Tag: faith

She Will Sing to Me

On By Charis PsalloIn Fields, Music, Photography, Sky, Uncategorized13 Comments

‘Anah Adonai

Troubles
Troubles

 There I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor [troubling]

to be for her a door of hope and expectation.

And she shall sing there and respond as in the days of her youth

and as at the time when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

(Hosea 2: 15 Amplified)

When God speaks about the metaphorical woman in the book of Hosea, the one who has been running to everyone but the one who can save her from a self-destructive lifestyle, he says there will come a time when she will sing to him as in the days of her youth.

The word translated “sing” in the New American Standard Bible is written as “respond” in others. The Amplified uses both terms. It is the Hebrew word ‘anah.

This same word is used 38 times in the Psalms alone, usually as a cry to God to save us from some sort of trouble –or even ourselves. ‘Anah Adonai! Hoshi a na! Hear and answer, Lord! Save us!

Sometimes, when it is translated answer, it describes God’s response:

I cried. He answered.

I called. He answered

I sought. He answered

I prayed. He answered

I pleaded. He answered.

Near the end of the book of Psalms (147: 7) one phrase directs the answering/responding/singing to God. Sing [‘anah] to the Lord with thanksgiving. (NASB)

I’ve been thinking about singing as our response to God –and about him singing to us. He also cries, calls, seeks, and pleads to us to answer him, not to rescue, but to recognize who he is, that he might be able to lavish his love on us. Is it possible that God’s call is like a prayer to those with ears to hear?

I have learned, the hard way, that sometimes the Lord didn’t answer my prayers and left me in a very uncomfortable place (called the Valley of Achor or Valley of Trouble in Hosea), not because he didn’t want to give me good things, but because he wanted me to be desperate enough to pursue him and find out who he really was. I needed to let go of the image I had of him and move toward deeper relationship. My image of him was made up of a compilation of authority figures I had known -and he was none of these.

He’s not a father who created us and then moved out, or a cruel task master, or even Santa Claus. God is not a lot of things we project onto him. God is holy, which means completely set apart, totally unique and different from anyone or anything we have ever known -but definitely worth getting to know.

I’m still learning as each new lesson and accompanying practical exam reveals more of his character.

A relationship with God can start with a cry for help, but it can move on to something much more mature.

After years of “saying my prayers” and giving him my daily laundry list of requests, I am learning prayer is more about finding out what he wants than telling him what I want.

When we pray and agree with his plans we see answers, but first we have to find out who is really is and what is on his heart. Prayer is about spending time with him, listening, studying His plans, examining them, being inspired by them and receiving a vision for the future that includes our participation.

What he desires to do is greater and so much better than anything we have ever imagined -but we need to respond to him and move toward him to be part of it. When we ask according to what is on his heart we see answers, but first we have to find out what is on his heart.

And that requires turning around from our own self-designed blue prints and responding to him. He delights in his beloved bride and responds to the things on her heart as well.

There is something about Armenian/Canadian soprano, Isabel Bayrakdarian’s voice in this video, recognizing who God is that carries my own heart’s song. Holy, holy, holy are you, Lord!

Father Holy

Son Holy

Spirit Holy

I bless you now and forever.

Lead me to the Rock

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Photography3 Comments
Higher
Higher

Hear my cry, O God;

Give heed to my prayer.

From the end of the earth I call to You when my heart is faint;

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

For You have been a refuge for me,

A tower of strength against the enemy.

Let me dwell in Your tent forever;

Let me take refuge in the shelter of Your wings.

(Psalm 61:1-4)

Pull on the Strings of My Heart

On By Charis PsalloIn MusicLeave a comment

Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

(James 4:8)

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace,

that we may receive mercy

and find grace to help in time of need.

(Hebrews 4:15-16)

It All Depends

On By Charis PsalloIn Just folks, Photography4 Comments
"No!"
“No!”

Anyone who has spent time with a toddler knows about free will. One of the first words nearly all of us learn to say is NO.

Someone pointed out to me this morning that Jesus never preached about grace. It’s as if, for him, grace was a given. He demonstrated grace and lived the Father’s love, but his verbal message to us over and over was “You must have faith. Faith is your part.”

Faith is what engages grace.

I wanted to give my little granddaughter a frozen strawberry yogurt on a stick as a treat. She loves strawberry yogurt. It was very hot and I knew she would enjoy what I had prepared for her.

But she is 18 months old. She has free will. A parent learns quickly that you can pick up a child and take them where they do not want to go, but you cannot make them eat, or sleep, or use the potty or give grandma a hug. You can cajole, entice, plead, reward, punish and otherwise manipulate them, but you cannot make them do any one of these things – nor do it for them. They have a will.

Love does not permit me to shove a treat down her throat.

I had a yogurtsicle (and a warm wash cloth to help with the consequences of her inexperience). I also had a lot of love and hugs for her, which she did not earn, that I wanted to lavish on her, but in order to receive it she had to turn and respond to me.

I think this is a picture of our relationship with God. He has infinite grace and love to offer us, and we have the ability to say no. If we did not have the ability to say no, we would not have the ability to say yes.

I want a relationship with my granddaughter. I love her simply because she is my granddaughter. She doesn’t need to do anything to earn that love. I will love her even if she doesn’t turn around, but she will miss everything I have for her if she doesn’t make the choice to come to me.

God has so much love, so much grace, so much goodness waiting for us. He only wants us to respond to him. Trusting him enough to turn around from our ability to say no and acting upon our ability to say yes is called faith. It’s essential. Love does not permit him to shove his goodness down our throats. It is written, And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)

It’s all about relationship. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. (James 4:8)

Baubles

On By Charis PsalloIn Man made, Photography3 Comments
Jerusalem Shop
Jerusalem Shop

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
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)

More Baubles
More Baubles

God is still good.

Quite Contrary

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Flowers, Photography13 Comments
Delicate
Delicate

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)

The Power of Weakness

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Photography5 Comments
It's the Little Things
It’s the Little Things

But He said to me,

“My grace is sufficient for you,

for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

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.”

― Gayle D. Erwin, The Jesus Style

Don’t Stop Thinkin’ About Tomorrow

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Photography5 Comments
Light Arises in the Dark
Light Arises in the Dark

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
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.

(Philippians 3:8-14)

Montivagant

On By Charis PsalloIn Fields, Mountains, Photography4 Comments
Hill and dale
Hill and dale

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.

(Psalm 34:19)