Tag: God

A Thin Silence

On By Charis PsalloIn Fields, Trees and forests2 Comments

IMG_4730 roadside 2 ch

I can’t hear normally right now. A nasty cold has tormented my sinuses for almost a month and has now taken up residence in my ears. For several days my left ear has not been giving my brain the usual messages. Voices on the phone sound like they are coming through a kazoo on the other side of a heavy door. I can’t hear the sound of my feet on the trail, or the wind in the trees. At the same time normal noises are painfully loud.  I avoid nerve-jarring distorted noise at the level of normal conversation, and run from loud sounds that feel like a slap to the ears, yet I strain to hear the quiet things, like the little ping that tells me I have a message on my cell phone. I feel like I am shut up inside my own head (where the sound of chewing my breakfast crunchies is like giant aliens devouring some hapless metropolis in a sci-fi flick.)

What an odd and uncomfortable feeling – especially for someone whose lifestyle has focused on hearing the fine nuances of music for so many years. It’s taking its sweet time clearing up, this wretched infection, but in the meantime maybe there is something to be learned (or un-learned) even in this.

I thought about Elijah’s still small voice experience again today. After a tremendous victory on Mount Carmel in which the Lord rained down fire, and sent the rains at his request, he ran from the ugly threatening voice of the King’s wife. He ran all the way back to the place where Moses has his trumpet blast and fire on the mountain experience.

There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 

He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” 

And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.”

And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.  And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire the sound of a low whisper [or a sound, a thin silence]

And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.(1 Kings 19, 11 -13 ESV)

I think it was straining to hear a soft voice today that reminded me of the story. When I looked up the Hebrew words describing this “still, small voice” I found it was stiller and smaller than I thought. It was still like a calm sea after a storm. It was small like a particle of dust, less than a hair’s breadth, barely perceptible — except to a prophet who recognized it.

David wrote that the voice of the Lord thunders. Sometimes we can hear Him loud and clear. Moses and the children of Israel certainly did, and it scared most of them half to death. But sometimes his voice can only be heard in thin silence.

In thin silence there are no other sounds competing for attention. No other voices playing anything-you-can-preach-I-can-preach-louder – and which then add electronic amplification.

In thin silence we are forced to lean in closer, to wait for a particle of sound, the Voice that speaks in stillness.

A Father’s Wrath

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Fields, Sky4 Comments

 

foothills storm sharp

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.

Go-between

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, SkyLeave a comment

IMG_0119

“Human beings seem to have a perpetual tendency to have somebody else talk to God for them. We are content to have the message second-hand. One of Israel’s fatal mistakes was their insistence on having a human king rather than resting on the theocratic rule of God over them. We can detect a note of sadness in the word of the Lord, ‘they have rejected me from being king over them’ (1 Sam. 8:7). The history of religion is the story of an almost desperate scramble to have a king, a mediator, a priest, a pastor, a go-between. In this way we do not need to go to God ourselves. Such an approach saves us from the need to change, for to be in the presence of God is to change.”
― Richard J. Foster

Love is Louder II

On By Charis PsalloIn Uncategorized7 Comments

mourning to dancing fushiasI stood outside the door of our son-in-love’s room and listened to the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard yesterday.

“Look at me, Daddy! Look at me!”

“I love you, Daddy!”

“Tickle me again, Daddy!”

Then laughter and fake groaning and the sounds of a daddy and his little ones wrestling.

Later I watched as all three little ones cuddled their daddy and watched a movie. The baby was smiling in his lap, the two-year old flopped over daddy’s shoulders and the four-year old leaned her blonde head on his chest and asked her hundreds of  why questions.

I watched mommy and daddy and the three little ones share a dinner of steak and chocolate -except for baby, of course.

I sat and talked with “John” about the journey we have been through since March 23. When I told him the stories of how people who had never prayed much were woken in the night with a burden to pray, of how people who had never seen God heal were following every report on Facebook, of how some were hearing the voice of God for the first time, of how a student’s mother told my daughter-in-law that she was receiving prayer updates from her mother in Vegreville who was receiving them from someone up there who knew the mother-in-law of this guy, of how friends stood by his bed and filled the waiting room day and night , of how his mother and I took turns holding each other up, of how his wonderful, quiet father was a bulwark of faith who said in his delightful German accent, “We will have no negative words here. We will only speak truth,”, of how his father-in-law wept as he cried out to God, of how his wife gave thanks in the middle of the worst days of her life and was a beacon of hope to everyone else herself, of how hospital staff from other wards found excuses to come by ICU to see what was happening, of how my friend told me she had renewed faith to pray for her own sons, of how the church is waking to come together, to pray together for healing of this land….

He cried. He cried tears of sorrow for what his family and friends endured and of joy for the kindness of strangers and for what God has done.

He said, “He didn’t have to do it. I could have died, and I would have been okay to go to be with him, but God healed me. He has given more years to be with my wife and my children. I have always loved Jesus, but now there is something much deeper.”

“Do you know how much of your effort, how many of your outstanding natural talents and abilities God used to do this thing?” I asked him. “Nothing! None. Not a thing. Boy, you were the most helpless a man could be. You couldn’t even breathe on your own. You had no blood pressure without a constant drip of medication. You had no kidney function without a big machine to clean your blood. You couldn’t move without a nurse doing it for you. You couldn’t say one charming, intelligent thing. You couldn’t move a single athletic muscle. You even needed other people to give up their own blood to replace yours. And let me tell you, the handsome thing wasn’t working for you much in those days either -and when you finally opened your eyes they weren’t even going the same direction. God used other people in the process, but none of this came about by a single effort of yours. Not one.”

He cried some more. “There is something much, much deeper about God’s love that I know now that I just can’t explain,”  he said softly.

Then we received a text message from someone who had been speaking to the physician who headed the large skilled team of specialists who treated “John.”

“You know it’s only by a miracle that guy survived,” he told him candidly.  Another physician dropped the f bomb and said, “That guy should be dead.”

We know.

So this is love. This is what a miracle feels like. He still has rehab work to do, but in the meantime, we laugh, we cry, we praise God. Mommy and Daddy and the kids cuddle together and we pass the popcorn while we watch a movie.

The words of an old song taken from Isaiah come to me as I write this in the early morning hours before the baby wakes up:

He has surely borne our sorrow

He has taken the sin debt away

He was bruised for our iniquities

And by His stripes we are healed today.

Love is louder.

Because He First Loved Us
Because He First Loved Us

Related post:

https://charispsallo.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/love-is-louder/

Press on to Know

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Mountains, Sky7 Comments

come as showers raincloud pastel IMG_0310

My favourite episode of Star Trek the Next Generation is one in which the crew makes contact with beings who speak entirely in metaphor and allegory. Instead of saying romance they would say “Romeo and Juliet on the balcony,” for example. The “translator” program doesn’t work, so the captain of the aliens meets the captain of the Enterprise on a planet where they will face great adversity together against an invisible monster enemy. This is all in an attempt to communicate.

I am beginning to understand that God goes through times of adversity with us not only to teach us about his character of love, holiness and faithfulness, but to attempt to teach us His language. He says, “hard-hearted at Meribah” meaning  complaining in unbelief and taking things into our own hands. He says, “crossing the Jordan” meaning belief and trusting him by moving on into something new. He says, “Joseph in jail,” meaning waiting on the Him to exalt you at the right time.

Sometimes when he brings up memories of personal traumas we have been through, he is saying, “Remember. Was I not sufficient for you?”

God is so good at using what the enemy of our souls intended for harm, like the invisible monster in the Star Trek episode, that we think He was the one who hit us with it. Obviously we live in a place where everything is not yet in line with what is happening in heaven (I have more prayer requests in my inbox today that are a reminder of that) but he is teaching us to battle, and to persevere and to trust His character.

Today I am seeing the goodness of God and his provision in the midst of difficult circumstances.  Already I know that God wants us to know Him better, so He is meeting us in here in this place to go through the circumstances with us. He is beside us and someday He will say, “Do you remember the time….?”  and I will smile and say, “Thank you, Lord for walking through that with us. You were indeed sufficient. And look at the fruit that came out of it!”

God is good.

Save

He Loves Us

On By Charis PsalloIn Music1 Comment

One night as I was praying I heard, “Those who are afraid to pray, ‘Thy will be done,’ do not comprehend My love.”

 

Abba, I pray we might know your love more and more so we would fearlessly say yes to everything you have for us.

Risk and Faith

On By Charis PsalloIn Just folks, Photography7 Comments

faith risk

Over several nights I had recurring dreams about being given various objects to carry, things like  brown shoes, musical notation paper, a rose etc. I was told in the dreams that I would need these things later. None of this made sense to me and I remember asking (still in a dream) what I needed them for.

The answer came, “If I tell you where I am going with all this, it will remove the element of faith.”

I knew then it was the Lord.

I think sometimes Abba doesn’t give us a detailed itinerary for the journey ahead because it is the act of taking a risk that enables Him to demonstrate His faithfulness -and really, the element of faith is all about  His faithfulness and not our own ability to drum up vast amounts of confidence in a desired outcome or “happy ending.”

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (active living rhema word). Sometimes that active, living word of God is simply, “Open the door.”

This is Not About Guns

On By Charis PsalloIn Man made, Photography14 Comments
Bar the Door
Bar the Door

Maybe it’s time to stop talking about guns and address the real issue. Maybe it’s time to talk about fear.

I’ve been trying (not always successfully) to stay out of the discussion about handgun and assault gun ownership. It’s another argument that tends to produce more heat than light, and frankly some of these people scare me. Sometimes I find that when an argument pulls me in with the tentacles of emotion it’s best to move back for a while and look at the bigger picture.

A post a friend made about the Swiss being required to have a gun in the home, yet having a low rate of use made me think.

Some people have insisted that gun ownership is not the issue; it’s gun usership. Last night, as I lay awake, it struck me that neither gun ownership nor gun control may be the issue. Perhaps the real issue is the underlying factor that motivates both sides: fear.

After some thought I had to admit my reasons for being against gun ownership were also motivated by fear. I have never heard of a case of crime thwarted by a gun owned by a private citizen in my neck of the woods. I have however, met far too many grieving people whose loved ones used a gun on themselves in a fit of despair or self-loathing. They had no chance to change their minds and call an ambulance. (When I was going through the hell of depression I could easily have been one of them if my husband had kept guns.)

I know regretful families, in agony, now raising children who shot their little sisters or favourite cousins while playing with a temporarily unguarded firearm. A friend’s son once shot our boy at point blank range in the chest with a beebee gun while the rest of us chatted over dessert inside. (He thought it wasn’t loaded.) It caught a rib, and I thank God with all my heart that it wasn’t a more powerful weapon.

We also have a family member who was accosted in her bedroom by an intruder who had already found her handgun. It did not turn out well for her.

My rejection of guns designed to kill people (and not just for hunting purposes where people actually depend on wild game) is based on experience, but it is indeed, based on fear.

When I was a kid I knew it was dangerous to get between Grandpa and the late news on TV (and not because he had a gun). In fact he had been an unarmed security guard for a meat packing plant for 25 years. I never realized until he was suffering from dementia that he spent every one of those 25 years in fear. Grandma had promised not to put him in “the home” but when he started sleeping with knives under the pillow and bats under the bed she had no choice. Sometimes in his confusion he mistook her for a burglar. Nothing is more dangerous than a cornered, confused, fearful person with a weapon.

The news Grandpa watched was usually the same news he had seen at six o’clock, but nothing interrupted his late night news. I think it made him feel more in control somehow to keep on top of what was happening outside his locked doors. The difference between then and now is that the news then was mostly local news and included reports of milk chute coin thefts and fender benders. Now the news plays all day and night and includes detailed footage of horrendous crime from around the world and can seem as threatening as if blood was flowing in our own neighbourhoods. The fear ante has gone up.

Then there are all the talking heads, prophesying  fiasco  and speculating ”unsubstantiated reports.” Their amplifiers, the social media, can spread fear, rumour and conspiracy theories that go around as rapidly as winter cold germs in a kindergarten.

But what does fear feed on? Well, bad guys, of course, but I wonder if, deep down, one of our greatest fears is that other people will treat us the way we have treated them. I wonder if the secret hates we harbour in our hearts, or the unspoken guilt over the innocents killed by “collateral damage,” or the third world labourers we have exploited to maintain “our way of life”, or even the people we have cut off in traffic or sold shoddy goods to, give fear something to grow on.  I wonder of the god we created in our own image, the vengeful and punishing god-helps-those-who-help-themselves god, is unreliable, if our distrust of ourselves and disappointment in the many fathers who left this generation to fend for themselves, is projected onto him as well.  (The statement, “God helps those who help themselves is not in the Bible; in fact it teaches quite the opposite.)

One person told me recently that although he thinks children should be taught the Bible in school, and all teachers (whether they disdain faith in God or not) should be required to lead prayers to him anyway (as if the kids won’t pick up that attitude), “when all else fails” he has a gun and knows how to use it -and he intends to teach his kids too. I’ve got to wonder if making preparation for the failure of his god to meet his needs speaks more loudly than all the prayers in school ever will and he is teaching his children more about fear than faith.

Perhaps it is too late to turn our swords into plowshares. Perhaps the only thing that will deter fearful people with weapons is more fearful people aiming equally powerful weapons back at them. Perhaps there is no way out of this stand-off.

But perhaps, this is what this season is all about. Perhaps the message that the angels gave the terrified shepherds is what we need to hear most.

“Fear not! For I bring you news of great joy. A Saviour has been born –for you.”

When through the woods

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Photography, Trees and forests3 Comments

When through the woods and forest glades I wander

Then sings my soul,

my Saviour God to Thee.

How great Thou art.

Rock of Ages

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Uncategorized6 Comments

Photo: Sinclair Canyon, Radium. B.C.

On the way to my father’s house this week I needed to pass through this cleft in the rock at Radium, B.C. The gap is barely wide enough for a two lane road and a stream. The stream pours through and falls dramatically into the valley below.

It reminds me of God’s provision in the wilderness when rocks were split and water poured out for the children of Israel. This is a symbol of Christ, the Rock, who was struck and wounded for us. As the old hymn says:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Save from wrath and make me pure.

Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath,
When mine eyes shall close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See Thee on Thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee

This cleft rock in the pass also reminds me of that time at Meribah when the people were again grumbling. God told Moses not to hit the rock again , but to speak to it. Moses, for some reason -perhaps in anger and frustration with those who questioned his leadership- decided to go for the drama and smacked it with his rod.

That moment cost Moses dearly. Later we read about him on Mount Pisgah (which coincidentally means cleft or split, in case Moses forgot). God took him up there so he could see the promised land, but he himself could not enter it. As great a hero as Moses was, God would not be upstaged.

No matter how great a ministry someone may have, whether it involves signs and wonders and miracles and fireworks or even flying mountains and chariots of fire racing around the Daytona track, if the person through whom God chooses to work steps into the spotlight him or herself they will only see the fulfillment of promises from a distance -alone.

Seriously.

 Don’t be under any illusion: you cannot make a fool of God! A man’s harvest in life will depend entirely on what he sows. If he sows for his own lower nature his harvest will be the decay and death of his own nature. But if he sows for the Spirit he will reap the harvest of everlasting life by that Spirit. Let us not grow tired of doing good, for, unless we throw in our hand, the ultimate harvest is assured. Let us then do good to all men as opportunity offers, especially to those who belong to the Christian household. (Galatians 6:7-10)