No list today, just words that I hope will encourage someone who reads them.
If you’ve read my blog or emails regularly, you may have noticed how often I mention my morning prayer walks. I don’t want you to focus on the early mornings, or the walking, but on that middle word—prayer. Over the past two years, those walks have played a pivotal role in my life beyond making me a morning person. If you’re searching for meaning, hope, peace, comfort, joy, and confidence that you are loved and accepted in the deepest possible way—look up.
2020
You were all there along with me in March 2020 when COVID-19 barged onto the world stage. My world tightened into a small bubble, yet simultaneously expanded to absorb the confusion, fear, and anger of the world.
It was then that I began walking in the mornings. My kids were with me all the time. My husband is a first responder, and they were told to expect the worst. Some days it was the worst.
Morning walks were my time to be by myself and process. Little did I know that God would use this simple habit to reveal my dull and feeble faith and reshape it into something vibrant and solid.
The Slow Slide to Looking Down
I was caught up in the happenings of the world, and in particular, my part of the world. We experienced riots, wildfires, social unrest. Endless arrows wildly shot back and forth in social media feeds. Relationships fractured and everywhere I looked, seething anger roiling beneath the surface of everyday interactions.
My walks were spent listening to podcast interviews with experts who shared statistics, opinions, and commentary about the breakdown in our society, the turmoil and mess and utter madness on display and underlying our culture. These people talked and talked about the problems, but presented no workable solutions. And I listened.
All summer long, I filled my mind with the problems of the world. My own life was just fine. I loved having more time with my kids. I enjoyed the absence of social commitments and extracurricular activities. I exercised more, spent time reading my Bible, and worked on personal projects.
But the enemy of my soul was sneakily wearing me down. By fall of 2020, I could feel the deepdowninmybones discouragement, the creep of soul-drowning darkness, and the murmuring of a question: has God given up on goodness? Those murmurs grew to a roar, consuming my thoughts.
The Beginning of Looking Up
I don’t know exactly which day it was that I began looking up. Gradually, I traded eavesdropping on conversations with strangers via my earbuds for one-sided conversations with a God I wasn’t sure was listening, or even there.
He was, though. I’ve never been to talk therapy, but I imagine it must be something like what I experienced on my morning walks. I talked and talked. Morning after morning, I cried and confessed and argued and repented and explained and pleaded and acknowledged.
He was silent for a while. And then when I felt all talked out, he responded. He brought words of hope to my eyes through books describing his grace and goodness. He brought words of truth to my ears through podcasts focused on his character and trustworthiness. He brought words of life to my mind through scripture and song I read and heard and remembered.
Those of you who share scripture on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, in notecards and picture frames, emails and text messages, on Sunday mornings and at Monday breakfast tables—keep doing that. The world needs it. Your kids need it. Your neighbor needs it. The woman who seemed just fine at church last week needs it.
I looked forward to my morning walk with the intensity you might look forward to Friday or your morning cup of coffee.
The Conversation Goes Like This
I grew up with a formal attitude toward prayer. We knelt and said “Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” and always ended with Amen. I like the reverent posture of kneeling and appreciate the worshipful humility that formality engenders.
But my morning prayer walks are nothing like that. I begin with a “Good morning, Lord.” And sometimes: “It’s not a good morning, Lord.” Some mornings I spend a while in gratitude for the breath in my lungs, the beauty of creation, the blessing of another day to experience whatever he has for me. Other mornings, I feel defeated by my thoughts or actions of the previous day and begin with a request for forgiveness, which results in gratitude as I figuratively kneel at the cross and wonder at the mercies offered anew each morning. And occasionally, I’m unable to fully form my heartache into words. He hears that too. I put one foot in front of the other and walk. Usually the words begin to come after 10 or 20 minutes of walking and “God please help, please help me know how to pray, please help me know how to help, please calm my mind, please ease my heart-pain, please soothe my soul, please remind me of who you are.”
The Life-Giving Miracle of Looking Up
I pray for my kids, my church, my friends, my kids’ friends, someone I heard about from a friend.
Sometimes I pray for my state, my country, and the world.
Probably too often, I pray to ask for something I really want that might not be what God wants for me.
Every time I pray that God would keep me looking up. That’s a heart-changing, life-giving miracle.
I’ve experienced it. I do experience it every morning.
You may not need to walk. But you need to pray.
Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.
1 Chronicles 16:11
This is my prayer for anyone who reads these words:
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you…
Ephesians 1:18
Where Does My Hope Come From?
Called to hope! It doesn’t get more life-giving than that.
Hope right now through the knowledge that God is the provider of every good thing.
Hope right now through the experience of God’s love, forgiveness, and peace, offered in the person of Jesus.
Hope right now through the certain expectation of a future spent in the presence of our God who assures us he is compassionate and kind, merciful and just, full of grace and truth, the source of fullness of joy, abounding in steadfast love toward us.
We have the sure hope of an eternity with the God who is light, love, and life itself.
What hope! Look up and start a conversation.
