What goes into your mouth is important, but Jesus says that what comes out of your mouth is even more important.  In fact, the words you speak, not your diet, are what make you healthy.  Just look:

“What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.’” — (Mt. 15:11)

What is the FIRST thing OUT of your mouth each morning?  Can you even remember?

Think about it for just a minute.  Each and every night you close your mouth, and you live in silence for many hours.  In all the rush and noise of this world, you make it a daily habit to spend close to a 1/3 of each day in utter darkness and silence.  Kinda beautiful, eh?

But what breaks that “fasting” from words?  How do you greet the new day?  Is it with blessing or cursing?

Why not start this new year with a resolution to have a “Breakfast of Words” – give yourself a simple phrase or sentence to greet each new day.

I had noticed that my days were starting off on the wrong foot – and I came to believe it was the mindset in which I was approaching my days – if the first things that roll through my mind or off my tongue are, “Shoot – I’ve forgot to call that guy yesterday,” or “I feel groggy and awful,” imagine how the rest of my days went!  I had enough - I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.

Since then, I’ve been doing a little “holy experiment” trying it out, and I’ve lived to tell the tale.  And I’ve got to say – its GREAT!

Each morning, I’ll say this as my eggs are cooking:

“Glory to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit – as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, AMEN.”

I don’t know about you but if you say that, even if you begin without “feeling like it” – by the end, you just might have a slight smile on your face.  You remember that no matter how you might feel, or what might be going on in your life, a regular diet of these words (or something like them) will change your day.  And if you can change your day, you can change your week, month, year…even your life.

Its the simple things like this that make the biggest difference.  New Years Resolutions don’t have to be BIG – they just have to be consistent.  

Take a daily “Breakfast of Words” – start your day’s dialogue in a place of joy, centering, and purpose.  And see what happens!

Things fall apart…

This is quite possibly the best title of any book ever written.  Now, the rest of Chinua Achebe’s novel on social inequality and yams is just so-so in my opinion, but the title has always caught my attention – anytime a glass shatters falling from my cupboard, or it a flock of birds finds my freshly washed car, or I watch a faith community that began so healthy begin to pick each other apart.  Things fall apart.

Each time it is painful to watch and it somehow reminds me of the entire Universe.  Everything about this present creation is falling apart.  The Universe is spinning farther and farther apart, our own sun is a star that is using up a limited amount of fuel and will (if the Lord tarries) burn out.  Our own bodies are failing on us the moment we begin using them, free-radicals and other nemeses plotting against us.

So how does one fight the tide of such savage dispersion?  With every atom is warring against every other one for survival, how can we seek a future Kingdom of God that remains?

 So there is a Sabbath rest still waiting for the people of God. 10 For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. 11 So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.

- Heb 4:9-11

Rest does not come naturally in a world where there is a war going on.  To keep things from falling apart in your life, your health, your faith community, and more… it takes intentionality.

Nothing comes together outside of intentionality.

We were created by God originally as gardeners, and this vocation provides an interesting view into the idea of intentionality.  I’ve been tending a 15×15 garden space in our urban neighborhood.  Its engendered in me a fabulous sense that “things fall apart.”  Weeds grow, plants droop and need trellises, tools scrape and sculpt the crumbling earth, pests large and small want a piece of my intentionality because they have not invested as I have into growing food.

Some people build the sand castles, others knock them over.  The writer of Ecclesiastes knew this well (Eccl 3:3) “There is a time to break down, and a time to build up.”  As I’ve stated, the destructive forces of the Universe are always breaking you down, and your job as one of God’s gardeners is to always intentionally be building up.  

Put yourself in an environment that spurs you on toward a more spiritually-formed life.  If you want to pray, create a space for that prayer to happen, or it never will.  If you want to be a peacemaker, put yourself in situations where you have to practice peace.  This won’t often “just happen.”  And when it does, unless you’ve intentionally prepared, you’ll fail the test – simply because you were not intentional!

Its not hard, but the hardest part is getting started.

In God’s Kingdom, Things Come Together.

Take for instance, the bonding between a new-born infant and her mother.  A new born’s eyes are not fully developed when they’re first born; they can only see clearly about 12 inches away – everything else is blurry.  Interestingly, that is the distance an infant is away from her mother during breastfeeding.  There is an eye-to-eye connection - a deep love with the one person she can see clearly. This, combined with rooting, an instinct that connects the baby with the one person who can provide for her. Sounds a lot like prayer! Sounds a lot like what God wants for us in our intimate relationship with him, yes?

It gets even more interesting.

Babies, within just an hour from birth, already have latent in them the ability to walk. YES – walk.  Hold them up and lightly brush their feet across a flat surface, and they’ll begin to stride forward.  (Funny, they lose the ability to make this movement at about 6 months because of weight and muscle development, but if you half-submerge them in water, they’ll walk just the same.)  We are born as the only bi-pedal mammals; making us much more efficient for long journeys.  God created our bodies for a journey. Our movements are always moving us forward (our knees don’t bend sideways or backwards).

Mission…journey…intimacy…these things are built right into the fabric of what it means to be human.

God created us to find him.  We are specifically designed from Day 1 to give us as many chances to connect as possible.  ”Seek the Lord while he can be found.” Isaiah 55:6

And for those of us who are no longer able to claim the “new born” restaurant discount let this be a lesson for us.  May the instincts and impulses integrated into the fabric of a baby be our instincts with God. An infant, who know nothing of this strange new world he finds himself in – still knows the sound of his mother’s voice, knows who to trust, knows when to cry and who alone can silence his fears.  May this be a moment when we remember that “our feet were made for walking…” – and like a sheep after our shepherd, “…that’s just what they’ll do!”