Posted: January 16th, 2010 |
Filed under: life |
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A fellow Twitterer, Jake, gave me some advice for when I’m not liking anything I’m writing.
“All you have to do is write one true sentence.” -Ernest Hemingway
Jake’s an editor and communications director, so he probably knows what he’s talking about. Even if he didn’t, I’d still try it because I think it could be fun. I’m going to add a twist, though. I want to see how many one-sentence truths we can pull from this scripture verse because I think there could be a lot:
“It’s not what you swallow that pollutes your life, but what you vomit up.”-Mat 20:10-11
Your circumstances or mistakes don’t define who you are, unless you believe they do.
your turn….
Posted: January 15th, 2010 |
Filed under: life | Tags: grace |
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A good woman is hard to find, and worth far more than diamonds. Her husband trusts her without reserve, and never has reason to regret it. -Proverbs 31:10
She gives him gifts. The smell in the linen closet, the perfect spice, the flake in the crust.
She always knows where it is when he asks.
Her home is warm like the insides of her arms.
She diverts her eyes and lets the sad and hollow music sing what she really feels. She keeps herself for him.
Never spiteful, she treats him generously all her life long. -Proverbs 31:11
Invisible in the only world she has, but integrity is the height in her graceful walk. It’s something she sees others notice, but knows they don’t know the half of it.
A good woman is hard to find. Because a good woman keeps her best hidden from a sifting world. She is a treasure for the man she chose and a good woman doesn’t let anyone else know. Generous and reserved. Resourceful and controlled. She buys the best and scrapes till the last.
She’s perfected her domestic dance and knows just how to bend and turn. She holds him up, makes it easy for him and never looks back.
Her children respect and bless her. -Proverbs 31:28
Her children praise her, but her husband doesn’t know how. Her children look for her, but her husband doesn’t know he needs to. Her children smell her hair, but her husband has fallen asleep.
“One of the biggest things that made me vulnerable to an affair was that the outsider saw all of those things. …The exact qualities I thought worthy of being seen disappeared when I showed them.” -Grace Is For Sinners
A good woman doesn’t make her husband wish he hadn’t trusted her. When she took her generosity away from him, she fell in front of her children.
But the serpent said to the woman, “You shall not surely die.” -Genesis 3:4
Lies.
The modesty of maternity clothes mocked how she came to need them.
Now, with enormous compassion, I’m bringing you back. -Isaiah 54:7
Grace was immediate. Immediate was too soon, she decided. But grace kept knocking. Stalking. Singing and creeping.
It was a set up, getting grace to come. She knew He’d come and now that He was there, she changed her mind. She could hurt her husband, confuse her children, but this, she could not do. She had at least that much decency left in her.
‘Are you going to let your stubborn speck of decency keep you from becoming wholly decent?’
Who is playing who?
The only way to be made right is to give up the only good she had left. She had to accept a gift she would be socially punished for having. She could not make herself pay if she wanted her debt to be paid.
“A good woman is hard to find, and worth far more than diamonds. Her husband trusts her without reserve, and never has reason to regret it.”
Afflicted city, storm-battered, unpitied: I’m about to rebuild you with stones of turquoise, Lay your foundations with sapphires, construct your towers with rubies, Your gates with jewels, and all your walls with precious stones. All your children will have God for their teacher—what a mentor for your children! You’ll be built solid, grounded in righteousness, far from any trouble—nothing to fear! far from terror—it won’t even come close! If anyone attacks you, don’t for a moment suppose that I sent them, And if any should attack, nothing will come of it. -Isaiah 54:11-15
Grace made her a ‘good woman’ again. Innocence restored. She stands on a foundation of sapphires, leans against towers of rubies and watches the stones of turquoise stack among walls glimmering with precious stones. Grace is what her children have learned. Grace is the middle name of a daughter born out of sin. Grace is tattooed on the wrist of the ‘good woman.’ Grace is for this sinner, taking the ‘forever’ out of her failure.
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Posted: January 12th, 2010 |
Filed under: life | Tags: grace |
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When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions: Wait for hope to appear. Don’t run from trouble. Take it full-face. The “worst” is never the worst. Why? Because the Master won’t ever walk out and fail to return. If he works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. -Lamentations 3:28-32
The silence in the aftermath of sin is not evidence that you have been discarded by God, maybe by others, but not by Him. He will never leave you, He will never take His love from you. If you know this and believe this, then you can get through anything. ‘The ‘worst’ is never the worst, because He will never walk out and fail to return.’ If He turns His face from you, He will bring you back.
Love never dies. -1 Corinthians 13:8
You are not forgotten. Love has not walked away from you. Silence does not mean abandonment. He’s not like us, he keeps His promises and He doesn’t leave when it gets tough. If He picked you out for Himself before you breathed a single breath, do you think you could do something that would make Him change His mind? Love does not waver, Love does not die.
God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. -Romans 11:2 ESV
What can you do that surprises a God who knows everything before it happens? If He knew about your sin before it happened and He took care of the penalty before you existed, then why are you so afraid? He’s not going to leave you. Even if His love for you could allow Him to walk away, He wouldn’t get far because every time He looked at His hands, He would see you.
I will not forget you. …I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. -Isaiah 49:15-16
Posted: January 11th, 2010 |
Filed under: life |
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The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. -1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV
There is more than one ‘language’ found in the scripture. There is an ‘eternal’ language and there is a ‘practical’ language. If you try to apply one language to the areas that speak the other, you’ll find contradictions.
Trying to understand the ‘eternal’ awareness is like trying to stick an F-5 tornado in a container of cool whip. There is no way for us to understand to any degree of infallible clarity that we should boast of any amount of spiritual superiority. What’s more, it seems that God enjoys taking the forgettable people of the practical existence and giving them the secrets to His kingdom. What seems like unrealistic nonsense to the every day common sense is exactly what pulls at the corners of His mouth.
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. -1 Corinthians 1:27-29 ESV
So, if it’s true that what seems to be wise and prudent may be turned on its head by the last thing you would consider of value, maybe we should speak less, move slower and love more. We should find a way, in our belief of the finality of the Cross, to strengthen one another in unity. The alternative is what we see now, bickering about who’s right and who’s wrong. The only right thing is Jesus.
I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. -1 Corinthians 1:10 ESV
If your goal is gaining and speaking wisdom you lose the essence of the Gospel and dumb down the cross. If you spend your life training people in the practice of Christian living you get caught up in the lifestyle and forget about the grace. If you start with Jesus and His cross and do not move away from them as you gain wisdom and validation, then you will be wiser than most. The truth never leaves the foot of the cross. If it does, then it’s just another formula and no longer the Gospel.
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. -1 Corinthians 1:17 ESV
Gaining scriptural knowledge to fill your practical head can be done by anyone. You don’t have to have a relationship with Jesus to know scripture and live a life with devout Christian qualities. The thing that sets a person apart from the educated and the changed is their love. You can have Solomon’s wisdom, June Cleaver’s morals and Mother Theresa’s charity and still not know Jesus. To those who think they are ‘good’ and are adding to their goodness, ‘wisdom’, the simplicity of grace is foolishness.
You cannot know God through wisdom.
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. -1 Corinthians 1:20-21 ESV
If your wisdom is your downfall and your foolishness is the tool that God uses, then no one can brag in and of themselves. A clever little twist to hint at the Godly wisdom that keeps us all in check.
Jesus is the wisdom.
And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” -1 Corinthians 1:30-31 ESV
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Posted: January 8th, 2010 |
Filed under: life | Tags: hope |
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“Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches. I’ll give the sacred manna to every conqueror; I’ll also give a clear, smooth stone inscribed with your new name, your secret new name.” -Revelation 2:17
I was watching a documentary on human trafficking the other day called ‘Very Young Girls.’ Most of the film was based out of a place called GEMS located in New York. GEMS is a facility for girls who are trying to get out of ‘the life’ and the cameras followed a few of them as they went through that process.
Most of these girls are manipulated into prostitution at the age of thirteen. They are told they are beautiful, loved and promised a better life if they can just make the money to get out of where they are. The psychological trap is not a lot different than a woman who stays with her abusive husband. ‘He loves me.’ The girls are so torn down that they are dependent on the dysfunctional combination of daddy-boyfriend-pimp for everything. When the girls are selling their bodies, they are doing it out of love (as they understand it) for their pimp.
I connected with an experience that one of the girls had as she was signing in to the GEMS program. She was filling out her paperwork and didn’t know what name to put down. She could write the name she used in her prostitution world: Vanessa, or she could use the name she was born with: Carolina. The hang up for her was that nobody knew her as the girl who wasn’t a prostitute. She was so detached from innocence that she didn’t know if she could use her own name anymore.
It made my heart ache because, though all of our lives and choices are different, self loathing feels the same. This girl, as she heals, will be able to separate herself from her mistakes a little bit more than most because she has a ‘clean’ name. She wasn’t her ‘real self’ when she was living that life. That was somebody else.
Aching to be something less damaged is not exclusive to the obviously damaged. We all walk around with the pain of not wanting to be what we’ve done. A believer can have faith that God sees them as clean, but not have the ability to see themselves as clean. God does not remember, but people do. You can see the reflection of your sin in the eyes of someone else and it has the power to cripple you with shame.
I hope that it comforts you to know that God sees you as something you’ve never even imagined. Your identity in Him is so detached from even your best qualities that He’s given you a new name and, one day, we will be known as He knows us.
You’ll get a brand-new name straight from the mouth of God. You’ll be a stunning crown in the palm of God’s hand, a jeweled gold cup held high in the hand of your God. No more will anyone call you Rejected, and your country will no more be called Ruined. You’ll be called …My Delight…because God delights in you. -Isaiah 62:2-4
I want to add that the GEMS website has a ‘donate’ page and among the opportunities to help them are wish lists for Target and Amazon.com. They need simple things like bras and underwear and items to take care of the babies. These girls escape their pimps with nothing but the clothes on their back. If we can make it easier for them to survive in practical ways, the chances of them not going back are better. It’s a great idea and an easy way to contribute to a fantastic organization. Here’s the link: Donate to GEMS!
Posted: January 6th, 2010 |
Filed under: life | Tags: purpose |
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Morning fog rose up from the ground and swirled around the feet and legs of the gathered crowd.
“Rabbi, when did you get here?” -John 6:25
They were looking at him like a circus freak. Their excitement radiated around them like needle junkies looking for the next hit.
They had seen him walk through baskets of bread and meat broken from five loaves and two fish. They stuffed themselves as the buzz of new celebrity swarmed around them like drunk flies. They gawked and talked as they sprinkled their shirts with crumbs.
Jesus was their new drug.
They searched for him all morning until they finally found him.
Jesus answered, “You’ve come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, filled your stomachs—and for free. -John 6:26
They were coming around for what they got out of it. Fat hungry flies forming a new addiction.
‘…what do we do then to get in on God’s works?” -John 6:28
There are no cheat codes for getting this. People want to know what they have to do because, although believing is the simplest instruction, it’s the hardest thing to do. They want a way to get by without giving in.
I’ve seen many people come and go. Collision victims stumble in to a Jesus experience until the guilt is gone and the new rubs off. The municipally prudent add the Jesus spice to their baking because that’s the proverbial cherry on top of a socially responsible life. Some trade the church life in for a damaged, dead-end life they can’t seem to escape otherwise. Jesus is not a band-aid, he’s not a decoration and he’s more than a lifestyle change.
There are those who have been abducted by an unmistakable overtaking of experience and witness that cannot be mistaken for anything other than the living God. They cannot deny it because the vision is forever seared into the pupils of their eyes. If I could paint you a picture, I would show you the sky. The stars in the Northern hemisphere, the sun setting across an endless ocean and the sun rising over the mountains try to tell you what no set of words can properly articulate.
However, the one’s who are looking for worth and proof are looking for the circus act. They want to be entertained.
Jesus said, “Throw your lot in with the One that God has sent. That kind of a commitment gets you in on God’s works.”
They waffled: “Why don’t you give us a clue about who you are, just a hint of what’s going on? When we see what’s up, we’ll commit ourselves. Show us what you can do. -John 6:29-30
‘Dance, Monkey. Then we’ll put money in your tin cup.’
All Jesus had to do was start talking ‘kingdom’ talk and not apologize for how it offends the natural senses. He says he’s the ‘Bread of Life’ and by consuming his flesh and drinking his blood, they would have eternal life.
A person will die if they don’t eat or drink. Jesus is saying he’s the source of life for the real life, the spirit life. ‘Eating and drinking’ are believing. You get eternal life by believing.
Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever. I have told you this explicitly because even though you have seen me in action, you don’t really believe me. -John 6:35-36
For a man who spent his life walking from town to town to announce who he was and what he was doing, he never seemed to care what people thought of him. He never freaked out if people walked out while he taught. He didn’t even care if they ran off to spread the news that the Galilean lunatic was encouraging cannibalism.
Jesus didn’t care about what he looked or sounded like because what was supposed to happen would happen. It’s just a matter of time.
Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me. And once that person is with me, I hold on and don’t let go. -John 6:37
Jesus said, “Don’t bicker among yourselves over me. You’re not in charge here. The Father who sent me is in charge. He draws people to me—that’s the only way you’ll ever come. -John 6:43-44
This stuff doesn’t make sense to some. The ‘real’ life and the other life. God’s sovereignty and man’s choice. Everyone has their point of submission. There is always a place where you have to resign and most don’t even get near because they play it safe all the time. They avoid the challenge because they think they have it figured out.
Many among his disciples heard this and said, “This is tough teaching, too tough to swallow.” -John 6:60
There is a point where the spirit has to be alive to able to hear the Truth. Why waste your time having your ears tickled with things that make you feel good and coat you with sugar for the week? You’ll just get fat and lazy on all that junk food. You can’t sustain the spirit on things that feed the natural life. The spirit life is an absolute challenge to the natural life and if you’re not having your spiritual bones snapped into place regularly, then you’ll turn to pain numbing drugs and ignore your twisted spine.
“Does this throw you completely? What would happen if you saw the Son of Man ascending to where he came from? The Spirit can make life. Sheer muscle and willpower don’t make anything happen. Every word I’ve spoken to you is a Spirit-word, and so it is life-making. But some of you are resisting, refusing to have any part in this.” (Jesus knew from the start that some weren’t going to risk themselves with him. He knew also who would betray him.) He went on to say, “This is why I told you earlier that no one is capable of coming to me on his own. You get to me only as a gift from the Father.” -John 61-65
Jesus was not worried about losing a follower at intersections of contention. There is always that point and the sooner you get there, the better. He knew that the group would be sifted by the truth and he said as much. It came as no surprise or discouragement that several walked away.
After this a lot of his disciples left. They no longer wanted to be associated with him. -John 6:66
I think the scripture reference numbers are interesting. 666.
Jesus turned to his twelve and asked them if they wanted to leave, too. I love the way Peter answered him. I’m with Peter.
Peter replied, “Master, to whom would we go? -John 6:68
inspired by John 6
Posted: January 5th, 2010 |
Filed under: life | Tags: grace |
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When troubles ganged up on me, a mob of sins past counting, I was so swamped by guilt I couldn’t see my way clear. More guilt in my heart than hair on my head, so heavy the guilt that my heart gave out. -Psalm 40:12
My artist friend made a sculpture of a gaping uterus that she keeps in her living room. She has sculptures built around soft fabric and tissue sewn under layers and layers of paper and burlap. All of her work is like that. The delicate wrapped in the tough. Metal covering fabric. She had a hollow sculpture that was unfinished white plaster on the outside, but painted in vibrant colors on the inside. Nobody could see the beauty she created on the inside.
Her art is a constant attempt to recreate a uterus strong enough to protect her baby from the abortion she had years ago. This mother’s hands were continually trying to make up for not protecting her or her child the way she, now, wishes she had.
Her little beauty on the inside. Unfinished. Nobody would see the beauty she created.
She sat across from me with art stained fingernails and seasoned tears. The survivor.
When a woman becomes pregnant, she is a mommy. Two heartbeats, then one. They can dispose of the inside, but the shell, the mommy, is still there.
We go through this life making a decision one day that we wish we could take back the next. Some things can be adequately fixed, but some can’t. It’s the things that can’t that leave us wrecked.
We spend our lives trying to make up for it, but it’s when we realize that we can’t that we begin to heal. There is nothing you can do to take back the pain your sin has caused. Even if you became the best you could be and never made another mistake, it wouldn’t be enough to change what you’ve done.
Forgiving ourselves and accepting God’s grace is not saying that what we did was okay. Nothing will make that okay. When we forgive ourselves and accept God’s grace, we’re saying that what Jesus did was bigger than what we did. We have a hard time because we think it’s a statement about our worth, but it’s not. It’s a statement about His.
It’s time to let go. What’s done is done.
Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean, scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life. Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing. Don’t look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don’t throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails! Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home. Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways. Unbutton my lips, dear God; I’ll let loose with your praise. -Psalm 51:7-15
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Posted: January 4th, 2010 |
Filed under: life | Tags: purpose |
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“But my work seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose.” -Isaiah 49:4
Running full steam ahead, following dusty feet through dusty paths on dusty nights. Pacing and replacing old cares for new wares and taking my fill of all shares. A one-step turns two and I can hold my own. Toe tap into the four on the floor and a little turn of my hips to earn my own tips. The sky lights spin and my laugh seeps into the spaces joining faces and I’m off to the races. A little silence and my laugh slips. A quiet record with divided time and suddenly my dance is out of rhyme. I’m looking for the feet I used to trust, the flattened foot printed dust. My hands are cold, the fear makes me old and I forget what I’m told. Grooves in the feet still hold dirt from when it didn’t hurt. Feeling disregarded, strangely uncarded, a wasted opportunity scrapped before started. Did He change His mind, am I biding with time to re-polish the same dime? One body making a pale spot on a suntanned ground. A new replacement for the last disillusioned hound. I’ve taken my lesson at the base of this mountain and I’ve yet to see the fountain. I think He’s forgotten the blisters and girl who wanted to change the world. The commission with an omission. I’ve worked out my suspicion, still set for the mission. The no named, no gamed, brutally lamed is still untamed. I’m nobody with a tsunami of Somebody busting through my pores with the might of an unquenchable light. What a sight to see a gray rock sparkle in the night. I’ll don my rags until my skin sags. No glory for the one in Someone else’s dog tags. And that’s the way it is. I’ll only be when the being is His. Running full steam ahead following dusty feet through dusty paths on dusty nights.
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Posted: January 2nd, 2010 |
Filed under: life |
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Rough roads and uncertainty make me wonder how to pray. I know better than to pray for a better road. I know better than to pray for a storm to end quickly. The road you’re on is crucial to you getting to your destination and you learn more through the storms than through the sunny days.
So, how do I pray when I’m tired of the road…tired of getting rained on?
Jesus taught us a prayer to a sovereign God. But, even though I know that God is in control, I still need to scream sometimes. Sometimes I need one of David’s prayers. The writer in me can connect to David’s emotionally poetic outbursts. The confidence that David shows in his writing is always a little surprising to me. He prayed like God was on his side. I should be more like that.
Come back, God—how long do we have to wait?—and treat your servants with kindness for a change. Surprise us with love at daybreak; then we’ll skip and dance all the day long. Make up for the bad times with some good times; we’ve seen enough evil to last a lifetime. Let your servants see what you’re best at—the ways you rule and bless your children. And let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us, confirming the work that we do. Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do! -Psalm 90:13-17
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