Christian living

Every Moment Counts

He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,  that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;  for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ Acts 17:26-28
God is waiting for us to invite Him into every moment of our day, and in every aspect of our lives. Just imagine…….He is already there and ready to make every single moment a Holy moment. That is something that is entirely possible when you realize just how close He really is.
Just imagine, every moment a sacrament…..walking to work, stopping for coffee, waiting for the bus, sitting down to your desk……imagine Him there, just before the phone starts ringing.
In every real moment of our lives. He is.
I often think of those moments right before September 11, 2001. If those people had known what was about to hit?
How incredibly Holy and precious each moment would have become.
But none of us really knows at any given time what is about to happen. That is why each and every moment matters.
Each one counts……savor the day.


The race worth running

I sometimes think of her when I see a little girl of four or five. She was my Grandma and Grandpa’s first child. I have her name in between my own first and last, and maybe that’s why I wonder after so many years, who and what she would have become.

That day must have started out like any other. Rising early, they would have had their chores. My Grandmother had given Annie a task, to put the wood on the stove and dry it out. Annie forgot about it, as a five year old will and Grandma had scolded her. After that she went outside to play with the little boy, a foster child they had taken in.

And propped up against the building was the shotgun my Grandfather had left out. Back in those days you needed guns handy then, kept loaded for coyotes, wolves…..predators that would attack your cows, horses, chickens.

The boy picked it up meaning no harm, they just were playing after all. And he was so young himself, he couldn’t have known what he was doing. He pointed, and the gun went off, hitting Annie in the stomach and I can’t even think of what my Grandfather thought as the shot rang out. I can scarely imagine the horror of what they found.

Back then, there were no ambulances, no 911, no cell phones, no help.

My Grandmother, held her as she suffered and died. And my Grandfather, grief stricken, went after the boy and couldn’t find him. And oh how he must have suffered a lifetime of guilt after that, for leaving that gun out. I am not sure my Grandmother ever forgave him.

He died when he was only 64, of stomach cancer when I was only two. He loved me, I know this for sure. He called me his “Blonden Engel,” that’s blonde-haired angel in German and I hope that when he looked in my eyes, he saw a bit of her. I hope that I eased his pain just a little bit, this good and Godly man who always asked strangers if they knew the Lord.

And I think of my Grandmother, and how she must have felt holding her little girl and knowing there was nothing at all she could do to save her. And of the guilt she must have felt the rest of her life for scolding her that day. And I wonder about that poor boy who fled. How his life turned out……he was never found or heard from again to my knowledge.

I think of the current battle over gun ownership and gun control, and how passing laws and restricting gun ownership will never keep accidents from happening, or madmen from going on shooting sprees. The criminals will still have them.

And in the final analysis, it’s not guns or gun control that will ever save us, it’s Jesus.

Always Jesus. And no matter how hard or crazy things get in this world? He assures me it’s worth it. Because of Annie, because of my Grandpa, because of so many others.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. Hebrews 12:1

Chicken Wars

They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit. Jeremiah 17:8

Chick-fil-a boss Dan Kathy has been taking a lot of flack these days for coming out and saying that he supports the traditional view of marriage. And those who exercised their own free right to support someone who was exercising their free right to free speech by going to buy a chicken sandwich yesterday are taking the flack too.

Yesterday, we didn’t see anything at all uncommon. We saw Americans doing something that has been part of our culture ever since a group of rabble rousers threw some tea overboard in the Boston harbor. They were putting action behind their beliefs. Taking a stand….backing up someone they wanted to support.

Independence and individuality is something that flows through the veins of our country’s DNA. It is built into our constitution and framework of our entire belief system. But it is not always easy to know when to step up and when to back down. At what point do we act on our beliefs?

Do we act on them even if by doing so we further widen the gulf between differing views by making it about “us” versus “them?” Someone has to be the enemy. Someone has to be wrong.

Many of the comments I read  opposing the support of Chick-fil-a were very troubling. It seems many people have very definite, and in my view, warped ideas about Christianity and Christians in general, most of them not favorable, some of them outright disturbing.

We were labeled, fundamentalist, racist, gluttonous, stupid, ignorant, hateful, uneducated and uninformed. And the Westboro Baptist Church kept popping up in comments, as though all Christians should be branded with that particular (and I use the term very loosely) church.

You could argue the point that if the church and Christians in general had done a better job historically of loving and reconciling people of differing viewpoints maybe this all wouldn’t be an issue. But then again, no one ever loved and forgave and tried to reconcile more than Jesus, and they crucified Him for it.

Because they didn’t want to hear the truth. They didn’t want to be told what they were doing was wrong. Lets face it, none of us does.

And the very same spirit that existed then, continues to wreak havoc in the world today. He is our true enemy, and he has only one goal. To Kill, To Steal, To Destroy……Lives. That’s been his goal from the beginning.

Hurting people sometimes strike out against something they may not even fully understand themselves. The enemy is the spirit behind the hate, and it is he who we must fight, always. Never the individuals.

There is a war we are in. But it’s not us against them. It is God against all sin whatever the flavor.

Are you ready?

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.” John 6:66-69

I had just finished reading John chapter 6 during my prayer time a few mornings ago. I closed my eyes as I digested all I had read……this chapter is swirling with action. I needed to reflect for a moment on all I had read. It was just getting light out and I heard a dove calling from a few houses away. My little candle was flickering away silently casting a reflection in the little shop window.

I was surprised by a question that was breathed into my heart…..I had just read that saddest of verses, the one where many of Jesus disciples hit the road. It was another instance where Jesus had just finished confounding people with the truth, and it wasn’t want they wanted to hear.

“Are you ready to be my Disciple?” that was the question I heard.

I sat there conflicted. “Of course I am,” I thought. But then I remembered how many of them ended up.

And what was required. Am I ready to take a plunge off a 500 foot drop? Am I ready to commit the rest of my life to a God who commands the wind and the rain? Who can speak the world into existence? Who is many times unpredictable and scary? Am I ready to go wherever He asks? Wherever He leads?

Then I thought about life itself. If someone would have asked me when I came into this world, knowing what I know now, all I would go through, would I have so been quick to say, “Bring it on?”  I most likely would  have said no, I am not ready. Who is ever ready? 

But do I want to do it anyway, also knowing what I know now? And has it been worth it thus far?

To that I can give a resounding, and emphatical “Yes.”

God, in His great wisdom, chooses to bring us through a bit at a time. He allows some pain for growth, but also baptizes us with joy and wraps us in His love and comfort through His Holy Spirit.

That is where I stand today and rejoice along with the 12, for as Peter so rightly said,  “To where would we go?”

Indeed.

Thank you Lord, for giving me the chance at this wonderful adventure of following you. Everything this world has to offer pales in comparison to what You have to give. Amen

In the Refiner’s Fire

“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Matthew 3:11,12

Thank you Lord, for my devotion time this morning. Thank you for Your Loving Presence today. Your Spirit holds my sins up to the light exposing them for what they are, so that I can confess them before you honestly and draw near to you once again.

Thank you for knowing the real me and loving me anyway.  Sometimes I don’t know how your Spirit, your Holy and perfect Spirit can tolerate living with mine, still so filled with the world and all its griefs, cares and worries.

Help my fears diminish, Lord, so I can be filled with your perfect love that your peace may take its rightful place in my heart.

And help me to see the small trials I go through in this life as Your refiner’s fire of love burning away all my impurities. In all the things we could ever hope to accomplish in this life, there is only this one thing that counts.

That we know you

and in knowing you, we find our true purpose in this life.

I lift the gifts to you today Lord, in gratitude of all you give and keep giving………The wonderful rain that poured down in this dry desert…….worship that comes in little spontaneous moments throughout the day…….a little extra money this month…….God’s continued protection when I don’t even know it……melons and okra sprouting like wildfire in the garden……..a good day yesterday…….seeing old friends again…….music that upliftts and burns hot in the soul in praise to God……answered prayer for a first day of school……a good walk this morning……911-921

And the thunder rolled……

“Thus says the Lord……Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; and you shall find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ Jeremiah 6:16

As I read the words of Jeremiah this morning, reflecting on the wrath of God poured out on a disobediant people, I felt a chill crawl up my spine. Jeremiah had the unpleasant task to be the mouthpiece of God to Israel.

“My soul, my soul! I am in anguish! Oh, my heart! My heart is pounding within me. Because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war!”

Just then, as if ordered by God himself to put a little emphasis on His own words there was a terrible clap of thunder and I almost jumped out of my seat! The anger of God is something I never want to experience personally.

It is easy to feel a little “puffed up” as the Apostle Paul put it, when we read about all those rebellious things the Israelites did, how they strayed from God to worship foreign idols, statues that could neither talk walk or breathe.

How could they, we wonder? After God himself came down in a visual form…..a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day? After all He had done for them? And all along, there is a loving Father who wants His people back. He longs to love and cherish them and yet they push Him away.

There was another loud clap and in my mind I remembered all those times when I myself have push God away, thinking I knew better….thinking the plan I had for myself was better than the one He had for me. And yet, His mercy and love have pulled me back, over and over again. Not once has He ever refused me.

Oh how He loves us…….His mercy calls us back, new every morning.

As with all things of nature, it thrilled me no end, that clear and powerful reminder. It reminded me this morning who is in control, and it is most definitely not me.

To watch a lightning storm is to watch the finger of God touching down on the earth, and to hear His voice in the thunder a gift, a marvelous thing.

His power, my weakness.

Coming and Going

“Love doesn’t hide. It stays and fights. It goes the distance, that’s why love is so strong. So it can carry you home.” Unknown

Somewhere in between longing and joy, regret and hardship, tears and laughter, there is a place we call home. When we go back we run into all that history, all those feelings, and in turn they run smack into everything that’s going on now. That’s why going home evokes so many powerful emotions for so many.

It’s the place and people you grew up with, the place you learned to sink or swim, or survive and thrive.

Somewhere in between the place we always seek to recreate and romanticize and the place we never want to see again lies that place we call home.

I go back to the place I spent all of my growing up years, so lots of memories come with it. The sorrows and the joys live there within its walls, along with those things that never seem to change.

The squeak in the porch step, the way the screen door sounds when it slams…….my Mom’s dryer that will never die, the one that never stops, all day long…….and that keeps spinning no matter if the door is open or not. I am convinced that God keeps all her appliances going.

And this time, the garage talked. The first time I heard it, it scared the daylights out of me. “Oh,” my Mom said, “Lauryn has a couple dolls out there that talk and it must be the motion that makes them go off.” I felt like I was in a horror movie where Chuckie the doll comes to life.

Everytime I go home I fry something. This time it was my Mom’s favorite hair dryer. I think it was going on its twentieth year. I looked up and the connection in the outlet was smoking. I caught it just in time.

My Mom constantly complains about not having enough electrical outlets, and it is a valid complaint. Back in the early sixties, they didn’t put outlets in every six feet, about two per bedroom was enough.

There was a new hood over the stove this time. I went to reach for something up in the cupboard and I almost needed a ladder. The new hood extended much further over the cupboard than the last one, but neither my Mom or Dad thought it was a problem when they bought it, they were just happy to have a new one.

The cat still loves to hang out in the sink. The first one liked it there, and so does the new one, amazingly enough!

My Mom still gives me the best of whatever she has. She insisted I have her new fan, not the one that rattles, and having body wash and lotion for me when I didn’t even think she heard me say I needed it. At eighty three she still seems to have everything everyone needs.

My Dad still says, “Everything is better when you’re here…..”

And when I close my eyes I still hear, “Watch me, Nori!” and it makes me happy but sad all at the same time.

My niece still has a problem saying her “L’s.” She was so thrilled that her Auntie was there with her, watching her swim. And she laughed and laughed at the video I made of her kitties getting into a tussle. Her favorite thing to do now is make videos of us when she thinks we aren’t watching and then laugh uproariously when we catch her at it.

I have found that going home teaches me lessons all over again. I learn things about myself and some of them don’t make me happy, yet I am thankful for them because without the realization, the change wouldn’t be possible.

Going home is made up of little hard and soft moments all strung out together.

I realized this, as Mom and I sat hand in hand watching Franklin Graham evangelize India. We each shed tears because how could you not, watching people who have nothing, suddenly gain everything? Part of mine were shed because everytime I am near them, I feel the weight of time pressing heavy.

We are a family in crisis mode, and aren’t we all? And sometimes, most times, I just don’t know to help.

One thing I do know to be true, the faith that has kept us together through so much still stands, will always stand. And always…..He keeps us.

And going home and coming home are both very good.

“The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.” Psalm 121:8

When we forget where our help comes from

I look up to the mountains—
does my help come from there?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth!
He will not let you stumble;
the one who watches over you will not slumber.
Indeed, he who watches over Israel
never slumbers or sleeps.
The Lord himself watches over you!
The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade.
The sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon at night.
The Lord keeps you from all harm
and watches over your life.
The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go,
both now and forever.
Psalm 121

It’s easy to forget where our help comes from sometimes. As I prayed yesterday, my face to the carpet, in whispers of desperation, “My shoulders are not big enough, Jesus, they are so small…..” as tears threatened, “not nearly big enough to carry the sorrows and heartaches of loved ones back home, loved ones here, as well as my own, I can’t do it.”

And I realized my foolishness when His quiet reply came to my heart, “You were never meant to carry them, child, but I can, and not only that, I want to!”

I am so sorry Jesus……I kept you on the back shelf, again.

Why do we try to carry what we never meant to, I wonder? Sometimes we Christians think we are supposed to be strong enough, as people of faith. We tell ourselves things like we shouldn’t be stressed because we have the Lord, after all.

I got up after my very short prayer and went outside. The morning was cool and beautiful……Elaine came out with me, already awake. She knew how hard my first day back would be, she knew the burdens I carried, because people already carrying big burdens recognize when others are buckling under the load.

We sat at the patio table as God colored the sky an impossible shade of violet and pink. She told me of a radio program she liked listening to from 5-6:00 in the morning, about stocks and bonds and finance. I loved that she wanted to share it. It was like a gift exchange sitting there, she and I in the quiet morning.

It was so peaceful, that little conversation, Heaven touching earth, because He was there too.

As she talked, light filled the sky and I kept on sitting. As I rose from my chair I said, “I better make a call.”

I didn’t go in, I couldn’t go in, not yesterday.

And it was okay. Because sometimes the truth is that though you may not feel physically sick, you feel sick at heart, sick from stress. But sick is sick, and it’s okay to be weak sometimes.

As long as we remember who it is that is strong.

I want to wish a very Happy Birthday to my Dad, who is 84 years young today!
Today’s picture is for you, Dad. Almost 40 years ago we climbed this mountain together, what a time we had!

Why aren’t we working at our passion?

Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before……1 Thessalonians 4:11

Maybe it is the line of work I am in, but everywhere I go I hear it, “If I won the lottery I would do such and such……” most of the time, they would not be doing what they are doing now. What they are doing now is putting in time, just like me. They work at something that is not their passion and yet due to economic reasons they can’t quit.

All over the world, there are hoards of us going to work already mentally exhausted. We want to get to the end of the week…..and why?  Because we are not working at something that gives us any true satisfaction. For that we have the weekend. We do the things we love on our days off.

Tomorrow, a co-worker and I will both return to work after being on vacation. I can speak for myself and I think for her as well when I say that we would both rather be somewhere else. We work in a highly competitive field, that of technology. The entire culture is built around being better, faster and cheaper than our competitors. And that ideology trickles down to us, the employees.

We feel we have lost our value. Our identity.

We can never be satisfied with what we were last year, last month, last week. That can really wreak havoc on your mental state. This is not to say that we don’t appreciate our jobs, we do. Each day I thank God for the job He has given me, and yet each day I ask myself,  how can I glorify God in my workplace when I am in the midst of burnout?

And why do so many work all their lives to retirement in jobs that they feel passionless about?

What is it about the American dream that is so alluring, so compelling, that we are willing to sacrifice what we love on its altar in order to get it? I have owned very beautiful homes, one of them in a pine forest on a custom lot with three stories reaching to the sky. But the truth is, this little two bedroom place has felt more like home.

I have learned to be content with less. I have grown close to the Lord here, it is a happy, peaceful place.

This week I will spend 48 hours of my life at work. It is 48 hours I will never get back. I think about all the people I have heard who have quit their day jobs and followed their passions. I remember the story of the big CEO who lost his job, went to work at Starbucks, found his life, and wrote a bestselling book about it.

By writing this post I am acting on my passion, but the challenge remains, how do I put that same passion into what I will be doing for 12 hours tomorrow?

Again I think, we were made for more than this.

We were made for abundant life…………….Jesus promised it.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10

What He said

No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. Romans 8:37

I had a rough start this morning. I was feeling under the weather, but I successfully made it out the door. I have one more day and then I get on a plane to go see friends and family and one little girl who has been very excited that I am coming. Every day for a month she has been asking…..”Lori come today?”  It is somewhat bittersweet……it is hard to leave when I know how difficult it will be without me here. But I have a very gracious friend, and she knows how important it is for me to be there too.

I gave out a relieved sigh as I got in the car and buckled in. I slid the CD into the player, the one I picked somewhat blindly since I didn’t have my glasses on. As the notes filled the car I felt the beauty played by Phil Keaggy flow through my soul. Healing…..incredible, the power that music has to heal.

As I watched the light fill the sky and turn it every different shade of violet, I remembered what I heard last night from Ellen Johnson, president of the American Atheists,  as interviewed by Barbara Walters.

“Heaven doesn’t exist, hell doesn’t exist. We weren’t alive before we were born and we’re not going to exist after we die. I’m not happy about the fact that that’s the end of life, but I can accept that and make my life more fulfilling now, because this is the only chance I have,” she tells Walters.

No, I thought, I don’t accept it, absolutely not.  And everything I see and hear and feel around me tells me otherwise. This is the tip of the iceberg, my friends. And to me, this morning, Heaven felt more real than anything else. And besides, as Elaine said, if we are wrong, then we have simply lived a good life, but if she is wrong……I said, “Yeah, it’s gonna be a very long eternity.”

I have seen people die with Christ, and I have seen people die without Him, and I can tell you this for sure. The ones with Christ have the lights of Heaven reflected in their eyes when they go, I have seen it myself.

I believe the proof I see all around me, and I take Jesus at His word that Heaven is very real indeed. When people ask me what I believe about Heaven, all I need to do is point to Jesus and say…”What He said.”

This is only the beginning.
“But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,”What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” 1 Corinthians 2:7-9