And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)
Category: Man made
Resting, Resting
The dream began when my grandmother gave me a sparkly star pin. She brought it back from Bethlehem when I was a teenager and every Christmas when I took it out of my jewelry box I remembered how she talked about her trip to Israel and how much it meant to her. I wanted to go too.
There are so many needs in the world. Frankly, I tend to be the over-responsible big sister type who feels the need to rescue and fix. I also grew up with a fear of not having enough. I justified my ability to pinch a penny so hard it screamed for mercy by giving my reserved squashed coins to charity -widow’s mite and all that.
A couple of years ago someone encouraged a group of us to remember dreams we had relinquished, thinking they were not practical, or were meant for people who needed them more. I realized I had not asked my good heavenly Father for things because I thought, that like my earthly father, he was on a tight budget, and that his resources were limited and had to be carefully meted out to fulfill the great commission of making disciples of all men. It felt selfish to ask Abba if he would give me a trip to Israel like the one my grandmother took. Maybe for someone else, but not for me.
But I dared to ask. And he answered.
The whole time we were in Israel for the past two weeks this song ran through my head:
Jesus, I am resting, resting
in the joy of what Thou art.
I am finding out the goodness
of Thy loving heart.
I know the word in the old hymn is “greatness” and not “goodness”, but that’s the word that kept showing up in that half-sleep time while dawn lightened the skies.
So many things seemed to make the trip look impossible -and up until two days before departure we thought we would have to cancel, but my health improved, our son-in-love came out of his coma and encouraged us to go, and people stepped in to look after things I had assumed were my responsibility alone.
Every day was a gift from a good Father. I thought that nothing could top the feeling of standing on top of Mount Carmel and realizing this was the place where God showed up for Elijah and sent the prophets of the false god, Ba’al, who demanded appeasement, running in ignominy. I thought that would be the highlight, but it just got better.
“Rest,” He said. “Sit down and let others do the running for a while. Rest and let me love you.”
One day, in a lower room below the busy streets of Jerusalem, perhaps on the very pavement where Jesus stood, where the soldiers humiliated him and put a crown of thorns on his head, I sang. I sang with tears and a heart full of gratitude,
I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow.
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus ’tis now.
When we came home a couple of days ago, we immediately went to see our son-in-love, who has been on his own journey in the valley of the shadow of death. He is out of ICU, and starting to walk and rebuild his strength in a rehab hospital. The hospital staff are calling him “Miracle Man.”
God is good. So very, very good.
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I Don’t Work There Anymore
Long ago and far away I worked in a really crazy office. The two women who ran the department were nuts -and I say that in the nicest possible way. They actually threw books at each other. Since my desk was between theirs I learned to duck when “Olga” began her wind-up. She had a good arm but her pitches were often low. Olga qualified as a United Nations translator, but when people she didn’t like required her services, she suddenly developed a thick accent and twenty word English vocabulary. She would hand me the phone and I got to pass the messages on. Yet Olga had power. She had been there forever, knew the dirt on everyone and wasn’t afraid to drag it up. She even made the company president cower.
“Lulu” was Olga’s assistant. She had the worst bouts of PMS I have ever witnessed. Most of the time she was sweet as the dickens because she was trying to get me on her side, but on those days she would barrel into the office like a category three, tossing books and papers in the air, crying and ranting about how she couldn’t possibly deal with the demands put on her, then storm out, leaving me to re-organize the disaster before Olga saw it.
I was their office clerk. This was one of my first jobs, and I needed it. I didn’t want to be a complainer. I wanted a good recommendation when I moved on — hopefully sooner than later. Finally someone who worked upstairs walked in during a screaming match between my two supervisors, felt compassion for me, and arranged for me to be “loaned” to another office.
Shortly after I moved to another department, Olga showed up in front of my desk, dropped a pile of work on it, glowered at me and said in her usual abrupt manner, “You do this today,” then stomped out.
What can I say? Olga scared me. I still wasn’t clear on who I worked for, so I stayed late to do it on top of my other work -with tears in my eyes.
The next day my new boss said, “Don’t listen to her. You have been officially transferred. She is not your boss –in fact, you no longer have clearance to do that work. You are not qualified to listen to her. You don’t work there anymore -and I will deal with Olga myself.” She grabbed the pile of work and took it out of the room. That was the last I saw of it.
Often when I am stressed and over-tired, I forget that I have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. Sometimes I forget that I don’t need to listen to the old boss. I don’t need to do their work for them by being negative or critical. In fact, the Bible says I am not qualified to listen to that old voice.
I thought of Olga and Lulu today when I read this passage.
“I, I am he who comforts you;
who are you that you are afraid of man who dies,
of the son of man who is made like grass,
and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker,
who stretched out the heavens
and laid the foundations of the earth,
and you fear continually all the day
because of the wrath of the oppressor,
when he sets himself to destroy?
And where is the wrath of the oppressor?
He who is bowed down shall speedily be released;
he shall not die and go down to the pit,
neither shall his bread be lacking. (Isaiah 51:12-14)
I needed the Lord to remind me today that when the voices of doom and gloom and dismal forebodings plunk their pile of time-sucking requirements in front of me, I don’t have to listen to them. In fact, God says, “Who are you that you are afraid? You’re not qualified to be afraid.”
I am not qualified to listen to those voices. I don’t work there anymore.
I have a new boss, and He is good.
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Paper Roses
On my way out of the gardening shop I spotted these roses near the door.
“Wow! Are they real?”
They seemed too good to be true. They were –too good to be true, I mean. As soon as I felt them I knew they were paper. Pretty though.
I drove home singing an old Loretta Lynn song I used to hear crackling out of the plastic radio with the big gold dial that sat on top of Grandma’s fridge when I was a kid.
Paper roses paper roses oh how real those roses seem to be
But they’re only imitation like your imitation love for me…
That got me thinking about the nature of deceit and manipulation and feigned love. In the cold greyness of spring that doesn’t feel like spring, those paper roses were beautiful and you know, I can appreciate them just fine –until the real thing comes along.
We joke about our tendency in Canada to be more polite than some other cultures. Honestly I grew up thinking it was normal to say sorry to the person who bumped into you with a grocery cart. It’s not heart-felt, but it does ease tensions and keep the traffic flowing in the produce section.
Someone told me the story of watching a woman trying to purchase a can of pop at a convenience store with a fifty dollar bill. The cashier took it but didn’t even look at the bill as he said, “This is fake.” The woman left the money –and the Coke – on the counter and dashed for the door.
My friend asked how he knew it was fake.
“I’ve been handling money all day, every day, for years. When you are familiar with the real stuff the fake stuff is obvious.”
There are a lot of people in the world who have no idea what real love feels like. They mistake politeness, tolerance, gratitude, warm fuzzies, lust, familiarity, loyalty, manipulation…all manner of things, for love. They have never been the recipients of true, unconditional, self-sacrificing love.
Here’s the thing. You can’t give what you have never received.
It is so easy to be critical of prickly people -the ones who are difficult to feel affection toward, or manipulative people –the ones who prod you into serving their own priorities with large dollops of honey on that stick. My son calls them EGN people. Extra Grace Needed. I believe that is one of the reasons why believers are to band together like a family. You can pick your friends, but God assigns family because we need practice learning to love EGNs, and also to experience being loved ourselves by those who can discern the real from the counterfeit and demonstrate the difference.
Very few new family members come with 70 years of wisdom. Very few church members start off as sanctified lovers, and some, like irritable, contentious old uncles sitting down at the end of the Thanksgiving table take much longer to get there than we think they should. It takes time –and just because a person recognizes an ideal doesn’t mean they are skilled in the practice of it. It’s not about tolerating hypocrisy; it’s about needing grace to grow.
Sometimes the best demonstrations of love some people can offer are like paper roses because that’s all they know. I wonder if, rather than reject the imitation item, we need to smile and accept politeness or tolerance or even well-intended criticism graciously –then return genuine love we have received from God by being willing to lay down our lives for people who have never truly known love before. Lord knows we all need some grace.
“It’s easy to say “I love God,” but genuine love reflects God’s love. If we belong to God, then we will love each other regardless of how hard love is.” (Note on 1 John 5 in The Voice version)
This is the embodiment of true love: not that we have loved God first, but that He loved us and sent His unique Son on a special mission to become an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:10)
Everyone who trusts Jesus as the long-awaited Anointed One is a child of God, and everyone who loves the Father cannot help but love the child fathered by Him. Then how do we know if we truly love God’s children? We love them if we love God and keep His commands. You see, to love God means that we keep His commands, and His commands don’t weigh us down. Everything that has been fathered by God overcomes the corrupt world. This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith. ( 1 John 5:1-4)
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Promise
It’s snowing. Again.
This time of year we have glimpses of spring, a bit of green grass, a momentary warm breeze, a tiny crocus leaning into the foundation on the south side of the house. Then hope is deferred when the valley is socked in by low grey clouds and the signs of change disappear under more snow.
Sometimes I need to look for hope. So yesterday I took my camera down to the local plant nursery to see if anything was stirring there yet .
In and around the first greenhouse there were signs of change with pots being sorted, dusted and cleared of spider webs in preparation for filling.
The next green house was still bare and the third contained a tumbled mix of unsold plastic-wrapped patio furniture left from last season.
But in the small greenhouse at the back of the lot, someone was lining up pails of perennials on worn seasoned tables. These are the hardy ones, the ones that have known seasons of fruitfulness and seasons of rest, and they are showing new growth. Survivors. Forerunners.
But on the way out, in the warm environment of the shop, near the window, heaven poked its finger into my cold snowy world, and a perfect pure white flower from another place, one which cannot grow here, grew anyway.
We, on the other hand,
continue to live through the Spirit’s power
and wait confidently in the hope
that things will be put right through faith.
(Galatians 5:5 The Voice version)
Pray this way:
Your will be done
on earth
as it is in heaven.
-Jesus
Prepare your pots. Heaven is on its way.
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But what will people say?
“You will never be fully resigned to the will of God if you are troubled by human opinion of you, or if you make of yourself a little idol of what people say.
You cannot be hurt by men. You cannot be hurt by devils. You can only be hurt by self, your own pride and the violence of our desires. Your self is the greatest devil of all.”
-Michael Molinos
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1:13-15)
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Comfort and Joy
Remember Your word to Your servant;
You have given me hope through it.
This is my comfort in my affliction:
Your promise has given me life.
(Psalm 119:49, 50)
I’ve received a lot of God’s comfort and joy and faithfulness in the last two months.
On Monday I had minor surgery to biopsy something that ought not to be there. The early doctors’ consultations were not at all good. Because the specialist was out of the country the wait was much longer than I would have liked, but it was exactly the length the Lord planned. That’s how long it took for me to stop listening to the fears and start listening to the promises He has given me. It will still take ten days for the final report, but the surgeon found something fix-able and said these kind were nearly always benign. For that I praise God and am extremely grateful, but more I thank him for his comfort in the night and his assurance that he would never let me go.
I love you, Lord.
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Setting prisoners free
As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
today I declare that I will restore to you double.
(Zechariah 9:11,12)
And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him [Jesus]. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
(Luke 4: 17-21)
It is for freedom that Christ has made you free
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Rest
There still exists, therefore, a full and complete rest for the people of God.
And he who experiences his real rest is resting from his own work as fully as God from his.
Let us then be eager to know this rest for ourselves,
and let us beware that no one misses it through falling into the same kind of unbelief as those we have mentioned.
For the Word that God speaks is alive and active;
it cuts more keenly than any two-edged sword:
it strikes through to the place where soul and spirit meet,
to the innermost intimacies of a man’s being:
it exposes the very thoughts and motives of a man’s heart.
No creature has any cover from the sight of God;
everything lies naked and exposed before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Seeing that we have a great High Priest who has entered the inmost Heaven,
Jesus the Son of God,
let us hold firmly to our faith.
For we have no superhuman High Priest to whom our weaknesses are unintelligible
—he himself has shared fully in all our experience of temptation, except that he never sinned.
Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with fullest confidence,
that we may receive mercy for our failures and grace to help in the hour of need.
(Hebrews 4:13 – 17)
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Portal
Standing at the portal
Of the opening year,
Words of comfort meet us,
Hushing every fear;
Spoken thru the silence
By our Savior’s voice,
Tender, strong and faithful,
Making us rejoice.
Onward, then, and fear not,
Children of the day;
For His Word shall never,
Never pass away.
“I, the Lord, am with thee,
Be thou not afraid;
I will help and strengthen
Be thou not dismayed.
Yea, I will uphold thee
With My own right hand;
Thou art called and chosen
In My sight to stand.”
For the year before us,
O what rich supplies!
For the poor and needy
Living streams shall rise;
For the sad and sinful
Shall His grace abound;
For the faint and feeble
Perfect strength be found.
He will never fail us,
He will not forsake;
For His eternal covenant
He will never break.
Resting on the promise,
What have we to fear?
God is all sufficient
For the coming year.
-Frances Havergal, 1873
Charis: Subject to Change 