To Whom Do You Belong?

Some sweet friends of mine are around the world right now, on a mission trip to Swaziland. That got me to ruminating on something that has been turning over in my mind since long before I went on this very mission trip one year ago. Question:

If you travel across the world and meet a Christian that does not belong to your own church, do you hold that against them? The answer is a resounding NO! They are brothers/sisters in Christ! How stupid, hateful, and silly to think otherwise. Question: Do you hold it against a fellow Christian, right in your hometown, to belong to a different church? Beloved, why the change of heart?

We are each unique, gifted, talented, loved ones of God. We are called, according to God's good, pleasing, and perfect will (Rom. 8:28) -- each according to the plans God has laid out for us (Jer. 29:11).

Who do we belong to? Do we belong to Christ or to a church? Certainly, we are called to support and be active in church. But the larger answer is Christ. The community is Christ.

Perhaps God's movement/direction of people upsets some -- for it does not fall within their own designs for their will, their church, their community, their world. Ah, but you see, it is not their world, their community, their church. And it is not about their will. It all belongs to God -- we are called to walk responsibly in His will -- and sometimes, He makes changes. Christianity is not a club. It is a bending of the knee to Christ -- a bending of the will. It's not about our plans and our vision -- it is about Him. Period. End of sentence.

SPLAT

 

This morning, I sat down to eat breakfast and read the Wall Street Journal. This has become a rather indulgent habit at the encouragement of both my mother and my daughter, Darcy. But that’s another story; I digress.

What was I eating? You might ask. I was eating wonderful cantaloupe. It was cold and juicy. It was full of taste. It was good. It was fruit; this means it was guilt-free. I would stab a piece with my fork, eat it, and joyfully read about multi-million dollar houses for sale all over the world. Boy, was that cantaloupe good. Om nom, as some would say.

Coming to the end of my bowl of cantaloupe, I stabbed the last juicy piece. I continue reading details of earthly riches as I moved it toward my mouth. Then I bit into nothing but the fork. In a split second, my eyes grew wide and I looked downward as I heard the decided sound of splat. Splat? There was my very last oh-so-cold-and-juicy piece of wonderful cantaloupe on the kitchen floor. This registered sorrowfully to my senses.

Immediately, my brain kicked into high gear and brought forth the by now well-known Five Second Rule. But even for me, who is not known to be a neat person, even for this soul, this sad sight was too much for the Five Second Rule. All that juice. All those germs.  Alas, that last piece had to be sopped up with a paper towel and woefully discarded into the trash.

Sadness. My poor mouth was left with nothing but the hard clang of the fork against my teeth and hungering for more cantaloupe. But just then, God started chuckling. And just then, I saw the connection He was making.

God’s Word was the cantaloupe. I took my eye off God, looking at the world instead, and I was left with cold, hard metal and an inconsolable longing for more.  Funny, that had been my quiet time the other day. Whatever is going on in this world, stay focused on Me. Take in My Word as your nourishment. Look toward Me, and I will feed you. How many times does Jesus say that in the Bible? Lots.

Fortunately for us, the Five Second Rule does not apply to God’s Word. It may go splat sometimes when we read it….when we’re not really paying attention or taking it to heart. But it never collects germs. We can always go back, pick it up, and taste it again. So stop for a minute and think if you missed something this morning, if you missed something this day. Did you miss a God-moment? Did you miss His Word? Center Him in your vision. Ask Him to show you what you missed and let your senses continue to enjoy Him.

Psalm 34:8; Hebrews 12:2

I Can't Stop Laughing

Today is 4/20. I learned this morning this is otherwise known as Weed Day. As in pot. When even the Wall Street Journal references this notable date as such, I suppose it is indeed, Weed Day. And I can't stop laughing. But for the record, I'm not high. That's not something I do. I do not believe in that cause.

But I do believe God has a sense of humor. And He got me this morning. And it was a doozie (NOT a doobie). You see, a few days ago, I wished a friend a happy birthday. And in doing so, I referenced him to Ps. 46:2, which I shall not quote just yet. But at the time, I thought it was funny and appropriate, as we go along with this thing called aging.

Now, some time ago, our youngest daughter approached me with a senior trip proposal. This was to join my brother and his family as they travelled out west to Yosemite National Park. What a great idea, I thought! She'll be with her cousin in the great outdoors! And so we said yes! Enthusiastically so!

So time passes and yesterday, I sat down to review some emails my brother had sent me regarding this impending venture. That's when I saw the Half Dome of Yosemite. That's when I read about Half Dome. That's when I read "Ten Tips to Surviving Half Dome." That's when I panicked. Parental Fail. We are sending our daughter on a high risk hike. Scratch that. It's somewhere between a hike and a climb. More like a climb.....a crawl up a sheer rock face with some metal railing to hold onto....which they recommend you clip into. To fall is to die. Like I said, Parental Fail.

So this morning I sit down to my devotional. I pleasantly sit down with my new devotional book. I got it yesterday at Costco. In fact, I went to Costco on inspiration yesterday. Why don't you go to Costco? Boom, the thought popped into my head. And I thought, yeah, why not?! So off I went. And there I was looking at books and I came upon the devotional "Jesus Calling" (Sarah Young). There, a spritely older woman appeared by my side and she said, "That's a great book."  She praised the book for a minute or two and based on her recommendation, I bought it. ( I thought then, somewhat suspiciously, that perhaps she was a messenger.)

But that's how I opened my new devotional. And at the bottom of today, 4/20, it referenced Ps. 46:2. I'm not good with Scripture and references and numbers. But the ideas of the Scripture generally stick with me. So, at first, I did not see this coming. The numbers Ps. 46:2 did not ring a bell. But as I turned to the page, I felt a sense of familiarity. And as I read the Scripture, I was stunned. Ps. 46:2? "We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom." (The Message).

Wait a minute! Wait just-a-cotton-pickin'-minute! That's my line! "Uh, no, excuse me, Merry, that's MY line," says God. "And you've got a daughter climbing up Half Dome. AHAHAHAHAHA!" 

I threw it out there to my friend, and then God came along and said, "No. Really. Seriously, 'We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom.' Your daughter and all that. AHAHAHA!!!" And the more I think about it, the funnier it gets. And I'm not smoking anything! But contemplate this (toke free, please). We really do stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom. We just celebrated Easter. And what is that all about? It's about aging and death and Half Dome and heights. It's about defying gravity (for you 'Wicked' fans out there, go ahead and sing the song!). Defying gravity. And we do that, with Christ. Really. Seriously.

We get up everyday and we brave illnesses and car wrecks and tragedy. I have sadness in my own life, and yet I can laugh. I have friends, multiple friends, who have experienced the deepest of griefs, and they continue to live them.....yet they can laugh in the midst of their cliff-edges of doom. Did you hear that? They can laugh in the midst of their cliff-edges of doom. Indeed, some of them have fallen over the cliff-edge.....and they're still laughing.....because Jesus is right there with them. He gives them the power to smile, to dare laugh.

And so, I got slapped on the back by Jesus Himself. He called this morning. "Jesus Calling."

" 'We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom.'  Psalm 46:2. Really. Seriously. AHAHAHA!" -- Jesus

He Is the Hurricane.....

WBC currently has a team in Swaziland. I am not there and I do not know most of this team. But what I do know is this: it’s a team hand-picked by God. Each and every person is present for His mighty purpose, that which we many times cannot comprehend.

While this team has been over there, several things have happened which are beyond their comprehension. They are over there, allowing their hearts to be scratched, while we are over here, scratching our heads -- amazement and bewilderment on both sides of the sea.

The amazing thing for them came in the form of a cyclone Check out the blog of “Showing up and Showing Off”   at   www.warrenbaptistswaziland.wordpress.com 

 Briefly, as I understand it, this cyclone threatened Swaziland. Closer and closer it came, encroaching upon the team’s potential for visiting the carepoints.  The ominous clouds were on the horizon, menacing in their darkness. 

So God’s hand-picked team did what they needed to do. They dropped to their knees. There, they prayed to the God-of-the-Angel-Armies. And that cyclone did what it had to do. It dropped to its knees. There it obeyed the God-of-the-Angel-Armies and it went no further. It stopped, simply there on the horizon, and it went away.

God cleared away a cyclone, a hurricane, so the team’s ministering at the carepoints would not be obstructed. That’s God, your mighty God.

Now, your mighty God has a tree in Swaziland. It is at the Timbutini Carepoint. It sits in front of the church, just inside the fence. This tree is a nice tree. It provides shade. But mostly, it just stands there. The children rest under it, eat under it, play under it. But anyone that has been to this carepoint knows the tree I am writing about. I spent ten days there last summer and I came to know that tree.  It’s just there and it’s doing life with these kids. And for ten days, I did life with that tree and those kids.

And then I came home. And I was not the same. Dang, I left something back with that tree.

But life went on here and I got busy doing life with my own kids: grad school, nursing school, and college applications for our three daughters.

That’s what we were doing in November, Darcy and I. Doing life. She was tackling college applications one evening. She had some questions for me, so I sat down at the computer with her. As she zipped around on various websites, she needed some information from the website of Furman University. So she clicked her way to its main page. She paused there for two seconds (one locomotive, two locomotive), got her information and clicked to the next place.

But I erupted with, “Go back! Go back! Go back! Go back!” She thought I had lost it. Frankly, I did too. Clueless, she hesitantly clicked backward, a tad bewildered.

But if she was bewildered, then I was blown away. For there on the screen, there, where Darcy had clicked on Furman’s website for all of two seconds, was the picture of a tree…..not really the whole tree….about 6 feet of the bottom of a tree trunk. And behind it was a bit of a fence. And I knew that fence and I KNEW that tree. Yep. I read the caption and sure enough it was THAT tree. Someone at Furman had visited there. And took a picture. And Furman posted it. And it was posted on one of those scrolling picture thingies. And somehow in the vastness of the nebulous world of the internet, and with only the impeccable timing of God, we were staring at it, with our mouths open. I might have even drooled in incredulity.

That tree. It was doing life over there, with those children, while I’m doing life over here. That tree will not leave my mind. Nor my heart. I cannot explain it. That tree.

Doing life. And death. Yep. Death. The team that is over there now is wrestling with the shooting death of a child.  www.warrenbaptistswaziland.wordpress.com   “Some Things We Just Don’t Understand”.    That’s bewildering.

Me? I’m over here. Doing life. Doing church. Doing Wednesday night. And on Wednesday evening, with the youth, we sang David Crowder’s song “Oh, He Loves Us.” The lyrics are:  

“ He is jealous for me,
loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy…”

And that’s when it hit. That’s when God tied it all together. He is the hurricane and I am the tree. He is the hurricane and you are the tree. He blows by us. If not for Him, we could not stand in His presence. But because of Him, we CAN stand in His presence. And do life with those children. And death. We can stand in the figurative wind and rain and thunder and lightning and do life and death with those that need us.

 He is the hurricane. He is vast. We do not understand Him and we certainly can’t control Him. I am a tree. His tree. So is that team. So are you.

Isaiah 61:3 – “…..and provide for those who grieve in Zion – to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.”

Beyond Pumpkin Bread

Ps. 145: 17 – “Everything God does is right – the trademark on all his works is love.”

I made some pumpkin bread yesterday. I’m taking it to some friends today. They are having a very rough time. The pumpkin bread is a token of love.  That’s all. It doesn’t even begin to help or alleviate their pain. It doesn’t even put a dent in it.

And then this verse is put before me this morning.  And I think about my friends. Thoughts flick through my head and questions abound. Each question, I am sure, has already been asked and explored by my friends many times over.

I got nothing.

In fact, the cursor on this screen taunts me. “You’ve got nothing to say,” it says, “You’re blank.”

The pumpkin bread is a pitiful attempt to make it all better. I know these friends will appreciate the pumpkin bread. In fact, experience has shown that people tend to overly enjoy this particular recipe. And it says “we love you,” to my friends. It says, “You are not alone.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the verse above just sits there. I KNOW everything God does is right. I KNOW this world is not perfect. I KNOW things screw up. I KNOW God does not screw up. I KNOW everything God does is right. So………do RIGHT, God! Do RIGHT by these people. Whatever RIGHT is, DO it. And give them eyes to see it and hearts to feel it and faith to know it. Open their eyes and enlarge their hearts and increase their faith so that the evidence is before them that you are doing right – because it’s hard to see that today. They need some help in claiming this verse, and so do I.

And still, all I have is the pumpkin bread.

I look around and I see God’s love abounding, in big and little ways – God’s trademarks.  So, is the pumpkin bread a token or a trademark? Yes. It’s a token. Beyond providing a very temporary and very teeny bright spot in their day, it evaporates very quickly. And it’s a trademark. It’s God’s love. That’s not temporary, nor is it teeny. It’s huge.

It’s beyond our understanding. I remember recently watching a Louie Giglio clip of him talking about the universe and the planets. Find it and watch it. God really is beyond our grasp. We really are infinitesimal, smaller than the pumpkin bread, really. We’re less than a blip. And yet He loves us. I got nothing because I am nothing. My friends are nothing. BUT, He loves us.

Hey friends – He loves us to the point of inspiring me to bake. Why would He take the time or the interest to do that? Why bother? Because He loves us that much. When one looks at the contrast between His hugeness and our nothingness, and then looks around and actually sees what He does for us – it’s rather amazing, really.

But I’m not amazed right now. And neither are my friends. They are down low. They are in a pit. I’m down there with them. We can cry and be angry. And that’s okay. We can have our moment. But maybe, when we’re done having our moment, like little children, we can hold up our arms and asked to be picked up and loved.

LORD of this universe, God-of-the Angel Armies, please pick my friends up and love them.

It says You will, right there in the Bible.

Otherwise I got nothing.

You are my Rock and you are their Rock too.  I believe You will.

Living Wide-Eyed in a Squinty-Eyed World

My daughter just got back from China. She had many stories to tell. Among them was this gem: She confused them. She has jet black hair and very large eyes. How can you have black hair and large eyes, they asked? You should have squinty, slanted eyes, like us. She stood out among the crowd to them.

And that got me thinking about a verse I was given a while back, that I have been turning over in my head ever since:  Matthew 10:16 --  “I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” (NIV)

Be like a sheep among wolves – wide-eyed among the slanted eyed. Be shrewd, yet innocent. And going on that journey so far away, my daughter did just that. She stood there, wide-eyed and set apart, ready for whatever came her way, yet leaving herself open and approachable. These are tough balances to strike, yet she and the entire group did so and did so beautifully.

But what about us?  How do we live wide-eyed in a squinty-eyed world, even if we never go to China? The verse bears repeating. Matthew 10:16 – “You’re going to be like sheep running through a wolf pack, so don’t call attention to yourselves. Be as cunning as a snake, inoffensive as a dove.”  (The Message).

What does this mean? I have thought about this a lot: in a figurative life, a global life, and a daily life. “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.” Yep. He does that. Baa. He sends us out among demons. He sends us out among opposition. He sends us out among enemies. Entities don’t do right. Competitions don’t do right. People don’t do right. But here is to be our response: Let them manipulate and circulate around you. But in the end, they cannot touch you without God’s permission. Yes, we are to let them, as a sheep among wolves. Standing there in the center of it, all that manipulation and all that circulation is scary. They circle, they slobber, they growl. But they cannot touch you without God’s permission. Baaaa.

But what’s this about being “as cunning as a snake” ? Snakes are slithery. Surely God doesn’t want us to be slithery? That’s not what He said. He said, “Be as shrewd as….” Hmmmm.  Could shrewd be another word for wise? Be wise. Be wise when we’re in the middle of those manipulating wolves. What? Stand firm and get this: It means – Understand what they do and why they do it.  Whether they are corporations or countries, companies or organizations, wolves or people, understand what they do and why they do it. Be wise. Be shrewd. Get wisdom. Get understanding.

And then be “innocent as a dove.” Yep. (Who said it was easy?) While they are doing all that prowling and stalking, get some wisdom and be innocent.  Be innocent. Love them. And then leave the action to God. Oh yes. Love them. Leave the action to God.

You see, He alone knows the God-seekers, if any, among those wolves. Neither you nor I have the ability, when there’s circulation and manipulation going on, to stand there and discover which wolves are actually God-seekers.

Because some of them are indeed God-seekers. And we surely can’t see it because we’re surrounded by growling, toothy menaces. But He knows. He knows each and every heart beating in that pack. He knows the God-seekers.

Psalm 5:12 says, “You are famous God, for welcoming God seekers.” So stand down. Live wide-eyed in the squinty-eyed world. And let Him show you the God-seekers among the wolves.

A Curious Thing Happened in CO

So we went skiing in Colorado for Christmas. The event was fun. And cold. And icy. But I'm not really sitting down to write about that. I'm sitting down to write about what struck me on the last leg home of our journey.

Riding on the infernal stretch of the interstate that is our passage home after air flight, I took the opportunity to reflect upon the events of the ski trip. But it's not the events that I want to write about, so much as it is The Event. No, no story here. Just an observation about The Event.

 When flying, shuttling, bussing, renting, lifting, skiing, eating, and idling, one comes in contact with an awful lot of people. During normal days, these encounters are coupled with greetings of Hello, Hi, Dude! or Howdy!, whatever one's preference. But at this time of year, as we all know, things are a bit different. It's the holidays; specifically, it's Christmas -- for Christians.

And this is what I realized. Maybe many of you have realized this before. Maybe I'm slow. But I well know society has chosen to gradually walk away from the traditional "Merry Christmas!" greeting/salutation. But during this trip, I came to notice that when I said it, I no longer took it for granted. I no longer said it flippantly. I said "Merry Christmas" with meaning and pride and sincerity. And the people said it back to me -- with meaning and pride and sincerity. With purpose. In most people, there was a certain meeting of the eye, a certain nod of the head, which emitted a certain warmth, a certain aknowlegement.

The folks that intended to take Christ out of Christmas and Christmas out of the calendar have failed. Ahahaha! They have failed! All of their efforts have culminated in this, for me -- and others, I'm sure -- what was once a stale greeting and and overused response is now special. It does not pass my lips without acknowledgment in my heart that Jesus Christ is LORD.  From here to CO, and beyond, Jesus Christ is Lord. He reigns. He is The Event. He is The All.  He is The Everything. He was, He is, and He always will be -- MERRY CHRISTMAS.