Love is why God created us in the first place. Theologians speak of the fact that God created everything freely, not out of necessity. This is a very important idea--it meas that God did not make us because He was bored, lonely, or had run out of things to do.
God did not create us out of need. He created us out of His love. C S Lewis wrote, "God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them." John Ortberg. Love Beyond Reason. p 16
I am thinking how this quote/book has blessed me in the past few days. I found out Monday that my mother was having hallucinations and was in the hospital. I found out Tuesday she has a brain tumor, and today I found out she's going to have surgery tomorrow. This is surely a trial and I know from James that trials are my friends because they perfect my faith.
My logic isn't always logical from the normal "logic" but the way I see this is that my mother's situation will bless many people. We are allowed this trial because God loves us. There is no better reason than that. He wants us to become more and more like Him and so He has to skim the dross from our lives. It's a loving act from a loving Father who wants only our best from us and for us. Our best is definitely to become more like Him. Amen and Amen
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Forgetfulness
I recently had a conversation with a young man I’ve known all his life. He was relating to me an incident that happened when he was a very young boy. For the life of me I still cannot remember this happening, but I trust his memory, so it must have. The incident was that he had picked up a spray bottle and sprayed ammonia into my eyes. He thought it held water. Before you gasp in horror, I truly don’t remember this, there is no lasting damage, No Harm, No Foul.
This conversation brought to mind several ideas for this article. I am not sure which direction this will go, but we’ll go there together.
The first thought I had after this conversation was that this is how God remembers our sins after they have been covered by the Cross. Hebrews 8 and Hebrews 10 both describe how God forgets our sins that are forgiven and covered. Here is the passage from Hebrews 8 (It is almost repeated word for word in Hebrews 10):
10This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."
What really strikes me about this is that for God to repeat it, it must be very important. This is something we need to remember—our sins are forgotten!
After our sins are forgotten, we have things to do—as Paul puts it in Philippians, we have our own forgetting to do:
3:13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
On the other hand, there are things to remember as well: We need to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, we need to remember each other in our prayers, to entertain strangers, to offer hospitality, to turn our brothers/sisters from sin, to remember those in prison, to remember our leaders, to remember that Jesus Christ is not dead but that He has been raised again, to remember the work that Christ has done through us—the list goes on and on.
We even have physical reminders of the things that God wants us to remember: Joshua 4
1 When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua, 2 "Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, 3 and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan from right where the priests stood and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight."
4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, 5 and said to them, "Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever."
We are doing something like this in our own congregation with our rocks of testimony. Still it’s nice to know what to forget and what to remember. I find it fascinating to look through the Bible and see what it tells me to forget and what to remember—and why. It all comes back to remind me how much God loves me and what He’s done for me. I can forget the piddly incidents that don’t carry any eternal value—like little boys with squirt bottles, but I MUST remember those little boys in my prayers and I MUST remember to love those boys with the love of God—those are things we should never forget.
This conversation brought to mind several ideas for this article. I am not sure which direction this will go, but we’ll go there together.
The first thought I had after this conversation was that this is how God remembers our sins after they have been covered by the Cross. Hebrews 8 and Hebrews 10 both describe how God forgets our sins that are forgiven and covered. Here is the passage from Hebrews 8 (It is almost repeated word for word in Hebrews 10):
10This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."
What really strikes me about this is that for God to repeat it, it must be very important. This is something we need to remember—our sins are forgotten!
After our sins are forgotten, we have things to do—as Paul puts it in Philippians, we have our own forgetting to do:
3:13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
On the other hand, there are things to remember as well: We need to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, we need to remember each other in our prayers, to entertain strangers, to offer hospitality, to turn our brothers/sisters from sin, to remember those in prison, to remember our leaders, to remember that Jesus Christ is not dead but that He has been raised again, to remember the work that Christ has done through us—the list goes on and on.
We even have physical reminders of the things that God wants us to remember: Joshua 4
1 When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua, 2 "Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, 3 and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan from right where the priests stood and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight."
4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, 5 and said to them, "Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever."
We are doing something like this in our own congregation with our rocks of testimony. Still it’s nice to know what to forget and what to remember. I find it fascinating to look through the Bible and see what it tells me to forget and what to remember—and why. It all comes back to remind me how much God loves me and what He’s done for me. I can forget the piddly incidents that don’t carry any eternal value—like little boys with squirt bottles, but I MUST remember those little boys in my prayers and I MUST remember to love those boys with the love of God—those are things we should never forget.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Reach Out and Touch
Letter-writing is a lost art. I used to write letters all the time, particularly to Mama, other family members, and some choice friends. Somewhere along the way I quit. Now I talk to Mama on the phone. If I connect with friends, I email them—or just send them a forward. Once in a while I’ll send a letter. It’s because something is burning in my heart to tell the recipient—feelings that I don’t want to lose and it seems more personal to take pen to paper and pour it out. It draws my heart closer to my recipient. My spoken words may be forgotten quickly, but my written words have the power to stay and encourage again and again.
One thing I do hold onto is the letters that are written to me that touch a special place in my heart. I have a collection of them, some telling how I have blessed the writer in some way, some sharing my pains, some celebrating with me. Those words on the paper don’t go away. I can pull them out and look at them and refresh my soul. There is something common to all the letters I have sent and I have received—the writers know me and I know my recipients. This knowing makes finding the right words easier, and brings encouragement to both sender and receiver. My letters used to be about daily life, happenings in my family, and not much substance. When I feel led to take pen to paper now, I spend time praying for the one receiving my letter, that my words would be a balm to her soul, that God would use my words in her life in a special way. I also pray for myself, that I would be gentle, careful, and loving in my words. Tone of voice is not something that can always come across on paper, so I feel that it is important to take the care to say the right thing.
A couple of years ago, I found this snippet by Henri Nouwen about writing letters, and as I write my letters now, I let it guide me:
“When I write I think deeply about my friends, I pray for them, I tell them my emotions and feelings. I reflect on our relationship, and I dwell with them in a very personal way. Over the past few months I have come to enjoy letter writing more and more. In the beginning it seemed like a heavy burden, but now it is a relaxing time of the day. It feels like interrupting work for a conversation with a friend.
“The beauty of letter writing is that it deepens friendships and makes them more real. I have also discovered that letter writing makes me pray more concretely for my friends. Early in the morning, I spend a little time praying for each person to whom I have written and promised my prayers.
“Today I feel surrounded by the friends I am writing to and praying for. Our love for each other is very concrete and life-giving. Thank God for letters, for those who send them, and for those who receive them.”
I would like to encourage you to take the time to write a letter to someone you care about. Tell her how important she is to you, love on her with the love God has given you to share, and let her know she was not only in your thoughts today, but she was on God’s mind too—through your prayers for her.
I’d say more, but I have a letter to write.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Let's Party!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Several weeks ago, my son called me and said, "I am going to need to talk to you in about a month." Now that is about as cryptic as you can get, but I asked him whether it was going to be the weekend he came home or after I got back from Grandma's house. He thought it'd be after I got back because he was waiting on some results. He called me right before he came home in October and said that he'd talk to us while he was home, this was something he'd rather share in person than on the phone, and his results came a lot faster than he expected.
Scoot forward to the second weekend in October, while he was home, he picked peppers and made salsa, enchilada sauce and some other peppery things. After all the kitchen work was done and everyone was sitting down, he said he wanted to talk to us. He reminded us that when he was 17, he quit going to church, and when he was 18, he decided he didn't believe in God. In the recent past he said a situation came up that he could not rectify and in his opinion, there was no humanly possible solution to the situation, so he threw up an arrow prayer--something like, "God, if you are really there, you'll fix this." The speed at which the answer came astounded him. Some time later, an even worse situation came up--impossible by human standards, and he said that after swearing at God for ten minutes, he finally said, "Okay, God, if you can fix this, I'll surrender." The answer came the very next day.
In all this time, he's been surrounded by people who had deep relationships with Christ--a Whitworth graduate, a former pastor, a deeply committed young man and a young woman who were hiking buddies. All of them took interest in his spiritual condition, and a couple of them took the time to help him figure out why he felt the way he did. The former pastor gave him Josh McDowell's "More Than A Carpenter" to read, and he came to the logical conclusion that Jesus Christ is who He said He was. My son said he had no other choice but to give himself wholly to Christ. He considers this his point of salvation. He went out and bought a Bible and has been reading it and praying. He is now searching out churches in Idaho Falls where he is living. He said he needed one other Bible translation other than King Jimmy. I asked him what he wanted, and he said the ESV (I happened to have a spare and was thrilled to give it to him--it's the translation I am reading right now).
So now instead of praying for my prodigal to return, I am praying for his growth, for his strength to stand trials, for his abilities to fight spiritual warfare, and I am praising God that he's come "home."
I just had to share, so you can all join in the party!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Scoot forward to the second weekend in October, while he was home, he picked peppers and made salsa, enchilada sauce and some other peppery things. After all the kitchen work was done and everyone was sitting down, he said he wanted to talk to us. He reminded us that when he was 17, he quit going to church, and when he was 18, he decided he didn't believe in God. In the recent past he said a situation came up that he could not rectify and in his opinion, there was no humanly possible solution to the situation, so he threw up an arrow prayer--something like, "God, if you are really there, you'll fix this." The speed at which the answer came astounded him. Some time later, an even worse situation came up--impossible by human standards, and he said that after swearing at God for ten minutes, he finally said, "Okay, God, if you can fix this, I'll surrender." The answer came the very next day.
In all this time, he's been surrounded by people who had deep relationships with Christ--a Whitworth graduate, a former pastor, a deeply committed young man and a young woman who were hiking buddies. All of them took interest in his spiritual condition, and a couple of them took the time to help him figure out why he felt the way he did. The former pastor gave him Josh McDowell's "More Than A Carpenter" to read, and he came to the logical conclusion that Jesus Christ is who He said He was. My son said he had no other choice but to give himself wholly to Christ. He considers this his point of salvation. He went out and bought a Bible and has been reading it and praying. He is now searching out churches in Idaho Falls where he is living. He said he needed one other Bible translation other than King Jimmy. I asked him what he wanted, and he said the ESV (I happened to have a spare and was thrilled to give it to him--it's the translation I am reading right now).
So now instead of praying for my prodigal to return, I am praying for his growth, for his strength to stand trials, for his abilities to fight spiritual warfare, and I am praising God that he's come "home."
I just had to share, so you can all join in the party!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Ramblin' Rose
I went to Arkansas for my semi-yearly visit with my Mama. I have pictures that I will post later. Actually I have many thoughts I will post later, it's a matter of getting the pictures out of my camera into the computer. I never have both in the same place it seems.
Coming Attractions: Trespassers W
Mama's new corner
And even more.
Stay Tuned.
Coming Attractions: Trespassers W
Mama's new corner
And even more.
Stay Tuned.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Leavin' on a Jet Plane
Not that I have been that active in blogging in the past year, but I won't be posting at all for the next two weeks or so, I am going to Mama's. See you when I get back. I promise.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
2 John 4
There is a reason that particular verse heads my post this time. My son drove nine hours each way to make a visit home for the weekend. He had something important to tell us. Since he was 17 years old, he hasn't had time for God in his life, he had even rejected his own belief in God. We never pushed God at him, or demanded that he go to church with us. He knew the offer was open, he was welcome, but we worked hard to keep communication open with him. I even learned how to talk sports, but it was fun to do.
He told me a while ago that he wanted to talk to me, but he was waiting for some results so it'd be after I get back from my mom's. Then this week he called, told me that he'd be telling me this weekend. Last night we sat down to listen to him tell us what was on his mind. He reminded us of his "walk" from the time he was 17. He then told us about how he'd been in a situation that had no way to resolve itself by any human means. He threw up a prayer to a God he wasn't sure existed, and the situation resolved. He was in a second situation that had no humanly possible way to resolve. After swearing at God for nearly ten minutes, he said, "Okay, God. I get your point. If you can resolve this, I'll do whatever you want." The NEXT DAY resolution was in the works. In the end, he told us, he rededicated himself to the Lord. He said he's reading his Bible now. He went out and bought one and wanted another one--a translation I happened to have a spare copy of. Can you imagine the whiplash you would have gotten watching me get it for him?
That is why this particular verse is so important to me. "I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father." It's not just SOME of my children, but ALL of my children!
He told me a while ago that he wanted to talk to me, but he was waiting for some results so it'd be after I get back from my mom's. Then this week he called, told me that he'd be telling me this weekend. Last night we sat down to listen to him tell us what was on his mind. He reminded us of his "walk" from the time he was 17. He then told us about how he'd been in a situation that had no way to resolve itself by any human means. He threw up a prayer to a God he wasn't sure existed, and the situation resolved. He was in a second situation that had no humanly possible way to resolve. After swearing at God for nearly ten minutes, he said, "Okay, God. I get your point. If you can resolve this, I'll do whatever you want." The NEXT DAY resolution was in the works. In the end, he told us, he rededicated himself to the Lord. He said he's reading his Bible now. He went out and bought one and wanted another one--a translation I happened to have a spare copy of. Can you imagine the whiplash you would have gotten watching me get it for him?
That is why this particular verse is so important to me. "I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father." It's not just SOME of my children, but ALL of my children!
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