Reflection

Born to give us second birth

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Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

I wrestle with my flesh on many occasions throughout the day…….when I work it’s usually during my commute. From the time we’re born, we enter this battle, this war. The body wants to sit on the couch and not trudge down to the treadmill, or it’s too cold to walk. I can usually think up one excuse after another. The spirit wants to fill itself up with everything under the sun, except for what God wants.

He knew we could never fulfill His perfect requirements of Holiness. But there is One who could. And did.

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Romans 8:1-8

Many people are rushing out to buy lottery tickets right now. I can’t say I blame them. I am tempted to myself. Despite the fact that the Bible says not to chase after riches, something in me thinks that my life would be much better and less stressful if I could pay everything off and do the same for my family. To be able to leave the stress of my job far behind. But the truth is, what I value most in my life is something money can’t ever buy.

I already have the best gift……the only gift that matters in this life, because that gift has bought me eternal life with Him in the next. While this life is passing away like a vapor, that life stretches ahead further than my eye can see.

What more could I possibly want than what God has already given me? Nothing.

I am rich beyond counting, beyond measuring. Because He was born for my sacrifice. Yours, mine……ours. He is my riches. My only desire. It’s why He was born. It’s what I celebrate each and every day.

Long after Christmas is all packed away.

 

 

 

Tell me…..

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Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angelsshouted for joy? God speaks, Job 38:4-7

Sometimes in the quiet, I wonder how it would be to stand on the brink of the world, where it’s so cold, to cold even for a tree. To experience that terrible wonder. To observe the creatures that live there, to see how they do it. I think I would be even more in awe of God than I am now.

To see the Northern lights, now that would be some miracle. I think I am almost obsessed with seeing them. To see how God paints the sky that way would leave me dumbstruck with silence like the moon still leaves me sometimes when I see it rise over the Superstitions. I will never lose my capacity to love nature and the God who spoke it all into existence.

And when I went on the Alaskan cruise, the thing that made an indelible mark was not the buffet, though it was incredible. It was not the beauty of the ship, though it was breathtaking. And it wasn’t the luxury of the room or the entertainment on board.

It was going out on the veranda and seeing nothing but water as far as I could see……God was so big there.

It was the light at midnight and the glow on the water……the mysterious silence that took my breath away.

It was an unspoiled land, and eagles nests as big as Volkswagens.

Those are the things I will never forget. This Advent, as always. I will pretend I have a bit of the mystery of Mary. I will treasure all these things up in my heart like she did. Pregnant with God’s Spirit, sealed for the day of redemption, Oh God, may that one thought change everything I do.

Never let it get old. Embrace the miracle you are, and this Christmas season, wait with me.

Along with Mary. With Joseph.

Wait with me here.

God is speaking…….

“Where is the way to the dwelling of light?
And darkness, where is its place,
That you may take it to its territory
And that you may discern the paths to its home?
“You know, for you were born then,
And the number of your days is great!
“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,
Or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
Which I have reserved for the time of distress,
For the day of war and battle?
“Where is the way that the light is divided,
Or the east wind scattered on the earth?

Photo from creative commons, flickr: Morten Nelson some rights reserved.

Ushering in Advent

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It is December first and I wake early, in the dark. Still trying to shake off remnants of the work week, I get up for a couple of Advil and head back to bed, breathing a still prayer in the silence. The last three hours of work were stressful yesterday and the shadows of it still crouched in my mind, refusing to dislodge. And yet, I have three days off and I am aglow with the ushering in of Advent.

Be still my soul. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, for though He has already come, and gone and come again with the gift of His Spirit, (He never went away) I celebrate His coming all over again.

In these still hours, my mind feels close to You.

Heal it Lord, wrap it in Your balm of peace.

Erase the cares and worries of the week

with Your healing touch.

Prepare me for Your Advent…….

It’s God with us, still.

Always and forever.

Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep; but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 1 Corinthians 15:51

Today is a gift. Let the celebrations begin, for it’s time to light the house, play Handel’s Messiah, and do all the things we only do this time of year. For He is worthy of a party. And the miracle just never, ever gets old.

On stumbling

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 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Jude 1: 24,25

And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.  For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.

1 John 3:19:23

It is no surprise to God that there will be times when we fall. Some days feel like one fall after another, but these verses bring me great hope today. I think sometimes we mistake weaknesses for sin. I have come to be thankful for those “thorn’s in my flesh,” such as the Apostle Paul described, for they bring me closer to the Lord and allow me to see the power of the cross all over again.

Those things that I used to resent, I now count as God’s blessings because they force me to rely on Him. It’s the process of turning those things over to him which causes us to grow; that gives God His rightful place on the throne of our hearts.

Sometimes the turning it over becomes the battle of our lives. The battle of our days.

All those things we once thought were so overwhelming lose their power the second we give them to the One who has the power to change them. Some things He does heal, some things He does take away, but some things he leaves us as reminders of who we need to trust. And how He loves us. Better to have a little weakness and boast in what God can do, as opposed to thinking we have none and boasting in ourselves.

Today I rejoice in God my Savior, for all He is, for all He’s done, and for all He continues to do in my life.

Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.  And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast  about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 2 Corinthians 12:7-9

What about you? Is there something you are struggling with today? Leave a request in the comments and I would be happy to pray for you……

photo credit: awrose via flickr, creative commons: some rights reserved.

Finding our strength in the quiet

Life is a prayer

This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. Isaiah 30:15

Too much of what we take part of in this modern world is unnatural, that’s why we don’t have peace–we don’t even know how to go about getting it. In Reading the Psalms, praying in the quiet hours, sitting in the silence concentrating on only the beating of our heart, our breathing slow in and out we remember who we are and who God is and who we are in Him.

That is what is known as meditation. And it’s not just for mystics and yogis.

It’s in concentrating on our own brokenness that we can begin to see the brokenness in others. And yet………

All to often we won’t turn towards our fellow believers so we can help each other mend. If we keep insisting we are all okay, we will never reach that place called the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus was talking about.

The Spirit of reconciliation, that’s what God desires for His church……may it come Lord Jesus. Find Him in the quiet moments today.

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But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. Psalm 131:2

Parable thoughts

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Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ Matthew 25:19-22

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. 1 Corinthians 3:12-15

When I read a certain Bible passage, first I pray for the Holy Spirit’s help in understanding and interpreting the verse. Then I use my study guides to help me consider the context, in other words, where the writer was coming from and what he was talking about in the previous verses.

Even at that, I can still muck things up by over complicating it.

In reading these two passages, I did what I do most of the time. I insert myself in the story and I ask myself some questions:

“Which one am I, really?

“Which one does God see me as?

“How do others see me?

I imagine myself standing before Jesus on that day, hopping up and down on one singed foot…….”Well, here I am Lord! I barely escaped the flames but I’m here, whew!” And then with an almost imperceptible shake of His head and sadness in His eyes, He holds His arms out to me anyway.

And then there are the talents……all those gifts He gave me that I clung to in fear. That I held deep inside. Those things I was afraid to share with others…….that light I didn’t let shine for fear of failure. And those I buried in the backyard trying to them safe instead of giving them out so He could multiply them for me.

When it all comes down to it, we are extremely hard on ourselves. And the reason God put all those things in the Bible is not to make us feel terrible about ourselves, but to spur us on to action. To encourage us.

He wants us to see that while we see only our failure, He sees where we have succeeded in Him.

He sees those times we seem to think nothing of. Those times we prayed for hours, faithfully each morning. Those times we passed the grocery cart to the next person and smiled. The time we were a peace-maker at work. Those times we were obedient by picking up the phone to encourage a fellow believer……

When we stand there before Jesus, feeling very much alone, maybe feeling maybe a little bit like the cowardly lion before Oz?

I believe He will say: “Who are all those behind you?”

Then we will look…….and He will remind us of all those times. And all those people.

Maybe you are not Billy Graham. And maybe, like me, you don’t preach on street corners. But you do love God, and you do share that love with others. And your talents too.

And just maybe, that one kindness you do today will be that last barrier that you remove, that last thing standing in the way of someone else’s salvation.

You just never know.

 

Why it’s good to take a break from the computer

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Trying to keep up with all the activities associated with blogging and social media sometimes makes me feel as worn out as this woman on the bench.  Sometimes I pull away voluntarily, but sometimes, like recently it’s a forced break due to circumstances beyond my control.

After disconnecting the land-line, we decided to have another more improved line installed for internet access only. It won’t be installed until Monday. So…….I have been sitting it out from the sidelines. I have posted a few times from work but at home I have only been dipping in and out, via my phone.

It all gets so exhausting. And sometimes I look at the Facebook ticker tape and it looks so darn loud and busy, almost as if it’s screaming at me.  That’s when I know I need to take a break.

So I have been doing some other things instead. I have been taking bike rides, and I even wrote out some note cards for people just because.

I have been observing, a lot. 

I talked to my Aunt last light instead of getting on the computer and we laughed over the phone about things going on in her life and mine. I could hear that she really appreciated the call, and I was blessed too. She amazes me. At 80 she sounds as young as she did at 60. She goes to the rest home three times a day to see her husband who will never come out. She calls it her part-time job and it makes her happy to be there for him.

She has a lot of courage. My Mom says when she was a girl she refused to ride the bus to school so my Grandpa bought her a Victory bike and she braved mean country dogs that chased her. She rode for miles to and from school. She had her tonsils out with no anesthesia, and she is a breast cancer survivor.

We talked of Heaven and how we will all be together once again, and whole……..and how He will wipe our tears away forever. No more cancer, no more dementia, or Alzheimer’s, or death.

Or computers, I guess.

Somehow I don’t think I will miss it then.

photo courtesy of creative commons, some rights reserved.

Rediscovering an old friend

This weekend, among other things, I went on a bike ride. I felt like I got an old friend back. Maybe it was my imagination but I felt like the bike was happy too, after being locked up in a dark storage unit for so long. I never realized how much I missed it. It’s kind of like low-level flying, and you can cover so much more ground gliding than walking.

Before long, I lost myself in the rhythm and bump of the tires going over the road, hitting the cracks in the sidewalk.

It’s kind of like meditation on wheels.

I rode around in the neighboring park…..it’s always good to see how the other part of the world lives.

I got some waves and some good mornings from people doing outside things, enjoying the morning air. I introduced myself to the neighborhood feral cat. I know he was feral because he watched me with interest but then hid behind a shrub when I got too close. I named him “Smudge” for the gray blotch he had right below his (or her) nose. I will watch for him next time I am over there.

As I relaxed into the rubber tire rhythm, memories washed over me of other rides I have taken throughout my life. We have a long history, bikes and I. They were part of our culture, back in the day. For a long time our family only had one car, so we got to know our bikes really well.

I learned on an ugly spray-painted hand-me-down that belonged to my cousin. Then, the magic year I turned 10, I got a bright blue Schwinn all my own. I still remember that first magic ride on Christmas morning. I have a picture somewhere, a side view of my snaggle-toothed smile as I cruised down the driveway, my new synthetic white fur coat with the silver buttons flapping in the cold air.

We were buddies that bike and I and I got to know every rattle and squeak intimately. I felt like it got to know me too.

When I was in Junior High I got a sleek, Gitane ten-speed. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I had chosen a brilliant metallic aqua-marine blue and when it glinted in the sun, it took my breath away. My friends and I rode in a herd, all over town. Most days I rode it to school. All the way into High School, in fact. (No, I didn’t have a car), most kids didn’t back then.

I could ride hands free on that bike, steering with a slight lean in whatever direction I wanted to go.

When I got that bike, my Mom inherited the blue Schwinn. Oftentimes, it was her only mode of transportation. I still remember her riding off to the store with her purse hanging from the handlebars, and every so often, one of the smaller kids she watched riding in the basket.

Don’t act so shocked. Times were different then, we didn’t wear helmets either.

We also took our bikes camping in Yosemite and even now when I ride, I can close my eyes and hear the echoeing cries of Stellar’s Jays as I breezed along, ducking for low hanging pines. I was always so excited for those tires to hit the ground, so I could explore and reintroduce myself to the trails I knew so well.

For those moments, I felt like God had given that particular stretch of earth to me as a gift.

When the mountain biking craze hit back in the early nineties, I got a special Birthday gift, a Raleigh cross- over mountain, cruising bike. And yes, I wore the geeky helmet and the padded bicycle shorts.

That’s the bike I took when E and I did the Tour Le San Francisco bike run. Now that was an adventure. There was every genre of rider and bike you can imagine, from old clunkers with boom-boxes bungied to the racks playing opera, to high-speed power racers who did the ride once to warm up and again just for fun.

And there were several people and groups in costume. It was San Francisco after all.

The serious racers whizzed by like greyhounds while the rest of us concentrated on not falling into each other and sucking air on the hills. They closed down part of the city for that race, and I’ll never forget riding through the winding streets of San Francisco and all those bikes spilling out onto the Pacific Coast Highway, the ocean opening up before us.

That view alone made laboring up all those hills worthwhile.

It’s that same bike I am riding all these years later. It has a few nicks and scars but to me it’s just as beautiful as the day I brought it home from the shop. And each time I ride it, whether it’s just to get the mail or around the block, all those other rides and memories come right along with me.

Friends forever.

It’s in the blood

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I could feel it coming and I tried to catch it before it came but I wasn’t fast enough. To staunch the flow I hastily wiped my hand under my nose, and while I was trying to unravel the toilet paper that was stuck, another drop rolled out. It’s not uncommon for me to get bloody noses here in this dry desert air. As I gazed at the two indelible marks which were now on the back of each hand, I thought:

God made the physical makeup of blood such that it refuses to be totally wiped out. It always leaves a trace of itself behind.

When Cain killed Abel, God told him that it was the blood that cried from the ground that disclosed the truth even before Cain had a chance to confess. Blood is sacred to God. Due to advanced technology we can now trace crimes back years…..decades.

It’s in the blood.

As I scrubbed my hands clean in the sink I thought that if someone shined one of those special lights on my skin, or brushed on that chemical they use to trace blood, they would most likely still see it there clearly. I remember years ago when my first cat Max was hit by a car and killed close to my parents house, I always averted my eyes from the blood left behind. It took years of storms and seasons to wash it away.

Following the thread my mind seemed to go all on its own, I went to that other place, a place I don’t go very often. I thought of my husband’s blood when it was spilled there in Mexico, and all of a sudden, right there in the bathroom, I wished I could apologize to the poor people who had to clean it up, because I know his blood left something behind in their life.

Something they will never ever forget. Maybe they said a prayer. I wish I could tell them that he was already in Heaven by then.

Then I thought of that scene from “The Passion”……..and who could ever forget it? The one where Mary is trying to scrub Jesus blood off the ground where He was scourged and she ends up getting it all over herself.

And there is no way any of us will get around that Blood. Someday we will have to account for what we did with it.

The blood of our loved ones is sacred to us, but all blood is sacred to God. He knows when it’s been shed callously. No one in this life will be able to get away with murder. Oh, they might think they are getting away scott free, but it’s God holds the DNA, He hears the blood crying out. He knows their name.

I also believe that somewhere in the Bible it says something about the careless slaying of animals as well. So if you go out and kill for the joy of killing, without respect for the animal and what it provides, you will be asked to give an account for your callousness.

In the Native American tradition, most tribes had very specific rules with respect to hunting. They had a deep appreciation and respect for the animal for exchanging its life to sustain theirs. And nothing was ever wasted. A Navaho tradition was to leave a perfect arrowhead behind as a way to honor the animal.

There seems to be very little respect for life in this world, but God hasn’t changed.

For behold, the LORD is about to come out from His place To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; And the earth will reveal her bloodshed And will no longer cover her slain……….Isaiah 26:21

I love the story in 2 Samuel, where the prophet Nathan turns the tables on David to get him to see how God feels about David taking Uriah’s wife for himself and then sending Uriah himself out to the front lines to fight.

This is David’s response, before he knew Nathan was referring to him.

David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.” 2 Samuel 12:5,6

My earliest memories of church are hearing the sounds of our singing echoing off the walls in that little children’s church hall, singing songs about His blood.

And all these years later, I still hear it no matter where I go.

What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow……

It’s in my blood.

Thank God.

Image from fanpop.com

 

The path to peace

My future belongs to Him

“No one is righteous—
    not even one.
No one is truly wise;
    no one is seeking God.
All have turned away;
    all have become useless.
No one does good,
    not a single one.”
“Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave.
    Their tongues are filled with lies.”
“Snake venom drips from their lips.”
 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“They rush to commit murder.
Destruction and misery always follow them.
They don’t know where to find peace.”
“They have no fear of God at all.”

Romans 3:11-18

We watched the first installment of the new series, “The Blacklist” last night starring James Spader. Well, a few parts I watched through my fingers because I was afraid of what I’d see. “What happened to the bad guy?” I asked E. “I don’t know,” she said, “I was afraid to watch, I was sure the husband was going to get killed.”  I guess we’ll never know. Needless to say, it was a scene we were not expecting and totally unprepared for.

I was almost ready for bed when I started watching it, but wide awake by the time the show was over.

All over the news, all over the world there is violence. You don’t have to look far. And cursing has become the norm, even for kids. They hear it from their parents. I compare the world now to the one I grew up in. A mistake I know. It’s something I thought I would never do and now I am. It’s hard not to, when you see such a marked difference, when you see how things have changed.

One thing I never had a moment of at any of my school campuses was real fear. All the way from Kindergarten through High School. Well, maybe I was a little afraid of BJ, she was one of the tough girls. And Steven Weigum. He was a punk. With Steven, you worked hard to be invisible. I was good at it, except for the one time I forgot to wear green on St. Patrick’s day.

From Grammar school all the way to Junior High, I heard maybe one parent say the “F’ word and I was shocked. Actually I didn’t even hear them say it, the daughter said she overheard her Mom say it…….once.

I feel sad for kids today. In many ways, they live in a callous and harsh world. Images of violence fills their culture through television, movies, video games and even music. Fear is part and parcel of their everyday world at school since all the school shootings started. Even us adults have to work hard to deprogram our minds from what we see and hear all day, on the news, at work. It would be easy to lose heart, to lose hope. To despair even.

It’s why I try to spend time alone with God the very first part of my day and saturate myself with His words. Sometimes I spend an hour, sometimes it’s 20 minutes, it’s just Him and me getting back to ground zero. Giving my mind and heart over to Him gets me back on track, brings me back home. It takes all that negative the world gives out and replaces it with what’s good.

It is an awesome thing to think we can have an open session with the God of the Universe anytime we want it. In fact, He seeks it…….delights in it. May it never get old for me.

It’s easy to think I’m a pretty good person when I watch a show like we watched last night where really bad guys are plotting to wreak havoc on the world, until I realize that in the verses above, the Apostle Paul is talking about all of us without Jesus.

And when I call that person “a name” for cutting me off on the freeway? I realize there is less distance between me and those character references in the book of Romans than I thought.

He reminds me of how my pitiful little rags of righteousness looked before they were dipped in His fountain.

It’s humbling, yes it is. But it’s good.

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8,9