Moral Filth

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save. James 1:19-21

What is moral filth? I’m currently reading God's Grace and the Homosexual Next Door by Alan Chambers. It talks about the extreme attitudes towards homosexuality. Some are active trying to make homosexuality part of mainstream, normal society and others are vocal about how much they hate not only homosexuality but also homosexuals and take every opportunity they can to spew their conviction that homosexuals are the epitome of moral filth, the worst of the worst.

But when I read the verses above from James, I see no mention at all of homosexuality. Instead, James seems to define moral filth and evil as being slow to listen, quick to speak and quick to become angry. Ouch! There are a lot more of us guilty of these evils and moral filth than there are homosexuals. Could it be that those carrying placards with hateful messages of hell are in greater danger of hell than those they are targeting?

“Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” I know that twice this week I blew up in anger and was quick to say things I shouldn’t have. I didn’t take the time to really listen. This is a great evil and morally filthy. In fact, James goes on to say:

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (vs. 26, 27)

The things that jump out at me here are the tongue and pollution. There seems to be a connection and the theme seems to continue from verses 19-21. Be slow to speak. Keep a tight rein on your tongue for not doing this makes you morally filthy and polluted by the world.

I know I have some filth and pollution to clean out of my life. What about you?

Father, I haven’t always been quick to listen, slow to talk and slow to become angry. I’ve been wrong. Please forgive me. Change me, God, so that my tongue creates no more filthy pollution. Give me opportunities to learn this and when you do, please remind me of how you want me to respond. In Jesus’ name.

Perseverance

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. … Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.” James 1:2-4, 12

I read James 1 last night. It said so much to me that I never got past that chapter. I’m hoping I can remember all the thoughts that came to me while I was reading and re-reading. This progression stood out to me:

Trials-->Perseverance-->Maturity/Completeness-->Crown of Life.

We need the trials. Without them we won’t learn to persevere and without perseverance we won’t mature.

What does perseverance look like? And how do trials produce it? Maybe we need to start by thinking about what trials are. The whole of verses 2-18 seems to be on this topic. I find it interesting that right after James says how we are blessed if we persevere under trial, he begins to talk about temptations:

“When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone: but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

So here we have another progression:

Temptations-->Desire-->Sin-->Death

It seems to me that James is equating trials to temptations. If you give in, it will lead to death. If you don’t give in, it will lead to life.

Trials and temptations come to us in many forms with some seeming to be more significant than others. No one would disagree that when a Christian in a hostile country is faced with the decision to renounce Christ or die that that is huge. The temptation, of course, is to choose life. I believe, however, that each decision we make in temptation/trials is significant. Each decision we make leads towards either life or death, whether it is how we respond to someone’s anger, pain or need or whether it is a blatant choice between God and something else (life, reputation, money, etc.).

So what is perseverance? It is continually making the choice that leads to life—in the big things and the small, in the significant and the insignificant. It often means making hard choices. It means making those choices over and over and over again despite how weary we are of having to do so. It means choosing God as my comforter instead of food, drink, fantasies, sleep, illicit sex or giving up in hopelessness. It means forgiving the same offense from the same person multiple times a day, year after year and not stopping. It means persistently get up for church every Sunday for a hundred years (if you live that long), reading your Bible daily for all those years, keeping your mind and thoughts continually on God all day despite the circumstances and never giving up. It doesn’t mean we never fall. Rather it means that every time we fall, we get back up and begin again.

Though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity. Proverbs 14:16

When we do this in the little things and the big, we develop spiritual maturity and become complete in Christ. THESE are the circumstances under which we will receive the crown of life. Is this earning our salvation? No. It is demonstrating our love for God. Check out verse 12 again. God has promised the crown of life to those who love him—who have stood the test of persevering under trial. This raises the question for me: if I am not persevering in trials/temptations and making right choices as a way of life, how much do I really love God? Maybe not as much as I thought.

God, I want to persevere and not give up. Please help me! Enable me to be like the little child learning to walk who keeps getting up and trying again every time she falls. And if learning perseverance requires trials and temptations, please don’t stop them but instead give me strength and courage to persevere through them.

Difficult Times

I haven't been writing here much in the past week or so. Easter was a difficult time for me for some reason and the difficulty has continued into this week.

I do know that God is good, even when everything around me seems bad. As Job said, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

A Blessed Easter!

Christ is Risen!

He has Risen Indeed!

Life and Love or Death and Hatred?

I have in my possession The Book of Common Prayer published in 1885 for use by The Church of England. I don’t often open it but today I did. One section is entitled “The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels to be used throughout the Year,” where I found the pages for Good Friday. The passage from the epistles is Hebrews 10:1-25 and from the gospels is John 19:1-37. But what grabbed my attention was one of the three collects:

O Merciful God, who has made all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor wouldest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live; Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to they flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, and be made one fold under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

What really struck me was the contrast between this prayer for “infidels” and Islam’s view and “solution” for infidels. One seeks restoration for them with God and the other seeks their destruction.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? Ezekiel 18: 23

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

This is what Good Friday is all about. God loves all those he made and wants everyone to live in union with him forever. Our war cry is not one of death and hatred but one of life and love.

Today Canada, the United States of America and other so-called Christian nations are on the battlefield in Islamic countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of our men and women have died fighting for what our countries believe is right—freedom from oppression of any kind. This belief in and desire for freedom springs from our Christian heritage so that even those who have abandoned the way of Jesus continue to hold onto many of his ways.

Freedom. Life. Love. We honour these because 2000 years ago Jesus chose to die a tortuous death on a wooden pole stuck into the ground. How are we honouring his death and his love for us? Have you accepted the gift of grace and forgiveness that is possible because of his death? Have you chosen to make him Lord of your life and Lover of your soul? Have you committed all your ways—your past, present and future—into his hands to do with as he chooses? Have you allowed him to take your “ignorance, hardness of heart and contempt” of his Word and make him your Shepherd?

Jesus, I have no idea who’s reading this post today or in days to come but I pray for those who haven’t yet accepted your gift of life, love and freedom that they will see the love and passion you have for them and turn to all that you offer. I pray for the one who has, just now, made that decision to accept your gift and follow you. Bring other believers around this person to encourage, mentor and love him/her and fill him/her with your Holy Spirit.

If you are such a person, I would love to hear from you, either by e-mail or in a comment below. May God bless you.

While He Was Still Speaking….

“One day … a messenger came to Job and said, "The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabeans attacked and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!" While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, "The fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!" While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, "The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!" While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, "Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother's house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!" Job 1: 13-19

I’ve been studying Job with Oswald Chambers through his book “Baffled to Fight Better,” in The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers. The timing of this study is interesting in view of two phone calls I received Monday night.

We had gone to bed. I had taken my sleeping medication 40 minutes before and was about to turn off the light when my mom called. About a month ago one of my sisters discovered she has malignant melanoma when a mole was removed from her ankle. A week ago this past Monday she went for surgery again to remove the cancer that remained at her ankle and to remove the sentinel lymph node to see if the cancer had spread that far. My mom was calling to say that the results were back and there is cancer in the lymph nodes. Next week we will find out if the cancer has moved further.

Understandably, my mom was rather upset. She’s buried two husbands, a daughter, a step-son, a step-daughter and a man who wanted to be her third husband. Enough already! So we talked a bit. And by the time we were finished, she was feeling better. But the queasiness that had been in my stomach when I went to bed had now turned into a migraine. I lay in bed, churning the news of my sister’s health in my head and knew that between my mind and my migraine I wasn’t going to sleep. So I took a Tylenol-3 I happened to have on hand.

I was really groggy, though not quite asleep, when Tom, who had left the room, came in, turned on the light and shook me gently with an urgent voice. A long time friend had called to let us know that one of our sons had been in an accident. Tom was already half dressed, getting ready to run to the rescue but it took some time to figure out the whole story—partly because this son likes to embellish his adventures and partly because there were details he couldn’t remember or wasn’t sure of.

It seems he was riding his bike down a major thoroughfare, two lanes each direction, passing a parked car that chose the very moment he was beside the car, to start moving, pushing him into the other lane where a bus happened to driving. The bus hit him and drove over his bike. Amazingly, except for a pulled muscle in his neck and some bruises, he’s fine. But what a night!

It puts the whole story of Job in perspective, though the messengers on the phone did not bring nearly as bad news as Job received. What do we do when disaster strikes? When our world falls apart? When messengers start coming one after another to bring bad news? What do we do? What did Job do?

“At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: ‘naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.’” Job 1:20, 21

I must admit that my first response was not to fall to the ground in worship. Can I praise God when bad things happen? What if the outcome had been different for my son and we were going to the morgue instead of the hospital? Could I worship and praise God then? Is worship and praise reserved only for when good things happen and we are happy? The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. He is always worthy of worship and praise. Can I remember this if my sister receives the worst possible news regarding the cancer? Can you when you receive bad news?

Lord, I want to be able speak, do and believe as Job did when worse than the worst struck him in half an hour. Forgive my slowness to do this and bring me so close to you that my confidence is never shattered by what happens to or around me and those I love.

"Scenes from the Passion of Christ"

I subscribe to Art of the Day on my igoogle home page. Each day a new photo of a work of art inspired by some story in the Bible appears on my computer screen. I love them!

Today's work of art especially appeals to me because of the extreme detail. The painting by Hans Memling is from the fifteenth century, and places the scenes of "Holy Week" scattered in and around a medieval walled city. If you go here there are "hotspots" over which, when you hover your mouse, a description of that scene appears.

Holy Week. What does it mean to you? Do you mark this week as different in any way? As you go through the week, are you conscious of what was happening in Jesus' life on each of the days? Does your church offer special services for any or all of the days? Do you eat a special meal on Maundy Thursday to remember the Last Supper? Do you pause often throughout Good Friday and recall what part of the crucifixion was happening at that hour? Do you spend Saturday in contemplative silence as you consider Christ in the tomb? How do you celebrate Easter? Do the children in your life know Easter primarily as a day for chocolate and bunnies or is the joy of Christ's resurrection the theme of your day?

This week, one of things I'm doing is making this painting the wallpaper for my computer desktop so that I will have a constant reminder in front of me of what this week is about. What will you be doing?

A New Church Home--Week of Prayer

My intention with church was to not make a definite decision about where I was going to call “home” until the summer. I figured that, even if I stayed at the Winnipeg Centre Vineyard, I would spend the first several months simply observing. The week of prayer changed that.

It began with 24 hours of non-stop prayer, beginning Saturday evening, in the Comfy Couch Room transformed into a prayer boudoir. I use that term to describe it because of the bolts of various kinds of chiffon in different shades of red draped from the ceiling to create a mood of intimacy and closeness. Around the room were various stations, most faced with an overstuffed, leather-covered couch on which to relax while praying. Much prayer, thought and creativity had been used to create a place one was reluctant to leave and that at least one person wished could remain beyond the time for which it was created.

The first station made me think of the Cloud of Unknowning and I probably spent the most time here. A quilt hung from the wall depicting a seashore with large breakers rolling in. Above were little lights, reminiscent of stars, shining through chiffon. Below was a shallow lamp filled with water that rose in visible vapour creating what I thought of as small clouds.

Something the pastor said the next day in his sermon led me to return to this station on a subsequent evening and look at the passages in the Bible where “cloud” or “clouds” are mentioned. I found it interesting that in most places the cloud(s) were associated with the presence of God—which is exactly what I sensed at this station designated for soaking in God’s presence.

Another station, focused on family wholeness, was dominated by a tipi big enough for one person to crawl inside. This is fitting given the large aboriginal population in the church. The floor of the tipi was covered with thin animal hides, furry pelts hung from the frame and various items of aboriginal and family significance were positioned around the perimeter.

There was a station for confession—a large bowl of sand in which to write one’s confession and then erase with a swipe of the hand, a large cross on which we could pin bits of paper with things we were confessing and a large bowl into which we could relinquish smooth stones which represented the burdens we were carrying. Another station connected us with Christians of more ancient times and some of the prayers they prayed. One station focused on prayer for the nations and was overflowing with items from a number of countries in the 10-40 window. A table was spread with magazines, paper, scissors, glue and more for those who have a more hands-on approach to prayer and finally, there was a station at which one could take communion.

Across the hall was another room for prayer prepared by the youth group. In one bricked corner a group of artificial trees gathered like a garden, covered by a canvas canopy and smooth pea-gravel beneath. In another corner was a place of lamentation walled in by canvas curtains. Inside was the look of abandonment—a place where unwanted debris was tossed. In the centre was an anvil and hammer. The visitor to this corner was invited to wail out in their despair or strike the hammer against the anvil in their anger. The kids did an awesome job of creating this corner.

But it was the prayer meetings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights that was the seal for me. I’m guessing the church population on a Sunday morning is about 200 – 300. The prayer meetings were attended by 17 – 25, with a good cross-section of ages and ethnicity. What amazed me was the connection these people have with God. These prayer meetings weren’t dull, boring, monotonous prayers of individuals as they took their turn around the circle. No!

The foundation was worship with music. We began to sing and as something came to mind to someone, a prayer, a scripture passage, a picture God was showing them, that person would begin to speak out. Sometimes we would immediately return to singing but other times what was spoke would trigger something in someone else who would have something to add—perhaps another picture related, or scripture, or a dream they’d had recently that spoke to what was said. It was a time of dynamic interaction, the group as a whole interacting with each other and with God in communal conversation with our Creator. No one was too young, too unimportant, too insignificant to participate, although I kept quiet and simply observed. Sometimes we were invited to pair off and pray for each other. One night we divided into male/female groups and the women spent an hour or more praying over the needs of one woman in our midst. A couple of times someone sitting beside me turned and asked if she could pray for me—total strangers but what a blessing!

Tuesday evening I sat, looking at those around me gathered for prayer and all I could do was thank God for bringing me to such people who love to pray and have evident experience in doing this often. Although earlier that day I could barely force myself to do things I love to do (depression is a terrible weight to be under), I was so lightened and buoyed by simply being present with these praying people that when I got home, had it not been so late, I could have started some major housecleaning. Amazing! The next night (which is when different people offered to pray for me—not on previous nights) someone told me as she was leaving that I was glowing. I certainly was inside!

And so I embrace this church. There is much I can learn from them and I have a sense of richness by being in their midst.

Thank you, Father, for your people who pray—who not only love to speak to you but who also know how to listen for what you have to say in return. Thank you for their love for you and their love for those around them. Bless them—communally and individually!

A New Church Home Part II

(Disclaimer: Some of the following information is based on my memory of what I've heard and been told in the past. My memory has been known to make mistakes. If someone reading this sees any inaccuracies, please inform me either in a comment or via e-mail.)

The church is in the heart of the neediest part of town. Prostitutes wait for customers beneath the church windows. Drunken brawls take place outside the tavern across the street. Too poor for other drugs, sniffers carry paper bags hiding baby food jars of glue--five dollars a pop. Homelessness, poverty, violence, alcohol, drugs, gangs and murder are common fare.

Winnipeg Centre Vineyard was founded by David Ruis who had (and, I'm sure, still has) a passion for the oppressed, to bring them the justice and mercy of God. For this reason, the location of the church is intentional. What better place for a house of God than in the centre of hell?

The brick building is an old tractor factory, four stories high. Looking from the outside, it is easy to see that the fourth floor has yet to be refurbished. The windows are old, cracked and dirty. I haven't yet visited the upper floors but the main floor is impressive with massive wooden beams two feet wide supported by square, wooden pillars that block the view of those unfortunate enough to sit behind them. The interior walls are brick and to one side of the sanctuary platform is an enormous weigh scale that has been preserved intact. Behind the platform are the old truck bays with all but one door closed and blocked up. Above the sanctuary are pipes of assorted sizes, uses and ages. I've sat in my metal folding chair looking up and wondering.

What a variety of people! Suburbanites with pricey haircuts and the homeless with tangled hair; white and aboriginal; babies and toddlers galore, many twenty- and thirty-somethings and only a few grey heads. Jeans are the most popular attire and no suits. It's a casual and very comfortable, inviting place to be. At the back is a constant flow of people coming and going in and out of the building or from one place to another. No one seems disturbed by the activity and sometimes it's encouraged.

I think of one recent Sunday. First a young couple were being introduced to the congregation as new members. After they told a bit of their story the pastor directed them to a corner and invited those in the congregation who know the couple to gather around them and pray. While people were moving to do this, he called up a number of couples who had babies to dedicate. After each family said a few words they were sent to various places in the sanctuary to also, separately, be surrounded by those who knew them to pray for them. While this movement and prayer was happening, the pastor started the baptism. Three women were baptised by immersion in what looked to be a temporary tank holding what was obviously very cold water. They each deserved a medal for being brave enough to walk into the tank and be dunked under and, again, as each left the tank, family and friends were invited to gather around them to pray.

There's always about an hour of singing and worship to begin with but after that, it's a bit unpredictable. For instance, for the Sunday described above, there was no sermon--the service ended with communion. Other times we've been directed to get into groups to discuss something that is being preached on or to pray for each other. Every service ends with an opportunity to be prayed for.

So why have I fallen in love with this church? I'm not really sure but the following elements are part of it: I know many of the songs (don't laugh at the smallness of this--music is important!); people are free to dance and move to the music in an attitude of worship; the lack of homogeneity and mix of polished and rough, rich and poor, sophisticated and simple; it doesn't matter how you're dressed, you're welcome.

This is a church that does what it preaches and is successful in doing it. In the two and a half months I've been attending, a woman living in one of the near-by "flea-bitten" hotels (known more for the quantities of alcohol served not for their inviting rooms) has been baptised, a woman who had just gone into detox phoned the pastor during the sermon and he held up his cell phone so we could all give her our encouragement, a former prostitute from beneath the church windows has now been 5-months crack-free and is hoping to begin school in the fall to become a pastor.

I think the final deciding factor for choosing this church, however, was this past week of prayer. That in itself deserves its own post and so I will stop for now and continue the story another day.

Thank you, God, for this church that doesn't mind getting itself dirty in meeting the needs of the disenfranchised, the poorest of the poor, those with the ugliest lifestyles. Thank you for a people who honour you in the way they treat others: with dignity, love and the humility of Christ. Thank you for a church that has chosen to step out of the box to do what you've called it to do.

A New Church Home

The house church I loved so much closed. The pastors moved on and all but five of us went looking for new places to worship. The five who remained found the church reshaped by new leadership in every way. For nearly two and a half years I tried to adjust to the new ways and finally was forced to say that it simply wasn’t a fit for me. The fourth Sunday in Advent this past year was my last day. It was hard to leave because I love the people. It’s a good church and is doing awesome things for God but it had become very evident that my time there was over.

So I went church hunting. I didn’t need to search for long. When I entered the first church on my list, it felt like I had come home. Two and a half months later all I can say is, “Thank you God for bringing me here.”

There is much I want to share but I hardly know where to begin. Do I describe for you the uniqueness of the building? The neighbourhood of the church? The variety of people who attend? The incredible connection these people have with God? This past week has been a week of prayer. Do I describe what I’ve observed and experienced? Where do I start?

Perhaps I won’t, for now. But I will.

Father, thank you for bringing me “home”; for bringing me to a church that will stretch my understanding of and faith in you. Thank you for this church and for the people there. Thank you for all you have done for me and all you have yet to do. Thank you for YOU.

Why Do I Love Him?

“Satan replied to the Lord, ‘Yes, Job fears God, but not without good reason! You have always protected him…. You have made him prosperous.... But take away everything he has and he will surely curse you to your face!’” Job 1:9-11 NLT

On what is my love for God based? Is the only reason I love him because I live in a comfortable house in a nice neighbourhood? Because I have a husband who excels at his job and acts exceedingly responsible in the matters of finance and physical security? Because God has given us four delightful sons who have become young men who give us a great deal of pride and joy? Why do I love him?

Would I still love him if I lost my home, my financial security and my family and found myself living on the streets? Would I love him if I was in constant pain or put into an institution where all control over my life was taken away? Would I love him if everyone I know turned against me with anger and venom? Why do I love him?

Oswald Chambers rewords Satan’s accusation to God to say, “You are infatuated with the idea that man loves you for your own sake,”* implying that no one would. Is that true of me? Do I love God simply because of who he is or is my love dependent on the gifts he gives?

It’s an interesting question, especially in view of the book I’m currently reading: Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist by John Piper. Piper says things like: “In the end the heart longs not for any of God’s good gifts, but for God himself.” (p.87)

Chambers asks, “Will I trust the revelation given of God by Jesus Christ when everything in my personal experience flatly contradicts it?”* Job was pushed to the wall on this question and still he could say, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” (Job 13:15 NKJV) The martyrs now and through the ages said the same thing. Would I? Would you?


The Unseen Universe” in “Baffled to Fight Better” in The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers. p.46, 47

Satisfaction

Satisfaction is the deadliest form of spiritual heart disease. Melanie Hemry in A Healing Touch

Responsible for What You Know

“Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” James 3:1 NIV

It was the middle of the night. The only ones to respond to the sudden death in x-ray at the hospital was a medical student, a doctor and a young cardiac nurse. Together they did what they could to bring the man back to life. Then the doctor, a pathologist more accustomed to bodies in the morgue, misunderstood the heart line on the monitor and ordered an injection of a drug the young nurse knew would be fatal.

What to do? How dare she contradict the far more educated doctor? And yet, the state law said that she is responsible for what she knows. If a doctor orders something that the nurse knows is wrong, if she follows orders and the patient dies, she is responsible.

She not only refused to give the injection but when the doctor angrily prepared the syringe to give it himself, she grabbed hold of his arm to stop him, refusing to let go regardless of the struggle. In anger the doctor walked out of the room promising to fire her in the morning. The patient lived because of her intervention and she was never fired.

Responsible for what you know. That’s a sobering thought. I’ve read my Bible more times that I know. I’ve sat under very knowledgeable preachers and teachers. I’ve been memorizing Scripture since I could talk. I know a lot. Am I living by what I know or have I learned things that I’ve chosen to shove aside because they’re not convenient, comfortable or considered acceptable?

What about you?

The Water Lily

Several years ago I was blessed to have someone take two long Friday evenings to walk me through Neil Anderson’s Steps to Freedom in Christ, with three others gathered around us praying and interceding. It was an exhausting time as I faced a multitude of sins in my life that I did not want to admit so that I could renounce them and become free of them.

After the step of Forgiveness, during which I recalled all the people who had wounded me and how that wounding felt and then forgave each person for their sin against me, one of the intercessors described a picture that had come to her while she was praying. The picture was of a water lily—exquisite, pure white, beautiful—and how this now described me—accepted by God with joy.

It’s been a symbol to me of forgiveness ever since—of how God has forgiven me and for me to continue being a forgiving person. In my prayer room I have a mounted photograph of several water lilies in a pond and my custom is that when I come to it, I thank God for his forgiveness and renew my commitment to be forgiving.

I had actually forgotten the part of the picture that described the water lily as exquisite, pure white and beautiful until yesterday when a small piece of paper fluttered out of a Bible I seldom use. On that paper, the various pictures and messages the intercessors were given that night are written.

And so this morning as I came to the water lilies in my prayer time, I thanked God for his forgiveness and for how his forgiveness has made me pure, white and beautiful in his sight. And then, as I began to pray about forgiving others, it hit me. When I forgive someone, I am, in essence, making them pure, white and beautiful in my sight. Wow! Can I truly see those who have hurt me as pure, white and beautiful? It gives a whole new meaning to forgiveness; one that’s going to require some chewing on before the fit is comfortable.

God, when you forgive me, you make me pure and spotless in your eyes. I’m not sure I can do that to others. If I can’t, does that mean I haven’t truly forgiven? Can I wipe the stain away from my view of them so I see them as you see them when you forgive them? This is radical thinking for me, God. Please help me as I try to follow you in this.

Don't Waste His Grace

“In our work together with God, then, we beg you who have received God's grace not to let it be wasted.” 2 Corinthians 6:1 (Good News Translation)

If you believe that Jesus Christ is everything he said he is and have accepted the forgiveness and life he gave at the cross, you have received God’s grace. But what are you doing with that grace? Are you wasting it by not calling on God in time of need—large or small?

Verse four reads, “In everything we do we show that we are God’s servants by patiently enduring troubles, hardships, and difficulties.” And the following six verses list all the troubles, hardships and difficulties that Paul and his companions endured with patience: Beaten, jailed, mobbed, overworked, hungry, sleepless, disgraced, insulted, treated as liars and so on. How did they endure? By calling on God’s grace in time of need.

In verse two, Paul shows us what God’s grace to us is: “’When the time came for me to show you favour, I heard you; when the day arrived for me to save you, I helped you.’ Listen! This is the hour to receive God’s favour; today is the day to be saved.” Today. Right now. Did the dog just come into the house with muddy feet? God has grace for you. Did three different telemarketing calls come in a row just as you were sitting down for dinner? God has grace for you. Do you want to tell your co-worker that you’ll pray for her but are afraid of what she’ll say? God has grace for you. Is it Sunday morning and you just don’t want to get up and go to church? God has grace for you. Are you struggling with a sin in your life you can’t seem to get rid of? God has grace for you and that grace is now, at the moment of need—if we but ask and then receive. God’s grace enables us to go through all difficulties without being an embarrassment to him.

I think my difficulty in this, many times, is that I forget to ask. Sometimes God is the last one I call upon in time of need. Instead I go to friends or food or hide in bed or find some other way to deal with things. What can I do to ensure that God and his grace are my first line of defense instead of my last? I believe it is by laying a strong foundation of God being ever present in my life and thoughts.

Leanne Payne, a favourite author of mine, talks about “practicing the presence of God.” John Piper encourages his readers to pursue the pleasure of God. Tommy Tenney writes about chasing after God. When God and relationship with him is our goal, we will find more and more that he permeates all we think, say and do. When that is true, we won’t forget to call out to him because we’re doing it all the time—whether we are honoured or disgraced, insulted or praised, in sorrow or in joy, rich or poor (verses 8-10).

Father I don’t want to waste the grace you have given me. You delight to hear, show favour and save—from big things and small. Help me to so walk with you that you are my first thought in times of trouble and in times of joy.

Silence

"The Lord said, 'Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.' Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, 'What are you doing here, Elijah?'" 1 Kings 19:11-13 NIV

We live in a noisy world. At home the clock ticks, the fridge hums, the TV blares. At work the phones ring, the heating/cooling system fans whirr, typewriter keys clack. Walking downtown the traffic roars, reversing trucks bleep and traffic lights send out their signals to the blind. We rarely find silence and yet it is in silence that we best hear God.

Where do you go and what do you do to escape the noises both around and within you?

Stand Firm

“Stand firm in the faith.” 1 Corinthians 16:13 NIV

“Put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then….” Ephesians 6:13 NIV

Oswald Chambers points out that it is easier to fight than to stand but “our conflict is not so much a fight as a standing on guard.”* It is easy to go on the attack—attacking homosexuals for the lives they lead; attacking the abortion industry; attacking the education and judicial systems for removing prayer and/or symbols of Christianity from their midst—but how do we stand?

How do I stand? What do I do when the “little” things come along to test my faith and my obedience? Do I continue to stand or do I bend because “it’s no big deal” or “no one will ever know”? A well-known American pastor was part of the visible fight against homosexuality but it turned out that in his private life he was doing the very thing he was fighting against. He could fight but he could not stand. I too have done this. I told my husband one day that I didn’t want our homosexual neighbour to come into our home anymore. But what was I doing in the dark recesses of my mind? Fantasising about being with other women.

I want to be someone who can stand as a bulwark against “the day of evil”; to be able to say no to the enticing, the comfortable, the “acceptable” if they are contrary to God’s will. Do I have faith that God’s Spirit is in me, giving me guidance; faith in God’s love for me and faith that he will do what is best for me so that I can go ahead and obey whatever he tells me because of this faith? Can I stand firm and not give in? Can you?

Father, there are many things that keep me from standing firm: desire for my own comfort, preferring what’s easy instead of what’s right and fear—fear of rejection, fear of what others will think, fear of the unknown. Please give me faith to trust your Spirit’s whispers to me, to trust your love for me and to trust you, so that when all is done, I am still standing.


*“Irresistible Discipleship” in “Facing Reality” in The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers page 39.

Nudges from God

I finished reading Healing Touch: The Power of Prayer by Melanie Hemry a couple of weeks ago but only now am I taking the time to think through the section at the end of each chapter called Heart Check. Hemry was an intensive care nurse for many years and uses stories of her experiences to teach us about prayer. It’s an awesome book and worth reading.

In her first chapter she tells the story of her first night as team leader in ICU. One open-heart surgery patient caught her attention. Something just wasn’t right so she called the surgeon on call. He asked her several questions, which she answered, and then told her she was wrong and to not call him again that night. But the dull nagging wouldn’t leave her. If she was right, this patient would die. If she was wrong and called the senior surgeon away from the party he was hosting at home, she would lose her career. What to do? Deciding that death is more permanent than career she called the doctor. If she was right, the patient needed immediate surgery. If she was wrong, the surgery weaken his already exhausted system. As the two doctors rushed the patient to surgery, the senior one said to the nurse, “You’d better be right!” It turns out she was. The man’s life was saved and the surgeon on call was forced to apologize and wish her happy birthday. She was 21.

Just a little nudge but such serious consequences no matter what she chose to do. She writes, “Because God’s ways are higher than ours, his nudges don’t always make sense to the natural mind. Will there be times when what you thought was a nudge from God was really your own misplaced idea? Absolutely! But you will never learn the difference unless you pay attention to those quiet spiritual directions and pray, asking God to lead you.”

It was a few years ago that I began to be aware that God speaks to us with little nudges. I don’t remember what precipitated this but I decided that I should pay more attention to them. Maybe it was when I found myself arguing against them and wondered why. At first it was little things like closing the back gate and locking the door when I went out. I really don’t want to be bothered doing either but it’s important to Tom. “Okay, God. I’ll do it.”

I think about the story purportedly by Beth Moore where she felt not only nudged but pushed to go over to an elderly man in a wheelchair waiting at the airport gate for his flight and brush his hair. She felt very foolish going up to him and asking him if she could but he agreed and she brushed out all his tangles. It was afterwards that she learned he was going back home to his bride of many, many years after major surgery and was worried about how he would look when she met him. He boarded the plane sobbing with gratitude for Beth. What if she had ignored the nudge?

I think too of the woman who, at the last minute, decided to not board the plane she was waiting for. That plane crashed, killing all on board. Someone asked her why she hadn’t gone on it.

“God told me not to.”

“Why didn’t he tell the others not to as well?”

“He did. They just weren’t listening.”

How do we listen? How do we learn to recognize the little nudges that come from God? By getting to know him. How do we do that?

Hemry has some suggestions:

Read the Bible every day. “Day by day and year by year, you’ll know him more deeply.”

Spend time talking with him—in times of special conversation and also throughout the day.

Ask him to help you see what you see through his eyes.

Pursue God; not just the blessings, not the outward forms of Christianity, not even ways you can serve him, but God himself. [The author doesn’t put it quite like that. The wording I’m using here is influenced by another book I’m reading: Desiring God by John Piper.]

Lord, I want to hear your voice and follow your bidding. I want to be able to do this in little things as well as big. Open my ears so I can hear what you want to tell me. Open my eyes so I can see what you want to show me. Open my will so that my only desires are your desires. And help me to walk in obedience regardless of the cost.

Believe

“Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” John 6:29 NIV

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” “Believe in God, believe also in me.” “He who believes has everlasting life.” Belief is obviously a very important thing when it comes to Jesus but what exactly did he and the New Testament writers mean when they used that word? Is it mental assent? Is the work of God to give mental assent to the notion that Jesus died to save us from our sins and/or to the idea that Jesus is God? I fear that many think this way to their peril, agreeing with these truths and then going on to live unchanged lives.

I like what Oswald Chambers has to say about belief. “With our Lord to believe means to commit. ‘Commit yourself to me,’ and it takes a man [or woman] all he is worth to believe in Jesus Christ.” “…whatever happens we will hang in to the fact that he is true.” We believe “not about him, but in him.” “Every…wrong-doing in spiritual life begins when we cease believing in Jesus Christ.” “…if we believe in Him, no matter how dark the passage is we shall be carried right through and when the crisis is passed our souls will have been built up into a stronger attitude towards Him.” “He shifts the centre of our confidence” from ourselves and other people to God. “…we stake our all on Jesus Christ’s honour.” “…to be a believer in Jesus Christ is to have an irrepressible belief and a life of uncrushable gaiety.” “To be a believer in Jesus Christ means we are committed to his way of looking at everything.” “The great lodestar of our life is—‘I believe in Jesus Christ, and in everything on which I form an opinion I make room for him and find out his attitude.” “…don’t worry about anything but your relationship to [Jesus].” “Many know a good deal about salvation, but not much about this intense patience of ‘hanging in’ in perfect certainty to the fact that what Jesus Christ says is true.”*

Commitment. Jesus himself is true. The centre of our confidence shifts. Uncrushable gaiety. Commited to his way of looking at everything. A focus on relationship with Jesus. Intense patience. Do these describe my belief in Jesus? Do they describe yours?

Jesus, I want my belief in you to be more than mental assent that you are who you say you are. I want to live my life in a way that depends on you being who you say you are and that would fall apart if you’re not. I choose to centre my confidence on you and no one or nothing else. I want my thoughts to be your thoughts, to wait patiently in the darkness that often surrounds me, knowing that you are in control and to be totally committed to you and your ways regardless of the cost. Lord, please give me uncrushable gaiety because you are who you are and nothing will change that.


*All quotes taken from “The Great Life” in “Facing Reality” in The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers pages 37, 38.

Where You Do Not Want to Go

“I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” John 21:18 NIV

The following verse indicates that this was a prediction of how Peter would die but Oswald Chambers uses it to discuss two stages in a believer’s life: The new believer who still determines her own course and the mature believer who has submitted her will and all of who she is, does, thinks and says to God.

Immediately before this verse, Jesus has just finished asking Peter for the third time if he loves him and, when he says yes, for the third time tells him to “Feed my sheep.” His words immediately following this verse are, “Follow me.” Could Jesus be saying, “Feed my sheep and follow me even though this will lead you to where you do not want to go”? I think so.

We live in an age of individual independence but Chambers says “We are built for God, Himself. … Since we became disciples of Jesus we cannot be as independent as we used to be. … He expects nothing less than absolute oneness with Himself.” I certainly can’t be one with Jesus if I’m going in different directions from him, can I?

I like adventure. There is something about facing the rarely done and/or the seemingly insurmountable and succeeding. One of my favourite things to do is to get into the car and drive for days on end, alone, through states and provinces: going places I’ve never been before, doing things I’ve never done before and visiting friends I’ve never met before. Although I grew up and live in the flat emptiness of Manitoba, I love the challenge of finding my way through the maze of highways and exits in places like Chicago, Kansas City and Dallas (I haven’t been to the east or west coasts of the US yet) and when I take a wrong turn I love the challenge of finding my way back to where I belong.

Following Jesus is such an adventure. Chambers says that God “will plant us down amongst all kinds of people and give us the amazing joy of proving ourselves ‘a living sacrifice’ in those circumstances.” We will find ourselves going places and doing things we would never have chosen on our own and discover the thrill of succeeding with the seemingly impossible.

Have you discovered the thrill of obedience?

Father, I want to go where you lead me and do what you tell me even though it often seems to go against everything I want. Please help me to remember always the joy and pleasure I have experienced in the past when I go your way instead of mine and keep me ever in your will.