Picture This

          If dictionaries had to have illustrations by every word I wonder what some of them would be?  How would you illustrate a concept, an idea, an emotion?   Sometimes life gives us illustrations--those "a picture is worth a thousand words" moments.
          Ron was pricipal of an elementary school where our own children were students.  I loved to show up on campus.  Ron could rarely be found behind his desk because he liked to be where the action was--and that was always where the children were--so he would be in a corridor or a classroom or on the playground or the cafeteria interacting with his kids.
          One day I was at his school at lunch time.  I was beside him as he wandered from table to table encouraging, teasing,and sometimes correcting his little charges.  Nodding across the room to a table where a little boy sat beside a young woman, Ron whispered to me, "His  leukemia has come out of remission and he probably won't make it this time.  But he wants to be at school and his parents have agreed to try to keep his life as normal as possible so they let him come to class.  That's his mom.  She doesn't want to miss a minute of the rest of his life so she comes with him everyday just to watch him and be near him."
          I can still see them in my mind as if it were yesterday and it still makes me weep.  What word would a picture of that mother and son fit beside in the dictionary?  Devotion.  Fear.  Heartache.  Commitment.
          And what picture could illustrate love and grace and justice and mercy and redemption?  Most profoundly, the cross.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead  in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.
                                                                                                                   Ephesians 2:4, 5

faith

               Faith is a beautiful word.  It brings up wonderful connotations of security and steadfastness.  The thing about faith in God is that you have to figure out how to have faith in every aspect of his character.  You have to accept his justice along with his mercy.
               We love to have faith in the mercy of God.  We bank on it.  We couldn't do without it.. It's the flip side of that faith coin--the faith in his perfect justice that we sometimes we have trouble reconciling with the side of the coin that we love. 
               Still, if there were not a perfect standard and a perfect justice to go with it, his mercy would be meaningless.  I need the mercy of God demonstrated overwhelmingly in the cross because I cannot live up to his perfect standard and I am deserving of his perfect justice.  I'm so grateful he did not do away with perfection in order to accomodate my failures.  In all my imperfection, I rely on the perfect mercy of God.

But my righteousness will last forever, my salvation through all generations.

                                                                                                              Isaiah 51:8





Shattered Dreams

          No one lives long on this earth without facing the disappointment of unfulfilled dreams.  In the book of Ruth, Naomi went into Moab with her husband and two sons, dreaming of one day returning with them to Canaan.  Instead, she returned a widow having buried her husband and sons in Moab.  Naomi didn't have a super attitude about these losses.  In fact, she changed her name to Mara which means "bitter" (Ruth 1:20), and blamed God for her misfortune: "The Lord has afflicted me; the
Almighty has brought misfortune upon me." (Ruth 1:21)
          It takes spiritual eyes to see life's disappointments in the eternal scheme of things.  This is not always my first default when some circumstance makes me blue.  While I depend on the tenderness and comfort of a sympathetic God, I don't want to insult him by over-grieving things that are really of little significance.  They can just seem so big in the moment, but I never want to change my name to Mara!
          David said, "The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing...."  (Psalm 23:1)  When I take account of my broken dreams I can be tempted to say, "I lack, I lack!"  But to each loss on my list, God would reply from a heavenly perspective:  "Thats nothing!"  It makes me smile and calls me to a way of thinking that would be foreign to me without the Bible.  Because now I know that God has "graciously given me all things!" (Romans 8:32)

Happy Valentine's Day

Most of the Psalms seem like love notes to God, and appropriately so.  Certainly He who has loved us first and best deserves every day our expressions of love in return. 

I John 4:19
We love because he first loved us.

We would not even know what love is were it not for a God who is love itself.

I John 4:16
God is love.

A young friend once complained to me that God seemed very egotistical in the devotion he demanded.  If we were to view God by human standards this might be the case.

II Corinthians 5:16
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.  Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

From a worldly point of view the love, deference, imitation and committment God expects of us would seem self-aggrandizing.  But it is God's love, not his ego that calls us to adore all that he is.  God is not flesh and blood but spirit and what/who he is asking us to value above all else is all that he is.

I Corinthians 1:30
It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God--that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

God is everything pure and perfect and holy.  It's a good day to write a love note to God.

Psaml 111:1
I will extol the Lord with all my heart.

The Look

Luke 6:30
Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyonetakes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.

          In Luke's account of Jersus' Sermon on the Mount, he includes one of the most challenging scriptures in the Bible.  "Give to everyone who asks you...."  Our national economy has sent multitudes with their brown cardboard signs out onto our street corners.  How do we decifer who really needs a handout and who needs to get a job?  How do we decide the right amount from our wallets to place into outstretched hands?  How do we trust that our offerings will buy life necessities instead of prolong addictions?
          Questions like these may have been what prompted the rich young man to ask Jesus in Luke 10:29, "And who is my neighbor?"  A paraphrase of Jesus' convicting response: "Anyone you see who is in need is your neighbor."
          If you think our street corners here are full of beggars, you should visit South Africa!  While there in 2011, almost all of our transportation was provided by Christians from the Johannesburg Church of Christ.  We noticed that they took this scripture in Luke 6 quite literally.  If they were stopped at an intersection long enough to get their car window down, something would pass from their hands into the hands of the needy. 
          Some carried stashes of coins; some had pieces of fruit at the ready, or individual bags of peanuts and raisins.  This advance preparation made them able to "give to everyone who asked."  It freed them from consiciences wrestling with judgments and the conjuring of rationalizations required on American street corners.
          I was reminded of walking alone in downtown Chicago and being approached by a scruffy-looking man who asked, "You don't happen to have a sandwich in that purse, do you?"  I did not. I did, however, happen to have brought along a cereal bar for my own consumption later.
          As I handed him this small offering, I was struck by the desperate gratitude in his eyes.  It was that look, more than his effusive expressions of gratitude that penitrated my heart.  It made me think of how often Jesus must have elicited exactly that same look in the eyes of people he healed or fed or encouraged.  It must have made the looks of contempt and scepticism and malice more bearable as he walked on this earth.
          Increasingly, it seems we need the encouragement of those same looks to persevere in a culture that is progressively looking with derision on Christianity.  Maybe this is not the highest motivation for benevolence, but it is surely one of its tangible benefits!

Believe in Me

          Today my oldest daughter and her husband celebrate their 24th wedding anniversary.  I loved watching Meredith when she and Mike were dating.  The power of Mike's love and encouragement in her life was transforming.  They have forged a joy and unity over their years together that is inspiring.
          Encouragement is a magical thing.  Seeing ourselves through the eyes of someone who expresses belief in us--not as a manipulative tactic of flattery, but as a sincere appreciation validating our worth or capabilities or talents--is empowering.
          As I watched Meredith 24+years ago blossom in the glow of Mike's admiration for all that she was and is, I wrote these lyrics that became a part of their wedding ceremony:





         

Your love has transformed  me,

 filled and warmed me,

and made be much more than I am.

Your faith has lifted me,

inspired and gifted me,

and made me do much more than I can.

If you can believe in me--

look, and can see in me the dreams--

all of those dreams I thought had died--

I'll look through your eyes at me

in wonder, surprised to see

that all, all of those dreams

 come back to life.

 

          Happy anniversary Mike and Meredith!  And heaps of gratitude to all of you who are gifted encouragers!  How desperately the world needs you!

 

"...encourage one another daily...."  Hebrews 3:13