I saw a bumper sticker once that said: He who dies with the most toys wins.
Ha!
We are part owners of a house, still partially under water, and not covered by insurance with an “act of God clause”, that is tagged “no entry.” That’s not a good sign.
We we also spent the weekend with some of our grandchildren, a daughter and son and our son-in-love who doctors gave a 0% chance of survival to just this spring. As we sat in the shade of the house (because our big shade tree blew over in a sudden micro-burst storm last summer) watching the children laughing as they played around the little inflatable swimming pool, I felt tremendous joy. Shade trees, houses, baubles? It all pales in comparison to life. It pales even more compared to eternal life in Christ.
Baubles
Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity. (1 John 2:15-17 Msg)
This morning as I was editing photos of flowers a nursery rhyme came to mind: Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
It struck me that a garden grows without a lot of effort on our part. Yes, we need to remove weeds and water and feed, but pulling plants up by the roots to measure progress tends to have a deleterious effect. Even pulling out weeds before seedlings are established with their own clear identities will become an act of violence and rip them out of the ground as well.
So often we think of the gift of discernment as the gift of point/counterpoint adversarial doctrinal debate rather than what the Bible calls it: the gift of discerning of spirits. Argument for the sake of argument may work in a science faculty in a university where theories are launched and frequently shot down, but it doesn’t work well in matters of the heart. By heart here I mean the deep longing for connection with our Creator part of us, the place where spirit and soul communicate. Try knocking down a point God is making and see how far it gets you.
Some people can detach themselves from emotional investment in an idea. Most of us can’t. That’s why endless debate over how a Christian grows, who’s in and who’s out or how the mechanism of transferring a person from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light actually works, or the proper way to organize a gathering of believers feels more disruptive to many people than providing them with a loving, supportive, safe environment
and leaving the rest up to God.
Sometimes we need to plant seeds and let Holy Spirit take responsibility for turning them into flowers or fruit.
So my re-interpretation of the song today might be, “Mary, Mary, good grief, girl! How can anything possibly grow in your garden if you have to be so contrary and come up with a counterpoint to debate every single little thing? If it weren’t for grace those silver bells and cockle shells would be a pile of dead dissected seedlings by now.”
He gives us our part to do in preparing the soil, planting seeds, watering, and harvesting the fruit, but it’s God who pulls off the miracles. He says, “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
Then Jesus said, “God’s kingdom is like seed thrown on a field by a man who then goes to bed and forgets about it. The seed sprouts and grows—he has no idea how it happens. The earth does it all without his help: first a green stem of grass, then a bud, then the ripened grain. When the grain is fully formed, he reaps—harvest time! (Mark 4:26)
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses,
so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
For the sake of Christ, then,
I am content with weaknesses,
insults,
hardships,
persecutions,
and calamities.
For when I am weak,
then I am strong.
(2 Corinthians 12:9,10)
“When I look at the clues that indicate the nature of Jesus – born in a barn, questionable parents, spotty ancestry, common name, misdirected announcement, unattractive looks, reared in a bad neighborhood, owning nothing, surrounding himself with unattractive co-workers, and dying a shameful death – I find his whole approach unable to fit into the methods that automatically come to mind when I think about “winning the world.” His whole approach could easily be described as nonthreatening or nonmanipulative. He seemed to lead with weakness in each step of life. He had nothing in the world and everything in God and the Spirit.”
I woke up with a song in my head. I’ve learned to pay attention to the seemingly random songs in my head, particularly if the music comes unbidden, is insistent, and like this one, is a song I don’t know very well. God speaks to people in different ways and for me it is often through music.
The song is “Don’t Stop Thinkin’ about Tomorrow.” That single line kept going through my head. I had to look it up. It’s by Fleetwood Mac from the 70’s. That’s why I didn’t remember it. In the 70’s I was a sleep-deprived young mother just trying to get to bed before my babies woke up. Who had time to listen to anything but nursery ditties?
If you wake up and don’t want to smile If it takes just a little while Open your eyes and look at the day You’ll see things in a different way
Don’t stop, thinking about tomorrow Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here It’ll be, better than before Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone
Why not think about times to come And not about the things that you’ve done If your life was bad to you Just think what tomorrow will do
Don’t stop, thinking about tomorrow Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here It’ll be, better than before Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone
All I want is to see you smile If it takes just a little while I know you don’t believe that it’s true I never meant any harm to you
Don’t stop, thinking about tomorrow Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here It’ll be, better than before Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone
-Christine McVie
I’ve been thinking about loss. My son and my daughter-in-love and my granddaughter and my grandson are grieving the loss of all their belongings but for a car and three days worth of clothes. My heart ached for my granddaughter when she told me the thing she would miss the most was her treasure box which included some baby clothes and photos and precious little things wrapped in beautiful memories like the tissue paper scrunched around them. We often sat on her bedroom floor going through the box together.
My grandson said he would miss his games, especially his first computer game, which apparently is no longer made. And all his Lego. I’ve spent hours on the floor snapping Lego together with him -and quite a few more hours pushing wrong buttons as he tried to explain the proper way to play a wii game. The children have a beautiful attitude about losing all their toys and games and books -and the computer and the wii- but it still hurts.
My daughter-in-love has lost all the family photos lovingly and creatively displayed in scrapbooks she spent hours making. She is also a fine teacher who has lost her personal stash of teaching aids built up over years of teaching special-needs students.
My son is a fine hobby carpenter. He built my beautiful kitchen for me. Now all of his tools lie under flood water mixed with sewage — irretrievable, and uninsured because they were lost to “an act of God.” (Man, I hate bad theology!)
It’s so hard to see your children and grandchildren suffer, especially when on a retirement income it is impossible for us to do much to help them. It’s so easy to take up a cause for someone else and give into resentment, but trusting the Lord to take care of my needs means trusting him to take care the people I love as well, and thanking the Him for His faithfulness and for solutions to their problems that we cannot yet see. It means not only hearing the music of the future, but being able to dance to it today.
The reason I chose to post these flowers (“painted with light” on my computer using my photo as a template) is because it reminds me of all the things I planted in that spot that I eventually had to dig up and throw out because they died. My neighbours can grow luscious hydrangeas and dramatic astilbes. I can’t seem to. I despaired of ever growing a pretty shrub in that shady corner of the garden.
Then this mock orange showed up one spring. I never planted it. I think the previous owner may have, but it never flourished because I kept planting other things too close to that spot. When that place in the garden was empty it suddenly shot up, covered in white blossoms.
I believe God has something better in mind for my family -and for all the people in High River and other places in Alberta where faithful, diligent folk have seen the work of their hands swept away by flood waters. So, since yesterday is gone, I will choose to think about tomorrow, and give God room to do what he wants to do, which is always better than our own designs. My prayer is simply, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I trust You, Lord.”
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Garden of Gethsemane, Jerusalem
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
I learned a new word today. Well, new to me. It’s probably been around for a long time. Montivagant. It means “wandering over mountains and hills.”
I’ve often spent seasons of my life as a montivagant seeker –sometimes up and sometimes down.
This life is full of mountains and valleys. Followers of Jesus Christ know he often leads us through unexpected downs on the way to brilliant ups. The beauty of this journey is not just the prize at the end. It’s realizing Who walks with us.
God is good, all the time, no matter what.
Hard times may well be the plight of the righteous— they may often seem overwhelmed— but the Eternal rescues the righteous from what oppresses them.
“And you, because of my blood covenant with you, I’ll release your prisoners from their hopeless cells. Come home, hope-filled prisoners! This very day I’m declaring a double bonus— everything you lost returned twice-over!”
If I let them my anxious thoughts will spin out of control so fast they become a blur like a ride at the West Edmonton Mall. So many conflicting what-ifs cry out for attention it’s like standing at that point of ultimate cacophony where the music of multiple amusements collide -and then a roller coaster thunders overhead. Some people enjoy that kind of atmosphere. I guess I’ve become a country girl.
I need to remind myself, when anxious thoughts begin to multiply, that I can stop and choose to think differently.
I tell myself, “Self? Self! Don’t be hard-hearted, remember and give thanks for all the grace that has brought us safe this far.”
And there has been so much grace! That’s why I chose Charis as a pen name. It is Greek for grace.
The great thing about impossible situations is that we know that we have no way to wriggle out of the problem ourselves, so when the Lord answers with power and provision and peace beyond anything we could muster, we cannot take credit. To God alone be glory.
God is creative and not reactive and none of the things that grab us and try to shake the peace out of us cause him the least concern. He IS peace. And he promises his peace to those who will take refuge in him.
And since that peace comes in the middle of crazy circumstances and not necessarily in relief from them, we may even learn to enjoy the ride.
The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is majestic.
The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord is enthroned as King forever. The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace.
Southern Alberta is under water! 100 000 Calgarians displaced, High River is completely evacuated, and Canmore is being washed off the mountain! At work we are participating in a one year program with Alberta Health Services called In Roads which looks at addiction. This week we looked at resiliency which seems timely as Alberta has become, as in all disasters, a case study of this. The way people pull together is amazing and fascinating to watch. Two people who can’t stand each other now stand side by side to protect and save others. In this dark and broken world there are glimpses of light.
Prayer
In times like this people tend to post prayers for the disaster to stop or that prayer is a useless waste of time. Prayer is more than a petition for what we want, and it is more than something meaningless. Yes, we must pray for…
Charis: Subject to Change 