In worship an increased power steals its way into the heart sanctuary, an increased compassion grows in the soul. To worship is to change.
– Richard J. Foster
Tag: photography
Leaning
The nurse reminded me to keep my head above my heart when she handed me the page of post-surgical instructions. I chuckled. People have been trying unsuccessfully to convince me to do that for years.
“I’m serious. You could hit the floor if you bend over to pick fluff off the carpet. It takes a while for the anaesthesia to wear off. Take it easy for a couple of days.”
So, armed with the excuse to avoid work I put my feet up and watched a live-streamed event from Los Angeles all day on Saturday. What I saw caused my heart to rise well above my head.
I can’t explain it. When I saw a delegation from Korea pour out their hearts in prayer for America, I wept. When I saw First Nations people forgive white men for horrors brought upon them and join with Jewish people to drum and blow shofars I was undone.
Yes! Yes! There is something about honouring roots that will heal this land. I don’t know how I know, I just do. My spirit leaps at the sight of Aboriginal people dancing in praise to the Creator – perhaps because the Algonquin people rescued my great grandmother when she was a child. They raised her and taught her how to live off the land while loving and respecting it. I am so grateful. My heart also wants to stand up and honour people who have survived hundreds of years persecution by misled religious people to discover the real Messiah.
I wept with the representatives of African American people from troubled cities who offered forgiveness and I travailed with Black women who cried out for their children. I was amazed at the sight of Armenians and Turks with their long history of hatred making efforts to reconcile. I saw steps toward unity when Roman Catholics and Protestants embraced each other and the shards of many splinter groups recognized one Lord, one faith, one baptism.
What impressed me the most was tens of thousands of people under the age of thirty who stood in line at 4 a.m. and then stood in the rain for fifteen hours, and stood shoe-less with footwear held in the air as a demonstration of their dedication to go to the streets to demonstrate the goodness of God beyond the walls of the church. They have a desperate need to turn away from division and strife and powerless Christianity with mere theoretical grace and toward love and hope and demonstrations of the real thing. So do I.
As I sometimes do when I am watching a video or listening to a podcast, I doodled. I planned to try painting in watercolours since I haven’t done that for a while. I started a simple sketch as a basis for a painting, but I kept adding to it. I didn’t have a theme in mind, and I have never drawn a depiction of Jesus – mostly because I don’t like relying on any artist’s interpretation, so why should I add mine, but that’s the way the drawing went. In the end I decided to leave it as a pencil drawing.
I guess I was thinking about John the disciple, who referred to himself as one who Jesus loved, leaning on his Master at the last supper, because there he was in the drawing. In my mind he was just a young man with a wannabe beard. He had no idea what lay ahead. None of them did. All John knew was that Jesus loved him, and he was safe.
That’s all he needed to know.
I watched the crowds of young adults at the Los Angeles Coliseum respond to worship and make commitments with nothing more to go on than the knowledge that Jesus loves them. But that’s all they need to know. Secure in that knowledge they can move mountains.
Like John and the ten remaining disciples and the other people who were transformed when the Holy Spirit came in power, I do believe this generation will change the world.
My head may try to stay above my heart, but it can’t. My heart tells my head to get into alignment with God’s purposes because the drums are beating, the shofar is sounding, the wind is blowing and the fire is falling. The world will know that Jesus didn’t come to condemn them, but rather through him they can be saved. God loved us enough to send his only son so that whoever believes in him will have life -eternal life, abundant life. We can lean on him and be safe.
An old song just came to mind:
What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
.
What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms?
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms
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Let All the Earth Rejoice
The splendor of the King
Clothed in majesty
Let all the earth rejoice
All the earth rejoice
He wraps Himself in light
And darkness tries to hide
It trembles at His voice
Trembles at His voice
How great is our God, sing with me
How great is our God and all will see
How great, how great is our God
– Chris Tomlin
This morning I am downloading photos from my camera as I listen to live streaming of a gathering of believers from around the world. A delegation of Koreans is praying for North America. They were singing Holy, Holy, Holy and How Great is Our God as this photo came up.
My heart cries out to the Lord with them. With tears.
How I love the Korean Church. They can pray!
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Evidence of Transformation
I love those time-lapse videos of plants tossing over bits of soil as they shoot up and flowers unfurling like proud flags on the top of their stems. Beautiful! But as I stare at a skinny daffodil stem in my garden I realize that is not my earth-bound time reality. Even if I observe, with utmost patience, the tiny yellow tip on the end I still can’t see any change. If I go away for a few days and re-visit it when I come home I can see progress, but it’s way too slow to see without enhancement.
A course I am taking suggests keeping a journal with a special section for “evidences of transformation.” Why? Because sometimes the process of personal transformation is like watching the unfolding of springtime in the Rockies – in slow motion. It’s not easy to see change. It can be discouraging. Old habits die hard.
This has been the kind of week that used to hit all my anxiety triggers.
– I just drove eighteen hours return trip (passing several serious accidents on the way) to help someone who passionately hates me no matter what I do, and yet needs me.
– Ambient noises in the hotel (none of which were the fault of management) startled me awake every fifteen to thirty minutes or so for two nights in a row.
– Dear people I looked forward to visiting while I was in that city were all desperately sick with the flu. I felt it was not wise to expose myself to the virus since I am booked for surgery tomorrow.
– My last surgery date was cancelled when two doctors fell ill themselves. Since it involves a biopsy, having to wait another month until they could be replaced and another OR time booked has been a little hard on the nerves. Then there’s the increasing pain issue.
– We encountered legal complications this week because the actions of a person who (sadly) is mentally ill and not able to make wise decisions right now.
– On Tuesday one of our precious grandchildren was diagnosed with the same rare condition her father has – one that greatly challenged him and our entire family when he was growing up and still makes his life difficult.
– Then my husband and I got into a major argument because we had different memories of the outcome of an important discussion that took place months ago. Work I did on that basis may have to be thrown out.
– We are both dealing with unwelcome signs of aging in the other one – like less acute hearing for both of us.
– Family and friends I love are also facing major stressful events in their lives – life and death issues, some of them – and I do care.
– Worst of all, my fat pants are too tight.
But I’m not overwhelmed -and that is a miracle right there.
I’m grateful for the advice to make note of evidence of change in the way I think. It’s time to evaluate by looking at my life in a kind of time-lapse photography manner. Maybe I need one photographic exposure every few months to see change.
It’s still stressful and my upset tummy tells me I am not yet completely at peace, but five years ago I would have been in a flipping panic and ten years ago I would have needed medication. Old posts are showing up on my Facebook of memories of this day in an eight year history. This is good for me. They remind me of very stressful times in our lives and tremendously exciting times of answered prayer and periods of accelerated growth. I can look at a memory frame that comes up and see how God took care of us and the strength he built in us through situations custom-designed to stretch us in faith.
So my journal entry is about thanking God that I can thank God, that his peace is growing in my heart, that I am learning to trust him not only with my problems, but with the problems of those I love. The joy of the Lord that is my strength is not dependent on circumstances and even though it seems like my progress is excruciatingly slow and I should be much further along the path by now, Holy Spirit still walks with me and surrounds me with love and promises that he is not going to withdraw his grace any time soon – or ever.
He has taught me that hope is vision-led endurance, and maybe, just maybe, that lesson is starting to sink in.
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Division and the Search for Wisdom
I looked out the window of a shop built on the edge of the Grand Canyon and thought, “Man, that other side is a long way off. Can you even get there from here? How long would it take to descend down into that great rift and back up the other side? How many miles would it be to walk around? Before telephones did the people living on either side even communicate with each other?”
Can I admit there is something strangely satisfying about venting long-withheld anger? For a moment. Then there’s the mess to clean up.
My children still talk about the day I was so frustrated with the filthy condition they left the kitchen in that I wound up and with all my might, hurled a brand new bag of Oreo cookies at the wall. They stared incredulously as the split package of crumbs and filling slid to the floor with a thud. Store-bought cookies were a highly-valued rare treat in our home. One simply does not throw Oreos at the wall.
Not the Oreos!! Mom must be really mad.
I made my point. They took me seriously and for a while, scrambled to tidy up after themselves.
But then I noticed the kids start to express their frustration with each other by throwing and smashing things. I had set a precedent. Now I had a bigger mess to clean up than a bag of broken chocolate cookies. My end goal was to raise responsible, considerate children, but I lost track of that bigger picture in my longing for just one evening without dirty dishes filling every inch of the counters (and in this case actually sitting on the floor when they ran out of room to pile them by the sink.) It was a Pyrrhic victory.
I remember reading a verse in the Bible later that said, “The anger of man does not accomplish the purposes of God.” Oops. My action was temporarily effective, but not wise.
Lately the Lord has been bringing the word wisdom to my attention. Googling “spiritual gift of wisdom” led to an interesting, if inconclusive rabbit trail. Is wisdom the ability to study scripture and make practical behavioural applications in a sermon, or is it a sudden divine download on how to secure a better mortgage rate? I’m not satisfied with what I found, frankly. I need more. I find that I am in need of wisdom about understanding God’s definition of wisdom.
Sometimes, as a starting point, we can learn more about what something is by hearing what God has to say about what it is not – like the description of love in 1 Corinthians 13. “Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”
We read in Proverbs that wisdom is not presumptuous or insolent, nor the product of our personal conclusions; in Psalms that it is not about striving or frantic activity; in James that it is not a hypocritical or bitter or envious or self-seeking action (the KJV uses the words vainglory and strife).
I looked up the original word for strife in Greek. Eritheia. That’s revealing. It implies a political-style power grab via manipulation.
In 1 Corinthians 3:3 we read: For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
The result of strife – the human fleshly way – is division. Separation. A rift as wide as the Grand Canyon.
That’s the other thing grabbing my attention lately – division. It’s as if people are pressured to join one side or another and are actually repelling each other in their zeal to win the argument. Topics may vary from vaccination to modes of education to climate and pollution to the evils of processed cheese. Mob mentality on social media means middle ground is sinking into the earth and fewer people are willing to listen to each other. More people seem willing to compromise civil behaviour and resort to dismissive name-calling to win their case. Instead of solving problems I see my culture splitting and becoming more entrenched in extremes.
I’m not the only one noticing it. The political rift is becoming dangerously polarized to the point where teenagers in my neighbourhood in a little valley in Canada talk to me about classroom discussions of fears of civil war breaking out in the country to the south. The kids see it and they are afraid of the effects it could have around the world.
How does it help to portray people who disagree with us as enemies? How did people who love the same country become adversaries? Where is wisdom in all of this?
One beloved children’s TV show host talked about taking his mother’s advice to look for the helpers after a disaster. Right now I am in a search for the wise before a disaster.
How will we recognize the wise in a world of angry frightened people hurling words at each other, rejoicing in Pyrrhic victories, and talking in terms of winners and losers?
I found this clue of what to look for and warnings of what to avoid in a search for those who demonstrate wisdom:
Who in your community is understanding and wise? Let his example, which is marked by wisdom and gentleness, blaze a trail for others.
If your heart is one that bleeds dark streams of jealousy and selfishness, do not be so proud that you ignore your depraved state.
The wisdom of this world should never be mistaken for heavenly wisdom; it originates below in the earthly realms, with the demons. Any place where you find jealousy and selfish ambition, you will discover chaos and evil thriving under its rule.
Heavenly wisdom centers on purity, peace, gentleness, deference, mercy, and other good fruits untainted by hypocrisy. The seed that flowers into righteousness will always be planted in peace by those who embrace peace.
(James 3:13-18 The Voice)
Oh Lord, we need Your wisdom. We need people You have gifted with wisdom. We need humble people willing to set down their own opinions and learn from You. We need those who see from Your perspective to arise in the body of Christ to speak purely, peacefully, gently, mercifully with deference and full of Your love and grace. Give us discernment to know when we have heard Your truth spoken in love. Help us to pay attention. Change our hearts, Oh Lord. Make us more like You.
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Materializing
Dreams carried around in one’s heart for years, if they are dreams that have God’s approval, have a way of suddenly materializing.
-Catherine Marshall
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Out of the Box
He’s not quite twelve but our grandson is showing some talent as a magician. Our family gathering this past week was a marvelous opportunity for him to show off his newly acquired skills to his younger cousins who were amazed at his ability to find coins behind their ears and make them disappear again. The three-year old followed him around, enthralled by her big cousin from High River. The four year old wanted him to do it again. And again. The five-year old wants to be just like him when he grows up. The six year old was open-mouth amazed. The seven-year old hounded him to tell her his secrets.
Some of his tricks, especially the ones involving cards, are works in progress, but still he is very entertaining. He sat beside me on the couch and showed me clips of illusionists he admired on YouTube and told me about plans for scenarios of his own.
“Okay, Grandma, imagine this,” he said. “You are in a metal box. It is cube-shaped and barely high enough to stand up in. You can feel the seams where it has been welded shut. There is no opening above you, below you, or on any side. No one can hear you shouting or banging the walls. How are you going to get out?”
I made a few suggestions. He explained why they would not work. Now I’ve got a bit of claustrophobia and I began to feel like a Robertson Davies character who “felt the weight of the mountain on his chest” as he was stuck in a narrow downward sloping tunnel on his way to a hidden cavern. I gave up.
“Use your imagination,” he said.
“I’ve been trying, honey. I don’t have any more ideas.”
“No, Grandma. I mean use your imagination. I said ‘Imagine this,’” he laughed. “Your imagination put you in the box. It’s not real! Imagine something else and you’re out of the box.”
How incredibly simple!
Oh, I heard God’s voice in this as I drove home later. Sometimes I find my thoughts hemmed in all around. What will I do if this situation happens? I can see no solutions. This is a dilemma. I cry out for help but no one seems to hear me. I begin to panic. Then I hear the Lord gently chide me.
Your fearful imagination put you in this box. Now use your sanctified imagination to think something else. Imagine your way out of the box. Have another thought. Think wide, think high, think deep. Think My thoughts. In Me there are no limitations.
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Expectation
Be still.
Be patient.
Expect the Eternal to arrive and set things right.
Don’t get upset when you see the worldly ones rising up the ladder.
Don’t be bothered by those who are anchored in wicked ways.
So turn from anger.
Don’t rage,
and don’t worry—these ways frame the doorway to evil.
Besides, those who act from evil motives will be cut off from the land; but those who wait, hoping in the Eternal, will enjoy its riches.
(Psalm 37:7-9 The Voice)
These patiently waiting dogs caught my attention. I didn’t catch theirs though. There was only one person they looked to -the Master.
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Rest Stop
The Lord is my Fierce Protector and my Pastor.
I always have more than enough.
He offers a resting place for me
In His luxurious love.
His tracks take me to an oasis of peace,
The quiet brook of bliss.
(Psalm 23:1-2 The Passion Translation)
“Pastor” means shepherd. This translation of the beloved twenty third psalm made me think about the Good Shepherd who is, of course, the The Good Pastor.He is the model for ministry.
Until his retirement we were blessed by one of the best pastors I have ever known. He didn’t draw attention to himself, but rather always pointed to the Lord. He worked hard to create a peaceful, safe place for those in his care to rest, to be comforted, nurtured, healed and to grow in the luxurious grace and love of Jesus Christ.
Thank you, Ron.
Charis: Subject to Change 