“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.
In this world you will have trouble.
But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
-Jesus Christ
Tag: spiritual growth
People of the Flame
Someone asked me recently why I don’t take a stronger stand against evil. “All that’s needed for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing,” they said. “If you keep talking about grace without warning about compromise with sin you can be held responsible for the consequences.”
Lately I’ve been hearing from a lot of folks who are sure we are about to be judged for the sins of our countries. “We’ve gone too far,” they say.
We do reap what we sow. If our pleasure or comfort comes at the expense of someone else (or even our future selves) eventually somebody’s going to get hurt. I watched the escalation of the squirt gun wars amongst my grandchildren this summer. If you squirt someone with water they have the right to shoot you back. You have set a precedent. How long do you think the fun lasted until there were tears and Grandma had to confiscate the toys? I can tell you the scenario was repeated often enough to establish the character of human nature. (Bless their hearts.)
The escalation of conflict in the world goes way beyond squirting each other with cold water. It’s a dark, ugly, scary place sometimes where even a child in his momma’s womb is not safe.
Sometimes I get the feeling some people think our countries are working on some sort of group project that is about to be judged by God’s big red pencil. The “achievers” are really ticked off with the “slackers.” The ones who feel responsible for doing everything right are running around yelling, “Now we’re all gonna fail! Aaaargh!” What if the test is not about a good mark on a paper about blood moons and calendars and court rulings and not being passively complicit in giving approval to sin? What if the assignment is all about learning to love?
I had to ask the Lord, “Am I a slacker? Have I compromised on speaking out about the consequence of defying Your orders for the way things are meant to be done in Your creation?
As I prayed I was reminded of a vision I had a few years ago. A picture flashed in my mind’s eye. A runner on a dark road in the night carrying a torch like we saw during the winter Olympics in Canada. It was a like a detailed short video and lasted only a moment, but it looked very real.
“Was that from you, Lord?” I asked.
“I miss the people of the flame.” I recognized His voice.
“What people? What flame? What happened?”
“It was buried under the bridge of compromise,” He said.
That was it. That’s all I heard. I pondered this event for some time wondering who the people were and what the flame represented. I couldn’t understand. Was this about having more fervency, more zeal? But I know plenty of amazing people striving to make the world a better place so who are these flame carriers you are missing? It didn’t make sense to me so I left it on the shelf for a while.
This week, as the memory of the vision came up again in the context of taking a public stand against sinful practices, I continued to talk to the Lord about it. I remembered a verse I learned as a child, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” (Psalm 119:105)
Pointing to the darkness and saying “This ought not to be!” is like being the kind of doctor who can diagnose a complicated case, and may be able to treat some symptoms, but offers no cure. It’s like a physician who says “Those spots indicate a serious disease process. If you didn’t have those spots you wouldn’t be sick!” We walk away thinking about how to get rid of the spots instead of how to treat the root cause.
I wonder if a type of disappointment has been growing in our communities. Like yeast that fills a lump of dough I’ve noticed a pervasive cynicism has crept in. I see so many who have experienced disappointment in the ability of hard work, religious observance, law-abiding life-styles or the false charm of political promises to make lasting deep heart-change. I wonder if disappointment is an indication that we have replaced God’s priorities with our own. We are still working hard but it’s not going the way we envisioned. We have been striving to remove the spots in ourselves and in others in the hope it will lead to a healing of the heart. But the more we try the worse the spots get.
I wonder if the flame in the vision is about true hope. Perhaps the lamp, “the Word,” does not refer to more Biblical injunctions to quit sinning. The Bible tells us that the Word is Jesus Christ Himself.
Today I asked the Lord again if I have been in error by not standing up against sin more publicly. Have I been lazy, avoiding conflict, compromising? His answer to my heart: The people of the flame carried the light. They carried hope, they carried good news. They ran into the darkness, unafraid, because they carried the flame.
After Jesus died the people who had expectations that he would deliver them from the oppressors felt profound disappointment. “But we had hoped that he was the one…” said the two followers as they walked dejectedly to Emmaus, not recognizing the person who joined them was the resurrected Jesus. They did not understand that God had much bigger plans than improving their living conditions. These were the same people who, after the Holy Spirit came with wind and tongues of flame at Pentecost, abounded in hope in the worst possible circumstances, under severe persecution. They were not concerned with “preserving their way of life.” They did not point to encroaching darkness and announce God’s judgment on a place, nor did they sit down awaiting rescue from the planet. They did not deny the darkness. They picked up their torches and ran right into the darkness. The message they carried changed the world.
They carried hope. They carried the light. The light of the world is Jesus Christ.
We each face challenges of Olympic proportion. Will circumstances become more difficult in the future? I don’t know. All I know is that in my own small way, right where I am in this little corner of the world I can run into the darkness carrying the light.
I pray that God, the source of all hope, will infuse your lives with an abundance of joy and peace in the midst of your faith so that your hope will overflow through the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)
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Into His Amazing Light
It is for you now to demonstrate
the goodness of him
who has called you out of darkness
into his amazing light.
(1 Peter 2:9)
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Dinosaurs of the Plasticine Era
A new Facebook friend made a comment this week about how she, as a sensitive person, cannot watch horror movies. I can’t either.
I liked it better when the dinosaurs looked like they were from the Plasticine Era. This CGI stuff is just getting too real. Horror movies with their detailed scales and teeth, gallons of fake blood, strings of artificial mucous, creepy music and over-the-shoulder shots are abhorrent enough, but what really unsettles me is psychological thrillers. The grandmother/therapist/best-friend/baby did it? You can’t trust anybody! Paranoia on a stick. Why would anybody feed themselves this stuff?
Well, I did, or used to. My brother and I snuck out of our rooms after our parents were asleep to watch “The Outer Limits” or “The Twilight Zone.” We kept the volume on the TV so low we had to lean in to hear. The buzz of the old set added to the flickering light ambiance of tension — and the fear of being caught. After the show I would tiptoe back to bed and lie awake all night, planning what I would do if aliens landed in the backyard. For months I ran past lamp posts or neon signs that made that same buzzing noise, fearing I was being followed by something equipped with a death ray.
Nowadays, if the boys ask me to watch a horror or action flick with them I usually turn them down. I think even chick-flicks should come with emotional content warnings. My empathic tendencies have been traumatized by too many.
You see, I’ve discovered prayer doesn’t work in a movie (except to mercifully let the thing end or break the projector or something.) If I was running from a monster, scaled or coifed, I would be praying, “HELP!” or at the very least “OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod…” (How do people cope without being able to call on him?)
But God doesn’t respond to lies. He’s not afraid of computer-generated dinosaurs. He never falls for clay or cartoon creatures. He knows the hunter never shot Bambi’s mother because Bambi’s mother was never in danger. She was not real. Bambi was not real. Godzilla is no threat to Bambi either. Asking God to respond and save us from imminent hypothetical danger is like my two-year old granddaughter hiding behind my legs and squealing that her brother is going to gobble her up – with a plasticine monster.
“You’re okay honey,” I assure her. “It’s only a pretend monster.”
This got me thinking about how the Holy Spirit responds to fears that have us quivering behind locked doors as we read scary predictions in the media, both broadcast and social.
He doesn’t.
Sometimes I cry out for deliverance and there is silence. Sometimes, when I join Chicken Little’s persuasive campaign and yell, “The sky is falling,” the Lord hands me an umbrella.
“Will this protect me from the falling sky?” I ask.
“No. But there will be rain later – the same kind of rain that has been falling off and on for centuries. Get a grip, girl.”
I have noticed that Jesus never allowed himself to be caught up in hypothetical questions. “What if…” His answer? “I will never leave you.”
It’s not that bad stuff never happens to good people. The devil still prowls around messing things up. You still reap what you sow. Corrie Ten Boom told the story of how, as a child, her father never burdened her with the responsibility of carrying a train ticket until it was time to get on the train. I think grace for trials is like that. The Lord will hand us our grace ticket when we need it. There is no provision in advance for “what if” questions because there doesn’t need to be. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, but there is no provision of supernatural intervention in a situation that we created in our own fear-based mind.
“Lord! Help me! I am under attack! The devil’s got me in his sights! What’s that strange buzzing sound?”
“You’re okay, honey. Shut the TV off and go back to bed. And quit watching that junk. It’s time to rest.”
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The Teacher
The Teacher
Teacher, tell us,
they say,
clutching rulers and texts
against their chests.
Teacher, tell us.
Sun-scorched hands loose fettered bands.
Stigmata stretch to gather hatchlings
squabbling over foreign coins and spousal deeds.
Sand-ground feet tread foot-ground trail,
Stone pillow nights await grey dawn cleft.
Weeping flute unravels dancer’s shroud.
Broken bread,
water jug wine,
a table spread valley-wide
for open-eyed children.
Offered flesh receives frightened flail,
Honest heart meets jealous scorn,
Molested shoulders bear run-away shame.
Love, he says, sweating anguish.
Love, he says, bleeding sorrow.
Love, he says, opening arms.
Love, he says, dying.
Love, he says, rising.
Love, he says, pleading.
Teacher, tell us,
they say,
tightening robes
against the winds of his breath.
Teacher, tell us,
Will this be on the exam?
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:17)
The people were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority—quite unlike the teachers of religious law. (Mark 1:22)
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Healing Rain
Healing rain is coming down
It’s coming nearer to this old town.
Rich and poor, weak and strong
It’s bringing mercy, it won’t be long…
Lift your heads, let us return
To the mercy seat where time began.
And in your eyes I see the pain.
Come soak this dry heart with healing rain.
And only you, the Son of Man
Can take a leper and let him stand.
So lift your hands, they can be held
By someone greater, the Great I Am.
Healing rain, it comes with fire
So let it fall and take us higher.
Healing rain, I’m not afraid
To be washed in Heaven’s rain.
To be washed in Heaven’s rain.
(By Michael Smith, Michael Whitaker, Matt Smith, Martin James.)
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It Only Takes a Spark
Our beautiful valley is lost somewhere in the smoke. Even the sun has trouble finding it.
It’s hard to breathe. Our eyes sting. We keep clearing our throats to rid them of irritating “particulate matter.” A thin layer of ash covers everything, and since we are on water restrictions we can’t use the hose to wash it off.
We pray for rain.
It’s hard to imagine how someone tossing a cigarette out the window could cause worried parents a thousand miles away to rush their asthmatic child to the hospital. Such is the nature of sparks.
I read this in the book of James today: It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. (James 3:5,6 The Message)
Just before this James warns: Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. (3:1 NIV)
Here’s the thing. Ideas have consequences. A teaching that is off by only a degree will have negative repercussions years or generations later. Sometimes it’s difficult to make corrections to an idea that has been around for a long time. It’s impure light can taint an entire environment.
We are not called to condemn people, but we are called to use discernment. We are told that prophecy needs to be judged, that we need to cling to Jesus’ sound doctrine, that we need to test the spirits and not believe everything we hear or read. That’s wisdom, not unauthorized condemning judgment. That’s taking responsibility for oneself. Most of all we need to be rooted and grounded in Christ’s love. Examine and test and evaluate your own selves to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it. Test and prove yourselves [not Christ]. (2 Corinthians 13:5 Amplified)
The second verse in James 3 says: We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.
I have known many excellent teachers. The best ones avoid throwing words out carelessly, but none of them are yet perfect. Rejecting everything a person has taught because they have been wrong on some point is equally as foolish as swallowing everything any public figure has ever said. Some are more reliable than others, but no one person has the complete picture of God. To reject a person’s contribution to the pool of knowledge because of an error is to assume that there are teachers out there who are without error. And that, my friends, is a set-up for spiritual abuse.
We have an example of correction when Priscilla and Aquilla, who had a relationship with Apollos, took him aside and taught him more thoroughly. They didn’t stop him; they helped him become better. They built him up; they did not attack him or tear him down.
Let me clarify something here. Jesus knew the hearts of mankind, He knew who was not trustworthy, so he didn’t open his heart to them. He gave very stern warnings to those who would cause an innocent to sin. He added: “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” (Matthew 18:15-17)
There are times to confront sin and even times to call the police. I’m not talking about covering for rapists, pedophiles, scam artists or other law-breakers here. He gives procedures for that kind of confrontation, but it is always with a view to restoration. Sometimes, alas, a person becomes so toxic to others that protection for the vulnerable is a higher priority. Those not willing to change need to be separated and warnings to the public may be necessary. But this is serious stuff and not accomplished by a stranger’s blog or Facebook rant. What I am talking about is inaccurate teachings; I’m not talking about outright sin and denial of sound doctrine (who God is) or abuse of power. I’m talking about careless words, human error, or incomplete understanding.
Here in southern British Columbia we are still choking on this wretched forest fire smoke that tints everything with orange/brown light, and hides our landmarks. But eventually the rains will come. The temperatures will drop and the fires will die down. We will again have clarity in our vision. The past few weeks have proven that the best efforts of men cannot control the consequences of fire. We are still dependent on the Maker of heaven and earth, which is as it should be.
And we pray for rain.
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Bashless
I was tempted to go on a rant about a certain religious hypocrite who builds his own power base by preying on vulnerable people’s spiritual longings. I fussed and fumed for a while and decided to re-post this instead. I need the reminder. Consider this an open letter to myself — but contrary to the entire concept of open letters, the person to whom it is addressed has actually read it.
I hope to keep this blog a bash-free zone, not that it comes easily to me. Change will require effort. I have been known to wield an acid pen and in the past have taken far too much delight in humour that comes at the expense of another’s dignity. Sorry ‘bout that.
I just read this: Now if you feel inclined to set yourself up as a judge of those who sin, let me assure you, whoever you are, that you are in no position to do so. For at whatever point you condemn others you automatically condemn yourself, since you, the judge, commit the same sins. God’s judgment, we know, is utterly impartial in its action against such evil-doers. What makes you think that you who so readily judge the sins of others, can consider yourself beyond the judgment of God? Are you, perhaps, misinterpreting God’s generosity and patient…
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Keep Going. Keep Growing.
Faithfulness requires the courage to risk everything on Jesus, the willingness to keep growing, and the readiness to risk failure throughout our lives.
-Brennan Manning
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Gutted
It all started with the bathroom ceiling. We couldn’t figure out how to fix it.
In this part of the world the basement is more than a foundation. It is a well-used part of the house. We had a bedroom, partially finished bathroom/laundry room, storage/utility room, craft room, and family room with a big stone fireplace down there. Since it’s not the part of the house that students and guests usually see, it has received the least attention as far as repairs and maintenance go. But we fixed the leak last summer and had an unexpected provision of income this year so we decided it was time to tackle the basement.
I just wanted a proper bathroom with a ceiling, and maybe a shower. It would be nice if the ugly dark water-stained wallboard in the bedroom and hallway could be replaced with Sheetrock while we were at it.
We have a super carpenter (he happens to be our son and already did a splendid job on the kitchen and roof). He asked us to empty three rooms and a storage area of all the stuff hidden away in there. My daughter and daughter-in-law and close friend helped sort, toss and recycle.
I found things I didn’t remember we had. It was like seeing my life pass before my eyes. It’s tough to say goodbye to objects from times of my life that are no more.
-Boxes of music books and teaching aids.
-Crafts the kids made or gifts students gave me.
-Sports equipment that makes me shrug and walk away.
-Craft and sewing projects that would be merely quasi-useful or unappreciated if I ever did manage to finish them.
-Perfectly good collections of stuff that could be quite useful if I had the inclination to actually fix or re-purpose them.
-Camping equipment that will probably not come out of the bins because my husband still hates camping – and it definitely fails the five year guideline (“If you haven’t used it in two years, it goes, Mom.” We bargained it up to five years because I hope to get back on my cross-country skis someday.)
-Things that reveal how much I live in fear of having to scrounge to survive in the future.
-Books I think someone besides me should read. (I just haven’t met them yet.)
-Movies you couldn’t pay me to watch again.
-Cleaning supplies that were not as magical as promised. Apparently they required application and effort.
-Baby items, in case one of the kids changes his or her mind.
-Research for the novel I never finished.
Mourning was involved.
We bagged and boxed and the guys took it all down to the thrift shop or the dump. Then the gutting began. With the walls, and toilet, sink and old washer and dryer gone and with the musty flooring peeled back and scraped off and everything we kept piled ceiling high in the family room it looked very different. The carpenter kept telling us about more uncovered discoveries that needed to be fixed, moved or replaced.
The basement is a mess. It’s been gutted. Down to the concrete. Torn apart. Jack-hammered in parts. Stinky, because pipes had to be moved. Dusty, because who cleans pipes and vents? Mouse poopy, because apparently we entertained a family at some point in history.
“This is not up to code,” the carpenter said. A lot.
“This was maybe okay thirty years ago, but not now. Look, you’ve got a frost bubble in that line to the outside faucet. We’ll need to take the mudroom wall out too.” He tore it down and took it away.
“You’re going to have to change some of your plans,” he sighed. He must have seen the look on my face. “Give me some time and I’ll come up with something. For one thing, I’ll give you more windows and better lighting and much more efficient use of space.”
So here we are in the basement, torn up, tossed out, piled up, stripped down and with limited electric power. I realized this mess in our basement, which also spills into the rest of the house in the form of black finger prints, concrete dust, and muddy footprints, (and as our neighbour complained yesterday, shows up in the yard in the form of neglected grass-trimming) is kind of symbolic of what has been happening in my life in the past year or two. I wanted a repair that would make improvements in function and appearance.
“Restore me, Lord,” I prayed.
God decided to gut me. He changed my plans. He pointed out areas that look fine on the surface but will not work in the long run.
He is not doing a restoration of the facade. He is working on the foundation. He is giving me more light. He is urging me to let go of old thoughts and desires and habits and replacing them with his version of something new (that I haven’t seen yet.) He is not merely repairing or restoring. He is renovating. Re-newing. Re-forming. When I think I know where He is going with this He points out how changing one area affects everything else in my life. More walls have to come down. New supports and headers have to go up. The job keeps growing.
I wanted a new clean comfortable “throne room”; He wants to build a palace fit for a King.
Sometimes I appear to be a mess. I am throwing out old assumptions. I am letting go of familiar ways of doing things. I have disappeared into the place of stored memories and come out smelling like poo pipes as I try to learn new ways of dealing with stuff that needs to be flushed. I don’t know how to do this. The mess spills over into other areas and sometimes I’m hot and tired and grubby and emotional and I take it out on innocent bystanders who are perfectly content with their tidy routines. Sorry about that.
I keep running into people who seem to be going through this same process of re-thinking and re-forming. It’s like seeing microcosms of a larger reformation popping up everywhere. What are you doing, Lord?
These folks are getting push-back though. Changes in thinking and operating affect balance in our relationships because it’s difficult to change without provoking defensiveness in others. The mess clean-up makes irritates other people, like a six-foot strip of untrimmed lawn annoys a neighbour, when they are just trying to maintain standards in the neighbourhood and are not in the mood for upheaval.
It’s painful and isolating, this gutting process. But I know the Master Builder. I’ve seen his work.
I trust Him.
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10)
Charis: Subject to Change 