September 6 So many words!

Ecclesiastes 5:7 and 6:11 There is ruin in a flood of words. Fear God instead...The more words you speak, the less they mean. So why over do it?

Proverbs 22: 17-19 Listen to the words of the wise, apply your heart to my instruction. For it is good to keep these sayings deep within yourself, always ready on your lips. I am teaching you today - yes, you - so you will trust in the Lord.

Now I am an admitted bibliophile - I love books! and the words in them...filled with story. And I like words used beautifully and carefully; that's one of the elements of great writing. And with all that said, I have been guilty of filling the space between another person and myself up with words, sometimes to avoid the unsaid.

God speaks to that issue - we should be a people of fewer words and more meaningful ones. The flip side of that is that we should, instead of being a people of many words willing to share them all, God is calling us to be listeners. And I think listening means more than hearing. That's why there are two words to describe what happens when the vibrations of spoken words penetrate our ears and then minds. One word, hear means simply that the mechanics work - our ears do pick up the noise. The other means that we receive the sound with interest. God is calling us to hear with interest the words others speak, and that's tough to do when we are focusing on our own words.

Then in Proverbs, we are told who to listen to - the wise, not just he words spoken into the air of the wise, but the ones recorded. In many cultures the aged people are revered because of their wisdom. I fear that in our culture, the aged people are an embarrassment to us. We chuckle over their lack of being au courant or up to date with the latest technology or jargon, and we seldom think of asking them about the old days and what they learned living through so many years.

Similarly, I wonder how often we read the words of the writers of Scripture with the idea that we are mining them for gold, for wisdom, that will help us learn how to live. And I mean the kind of mining that causes us to be so excited we are quick to share the words and the relationship with God they help-s us to have with others. Instead I fear, too often we fear doing just that because people might think there is something wrong with us if we go all "Bibley" on them.

I love A.W. Tozer's words on that subject: The sacred page is not meant to be the end, but only the means toward the end, which is knowing God Himself.

Well, I've rambled- stream of consciousness, they call it I think - all to say that words are important. We should be careful about the ones we use, use fewer of them in general, and pay attention to the words of others, especially of the wise, whether they are spoken or written down as God's Word.

September 2 Earthquakes and Hurricanes and Tornadoes

Psalm 46: 1-2 God is our refuge and strength, our very present help in trouble, Therefore we will not be afraid though the earth trembles (earthquakes) and the mountains topple into the depths of the seas , though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with its turmoil.

I love what looks like coincidences, knowing there are no coincidences, only divine appointments. In the last week or so, our region has experienced an earthquake, tornado warnings, a hurricane, and floods. Yesterday California experienced an earthquake, and this morning at 6:30, Alaskans woke up to an earthquake and tsunami warning.

And I woke up to this beautiful passage in Psalms putting it all into perspective. Then I had opportunity to use it to encourage a student, reassuring her that in the face of challenges, all we have to do is crawl up into God's lap. I love that image of God's lap as our refuge because it is true.

Isn't it amazing, that God is our refuge, whatever refuge looks like to you. I think of how a little child runs to his or her daddy or mommy, and the comfort is there. Then again, there are people for whom that is not true, whether it be they had dysfunctional parents or lost their parents or their experience of refuge looks somehow different. The point is, we understand what God is saying here by relating it to our own experience of refuge.

I'm not sure how old I was, but I remember running up the dirt road after school to my house, seeing my mother sitting in the front yard, (it was September ) and burying my head in her lap, tears flowing freely. I cannot remember what the issue was, but she was my refuge. Maybe that is why when I think of God being my refuge, the concept of a safe lap becomes so powerful.

Well, here we are in an era of natural disasters, financial upheaval, and regular threats to our peaceful existence, but God! He is our refuge. It is in owning His strength, not our own, that we can endure whatever life brings our way. It is sadly interesting that too often we would rather hang around in our own weakness look for pity and sympathy than live in the victorious place of God's love and power.

September 1 A New Month, A New Day, A New Slate

Lamentations 3:20-22 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

II Cor. 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come...20. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ; certain that God is appealing through us, we plead on Christ's behalf, "Be reconciled to God." 21 He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him,

Yesterday I heard about a student who used a very negative term, a demeaning term, to refer to herself, as though it was somehow virtuous to minimize who she was, even as a child of God. I struggled on and off all day with how I felt about what she said. I had a distinct sense that it was not right, that it was almost a kind of pride - an "I am nothing," almost like it got her off the hook from doing something for God.

This morning, and I love how God made our brains to work things through, to continue to process them in our sleep, this verse in Lamentations came to mind and the verse in II Cor. 5:17 was in my Bible reading. I love how they come together as a response to my struggle yesterday.

It is true, apart from the work of God our righteousness is as filthy rags. BUT, (capital letters intentional) as believers, we are new creations, a beautiful work of God, clothed with Christ's beautiful and holy and pure righteousness. We must remember God does not make junk!! And though we mess up regularly, though I mess up regularly, I am so grateful that every day, I get a new slate. I don't have to carry around the burden of my sin, my sin debt. On the cross through Christ, that debt, all my sin, was erased. Today, this morning, I am a new creation, draped in God's mercies, charged with being His ambassador, His representative.

How exciting is that? I'm no worm, no sinner, no piece of dirt. I am cleansed through Christ, renewed through His Spirit and His Word, and charged this day with being the me He made me to be in such a way that He is glorified.

PS. I know that believers still sin, but identity is no longer as sinner, but as holy one, as child or God, as friend of God.

August 30 Is the Power Turned Off?

I Corinthians 4:6-7 For God who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves... not crushed....not despairing,...not forsaken,... not destroyed...v. 11 For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

We just experienced a hurricane, and the power was off at our house for only eight or nine hours. Unfortunately, many who live in the Northeast will not have power for days or perhaps weeks, and it does not matter how often they plug things in, there is just no power there.

As I read this passage, I thought about how different the spiritual power situation is. For the believer, the power is always there. Honestly, I know believers who function as though the light has gone out, as though the power has been turned off. The sad reality is that the power is on and functioning; they just don't believe it or want to use it...so they walk around "unplugged," with a hopeless, discouraged, hang-dog appearance.

I love how Paul writes here of his own personal experience. He is truly speaking of that which he knows - having been beaten, shipwrecked, betrayed, pursued, even jailed, but he never lost hope or power or light. He lived through these challenges entirely plugged in to the reality of God living within and empowering him to endure, not in his own strength, but in the power sourced directly from God.

As I reflect on this, I confess, there have been moments when I have been strongly tempted to the self-pity track. For some bizarre reason, perhaps believing Satan's lies, it is sometimes more appealing to be the victim than the vanquisher. As we give in to the impulse to whine or beg for pity and encouragement, we are telling others we have "shorted out;" our power source circuit is not complete; God has failed us.

But God!! Oh, how I love those words. He never goes away. Our power connection never short-circuits or runs out of steam. That's why we are encouraged to "walk in the Spirit." Live out our relationship with the Living God. It is real and permanent. We do have all the power we need to pass through victoriously every challenge we face, not to go around them or have those challenges skip over us. We will face real and painful tests and temptations, but as long as we remained "plugged in" to the power of God, owning the reality of His presence and filtering power (He ensures we are never tested above our capacity (I Cor. 10:13) we can get to the other side, and the journey will be glorifying to God.

August 29 Where is He?

John 14: 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth Him; but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you and shall be in you.


Romans 8:11 But if the Spirit of hi that raised up Jesus fro the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you

Romans 8:35-39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? ...Nor height nor depth not any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I Cor. 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost wich is in you, which ye have of God and ye are not your own?

We ask that, don't we when we are in the middle of a hurricane, whether it is a real one like Hurricane Irene who plowed up the east coast leaving a path of destruction in her wake or a hurricane of illness, loss, broken relationships ...or well, you get it. Those times when it does not go well with our soul.

Unfortunately, some people lead believers to think that once you give your life to God and you live for Him, all will go well in life. But it just doesn't work that way. Christians, like their unbelieving neighbors still have to live in this world so scarred by the fall, the twisting at even the cellular level introducing the seeds of our own devastating afflictions, whether physical or emotional or intellectual.

And when we are faced with those unexpected challenges, we cry out, "Where are you God!"

But He never left!!! I am so grateful that He never leaves us, nor forsakes us, nor stops loving us. We may not notice Him, but we never have to ask Him to be with us. Rather we need to pray that God will remind us that He is right there, ever-present and ever-loving us. AND, we need to pray that way for those we love who know Christ and who are currently facing challenges to their faith or their peace.

August 25, 2011 Waiting?

Psalm 40:1-3 I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and mire. He set my feet on the solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God.

How are you in this thing called waiting? Is it easy for you to sit in the doctor's office or stand in the line at the grocery store? Or how about waiting for an answer from a letter or email? Then there is the waiting we do for a holiday or birthday or ride somewhere. Can you wait in peace? Or does your foot start tapping, your paper rapping in impatience?

I was struck by a writer who said waiting was an action verb, that you must wait actively. Hmmm, seemed almost like a paradox to me, until I gave it some thought. Waiting involves the passing of time, and we can pass time mindlessly, sitting or standing there with our minds off in la-la land. And I must admit I have spent a lot of time like that, and like spent money, you just cannot get it back.

But the idea of waiting patiently. What is that all about? I think it has a sense of passing time in a state of anticipation, expecting a response. And I think though there might be an eagerness to it sometimes, that does not mean there should be an impatience.

I wonder if God doesn't have in mind that we could redeem that wait time, that we could use it as time to consider what He wants us to do, about that for which we wait, or perhaps to use to think about other things, or to pray. I do not believe in chance or coincidence or accident. I think that sometimes God wants me to wait because He wants to hear from me about someone or something I will see from that waiting space.  And sometimes I must wait there in order to hear Him because He knows the time I spend waiting for something else is the only time I might have to listen or speak to Him.

Wait time is like crossing a street. You can have a leisurely stroll from one side to the other, noticing everything around you, or you can be like the guy I saw on the news this morning, running furiously across the train tracks, noticing only the other side. I wonder how differently this day, or any day might be if we savored wait time instead of dreaded it. I keep a copy of the Message translation of the Bible with me at all times; it is so easy to read and redeem wait time. But I am also trying to redeem wait time with prayer, allowing my circumstances to prompt me to pray about things I might otherwise not notice.

Oh, I don't have this down pat, but I was so refreshed and encouraged by the possibilities of making waiting a pleasurable thing, something that honored God that I just had to share it with someone.

August 22 Anticipation!!!

John 14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you.

I love that we are part of a family, not just our biological family, but our spiritual family. One of my brothers, spiritual ones, gave me a great book: The God Who Smokes by Timothy Stone, a former missionary kid. My friend Don, knowing my passion about writing told me to go straight to chapters 9 and 10, so I did and they spoke straight to me as a writer. But then, I just continued to chapter 11 instead of going back to the beginning and I am so glad I did.

You have probably picked up the idea that I have been thinking about the life our life in Christ now and the one to come of late and there was this great paragraph in chapter 11 that I just had to share with you:

You are an eternal being, and your home is an eternal and infinite and exquisitely beautiful place where everything and everyone is complete and whole and in harmony. It is musical and magical, and it is where we all were meant to be. It is where the dance begins and never ends. It is where you fly because all the weights and the waits have been removed. All the nos and the can'ts and the shouldn'ts, all the stops and flops and failures, all the bads and wrongs and wickeds and brokens, and all those long, needling, crushing, killing regrets are erased.

Wow, what a thought!! Makes me wonder why we cling so to this world. Certainly we want to enter that place without regrets, having done all we could to redeem this world for Christ, to use our giftedness for His glory, but oh, what a day it will be when we are shed of this world!!!!

Today our semester begins, and between those on campus and those online perhaps a 1000 BBC, grad and seminary students are filled with anticipation, of learning, building relationships and at the end receiving a "well-done" handshake and a diploma.  So we step into this day filled with anticipation of the glorious day at the end of our "earthly semester," when graduation brings us into heaven. May we bring glory to God as well all encourage one another as we head toward that end.