We hear much of love to God; Christ spoke much of love to man.
We make a great deal of peace with heaven; Christ spoke much of peace on earth.
– Henry Drummond
Tag: art
Love Expels Fear
Love will never invoke fear.
Perfect love expels fear,
particularly the fear of punishment.
The one who fears punishment has not been completed through love.
We love because He has first loved us.
(1 John 4:18,19)
The thing about fear is that once you are influenced by it you can be convinced to distrust your own sense of who God is and who you are and hand over spiritual discernment to “the experts” because they claim “extenuating circumstances.” This is how every major cult has started (including the philosophical movements that claim to be non-religious). It’s uncanny how often it manifests first in paranoia-based views of the future, followed by rigid authoritarian hierarchical structures, then strange attitudes toward sex and marriage and family structure. History repeats itself.
The thing about love is that it does not manipulate or coerce. Jesus’ love sets us free.
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Dazzlingly
“God made you to love him supremely, but he lost you. He returned to get you back, but it took the cross to do it. He absorbed your darkness so that one day you can finally and dazzlingly become your true self and take your seat at his eternal feast.”
―Timothy Keller
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Double Flowering
You are my God, and I give You thanks;
You are my God, and I praise You.
Give thanks to our Eternal Lord; He is always good.
He never ceases to be loving and kind.
(Psalm 118:28,29 The Voice)
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Light, Love, Joy
May not a single moment of my life be spent outside the light, love and joy of God’s presence and not a moment without the entire surrender of myself as a vessel for Him to fill full of His Spirit and His love.
-Andrew Murray
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Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise
You never know what lies around the bend.
James, the guy who came to believe that Jesus, his older brother, was God (and brothers have ample opportunity to observe character) wrote this: Just a moment, now, you who say, “We are going to such-and-such a city today or tomorrow. We shall stay there a year doing business and make a profit”! How do you know what will happen even tomorrow? What, after all, is your life? It is like a puff of smoke visible for a little while and then dissolving into thin air. Your remarks should be prefaced with, “If it is the Lord’s will, we shall be alive and will do so-and-so.”
We just learned that our friend, who has spent months preparing for a move to Western Africa and was about to depart in a few days, died suddenly during minor surgery. We are stunned, but trusting God to turn even this situation into something better than we hoped.
Here’s the thing: Trust is built on character. Proven character.
Come election time (which seems to be perpetual in some places) a great deal of money is thrown around trying to convince the public that this person they have never met is of exemplary character and actually cares deeply about your personal needs, Mrs. What-did you-say-your-name-was? We’ve all seen that game played long enough to know trust may be bought temporarily, but the truth will out. We’ve seen false promotion, but we’ve seen slander and spins and false accusations of opponents as well.
Jesus Christ was falsely accused and executed on the basis of those kind of accusations. Religious presumption has always said, “If you are really God and really in charge you will show your love in a way I would do it. If I were God people could indulge their cravings and fight to be on top without consequence to others or the environment. If I were the one who was all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful I would give unlimited freedom and intervene miraculously to save people from the repercussions of listening to the father of lies if only to save my own reputation. If you are love, this is how you will show it.”
For many people abused by religious presumption on God’s grace (which ironically morphs into a legalistic portrayal of a vengeful God without grace) trust is difficult. It is difficult because they do not know him or his character because they have only heard about him from people with agendas. They have never met him personally.
Our friend’s wife has. In the midst of grief and turmoil and upset plans she can still say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” And our friend? To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. For a man who loved the Lord with his whole heart what could possibly be better?
I keep remembering the night when the Lord spoke kindly to me in a dream and said, “Those who are afraid to pray ‘Thy will be done’ do not fully comprehend my love.”
Was our friend a casualty of the clash between two kingdoms or was this Gods’ timing for his life? I don’t know. All I know is God is God and I am not. But he has proven his loving character to me over and over through Jesus Christ who loved me so much he said he’d rather die than live without me –and so he did. And then he conquered death so that we could be together forever. I trust that kind of love.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future,
nor any powers,
neither height nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:34-39)
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The Kite and the Hero
I was about eight-years-old when the boys down the lane said they were going to beat me up for breaking their kite. It was a flimsy kite, one of those corner-store balsa wood and tissue paper assemblies with a picture of some serious stars and stripes American guy in a tall hat, who pointed his finger accusingly at a girl who didn’t know enough to stop running when the thing dive-bombed into the ground.
I had begged them for a chance to fly it and when they told me to grab the string and run, run, run, I did. Then it crashed and I apparently dragged it through the construction debris scattered in the empty lot. I saw one of the boys punch his friend in the arm for being so stupid as to let a girl try to fly the kite. It was a boy’s toy after all.
Then they threatened to punch me unless I paid for it. Both of them.
I slipped by all the grown-ups in the living room on the way to find the piggy bank hidden under my bed. I was crying, but I knew enough not to bother anyone with my problem. Their tone was serious and I was afraid if they found out I had broken something else there would just be more trouble. I was used to not being noticed –because I knew how not to be noticed. It was my fault, after all. I did break the kite. I would have to look after the problem myself.
My uncle was standing in the hall when I came out clutching my precious coins.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
He noticed. I was afraid, but I choked out the story of how the boys told me to hold the string and run and not look back, but then the kite broke and now they were going to beat me up.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I’ll walk behind you.”
“What?”
“I’m going with you. I want to talk to those guys.”
My uncle was barely more than a teenager, but he was a hockey player, a defenceman. In this part of the world that carries a lot of weight. For one thing, he was nearly a foot taller than everyone else in the family. For another, he was known to spend an inordinate amount of time in the penalty box, which seemed quite all right with everyone who went to cheer at the games.
I walked bravely down the lane with my uncle backing me up. I had never really noticed how magnificently tall he was before. The boys were confused when they saw him. I don’t know whether they wondered if they should run or ask for an autograph. I kind of hoped Uncle would throw some of that influential weight around and knock them over.
Instead he grunted, “How much was that kite?”
“A buck,” one of them said, looking up, way up.
Uncle took out the wallet that hung from a chain attached to his back pocket and handed him a dollar bill.
“And how much did that one cost?” he asked the boy who held an intact version of the one still in the middle of the crash site.
“Seventy-five cents,” he answered, suddenly struck with an uncharacteristic streak of honesty.
Uncle handed him 75 cents and said, “Give her your kite.”
He did so.
“If you ever threaten a girl again you’ll answer to me,” he growled. When they took off running he grinned.
I walked home with my money in one hand, my kite in the other and a new admiration for my uncle in my heart.
Have you ever had a week when the same topic, or the same book or the same quotes keep showing up in unusual places? I keep running into Psalm 18, about how God defends his loved ones. I know that means I need to pay attention, that there is something about Himself I haven’t truly understood before that the Lord wants to show me. I was meditating on this Psalm when the memory of this incident with the kite came back. Our Defender not only walks with us, he covers our debt, he gives us what we never earned and he brings us safely home. God is good that way. He is my hero.
I have a harder time picturing Him in skates and a jersey though. But who knows…
I love you, Lord;
you are my strength.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior;
my God is my rock, in whom I find protection.
(Psalm 18:1,2)
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A Father’s Wrath
Now he’s wrapped himself
in a trench coat of black-cloud darkness.
But his cloud-brightness bursts through,
spraying hailstones and fireballs.
Then God thundered out of heaven;
the High God gave a great shout,
spraying hailstones and fireballs.
But me he caught—reached all the way
from sky to sea; he pulled me out
Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos,
the void in which I was drowning.
They hit me when I was down,
but God stuck by me.
He stood me up on a wide-open field;
I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!
(Psalm 18: 11-13, 16-19 The Message)
Some people say God has no wrath, that He is all gentle universal soft love. But when evil threatens a father’s beloved child a good father will defend them and come to their aid -with a vengeance. Our heavenly Father’s wrath toward the evil one, the enemy of our souls, the one who comes to steal kill and destroy, is an indication of his love. He will act. He cares and He has emotion. He sent Jesus Christ to destroy the works of the devil. He is our defense.
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Broken Pieces
The early morning sun streaming through a window brought my attention to a mosaic on the floor of the lobby of the hotel in Israel. In the previous few days we had seen many mosaics, or partial mosaics that had survived from the time of the Romans. Telling the stories of lives long gone, many were outstanding works of art that had endured for centuries. In such a context a contemporary mosaic was easy to overlook.
This mosaic had in common the same feature of the ancient works though. It still required the down-on-the-knees painstaking placement of tiny pieces of fired, broken clay. The big picture required brokenness.
The words of a Gaither song from years ago came back to me. “Heart aches, broken pieces, ruined lives are why you died on Calvary…”
A lot of us put on a brave front; it’s how we cope in a competitive world that markets people with resumes and promotional materials. But God is not impressed with self-promotion. He wants our broken bits. He can work with broken bits.
Heartache? Failure? Disappointment? Regrets? An honest resume that itemizes our inability to get it together on our own is most impressive to Him. And when he takes us on He makes something beautiful of our lives.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. (Psalm 51:17)
“All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife, but He made something beautiful of my life.”
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Holy Fire
Some lovely friends invited me to join them for a painting class on the theme of prophetic art or worship art. What a beautiful group of people! On this particular evening the instructor played worshipful music and asked us to paint the images -or the feelings- that came to mind when we thought of Holy Spirit. I’ve been trying to teach myself to hold a bigger brush more loosely and save sharply focused realism for photography. I did three very quick paintings in one sitting. Two were peaceful and sweet in soft, even feminine colours. Then, without too much thinking, I grabbed some colours and sloshed them on the canvas. This was the result.
Art is an experience between the work and the beholder and can have more than one interpretation. I sometimes see something the artist didn’t intend to say in a work, and sometimes people interpret my paintings differently as well, and I appreciate that. This time I found myself interpreting my own painting. What does this say to me? Tongues of fire are often associated with the arrival of Holy Spirit at Pentecost and many songs are written about wanting to be filled with the passionate fire of God. I’ve seen people laugh and sing and praise God when they encounter his goodness. It’s a joyful experience.
But I have learned that not all God-encounters are fun experiences.
Encountering God’s holiness leaves us stripped of any sense of self-righteousness. We cry out like Isaiah, “Woe is me, for I am a person of unclean lips and I come from a people of unclean lips.” We sing, “Purify my heart, let it be as gold, pure gold…” or “Consuming fire, fan into flame a passion for your name…” but we want Him to do this in soft, comforting, nurturing, happy, happy, joy, joy, soft kitty/warm kitty pastel colours.
Holiness hurts.
Isaiah’s lips were symbolically purified when an angel touched them with a burning coal from the fire of God. Ouch!
Peter wrote:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3-9)
The end result is praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The end result is joy unspeakable and full of glory. The end result is promotion to higher levels of intimacy with the Eternal.
But the process is not always painless. When we pass through the fires that test our faith all the false ideas we treasured are revealed for the mere counterfeit paper copies they are. Sometimes it means choosing, by faith, to lay the unreliable handholds of the past down on the altar before we have any firm handholds for the future. Without a theology that includes suffering we lack the motivation for perseverance that leads to mature character and true hope. Our sense of entitlement makes us avoid pain and equips us with a type of hope that is entirely too flammable. Without an understanding of the role of suffering we are blown away by adversity and crushed by disappointment.
True hope does not disappoint.
Since then it is by faith that we are justified, let us grasp the fact that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have confidently entered into this new relationship of grace, and here we take our stand, in happy certainty of the glorious things he has for us in the future.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that we have only a hope of future joys—we can be full of joy here and now even in our trials and troubles. Taken in the right spirit these very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort produces a steady hope, a hope that will never disappoint us. Already we have some experience of the love of God flooding through our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us. (Romans 5:1-5 Phillips)
Charis: Subject to Change 