Re-gifting

Now that the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season is coming to an end, it is time to turn our attention to thoughts of the New Year. But before we do that, I would like to recount one more Christmas story.

I did not grow up in a Christian home, so our traditions were completely secular. One such tradition involved a toy troll. Now, we all know that re-gifting is somewhat tacky, and it is very important to make sure you remember who you received a particular gift from, before you give it away to someone else, in case you might inadvertently give that unwanted gift back to the person who gave it to you. And believe me, they will remember!

I am not sure where the tradition started, but by the time I came along, it had been going on for many years. At some point, someone in the family had given someone else a gift of a small, very ugly troll doll. It had large eyes, and wild hair that stuck out all over. It had really large feet and pointy ears, and its skin was all wrinkly. It had a nose like a pig, and a big round belly. It wore a t-shirt that didn't reach its belly, and tattered shorts. It was so very, very ugly!

The first recipient of that doll must not have seen the same beauty in it that the giver obviously admired, because the following year, it was passed on to a new owner. And the next year, and the next, and so on. It was kind of like the game of Old Maid. No one wanted to be gifted with that troll! You had to really pay attention to who opened the gift with the troll doll in it that year, because next year, you did not want to get a gift from that person, or you would be the next owner of the troll. It got to be kind of interesting as time went on. Sometimes the troll would end up in someone's stocking. Sometime in came by parcel post. But somehow, by the end of the year, the troll would find itself re-gifted to a new home.

Well, this year, I would like you to join me in a re-gifting challenge: What if we took what we were really given for Christmas, and re-gift it throughout the coming year? Have you been given the gift of grace? Try re-gifting it to someone who could use a little grace himself. Have you been forgiven? Offer forgiveness freely to those who don't deserve to be forgiven. Have you been loved? Re-gift that love to someone a little less lovable. Jesus said, “...I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10). Lets resolve together this new year to share out of our abundance, and re-gift our blessings daily.

Learning the hard way

This mornings readings were right where my heart is:

"We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed..." 2 Corinthians 4: 8, 9.

For more than a year now, my family has been in crisis.  I can't give the details now, but it has been more difficult than anything I have ever been through.  As with most things, there are certainly things that I am learning through this struggle, though I wish it were not true that the best lessons in life are learned the hard way.

As some of you know, I am pretty much a control freak.  When I have a problem, I want to jump in and just fix it.  No complaining, no whining, and certainly no asking for help.  Not from anyone; not even from God.  But this current situation is not about me.  It involves someone I love dearly, but it was not a problem that I created, nor is it anything I can fix.  I just have to sit by and watch.  And pray.  And pray, and pray, and pray.

For a year now, that is all I have been able to do.  Of course, I am freely handing out advice (for a situation that I have never experienced and truly have no business advising).  I tell God in my prayers what He should do to resolve the situation.  But nothing changes.  I am still hopeful that very soon now it will all come to a close, and things will get better.  But there are no guarantees.

Learning patience is a real struggle.  I hate waiting.  I hate that God doesn't always say "Yes" to our requests, even when they are tear-soaked and relentless.  I hate that I don't know what God's plan is in all of this.  I hate not knowing if I am supposed to be doing, thinking, or saying something, and I can't figure it out, or if this has nothing to do with me at all.  Maybe it is taking so long because someone else has to learn or do or say or think something.  Maybe someone's salvation is at stake.  Maybe all fo this struggle is to prevent something worse later on.  Maybe we are all just caught in "friendly fire" between God and the enemy.  I have no answers.

All I know, all I have to  hang on to, is that God is sovereign.  Nothing happens on earth that could take God by surprise.  If He is allowing it, then I know it will all be okay soon.  But how soon is soon, when with the Lord a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day?

So this is me, hanging on, hoping, praying, and waiting, not so patiently.... 

A Hope and a Future

In my personal daily devotions, I am reading through a chronological Bible.  I would highly recommend this to anyone who hasn't done so already.  This has been such an exciting adventure for me, as i am developing a clearer picture of how each story, each writer, each event fits together.  I have always believed that the Bible was much more cohesive than we tend to believe, but I see it even more clearly now.  I have a much clearer understanding of what was going on in Israel's history, for example, while each of the prophets were writing, as their works are inserted within the history given in Kings and Chronicles.

As I was studying the time period that Judah was in exile in Babylon and Jerusalem and the temple had been destroyed and abandoned, I came across a familiar text:  " 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.' " Jeremiah 29:11. 

This has always been an inspiring message for me, personally.  Now that I have read it in context, it means even more.  I understand more about where the people were when they received this message, and I knew what the prophet was up against when he professed it.

The people of Judah had defied God openly with their idol worship.  They had rejected His many attempts to bring them back into relationship with and true worship of Himself, and they repeatedly and continuously sought their own way, only pretending to follow Him, if even that.  While they wanted to have His protection from their enemies, and they certainly wanted His blessings in the form of good crops and other forms of wealth, they did not want to surrender their hearts to Him.

So, God finallly sent them away.  He allowed another, more powerful nation to overtake them, to destroy the temple their capitol city, and the surrounding territory, and to take the people into captivity in a faraway land.

Then, He sent prophets to explain to them and to remind them why they were being disciplined.  It was in this context that God reminds His people of His love for them.  his plans were still for their prosperity.  he still desired to bless them.  He was going to bring them back to a relationship with Himself and provide for their future.

What a God!  When I am living my life for myself, with my own agenda, pretending to follow God, but really worshipping myself and my "idols", God still ahs a plan for my life that includes a future with Him!  I may need to spend a period with my heart in captivity, until I remember to turn back to Him, but His heart is always for me.

Romans 15:4 says, "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope."

I praise God daily for the hope that He provides, afresh every day.
 

Good Enough

I was talking with friends this week about how some people, Christian or otherwise, seem to have this idea that all we need to do to get into heaven is to be "good enough".  Somehow, we tend to think that if our good behaviors outweigh the bad on some cosmic scale, that we will be able to make it on our own merit.  As good as that may sound, it just isn't biblical.  If that were true, Jesus would never have had to die. 

It is natural for us to want to maintain control over every aspect of our lives, and salvation seems to be included in our endeavors.  It is so much easier to have a list of do's and don'ts to check off, than to accept the fact that "all our righteous acts aer like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6).  The pharisees, in Jesus' day, were an example of salvation by "works".  They had rules for everything, including more than 600 on how to keep the Sabbath holy.  They were not even allowed to spit on the ground, because that would create dirt, and would therefore be working on the Sabbath.

While I am not advocating giving up on trying to do good, I am saying that it is much more important that we maintain a relationship with Jesus than focus on following the rules.  The Bible says to "believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved."  Believe.  Not do, not don't, no list of requirements.  Just believe.

Jesus, himself, while teaching about the coming judgement and salvation, said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  Many will say to me on that day, "lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'  Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you.  Away from me you evil doers!"

Now, you can argue that the miracles and prophesying were not from God, but my point here is that even sincere Christians can fall into the trap of working so hard "for the Lord" that we have no time for a relationship with him.  He wants us to "know" him.  Spend time with Him.  Pray, study, talk to him, LISTEN to him.

The apostle Paul, who had an amazing spiritual resume, brings this point home:  "  ⁷ But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in^[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

We need, above all things, to know Christ.  Then, and only then, can our works count, because only then will our behavior match our thoughts, and those must be in tune with his.

It is not what we do, but Who we know.  What a difference it makes to live a life seeking to know and be known by God, to build a relationship with Him, rather than spinning our wheels trying to be good enough.

Idols

In my daily devotions, I am reading through the books of Kings and Chronicles.  I am always amazed when I read this history part of the Bible that the people turned so easily to idol worship.  I know this was written in a different time and place, so it is easy for me to initially think that this has nothing to do with me.  I don't know anyone that worships idols made of wood or stone.  I really can't relate.  But I need to stop a minute and think about that.


In American culture, idol worship isn't easy to spot.  I know in other cultures there are obvious statues and shrines, evidence of the worship of a pantheon of gods, but not so in America.  Here, the prevailing thought seems to be that educated people don't worship any god.  We've evolved beyond that.  But to what?  Where is our heart?  Where are our thoughts?  My first thought is that in place of the worship of God, we turn to materialism.  We use all of our time and talent to amass more and more stuff.  Bigger, better, and more.  So much stuff that we need to rent storage facilities to house it all.  That is what we live for.  Now, maybe we don't worship the big screen LED tv, but we spend our time and energy on it.   I could see this as idol worship in a broad sense.

Then I thought a little further.  Maybe our idol worship is even more than that.  There is a line in a song by Michael Card that says, "we have made You in our image, so our faith's idolatry."  That's heavy.   We want to worship God, but not the powerful God of the Bible that spoke the world into existence and gave us the Ten Commandments.  That God holds us accountable.  That God has rules and standards.  We want a God that is more like, well, Barney.  Happy all the time.  Easy going.  No committments.  No rules.  He is just there to make sure we are happy and healthy and have everything we want and need.  A god that serves us!  Wait a minute!!! That, then, makes us God!

So, when I read the struggles of the people in the time of the Kings and Chronicles, I can see that they are not just turning from worshipping the true God, they are turning to the current culture.  They don't want to be different, to stand out and worship a different God.  They just want  to be like everybody else.  When I put it that way, it sounds a little too familiar.   Something to think about.

Thoughts on Marriage, Part 2

The second lesson that I learned is that the Christian ritual of marriage was designed to teach us about God.

Just as God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one, a man and a woman become one when they unite in marriage. (See Genesis 2:24). This means that when I decide to get married, I am no longer just one person. While I certainly have the right to be and to do anything I want, and so does my husband, if we are living as "one", then we will make our decisions based on the good of our relationship, not on our own selfish desires.

In addition, marriage teaches us about the character of God. Jesus calls the church his "bride" throughout the New Testament. In the Old Testament, God used the life of a prophet, named Hosea, to teach us about his character. In this strange story, God tells Hosea to take a prostitute, Gomer, as his wife. Hosea marries her, and she repeatedly runs off with other men, pursuing her own desires, making her own living, independent of Hosea's needs, and breaking his heart repeatedly. He continues to seek after her, and he even buys her back with his own money. This is so like us and our relationship with God. He asks us for 1/10th of our money and 1/7th of our time. But we choose to do things our own way, to seek after our own desires. And he patiently runs after us, buying us back with his own blood.


When we give up our individual rights to do what is right for our families, we learn about sacrifice, as Jesus gave up his rights as the King of Kings to live on earth and take on our sins and shed his blood for us. When our spouses hurt us deeply, and we forgive them, we learn about how much it must hurt God when we turn from him, and what it must be like for him to forgive us.


Marriage is certainly about love, and relationship, but it is so much more than that. It is about trusting God, about understanding bigger truths that we would otherwise know. It is not a relic from days gone by, but a lasting sacriment, to teach us holy things.

Thoughts on Marriage, Part 1

Over the past few weeks, the same topic has come up in several conversations:  marriage.  What do I think of gay marriage?  Should a believer be allowed to divorce an unbeliever?  How do you know if your marriage is really over?

Now, I am not a marriage counsellor, or even a counsellor at all, for that matter, but I have life experience, and I have gleaned much wisom from the older folks I care for in the nursing home.  Moreover, I have read the Bible, and it has much to say on this topic, so I indulged these conversations.

Two things that I have learned, I have decided to share here.  First, I think our culture has, for the most part, given up on marriage.  it used to be that when two people would fall in love, they would promise to be together "for better or for worse," and that would settle it.  The idea of divorce wasn't even part of the equation.  I find it ironic that today, the homosexuals are begging for the right to get married, and the Christians are throwing it away, as a useless tradition that no longer has any value.

I think that we have lost sight of what marriage is all about.  Like we do in every other arena of life these days, we think it is all about us.  What am I going to get out of this relationship?  As soon as it no longer meets my needs, I am done with it, and I move on to the next thing that may bring me happiness.  News flash:  Our spouses were not created by God to meet our every need.  That empty or lonely spot we have within us is meant to be filled with a relationship with God.  No human being, no matter how much we love them or they love us, will ever fill that void.  We cannot get our needs met by anyone else.

The older folks understood this.  When they got married, they knew they were going to face trials.  They expected hardships.  They stuck together and worked through the hard times, and they were closer and had a stronger love for each other each time they overcame another obstacle.  If you ask me, we give up much too easily.  If we would stick it out in the hard times, we would not only gain a better relationship, but we would develop skills that could help us in every area in our lives.

So, lessen # 1 is "never give up."

Once Upon a time

I have been watching a new tv show during prime time this season, called, "Once upon a time."  This is outside of my normal viewing genre, but I was intrigued by the storyline, and now I am hooked.  If you haven't seen it, it is basically a twist on all the fairy tale stories that we all grew up with.  The characters have been taken from their world to ours, their century to ours, and the stories are a bit different than I remember them....

Last week's episode was thought provoking.  In this episode, Rumpelstiltskin has a son.  The son hates seeing the changes that have taken place in his father's life, due to the magic that he inherited, which began to eat away at him, changing his heart toward evil.  The son searches for a cure, but instead is offered an opportunity to take himself and his father out of their world into a world without magic, where the two would be able to live a "normal" life.

What a twist!  Don't we all too often pray to God for a miracle, a bit of magic if you will, to fix our problems?  Wouldn't we rather have a pill, potion, or magic spell that would take away our pain, rather than to have to face life's battles the hard way?

But I praise God that this is not how life is for us.  We do have to struggle, but it is in the struggles that we learn and grow.  I praise God that he is consistent and unchanging.  Long ago, he put the laws of nature in place, so that we don't have to worry that some enemy could come after us and turn us instantly into toads!  We can count on gravity, cause and effect, and all the other laws of physics as we navigate this world.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Who is God?

I am reading now into 1 Samuel.  I noticed something new this morning. (Isn't it amazing how you can read the Bible a hundred times and still find something new each time?)  Saul had just been annointed King of Israel.  He was immediately in heavy conflict with the Philistines and had to do battle against them several times.  This was the reason that the Israelites wanted a king in the first place; they were tired of being kicked around by their neighbors (which wouldn't have happened if they had trusted God and defeated all of their enemies immediately, as God had told them to do).  Anyway, Saul seemed to show this pattern of asking God, through the prophet Samuel, what he was supposed to do, then going off and doing it, but only partly.  He would go into the battle and fight and win, but when it came to following God's instructions, ie: destroying everything and not taking any person or property for himself, or performing a sacrifice in a certain way, or even waiting for Samuel to arrive at a certain time or place, Saul would do his own thing, and then try to justify himself after the fact.  Hmmm...this pattern reminds me of someone....

What I noticed, though, was that each time Saul met with Samuel, he would talk about "the LORD your God" rather than "the LORD my God."  I think this was the root of the problem.  Saul saw God as someone "out there" helping him, guiding him, but not really being a part of him.  The Bible says that the spirit of the Lord came upon Saul when he was annointed, but somehow Saul never really accepted God as part of himself.  He didn't see any connection.  It wasn't a personal relationship; God was just an advisor. 

So sad that this happens all too frequently to us as well.  Our concept of God really determines how we respond to him.  Do we follow him wholeheartedly, even when we are asked to do something that is not what we would like to do?  God instructed Saul to destroy his enemies and not take anything for himself.  He brought back the best of the livestock, supposedly for a sacrifice that God did not ask him to make.  Do we sometimes go against God's clear direction, telling ourselves that doing it our way will actually be more pleasing to him?   For example, one might say,  "Maybe I don't have time to spend with God in prayer or Bible study, but I am making a lot of money, so I can pay more to the church."  Would that really be acceptable?  If God is truly God in our lives, if he lives within us, if he is "my God" rather that just God, wouldn't that make all the difference?

The Land at Peace

Well, I am now finished with Joshua and reading into Judges.  I found it interesting that at the conclusion of every passage concluding the conquest of the Israelites over a particular king or tribe, the "Land found rest from war" for x number of years.  I realize that the point of this section of scripture is that whenever the Israelites would follow God, they would be victorious, but when they would reject God and start worshipping the idols of the surrounding cultures, they would lose ground and become enslaved by their neighbors or at least tormented by them.  God was trying to teach his "children" the way we teach ours, with privileges and punishements.

What got my attention, however, is that it is kind of the same thing in my life.  When I am in crisis, I cry out to the Lord for deliverance.  When he helps me, I find "rest from war" for a while.  Then, it seems, I get more lax in my prayer and devotion time and begin to think that somehow I am in charge of my own life and that I have it all together.  On my own.  No need for Him.  Then, the cycle starts all over.

I don't fall into idol worshipping, like the Israelites do, but I might as well.  I fall into the trap of self-sufficiency.  I become my own idol in a way.

I am so grateful for God's word, with the examples of his patient endurance while we mortals struggle to stay on the path he so graciously lays out before us.

Old Testament Killing

I have always been a bit disturbed by the way God tells the fledgling Israelite nation to go into the promised land and wipe out all of its inhabitants.  This seems to go against everything I believe God to be like.  This week, as I am again following a through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan, I read a section that opened my eyes in a new way.

In Deuteronomy 20, God, through Moses, explains what the "rules of engagement" for this new nation would be when going to war.  I was surprised by what I read in vs 10 - 14.  Here, God allows the Israelites to make peace treaties with other nations.  I had always thought that God had ordered the Israelites to kill all of the people in the area.  I guess I had overlooked something critical.  The Israelites were not told to go in and just randomly start wiping people out.  Reading further, verses 15 - 18 distinguish between "nations that are very far from you" and "the cities of these peoples which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance."  The specific nations in the promised land are identified in several places as the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.  God had singled out these nations to be annhiliated by the Israelites because of their idolatry.  These nations all descended from Canaan, otherwise known as Ham, a son of Noah.  They were people that had known about God, but chose to worship idols instead.

God was using the nation of Israel to pass judgement on these nations for their idolatry, just as God later uses Babylon to pass judgement on Israel for their idolatry.  When conquering the promised land, the Israelites are instructed not to marry the women or take any of the posessions from the land, in order to help protect the young nation from falling into the same sin that He finds in these wayward people.

This understanding helps me to see that God wasn't bloodthirsty.  He was simply trying to teach his people to stop practicing idolatry.    He had a specific plan for a specific group of people.  He wanted to protect His chosen people, while at the same time, to stop the spread of the practice of worshipping gods of stone and wood and sacrificing their children to these so-called gods. 

The greatest sacrifice

My verse for today:  "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.  In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood."  Hebrews 12:2 - 4, NIV.

This verse speaks volumes to me.  First of all, in my daily struggles, I find myself often feeling sorry for myself.  I ask God why he puts me through the struggles that he allows in my life.  Doesn't he understand what I am going through?  Well, obviously, he does.  As the verse says, we haven't had to go through anything close to what he went through as far as suffering goes.

Whatever we may be facing, Jesus tells us, "I have been there."  Have you ever been betrayed by a close friend?  Jesus was betrayed to his death by one of his own disciples.  With a kiss!  Were you abandoned?  Jesus' disciples not only fell asleep when he was praying his last, desparate prayer, but when the mob came to arrest him, they all fled.  One even blatantly denied even knowing him.  Have you been rejected by your family?  Jesus' family accused him of being possessed by demons.  Have you lost your home or your possessions?  Jesus had not even a place to lay his head.

Are you worried or stressed out?  Jesus was so distraught that he sweat blood.  Falsely accused of something?  Jesus was challenged by the leaders in the synagogue on numerous occasions, and finally he spent hours being bounced around in Kangaroo court.  Have you been separated from your loved ones?  Jesus was away from his real home, heaven, for more than 30 years.  Have you felt depressed?  Jesus said, "My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death."  (Matthew 26:38)  Have you suffered from abuse?  Jesus was tortured and then crucified.

So, how did Jesus do it?  What kept him going?  I don't see that he had a huge fan base cheering him on, and neither do we.  What was it that helped him win the battle?  As the verse says, "for the joy set before him."  He knew what awaited him.  He knew that Heaven would be worth whatever risk he took.  And it wasn't just heaven.  He already had that before.  It was eternity WITH US!

Now, whenever I feel that life is unfair, or that the challenges are too hard, I think of Jesus talking to me:  "When you decided to follow me, you gave me your life.  Well, I gave you mine, too.  It wasn't easy for me either."