Text Devotions «

September 20, 2021 Text Devotion

Posted on Sep 20, 2021 in Text Devotions |

I just read another devotion by Ann Voskamp, the writer of “One Thousand Gifts”. It was about time. How it rushes and we get all swept up in it, head spinning, with its ever pressing pace and the things we must get done.

It is the space where we say things we shouldn’t, we are unkind, our voices get harsh, gentleness leaves our hearts and impatience grows and grace withers and retreats as if it can no longer survive in such inhospitable soil. Ann says the only way to slow that energy-spending pace of time is to wade in and be present in it and the mass of you and your struggle to just show God you love Him, slows time down. It just does. I read that and immediately I was transported back to that breakfast table on Bois Blanc Island with Barb and Chuck Maki and our friend Heidi.

Barb had just prayed about the water calming from the storm but she could still tell from its motion that God was on the move. I mentioned two devotions ago that if God is on the move he probably wants us to be too.

Seems reasonable but not always when Chuck Maki is involved with something.

According to Chuck, his face holding a look that you just can’t decipher. This is a tricky time with Chuck, because after years of being around him, I just know he’s going to get me in a way I don’t suspect. But I do leave myself wide open, don’t I Chuck?

So, he just says, “God is on the move when you are not.” It hangs in the air for awhile after silence returns. No more; that’s it.

Some of us (me) are pondering hard, frantically trying to figure out what he’s cooking up now to bring at us. Barb is calm, this has been part of her life now for a long time, (61 years or some crazy long period) she is ready to wait and calmly continues breakfast as if nothing has her shimmy shirt in a knot. She even has a half smile on her face – I am intently noticing all the details – alert for any shred of a clue.

If you don’t know Chuck, understand that most of his life he has held a fascination for cars, and in the barn not far from where we’re eating breakfast and having a rather less than clear conversation, sits a Model A and two Model Ts. Two fully restored by Chuck and Friends, I will say.

Chuck now begins to speak of taking those old cars out for drives on the island. My brain has whiplash, my fairly expressive face is doing its job by eyes widening and popping, my forehead crinkles and many other horrible things happen before I remember to take Barb’s lead and smile calmly and carry on. “BUT,” my mind screams silently, “Weren’t we just talking about God being the move when we are not? What does driving those wonderful old cars on the island have to do with anything?”

Well, a word to anyone who ever finds themselves in this spot. . . . wait for it.

All of a sudden, Barb has switched alliances and talks of how you never knew what was going to happen when you went on a jaunt around the island with one of those cars – “they’d just stop on you! Who knows where you’d be stranded!” Truly, it could be just about anywhere and many of the roads are not much more than paths rooted and treacherous. Barb said the boys don’t want to mess with their unreliability but she said she and Chuck went all over in them. “We didn’t worry.” Chuck chimes in helpfully that they even carried a special tow bar with them.

I smile bemusedly and can’t even look at Heidi to see if she is following this.

Now, only just now, I see that look in Chuck’s eye that I have seen many times before and for the sake of adding more confusion into this story, I will just say that I suddenly realize that Chuck is about to land his fish and he is serious when he is landing a fish. Yes, I wrote that right in this tale of time rushing, turned to God moving, turned to antique cars not moving, turned to landing fish. Why not just muddle things a bit more? As I say. . . wait for it.

Chucks says more loudly now, “If you want to put your faith out there and get it moving, just take an old car out on the island.” Silence.

“If the car quits, someone will come along eventually and (island style) they will offer to help you out(I imagine this is where the special tow-bar comes into the picture), it takes some time to hook everything up and you begin to talk and during this process, you get to know each other a little bit and bridges are built.

“Well, by the time you have been hauled home, you are pretty near friends and it’s easy to say to this fellow islander, ‘Have you heard about the Coast Guard Chapel? We meet on Sundays, why don’t you come on by, we’ll be there and we’ll be happy to see you!’”

I know I started this long ago but it’s so worth sticking it out to the end because Chuck has just laid an amazing lesson on us. This is how God is on the move when you are not. You have placed yourself in a place of vulnerability, almost daring that antique car to stop on you so you can catch a fish. Just a touch Biblical wouldn’t you agree?

And you may be stopped for awhile, so just like Ann Voskamp, Chuck and Barb waded into the rush of time and slowed it forcefully with God’s blessing so seeds had time to be sown, and God’s grace had time to flow.

That breakfast was not rushed either so that Chuck had time to share the grace with which he and Barb had ‘almost’ intentionally slowed time and were ‘all in’ with the presence of God to share with those who stopped to help them.

Now, that’s what I call amazing grace, Maki-style. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if we took a page from their book. He is always generous.

~Shauna Weil

September 15, 2021 Text Devotion

Posted on Sep 15, 2021 in Text Devotions |

I have been taking some days to cogitate on things. I have a couple more Bois Blanc Island stories to share but I needed to clear my mind of its tangledness. I do not believe that “tangledness” is actually a word but do you ever just get to that place where you think you’re living into your faith and all of a sudden you’re surrounded by ties that bind us so we can’t seem to move?

Sometimes I find myself confounded and not as close to God as I want to be. It’s kind of a lonely spot to be sometimes but that doesn’t mean it’s always a bad spot. Those times of tangledness help you discern where you are and where your faith is. At times, I think my faith and I are definitely not on the same page. But I have discovered if I let myself lean in long enough, let the discomfort grow and open myself – something does happen.

In this case, finally something in all that faithfulmess (misspelling intended) wafted out for me to latch onto and go with.

My thoughts became full of the Holy Spirit. I don’t know why. So I began to read things about the Holy Spirit online and check out our United Methodist site for thoughts on the matter.

I wondered first where is the Holy Spirit inside of me. One site said that scripture says it’s in our belly. Hmmmm, I thought, well, our stomachs are often very central to us as human beings. But does the Holy Spirit reside there? Don’t know. I also found that it is thought to reside beside us, within us, upon us and filling us. Interesting – it could be kind of all around us and in us all the time. This thought could even still allow for the Holy Spirit to reside in our bellies. Hmmmm, don’t know.

The United Methodist website based on John Wesley’s long struggle with understanding the nature of the Holy Spirit says that it resides in our hearts. The doctrine also suggests that while the Holy Spirit working within us can be a very intense personal experience providing us with guidance comfort and strength; it can be equally as powerful at work in our faith as a community.

So here I am spending all this time trying to understand my faithfulmess, remaining stationary – or so I thought! Seeming a little lonely – or so I thought! When all the sources tapped tell me the Holy Spirit is right inside ME, or at least all around me, like ALL THE TIME!

Well, this is simply amazing and wondrous, because in our daily lives as we find ourselves confounded and tangled we forget about the threesome – yep, I’m talking the Trinity, the three in one! God the father, His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

We think God goes far away but how can he? Really, how can that ever be? We got the Holy Spirit forever with us as Christians. If those 3 are one then how can God or Jesus, Christ be gone? In all rationale thought it’s impossible. Simply impossible!

So I sit in my tanglednessly faithfulmess, and the Holy Spirit stirs and wafts it’s way in me and before me. I feel the pull before I know what it is – there is something moving my heart and mind forward when I can’t even fathom what I’m doing – there is something that warms my heart enough so that I actually move and realize that the tangledness of things is not so bad as I was certain it was. Something is happening, people, and that something is a living growing FAITH IN GOD!

Don’t underestimate that Holy Spirit folks! It’s keeping the home fires going and the fresh winds of grace and understanding blowing. When you have time to meditate on the Holy Spirit moving in your life, listen to the song attached to today’s devotion, ‘Holy Spirit You Are Welcome Here.’Open yourself and let the entanglements fall away and let the Holy Spirit reveal a message or maybe even a reassurance to you, or move your heart to a place it hasn’t been before, or let your mind ponder something you never even considered.

Holy Spirit, you are indeed ever welcome here.

~Shauna Weil

September 8, 2021 Text Devotion

Posted on Sep 8, 2021 in Text Devotions |

I flipped my Jesus Calling calendar at home to September after spending a week on Bois Blanc Island with Barb and Chuck Maki. The picture for September above reminds me of a special moment (one of the very many) during my time on the island where God’s presence is there for those who will see and hear. That feather looks as if it could be on the move.

Four of us sat around the breakfast table on one of our last days there and we prepared for Barb to share grace for the morning and the food before us. From their cottage, you have but to raise your eyes to look out and see the beauty of Lake Huron before you.

We had had a storm and the lake had become angry, roiling and rolling as the storm and wind whipped the surface into a myriad of whitecaps – many eventually crashing upon the shore. We ran about in the storm securing the things that needed to be taken care of, disliking the wet, but laughing and joking along the way. We were companions in the journey, moving toward being able to take respite in the cottage. Even after, sometimes having to brave the storm again, donning still wet articles of clothing, yuck, to go out to secure or re-secure.

On this morning as we sat at table, the storm had passed and the lake had returned to a calmer presence in our world. We bowed our heads and Barb spoke to God. She thanked him so graciously for things we rarely think of and take for granted but then came the moment – it punched me in the heart and made it clench.

She said quietly, “And thank you Lord for calming the waters after the storm but we can still see it moving. You remind us God, that you are still on the move in us and in this world.”

My heart clenched with joy, I felt it, Barb said it, and I knew it – my heart told me “Praise God for Barb, she is right!” God IS on the move and we must move with him if we are to be His disciples.

We had a lake to remind us but, really and truly, it doesn’t matter where we are. God is always on the move everywhere. And when God is on the move that means he is often trying to move us! Open your eyes to see; open your ears to hear! Are YOU ready? Are YOU willing? Don’t stop to pack for the journey, God is all you need. Go!

~Shauna Weil

August 27, 2021 Text Devotion

Posted on Aug 27, 2021 in Text Devotions |

The water of Lake Huron splashed around between my ankles and knees as my head bent toward the water looking for ‘precious to me’ stones in the water’s shallow depth. The ‘sun’ was shining on me and the air felt good as I moved down the shoreline searching for something.

This simple fun past time reminded me of Pastor Joel’s sermon last Sunday as he talked about pathways to discipleship. We have so many ways and opportunities to investigate our life of faith on our own and in community. To give us a memorable way to think of our faith life, a beach theme was applied to different levels and aspects of faith life. You can go from a toe dipper to a deep diver and many places in between.

I continued to grasp for stones and the water’s rippling effect often caused me to misjudge where the stone actually was – I came up empty handed but still cooled and soothed by the touch of the water on my skin. I tried again. I came up with something! Not the right kind of stone I felt comfortable with at that moment. We’re not going to examine why or why not today – we’re just going to say it wasn’t right for me and back in the water it went for some other rock seeker, or toe dipper or deep diver to choose.

As I gathered ‘keepers’ during my morning jaunt, I thought about Pastor Joel’s sermon and the grid that is so neatly made up to guide us on our path toward living our lives more wholly as a disciple. What did it mean for me? I have been at this disciple thing for a lot of years – admittedly in fits and starts throughout my life. Now, I find myself quite eager to dive deeper, live closer, pray more freely and more often, love harder and softer, scatter kindness with true JOY and forgive more quickly, care for others oh so gently in the hardest of times. . .

So maybe I am a deep diver in some areas of my faith life and maybe I’m a toe dipper or a beach comber in others.

As I splashed to shore with a handful of treasures to examine, I realized that I was excited to be learning about new ways to deep dive into my faith as a whole but I was even more excited to examine some facets of living into my faith that I haven’t even really considered yet as maybe a toe dipper or maybe a beach comber!

Remember not too long ago we participated in the Pass It On Project? Many of us became potters and made beautiful candleholders for each other and passed the gift of the light of Jesus Christ among us. That was merely a start – this leads us to a life-long pathway to living more deeply into our beliefs. Let’s do it together and let’s do it now!

What are you waiting for? The waters more than fine.

~Shauna Weil