The Reason

Some Christians argue against celebrating Christmas. He wasn't born this time of year, they say; or He never suggested, much less commanded, that we should observe His birthday; or Christmas is overwhelmingly secular in our culture, so isn't this "reason for the season" stuff a little disingenuous-- especially since it is not His birthday and so many of the people celebrating it are not His people? Fair enough. If anyone has convictions against keeping Christmas, they shouldn't do so. Romans 23b says, "Whatever is not from faith is sin [whatever is done with doubt is sinful]" (AMP 2015). 

But what if we approach this by taking a look at the Resurrection? Resurrection Sunday (more commonly called Easter) is the most important date on the Christian calendar, and rightly so. Without Christ's resurrection, his death doesn't save us. Without Christ's resurrection, His birth doesn't matter. 

Which means His birth matters a whole lot; His resurrection makes it so. Our births matter, too, because He is risen. Without the resurrection, the fact that any of us were even born would be cause for relentless mourning and weeping, because we would have been born only for destruction. Jesus died and rose to redeem us, yes, but also to make sense of human existence. 

So, because we celebrate the resurrection, we can celebrate events that take on meaning because of it. Birthday parties now make sense, because the fact of our births has been made worthwhile. Yes, His birthday may not be December 25, but how could He have saved us if He'd never been born as a man? No one can re-surrect unless He first surrects, to use an archaic term that means rises. If the resurrection makes the birth meaningful, then the birth makes the resurrection possible. 

And besides all this, Matthew and Luke, in their first and second chapters, were inspired to record the details--the most important of which is that Jesus was born of a virgin whose pregnancy was caused by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. A supernatural star appeared. Angels sang the good news. In the face of such miracles, how can we not sing the news, too? And as lovers of the Lord, how could we let others rejoice that Jesus is born! while choosing to sit it out? I can't imagine doing so. 

And so, I wish you Merry, Merry Christmas, to you and your house. 

   

Foretaste

When I smile at what I create, and I think, "This is good," I give thanks that it's only a shadow of the beauty He has made.  

How much more beautiful the beauty of what God creates?

How much homier the home we have with Him?

Encouraging Yourself in the Lord

We all welcome encouragement, especially when things aren't going well. But when things really, really aren't going well, or maybe it's that we have a really, really big task to face, and we know we're not enough, the world's platitudes, such as "You got this," can fall flat. What do we do then? And what do we do if we're all alone, with no one there to even urge, "Believe in yourself!" 

We can follow David's example and encourage ourselves in God.

David was Israel's most prominent king ever. He was called a man after God's own heart. He fathered the wisest, and perhaps richest, man who ever lived. He killed a giant in his youth, after the entire army of Israel couldn't do it. He was blessed with undying friendship from the man who in the natural should have inherited the crown: Jonathan. He was Jesus' most auspicious ancestor. But David also lived years and years of going through the absolute ringer.

One such episode is recorded in 1 Samuel 30. David and his men returned to Ziklag, which was his home for a time, to find that the Amalekites had raided and overthrown the city, setting it on fire. They enslaved every single person there, male and female, adults and children, including David's two wives, and carried them away. Ziklag was empty of life, and nothing was left but a heap of smoking ashes. 

David and those with him wept until they could weep no more, verse 4 tells us. For some time, then, they did nothing but mourn. To add to this, David's men began turning against him, blaming him for the tragedy and talking of stoning him. But David, says verse 6, felt strengthened and encouraged in the Lord his God. He immediately asked the priest for an ephod, and sought the Lord as to whether to pursue the band of raiders. He was given the go-ahead, and he recovered everything that had been taken.

The story in 1 Samuel doesn't tell us how David became strengthened, but we see David's process of encouraging himself in several of his psalms. In Psalm 22, for example, he begins, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" (Psalm 22:1 AMP 2015)? He is, of course, prophesying of Jesus through the first 18 verses of this psalm, but he's also expressing his own sense of separation from God during a time of anguish. The tide starts to turn in verse 19 when he writes, "But You, O Lord, do not be far from me; O You my help, come quickly to my assistance." From vv. 19-21, he prays for help and expresses confidence of an answer. Verse 22 begins, "I will tell of Your name to my countrymen..." Now he's sharing the good God has done for him in the past when he cried for help.

David takes yet another step forward when he says, in verse 25, "My praise will be of You in the great assembly." By the end of the psalm, in verse 31, David has the entire world and those yet to be born praising the Lord, having come quite a distance spiritually from feeling forsaken. I like how the Amplified version ends with its bracketed note, bringing the psalm full circle back to the voice of Jesus: "They will come and declare His righteousness to a people yet to be born--that He has done it [and that it is finished]" (Psalm 22:31 AMP 2015). 

So how does David encourage himself in God? He: 

--Starts by laying out his full lament. He gets it all off his chest and tells God exactly how he feels.

--Asks for help.

--Expresses confidence that this help will come.

--Tells others of God's goodness.

--Recalls answered prayers of the past.

--Praises the Lord.

--Declares God's goodness in all the earth.

You know--after one has done all that, it becomes a perverse kind of pride to feel that maybe you will be the first person ever that God didn't help. When we belong to Him, go to Him, ask for help, and remember who He is, we too can encourage ourselves in God. Because of who He is, and because He never leaves nor forsakes, we will get through it together. 

The Body

 No stitch too small

no thread too fine

for its unique space

its singular place

in the whole.

Driven vs. Led

 

Have you ever felt driven, or is it something you say about yourself? We may say, "I'm driven," when we're enthusiastically pursuing something and feel that inner impetus to achieve. But is "driven" what we really want to be? If we're driven, who's doing the driving? Is it us? Is it people who just want something out of us? Is it even, possibly, the accuser of the brethren?

You see, I don't think God drives us, so if we feel driven, we might want to consider who has the reins, the steering wheel, or their foot on the accelerator of our lives, and whether or not they should. 

The Holy Spirit leads. When we follow Him, we are led. The Spirit leads us into all truth (John 16:13). All who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God (Romans 8:14). Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 4:1). He also teaches, reminds, helps, intercedes, and guides, according to various verses. The closest thing I can find to "drives" (other than God driving Adam and Eve from the Garden, in Genesis 3, which is about punishment, not the giving of direction) is Paul's being "compelled" by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem (Acts 20:22). Very possibly, the Holy Spirit's leading had to be especially strong at that point, since God knew people would beg Paul not to go and prophesy to him of what would happen there (Acts 21:10-11). 

In short, when we speak of motivation, driving has a frantic note to it that doesn't square with God's gentle but authoritative voice. Be careful of being driven, as that may well be the world, the flesh, and the devil. Instead, be led by the Spirit of God. 

 

What Story and Praying in Tongues Have in Common (Disparate Things #2)

I enjoy drawing parallels between seemingly disparate things. So how is story--dare I say "fiction"--like praying in tongues?  

I know, I know--anyone reading this who doesn't believe the sign gifts are for today may see no disparity: "They're both made up!" they may reply. But I don't agree, and that's not where I'm going with this.

Let's look at one of my favorite Scripture passages, 2 Samuel 12. Here, the prophet Nathan confronts King David about his sin with Bathsheba, particularly from the angle of how it affected her husband, Uriah. 

"And the Lord sent Nathan [the prophet] to David. He came and said to him, 

"There were two men in a city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had purchased and nourished, and it grew up together with him and his children. It ate his food, drank from his cup, it lay in his arms. And it was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler (visitor) came to the rich man, and to avoid taking one from his own flock or herd to prepare [a meal] for the traveler who had come to him, he took the poor man's ewe lamb and prepared it for his guest" (2 Samuel 12:1-4 AMP 2015)

What does David say to this? He's as angered as anyone else would be and declares that the rich man deserves to die. Then Nathan lowers the boom. "YOU are the man!" 

Whoa. 

You see, this is what story does. Is the story made up? More than likely, but fiction isn't equivalent to "fake" or frivolous, as so many Christians seem to believe; it's a scenario crafted to make a point. No, what story does is bypass our defenses. It's a door into ourselves and others that we don't always take or even see. It can slip the truth into us--or skewer us with it--when other methods would fail. It does an end-run around the mind. Would David have cried, "Off with his head!" or something similar if Nathan had strode in and begun thundering the Lord's judgment (which he does detail in verses 7-14)? I don't know, but I have no doubt he'd have been indignant at the very least. Defensive, in other words. Nathan got a lot more done, a lot faster and more effectively, by telling David a story. His story engaged David's heart to listen and hear.  

Bypassing our defenses, doing an end-run around the mind, are what praying in tongues also does. Our minds are limited, and our vocabularies are limited, and sometimes we just can't pray, don't know what to pray, are bound and determined to pray what we want instead of God's will even if subconsciously, or don't know how to ask the right questions. Praying in tongues says, "Holy Spirit, pray for and through me right now because I don't have the words, I don't know God's perfect will--and even if I do, You can add to my prayer and go far beyond what I can do in my own understanding." Praying in tongues was the norm in the early church; it was a part of the empowerment bestowed at Pentecost, and Paul prayed both "with tongues and with understanding" liberally (1 Corinthians 14). 

No one is suggesting we disregard our minds (we are to be transformed by their renewing, for one thing), but they have foibles and limits. Both story and tongues are gifts and tools to bypass those limitations. 

If the Wedding Guest

 

If the wedding guest makes the best wine,

what delicacies the groom at the marriage supper?

It's from celebration to celebration

He reveals Himself.

He offers star-diamonds to the beloved of God--

 what other earthly creature has even seen?

He browses among the lilies

refreshes us with apples.

Some say He cares little for our happiness,

yet appoints new husbands to rest from duty

to make their wives happy for a year.

How much more, longer, better the bridegroom?

How, then, to explain

pleasures at His right hand forevermore?

Feast, sing, exult, serve, laugh, love

in all purity and excellence

thank, thank, thank again

rejoice, submit: our groom has made us glad.

Trees of Righteousness

'Tis the season. Closeups of tree by day; tree by night.

Not all Christians believe in putting up a Christmas tree. But looking at and thinking about the tree reminds me that believers are likened to trees in Scripture. One such place is Psalm 1:3--"He [the one who delights in the Lord] is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields fruit in its season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers" (NIV). Isaiah 61:3 is another: "...that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified" (KJV). 

When people are compared to non-human things in Scripture, such as trees, sheep, a temple, and more, it's interesting to ask what characteristics are being compared. We're often taught that a tree's root system grows as deep as its canopy is tall, and that if it weren't as massive underground as it is above ground, it would too easily blow over in the wind. The truth may actually be more spectacular than that. In many cases, the root system stays shallower but spreads two to five times wider than the canopy in its search for nutrients, creating a massive foundation for the tree. The point is that the beauty, shade, wildlife homes, crop, or lumber produced by the part we see is made possible only by the strength and reach of the part we don't see. 

It's the same with believers. The more visible works God wants to do with and through us--the more fruit He wants to bear--the deeper we need to be in Scripture, prayer, and time spent with Him. The more nutrients we need to draw, the more faith we need to develop, the more we need to understand that we can do nothing without Him (John 15:5). It's the other way around, too. The more intimate we become with God, the more humble, the more dependent, the more often closeted away with Him just to meet with Him, the more He can entrust great works to us and the more faith we will have to pursue them (Colossians 2:7).

This season, and all year 'round, I want to sink my roots deep and wide into God and the things of God, so that I might be the best tree He can make of me. Yielding fruit in its season. Not withering. Being a planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.

Gratitude, Gratefulness, Appreciation, and Thanksgiving

Lord, thank You first, for the plethora of words for thanks in our English language. May the abundance of food we eat be matched by the richness and overflow of their expression.

Create in us hearts of general gratitude that shape our whole outlook on life and define our relationship with You. Help us take a position of gratitude, Lord, from which to operate, and let it promote joy, well-being, humility, and generosity, within ourselves and flowing out toward others.

Add to us specific gratefulness, Father, for each blessing You give. Help us not take for granted any one of them, especially the small, or the individual when they are rushing toward us in great numbers. Carry our gratefulness beyond duty to heartfelt emotion and real notice of Your love's expression. 

Bring us to appreciation of the value and quality of a person, a thing, a place, a virtue. Help appreciation sink deep into our spirits, that we don't forget, ignore, or run slipshod over the worth of people and provision you place in our midst. Instead, may we esteem them as the gifts they are. 

To culminate such inner work, we ask, Lord, please help us do acts of true thanksgiving, so that we not only believe but do, as James might say--showing our thanks to be true and encouraging others and creating community as we do. Let Thanksgiving Day be more than a ritual that assuages consciences while we sate ourselves on food and football; let it be a ritual that reminds us to desire real gratitude, gratefulness, appreciation, and thanksgiving in our hearts, and help us, Father, cultivate them to the full.

Amen.

Thoughts for Today

 

To receive the new wine, I must be a new wineskin. 

There's more freedom available in Christ than we're willing to accept. 

Instead of calling heaven the afterlife, should we call earth the pre-life? 

Does a Poem Mean?

 

Does a poem mean? 

Or is it that it sounds?

Or does it but gather delicious words

to scatter on a page,

like splendid floor

or quintessential parallelogram

or grandiloquent quinquennial,

fulfill one momentary queue

and then split

and vanish?

Or does it give foretaste

faint participation

in the creative power?

Uh-Oh, The Unforgivable Sin

 

When I was a new Christian, the topic of the unforgivable sin was pretty prominent in church circles. The Scripture references this in Matthew 12:31-32, Mark 3:28-30, and Luke 12:10, all recording the same episode in Jesus' ministry when the Pharisees accuse Him of driving out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons. Jesus reasons with them that Satan driving out Satan would divide his kingdom, and a divided kingdom does not stand. He continues the discussion with more examples, saying you can't rob a house unless you first tie up (or otherwise render harmless) the house's owner, and that those who aren't with Him are against Him. Reading from Matthew 12, the relevant verses immediately follow and are linked to the argument by the words "and so." Verse 31-32 reads, "And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come" (NIV). 

Occasionally, someone will feel they've committed this sin and fearfully seek out counsel. Long ago, a woman said to me, "I don't get this verse. You hear people cuss out Jesus or God all the time, but I've never heard anybody cuss out the Holy Spirit." I think this example reveals what many people think the unforgivable sin entails, because they equate blasphemy with four-letter words. Others worry because they want to know exactly what this sin is, thinking this is the way to avoid it. 

This is not the way to avoid it, and Jesus was helpful and wise to discuss it just as He did. No more, no less.

Consider the Garden of Eden. In the current vernacular, Adam and Eve had one job, right? Well, okay, two: tend the garden and don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In all the garden, they were forbidden ONE thing. What happens when you are forbidden one thing? The "white bear" phenomenon kicks in. Psychology also calls this the ironic process theory. In short, if you tell yourself or someone else not to think of a white bear, that's exactly what you will think of. In trying to obey the direction, your brain will (a) try to push the thought away, and (b) continually check that you are not thinking about it. Of course, both (a) and (b) guarantee you are thinking about it. Did Adam and Eve know what they were not supposed to do? Yup. Did they end up doing it? Also yes. To digress for a moment, this is not an argument that there should never be just one rule (or an argument against all rules!). No, I think Adam and Eve's fall becomes a lesson in how vigilant we have to be, and how much we need God's help, and even more than His help, the desire to please and fellowship with Him, in order to avoid sin. Especially that one sin we are trying hardest to leave behind.

What if that unforgivable sin were defined as some definite, specific action? You know what we'd do? We'd think about it. Stop to examine it as we walked by. Go up to it and put our toes right smack against the boundary line and sniff to see if it was "good for food." That behavior and preoccupation wasn't in Adam and Eve's best interest; why do we think it would be in ours?

Turning back to our Matthew 12 passage, often enough when considering this topic we stop at verse 32 and don't read to the completion of Jesus' teaching. He continues, "Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks." He then says people will give account for every careless word they've spoken. In other words, not only can't a divided kingdom stand, but someone with an evil heart can't speak a good word (can't cross over to God's kingdom in any sense); he is entrenched in his evil. 

Taken in context, then, the unforgivable sin seems to mean attributing the Holy Spirit's works to the devil, and perhaps also attributing evil works to the Holy Spirit--trying to produce good when, without Jesus as our righteousness, we are in fact evil and cannot bear good fruit. Does trying to do so constitute lying to the Holy Spirit, as Ananias and Sapphira did, and died for it? Perhaps. What I feel more confident saying is that constant and permanent rejection of the Holy Spirit's witness of Jesus Christ as Savior eventually becomes unforgivable, as does spending one's entire life believing they can do good while rejecting the need to be born again. If this is a correct view, then perhaps it's true, as I've heard said, that when a person is concerned about having committed this sin it's a sure sign they haven't; i.e., someone who has committed the sin would be beyond caring. What we do know is that whosoever will may take the water of life freely (Revelation 22:17), anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Joel 2:32), and that all who are weary (Matthew 11:28) and thirsty (John 7:37) may come. If you want Jesus, nothing you've done is unforgivable.

The Sin of Not Resting

In America--and I think not only in America--we have a culture of non-stop busyness. We have had for my entire adult life. You know what that is?

Pride. Fear. Meaninglessness.  

It's an attempt to bolster our self-esteem, in the eyes of ourselves and others, by implying how important we are. It's an attempt to avoid connecting with others and thereby devalues relationships. It's an attempt to bury pain, or grasp for purpose. It's buying into the lie that we are indispensable. 

It's removing our lives from under the care of Jesus, whose yoke is easy and burden is light, who is the only source of both self-esteem and meaning, who wants us to make time for others, and who will heal our pain if we will let Him in. 

We decided rest is for the lucky, or the monied (or the lazy), and skimping on sleep is a badge of honor (unless you're a child under 12, in which case we want you to go to bed already). 

But the Bible says God grants sleep to those He loves (Psalm 127:2). In fact, the whole verse reads like this: "In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat, for He grants sleep to those He loves" (NIV). 

Rest goes beyond sleep, quiet downtime in a peaceful atmosphere, or hobbies and pursuits that provide a change of pace or engage neglected parts of us--though these are all important to our health. God did the work of creation over a six-day period, and on the seventh day He rested. Was God tired? Certainly not! Yet He rested anyway; please let that sink in. How much more do we little dust-creatures, who do get tired, need to rest! What God was exemplifying in that seven-day period was the building of rest into the rhythms of life. I like to think of God's rest as less similar to a nap and more similar to the function of rests in music. The music doesn't rest because it gets tired. It rests for effect, for rhythm. Or think of a court of law, where the prosecution presents and then rests its case. Rest here means completion. Where, in our lives, is our completion? Is it because we're never done that we don't rest? Even the Father, and Jesus, had times when "it was finished."

Thinking about this, I realized that rest and fear are opposites. Someone said--I wish it was me, but it wasn't--"Fear is faith in the wrong kingdom." We could certainly argue that it's faith and fear that are opposites (though as the quote reveals, also weirdly the same), or love and fear that are opposites, since perfect love casts out fear. But I think it's also true that rest and fear (along with fear's younger sibling, worry) are opposites in that they have an awfully hard time coexisting.  

So God rested for a day, right? One-seventh, or 14.28% of the time? Okay, but let's consider this: our bodies need about eight hours of sleep per night. If we are resting one whole day, plus eight hours during each of the other six days of the week, we are resting 24 + 48 hours out of the week, for 72 out of 168 total hours, or 42.85% of the week. Call it 43%. I'm not suggesting we make a project of figuring out whether we are sleeping, worshiping, playing, watching our favorite show, reading, exercising, kicking back with family or friends, or plain ol' staring into space for 43% of the week. But I am suggesting that given this generous a potential rest portion, a lot more of us could come a lot closer.

Closer to "let go and let God" a little more often. Deeper into trust in Him. More balanced in our view of how important we and our whirling dervish actually are. Setting our minds on things above, not on earthly things.

Rest, child of God, lay the busyness at Jesus' feet, and reach for your heavenly Father.   

Distractions--Are They?

 

Recently, I was in a discussion about distractions. It didn't sit right with me, and I want to clarify my thoughts on the topic. First of all what are distractions?

A distraction is an action, line of thought, or path that diverts you from what you should be doing, thinking about, or pursuing at a given time.

That's actually a lot to unpack. 

First of all, nothing is inherently a distraction; e.g., that video game you're playing is a distraction only if you're using it to avoid what you know would be preferable to do at this moment. But if it's legitimately downtime for you right now, and your choice of activity for your brain's change of pace is a video game, the game doesn't meet the definition of a distraction.

Also, timing is important. If you're supposed to be logging in to work but instead you're catching up on the three weeks' worth of Wordles you've missed, the game is a distraction. If you're thinking about your novel, your grocery list, or the Little League game you're coaching at five o'clock, then those are distractions--right now, although they won't be when it's time for them.

Let's say something is a distraction right now. Is it always wrong to let the distraction take over? Distraction can be the mother of creativity, and we ought not forget that. Products as diverse as Coca-Cola and the microwave oven were developed because the inventors were distracted from their original projects. Sometimes you have to go down a rabbit trail awhile before you realize it's the trail you should be on. 

Ah, which brings us to that word. Should. Who decides what we should be doing right now, and whether other things are, therefore, distractions? 

The Holy Spirit living within us does. Right? Sometimes our goals are exactly that: our goals. That is, goals can be distractions. The thing God switches us to in lieu of our prior pursuits is the main thing; it is not the distraction. 

In the aforementioned discussion I was part of, games and other amusements were being equated with distraction in a rather absolute way. Perhaps we should be praying instead, it was suggested. And perhaps so. But here's another perhaps: Perhaps the accuser has come along to tempt you with a sense of false guilt for not performing a religious activity right now. Perhaps he's come along to lay on you another form of the American disease called Crazy Busy. We have been persuaded that we don't need and can't afford rest in its various forms, and therefore we should feel guilty taking it. Eschewing rest is sin, and I'll have more to say on this in future posts. 

But to begin with, at least, when faced with the word "distractions," we should stop and ask, "Are they? In this case and at this time? Are they really?" And then listen for the Holy Spirit's answer.  

Not Just For Thanksgiving

 

In autumn, the ruby blankets spread over the land. Fall color isn't just for the trees.

Praise God for variety. In foods. In the way plants grow. In His special provisions for animal and plant life in each and every location on the earth. 

When I was growing up, my parents stressed the importance of buying the products your region and state produce. Now, as soon as cranberries appear in stores each fall, I buy some every week and freeze them for year-round use. With orange, a bit of honey, and a shake of cinnamon, they make a wonderful sweet-tart sauce. A celebration of God and thanks every day. 

Ideas

 A common saying among professional writers is that they have so many ideas they will never live long enough to write them all. 

That was never me. 

In fact, one time I developed a program specifically about idea generation to present at a writer's conference--because who needed some techniques to do just that? Me! (Another common saying among professional writers is that the more you teach, critique, or mentor, the more you yourself learn. That one I can vouch for. Also, when two people emailed me to say they'd sold projects as a direct result of ideas they generated during my session, I was soooo blessed. And when I was asked to repeat the session at a later conference, blessed again.)  

For years--decades--I seldom had more than one viable book idea at a time, although you can make a career this way, to paraphrase E. L. Doctorow. (He said, "Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.") And when you consider that the majority of the ideas other writers seem to be bursting with will not eventually become books--they never get to the concept stage, or they won't pass the market test, or somebody else will publish almost the exact same thing first, which happens way oftener than you think--you realize you really do need quite a lot of ideas indeed. 

That was never me.

Now, though? Writing for this blog? I have so many ideas I may never write them all.

They spring up at any moment, no matter what I may be doing. Often they're triggered by Scripture; sometimes a line or thought from another book suggests a topic; sometimes a conversation; sometimes they do just pop and glow like a lightbulb, seemingly from nowhere. What they are, I believe, is gifts from the Holy Spirit, whispers from Him to me, specific assignments different from those He may be giving to others. They give a sense of life, refreshment, movement, encouragement, and they make the point that this is all Him. They help me become less of me, more a vessel for Him. 

Overflowing with ideas? That was never me. All the better to see the Holy Spirit work through me.

Light, More Light, Continued (Controversies #12)

Maybe you have to be able to remember life in the '50s, but isn't it interesting how the way we treat Halloween has changed over the decades? When I was a child, it was one day. We could wear costumes to school--maybe only for the afternoon; I don't quite remember. Kids went home for lunch in those days! We went trick-or-treating, after dark, in our immediate neighborhoods, sans adults, and collected a modest yet generous bag of candy. The unofficial cutoff age was twelve. That was all there was to it.

Now, Halloween is as much for adults as for children, and it goes all month long. People put lights on their houses, graveyards on their lawns, dress the part for weeks. A quick search of Halloween events in my area includes haunted houses, pub crawls, a vampire circus (whatever exactly that means), and something called Dominion of Terror. Just fun, you say? But it gets much darker. Witches observe Samhain through such practices as divination and lighting fires to guide the souls of the dead. Communities from our local Light! More Light! university (prior reference here) go down to the riverside on October 31 to perform pagan rituals. 

This is not your grandma's Halloween. I'm not saying the darker aspects weren't always there, but given room, they've gotten bolder. Somehow, I think the fable of The Camel and the Tent applies.

If it's just fun, why is it directly traceable to the ancient Celtic ritual of scaring off ghosts? Does that sound like something Christ would have sanctioned? If not, it's not for us, and to dabble in it is a compromise. As so often happened in the early church, Pope Gregory may have tried to pretty things up by making November 1 All Saints' Day, but Samhain's resulting new name--All Hallows Eve--didn't change its essence or substance. Every single time syncretism (the attempt to blend pagan and Godly worship) appears in Scripture, God rejects it. What we may not realize is that when Aaron made the golden calf and said, "Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD," he didn't mean the calf. The word LORD appears in small caps, which designates the name Yahweh. Rather than completely replace the true God, Aaron was trying to worship Him with an idol. We know how that turned out. Christianizing pagan practice doesn't work with God, and though we can't claim today that absolutely none of our Christian observances have no pagan ties at all, that's no excuse for taking part in something as blatant as Halloween. 

Decorate your homes and yards with all the beautiful bounty of the season, but let's eschew the dead stuff. Christ, the Light of the World, has come that we may have life, and life more abundant.  

Giving Jesus the Highest Place

 A father, shortly before he died, was reviewing a life well lived with his grown daughter. "I regret, though," he said, "that a personal faith in God isn't part of your life." (I believe that was yet another seed sown, and she will come to know Him.) The exchange got me thinking about the messages my Boomer generation caught about God as we were growing up. In our small town, we were probably 80% Catholic and 20% Protestant; the people who didn't attend church at all were few and perhaps disinclined to admit it. (On every block were multiple homes containing families with anywhere from six to twelve children, usually with three to four bedrooms and one bathroom for everyone. My husband, until he was seven, shared a tiny bedroom with all five of his siblings. And this wasn't only the Catholics. Fun times!) Regarding the attitudes we picked up during childhood, I recall the following:

--God was going to punish you if you weren't a good boy or girl

--God's default state was "angry"

--God was very far away

--Whether you went to heaven or hell depended on your good deeds outweighing your bad

--If you had actual faith in God, beyond going to church and filling your pew on Sundays, that was fine, but let's not go off the deep end

Your faith was a part of your life. Maybe it was represented by the orange wedge in the pie chart above, or even the red. The blue, though--except for clergy, that would have been too extreme. Too heavenly minded and no earthly good. Too "Holy Joe" and not enough beer. At best, the comment might have been, "She's kind of weird." 

But I don't believe any of this is a correct view. Life isn't a pie cut into varying sections marked "family," "job," "hobbies," "home maintenance," "finances," and "God." Because that model portrays everything else about your life as lying outside God's purview. If He isn't God of all those other things, what exactly is He God of? Where does the "God section" overlap anything that's most important to you? No, the truth is, faith in God (through Jesus) is the umbrella over our lives under which everything else falls. Our families, jobs, hobbies, home maintenance, finances, and whatever else, are all subject to His will, the Holy Spirit's leading, bathed in prayer, and conducted according to His word and ways. "If He's not Lord of all, He's not Lord at all," is a true truism, and though we won't perfect that in this life (and there's grace for that), the view we need to take is that the components of our lives are under Him, not next to Him. 

So my prayer is that, through Christ, the father's daughter will go exceedingly abundantly above all her father asked or thought. That she won't make Jesus just a part of her life, but that He'll be her covering over all. 

Musings

 

Christ's death proves the need for Christ's death; were it not necessary, God would not have required it. 

Increased prayer is a necessary component of any calling. 

Waiting is holding oneself in reserve for a later time. 

Witchcraft is as rebellion because both are unlawful control. 

Light, More Light (Controversies #11)

 

This is the motto of a local university, punctuated Light! More Light! It's accompanied by a Latin phrase, veritas est lux, which means "truth is light." And isn't that right? Don't we want light, more light?

I'm not sure we do. With due respect, I'm not sure they do. 

I recall advice received from a former literary agent that I should write darker. The market wants darker. Soon, there were more, newer industry whispers--not from my agent, but in general: We want unlikable narrators. Morally gray narrators. Darker themes. Ambiguous outcomes. And then, one that shocked me a little: we don't want redemption stories. Wow. Tell me you don't want life without telling me you don't want life. 

Without redemption, we are plumb out of life.

In other words, in a sense that goes far beyond literature, tell me you don't want Jesus without telling me you don't want Jesus. You don't want the Redeemer. You don't want the Light of the World.

This taste for darkness shows up a lot of places. Fashion is one. We have witchy vibes, grunge, goth, punk, death rock--not all of it the current height of popularity, but none of it completely gone, either, and none of it that didn't leave its mark on what came after. We have an increase in mental illness that is more than just compassionately doing away with stigmas and helping people get treatment; in some cases it becomes almost a badge to wear and worse than that, an identity that ensnares the person (subconsciously, they don't know who they'd be without it) and may even bring accusations of bigotry against those who think they aren't okay as they are. And without getting explicit, let me just say that sex has gotten a whole lot darker than when I was coming of age, with influences that today's younger generation may not realize originate from porn. We can't expect the darkness around us to shed light. Darkness makes dark. 

Many say we are entering days of clear good versus evil. Perhaps so, but I'm more apt to think of it as light versus dark. The problem here is that "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5, NAS). All of this clamor for dark is a clamor for less of God. People with an affinity for darkness may say they don't want sweet, or nice, or everything tied up in a happy bow at the end. To the extent they mean they don't want a truth-denying Pollyanna-ish approach to life, or a narrative that is falsely saccharine and ignores life's difficulties, they have an excellent point. But the real motive for seeking darkness is given in John 3:19-21, spoken by Jesus Himself: 

"This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God" (NIV).

If the choice is between light and dark, I choose light. But we can't have light without the Light of the World. With our eyes fixed on Jesus, I pray more and more of us will truly be able to cry, "Light! More Light!"

Grace and Perfection

I had a new thought the other day about grace. We often hear it defined as "unmerited favor," and that's not too bad a way to encapsulate its meaning, though it does cause me some inward nerdy moments. (If something must be specified as "unmerited favor," does this mean "merited" is an expected connotation of the word "favor"; surely not?) So to me this is a quickie definition for ease in grasping the concept, especially in reference to salvation by grace, but not one I'm willing to settle on. 

For one thing, grace also has a power component. Paul wrote, "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me" (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV). Though that's the verse I know best, there are others that put a slightly different spin on grace. For example, "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work" (2 Corinthians 9:8 NKJV). Here, grace has a supply component. Similar is 1 Corinthians 15:10--"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was within me." These verses credit grace as a force or equipping that increases one's capacity to act or to bear up under something. As if God extends an extra ability for moments when we need it.

After scratching around in my notebook (concerning this and related words such as favor and mercy), here is my current definition: 

Grace: kind allowance or empowerment, free and unearned, extended to another to accommodate, mitigate, or cover their human limitations, without shaming, judging, or calling them out.

But now, to get around to that new thought I had the other day, which is that grace and perfectionism are pretty close opposites. I'm not sure I'd thought of those two qualities or standards as an opposing pair before. If I give grace, am I not sending the message that I don't demand perfectionism? If God gives grace, isn't He saying He knows we can't do anything on our own (much less do it perfectly) without His supply?

When we bestow grace, we bear with one another in love, cover over a multitude of sins (not sweep them under the carpet but forgive them)--in other words, come much closer to loving our neighbor as ourselves. And to loving ourselves. For ourselves or our loved ones who may suffer from perfectionistic tendencies, the best antidote may be grace.  

Apple Harvest

The reason everyone thinks Eve ate an apple is that apples are this tempting. 

Apple harvest: the unsung autumn holiday.

#itsnotallpumpkinspice 🍎🍏 😊

Handprints

 Little Tommy visited my grandmother one day,

precious only child of her sister's precious only child,

exploring corner and cushion in his two-year-old way,

gazing into the china hutch at gleaming treasures within,

leaving two perfect handprints on the glass.

"You didn't wipe them off!" I exclaimed when I visited her myself,

picturing the way my mother would rush in 

with ammonia water and a rag,

clucking her tongue and rubbing the marks away.

"By and by it will happen," said my grandmother, unfussed.

"But for now, when I see the handprints, I think of little Tommy, 

and I smile."

I never met little Tommy, this second cousin,

but wherever he is, he's a senior now, like me.

Had my grandmother erased his handprints, 

I would have no story,

would not remember he existed.

Had my grandmother erased his handprints, 

I would not have known that chill of almost-connection, 

inexplicable fascination with proof he'd been here.

Passed this way. Just missed me. Was real.

For the rest of my visit, whenever I passed the china hutch, 

I paused to stand at the perfect angle

so I could see those handprints on the glass.

If human handprints on worldly treasures are memorable,

what of divine handprints on my poor body of clay?

Lord, when You touch me, leave your prints.

Leave them so that even others can know 

Your hands were on me,

can feel that chill of almost-connection,

of inexplicable fascination explained in Christ.

Leave Your handprints on me, Lord,

so that those who stand at the perfect angle

can see them and know You're real. 

Joy and Happiness

 

In college, I met an introverted, pensive musician named Joy--a name I'd always liked. "I hate it," she said. "Adults are always telling me to smile and act happy, because my name is Joy." Which is one reason that when naming my own children I never reached for the "virtue" names. Perhaps they are too prescriptive, too easily taken for labels or even pronouncements. 

Christians are fond of saying that joy and happiness are two different things, and I don't disagree, but I believe there's a ton of overlap. "Happy" isn't always the shallow "happenstance" emotion some want to dismiss it as; Bible translations vary on whether they render the Greek makarios from Jesus' sermon on the mount as "happy" or "blessed," and the Greek word means "supremely blessed," "fortunate," "well off," "blessed," or "happy." In God's economy, being supremely blessed isn't a shallow, worldly, temporary, or despised thing. "Happy" isn't necessarily joy's feeble, undesirable imitation.

However, joy is a fruit of the Spirit, and what does it mean, exactly? That is, how does it surpass happiness, as we claim it does? This question causes me to ponder how (and if) I'm allowing the Spirit to produce this fruit through me. How is it expressed? 

Personally, I find joy to be a quiet, inward gladness and wellbeing that because of Jesus Christ all is secure in the long run and for the future. In that sense, unhappiness at present circumstances can't drive out real joy; even when the joy is hard to find, it has not disappeared and will be felt again. Joy is like an inner glow of rightness, assurance, okayness, stability, gratitude, a sense of God active in your life right now, and while it doesn't demand we squeal and jump up and down, or even smile, I find that when it wells up I often want to move my body. Perhaps happiness is more about now and joy more about horizons or a steady state. Perhaps joy is more a condition or position than an emotion? 

Perhaps my friend Joy being asked to act "happy" was troubling to her because joy and happiness were being conflated. And because she was being reduced to a smile and a cheerful chirp. What I do know is that her soulful, melancholy bent was not at all in conflict with her potential for true, and lasting, joy. 

A Tidbit About Bible Translations

It's good to read different Bible translations once in a while, because the language in differing versions can spark entire new investigations as to meaning. Even at times, maybe give you quite a shock.

Many of us are familiar with the verse that says "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10). The entire verse, from the NIV, reads, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." But just the other day, I read a verse from my 2015 Amplified version that made me laugh out loud:

The beginning of wisdom is: Get wisdom! (Proverbs 4:7)

Why did I laugh? It surprised and delighted me, because I never saw it stated this baldly before, complete with exclamation mark. My NIV says, "Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom." The NKJV says, "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore, get wisdom." While faithful translations, these just don't have the same effect. I also laughed because it appears to be a paradox or circular loop, yet we know it's neither, but a deliberate literary choice for emphasis and perhaps even humorous effect. The third reason I laughed is that I didn't know there were two discrete biblical statements about how to get wisdom (fear God, and just plain get wisdom). It's this language that revealed that truth to me. The entire Amplified translation, with its included bracketed material, says this: 

The beginning of wisdom is: Get [skillful and Godly] wisdom [it is preeminent]!

And fortunately, we can receive Godly wisdom for the asking, according to James 1:5, so Lord, we ask You for the wisdom that marks the beginning of wisdom, and Your help and presence as we start on the path to seeking it all our days. 

Amen. 

Domestic Reflections

 

We write stories not just with our pens, but with our lives.

In even the fragrances of home, we are the aroma of Christ to God.

All of life is story; all of story is home.

My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest (Isaiah 32:18 NIV).

Why Did Jesus Tell Judas to be Quick?

 

In school, I've been studying the book of John and was given an interesting question to answer. At the Last Supper, John asks Jesus who is going to betray Him, and Jesus says, "It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish" (John 13:26 NIV). Jesus then dips the bread and gives it to Judas Iscariot, and as soon as Judas takes it, Satan enters into him. Immediately, Jesus says to him, "What you are about to do, do quickly" (v. 27). 

Why does Jesus tell Judas to be quick? 

As the passage continues, we find out the disciples had no idea why He said this, either--reassuring to those of us today who might be scratching our heads. Some thought he was telling Judas to buy the supplies for Passover, since Judas had charge of the money bag, or to make a donation to the poor. But that addresses what they thought Judas was going to do, not how he was instructed to do it. (It also reveals how little idea Jesus' inner circle had that Judas was a potential turncoat. When Jesus said He would be betrayed, nobody fingered Judas for even a moment. This helps explain our shock when prominent church members today are caught in various sins. Jesus Himself said, as did Paul, there would be false prophets and teachers among us, appearing to be sheep but really being ravenous wolves. They do infiltrate the church, and we should be saddened but not shocked or disillusioned when sometimes they are exposed.) 

So why did Jesus tell Judas to be quick? 

There's one school of thought that says, "Mainly because the clock was counting down." Jesus' body would have to be down from the cross and laid in the tomb in twenty-four hours or less, before the Sabbath started, but his legs could not be broken to hasten His death. Death by crucifixion was a slow process, and Judas would have to travel to the high priest's house, assemble a crowd of men, and lead everyone to the garden before Jesus could even be arrested, much less transported to the high priest, then to Pilate, sentenced, and marched to Golgotha. If Judas delayed even a little, this theory goes, the likelihood that a crucified man could die in the prescribed window of time without having his legs broken would be very questionable. 

But this doesn't sit right with me. I don't think Jesus was worried that time might expire. When had He ever been concerned with hurry? A better question is, when had He ever doubted God's plan would work perfectly? "Oops" has no place in God's vocabulary, then or now. I don't think Jesus was saying, "This whole thing could fall apart if you don't get on the stick!" 

So why did Jesus tell Judas to be quick?

I'm not sure the Greek word tachion adds much nuance. It means "quickly," "swiftly," "shortly," or "sooner," though I'm tempted to conclude that the emphasis is more on "Do it now" than "Do it fast." Immediacy more than speed, in other words. It's been pointed out that since Satan enters Judas and completely controls him just before Jesus gives this order, Jesus is addressing Satan more than Judas, and I would tend to agree. Satan and his minions obey both the Father and the Son (Matthew 4:10-11; Job 1:6-12 and 2:1-7; Mark 5:10-13; Rev. 12:9-12, to name a few passages), so once Jesus says "Do it quickly," that's what happens. 

Perhaps the most satisfying or persuasive answer is that since Judas has now made an irrevocable choice to say No to Jesus, there is no point in any more delay and there is no stoppage of the consequences. God is incredibly patient with us, but there comes a point when the Spirit of God will not always strive with man (Genesis 6:3); there comes a point, in the Valley of Decision, when that decision must be made; and there comes a time in any finite life when the No we say to God becomes our final No. Then, whether the consequences manifest right now or down the road a way, they do come immediately. 

They come quickly.

The Best Time to be Alive

Have you ever felt like the most exciting, dynamic life with God must have been lived by people of the past? This probably isn't the kind of thought most of us admit to others, but I'd be surprised if it weren't quite prevalent. 

Think of the OT patriarchs who heard God's voice, saw burning bushes, and received angelic visitations and prophetic declarations. Think of those who lived at the time of Jesus, walking with Him in the flesh, being healed by Him, watching Him heal others, hanging on His every word as He taught the crowds. Think of the baby church, working miracles by the Holy Spirit, being translated from here to there for the purpose of ministry like Philip the evangelist, healing people just by walking along and having your shadow fall on them. 

And what do we have today? Prayer and an ancient book. 

In an age when precious few folks are even readers anymore. 

So is that it, then? We read (or listen) to stories of those who actually had relationship with God, back when God interacted with people? We pray as best we can and hope there might someday be a change in circumstances--maybe? No, of course that's not it. But that's how it seems to many of us. Far too many of us live like that. I lived like that. 

No doubt it's the adversary who'd like us to believe we live in the worst of times. That we are the people God holds at a distance. But the truth is we live in the best of times! We have the completed canon of God-breathed Scripture. In almost every language on the face of the earth, many of those languages with multiple versions. In broadcasts, podcasts, webcasts, downloads, apps, videos, and blogs. The living word. 

Those earlier eras never had that. The partial word, yes; the works-in-progress, yes; but never the complete word. That's God's provision specifically to us. 

And we have the Holy Spirit living inside our born-again spirits. Not just theoretically or theologically. For real. First, the indwelling that began with the risen Jesus breathing on His disciples in the upper room, and then the baptism for power to minister that was first released at Pentecost. 

Those earlier eras never had that. The Holy Spirit temporarily came upon people, yes; but He didn't make His home inside them permanently. That's God's presence specifically with us.

We have the living word (Bible); the living Word (Jesus), the ultimate sacrifice Who completely fulfilled the law so sacrifice could cease; and the Holy Spirit living inside us to comfort, teach, convict, and guide. We have the things even angels long to look into (1 Peter 1:12).

And we have the successful evangelizing efforts of the 120 in the upper room, who turned the world upside down, backing us up. We didn't have to lay that groundwork. It was done before we got the baton.

People say the world is getting darker; they're not wrong. But for those walking in the light, it's the best time to be alive.

Not by Bread Alone

Yet by bread when bread is needed. 

And not by bread alone, but by drink, and flowers, and pretty things.

Because the Holy Spirit has made our bodies His temple (1 Cor. 6:19), and the Greek word for "temple" in this verse is naos, meaning "highly decorated shrine." 

I, and you, if you are in Christ, have highly decorated shrines inside us, our born-again spirits a permanent home grand enough to be a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit of God.

And until we see the unimaginable beauty of our own permanent home, we celebrate here, in our impermanent flesh, with the beauty of impermanent things. A joyful foretaste of the beauty to come.

Prayer For Those Who Didn't Know

Lord, there was a tragedy somewhere today. More than one, on the face of this earth. 

Maybe it made the news. Even if not, it was big news to those involved. They got up this morning and expected a normal day. Maybe even an exciting one. They had no idea one or more of their closest loved ones had gotten up this morning for the last time. Would not be here tonight to go to bed. Ever again. That today would break life in two: Before, and After. And After is something they can't imagine, or imagine getting through. Or imagine having meaning. 

Lord, send them people who've known the same pain. Who can mourn with them and then comfort them with the comfort they themselves received from You. Send them people who can anticipate their needs without them having to say a word. Send them people who can pick up the practical slack so they need do nothing except freefall into Your arms. Send them peace that passes understanding, which we cannot grasp precisely because it passes understanding. Yet we know it must be real because we know You. 

Send them You.

Lord, there was a salvation somewhere today. More than one--many more than one--on the face of the earth.

This has already made the news; not on TV, but in Heaven, as there's rejoicing in the presence of the angels when even one sinner repents. Lord, it doesn't say angels rejoice, as we often interpret it; it says there's rejoicing in their presence. Father, this means You're the one rejoicing, doesn't it? Most if not all these new creatures got up this morning expecting a normal day. Because I think that's often how true conversions happen: they aren't planned. One is struck, in a moment, by the tragedy and hopelessness of their sin. They had no idea their old self had gotten up this morning for the last time. Would not be here to go to bed tonight. Ever again. That today would break life in two: Before, and After. And After is something they can't imagine, because they don't know what they're in for. Love; cost. Fellowship; persecution. Provision; warfare. Call; change.

Life eternal. Not as opposed to nothingness, but as opposed to hell, because if we aren't in our natural state bound for hell, then Christ died for nothing. Lord, please grant that fewer people would be persuaded to lie to themselves that there is no hell.

Lord, there was a death somewhere today. Many, many deaths on the face of the earth.

This is literal "news"--new existence for these ones, irrevocably new, whether an expected death or not. Some will have had no idea they'd gotten up this morning for the last time. Would not be here tonight to go to bed. Ever again. That today would break life in two: Earthly life, and Eternity. 

Lord, send their people what we've already asked: company, fellowship, comfort, help, peace, You. 

Yet for that one who has passed, there is no prayer. Their eternal destiny is set. For some of them, on a day they thought would be like any other.

Father, You warn that tonight our lives may be required of us. Draw them, I pray, by the hundreds and thousands and ten thousands, to Your Son Jesus, because though time is a dimension we live in now, it is not something we have. For those who don't know--and in some aspects of life, that's all of us--help many, many more of us understand that in the very broadest, most important, and eternal sense, no matter what we don't know, everything will be all right if (and only if) what we do know--is You.