Nurture Faith with Dr. Doug Hood

There seems to be no shortage of excruciating stresses, interpersonal struggles, and reasons to be anxious. Some are better than others at putting on a brave face, but their demeanor hides what we all know is a fact of life—life is difficult. And many days, we find it a struggle simply to push through ordinary chores and responsibilities. A heart heavy with anxiety is exhausting.

The careful reader of the Bible will notice that anxiety and worry are mentioned often. This is good news because it says that anxious hearts matter to God. Certainly, it is important to the Apostle Paul. He writes in this sentence of Scripture that we are not to be anxious about anything. The difficulty, of course, is that saying is one thing. Doing this is quite another matter.

Fortunately, Paul doesn’t simply slap us on the back, admonish us not to worry, and leave it at that. What Paul does is offer an antidote for anxious hearts: “rather bring up all of your requests to God in your prayers and petitions, along with giving thanks.” Paul is asking that we make God a partner with everything that weighs so heavily on us. Giving voice to those things that trouble us goes a long way in reducing their grip on our lives. Yet, Paul’s advice is more than simply talking about our problems. Paul tells us additionally to give thanks, to remember in the midst of our anxiety that God has been faithful in the past, and to realize that past performance does indicate the promise of continued faithfulness.

Some years ago, a pastor in New York City would conclude his prayers by saying, “Help us to lean back into the strong arms of Jesus Christ. Amen.” Paul is saying the same thing here. Paul is not denying the power of anxiety. There was no shortage of anxious moments in his ministry. What Paul is asking that we do is remember the faithfulness of God in our past and then lean into that same faithfulness now when our hearts become heavy. There is no promise that our problems will all go away. What Paul promises is God’s peace.

Joy,

This meditation is from Dr. Doug Hood’s soon to be published book, “A Month of Prayer: Five Minute Meditations for a Deeper Experience of Prayer”.

My grandmother kept a large, white, faux leather cover Bible prominently in her home—usually on a coffee table, though she would occasionally move it about her home as though it was a traveling exhibit. Embossed into the cover was a full-color picture of Jesus kneeling by a great rock in the wilderness. Each time my eyes fell upon that Bible, I felt as though it was a call to prayer. The face of Jesus was not anxious, not desperate as my own on those occasions I did pray. His face portrayed confidence; a radiance one has in the company of loved ones who care deeply about us. Absent was worry, doubt, or any trace of anxiety that threatened to consume. Yes, a call to prayer was evident in this picture of Jesus. However, that call made me uncomfortable—uncomfortable because I would experience a lack of spiritual power. With the disciples, I heard my own heart say, “Lord, teach us to pray like that.”

In this Scripture, Jesus had just finished a hard, demanding day. Another day of similar demands stretched before him. How could Jesus be ready for it? Mark’s Gospel gives us the answer and, with it, important insight into Jesus’ power, “Early in the morning, well before sunrise, Jesus rose and went to a deserted place where he could be alone in prayer.” Jesus was intentional with prayer. Jesus wove into the fabric of each day a time to be alone with God. Jesus regarded this time as a vital part of the human experience. Prayer was an opportunity to link his life with the purposes of God and cultivate a friendship with God. This friendship produced the confidence that Jesus would not face any of life’s demands alone. That would be the source of Jesus’ spiritual power.

My lack of spiritual power as a child was from an inadequate view of prayer. I had reduced prayer to those occasions when I would ask God for a favor or for help with a difficulty. Consequently, days without prayer would pass—I simply did not have any request to make of God. Yet, as I matured, I continued to pay attention to that picture on my grandmother’s Bible, that picture of Jesus at prayer. It grew upon my consciousness that prayer is the same as time spent with a friend or loved one. I may not have anything to ask of my friend, but I did enjoy their company. I felt valued by them, loved by them, and strengthened because of their friendship. The same happens with prayer—a strong hand on the shoulder and the confidence to face each day swelling within. Power comes as we find ourselves surrounded by God’s love, guidance, and strength.

With this refreshing surge of power that flows from regular time in prayer, it is very strange then that we should be content with so little prayer. The weakest, most fearful individual can experience greater strength through the regular rhythm of prayer each day. As this passage of Scripture demonstrates, prayer each day for Jesus was as ordinary as enjoying a meal. Jesus prayed often. Jesus prayed for himself and for others. Jesus prayed when he faced a crisis, and Jesus prayed simply to be alone with God. Jesus urged his disciples to pray, and Jesus taught prayer by example. What the disciples discovered is that regular prayer did not only sustain Jesus’ ministry; it gave direction. Immediately after Jesus rose from prayer this particular morning, Jesus knew what he must do that day. He was not to return to the previous day’s work. Jesus was to head in the other direction. God had new work for him there.

Joy,

This meditation is from Dr. Doug Hood’s soon to be published book, “A Month of Prayer: Five Minute Meditations for a Deeper Experience of Prayer”.

The following meditation was written by Doug Hood’s son, Nathanael Cameron Hood, a recent graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary.

In 2018, Michael Norton, a professor at Harvard Business School, co-led a study where over 2,000 people with a net worth of at least $1 million were interviewed about their personal happiness. Two of the questions which produced the most revealing answers concerned his subjects’ self-satisfaction with their personal wealth. First, Norton asked them to rate their happiness on a scale of one to ten. Second, he would ask them how much more money they would need to get that happiness rating up to a ten. As Norton explained in an interview with The Atlantic: “All the way up the income-wealth spectrum basically everyone says [they’d need] two or three times as much.”¹ One would imagine that at a certain point when money stops being an issue, when private planes become as negligible an expense as a morning cup of coffee, enough would be, well, enough. But, as Norton discovered, human psychology doesn’t always work sensibly—or rationally.

The idea that wealth can’t buy happiness isn’t a particularly new or novel revelation. After all, one of the most famous and enduring stories of the last few centuries—Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol—centers on a miser whose insatiable hunger for wealth left him so miserable, lonely, and despised that it took an act of God to save him from himself. Or consider J. Paul Getty, the infamous founder of the Getty Oil Company who was once listed in the 1960s as the richest man on earth. He was so single-minded in his pursuit of wealth and so paranoid in clinging to it that he once famously forced his kidnapped grandson to pay him back the ransom money he spent—with interest!

There are many ways that the stories of Scrooge and Getty could (and perhaps should) be read as cautionary tales, but one of the most glaring involves their common lack of gratitude. Was Scrooge thankful as a young man with a successful job and a beautiful fiancée? No, he traded both for loneliness, a gloomy apartment, and a bigger bank account. Was Getty thankful for his grandson’s recovery from kidnappers? No, he saw it as yet another business transaction. There have been scientific studies proving that cultivating gratitude results in improved mental health and personal happiness, but perhaps equally important is the idea that gratitude protects us from losing our very humanity in the search for wealth and success. Put another way; gratitude keeps us from becoming a Scrooge or Getty.

Shortly after he predicted his death for the first time in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus Christ gave a brief sermon to his disciples about the importance of taking up one’s cross and following him. It’s only a few verses long, but it contains one of Jesus’ most startling teachings, namely that anyone who seeks to save their lives by their own power will lose it. What use is gaining the whole world, Jesus asks, if you lose your soul in the process? And indeed, looking at the lives of Scrooge and Getty we see two men who leveraged their souls a long time ago. Imagine how much a little gratitude could have changed the lives of Scrooge and Getty. Let us give thanks that there is still plenty of time for the rest of us to make the change.

Joy,

1Pinsker, Joe. “The Reason Many Ultrarich People Aren’t Satisfied With Their Wealth.” The Atlantic, February 13, 2019. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/12/rich-people-happy-money/577231/.  

To read more meditations by Dr. Doug Hood and Nathanael Cameron Hood, you can purchase Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ from your favorite book seller.

Any royalties received support the ministry and mission of First Presbyterian Church of Delray Beach.

The following mediation was written by Doug Hood’s son, Nathanael Cameron Hood, a recent graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary.

There are few things I dislike more in life than moving. It’s not just that I dislike the boxing and the unboxing, the lifting and the sweating, the stress and the worry—although I very much do. For me, what I dislike the most is saying goodbye to old comforts and habits. Let me explain. During my last year at Princeton Theological Seminary, I lived in a wonderful room on the third floor of Brown Hall, a beautiful recently renovated dorm built in 1865. Located at the heart of the campus, the dorm was a fifteen-second walk from the cafeteria, a thirty-second walk from the main classroom building, and a ten-minute walk from Nassau Street—Princeton’s answer to New York City’s Time Square. I quickly became accustomed to these short walks for their convenience and beauty. In truth, I came to love them.

The room itself was small but large enough to accommodate an overworked student like myself. There, too, I became accustomed to its dimensions and came to love them—I loved how it was exactly seven steps from my bed to my private bathroom and less than one to my large wooden desk. I put an electric kettle for tea on the left side of the desk and sometimes—when deadlines were particularly brutal—a coffee pot on the right. Many were the days (and nights) when I would wrap myself in a blanket, sit in my chair, fire up the kettle and coffee pots, and read, study, and write for hours. Especially when soft rains or snow danced outside my window, my room became an introverted seminarian’s paradise.

But eventually, I had to say goodbye to Princeton, to the short walks I’d loved, the dorm room that became a hideaway, and the desk I’d whiled away so many afternoons and long weekends. I traded them all for an apartment in Brooklyn, where I would be spending the next year of my ministry. The move was stressful, but the hardest part was getting used to my new surroundings. Now, I had no desk, a bathroom down the hall, four roommates, and a twenty-minute walk to my new job. Small complaints, but for an introverted creature of habit like myself, they mattered.

The Book of Exodus also recounts the story of a significant move—the moving of the Hebrew people from Egypt to the Promised Land. Despite having escaped literal slavery, Exodus tells how the Hebrews quickly came to mourn their old habits and surroundings. Remember when we used to have meat and fresh vegetables, they whined. Remember how life was in the old days? There are many stories of God and Moses dealing with these complaints, but one of my favorites is the unusually specific instructions God gives for building the tabernacle, the holy ornaments, and the new priestly duties. Read in a certain light, it’s like God was giving a final response to the Hebrews’ mourning of their old lives with literal instructions for a new one. In time, the Jewish people would look back at this tabernacle as instrumental to their identity as God’s chosen people. The new had replaced the old. They just needed the courage and conviction to trust God and let go of the past. I can relate. Though I miss my old dorm, I’ve come to make my new apartment a home. I have new rituals for how I go about my days and nights, ones that I now dread leaving behind in a future move as much as I dreaded leaving my Princeton ones. And what’s more, I’m comforted knowing that I’m exactly where God needs me to be at this exact moment in my life. What could be better than that?

Joy,

To read more meditations by Dr. Doug Hood and Nathanael Cameron Hood, you can purchase Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ from your favorite book seller.

Any royalties received support the ministry and mission of First Presbyterian Church of Delray Beach.

“I made myself holy on their behalf so that they also would be made holy in the truth.”

Jim Rohn writes, “The greatest gift you can give to somebody is your own personal development. I used to say, ‘If you will take care of me, I will take care of you.’ Now I say, ‘I will take care of me for you if you will take care of you for me.’”[i] Rohn seems to have captured wisdom from Jesus’ playbook. In a tribute to his nature and character, Jesus makes the statement, “I made myself holy on their behalf so that they also would be made holy.” Here is Jesus’ secret for maintaining intimacy with twelve irritating men who were his companions. Each disciple pledged their life to the purposes of Jesus. Yet, in one measure or another, they disrupted their fellowship with angry contention as to who came first or who was the most loved. Petty prejudices were evident in their ministry, and they fiercely attacked men who had caught the spirit of Jesus but who did not belong to their select circle.

Abandonment of such a divisive, arrogant, and argumentative bunch of men seems the most reasonable course for Jesus to take. Yes, Jesus loved them. But they also drove him crazy. Certainly, there were stronger candidates that Jesus could trust to care for his divine purposes. But right here, with this statement captured in John’s Gospel, Jesus purposed to lift them, “I made myself holy on their behalf so that they also would be made holy in the truth.” Jesus’ technique is to lift himself closer to God, on the disciples’ behalf, so that as he is changed by God’s presence, he might change the disciples. These foolish, deficient colleagues that Jesus loves are made useful by Jesus’ decision to draw closer to God. As Jesus is changed, the disciples are changed by their proximity to Jesus. There is something intensely practical here for us. Every individual is affected by a relationship they establish with another personality.

Instinctively, we become like those persons we keep company with. This becomes evident in the fashion that dress us, the amusements that entertain us, and the values we embrace. Parents know this. That is why the company their children keep becomes such an important consideration. We spend an hour with a friend, and we come away different. If the experience is less than satisfying, we are conscious of a weakening within our psyche. We question why we entertained unsavory gossip or indulged in humor that inflicts pain upon another. Then we spend an hour with another friend, and we come away with indescribable joy. The world takes on a different complexion than before, and we feel good about ourselves. The world is a beautiful place, more welcoming, more gracious, more inclusive of differences. The dynamic is the same in both cases. We are under a spell of influence.

If we do not have a satisfactory relationship with those who are closest to us, Jesus shows us what we can do about it. We can take care of ourselves—we can lift our own life closer to God until we experience a change in our own character. That change is inevitable. Moses experienced it on the mountain with God. The apostle Paul experienced it on the Road to Damascus. One life rubbing up against another results in change for both. But a life that draws near to God—and remains there for a considerable period—experiences transformation by the divine. If those who are nearest to us seem to disappoint, and seem to have lives marked by the trivial and shallow, we cannot wave aside the blame for such conditions. As Jim Rohn might say, that is the life we inspire by who we are. Take responsibility for spiritual growth and watch the change in those who are closest to you. That will be our greatest gift to another.

Joy,

[i] Jim Rohn, The Treasury of Quotes (Dallas, Texas: SUCCESS Enterprises, LLC, 1994-2021), 88.

To read more meditations by Dr. Doug Hood and Nathanael Cameron Hood, you can purchase Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ from your favorite book seller.

Any royalties received support the ministry and mission of First Presbyterian Church of Delray Beach.