Author: Scott Strand

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It’s Been A While

Gar­ri­son Keil­lor begins his A Prairie Home Com­pan­ion monologs with the phrase “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobe­gon” and then launches in to a dis­cus­sion as to why it really hasn’t been all that quiet of a week.
Well, for me I could start out by say­ing ‘It’s been a quiet 8 months in my life’ but now let me share with you the rest of the story — a famous line from another great radio voice Paul Harvey.
As I reflect back over the last 8 or 9 months I believe I have had only 1 blog post­ing, writ­ten while on a retreat last spring. My tweets have really been lim­ited to post­ing scrip­tures have in some way caught my atten­tion. So why the silence? Well I guess I just haven’t had much to say. I have described these last few months as an infor­ma­tion or knowl­edge gath­er­ing time. I have spent time read­ing a vari­ety things — scrip­ture, a num­ber of books — Henry Nouwen and Spir­i­tual Polar­i­tiesby Wil Her­nan­dez, Becom­ing Whole and Holy by Jean­nine Brown, Carla Dahl and Wyndi Corbin Reuschling. I have spent a lot of time think­ing about what I want to do when I grow up. I have just been busy gath­er­ing lots and lots of stuff. What I have failed to do is slow down and start putting all the pieces together. So I have slowly been push­ing the pause but­ton on the whole sale gath­er­ing of more…
I don’t know about you but my mind goes a lot of dif­fer­ent direc­tions when I pon­der things — I make great use of mind map­ping soft­ware and big white boards when I am down­load­ing my pon­der­ing mate­r­ial. I put up all the ran­dom thoughts that I have and then I play con­nect the dots. I am always excited to see con­nec­tions that come out of a bunch of seem­ingly unre­lated blurbs.
If you are still read­ing this, thanks and you now have a glimpse at how my through process works and why I am the way that I am. So what have I learned and where am I headed. The biggest thing with regards to my blog is that it live in a new place. This past spring I put together and did a very soft launch of a new web site call LRT Min­istry. You can read more about the min­istry by hit­ting the home but­ton above. In a nut shell LRT is an acronym for Loved, Redeemed and Trans­formed — Loved by God, Redeemed by Christ and Trans­formed by Spirit. What LRT Min­istry allows me to do is gather in one place the var­i­ous things that I do or hope to do in the not to dis­tant future. This could also be the plat­form for part of my doc­toral the­sis which I will be begin­ning in January.
My goal for the near future is to have a weekly blog post­ing (hope­fully on Mon­days) as I begin to con­nect the dots and share with you my process and what God is teach­ing me. It is my hope that together we can be part of each oth­ers trans­for­ma­tion process and grow in our under­stand­ing of God and who God wants each one of us to be.
The lead-off topic of dis­cus­sion be a word that seemed to come up a lot in my pon­der­ings — Authentic.

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Listening

It’s Sunday morning the 1st of April 2012 and I haven’t spoken with another person since early Friday evening. I am finishing up a three day retreat at Pacem in Terris just north of Minneapolis. Pacem is a wonderful retreat center with 15 or so hermitages (small cabins) scatter about on 120 acres of wooded land. I wish I could say that I come here regularly but it seems that it only works out to be once a year or so.

Every time I come to Pacem it seems that I have a different purpose – at least that is what I think, God sometimes has a quite different agenda. My purpose this time was simply to listen – listen through scripture – the Gospel of John, listen through reading – Becoming Whole and Holy by Jeannine Brown, Carla Dahl and Wyndy Corbin Reuschling, and listening through prayer.

Listening – what does this mean? I haven’t blogged for the past 3 months or so because I have been listening. Listening to scripture as I am attempting to read through the Bible in a systematic way (Prof Horner’s Bible Reading System). I have been jotting down scriptures that jump out at me each month to see what God is speaking to me. I have been listening but I haven’t taken the time to hear. I have the texts but I haven’t taken the time to hear what they are telling me.

You see we have gotten quite good at listening without hearing what the other is saying – it doesn’t take effort to listen but it does take effort to hear. I come to Pacem because getting away from the everyday things helps me to not only listen but also to hear. But even here it takes effort to hear. As I read my mind drifts to other places, I highlight or underline key thoughts but then I need to return to them to hear what they are saying, as I pray my mind drifts and I need to refocus to hear that still small voice of God.

So what am I hearing? From Carla I am hearing about the social science side of formation – the role of love as a formation strategy – by loving God and loving others we are becoming. As Carla points out its not the idea of loving God and loving others that is difficult its the praxis of loving. Also, we need to create an authentic, hospital space where we and others can be formed. This is what Jesus did so well.

From John it was tied to the the end of the Gospel where Jesus is entering Jerusalem for the final time – the shouts of joy that so quickly turned to shouts or crucify him. But then you have His resurrection and charge to us to love and serve others.

For God – this one I am still trying to discern. I have been thinking about a new ministry that I will be launching – LRT Ministry (more on this coming soon), working with Prison Fellowship about a new reentry program at Stillwater prison, writing projects, doctoral studies, sermon prep – just a variety of things that I have been sitting on for awhile. For now I encourage you not only to listen but to hear what God is saying to you through whatever mode He chooses to communicate with you.

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God Provides

Our God gives you everything you need, makes you everything you’re to be. (2 Thessalonians 1:2 MSG)

I came across this verse the other day and I though “That’s a relief.” You see it is God who provides what we need, note it doesn’t say what we want, but what we need. Just as He provided manna for the Israelites in the desert, He will provide for us. Does this mean we can just sit back and wait for the blessing? No!

What does the second part of the verse say? In short is says that He makes you what and who you are suppose to be. You see God has given you a mind to think, passions to pursue, skills to leverage and if you are a believer He has given you a spiritual gift. Your God given abilities, life experiences and learned skills all make you who you are and provide a way for you to get what you need. Not only that, but it gives you the ability to provide for the needs of others. Your spiritual gift is not for you to use for yourself, rather it is given to you for the benefit of others.

God can and does bring unexpected blessing: an unexpected check, a stranger offering to help, a job offer or simply a new relationship. These are all ways God provides for our needs.

What or how has God gifted you to earn a living or benefit others? Have you ever been the recipient of an unexpected blessing? Have you ever responded to a prompting from the Spirit to be the giver of a blessing to someone? If not, you might have to listen a litter closer to that still small voice prompting you to be generous.