Needing Neighbors

“We got the wrong butter,” the mother said to her daughter, flipping through the coupons in her hand while the girl unloaded their groceries from the shopping basket to the belt. “The other one would have been cheaper with the discount.”

“Do you want me to go back and exchange it?” the teenager asked.

Suddenly the elder of the two broke into a huge grin. “You know what? We’re getting it all for free anyway! It doesn’t matter!” she said, and the two of them laughed delightedly.

I looked at her expectantly for the explanation that was sure to follow.

“Somebody gave us a van yesterday, and $200 in grocery gift cards!” Noting my surprised look she went on to say, “I take care of severely handicapped kids - the kind on machines and in wheelchairs…the ones that need a lot of help. And my old van broke down recently. I haven’t had a vehicle in weeks! Yesterday a church donated one to me, and it’s wonderful!” She went on to tell me that although it was fourteen years old it ran great and had many features that their old vehicle lacked. It was an incredible blessing, and then there was the money to help with her food bill on top of it all. She was clearly over the moon about her good fortune.

When I hit the total button, usually a bad moment in the checkout line, she was overjoyed all over again. “Look at that! We have enough left for next week‘s bill, as well!” When her groceries were bagged she thanked me, her non-stop smile still in place, and started to push her loaded cart towards the door. Something had been stirring in my brain while we talked, however, and as she left I stopped her with a sudden question, asking if she lived on a certain street several miles out of town. When she answered in the affirmative, her eyes wide, I described a house and its location at the end of the road, where it meets the highway. Again she nodded.

“I’m your neighbor!” I told her, explaining that I lived a mile up the road on the other side. As we had been talking earlier I’d remembered a story I’d read in the paper about a family that welcomed disabled children into their home, despite the incredible amount of work involved in caring for them and the pain of losing them when they eventually succumbed to their medical challenges. In fact, it was the name of our road mentioned in the newspaper article that initially caught my eye, and I realized after reading about them that that we were living near some very special people indeed. She told me she was almost sixty years old, an age when most people start thinking of retirement and living for themselves for awhile, and yet she found she couldn’t stop taking these kids in. It delighted me to finally meet her and to hear that she who gives help had received the same from somebody else.

Despite the proximity of my house to hers, it was the people in the church who came alongside her and assisted her who were her true neighbors, a word that defines the position of a heart more than the location of a house. No matter where we live, we are all surrounded by very special people, gifted in different ways and unable to quit functioning in them. We move into their neighborhood spiritually speaking when our hearts are stirred with compassion for the things that move theirs and we find ways to help them get done what they’ve been called to do.

Some of us have been living in the same place for a long time. The good news is that it’s not too late to move. There’s surely a good neighborhood near you with people just waiting…needing…for you to notice the vacancy. Move on up today.

“Give, and it shall be given to you, good measure pressed down and shaken together and running over, they shall give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you measure, it shall be measured to you again.”
(Luke 6:38 MKJV)

Robin Reflections

Sundays are simply a delight to me. Although I enjoy my relationship with God every day, I live life a little differently on the day traditionally set aside to worship Him to mark it as set apart.

It’s on that day of the week alone that I stop at McDonald’s to pick up a quick breakfast on the way to an early morning music practice session before church. I try to get to my parking spot down the road from the brick building early enough so that I can sit in the car for a few minutes and consume it while conversing with God. I mark the uniqueness of those moments by treating myself to a hot mocha instead of the usual coffee in my cup, but yesterday I had even yet to take a sip when God showed up in a big way.

As I savored the usually-forbidden flavor of the sausage McMuffin in my hand (the grease stains on the paper wrapper a good indication of why it was a Sundays-only moment), I was startled when something struck the driver’s side window beside me. A robin had landed on the edge of the door, so close to the glass that surely the tips of its toes hooked in the window slot were the only things holding it there! But there it stayed, despite how I jumped in response to its sudden appearance, cocking its head at me and eyeing me steadily. Amazed, I studied it in fascination; the bright orange of its breast feathers, the beautiful brown on it’s back, and the black eye rimmed in white that was inspecting me as closely as I was looking at it!

For the longest time we simply stared at each other. What was it doing, I wondered, and why was it there? Did my breakfast look as good to it as it did to me? Was my sausage McMuffin the draw? Robins eat worms they pull from the ground, I reminded myself. The are not parking-lot scavengers like the sparrows that peck about for left-over french fries. I didn’t understand.

Finally it flew to the grass on the side of the road next to where I’d parked. But just a minute later it landed back on the car again, this time on the passenger side at the bottom edge of the windshield, again looking interestedly at me sitting inside. Having never seen a robin act this way in all my life, it definitely got my attention.

Later I realized that was exactly the point.

I had deliberately set aside that time to visit with God, and yet His sudden appearance surprised me. The truth is that I didn’t expect Him to show up physically at all, much less covered in feathers.

We’ve become accustomed to hearing from God in certain ways. And it’s true that many times He simply speaks to our hearts directly, highlights His thoughts in our Bibles, or causes them to come out of the mouths of our favorite preachers or singers. But God is not limited to the confines of our church buildings or the boxes we place Him in. Instead, we’ve limited ourselves in our expectations of how He might appear to us, and so we walk right by His Presence in the burning bushes of our lives repeatedly. As a result He seems to take a special delight in surprising us, and enjoys our startled excitement when we finally recognize that He’s been right beside us in the “Emmaus moments” of our days.

His message to me yesterday was two-fold. Despite the wonder of seeing the brilliant color of its feathers up close, it was the bird’s black eye staring at me so intently that initially got my attention. Thus the first point was simply that He sees me.

Such an obvious conclusion shouldn’t discount it’s importance. Surely we all need to know that God sees us in the trials we are going through, standing at the base of mountains we can’t seem to climb, or blocked by obstacles we can’t seem to overcome. We truly wonder at times if God is aware of the difficulties we face and the issues we’re dealing with. The answer is a resounding yes. Life is so much easier when we know that we don’t struggle through it alone.

The second point is equally important, that being that God is simply interested in the details of our days. I smile to think of the way the robin cocked it’s head and watched me so intently as I consumed my breakfast. Is God truly interested in the little things of life, like what I might be having for breakfast, why I like it so, and what I’m thinking of doing next? I absolutely believe so. It’s the little details that we would only confide to an intimate friend that God is so hungry to hear Himself. His goal is to be first in our thoughts and closest to our hearts of any of those we are in relationship with.

He wages an uphill battle in that area, however, because we are so distracted by things we can see and hear (and in my case, taste). The visible draws our attention away from the unseen, and so God has to show up in truly spectacular or surprising ways to grab our attention and focus it back on Him. The physical world is simply at His back and call to call us back to Him, in Whom, as the Bible states, we truly live and move and have our being.

It’s been a long-standing issue with God. Even back in Bible days He was using the natural world He created and in which His people wandered to first grab their attention and then guide their steps. Stories of burning bushes, plagues of frogs and flies, traveling pillars of cloud and fire, droughts and floods fill the pages of His Book. Similarly has He filled the pages of my book(s), the journals I keep on an ever-present basis for the purpose of recording the many ways He’s shown up in my life simply to get my focus back on Him. Once you start seeing Him operate in such a way you find that you have more stories to tell in that vein than time to write them all down.

I’m grateful that I don’t serve a Sundays-only God, but one who is interested in the smallest details of my everyday life. It’s my constant prayer that He will open my eyes of expectation to see Him in forms and places that I wouldn’t ordinarily think to look. Today He sent a robin to remind my heart that it’s not the things I do on any given day that make it special, but rather His Presence in it that truly sets it apart.

“Heaven’s calendar has seven Sundays a week. God sanctifies each day. He conducts holy business at all hours and in all places. He uncommons the common by turning kitchen sinks into shrines, cafes into convents, and nine-to-five workdays into spiritual adventures.” - Max Lucado

“From one man he made every nation of men, that they…would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.”
(Acts 17:26-27 NIV)

Victory on Valentine's Day

I could place her face; it was her name I couldn‘t come up with. But then rarely do I know the names of the people I meet over the checkout lane of the grocery store until a friendship has been firmly established between us. Yet she chatted merrily on, mentioning in the same tone she’d just used to discuss the weather we’d been having lately that she was going through a divorce.

I stopped scanning her groceries for a moment and looked at her. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

“Oh, I’m fine. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” she asserted. “And I don’t need that in a bag…” she said, reaching to grab the bottle of vodka I’d just set down and putting it directly into her purse. The action caused me to wonder if she was really as fine about it all as she claimed, especially when I saw her the next day, the one after that, and the one following that as well, doing exactly the same thing. Some days she came through my line, on others I just happened to look up and spot her in another checkout lane just in time to see her stash the bottle in her handbag. Perhaps these days before Valentine‘s Day were tough ones for her in her current situation, and the liquor was just her pain medication of choice.

That thought prompted mental visions of another friend for whom this particular holiday was also especially difficult this year. A coworker who looks too young to have already been married two years, she’s an army wife whose husband has been deployed overseas for the past eight months. The separation has been hard on them both, and they are eagerly counting down the days till their reunion sometime this spring.

I asked her recently how she made it through the holiday season just past. She told me that Thanksgiving and Christmas weren’t so bad, perhaps because she had lots of family around, but that New Year’s hit her hard, as she and her soldier had always been together before this to share a New Year’s Eve kiss. And now Valentine’s Day loomed on the horizon, and she hoped she’d be scheduled off that day so she wouldn’t have to see people buying flowers and candy for the love of their lives, while hers was still so far away.

Imagine her disappointment then when the work schedule came out for the week of Valentine’s Day, and not only was she scheduled to work on the holiday, but she was placed in the floral department all week long! With cashier hours in short supply at the start of the year and the floral department needing extra help to handle the Valentine’s Day demand, she’d been given hours there in order to meet the need and fill out her paycheck at the same time. Grateful for work though she was, the action rubbed salt into a wound that was already raw and bleeding.

Surprisingly, she, too, found solace for her pain in something she carried in a bag…not a handbag, but a shopping bag that she filled with gifts for her friends and coworkers. By day she took orders, carried fresh blooms from the cooler and cashed out customers making purchases, and then she spent her off hours tying personally-addressed Valentines on to the stems of cloth flowers, depositing them in the pink carry-all until it was packed full. A day or two before the holiday she started delivering them with a smile, an occasional hug, and a warm wish for each. Using some tips from a regular in the department she also put together an arrangement of fresh flowers for the mother who supports her in so many ways in her husband’s absence. She simply spread joy wherever she went that week.

Her actions seemed to inspire the same in her coworkers, who were soon passing out mini-bouquets, frosted cupcakes, or buying little remembrances for any possibly lonely soul who came to their minds. And not surprisingly, the love she gave away came back to her in the form of flowers from friends, a greatly anticipated gift from her hubby, and the thoughtful appreciation of the many people who were blessed by her actions. She simply took the pain she was feeling and turned it into gain somehow for everyone around her, and found victory on the very Valentine’s Day she’d been dreading as a result.

The Bible warns that in this life we will have tribulation; each of us will face troubling situations that break our hearts and threaten to wear us down physically and emotionally. It’s what we do with that trouble that counts. So often we stay so consumed with getting through the matter ourselves that we don’t even see the suffering of those that surround us. We feel we have nothing at that point to give to anybody else, anyway. Yet God urges us to use the very thing that threatens to destroy us as a tool to help the person struggling beside us get a leg up on their own situation. In doing so we find that we are gradually lifted out of our own pit of despair as well.

We need to remember that we don’t fight our battles alone; God sends visible reminders of hope and the victory He promises if we just have eyes to see them. Perhaps it was just one such messenger who suddenly appeared before my friend in the floral shop a day or two before the holiday, a man dressed in army fatigues, presumably from the nearby recruitment center, there to buy flowers for his girl. She told me later that she was surprised she didn’t break down at the sight of him. Yet I believe he was really sent there on a mission to deliver a gift…his presence perhaps a heavenly reminder that sooner than she thinks, her own soldier will come walking home to her. On that day she will cry…but they will be tears of joy.

“…for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap…And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all…”
(Galatians 6:7,9-10 NKJV)

Sudden Snow

“It’s snowing?” I said in disbelief as the store’s double doors opened wide and I caught a quick glimpse of the outside world.

The possibility of frozen precipitation hadn’t been mentioned in the last forecast I had heard. Apparently a lot of other people had missed it, as well, from the surprised comments I heard as shoppers brushed flakes off their clothing as they came in and stomped their feet on the mats in the doorway. But surprise soon turned to consternation as the snowflakes quickly covered the roads, then melded together in the frigid temperatures and high winds to become a solid sheet of ice.

The resultant driving difficulties were soon reported by people who were caught out in the bad weather and came slipping and sliding on into the store; cars off the road, traffic tie-ups, coworkers calling in to say they’d be late because they were stuck on the very road I needed to take to get home. The dispatch radio on the shoulder of the policeman on security duty that night cackled incessantly as he tried to give advice to customers about to head out the door.

“Which way do you have to go?” he’d ask, and then warn them that hills were especially slick and people were having trouble getting up them, forcing them to turn around when their spinning wheels could get no traction.

The store soon emptied out as people eventually stopped venturing out under the bad weather conditions. Soon we had more workers than people to wait on. Told I could leave early, I was suddenly not so sure I wanted to go. The constant stream of driving horror stories by those coming into the building had made me doubt that I wanted to head out. Since I had a grocery list of my own in my pocket, I decided to delay my departure with that and give the salt trucks a little while to work on the roads.

As I pushed my shopping cart down the now deserted aisles I remembered that my husband would likely be driving home as well from his weekly Bible study home meeting. Knowing he shouldn’t even look at his phone while driving, I yet shot him a text message asking him if he was okay and what the roads were like, secretly hoping he’d call me back and say, “Stay where you are - I’m coming to get you.”

That didn’t happen. He did call, but he said the roads weren’t so bad, and definitely navigable. “You can do this,” he said. “Just take it slow.”

Surprisingly, that was just what I needed to hear, and his words changed my perspective completely. If this man who knew me and my driving abilities (or lack thereof) thought the situation was within my capabilities, then clearly it was. When another frequent shopper stopped me in passing to feed my fear and warn me with his own story I cut him off short, saying, “My husband says I can do this. I’ll be fine.” and marched quickly away from his tale of woe.

It’s not just winter that makes travel difficult; life sometimes does the same. So many of us find ourselves at the base of hills we can’t seem to climb. Unable to catch a grip on the slippery slopes before us, we often find ourselves sliding backwards despite our best efforts to get ahead. Many are in danger of giving up and turning around. Yet God tells us in His Word that what is impossible in our own strength is possible in His; His power inside of us is what propels us over the mountains that stand in our way.

The trouble is that we sometimes forget the extent of His power and authority that are available to us to deal with any situations we face. We listen to voices of doubt and disbelief from fellow travelers, and when in our fear we call Home and ask to be rescued, the One who created us and thus knows us better than anyone else answers us with the gentle reminder that we can do all things through Christ Who gives us strength. We know that of course; sometimes we just need the reassurance and the comfort in the sound of His voice. Then we can respond to any naysayer attempting to discourage us by voicing with confidence, “My Bridegroom says I can do this. I’ll be fine.”

I did get home safely that night. I found as I set out that the salt trucks had indeed prepared the way before me, as God promises He will do for us in all our earthly travels. There was one strip of clearing pavement down the middle of the road, and as long as I kept a wheel in that and didn’t venture too far to the left or to the right, I was fine. Yet as I pulled into the driveway it was such a relief and delight to see the lights of home before me. The tension finally lifted off my shoulders as I pulled into the garage and then entered that place of safety, warmth, and joy to find the one who loves me waiting there to welcome me home.

Rest in the knowledge that one day soon you will simply do the same.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also I me. In my Father’s house are many rooms…I am going there to prepare a place for you…that you also may be where I am.”
(John 14: 1-3 NIV)

When Jack Came Back

Photo courtesy of Brian Bridge

We were surprised to arrive at my friend Terry’s house and find the gate to her porch standing open and two of her three dogs greeting us from outside the fence instead of inside where they belonged. Upon entering her home we found Terry with jacket thrown across her back, pulling on her shoes and about to go outside to yell for the missing pup one more time. The dogs having broken out of the yard a couple of hours earlier, all were safely home again except the littlest one, Jack - the one who didn’t like the rain and the cold yet was still away on a night filled with the same. Her daughter despondent over his absence and Terry clearly distracted herself, our weekly fellowship and Bible study meeting was off to a poor start.

We gathered at the dining room table for the evening meal, a delicious repast normally salted with the laughter and banter of friends coming together again after a week’s absence to catch up on each other’s lives. But this week the fellowship was subdued as Jack’s nonappearance hung over the group like a dark cloud, the muted conversation punctuated by Terry’s repeated calls to the dog in the night. In between her trips outside she sat at the table with head down, idly twirling spaghetti noodles on her fork, her heart apart from the discussions going on around her.

Finally Gary could stand it no longer.

“Don’t you know that what’s important to you is important to God?” he asked her. At that she looked up and said, “Of course.”

“Then let’s pray and get this over with,” he said, quickly leading us in a short prayer asking God to bring the dog safely home and thanking Him in advance for doing so.

As the table was cleared for the ensuing study time I struggled with the battle going on in my own mind. God’s “be anxious for nothing” command echoed repeatedly in my brain, even as my mind considered the dangers to a small dog out alone in the night, ranging from cars on the busy street outside to coyotes in the surrounding rural acreage. My hope for a positive outcome bounced around in my heart like a ping-pong ball, slammed about by the paddling of negative circumstances on the one hand and then buoyed in return by my belief on the other. Finally God scored the winning point by asking me which camp I would find myself in when Jack came back in the end, as surely he was going to do - would I be rejoicing in His proven faithfulness with the rest, or apologizing for my lack of trust once more? Too many times I’ve been in the latter group; I didn’t want to hear again the words Jesus spoke to Peter as He reached to rescue him at the end of his water-walking adventure: “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”. Now was the time to choose faith over fear, and I made a conscious decision to do so.

God Himself seemed to applaud my decision, as I subsequently found message after message from His heart to mine in the printed pages of the lesson we were studying. Appropriately called The Transformed Heart, it was a discussion on the way God reveals His presence to us in the storms we go through in life. Surely He did so to me, even as the rain fell in the cold night outside. I captured His words in big circles of blue ink with an increasingly confident smile on my face, to the consternation of my husband/group leader sitting beside me who wondered what on earth I was doing. As my papers grew more and more marked my faith grew, as well, until all doubt was dismissed and belief rose to take its place.

The mention of Peter’s name above reminded me with a smile of another group meeting recorded in the Bible in which the faithful had gathered to pray for Peter’s release from prison. Suddenly their prayer gathering was interrupted when God sent His answer to their request in the form of Peter himself, knocking on the door!  And indeed so were we nearing the end of our weekly time together when Terry’s daughter suddenly jumped up and ran to the back door in response to a noise she heard. Soon a wet and weary Jack was running wildly about us once more before trying to jump into Terry’s lap. Even covered in mud and muck though he was, she opened wide her arms and delightedly welcomed him home. Eventually bundled in a towel and sent off to be bathed, only the overjoyed smiles on the faces around the table and the dirty streaks on Terry’s shirt remained to tell the tale of how God Himself taught us a lesson on His faithfulness on a night when we were studying the same.

The ping-pong ball in my spirit is silent now, the paddles still once more…waiting for the next time that faith and fear face off on opposite ends of another issue. May trust in God ever be victorious in my mind, my heart and my life.

“ The truth is that faith and worry cannot inhabit the same space at the same time. One of them has to go, and we get to choose.” - Graham Cooke

The Gift of a Son (Times Three)

The Christmas tree had come down a day or two earlier, and as I puttered around the living room, putting the rest of the holiday decorations away, I noticed a ring on the carpet in the corner where the tree had stood, the imprint of the circular tree stand that held it upright for weeks on end.

I paused in my busyness for a minute and thought about the wonder of the days just past, how perhaps this holiday season had been the very best ever, made more magical by the presence of all three of my sons who in the past year had each moved into living spaces apart from the home they grew up in. To have them together under one roof for each of the Big Three Days (Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s) with my husband and me was better than anything we could have found under the tree.

It didn’t happen by chance. Schedules had to be arranged in advance, travel plans made and adjusted as situations changed, and time set apart from other pursuits that demanded attention during that span of several weeks. There were cramped quarters on airplanes, long hours behind the wheel, and living spaces rearranged as the brothers accompanied each other on different travel legs and opened the doors of their living quarters to house siblings in town temporarily…all so we could all be together again.

Perhaps that’s why I couldn’t relate to the many people who said they couldn’t wait for the season to be over as they rushed through my line in the grocery store and on to the next place they needed to be. Perhaps they had no people in their lives to make the day special, I reflected. Surely that was the case with one elderly friend who told me that her children lived in a distant state and so for her Christmas was a day like any other. But others had somehow mistakenly made the holiday itself more special than the people they were celebrating with, focusing more on the unimportant details of what was on the dinner table and under the tree than the family that would be clustered around both.

Christmas is a celebration of family. The birth of Jesus to Mary and Joseph was God’s  gift to all His children who were or are spiritually far away from Home. The gift of His Son was His means of bringing us all back together again eventually, and that ensuing Hope is the means with which we cope with the difficult days in our lives until their end. Instead of rushing through the holidays we should soak in that time which reminds us of how to get through the rest of the year.

Likewise Christ’s birth didn’t happen by chance, foretold as it was by prophets in centuries past and then every detail orchestrated by heavenly hosts who directed the key players in God’s plan for mankind’s redemption; a plan which included tiresome travel and difficult days on the back of a donkey, birthing places arranged in a crowded town when a stable door was opened at last, and long hours of laboring alone in the pain and the dark and cold…all so we could one day be together again.

Surely the circular imprint on the carpet will soon fade, so I’m glad that to keep the memory of those magical days alive we took a family picture just before we all split up to go our separate ways. I look at the photo now and smile, remembering the laughter of the procedure and the joy of the days just past. And I‘m able to head in to January and the rest of the year with my heart lighter and my thoughts brighter, just from the time we had together.

Thankfully we don‘t have to wait till next December to remember that God‘s Gift does the same for us, nor do we have to wait till the holidays come round again to spend time with Him Who loved us enough to give us His Best. Neither do we have to wait another minute to give our best right back to Him. Let’s hold Christmas close in our hearts all year long, so the wonder of God’s special Gift will never fade, but rather grow more precious, day after day after day.

“For to us a Child is born; to us a Son is given…”
(Isaiah 9:6 MKJV)

“Til The Season Comes ‘Round Again
By Amy Grant

Come and gather around at the table
In the spirit of family and friends
And we’ll all join hands and remember this moment
‘Til the season comes ‘round again

Let’s all try to smile for the picture
And we’ll hold it as long as we can
May it carry us through
Should we ever get lonely
‘Til the season comes ‘round again

One night holy and bright
Shining with love from our hearts
By a warm fire,
Let’s lift our heads high
And be thankful we’re here
‘Til this time next year

…

May the new year be blessed
With good tidings
‘Til the next time I see you again
If we must say goodbye
Let the spirit go with you
And we’ll love and we’ll laugh
In the time that we had
‘Til the season comes ‘round again

Nautical Nonsense

It began when a friend shared with me the most recent of her stories about life with a little sister. The younger sibling had decided upon a new career choice after covering her sister’s name tag from work with stickers and receiving rave reviews over her handiwork. She would simply go into business, charging fifty cents a pop for a pin decorated to please. Laughing, I remembered that I had a spare in my possession, one that looked plain and pitiful compared to the decorative version my coworker now sported. A day or so later I handed it to her with the instruction to take it to her sister and see what she could do with it.

It came back to me covered with the “nautical nonsense” of SpongeBob SquarePants and his partners. The black lettering of my name, which once stood boldly alone in the middle of the yellow plastic, was now barely visible, surrounded as it was by the images of this cartoon hero and his friends. The artist sent a message to me upon delivery, apologizing for the theme but explaining that the stickers she used were the only supplies she had. Declaring it to be perfect, I pinned it immediately upon my shirt.

And so it turned out to be.

The last of the mad dash to Christmas was in full swing at the grocery store, and the front end was packed with people standing in long lines waiting to be checked out. I was manning the express lane, designed for small orders and speedy service. Along came a customer who, unlike everyone else in the store, was not in a hurry. Part of it was her age and lack of mobility; she had one speed, and it was slow. On top of that, she had many questions about food prices and fuel points, all of which I tried to answer, to the increasing frustration and exasperation of the next woman in line. Huffing and puffing, stamping her feet and glaring at the poor lady in front of her, she was clearly trying to communicate to the woman that she was taking too long. By the time the first customer finally shuffled on I was afraid to even speak to this next one, for fear that if she opened her mouth she would blow her top and all kinds of horrible things would come out from between her lips. So I skipped my usual greetings and just started scanning her groceries as fast as I could while she stared at the counter, fuming. Finally I had to talk to her to tell her how much she owed, and she lifted her head to look at me as I spoke. “Here it comes…!!!” I thought to myself, bracing for the explosion of rage that I was sure was coming.

That’s when the miracle occurred.

As she raised her eyes, she caught sight of the name tag pinned on my shirt. “You’ve got SPONGEBOB!!!!” she fairly screamed, a huge grin suddenly breaking across her face. She laughed and smiled some more, gave me my money and told me how much she loved that show. Too stunned at the total transformation in her attitude to answer her, I handed her the receipt and she happily went on her way.

Thinking about the incident later it occurred to me that when the customer looked at my name tag, she never even noticed my name, which was lost in the multitude of stickers around it. All she saw was SpongeBob and his buddies, the source of her joy. And for those of us who call ourselves Christians, that should similarly be our goal, that people see Christ and feel His love and touch in the words and actions surrounding our lives, and,  as they go, remember not our names, but His as the source of the impact on their lives and the subsequent happiness in their hearts.

Cartoon characters can’t alter the circumstances of one’s life at all. Momentary mood changers, they merely supply diversion and laughter, welcome anytime, but especially when our stress levels are at the breaking point. The effects of their influence diminish the minute they are no longer in view. Christ, however, works ever more effectively by changing us from the inside out, so that the situations we face daily no longer have a hold over us and our actions are not dictated by those of the people around us, whether they be fast or slow or even know that we’re in a hurry. We won’t have to pin our joy on our clothing for others to notice it; instead it should overflow unconsciously and continuously from a heart filled with the same.

A picture of SpongeBob changed that lady from being the maddest person on the planet to the happiest woman on earth…temporarily…, but a vision of Christ can fill a heart with eternal joy and produce life change that is clearly out of this world.

May He be that visible in you and me.

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, in order to prove by you what is that good and pleasing and perfect will of God.” 

(Romans 12:2 MKJV)

Born in a Barn

“Close that door! Were you born in a barn?”

Well…yes, He was. He was born in a stable of some sort, at least, likely surrounded by animals, and laid in a manger of hay. And He’s been leaving doors open behind Him ever since.

Many more years ago than her youngest daughter is old, my friend Terry had an encounter with God. While I don’t know the details, I do know that Jesus came knocking on her heart’s door one day, and she let Him in. Not only did He never leave, He left the door open behind Him, and countless others have followed His lead into her heart and life.

I joined that crowd when she began hosting a mid-week fellowship and Bible study gathering several years ago and literally opened the door to her home for a group of us who have been faithfully meeting there ever since. For years upon years now she’s rushed home from her job on a Thursday to start a meal for the lot of us and then sits on her porch and waits for us all to arrive. Enveloped in hugs and love when we do, we’re ushered inside for a time of food and friendly banter. When the meal has moved from plates to waists we move the dishes to the kitchen, break out the coffee cups, pens and worksheets and study the night’s lesson in one accord. The evening ends as it began, with laughter on the front porch as the crowd gradually dissipates into the cars that fill the driveway and heads for home.

As the last guest leaves and her door is shut on the night, Terry’s heart and life are still open and available. Because she freely shares her struggles and foibles, friends and acquaintances feel comfortable to be real about theirs around her and come calling on the phone or crowding a campfire in her backyard as together they search for the keys to dealing with the problems they face. More often than not her visitors find Jesus in their discussions with her, whether they open a conversation with Him on their own at that point yet or not. They are at least introduced to the Master Locksmith who can open any door that is closed to them, whether it be a physical door of opportunity in their lives, or the entryway into the heart of another person that was closed over an event that happened in the past. And it begins by responding to the pounding of their own hearts, and letting Him in.

I have a fear of facing a locked door on my car. Because the key contains a computer chip it is expensive to duplicate, and I haven’t gone to the expense of doing so again after the first spare was lost on a snowboarding hill and the second simply disappeared somewhere in the house. As a result I never leave my car casually anymore, but stop to make sure I’m holding the key in my hand before I exit the vehicle. Even so, I still remember the horror of accidentally dropping my lone means of entry into the trunk one day just as the lid to the thing came slamming down. And many of us live restricted lives because we’re similarly afraid of somehow dropping the ball with God and hearing the Gates of Heaven slam shut against us forever as a result.

Yet God doesn’t want us to live our lives in fear. Knowing that we were without the means ourselves to purchase our passage into His Presence, He sent His Son to rescue us. Jesus was born in a barn in Bethlehem for the sole purpose of reopening the door of communication between fallen man and the God Who still desperately loved His creation, despite their rejection and sin. With His death He made restitution for us all and reconciliation a precious possibility as Heaven’s portals swung wide open once more.

From the night of His birth, while yet in His mother’s womb as she and Joseph arrived at a crowded inn, He’s been knocking on doors that are closed to Him, seeking a place to be born anew. If this Christmas you feel strangely moved, perhaps it’s because He has come to you with a simple message from your Father‘s heart: The door is open. The porch light is on. Hurry Home.

 “For it is through Him that we …now have…(access)…to the Father…”
(Ephesians 2:18 AMP)

Happy Ever-Afters

“So much for my happy ending…”, a recent Facebook post began.

I knew the girl, but not her story, yet I could relate to her disappointment. I’m a huge fan of happy endings in movies, in books…and especially in life. But things don’t always work out that way. Loved ones die despite the best medical science can offer, relationships sometimes end on an unpleasant note, and doors slam shut on even the best-laid plans.

Too often we are then consumed with sorrow and loss over our lot in life. While grief is understandable and even to be expected, lingering depression over any situation is self-destructive and defeating. Yet once pulled into its web, it clings to us and seems to resist our best efforts to shake ourselves free.

Perhaps the problem is with our perspective. When such events occur our natural feeling to think that our lives are over and done, and mentally we close the book on our future and set it down. We give up hope for happiness and fulfillment because that which we longed for failed to come to pass.

Yet if we haven’t experienced a happy ending in a situation, perhaps it’s because we’ve not yet reached its end. As long as there’s breath in our bodies, our stories continue on. Each day brings a turning of the page as a new chapter unfolds before us, filled with characters and plot lines written in Heaven, but not yet experienced on earth. Opportunities for joy await us if we will bravely step into the future that lies ahead.

To a large degree we write our own happy endings. We can’t dictate the hand we are dealt, but we can choose how to play it. Life is simply a progression of choices we make that lead us in one direction or another. We can’t win if we fold. Better yet to turn another card and see what we can make of the next card in the deck.

Unlike a card game, however, life is not a game of chance. Every detail has already been scribed by the hand of a loving Father Who wrote and therefore sees our story in its entirety, while we simply struggle on, page by page. I’ve given up on many a book I’ve been reading because I didn’t understand or appreciate where the author was leading me. Yet there are some writers that I will stick with no matter what because I know from past experience that the story will come together in the end. Even more do I trust the Author of Life as He pens around even the difficult spots in my life to bring events to a happy conclusion, as He promises in His Word to do.

Sometimes we have to fight to bring those happy endings to pass. As if in illustration of this point, I came home from work last night to find that our puppy had shredded the bestseller I was currently reading. While relieved that for once it hadn’t come from the library, I was yet horrified at the thought of not being able to see how the story ended! The cover was torn into a million little bits scattered over the living room floor, the back ripped off, pages torn out. Quickly I gathered up the latter and examined the ruined remains. To my relief, while battered and chewed, the pages were still readable, and while the last page was temporarily missing, I located it in the litter around me and found that with a little tape it could be salvaged.

Some days end with our hopes and dreams similarly lying in scattered disarray about our feet. We have to dig through the wreckage of broken pieces to find what can be salvaged…a place to begin again from, a hope to build on. When we bring that remnant to God and place it at His feet, we find over time that He somehow is able to make all things work together for our good.

As the year draws to a close it’s a good time to consider that the story of our lives could well be doing the same. God wrote our beginning when He created us in our mother’s womb, and He had a plot line in mind before we were even born. But He allows us to chose the ending, a decision that will largely determine how things work out in the middle. He pre-wrote one possibility when He sent His Son to die for our sins, reconcile us to Himself and make Heaven available once more upon accepting Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf. Rejecting that offer, we can choose to continue to go our own way and accept the consequences that follow. No matter what dark turns our stories may have taken, a positive outcome is always within the realm of possibility.

Recently a young mother came through my check-out lane in the grocery store with her two little girls, the older of which was tickling the younger one seated in the front of the cart. Their delighted laughter filled the air and caught the attention of all of us standing near. I mentioned to the mother how great it would be to bottle up that happiness and offer it to a world so stressed and miserable and in desperate need of the same. And that is exactly what God has done in the gift of His Son.

On and on their laughter went, rolling waves of joy that absolutely arrested us, giving us no choice but to stop all our busyness for a minute and smile. As I did so, I heard His voice whisper in my ear, “That’s what Heaven sounds like.“ A happy ending, indeed.

May we similarly stop for a moment as the year draws to a close and let this thought tickle  our imaginations: The happy ever-afters we so long for could be just one choice away.

“being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
(Philippians 1:6 NIV)

Ahhh, Asiago!

I love asiago cheese, and I’m fond of the occasional bagel. Putting the two in combination was something I’d never considered until a bagger friend at the grocery store one morning was pondering his food options for his upcoming break and suddenly said, “That’s it! I’ll have an asiago cheese bagel!”

Noting the blank stares on those of us working around him, he said, “Haven’t you ever tried one of those?! They’re incredible! The saltiness of the cheese is just the perfect complement to the bread of the bagel. Once you try one, you’ll be hooked! But you have to buy them early; they go fast.”

It turns out he was right on all counts. Amused that I was the one who was next sent on break, with a few coins in my pocket and curiosity in my taste buds I headed to the bakery section in the back of the store. There I was lucky enough to find a few of the desired item still in the display case, quickly bought one and headed off to the break room. Soon I was in asiago bagel heaven, the mass of cheese filling the hole in the middle and melted around the bottom a special delight!

Wouldn’t you know, once on board I found that my new bagel addiction was hard to feed. My bagger friend was right; the asiago variety sold out quickly each morning, leaving only an empty tray and a few crumbs in their slot next to their jalapeno cheddar brothers. Farther on down there were likewise plenty of its cinnamon crunch buddies, my former bagel of choice, but having tasted the asiago variety I was surprised to find that they no longer tempted me the way they used to. I would simply sigh in disappointment and turn away to find a less satisfying snack to eat that day.

I even mentioned the problem to the bakery manager the next time I saw him, asking why he didn’t refill the bagel case when one particular variety sold out. He told me that they put out all that they have at one time, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. He did suggest a simple solution to the problem, however, generously offering to put some aside for me if I’d mention the matter to him the night before.

I’ve yet to take him up on the offer, and I think I know why. I like the anticipation of the trip to that corner of the store, wondering if my desire is going to be satisfied on that particular morning. Whatever the outcome, the longing remains and springs up fresh and new on the succeeding day. It’s even stirred by the sight of a bakery bag coming down the lane in the midst of a customer’s groceries when I’m working behind the register later on, the toasted cheese shreds on the bagel visible through the translucent packaging a dead giveaway to the wonders of what lie inside.

It’s the same thing that brings me to my devotional time each day, the anticipation of what God might have to say. I’ve become addicted to the sound of His voice. I’m amazed that I lived for years not knowing that such a treat was available to me, and am forever grateful to the fellow traveler who one day asked me if I’d sampled His wares. His description of the joy he found in his own relationship with God intrigued me, and after giving the matter some thought, I decided to try it out for myself. What I found, however, was so much more than just a temporary satisfaction to a momentary hunger. God literally saved and then changed my life, little by little in those morning meetings with Him, a bite at a time.

An interesting thing has happened as a result. Other pleasures, some healthy, others less so, have lost their pull on my life, replaced by a taste sensation in those mealtimes with God that they just can’t match. And now I’m hooked. I come to Him each day for food that satisfies, and unlike as sometimes happens in the bakery, I never come away disappointed. He always has something ready for me if I’ll simply make the time to head in His direction.

Due to their scarcity, there’s an unwritten code of ethics to be followed among us cheese bagel devotees that applies only to this one variety we so adore: you buy one and leave one for the next person who comes along. Another asiago addict told me that he tried to stare down a lady beside him at the bakery case who quickly stashed three in a bag and left in a hurry, refusing to meet his accusing gaze. And I laughed at myself the other day when a bakery bag came down the conveyor belt of my checkout lane, and I could clearly see the bagels lying inside, back to cheesy back. While I always confirm the quantity inside with the customer before ringing them up, I noticed there was a slight edge to my voice and I spoke perhaps a little too loudly as I asked, “You’ve got two in here?” She ignored my tone as best she could and simply nodded as she continued to unload her groceries. But she got my point.

All joking aside, we tend to do that with the spiritual treats we consume, as well. We hoard what God meant to be freely shared about, and wait for people to be stirred by the tell-tale signs of His presence inside our human packaging before offering to share the joy we’ve discovered with the hungry souls around us. God wants us to simply give what we’ve got away. Thankfully His supply never runs out, His mercies are new every morning, and refills are available throughout the day! Any time we feel the hunger rumbling in our spirits we can physically or mentally hit our knees and smile at our Father in anticipation as we whisper, “A little asiago cheese, please…?!”

It’s a picture and a plea He simply can’t resist.

“And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes on Me shall never thirst.”
(John 6:35 MKJV)

Strange Change

November is upon us, and change is in the air.

We’re reminded of that fact officially as we move our clocks back this first weekend of the month. The presidential election just after that has filled the airwaves with debates, commercials and promises of a shift in one direction or another in the political arena as the chair in the Oval Office is once again up for grabs. Even the vacillating temperatures outside contribute to the unsettling upheaval of things as we’ve known them recently, as the onset of winter rains and whipping winds rip the last of the leaves off the trees, filling the world we walk through with their communal downward dance.

Surely the leaves drop and the clocks fall back and elections occur regularly as scheduled, year after year after year. But this year I’m noticing some strange transformations happening in me, in the thoughts that fill my mind and the activities that fill my days. My personal colors seem to be changing, and things I’ve held on to tightly for seasons past are now dropping at my feet and being simply kicked aside as I move on with my life. Individually they are as insignificant as one leaf on a tree filled with the same, but when they all start falling at once, it causes me to look up and wonder what on earth is going on.

Like I said, they are little things. Like the Saturday morning I ran into town after a big family breakfast to knock some errands off my to-do list. Amazingly I found a parking space in front of the gift store I needed to visit and went inside. Business done, I came back out and looked longingly at the Starbucks franchise that was directly across the street. Although I had time on my hands and a gift card in my purse, it was the calorie expenditure I couldn’t afford on that particular day…so I got in my car and drove away! No earthquake split the street before me and the sky didn’t fall, but in my own personal world, that moment was HUGE.

One weekend later family tradition found us at a small local festival, walking a street lined with vendors selling food and hand-crafted items of all kinds. When it comes to purses I’m a firm believer in the bigger, the better. I stash everything from an occasional bottle of pop to my laptop in mine, and thus I never buy small bags. Yet that day I bought one that was flat and thin and hardly wider than my fingers could stretch. Doubtful that I’d make it a week without switching back to a bigger version, I dubbed it as an experiment, to see if I could function without carrying my life around with me in my hands all the time. I’ve had to make a few adjustments in the way I do things, but overall it seems to be working.

Actually, I would have walked right on by that vendor’s booth had it not been for one piece of fabric on an otherwise denim blue bag that sucked me in. None of the other bags hanging around it interested me in the least, but the autumn leaf print on the quilted border on the one caught my eye and hooked me, perhaps the way God hoped the changing colors of my daily routines would catch my attention and look to Him for an explanation.

Clearly I’m experiencing a paring down, and not just on the digital read of the bathroom scale and the amount of clutter I carry around. Things I’ve told myself were absolute necessities I’m now suddenly able to put aside and adapt to life without. But to what purpose? And is it just for a season, or are these lifestyle changes of longer duration?

I think back to when Jesus sent out the seventy-two disciples and told them not to take along a purse, bag or sandals. Later He asked them if they had lacked anything during that time, and they answered that they made out just fine. Perhaps the purpose was to teach the lot of us that our joy and peace as well as our daily sustenance are not found in the things we consume or carry about in this life, but in the One who carries us. He frees us from the burden of our own provision that we might concentrate instead on Kingdom purposes and His business.

I’m reminded of the passage in John 15 in which Jesus said He is the Vine, and we are the branches. He explained that every branch of the vine that bears no fruit is cut off, and those that are fruitful are pruned for greater production. Surely there are aspects of my existence that bear no fruit in the heavenly realm; they use resources of money, time and energy but nothing of eternal value comes out of them, and so they must be eliminated. Meanwhile God prunes and refines the spiritually productive areas in my life so that they can be even more effective. .

Throughout His years of ministry on earth Jesus was constantly looking about Him for fruit. He looked not only for figs on trees, but faith in His followers, and every time He ran into somebody with even a mustard-sized portion of it His eyes lit up and His heart beat a little faster…the moment was an occasion for joy. And even yet today He looks for love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and self-control …the fruits of the spirit… to be evident in the lives of you and me. Oh that He could likewise find in our hearts and lives a similar reason to rejoice!

Recently I mentioned to my husband that I’d made my last trip to the state park near us for the year. When my he questioned me on it I tried to explain that the brilliance of the fall color is over for the year, the leaves are on the ground,  and the bare stems are simply depressing to me. Already I find myself looking forward to spring, when there‘s new life bursting up from the ground and out of every branch tip.

In much the same way I feel a little disturbed at the changes taking place within me. It seems at times that there’s an awful lot of loss. But neither does God like the sight of a barren life that bears no fruit. So I welcome the spiritual pruning and cutting away that’s going on now if it means that days from now God will similarly be able to rejoice in the springtime of my soul and delight at the sight of the fruit that He finds there.

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
(John 15:11 NIV)

Savor the Flavor

“Tell me what you really think.”

Perhaps you, too, wonder sometimes if the above message is tattooed across your forehead or printed on a sign around your neck, considering the freedom some people feel to speak their opinions about your life, often at the most inopportune times. In my experience those moments seem to come most often in public venues when I’m surrounded by a host of listening bystanders. The latest left me standing before the man open-mouthed and speechless:

“I can see that you’re gaining weight, and that‘s alright, except that you used to be such a slender little thing.”

Aside from the fact that I can’t even remember the last time I was “slender “(it may have been in the fifth grade) I couldn’t believe the gall of the man to bring up such a sensitive subject in the middle of a crowded grocery store line. Yet if God can get past our pride, He can often use such comments to provoke positive change.

While not everything people say to us needs to be received, in this case I had to admit that the man was absolutely right. Having recently reached a new high on the bathroom scale, I had downloaded a calorie counter app onto my phone just the day before. What I lacked was the motivation to start using it, which this customer unwittingly provided. And in the month and a half since that day I have been carefully abiding by my calculated calorie allotment per day, considering my food options and making choices based on the calorie counts I now read on nutritional labels, googling the same in their absence.

Several things have happened in the weeks since I started. The first is that I became aware of just how many calories I was consuming per day, especially in caffeinated liquid form. I’ve noticed that with less food on my plate I eat each meal much more slowly, taking smaller bites and savoring the flavors of each individual meal element, instead of simply gulping it all down due to the abundance before me. And I love the rediscovered feeling of control over my diet and my weight, to know that I can still eat whatever I want, just not all on the same day. I budget my calories now, and plan ahead for meals out or special treats (pumpkin spice lattes come strongly to mind) so that I can enjoy them at the time and not regret them later when I next have to step on the scale.

And then another day, another customer, and another opportunity for life change.

This shopper told a fellow cashier that he was once married to a woman who talked as much as I did and was reminded how glad he was to be rid of her! At the time I simply wrote him off as a grumpy old man having a bad day, but he got me to wondering what a difference it would make if I had an app that tracked the words that come out of my mouth the way my diet diary tracks the food that goes in. If I was only allotted so many words per day, wouldn’t I take care to make every one count? I’d be careful not to waste any on foolish conversations, instead conserving my daily allocation to communicate the important thoughts on my heart and mind or to speak a blessing or encouragement to somebody in need.

The customer isn’t always right, despite the saying to the opposite, but in this case I had to agree with mine that there are people we avoid because of the ceaseless babble that comes out of their mouths, even friends we are afraid to open conversations with because we fear they will never end. The more compassionate hearts among us seek to find the reason behind their need to speak in long-winded diatribes; the rest of us just run from them. I don’t want to be counted in their number.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are those whose words are carefully considered and chosen before they’re spoken, people whose inner thoughts come out in short and stirring messages of wisdom, hope, or enlightenment. While they don’t speak in volume, what they do say has a definite impact, and the people around them have learned that their conversation is worth the wait, however short their communication may be. This is the word-watcher group we should be anxious to join.

It’s interesting to note that my calorie-counter app takes into consideration any exercise I do, and allows me extra calories to consume each day according to the number I burn off in activity of some sort. It seems that everything short of sitting in a chair burns off some calories; the list of  possible physical exertions to engage in seems endless as I scroll through page after page of them on my phone. I don’t visit the list often, as my “exercise” usually consists of a short walk on the road in front of my house and maybe a stretch or two. But I’m reminded of the correlation with my faith, that my opportunities to speak for God and the life-changing power behind my words are increased with the active pursuit of His presence through prayer and Bible study and the exercise of my faith in ministry of some sort. Again the opportunities to serve are endless and should be ever on our minds instead of tucked away and ignored as we go about our days.

Some day God will tell us what He really thinks…about our lives…our love walk…our spiritual weight… and the value of the words we spoke. His opinion will count for all eternity, so we should make sure it’s one we’re going to want to hear. Let’s strive to live in such a way that God Himself will savor the flavor of what we have to say.

“…For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings out good things; and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings out evil things. But I say to you that every idle word, whatever men may speak, they shall give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned.”
(Matthew 12:34-37 MKJV)

Tired and Tardy, Lazy and Late

I looked up at the clock over the microwave, and gasped. Knowing I had to be at work by 11 a.m. that morning, I had timed the events of my day so that I’d be ready to leave home at exactly half past the ten o’clock hour. One by one I had ticked off the tasks on my list as I completed them until I stood ready to grab my purse and head out the door. One last look at the clock, and….what on earth had happened?! Somehow I had lost an hour! It was already 11:30, not 10:30, and I was headed to being a full sixty minutes late by the time I reached the time clock to punch in!

Quickly I grabbed my phone and called in. How on earth do you explain an hour’s tardiness when you have no explanation yourself?! No flat tire, no lost key, no excuse. I simply lost track of time. Thankfully my supervisor thought my horror over the situation was amusing, told me not to make a habit of it and to hurry in to work.

All day long I was amazed by my belated arrival, as I am rarely more than a minute or two late, at most. The bagger at the end of my checkout lane enjoyed it immensely, however, and teased me endlessly about losing my grip on life, this being the first evidence of the start of a downhill slide. I finally shook it off as just one of those things that happen from time to time…until I walked in the door the next morning (thankfully, on time!) and ran into my bagger buddy once more.

“Guess what happened to me today!” he said.

“Were you…late?” I asked.

“Yes!” he responded.

“Were you…an hour late?” I queried.

“Yes!” he answered again, and we both broke out into laughter over the absurdity of the situation. Like me, he had no real excuse, he simply overslept.

At least then I felt better about my own tardiness, understanding that God was using our tandem experiences to illustrate a point. Simply stated, it’s later than we think…for us as believers, for our coworkers in the Body of Christ, and most especially for the lost among us who need our witness and work in the ministry to lead them to a saving knowledge of Christ. And in God’s view of things, it’s no laughing matter.

A group of women in our church went away recently for a weekend of fellowship, shopping, and spiritual regrouping. They came home newly awakened to the call to pray, to seek God’s face, and to intercede for the Church, our fellow believers worldwide who are increasingly under attack. Resisting the urge to dally under the warm covers on cool autumn mornings now they instead get up and meet with their God, speaking His will and Word over the lives of their loved ones and canceling any plans the enemy may have against them with their active intercession. They reserve the first moments of the day for that which is most important, long before their schedules fill up and their energy runs out. “RIP those blankets off!” has become a spiritual battle cry that echoes from one corner of our sanctuary to another now on Sunday mornings as they meet, greet and encourage one another to remain faithful to the call.

It matters because we have an enemy who simply never takes a day off. He is ever on the job, looking for those whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8) and seeking to steal, kill and destroy the lives of our loved ones and the lost among us. If people truly die at the rate of 2 lives per second, then each minute that we are “late” is costly indeed, especially for the unsaved, who will pay for our tardiness for eternity.

The situation was graphically illustrated the other night when a pack of coyotes attacked a neighbor’s dog. My husband listened in horror as the sounds of the fight came through the open bedroom window. The neighbor’s pet was clearly outnumbered and getting the worst of it; he wondered if it would survive the night. Quickly he got up to make sure our own animals were inside where it was safe. It brought back memories of  a night years ago when our own beloved golden retriever was wandering in the nighttime hours and met a similar fate. Thankfully he survived, but he was never quite the same after that attack.

Too many of us are living with a false sense of security, oblivious to the ploys of the enemy who waits till we’re not on the lookout to slip in his subtle temptations and lead us astray. Likewise we have loved ones who are wandering in the darkness of these times, oblivious to the danger that surrounds them. Perhaps if we had a better picture of the fate that awaits those who stumble into his clutches we would be similarly impelled to arise from our physical and spiritual slumber and begin to pray for their spiritual safety and security.

But God asks more of us than that we just pray for ourselves and the people we know. He, too, has loved ones that have yet to come safely Home, as well as those out searching for them who likewise need the protection of our prayer covering. And He’s looking for workers who will throw back their covers and rise to the challenge…while there’s still time. 

Remember that it was while His disciples were sleeping instead of praying in the Garden of Gethsemane that God’s own Son was set upon by a pack of dogs. He allowed it to happen so that we would not have to suffer a similar fate. But perhaps that’s why God doesn’t find our tardiness amusing. The consequences affect more than a paycheck or a company‘s bottom line; the lives of people who are dear to Him hang in the balance. For the love of God, then, let’s rip off the life of ease that lulls us back to spiritual sleep, and get to work.

 “When he came back to his disciples, he found them sound asleep. He said to Peter, ‘Can’t you stick it out with me a single hour? Stay alert; be in prayer so you don’t wander into temptation without even knowing you’re in danger. There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there’s another part that’s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.’” (Matthew 26:40-41 MSG)

The Fungus Among Us

It doesn‘t take much to turn my stomach these days. It rebels at a number of things commonly shown on television commercials, usually just when I’ve sat down in front of the screen with a meal that I can’t wait to dig into. Everything you can imagine is paraded in front of me at such times in explicit detail, from out-of-control pest populations on ads for exterminators, to various medical conditions that can be treated with the latest discoveries in the pharmaceutical world. As the pictures scroll, my stomach starts to roll and rumble in protest. It’s bad enough to see toenail fungus on your feet, but on the television screen at a mealtime, it’s simply too much. Yet the commercials continue, often one right after another, heedless of my voiced protests, “People are trying to eat here! Have a little mercy…!” I’m forced to close my eyes and wait for the visual torture to end, hoping I still have an appetite when it’s over.

All that to say that while I’m not fond of seeing fungus on people, on trees it’s a different story. One of the delights of walking though the woods for me is noting the “conks” or fruiting bodies of various fungi that spring up on dead or infected trees. The variety is astounding, each one beautiful in its own special way. We normally think of fungi in negative terms, but the truth is that they are doing the forest a favor, breaking up dead tree matter to release the minerals they contain and make them available to the healthy, growing stems in the ecosystem. Fungi are simply the forest’s friends, and so I feel free to admire the unique beauty and individuality of these growths that indicate their presence at work in the woods I‘m passing through. A little knowledge as to their purpose puts beauty in the eye of an otherwise skeptical beholder.

Perhaps I need to remember that when I’m tempted at times to avoid some seemingly fungus-filled people around me. Many times I’ve come to a mealtime in God’s house only to be put off by the behavior of someone near me that simply rubs me the wrong way. Yet it’s likely that God is using the very quirks that irritate me in their personality to develop some missing qualities in my own. Those traits then become a blessing rather than a burden, and that different perspective causes me to view the person with more tolerance and acceptance, again putting newly-perceived beauty in the eye of this formerly impatient beholder.

Too much time spent criticizing the other guy makes me blind to the ugliness of my own imperfections,…at least until some unexpected turn of events sprouts an uncensored reaction in me that is similarly openly displayed before a watching world. I am suddenly reminded again that I, too, am a sinner ever in need of the Savior who has redeemed me and is gradually changing me from the inside out. While those moments of reality are repulsive in themselves, their value lies in the revelation of problem areas that can be corrected once their existence is made known. Like conks on the trees they are the visual evidence of spiritual potential that is currently trapped by my sin nature, awaiting the touch of the Savior to release it in power to the benefit of those around me. And He awaits my invitation to come in His victory and likewise set me free.

It’s comforting to note that because we’re covered in Christ, when God walks among His people as I walk in the woods, He is not put off by the problem areas that are often so newly visible to us; they are hidden in His Son’s perfection. When He looks at you and me, it‘s His Son that He sees, and therefore there’s nothing but Beauty in the beholding eye of the Most High.

 “You can see the speck in your friend’s eye, but you don’t notice the log in your own eye. How can you say, ‘My friend, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you don’t see the log in your own eye?”
(Matthew 7:3 CEV)

S.M.I.L.E.

Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Shannon

“I like that thing you do with your teeth,” little 4-year-old Patrick said to me the other night, running his forefinger sideways across his own pint-sized incisors. “You do it a lot.”

“You mean my smile?” I asked, immediately breaking out into laughter. What a unique way to describe it, I thought to myself: That thing you do with your teeth.

Patrick had been out on a late-night bike ride, his ever-present granddad walking along behind his training-wheel-supported two-wheeler. Having spotted me sitting on the church’s front steps as I waited for my husband to give me a ride home, he pedaled over to say hi. 

People smile at Patrick a lot, in part because he is the epitome of “cute”. His close-cropped blond hair covers a round little face that studies the world around him perhaps a little too seriously for a boy of his age. Full of energy and four-year-old precociousness, he doesn’t know a stranger and will strike up a conversation with anybody willing to give him the time of day, simply because that is exactly what his hungry heart is looking for. With big eyes that beg to be loved he searches the face of everybody he greets for someone to give him the attention and affection his mother in all her personal struggles cannot.

His devoted grandpa has admirably stepped in the gap, raising him himself as best he can, hugging and loving and doctoring the boy, taking him to T-ball practices and games, putting clothes on his body, food in his belly and tucking him tightly into bed at night. But he worries that what he has to offer at the end of a long work day is simply not enough for what the boy needs. And I’ve noticed that people around this twosome have surrounded them with smiles as a result.

If you’re thinking that they might need something a little more substantial than that, consider that a smile is really anything that’s done to Simply Make It (a) Little Easier for somebody else to get through the day. It was a surprise to realize how often it can be done without moving one’s lips at all, but by bringing other body parts into selfless service instead. People need shoulders to lean on when times are tough…muscles to move furniture from one living space to another… hands to help with the kids, the cooking, or the cleaning… thumbs that type messages of hope into a phone…voices that speak an encouraging word…and arms that envelope in a wordless hug. A friend’s fingers recently organized a fundraiser online for fire victims, while another grinned with her shins at a breast cancer awareness run. Whether you smile with your gums or your gams, God sees it and will return the same to you on your own most difficult days. 

People “beam” at one another in any number of ways, letting the light and love of God break out from inside of them, not just through their lips but in whatever means they can find to chase away the darkness that surrounds another. A physical reminder of this concept sits on my front doorstep - a miniature lighthouse with a solar panel on top that absorbs sunlight during the day to power its light at night. As times get more difficult and the black of night becomes more intense it is even more imperative that we keep our individual relationships with God going strong, absorbing His light on a daily basis so that His love and help shine out brightly to others who are looking to find their way through the storms that surround them. My lighthouse yard decoration needs those hours of sunlight if it’s going to have anything to offer in the dark. We are simply the same way. We can’t short our hours in the “Son” and expect to have anything but a dim glow to show for it. Like Patrick and his Papaw, the people around us simply need more than that from us to help them make it through.

Here’s a thought: Even more than Patrick does God like that thing you do with your “teeth“…your heart…your life.

Do it a lot.

“Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them.”
(Romans 12:6 NKJV)

When Second is First

“Tomorrow, then, same time, same place?” Phil asked. The orchestra director nodded, and I groaned, envisioning another evening of violin practice instead of whatever other activity I had planned.

Phillip’s friendly, freckle-covered face was marked by his blue eyes and easy smile and was topped with a swatch of closely-cropped flaming red hair. I liked him fine in math class; it was when we walked through the doors of the music building that he switched from friend to foe, and a persistent one at that. We were fighting for a chair, a position really, and a title, that of concertmistress/master (depending on the gender of the person who came out of the battle with the top seat in the orchestra’s first violin section) and all the duties and privileges that accompanied it. It was one thing to land the seat, and another completely to keep it, I was quickly finding out, as Phillip scheduled daily challenges to unseat me.

In our freshman year of high school the top spot was held (as it had been the preceding three years) by a family friend and neighbor named Robert who played like a pro, largely because he practiced like one. Every day on my way home I’d pass by his house and see him through his bedroom window, violin tucked under his chin, working away. He was so far ahead of the rest of us in talent and ability that Philip and I simply joined the mass of violinists behind him who were counting the days until his graduation, an event that finally opened the floodgates of competition for those who followed after him and were soon fighting for his chair.

Perhaps because I had that vision of Robert’s daily dedication to his instrument, I had a better idea than most of what it took to be the best. And maybe that’s why I scoffed when I read the Message Bible’s version of Romans 12:10, a verse that instructs us to “practice playing second fiddle.”

Nobody has to practice to play second fiddle, I thought. Second fiddle is what you end up with when you don’t practice hard enough to play first!

Our flesh fights for first place in every area of our existence. So many of our choices are geared towards putting us at the top of the heap of whatever the current pile-on, and we’ll give up pleasures untold to prepare ourselves to end up in that position.

It’s not a new battle. Even the disciples back in Jesus’ day struggled with one another over the seating arrangement in the heavenly concert hall, trying to lay claim to the chairs to Jesus’ right and left (Matthew 20:20-28).  And Jesus told them in effect what He still says to us today, that greatness in the Kingdom of God is  measured in servanthood and how hard we work to help others succeed. It’s this reversal of our natural thinking that takes constant and daily practice.

In the physical world we long for the attention that follows success. It’s easy to carry that over into our spiritual lives. We desire to have God’s eye upon us, to single us out, to look upon us with special favor and love. Yet we easily forget is that we can’t earn God’s love. It was a gift at the outset, and nothing we have to offer can make Him love us more or less. When we truly grasp the concept of His absolute and unconditional love for each of us, suddenly the burden of competition is lifted from our shoulders, and we find we’re free to do as He commands, to love others above ourselves and to put their welfare above our own. It’s that latter part that requires daily practice as we strive to outdo each other in service and submission.

Perhaps it’s not good to liken the Christian life to a race, as that concept once again stirs up the “victory vice” that lies just under the surface for most of us. And yet the Bible encourages us to train as one who gets the prize. Perhaps we just need a different picture of what “winning” is all about. If truth be told, God probably wouldn’t even see who crossed the finish line first because His eye is on the straggler…that one who is lagging behind and perhaps in danger of dropping out. And there’s a special place in His heart for the runner who gives up his own golden opportunities to help the brother who is in danger of collapse, that they might instead finish the race together, shoulder to shoulder and arm in arm.

It’s a little late to tell Phil, but these days I‘m a lot more willing to play harmony to another‘s lead. It’s taken several decades and a lot of broken heartstrings to learn that when my eye is on the other guy, to see that he succeeds, God’s eye is turned towards me. There‘s simply no greater spotlight to be in than that.

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.”
(Philippians 2:4 NKJV)

Jump-start to Spiritual Joy

(Photo courtesy of Evan Woss)

Scrambling, as usual, to get to work on time, I grabbed my purse, lunch, coffee, and keys and dashed out the door. Tossing the bags into the empty seat beside me, I slid into the car and fastened my seat belt, ready to race up the driveway and be on my way. But all my acquired momentum was brought to a literal dead halt when I heard only an ominous “click…click…click”  when I turned the key, instead of the engine roaring to life as it normally does.

When the same thing happened to my son just two weeks earlier, he simply jump-started his truck and it ran perfectly again from that point on, although he kept the jumper cables close at hand for a while, just in case. Sadly, when my turn came, all the family members were already at work, their vehicles and the all important jumper cables many miles away. Distance likewise prevented my boss from sending somebody out to get me when I phoned to say I’d be late at best. But a call to my husband revealed that somewhere in the garage was a battery charger! I had only to locate it, find an equally-invisible extension cord with the appropriate three-pronged end, hook the cables to the right posts on the battery, and plug it in. If I did it right and the garage didn’t blow up, I’d be good to go in a matter of fifteen to twenty minutes.

Easier said over the phone than done in the sweltering heat and crowded confines of our cluttered garage, the mission was yet eventually accomplished. Once at work, I spent the hours till quitting time praying that my experience would mirror my son’s, and the car would start again at the end of my shift without a problem. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case, but my boy and his buddies were watching movies together nearby, and they gladly put their plans on pause to come to my rescue. I was soon on my way once more, and a new battery eventually kept the situation from repeating itself any further. It left me, however, with a new empathy for those struggling in like situations, and it seemed after my own experience that I saw them everywhere; cars positioned with front ends together, hoods up, and people fumbling around on the mass of metal underneath.

I wondered if the summer’s unusually hot temperatures could have anything to do with the issue at hand, and eventually learned that heat is indeed the primary cause of battery failure. Thankfully I didn’t need to delve too deeply into technical jargon that was already way over my head to understand God’s point about the similar difficulty of holding on to a spiritual charge in the extreme heat of today‘s spiritual climate.

You don’t need to be a weather forecaster to know that it is hot outside. People everywhere this summer are complaining about how the high temperatures have drained them of the energy they need to get anything done. Similarly the Bible tells us that the intensity of the spiritual battles we face on a daily basis is on the rise, as well, as the end times approach. Believers everywhere find themselves increasingly fatigued and worn down as the constant onslaught of the enemy drains their focus and power in the spiritual realm.

Thankfully we know what to do about it. We position ourselves close to those who are still running strong and let a spark of their zeal jump-start us spiritually. For some, that’s all it takes to revitalize their souls, and they are able to continually recharge their own spirits from that point on. But others seem to have lost the ability to hold on to that new lease on spiritual life and soon find themselves defeated and despairing all over again.

I saw it first-hand when a powerful evangelist came to town recently and spoke words of life into several people I knew who were struggling in spiritually draining situations. At first they received his words with joy and there was new fire visible in their eyes, victory in their voices and power in their testimonies. It seemed they were running strong once more. But by even the next morning it was obvious in their phone conversations that they hadn’t been able to hold on to the messages of hope that had been handed to them.

In discussing the matter with my husband shortly thereafter he reminded me of the Parable of the Sower, in which the fate of the Word of God depended on the state of the soul into which it was spoken,  much like seed sown on various types of ground.. Sometimes the words we are given are simply stolen away by the enemy of our souls. At other times they are at first received with joy, but then fail to bear fruit because the hearer has no root and falls away when difficulties arise. Often the cares of life simply choke out that which has been spoken to us.  But occasionally the Word lands in receptive hearts that welcome it, retain it and persevere until it produces the life change they long to see.

How do we land in that latter group? A lot depends on the value we place on what we are given. To illustrate this point, God had me run into a policeman friend of mine recently. Dressed for duty, he yet took a moment to pull off his hat and show me the picture of his newborn daughter that he’d tucked inside. As I ooh-ed and aah-ed appropriately he asked if I’d seen the story written about him recently in the paper. I remembered that he’d pulled a car over and then had the driver exit the vehicle because he was driving on a suspended license. That’s when the man in the passenger seat suddenly locked the doors and slid over to the driver’s side in an attempt to take off in the car. The policeman lunged through the open window to try and stop the man and was then dragged twenty feet or so before letting go and continuing the chase in his patrol car, eventually arresting the suspect after he exited the vehicle and broke into a home in an attempt to escape.

My friend added a detail that he hadn’t shared with the reporter about his determination to catch the suspect. In his struggle with the man still in the car, his hat fell off his head and tumbled into the vehicle, photo still stuck inside the brim. He was simply not going to allow that man to drive away in the car with it sitting on the front seat!

The officer’s treasure was in his hat; ours is in our hearts. As believers we likewise hold positions of authority in the spiritual realm and should be just as determined to stop the enemy of our souls from stealing away that which we hold most dear.

Newly revived and running strong once more, we now carry the spiritual jumper cables that somebody beside us is soon going to need. It is essential then that we keep our spiritual batteries fully charged, because on any given date we‘d simply hate to show up late for whatever work God has planned for us to do.

 “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
(Luke 22:31-32 NIV)