Engineering Peace

My ten-year-old son was telling me his dreams and plans today.
He would like to be a military engineer, he said.
He and his cousin have been planning a project for the military.
They want to engineer a flower bomb.
"What is a flower bomb?"
"Instead of exploding like a regular bomb,
a flower bomb will explode with seeds of flowers.
We want to make it as big as a hydrogen bomb,
but it will plant flowers."

And He shall judge among the nations, 
and shall rebuke many people; 
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, 
and their spears into pruning-hooks. 
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 
neither shall they learn war any more.
Isaiah 2:4

Perhaps my son has a future career with the Lord of Hosts,
beating atomic bombs into flower bombs.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Of Intercourse and Offspring

We are two.
Different from each other.
Different families.
Different ages.
Different dreams.
Different bodies.

We come together.
Union.
Communion.
Corresponding to.
Bound together.
Intercourse.

God breathed life into the man.
The sharing of breath.
Worship: to kiss; to prostrate oneself in homage.
The combining of lives.
The union of bodies dedicated to one another.
Heaven and earth.
Male and female.

The birth of a child --
like me, like him.
They are me.
They are him.
They are us.
I am in them.
Their dad is in them.
They are in us.
We are one.

Blasphemy?
Mystery.

To Your Advantage

"It is to your advantage that I go away;
for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you,
but if I depart, I will send Him to you."
~John 16:7

It seems so against reason.
But reading through John 14-17 again,
and focusing in on what concerns Jesus clues us in a little.
Jesus's concern in His teaching and prayer
is to bring us into fellowship with Himself and His Father.
To invite us to abide.
To cause us to abide -- to live with and in Himself.
While He remained, He kept them in His Father's name.
While the Holy Spirit remains, He will keep us in Jesus's name.

He prayed, "Sanctify them in Your truth. Your word is truth."
He had already told them, "When the Spirit of truth has come,
He will guide you into all truth."

How could it be to our advantage not to have Jesus with us?
Because the Holy Spirit's ministry is to unite us to Christ --
to be the medium through which we abide in Him;
to keep us;
to sanctify us in truth;
to make us one with Christ, who is one with the Father;
to unite each of us to each other.
Christ took that which is the Father's and made it ours.
The Holy Spirit takes from the Son and makes it ours.
Eternal life.
Union with the Father.
Sanctification.
The favor of God.
The love they share.

"As the Father has loved Me, I love you. Abide in My love."

The Father's love raised Him from the dead and made Him alive again.
Christ is our Resurrection and Life.
Jesus's love raises us from the dead and makes us alive.

Breathe in us, Holy Spirit, the life of Christ.
Be our unity, be our love.
Be our sanctification.
Hold us in the love of Christ, and the favor of God.

The Truth From Us

Tossed and tangled by a storm

I have a dark secret.
Some days I wake up and dread floods over me,
and it squeezes my heart,
and churns my stomach,
and twists my mind.
It whispers hateful frights in my ear.
It says I am unloved, and unlovable.
It says they'd all be better off without me.
That I'm an incompetent wife,
a terrible housekeeper,
the wrong mother for my children's needs,
an unwanted friend.

There was a time when every time I walked in my door
and glanced at my answering machine,
and there was no message,
I thought, "No one cares."
Every time.
And if there was a message, I thought, "Somebody wants something."
The Lord brought it to my attention, and made me aware that I had to stop.
He loves me, and saying 'no one cares' is a lie.

The enemy of our souls seeks to steal from, kill and destroy us.
We have an inheritance of light,
but he works to twist our hearts to darkness.
To sink us in depression.
We're afraid to tell the truth about how crushed we feel.
How beaten down, and gasping for breath;
pressed out of measure, and despairing of life.

Jesus is a Man of Sorrows.
He can hear the truth from us,
and shine light into our darkness.

A Good Day To Breathe

I looked down my street
and saw boiling slate clouds behind the steeple.
Normally the steeple looks gray,
but it looked white against that backdrop.
The other direction was bright with piled gleaming white clouds.
Toward the darkness again,
three seagulls small in their distance,
riding in advance of the lightning that flashed behind them,
and the thunder that rumbled toward us.
My wind chimes played crazily when the wind picked up.
Cool air coming.
A greening sky.
We ate our dinner almost silent.
"I like the ones that snap," Talia said.
"I like the growling ones, too, though," I said.
Soft at first, the rain poured down.
Jeff and I went out on the porch and sat down on the loveseat.
One by one, the kids followed.
Three climbed onto us with their bony wiggles.
That scent -- that God-cleaned air full of cold moisture.
I leaned back and looked up at the changing light in the sky,
and the flashes,
and the storm drain across the street with the spouting insurge.
It's a good day to breathe.

Are We Allowed?

After I asked Elisa again to please get on with eating her dinner, she said,
"Mom, are we allowed to savor communion?" 
"What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled.
"Well, it seems like we're not allowed to savor it,
because I feel like we have to hurry up and eat it fast."

Maybe we should slow down, then.
It really ought to be savored.

But Today

If you didn't already know, we are a homeschooling family -- which means that my house is messier than I would like, because we have to get to work on school, and when we finish school, I am often drained. We're regularly behind on laundry. We don't have a dishwasher in the house, so I do dishes three times a day. If I skip a time or two, there are a lot of dishes to catch up on. We moved less than a year ago, and my dining room is still full of boxes we haven't unpacked. We updated the living room, the laundry room, the guest room, the fire alarms, much of the electrical in the house, and put in a new furnace. Those boxes have moved in and out of three rooms while we fixed them. Our table is in the kitchen until the dining room is cleaned out and finished. Next week, our downstairs bathroom begins its transformation. It will have its walls removed and replaced. There will be tile on two walls. Clean, white tile. The water damage behind the tub will be repaired. It will get a new floor, and eventually, paint on the cabinet and the untiled walls. A working outlet. The upstairs bathroom will also be getting a new floor. And a section of fencing will be installed shortly.

But today, we will enjoy our first full 'day off' of the summer. We finished our curriculum last Friday. And we finished our testing yesterday. On my plate for the summer: that dining room; finally cleaning out and organizing my bedroom, which has been a depository for extra mattresses and boxsprings, books on makeshift shelves (until the completed bookshelves were installed in the living room), and various other junk that did not yet have a home. I did clean and organize two of the three kids' bedrooms, but you can no longer tell. We will tackle the closets. Eventually. Set up the dining room hutch we were given, and fill it. Find places for the games, and the craft supplies, and the pictures on the walls. There is more painting to do everywhere. Oh, and I need to teach my youngest to read. And of course, the laundry will continue to outstrip us, and the dishes will be constant, and the meals will always need making, and the plants will need watering, and I am not going to go through this summer without tracking in a lot of beach sand which will need sweeping and vacuuming. Half of the family will leave toys in their wake, and every one of us will leave a trail of books through the house. I'll be ordering new curriculum soon, and wondering where I will store the years not being used. And I have those fourteen curtains I have to make for the porch windows.

Some day it will feel like we can just do maintenance and enjoy it. In the meantime, we battle the mess and try to get ahead just long enough to get something lasting accomplished. And sometimes we will close the door on the house, and go appreciate the beauty God gives us for the short season that we have and not miss out on the memories we'll treasure longer than our clean toilets.

He Waits At The Scene Of The Crime

 
This was a really interesting article. It talked about some of the descendents of top Nazis, how they grew up not knowing these horrendous secrets about their parents and grandparents. One brother and sister, so horrified at the history of their progenitor's sins, both had themselves sterilized, in order to prevent the family from ever having another heir. They have walked around with a burden of guilt. 

I couldn't help but ponder: what do we do with our sin? With our family history of sin? Do we run from the facts? Do we visit the scenes of the crimes? Do we mutilate ourselves to keep it from happening again? Do we pretend there is nothing wrong in our past -- even if our family's past remains as the world-wide definition of evil? One man went to Auschwitz, where his father was brought up in luxury, and wept when he saw 'the gate to hell' that he recognized as a backdrop to old family photos. He was approached by victims of his own family, who told him their stories. He was forgiven, and felt joy for the first time in his life.

These descendants feel guilt by blood association. It seems they consider themselves tainted, although they have had no hand in the wicked deeds. It brought to mind our kinsman redeemer. The One who came in our likeness -- the likeness of sinful man. He came as our relative. He came to save us from inside the family. But in a sense, He is also our victim. Jew and Gentile alike laid their hands on Him and crucified the Son of God -- the Son of Man. We beat Him. We cursed Him. We tore His beard and nailed Him there. And He waits, at the scene of the crime, to offer redemption in His blood. That scene of our guilt, of our family shame, is the place where He waits to welcome us as brothers.

Prayer in the Morning, and How?

For the quiet of the morning;
for the softly falling rain;
for the cooing of the mourning dove --
thank You.
Lord, help me to be salt and light:
neither flavorless nor dim.
The age in which I live is distressing.
Please be my Helper.
Be my Friend.
Lord, I want to be Yours -- set apart for You.
I want to bless You with my hands, my thoughts, my faith.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength."
"He seeks those who will worship Him in Spirit and in truth."

How do we worship in Spirit and in truth?
The opposite, I suppose, would be to worship Him in material form and hypocrisy.
The falseness of setting up a sacrifice and withholding my soul.
A song from my mouth and silent disdain from my heart.

True worship chooses to do the honoring thing when He is the only audience.
True worship not only refrains from murder, but also from hatred.
It marries from the heart -- eschewing even the lustful thought of another.
Secret charity, and secret prayer.
Secret forgiveness, and secret fasts.
Secret trust: a hidden hope.

In Search of the Source

I just finished reading a book that I loved.
It's called In Search of the Source -- A First Encounter With God's Word, and it was written by a man who spent twenty years in Papua, New Guinea, with the Folopa people learning their language and culture and translating the New Testament and Genesis for them.
I always like to hear stories and read books that show how the Gospel changed things when it came in.
We have had The Book in the hands of our English-speaking culture for so long that we forget its power.
We argue over its meaning about the things we don't understand.
I like hearing about the peace and the turmoil brought on by Jesus's words when a new culture hears them.
The book also challenges how you think about language. He discusses passages that gave him trouble in translation because of cultural differences and how he came to find the words to say the message.
I love when he had no word to use, and the stories of how the word came through some weird situation being served bugs to eat, or hunting bats in a cave.
Or his explanation of communion to people who just a few short years before were eating their dead, family and foes alike.
But the most moving thing in it was when he was translating Jesus's suffering to them.
He had to find words for 'flogged', and because these people had actively participated in the brutal treatment of their enemies, they knew firsthand the scene of horror the story portrayed.
It stunned them.
I think it can be beneficial to your spirit to see the truth through someone else's eyes now and again.
I wish I was better at book reviews, because I love to recommend books.
This one is worth reading.
It was written by Neil Anderson.

The Difference

I am part of a group in which someone asked,
"What do you see as the difference
between playing church and being the church?"
This came from that.
I thought I would share it here.

I guess I would have to say it's the difference between playing house and being a family. 
If it's, "Here, you be mommy, and I'll be Daddy, and Susie can be our baby," it's playing house. 

But if it's, "Will you marry me?" 
And "Yes!" 
And a long miserable labor and birth. 
And love. 
And home. 
And sleepless nights. 
And working out a way of peace even though we don't agree. 
And choosing to eat a burnt meal 
because your wife doesn't know how to cook, but she's trying. 
And cleaning out and packing each others' wounds like a nurse. 
And kissing the messy face of your baby. 
And getting up and getting a drink because they can't reach the counter. 
And taking out the trash. 
And helping kids to wipe. 
And listening to boring stories that you already heard before. 
And being hurt for their benefit. 
And being thrown up on. 
And having to forgive, because they did it again. 
And realizing you were wrong, and saying, 'I'm sorry'. 
And being forgiven. 
It's letting their pain be your pain. 
And rejoicing when they rejoice, 
even though you feel like crying in the bathroom for yourself. 

It isn't acted out perfectly, 
but with practice, you get better at it, 
and your husband gets better at it, 
and then another newborn comes along, all selfish and squalling, 
and you all have to learn all over again 
how to be kind and how to teach kindness. 
And he grows into a toddler and pulls his sister's hair, 
and he has to learn to be kind, and she has to learn to forgive. 
And then one day, you see them sharing, and helping, and choosing to love. 
And there are love notes from new writers, 
and you ignore how they spelled them, 
and you don't care that there is no punctuation and no spacing. 
It's recognizing progress instead of noting imperfection. 
It's sharing blood. 
It's the reality of love, instead of the fantasy. 
It recognizes value in the most useless members. 
They belong to us. 
We don't care if they are crippled, if they're old, if they're in diapers. 
If they have bad breath and running sores. 
They are ours. 
Our babies. 
Our great-grandfathers. 
We're glad they're with us, because they belong to us. 

But when we're playing house, we can do without that, 
and just put on our princess clothes and sparkly headbands, 
and pick the best looking companions to be there with us, 
and the prettiest dolls to be our children. 
And let's kick out the ugly little kid with a birthmark and all the bedwetters.
They smell.

Whose Image and Inscription?

"The Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk. 
And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, 
'Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth... 
Tell us, therefore, what do You think? 
Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?' 
Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, 
'Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? Show Me the tax money.' 
So they brought Him a denarius. 
And He said, 'Whose image and inscription is this?' 
They said to Him, 'Caesar's.' 
'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, 
and to God the things that are God's.'"

It says they went away marveling.
And as I thought about the coin with the image of Caesar on it --
that self-proclaimed god --
I marveled, too.
Because my mind fell back to this:
'And God created man in his own image, 
in the image of God created He him; 
male and female created He them.' 

They tried to entangle Him by provoking Him
to advocate withholding taxes from royalty.
And He made it clear that they were withholding God's property from Him.
Property He had stamped His image on, created in His likeness.
And an inscription,
the writing declaring we were put into circulation in His name:
"He hath set eternity in their heart, 
yet so that man cannot find out the work that God hath done
 from the beginning even to the end."

"What shall I render unto Jehovah For all his benefits toward me?"
I ought to render myself.

The Beauty That It Is

When my husband and I went to Israel, 
the tour guide reported to us that the weather forecast was hot and dry 
for the entire time we were going to be there. 
In February. 
It is supposed to be the rainy season. 
Of course, we tourists were delighted.
We had come from a cold winter.
But the guide said it was bad news for the people who lived there.
They needed rain.

Rain.
Why do we complain about it? 
Liquid water is so necessary to our existence that without it we die.
Our crops fail.
Our forests burn.
Our land withers up and blows away.
But we only want it when it isn't given.

See it for the beauty that it is. 
And use it for restful meditation. 
Rain is one of the mercies of God, 
sent on the just and the unjust alike. 
It ought to remind us to be kind as He is kind
to those who love us, and those who don't.
To forgive.
To provide nourishment.

My husband bought me a rain barrel last week.
I have been waiting for this rain to drip from my gutters into my barrel,
so that when the sun shines, 
I can water my plants with His mercy.

The Spirit of Adoption

In church today, I heard this:
"The Lord doesn't adopt you,
and then look for the first opportunity to get rid of you."

"For you did not receive a spirit of bondage again to fear, 
but you received the Spirit of adoption 
by Whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father.' 
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit 
that we are children of God."
~Romans 8:15,16

Calling Him Abba -- Daddy -- Papa -- is a direct contrast to adoption.
"We are adopted into intimacy, into family love."
Adopted into love.
It is the work of the Spirit to remind you that you are God's child.

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.