I always enjoy having the opportunity to hear an author speak about their work. This past Sunday evening my wife, daughter, and I heard author, Laurie Short, present at the Author Series at the Gateway Church South Campus in Austin Texas. Her focus was on her new book, When Changing Nothing Changes Everything. We all had read her previous book, Finding Faith in the Dark. The women’s Bible study my wife goes to used it as a study, then my daughter read it and enjoyed it. I read it last which is odd as usually I read a book first and the other two read it. The time hearing her at Gateway Church was an insightful evening listening to Laurie. In person she is as honest and open as she is in her writings.
In my blog this week I want to share a couple of reflections on her book Finding Faith in Dark Places. In our life journey we have bright and cheerful times as well as dark and bleak times. The bright times are full of happiness and joy while the dark times fill our hearts and minds with despair, sadness and questioning. Unless your purpose in life is to out-gloom Eeyore of Winnie-the-Pooh fame, we all prefer and enjoy the bright and cheery times. But the reality of life brings to each of us dark times. How do we react to them? Do we cave in to despair or rise up to victorious faith?
Laurie in Finding Faith shares multiple stories of people’s times of traveling through their dark times. She also shares throughout the book her own dark faith journey. I won’t say what it is to keep you in suspense to read her book.
One of my favorite portions of the book was the chapter “God of the Present Tense”. Her thoughts here were a positive reminder that we too often neglect being attentive to the present moment. We dwell on the past that we cannot change or spend too much time wishing about the future. It is making wise choices in the present that help us obtain the future we want. I emphasize that often in my book, Living More Than OK. I like how she says it on page 57 “Most of our emotions are tied to something that was or will be—until that rare moment when something demands all our attention, propelling us to live in the now. These can be the most promising moments, for it is in the now that God can be found.”
She illustrates this with the story of Moses and the burning bush in Exodus 3. Moses finds himself in a wilderness time as a shepherd when in his past he was in the palace of Egypt. I wonder how often he thought back as to why he was out in a nowhere land of wilderness when in the past he enjoyed the glories of the palace. In this Exodus passage Moses is forced to be in the present as he hears his name called out from the burning bush. “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said “Here I am”. “Do not come any closer.” God said. “Take off your sandals you are on holy ground.” (verses 4 & 5). In that moment God was calling him while he was in his wilderness experience. In that time God was with him and came to him with new direction for his life. The passage reminds me as many other parts of Laurie’s book – that God is with us in our dry desert experiences of life when we feel all alone.
Further in the book she brings out a thought from Henri Nouwen. She brings to light Nouwen’s thought “that at every turn, we must open our hearts to the voice of God. This is the voice that whispers to us in the dark,’I have a gift for you, and I can’t wait for you to see it’. When we listen for that voice… every choice becomes an opportunity to discover the new life hidden in every moment, waiting to be born.” (pg 86). If we are mindfully aware we will be ready to hear God when he speaks.
There is so much more in the book to learn from for those who look at life from a Christian perspective. If you have stopped by this blog and you are not of a Christian worldview there are still principles in her book that points to what we can learn by mindfully being aware of the dark times in our lives. Every person no matter their worldview has dark times and the important thing is to not cave in from the darkness. Instead we can have the faith to keep on keeping on and resiliently move into brighter times in our lives.
Reflection: Reflect over a dark and dry time in your life. What did you learn from the experience. Who or what helped you bounce back into a brighter movement in your journey?
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