Opportunity

Recently I was asked to pray about if I'd give a devotional at an upcoming women's craft event at our church.

I'm not a public speaker.  Don't particularly like being in front of people.  Yet as I prayed about it, I felt like I should say yes.  But I waited a while thinking that maybe the impression to say yes would go away.  It didn't so I agreed to give the devotional.

Figured I'd share about what God's been teaching me lately.  Have to say I'm glad that this is a small event where there probably won't be more than 20 ladies in attendance.  But I  pray that God, in His goodness & mercy, would use what I say to minister what He wants to those women that come out.

Can you be uncompromising AND loving?

Seems like I've always struggled as I try to figure out the how of loving people, but not compromising concerning sin. This morning as I read 1 I Kings 18 I thought about this again.

During this time in Israel's history, the climate was to be "open minded". The king's wife set up worship places for both Baal and Asherah. As I seek to read between the lines in I Kings 15-18, it seems like the people are trying to make life work. I Kings 18:21 records that the people were silent when Elijah challenged them about who they believed in. It was as if they were trying to assume the mediocre stance of non commitment. While it could be easy to say how wrong they were; I can also see how easy it would be to fall into that, to just want to get along.

Sometimes I struggle with the same thing. When the media, people with whom I work, everywhere around me, is pointing out how intolerant and unloving Christians are. When these same sources are indicating that things that God clearly says are sin the Bible are just "choices" and that everyone is entitled to their own choices. In this climate I struggle. I struggle to find ways to show my love for people without compromising my own knowledge and beliefs about what is right and wrong.

I try to do this by not getting caught up in debates with unbelievers about moral issues; since they do not see the Bible as truth any way. At the same time, I do not change my own beliefs and if push comes to shove I will state my own thoughts (but I've found that frequently people are much more interested in sharing their own thoughts than listening to mine). I try to let God give me His love for people and look for opportunities to reach out to the people around me. Life is tough and people hurt; I try to notice what's going on with people and offer support and encouragement in both words and thoughtful actions. Yet....is that enough?

What about you, do you struggle with being loving and not compromising the truth? What are some things that you've found helpful?

I don’t have to defend myself

Today as I read 1 Kings 17:17-24 I was inspired by the actions of Elijah.

If you remember, this is the account where he had been living in Zarephath with a widow and her son. In 1 Kings 17:8-16 is the account of how he came to live with them. The account of how, in a time of drought and famine, God made this widow’s oil and flour never run out so that she could continue to feed the three of them. But then in these next verses the woman’s son becomes sick and dies.

In her grief and despair at her son’s death, the woman does as people are apt to do – she lashes out at those around her. In this case, that was Elijah. What inspired me though was Elijah’s response. What was conspicuously absent was self defense. I’ve got to tell you that when I’m attacked by someone, the first thing that I want to do is to explain myself, defend my actions. But Elijah didn’t; he was moved by her pain and went to God to intercede for her. He was more concerned about her grief than himself.

That I would be the same way.

Is Mercy only good when I'm receiving it?

Have you ever noticed that you like it when Mercy is extended to you, but resent it when "bad" people receive Mercy?

As an administrator, I've seen this frequently in the work place. Sometimes a supervisor will be displeased and upset when they've seen me extending grace toward another supervisor. When another supervisor has messed up and they see me coming alongside him to help him overcome his deficiency, instead of coming down on him and meting out punishment, sometimes that stirs up some resentment. But that same supervisor will be grateful for my kindness when it's him that's messed up.

I have an agnostic acquaintance who's voiced an aberration toward the God I follow, and one of the reasons is because he finds the whole mercy thing ridiculous. The fact that the Bible says that someone could live a "good" life and end up in hell, while someone else could live a "bad" life, and then repent and turn to God for salvation near the very end of his life, and get to spend eternity in God's presence - that doesn't seem reasonable or fair to him. I've agreed with him, that it's not fair. The truth is that every one of us deserves to spend eternity in damnation and separation from the Holy God. None of us is good enough, none of us is perfect, so on our own we can not come into the presence of a Holy God. It's only through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross in my place that I get to have a relationship with God.

But sometimes I've forgotten about all that.

Sometimes I've become so concerned about being surrendered to the laws of God, and doing things His way, that I forget about being surrendered to the purpose of God. Recently someone mentioned how much they liked a preacher named Andy Stanley, so I googled him, and while I was doing household tasks, I listened to a sermon of his from the book of Jonah. Stanley made this point during his sermon that really hit me:

"you become judgmental by being a very very good person who never surrenders to what God wants to do in the lives of people who are not as good as you are"

Oh gee, isn't that terrible?! And you know what? Sometimes I've been like that. But I never want to act like that again.

What about you, have you ever had problems with judgmental Christians? Have you ever been surprised to find that you've been judgmental? Is it easy or tough for you to extend mercy toward others? What helps you be merciful?

Ever heard of the FFRF?

To be candid, I hadn't.

But yesterday I read an article about them. FFRF stands for Freedom from Religion Foundation. It is a group of atheists and agnostics who claim a membership of around 14,000 across the United States.

Recently they've funded a bill board campaign in 10 states and more than 30 cities. Currently the billboards are in Detroit, Indianapolis and suburban St Louis. The billboards have a stained glass, religious, look to them and have these phrases : “Imagine No Religion” or “Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief”. In addition to billboards, the FFRF currently has 75 large bus displays in San Francisco that read “Imagine No Religion” or Mark Twain’s “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so”. Next month, the group plans a “billboard blitz” in Las Vegas.

Paul Pearson, a member of the Michigan FFRF, says that the goal of the campaign is: "an attempt at balancing the media messages of religion aimed at believers with some percentage aimed at unbelievers,” he also said that they want to let "unbelievers and those with healthy skeptical doubt know FFRF exists can give knowledge and comfort.”

I found this whole thing interesting.

Freedom of speech definitely means freedom for all, so I am not in opposition to their billboard blitz.

But it does pose the question for me - how do I respond to such a thing? As I think on it I hear the word - Pray. Pray that God use this to open doors to conversations about Faith. My prayer is that this be used to quicken a culture that doesn't even care about the subject of Faith to start talking about it. That we as Believers be ready, as the Bible instructs us to in 1 Peter 3:15-16 (NLT):

you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ.

What do you think about this whole thing?

How can we help out in the Phillipines?

There has been Massive flooding in the Philippines, set off by a tropical storm over the weekend, that has left at least 140 dead and prompted quick action from Christian relief groups. Catholic Relief Services Country Representative Luc Picard stated that: "Many of the people who have lost everything are sleeping in schools right now," "They're calling this the Katrina of the Philippines."

On Monday, the Philippine government appealed for international help after declaring a "state of calamity" in metropolitan Manila and 25 storm-hit provinces, including many that have not flooded before. Officials said more than 450,000 people were affected by the storm, including some 115,000 brought to about 200 schools, churches and other evacuation shelters.

A friend of mine asked me to comment about this and prompt others to help out financially. My friend lives in the Philippines and her concern is that those in the country itself to not have enough resources to provide all the assistance that is needed.

For seven years I have contributed monthly to an organization named World Vision. I've long known how blessed I am simply because I live in America and been mindful of the scripture in Luke 12:42-28 where Jesus explained an illustration about a master who entrusted various amounts of money to 3 different servants. In the second half of the 48th verse He makes this point:

When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required. (NLT)

My relationship with World Vision began back when God did something that seemed impossible to me at the time. As a single mother at that time, with 3 young sons, He blessed me with being able to purchase a condo without any money down. I was so grateful, and so conscious of God's goodness to me and how so much of the world lived in poverty, that I decided to see how I could give more. After researching Christian international relief groups, I found that there are lots of good ones out there but I really liked World Vision. Charity Navigator gave World Vision an exceptional four star rating with regard to“Efficiency” - the day to day financial operations, whether they maintain reasonable administrative costs and ensure that most spending is on programs. (Charity Navigator gave World Vision a three star rating with regard to "Capacity" because they don't think World Vision keeps enough money in reserves.) So I decided that, since I had 3 children of my own, I would sponsor 3 with World Vision. Just like my own, I got 3 boys (in fact I got them as close in age to my own as possible); 2 from the Philippines and 1 from Bolivia. Over the past 7 years it has been awesome to participate in this project and I've always been impressed with how World Vision does things.

As of this past Monday, World Vision had already been distributing relief packs by helicopter, in partnership with the Philippine Coastguard. World Vision is now aiming to target four of the worst affected areas of Manila – Marikina, Cainta, Rizal, Pasig – which are home to thousands of poor settlement homes based near rivers and in low-lying areas.

World Vision is also planning to distribute rice, sardines, cooking oil, water, iodized salt, biscuits and canned meat. Other items include mosquito nets, blankets and kerosene lamps or candles along with hygiene items including soap, laundry soap and women's sanitary items.

If you want to donate money to World Vision to help with flood relief in the Philippines you can go here to do so (just copy and paste the address below into your browser):

http://donate.worldvision.org/OA_HTML/xxwv2ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?section=10324&item=1328100

Why do we act like some people are invisible?

Last night 2 of my sons and I watched a movie entitled Under the Same Moon together. Since they are both taking Spanish in High School, and this movie was in Spanish with English sub titles, I'd thought it would be a good experience. It turned out better than I expected since I really liked the movie. The movie provides a glimpse into the life of an illegal immigrant from Mexico and her family. It's a slice of life we may not routinely encounter.

In the movie the main character has 2 housekeeping jobs in people's homes. One of the homes seems to have rather nice people and in the other home the lady of the house treats her like a non person. This got me to thinking.

When I was working my way through college I worked for one year as a housekeeper in people's homes. I hated the way most of the people treated me (I remember saying to myself something to the effect that I was going to college so I didn't have to take jobs like this because I did not want to do this forever!) Because of this experience I always went out of my way to connect with the housekeepers in the facilities I ran and to make sure that they knew I appreciated their work.

But I've noticed that a lot of times people act like housekeepers are invisible.

I think we assume that people ignore housekeepers, or treat them like non-persons, due to feelings of entitlement. While that may be true in some cases, I think a lot of middle class, working people, behave this way because they are uncomfortable with someone cleaning their stuff, knowing about them on that level.

Why do you think we act like some people are invisible?

Can we love people and still be honest about sin?

Of course the flip side of this question could be "How can we show love and grace to people and NOT be honest about sin?"

I know, from personal experience, as well as from observing the lives of others, that sin hurts. That we can repent and God will forgive us, but sometimes our sin leaves scars. God hates sin because it hurts us.

None the less, the question still begs to be answered - As Christians, how can we in practical ways show love to people and still be honest about sin (in which these people may be participating)?

First off - you'll get no great all wise answer from me. So, if that's why you're reading, you can save yourself some time. But I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts on this.

I've been thinking about this because I just read about how the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) decided last month to adopt policies that disregard the long-standing understanding of homosexuality as sin. Last month, during the triennial gathering of ELCA’s chief legislative body, delegates voted 559-451 to approve a resolution allowing gays and lesbians in “life-long, monogamous, same gender relationships” to be ordained.

I know, if you read this blog often you'll say something to the effect that I just said how I don't think pastors should preach on political matters from the pulpit. I still don't.

However, I think this is a far cry from ordaining people to be ministers in mainstream evangelical denominations that are involved in an ongoing lifestyle that the Bible defines as sin. There's a difference between being a participant in a local church, and being the pastor or in church leadership. Leadership is always held to a higher standard. If a pastor is involved in any kind of ongoing lifestyle of sin I think the pastor needs to step aside from the job as pastor for awhile to find out how God wants to bring healing into his life; any lifestyle sin - ongoing affair with another woman, addiction to drugs, etc. I emphasize lifestyle sin because all of us sin every day. But there really is a difference between someone having a mess up and choosing to all out live, on an ongoing basis, in sin.

I'm guessing that many people agree with me on this (but if you don't - please feel free to say so) but the harder question is how can we minister love and grace and yet have a standard of a righteous lifestyle?

I think the key to ministering love and still having a standard of a righteous lifestyle is in relationship. Participating in an ongoing relationship of love, honesty and commitment gives you the arena to speak truth to one another regarding sin. I'm speaking here about close, intimate, relationships. I do not think a person has very many of these relationships, but I do not think we can be healthy without having some. I think denominations and church organizations must ensure that their leadership have these kinds of ongoing relationships. God created us for relationship with Himself and one another.

So now I've shared my thoughts on this, what are yours?

Changes

Lately I've been thinking about God's love toward me and others. It's starting to become easier to extend grace to people as my own experience of God's grace to me has deepened.

Last night something happened where I saw a change in my thought process.

As I was driving my 15-yr old son, Daniel, home he told me about a man at church who had been trying to encourage Daniel in something good but Daniel found himself feeling angry. When I asked Daniel to tell me about it he explained that this guy is the other drummer for Sunday morning worship service with whom he trades off. Even if it's a week when the other one is drumming, both Daniel and the other drummer, as well as the rest of the worship team, always get to church 2hrs before the first service and practice. Daniel is aware that he is a good drummer but he can always get better. The man was telling Daniel that he should practice every single day. I asked Daniel if he'd explained about his schedule (leaves to school at 6:20AM, home after school & sports practice at 6:50PM, eats dinner with family, studies, goes to bed with only 7-8hrs until he's up the next morning) and Daniel said yes but that the man had explained his own busy schedule where he works all day and goes to school at night.

In the past I would have either told Daniel that he should be focused and practice every day or I would have said the guy is a rigid jerk. But this time I was different. I heard myself telling Daniel that the man just doesn't understand yet that God loves us right where we are at, just how we are. That we don't have to impress God or earn His love. That God wants what is best for us, that He actually wants us to take care of ourselves so of course He doesn't want Daniel, as a growing teen, to get less than 7hrs sleep each night. That Daniel is where he is supposed to be, doing what he is supposed to do, right now and he can rest in God. Daniel just looked at me kind of weird.

Are there areas in your life where you see yourself changing? Share about one.

God made us who we are

Just finished watching a good movie entitled Faith Like Potatoes.

It's based on a true story. I like the part where it shows the man, Angus, talking with the pastor right after he's chosen to follow Christ. Angus is telling the pastor about himself; he's explaining that he's a wild Scotsman. The pastor tells him that God made him wild because he loves him so much.

God made each of us how we are because He loves us so much.

May I remember that when someone's eccentricities annoy me.

Wonderful Words

As I read the following words this morning they burned within my heart:

Philippians 1:9-10 (MSG)

So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.

On their side

I delight in the Philippians 4:4-5 (MSG):

4-5 Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you're on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!

Two short verses packed with so much!

Celebrate - may my life be a celebration. May I never cease to see all that is good around me, all that is worthy of enjoyment. May I celebrate the gifts of life and health.

God is so good, so great , so mighty, so awesome. May I truly revel in Him. May I adore and keep His presence in my conscious throughout the day.

What an awesome concept - make it clear to all that you meet that you're on their side. May I not let my ego get in my way, may I not be so full of myself and my agenda that I miss out on the opportunity to truly see others. May I see opportunities to make others important, to give. May my attitude be one of collaboration.

Oh Heavenly Father, I'm so incapable of these things on my own. I fall so horribly short. Please work in my life and empower me to live this way...

It's easy to focus on fixing others when I need to fix me

Isn't God merciful and good?! Aren't you glad for His patience with us? I am!!

I have this propensity toward noticing the faults of others. I sometimes find myself focusing on other's problem areas, especially if the person is close to me and their problem affects me. This morning I was doing that with my spouse. Not that I directly spoke with him, but in my mind I was contemplating this problem area of his and feeling poorly toward him because of it. In fact, most likely I wasn't even being all together too wonderful toward the poor guy because I had my mind on this problem area.

I went into church for Sunday worship and asked God to change my heart and help me focus on Him instead. A few times my mind came back to the subject and I'd pray for help for my husband. But then the Holy Spirit began working in my heart and I realized how ridiculous my focus was. I became convicted of how there are things in my life that I need to focus on cooperating with God to change in me. I began to remember how I'd learned the need to be responsible for myself, verses everyone else. I remembered how in times past it's been a pattern of mine to focus on fixing others when I need to be allowing God to work on me.


Just about a week ago I'd written here that God's shown me an area of my life that He wants to do a new work in. An area where I've had a stronghold for years. Somehow this week I never managed to get around to spending time meditating on some verses the Holy Spirit had led me to in the Word to deal with my problem area. It's as if I've not only been avoiding talking with God or being in His Word regarding this problem area of mine, but I haven't been able to get myself to look at the situation. Interesting that now here I am on a Sunday choosing to focus on some problem area of my poor husband and to obsess on that.

The Holy Spirit brought the verses in Galatians 6:1-5 to my mind; here they are in The Message paraphrase:

1-3 Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day's out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ's law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

4-5 Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.

Don't these verses speak directly to me?! Sink myself into what He's given me to do instead of focusing on others and take responsibility for my own life.

Are you like me and find that it's easy for you to focus on the faults of others, when you need to cooperate with God's work on you?