Category Archives: purpose

music in the rubble: how we fix what’s broken

Posted on by August 21, 2024

An old, broken music box made its way into our house, and before I could hide it in the bin destined for the thrift store, the boys intercepted it. And they’re fascinated. They don’t care that it wobbles on one foot because the other three are missing, or that the mechanism busted sometime in the last 35 years of disuse so that it only works when you force the cylinder drum to turn.

music in the rubble: how we fix what's broken | shannon guerra

Kav asked how it makes the different notes of the song, and I pointed to the little strips of metal comb that flick against the raised braille-like spots on the rolling drum, each making their own sound because of their different lengths. He sat next to me on the couch and forced the music to play in sporadic rhythm while I read about Nehemiah.

I love the story of Nehemiah. When you look around and see so much brokenness that needs fixed or rebuilt, it’s encouraging to see that someone else has accomplished this on a massive scale in spite of vile opposition.

If you’re not familiar, the book of Nehemiah overlaps with Ezra (fun fact: they used to be one book) and they both cover the story of the Israelites returning to Jerusalem and rebuilding after the devastation of Babylonian invasion, circa 450 BC.

The walls are down. They’re unprotected. Nefarious characters oppose their efforts. The people are spread out and vulnerable. And there’s rubble everywhere.

In Judah it was said, “The strength of those who bear the burdens is failing. There is too much rubble. By ourselves we will not be able to rebuild the wall.”

– Nehemiah 4:14

I know, it’s all totally unrelated to life right now; I don’t even know why I’m talking about this.

Repairing the walls could, for us, mean many things: reforming education, restoring family wholeness, repairing our physical health, shoring up our Bible knowledge, removing corrupt leaders. It’s close and personal, but it’s also broad and cultural. Our habits are influenced by our generally excessive and deceptive media consumption. We are tired and distracted and overwhelmed, often at the expense of taking care of our communities, stewarding the space around us, and even knowing who our neighbors are.

Some of us were broken after years of disuse, and we stopped working, too. It takes a lot of pushing to get us to play, to force the music out. But the music is still there, inside, waiting.

I had a long conversation with a friend a couple weeks ago about difficult seasons in motherhood and ministry, and the complications that come into play (or more accurately, that come against our play) when those seasons move from hard to devastating, and we fight depression. This isn’t an easy thing to write about for a broad audience because the internet is full of weirdos and quasi-Christians and armchair quarterbacks, but I already wrote a book about my own experience with this so I’m gonna trust you all here.

Also, depending on where you come from (i.e., our experiences and circumstances), it’s easy to take a religiously shallow view of joy. The person who’s never experienced great loss or sacrifice has a hard time identifying with those who have, and when they encounter someone who’s broken they face a fork in the road that forces them to choose between humble compassion or proud religious cliches. One side admits it doesn’t understand or have all the answers, and the other pretends it does while moralizing ignorant drivel that is really no help at all.

Job recognized, as only a person in pain can do, that simple answers not only fail to relieve pain, they can literally drive a person further away from God.

– Dr. Henry Cloud, Changes That Heal

In the early years of our endeavors – like parenting, adopting, ministry, business – do we know anything about anything? We’re just doing our best with whatever work we’ve put our hands to.

And when we see that our work is working (the kid is obeying, the sickness is healing, the sales are coming in, the people are growing, progress is happening) then work becomes play. Hope and expectation make work into a playground, because our efforts are rewarded with fruitfulness. The little dopamine hits of motivation go a long way. Things are going great, we think, I must be pretty good at this.

She did not know anything about gardening, but the grass seemed so thick in some of the places where the green points were pushing their way through that she thought they did not seem to have room enough to grow….She went from place to place, and dug and weeded, and enjoyed herself so immensely that she was led on from bed to bed and into the grass under the trees. The exercise made her so warm that she first threw her coat off, and then her hat, and without knowing it she was smiling down on to the grass and the pale green points all the time.

– Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

It works, we realize. If I push this button, then this happens. Maybe it doesn’t do it with perfect predictability, but it does it pretty much every time. So of course we keep on doing it.

But what if we push the button and nothing happens? Well, maybe things in the background are happening. So we wait, and keep pushing, and wait some more. We know these things take time. We know God has a plan. The details are more complex than what we can see on the surface. So we keep trying…and trying. And sometimes it works, and we keep going.

But other times, for a long time, we don’t see anything happening. We still push the buttons, but without enthusiasm or energy. The playground has turned into a penal institution, and what used to be play has become drudgery.

And that’s when we stop. We stop expecting, we stop hoping, we stop going. We stop working.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
    but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

– Proverbs 13:12

When I was talking to my friend, I told her how I came to a slow realization in my own brokenness that I actually had a valid need for happiness, and it was such a pivot point for learning to conquer depression.

We tend to think of happiness as an extra – it’s nice, of course, but truly hard-core Christians can go without it; it’s a perk if you get it, but totally not necessary. We concede to joy, yes, because joy has more spiritual connotations and we know it’s mentioned in really important things like the fruit of the Spirit, but then we make hair-splitting efforts to separate joy from happiness, as though they’re not really the same thing. Because, they say (whoever “they” are) you can have joy without being happy…but really, can you?

I don’t think so; it’s just rhetoric. Once you take the spiritual spin off it, that’s like saying you can have rage without having anger. And when you’re fighting for the motivation and ability to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, those kinds of hollow arguments might make the speaker feel clever about themselves for a minute but they’re a total waste of time for those of us trying to navigate darkness.

But joy isn’t based on circumstances, some will argue. And that can be true, but it doesn’t nullify the related truth that circumstances change our outlook and perspective on things. God cares about our circumstances. So we need to shift our gaze from arguing about words to actually solving problems, and one of the big problems is that many Christians have a hard time feeling okay about being happy.

The need for happiness flies in the face of any legalism we grew up with, because in those circles we’re mostly taught to quietly suffer for Jesus because God loves us very much and has a miserable plan for our lives.

Instead of experiencing the full gospel, we settle for the self-righteous parts that make us look good and pious, and make excuses for the parts that other people might judge us for if we lived them out too loudly.

(Quick side note: If we diminish our faith and understanding of God to meet the approval of others, we are succumbing to fear of man rather than fear of God…and that’s idolatry.)

In shunning one extreme, I fell for the other, and needed to find equilibrium again. But when I realized I needed to be happy, I also realized there was something more to “the joy of the Lord is our strength” than trite religious sentiment. I needed to see that what I was expending myself for was actually worthwhile, and that my pain had a purpose. I needed to rediscover important things like laughter and beauty.

If I was called to push that button, I had a genuine need to see something light up or make some noise. Because my life had value and God wasn’t calling me to waste it in futility.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
    to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
    and your faithfulness by night,
to the music of the lute and the harp,
    to the melody of the lyre.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
    at the works of your hands I sing for joy.

– Psalm 92:1-4

My friend told me about this group of moms she was once a part of – ambitious moms, doing-all-the-things moms. And she realized that the kids in this group didn’t need their moms to do more things; they didn’t need better activities or more resources. They needed happier moms. They needed more peaceful, less stressed-out moms. They needed their moms to have a stronger mom culture.

But it’s not just a mom thing; we all need a stronger culture. We all have personal and cultural walls that need fixing. They broke down when we stopped working, but what if we could figure out how to make the work feel like play again, and we started rebuilding?

In hard, broken seasons, too often we make excuses for the music not playing. We tell ourselves it’s not necessary because there are so many other important things to be focused on. So we sit in the quiet and the quiet gets louder, and we forget that we were made for joy and purpose.

But the Holy Spirit is calling us to push that drum a little, and see what notes come out. Remember who you are, Love, He says. Remember the things you used to delight in, the things I made you to light up over. Do not neglect the joy inside you; pursue it so others will see its fruit.

…She could not believe that she had been working two or three hours. She had been actually happy all the time; and dozens and dozens of the tiny, pale green points were to be seen in cleared places, looking twice as cheerful as they had looked before when the grass and weeds had been smothering them.

“I shall come back this afternoon,” she said, looking all round at her new kingdom, and speaking to the trees and the rose-bushes as if they heard her.

– Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

When Kavanagh turns the wheel, he doesn’t know he’s working to make the music come out. The music is his motivation; he pushes the drum and joy emerges. If it didn’t make music, he wouldn’t bother turning it. He would abandon it and find something else to do.

In our own situations, we look around, exhausted and overwhelmed at these broken areas, but God has buried music in the rubble.

So we ask Him to help us find it, help us push the wheel, help us hear. And we begin to pick up on faint strains:

Five minutes of peaceful conversation in an otherwise strained relationship.

The ability to calmly stand up for ourselves in a conflict.

Four hours of solid sleep when we’d only been getting scraps of rest.

A text from a friend who is praying for us. And the Holy Spirit reminding us to pray for another friend, and to send them an encouraging text, too.

And then we start noticing other things, and we have the strength to rebuild in other ways. Smaller things like giving better eye contact, or picking up trash as we walk, or eating fruit instead of sugar. The shy person is brave and says hello, the lethargic person reads something a little harder than they’re used to. The dad figures out how to fix the music box…or the mom finally remembers to take the bin to the thrift store.

We’re all on our own part of the wall, building and rebuilding, making our own sound, cleaning up the rubble. These are the notes we play. There’s joy – yes, happiness – in these tiny accomplishments, and music emerges as we feel the wheel moving under our fingertips.

P.S. If you’re curious about the story of Nehemiah, The Bible Project has a great 8-minute video here.

P.P.S. If you’d like more posts like this, subscribe here.

stubborn prayer: unleashing fire where others fear to tread

Posted on by July 26, 2024

It took two and a half years, but I finally finished reading Les Miserables (insert wild, nerdy rejoicing). In it, I read about a major cleanup operation – the saturated underground sewer system in Paris.

It was a formidable campaign; a nocturnal battle against pestilence and suffocation.

Trust me, it’s safe, nothing graphic. Let’s keep going.

The operation was complicated; the visit entailed the necessity of cleaning; hence it was necessary to cleanse and at the same time, to proceed…They advanced with toil. The lanterns pined away in the foul atmosphere. From time to time, a fainting sewerman was carried out.

Still with me? One more little section:

At certain points, there were precipices. The soil had given away, the pavement had crumbled, the sewer had changed into a bottomless well; they found nothing solid; a man disappeared suddenly; they had great difficulty in getting him out again.

— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

The project was tackled in 1805 because one man was willing to go into the putrid darkness and do something about it.

stubborn prayer: unleashing fire where others fear to tread | Shannon Guerra (excerpt from Oh My Soul: Encountering God in Honest, Unconventional (and Sometimes Messy) Prayer

His name was Pierre Bruneseau. He did what needed to be done in the place and time he lived in, willing to be the cleanup operation and go into the dark when others shuddered at the thought of it.

God nudged me as I read it. What would happen if each of us took this approach with prayer?

What would happen if those darkest, most hopeless places, institutions, and people were tackled in prayer on a level that no one has had the grit and persistence to take on before?

What if we prayed – really prayed, with bright, life-giving detail – over those who’ve grown wild, refusing to admit fault, admit reality, admit their own weakness? What if we were brave enough to picture what it would look like if the darkest businesses were replaced with those that breathed life in a community – and then we prayed it into existence?

A friend said this in a sermon and it stuck with me: The presence of fire in the Bible often symbolizes the presence of God. The fire on the mountain, the burning bush, the pillar of smoke, the tongues of fire that could not be contained in a room.

His presence sanctifies, purifies, covers, and brings light.

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

– Hebrews 12:28-29

The light yoke of responsibility, maturity, and surrender are only a breath away. The heavy yoke of filth and blackness costs so much, and lies to those who are in it that the effort to take the deep breath of surrender isn’t worth it. What if we made the road smoother through prayer that refuses to give up on them?

I’ve also been the one who was lost, and losing, and needed someone to fight in prayer for me. Many of us would not be who we are today without those who fought the darkness for us.

We have loved ones stuck in this kind of mire, and this is where the fight comes in for those of us who love them and are tempted to just wash our hands and give up on them. Giving up seems easier to us, just as it seems to them, because the pain of disappointment after raised hopes is so hard to bear.

But this stubborn, unyielding prayer is where we fight, because the decision between hope and despair is where the battle rages. This is where the outcome of victory or defeat is decided. And we should take someone with us, because even spiritual proximity to the morass can threaten to suck us under, too. We can be the powerful loving ones, clinging to a healthy vision of the one who is lost in darkness, refusing to let it go.

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

– 1 Peter 5:8-9

We cling to this hope and pray it into existence regardless of the blackness that pulses and threatens. We could fade away and give up, but heroes run into the battle and not away from it. Our loved ones need us to be those heroes – because they too are meant to be heroes, and that’s why the enemy fights so desperately for them.

That enemy whispers, “Give up. Lower your weapons.”

And we respond, “Fire.”

This is an excerpt from Oh My Soul: Encountering God in Honest, Unconventional (and Sometimes Messy) Prayer, shared now because it seems like a good time to lean deeper into praying light into dark places. Got a dark place you’re praying for? I’d love to hear about it in the comments, or pray with you for it if you’d like to contact me.

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loud freedom: how we fight back, and stand against

Posted on by August 29, 2024

This, like last Saturday’s news, is not about political parties or an election. This is about a fight for our culture.

Last week’s assassination attempt was meant to do more than kill one man, which is horrific enough; we need to recognize that that man was not the only intended target.

loud freedom: how we fight back, and stand against

Every American watching on live TV – plus those who would see the videos replayed ad nauseam in the future – was a target, because it was intended to horrify and traumatize every witness: Not just those attending the rally, but every man, woman, and child who watched, live, with cameras rolling.

All were meant to see the gore and blood and terror.

And it was meant to be replayed and replayed and replayed until all were desensitized to the horror and it became ho-hum in our culture.

So this was a message, too: Don’t threaten the status quo, and stop fooling yourselves about how “free” you are. Just so you know, this is what happens to people who threaten those in power.

Some of them will do whatever it takes to stay there.

So yes, we are under attack. There are people who want to make our everyday activities a war zone of fear and panic – and if that strikes you as hyperbole, you’re just not paying attention.

I “just happened” to be reading about another attack this week – in a less dramatic way than Trump “just happened” to turn his head at the pivotal second, but the source of both moves was the same, no doubt – and have been praying through its lessons all week.

It’s one of the most famous battles in the Bible so you’ve probably read about it and heard it mentioned in a hundred sermons before. But there’s good news for us here, and it, too, takes place after there has been exposure of evil, followed by government reform:

After this [King Jehoshaphat’s reforms] the Moabites and Ammonites, and with them some of the Meunites, came against Jehoshaphat for battle. Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, “A great multitude is coming against you from Edom, from beyond the sea; and, behold, they are in Hazazon-tamar” (that is, Engedi). Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.

– 2 Chronicles 20:1-3

The first part of this last sentence is key because two things happen in conjunction that don’t always go together:

1) Jehoshaphat felt afraid, and 2) he sought the Lord.

Wait, why is that weird? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?

Yes, it is. But it’s not what we always do when we’re afraid. We know it’s what we’re supposed to do, but that’s totally different.

What tends to happen when we’re afraid? Often we panic and look for the obvious answer rather than seeking the Lord (we see this throughout the Bible, too). Alternatively, sometimes we feel shame immediately after fear because we know we’re not supposed to be afraid, and that drives us from the Lord too, because shame is a separator.

But Jehoshaphat didn’t fall for those. He did the right thing, sought the Lord, and led his people in doing the same thing, per verse 4:

And Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord; from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.

Then King Jehoshaphat prays. And as he recognizes who God is and what He does, he’s also reminding himself and his people:

And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, and said, “O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you.

He continues: You cleared the land for us. You gifted it to us. We’ve lived here and made a sanctuary for Your name, and remember? Ages ago, back when the Ark was brought into the Temple and Solomon prayed, we made a deal together: If disaster comes, and we cry out to You, You will hear and save us. And here we are, under attack.

Then he says this:

O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

– 2 Chronicles 20:12

There they stood, like we do, with their families: husbands, wives, little ones. Waiting. Wondering what to do. Knowing that anything we can do on our own is just a drop in the bucket, so futile without God’s help.

And then the Spirit comes.

And through Jahaziel, a man who is never mentioned anywhere else in the Bible, He speaks:

And he said, “Listen, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: Thus says the Lord to you, ‘Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s. Tomorrow go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz. You will find them at the end of the valley, east of the wilderness of Jeruel. You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the Lord will be with you.”

– 2 Chronicles 20:15-17

Isn’t that nice? I mean, the Holy Spirit was right there telling them exactly what to do, where to go, and what would happen.

That would sure be handy for us right about now, too.

But what if He has already told us what to do?

What if we just need to be focused on those things? And rather than apologizing for how insignificant they seem, what if we realized how powerful they are?

To sum up, let’s look at their instructions:

Do not be afraid. There it is again.

Do not be dismayed. Not the same as fear; more like “disillusioned” or “discouraged.”

Okay, those are the things we don’t do. Got it, easy peasy…riiiiight.

But now, for the things we do:

Go meet them tomorrow, stand against them. On the offense, not the defense. And this is interesting because I was just looking at this other passage recently:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

— Ephesians 6:12

Ready for some Fun With Greek? Of course you are, yay!

The repeated use of the word “against” struck me in this verse. The Greek word is “pros” and some translations use the word “with” (“we wrestle with the rulers” etc).

But it means a motion TOWARD something to interface with it. It’s not defensive, but offensive — we are to make the move forward, against, toward the threat, not simply to stand where we are and hold our current ground.

We offensively oppose the spiritual forces of evil — pressing forward and even plowing over (or through) enemy ranks.

So we’re looking at two different instances of “standing against” in Scripture: One in Hebrew and one in Greek, but both are in the context of battle.

We do not step back and diminish anything we’re already doing. We don’t cower or cave or shrink; we take what we have and press onward, against the threat. We don’t give the enemy room; we take the land and make him shrink back. We don’t give ground; we gain it.

We do not turn down our volume or our voices or our beliefs. We destroy strongholds, arguments, and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

And then we see this final instruction:

Stand firm, hold, and watch the Lord save you.

If you know this story, you know Jehoshaphat and his people ended up battling through worship. They fell down in worship, stood up in praise, and they weren’t quiet about it. And when they did that, the Lord set an ambush against their enemies, so that they were routed.

The daily small things we do are notes in the song as we march our days forward: making these sandwiches, learning this skill, memorizing that verse, reading those books with the kids, having that talk with a friend. We will not cede this ground; we will not live in terror; we will not let our children grow to know a country that is less than what we ourselves were raised in.

We will not be intimidated into shrinking silence and survival mode, pursuing safety over sanctification, choosing the idolatry of living in fear of man.

We will live in loud freedom, instead.

They set a net for my steps; my soul was bowed down.
They dug a pit in my way, but they have fallen into it themselves.
My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast!
I will sing and make melody!
    Awake, my glory! Awake, O harp and lyre!
    I will awake the dawn!
I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
    I will sing praises to you among the nations.
For your steadfast love is great to the heavens,
    your faithfulness to the clouds.

– Psalm 57:6-10

Our steady, life-giving routines are the chorus we keep coming back to: Turn this page in the Bible and move on to the next chapter. Pray with your spouse, pray with the kids. Weed the garden, harvest the veggies, delight in the flowers blooming. Make the meal, gather with friends. Take something to the neighbor, pick up the trash along the road. Call your grandparents, or your grandkids. Chat with the grocery clerk you see every week.

For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.

– 2 Corinthians 1:12

Seek the Lord, and assemble, because of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end.

The Kingdom is here, at hand, all around us and within us. The Kingdom is peace, joy, and righteousness, and every move to abide and reflect Jesus makes earth a little more as it is in heaven.

God is setting an ambush and routing the enemy as the Word reigns in and around us. That Word hovers through the land as we read, sing, remind, write, recite, and declare.

We don’t need to be on stage; we’re all leading worship.

All were meant to see gore and blood and terror, but instead, we witnessed a miracle. And singing and rejoicing as we take the land, we will continue to do so.

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