Until it goes through fire a pot is only a pretty piece of potential.
Tag: inspiration
And When I Am Alone
I’m alone on my porch on a beautiful spring morning, drinking my second cup of coffee and watching the sunlight sift through the plum tree. It’s been less than a week since we stood in a downpour and committed my Dad’s body to the earth. Everyone has gone home, back to work. The flowers have wilted and the sympathy cards are stacked on a corner of the kitchen table.
Life goes on.
When I gave the eulogy at his funeral I talked to the children and told them about the great-grandfather most of them did not know before he had forgetting disease. We included all the children in our gathering because what better way is there to teach them about physical death and spiritual life than with a family member who loved the Lord, lived to an old age, and was longing to be present with the Lord and reunited with his loved ones? I spoke of all his fine qualities and the wonderful things he taught us. We do that at funerals. It’s about honour.
But there are things we don’t talk about. Like all human beings going back to Adam’s grandchildren he was the wounded son of a wounded son. He brought his deficits into our relationship the way I dragged mine into my own children’s nursery. There were seasons when I adored him and seasons when I avoided him for months at a time.
It was complicated.
I don’t think I had left anything unsaid before he passed away. He said he forgave me. I had certainly forgiven him and Jesus had replaced a whole lot of unwanted feelings with love and compassion for him, but there are a lot of things I can’t explain no matter how many words I use. No sympathy in form of visits or cards or flowers – or even therapy – can ever say, “I understand.” We say that to each other, but we don’t understand, not really. Every heart has its own sorrow. Every heart is alone in grief.
But we do not have to be totally alone. There is one who understands all our weaknesses. Unlike so many of the versions fed to us by angry unapproachable people of an angry unapproachable God who can’t bear to look at us because of our sin, Jesus approached us first. He, who was the perfect representative of the nature of Father God, chose to associate with those whose sins had become a part of their names -the harlot, the thief, the drunk, the hypocrite. He sat down right beside them. He was not disappointed in them because he never had any expectations in the first place. He had sympathy and compassion for them. He wept with them. He loved them. His joy in going to the cross was in knowing the freedom and new names they – and all who call on his name – would receive.
Since we have a great High Priest, Jesus, the Son of God
who has passed through the heavens from death into new life with God, let us hold tightly to our faith.
For Jesus is not some high priest who has no sympathy for our weaknesses and flaws.
He has already been tested in every way that we are tested; but He emerged victorious, without failing God.
So let us step boldly to the throne of grace, where we can find mercy and grace to help when we need it most.
(Hebrews 4:14-16 The Voice)
This morning an old song came to mind:
In the morning when I rise,
Give me Jesus.
And when I am alone,
Give me Jesus.
And when I come to die,
Give me Jesus.
You can have all this world, just give me Jesus.
He’s all I need. Because of him life goes on – eternally.
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Dangerous Proximity
I want a lifetime of holy moments. Every day I want to be in dangerous proximity to Jesus. I long for a life that explodes with meaning and is filled with adventure, wonder, risk, and danger. I long for a faith that is gloriously treacherous. I want to be with Jesus, not knowing whether to cry or laugh.
– Mike Yaconelli
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It Is Enough
My faith has found a resting place,
Not in device or creed;
I trust the ever-living One,
His wounds for me shall plead.
I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.
Enough for me that Jesus saves,
This ends my fear and doubt;
A sinful soul I come to Him,
He’ll never cast me out.
I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.
(Eliza E. Hewitt)
I love to explore the breadth, height, width, and depth of God’s love. I love to read and discuss deep theological ideas, to go beyond the basics of the faith as advised in Hebrews, to experience various expressions of worship, to listen to stories of divine healing and miraculous adventures in the Holy Spirit and of the heartaches and victories of those carrying the message of salvation around the world. There are some crazy adventures out there. God is amazing.
But all of these things are an exhausting distraction if we have not found our rest in Him. In seasons of stress and grief we realize the necessity of returning to a place of rest; we search for our center.
I find it interesting that so many profound truths found in great old hymns were written by women who held no office in any institutional church. They didn’t need to. Like many of Jesus’ female friends and disciples their credentials were established by their relationship with Christ and they expressed that in ways that didn’t involve a pulpit. Eliza Hewitt found that resting place that some with greater recognition have missed – Christ-centered Christianity.
Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose again – for me. Christ in me, the hope of glory. That’s all I need to know to enter His rest.
It is enough.
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Bring Him Home
When I was a wee little girl I sat on my Daddy’s shoulders as he ran and my mother screamed. He had been a competitive sprinter and he didn’t hold back. I thought sitting up there was the greatest feeling in the world.
Today I believe he knows freedom from an old man’s body and the chains of dementia and is again running as free as the wind.
His health was declining. He was becoming more child-like and he spent a lot of his time staring out the window, longing to see Jesus face to face and be reunited with Leah, the love of his life. But he told me he was afraid of pain and the process of transitioning beyond this physical place. Yesterday morning I was listening to a new recording by Josh Groban of the song “Bring Him Home” and turned it into a prayer that God would take my Daddy home, without pain, in his sleep.
My heavenly Father heard and answered, just the way he did when I prayed for Him to take Mom home. In the afternoon I got a call that when my sister-in-law went to check on him at noon she found he had passed away in his sleep. He had a recording of “How Great Thou Art” made at an anniversary party for him and Mom playing on repeat in the background.
God is good, full of mercy and very, very kind. Precious in His eyes is the death of one of His own.
I will miss him, and the conversations that never happened, but in the light of eternity, it will only be a short time before I see him again.
My Dad was a writer and a story-teller. A month ago I snapped photos of him telling one of his many tales of a Saskatchewan boyhood.
Many people will remember him for his writing and story-telling in schools and theaters and old folks homes.
I will remember being carried on his shoulders, sitting higher and moving faster than anybody else in the crowd because my Daddy was the fastest, handsomest, greatest Daddy in the world.
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Showers of Blessing, Seasons of Refreshing
All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. (Ephesians 1:3 NLT)
The main character on the old TV show “Maude” had an expression: “God is going to get you for that.”
It was funny in the way death and taxes and old age jokes are funny, because behind a lot of humour there is a vault of anger and feelings of helplessness. Some people who want to be in the business of speaking for God must be taking Maude more seriously than she took herself, because there are a lot of God-is-gonna-get-you-for-that doom and gloom prophecies abounding on the internet lately. Lots of shoulds with no hows. Given the dire predictions that God is fed up with our behaviour (and voting patterns apparently) and is going to switch from showering us with blessings to dumping nasty judgments on us, I have to stop and ask, Is that God? What does the voice of God actually sound like?
Lately I was totally rattled when I heard the voice of condemnation saying, “You are not good enough… you are a disappointment… you have failed… who do you think you are…”
All those things were factual. I have failed and disappointed people. I had not lived up to even my own standards. I felt shame (more than “I did something wrong,” but “I am something wrong”) and I didn’t know how to fix it. I spiraled down rapidly. I stood on the precipice of depression again.
Then, in His kindness, the Lord brought words of correction into my life through a random podcast and when a page fell out of my journal He reminded me that this part of the journey is about learning to better discern His voice for myself.
“The fruit of the Spirit,” said the speaker, “characterizes the way the Holy Spirit speaks.” I understand that to mean that it’s His fruit, not something I have to conjure up on my own. It is His character. He is love. He is peace. When He speaks He speaks with the voice of love, of kindness, of the reassurance of His faithfulness in seeing me through and does not reject or condemn me. His tone is gentle, kind, patient and peaceful because that’s who He is.
A question: Even if it was firm, was the voice that told you that you are a failure gentle, patient, kind, joyful, inviting you to a deeper relationship? If not, it was not Him. Wrong voice. If God is asking you to change the way you think so that it shows up in your choices He gives you access to His patience and self-control. With every challenge that will help you grow there is a provision set aside – a spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms – that will enable you to change. You need to keep your eyes on Him to access it.
Of course we reap what we sow. That’s a universal principle so obvious that even toddlers get it. Pull the cat’s tail and there is a natural consequence. Act in a self-centered manner and there is a consequence. But the voice of God doesn’t condemn and leave us there. It goes beyond should to how – and the how is all about relationship and drawing closer to Him. His voice shows us how to hit the refresh button, to agree that we have been wrong and want to change the way we think, and to feel the joy of knowing we are forgiven and starting fresh.
Instead of “I am going to get you,” He says, “Don’t worry. I’ve still got you – and I love you very, very much. I will strengthen you and help you. I began this work in you and I will complete it.”
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All the Time
Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love and the future to God’s providence.
-St. Augustine
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Grace and Glory
To live by grace means to know that there is light and there is shadow in our lives. There is glory and there is shame.
But grace draws us into the light. It coaxes us out of hiding. It wakens our dormant hopes.
Grace exchanges our shame for glory.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
The Lord will give grace and glory;
No good thing will He withhold
From those who walk uprightly.
(Psalm 84:11)
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I’ve Gotcha
Spiritual identity means we are not what we do or what people say about us.
And we are not what we have.
We are the beloved daughters and sons of God.
-Henri Nouwen
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Restore, Confirm, Strengthen and Establish
The year I started writing this blog our valley was hit by an explosive wind storm. Many homes were damaged and thousands of trees fell. (I wrote about it here.) I grieved for my beautiful shade tree, one of the victims. We carted the big old May tree away in pieces to a place where a wood chipper re-purposed it as mulch. I hated the gap left, but the back garden has improved with the increased sunlight. The roots were too hard to remove, so I left two shoots to grow and kept hacking away at the others that sprang up. Yesterday I was doing a spring clean up in the yard when I saw the first blooms on the two shoots that have become young trees. Today most of the rest of them opened.
In all the years the big tree stood there it never blossomed before May 1. At this altitude and latitude it was often closer to June 1 than May 1 when the sweet-smelling flowers appeared. Because the root system established by the old tree was so deep and wide these two new trees springing up from it are growing faster than I could have imagined. They are filling in the gap and are taller than the house now. Hundreds of flowers cover them.
As I watched them sway in the golden sun of evening the word that came to mind was “restore.”
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
(1 Peter 5:6-10 ESV)
The Lord is faithful. He himself has restored. Now I have two May trees – and they are blooming sooner than expected. The first signs of promise of the restoration of many things. I wait and watch with anticipation.
Charis: Subject to Change 