Why Wait?

"Sisera, who had 900 iron chariots, 
ruthlessly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years. 
Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help."
~Judges 4:3

Does your mind stick at then, too?
Twenty years before they broke?

Back in Judges 3:7-9, it says,
"The Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight. 
They forgot the Lord their God, 
and they served the images of Baal and Asherah poles... 
He turned them over to King Cushan-rishathaim... 
and the Israelites served him for eight years. 
But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, 
the Lord raised up a rescuer to save them."

"Once again, the Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight, 
and the Lord gave King Eglon of Moab control over Israel 
because of their evil... 
And the Israelites served Eglon of Moab for eighteen years. 
But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, 
the Lord again raised up a rescuer to save them."
~Judges 3:12-15

They seem to have grown in their tolerance of oppression,
and to have grown dull in their remembrance of the Lord's help.
But there He was, after all those years of being forgotten,
with ears open for their cry of desperation,
ready to save them.

Fellowship in Knowing

A friend confided hurts to me -- hurts I've also had.
Received in different places, they caused the same wounds.
What to say?

"I exhort you to forgive them.
They are wrong, and they hurt you, and God can deal with them.
But you must forgive, for your own sake.
Because I am sure you want His forgiveness.
I know I do.
And I know for certain I have failed others.
I can't fix that.
But I can forgive when I am failed.
And sinned against.
And hurt."

That rejection and betrayal cuts deep.
"But I think about Jesus,
and how He looked at His disciples when the crowds left,
and He said, 'Are you going to leave, too?'
There is a fellowship with Him in knowing He felt rejection.
He was betrayed.
And He was abandoned by His friends to suffer alone.
And He loved them to the end.
Look at Jesus to learn how to forgive.
And look at Jesus when you feel afraid of fellowship."

I said it to my friend, and I said it to myself.

Hidden in the Walls

Ruins of Beit Shean

The walls of Jericho bring to mind destruction.
Everybody knows the story of the battle.
"And the walls came tumbling down!"

Rahab, the harlot, had a house built in the walls.
It was in these very walls she hid the spies and joined her lot to Israel's.
She first lived her faith there, within the walls.
And it was in the walls, in her home, that the spies told her she would be saved.

Between 1929 and 1936, Jericho's ruins were excavated.
Its destruction was dated to roughly 1400 B.C.
The walls had fallen down flat.
They were double, with an outer wall 6 feet thick,
and an inner wall 12 feet thick --
both about 30 feet high.
They were 15 feet apart, linked by the houses built into the top. 

There, at the point of attack,
she huddled in her house with her family, awaiting her salvation.
The spies didn't tell her to hide in the center of town --
away from the crashing walls.
But right there in the chaos and destruction, she was safe.
They burned the city: the outer walls suffered the worst of the fire.
Houses alongside the wall were burned to the ground.
"The stratum generally was covered with a deep layer of black burnt debris,
under which were pockets of white ash,
overlaid with a layer of fallen reddish brick." (Haley's Bible Handbook)
But the scarlet cord she had hung out her window
marked her trust of the God who broke her walls down,
and took her out of that doomed city.

But the just shall live by faith. 

Do You Belong To Us?

"And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho, 
that he lifted up his eyes and looked, 
and behold, there stood a man over against him 
with his sword drawn in his hand: 
and Joshua went to him, and said to him, 
'Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?'
And he said, 'No; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come.'
And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and worshiped, 
and said to him, 'What saith my lord to his servant?'
And the captain of the LORD'S host said to Joshua, 
'Loose thy shoe from off thy foot,
 for the place on which thou standest is holy': 
and Joshua did so."
~Joshua 5:13-15

I read through a number of translations of this
and commentaries on it this morning.
Some of them translated Joshua's question as:
"Do you belong to us, or to our enemies?"
Are you ours, or theirs?
And the answer: "Nay.
I am the prince of the army of Jehovah; I am now come."
I am now come.
It has such a stepping-out-of-eternity-into-time ring to it.
And I wonder -- should there be a comma after that first I am?
Prince of the army of Jehovah.
I guess Joshua mistook his rank.
The Prince doesn't fall into line with our campaigns.
We fall into line with His.
And Joshua fell on his face, and called himself His servant.

His Ears Are Open

"The Lord told Joshua, 
'Today I will begin to make you a great leader 
in the eyes of all the Israelites. 
They will know that I am with you, 
just as I was with Moses...'"
~Joshua 3:7

I read this today.
And it got me thinking about what makes great leadership.
What makes leadership respectable?
A good leader is a listening leader.
A leader with open ears to the Lord.
A leader whose direction comes to pass,
because the Lord gave it to him to pass on.
Joshua was presented to the people as their leader
in his obedience to the Lord's words.
The Lord spoke to him, and he spoke to them.
And in that, the people recognized clearly that the Lord was with him.

I thought about Moses.
Moses was a great leader.
The thing he failed in, that kept him from the promised land,
was stepping ahead of the Lord,
letting his own anger, instead of the Lord's words
be what spoke to the people -- even striking the rock
through which the Lord gave them water.
And when leaders are no longer listening to the Lord's voice,
striking the Rock can result.

Saul was a leader hand-picked by God --
who shut his ears to the Lord's voice.
The Lord gave him a direction, and he did something else.

"...He did this so all the nations of the earth might know 
that the Lord's hand is powerful, 
and so you might fear the Lord forever."
~Joshua 4:24

The purpose of raising this great leader up
was that people might know the Lord.
I think one thing that is interesting to me about Joshua
is that he seems personally boring.
His personality is not the remarkable thing about him.
He did what the Lord said.
The Lord worked through him mightily.
Miraculously.
Although he led them in battle,
I think of him more as an accountant type.
Over and over again, the Lord tells him to be courageous.
His ears are open to the Lord's encouragement, as well as His commands.
And the Lord was with him.

"Joshua the son of Nun, 
the servant of the Lord, 
died at the age of 110. 
They buried him in the land he had been allocated, 
at Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash."
~Judges 2:8

The servant of the Lord -- buried in the promise.

When I See the Blood

"And the blood shall be to you for a token 
upon the houses where ye are: 
and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, 
and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, 
when I smite the land of Egypt."
~Exodus 12:13

"And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, 
saying, 'Drink ye all of it; For this is My blood of the new testament, 
which is shed for many for the remission of sin.'"
~Matthew 26:27-28

"And standing afar off, 
the tax-collector would not even lift up his eyes to Heaven, 
but struck on his breast, saying, 
'God be merciful to me a sinner!'"
~Luke 18:13

"And the other answering, was rebuking him, saying, 
`Dost thou not even fear God, 
that thou art in the same judgment? 
and we indeed righteously, 
for things worthy of what we did we receive back, 
but this one did nothing out of place;' 
and he said to Jesus, `Remember me, lord, 
when thou mayest come in thy reign;' 
and Jesus said to him, 
`Verily I say to thee, Today with me thou shalt be in the paradise.'
~Luke 23:40-43

"The next day John sees Jesus coming to him and says, 
'Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!'"
~John 1:29

First, Middle, Last

 
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:1

It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.
Psalm 118:8

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. 
Revelation 22:21

A few weeks ago in church I was reminded
that the very last word of the entire Bible is:
"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all."
It set me to thinking about how it began,
and the central verse of the whole Bible.
His mercy endures forever.
Begun as His creation;
we trust Him, and not ourselves;
and His grace is with us.
Amen.

A Startling Tithe

"Thou shalt surely tithe all the increase of thy seed, 
that which cometh forth from the field year by year. 
And thou shalt eat before Jehovah thy God, 
in the place which he shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there, 
the tithe of thy grain, of thy new wine, and of thine oil, 
and the firstlings of thy herd and of thy flock; 
that thou mayest learn to fear Jehovah thy God always. 
And if the way be too long for thee, so that thou art not able to carry it, 
because the place is too far from thee, 
which Jehovah thy God shall choose, to set his name there, 
when Jehovah thy God shall bless thee; 
then shalt thou turn it into money, 
and bind up the money in thy hand, 
and shalt go unto the place which Jehovah thy God shall choose: 
and thou shalt bestow the money for whatsoever thy soul desireth, 
for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, 
or for whatsoever thy soul asketh of thee; 
and thou shalt eat there before Jehovah thy God, 
and thou shalt rejoice, thou and thy household."
Deuteronomy 14:22-26

This passage startles me. There is more to be startled by than even this, if you read the chapters around this one.

A tithe is a tenth. The Lord said the tithe was His -- and then told them to eat it. Told them to celebrate. To rejoice. To honor Him in this feasting and abundance and luxuriousness of food. 'And if the journey to where I want to fellowship with you is too long to haul all that cargo, sell it and buy whatever you want to eat with Me.' He said this would teach them to always revere Him.

I have always thought of a tithe as the first tenth of our increase, given completely out of our control, and of which we receive no part. It startles me that the Lord says, 'This is Mine -- come eat it in front of Me.' And the Sabbath is like it. 'This is My day. Rest. Stop your working and your striving and your hoarding, and worship.'

And the incredible freedom He gave in choosing the ingredients. Dare I even notice it? Nothing unclean, but whatever your soul craves. Eat it before the Lord -- in His presence, with His blessing.

How He Fasted

"And Jesus called unto him his disciples, 
and said, I have compassion on the multitude, 
because they continue with me now three days and have nothing to eat: 
and I would not send them away fasting, lest haply they faint on the way. 
And the disciples say unto him, 
Whence should we have so many loaves in a desert place 
as to fill so great a multitude? 
And Jesus said unto them, How many loaves have ye? 
And they said, Seven, and a few small fishes. 
And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground; 
and he took the seven loaves and the fishes; 
and he gave thanks and brake, and gave to the disciples, 
and the disciples to the multitudes. 
And they all ate, and were filled: 
and they took up that which remained over of the broken pieces, 
seven baskets full."
Matthew 15:32-37

"In the meanwhile the disciples prayed him, saying, Rabbi, eat. 
But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not. 
The disciples therefore said one to another, 
Hath any man brought him aught to eat? 
Jesus saith unto them, 
My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, 
and to accomplish his work."
John 4:31-34
 He went on to describe the harvesting of food
(for which men spend all their labor).
He had already compared the work He had been about as food for Himself.
I think He was letting them know there was plenty to go around.

"Is such the fast that I have chosen? The day for a man to afflict his soul? 
Is it to bow down his head as a rush, 
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? 
Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to Jehovah? 
Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, 
to undo the bands of the yoke, 
and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? 
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, 
and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? 
When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; 
and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?"
Isaiah 58:5-7

Jesus, God's beloved Son, in Whom He is well-pleased:
loosing the bonds of our wickedness,
undoing the bands of our yokes,
letting the oppressed go free,
dealing His bread to the hungry,
bringing the poor and cast out to His house,
covering our nakedness in His righteousness,
and not hiding Himself from His fellow men.
He looked for hurting people --
damaged demon-possessed wretches
and used-up women in rejected towns
and men with withered hands hidden in their sleeves --
and He found them,
having gone out of His way to do it,
and He made them whole.
He took His riches, His abundance, His prosperity,
and He made it ours at His expense.

How He Prayed

 
"And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. 
For they love to pray standing in the synagogues 
and in the corners of the streets, 
so that they may be seen by men. 
Truly I say to you, They have their reward. 
But you, when you pray, enter into your room. 
And shutting your door, pray to your Father in secret; 
and your Father who sees in secret shall reward you openly."
Matthew 6:5,6

After sending the people away, he went up a hill by himself to pray. 
When evening came, Jesus was there alone... 
Matthew 14:23

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, 
and he said to them, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." 
He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. 
Grief and anguish came over him, and he said to them, 
"The sorrow in my heart is so great that it almost crushes me. 
Stay here and keep watch with me." 
He went a little farther on, 
threw himself face downward on the ground, and prayed, 
"My Father, if it is possible, take this cup of suffering from me! 
Yet not what I want, but what you want."
Matthew 26:36-39

Jesus had no door to shut.
And because of it, we have the benefit of what the disciples saw and heard.
Through their eyes, we see Him on His face,
in dread of what He would walk through,
choosing to honor His Father though it cost Him dearly.
We see His secret communion, His private devotion.
His tender intercession for us.
Thank You, Jesus.

Secret Worship

The Sermon on the Mount.
What is it?
I think for many years, I saw it as a list of impossible standards.
A mish-mash of unrelated things I am doing wrong.
Somehow it never seemed connected
to the other things Jesus said and did in the gospels.
I have sometimes avoided reading it,
because it seemed so hard for me to understand.
But a week ago, as I read through it,
themes grew clear I had not seen before.

In chapter 6:
Show mercy secretly.
God sees you.
Pray secretly.
God sees you.
Fast secretly.
God sees you.

Store up treasure in heaven.
Our Father, who art in heaven.
"Your Father who is in the secret place; 
and Your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."

He continually warns us not to be pretenders.
You might wonder where He said that.
He used a word we immediately distance from ourselves.
Hypocrites.
My Bible had 'pretenders' in the margin notes.
You know -- public worshipers. 

About that treasure.
You know: those gold coins you invest in
and then hide somewhere where no one can find them but you.
The sure thing that can withstand the economic crash when it comes.
The secret hoard.
The private resource.
The place your heart worships,
because it's where your heart stays always.
So have a secret trust.
Have a secret worship.
Let it be in Him. 

I flipped back into chapter 5.
He spoke about murder, the public display of the secret hatred.
Adultery, the public display of secret lust. 
Going to present your (public) gift to God
while your brother has something (secret) against you.
Drop the gift: go be reconciled.
Let your gift be given from a secret worship.

About honest words which need no oath.
Loving and praying for an enemy.
This is how our Father is: honest; pure in heart; secretly loving.
Forgiving from the heart.

Worship of the Father is not a display.
It's a secret adoration that calls forth love.
That compels me to forgive when I am wronged.
To have a true heart toward my husband.
To reconcile with my brother.
To withhold judgment and let it rest with Him.
To love those who definitively do not love me.

And I found myself mentally standing in the place of the Samaritan woman.
"The woman said to Him, 'Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Our fathers worshiped in this mountain,
and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.'
Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming
when you shall neither worship the Father in this mountain
nor yet at Jerusalem. ...The hour is coming, and now is,
when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth,
for the Father seeks such to worship Him.
God is a spirit, and they who worship Him
must worship in spirit and in truth.'"

In spirit and in truth.
In secret in my heart.
Not from a prominent place for the observation of men,
but from a secret devotion for the eyes of the Lord.

Is it possible that when He says in chapter 7,
"Do not give what is holy to the dogs;
nor cast your pearls before swine,"
He is referring to all these things
which the love of God ought to inspire in us
being done as a display for the praise of men?
It's a prostitution of worship --
a leaving of our first love.

Breathe and Worship to This

I'm satisfied by Your love so completely.
How can I thirst for the praises of men?
There's nothing I need that You haven't provided,
and no one can offer me peace like You can.

Jesus, You're more than enough,
sufficient for me:
all I have needed You've given for free.
Your love is enough,
don't need man's applause,
I know what I'm worth: I remember the cross.

I'm sustained, O Lord:
when Your Light surrounds me the world fades away.
I'm sustained, O Lord:
my heart knows Your love like it flows through my veins.
Such peace and contentment I've found in Your grace:
I can't think why I ever complained.
You love me: what more could I want?
I am sustained.

My husband was playing this song tonight,
and as it always does, it soothed my soul.
Unfortunately, a Google search didn't enlighten me on its authorship.
If you know who wrote it, please let me know.

You can listen to it here.

Redeeming Time

Tonight my children were finishing dinner, but I was already done.
It meant I had to wait.
I could start those dishes, though.
Maybe I could finish before they were done.
I began thinking about that phrase 'redeeming the time'.
It's always been a little poetic sounding to me.
Sort of mysterious.
How do I do it?

Is it simply using the dead spaces to get something worthwhile done?
While I am waiting for them to finish chewing, washing a plate or two?
When I had a slower internet connection,
I spent a lot of time waiting for pages to load.
So I kept my knitting or a book with me.
I could knit one sock needle's worth of stitches minimum
at every slow loading page.
You can get a lot of sock knitting done twelve stitches at a time.
Sometimes I left it on the front seat of my car,
and when I got stuck at the State Street light (the longest one in town),
I enjoyed every waiting second of it.
I found myself looking forward to waiting.
Waiting for the doctor to call me in to see him?
Knit.
Being a passenger in a car trip to North Carolina?
I can knit a whole sock there, and a whole sock back.
It's meditative.

Is it as simple as that, Lord?
Occupying until You come?
Doing good with hands that have nothing to do for a bit?
In a worthless time, do something worthy.
My Grandma could not sit down to visit or watch a movie with us
without gathering her crocheting first, so her hands were busy.
You might as well do somethin' while you're doin' nothin'.

Must you spend a half hour scrubbing dishes?
Put a missionary's card up where you'll see it,
and you can pray for them while you work.
Two minutes brushing your teeth day and night?
A scripture to meditate on taped to the mirror redeems time.
My sister always puts a teaching on to listen to as she prepares dinner.
Are you often trapped in a chair, nursing a baby?
Maybe you can read three sentences of the scripture
which you've been struggling to fit in.
If not, feeding His lambs is redemptive in itself, anyway.

Is this a season of grief for you?
Someone else is grieving, too.
Who will pray with more empathy than you will for them?

Working Myself Out of a Job

Do not fear: this was not the unsupervised chopper.

A split pea soup from yesterday's ham
with carrots peeled by my eager son,
and chopped with celery without supervision,
and joyously stirred into the soup.
Onions chopped in 2.5 seconds in the food processor,
without leaving their scent all over my hands.
Sourdough rolls are baking.
They set the table, and stirred the soup,
and cleared out the dish drainer,
and we're headed toward domestic bliss.

Into the Ultraviolet

What you see is what you get.
Seeing is believing.
Is it?

I have been reading a book called
The Mysteries and Marvels of Science with my children.
Today we read about light and color:

"Some animals can see colors that can't be seen by humans. 
Many insects, birds, fish and reptiles 
can see beyond the violet end of the visible spectrum, into the ultraviolet. 
Many fruits that look dark to us, such as plums, 
look bright and inviting in UV, 
so birds and insects are attracted to them 
among the much darker looking leaves."

This was accompanied by two photographs,
one of solid yellow silverweed flowers with no patterns or markings,
as the flower is perceived by the human eye,
and the other of the exact same flowers
photographed with a UV lens,
which revealed it to have vivid red center patterns
with brilliant blue marks amid a white edging.
You can watch a short video about the UV vision of bees here.

So, which view is reality?
I read this little blip and stared at these photographs,
and thought about things I can't see.
My spectrum is too short to see glory.
I see boring blah when I am looking right at brilliance.
I see coming doom when I should see chariots of fire.
I see people's failures when God sees their faith.
Is this why He tells me I must walk by faith, and not by sight?

Is this why He is Judge, and not myself?
"My friends, as believers in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, 
you must never treat people in different ways 
according to their outward appearance."

Perhaps the dull daisy growing with the grass is more colorful
than the roses showcased under the arbor.

"When the LORD spoke to you from the fire on Mount Sinai, 
you did not see any form. 
For your own good, then, 
make certain that you do not sin 
by making for yourselves an idol in any form at all---
whether man or woman, animal or bird, reptile or fish."

"No man hath seen God at any time; 
the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, 
He hath declared Him."

'Jesus answered, "For a long time I have been with you all; 
yet you do not know me, Philip? 
Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father. 
Why, then, do you say, 'Show us the Father'?"'

He is the lens through which I see the Unseen --
because my eyes can't see past violet.
He is my vision, my translation, my Light.

And Hurting the Heart

 
Last night, shortly after dinner, our youngest ran screaming to us.
He said he had hit his head, and I tried to calm him down enough
to figure out what was wrong with him.
His screaming seemed a little out of proportion to a bumped head.
I felt around on his head and my hand came away bloody.
Parting his hair (which is far too long), I finally saw the gash.
"Get off the phone!" I called to my husband,
"We need to take him in for a few stitches."
We cleaned it up a little to get a good look,
held a bandage to his head,
and struggled through getting everyone into coats and shoes.
He came home with two staples in his head.

Tonight I was reading 1 John 1 to my kids before bed.
If, then, we say that we have fellowship with him, 
yet at the same time live in the darkness, 
we are lying both in our words and in our actions. 
But if we live in the light---just as he is in the light---
then we have fellowship with one another, 
and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin.
If we say that we have no sin, 
we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us.
But if we confess our sins to God, 
he will keep his promise and do what is right: 
he will forgive us our sins and purify us from all our wrongdoing.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make a liar out of God, 
and his word is not in us.
1 John 1:6-10

I noticed one of my children's eyes were very wide,
and there was a quivering chin.
"Mom?"
"What, honey? Did you want to say something?"
A nod.
"I was running... I mean, I was chasing...
and Silas was trying to get away from me...
and that's why he hurt his head."
The tears came then.
I held the offender, who was eaten up with guilt.
"Do you want to pray?"
Another nod.
"I'm sorry!"
"Listen, I forgive you. Jesus forgives you. Silas, do you forgive?" I said.
He came over and hugged his crying sibling fiercely,
kissing cheeks and laughing.

Whether you view the childishness that resulted in injury to someone else
as a sin, or simply an accident,
there is no doubt that confession was good for the soul.
This child was carrying around a burden of condemnation.
It was damaging fellowship, and hurting the heart.

If our conscience condemns us, 
we know that God is greater than our conscience 
and that he knows everything. 
And so, my dear friends, if our conscience does not condemn us, 
we have courage in God's presence. 
1 John 3:20-21

The child thought it was sin, and so it was sin.
Confession brought courage.
And reassured love.

Another Stone Soup

My mother always calls mish-mash unplanned meals 'stone soup'.
This one elicited several spontaneous 'I love yous',
and even a 'you're beautiful, Mom!'
Even the two picky ones asked for thirds.
The one who proclaimed my beauty two bites in also told me,
"You need to put this one on the computer."

I need to go to the grocery store,
and have been putting it off all week.
So our supplies were limited.
Making note of a few things we did have, (also the many we didn't),
I turned to my basic corn chowder recipe and didn't follow it.

In a pot:
one cube of butter,
six-eight cubed potatoes,
the end of a bag of frozen broccoli,
one diced onion,
about a cup of garlicky hummus (made with balsamic vinegar in place of lemon juice, and no tahini),
four chicken bouillon cubes,
some shakes of pepper,
two cups of water.

Bring it to boiling, and simmer until the potatoes and broccoli are soft enough.
Smash it all a little.

In a large bowl whisk:
four cups of milk,
3-4 TBSP flour,
1 tsp tumeric powder (for its incredible golden color and anti-inflammatory properties)

When it is all cooked, ladle the hot soup into the milk bowl, stir, and return to pot.
Bring it up to a good temperature, simmer for a few minutes,
and serve it with a sprinkle of cheddar.
You can thank me later.

Now Abide

Love

suffers long

and is kind;

Love

does not envy;

Love

does not parade itself,

is not puffed up;

does not behave rudely,

does not seek its own,

is not provoked,

thinks no evil;

does not rejoice in iniquity,

but rejoices in the truth;

bears all things,

believes all things,

hopes all things,

endures all things.

Love never fails.

But whether there are prophecies,

they will fail;

whether there are tongues,

they will cease;

whether there is knowledge,

it will vanish away...

And now abide faith,

hope,

love,

these three;

but the greatest of these is love.

Pursue love...

It is one of the most read chapters in the Bible, 

even by those who do not revere the Bible.

It separates love from knowledge, 

from prophetic utterance, 

from the words of men and of angels,

from the understanding of mysteries,

from great faith,

from generous giving,

and intentional martyrdom.

It strikes me that the first thing it says 

in its description of love is that it suffers long.

This isn't a Disneyland love story:

it isn't syrupy at all.

...and is kind.

It suffers long and is kind.

That alone would seem to disqualify this passage 

from describing a human relationship.

I know some loving people -- who get provoked.

It bears all things?

All things.

There is nothing it doesn't bear?

Hopes all things?

I am a perpetual foreseer of doom.

You're going to break that. 

You're going to trip over that.

You will definitely screw up.

Disaster is around the bend.

I can't comprehend hoping all things.

I would be better described as

despairing of all things.

Endures all things.

Again, with the impossible.

Love never fails.

When I stopped seeing this passage 

as a list of attributes I hadn't gained,

I started seeing Him.

God is love.

We know love by Him.

He suffers long, and is kind...

He bears all things,

believes all things,

hopes all things,

endures all things.

He never fails.

He continues to intercede on my behalf, 

because He continues to hope for me.

He thinks no evil of me.

Is not provoked by me.

He loved us first.

What Do I Know of Holy?

What do I know of holy?

Of Unapproachable Light?

I, who lived in the darkness;

I, who was born in the night.

What do I know of Dayspring?

Of Sacrifice-for-a-cause?

I, who give love in tenths;

I, the breaker of Laws.

You, the Lover of ugly;

You, who sanctify ground;

You, Creator from nothing:

In You, my holy is found.

Incompatible

Several weeks ago I read this:

"Research has shown that every happy, successful couple 
has approximately ten areas of 'incompatibility' 
or disagreement that they will never resolve. 
Instead the successful couples learn 
how to manage the disagreements and live life around them -- 
to love in spite of their areas of difference..."

Put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, 
a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, 
meekness, longsuffering; 
 forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, 
if any man have a complaint against any; 
even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye: 
and above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness. 
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, 
to the which also ye were called in one body; 
and be ye thankful.  
Colossians 3:12-15 

You Don't Get To

I have been an observer of my sister's mothering for some time.
She is naturally motherly.
In fact, although she is younger than I am,
I have on occasion referred to her as my second mother.
She is soft-spoken and gentle.
I... have less to work with.
Over the years, I have witnessed her intervention in her children's disputes.
(Yes, although she is a wonderful mother,
her children also display their sin, as all do.)
They fight and argue and rip things out of each other's hands.
And inevitably, I hear my sister say what I've heard from her for years:
"You don't get to do that."
"You don't get to be a jerk."
"You don't get to _____________."
It always amuses me.
Like being a jerk is allowed to some people, but sorry -- you're not in the club.

I was doing the dishes last night, thinking about that phrase,
and thinking about what Jesus commanded His friends.
"Love one another."
And I also found myself thinking about believers I know
who have been hurt by their brothers and sisters,
and are nursing their wounds into bitterness.
And feeding them.
You don't get to do that.

When my sister and I were little and fought, my mom used to say,
"You have to get along.
You have to work it out."

"This is My commandment:
that you love one another, that your joy may be full."

"Beloved, let us love one another.
For love is of God,
and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God.
And he who does not love, does not know God,
for God is love.
...He who does not love abides in death."

You don't get to do that.

Good News!

Are you among those who are alienated from God?
An enemy in your mind because of wicked works? 

Your sins made the list of redeemable offences against God.

They were paid for by the blood of Jesus,
and faith in Him wipes out the list of charges against you.

Amnesty.
Reconciliation is offered through the body of His flesh through death.
You, too, Alienated Enemy, Worker of Wickedness,
can be presented holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight.

"And you,
being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
He has made alive together with Him,
having forgiven you all trespasses,
having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us,
which was contrary to us.
And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross."

Now wouldn't you like to shout?

Injustice

I have dear friends who are missionaries in Eastern Europe.
A man they know has recently been convicted of a crime
for being rear-ended while he was stopped in a car.
The judge was bribed, the police reports were changed,
and this husband and father is stuck in prison for seven years.
His friends and family have been praying for him.
People like me, who never met him have been praying for him.
And he is 'guilty', and imprisoned.
I don't know him or his family, and this is very distressing.

So many times people accuse God of injustice
because the world He gave us has so much corruption in it.
But we are the ones who set ourselves up
as the Knowers of Right and Wrong.
As the judges of good and evil.
We reject His Word, His justice.
We perpetrate our injustice on the world,
and we lay the blame at His feet.

But I cannot help but think of the good company
he and his family are in in suffering unjustly.
We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,
many of whom suffered as much or more.
The One we believed and the One we worship,
and the One we want to be found in
was crucified in the most horrendous case of injustice
this world has ever perpetrated.

Let's look unto Jesus, and run the race in front of us,
trusting that He is just, and the justifier of those who trust Him.
We are not of this world, not of these systems,
and our Home is a place of justice and truth.
Do not fail to hope in Christ, Christian.

I am Your Bondage

"O Lord, truly I am Your servant; 
I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant;
You have loosed my bonds.
I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and will call on the name of the Lord."
~ Psalm 116:16,17

It's an interesting thing to think of.
I am Your bondman.
The word comes from a word for bondage.
I am Your bondage.
I am Your bondage, the son of Your female slave;
You have loosed my bonds.

Loosed: to open wide, to break forth, to let go free.
Bonds: chastisement, a halter, restraint.

I am Your bondage, the son of Your female slave;
You have broken forth my chastisement.
You have let go free my restraints.
You have let me go free of my chastisement.

I am the bondage of the Lord,
born into His ownership,
unfettered and free.

It ought to bring about a worshipful thanks.
The word for calling on the name of the Lord is also interesting to me.
It actually means 'to accost'.
It makes me think of that blind man
who wouldn't shut up in his calling out to Jesus.

And sometimes I think we lose a little
where our translation simply says 'LORD'.
The word is 'Jehovah'.
Or 'YHWH', or something so much less English-sounding
than our English Bibles tell us.
The Self-Existent.
The Eternal.
And, oh -- that just made me a whole lot smaller than I was.

A New Soup For the New Year

I don't usually blog recipes, but feeding our families is important.
Last night we ate nachos for dinner, and we way over-estimated our needs.
It was late, we had been out shopping for hours,
and our hunger drove our frantic food preparations.
After the meal, I looked at the nachos still on the baking sheet,
and wondered what to do with them.
Leftover nachos are gross.
And there was no way I was going to throw away all that food.
Bake them in some kind of Mexican Nacho Casserole?
Didn't sound too appealing.

Soup?
Nacho Soup.
I scraped all the heaps of spiced ground turkey with onions and garlic,
cheese, tortilla chips, tomatoes, black beans,
refried beans, salsa, and sour cream into a bowl with a plan forming.

This afternoon I whisked a can of cream of chicken soup,
a few cans of milk, a can or two of water,
two chicken bouillon cubes and a can of chopped green chiles
together in my pot with cumin.
I don't know how much.
I don't think it's possible to over-cumin anything, so suit your own taste.
Once that was hot, I added part of a package of cream cheese.
When that was thoroughly melted and warmed,
I cut up the chips that were still too big, and tossed the whole mess in.
We topped it with broken tortilla chips.

Oh, my.
Everyone wanted seconds.
If I had some, I would have thrown in a chicken breast or two
and maybe another can of beans.
But it was excellent even without those.
This marks a Whole New Soup Era for me.
I may start making double our nacho needs on purpose. 

My husband took one bite and got out the camera to take a picture
so I could share it with you.

It isn't much to look at, but it's dynamite.

New Mercy and Compassions that Fail Not

I am not among those who revel in the change of the year.
I am prone to dismal forebodings.
And I am not resolute.
Or at least, I resent the expectation of resolve.
I don't like to make declarations of plans.
I prefer to simply do the things I think I ought to do.
(A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds --
and all that stuff.)

Last night, we watched the freak-out in Times Square.
And when the date changed, I thought, "Hmm. There it is. A new year. Wow."
My husband said, "Last year my work was coming to an end,
and I had no idea what we would do.
We had no money.
We hadn't even put our house on the market yet.
The Lord has been faithful to us."
It was a difficult year.
Actually, the few years before that were difficult, too.
And the Lord has been faithful to us.

I don't like changes.
They trigger anxiety for me.
But I remember that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end.
They are new every morning.
Great is His faithfulness.

"This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, 
because his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
The LORD is good to them that wait for him, 
to the soul that seeketh him. 
It is good that a man should both hope 
and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD."
~From Lamentations 3

Whatever lamentation the year may hold, the Lord is my portion.
He has new mercy for me every day.
He is faithful in great ways.
I am not consumed.
He is good to those who wait for Him,
and He has shown Himself so in my life.
I will hope in Him, and quietly wait for him.

"Put on humility. 
For God resists proud ones, 
but He gives grace to the humble.
Therefore be humbled under the mighty hand of God, 
so that He may exalt you in due time, 
casting all your anxiety onto Him, 
for He cares for you."
~From 1 Peter 5

He cares for me.
And His compassions fail not.
Happy first day of the first week of the first month of the new year.

A Vulgar Translation

I read a news story today that both thrilled and boggled my mind.
The Jamaican people speak a creole language called Jamaican patois. 
For the first time,
the Word of God will be coming to them in their native tongue.
And they are overjoyed.

But not everyone is happy.
There are those who who call it a vulgar translation.
Some English-speakers object to it,
because 'creole is no substitute for English',
and 'it has to resort to coarse expressions to make its meaning clear'.

"Even those (Patois) words 
that we would want to use to fully explain what was in the original, 
are words that are vulgar."

Wow.
I guess that bishop must not have read Ezekiel very closely.
Even in English, that pure and holy language,
Ezekiel translates pretty coarsely.

The same objections were raised when God's Word was translated
into... um, English.
And German.
And any number of coarse, vile, low-born languages.

We are people, down here on earth.
People made of dirt.
And God in His mercy translated the Word Himself 
into the vulgar dirt of a human body.

I've birthed four children, and it was not immaculate.
God sent His Son into our world the same way I came in --
pushed out in a mess of vile fluids,
and put to the breast of a woman
who surely needed a bath after birthing in an animal shed.
He touched contagious lepers, and His feet needed washing.

It is odd to me that anyone is concerned
about the dirt of our language touching His word,
when He came -- the Word made flesh -- and touched the dirt of our sin.
He cooked breakfast for His disciples,
and stripped off His clothes to wash their dirty feet,
and offered His wounds to their probing fingers.
He, in His righteousness,
was sentenced to death and tortured by sinners.
That's pretty vulgar.
But it's true.
And that Truth sets those who believe it free.

Come to think of it, it is true:
creole is no substitute for English --
to an English-speaker.
And English is no substitute for creole to a creole-speaker.

"And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, 
and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance. 
And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, 
devout men, from every nation under heaven. 
Now when this was noised abroad, 
the multitude came together, and were confounded, 
because every man heard them speak in his own language. 
And they were all amazed, and marveled, saying one to another, 
Behold, are not all these who speak Galileans? 
And how do we hear every man in our own language, 
wherein we were born? 
...We hear them speak in our languages 
the wonderful works of God."

Before the Face of the Lord

"Now his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit,
and prophesied, saying:
'Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,
for He has visited and redeemed His people, 
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of His servant David...
That we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us,
to perform the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember His holy covenant,
the oath which He swore to our father Abraham:
to grant us that we,
being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve Him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest;
for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to His people
by the remission of their sins,
through the tender mercy of our God,
with which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;
to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.'"
~ From Luke 1

Personally, I love to read the prophecies spoken of His work,
of the Father's heart of mercy
and peace
and salvation
and love
and reconciliation
and good will toward men.
Oh, how it moves me.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
And we mark our history by it.
All  the fullness of the Godhead bodily dwelling in Him.

How?!
How could He contain His glory in a dirt-body?
To be ministered to by sinners?
To be the visible show of God's requirements fulfilled,
the voice of His love to us,
the touch of the Father to the poor.
To the sinner.
To the leper.
To the lame and blind and to the women.
To the 'racially impure' Samaritans.
A friend to fishermen.
To tax collectors and zealots.
The political radicals and the cautious theologians.
The ruined whores of society.
He restored them all.
He put His calloused hands on the contagious outcasts,
and He stretched them out Himself on the cross.

He Never Deprives Me

"But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him." (1 Corinthians 6:17)

This falls in the middle of a passage about the Christian and his sex life.
It goes on to say, "Flee sexual immorality."
I've known that for a long time.

But the other day, I started thinking about this,
which is just a few more verses in:
"Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her,
and likewise also the wife to her husband.
The wife does not have authority over her own body,
but the husband does.
And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body,
but the wife does.
Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time,
that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer;
and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you
because of your lack of self-control...
Now to the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord:
A wife is not to depart from her husband...
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife,
and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband,
otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy."

The material part of this passage
has always seemed simple enough to understand to me.
But as I thought it over the other day, something else began to be clear.

In Ephesians 5 it says,
"Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies.
He that loveth his own wife loveth himself:
for no man ever hated his own flesh;
but nourisheth and cherisheth it,
even as Christ also the church;
because we are members of his body.
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother,
and shall cleave to his wife;
and the two shall become one flesh.
This mystery is great: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church. 
Nevertheless do ye also severally love each one his own wife even as himself;
and let the wife see that she fear her husband."

When the mystery is brought into it,
the rendering of affection takes on a whole new meaning.
How He ought to be adored is far more than I have ever given Him.
But Christ has given Himself body and soul to me.
To be joined in one spirit with me.
And He never fails to render affection to me, though it is certainly not my due.
But it is His due, with all certainty.
And how often I am cold and unresponsive to Him.
And oh, how to even think of the authority He allows me with Him --
and my failure to reciprocate.

He gives Himself to me to withstand temptation,
knowing my lack of self-control --
and He never deprives me of Himself.
He makes Himself provision for my failure.
How stupid for me to depart from Him,
seeing He is my sanctification.
I am the 'unbelieving wife' in this little life-picture.
He is the one who makes my fruit holy, my 'children', in a sense.
In departing from Him, they're all unclean.

In loving me, Christ loves Himself,
because He has permanently joined me to Himself.
And He ministers to my needs as though they were His.
He cleaves to me.
And shall I not worship Him?

Connections

"My days are like a shadow that lengthens,
and I wither away like grass.
But You, O Lord, shall endure forever,
and the remembrance of Your name to all generations...
Of old You laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of Your hands.
They will perish, but You will endure;
Yes, they will all grow old like a garment;
Like a cloak You will change them,
and they will be changed.
But You are the same,
and Your years will have no end.
The children of Your servants will continue,
and their descendants will be established before You."
~From Psalm 102

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them,
and they follow Me.
And I give them eternal life,
and they shall never perish;
neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand.
My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all;
no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand.
I and My Father are one."
~From John 10

"Fight the good fight of faith,
lay hold on eternal life,
to which you were called...
I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things...
who alone has immortality,
dwelling in unapproachable light,
whom no man has seen or can see,
to whom be honor and everlasting power."
~From 1 Timothy 6

"That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard,
which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon,
and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life--
the life was manifested,
and we have seen, and bear witness,
and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father
and was manifested to us--
that which we have seen and heard we declare to you,
that you also may have fellowship with us;
and truly our fellowship is with the Father
and with His Son Jesus Christ."
~From 1 John 1

"Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth,
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away...
Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying,
'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men,
and He will dwell with them,
and they shall be His people.
God Himself will be with them and be their God.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes;
there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.
There shall be no more pain,
for the former things have passed away.'
Then He who sat on the throne said,
'Behold, I make all things new...'"
~From Revelation 21

Sometimes I read one place in the Word,
and the connections form,
and it all grows clearer.
And brighter.
Even so, Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

The Geometry of Sound

My husband and I took my ten-year-old and his cousin
to the Boston Museum of Science over the weekend.
I took a lot of pictures,
but failed to take a picture of the thing that most captured me.

I came around a corner and saw (and heard) my husband using a bow
to stroke the side of a metal square with sand scattered over the top of it.
There was a round disk next to it for the same purpose.
I had no idea what he was doing, and stood and watched.
There was a video playing next to it, demonstrating what to do.
Basically, when you struck the right tone using the bow,
and the sound vibration was pure,
the sand formed a geometric pattern on the square.

Before my eyes I watched the chaos of the sand etch an x across the square.
Perfectly straight lines from corner to corner.
"Do the other one!" I said.
When the sound rang out, the sand obeyed it
and organized itself into six perfect spokes.

I have heard people talk about the relationship
between math and music and art before.
I'm not very mathematically-minded.
And I love and appreciate music, but am not at all a creator of it.
I like to dabble with different forms of art.
But the whole relationship between them had never been so clear in my mind.

I watched in wonder as the sound -- the tone  --
(dare I say 'the word'?) made music and math visible.
I don't understand it at all.
But it stuns me.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 
The earth was without form and void; 
and darkness was on the face of the deep. 
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 
Then God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light..." 
~Genesis 1

"For by Him all things were created 
that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, 
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. 
All things were created through Him and for Him. 
And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist."
~Colossians 1:16,17

"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, 
being understood by the things that are made, 
even His eternal power and Godhead, 
so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, 
they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, 
but became futile in their thoughts..."
~Romans 1:20,21

 You can watch a Youtube video of a cymatic experiment here.

A Meditation of Bread

A few weeks ago I was given a different brand of whole wheat flour
than I have been using.
Suddenly my bread recipe,
which I had tweaked for some time to get right, failed me.
I wasn't doing anything different other than using another brand.
I have to think about bread again.

Since I began making the bread we eat, I think about bread often.
Is there any bread?
Is there enough bread?
I had better make bread.
Will the bread rise?
Are the ratios right?
Bread is a daily thought.

But then recently, I decided to give a sourdough starter a try --
one I started myself, and didn't receive as a ready gift.
Now bread is an always thought.

I peer into the bowl.
Is it alive yet?
Any signs of life at all?
I smell it.
I watch it.
I feed it.
I wait for it.
I read for hours about it.
I study different schools of thought about it,
and make decisions about which care it will receive.
I plan ahead for its future.
I have hopes for this bread.
For a future of bread and more bread from it.
For pancakes
and cinnamon rolls
and boules
and rolls.
Maybe.
If I can only tell if it's healthy.

Last night I researched signs of health for my bread.
And I discovered I was starving it.
So I fed it an appropriate amount, and it liked it!
Oh, the joy.
I have been feeding it and watching it all day,
and I think it might be on the verge of being perfect --
for a young sourdough starter.
It doubled today.

So I researched 'proofing the sponge'.
Now I watch again anxiously.
Is it working?
Will it rise?
I smell it.
I wait for it.
I think about it while I do the dishes,
washing all the doughy mess from my bowls and utensils.
I wonder if I understand the Bible passages about leaven.
I wonder if in our buy-ten-loaves-of-bread-
and-stick-them-in-our-freezers culture
if I've understood at all.
I think about the feast of unleavened bread,
and I wonder what it means.
What it really means.
And about the purging out of old leaven,
and if it's what I just did when I dumped half the starter down the sink.

And I think about the kingdom of heaven,
and the womanly tasks He described it with.
About leaven, and about lost money,
and the thorough sweeping she did when she lost it.
I think about my Mom and the sometimes days
when she lost money in her checkbook,
and sent us all away so she could balance months' worth of transactions,
'thoroughly sweeping' until she found it.
Or when she maybe lost a check,
and how the entire office had to be ransacked
and set back in order until it was found.
And my mind goes back to the bread.

He put it into His teaching to His disciples on how to pray.
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors...

And it makes me smile as I realize
that the meditation of the bread
has brought me full circle to His kingdom.
To His care for me and my bread.
To His holiness.
To the hope of justice and the concern for His will.
To forgiveness.
The asking for it.
The giving of it.
Because man shall not live on bread alone.

Commending Ourselves To God

"Now concerning things offered to idols:
We know that we have all knowledge.
Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.
And if anyone thinks that he knows anything,
he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.
But if anyone loves God,
this one is known by Him."

It was an interesting approach to the discussion
about the eating of spiritually contaminated foods.
He goes on to say in a few verses,
"Food does not commend us to God;
for neither if we eat are we the better,
nor if we do not eat are we the worse."

But what gave me pause this morning
were the first three verses of 1 Corinthians 8.
Our knowledge is no way to come to God.
It is our love for Him that commends us to Him.
So that the heady apologist nitpicking doctrine
is not the one taken note of in heaven.
The woman with her broken inheritance
and the perfume in her hair has a name with Him.

Our knowledge falls short of what it should know,
and will as long as we inhabit these bodies.
But love never falls short with Him.
Knowledge will be humbled,
but Love is already prostrate at His feet,
forgiven, defended, and first to witness new life.

I want to increase in my love of Him.
Not to sit at the table disdaining Him and disdaining Love:
If He was really a prophet, 
He would know what manner of woman was touching Him, 
that she is a sinner.
There sits Knowledge,
judging the Judge and the recipient of His mercy:
a friend of God.
The greater of these is love.

All Are Yours

"Therefore let no one boast in men.
For all things are yours:
whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas,
or the world
or life
or death
or things present
or things to come --
all are yours.
And you are Christ's,
and Christ is God's."
~1 Corinthians 3:21,22

I read this the other morning, and it stopped me short.
Death belongs to us?
It's been something to ponder.
Death is mine.
I own it.