2014

It's a new year, with new possibilities.

The cynic says, "Resolutions don't change you.  You'll never change.  Your resolution will last a month if you're lucky."

But hope wins out today, and I resolve to post regularly (realism keeps me from saying weekly, but that is my aim.)

I plan on posting a question on Facebook, then a few days later, sharing my thoughts on the topic.

The post I just completed addressed the question, "What do you imagine in the expression on God's face when He looks at you?"

Enjoy!

Longing

“She’s got a way about her…” Billy Joel’s smooth voice floated through the car. (Click here for a video)  I was with a girlfriend and we were headed to work.  I spoke my thoughts, “Wouldn't it be something to have a man say that about you?”

There are other songs that floated through my head as I thought about that – the Beatles' classic, “Something,” (click here to listen and view the lyrics) and James Taylor’s “Something in the Way She Moves.” (here's a recent performance of this song) Men singing longingly, describing some ethereal quality about a woman that makes them whole, completes them. I want that quality, and though I know it’s unhealthy (and somewhat creepy) for someone to say they can’t live without you, I want a man to yearn for me like that.

There are things about Hollywood’s version of love that set us up for disappointment.  The image of finding your soul mate, completing each other’s sentences and walking off into the sunset is missing the reality of the little irritations that go along with sharing a life together, much less the gaping wounds that two people can inflict on one another.

And yet, I don’t think Hollywood was the original author of this image of perfect love.  It began in the Garden of Eden, when God say that it wasn't good for man to be alone, and he made a helper that was "just right for him"(Gen. 2:18b, NLT).   When Adam saw his specially created just right for him bride, he exclaimed, 

“At last! This one is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!  She will be called woman, because she was taken from man” (Gen. 2:23, NLT).

This must be the model from which the on-line dating services try so hard to imitate…the original definition of “Soul Mate.”

So, we have the template, we have the ideal in our heads, and we yearn for it, write songs about it, and when something goes wrong in a relationship we thought was so right, we lament, “I guess s/he wasn't THE ONE.”

We know the reason.  The Garden of Eden is no more, as dirty thing called SIN entered the picture, and thus we have need for a Savior. 

But we don’t like to admit our need.  In our American glorification of independence and autonomy, we like to think we can make it alone. There are songs about that too.  Think Simon and Garfunkel, “I am a Rock, I am an Island.”   After being hurt, we shore up our defenses and declare ourselves sufficient unto ourselves.

Now what does God think of this?  My question for the week was “What do you imagine is the expression on God’s face when He looks at you?” I like to think that He looks at me with loving longing, yearning for me to come to Him for completion.

Because He is the one who completes me.  He has no desperate need for me, just love. And though he provided me with one who is “just right for me,” He is the one who mends those riffs between man and woman, filling in the empty spaces left when the puzzle pieces of two lives don’t exactly fit.

And so I look to Him.

Inertia to Momentum

Ugh.  I feel stuck again.  There is this incredible inertia that is like a magnet holding me down in bed in the morning, or drawing me to food or fiction ...

I can function in this mode -- I am getting to work on time (sometimes barely), and I have managed so far to keep the family's clothes clean... but I have this nagging feeling that God wants more from me than a life in which I am just "functioning."

What has given me hope is a reminder from a new friend that "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Eph 6:12).  My struggle isn't even against my own flesh, though it would seem so.  The struggle is against the Enemy, and there is no way I can fight that battle on my own.  In an ironic turn of truth, self-control is not possible without surrender.

In my word study on self-control, and the old fashioned-sounding synonym "temperance," I found that it was only used 4 times in three verses in the New Testament, and one of those times was in reference to Pauls' behavior.  The other references are Galations 5:22 (the Fruit of the Spirit), and 1 Peter 1:6.  What struck me is a verse later on in 1 Peter - "He that lacketh these things (knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness) is blind and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins" (1:9).

Boy doesn't that hit the nail on the head.  We HAVE been cleansed, but we so easily forget it!  "As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly" (Prov. 26:11).  That is such a vivid word picture -- maybe if that comes to mind when the alarm goes off, I can run from it like the stinking smelly regurgitated sin it is.

And perhaps that is how inertia is turned into momentum.

Shalom

Shalom (שָׁלוֹם) is a Hebrew and Jewish word meaning peace, Nothing missing, Nothing broken, wellbeing, and complete^{[1] [2] [3]}, and used to mean hello, and goodbye. (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org)

 I have been captivated by this word, particularly in the way it implies wholeness.  I thought of it while reading David James Duncan’s novel The Brothers K, when Kincaid, the main character, describes his vision of the Kingdom of God.  In the beautiful treeless landscape of heaven there are several pools.  He approaches one, hoping to escape from the group, and he sees a miniature version of the world he is on, including

…a boy who must correspond to- or perhaps even be, me.  He was like me, he was exactly like me. Yet he wasn’t me at all.  There was none of my confusion in him, none of my nervousness, nothing the least bit sad or dull or hesitant.  His features were mine exactly, with a single, all-encompassing difference: they had that indescribable quality – the kingdom quality. He belonged to the world or worlds around him as surely as the greenness belongs to the grass, and the longer I looked at him, the longer we watched each other, the more I felt like a huge sloppy cartoon caricature of the being who the boy in the pool really was. (p. 84)

 I’ve come to believe that the Kingdom of God within each of us contains a version of ourselves with the kingdom quality, and part of our purpose in life is to discover that vision and rise above sloppy earthly caricatures of our kingdom selves.  Before you dismiss this thought as sacrilegious, let me acknowledge that the vision is God inspired, and only with the sure knowledge of God’s unconditional love can we rise above the fear of failure and live boldly as the people we were made to be.

It reminds me also of a truth expressed by Steve Brown, one of my favorite podcasters.  He asserts that almost anything of value is a by-product of something else.  If we search for this vision, we will be miserable.  But if we live our lives in thanksgiving to the God of the universe, we will discover along the way our unique giftedness and calling. 

So as a greeting to you all, I say Shalom, and in that beautiful word I express the confidence that you are more than what I see with these earthly eyes.  Shalom.

Infirmities, Grace and the Strength of Enough

Wow.  I love this site. www.blueletterbible.org .  As I was reading a response from my last post, I took a closer look at 2 Cor. 12:9.  It opened up this verse, and it blew me away.  This is how.

And He said, my GRACE (favor, good will, loving-kindness, the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues), is SUFFICIENT (possessing unfailing strength, enough) for thee, for my strength (dynamis -- the word says it all -- power inherent in God the creator) is made complete, fulfilled in my weakness (inability to understand, do, resist or bear).

Let's take just that chunk -  
Grace - not just "God's Riches At Christ's Expense," or an undeserved gift, but so much more! Amazing how that one word encompasses not just God's kindness (as if that were a small thing), but also the influence He has on our souls to turn us to Him, where He will keep and even strengthen us.  

And did you catch that part about ENOUGH?  That isn't the picture of having just the right amount of milk for everyone to have one full glass.  There is strength there -- unfailing strength -- that doesn't just fill a need, it wipes it out!  And though that need may rise up again, though that spot may again become empty, God's GRACE is strong enough to draw us back to Him. 

When I look at this verse and think about my original question of serving even when I feel empty and dry, the answer becomes clear. If I come empty hoping to be filled by the strokes of positive affirmation from others, or even from the satisfaction of expressing a thought well, I will be self-seeking in my service. My emptiness must be filled by Christ and Him alone.  Only there can I find enough.

And God's power being made perfect or complete in our weakness?  Does this imply that in order for God to act in us with all His power, we must allow our weakness to be evident?  It almost sounds as if God's power is NOT complete (in us) if we don't allow for our own weakness. Wow.  Doesn't that turn you on your head.  Doesn't leave room for any posturing, does it?

Therefore I will glory (boast, be happy with or without reason) all the more in my weakness, or my inabilities, that the power of Christ -- dynamis -- may rest -- not just rest, but take up residence -- in me.

So my weaknesses -- my places of emptiness --  shouldn't cause me shame, but they should cause me joy, because THAT'S where I will see God's power -- His DYN-O-MITE power -- the same power that did so many healing miracles -- take possession of the country of my heart. 


I should be glad that I've discovered and admitted to these places of emptiness?!  That's where God's power will go?  I see the image my soul covered with deep crevice of dryness and emptiness, and of water seeking the deepest point...and then a little trickle of water becoming a stream and a mighty rushing wave of immense power  -- power that is a  enough and creative and kind, merciful and gracious, that incredible hydraulic power -- becoming a wild rushing wave pulling us, tossing us and holding us to Himself, and we are embraced in a roaring tidal wave of Love.  That is what fills our emptiness, over and over again.

I am ready, I am desperate to be filled and changed.

This is transformational truth. Most certainly.

If you have a few minutes, take a look at this clip from Youtube -- it's powerful waves set to a song by Gregorian called "Nothing Else Matters."

Generosity and Emptiness

I've found a wonderful new tool to help me understand the Bible better.  It also makes me look smart.  It's www.blueletterbible.org .  There you can look up a verse in any version you want, and then by clicking the little "C" button in the left margin, you can expand that verse to include the Greek (or Hebrew) words that go with the English words.  Click further, and you can see what other verses include the word in question, and how it is translated into English in other contexts.  Fascinating stuff for a word nerd like me.

Of course I found out about this tool from a podcast interview of Keri Wyatt Kent on Midday Connection.  She actually takes a word each week and studies it in this way -- what does the Bible say about the word "afraid," "bless," "burden," or "call"? Click on the following link if you want to read more - http://www.moodyradio.org/brd_ProgramMainPage.aspx?id=73036

The word I'm looking at today is ἁπλότης (haplotēs), which occurs 8 times in 8 verses in the Greek concordance of the NASB. (see, don't I sound brilliant?).  In 2 Cor. 9:11, which is where I started, it is translated as generosity: You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. But in 2 Cor. 11:3, it's translated as simplicity: But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from [your simplicity and purity of ] devotion to Christ.   The definition of the Greek word is "singleness, simplicity, mental honesty, free from pretense and hypocrisy, sincerity, not self-seeking, openness of heart manifesting itself by generosity."  Wow, that's of lot of meaning packed into one word!

What started me on this path is the question of stewardship.  We just finished up a message series on stewardship at church,  www.messiahgrh,org , and that combined with the prospect of taking on more leadership at church has prompted the following questions - Is it ever appropriate to serve at church to fill a need in yourself?  For example, if I have a need to be recognized and praised for my gifts, is it appropriate to use those gifts in service to the church in order to receive that recognition and praise? 

Intuitively I know what the answer is.  Our service should not be self-seeking.  The definition of generosity above confirms that.  Our service should come from a heart overflowing in thankfulness to God, not from a place of emptiness and need.

But mental honesty also dictates that we do have needs.  I sometimes feel like my needs are gaping holes in my soul.  Can the act of service fill those holes?   How can I even serve when I feel so empty? Or, will riches come back to me if I give even though I feel as if I have nothing?  Can I sow generously in hopes of also reaping generously (2 Cor. 9:6)?

This study took me also to 2 Cor. 9:13 - "Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else."  I decided to look up the word "service" in this verse.  It's διακονία diakonia, which is translated also as ministry, in terms of proclaiming and promoting religion, as well a distributing food to the needy, and preparing food.  This word is used to describe what distracts Martha when Jesus visited.  Interestingly enough, this word also describes both what the disciples decided to delegate (the distribution of food), and what they devoted themselves to -- the ministry of the word.  It can both distract and result in thanksgiving.

So, from all this study, do I have any answers?  Not really.  Part of me feels badly when I admit that I have an emptiness in my soul.  There's an accusing voice that says, "And you call yourself a Christian?"  But does that admission disqualify me from service?  Or does it simply indicate that I need to take that feeling of emptiness to God for Him to fill?  And then, can I serve in such a way that admits my weakness and shows others where to go for healing?  I think this is mental honesty, freedom from pretense and hypocrisy, and an openness of heart that I hope will lead to generosity.

Mouse in the Manger

It was summer.
Emotions were as high as the humidity.
I escaped to the underground
to pack away Christmas.

(January was dark that year).

Into the box went 3 Magi,
One with his head dangling
- a super glue repair job too old –
Two donkeys…
I brushed away mouse droppings from the table
as I wrapped them in tissue paper
decades old.

That couldn’t be all, but
on the table all I saw
were Christmas mugs and
wooden Advent calendar puzzles.

There, under the bubble wrap,
were Mary and Joseph
posed in forever adoration
and holy awe.

I pulled it aside, and
There! The smiling babe...
Right between the pine scented candle
and the angel with the broken wing.

I wondered…does our experience of God
–the Christ –
belong under the bubble wrap,

Or is ok for it to be among rodent turds?

I pondered this as I wrapped them up-
to sleep in dark boxes
for half a year.