A Contest on a Mountaintop

Lately, the drought has taken its toll. I'm not talking about lack of rain falling from the sky. I'm talking about spiritual rain. So many days, months, years without the refreshing and nourishing Spirit of God raining down on His people. We've learned to "settle" ... to lower our expectations ... to tighten our belts and to make do. 

And in this atmosphere, sometimes the enemy of our souls brings calamity upon us to try to convince us to give up, to lose faith, to lose confidence in God's love and power. Such a calamity has befallen us lately. A diagnosis of metastatic pancreatic cancer with spread to the liver, stomach, and one of the adrenal glands has sapped my husband of physical strength and wracked his body with daily, persistent pain. 

It is hard to watch, hard to listen to the efforts of people who are dealing with their own anticipatory grief and doing and saying things to make themselves feel better. It's hard to entertain the possibility that this thing will be fatal, with all that entails. Been there, done that. I can't awfulize the future. It's too much.

I've chosen, rather, to believe that God will be glorified through whatever happens, and what happens may just as likely be his healing. I've been speaking healing on his body: death to the cancerous cells, and protection on the healthy cells. 

Yes, he will undergo chemotherapy. Yes, he will fight to stay around as long as he can. And yes, the doctors have given him a timeline. But others have been known to surprise the doctors and go into remission, and I am clinging to the God of wonders, who spoke life into existence. Because God is the only one who knows how this will turn out. And more and more, I am reminded of one particular story from the Old Testament as the diagnoses keep piling on and on.

Elijah - after 3 years of drought - met the prophets of Ba-al (god of fire and darkness) on the top of Mount Carmel. It was a showdown, a contest between their god and his God. Each would prepare a sacrifice, and the god who answered by fire would be the winner.

Most know the story. Ba-al was a shoe-in to win; after all, he was the god of fire!! But Elijah didn't allow them to use any parlor tricks to start fires themselves. And Ba-al didn't answer, even after they cut themselves in their frenzy of begging. Hours they wore themselves ragged from their part in this cosmic contest. Still no fire.

Then it was Elijah's turn. But he didn't pray just yet. He made it harder for his God to answer. He got servants to fetch water from the sea below. Barrels full of water, drenching the sacrifice. It soaked the animal and it soaked the wood. 

Then he spoke just a few words asking God to glorify Himself. 

Free image from Pixabay

And the fire came from the heavens. It consumed the wet animal, even licked up the water on the wood and burned the wood to ash. The answer was impossible to deny. The God of Israel - the same God who extended His grace through Jesus - displayed only a fraction of His power, and the prophets of Ba-al knew their fate was sealed.  They ran. And they didn't get far. 

This is courage written in Scripture for us to realize that the more impossible the barrier, the more glory God gets when He overcomes it. Stories like these give me the courage to stand in the faith of Jesus (see Galatians 2:20, KJV and note the word "OF") and command the sickness to leave in the authority He delegated in Matthew 10:8. I follow the pattern Jesus set: not to pray for healing, but to command the disease to go away. 

Because this horrible disease, this contest between death and life, is impossible with all the knowledge and skill of humans. This disease is stage 4, considered incurable, only treatable - and only to the end of prolonging a very short time-frame. That's the human side of it. But we place our faith in the God of the impossible, the God of the incurable, the God who answered by fire that licked up the water in the wood and the trench they dug around the sacrifice. Yes, THAT God.  

King David's words, given to us early on in this journey, still ring in my head: "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD." (Psalm 118:17) Focusing on that gives me focus and helps me not to succumb to the daily grinding attitude of hopelessness that surrounds this diagnosis. 

I rest in His faith and speak to this cancer - daily - to shrink, to shrivel and to disappear in Jesus' mighty name. I speak to the pain this disease causes in my husband's back and tell it to leave, so that he has dignity and the mental capacity to choose how to live his life. This is life and death here. And life - and the Giver of life - wins.  

Manasseh's Mess

I was just reading yesterday in 2 Chronicles about dear old King Hezekiah, a godly king who served the Lord. After he died, his son Manasseh came to power. And he did pretty much the opposite of what his dad had done.

Okay, I get that he probably resented his dad for not kicking off 15 years earlier when he was sick. But God heard Hezekiah and healed him - so there you go. But this dude, Hezekiah's kid Manasseh, had the ultimate preacher's kid syndrome. He HATED everything his dad stood for. So he started worshiping idols, passing his baby sons through the fire (yeah that meant killing them by flame, folks) and building shrines to other gods. And this started the moment he was crowned king.

Photo by Ulricke Leone at Pixabay.

More and more he made a huge mess of the kingdom his dad had expanded. And God put up with this rebellious behavior for a few years. And then, (surprise surprise) He stepped in and allowed a foreign king to come in and defeat Judah, and his troops captured Manasseh, pierced his nose with a brass ring like an ox, and literally led him by the nose back to Assyria. 

Now let's think about that picture for a minute. That was a couple of weeks of a king who used to wear royal robes and get anything he wanted, walking behind some camel's butt with a rope attached to a ring in his nose, and tromping through camel dung. He had a lot of serious time to reflect on his choices.

And guess what! When he was in captivity in Assyria, at some point, he honestly and truly repented. He did. And God miraculously worked out a way for him to return to his throne in Jerusalem. And once he was there, he made good on his change of heart: he tore down the idols, removed the idols from the temple, re-instituted temple sacrifices, and encouraged the people to return to the God of their ancestors. 

And God blessed him. That was a big deal. This was before the cross, folks. And even though Manasseh didn't take down the shrines to Asherah (the Assyrian god), and still allowed the people to use these pagan places to pray to the God of Israel, God still blessed him ... because his heart had changed. 

I find this so cool. Most people, when they read the Old Testament, see a vindictive, mean-spirited God. Yet Manasseh learned from experience that God is both holy and loving, powerful and gentle, and he learned that he could not stand against Him. It was far better to live FOR Him. And when Manasseh repented God not only forgave him, but He blessed him, and gave him a long reign. 

Yes, Manasseh had to clean up the mess he'd made. But he did - thus proving that his repentance in Assyria wasn't just words. He meant it. He was living in a relationship with God. And over and over again in the Old Testament, God shows that He desires a relationship with His people, not just collectively, but as individuals. 









And Manasseh's story also tells me something else. It doesn't matter how many mistakes a person makes. It doesn't matter how much of a mess a person makes of things. 

What matters is now. 
What matters is the heart. 
And it is never too late to start a new life.

Here - Through it all

Through it all, through it all my eyes are on You;
Through it all, through it all it is well.
Through it all, through it all my eyes are on You,
And it is well ... with me.  (c) Kristene DiMarco, Bethel Music

I just finished reading an amazing article. It's about photographs taken from INSIDE THE EYE of Hurricane Dorian while it was still a Category 2 Hurricane off the coast of the United States. 

It's full of birds. All kinds of birds!  Flying, sitting in the still water if they are able to swim, resting on anything that floats if they can't swim, they stay in the eye of the storm until it makes landfall, where they stay. If ships are in the eye of the storm, they rest on the ship.  

Amazing.  

This is a photo of Tropical Cyclone Catarina,
clearly showing the eye of the storm, courtesy of
a contributor to Pixabay.com

The analogy is plain between this image and the storms of life, so I won't belabour it here. But the mental picture of the eye of the storm being calm and a refuge for those caught in it ... is a powerful one. I can think of several incidents, not only in my life but in those of others, where this is the reality: we have stayed in the midst of turbulent circumstances and yet there has been an inner calm, a 'peace that surpasses all understanding' (Phil 4:7), that has steadied us and been a refuge for us. It's not that we are unaffected by the storm at all, it's just that our  focus has been on the One who is the Centre of all things. 

I've experienced a real hurricane before. Hurricane Juan (Sept. 29, 2003) visited our province and caused all kinds of damage to property, shoreline, and power lines.  We had not been listening to or watching the news for the previous few days, and I had been on vacation so away from the office grapevine, so we were totally unprepared. During the fury of the storm that morning, my husband and I felt we had to go outside because water was pouring over the edges of our rain gutters. 

We were soaked to the skin within two seconds, and we got the ladder out anyway. I held the extension ladder while hubby went up and cleared out the debris from the gutters, a job that we have since learned must be done in mid-summer. The rain and wind were blinding; the wind itself ripped our breath away from us, and we had to keep our chins tucked down to our chests to be able to breathe. And we were only out there for about five minutes. We lost three of our eleven shade trees in that storm. 

In hindsight, it was kind of crazy of us to venture outside. But we did experience the strength of a Category 1 hurricane - as least as much as we ever want to (if we wanted to, which I doubt). I'll never forget it. 

Yet, through it all, we were protected. We discovered a large, one-foot-in-diameter tree limb suspended in the maple tree that was right next to our house. It had been ripped off one of our other trees and became a projectile that was hurtling right at our picture window. And the maple tree's limbs caught it and didn't allow it to travel further. A mini-tornado (common in hurricanes, I've been told) landed on one of our other large shade trees (60 feet tall) and twisted it at the trunk as if it was a matchstick, slamming it onto the lawn. That tree was about 25 feet from our front door. When it hit the ground, it hit at an angle about 60 degrees to the house, so it missed us completely, still tethered by a portion of its own trunk to the ground. 

As I ponder this event, I am overwhelmed by a sense of divine protection - even in our ignorance - during Juan's devastating visit. And as Hurricane Dorian nears our province later today, I am trusting in God's protection for us and our home and property. 

And for the storms of our lives and circumstances, I am trusting that same kind of protection in the emotional and spiritual sense. I know we are in the Centre. 

So it's all good. Through it all, it is well ... with me. With us. 
He is here in the midst.

More Light

Earlier this summer, we decided to replace the doors in our house. 

It was no small change. The frames around the doors were so rotted that they also had to be replaced, so we thought that this was a good time to get doors that not only were more energy-efficient, but also more secure (with a built-in deadbolt) and that were attractive as well. 

We spent considerable time choosing a design that we could all agree upon, and finally settled on one that allowed us a bit more privacy (without the need for curtains) but that also let in more light.  It costed more, but the final effect has been so nice. 

The windows in the doors are partly made of pebbled glass - hence the privacy without the need for drapery (which also makes for more light) - but the edges of the glass pattern insert are made of beveled glass. That edging has had an effect that we did not anticipate: when the sun is shining through the glass, it acts like a prism, and we have cross-sections of rainbows in our home every sunny morning and every sunny afternoon. 

Photo "Heaven Light From Sun Behind Clouds"
courtesy of criminalatt at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Rainbows always speak to me of mercy - undeserved favor - and I remember the scripture in the Psalms that says something like, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness..." 

It's funny, but the more I stay away from religious people (and by religious people I mean those typical folks that believe "God is good, I'm bad; I must try harder"), the more I can clearly see the mercy and grace of God in everyday occurrences, the lavish, extravagant love of God, and the fallacy of trying to earn brownie points. I spent a lifetime trying to make God like me more, never feeling like I measured up, never feeling as though I was doing "enough" - and living life on that endless hamster wheel of fear, performance, and shame. Since taking time away from that system to experience God and who He is rather than the system with its rules and regulations and rigidity, I realize more and more the absolute non-necessity of "doing" anything to curry favor with Him.  I am ALREADY favored. I am ALREADY loved to the Nth degree! Just as I am, period!  

It never gets old. The wonder never dims.  In such an atmosphere, absolute freedom isn't an excuse to indulge in guilty pleasures (as some might fear) but an opportunity to develop intimacy with the Almighty One ... and all that means is that I get to spend time with Him without the need to ask for anything because everything I need is already mine in Him. And that includes fellowship, (again contrary to what some might think). God sets up His appointments with others of like mind, far better than I could, and exactly when I need them, to enhance my journey with Him.  It is not forced; there is no structure. What a great gift that is to one whose life was regimented and bound up in the whole notion of fear of what someone else might think. Or the terror that somehow I could damage what God was trying to do if I didn't do a good enough job at ... whatever it was. 

This life is like reveling in beams of sunlight in prisms through the glass - a joyful, grateful, peaceful appreciation of His love. No more cringing. No more hamster wheel. No more reliance on my own strength. Just rest, relax, and let Him shine.

There is always more mercy, always more love, always more light. Always.

Straight trade

I trudged up the hill, towing my two suitcases, with my computer bag balanced precariously across the slide-out carrying handle of the largest bag, and my purse slung over my head and down my right side.  Every 20 to 30 feet I would stop, winded by the hill, the extra weight, and the altitude - 3500 feet above sea level doesn't sound like much unless you're from sea level - I could feel myself perspiring heavily. My hair stuck to my face. Fortunately ... it wasn't raining. 

Someone had given me these directions and I was following them to the best of my ability. I hadn't reached the top of the hill when I saw a man carrying a blue, lightweight tote on the other side of the road, going in the opposite direction. I was puffing and panting by this point. All sense of dignity had been lost. I was in refugee mode - quite literally - fleeing a situation of my own making which had gotten wildly out of control. 

The man slowed down. He stopped. "Could you use a hand?" he called to me. 

 My pride was nil.  "Wow! I sure could!" I stopped and rested my bags on their wheels on the concrete sidewalk.

He came over and asked me where I was going. "Student Residence B" I said, indicating my first stop: residence services where I would get my key.  He took the heaviest bag with the computer bag resting on it.  Then he gave me his tote bag - it literally weighed only a few ounces. I hitched up my purse and reached for my wheeled duffle bag. "No, you've carried that long enough," he said. "I'll carry your bags and you carry mine. Let's enjoy the rest of this walk."

I was so flustered and grateful that I knew that if I wasn't so exhausted I would have cried... I just didn't have the energy; it had been a tumultuous week.  Meekly I let him carry my load - some good thirty-five pounds worth of it - while I walked easily beside him.

He made conversation, asked me where I was from and when I told him, he said that he had lived there for 20 years and started a company there.  I had heard of the company!  He asked about my family (this happens all the time where I live, it's called "who's your father?") and it turned out that he knew of some people who were related to my husband.

When we got to the destination, he opened the doors for me and set my luggage back down on the floor, and asked for his tote back.  We parted ways and I thanked him once again for having compassion on me.  And after he was gone,  I thanked God for the kind detour this man took because he saw I was in distress. (By the time I got to my residence, I was beet red in the face from exertion.) 

That was the first of many kindnesses I was shown that day. A kind cabbie who took my bags, another who helped me with my groceries and gave me a discount because he got lost and I didn't have the precise address, etc.,  but the thing that sticks out for me is this man who traded his light package for all of mine.  He did so, in order that I might enjoy the walk.

Photo "Loving Father And His Baby" by
David Castillo Dominici at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I could not help but draw parallels between that experience and the invitation of Jesus: "Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke (my helping, my partnering with you) upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly, and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11: 28 - 30)

Can it be that simple? giving Him our burden in exchange for His? Apparently so.  He can understand the most anguished cry, the smallest whimper, the silent pleading, tears in the dark, everything. And He invites us to trade that load for His, which is easy, because it doesn't burden people with shoulds and rules; His load is simply love. He invites us to come to Him and - if we need to - fall apart in His arms; He will hold us. He already took all that hurt away anyway.  Let's let ourselves be loved. It's okay. It is really okay.

He LOVES me!!

It's an iconic picture of girlhood, standing in a field of flowers with a daisy in one hand, plucking off the petals one by one, saying, "He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not...." 

And that same girl, crestfallen (though briefly) when it turns out to be that "he loves me not." Undaunted, though, she picks another daisy and starts all over again. "He loves me, he loves me not..." 

At our breakfast conversation this morning, my husband and I were exploring that picture as a metaphor for what a lot of believers (including ourselves at times, possibly most of the time) think of when things happen in their lives. We base our perception of whether God loves us on the circumstances of our lives.

Let me illustrate. 

I get a new job. "He loves me."

The boss is a jerk. "He loves me not." 

I come home and see a beautiful sunset. "He loves me."

I get home to find that the dog got into the garbage and threw up all over the floor, and I get to clean up garbage AND vomit. "He loves me not. Grrr." 

My child gives me a card she made herself and tells me what a great Mom I am. "He loves me. I feel so blessed!"

That same child irritates the life out of me. Or has set her computer monitor on fire, leaving black smoke hanging in the air. "He loves me not. I'm such a failure." 

And we can treat our spiritual lives with that same sort of insecurity.
 

Photo "Girl With Daisy" by
Clare Bloomfield at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I pray, and God answers my prayer with an immediate, miraculous YES. "He loves me." 

I pray again, and things get worse - things look hopeless - or someone I pray for dies.  "He loves me not. I must not be trying hard enough. I have to try harder. Maybe I'll give more money to the church." (Word to the wise - any other motivation for giving than love ..... always backfires...)

I give more money to the church, and the car breaks down. (See? now I'm out the money I gave to the church PLUS I have this huge hunking bill...) "He loves me not. What in the world does He want, anyway?" 

I sense His presence in worship, or He heals me of some ailment. "Oh, how He loves me!!" 

Not all that much later, I can't seem to feel His presence, the heavens seem made of brass, and I keep making the same stupid mistakes. "He loves me not. I'm so sinful! How come I keep doing this?" 

Sound familiar? 

I have good news for your heart and for mine. I know you and I have heard this so often that it almost seems to go without saying, but here's the thing. There's hearing and then there's HEARING. Our minds give assent to this thing because we hear it so often, but our hearts have yet to fully grasp what it means, let alone accept it.

Here it is - drum roll - in the first person so that everyone can say it with me: 

HE LOVES ME! HE REALLY, REALLY, LOVES ME!!

Whether I feel Him or not, whether I do things for Him or not, whether good things happen to me or not, whether it's raining or sunny, whether the guy in the next lane cut me off or not, whether the diagnosis is cancer or the common cold ... 

HE LOVES ME! HE REALLY, REALLY LOVES ME!!

He (as my husband put it so eloquently this morning) bankrupted Heaven ... for me. He turned the gates of pearl inside out, gutted Glory, gave everything He had - just to rescue us. Just to rescue me. 

That's how good He is. That's how much He loves. That's how much He thrills when we talk to Him. That's how much He longs to bless me, how intensely and completely He has already forgiven me and accepts me. 

Period. No guesswork, no wishing it were true, no pulling the petals off daisies. Just lift my eyes to ... two arms spread wide. 

On a cross.

David's Dead Dog - or - Ripples of Grace

He was damaged goods - the only survivor of a failed empire. In the great escape when his grandfather and father died in battle and the new king came to power, his governess dropped Mephibosheth, and he was injured - crippled for life. He was only five years old at the time. His older brothers were all killed in the people's zeal to eradicate all traces of his grandfather's kingdom.

Servants carried him to safety and he lived a quiet, unassuming life, far from the public eye. He stayed out of harm's way as the battles for the control of his country raged near and far. He contributed nothing to the war effort - he could not. His life depended on staying safely anonymous. 

And he thought he did. 

Then, the tables turned - he received a summons to appear before the king. "This is it," he must have thought. "I'm dead meat." 

But the king did something totally unexpected, way over the top. "Your father was my best friend. I want to make sure you never want for anything. So I am restoring your grandfather's land back to you. It's yours," King David told him. "Your grandfather's servant Ziba will look after it for you, it's all arranged. And as often as you like, every day if you want, you can eat with me and my sons at my own table in the palace." 

David was within his rights to have Mephibosheth - and his son Mica - killed. Yet because of Mephibosheth's father, Jonathan, David chose to be generous to this young man. You can read the story for yourself in 2 Samuel 9.

"Who am I," Mephibosheth marveled, "that you would look at a dead dog like me?" He was keenly aware that he was a cripple. He KNEW that he could contribute nothing to the king's wealth or power, that he was actually a drain on the king's resources. 

Photo "Nicely Arranged Table" courtesy of marin at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

But David was true to his word - he restored all of Saul's lands and appointed Ziba and his sons to look after it, and Mephibosheth? 

Mephibosheth ate - sumptuous fare beyond what he could imagine- every day in the private residence of the king. He was waited on hand ... and foot. He became a treasured part of the family. 

And he knew it. Never again did he ever have to ask King David if it was okay for him to walk into the palace. He just walked in. The right was already his. It was a done deal.

And he never - ever - forgot what the king did for him. He never took it for granted. He had a new life. He had a new start. His son Mica had a future. Gratitude was his daily companion. He grew to love the king.

Gratitude, love, and devotion are always the natural response to grace.

And even when David messed up big time, and eventually had to go on the run again (this time from his own son) Mephibosheth remained faithful, loyal to his benefactor. In fact, he made a vow that he would not cut his hair until the king returned to his home from being in exile. 

In the meantime, Mephibosheth's servant Ziba lied to David, saying that his master had designs on the throne. David believed him and gave Saul's lands to Ziba. But Mephibosheth stayed at the palace. He had been given that right, and it was never taken away.

After Absalom's death and David's return to the palace, Mephibosheth was able to tell the king the truth - that he had never wanted to return to the monarchy - that Ziba had lied.

David didn't go back on his word to Ziva - he just said that now Ziba and Mephibosheth would be co-owners of the property (remember that in those days, land was wealth...)

But this time it was Mephibosheth's turn to surprise David. "Let him have it all," he said. "I just want to stay with you."

"I just want to stay with you. Yes, Ziba wronged me, spread lies about me, and stole the inheritance you gave to me, away from me. But as long as you and I are together, my king - that's all I really want."

If we'd been able to ask Mephibosheth how he was able to let go, why he was so devoted to the king, I'm sure he would have said, with a shrug, "He rescued me." In other words, "He had every right to have me killed but he showed me mercy instead. I already have everything I need with him; why would I hold onto something else? I hold no ill will toward Ziba - I just want to be with the one who chose me." 

That's how grace works - from the top down - from the inside out. It creates ripples that touch everything and everyone with whom we come in contact. It remakes us. It transforms who we are, how we think about ourselves, and inevitably how we think about the people in our lives.

Life eternal - and grace so big - what's not to love about that?

... and THEN some!!

There's a local department store where, when I shop there, I always get more than what I went in there to buy, because the prices are that good ... which usually means I end up spending more than what I budgeted, LOL.

When I get to the checkout, the cashier always asks, "Did you find everything you were looking for?" And usually I say, "OH yeah. And THEN some!!" And he or she smiles ... or chuckles. 

Contrast that to the small print you see on auto ads that promise a great price (and then you realize in the small print that the price is not per month or even per two weeks, but per week!!) 

It's disappointing when things aren't as good as what was expected or advertised. I think a lot of believers feel like that about relationship with God. Frustrated by rules and obligations, we feel like what we got is not like what was in the brochure. And quite frankly, many of us feel gypped. Disillusioned. And guilty, because we know we "shouldn't feel that way" and we label ourselves "selfish." We beat up on ourselves. We see other believers whose lives appear charmed (is that real or is it a façade and they're up to their eyeballs in debt and family strife??) and we wonder what we did wrong, why we got the dirty end of the stick, why God "has it in for us." Or alternatively, we stick our heads in the sand and tell ourselves lies about how everything is glorious and beautiful, and we hide from the fact that we're lying by calling it "speaking in faith." 

Photo "Sun Ray Behind Dark Cloud"
courtesy of Sura Nualpradid at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

But God isn't less than what has been promised. He's MORE. He is able, the Word tells us, to do exceedingly abundantly above (that's three words meaning SO VERY, VERY MUCH MORE) than we can ask or think, according to (in the same measure as) the Power that works in us (which, by the way, is the same Power that raised Jesus from the dead!!)  And we trot that verse out and claim it ... in our prayers and our declarations and affirmations ... but do we really realize what that means in the every day?? Perhaps some concrete examples would help, because I think that we use it to apply to the temporal things in life, like health and wealth and all kinds of blessing. But let's look at MORE.

He's forgiven us. No, think about that. MORE forgiveness than we could ever handle, already done well in advance so we don't have to beg for it or beat ourselves up with how awful we've been. Forgiveness with no holds barred, no matter how many times we mess up, no matter how deeply we've embarrassed ourselves. No matter how much we think we should feel ashamed of ourselves. Already forgiven. Period. No conditions, no limitations, no standing with His hands on His hips saying "tsk, tsk..." NONE of that. 

He's not only forgiven us, He's made us new, declared us righteous. Seriously!! We are absolutely new before Him at all times. I know, you might say that I just got through saying that. But there is a subtle difference between sins forgiven and having a whole new nature, being recreated completely so that there is no blemish in us, unbroken, unbreakable fellowship with Him. No exceptions. (Can it be??) We are "chosen in Him before the foundation of the world ... holy and without blame before Him." (Ephesians 1)  These are often hidden facts, hidden in a smokescreen of dos and don'ts, pray this, go to that service, assume this posture, wear these clothes, etc., etc. 

The awesome truth is that after we are God's adopted children, recreated in Christ Jesus, we don't have to "ask" for forgiveness when we mess up; it is ALREADY OURS! we simply thank Him for the provision that has already been made once and for all!! We are so grateful for such great love that would find a way to approve of us, dote on us, and welcome us into His presence any time, any place, whether alone or in the presence of one or more people.

It boggles the mind.

Meditate on those wonderful, simple truths (being already forgiven and being declared righteous and blameless before Him because of His great love, being accepted and loved lavishly by Him - not in some abstract way but in a very personal, very moment-by-moment way, like a new parent watches his or her sleeping baby!) and it won't be long you can feel "it." Realize how deep His grace goes and there is a kind of giddy, bubbly thrill that permeates your being; you just can't help it! All the "buts" clear away in the simplicity of the pure gospel of Jesus. Joy, pure delight cannot help but result! 

Those of us who have grown up in the church sometimes lose sight of the "easy yoke" Jesus places on us. We get bogged down in this and that project, this and that need, this and that doctrine or prayer focus. We get distracted by how our lives don't "measure up" to the end result that is expected of us, and we can lose sight of the simple fact that none of that means anything at all without our relationship with Jesus being the centre of everything. We put the cart before the horse and wonder why it never goes anywhere. 

Jesus is the source. Jesus loves us. He (the Truth) has already made us free, forgiven, accepted, loved, embraced, and spotless before Him. That's everything I've been looking for. 

And THEN SOME.

Join me in highest praise!
Woo-HOOOOOOOO!!! :D 

Mercy. Not Sacrifice.

Twice in the book of Matthew, I was reminded this morning, Jesus spoke to the religious elite of His day - the scribes and the Pharisees - and told them to find out what the Scriptures meant when they said, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice." He was quoting the prophet Hosea - the prophet who married a prostitute to prove how deep God's love goes.

The religious ruling class were all about sacrifice. They were all about making people aware that they were sacrificing, what they were sacrificing (whether an animal or some sort of food or habit) and how often / how much they were doing it. They were all about upholding the letter of the law, and they were obsessive about the tiniest little thing in the application of that law - even to giving a tenth of the product of their herb and spice gardens to the temple.

They even thought of themselves as self-sacrificing. They put themselves out (and made sure everyone knew it) to obey the Law and the associated rules and regulations. They put written passages of scripture into little boxes and strapped the boxes to their head so that God's word would always "be on their minds."

They consistently considered themselves the guardians of their faith. If someone was out of line, they pounced and pronounced upon that person without mercy. They thought that by doing so, they were protecting the purity of their connection with God. They set themselves up as judge and jury, and marginalized the hurting and the needy, rather than taking pity on them and showing them mercy. Judgment was swift and always seen in black and white. They hid behind their robes, their prayer shawls, their tassels, and their phylacteries (those little boxes I mentioned) and they looked down their noses at those who were 'uneducated' and 'unenlightened.' They trusted in their rituals and their position rather than seeking any kind of relationship with the God they claimed to serve, rather than admitting their own need of Him.

Photo "Bible" provided courtesy of
Arvind Balaraman at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

They were wrong.

Jesus called them "blind guides" and said that they swallowed camels whole ... but only strained out gnats (umm, at the other end. Quite the graphic picture!) 

Their blindness, Jesus told them, would persist because they insisted that they could see perfectly. They would not listen to the idea that they might be in error. Instead, they held fast to the way things had been done for generations, and they continued to dispense unyielding justice against all those who would dare to let their brokenness and their need of love and acceptance show. In a typical show of religious arrogance, one day they thrust a local prostitute down in front of Jesus, a woman that they had "caught in the very act of adultery," saying that the law demanded that she be stoned; what did He think? (What I find interesting was that they only quoted PART of the law; it said that BOTH parties were to be stoned. So where was the guy?? Perhaps he was getting his phylactery back on....) 

Jesus' response was telling. "Whichever one of you is without sin (the Greek says 'without this sin') may cast the first stone." 

Picture it. At least half a dozen men (and probably many more) gathered around this itinerant, dusty rabbi and a nearly naked woman, her eyelids swollen and red, her face streaked with tears and her hair undone and plastered to her cheeks ... and all Jesus would do was crouch down and write in the dust. Perhaps He was writing the names of their mistresses. Perhaps He was writing the words of Hosea, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice..." All I know is that they left, one by one, starting with the older ones. The only sound was the occasional thump as the rock each man held ... hit the ground. That, and the woman lying in the dust sobbing, her face in her hands, wordlessly crying out for someone - anyone - to not throw that first stone.

After the religious elite had "dropped their rocks and split" ... Jesus - the only person who could have cast the first stone - showed her mercy.

He didn't condone her sin.  But ... He didn't condemn her either. He forgave her totally: without reservation. He gave her a second chance.

That's mercy in action. 

That's Jesus.

In Direct

I'm learning something new. Well, actually it's old - but it's new to me.

I'm learning how to cope with being hurt by someone - whether inadvertently (which is usually the case) or on purpose.

I've always known THAT I was not supposed to go blabbing my stuff to other people and participate in the most common church activity there seems to be: backbiting, gossiping, and spreading discord. 

Yet it seemed to be the only way for me to get the message out without actually confronting someone - something I dreaded, so I just didn't do it. I didn't know how, and I didn't care to know either. After all, it would mean that I would have to change. And I didn't want to change; they were the ones who were supposed to change, not me. 

And people got hurt; their reputations got hurt. 

And I stayed hurt, too. Nothing got resolved; as a matter of fact, it usually got worse over time as I built my imaginary castle of perceived slights, false assumptions and expectations of being hurt further, and I thickened the walls with other people's opinions, people who already had axes to grind.

I raised the passive-aggressive approach to an art form. All that did was isolate me and attract more of the same sort of treatment - this time for real.

Learning how to put my head down, brace myself, burrow in and go directly to someone instead of to everyone but that person - that was hard. It was hard because I was ... terrified. 

Two friends spending happiest time together - courtesy of
imagerymajestic at www.freedigitalphotos.net

Even after I'd learned to be honest with myself about how I was feeling, even after I had learned to set boundaries for myself with others, and was even starting to set boundaries around myself in some situations, the direct approach was something at which I quailed. I ran from it at every opportunity. 

Until I couldn't anymore. 

Until I didn't have the luxury of talking trash about someone because I really, truly liked - even loved - that person, and I didn't want to run away anymore. Not from my friend. Keeping the relationship alive was more important to me than my fear. 

But I wanted to be honest too. If my perceptions were correct, we needed to work things out. And if they weren't - I needed to know instead of assuming wrong things about my friend. 

So ... I wrote an email.

Hey - I write. I'm a big believer in the backspace key - and I was afraid of spilling out words I could never un-say. 

So anyway, I wrote - told my friend how I felt, how I was hurting - and left the door open for a response.

And the response came, tempered with gentleness. As I had hoped, my perceptions were wrong, based on my own feelings of inadequacy, and the door to restoration had been opened. Before the end of the day, we worked out our differences. 

Love won over fear. 

And nothing awful happened. Huh.

Shhhh - it's a secret!

It's well-guarded; it has to be.  We go about our lives; Sunday comes and we go to church and we put on a plastic smile, shake hands and interact with people while we talk about inane, superficial things that mean nothing, while the whole time we are aching, perhaps even feeling dead inside - misery washes over us in waves.  And we talk about how wonderful the Lord is, how blessed we are.

We're lying.  

We're afraid to tell someone (perhaps even ourselves) what our struggles are.  No matter what the struggles are, it seems!  Some fight a daily battle with addiction.  Others' family relationships are in the toilet.  Still another might feel so lonely that he or she is thinking about suicide.  Someone else might be bullied at school or at work.  And more people than you can shake a stick at, suffer from prolonged and deep-seated depression. Yes, in the church. Yet nobody says a word. We're afraid that on top of the struggles we are facing, the last thing we need is to be judged and condemned for having them.

And we know, instinctively, that we will be.  This is the thing.  Evangelical Christians aren't really well known for their accepting attitudes.  More Christians have been hurt in church or by church people than they have by their non-churched friends.  I know that's true in my life.  With rare exceptions, I prefer to be with people who aren't your traditional right-wing, conservative, evangelical born-again Christians.  There's just too much judgment out there.  Sad to say, I've participated in it on occasion ... the 'prayer chains' that are usually nothing more than glorified gossip networks, the snide comments about what someone was wearing today or how long the pastor spoke today, ... the list is endless.  You know when that stops? it stops when YOU're the one who is the target of all those nasty comments.  Then you find out what it feels like.  But I digress slightly.

The truth of the matter is that in today's Christian culture, nobody wants to hear your "in progress" story. That's not considered a testimony.  So it's, "Shhh! be quiet!"

This is the Christian world's dirty little secret.  Fundamentalist Christians don't want to hear the tale unless it's a "success" story that will make them ooh and ahh, that will support their little fantasies that everything turns out all right - and that's the good part, so why talk about the bad parts unless there's a happy ending?  They don't want to listen to the in-between details; they want you to go through your stuff on your own and then tell them about the miracle part. Cut to the chase. What? you're still going through stuff? there's been no resolution? you're having difficulty emotionally?  Well!! - that's not speaking in faith!!  

No, that's grappling with reality.  It's telling the truth, refusing to hide.  It's a desperate attempt to know God IN the struggle, to see if there is someone out there who might just BE there and not try to judge or change the person who's having a hard time coping, but to come alongside, to love no matter what, and to let the weary traveler know that he or she is not alone.  

It doesn't take much, really.  A few kind words spoken, even in passing.  Like someone did for me yesterday in a department store - just showing support and love.  I can't begin to describe the gratitude I felt for that.  No words are even necessary sometimes.  A warm hug speaks volumes.  It lets me know that the person is with me and not against me.  Goodness knows I have felt pierced, crucified by more than enough Christians who let me know by their absence, by them turning their backs to me or ignoring me, that they are against me.  

I know that feeling of judgment, of condemnation, of someone (in essence) shushing me because what I have to say is not worth listening to until I get my act together and can wind up a size six on some Christian talk show in a five-hundred-dollar skirt suit.  

Life doesn't work like that.  And it would sure help if we'd just be honest and accept people for who and where they are.

El Shaddai

Humans have been asking the questions of the universe for as long as there has been recorded history.  Why am I here? Is there something more? Is there justice in this world?  Why is good punished and evil rewarded?  What's beyond this existence? 

These are good questions.  

Source (from Google Images):
http://blog.withings.com/en/2011/09/30/a-short-history-of-the-weighing-scale/

Ancient Egyptians believed that after death, the god of the dead, Anubis, weighed the human heart against a feather.  If one's heart was light, it balanced and one could go to the afterlife and have all the things for which one had prepared to live comfortably.  If not, then one would be tormented and not be allowed to live that full life.  So there you have it:  Heaven... and hell.  

Most every religion has that concept. We don't see justice happening here; it is comforting to believe that someday it will be meted out.  

Jesus, though, turned that concept on its ear. He didn't focus on deeds.  He focused on motives. Heart.  Intimacy with God. All the good deeds in the world were not enough to gain entrance into His kingdom. He held people to a higher standard than even the law they were trying so hard to obey.

In the gospels, true, Jesus spoke twice as much about hell as He did about heaven.  However, the good news (gospel) that He preached had to do with avoiding the former and ending up in the latter.  And the sole criterion on which this would be based was nothing like what the religious people of the day said.  No, it wasn't based on whether you obeyed the law and did all the religious requirements of ritual, sacrifice, dos and don'ts.  It was based on a relationship into which God Himself would provide the only key.  That key was the sufficiency of the death of Jesus to meet the requirements of justice, not only for the wrongs of the whole world but for our individual wrongs.  

So the simple equation of "doing good = heaven" and "doing bad = hell" is a bit simplistic.  In a sense, the Egyptians had a bit more balanced view (pardon the pun) because it was the HEART that was weighed in the scales, not the deeds. 

The hinge-point of the scale is that God is just and that sin's penalty (death) must be paid.  Our hearts will always outweigh our own efforts to overcome the rampant selfishness that resides there.  But the death of Christ on our behalf is enough.  It is all-sufficient, no matter how heavy our hearts are.  All we need do is place them into His keeping and the scale will balance... for He is the great El Shaddai : the all-sufficient One, the God who is Enough.  

The more we realize how great this enough-ness is, how deep His grace runs, how wide and high His love is, the more we will desire God to search us, know us, and reveal Himself to us.  Then it is no longer about good deeds and bad deeds, but about knowing Him.  

And that is the whole point.

Boom Boom Clap

I mentioned the song, "We will rock you," (hence the title, boom boom clap) one day to my hubby.  He has a way of taking things in a ... well, in a "punny" way.  He immediately shot back, "Yeah, the Pharisees' theme song."  It took me a while to get it.  

What he meant was that the Pharisees were in the habit of stoning people to death (hence, "rock you" and not in a nice way...), people over whom they had set themselves up as judge, jury, ... and executioners.  Like that woman they thrust in front of Jesus one day, the one caught in adultery, "in the very act."  (John chapter 8, if you want to read the story - it's my favorite!) 

Now, two things come to mind when I stop reading right there.  

The first thing is, that if she was caught in the very act of adultery - guess what: she was naked!  and their move was strategically designed to publicly humiliate her and outrage the whole community against her. They wanted a stoning ... and at the same time, they wanted to make Jesus look bad.  If He went along with stoning her, His message of love and acceptance and forgiveness was discredited and they would win.  If He defended her, then He could be seen as condoning her own immorality, a crime punishable by death.  They could not lose.  Or so they thought.

The second thing is, that if they got HER in the act of adultery, where was the guy?  The religious law they claimed to obey said that both parties were to be punished. My take on it is that the only reason they'd NOT put the guy out there with her, was that it was one of them, and either it was a case of "we don't want the scandal to hurt his family" OR it was a clear case of entrapment by one of the Pharisees, premeditated.  She may indeed have been set up.  And if so, I'm sure that Mr. Pharisee was only too happy to play his part!  

So Jesus sat or squatted down and started writing in the dust.  When questioned, He simply said, "Whoever among you is without sin, let him cast the first stone." And He kept writing.

Source (via Google Images):
http://povcrystal.blogspot.ca/2010/03/jesus-of-nazareth-part-2a.html

Let me share something that excites me about Jesus' statement, something that's not immediately obvious.  The original Greek rendering of this sentence is something like this: "Whoever among you doesn't (already and continually) sin in this way, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." John's gospel says that they started leaving - beginning with the older ones - until nobody was left except Jesus and the woman.  "Beginning with the older ones."  Huh. That lets me know that not only DID they sin in this way, they had done it for a very long time.  Eventually even the younger ones had to be honest with themselves, and they slunk away.  

Jesus didn't condone what she had done.  But He did point out one very (often forgotten) important fact: everybody messes up.  Everyone needs help.  Every person needs God.  And its sister thought: "There, but for the grace of God, go I."  

The Pharisees were out to "rock her world" - quite literally.  But instead, the Rock of Ages fell on them - softly, quietly, but heavily - and reminded them that they too, were in need of just as much grace... and perhaps more ... than she was.  

So perhaps it's time we Pharisees in the church, the ones who are so quick to judge and call down another - even another believer with whom we don't agree - sang a new song.  One that rings with truth, with hope, with victory over our common problem, even with compassion and love....

HE     will, HE will    ROCK YOU!! ROCK YOU!!
Boom Boom Clap, Boom Boom Clap, Boom Boom Clap, Boom Boom Clap...

Launch Out

I loved to watch the Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show when I was a child.  I still like to watch it.  (Shhhh...)


One cartoon that comes to mind is when Sylvester is trying to get Tweety who (for some reason) is in his cage out on a post in the harbour.  He takes a motor boat and heads in the direction of his prize.  But alas! the boat is still tied to the pier.  The boat stops suddenly, falls apart, and Sylvester skids ahead on the water, falling prey to cartoon gravity only after he stops moving and gives one of those "help me" looks, sinking beneath the water as the sharks circle him.  


My best friend and I were talking one morning this week about how some folks tend to have a difficult time letting go of the way they've always done things, of attitudes they have had for years, in order to go deeper into relationship with God.  And in one of those "God-moments" where God steps into a situation and provides perfect clarity, my friend said, "Yeah, well, it's kind of hard to let go when you're so busy holding on tight."  

Source:
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/2007/02/11/12-30-32-med.html

Indeed. It's hard to get where you want to go if you're still tied to what you thought you left behind.  Like poor Sylvester and his rope.



There is a scene in the gospels where Jesus was teaching large crowds from a boat, and then the teaching was done and the crowds dwindled away.  Jesus turned to the disciples who were there and said, "Launch out into deeper water, and let your nets down for a catch."  


There may have been some fish in the shallows that their nets would have caught. And they could have been satisfied with those and with the fact that Jesus was in the boat.  But He wasn't asking them to just catch fish.  He was asking them to go out into something they couldn't fathom - with Him - at a time of day they didn't normally do that sort of thing. (The fish would be closer to the surface at night, "easy pickings." This was the middle of the day.)  And He was asking them to trust and obey Him in the deeper waters with something they already thought they knew how to do.  


This is important. There is always MORE to God, there is always more IN Him: new depths we can't begin to understand, new heights we are unable to perceive.  If we look, if we really search and want to find, there are ever so many facets, layers, levels to Him - we'll never come to an end of discovering more of His heart for us.  Mining those riches all starts with doing something very dangerous to the status quo.  It starts with asking Him what He wants to say to us, and giving Him carte blanche to put His finger on things that might not be all that comfortable for us to face.  To challenge the way we've always done something because we think we already know how to do it - after all, we've been doing it this way for ages (like oh, I don't know, perhaps our own version of what it means to be Christian, which - to many people - means sitting around being RIGHT and nit-picking and judging those who dare disagree in the slightest).  To realize that we can't do anything on our own, that only He can.  To lose a whole ship-load of arrogance and to learn a little humility. To understand that He is God and we are not.  And to learn that we don't have a corner on the God-market.  He is ever so much bigger, deeper, higher than we ever thought possible. His grace has ever so much more room in it than our puny minds can fathom.  It is limitless - infinite - as infinite as He is. 

Launching out into the deep, losing our prejudices and bigotry, relying on Him and accepting and loving each other - can we see how a watching world could begin to say, instead of "What a bunch of haters, look at them devouring each other, guess their belief in God just makes them into a bunch of cannibals..." to say, "Look at how they love and care for each other, how they accept each other and help each other up when they fall. What a God they must serve to lead them to treat each other with that kind of respect!" 

Perhaps it takes launching out in vim and gusto with the rope still attached to the pier of our religious trappings and our self-righteousness - and suddenly finding ourselves in the water with the sharks circling - before we can get to that point of realizing how much we need Him. 

What if we stopped playing church? What if we stopped asking or expecting other people in the church, in our families, and among our circle of friends to meet the deep needs of our spirits that only God can meet?  What if we started admitting our own helplessness and asking HIM to fill the void in us with Himself?  to show us His heart for people, even the people we find "challenging"?  to treat them the way He does - with mercy, acceptance, and love?  to shed our spirit of entitlement and begin instead to be thankful for that limitless grace and extend it to others because He did it for us and we could do no less?

I wonder.