It is deliciously cool, and I am tucked under the fleece blanket on the deck, watching the trees dancing to the music of my Pandora station (Katherine Jenkins, with a touch of Jackie Evancho, Andrea Boceelli, and Celtic Woman). Evergreen and deciduous, large and small, close and distant, the trees move with their own form and speed, yet in unity under the direction of their Conductor. The light plays with the shadows at different levels of the hillside, as the sun moves toward its setting.
I run to get my iPad and try to capture the breath-taking performance before me. I want to share it. But my camera can’t capture its glory. Not even remotely. I adjust the angle for the light, switch positions, but no; this amazing concert cannot be recorded. Some things cannot be shared, no matter how much we want to. We want to run tell someone else to run outside and watch, but by the time they do, they’ll miss it. And some are halfway round the world. There’s nothing for it but to rejoice in its spectacular beauty and applaud at the finish. To say, “Well done, Lord! If I’m the only one who saw this performance, I want You to know I am in awe of Your creativity, Your lavish display for an audience of one. Bravo! Bravissimo! Will there be an encore tomorrow? Yet I know You rarely repeat Yourself. With You, there’s always something new in the offing. I can’t wait.
Saturday, June 16, 2018
Friday, June 15, 2018
The scent of earth
Rarely but here in the Northwest do I smell the same scent of earth: the damp ground, the perfume of flowers, the aroma of ferns, the undefinable mix that breathes freshness into the air around me. I miss it when I’m away but have difficulty expressing to others exactly what I’m talking about. The memory is like a vapor. I only know when I return and say, “Ah, yes...I’ve missed this!”
When I was young, we used to travel to our grandparents’ cabin in the Adirondacks, where a walk to the spring yielded fresh drinking water for our stay. We would fill up our jugs and lug them back to our ‘camp.’ I remember there, too, the scent of birches and evergreens and the spring-fed lake which would shock us with it’s cold welcome. Once we adjusted to the temperature and lay back into the water, our hair felt like cornsilk as we swished it about.
When we remember something, it’s not always like being there. We try to re-member everything so we can dwell in that place once again. But it eludes us. The memory provides us a snapshot of both sight and emotion, but we usually can’t recapture the actual beauty of the experience.
Sometimes our experiences with God are like that. We know there was power, there was deep joy, there was indescribable peace, and we were enveloped in overwhelming love. But we see it as a snapshot from the past, rather than being in the midst of it once again. We sometimes even wonder if it really happened, or if we only imagined it.
After decades of these experiences, however, we cease to wonder, and instead develop a profound faith in God’s tender love and faithfulness. The scent of His Presence lingers. We only have to close our eyes and we are there once more. We don’t remember Him from a distance in time. Instead He is ‘re-membered’ at that very moment and in that very place where we whisper to Him.
Being with others of kindred heart and spirit gathered together, however, will often magnify this ‘re-membering.’ He has set this up on purpose, I believe, to draw us together in encouragement, in joy, in thanksgiving, and also in times of sorrow, grief, persecution and struggle. His Body is ‘re-membered’ (the members put together in a wholeness in which His life is found). His scent contains both earth (His Creation) and Heaven. If we find ourselves making other choices for our time, week after week, we are missing out on one of the greatest blessings He has for us. And the memory of what it is like to be in the midst of His glorious presence will become like a faded photograph. We may fold up the album and tuck it away on the shelf and later wonder how we ended up so bereft of that indescribable fragrance in our lives, both the receiving and the emitting of it to others.
If you are not part of a fellowship where He delights to show up, offer your gifts to help it become so. Or if they are not willing, find one where His fragrance can be found, though it be the smallest of mangers.
*************
“Where Sky and water meet, where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep, to find all you seek...”
—CS Lewis, The Last Battle
When I was young, we used to travel to our grandparents’ cabin in the Adirondacks, where a walk to the spring yielded fresh drinking water for our stay. We would fill up our jugs and lug them back to our ‘camp.’ I remember there, too, the scent of birches and evergreens and the spring-fed lake which would shock us with it’s cold welcome. Once we adjusted to the temperature and lay back into the water, our hair felt like cornsilk as we swished it about.
When we remember something, it’s not always like being there. We try to re-member everything so we can dwell in that place once again. But it eludes us. The memory provides us a snapshot of both sight and emotion, but we usually can’t recapture the actual beauty of the experience.
Sometimes our experiences with God are like that. We know there was power, there was deep joy, there was indescribable peace, and we were enveloped in overwhelming love. But we see it as a snapshot from the past, rather than being in the midst of it once again. We sometimes even wonder if it really happened, or if we only imagined it.
After decades of these experiences, however, we cease to wonder, and instead develop a profound faith in God’s tender love and faithfulness. The scent of His Presence lingers. We only have to close our eyes and we are there once more. We don’t remember Him from a distance in time. Instead He is ‘re-membered’ at that very moment and in that very place where we whisper to Him.
Being with others of kindred heart and spirit gathered together, however, will often magnify this ‘re-membering.’ He has set this up on purpose, I believe, to draw us together in encouragement, in joy, in thanksgiving, and also in times of sorrow, grief, persecution and struggle. His Body is ‘re-membered’ (the members put together in a wholeness in which His life is found). His scent contains both earth (His Creation) and Heaven. If we find ourselves making other choices for our time, week after week, we are missing out on one of the greatest blessings He has for us. And the memory of what it is like to be in the midst of His glorious presence will become like a faded photograph. We may fold up the album and tuck it away on the shelf and later wonder how we ended up so bereft of that indescribable fragrance in our lives, both the receiving and the emitting of it to others.
If you are not part of a fellowship where He delights to show up, offer your gifts to help it become so. Or if they are not willing, find one where His fragrance can be found, though it be the smallest of mangers.
*************
“Where Sky and water meet, where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep, to find all you seek...”
—CS Lewis, The Last Battle
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Loaded
I love the King James translation of Psalm 68:19: “Blessed Be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah” (Selah: Pause and calmly think of that.)
Are you feeling ‘ loaded’ or disappointed? Are you rejoicing in thankfulness or feeling disallusioned? If it’s the latter in both cases, try writing down, as Anne Voskamp (One Thousand Gifts) did, every single thing for which you’re thankful. She started by challenging her deeply depressed self to list 100. What started as a seemingly impossible task changed her life.
For my fellow White Christmas fans, remember Bing Crosby singing “Count Your Blessings instead of sheep?” Sometimes our worries or dashed hopes overshadow even the smallest good in our lives. It may sound prosaic to talk about counting your blessings...like something out of an old greeting card. However, God’s Word never fails to bring life if we come to it with openness. “Give thanks in all circumstances” is not a last ditch suggestion; it’s a command that God knows will cause life to spring up in the midst of every form of struggle, whether a mere skirmish or a life-and-death battle.
Scour the Scriptures for the terms ‘thanks,’ thanksgiving’ and ‘thankfulness’ and you will unearth treasure. Start or renew the practice of a journal just for thankfulness. Include the Scriptures you discover, as well as an ongoing list of things for which you thank God, Things visible and invisible. Look up and see all He is daily pouring upon you, including His beaming countenance. Partner with a friend and share what God opens your eyes to see, and I’ll do the same. Let’s bubble over with such grateful hearts, despite our pains and struggles, that we hear His delighted laughter echoing from Heaven.
**********
*1 Thessalonians 5:18
“The people of God ought to be the happiest people in all the wide world. People should be coming to us constantly and asking the source of our joy and delight...God is our Father, Christ is our Brother, the Holy Spirit our Advocate and Comforter...” —AW Tozer
Are you feeling ‘ loaded’ or disappointed? Are you rejoicing in thankfulness or feeling disallusioned? If it’s the latter in both cases, try writing down, as Anne Voskamp (One Thousand Gifts) did, every single thing for which you’re thankful. She started by challenging her deeply depressed self to list 100. What started as a seemingly impossible task changed her life.
For my fellow White Christmas fans, remember Bing Crosby singing “Count Your Blessings instead of sheep?” Sometimes our worries or dashed hopes overshadow even the smallest good in our lives. It may sound prosaic to talk about counting your blessings...like something out of an old greeting card. However, God’s Word never fails to bring life if we come to it with openness. “Give thanks in all circumstances” is not a last ditch suggestion; it’s a command that God knows will cause life to spring up in the midst of every form of struggle, whether a mere skirmish or a life-and-death battle.
Scour the Scriptures for the terms ‘thanks,’ thanksgiving’ and ‘thankfulness’ and you will unearth treasure. Start or renew the practice of a journal just for thankfulness. Include the Scriptures you discover, as well as an ongoing list of things for which you thank God, Things visible and invisible. Look up and see all He is daily pouring upon you, including His beaming countenance. Partner with a friend and share what God opens your eyes to see, and I’ll do the same. Let’s bubble over with such grateful hearts, despite our pains and struggles, that we hear His delighted laughter echoing from Heaven.
**********
*1 Thessalonians 5:18
“The people of God ought to be the happiest people in all the wide world. People should be coming to us constantly and asking the source of our joy and delight...God is our Father, Christ is our Brother, the Holy Spirit our Advocate and Comforter...” —AW Tozer
Thursday, June 7, 2018
Spiritual jet lag
Do you ever feel as if you have spiritual jet lag? Everything seems off kilter and ‘out-of-timing,’ like a car that needs a tuneup? Your pistons are firing, but not in coordination? You don’t seem to be getting anywhere?
Sometimes you feel that God just answered a burning question, but you missed it. It’s like a whisper that just flew past your ear. You’re out of step with Him, and you know the problem isn’t His. You know those nightmares where you’re running to help someone (or away from danger), but it’s like you’re mired in a Scottish bog?
I’ve discovered that the best thing to do in this situation is to sit still. You know the advice they give you about being lost in a forest or a cave? Don’t try to find your way out. Stay put and rescuers will come. If you keep moving to try and rescue yourself, you will probably bury yourself deeper, where it’s less likely they’ll find you.
In one of the Mitford books, Father Tim and Cynthia experience this very situation in a cave, where they end up miles away from the cave entrance. It is not only fear that prompts them to keep moving, but pride...the sense that they have been reckless and stupid in entering the cave in the first place and now have caused havoc in the lives of those who must search for them. We tend to want to get ourselves out of our own fixes and to not even admit we were ever in need of rescuing in the first place.
However, the best thing we can do is admit to our Father that we have gotten completely lost and
can’t find our bearings. He’s quite fond of humility, but less so of pride. In fact, He says He hates it. Getting lost doesn’t always mean not knowing where we are. Sometimes it means we’re thoroughly confused or have lost our vital connection with His Spirit. We’re spinning round in circles wondering what happened. Regardless, sitting still and waiting for and on Him is the best remedy. Don’t worry, you’re not lost. He knows exactly where you are and is already on His way. In fact, if you listen, you’ll hear His footfall in your heart.
***************
“There’s no shadow You won’t light up, mountain You won’t climb up comin’after me
There’s no wall You won’t kick down, lie You won’t tear down comin’ after me”
—Cory Asbury, Reckless Love
Sometimes you feel that God just answered a burning question, but you missed it. It’s like a whisper that just flew past your ear. You’re out of step with Him, and you know the problem isn’t His. You know those nightmares where you’re running to help someone (or away from danger), but it’s like you’re mired in a Scottish bog?
I’ve discovered that the best thing to do in this situation is to sit still. You know the advice they give you about being lost in a forest or a cave? Don’t try to find your way out. Stay put and rescuers will come. If you keep moving to try and rescue yourself, you will probably bury yourself deeper, where it’s less likely they’ll find you.
In one of the Mitford books, Father Tim and Cynthia experience this very situation in a cave, where they end up miles away from the cave entrance. It is not only fear that prompts them to keep moving, but pride...the sense that they have been reckless and stupid in entering the cave in the first place and now have caused havoc in the lives of those who must search for them. We tend to want to get ourselves out of our own fixes and to not even admit we were ever in need of rescuing in the first place.
However, the best thing we can do is admit to our Father that we have gotten completely lost and
can’t find our bearings. He’s quite fond of humility, but less so of pride. In fact, He says He hates it. Getting lost doesn’t always mean not knowing where we are. Sometimes it means we’re thoroughly confused or have lost our vital connection with His Spirit. We’re spinning round in circles wondering what happened. Regardless, sitting still and waiting for and on Him is the best remedy. Don’t worry, you’re not lost. He knows exactly where you are and is already on His way. In fact, if you listen, you’ll hear His footfall in your heart.
***************
“There’s no shadow You won’t light up, mountain You won’t climb up comin’after me
There’s no wall You won’t kick down, lie You won’t tear down comin’ after me”
—Cory Asbury, Reckless Love
Friday, June 1, 2018
No darkness at all
“God is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all...” 1 John 1:15
Creeping into our post-Christian culture are eastern religious terms like Karma and Yin & Yang. Popular New Age (actually 'old age') teachings declare the necessary 'balance' between darkness and light. Remember Jim Henson's movie, The Dark Crystal? In this tale, there were evil creatures and good creatures, and the happy solution in the climax involved the two merging into single beings, composed of both elements. If you know me at all, you know I loved The Muppets. However, Henson was an avowed New-Ager. He declared his intention, in partnership with Ted Turner, to inculcate the children of our world with the tenants of his philosophies in order to develop a higher order of human beings who would be at peace with one another in a more perfect world. A lovely thought which nearly every other religion holds up as a goal achieved by man’s climbing the rungs of
a ladder of self-improvement until he attains ‘heaven’ or its equivalent. Unfortunately, the millennia have proven otherwise.
A variety of other groups predicate their ideals on the concept of darkness and light (evil and good), bringing wholeness through a union of the two, including Mormonism and Masonry at their elite levels. My apologies to my Star Wars friends, but Lucas presents the same philosophy within The Force. Listen again to aged Luke near the end of the newest production, as he explains the Force's power. It is not defined as simply a battle between good and evil but of evil as a necessary part of the whole.
We say these are just entertaining movies, but E.B. White declared, "Whoever tells the stories, owns the culture." You would be surprised at the number of my students who, after reading The Lightening Thief series, believed the Greek gods were really wandering the earth involved in the affairs of mankind. We have certainly seen this over the decades in the way television gradually changed (and is changing) the mores of our nation, defining a new normal as something which would have been thought unthinkable in its early years. We the Church hold a substantial responsibility for allowing this to happen with very little protest.
As Christians, we must not banter about terms like karma, as if they were not wholly contradictory to our stated beliefs. If we are saved by grace and not by works, then we should not be placing ourselves back under the law. "We foolish Christians, who has bewitched us?"** Yes, the Bible speaks of the concept of sowing and reaping. However, Yeshua's great sacrifice for us covers us in a grace that doesn't demand we reap permanent death or suffering from our sins. We do often experience the consequence of them in our daily life. And the Father does, indeed, desire us to exhibit the fruit of His Spirit in the way we treat others; yet this does not subject us to the oriental law of karma. Do we really want to step out from under the Umbrella of Grace He graciously holds over us? Then let's not declare it.
Years ago I was praying for a friend for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. We were getting nowhere fast, despite her having gone through the renunciation process for anything involving the occult. God always answers someone’s sincere prayer for the Holy Spirit, with its accompanying sign of a prayer language. This gift is for everyone.*** So I knew there was some reason God was withholding the Baptism to protect her from opening herself up, not to the Holy Spirit, but to the Enemy of her soul. When I asked her if there was something she could think of, some philosophy, for example, to which she was clinging, she knew immediately what it was. She had always been fascinated with the concept of reincarnation. After she became a Christian, it still hung in the background of her mind. She couldn't quite let go of its fascination, despite the fact that it represented an eternity of struggle
through various lives, trying to attain a perfection she would never be able to accomplish.
Reincarnation is the total antithesis of Christianity, the only religion in the world based on pure Grace, the agonizing Sacrifice of another in our place so that we we are carried up the ladder, so to speak, on the shoulders of a merciful God. That night she went back home and talked with the Father about it, repented, and renounced it. The following day we prayed once again and she immediately received her prayer language.
As believers, we should also not be ‘knocking on wood,’ a practice which dates back to the belief that the goddess Gaia resided in the trees (a form of pantheism). Nor should we cross our fingers or search our horoscope to determine our course, or define ourselves by any ‘sign’ other than the cross. We either desire our future to be directed and guided by our Heavenly Father's loving hand, or we choose to place ourselves under the influence of every possible 'force' out there, all of which are used as doorways for the machinations of the enemy of our souls.
Mindfulness is the new term being bandied about. I think it's wonderful, if we are talking about mindfulness of God and of what we are thinking and speaking into our own lives and also the lives of others. Let's, then, be as mindful as possible...and as 'spiritful,' also.
******************************************************************************
**You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law,or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Galations 3:1-3
***If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11:13
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