Steep your life in God-reality,
God-initiative,
God-provisions.
Don’t worry about missing out.
You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now,
and don’t get worked up
about what may or may not happen tomorrow.
God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up
when the time comes.
-Jesus
(Matthew 6:33,34 The Message)
I just about jumped out of my skin when the dog lunged at the fence, barking with an authoritarian voice that clearly negated anything that sign said about being welcome. I paused by the shaking boards only long enough to snap a photo -and then I was out of there. If he wanted the entire lane to himself, that was fine with me. The sign said welcome, but something was missing.
Mixed messages may be difficult to read, but usually action barks louder than words.
One day I was expecting a student for a singing lesson, but I wasn’t sure if I would be on time because I planned to attend the funeral of an old acquaintance earlier in the afternoon. My student was a mature person I knew well, so I phoned her and said I would leave the door unlocked, and if I was a few minutes late she could just come in and practise.
Well, the funeral went on longer than I anticipated because so many people wanted to share what the dear departed soul meant to them. She was dearly loved and the boxes of tissue thoughtfully placed on the pews were passed between all her many friends and family. The last person to speak talked about how her door was always open to students who dropped by regularly for cookies and advice.
At that moment I suddenly remembered that although I left the door open for my student, I forgot to turn off the burglar alarm! It is partly a motion detector type alarm and wouldn’t go off if the unlocked door was opened, but it surely would if she walked into the living room where the piano was.
I looked at my watch and whispered my dilemma to the fellow sitting beside me. Poor guy. I caught him off guard and he guffawed loudly. Bad timing.
I wonder about the messages we give people. Sometimes the messages people intend to communicate are not, for various reasons beyond their control, perceived in the same spirit. Sometimes it’s an oversight, or bad timing. Sometimes words don’t match actions and people are rightly spooked. If folks preach love and grace, yet passers-by hear snarling disapproval or condemnation from the other side of the gate –well, no wonder they run away. If people implore others to come into their parlour and then scare the hide off them with alarms that scream “intruder alert,” they probably will not need to set another place at the table.
I used to do an exercise with students to demonstrate the importance of making sure your body communicated the same message as a song. I would ask them to touch their chin with their finger.
“Touch your finger to your chin like this,” I said, but then I deliberately touched my cheek. Nearly every one of them touched their cheek as I was demonstrating. A few looked confused or asked me to clarify. Rarely would someone actually do as I said and not as I did.
I usually went on to tell them if their face and shoulders looked morose, even if the song was joyful, the audience would go with morose. Actions carry greater authority as messengers than we realize.
How many prodigals are kept out of the Kingdom of God by the unlovely character of those who profess to be inside!
– Henry Drummond
It’s a pretty basic lesson, really. People will know if love is genuine or if they are being coerced or manipulated. Jesus said, “By this will all people know that you are my followers: if you have love for one another.”
Love. Either it’s real, or it’s not.
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
which must be curbed with bit and bridle,
or it will not stay near you.
(Psalm 32:8,9)
I heard someone ask once, “What are the minimum qualifications for being a Christian? What is the least I must do or believe to get “in”? I had trouble answering that question. It felt like a young man asking a friend’s advice on a relationship with a woman who expressed her love for him, by asking, “What is the minimum required of me to be married to her?”
I would be tempted to say, “Run, girl!”
Jesus answered a similar question in Mark 10.
And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
In other words, he wants your whole heart.
When first introduced to the God of power in the desert, the one who showed up on the mountain in a sound and light show beyond description, the children of Israel said, basically, “Moses, this God is too scary. Tell you what, you talk to him, get his demands in writing, and when you have it in black and white we’ll have our people look at it and get back to you.” Thus a relationship with rules and a book (and experts on rules and the book as intermediaries) became the norm. The question they were asking was, “What is the minimum we need to do to get what we want and keep this God from being mad at us and making our lives miserable?”
A minimum marriage requires signatures in black and white on a marriage certificate. A true marriage requires a husband to lovingly lay down everything for his wife, the way Christ laid down his life for the church, and for a wife to respond to that love by offering him everything she has in return. The Bible often uses the metaphor of the Bride of Christ for his chosen church, the ones who have responded to his call.
Being a Christian is all about relationship. And yes, God does communicate with his beloved with more than rules and a book. He has already given everything. She just has to come to him.
“Come Away”
You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance.
(Psalm 32:7)
I rather admire asters. Late bloomers like me.
So here it is October and they are finally opening up. Most of the flowers the deer didn’t eat in their autumn munchies fest have already succumbed to early morning frost. But the asters? They’ve got the garden to themselves, and they are loving it. Go for it, ladies!
They will still bear fruit in old age,
they will stay fresh and green,
proclaiming, “The Lord is upright;
he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”
(Psalm 92:14,15)
I would love to have the satisfaction of knowing that I am right. There is a wonderful sound a golf ball makes when it falls in the hole after a long putt. Being right feels like that sound.
But sometimes I miss it. Sometimes I miss it so badly I’m not even on the right fairway. Sometimes I’m on the green in one and then…, putt, putt, putt, putt…
Some things in the Bible are crystal clear -like the fact that God loved us so much he gave his only son so that anyone who believes in him could be saved.
Other things are not so clear. My understanding requires constant correction.
Depending on where you are standing the reflections in a pond might appear differently to different people. The chapter that talks about love (placed in the middle of instructions on how to properly use the gifts/tools that the Father has given us to build each other up and encourage fellow travellers on this road) says that what we perceive this side of being face to face with perfection is like seeing a blurred reflection. It uses the word ainigma -a riddle or puzzle to be pursued.
It’s frustrating. I want that satisfaction of having clear instructions. I want to know I am right -frankly so I can “prove” to others that they are wrong -and maybe “fix” them by goading them with a cattle-prod of truth. How can I poke anyone (or bludgeon or whip or tear down) with blurry understanding of details?
For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim (blurred) reflection [of reality as in a riddle or enigma], but then [when perfection comes] we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part (imperfectly), but then I shall know and understand fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been fully and clearly known and understood by God]. (1 Corinthians 13:12 Amplified)
One night, after a frustrated prayer asking for exact directions, I heard a still, almost silent voice, “If I showed you where I was going with this it would remove the element of faith.” (If you don’t believe that God talks to ordinary imperfect people sometimes, then you may just want to move along. This is not the blog for you.)
The point of asking riddles is to keep a person engaged. The Lord wants a closer relationship with us. When we have glimpses of another way in which he expresses himself we have the option of pursuing that fleeting flicker of colour or turning back to the world of black and white where everything appears to be more decently in order.
I wonder too, if this pursuit of the Holy in blurred reflections requires us to admit we don’t know everything and that very act of humility draws us closer to the One who does know everything. I wonder if it is in those teachable moments of meekness that we can hear his voice most clearly, that he whispers his secrets to us.
It’s His kindness that leads us to change how we think.
“Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.
Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.
Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.
Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.” (Galatians 6:1-10 The Message)
“Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope.” That is the order. You cannot put patience and experience into a parenthesis, and, omitting them, bring hope out of tribulation.
– Alexander MacLaren (1826 -1910)
Charis: Subject to Change 