Break Every Chain
Sing Like Never Before
This is not a drill.
This is the real thing.
Tonight I choose to bless the Lord as I cuddle our three little grandchildren while their beloved Daddy clings to life in the ICU with our precious daughter at his side.
I trust You.
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Note to self
I’m re-blogging this as we watch and pray for our son-in-law who clings to life in ICU after surgery for flesh eating disease. God is working behind the scenes right now and it’s good to remember we walk by faith and not by sight, because physically things don’t look too good right now. Our job is to watch and pray, trust and obey and rest in His love.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
(Jeremiah 29:11)
I often wonder if many of the people who buy lovely posters and trinkets with this scripture verse printed on them are aware of the context. Jeremiah gives this message to a people who are in the midst of the worst possible calamity they could imagine. He writes quite clearly that they face a 70 year exile. He tells them to plant gardens, build houses and seek the welfare of the people who destroyed the Judean way of life.
God’s timetable can be so different from ours. We can be assured God is at work even we can’t see what he is up to.
One of the people who read Jeremiah’s letter was Daniel. Think of it, Daniel was in service…
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Watch and Pray
This song has been playing over and over in my head, day and night, for days. I have learned to pay attention to bits of songs that play even in my sleep.
Stay here with me.
Remain here with me.
Watch and pray
that you will not fall into temptation.
Praying.
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Waging Peace
All this will flow from the kind and compassionate mercy of our God.
A new day is dawning:
the Sunrise from the heavens will break through in our darkness,
And those who huddle in night,
those who sit in the shadow of death,
Will be able to rise and walk in the light,
guided in the pathway of peace.
(Luke 1:78, 79 The Voice)
We can’t fight darkness by focusing on darkness; it only leads to more fear. But if we walk in the Light, live in the Light, and the Light lives in us, darkness is displaced. In the Presence of the Light darkness must flee.
Rise.
Walk.
Shine.
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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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Planting Peace
But the wisdom from above is first of all pure.
It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others.
It is full of mercy and good deeds.
It shows no favoritism and is always sincere.
And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace
and reap a harvest of righteousness.
(James 3:17,18)
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I’m so in love with you
Praise comes naturally to children who are accustomed to hearing it.
Yesterday I saw my little granddaughter running around my almost barren garden. Her arms were in the air and her face grinned at the sky.
“Thank you! Thank you, rain!” she said, “You made the little flowers open! Thank you, rain!”
She showed me that the two tiny crocuses we had seen beside the house in the morning were indeed opening.
“Spring is coming! Spring is coming!” she said, dancing her silly happy dance (and refusing to come in out of the rain.)
The day before we had driven to a town about half an hour away. She insisted on hearing “her” song -on repeat- the whole way there and back. Her mom told me that the night before when they arrived at our house she would not get out of the car, as excited as she was to visit Nana and Boppa’s house, until the song had finished.
I asked her why she liked it so much. She said, “Cuz it’s a song to Jesus.”
As part of their bedtime ritual her parents have a time of saying “nice words” to the children, in which they bless the kids by telling them the positive things they see in them – things like kindness, gentleness, enthusiasm, patience, beauty, intelligence, helpfulness, joyfulness. I wish I had known about the benefits of blessing with nice words when my children were growing. The difference in my grandchildren is that they also know how to bless and encourage others. It melts my heart when my little grandson cuddles up and says, “Thank you for the milk, Nana. You are kind and gentle.”
A lot of times when kids want songs to be repeated on the car sound system they are hard-on-the-nerves songs. The song “Daisy” wanted was very gentle. She told me it sounded a little sad at first, but it got happier. We talked about it and she made the connection to “nice words.”
“The song sings nice words to Jesus!” she said.
It thrilled my heart to be in such a holy atmosphere as we rode quietly and were led in worship by a child, not yet four years old, singing along with Misty in the back seat.
“Lord, you have my song…..I’m so in love with you, I’m so in love with you, Jeeeesus.”
They asked Jesus, “Do you hear what these children are saying?”
“Yes,” Jesus replied. “Haven’t you ever read the Scriptures? For they say, ‘You have taught children and infants to give you praise.’” (Matthew 21:16)
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Just keep a lid on it?
There was a time when I could have gladly smacked one of those smiling, happy, praise-singing, weirdos upside the head with a hymnbook as they had their own little personal in-love-with-Jesus experience in a church service. The guy up front leading the choruses, who insisted we all needed to plaster on a smile as big as his, particularly irked me. Did he not know the scripture that said, “Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, and like vinegar on soda?” I was tired of faking it. I didn’t need to add hypocrisy to my considerable growing list of sins.
“So your Christian experience is wonderful. Goody for you,” I thought, “Well, mine sucks. I am exhausted trying to raise rebellious teenagers, maintain some sort of relationship with a workaholic husband, dutifully meet the expectations of church and parents and maiden aunts, and appease picky people everywhere I go, all while coping with depression and chronic fatigue and pain that nobody, even doctors, understands. His yoke is easy? Hah!”
Finally I quit trying. I just gave up.
I gave up on my ability to try any harder, or to try at all.
I didn’t give up on Jesus though, unlike some of the outsiders I formed friendships with at the time. I felt like one of his left-over disciples standing around after he said something about eating his body and drinking his blood. Many religious keeners found that statement extremely offensive and said, “That’s it. I’m outta here.”
Like the ones who stayed with Jesus I said, when he asked if I wanted to leave too, “Where else can I go? The stuff you say is really hard to understand but I have no hope in anything else. I don’t get you and this whole church thing drives me nuts, but I recognize that you alone have the words of life.”
When I finally gave up, he could finally start to change me.
Recently I heard someone go on a mini-rant that sounded very familiar. It was along the lines of, “If someone is having a great personal spiritual experience they should just keep it to themselves! It is insensitive to talk about what God is doing for them when so many are suffering.”
How strange it is to be sitting on the other side of the table. I realized the irritating person he was talking about was me. God has been so good to me in the past few years. I have come to understand his love in a way I never did before. Like a person who goes on and on about a new love, I just want to talk about him, brag about him, praise him. I had forgotten how annoying that can be when you are in a place where the relationship feels duty-based, when prayers aren’t answered, when pain and suffering without an end in sight is a way of life.
Here’s the question I have been pondering: Should I shut up? Am I somehow increasing the pain of disappointment in God by talking about his goodness to those who can’t feel it right now? Should I just keep a lid on it?
I was reading today about Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem: “And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” Luke 19: 33-40
And the events in the temple after his arrival: “And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” (Matthew 21:14-16)
Jesus did not allow expression of praise to be limited to a level that was comfortable to those who felt indignant, like I once was. The reason I was so uncomfortable around people who had joy and a deeper personal experience with Christ was because I was like the older brother in the prodigal son story who had worked so hard for the Father and felt angry that I even though I had been so dutiful, I had seen so little reward. The wandering irresponsible younger brother had done nothing to deserve special treatment! My pride was in my effort, and that’s the very thing that was getting in the way of seeing that everything he owned was already mine. It wasn’t until I gave up my need to prove my worthiness that I could start to receive.
Will I stop talking about his goodness? No. My focus is on the Lover of my soul first. I have tremendous empathy for those who are frustrated and feeling left out. I really do, but I desire to bring hope and not merely sympathy. I don’t intend it to, but sometimes that just may appear to be offense-worthy. I know there is nothing in me, or the millions of others who have known His favour, which has earned a single drop of his blood by my own effort. I weep with those who weep, yes, but now I can finally rejoice with those who rejoice without feeling offended myself.
I’m not going back. In the words of the old spiritual, “If I don’t praise Him, the rocks is gonna cry out, ‘Glory and honour! Glory and honour!”
God is good.
Charis: Subject to Change 