Hope

Just Believe……

You have everything you need, if you just believe…… “Believe,” from Polar Express
I have never watched Polar Express all the way through until last night. I stayed up longer than I should have just to see the little boy find the bell. I think I watched it partly for my Dad since he has confessed that this is his favorite movie. Even at 82, when he watches it you can see the glimmer of childhood innocence in his eyes. He told me last time I was home that, “I am that boy in the movie……” Dad’s was a childhood of lost and broken dreams with both parents alcoholics. He says that every Christmas started out great and ended up with both parents in a screaming match. He says every year he hoped that it would be different but it never was.
This leaves a permanent scar on a soul; and to his credit, he made our childhood everything his wasn’t. Our Christmases were filled with magic and promise. He made sure that we had all the security he never had. There were two promises he made to us and to himself. There would never be shouting in our home and there wasn’t, and that we would never see him drunk and we never did.  I have wonderful memories of my childhood because of choices my Dad and my Mom made. 
We can choose to build and repair what is broken or leave it behind us and create a new mess. We can also create something good and watch beauty emerge from a pile of rubble. We can also choose to open the windows and let the bad out, and keep it out. God never expects us to hitch our wagon  to someone else’s negativity and darkness and go over the cliff with them.
As I watched last night, through my Dad’s eyes, I imagined some things about how it must have been for him when Grandpa took off when he was five. How scared he probably was. I was remembering how good it was for me as a child. I thought of an ocean of children out there waiting for the Polar Express to show up for them, the adults who were still waiting. As I watched, I rooted for that little boy.
There is something in a child that God loves. Jesus said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3

God longs to take the lost little child within you into His arms and give you back everything that was stolen from you as a child. He longs to restore you……Even those of us with happy childhoods long to go back to that time when things seemed so simple, when belief was easy and everything was within the realm of possibility.

My Dad’s Mom died young as a result of her drinking, but my Grandfather got married again and quit drinking. He was a part of my life when I was a kid. My Dad had to make another choice to let him back into his life. He saw the benefit of that, and we had some good times together. Sometimes burned bridges can be rebuilt to a certain extent. My Dad and he were never really close, but Grandpa in his later years was a kind man, and he loved us. He took my brother and I to the Elks Lodge every Christmas. I remember the one year I really thought I heard Santa’s Sleigh outside the building.

There is a whole army of people out there that have been brave enough to make something good out of the wreckage of their past. To create wonder for someone else, and magic out of mayhem. To believe that Love is the most powerful thing of all….I was remembering as I slipped into slumber last night. Remembering my own time of magic, when I used to sit by the Christmas tree at night all by myself, lost in wonder.
In the remembering, I felt a tear make its way down the corner of my eye…….
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Waiting the right way……

“Be as calm in your waiting; let your hearts be strong: because the coming of the Lord is near.” James 5:8

“The blessedness of waiting is lost on those who cannot wait, and the fulfillment of promise is never theirs. They want quick answers to the deepest questions of life and miss the value of those times of anxious waiting, seeking with patient uncertainties until the answers come. They lose the moment when the answers are revealed in dazzling clarity.” Detrich Bonhoeffer

How does God want us to wait? The Bible gives us many examples of “right” waiting….

“When I was waiting quietly for the Lord, His heart was turned to me, and He gave ear to my cry.” Psalms 40:1

“And so, as the result of patient waiting, our forefather obtained what God had promised.” Hebrews 6:15

“I am waiting for the Lord, my soul is waiting for Him, and my hope is in His Word.” Psalms 130:5

So there is quiet waiting, patient waiting, and hopeful waiting…..Let’s take a look at how God waits:

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his word, as he seems to some, but he is waiting in mercy for you, not desiring the destruction of any, but that all may be turned from their evil ways.” 2 Peter 3:9

 “See, I am waiting at the door and giving the sign; if my voice comes to any man’s ears and he makes the door open, I will come in to him, and will take food with him and he with ME.” Revelation 3:20
He is waiting in mercy and He is also actively waiting
“Now may the God who gives comfort and strength in waiting make you of the same mind with one another in harmony with Christ Jesus…” Romans 15:5
And here we see that He gives comfort and strength while we are waiting!
It is hard to wait. I don’t think anyone is really comfortable with it, but it is much better to wait when you have hope in the waiting. Sometimes waiting is absolutely excruciating and stressful. But God wants to teach us to wait calmly and with anticipation to see what He will do in the waiting….that’s when we get true value out of the waiting. I think what most people don’t like is the fact that we feel that our time is wasted while we are waiting, but the miracle can never happen without a waiting period.

I think my favorite part of the Christmas season is the anticipation of it, the preparation, the waiting. I made a decision a few years ago to minimize what I do so that I can really enjoy the season; to do only those things that bring me or others joy and let the rest slide. I have truly enjoyed every Christmas since then. I sometimes feel myself getting pulled into the undertow, but that is when I stop, pray, get somewhere quiet and readjust my thinking, and BREATHE.  It is wonderful. I can’t wait to go to Barnes and Noble this weekend, one of my favorite things to do anytime, but especially right before Christmas. I will grab my coffee and a table, get a stack of magazines or books, and watch the crowd rush by…..

May you have peace and courage in whatever you are waiting for this season. Keep your lamp lit and a light in the window for His coming and may your oil not run dry!

The view from the top

The climber climbs for the joy of it, and because he believes the view from the top will be worth it. We climb too, knowing the Keeper of our steps holds our feet fast; though we slip He keeps us from falling headlong. Though the climb is strenuous and sometimes difficult He surprises us with joys unspeakable on the journey at every turn and infuses us with the hope of victory at the top where He waits…… 
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Acts 17:24-27
There will be many people at malls in the coming weeks, and rushing too and fro on the freeways, working, eating, visiting, sleeping, and all the while there is a God who waits for them to look His way. He does not need us, but He wants us!
His heart aches for knowing that those who do know Him will not speak of Him often enough, though they know the wonderful truth, the wonderful story…….Lord, make Your Word sing in our hearts and make the melody so bright, so clear, so strong that we can no longer keep it in!

Ask, seek, knock…..

Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.
Corrie Ten Boom

He who hung the great lights and set all this in motion still has everything under control…….We get hung up on the hows and whys of everything, but there are some things we don’t need to know. Even if He did supply us with the specifics they would be way beyond our grasp anyway. We like to congratulate ourselves on our own intellegence, but our knowledge next to God’s is puny. We think we have everything figured out, but go outside and gaze at the harvest moon as it climbs into the sky and see if you still do……The only thing we need to know is the One who started all this. Once we know Him, the hows and whys don’t really matter anymore.

Ask……Seek…..Knock…..

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Matthew 7:7,8

Get close to the One who breathed into you the breath of life and you will begin to live the way you were meant to all along……

Sing the song of the morning stars and be thankful this day that you are breathing air, that you get another day to live, and wake and work. Know that any problem you have can be worked out, worked through. Hope is there as long as you have breath, and there is always more than enough hope when we know the Hope-giver.

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew {their} strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; {and} they shall walk, and not faint. Isaiah 40:31

A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell. C.S. Lewis

A Rational Response

Faith is a rational response to the evidence of God’s self revelation in nature, human history, the Scriptures, and His resurrected Son. W. Bingham Hunter, “The God Who Hears.”

In my reading of Scripture today about Jesus resurrection I was thinking about how people want proof that God is real, proof that the Bible is real, proof that Jesus really was raised from the dead. If they only had “proof” they say, then they would believe. Yet there was proof. Is proof:

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 people are without excuse. Romans 1:19,20

All the evidence is in…….Jesus was seen by hundreds of eyewitnesses after the resurrection. Nobody ever denied that the tomb was empty, but instead they offered up different theories as to why it was empty….by His very resurrection from the dead, He proved that everything He said was true. Mary was the first to see the empty tomb, then she ran to tell the disciples. Peter and another disciple ran to the tomb and saw it empty…….”Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.” John 20:8-10 

But Mary stayed behind at the tomb and Jesus appeared to her……… John 20:11-16

He is a rewarder of all who seek Him.

“A man rejects God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of the scarcity of evidence. A man rejects God because of a moral resistance that refuses to admit his need for God.” Ravi Zacharias

Continuing my gratitude count today, gratitude that God has left so much evidence around us…..He wants so very much for us to find Him, to know Him……Thankful today for the endless traces of His presence…..Just enough oxygen for us to breathe, just enough warmth from the sun, just enough heartbeats to keep us going, just the right amount of blood that pumps through, carrying life……shelter from the elements…..laughter to give us hope, just enough gravity to keep our feet on the ground and keep us from spinning off the planet, enough wind to make us wonder…..enough faith and joy to keep us from giving up, and more than enough love to save us, even when we don’t deserve it…..#538-548

holy experience

New every morning……

The Wilderness holds answers to more questions than we have learned to ask…….Nancy Newhall

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord. Lamentations 3:21-26

On my way to work I asked the Lord what message He would have me bring today……I have had a few thoughts the last few days, things I wanted to blog about, but work has been very busy and I haven’t been able to get the time. As I was praying, I felt the Spirit place this thought on my heart and then push it to the front as I was driving.  It stayed there and didn’t leave, and I knew it was what the Lord gave me for this day. He kept saying to me……..”New every morning.”

In spite of every circumstance we go through on a day to day basis…….He always refreshes us with little joys each morning. Somehow we get strength to start all over again. The Christian life is filled with newness….because it is filled with Christ and He never gets old!  Everything in the world gets old, jobs, drinking, money, stuff, partying, drugs, even traveling gets old after awhile and you just want to stay home! Everything in this world gets old, except for Christ. He brings us that new life that He described as living water…..

I felt it this morning and it surprised me again! I put the praise songs on and started singing a bit and before I knew it, I felt that sweet refresing that only comes from the Holy Spirit. I don’t know why it catches me by surprise but it always does and it shouldn’t by now. I think that God likes to give us those gifts when we are least expecting them sometimes. Just like you love to surprise your kids with little gifts…..

There are things we can do to keep that grace water flowing, I find…… Listening to good praise music, staying in the Word, fellowshiping with other believers, all these things keep that wellspring of water flowing freely. And of course, sometimes God just comes in quietly and fills us with grace and peace when we least expect it too.

It is interesting when you read the verses in Lamentations all around the above verses. They are pretty bleak! But then this verse comes in……exactly what I was feeling this morning.

There are times when we feel as dry as the desert, but God has promised we will not stay that way……
that is a great hope for me today…..I praise His name!

Watching the Sky

By Maxfield Parrish

“Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name:” Amos 5:8

Last night I stepped outside and was greeted with a “Maxfield Parrish” sky. Ever since I saw some of his art long ago, I think of him when the sky is that certain shade of inky blue…..that not quite dark cobalt, still lit from underneath by the sun’s last trace of light. I took a deep breath, thanking God for the night sky, His sky…..for the stars, the moon and placing me here at just this moment in time.

I always make it a point to go out at dusk and look for the moonrise. God’s mysterious night light. I love that particular time of the evening. There is a resigned peacefulness in the twilight when the evening sounds start to rise and everything calms down. Once again, stars appear just like they did the night before, there is security in that.The evening bird closes out the day and ushers in the night with one last song…….This one day has closed out….. and we did the best we could with it, and it is enough.

The other night it was a harvest moon. As I saw the glow of it rising over the Superstition mountain ridge, it almost took my breath away…it was huge and otherworldly, like it was too big for the horizon. I was in the car and I wanted to pull over so I could watch the whole performance, but I had to be content with watching it the best I could while driving down the freeway.

In ancient Israel it was common for people to sleep on the rooftops. Maybe because it was cooler outside, and probably there was more room. They spent a lot of time watching the sky……watching, and waiting too. For a Messiah that would be preceded by a strange star…..If there was some new star there they would have known it immediately.

They read the book of Numbers, they had read the Prophecy
“I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel…….Numbers 24:17
 
I don’t know who taught me to be a sky watcher and I’m not sure when it started…..



When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars, which you have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God, and You crown him with glory and majesty! Psalm 8:3-5

Now my brother is teaching my Niece to watch the sky too, I think it’s great. Every evening they are together they go out and look for the moon……and everytime the moon is a very small crescent, my Mom thinks of me from California.


Windows of hope

Mount Angel Abbey, St. Benedict Oregon
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is
to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone
with the heavens, nature and God.
Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and
that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple
beauty of nature. I firmly believe that nature brings solace
in all troubles.  Anne Frank
When I read this my heart aches for little Anne, how much strength and wisdom she had. I wish I she could have lived to walk out of her attic and sit at peace under her beloved chestnut tree. Not too long ago the 180 year old tree that Anne gazed at from her window fell over in a storm. I believe she clung to that tree because it represented life. To me it says a lot about her character, that she could hope in anything at all in her situation.
“Our chestnut tree is in full blossom,” Anne wrote in her diary in May 1944. “It is covered with leaves and is even more beautiful than last year.”
I think we are creatures of hope by nature. It’s grafted into us by God as part of our blueprint. It is the only thing that explains why people don’t give up, why we continually strive for survival, for life, to persevere in even the most dire circumstances.
There was a time in my life where I was swimming in grief…….I would drive around aimlessly at night, not knowing where to go because everywhere I went my sorrow went with me. My family was dealing with their own sadness so I didn’t want to heap anymore on them. There were friends that welcomed me into their homes and I never forgot them for it.
On one particularly foggy night around Christmastime I was out for one of my drives that went nowhere when I rounded the corner and saw a little house that I had always admired because the people who owned it loved it and decorated it for every holiday. It wasn’t big, it wasn’t modern or luxurious, it was an older home on a corner lot, just a little cottage duplex…….but that night as I rounded the corner, it was resplendant, a jeweled princess ready for the ball!
It sparkled with white twinkling lights all around, and each window lit from within by the glow of a candle. At that moment it was my little port in the storm, my own personal lighthouse of hope. A small candle was lit in my heart that night, God whispered:  “I am with you and I have given you this little gift to let you know that sorrow doesn’t last forever; on the other side of it is joy“…….I clung to that hope like Anne to her chestnut tree.
Since that time many years ago, I have kept candles in the window of just about every home I have had…..to remember. 
” May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you.” Psalm 33:22

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