The Narrow Path

Our sermon at church this week really hit home.  Our pastor made several points that easily could have been sermons in thier own standing.  One such point stuck me right where I am right now.  On the screen, he showed a graphic of two arrows:  one skinny arrow pointing up, and a second, fat arrow pointing down.  This was in reference to the two paths that we may chose to follow in life:  (Matthew 7:13, 14) "¹³ “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.¹⁴ But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."  The pastor then physically illustrated walking in one direction, along the narrow road that leads to heaven.  He explained that it is a long journey.  We aren't going to get there all at once.  Sometimes it is really hard.  We may even take a few steps forward, and slide a few steps back, but we are still facing the same general direction and moving toward the goal.  It is when we stop, look over at the other road, and say, "this way is too hard.  I think I want to go with them" and turn and leave the road and join the others on the wide path that leads away from God that we are in trouble.

I was so glad for that illustration.  The narrow path is hard.  Really, really hard sometimes.  And sometimes it is really lonely, especially when most of our closest companions choose the wide path.  And the journey takes us to places that we often do not want to go, where the choices are hard to make.  God often makes us do hard work to learn the most important lessons of this life.  If we need to learn patience, he sends us frustration upon frustration, until we learn to lean on Him and patiently wait. (And for control-freaks like me, that means God needs to be patient, too).  If we need to learn to be more loving, he sends more "unloveable" people into our lives.  By this I don't mean that anyone is unloveable, but that there are people who rub us the wrong way and seem to bring out the worst in us, and we really have to work hard not to judge them and to find their redeeming qualities.

For example, I have a patient at work whose family is driving me crazy!  No matter what I do, it is always wrong.  And they complain every single day!  A few of the concerns are valid.  Many are unrealistic.  Every time I see their number come up on my caller ID, or I see them in the hallway, I have to pray before I talk to them.  One day, while one of the members was on the phone with me, I couldn't take it any more.  She was at first complaining about her family member's care.  Then it turned to her own personal problems:  health, financial, family, etc.  Finally, I asked God under my breath, "What can I do?"  Then, before I could think, out of my mouth came this:  "It sounds like you have a lot on your plate right now.  I know I can't do anything to fix most of it, but there is one thing I can do.  Can I pray with you?"  She agreed, and I prayed with her right there on the phone. She was grateful and thanked me, then hung up.  (Those of you that know me know that I am uncomfortable praying out loud and don't normally volunteer to do it.)  I would love to report that this was the answer and it fixed everything, but the next day everything was just the same.  I obviously have more learning to do...and a lot more praying!

The point I learned today is that even though the straight and narrow path is hard, sometimes seemingly impossible, that it is not about struggling uphill on a drudging march toward heaven.  God knows that I can't do it on my own.  I am the one that doesn't always get that it is not all up to me.  He points me in the right direction, and he is right there with me to pick me up every time I fall down.  He pushes me when I need help, and he carries me when I just can't do it any longer.

And the wide, easy path?  Well, I've been down that road before, and believe me, it is harder than it looks! 

His ways are not our ways

I am starting another "read your Bible through in a year" plan.  I am in Genesis right now.  As I was reading the account of the flood, it really made me stop and think.  God was so distressed over the evil he saw in the world, that he saw no other option but to destroy the planet...not just the people, but the whole system, except for 8 people.  I wonder what he is thinking as he looks down at the evil going on right now?

Then I thought more about the character of God.  He chose not to destroy the earth completely.  He sent a rainbow to assure us that he will never change his mind and just give up.  Then He gave us an unexplainable gift.  A gift he had planned all along, knowing before-hand what the world and its inhabitants were like and what we would do with the gift; he sent Jesus as our substitute.

And Jesus was not just a tool in God's hand.  Jesus was in on the plan, designing and working out the details all along.  Jesus knew the heart of man; our depth of love as well as the depravity of our hearts.  He knew we wouldn't understand his gift.  We would reject him over and over.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I couldn't do it.  I would look around and say, "No way, man!"  It is not worth it.  The benefits don't outweigh the risks.  I would walk away, leave the sinners in the sin, and start over.

But God is not man.  Jesus became a man, but he is still God.  He sees us, and somehow, he thinks we ARE worth it.  He finds something of value in our wayward hearts.  He knows we don't fully understand, and he has hope (well, maybe for an omniscient being hope is not the right word) that we will "get it" at some point and that with our free will we will choose him.  We will accept the gift.  We will love as we are loved.

I am so glad that God is God.

Virtual village

I found a game on my computer last weekend that had been installed a couple of years ago when I purchased my computer.  It is something about a virtual village.  I had a little free time, so I opened it up to see what it was about.  It started out with seven villagers on a deserted beach.  They needed to "learn" how to take care of themselves, so I had to "teach" them, by moving them around the village and placing them in certain strategic locations at certain times.  I played around with it for about an hour, and then I turned it off and went about my day.

Yesterday, I opened it up again, and I found that the game continued on while it was off.  All but one of my virtual villagers was dead!  Their skeletons were strewn across the virtual beach!  I felt bad momentarily.  Then I really felt bad about opening up a game that would have required me to waste countless hours in front of a computer screen, trying to keep virtual people "alive"!

This made me think about God.  How often do we think of him as someone "out there" just toying with us, and then absently walking away, leaving us to "die" in our ignorance, when he should be teaching us something.  So many people I know think of God like that.  Like he just set the world in motion and then stepped back to watch us mess it all up.

What a thought!  This season, however, we are reminded of how close to humanity that he really is.  That he not only participates in our day to day lives, but he even sent his son to become one of us, to live like us, and to offer his life in exchange for ours!

To put it in perspective, it would be like my going into my virtual village to show the virtual people how to be real people, then becoming a game so that they could be really alive! The concept blows my mind!

Creative Dogs

We have been trying to find a way to keep our two large, active dogs off our new deck.  Just telling them to stay down has not been effective.  We bought a large baby gate, but they quickly learned they could simply knock it over and get up on the deck.  Then we bought two smaller baby gates and fastened them together.  They proved to be harder to knock over, so the dogs came up with a more simple solution:

The Sins of the Fathers

I have always been puzzled by such verses in scripture as:


Exodus 20:5: "...I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments."


Exodus 34:7: "...Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."


This is repeated several times.  I have heard commentators and pastors try to explain these verses away, but I was never convinced, and it left me with an unsettled feeling about God's character.


Now, I am reading the book of Ezekiel in my daily devotions, and I was thrilled to find this yesterday:


Ezekiel 18;14 - 20:

¹⁴ "But suppose this son has a son who sees all the sins his father commits, and though he sees them, he does not do such things:

 ¹⁵ "He does not eat at the mountain shrines
       or look to the idols of the house of Israel.
       He does not defile his neighbor's wife.

 ¹⁶ He does not oppress anyone
       or require a pledge for a loan.
       He does not commit robbery
       but gives his food to the hungry
       and provides clothing for the naked.

 ¹⁷ He withholds his hand from sin ^[a]
       and takes no usury or excessive interest.
       He keeps my laws and follows my decrees.
      He will not die for his father's sin; he will surely live. ¹⁸ But his father will die for his own sin, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother and did what was wrong among his people.

 ¹⁹ "Yet you ask, 'Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?' Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. ²⁰ The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him."

Now this makes sense!  This describes God's just judgement in the way that I understand it.  All those pastors and commentators were right all along, when they interpreted the previous verses to mean that our bad actions can have long-lasting and far-reaching consequences that affect many others, whether we chose to believe it or not. I praise God that he clears up the misconceptions and confusing ideas within the entirety of his word.  One more reason to continue daily study!

Fog

This morning I woke up to a gorgeous day!  By the time I left  home, the sun was shining in a cloudless sky, and the nearly full moon was still visible.  As I drove to town, I noticed how the leaves of the trees were turning various shades of red and yellow, showing that fall is indeed here.  As I drove down out of the mountains and into town, however, everything changed.  I drove into a thick fog bank.  Now the only sunlight I could find was scattered beams that broke through the mist every now and then.  You could tell it was daytime, but the light was muted and greyish to amber in color.  The bright fall colors were even drab.  I knew that the fog was only a temporary condition, and soon the bright sunlight that I had seen above the fog would reach the valley.

This made me think of my experience with God.  In reality, he is everything I know he is and more.  His brilliance is more than many suns.  His goodness, tenderness, love, and mercy are deeper than anything I have experienced on earth.  But all of his glory and goodness are hidden from us, much like the sunlight is hidden by the fog.  We know it is there, we can see glimpses of it now and then, and there is a constant, muted glow around us that reveals his presence in our lives all the time.

But imagine the glory, when we finally get to see him as he is!  When the fog of sin is lifted from between us and we can know true love for what it is.  1 Corinthians 13:12 says, "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." (KJV).

Forgot my camera!

Would you believe it...I forgot my camera when I went hiking yesterday, and I saw a pika for the first time!  He (or she??) was sooo cute!  My husband and I were crossing a bridge over a dry creek bed, and there it was, peeking out at us from a gap between some rocks.  I threw him a piece of a granola bar that I had brought for lunch, and then I trew him several more.  He went running after them (I was throwing left-handed, so my aim wasn't quite accurate).  If I wasn't really wanting to get to the waterfall I had promised to share with my husband, I would have stayed with the pika all day and fed him my whole PB&J sandwich, too!

What a blessing to interact with God's creatures in unexpected ways!