Joy

God’s Place of Rest

“These are the words of God, the God of Israel, to you, Baruch. You say, ‘These are bad times for me! It’s one thing after another. God is piling on the pain. I’m worn out and there’s no end in sight.’ Jeremiah 45:2 The Message

“Just how much more does God expect me to take?”

You feel out of control, like one of those plate spinners……one false move and they all come crashing down. “I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” you say…..but you know that just under the surface lurks an erupting volcano. You feel like any little remark can set you off. When you pass a Dunkin Donuts or In-N-Out Burger you feel the drive-through sweeping you in like the pull of the tides. (Or in my case, the local Walgreens for a bag of Whopper Malted Eggs)

Tears come easily, and so does unexpected anger. This is sometimes what caregiving feels like.

But God’s place of rest is there in the midst of it. He is ready and waiting to do a work in you and me, but only if we release it to Him. He longs to take our burden, but He knows that sometimes He has to “pile it on” so that we will have no choice but to dump it at His feet.

We don’t have to take it all on……..He will.

It is so hard to tell someone that.
Someone who is trying so hard, dealing with so much.
It feels like one more thing they have to do.

It feels like we are saying, “Just tie a knot and hang on, sister…..”

Except that they aren’t just any old words, they are God’s words, and His words are backed by His promises.

“Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him;I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him.With long life I will satisfy him, And show him My salvation.” Psalm 91:14-16

Lord, I pray for everyone today who feels overwhelmed and beaten up by the world. I pray that they will trust You with their every burden and care, and they will find that place of rest for their souls that you have promised them in Your word. Hide them under your mighty wings today, as the mother eagle shelters her young and give them the faith they need to release everything to You, knowing that You will give them peace in exchange. Amen

Great music in church yesterday, moments of refreshment and peace, little joys of flowers in the desert, singing into the phone and making someone smile, a good night’s sleep, a refreshing rain on the roof, unexpected moments of exhilaration, a great lunch at Chilies, 39 dollars from coinstar I didn’t expect I had, a time of peace at Starbucks while blogging…..
#668-#678

holy experience

A walk through the weeds…….

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:2

We humans can turn on a dime. Yesterday I was counting blessings, participating in the One Thousand Gifts over at Ann’s, thinking positive, counting blooms and blessings. Today on my walk, it seemed all I could count were weeds! I saw the brown trees this years freeze destroyed. I saw weeds in several yards…..My mind was like a ticker tape of negativity……”Why doesn’t the park enforce their own rules?” and “Why do we even have a home owner’s association?” I went on like this halfway around the perimeter until something strange happened. I got ticked at myself.

Something happens when you really start to count gifts. It changes how you think, and you no longer want to think the other way, the old way. We talk about paradigm shifts a lot at work. That is what happens in your mind when you cross over to living a life in gratitude to God, when you keep count. It not only changes your thinking, it changes your life.

It is a new determination you have……not to give in. So I walked on determined not to see the weeds or the brown trees this morning. I told myself and God that I was not going home until I started seeing beauty and blessings. I am kind of stubborn that way. Do you suppose that was God’s plan for me today?

This is what I saw…….A dove nesting in a spiny cactus……..groups of quail walking across the road. A bunny eating the veggies someone had left out. I heard the cry of a cactus wren, I call them all “Renny” for the one who lived in the cactus next door. Here is the thought that came to me…….These little desert creatures scurry about very happy to be what they are. They don’t pay attention to the weeds unless they can find something useful about them. If they can’t eat them, or use them for shelter they ignore them.

That was my lesson today.

I just had to laugh last night, as I picked up Elaine’s Mom from the nursing home where she had just visited her husband of 60 years, “That man is the most negative person on the planet, he finds absolutely no good in anything.” What?? This from a woman who is equally negative about anything and everything. Once, the three of us were walking along on an impossibly beautiful sapphire blue sky day. Elaine made a comment about how beautiful the sky was, and her Mom said caustically, “Well, Elaine the sky is always blue.” We still joke about it.

Like she says…….”Where did I come from?” She learned to count blessings a long time ago, against all the odds. Despite her surroundings, despite the people who raised her.

Yes, Lord……despite our circumstances, surroundings……..we can be positive, it is possible, if we let the counting, and God renew our minds.

Photo credits: Public Domain Pictures
Weeds by Andrew Schmidt
Dandelions by Petr Kratochvil

Living Psalms

A psalm of Asaph. The Mighty One, God, the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets. Psalm 50:1

Ever felt like a living Psalm of praise? When prayer turns to praise that’s what happens. I found myself answering a question this morning that I didn’t even realize I was asking…..:..”What does having a relationship with a living God mean to you?” This is how I would explain it. It is like going along with life and seeing things one way….thinking one way, living one way. Then, in one spectacular moment, or maybe years of little moments put together, someone comes along and throws the switch on a floodlight. You see things you never thought were there.

The backdrop of your life is lit from behind with Someone whom you know to be the source of all that light.
Your perspective on life, everything you thought you knew…….changed in an instant. Magnified. Every moment becomes a miracle and everything is suddenly colored with meaning. You see the sweep of God’s Arm in every spectacular move of nature, you suddenly hear the symphony that has been playing all along. You realize there is a plan to it all, and you are part of it, were wanted, loved into being……not necessarily by your earthly parents, but by your Creator parent, the One who set the whole thing into motion. The One who keeps it all going.

You are struck with amazement that this is a God who wants to know you personally. It is a bit like falling in love, but better because this love will last forever.

You are lifted to the heights of Heaven and you want to tell everyone……You keep walking down the road but now the road looks different. Now you are aware that there is a God who walks beside you. You feel eternity coursing through your veins. You suddenly know how it feels to pass from death to life.

Here is the miracle. You go through the normal sorrows and trials and frustrations of life and you realize He is still there, He hasn’t left. As you walk further down the path, you realize that sometimes He allows extremely painful things into your life, and you don’t know why. Sometimes you cry out and He is big enough to handle that. For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. Psalm 103:14 He knows better than anyone what we are made of. And He also knows that sometimes we need to grow. Growing doesn’t happen without pruning……..

The miracle continues when we find ourselves praising in the midst of the pruning sometimes, hard as it is. We make it through. We start to see our weakness as His strength. We come to know that God allows certain things in our lives so we can minister to others going through the same thing.

We hold joy like treasure bursting within us. He has made our bodies His sanctuary and we are breathless with thanksgiving at such undeserved Grace. We celebrate the manger and the empty tomb every day. We want to tell everybody, but we don’t and we are not sure why, but it leaks because it simply has to. We are living sparks of His greater light but we know we are far from perfect…….We praise Him because He has brought us through so much and we know that He will be there waiting at our last breath.

Out of this world and into the next…….finally Home.

“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 3:16,17

Good News for anyone with a need….

 “And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written….”  Luke 4:17
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor……
Notably, he stopped before He finished the entire verse which ends with …..and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn. Isaiah 61:1,2 
Why did He stop there? Because it wasn’t the time for judgment yet, it was the time for open arms reconciliation for a people who desperately needed God’s love and forgiveness. Although Jesus said that time would surely come, His first coming was to draw us close, back into the loving arms of God.
“Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:20,21
I can imagine the stirring and rustling, nervous clearing of throats. They knew Jesus, they knew His family, they knew what they expected of the future Messiah and this wasn’t it. It was a huge stumbling block that they just couldn’t get around, even though they were amazed at His authoritative teaching. This was not good news for them. Jesus kicked the gate wide open for everyone to be able to receive salvation. They thought God’s favor was for themselves alone.
Jesus knew those words spoken in His hometown synagogue would be inflammatory, but He had to speak them anyway. Ever feel led by the Holy Spirit to say something that you knew would cause an unfavorable reaction?
He further incites them when He insinuates that it was because of their hard hearts that they refused to see who was standing right in front of them…..Their Messiah had come, but their own pride refused to let them believe it. “All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove Him out of the town, and took Him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw Him down the cliff. But He walked right through the crowd and went on His way.” Luke 4:28,29
There are many people right up to the present day who refuse to accept who Jesus really was, but the fact is, Jesus is God. Not only that, He is the only way to Heaven. He is God with arms of grace, extended for all who call upon His name. He wants to draw us close. He longs for it more than we can ever know, and all we have to do is reach out and take it. But to some people this is not good news. This kind of thinking is not popular in our politically correct, inclusive world. If we tell people this we will be labeled narrow minded, bigoted, backwards, simple-minded and archaic. If that is true, then I guess Jesus is all those things too!
The greatest tragedy is that some will miss out on God’s grace and forgiveness only because of the barriers in their own minds and hearts. Jesus removes walls. He removed them then and He removes them now. When He was on this earth, He systematically removed every single barrier the religious system of the day had set up. He took time for anyone with a need. He sat with sinners, the unclean, the broken, the sick, even with the ones who thought they had it all figured out.
He wants to draw you close today. Do you have a need? He stands ready to meet it, whatever it may be…..
I continue the counting of blessings today…..that I can recognize the mark of God in all these moments, #451 encouraging words from other bloggers, #452 the grasp of a hand across a table, #453 prayers that I know are heard, #454 the life in His words, #455 the kindness of strangers, #456 sunrise of pastels that change with each second, #457 the busy cactus wren outside my window, #458 talk of God between friends, #459 music that brings us to the throne #460 all who find rest from their labor today….

holy experience

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.

Merry-Go-Rounds and Roads

Looff Carousel 1911, Santa Cruz Boardwalk

Many summer weekends were spent at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk when I was a kid in California. Disneyland had nothing on it as far as I was concerned. It was pure magic. Oh, the memories of that Boardwalk! Corn dogs, called Pronto Pups that seemed a foot high, entering the Fun house through the clown’s mouth, riding the train and anticipating when that roaring dinosaur was going to rise up from the lake, standing at the fudge shop window watching the taffy pulling machine, mesmerized as it pulled and pulled and never broke. And the beach…..

Holding it all together in the middle of that magic, the piece De resistance was the Carousel. All I had to do was hear that organ music and I was over the top. Keep in mind, I camped growing up. We didn’t stay in fancy hotels. We didn’t have the money and also, my folks thought is was important to teach us about nature. I’m so glad they did. So this Merry-Go-Round was for me, the highlight of our visit. I had my favorite horses, always the ones with head reared back, teeth bared. (I must’ve thought those went faster)

I am happy to say that my niece has inherited my love of this Merry Go Round as well. I got to go on it with her one of my trips back home and I felt the same rapturous joy as I did all those years ago. My brother even caught the ring!

What started this whole memory was that my friend and I were talking after church Sunday and I asked her if she got excited about that Merry Go Round as well, since she used to go there as a kid too. I expected her to light up with the same memory I had. “No,” she said, “I never really saw the purpose, you just go round and round and never get anywhere.” Well, yeah, there is that…..Instead, she shared a special memory of her own with me. She said one of the highlights of her childhood was when she and her brother got a quarter a-piece and went to the store and each picked out a matchbox car. Back then they came in a little box. Her job was to build the roads.

They would come home and she would build elaborate structures out of mud, complete with bridges with support beams underneath, freeways, overpasses, and tunnels. Even back then, she had the mind of an engineer. Her parents never even knew it. When she went to high school and tested extremely high in math and engineering, the counselor told her she better think of something else to do with her life, “because girls just don’t do these things.” After that she pretty much lost interest in the whole educational system.

But God doesn’t care about what some counselor says. Years later she ended up doing engineering work anyway at Intel, Corp. And she is still building things. She can visualize anything and build it, she is a project queen and should definitely have her own show on HGTV. She is a bridge builder between people, in every job she has ever had, she has been asked to be a mediator when situations needed smoothing out.

When God creates you to do a certain thing, it glorifies Him when you are doing those things!

I have always felt a compulsion to write, and I know that comes from God. That is how He created me. Sometimes I have no idea if anything I write makes sense but I still do it because I feel it’s one of the things God made me to do. Sometimes I feel my prayers go round in circles because I still see so many things in me that need changing. But as I look back at all these quiet times of prayer, I see a closeness I have with the Lord now that I didn’t have before. It is a beautiful sculpture that I can only see glimpses of, but when I close my eyes it comes into focus. I see and hear the music, the colors, the joy….and God behind it all. Sometimes life does seem like one big circle, but we can say, victoriously, this is a circle that has purpose. It has no end, and it only gets better!

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:12,13

The glory of being human


It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a common realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstakes.

I have the immense joy of being a member of a race in which God became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. Meditation from Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours

As awoke this morning at 4:00 AM I wasn’t exactly glorying at being human. I would much rather have slept and gloried a bit later, but just the same, somewhere in my spirit I echoed these thoughts of Merton. What a miracle to be able to get up, live another day healthy enough to work, to praise God for the fact that I am even here….every minute we have on this earth is a treasure and a blessing because God holds us in His mighty palm. Whatever comes my way today, Jesus be my strength!

In spite of my weakness, my frailty and failures, help me be a blessing to someone today, Lord. Amen

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

Prayer Thoughts…..

Greer, Arizona

The thought sunk like a stone in my being during prayer this morning. It was out of the blue, I was sitting there in quiet meditation and this thought came: “God is not all that concerned about your happiness.” What?? Where did that come from? The thought hit like a minor chord and stuck in my brain. I stopped praying and asked God what He meant by that. I waited……

“I am not here for you, you are here for Me.”

“But God,” I thought, “I am an American, you know, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and all that.”

“Yes, well that isn’t in my Book anywhere, go read about my Disciples.”

Ouch.

What does God want from me, from any of us? He deserves my whole self. A heart that is completely His. Undivided with the world. A world that everyday clamors for attention. It shouts, it screams, it jumps up and down and waves its hands wildly.

God whispers.

He cares deeply about me, but He cares even more about His lost sheep, those who aren’t His yet. Today I got a lesson that I wasn’t expecting. A thought that snuck up on me unawares. It made me stop, re-evaluate myself, pay attention to what God was trying to tell me.

I seek happiness. God says lose your life so you can find it. He wants me to be a light in the darkness around me, even if it means doing something that makes me uncomfortable. To my way of thinking God seems to do things backwards. But then I remember how much higher His thoughts are than mine. I seek happiness, and in the end I get something much better. When I seek His kingdom first, I get showered with the fruits of the spirit.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22,23

Thank you Lord, for helping me to realize again that you have already given me everything I could possible need, want or desire in the person of Jesus Christ!

Thankful for another Birthday!


Lord, I stand before you today so very grateful to have had fifty one years of life. I think of all You have brought me through and I can only stand in awe of how You have loved me. It brings me to tears in quiet times of contemplation when I think of the many times I have turned away from You…..

You remained steadfast, and knew that I would come back. How can I contemplate such a love? A love that does not move, does not budge even with all the meanderings of my heart.

With every passing year, I pray that I bring you more and more of myself and cling to less of everything else.

Lord Jesus, we are silly sheep who have dared stand before You and try to bribe You with our preposterous portfolios. Suddenly we have come to our senses. We are sorry and ask You to forgive us. Give us the grace to admit we are ragamuffins, to embrace our brokenness, to celebrate Your mercy when we are at our weakest, to rely on Your mercy no matter what we may do.

Dear Jesus, gift us to stop grandstanding and trying to get attention, to do the truth quietly without display, to let the dishonesties in our lives fade away, to accept our limitations, to cling to the gospel of grace, and to delight in Your love. Amen
Brennan Manning “The Ragamuffin Gospel

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Colossians 3:15

Merciful proof….

Photo from google

“It is only the infinite mercy and love of God that has prevented us from tearing ourselves to pieces and destroying His entire creation long ago. People seem to think that it is in some way a proof that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars. On the contrary, consider how in spite of centuries of sin and greed and lust and cruelty and hatred and avarice and oppression and injustice, spawned and bred by the free wills of men, the human race can still recover, each time, and can still produce man and women who overcome evil with good, hatred with love, greed with charity, lust and cruelty with sanctity. How could all this be possible without the merciful love of God, pouring out His grace upon us? Can there be any doubt where wars come from and where peace comes from, when the children of this world, excluding God from their peace conferences, only manage to bring about greater and greater wars the more they talk about peace?”
— Thomas Merton (The Seven Storey Mountain)

There is so much that is good in the world, each day we wake to the possibility of witnessing a miracle, if we could only see it as such. What is it about a spectacular sunrise that gives us hope, makes us believe that it is very worth getting up and doing it all again?

There is a Spirit that lives and breathes, that once moved across the waters of the unformed earth, whose breath continues to fill everything in the universe, who moves in us today.

He is behind it all….behind each new blossom, every drop of rain that falls to the ground. He is behind the wild exultant joy we feel sometimes that makes us want to shout out in praise because He started it all.

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements–surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” –Job 38

He is behind those quiet moments when we feel we are part of a much bigger whole, bit players in a magnificent stage that is living breathing thriving and pulsating with lifethat struggles to survive even when it seems there is a slim chance for it.

Once, in the quiet hush of a crisp October twilight I walked alone in the woods. It was the time of evening when day and night meet and greet, and nature draws itself in close. I had a holy visitor, nary a trace of sound he made as he trotted, this lone coyote, then sprang lightly over a log, blowing puffs in the air. I felt like a guest there in his perfect world, inside his poem.

God and I saw it together……and it was good.