Christian living

Celebrating firsts, letting go of lasts….

Your skin like dawn
Mine like musk
One paints the beginning
of a certain end.
The other, the end of a
sure beginning.
Passing Time by Maya Angelou
When you have a child, it is important to celebrate the “firsts.” They are such milestones and so very important. They carve themselves in your heart and memory forever. And then there are the lasts…..the last time they will let you hug them…..in public, or at all! The last time they blow you a kiss or return your wave as enthusiastically as you give it. The last time you read them a story and feel them lean against you as if they will always need you this much. 
Sometimes they slip by unnoticed, but not because they aren’t just as monumental as the others.
My wonderfully stalwart and soft-hearted best friend has realized there are other types of losses and last things when your parents have Dementia and Alzheimer’s. She has had a whole year of “lasts” with her Mom and her Dad.
There was the last drive in the car, the last trip in the Motor home, the last time to pay a bill or run to the store. She has been with them through it all.
Yesterday was still another. Last time to take your Mom to the movies. First, she got lost. She said she didn’t have to “go” but changed her mind and went into a stall. Since she has the habit of wandering off, Elaine circled the theatre area, and then the parking lot. A lady said, “She went that way…..” Then, out loud during the movie her Mom kept saying, “This movie is weird.”
And she ate one kernel of popcorn at a time and then picked her teeth….and you don’t want to know what she did with what she found in her teeth. Imagine what a small child would do if they didn’t know any better. Alzheimer’s is ugly. And mean spirited. It has no mercy.
It was another last of many lasts. And the strain of it all makes her wonder if she is living her lasts as well……how do you grieve what never was in the first place? Part of the sorrow is knowing how it could have been And will you know the right time to say, “when?” Can you trust someone else to give you permission to lay it down?
And all the relatives wonder why she keeps trying. Why she can’t just put her in a home somewhere. Why she can’t let go. Everyone else has cut them loose. After all, their parents never really invested in their lives, or the lives of their Grand kids. You don’t grieve what was never there, after all. You just live your life as if they don’t exist.
And the time and memories are like water rushing under a bridge…..sometimes, regrettably, not nearly fast enough. And that time is getting closer every day.
And sometimes the saddest thing we can learn from others is how not to live a life…….
And when the end does come, she will have known she did all she could with the help of her Savior who knows and sees all. She is doing what she must do, right now, one day, one moment at a time, and trusting Him to let her heart know when it is time to let go.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written,The days fashioned for me,when as yet there were none of them……….Psalm 139:16

Peace……

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. John 16:33

I am learning you have to work for peace. You can’t just settle back and say, “I am just going to sit here and be peaceful.” To get peace you have to seek it, desire it. Be intentional about staying that way…….Jesus was peace, and yet everywhere He went there was commotion. Upheaval. And in the middle of it all, He had the Father’s peace. That kind of peace is what we need in the middle of our world, in the middle of ourselves.

And it is reachable, because of Jesus.

And it is a battle. Sometimes in order to get that peace you have to fight for it. Sometimes as soon as you have set your mind on that peace, all of life conspires against your getting it. But you can get it. Actually, you already have it as a believer.

That peace is what attracts the world. That peace is what attracted them to Jesus.

They watched Him as the Sanhedrin tried their best to ruffle His feathers, but they never could. And they walked away shaking their heads, confounded.

Puzzled.

Even though Jesus was peace, and we have that same peace, there are times when He needed to find a quiet place. I love to think of Him sitting by the lapping shores of the lake, or climbing up onto a mountain where He could see His creation for miles…..Finding a little place to sit where he could pray…..far from the crowd, where He could hear the birds, listen to the wind in the trees, hear His Father’s voice.

I like to envision a well in my soul. It’s the one I draw from, the one with the living water in it. Unlike every other well built by man, this one has no bottom…..

It’s source is eternal. And it never fails to quench the thirst in my soul.

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Proverbs 4:23……

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7

Peace is my word for this year. Did God give you a word for 2012?

Childlike Faith

But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” Mark 10:12,13
When Jesus heard the disciples rebuke those parents, He in turn rebuked them. He really upset about it, in fact. I like coming back to this picture of Jesus again and again, because it is clear how much He valued the childlike faith of children.
Why is it so easy for children to believe…..to have faith in something they can’t see? Not only do they have the faith, they act on it. It is no problem for them to grasp the concept of knowing in order for something to really work, they have to put it into practice. They leave money under the pillow for the tooth fairy…..and lo and behold, the money is there when they wake up. It doesn’t really matter to them how it works, they just take it in faith that it will because their parents told them it will.
And somehow it happens just that way. That is, until they find out it was their parents all along hiding the money under the pillow and putting the cookies out for Santa.  
We forget what was once so easy…..so natural. We get too smart to put our faith in something we can’t see. Like God. But the problem is that God says that unless we do just that, we will never see Him. We will never enter His kingdom…..
So we spend the rest of our Christian walk trying to get back to that place of faith.
I miss my childlike faith. I too have cashed in on the world system. Let’s face it, it’s easier. I go to work, I get paid. I buy what I need. I get sick, I go to the doctor. Then if I don’t get better I pray.
It’s a process of going back, all our lives. Of letting go, unclenching our fists to give back to God what was His all along. I miss my childlike faith.
My Mom tells me that when I was first saved at aged 14, I was the one who really gave her the faith to give when she didn’t have it. I remember praying together for a refrigerator when ours went out. My Mom had no idea where the money would come from. There was certainly not enough for one of those. Then, God answered our prayer of faith by supplying one that was almost new…..for 25 dollars!
I remember that refrigerator lasted for years and years.
I love to watch my niece at the beach. It is no problem for her to believe she can build a castle fit for a queen out of water and sand. The water washes it away and she starts all over again……
She has faith that whatever she believes can happen.
Lord, give me that kind again.

God’s Language is Love

                      
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. Romans 8:26, 27
So many times I search for the right words….I falter. No words express what I am trying to say. It’s frustrating! But we need not ever search for the right words…..The Holy Spirit always knows the perfect words. It is as if He is laying out my heart before the Father, in the Father’s own language!
At one point in my Christian walk, I was almost obsessed with having a “prayer language.” I wanted to know everything I could about speaking in tongues. I read books, I talked to other Christians, I prayed for the gift. I wanted the “experience.” A pastor friend I know says he prayed for the gift and months later he was driving down the road and was so overcome with emotion he had to pull over. Then he spoke in tongues for the first time.
At one point, I went so far as going to a church meeting and having the pastor pray for me to “get it” right then and there. Nothing came forth…….not one utterance. He prayed…….I waited. And waited. Not one Holy peep. He told me, “Just praise God out loud.” I did, well, not really loud, in English.
Me and another lady were ushered off to the side where we were prayed for again, to no avail. She seemed somewhat upset. I mumbled something out loud and they thought they had success, “Glory to God!” I went and sat down just so they could stop praying.
Looking back, parts of this meeting now seem very humorous, although not in an irreverent way. It was an evening spent with people who loved God gathering together for one purpose, to praise Him. The motive in my heart was pure. That’s what God saw. My prayer may not have been answered the way I wanted it that night, but not because of what anyone did or didn’t do. Not the Pastor, not me, not anyone….certainly not God.
One day, many months after that night while I was vacuuming I started singing and praising God….in another language. It came quietly and unannounced, like a gentle dove. I didn’t lose control, I didn’t black out or fall to the floor. I was completely coherent and rational. And that is how its been every time since. It is my prayer language and only God hears it. It is His gift to me and it is precious.
And it came in His timing. And whatever you believe about this particular topic, the Holy Spirit is very much alive and working in the hearts of men and women today.
I know there are some denominations who teach that without this gift, you aren’t saved. I have never read that in the Bible. I also know some denominations that say it’s not for today, it only happened once on the day of Pentecost. All I know is it happened to me. Regardless, we never have to worry about either having a prayer language or not having one, God always hears the cry of our heart.
Not only do we have Jesus actively interceding before the Throne of the Father, we have the Holy Spirit interceding for us in our prayers! That unspoken request that is in your heart today? Be assured, it has already been communicated in the best language….God’s language! And His language is always
Love

The Next Room of Prayer

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

Let us firmly resolve not to lost the battle we fight. For if the devil sees that we are willing to lose our life and our peace, and that nothing can entice us back to the first room (first stage of prayer), he will soon cease from troubling us. But we must be resolute, for we fight with devils, and thus, there is no better weapon than the cross. Theresa of Avila

I tend to blame a lot of the way I feel on external things, people, life…….circumstances around me. But at the heart of it all, is my own response to all those things. My own internal struggle, the one that wages on in my soul, that old spiritual battle we have fought since the beginning. That is what keeps me in prayer. If Satan can convince us that the battle is lost, like we are failures at our faith. He has won.

Sometimes it doesn’t seem like we are getting any closer to our goal…..but the truth may be that we are closer than we think. It may be that we have moved up a level, into the next room of our prayer life. Lately I have felt much like a hollowed out gourd. Writing about anything has been hard. I have a person living in my home who has exposed me to myself…….made me see the reality of just how weak my faith is. Can it be that is what God has wanted me to see all along?

How can I ever fully understand His strength unless I am met face to face with the stark reality of my weakness? My inability to do anything on my own?

It is no wonder I am exhausted. I have been wielding my own sword and not His.

It is this act of laying down my very ineffective sword again and again………that is where the real battle comes in. Like Peter, I want to take matters into my own hands and slice off the ear of the guard. I so identify with Peter. He sees chaos coming and wants to defend, to fight, to fix, to right the wrong on his own.

But Jesus says no.

Jesus walks right through the middle of it, knowing that in order to win the war you have to pick your battles.

And for the joy set before Him endured the cross…………..”Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2

What matters most

Above all powers
Above all kings
Above all nature
And all created things
Above all wisdom
And all the ways of man
You were here
Before the world began……
This was the week Elaine and I were supposed to go on a cruise to Belize. Caretaking took that away as it has taken many things away this past year…..
But somehow, sitting in church yesterday listening to the sermon and, most of all,  having Elaine’s Nephew Mark sitting right beside us. The cruise didn’t matter as much anymore. Not if it meant having an eternal impact on someone dear. None of our travels matter much in the long run.
What I heard yesterday reminded me. Knowing God matters more. Reaching the halls of Heaven matter. Hearing the gospel and having a chance to respond? That matters more than anything.
When the Pastor took the long black rope representing our whole life plus eternity…..when he held up the piece with the knot about 4 inches away from the end, and how we pour everything we have into that four inches representing our very short time on earth…..
Our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions to make money, have a successful career, a family…..all on that very tiny end with the knot.
And we fail to think, to plan. For the rest of the rope that represents eternity. Stretching on and on.
We fail to count the cost.
Fail to plan for eternity and where we will spend it.
As he said the words, I felt the chill…….Saying “maybe tomorrow” is the same as saying no to God.
Later today is also a refusal.
With all that life hanging in the balance, 
A little cruise didn’t matter so much anymore. 
Above all kingdoms
Above all thrones
Above all wonders
The world has ever known
Above all wealth
And treasures of the earth
There’s no way to measure
What You’re worth
Crucified
Laid behind a stone
You lived to die
Rejected and alone
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all
 Michael W. Smith
the blessings keep coming, as well as the grace…….Awesome church service yesterday, just when it was needed most…..warm beds at night…..money for the new fridge…..and for the new coffeepot when the other gave out……music to soothe rumpled souls…..praise that lifts the tired and poor of spirit……God’s Spirit that helps us through it all…..warmed up oatmeal maple scone……walking in the mornings chill…..time off work, even when I am not going anywhere……#802-812

We are smart, but God’s smarter

We do things in this building, and all others on our campus….fantastical things. Things never thought possible even 60 years ago. We create all sorts of wild imaginings and then put them into form. We think, “what if…..” And then we do it. That is, at least the creative brains do that. I am just a small cog in the wheel of technology….but I do my part.

And it all changes and grows so fast, that by the time a new process comes out, it is already outdated….
Considered obsolete.

People are creators because God made us that way….

All of us have that God spark that seeks to create because He put it in us.

But, with all this human achievement and rushing around, what we call progress; we still can’t even come close to making a moon or setting the stars in place.

Or calming the sea with a word.

We aren’t so smart…….
And as long as we have been alive, there is a danger, a temptation in worshiping that “created thing” instead of the One who put it all in motion to begin with. “And they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen.” Romans 1:25
Don’t get me wrong, I love technology! It has been my bread and butter for 16 years now and the industry has treated me well. I don’t feel as my Mom does, that computers are the Antichrist. But ever since the golden calf and before that, we have been tempted to put things in place of God.
The idols may change over the centuries, but the temptation is the same.
This whole train of thought started with the radio this morning. There was a discussion about our gadgets. The female commentator had left her IPhone home and was feeling a bit lost. I can relate to that. I never felt that way about a phone before I got mine. She further stated a quote attributed to Steve Jobs that said something like:
“When people can put their wedding pictures on their phone, they will be emotionally attached.” Or something like that.
She was saying that it troubled her a bit that she felt an emotion, an attachment, like something was missing because she didn’t have her phone. I can relate. I am ashamed to say I feel the same way.
She said all her friends were having a great time playing “Words with Friends.” She didn’t start it. She didn’t want to feel like she had to respond every time the phone dinged.
Well, I succumbed.
I started……I am addicted. And now I have to go.
It’s my move.
Maybe it’s time for a gadget fast.
Just after I play this word.

Bloomin joy

“I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!” John 15:11
Ever have one of those days where for some inexplicable reason you feel like bubbling over with joy? No particular circumstance has caused it…..you may be on your way to work, or on your way to the Dentist (this is for other people, not me) I am one of those people who have dreams about my teeth falling out, or losing crowns. No, I am talking about joy for no external reason at all. This particular kind of joy is described in many places throughout Scripture……
“You have shown me the way of life, and you will fill me with the joy of your presence.” Acts 2:28
“With joy you will drink deeply from the fountain of salvation!” Isaiah 12:3
“When I discovered your words, I devoured them. They are my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God of Heaven’s Armies.” Jeremiah 15:16
It is a sing at the top of your lungs kind of joy! Everyone at some point in life has experienced this joy. It is a by-product of life, my friends. You don’t have to know the source of the stream for your thirst to be quenched or to feel its refreshment, but oh how much more satisfying it is when you do!  
It is a natural result of a supernatural event……the Holy Spirit taking up residence in us! Kind of like these little flowers, they don’t think about whether to bloom, they bloom because they have to! While the actual joy “feeling” comes and goes, just knowing we never have to be alone again is why it’s possible to have hope in every circumstance. Why we can “bloom” no matter what is around us.
“Now may the Lord of peace himself give you his peace at all times and in every situation. The Lord be with you all.” 2 Thessalonians 3:16
I pray that whatever your circumstance today that you feel the breath of His Spirit………….and the fruit of the Spirit filled to overflowing.
And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. John 20:22

Beside the still waters

For the Scripture says: “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed”………Romans 10:11
Last night I stayed up most of the night to take care of a sick little cat. He has been coughing and hiding under the bed. I really thought that today he would be the day to take him in. I know many people, even Christians who make light of the sickness or death of a beloved pet. “It’s not the same,” they say, “as when a human dies.” They make light of the grief…..
But one thing I know. Death feels like death, and grief feels like grief…….It’s the same blackness, the same hell we escaped from….just barely.  It’s the same tears spilling down…..it’s comfort that is needed, and to do anything less is to ignore Holy Scripture…..for this is the truth of it:
“Now we who are strong ought to bare the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to his edification.” Romans 15:1, 2
And, also:
“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2
And you just don’t know, there may be an ocean of events leading up to this one thing that brakes the back of the camel……
As I tossed and turned last night, all I could think of was all the other grief, from all the other times. Funerals, memorials, big ugly flower arrangements and holes in the dark cold earth. They all mean the same thing. The thing that should never have been. But the thing we must live with every day until Jesus comes again.
I thought again how very unnatural illness is, how foreign death was when the world was new. And how very wrong.
But on the opposite corner stands Jesus and He is our life……Thanks be to God!
I recited the 23rd Psalm as I waited for sleep to come. I thought of a little white cat lying down beside me in green pastures……I pictured us sitting on the shore, watching the quiet waters lap upon the shore.
I am happy to say, this morning Sydney is still with us. He sat on my lap for awhile this morning and ate and drank water. He is back under the bed but the coughing has subsided for now.
And with the morning came grace for awhile yet.

Wisdom from Ecclesiastes

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven–Ecclesiastes 3:1

Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness! The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it. So what good is wealth—except perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers!
 
It is better to say nothing than to make a promise and not keep it.
 
Don’t make rash promises, and don’t be hasty in bringing matters before God. After all, God is in heaven, and you are here on earth. So let your words be few.
 
I also noticed that under the sun there is evil in the courtroom. Yes, even the courts of law are corrupt!  I said to myself, “In due season God will judge everyone, both good and bad, for all their deeds.”
 
I guess they felt the same way about their system of justice back then too!

After reading Ecclesiastes, it would be easy to imagine that this writer, “the teacher” as he is called, suffered from severe depression…..and yet, if you can get through the weariness in its pages, there is much wisdom here. Though at first glance it seems to be filled with the ultimate futility of life, behind the words there is shining evidence of hope. Hope in God that is.

And there is even some very sound financial advice…..what investor would disagree with this?

Send your grain across the seas,and in time, profits will flow back to you. But divide your investments among many places, for you do not know what risks might lie ahead.

And this is some really good advice for people who tend to be worriers, like me.

When clouds are heavy, the rains come down. Whether a tree falls north or south, it stays where it falls.Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant. If they watch every cloud, they never harvest.

The man who had everything was indeed very wise, he realized that when all was said and done, even with all his wealth, all his stuff, all his palaces, and women, and vacations, that without God, it was pretty much worthless. And that even enjoyable stuff is much more enjoyable when you acknowledge your gratefulness to the God who gave it all to you.

all verses from the New Living Translation of the Bible