Month: March 2022

Stand

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, faithLeave a comment
Little Warrior

“Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand… In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” -from Ephesians 6 NIV

Like it or not we were born into a war. The powers of darkness still hate the Kingdom of Light. I see his warriors like much-loved children. Their armour and weapons are not impressive to most people in the world, but they are mighty for pulling down strongholds of satan’s lies and even their own vain imaginations.

They fight evil with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

They stand in the strength of the Lord, and not in their own might. They know where their authority comes from.

Creative Meditations for Lent, Word prompt: Stand

Stillness

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Water, WinterLeave a comment

Be still before the Lord
    and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
    when they carry out their wicked schemes.

 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
    do not fret—it leads only to evil.

Psalm 37: 7, 8 NIV

Creative Meditations for Lent, Word prompt: Stillness

Binding Up the Broken Heart

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography2 Comments

I saw this section of fence while out on a walk. It’s been neglected for a very long time. No one tended to it by painting it or mending it, yet it still stands, held together by roots and branches. It’s still there, but it is shattered in places and vulnerable to the attack of weather, lichens, insects, and age. It reminds me of a broken heart held together by coping methods, but not by love. It’s still standing, beautiful in an interesting way, but decaying.

When Jesus read out his personal manifesto (recorded hundreds of years earlier through the prophet Isaiah) in the synagogue in Nazareth, he told the people one of his purposes was to bind up the broken-hearted. Why bind? Why not heal instantly like he did for the blind and lame?

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God chides the shepherds of Israel for healing people superficially and failing to “bind up the broken-hearted.” I wonder if it’s because a heart shattered by process requires process to heal. Wounding through episodes of neglect, rejection, abuse, betrayal, disappointment, and loss (and all the other consequences of living in a fallen world) happens over time. Someone told me once that if the damage occurred in relationship, healing needs to occur in relationship. Jesus offers that kind of loving relationship that wraps the heart in swaddling bandages to keep it protected while healing.

The compassionate are continually wounded by not only assaults on their own hearts, but by what they see and feel around them when people they care about suffer deep wounds. Sometimes, it’s all too much. They “fall apart.” Without the arms of their Saviour holding them together and binding up their own wounds, and strengthening them with empowering grace, they would succumb to false comforts that would use them and leave them vulnerable to the elements of fear, distrust, jealousy, despair, unforgiveness, and apathy.

Jesus came to bind up the broken hearted – if we will let him.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.

Isaiah 61:1-3 NIV

Marvel

On By Charis PsalloIn nature, PhotographyLeave a comment

“When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?”

-Psalm 8:3,4

I marvel at God’s handiwork from the most miniscule particle to unimaginable distances in space. I am fascinated by the power of the sun’s explosions and the sensitivity of tiny cilia in the inner ear. I marvel at his strength and his gentleness. God’s omnipotence is so perfectly under control that the most vulnerable person, broken by the cruelty of the world, can come to him, lean her head on his chest, call him “Abba,” and know she is perfectly safe.

One

On By Charis PsalloIn PhotographyLeave a comment

Word prompt for today’s Lenten meditation: One

What image could possibly describe something so unique –so holy– as the concept of oneness and perfect unity? “Holy” means set apart. God is holy. The only God. Wholly other. Unique. One.

As I meditated on this I kept going back to the source of all life, the moment when God, in perfect unity, spoke, “Let there be light.”

If we can’t fully understand the power of perfect unity in the Godhead, how can we understand how One so holy makes it possible to be in Christ and He in us? What kind of power is released when we are perfectly aligned with him and therefore with others who live and move and have their being in the Three-in-One?

It’s a mystery.

Any single image will be totally inadequate, but I thought about light and refraction and how prisms show us the diversity of colours within light. The sun shining on crystal in a local shop window display caught my attention. Many facets, one Light.

“I am not praying only for these men but for all those who will believe in me through their message, that they may all be one. Just as you, Father, live in me and I live in you, I am asking that they may live in us, that the world may believe that you did send me. I have given them the honour that you gave me, that they may be one, as we are one—I in them and you in me, that they may grow complete into one, so that the world may realize that you sent me and have loved them as you loved me.” – Jesus, recorded by John the Beloved in chapter 17 of his record of life with the One in human form, Phillips translation 

Old Things Have Passed Away

On By Charis PsalloIn PhotographyLeave a comment

Word prompt for today’s Lent meditation: Old/New

I saw these old dead flowers in a flower bed by the church down the street. When I had my own garden I gathered spent flowers and threw them in a compost bin. Later, I shoveled the unrecognizable rotted material into the garden and worked it into the soil.

I suppose that if we are what we eat, plants are what they eat too. The nutrients in old dead flowers become green beans or sugar peas or sunflowers that may bear no resemblance to the plants of the former season.

The transformation Christ creates in us is even more dramatic. He says that baptism is a symbol of the old self dead and buried and the new self raised and living a life transformed. Holy Spirit is in us to oversee the change into the image of Christ.

“For if a man is in Christ he becomes a new person altogether—the past is finished and gone, everything has become fresh and new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

We get a re-do, this time with access to the throne of Creator of the Universe — the Three in One who has never lost a battle.

Longing

On By Charis PsalloIn Animals, ArtLeave a comment

As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after you, Lord. (Psalm 42:1)

The more I taste of God’s goodness the more I long to feel his heart.

Today is the second day of creative meditations for Lent. The word prompt for today is “Longing.” It’s a dull dreary rainy day here, so I broke out my watercolour paints instead of going out to look for a photo. In the process, I realized this longing for more of God is deeper than I anticipated.

More, Lord, please.

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

On By Charis PsalloIn PhotographyLeave a comment

Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” These are the ones who recognize their spiritual need, the ones who have tried and know they can’t make it on their own. To the spiritually downcast he gives a promise: “for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”

The psalms written by the Sons of Korah are about the journey back from rebellion and shame. This is in Psalm 42.

I say to God my Rock,
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
    oppressed by the enemy?”
 My bones suffer mortal agony
    as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

Sometimes God plants a glimpse of higher things right there on the ground where the downcast can find it.

Look up. Your redemption is coming closer.