Month: March 2015

Beauty and the Trash Can

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Flowers6 Comments

pink magnolia oil ch

What is beauty? How do little children know what beauty is and why do they respond to it? Why do we create it and spend time and money looking for beauty and surrounding ourselves with it?

My little three-year old granddaughter sat on my lap as we checked out ballet dancing clips on YouTube. She has moved to music since she gained control of her tiny arms and legs. As soon as one video started she exclaimed, “Dass so boodeefo! So boodeefo!” She recognized the music. “Oh! Dass Cara and the Nutcacker! Dass so boodeefo! Again! Again!” She only got down off my lap so she could dance to the music herself. She is so boodeefo.

I took a shortcut around the back of the hotel while I was out for a walk on our recent trip to California. Near the garbage/trash/rubbish bins I saw a magnolia tree in bloom.  They don’t grow here in the Canadian Rockies and I was amazed to see such beauty hiding in such an undignified location. Like my little granddaughter’s dancing it’s blooming was not an effort to seduce me into giving it something, or serving it. It just was, and I could see the generosity of my Creator’s hand -as well as the hand of whoever planted it there.

A friend of mine, a classical pianist with a beautiful heart, left his comfortable home and career and went to Cambodia to help people recover from the horrors they had experienced during the Pol Pot regime. He asked what they needed most and was surprised when they answered, “Music!” Once their immediate needs for food and shelter had been taken care of the thing they desired most was the beauty of music. He was just the man for the job.

One of the qualities of Christ is his beauty. For most of us it’s not seen with physical eyes, not usually, unless you count his reflection in the  beauty of nature. Those who have come to know him in experience rather than theory are enthralled by his beauty, the beauty they see with their spiritual eyes. The Psalmist wrote: I am pleading with the Eternal for this one thing, my soul’s desire: To live with Him all of my days— in the shadow of His temple, to behold His beauty and ponder His ways in the company of His people. (Psalm27:4 The Voice)

Somehow we recognize beauty and respond to it. Beauty is who we are meant to be and who we are meant to be with. There is within us a discontent with the ugliness of garbage. Our hearts long to be restored back to the garden. Beauty gives us hope.

Wait For It…

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Winter2 Comments

picnic tables winter 2 IMG_6530

 

Sometimes it feels like our dreams and visions are buried under the snows of winter when spring should have shown up by now.

Sometimes it’s very tempting to take things into our own hands and help God out a little.  We know what happened when Abraham tried to figure out how to fulfill the promise of fathering a son by his own ingenuity. It resulted in a son who carried and passed on the wounds of rejection his whole life. When the prophet Samuel didn’t show up in time to quell the murmurs of lack of confidence in the leadership of the newly crowned King Saul, the insecure leader panicked and offered the sacrifice himself. The dream became a nightmare right there.

I’m too embarrassed to tell you the things I’ve done in the past to manipulate the fulfillment of a God-given vision. At the root of all of them was an over-developed sense of responsibility and a lack of trust in the goodness of God. I know I’m not the only one. All around me is the evidence of people with good long-term goals employing short-sighted methods. The pragmatism of belief/unbelief can really screw up our lives. How many people have signed up for a mate or a mortgage or a move – or even a cell phone plan –  because the “close enough” solution seemed like the way to force a promise to bloom in our timing?

One of the best parts of the story told in the book While He Lay Dying (link here) is this: Picture a young pastor with a vision trying to employ creative methods to get church people, including children, to overcome apathy and unite in love to take the importance of prayer for the Body of Christ seriously. See him making posters, scheduling classes and pinning sign-up sheets in the foyer. Listen for the response. It sounds a bit like a picnic area under snow.

Then picture people reconciling their differences to come together and pray 24 hours a day. See the call to prayer spread to tens of thousands around the world. See little children nagging their parents to pray for Mr. Bruce while he lay in a coma on the verge of death. See the church arising, throwing off the coldness of resignation and melting apathy with love. See God bring about the vision His way. See the message of the power of a God who is still the God of miracles continue to inspire burned-out pastors, disappointed grievers and so many others who have lost sight of hope around the world. Realize all this happened while Bruce did nothing, absolutely nothing. He simply lay on that bed, his life supported by machines and the prayers of thousands, and in that state God fulfilled his dreams.

Waiting is not about being passive. When it’s time we need to run, to fight, to build, to stay awake all night. Waiting is about trusting for God to bring about His promises, His way, in His timing. It’s about standing in the dark like Gideon’s tiny army, feeling somewhat foolish, with a clay pitcher over our torch waiting to smash it. It’s about waiting for the “Now!”

It’s about trust. It’s about faith. God’s long term plans are not about our hard work, ingenuity or gift of the gab. He partners with faith.

Wait for it…

 

Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him and he will do this.

(Psalm 37:4,5)

Under Construction

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography3 Comments

Calgary airport crane vertical IMG_7167

“God always keeps the revelation of Himself in Christ bound up with practical situations. You and I can never get revelation other than in connection with some necessity. We cannot get it simply as a matter of information. That is information, that is not revelation. We cannot get it by studying. When the Lord gave the manna in the wilderness (type of Christ as the bread from heaven) He stipulated very strongly that not one fragment more than the day’s need was to be gathered, and that if they went beyond the measure of immediate need, disease and death would break out and overtake them. The principle, the law, of the manna, is that God keeps revelation of Himself in Christ bound up with practical situations of necessity, and we are not going to have revelation as mere teaching, doctrine, interpretation, theory, or anything as a thing, which means that God is going to put you and me into situations where only the revelation of Christ can help us and save us.”
– T. Austin Sparks

 

clagary airport crane IMG_7166

 

 

Pray That I Won’t Get Drunk

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, Photography6 Comments
Down the same old road
Down the same old road

Aaargh. I just did it too.

No, I didn’t get drunk. I chose to pursue my own drug of choice, but it’s the same thing really.

A person I had befriended sent me a prayer request: “Pray that I won’t get drunk tonight.”

“Do you have alcohol in the house?” I asked.

“No.”

“What would you have to do to get drunk?”

“Well, I’d have to go get some beer.”

“So you have to choose to get dressed, get your car keys, drive down to the liquor store, buy a case…”

“Well, actually I’d have to go cash a cheque first…”

“Okay. Then you have to bring it home, open the can…”

“I prefer bottled….”

“Open the bottle, guzzle it down, open another bottle…”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“Do you realize how many decisions that involves and how many times you are offered the option of choosing differently this time? You could choose to stay home, choose to not pick up your car keys, choose to turn right toward the movie theatre instead of left to the liquor store…”

“Yeah. I know, but I need you to pray that I choose not to get drunk. My boss is such a jerk.”

“Is there a gun to your head? Is anyone forcing booze down your throat? Because otherwise I can’t pray that. I can’t pray that God will veto your free will, because he already gave it to you – for free –  and I can’t take it back on his behalf. I don’t have that kind of power. I will pray that you will be aware of every point where you are faced with a decision and you will realize you are not a helpless victim, but someone who is learning he is no longer a slave to sin. You do not have to make the choice to go down the same old road again. Grace is more than a get out of jail free card. Grace is also the power to be set free from the law of sin and death. Grace is realizing you are free and when you trust in Christ the thing that feels like a gun to your head doesn’t have any bullets anymore. It’s a lie.”

 

I know there are many dynamics to addiction and cravings make it feel like there is a loaded gun to our heads. Sometimes the ruts to our habitual choices are so deep we’ve got to really hit the gas hard to turn and go down a different road. I get it. But we do have choices.

Here’s the thing. It’s easy for me to talk about not getting drunk because it is not a temptation for me. I hate the taste of alcohol. Don’t bother giving me a fine bottle of wine. I actually prefer grape juice – and I can’t get beer past my nose. I like to be in control of all my faculties, thank you very much. But I realize I did the same thing as my friend yesterday. I sent a message to some friends – intercessors – asking them to pray that I would respond with grace and love to people I feel acted…well, let’s just say they acted without grace and love.

My habitual response would be to seek sympathy, justification for my hurt feelings, and maybe even hope the people I asked to pray would take up my cause and fight for me. Then I would go eat a chocolate bar or something to stifle the feeling of anger, because I really hate feeling angry. Nice Christian girls don’t feel angry, right?

I was asking them to pray that God would veto my own will, and he tends not to do that. Instead he offers us two fruit trees so that we have the opportunity to choose the righteous one. Given that grace gives us the freedom to choose love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, choosing resentment and lack of self-control is pretty stupid.

I wish I could just pray that I would make the right choice and it would happen, like magic. But this life of freedom is all about choosing relationship with Christ over being a slave to rules. So today I choose to turn right toward him this time, to forgive and offer grace to those who have seemed to be a little short of it. It may require a little donation as well, because we overcome evil with good. Freely we have received, freely we give, because God is not on a budget and there is more love and grace where that came from.

Nevertheless I Will Bring Health

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Photography8 Comments

Feb Steeples from Eager Hill alpineglow IMG_1377

 

Yesterday my friend and I were driving home through a valley. The hills surrounding us had already descended into dusk and the trees began to accept the blackness of night but the sky still had a warm glow on the edges. Impulsively I turned onto a rough dirt road that led up to Eager Hill. From there we could see beyond the darkness to the height of the Steeples Range which caught the light.

Looking at the photos this morning I was reminded of a passage from Jeremiah 3.

“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”

Jeremiah was still a prisoner in chains in the kings’ courtyard, surrounded by the barricades of possessions the people were piling up in a desperate attempt to stop the inevitable. They turned to the prophet. The immediate news was not good. His heart broke as he told them. Then that word that changes our viewpoint: Nevertheless.

“Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security…”

In our dark moments, when things are just getting darker, the Lord invites us to call to him and come up higher. He says, “Yes. This difficult place is where you are. I know. This is tough. Nevertheless I tell you to have hope. I will show you. This beautiful place is where you are going. I have plans for you and they are bigger and better and more glorious than you have ever imagined, because now we do it My way.”

Hope: Vision-led endurance.