeping with the King of the Universe?  

Time to stop hiding perhaps by first identifying what deed done by you or to you made you vacate God's active fellowship?  What situation is coming between you?  

God, your Father, still comes to you looking for relationship (not perfection.)  Where are you?  

Then One Foggy Christmas Eve...

The morning and most of the day was the kind that made Rudolph famous, as my co-worker quipped.  Fog so thick the driving conditions were treacherous, and that was before factoring in Wichita drivers who always still surprise me with their ineptitude and aggression. (Lights, people! In fog, you turn on your headlights!)  For three days the Wichita area was covered in a blanket of fog.  Not the white Christmas we were dreaming of, as another co-worker pointed out. (I have funny co-workers.)

The holidays would end up being lackluster at best - lots of events that I attended alone, lots of second guessing the gifts I bought, lots of "it is what it is" realizations.  I suppose all of that was part and parcel of the year we were about to put behind us. 

The year had been one of unexpected turns - my family had navigated a heart attack, a stroke, breast cancer, emergency room trips, and the ever-underlying sadness of those who are gone.  None of these had been on anyone's bingo card.  None of the events that brought us to our knees time and again in 2025 were planned nor were they maligned as cosmic cruelty or "why-me"-inducing drama.  Simply life being its unpredictable self in an unpredictable world.  

What was predictable in our year of surprises was this - the foundation laid in our family, in our individual hearts, was sure and strong.  God was present. God was faithful. God came near. 

Now more than ever I know that my faith is not a get-out-of-stress free card. As Toby Mac said after losing his son, we have "no under the table deal with God" that bad things will never touch us. Life can be painful, and our call to prayer when it is, is not a collective bargaining with God that He will always make it all go away.  The prayers offered in the midst of our struggles are not transactional. Do we ask for God to move? Yes. Does He always? No.  Because the blessing of prayer is praying... not always getting what we want.  

(This isn't Wichita, obviously, but what a
beautiful foggy morning in Wyoming that was.)

The perfect world created in the beginning of the Book (and coming again in the end of the book) is and always will be this.  God With Us. Immanuel - a Faithful Friend Who never walks away, a doting and providing Father who knows us inside out and still He loves.  

On Christmas Day, the fog still hadn't lifted.  I drove to northwest Wichita to pick up my beloved aunt for our traditional Christmas morning breakfast at IHoP. (Christmas hits different when you don't have kids. LOL) The farther I got from home, the denser the fog. The good thing was it was Christmas morning, and most Wichita drivers were not on the roads.  

As an unexpected traffic light emerged from the haze nearly too late to be honored, I had a thought.  I can only see so far - literally and figuratively.  I don't know what 2026 holds very much like I could never have predicted 2025 twists and turns.  We can't know everything on the horizon - the horizon is covered in fog.  

What I do know is this - God will be present. God will be faithful, and it's still true when we draw near to Him, He draws near to us. Come what may, whatever emerges from the fog, whatever brings us to our knees.

Happy 2026, yall.  

That Sounds Like a You Problem

Honestly, I've been told that before.  When I complained about something or someone, my friend would retort, "That sounds like a YOU problem."  Her not so gentle way of telling me the situation was only a problem because I had interpreted it that way.  Had someone else been the source of my complaint or if it had happened to another person, it would not be a big deal.  It was only a big deal to me.  

I hope you have honest friends like that who tell you when you're being unreasonable or petty or just plain wrong.  I have several... probably more than my share. I find great comfort in knowing they are not saying anything to anyone else that they haven't said to my face.  They act as if I'm not always right or not always dragging baggage into my relationships and interactions.  Weird, right? 

The truth is that I'm NOT always right and often have more baggage than LaGuardia. True friends see through it all and love me anyway.  And tell me when I'm the problem. 

I think Jesus was that kind of friend - the One Who would tell you to your face "I don't condemn you but knock it off!" The One Who would know you sold Him out and still called you "comrade." Or in our passage today, the One Who would react the One seeking His intervention with a bold, "that sounds like a You problem." 

Imagine the rigors of first century home-management - no conveniences, no short cuts. Entertaining a house full of people would be even more daunting as you prepared from scratch (in every way) a meal for guests in a culture that did not embrace serving anything less than their best for company.  

Martha welcomed Jesus into her home and commenced with the long and arduous to do list of serving a meal to a high-profile guest Who was also a friend.  Her plate was full, and her sister was no help.  No doubt, Martha welcomed Jesus so she could enjoy His company, and instead Mary was enjoying His company while she tended to all the preparations of the meal.  I'd be upset too.  

Just so you can read for yourself the palpable tension in the air, here's Luke's account in chapter 10 of his Gospel: 

"38 Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

Now, I'm not likely to tell you anything here you don't already know about this story.  If you've been around Christian circles for very long, you've likely heard it taught more than once.  Mary chose to be with Jesus. Martha was just too busy. 

But what if we look at this story through the lens of prayer?

Martha had a problem with Mary. Mary wasn't acting the way Martha thought she should. Martha talked to Jesus about Mary and asked Him to fix her.  That sounds like the rudimentary understanding of prayer for about 58.26% of people who pray (totally random, made-up number, by the way). Believe it or not, many people view prayer as a means to get people to do what they want them to do.

Meh... that sounds like a really frustrating way to pray, and one that's not likely to be effective.  

What if prayer were less about wanting people to do what we think they should do and more wanting people to be in a position where God can work?  Less, "make them behave".  More "Lord, where are they in relation to You? What will close the gap so they can hear from You?"  Prayer for others, for me, is often much like matchmaking - I just want to get the two (God and them) together and watch the magic happen.  I pray the obstacles keeping them apart will be removed.  

There are times when I want people to just do what I think they should do, but prayer is not overriding freewill.  Listen, if God won't override someone's freewill over what He wants, He's certainly not going to do that over what I want.

I have people in my life that I wish Jesus would just fix.  I can't make them love me.  I can't make them like me. I can't even get them to return a text message.  And the Martha in me gets frustrated and blurts out, "God fix them!" And in the face of that "prayer", I think Jesus' response is still the same, "that sounds like a you problem. Lisa, you are anxious and troubled about many things. Pray for what matters!"  And what is that? It's their relationship with God, their proximity to Him to hear from Him, and the eternal consequences on their souls.  There's far more at stake than my small vision of how someone should treat me or should behave. 

The prayer ought to be to make sure I'm in a place to hear from God, and to pray that they are too.  It's a reminder that I can't even fix myself, let alone those who frustrate me.  My prayer is that I won't miss Jesus because my anxieties have clouded my view of what He's really doing - working in a way I cannot see, don't understand, and sadly, don't trust. Isn't that really the difference here - do I pray because I'm trusting God to work His will, His way, or because I think He doesn't notice or is messing things up? 

When we pray, let's be matchmakers, asking God to make a way for Him to do what only He can do.  And may we have the humility and grace to hear from our Friend when there is a you problem. 

Lord, Jesus, when my frustration and prayers reveal my problematic need to control or perform, please be the kind of Friend that tells me it's a me problem. Recenter my focus on matchmaking - getting You and the people in my life in the same room and watch You do what You do so well.  Draw them to Yourself and may Your words to them give them grace and healing. Remove whatever is keeping them from You, and may we see them sitting at Your feet knowing You'll handle whatever needs to be handled, change whatever needs to be changed... especially when it's me.

Build the Wall - More Than A Wall (Part 4)

This is about so much more than a protective wall around the Church.  This is so much more than about serving in the ministry of prayer.  The wall is the physical benefit of the work, but the rewards are other than that.  Let's talk about what happens when there's a wall of prayer around your church family.  

The first reward (and what might be my favorite reward) is this - outsiders recognize God's hand on us.  Nehemiah 6:16 talks about what transpired after the work to rebuild was done, and it says, "when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and feel greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God." I mean, come on!  Could there be any greater reward for our role in the ministry of the church than for the reputation of God to be made known and for all those who oppose Him or His church, even those who criticize "organized religion" to have to admit that God still loves His Church, God still rewards those who are committed to Him in His Church, and forsaking the assembly is still against the best interest of every Christ Follower?  

Second, the work on the wall resulted in great unity.  Nehemiah 8:1 tell us "all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate." As ONE Man - they were unified!  The people had taken on a massive project, worked together, fought for one another, and in the end they had the same mind, the same heart and the same re-ignited love for the Lord.  Praise God!  

What unified them was more than the work behind them though - it was the rallying around God Himself and His Word and His Ways.  O hear me on this - all the work in the world, every late night and long fight will mean nothing if it doesn't make us love Jesus more.  The reward of the work was unity, but it was a unity of love for the Word of God.  Nehemiah 8:5 reads, "Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people, and as he opened it all the people stood."  Their reverence for the Word of God was renewed.  They had not only heard His voice, but it made them hungry to hear from Him more.  

They loved the word, and they worshipped God like never before.  The passage continues, "Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, 'Amen, Amen,' lifting up their hands.  And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground."  Folks, it's starting to sound like a revival, isn't it!?!  The Word is exalted and the people are worshiping and humbled because God used them to build His city.  And the word was anointed!!  Verse 8 tells us "The read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading."  There was revelation to the scripture - they understood it!  

The next reward is that they experienced the JOY of obeying!  Serving wasn't a drudge - it was joyful!  They loved to obey the voice of the Lord.  O Lord, let it ever be in Your house that we love to serve!  

I'm getting carried away!  That's a LOT of Exclamation points!  But do you realize how many more rewards there are to serving God, and we too often approach asking people to get involved like it's such an inconvenience to their life?  NO - it's a joy to serve in the House!  

The next reward is that the sound of rejoicing went far and wide.  Look at Nehemiah 12:43 - "the JOY of Jerusalem was heard far away."  People everywhere will hear the celebration of what God does through people fully devoted to serving Him. What a reputation!  What a witness to the greatness of God!  What a TON of exclamation points, and I don't even care!! 

Finally, we've talked about the reward of serving God in House and doing battle over the church family in prayer.  Now, I ask you... what will your legacy be?  How do you want the House of God to remember you?  Have you ever considered that?  I am now.  

Nehemiah led a great building project that changed the scenery of the city and the region.  It changed the citizens of Jerusalem and of it's surrounding area.  And he was a man whose vocation was poison control - a cupbearer for the King.  He wasn't a priest or minister or prophet.  He didn't go to seminary, nor was he anointed by anyone other than God Himself to do the work.  He was humble and he only asked God for three things: 

1) Remember me for building the wall and restoring the gates of the city. (13:14)

2) Remember me for the revival that broke out as a result of the work. (13:22)

3) Remember me with favor.  (13:30)

What more could anyone hope for?  For a servant of God like you and me, wouldn't we want the same things, that same legacy?  Lord, remember me for the work that people could see; remember me for results only You could see; remember me in Your grace and favor.  I'm just a servant - a servant who loves You and loves Your Church.  May it be so of each of us.