2015: The Year of Friendship

Since I was very young, I was in awe of God. I saw His might in creation, I believed in His infinite greatness, I read stories of His power. He was King to me, King over everything, wonderful, good and sovereign. But He was King on a high throne, and I was just a nobody among a million subjects. He knew all about me and loved me, yes, but that I might just catch His eye for a moment as He rode through the crowd was a big enough hope. Then I got older and realized that I wasn't just a subject, I was His daughter. So, slowly, He became Father to me. I had free access to His throne, whenever I needed Him, for any reason. Not only did He know me and love me, He wanted to be involved in every part of my life; He delighted in me because I belonged to Him. But He was still King. Surely the throne room is no place for a blundering child, at least not all the time. That He might just smile at me and grant my childish wishes was a big enough hope.

It was easy to know God as King, a perfect King whose Lordship cannot be disputed. It took time and courage to understand what He was like as a perfect Father, never too busy, never grudging my requests, always patient and kind. This year, I began to realize that He was inviting me to come even closer: He wanted to be my Friend. That too was hard to understand at first. How could He, the infinite God, treat me as if I were an equal, be so open as to share His heart with me? But somehow, He wants me to be with Him, so much that He left His throne to become like me, experience everything I've experienced. He knows, not just as a King overseeing His realm, not just as a Father picking up a stumbling little one, but as a Friend walking every path right beside me. Jesus knows what pain feels like. He knows about rejection, misunderstanding, loneliness and betrayal far better than I do. No matter what I may face, He feels it with me, and He understands completely. He laughs with me in the good times, cries with me in the bad times, and He is always faithful. He will always be with me, and I with Him. Even when I fail Him, He will never let me down. What a tremendous honor it is to be the friend of a King!

"No longer do I call you servants,

for a servant does not know what

his master is doing; but

I have called you friends,

for all things that I have heard from

My Father I have made known to you."

John 15:15

God Out of the Box

“Have you considered My servant Job,

that there is none like him on the earth,

a blameless and upright man,

one who fears God and shuns evil?”

Job 1:8

Very few people in Scripture received such praise from God as Job did, yet perhaps fewer still went through quite so much misery as this same man.  Job’s three well-meaning friends came to tell Job the answer to his dilemma and solve all of his problems for him – or so they thought.  In their view, the formula was simple: God blessed the righteous with prosperity and punished the wicked with hardship; Job was in hardship; therefore, Job was being punished for wickedness and needed to repent so God would bless him.  Meanwhile, Job insisted upon his innocence and complained that God was heedlessly using him for target practice.  After a while of this bantering, God spoke for Himself.  He gave no answer to the assumptions about Him, no explanation or defense of Job’s plight – He simply rhetorically compared Job to Himself until finally, Job could only respond in awed humility, “I have heard about You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You” (42:5).

Job and his friends alike put God into a small, comprehensible box in which He was supposed to behave according to their understanding and expectations of Him.  It didn’t seem to enter their minds that there might be another answer they couldn’t see.  I think we too often are guilty of putting God into a nice, manageable box, making assumptions about His actions and motives based on our own limited knowledge of Him.  We like to draw lines, make either/or rules, analyze God like a list of data and assure ourselves that we’ve got Him all figured out.  Like Job’s friends, we want to know how to work His system, what formula we need to apply in order to get God to work to our best advantage.  But God will not be contained, manipulated, or explained.  He may do something entirely outside the plans we’ve made for Him, obliterating our notions of His identity and thought process, in order to reveal to us that, after all, we know only the very faintest whisper of all He is.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 55:8-9

To My Fellow Writers

Writing is no morally neutral pastime or a mere livelihood -- it is a way of life. While those of us with a passion for recording and sharing words are known to the world as “writers,” at heart, every human is a writer. All people desire to express themselves with words, and we all live a story, seeking to make it the best story we can. The art of writing is in our very nature. It is a gift given to us by our Creator, and we are intended to use it well in shaping lives and influencing the world.

The writer’s mission is not merely to arrange words in an original and appealing way, but to have an alert mind at all times, constantly drawing truths from daily life to incorporate into his work. Writing has tremendous potential to change lives, both of the audience and the writer. The process of writing can improve our own character, compelling us to think deeply about important issues, to craft stories around morals. We all want to see good triumph over evil, and as we create that victory in our writing, it encourages us to seek victory in our own lives. As writers, we have a responsibility to fill our readers’ minds with thoughts that will not merely amuse them or distract them from life, but, after they put down the page, will continue to inspire them to make a better story of their own daily lives.

Writing expands our influence in space and time, allowing us to touch lives in ways that are otherwise impossible for one human to accomplish. Most of us will never have the opportunity to travel the world and speak our minds to millions, but through writing, our thoughts can extend to people we may never meet and places we may never see. Writing may also be preserved for centuries. As most of history would be lost to us without art and written records, so nothing will remain to tell the world in generations to come of who we were except what we have created, and no art can so accurately and vividly describe our hearts and lives as the art of writing.

So, my fellow writers, let us use our gift to the very best of our ability, not flippantly or frivolously, but purposefully, with respect to the One who entrusted it to us. Let us cultivate our own minds so that we can share words to influence others and change lives for the better, both in this generation and the generations yet to come!

~Written November 19, 2013

The Bible on Politics

Words of the wise, spoken quietly, should be heard

rather than the shout of a ruler of fools.

Wisdom is better than weapons of war;

but one sinner destroys much good.

Ecclesiastes 9:17-18

These verses have been much on my mind lately in light of the current presidential race and the media surrounding it. Our nation has grown tired of watching much of the good she was founded for fall into ruin on account of foolish policies and outright sin, and the people are beginning to stand up and speak out for something different. But do we really know what the leader of a great country is supposed to look like?

Many look to a man with great worldly success and bold words, someone completely unashamed to give public voice to the pent-up anger and indignation that they feel for the errors of our present government. Their hopes are pinned on a leader who has a lot to say about how things could be better, who wants to crack down on big problems and the people who cause them; a leader with absolute confidence in himself and his ability to turn the country around. This kind of man gathers an admiring crowd, you can be sure of that.

On the other hand, many more look to a man who started life at the bottom of the social scale, someone who doesn't seem to display the classic nature of a politician. They hope for a leader who, despite his unassuming appearance, calmly and thoughtfully assesses and addresses the needs of his nation; a leader who doesn't have any interest in being a one-man show, but is committed to do his best for the sake of his country. This kind of man may not have reporters chasing him down, but he commands respect wherever he goes.

The world has seen many leaders of many kinds, and while men quick with words can make for exciting chapters in history books, it is often the men with active minds and careful tongues who make history most enjoyable for the people who live in it. Remember, "Loose lips sink ships," and the words of a leader have the most power of all. Your vote writes history -- choose wisely.

I Am a Slave

I am a slave.
I was born a slave.
I served a cruel master.
He kept me constantly in chains.
I could never do enough to please him.
The harder I worked, the more cruel he became.
I lived in fear, with nothing but death to look forward to.
Then, I was bought.
I have a new Master.
He freed me from my chains.
He is pleased just to have me as His own.
I don't have to work hard to earn His kindness.
I live in hope, knowing that my service will be rewarded.
The price my Master paid for me speaks of my worth to Him.
I choose to serve my Master, for nowhere else can I find
True freedom.

But now having been set free from sin,

and having become slaves of God,

you have your fruit to holiness,

and the end, everlasting life.

Romans 6:22

The Undeserving

"Do you know what mercy is?" I asked the sober-faced little girl who was sitting quietly on the sidelines, humbly accepting her due consequence for arguing with authority.  "I think it's when somebody gives you another chance, even though you don't deserve it," she replied.  Then, seeing that she knew full well she deserved what she was getting, I gave her mercy.  When we talked about the incident later, this same little girl experienced God's mercy for the first time.  And I was reminded that God's mercy is indeed for those who are most undeserving . . . and know that they are.  God cannot extend mercy to those who don't believe that they deserve His wrath.  Only humble hearts who acknowledge their wrongs can receive another chance with gratitude.

Do not remember the sins of my youth,

nor my transgressions;

According to Your mercy remember me,

for Your goodness' sake, O Lord.

Psalm 25:7

Metanarrative

There is only one story; all the rest are either part of it or based upon it. The most novel tale draws its themes from the original, and the most epic fabrications are only retellings of the true saga. All true accounts are chapters in it, all men and women, great and small, its characters. It is a mystery, full of hints and clues of what is yet to unfold. It is a romance, full of love and passion and beauty. It is an adventure, full of wildness, risk and reward. It has a Hero and a Villain, good guys and bad guys, battles, quests, crimes, thrills, rescues, intrigues, surprises, spectacular settings, poetic detail, plot twists, and page-turning suspense. It has sad parts and scary parts, but best of all, it has a happy ending, the real happily-ever-after. This is The Story, God’s Story, History.

Humans love stories. The most primitive cultures have elaborate story-telling traditions and great regard for a man who can tell a spell-binding yarn. Modern peoples satisfy the story craving with endless novels or personal accounts, trendy news reports, and the latest in the film industry. We need stories. We want to be part of them, to be the heroes we admire. And we sense that in a way, we are. Why has Disney’s Frozen been such a big hit? Because we know all too well what it’s like to hide our fears and then blow up and shut people out to our own loss. Why has Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings gathered millions of fans? Because we know what it’s like to have all the odds stacked up against us and be faced with evil much stronger than we are. But stories like these remind us that there is hope – true love wins, and the right is worth struggling for. They serve to illustrate truth for us in terms we can readily identify with.

However, unless we understand The Story, God’s Metanarrative, all stories lose their meaning and their truth is hidden, leaving them nothing more than momentary entertainment. Our real life heroes fail us and our favorite tales never get to the bottom of our need, because nothing less than the whole real Story from beginning to perfect end will satisfy. The Bible has laid out the entire plot for us, conflict, climax, and conclusion, with the details of many vitally important scenes. Many more scenes got left out, not because they were less important, but because there were plenty included to illustrate all the truth we need – and for the sake of space, of course (John 21:25)! Scripture is complete, but certainly not exhaustive in terms of God’s great Story, for that includes everything from the very beginning to the very end of this world, and more besides. The threads running through it all are more intricate and deliberate than a Dickens novel, and there will be no loose ends.

Every one of us is part of this Story, and whether we will remain in it for the perfect ending or drop out of it forever depends upon our relationship with the Author. A proper relationship with the Author also gives us the ability to see History and fiction from the standpoint of His Metanarrative, as well as live our lives to be a tale worth telling – but these take some investment. Challenge yourself to be more than just a passive observer of stories – whether you’re reading a novel, watching a movie, studying history, listening to the news, or even trying to understand a confusing Biblical narrative, ask yourself: what is this saying about the Great Story, or how does this fit into it? Above all, know the Great Author, and learn to see all story through His eyes.

The Waiting God

We generally tend to think of God as being outside of time, yet He is very much inside time as well, working and waiting right along with us.  The eternal God has chosen to be part of history, orchestrating a progression of events that must come in time, one after another.  He waited a hundred years to give Abraham the promised son.  He waited four hundred years to bring His people out of Egypt.  He waited seven hundred years from the time of Isaiah’s prophecies to their fulfillment in Jesus.  Jesus as a Man on earth waited thirty years to begin His ministry.  And He has waited two thousand years and counting for His Father to give the word for Him to return for His bride.  How often do we complain about waiting an hour, a week, a year, for the things we desire, when God’s desires have taken centuries, even millennia to unfold?  Yes, God understands waiting very well; His patience is unmatched.  But He was not just killing time in the quiet decades – He was setting up, working quietly towards the moment to be revealed.  And we are to be like Him, not idle until our dreams arrive, but ever faithful in the things that may not be noticed until at last in the proper time they come to fruition.

To everything there is a season,

A time for every purpose under Heaven.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

Easter in a Graveyard

On Easter morning, I wandered in the graveyard on the idyllic grounds of a 156-year-old church, scraping moss from aged headstones and imagining the stories of lives represented by names and dates.  For most, there was very little to be guessed but a few tales of sorrow: a widow of thirty-six years, four infants lost by one family.  In truth, every gravestone bears silent witness of someone’s loss, someone’s pain.  Many of the stones in that churchyard are so old that no one now living would even remember the owners of the petrified names.

This might seem a rather dismal way to have spent a bright Easter morning, no matter how lovely the cemetery landscaping.  But I can’t think of a better place to commemorate the first Easter, which also began at a grave.  Because of that day so long ago, we have hope that “six feet under” is not the end.  The glorious truth of this hymn by Christian F. Gellert echoed through my mind on Easter Sunday and since – what a wonderful hope we who love the Lord have on the other side of our graves!

Jesus lives, and so shall I:

Death, thy sting is gone forever!

He for me hath deigned to die,

Lives the bands of death to sever.

He shall raise me from the dust:

Jesus is my hope and trust.

Jesus lives – and death is now

But my entrance into glory;

Courage, then, my soul, for thou

Hast a crown of life before thee.

Thou shalt find thy hopes were just:

Jesus is my hope and trust.

Alone With the Shepherd

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;

for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Psalm 23

I am not a shepherd.  I raise goats, and while they are substantially different from their wooly cousins, they can still provide their keeper with a good hands-on understanding of this familiar psalm by David the shepherd.  Recently, I took notice of the words David uses in this psalm to refer to God.  He opens with beautiful statements in the third person about the Good Shepherd’s daily care for His sheep.  The picture is a white-on-green pastoral of contented sheep walking along a wide, smooth path behind their Shepherd without a care in the world.  But suddenly, the picture changes to a dark and narrow path where the sheep is alone and afraid.

As a shepherd, David likely dealt with sickness and injuries in his flock on a regular basis.  In my herd, I’ve also seen my share of deviations from the usual food and water routine of keeping animals.  A year ago, one of my goats became deathly ill with what appeared to be a case of tetanus.  I separated her from the rest and showered her with attention, shots, and medicines.  Miraculously, she made a full recovery from that usually fatal disease, and learned to trust me in the process.  David would have known that the first thing to do for an ailing animal is to get it alone so it can be treated according to its individual needs.  Perhaps this is why, when his psalm turns to darker matters, he changes the language to the second person and focuses directly on God Himself.  God is no longer “He”, but “You”.

Sometimes life is all green pastures and still waters for us as God’s sheep.   We appreciate the Shepherd and talk about Him to other sheep, but somehow, we generally tend to get busy grazing and playing with our fellow lambs, and spend less time with the Shepherd Himself.  That is, until we find ourselves in some calamity.  No more chewing our cud on the warm sweet grass, no more running around with fellow sheep.  That’s when the Shepherd steps in, faithful to the least of his flock.  He takes us off by ourselves and gives us the best of everything – though we don’t often feel that shots, medicines, splints and bandages are best.  But the Shepherd’s skillful care brings us back to health, and in the process, we learn to trust Him and love Him more than ever.  Then He restores us to the flock, and we can say with new understanding to our fellow lambs that we will belong to the Good Shepherd forever.

David closes this beautiful psalm by speaking of God in the third person once again, declaring to others his assurance that because of his time alone with God, the future will be blessed, and he will spend eternity with Him.  Let us never be afraid to go through the valley alone with our Shepherd, for it is there that we best learn the blessing of belonging to His flock.

Pruning and People

As spring creeps on the horizon, the time comes again for my favorite task of the year: pruning the blueberry bushes. It’s such a satisfying feeling to start with plants all overgrown, tangled, and scraggly from the winter and clip away until they become beautiful, healthy, and fit for another year of bearing fruit. One lovely spreading 30-year-old plant takes an hour or so to trim into shape – the first year I took on the job, it took something like a day. But I enjoy the work, and it pays off in the abundance of berries that load the branches to the ground in the summer months.

There are three things to look for when pruning the plants: dead wood, weak wood, and misplaced wood. The dead wood goes first – these are twigs whose brittleness, gray color and lichen coating indicate that they have no chance of bearing fruit. Once all they dead wood is gone, the pruner must evaluate the strength of the plant. One bush I pruned this year had sprouted dozens of spindly twigs – it had put its effort into quantity rather than quality. So I took off most of the leggy growth, giving the strongest branches the opportunity to get stronger with more of the plant’s energy invested in them. The final step of pruning is to look the plant over for any branches that are crossing each other or tangled together. Some can be gently untangled and keep on growing, but often, one twig or another has to go to make room for the plant to grow freely and to make picking the berries easier.

Year after year, as I circle the bushes with my pruning shears, I always imagine that I feel a little taste of the way God must feel as He looks at His children. I love the blueberry bushes, not because I particularly love blueberries, but because I find joy in caring for my plants, seeing them become beautiful, and because their fruitfulness gives satisfaction and credit to me, the tender. What I do is certainly for the benefit of the plants, but the ultimate goal and expectation is that they benefit me. God cares for us in much the same way, I think – He loves us, not because He can’t do without our little good deeds, but because He delights in tending what belongs to Him, in making us beautiful, and because the fruit that comes of His skillful care brings glory and joy to Him. He does His best for us, and He rightfully expects us to do our best for Him as a result.

So God prunes us. And is important to note, God only prunes His children, those who are alive in Christ. No one wastes time pruning dead plants – there were a few I sadly skipped this year because my clippers could do them no good. It is not enjoyable to be pruned, but it is proof of belonging to God’s family. Pruning comes in a few different areas. First, God targets the “dead wood” in us, the desires, habits, and activities that are opposed to Him and will never bring any fruit. God also prunes our “weak wood” – the parts of our life that are perhaps not inherently bad in themselves, but are doing nothing more than keeping us busy with a myriad of things that consume our time and energy, weakening our fruitfulness. And God seeks to trim up the “misplaced wood” of our lives, those good things that have got twisted out of their proper place and make our fruit hard to see, perhaps opening the door for weak and dead wood if uncorrected.

The difference, of course, between God’s children and blueberry bushes is that we humans can decide not to be pruned. And if we do, it will only leave us miserable and wondering why we feel so ugly. The longer we resist God’s efforts to prune us, the harder and more painful it will be when He finally wins. A plant that has grown untended for many years may take years to correct, and it will not bear fruit to its full potential until it has recovered from being rigorously pruned. God is patient with His children, even if they have resisted Him for a long time – He can wait for the fruit to show while He is working on us. And once we are shaped to His liking, He will keep on pruning to keep us there. If God is pruning you, cooperate! When the beautifully shaped you is bearing abundant fruit to delight your Pruner, you’ll be glad you did.

Every branch that does bear fruit

He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

John 15:2

On Preparation

Unplanned things happen in life.  Just today, at a class I was teaching, one of the instructors met with car trouble and couldn’t make it to teach her sessions, so another instructor took her place with a mere half hour to prepare.  Because she had prepared and practiced the same sessions in the past, she was able to successfully teach them at a moment’s notice.  Life is full of stories like this, though not all with such a convenient ending.  Things come up, and hopefully, somebody will have what it takes to step into the gap and keep things going smoothly.  It is impossible to prepare for every situation that may arise, but today’s incident illustrated to me the freedom that prior preparation brings.  If you invest in the present with the future in mind, then when surprises come at you, you will be much more able to face them with confidence.

In 1 Peter 3:15, we are told to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have.”  We don’t know when someone may ask, but it is our responsibility to be ready at any moment with the answer.  As Christians, we have been entrusted with the truth, and the world needs us to be prepared to give it, not fumbling awkwardly for some response.  We cannot know exactly what questions will be asked of us, and there will come times that we don’t have an answer.  But if we have faithfully practiced the truth in our lives before the moment we are put on the spot, we will be much more prepared to step up with a confident answer – not a rote recitation of the perfect scripture reference, but a response born out of experience in God’s Word.  This is the kind of response our world needs, and we must consciously prepare ourselves to give it.