Sleepless in Arizona

“Behold, He who keeps Israel Will neither slumber nor sleep.” Psalm 121

I was pondering this fact early this morning when I awoke at 12:30 AM. If God does not sleep, I thought, then what does He do? He certainly doesn’t need to keep the universe going. That was all set up long ago and He has no problem keeping it all running. That leaves one thing……He is watching over me as He watches over Israel. I can never catch Him by surprise. I never catch Him dozing off……Even as I toss and turn at 12:30 in the morning.

I heard the outdoor flag flapping in the wind, which had picked up. I heard my little outdoor decoration sliding back and forth on the wall. I got up and took them both down…..there was dust in the air. I came in and laid back down…….All was quiet except the cat snoring, fast asleep in his place on the bed.

After I determined that sleep wasn’t soon to come, I burrowed through my pile of books by the bed until I found “Big Red.” It is the Bible I always turn to when I need a special comfort. It has years in it. It holds them all lovingly in its pages. I turned to my notes in the back……notes from sermons, studies, things I have thought and read. My eyes fell on this printed in red:

Know how to meditate on the Lord. What do I do when I can’t sleep? Do I quiet my soul and spirit with meditation on God or do I run for a sleeping pill? What am I to meditate on?

God’s word……..God’s promises……..the person of God

I continued thumbing through and thought about the years held there in those pages. It’s about 34 years old now. I listened to the rustle of the pages and something about it quieted my spirit. I noted the changes in my printing style over the years, sometimes slanting left, sometimes right. Some of the notes are faded with time.

Most important are the words it holds. God’s words to me, to all of us.

I turned out the light and rested my old friend on my chest and felt its weight and it felt good. I thought of all that precious book and God have brought me through. Saved my life more than a few times. Maybe more times than I know. I couldn’t help it, a few tears of gratitude slid down, and I thanked Him. My heart slowed its beating…….my spirit calmed. Outside, the wind may have been blowing, but I no longer heard it.
I drifted into a peaceful slumber at 2:00 AM.

At times like that I think that maybe God just missed me and wanted my undivided attention.

Eden Restored

“Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it finds it’s rest in Thee.” St. Augustine
Everything the world is seeking so desperately can be found in the person of Jesus. Finding Him is like finding our forever home……
Drinking from the river of life is possible right here and now. I can stand on it’s shore, cup my hand under the crystalline waters and drink deep. Because of Him and what He made possible.
He is my quiet country lane I seek when I want peace…..my cool breeze in the sweltering heat of a desert summer. My bridge to Eden……My everything I have ever longed for, every desire of my deepest longing, even the ones I don’t know about, is satisfied in Him and through Him.
But without Him I am never satisfied.
I could ache like I do, for the pines or for the ocean swells and go to that quiet place, a closet even, and find that I have come out just as refreshed as if I had just spent time watching the waves upon the shore or hearing the wind making the pines sigh.
It is part of my oldest memory, this earth. Part of me and I cannot ever separate myself from it, nor do I want to, for He grew me out of it, this soil, this earth, and to it I will return one day.
Until such time as I reach that Eternal shore where will meet me……Restored.
 He will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears
from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
from all the earth.
The LORD has spoken.

 In that day they will say,
“Surely this is our God;
we trusted in him, and he saved us.
This is the LORD, we trusted in him;
let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”
Isaiah 25:8,9

Three Little Words

“But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.” 2 Peter 1-3

When I read this today I immediately thought of Harold Camping and his ridiculous time-stamp for Christ’s return. I thought about how much damage has been done over the 2000+ years of the church by people taking a truth and twisting it, either to make a buck or get some notoriety for themselves. This is no surprise. Jesus talked about it, so did all the apostles.

The problem with partial truths is that a half truth holds the power of the truth, but either adds something or leaves something out so that facts are confused and distorted. That was our downfall from the very beginning. Our separation from God started with three little words……..

“Did God say?”

I think an out and out lie is easier to deal with because it can be exposed for what it is. A partial truth has the power to mangle and deceive and leaves a wake of destruction in its path. Yet the light of truth will continue to shine through the darkness of every deception. Two things we know from Scripture:

There will be a time when Christ will most definitely come back, we just don’t know when.

He will come when we are not expecting it.

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming……”2 Peter 3:10,11

Two other things we know….
The time is closer now that it was before.

There will be people that don’t believe it.

“Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”

But here is the best part of the story, if you are living and breathing, you still have time.

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9

We serve a truly awesome God!

Blogging across the fence

I like to think of blogging as meeting for coffee, or over the back fence. People used to do that, and in some places they still do. Recently my Mom was over at my Aunt’s house and she saw a gathering of people in the front yard playing dominoes. Yes, in the front….almost scandalous nowadays. They were laughing and carrying on and having a great old time. It was a good thing to see. Of course my Mom, never having met a stranger, had to go talk to them.

They exchanged information…..greeting…..fellowship. A bit of bringing Heaven down to earth. All because they made themselves available. Open.

I have lived before in neighborhoods where every evening a symphony of garage doors would open with big yawns and swallow up the cars and the people in them and that was the last you saw of your neighbor. One time my Mom was visiting and she got so starved for people she flagged someone down who was driving by just for someone to talk to.

In these days of mobility and technology we often lose that sense of community. It gets to be a challenge to get back in touch with it. That’s why I like blogging. I feel like we are virtual neighbors meeting over the back fence. A little solitude is a very good thing, but too much is not good, we tend to make ourselves crazy.
God knew that too.

Sharing beliefs, joys and sorrows, snippets of our lives makes us feel like we are not alone. We join hands across the aisles, finding common ground in all sorts of things. We see how we are the same and how we are different.

And how wonderful to be able to pray for someone I have never actually met!

So pull up a chair, gather around, pour yourself a cup.

You don’t even have to call before you come by.

“…….and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” Hebrews 10:24, 25 

The Fear Factor

Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’ “Behold, all those who are angered at you will be shamed and dishonored; those who contend with you will be as nothing and will perish. Isaiah 41:10,11

If we could see God’s grace all around us…….just imagine. I envision something like these Palo Verde tree blossoms which fall everywhere here a certain time of year……we would see it everywhere we walked, for He has promised to hem us in on all sides with His love and protection.

That doesn’t mean that our path will be trouble free and easy. In fact, Jesus promised that in the world we would have trouble. But right after that He tells us to take heart because He has already overcome it. That means, if we belong to Him, so have we! Whatever the world dishes out, we can take it my friends.

And I love what He says right before that……”I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.”  

We can rest in the hollow of His hand. Of that we can be certain.

And when we close our eyes at night, can’t you just feel His grace keeping you? For He neither slumbers nor sleeps.

There is much fear and uncertainty in our world today, but we don’t need to pay attention to it. We don’t have to worry about the economy……

our health

our jobs or lack thereof

or anything else that keeps us up at night.

Our Heavenly Father knows we need all these things. So, whatever you are worried about today, give it to Him, He can handle it!

“Who did this? Who made it happen? Who always gets things started? I did. God. I’m first on the scene. I’m also the last to leave. Isaiah 41:4
The Message
And a special prayer for Elaine, my best of friends. You take care of everyone else, but today and every day He will take care of you! He walks behind you and before you today….. May He keep you in perfect peace today and cast away all fear! Me

He is near you…..

Ours is a day when people feel a sense of the absence of God. We see no burning bushes, no pillars of fire, no incarnate Christ walking in our midst. We feel abandoned, thrown to the waters of a hostile or even worse, indifferent universe. We seem locked into a world from which there is no exit, no stairway to the stars. RC Sproul, The Holiness of God

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

In his classic book, which I am reading now. Dr. Sproul talks about the life of Jacob. If ever anyone should have his eyes open to the things of God it is the Grandson of Abraham. But it seems that much of Jacob’s life was spent concentrating on the things of the world, he was pretty indifferent to God for the most part…..until the night he spent that night in the desert and had that dream. God became real to Him then. Did he just all of a sudden appear? No, He had been there all the time.

“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not even aware of it.” Genesis 28:16

Sproul says: He was not remote from Jacob, but Jacob had missed him all his life. Jacob was unaware of the presence of God. This tragic ignorance of God’s presence is played out in our culture every day in the lives of millions of people. God is here, but we are unaware. The moment awareness of His divine presence begins, the deepest personal struggle a person can experience begins as well.

Once we are made aware of Him, a decision has to be made. It is testimony of God’s great mercy and love for us that we have those “Jacob’s Ladder” moments.
He further states, and I love this one: “People in awe never complain that church is boring.”

There are times when I wandered around like Jacob in my life, unaware and disconnected from God……but thankfully, I had my moment in the desert like Jacob. It was nothing I did…..but something God did. I didn’t deserve it, I still don’t…..After that time I was never the same, though I wandered at times, I always knew that He was there.

Is there. For always and forever.

Counting the Gifts

“Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters.  Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.  He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.” James1:16-18

Between last night and this morning we have had some wonderful artwork in the sky. Though we suffer through these stifling summers, who a Pastor last week very aptly described as being hit with a blow-torch, this time of year yields the most wonderful skies with the afternoon rains we sometimes get.

This morning I went out in my usual spot in the corner of the yard, where I get a bit of a crosswind, and watched the world wake up as I awoke with it. There was a puddle the rain left behind and I watched as a group of birds ingeniously dunked their bits of food in the water and alternately bathed……it was quite a show……

Then I went around back and caught Mama and Papa quail and their little one on the wall….
I am thankful today for my camera, which allows me to stop and take a second look at the world and all of God’s good gifts…..
For God who provided me with the money to buy it……
For my best friend who forced me to buy something for myself even though I walked around and around Costco before I did it……
All these things which remind us that God is good, and so is the world He created.
For His word, our compass to show us where to go……
What path to take.
And the Holy Spirit who helps us do those impossible things that we could never do on our own.
For the people who love and encourage us every day.

Celebrating Multitude Mondays along with many others in the gratitude community today……..

(sorry, the little graphic for Ann’s website wouldn’t download today)

Lead me to the cross

Savior I come
Quiet my soul remember
Redemption’s Hill
Where Your blood was spilled
For my ransom
Everything I once held dear
I count it all as loss
As I was walking and meditating on this song this morning, I thought, this is what it always comes down to at the beginning and end of every day……We come back when we lay down to sleep and we do quiet our souls. We lay down and then we lay it down too. Then, at the beginning of the day we look up, we return, we say…….”It all comes back to You Lord and what You did, every decision we make, we hold up to the cross, in the light of Your grace.”
We are humbled because we know that no matter what happens, that is where it all leads….and ends. Everything in this life will ultimately come down to One Thing. What we did with the cross,
what we did with Jesus. No other decision in this life matters really unless we settle that one first. 
Lead me to the cross
Where your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord I lay me down
Rid me of myself
I belong to you
Oh Lead me, lead me to the cross 
Brooke Fraser, Hillsong United
Image from google 

Corrag

When I read Susan Fletcher’s first book, Eve Green I was carried away by her lyrical poetic style. I was captivated by it. I put her on my list of authors to watch for, so I was very excited when her second book, Oystercatchers came out. I was greatly disappointed, not so much in the writing style, but just bogged down with the depressing theme of the story. I really couldn’t wait for it to be over. It was with a but of trepidation but also hope that I picked up her latest, Corrag. Susan Fletcher, in my view has knocked one out of the park once again with her newest historical novel.

The story is narrated by Corrag, an accused witch who is in chains awaiting death by burning in the town square. Outside the door as the winter gives way to spring’s thaw, she hears preparation for her own execution. In reality, Corrag is a young girl who has never hurt a soul. She is traumatized by her own mother’s death at the hands of an angry village mob, also branded with the “witch” title. On the night they come for her Mom, she wakes Corrag and tells her to flee….”Go North and West…” where she felt her daughter would find safety in the Highlands of Scotland.

She rides her beloved mare, her only companion, for many miles until she finds an enchanting mountain valley called Glencoe. She settles quietly there where she builds a small shelter for herself in that rugged but beautiful place. Unbeknownst to her, it is also the home of the MacDonald clan, a wild bunch of highlanders who actually treat her better than anyone else has up until then. Due to her knowledge of herbs and healing arts, she is summoned one night to save the leader of the clan who has suffered a nasty head wound. If not for her skill, he would have died. She becomes part of their community and finds a welcome there she has never known before.

Susan Fletcher then weaves more history into this tale for during the time that Corrag is living on MacDonald land, the infamous slaughter of the MacDonalds of Glencoe happens and Corrag seems to be the only eyewitness. She gets caught up in the tragic events because she leads some of the MacDonalds to safety, which makes her an enemy of the government, which lands her in prison.

We see the world through the eyes of Corrag, as she tells her own story to her only visitor while she waits to die, a young “man of God” who has his own reasons for finding out what really happened the night of the massacre. Before we get to the night in question, Corrag tells us her own personal story. At first our young preacher is repulsed by this supposed witch, his mind has already prejudged her. But once he gets to know her, he becomes enchanted by her and the wonderful way she sees the world.

By the end, he is deeply disturbed by her impending death, which he now knows is unjust. He sees her as she really is, a scared young girl, so small most people mistake her for a child. Someone who is compassionate and full of life, though in chains. Someone who has transformed his life because she shows him a world of beauty such as he has never seen before.

I am immersed in this book and I don’t want it to end. I have enjoyed my time in Corrag’s little hut with her…..transfixed by the beauty of the wilds of highland Scotland. I found many lessons in this book. It made me think about how quick we are to prejudge and condemn with little or no evidence, even those in our own churches and communities. I thought of the times I have been prejudged and prejudged others.

I don’t know how this story will end. I could wish the the young Pastor would tell Corrag of Jesus and that she would know that the church and its members are about love and compassion instead of condemnation. I wish for an angel of the Lord to release her from her dank cell. I fear that I may not get the “Christian fiction” ending I hope for. No matter, I love this book regardless.

The Beauty all around us

He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. 1 Thessalonians 5:10

Imagine, that we can know the originator of all beauty, truth and everything good. Imagine standing in His eternal presence. Imagine the best of everything we have experienced in this life…….. magnified way beyond anything we can dream. Sometimes it is enough to burn a hole clear through my brain, if I think of it too much!

I think of everything I have seen, what a gift memory is, a reliving of every most beautiful moment in my life. To think that of all these things I look back on, there is so much more to come.

Things like the hushed, hallowed quiet of standing in a snowfall, how it’s almost Holy.

Those times when you feel like all is right with the world for a brief moment…..when you have felt so happy you want to break into song, and you do.

All this beauty, and we have only experienced a very small fraction of it…….of what’s to come.

Every sigh of the wind through the trees….woven together as a chorus of praise to Him.

Look around next time you are surrounded by loved ones, and everyone is laughing. Who but God could invent something like laughter?

I remember a Christmas service that was just the right amount of joy and holy.

The world is magic, and if you don’t think it is, you haven’t opened your eyes yet. Just think of the way a small child’s eyes light up when they see bubbles. In their eyes you can see the light of Heaven if you look.

There is a spark there that the world has not yet put out.

So many moments of such grand and wondrous beauty, I think in those best of times….what else can possibly be better than this. And yet God says…..

Just wait…..

picture credit: public domain pictures, Anna Cervova