Greater love...

“The hard thing is to stay.” These words, spoken in a brief conversation tonight, pierced my soul, as I realized how true they were in almost every relationship (God, spouse, friend, family, parent, child…). Relationships take work to flourish and remain healthy; relationships are not always easy. What’s more, anything worthwhile requires a sacrifice from us, a true investment of ourselves, if you will.
So what happens when life become unsavory? What happens when the blue skies of relational bliss turn dark and stormy? Admittedly, when gale force winds and torrential rains pelt the ground and erode the foundations of a relationship, it would be easier to jump ship in search of calmer waters. This, however, is the exact opposite of how we are to respond.
For the last few weeks, my son has had some difficulties with transitioning into his new class (something that is compounded by the palpable stress that unfortunately permeates the atmosphere of our home as of late). He had chosen to manifest his frustrations by acting out. He knew what was expected of him, yet he chose to make poor decisions. One day, as I was explaining his consequences to him as we drove home, he began to get really upset. He pleaded at first, saying “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” I responded, “I am glad you are sorry. You can show me that you are sorry by changing your behavior in the future, but you still have consequences for your actions.” He, of course, didn’t like this and changed his tone and began to say things like, “you’re mean” and “I don’t like you.” By the time we pulled into the driveway, he decided he was going to leave, essentially run away. I, of course, followed him and brought him back home.
This whole scenario reminded me of the relationship we have with God. How many times have I been rebellious? How many times have I been angry (not saying I don’t like Him, but conveying that sentiment with my actions)? How have I responded to correction that comes from the depths of a love I can’t fully comprehend? He never leaves us! We, too, are to remain in Him. We are to abide.
I am reminded of John 15: Remain in me, and I will remain in you…"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
Greater love… Let’s face it; some people are hard to love. But, does this mean they are any less worthy of love? Of course not; especially if we are following Jesus’ example. I have found that those who are the most challenging to love actually need it the most. So, go ahead, love with reckless abandon, choose to walk the difficult long road with someone, seize the moment to speak truth into a situation, tell someone they matter, make a phone call, send an email, pray, lavish someone with an unexpected act of kindness and care…We are the hands and feet. What are we doing?
Leaving, turning away, ignoring are easy, it’s the staying that’s hard (but oh, so worthwhile)!

The Rosebushes

For fifteen weeks, as I walked to my early morning class, I'd pass by nearly a hundred different rosebushes. Most days I’d pick a rosebud to put in my hair. These roses were magnificent. Each one had a unique fragrance; from mild and sweet to spicy and perfumed. They were indeed extraordinary and each shared a common factor. As the day wore on and the rose opened, the fragrance would intensify. As the rose was actually dying, it would give off its strongest aroma that would permeate the air.

Now the garden rose differs greatly from the store-bought variety. Roses from a store are usually smaller and rarely emit much of a scent. When handling such roses, I would find many stems that were considered to be “bullets.” The bullets were small, closed tightly and most assuredly would not open, but rather die from the inside out. These bullets were automatically discarded.

There is a point to this. I often think of Jesus as being the “Master Gardener.” We can look at ourselves as His roses. We are all different, yet unified because we are adopted into God’s family, and therefore loved equally. When we sin and behave in a manner that is displeasing to God, He will not randomly discard us like worthless bullet roses. On the contrary, he waits and longs for us to turn to Him with repentant hearts and lives.

On one brisk winter morning, I arrived to find that all of the bushes had been cut back to mere stumps that resembled a vast graveyard of rosebushes. It reminded me that we are to be pruned. Pruning can sometimes (okay, most of the time) be painful and oftentimes it is a long process, but it is necessary. It is necessary for us to be fruitful, to live lives worthy of the calling and to continually learn what it means to die to self. We must put aside our own selfish ambitions and desires and to be able to trust in God’s ability to completely and utterly transform us when we wholeheartedly surrender and submit to His authority. Moreover, when we die to ourselves and live for Christ, then our lives will truly be a fragrant reminder to those around us of God’s redeeming love intended for all people.

Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)
So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life--and place it before God as an offering (a spiritual act of worship) Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, and develops well-formed maturity in you.

May we willingly hand Jesus the pruning shears.

Sheep and Dirty Whores. Oh, My!

I have been reflecting on sheep and their need for a shepherd.

Sheep need a good shepherd to lead them and care for them; Jesus is our shepherd -- the only Good Shepherd. Let's face it, sheep are kind of dumb...And as much as a shepherd will go after a wandering sheep, Jesus, too, goes after his wayward children. Shepherds of old would oftentimes break a sheep's legs when it was prone to wandering, which essentially put the sheep's life in danger. While the sheep is healing, it is completely dependent on the shepherd for everything. A deep bond is forged and when the sheep regains its mobility, it no longer has wanderlust but ultimately follows the shepherd whom it trusts unconditionally. So when you see pictures of Jesus portrayed as the Shepherd with a sheep around his shoulders, it, to me anyway, reflects the great love of the Savior that carries the broken - carries you and me.

In the same way, I think that God will break us for our own good when we are incapable of making sound choices, or are behaving like a rebellious sheep. David, lamenting during the aftermath of his adultery cries out, "Let the bones you have crushed [broken] rejoice" Psalm 51:8b. Make no mistake about it: God will break us in the areas that need to be submitted to him. Margaret Feinberg, in her book the organic God, says:

God manages to remind me that no matter what I have done or left undone, I am still his. He has created me and redeemed me and summons me to himself. No matter where I go, no matter what I pass through -- whatever elements of this world I'm exposed to -- his protection is secure. He is Lord. He is God. He is Holy. He is Savior. In my brokenness, imperfection, and sin, he whispers three holy words:
You are mine.

I. am. His. Nothing I can, or ever will do, can cause his love to be removed from me (Romans 8:38 - 39). My favorite Minor Prophet is probably Hosea (Please read it for yourselves; the following is an extremely brief synopsis). It is such a lovely and thorough picture of the depths of God's love for his children and his desire to redeem lives from the pit. Hosea takes a wife, Gomer, who is an adulteress, a prostitute, a harlot, a dirty whore. They have a son, Jezreel, whose name is a warning against Israel. Then Gomer has two illegitimate children: a daughter, whose name means "no mercy" or "she who never knew a father's love," and a son, whose name means "not my people." {ouch.}

Gomer leaves Hosea, but God commands him to go after her. He pays a ransom for her (sound familiar?). God's anger is mighty against a nation that has repeatedly turned their backs on him, but he couldn't write them off! His ultimate desire was to turn their Valley of Achor (translation: trouble) into a door of hope. The same is true for us today. No matter how many times we have whored ourselves out to other things, the God of unending grace and mercy desires to continually restore us and show us the way back to him, even if it takes a few {or many} broken bones.

This brings us full circle again to David and one of my favorite Psalms. May we never forget what the Lord has done for us! We are forever His.

Psalm 103

1 Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-
3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
6 The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
7 He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel:
8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.
15 As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field;
16 the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.
17 But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children-
18 with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.
19 The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.
20 Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word.
21 Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will.
22 Praise the LORD, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the LORD, O my soul.

When in Doubt

With all of my newly-found free time (well, not so much), I have been looking back on some of my old journals. One of them contained some pages on Scripture prayers that I had written out. I love praying Scripture; it totally takes some of the "guess work" out of praying in accordance to God's will because it's His Word! Psalm 119:11 says, "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you."

So, I thought I'd share:

Enable _____ this week to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 3:18

May _____ be filled with the joy of the Lord. 1 John 1:4

Motivate _____ to quickly and sincerely confess any and every sin they commit, assured that you will immediately forgive that sin and cleanse them from all unrighteousness when confession is made. 1 John 1:9

Empower _____ to do what you tell them to do and to learn to love you more and more. 1 John 2:5

Your word assures us that you are listening if we pray for that which is in harmony with your will. Give to _____ this confidence. 1 John 5:14

Empower _____ to stay away from anything or anybody that might take God's place (the #1 spot in their heart. 1 John 5:21

Encourage _____ to build up in their lives more strongly on the foundation of our holy faith; learning to pray in the power and strength of the Holy Spirit. Jude 20

May _____ delight in doing what you want them to do; meditating day and night on your word. Psalm 1:2

May _____ praise you no matter what happens. May they constantly speak of your glories and grace and boast of all your kindness to them. Psalm 34: 1-2

Enable _____ to be still and know that you are God. Psalm 46:10

Father, let _____ know that when they call on you, You will answer them and tell them great and unsearchable things they do not know. Jeremiah 33:3

Remind _____ that if they remain in you and your words remain in them, whatever they ask will be given to them. John 15:7

Urge _____ to pray continually with all kinds of prayers. I Thessalonians 5:17

Remove doubt from the mind of _____ so that when they ask they believe. James 1:16

The Threshing Floor

I love me some allegory :) Not only do I love reading it, but I also love writing about it. It is a weakness... Consider yourself forewarned.

I love autumn. It is my favorite season with spring coming in at a distant second. Unfortunately, I live in a climate that doesn't afford me the opportunity to witness actual honest-to-goodness seasonal changes. Nonetheless, that doesn't stop me from becoming ridiculously giddy for the earlier evenings and cooler weather (which sometimes doesn't arrive until November, but I digress).

Fall is also the time for harvesting. As I was reflecting upon this, I sense that it is time to go to the threshing floor. Now some may not like to make the connection that we are the wheat is this scenario, but that's where I am going (stay with me). The threshing floor is a place of blessing, but also of judgment. The wheat is harvested and brought to the threshing floor where it is struck and crushed. This is utterly necessary to separate the grain from the husks and false grain, called tares.

We are like the wheat with valuable, but sometimes hidden, kernels inside. God's mighty hand is ready to separate the grain from the chaff (husks). God is continually at work, and in the winnowing process, as we are crushed, the dry chaff and false tares fall away. What the chaff and tares represent are different for each of us. For some it is complacency, for others it's a divisive spirit (the list is endless). What's important here is that these things have no place in God's kingdom and are blown away with the wind.

The newly unveiled grain falls to the threshing floor in obedience, ready to be gathered up and used. What is God purposing you to do? What needs to be removed for you to obey?

I willingly go to the threshing floor and wait expectantly for the harvest...

"Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way! Thou art the potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me after thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still."

"C" is for Cookie

**I have been perusing some of my old journals and thought I'd share...


Few people are unfamiliar with the iconic, blue, furry, crazy-eyed Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. Every episode I have ever viewed includes Cookie Monster inevitably devouring a cookie (or two…or ten) all while helping to promote the “Letter-of-the-Day.”

One fateful morning when Jaden was younger, I lay on the couch suffering from a nasty combination of a cold and flu. In a feeble attempt to entertain Jaden, I flipped on PBS. Sesame Street was on and it seemed to gain his attention, for which I was grateful. Fast forward a few skits and there is Cookie Monster in his predictable scenario with the large chocolate chip cookie taunting him. Today’s “Letter-of-the-Day” was “D,” which the proud cookie displayed. Tormented at the prospect of gobbling up the cookie in one fell swoop, but knowing that he shouldn’t, he made a sign to help remind him of the right choice; it simply said, “DON’T.”

Faster than Oscar the Grouch can hurl insults from his can, Cookie Monster, in a whirlwind of garbled speech and flying blue fur, demolishes his sign in a frenzy. To his delight and surprise, the sign that once warned “DON’T” now emphatically says “DO.” As you can imagine, this was all the coaxing Cookie Monster needed to justify gobbling up the cookie.

Maybe it was the Nyquil that clouded my thinking, but in those few seconds my view of Cookie Monster drastically changed from innocuous blue monster to sinner. When we know something is clearly a “don’t,” but justify it as a “do,” it is ultimately sin – recognized or not. May we learn from Cookie Monster’s cautionary tale and heed the “don’ts" and may we ask:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23-24

In this case, I think Keith Green best sums it up with these lyrics:

Nothing lasts except the grace of God by which I stand, and Jesus, I know that I would surely fall away, except for grace by which I'm saved.