All is well all is well
Angels and men rejoice
For tonight darkness fell
Into the dawn of love’s light.
(From All is Well by Wayne Kirkpatrick and Michael W. Smith)
Tag: photography
Re-gifting and Re-joicing
“It’s pretty and all, Lord, but I miss the flowers,” I told God while out on a walk in the winter garden. Then I walked past this cluster of snow flowers and felt him smile. It was as if he was saying, “Here ya go!” I smiled back and thanked him for the gift.
I took a photo and now I pass it on to you. My gift to you.
I love getting gift cards for Christmas, especially for coffee shops. One day I was with a friend who was popular among the many families she worked with. She collected a pile of gift cards on her desk in the days before the holiday. Then I saw her do the most surprising thing. She took a some of the cards, re-wrapped them and wrote other names on them.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Re-gifting,” she said. “I have been given so much I just want to share. These are going to people who live alone or just need some cheering up.”
Today I was reading about the fruit of the Spirit and how joy comes from God because he delights in us. He is the source of joy. Re-joicing is like re-gifting. It is taking from the abundance of God’s delight and giving back to him as well as to others.
The good news of Jesus Christ is a gift of abundant love, joy, and peace. Pass it on.
What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?
(Romans 8:31, 32 NLT)
Just ask.
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Overtures of Love
Worship is our response to the overtures of love from the heart of the Father. Its central reality is found ‘in spirit and truth.’ It is kindled within us only when the Spirit of God touches our human spirit.
-Richard J. Foster
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The Graceful Icicle
I bobbed around changing position, but the light kept getting in my eyes. I have a thing about natural light and my desk is near the window. I’ve set up the computer screen in front so it faces away from the light and remains readable. But for a brief time during the shortest days of the year the low sun will shine in my eyes in the afternoon. Then I have to lower the shade.
Yesterday the light was almost blinding. I got up to see what was causing it when I saw the sun shining through an icicle on the corner of the porch roof. I grabbed my camera, of course.
It’s not a talent I asked for, but I can tell the difference between a depression-induced hallucination, a vision, and the sun behind frozen water that had dripped from an eaves trough that is probably blocked again. This sight still caught my attention.
The icicle, which I barely noticed before, was, in a way, a reminder of failure (we really should have cleaned out those eaves before the snow fell) and the cold cruel world out there that took away all my colourful flowers and froze the water pipes this week (another pain to fix).
Then light shone through failure and coldness and turned it into a glowing sword.
Sometimes I feel like a failure, done in by procrastination yet again. Sometimes my heart is cold in response to a hard season and I think all I can do is hang in there until circumstances change. I don’t feel particularly effective in making a difference in this world.
But this is what I saw. When I am subject to the light shining through unguarded transparency, without any reliance on my own brilliance, I am transformed. That’s grace.
Graham Cooke says grace empowers us to become what God sees when he looks at us. His grace shining through and entering our very being transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.
This is amazing grace. Christ in us, the hope of glory.
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Glimpse
When I’m walking on ice I keep my head down. A broken arm and a broken leg taught me the wisdom of minding my step. My legs and ankles tense up as I carefully find the least slippery route, often on the edge of the path where dead thorn bushes poke through the snow.
One day I was walking through a shadowy part of the forest on an ice-covered trail when I caught a glimpse of the sky in a tiny puddle. I had been concentrating so hard on not falling that I lost sight of the rest of my surroundings. The reflection reminded me to look up.
When Moses asked to see God he was permitted to see only a glimpse from inside a cleft of a rock. The aspect of himself God chose to show was his goodness, and only a fraction of that lest Moses be overwhelmed.
Sometimes seeing a glimpse of God’s goodness, or grasping a few words from the love song he sings over us in the night, or hearing his voice in nature or scripture or right out loud, causes us to feel amazed – and then frustrated that we can’t hear more.
Those who have had encounters with who God really is are often wrecked for trudging through a cold, grey, sinful, sorrowful world with an it-is-what-it-is attitude. Now they long for more – because they have had a glimpse of more.
Frustration is a sign that God is about to increase our capacity to receive more. We wonder why we feel so uncomfortable. We can walk away at that point, or we can look up, preparing for the enlarging aspect of himself he intends to show us next. It may not be the one people around us may seem to be experiencing though. He knows who we really are too.
Isaac Watts, who wrote Joy to the World, understood.
Let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing…
There is more.
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This Way
Wonder knows that while you cannot look at the light, you cannot look at anything else without it. It is not exhausted by childhood, but finds its key there. It is a journey like a walk through the woods over the usual obstacles and around the common distractions while the voice of direction leads, saying, ‘This is the way, walk ye in it.’
-Ravi Zacharias
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Hearts Flooded with Light
I have not stopped thanking God for you.
I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.
I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.
I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.
Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come.
God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.
(Ephesians 1: 16-23 NLT)
Sometimes if we take what we think we think about God and what we actually feel about God and put them in a room together we are surprised that they don’t look the same. Sometimes they don’t even look remotely related. When we don’t have unity within ourselves? Well, that’s just crazy-making.
Both can be right and both can be wrong. When they are not aligned with who God really is both can string a barb wire fence between us and seeing the majesty of God. Both can place barriers in the way of stepping into a greater understanding of the incredible greatness of God’s power for those who believe in him. Both can restrain us from attaining everything he has for us.
“But I was always taught…”
“That reminds me of a painful time…”
His light soothes and comforts the downtrodden, the tired, and the despairing because it floods our hearts and replaces false ideas and bad memories with the trustworthiness of his splendour, his glory, his infinite grace.
He longs to give us spiritual wisdom and insight so that we might grow in increasing knowledge of God.
There is a reason why Jesus is called the Wonderful Counselor. He came to gently expose the lies we have absorbed and show us what his Father is really like. That knowledge is the foundation for confident hope.
Jesus is the light of the world.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
’til he appeared and the soul felt it’s worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn…
(From Oh Holy Night by Adolphe Adams, English lyrics by John Sullivan Dwight)
There is more.
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Light and Life
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.
(From Hark the Herald Angels Sing by Charles Wesley)
My husband told me he had sung Christmas carols for years, but he never heard the words until he met the risen king. Then all the songs came alive.
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The Blessing of Wonder
Our sense of wonder is a blessing from God, given so that we would be continually amazed at His beauty and creation.
– Ravi Zacharias
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Exuberant
Our daughter needed to study calculus as part of her bachelor degree requirements. She liked math and was good at it so she happily signed up for the course. The problem was that the only class that fit into her timetable was the class her father taught. She had hoped to avoid that scenario, still being a teen and all.
One day she needed to ask a question about something she didn’t understand. Her father carefully explained the concept covering two blackboards with figures and diagrams, then turned and asked her if she understood.
“What? Oh…” she said looking up from the page she had been doodling on. “Um, sorry. I heard you go into your lecturing voice and I tuned you out.”
The students who didn’t know about their relationship gasped in shock. Those that knew the prof was her dad laughed.
This story came back to me today as I was thinking about relating to the many facets of God. Our daughter was relating to the man at the front of the class as the dad who had been responsible for setting limits through some chaotic years. In that moment she wasn’t relating to him as a valuable teacher and missed what he had to offer. (All was not lost. That was the year she gained respect for his skills and actually changed direction to become a math education major herself.)
Many metaphors describe the way God wants to relate to us; He presents himself as creator, king, father, bridegroom, shepherd, healer, provider, lamb, mother, brother, law-giver, judge, protector and many more. Someone once asked me, “Who does God want to be for you now?”
I didn’t understand the question at the time. God is God. Holy Other. Unchanging. There is no one like him. What do you mean?
Since then I have come to know God as my loving heavenly father, Jesus as a brother and the Holy Spirit as a comforter. I’ve known him as a teacher and healer and encourager and even as an intimate friend who shares confidences. What I am still learning is how to be flexible when he wants to show me another aspect of himself.
Lately I have been spending time praying about some heavy matters brought to my attention. I feel privileged to be trusted, and I do remember praying “break my heart with what breaks yours,” but I’ve been feeling the weight of it lately. I know the joy of the Lord is my strength but I must have set it down somewhere and I’m having trouble remembering where I put it. Before I fell asleep I asked for an understanding of joy, because I don’t know how to make myself feel something I don’t feel.
It snowed last night. When I looked out my window this morning I saw the berries on the mountain ash tree covered with little tipped white piles of snow that looked like gnome hats. I ran out in my robe and slippers and took a photo, not caring what the neighbours digging out their vehicles thought. The mountain ash hats just looked silly. They reminded me of little red Smurfs. I smiled.
“There it is,” he said.
“There is what?”
“Joy. My joy. It’s been here all along. You just weren’t expecting it or looking for it.”
I need to shift my thinking and learn to relate to God as someone who has tremendous joy in spite of seeing selfish people misuse their authority and abuse the vulnerable. He knows how all this ends, and it ends well.
I remembered a passage of scripture that talks about Jesus being exuberant and full of joy because of his Father’s plans. This scene happened after he commissioned 70 people to go out ahead of him and declare the kingdom of God by healing the sick and casting out demons.
The seventy came back triumphant. “Master, even the demons danced to your tune!”
Jesus said, “I know. I saw Satan fall, a bolt of lightning out of the sky. See what I’ve given you? Safe passage as you walk on snakes and scorpions, and protection from every assault of the Enemy. No one can put a hand on you. All the same, the great triumph is not in your authority over evil, but in God’s authority over you and presence with you. Not what you do for God but what God does for you—that’s the agenda for rejoicing.”
At that, Jesus rejoiced, exuberant in the Holy Spirit. “I thank you, Father, Master of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the know-it-alls and showed them to these innocent newcomers. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way.
“I’ve been given it all by my Father! Only the Father knows who the Son is and only the Son knows who the Father is. The Son can introduce the Father to anyone he wants to.”
(Luke 10 :17-22 The Message)
I put on my warm clothes and high boots and went out into the dazzling light of the day, plowing through white powder nearly up to my knees. I listened to the distant birds, and the babbling brook. I stood under showers of tiny diamonds as the snow crystals fell from high branches in the sunlight. Today I am learning who God wants to be for me now. Jesus is introducing me to a happy Creator – my strength and my joy.
Charis: Subject to Change 