An Ungratefully Received Gift

When life changes quickly and unexpectedly the foundations are shaken.
And while I accepted and see God’s hand and wisdom in this last upheaval,
I’m very uncertain of the direction the rest of my life is heading – what it will look like.

So with that in mind, I have had a series of really strange dreams.
As each season comes, I dream about the things I will not be doing this year.
Many have brought feelings of release from the pressure of responsibility.

Spring brought a dream of about Bible School that ended in vulnerable tears on my part.
I dreamed about being presented to a group to make a speech and presenting a concert.
And I dream of being disciplined for errors at some unfamiliar workplace.

I know, there is nothing deep, dark, or a mental illness represented here,
But, again, with that in mind, I began to dream about presenting a Christmas Play.
This is the time of year I begin if I’m writing a new play for any given year.

And I rebelled. I woke up in the middle of it, and said,
“A Christmas play! I will not dream about this.” I went back to sleep. The dream continued.
In rebellion, I woke up again. “I will not dream about that stress. It was fun.”

The third time I woke up enough to think about the play
And realized I didn’t recognize the play –
And I laughed and muttered to myself, “God is giving me a new play!”

And now, I have a new Christmas play to write.
It’s the comedy-drama thing I enjoy writing.
God was trying to give me a gift – and I was about to refuse it.

God was helping me understand how ungrateful I’d become in my worry about the future.
God took care of my family in such a dramatic way and brought me to a quiet place
Just when I didn’t know how much longer I could continue doing what I was doing.

As my husband wondered if his current form of ministry
Was drawing to completion,
God provided the next step.

And I have allowed myself to unnecessarily revisit the natural worry
That comes with big, fast changes in life – good or bad.
I have allowed worry to become fretting.

Now, I don’t expect all the worry will dissipate in an instant,
But I will resurrect a practice from the past when I let go of things I couldn’t control.
As soon as the fretful dream comes, or worry pops up, I know what to do.

I’ll immediately turn to God, give the worry to him, and wait for instructions.
Meanwhile, I’ll allow myself to be bathed in grateful thankfulness for the new way of life God has given me;
And learn to recognize God’s new gifts and the new ways He is sending them.

“Fret Not Yourself,” is one translation of “Don’t worry about ….” Apostle Paul told his readers.

Holy Week Mixed Feelings

I have come to dislike this time of year.
And I feel guilty about it.
So, as I have learned to do with God’s guidance,
I went looking for the reason so I can resolve this love/hate/guilt mix of feelings.

I know I quietly have opted out of attending the big productions of Easter plays
Large churches and theaters love to put on this time of year:
The special effects, the echoing sound of the hammer hitting the nails,
The agony so effectively portrayed became too much for me.

I realize in our desensitized society we feel we have to get people’s attention.
We compete with some pretty fantastically well done productions.
And we’re afraid our simple story of death and resurrection
Will get lost in the hubbub of loud, flashing messages.

But all this concentration of the crucifixion alone just made me cringe.
Have we forgotten the end of the story? I asked.
Resurrection doesn’t need that big of a build-up, I raged.
Don’t you know the beginning of a story when you see one? My inner writer demanded.

And this year I got a new perspective.
The people who experienced the birth a death and resurrection of Christ
Didn’t ever know the end of the story.
My pastor says we must experience Christ’s journey through that week to appreciate Easter.

And my devotional talks about sitting down to eat lunch with Lazarus after Christ raised him:
“So,” says a guest, “How was your week?”
Lazarus says, “I was quiet ill, I died. Had a funeral, and several days later Christ raised me.
How was your Week?” (Disciplines 2013)

I shook my head and started again.
Christ would say, “I taught, did some miracles so people could believe,
I was betrayed by a follower, I was arrested while I was trying to pray,
Many of my own people turned against me, I was tried.

Because people were afraid of my message from my Father,
They convicted me of treason,
A great deal of pain was inflected upon my body, and my best friend denied he knew me.
I was crucified.

But my Father was faithful!
He used his great power and restored life to me
So everyone could believe
And come to know my Father, God, as I know him.

“So, how was your week?”
“Well,” I stutter, “I went to Services Palm Sunday, have daily read scripture and prayed,
Had a flood because of a faulty hook up in my washer,
Am planning to do my little volunteer thing, and go to Maundy Thursday Service,
And I’m planning to attend the Sunrise service.”

And I realize I didn’t acknowledge Christ’s grief, his hurt,
His humanity, his pain, betrayal and forsakenness.
Some of these are things I understand as a human – with daily pain -
As a pastor’s wife, a woman unable to have a child, musician, and writer.

And I guess I just don’t want to acknowledge them again and again.
I know all the bad parts. I read Christ’s experiences in the scripture.
But I want to skip straight to the glorious end of the story,
And for a writer, that’s not even good story telling.

So, what do I do now?
I will read, search, and dwell on the reality of Christ’s week.
I seek a deeper understanding of contrast between
The awfulness of pain, betrayal and crucifixion and the glorious resurrection.

And I can’t be afraid to acknowledge to pain.
Not give into it, not let it control everything,
Not let it ruin emotional on it ruin the end of the story.
But not skip over the bad parts.

And know things don’t end there.
The hope of Easter is always present.
That’s why we don’t despair.
But unless we know the anguish of the week, Easter is just an extraordinary event.

I need to understand that even Easter is not the end of the story.
It’s the middle, followed by:
Teaching, growing, miracles, assurance,
The founding of the church, believers spreading all over the world…

And the same power and presence that raised Jesus to life
Comes to us today, in our desensitized, flashy, refusing to acknowledge our need for God culture,
With the same hope-infusing, life-giving power Christ experienced at the end of his week.
I know the story. I acknowledge it all. Now, God, I am here. Change me and make it real to me.

Sometmes Quietly

Sorry, I don’t have any angst today,
No tears to cry.
I had a panic attack the other night over the past,
But God once again assured me the past has not been wasted.
The work God called me to and whatever we did together still has and will always have value.

So today a quiet spirit resides as I look into the future.
When I talk to my elderly mother and she says there is no news
We pause, then quietly laugh together and finish with
And that is probably a good thing.
Occasionally one of us adds, “l thank God for my life.”

Just by my finding significance in the above,
You most likely understand the achievement of this peace
Is not something that just came in the mail.
Disappointment, hurts, failures, insecurities – As common as they are to all of us,
Have often threatened disintegration for my melancholic personality.

But, as my conversation with my mother testifies,
God is the great enabler – the one who overcomes and bestows overcoming.
Today’s quietness of spirit is because God overcomes.
And the hope for tomorrow’s peace and release for service
Is because God will always be the great enabler.

Sometimes, quietly, I can step back, take a deep breath,
And drink in the joy the relationship with God affords.
With each adversity comes a new struggle,
Followed by working-through and letting-go periods.
And God enables me to adjust so again I realize…

I thank God for my life.

Acceptance or Seeking

So today I prayed again, seeking God’s presence.
And that is the accepted language and thought pattern.

But what if it’s not all my job?
I’m afraid I’ve assumed it’s my responsibility to find God – like he’s lost or hiding.

What if seeking God is not such hard work?
What if seeking God is as easy as turning my face (attention) towards him?

In the contemporary language seeking implies digging through,
Creating a path, tossing out distractions, and extreme, concentrated effort.

So, I approach God that way:
As if it’s a painful, birthing process.

What if, when I turn my face towards him I find the banquet table all set and God standing at the head?
His hand is out, gesturing to me to be seated, “We were looking for you,” he says.

What if God is seeking me,
With as much or more intense concern that drives me to seek God?

And my seeking is as much accepting God
As it is hunting for the perfect meeting place and creating the perfect attitude.

Perhaps salvation is really only one part mine and nine parts God’s work:
If I can overcome the unbelief and accept Jesus and his mission, the rest follows.

Perhaps God’s grace is not sought
As much as applied.

Perhaps it’s not so much about desperately searching for God’s will
As learning to see the gifts God gave me and opportunities God opens to me.

Perhaps living a Christian life is first about accepting God,
Then spending my life learning to see God at work.

Perhaps I do not grow because I do not see where God’s work needs my gifts…
So again today I read my devotionals and turn my face towards God.

Thanks to the Becomers Sunday School Class discussion for the new ideas. Jo

Sent from Catch Notes for Android https://catch.com

HALFWAY GIVERS

When I try to talk about totally giving myself to God
I struggle with it and just end up sounding pompous or at the least, stuffy.
But I’ve been given a new chance from a couple of different sources.
So I kind of put them together and hope I can see things differently.

It still seems to me it is a matter of building trust in who God is and his trustworthiness.
Few of us come away from that first, life changing encounter with this depth of trust.
It’s a maturing, letting Jesus become part of life, Believer (not a teenage Believer) thing.
I think of it as beginning to look for service beyond the ‘what God does for me” stage.

And we have to experience letting go of things before God can give us something better
Enough times times that we have faith in the process –
Almost like we have to practice letting go before we let go of “me.’
We have to learn to trust: God replaces what we give up with something better.

In reality when we, at conversion, give ourselves to God,
We are committing ourselves to the putting away of things as apostle Paul illustrates
As we grow from childhood into teen, then young adult, then adult Christians.
Some mature quickly and let can go of self in a short span of time, and some never can.

One source drew from Exodus 34:29, putting the relationship in covenant terms:
When God makes a covenant with us our life changes.
But something must die for something to be born born and the hard work.
The writer asks,
“What did Moses have to leave on top of the mountain to come down transformed?”

It seems to him as it does to me that more has to change than just our emotions.
We can’t come away from a transforming encounter with God
Bringing our “old life habits, ways of thinking, ways of being,” acting,
And ways of doing things “back with us if we truly are becoming a new person in Christ.”

The putting away of those things becomes the real spiritual work
That, in the end, brings me to the point of being able to finally let go of self
And enter into a new covenant with God in which He is the stronger partner
And provides love and strength for my giving myself to His care.

The struggle is in trusting enough to give up our old person, whom we are used to,
And believe God will transform us without wiping out who we are.
My second source says “The last thing we want to let go is ourselves.
It is the only thing we really own.”

And now, after giving up all these things, “Christ with imperious demands
Asks for that one last thing.
It is at this place that the real battle is joined.
All else has been skirmishes.”

Matthew 10:37 and Luke 14:25 – 27
Talk about loving God so much you are willing to surrender even family members.
“….Interestingly enough…life or self is the last thing mentioned.
Yes, (he’s willing to surrender) even his own life.

Jesus ….puts it last because he knows it is the last thing we give up.”
But what does our life look like if we stop halfway?
Changing what people can see, or the easy parts
Yet doing our best to serve and love God without surrendering self?

“A Missionary (for example) gives up home and loved ones…but not self…
Finds his inner self touchy over position, place and power.
The minister…finds himself preaching
With a great deal of vanity and ambition mixed in.

The layman (who doesn’t give up self) finds himself easily offended.”
Christ still works through us, but we keep getting in the way.
Eventually we block God’s gifts flowing through us,
And finally turn away from God in frustration.

There is no set timeline – like a second year Christian should have given up
The old way of thinking and by the fifth year, be ready to give up….. .
At the same time, we cut ourselves off from the best God has for us
If we become halfway givers – always holding some part of ourselves back,
Not quite trusting God enough to risk giving that one last thing – ourselves.

Tom Arthur “Disciplines 2013”
E. Stanley Jones “Victorious Living”

The Past Is Gone, But…?

Lately I have heard the well worn quote:
“The Past Is Gone and tomorrow will never come and so live today.”
But maybe yesterday isn’t gone.
I’ve also been exposed to the ideas of those who speak of time being a line.
And we move back and forth from past to now and on to tomorrow
Then back again.
This time of year, we are reminded of the influence one person can have on their community
In “A Wonderful Life” – that classic Jimmy Stewart movie.

It seems we flow in and out of the influence of the people with whom we have a history.
Sometimes an ongoing relationship and sometimes something that changed us long ago
Pops up and becomes today’s reality, making us visit a distant happening or place
As if it the changes were occurring in the present.
And we wonder what life would have been like if we had not been graced
By that one person, place, or event.

To add to the confusion, we really can’t complete this whimsical exercise,
Nor does it make a lot of sense if we try to make that whole line of thinking concrete.
It simply slips through the fingers of the mind.

I wonder if the writer or Isaiah is in the place as he writes in chapter sixty-two.
He dwells on a place he loves, but somehow we know he can’t be there.
So he prays. “Because I love Zion I will not be still.
Because my heart yearns for Jerusalem, I cannot remain silent.
I will not stop praying for her until her righteousness shines like the dawn,
And her salvation blazes like a burning torch.
The world will see your glory. The Lord will hold you in his hand for all to see-
A splendid crown in the hand of God.”
And then we hear him entice others to:
“Give the Lord no rest until he makes Jerusalem the pride of the earth.”
(ISAIAH 62:1-3 and 7)

And I found myself praying for the places and churches we have been part of,
And the people I have loved and still love
But am no longer in their presences as I once was.
And praying blessings upon them until their very being shows God’s glory…
Until they shine like the dawn…blaze like a burning torch…
Until the Lord holds you in his hand for all the world to see….
A splendid crown in the hand of God.

Suddenly the past is like the present
With God between me and the people and places
I have loved and will always love.
But they no longer surround and press in upon me with emotional weight.
Instead you become joyful gifts that influence my life every day as I hold you up
In prayer until God blesses you all so much you become God’s pride and joy.

“Whatever….”

I searched for something to define my wishes for the New Year:
I had my daily devotions,
And at the end of each I’d celebrate
Hey, that’s a good idea.

But nothing stuck.
All I ended up with was a series of good ideas.
Nothing to change my life
Into this exciting time of 2013.

I’m reminded:
To ‘keep it simple;
Christ is the vine,
And as I live in him ‘life now becomes spiritually creative,”

I’m reminded ‘Real Peace is not the lack of turmoil or anxiety,
But a deep rootedness in the God who is my anchor.’
And I am reminded the Magi who traveled ‘are my representatives.’
They remind me we ALL are included in God’s gift of the season.

See, the messages at the end of this year have been so good,
I’ve not been able to embrace one above the other.
Then I realized I was looking in the wrong place.
I was looking at ideas, not searching for a person.

I am trying to follow a formula.
I like the rituals of worship.
They provide a framework upon which to hang my personal experience.
But formulas and rituals only serve one purpose.

So, for the New Year, I turned my face toward God.
God, I give me to you again this year…
I have learned (again) last year
That your wisdom is far beyond mine.

So, give me what you will
Send me where you want,
Bless me with places to serve,
And renew my desire to give myself away.

We hear ‘whatever’ as a disconnection, a cop out from confrontation.
But this year, I have (again) been reminded “whatever” can be a heartfelt response.
“Whatever, God. Give, take, bless, bring sorrow, or opportunity,
Or ask me to give everything away; I can do it because you are in me.

And that’s as close to a formula I’ve decided to get.
But now I have to get to work
And make sure I’m in the right place spiritually, and growing,
So whatever God sends this year, I will be ready to meet it with joy.

Scripture Corinthians 1:12-13
John 15:5

Christmas Blessings

This is my last week to prepare for the season as we will be off to see family, so let me wish you all a lovely, Christ-filled, spiritually satisfying, gift receiving, family comforting, Christmas. 

I’ll resume my normal contributions with my ideas about resolutions (they don’t work).

So,

Merry Christmas to all and to all a God centered new year.

Blessings,

Jo 

COME

 

Come, you who have written off Christmas

As a useless commercial, greedy,

Networking-by-giving-the-right-gift-to-the-right person,

And raking in all you can get celebration.

 

Come, you who weary of trying to please,

Or gain approval of,

The people who depend on you and who you love with all your heart

By providing the perfect holiday experience.

 

Come, you who refuse to celebrate because you believe

It’s the wrong time of the year,

Or believers redemption of an old pagan worship day

Was merely the early Christians’ effort to wrestle dominance from everyone else.

 

Come, you who cannot see beyond the secular celebrations,

Of Santa, elves, goodwill, and tender, made for TV movies.

Who, when you have outgrown those things,

No longer find meaning in the celebration.

 

Come, rediscover the simple, uncomplicated,

Love motivated, God-initiated gift

That began all this human madness as we have, as usual,

Gotten things backwards, and put the emphasis on the wrong things.

 

Come, return to the celebration

Of a loving Creator longing for a relationship with the people of his creation.

Of that Spirit of power and might, giving that most precious son

To humanity as the example of God the Father’s existence and scope of love.

 

Come. Come to the celebration,

Not of the date, or of mere traditions, or the giving and receiving,

Not merely the spirit of Christmastide’s goodwill,

But of the eternal love that prompted that first gift of a baby named Jesus.

 

So, come, put it all aside:

The study that tells us what we’ve gotten wrong,

The disapproval of what the season has become,

And celebrate, with heart, mind, and spirit, the gift that changed the meaning of giving.

The Spirit of Thankfulness

All my ducks never stay in the row I keep putting them in.

As soon as I get everything settled, something else comes along.

It doesn’t matter if it is good or bad, it changes things.

And once again, I am rearranging my attitudes and life.

 

It occurred to me I’m looking in the wrong place when I look for things to be thankful for.

The things I’m thankful for today may not be, and often aren’t, here tomorrow.

“Now what?” I asked God.

“Am I to constantly asses my life in a quest to remain thankful?”

 

“Well,” God replied, “It seems to me there’s an easier way.

“You might try living in a spirit of thankfulness.

“I can help you with that.

“The ‘ducks’ never stay in a row, you know.”

 

I realized we spend a lot of time looking for the things we think we deserve and are thankful for.

We deserve to be happy and have a decent standard of living.

We deserve a good job matching our ability and education levels.

We develop a spirit of entitlement and expect someone will help us get what we deserve.

 

There’s nothing wrong with the effort of bettering ones’ self, or asking for help.

There’s nothing wrong with agencies assisting us when we need help.

Charity is one of the things God requires of us.

But charity is the spirit of giving, not the spirit of getting.

 

No, I’ve not wandered off the subject.

In our secular society, entitlement and empowerment becomes part of the morality.

And we live in the spirit of Yes! I Deserve This!

And again, that’s not all bad.

 

But there’s a subtle shift that can occur.

When what we deserve or empowerment doesn’t arrive in a timely manner,

The spirit in which we live is no longer thankfulness,

And when left to follow its course, becomes bitterness and dissatisfaction.

 

The thankful spirit rejoices in all things God supplies.

I become thankful for not just being alive, but for all of my life:

Where I live, what I have, my family, my spouse – or singleness, the money I do have,

The many – or few – friends I have, the help I receive, the agencies that help me, and that which I am given.

 

I still have ‘ducks’ to herd – but I don’t fall apart when things fall apart.

I do deserve certain things – we all do – but I don’t expect to be given them.

I am thankful I have the freedom to purse them

And my charity helps others attain a place where they can purse them.

 

I live my life in expectation of good things,

Thankful for the gifts from God.

But that’s different than living, in expectation of only good things,

And blaming God when  things are not as we think they should be.

 

When thankfulness is my spirit,

All things have a purpose.

All things are accepted –(long pause)  eventually.

I live in a new spirit of thankfulness that spills over into all I do, have, and am.