Christian living

Jesus, the original people person

 “Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Luke 5: 15,16
Crowds followed Jesus everywhere He went. He was the original people person. He wasn’t a people pleaser though. He wasn’t afraid to say what was unpopular, but He didn’t grandstand. He didn’t bring up controversial subjects to draw attention to Himself, although controversy followed Him because He spoke the truth, and the truth wasn’t always what they wanted to hear. But He always spoke the truth in perfect love. 
Jesus always had time for people. Maybe you feel as if you are in demand now, from your work, your friends, your family? Just try producing a few miracles and see how in demand you would feel then….remember the Calgon commercial? Take me away……..I think Jesus must have felt like that because the Bible says He went often to lonely places to pray. 
People like people who are people persons, not people who are people pleasers. With people pleasers you never really know if they are just giving you lip service. If they are really going to follow through. Do they mean what they say or are they just saying what you want to hear? This is just my humble opinion, mind you. I can say this because I have been a people pleaser at times, and I don’t like that about myself. I want to be more like Jesus and be a people person.
Ever been to a funeral and everyone gets up to speak and says how so and so “always had time for me.” We all know those special people who, no matter what is going on in their lives, they always treat you as if you are the most important person at that moment. They don’t look away, distracted by every little thing when you are pouring your heart out to them. I once knew a very special Pastor like that. People would line up out the door just to hug him. He always had time. He looked in your eyes and made you feel like you mattered….like he was so glad you waited so he could see you!
That is how Jesus was. I want to be more like that. It doesn’t come naturally for me. I think I would have been well suited to the cloister with a stack of books. But God wants us to invest in the lives of people. When I go to Heaven He will not ask me how many books I read. Darn.
When I look at Jesus, I see how far I have to go…….but He is happy when I try. He is happy when He nudges me and I pay attention.
Okay I am closing my book now……
 “One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret,  with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, he saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.” Luke 5:1-3

Remembering our Brokenness

“I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:14
Looking back is good sometimes. It reminds us of all that God has brought us through and I think it gives us the courage to keep walking. Remembering where we came from and what God has done for us is humbling. We remember the victories, the parts of us that were mended along the way, all the joys strewn along the path. We collect them like shining treasures, even the heartaches, because He got us through those too.
I broke a figurine the other day when I was dusting a little over-zealously. I heard a sickening thud and distinctly heard pieces break off. I was afraid to look. I already knew what it was, the little angel that I bought my roommate for her Birthday. “Don’t worry, she wasn’t expensive,” I said, “I wanted to go back to that store anyway. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“I don’t want a new one,” she said. “I will glue her back together.” She gathered the pieces and put them carefully on the shelf in her room. I was still insisting on buying her a new one, when she looked at me pointedly and said softly, “It means more knowing that someone loves her enough to put her back together.”
I think when she said that she was thinking of how God puts us all back together, but especially how He put her back together. She was remembering when she was broken. 
Her life was changed one morning in an instant when a truck driver who was thinking of too many other things pulled in front of her and broadsided the cement mixer she was driving. Yes, I said cement mixer. She has never been afraid to tackle anything. She remembers broken glass, and being pulled out of the truck by two good samaritans who happened to be eating their lunch close by and saw the whole thing. She remembers spending six long months in a body cast. Today she tells anyone who will listen that it was the best thing that ever happened to her. That it saved her life.
She fought through the pain of therapy and made a full recovery ahead of time. Then she moved to a strange town, my hometown, and ended up getting a job where I worked. At that time I was still grieving over the death of my husband but I clung to my faith in God and I guess she was watching me, because she started asking me questions about the God I worshipped. “How can you still be so positive?” she would say. “Because of everything He has done for me,” I said back.
About a year or two later, the woman who did everything on her own in life because there was no one to do it for her, met Jesus and was baptised in a river with a crowd of witnesses and me, and she has never been the same since.
 She has held that gratefulness fresh like a flower, close to her heart ever since. She remembers being broken. I think that is why she has an unquenchable desire to fix people, things, situations. That is her gift. She is a joy to be around and a strong witness for Jesus by how she lives her everyday life. She is the first to offer help to a neighbor, to sacrifice her time, to go out of her way, all
Because she remembers who healed her…..and who keeps healing her still.
She is a fixer, like He is a fixer. And we are all broken angels sitting on a shelf, just waiting to be picked up and glued back together if we will let Him. As He repairs us, we help to repair others……
Even Jesus was broken so that we could be healed of our brokenness…….”so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” Hebrews 9:28

The Waiting Game

“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea.”
Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Much of life is spent waiting…….Waiting for something to end or something to start. We have all spent hours waiting in hospital rooms. Hoping for good news…..being prepared for the worst. In the case of old age or terminal illness, everything rests on the edge of one moment. One such moment was related to me yesterday. A close family friend who is also a Pastor was telling my Mom about waiting in the hospital room for his Mother-in-law to pass on.

Much had led up to this moment. Pastor Greg and his wife Ann, who several years ago had a bad stroke, had been caring for both of her parents. Due to Ann’s stroke the majority of the burden fell on Greg and it has been taxing to say the least.

Ann’s parents went to church, but didn’t want to hear anything about having a personal relationship with God. Greg had tried to talk to them before about spiritual things but they had made it clear that was “okay for Greg and Ann”, but not how they believed.” It was a mutual understanding and they got along fine, that was just how things were.

It was about 4 in the morning and Greg was alone in the room and beyond exhausted. Ann had gone home long before. It was just he and his Mother-in-law who looked like she was already gone from this world. Greg had His Bible and was alternately praying and dosing off. He heard a rustling noise coming from the bed and looked over. She was sitting straight up in bed! In Greg’s own words, “It was like a corpse sitting up!” Then she lay back down.

Awhile later he heard the rustling again……again, she was bolt upright in bed. Now he had been fervently praying that he would get another opportunity to talk with her, so he opened his Bible to the book of John. She lay back down again.

Once more the rustling……..once more she was sitting up and even looked somewhat coherent. He decided this may be his last opportunity, so he drew the chair to the side of the bed. To make a very long story short, they talked, he read from the book of John…..”I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. John 5:24,25

They continued talking and he kept reading from John, explaining salvation and what it means. When he knew that she understood, he asked her if that would be something she would like to do, accept Jesus as savior. She said yes. Shortly thereafter, her waiting was over. She had passed from this life to the next.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. John 1:12

At her memorial, the Pastor asked Greg to speak. Since this was their own Pastor, Greg was somewhat taken aback. What would he say? The Father-in-law then piped up and said, “Why don’t you tell them what happened in the hospital room?” Greg was surprised by this, but he did tell the story, word for word, at the funeral. He told my Mom that you could have heard a pin drop while he was telling the story…..

Wrapped in His grace

Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are “patches of Godlight” in the woods of our experience. C.S. Lewis ~ Letters from Malcolm

Whatever task you have placed before you today remember that God’s grace is big enough to fill it. It doesn’t matter how daunting, how unpleasant, how impossible. You may feel as if you might as well be faced with climbing Mount Everest, but God says, “My Grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9

I think we can all boast about this one thing. Our weakness. Ever lose count of how many tears you have cried over one issue? God never loses count. He knows the exact number and He longs to wrap you in His Grace today. Whatever you are facing, His Grace is more than enough. We are abounding in it! We don’t even have to do anything to get  it, we all ready have it! All we have to do is rest in it.

When Briggs was a kitten (cat on left) was very small, he had an overabundance of energy. In fact he played so hard he used to exhaust himself to the point where he would pant like a dog. I literally had to calm him down like you have to do with an overactive kid sometimes. I used to wrap him in a towel like a kitten burrito until he could catch his breath and give the other cat a rest.

God did that for me today. He made me His burrito. Prayer time this morning was not so much prayer, it was more like just being quiet and resting in His grace. I needed calming. I got a clear picture while I was praying of Him coming behind me wearing a cloak made from the pure light of Heaven. As He enfolded me in it, I felt myself calmed with His Presence, wrapped in His Grace. I was God’s burrito today.

Let Him wrap you in it today…….”And God is able to make all grace abound to you, that always having all suffciency in everything, you may have a abundance for every good deed.” 2 Corinthinans 9:8

Thankful for His Grace that covers……#473 circle prayers, #474 clasped hands, #475 words of love aimed toward Heaven’s throne, #476 knowing He will never leave us, #477 clean sheets and beds to sleep in, #478 food cooked with love, #479 cats that curl by your side, #480 armloads of books, #481 knowing miracle still happen because you see them in your own life, #482 candles softly flickering in evening light, #483 music that lifts to the heights of Heaven……

holy experience

Cure for Anxiety

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in. ~George Washington Carver
Ever feel like your mind won’t stop fluttering? My friend has another word for it, she calls it “Zingin” You can’t put the “g” on the end either, it just doesn’t sound right. When she says, “I’m zingin” I know exactly what she means. Now I am starting to say it. Today my mind has felt like a hundred butterfies with their wings fluttering all at once. I don’t even know why. Some days are just like that.
I am looking for that quiet corner in my mind today and so far it has escaped me. Over at the Moonboat Cafe I learned about a new form of Japanese poetry called Gogyohka. I hope you hop over there and see what it’s all about, and enjoy Cassandra’s post while you are at it.  You will be inspired and refreshed!
In the meantime, I thought I would try my hand at it. It is amazing that my mind actually did quiet down a bit after I tried it!
Though my mind seems filled
with a hundred tiny butterflies
if I focus on only one
slowly resting on a flower
I am at peace
Dear friend,
You aren’t the only one to be distracted from the presence of God; I understand completely. Our minds are so flighty. But remember that our God-given will governs all of our strength. It must recall the mind to God. Otherwise, our spirit may wander, dragging us down to the things of this earth.
Brother Lawrence

Thank the hero in your life today…..

We all know them, they live in our neighborhoods, we see them in our children’s schools, we have known them throughout our lives, people who sacrificially go above and beyond the call. We marvel at how they can do the things they do, how they can sacrifice so much. We think of them as everyday heroes. Maybe you are one of them……The thing about these people that defines them so wonderfully is that they don’t think of themselves as heroes at all. They see a need, sometimes a big one, and they step in to fill it. They don’t sit and think about how it might affect them, how much they might have to sacrifice. They don’t ponder, procrastinate, wonder if God wants them to do it, they just do it.
What got me started about all this is that I was thinking of my folks neighbors. They learned that their boss was going to institutionalize their severely handicapped son and they did the unthinkable and volunteered to take him into their home……as their own son. When I am home visiting I see the bus pull up with him in it, a full grown man now. They must care for his every need. This means diapers, feeding, lifting. And yet they do it joyfully.
You never know what someone is going through at any given moment, what burdens they carry. Still they keep on. Maybe they have three jobs but they still go out of their way to help others. I bet we can count off ten people we know right now that do amazing things on a day to day basis. I know two people who take service animals to rest homes and hospitals. Imagine the smiles they are greeted with, shaking hands that reach out, remembering better days.
Let the everyday heroes in your life know that you have noticed! Smile at the woman emptying the trash cans at work, the man trimming the trees, your waitress who looks burdened. Everyday there are people rising out of bed early and instead of spending their golden years at leisure, devoting the rest of their days in service to others, standing in the gap for someone. Doing the work of God.
Maybe they don’t even know God, but they are doing His work just the same.
And think about this. Think about all the many issues that divide churches today, divide the world really. This is one thing we can all agree on. Helping one another, serving the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphans among us is right and everyone knows it.
If we could all unite on this one point, forget about the other stuff that doesn’t really matter, just do this one thing, think how the world could change. “But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.” Titus 3:9

Lord, today I pray for all these heroes today, and especially on my heart are our soldiers coming home, many of them with life-changing injuries having to go through many months and years of therapy. May there be loving hands to help them, support them, love them, and visit them in their times of loneliness. May they find peace and comfort in Your Spirit, Amen.
“This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.” Titus 3:8

God wants to hear from you….

“God is not really silent, we are deaf.” St Theresa of Avila

“The whole of our faith is the belief that God loves us; I mean there isn’t anything else. Anything else we say we believe is just a way of saying that God loves us. Any proposition, any article of faith, is only an expression of faith if it is a way of saying that God loves us….Herbert McCabe, British Theologian

We need only look to the cross to see proof of that love……

We have knowledge of that love because of what He has already demonstrated. Since He loves us, we must assume that He wants to hear from us! There is one requirement that will ensure that God will always answer our prayers and Jesus demonstrated it perfectly.
That we bring our desires in line with our Father’s will. This kind of prayer can seem more like wrestling sometimes.  
More than anything, God desires an open and honest heart. I like the fact that He encourages simple prayers…..I have great comfort in the fact that I can tell Him absolutely everything, and he loves it when I use my own words…… 
“And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.” Matthew 6:7

I love that God honored the humble prayer of the tax collector…..
“But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ Luke 18:13

I also love that God hears my silent prayers in those times when words fail. I just let Him read my heart with His Spirit in the quiet moments found here and there.

Resurrection in the Desert

Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike…..John Muir

September breathes new life into the desert. It is our time of resurrection. Too long hidden under the hum of unnatural air, trapped inside four walls. September finds us able to walk outside, able to take a complete breath of air that is not oppressive heat. The animals feel the joy and relief of it too, as evidenced by their morning frolics, they step a bit lighter along with us. This is a joy that only those who dare to live in this harsh environment can fully know and appreciate.

Ours is an Autumn of resurrection, new beginnings. Annuals appear, bold swatches of color that could never survive the summer, this is a fall of a different kind. No swirling leaves of red yellow or brown, now we have roses. Though I ache for those leaves that I once knew to mark my own special Advent…..I feel it in my heart just the same.

I recognize God’s hand in it and that is, after all, the miracle of Advent. I feel His birth, death and resurrection each time I step outside my door these past few mornings……It is sweet relief.  And such  thankfulness at this grace…..that I can share this message of the One behind it all.

I pray today for everyone who has yet to know you Lord. I pray that I might be a humble instrument to be used by You for that solitary purpose. Help me to be a guide, a small gateway to You;  to help them see that they only have to look aside for one moment, to stop and focus on one thing, one aspect of nature and be still in it, and see You in it.

I pray that they might see that Your thoughts are already turned toward them. All it would take is one misstep in the dance of our planets and we would be no more……that is reason enough to believe. Amen

……..since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. Romans 1:19,20

Continuing to number my praises today with Ann and company……#461 the sweet breath of open windows once again…..#462 morning prayer free of heat…..#463 the sweet fellowship of other believers…..#464 a once more reasonable electric bill…..#465 the magic of fall however it comes……#466 yellow butterfly outside the window just now….#467 the anticipation of holidays and pumpkin pie…..#468 good neighbors….#469 health to enjoy all this….#470 sending prayers down the river that reaches Heaven….#471 eating outdoors again! #472 not having to water as much…….

holy experience

Weighing in on the side of Love

“Everything is permissible”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. 1 Corinthians 10:23,24

When Paul was speaking to the Corinthian believers, he was trying to get them to understand that although they had liberty to do certain things, it wasn’t necessarily in their best interests or the interests of others to do them. They had issues that were dividing the church and they were squabbling amongst themselves about what was right and what was wrong. Basically they wanted to know what they could “get away with” and “what they couldn’t.” Paul said that wasn’t the issue, love was. Placing stumbling blocks in front of others was the issue.

Anytime we in the church do something, we need to remember it affects the church as a whole. The eyes of the world are watching what we do. Does that Pastor have the right to burn the Koran? Yes, because this is a free country. Should he? Absolutely not. People have been burning Bibles for centuries. What should our response be? I don’t care if every Bible on earth is burned, the Word of God will still stand forever, and it will still be in our hearts. No one and nothing will ever change that. There are times to stand up and there are times to “stand down.”

Paul said, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. 1 Corinthians 10:31-33

Here is the difference. If someone told me I could no longer worship publicly in my church and that if I did so, I would be incurring someone’s wrath, that now becomes an issue between me and God, because the Bible says not to forsake the “assembling of ourselves together” in worship. So I would have to choose obeying God rather than man.  I think we can agree that burning the Koran will do nothing but harm everyone involved. That is my take on the situation…..Hop on over here to Cliff’s to see a view I agree with!

Final thought…..what if Christ had exercised His liberty when the decision was made whether to go to the cross? He had every right to stay in Heaven and write us off. But thankfully that is not how God works….His motive is always and forever, LOVE.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:5-8

The Cup that Overflows

Ever felt like the whole earth is praising with you? Welling up and overflowing like a river that has spilled its banks; in the wellspring of your soul you echo His words, “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” That was me yesterday. It was the victory lap at the end of the week, Saturday, my last day of the workweek. Saturdays are usually that way. I get up and there is no traffic, the annoying hum is absent and all is silent, peaceful. I could have driven to work on the fumes of praise alone….He has carried me through another week. I had myself a little victory dance in the car, and it carried me all the way through the doors. It lasted all day!

Like David, I felt my cup overflowing, the cup of praise to a God that has done everything for me, is with me at all times, and at all times, “His praise shall continually be in my mouth,” no matter what I am going through, because He is worthy to be praised! David understood that.  His life wasn’t easy at times, but he knew where He could find refuge and strength, and he knew how to praise God! David did his own victory dance.

“David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets.” 2 Samuel 6:14

Can’t you just see him dancing for joy? I understand that craziness……sometimes I want to jump up and down on a street corner and call out, “Do you know what Jesus has done for me? What He can do for you, if you just let Him?”

I used to see a man on the way to church. The locals call him “Izzy.” He is somebody you can look at and one glance will easily render a judgement of “crazy.” He stands on a street corner with his finger pointing up at the sky, proclaiming Jesus to anyone who will hear. My church even did a segment on him once. When he was interviewed, he came off pretty rational, but it’s tough to get passed his exterior. Long beard, unkempt, pushing a shopping cart, he looks like he may have been sleeping on a bench somewhere. 

Some of what he says is not rational at all, but if you pay attention and listen for a moment you will realize the part that is rational is full of praise to God!

Sometimes I wonder, who is the crazy one? We are the ones who have received the Good News, the best news ever to reach mankind, how can we keep from shouting aloud? All of creation sings its praise to their maker. It’s only natural we do the same.

Izzy does.