Dry bones, a huge stone, and withered limb

Dry bones in the valley....the crippled and paralyzed by the roadside....the tomb - what do these three have in common?

God grabbed me. God’s Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. He led me around and among them—a lot of bones! There were bones all over the plain—dry bones, bleached by the sun. He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Master God, only you know that.” (Ezekial 37:1-3)

Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. Hundreds of sick people—blind, crippled, paralyzed—were in these alcoves. One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, “Do you want to get well?” The sick man said, “Sir, when the water is stirred, I don’t have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in.” Jesus said, “Get up, take your bedroll, start walking.” The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off. (John 5:1-9)

After the Sabbath, as the first light of the new week dawned, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to keep vigil at the tomb. Suddenly the earth reeled and rocked under their feet as God’s angel came down from heaven, came right up to where they were standing. He rolled back the stone and then sat on it. Shafts of lightning blazed from him. His garments shimmered snow-white. The guards at the tomb were scared to death. They were so frightened, they couldn’t move. The angel spoke to the women: “There is nothing to fear here. I know you’re looking for Jesus, the One they nailed to the cross. He is not here. He was raised, just as he said. Come and look at the place where he was placed.(Matthew 28:1-6)

Dry bones - so many they fill the valley's floor - so dry there is no hope for them to reveal life again. Bleached by the sun, brittle, resembling nothing but death. Can these bones live? Blind, crippled, paralyzed - lined up day after day, all with a place that defines them as 'needy' and 'lame' - will they ever be well again? A tomb - rock solid - stone sealed into place. Can anything good come from the death sealed within? The answer to all these questions is YES! The one thing all these 'limiting things' have in common is God! Where he speaks - even the hardest of things are possible. He is so much more than the 'limitations' we see in our lives.

Dry places in our lives need not keep us dry - for life is as close as the very breath of God breathed into that place of dryness and barrenness. What seems hopeless in our mind is true potential in his. Crippled and discarded parts of our lives - made straight again, worth something of value - by the creative word of God. A stone blocking the way - sealing inside death and hopelessness - rolled away, no longer giving cover to death, but opening the way for life to come forth. These are the things God sees when he sees the very things we see as nothing more than hindrances or barriers in our lives.

Where the presence of God is - there is life. Where the word of God is - there is hope. Where the breath of God is - there is vision and purpose. We might see the barrier - God only sees what is just on the other side of that barrier. Maybe we need to change how we view the dry places - the mangled and maimed places of our character - the hugeness of the thing we think could never be removed from our lives. God is about to break forth in ways we might not have considered before. Why does God ask the questions? Maybe it is to find out what we see the most. If all we see is the barrier, we might never look beyond that barrier. The questions God brings aren't a challenge to our faith as much as they are a challenge to look beyond what we see as limitations and allow God to show us what is just beyond what we see as impossibilities. Just sayin!

Truly Good

But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true: Death swallowed by triumphant Life! Who got the last word, oh, Death? Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now? It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God! (I Corinthians 15:55-57)

It was guilt brought on by trying to keep 'all the rules' on our own that gave sin its leverage. The 'law-code' that says we have to obey all these rules upon rules actually did more to keep us under a load of guilt than anything else. We just aren't capable of keeping all the rules on our own. Rules are boundaries - some are set by men to keep men in line; others are set by God because he knows the destructiveness of sin's full consummation in our lives. Either way - they are hard to keep all of the time in our own effort or 'will-power'. 

In a single stroke - sin, guilt, and death - all are wiped away. How is that possible? Guilt seems to linger on long after we have confessed our short-comings. Sometimes shame replaces the feelings of guilt, making the 'sting' of our sin felt time and time again as we come to believe we are never going to be free of the sin's pull. Yet - - - in a SINGLE action, Christ dealt with all three! Sin was swallowed up in the action of the cross - along with the guilt and shame of that sin. Death - life lived apart from God for all of eternity - was dealt a final blow. 

Don't miss it - freedom from sin; victory over shame; and triumph over the 'finality' of the grave is ALL ours - as a gift given by the one who holds all three in his claim - Christ. Not anything we earn, but everything we count on as ours from now through all of eternity. So, why do we live as though we don't have victory over our sin and shame? We likely do so because we are listening to the lie that we will never be good enough, do enough good, or influence enough good in this life. That is true - apart from Christ's presence within us. 

With the presence of Christ within, 'good enough' is made 'so much more than just good enough'. We are exalted into the position of Kings Kids - we are royalty! With the presence of Christ within 'doing good' isn't about keeping all the rules, it is about living the way he desires because we are so in love with him that we desire to do nothing less. With the presence of Christ within, our life is an influence for good and a deterrent to evil. We are light and life - examples of his love, grace, and peace. We are living testimonials of his ability to release from the hold of this 'do good' spin we try to convince ourselves we can do on our own.

Death swallowed by triumphant life - sin brings death in the spiritual sense - separating us from the presence of God and the peace that comes by living close to his heart. Christ did what none of us is capable of doing - triumphing over death's pull and sting. Nothing pulls us toward eternal death any longer - everything pulls us toward eternal life - a life lived in the presence of the One True God himself. We can 'try' to live good, but only the presence of a good God within us can make us truly 'good'. Just sayin!

A full resume

Oscar Wilde reminds us: "The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future." If you think of yourself as a saint, you are likely living on some past accomplishment as your sense of 'sainthood'. If you consider yourself as a sinner, you know your past and present can be riddled with some pretty gnarly stuff that you'd like nothing more than to be rid of - in fact, you count on being 'rid of it' through the finished work of Christ on your behalf! You know you have a future because your past and your present are both in his hands and under his care. Wilde also told us 'experience is the name we give our mistakes'. How many of us have a resume full of those? I do! Mistakes galore and more - all lined up, in perfect order, they can be labeled as a great deal of 'experience moments' where I made an unwise choice, followed it up with other unwise actions, and then somehow God brought me out of the muddle of it all and let me call it 'experience'. An experience I would rather not repeat is a better way to describe it!

Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer captive to sin’s demands... When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did. That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God. So, since we’re out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we’re free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it’s your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! (Romans 6:6-18)

Old way - not always the best. New way - not always the easiest. In between way - definitely not the best way. I guess we are in a bit of a muddle, huh? We could go on living the old way, but we give up our freedom if we do. We could go on living right smack in the middle - getting the choices right once in a while, but still finding the appeal of the old way of living drawing us back - yo-yo's when it comes to living righteously. We won't be very free there, nor satisfied with the outcomes, but amassing lots and lots of 'experience' additions on our resume of life. I don't need a long resume to impress others - I need a short one! One that says I have been bought out of slavery by the best, taught to live uprightly by the best, and now am making the best choices I can make. Period. 

Freedom that never quits, or your last free act - which sounds more appealing to you? When we are dead to something, we are not connected to a life-source any longer. I recently observed a bunch of dead trees along a patch of land in the depth of the Arizona desert. I wondered as to their 'demise' because they would have likely been the type of drought-hardy trees common to the dessert, but now they were nothing more than overgrown dried up twigs. Some had been cut down, obviously used for some firewood or other thing. Others just stood there all withered, bark gone, weathering in the hot sun. Why did they die? No life source remained - it could have been drought, disease, pestilence - but they were no longer connected to a life source. When we separate - even for a moment - from our life-source in Christ, sin is free to enter in. Where sin enters, death is not far behind.

Offer yourselves to - this suggests we play a very active part in the choice of where we find our life-source, doesn't it? We 'plant ourselves' firmly in the soil that will produce life for all of time, or we allow our roots to take hold in a place much less secure, but giving us the impression life is actually possible. Instead, we find death will soon ensue. Life isn't really possible outside of Christ - we may look like we are living, but true life comes only when we are in a place of absolute and total freedom. Period. Moments of freedom are possible when we try to live one foot in the grave of sin and one foot in the life soil of Christ's salvation, but trust me on this - one cannot live that way for long - sin will eventually suck us into that grave! We will have lots and lots of 'experience' to add to our resume of mistakes, but is that what we want on our resume? Just askin!

Are you stuck?

We can allow our circumstances to drive us into places of bitterness and resentment. When we allow this to occur, we find ourselves drifting further and further apart from God. Chaos is a great source for bitterness to occur - especially when the chaos is caused by 'someone' rather than 'something'. It is hard to admit, but there are times when our pain takes us into a place where we become bitter against the 'someone' we might not want to ever form bitterness toward - GOD. We can all have dreams and hopes, then in almost a moment in time those dreams and hopes can be ripped out from underneath us - leaving us feeling a little bitter and hurt.

Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:31-32)

Direction determines destination - we sometimes head in the wrong direction in our lives and then wonder why we are not reaching our destination of being closer to God. We cannot get closer to God when we are headed in a direction away from God. We can count on our destination being chaotic whenever we turn our back on God and we choose to go our own way instead. We need to deal with our wrong choices - quickly confessing them, making a clean break from them, and then relying upon God to put us back on the right path - so our direction is changed. If our lives are not pointed toward the things of God, we will find our hope is built up. If our lives are pointed in a direction away from God, we might call this being led away by distractions. Distractibility is easier than we might imagine because whenever we make choices, even unconscious ones, that lead us off the path toward God. The wrong direction always leads to the wrong destination. When we are distracted we oftentimes interpret life through a very wrong 'filter'. We see things as they really aren't - making it easier and easier to grow more bitter and resentful of the issues that will creep up within our lives.

We don't always know when we have veered from the right direction. It often takes a period of 'discovery' to let us know that we are not headed in the right direction. In that time of discovery we can become very angry with God or others because we want someone to blame for our bad choices - not wanting to own up to our own choices. We begin to select the emotion of anger to lead us to a place of bitterness and resentment. When our choices are wrong, there is no one to blame other than ourselves - even when the choices were 'unconsciously made', they were OUR choices. Make a clean break - this is pretty telling, isn't it? We need to let go of the wrong direction - in other words, we turn around in the opposite direction and we begin to 'head back'. Did you ever retrace your steps? I seem to do that more and more as I get older, getting distracted along the way and forgetting why I was headed in a certain direction. Distractions only have power over us when we give into those distractions. If we choose to keep our minds and hearts directed toward one thing, we are remaining consistent and focused. To make a clean break between what has made us bitter and angry with God or others, we begin to allow focus and consistency to be built into our lives again.

I am not going to make light of the fact that bitterness is a hard thing to let go - it is in our lives because there is something we feel we are owed because we were 'wronged". Even when the 'wrong' is of our own choosing, we might feel 'wronged' - blaming God for 'letting' us get off track. How may we break free of this 'blame game' and let go of our bitterness and resentment? We make a clean break from those actions and thoughts - by turning away from them and refocusing on God again. God doesn't owe us anything - nor does the other person we have been holding in this place of bitter resentment. What is owed? Forgiveness - we let them go and then we turn to God to be restored. When we give God our anger and bitterness, he takes it and then helps us to let go of it. He begins to restore hope where hope has been broken. He begins to bring right order where disorder and chaos has sent us into a tailspin in life. To make a clean break requires a turning away from what has distracted us and to focus again on what is greater than any distraction this world can put in our path. Just sayin!

Let's get silly, shall we?

The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written, I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I’ll expose so-called experts as shams. So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered stupid—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation. (I Corinthians 1:8)

Ever wonder why I take the time to record some thoughts on my scripture study each day? It is simple - God chose scripture to fill our lives with hope, direction, and even a little laughter from time to time. I rejoice in knowing I can turn to scripture whenever I want - some don't have this privilege. I delight in discovering some 'new' truth that encourages my soul. I cry at times because of the conviction it brings into the depths of my being. I even laugh when I consider the folly of those who would challenge a holy God and expect to stand up against his power. Yes, to some the gospel message seems a little antiquated or even a little silly, but to me it is the hope of my day. How about you? Does scripture uplift you? Do you find it brings you a little conviction from time to time? Then it is doing exactly what it is intended to do!

We could look into those books in the self-help sections of our bookstores and libraries, but I have to tell you I have tried doing what some of them have proposed and haven't been all that 'helped' by their 'wisdom'. Sure, I changed a little here and there, but by sheer will-power and certainly not by the grace of God! Self-help is just that - it is your 'flawed and imperfect self' attempting to pick up some of the pieces our lives are in and put them back together. If you ever heard the nursery rhyme about Humpty Dumpty and all the kings men trying to put him back again, then you have an apt picture of what it is like to attempt to use our earthly wisdom to accomplish what only the divine can complete! 

I think God is kind of cool at times when I see how he uses what others think is unusable to do something quite amazing right in the midst of a bunch of naysayers. I also think he is wise in his choice of vessel - choosing what others consider a 'cast-off' or 'worthless' object to bring great glory to his name. Why does God choose what others might consider a 'cast-off' for his purposes? Maybe it is their availability, or perhaps it is their simple trust in him because of what they already know they DON'T possess in themselves. God isn't asking us to take only the 'strong' or 'worthy' stuff in our lives and put it into his hands for his use - he also asks us to take what we might otherwise consider 'worthless' or as worthy nothing more than being a 'cast-off'. 

The beginning of all things begins by beginning. That isn't a profound truth, but stop for a moment to consider what you have never 'begun' because you didn't know where to 'begin'. What kept you from taking the first step toward it? You didn't realize WHERE to begin or WHAT to do once you did. That's where God's truths can be most helpful - where our 'self-help' plans end and his 'wisdom of the ages' comes into play in our lives. We don't possess all the wisdom, so to exclude God's wisdom from our lives by limiting ourselves to our 'self-help' plans is kind of silly. God uses what seems like silliness to some to bring out great things in another. Ever wonder why hearing someone explain what God has revealed to them from scripture helps you to actually take the first step? It is because of the 'silliness' of sharing his wisdom instead of just our own. Just sayin!

Outgoing love

Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can’t go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love. (Romans 13:8)

Sum it all up and what really matters at the end of a person's life? I'd have to say it is that we have loved and lived well. Love others well and your life will be lived well. It would be terrible to go through life without having known love, but how many of us go through life being 'stingy' with our love? We have been hurt by others, so we pull in a bit and don't put ourselves out there like we should. We have hurt ourselves, so we we see ourselves as 'not worth the investment', holding ourselves back from others because of this untruthful view of ourselves. Love well, my friends and you might just be surprised how well your life begins to be 'lived'. I will not make light of your having been hurt by others, but the time for healing has come. It is time to move past hurts that are really part of our 'past' and begin to put ourselves out there so we can begin to really live in the 'present'.

God isn't after anything other than our 'outgoing love'. If you have ever taken notice, you will soon realize scripture doesn't have to tell us to love ourselves. Some have believed the lie that until we can love ourselves it is impossible to love others. If we wait until we love ourselves, we could be limiting the opportunities to love and live well! I honestly believe God says love is an 'outgoing' thing - what we 'feel' as a result of that 'outgoing action' of loving others is great, but that feeling follows actions, doesn't it? Love is 'outward' because it is 'action-based' - the feelings of love are inward because they are interpreted through our 'emotions'. We might have thought if the emotions aren't there, then there is no love either. The truth God wants us to realize is that love is continually 'outgoing' even when the feelings aren't quite caught up with the actions yet.

Even if you fall short, never stop making love 'outgoing' in your life. You won't love well all of the time - you will fall short on occasion. You won't always 'feel' like you are lovely - but that doesn't mean you aren't able to show compassion, give mercy, embrace someone else, or fill up someone's emotional tank. If we wait till we 'feel' like we are loving and living well to start loving others, we may not ever start! Surrender to the love of God in your life and allow his grace to begin to embrace your bruised and damaged emotions. In short order, you may just be surprised at how much his love begins to be expressed in 'outgoing love' through you. Just sayin!

Fit me, or me fit you

Have you ever engaged in one of those moments where you just go on and on bragging about one of your recent escapades? It is as though we have no sense of awareness of just how we sound when we recount the stuff we have engaged in. In fact, some of us even appear to have a sense of pride with acknowledging our insane folly! Now, I am not one to "parade" my folly in public on a common basis, but I have to admit - I have done it. Truth be told, I have a hard enough time admitting to my failure in private without having to flaunt it for the world to see!

Fools make fun of guilt, but the godly acknowledge it and seek reconciliation. (Proverbs 14:9)

What it is we do with our "guilt" when our escapades have been less than honorable? The fool makes fun of the guilt or remorse they feel. Try as we might, we really cannot rid ourselves of the sense of guilt with simply laughing it away or making light of it in our social circles. If we dismiss our guilt long enough, we become almost "immune" to the sense of guilt we feel about a certain behavior. We begin to justify it and form an "opinion" that that particular action is okay - if not for others, at least for us. In some circles, this is similar to something referred to as "situational ethics". 

In the simplest sense, situational ethics holds the belief that the end justifies the means. When we operate with this interpretation of life events, we find it easy to set aside rules and regulations whenever we feel the "greater good" will be served by our actions. To truly understand situational ethics we must understand the concepts taught by Joseph Fletcher when he reported this as the "fulfillment" of Christ's instructions to love unconditionally. He believed their were no absolute laws other than the law of agape love - unconditional love. To this end, the consequences (or outcomes) of any action did not really matter because the end (love) justified the means. Now, if you cannot see the danger in this belief system, it is time to really go back to scripture to see what Christ taught.

Jesus always began with "love God" and then he taught to love "your neighbor" as yourself. You cannot ever "love God" if you throw out the absolutes he proclaims - things like don't cheat, don't covet, don't have any other god before me, and the list could go on. These are absolutes in God's kingdom. Jesus was teaching we need to embrace the absolutes of God's kingdom and this will result in us being able to love our neighbor. The end, in this case, is justified by the means - the means being the keeping of God's command to love him whole-heartedly (with all we've got). Fools make fun of guilt - but the godly acknowledge it. 

It is one thing to acknowledge something - it is another to do something with the knowledge we have! The godly doesn't stop with an admission of guilt - they go on to the place of obeying one of God's absolutes - confession! Scripture teaches us to bring our sins to Christ and there we will find forgiveness. It is not an exercise of excusing our sin - it is an erasure of the stain of the sin and the ability to walk away from the pull to do the same dumb sin again. What we do with our guilt determines the end of our guilt. We can flaunt it openly, proclaiming the end justified the means. Or...if we are wise....we can confess it, seeking forgiveness and restoration at the foot of the cross. 

The first method of dealing with our guilt will only "numb" us to the experience of guilt - it never removes it. The latter not only removes it, it gives us the ability to walk away from the very action which produced the guilt in the first place. The fool chooses to continue the pursuit of the action which produces the guilt - the wise choose to turn away from it, seeing no justification for or in their sin. It is truly a dangerous thing to "pick up" a false set of beliefs - those which veer from the truth clearly outlined in scripture. We can "interpret" scripture and reflect upon it with all kinds of "opinion". The danger comes when we form a set of beliefs which "fit our actions" instead of us allowing God to "fit our actions" to his Word! Just sayin!

A little lesson in sacrifice

How can I stand up before God and show proper respect to the high God? Should I bring an armload of offerings topped off with yearling calves? Would God be impressed with thousands of rams, with buckets and barrels of olive oil? Would he be moved if I sacrificed my firstborn child, my precious baby, to cancel my sin? But he's already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, and don't take yourself too seriously—take God seriously. (Micah 6:6-8)

We are no longer under this system of worship which required the bringing of sheep, bulls, goats, oils and grains to the Temple for sacrifice. If we were, I wonder what our "offerings" would be today? Since most of us merely go to the supermarket to obtain these "products" of someone else's labor, we don't connect with them as a "sacrifice" at all. In fact, we probably take it for granted they will be there in the display cases and the aisle shelves when we next venture into the luxury of the market. Perhaps these believers of yesteryear were just going to the "supermarkets" of their flocks and herds - picking out whatever one looked best and merely carting it to the priests to be offered. If so, they had lost touch with the purpose behind the offering - atonement, forgiveness, thanksgiving - and an intentional giving of the best or the first. It is truly a dangerous to have nothing to offer but the "products" of another's labor. Yet, there were times when I have been guilty of simply not being willing to invest the time or energy into having something "uniquely mine" to bring to God and to give to others. I relied upon the "products" of another's study and time with God to give me a sense of having something "worth" sharing. What a mistake! I missed the opportunity to bring to God what I had right in my hands!

God's greatest joy is not in the impressiveness of the "gift" we bring, but in the expression of the heart behind the gift. Maybe this is what Micah had in mind when he told us God did not want us to take ourselves so seriously! Whenever we think we have to rely upon the "gift" of another to have anything worthy to present to God, we are probably taking ourselves a little too seriously! Our "gift" is simply to come before him in reverence, yielding ourselves to his use. I think the questions about how it was WE could "impress" God are quite telling. When you look up the word "impress", you find it has a meaning of affecting the mind or feelings of another - it carries the idea of changing or influencing the opinion another holds of you. If we are coming to God to "impress" him, we simply are coming with wrong motives. God's greatest joy is seeing us act fairly - exercising justice and honesty in our dealings with others. This is a sacrifice worthy of his attention. Yet, it is not something we "do" to get his notice, or to influence his opinion of us. It is something we "live" because it is an outflow of his grace in our lives.

Being compassionate and loyal in our love seems to be a thing which is only remotely part of most of our relationships today. In fact, if we were honest, I wonder how many of us could say our relationships even remotely reflect God's compassion. Instead, we bicker, are opinionated, and hold our ground when we feel we have been "wronged". We shift our allegiances to another who sees things our way. God's greatest gift to us is his grace. The greatest gift we can give back to him is the expression of this grace with and toward others. We find many opportunities each day to live out his love - to be loyal and compassionate in our relationships. In so doing, we are pointing others to Christ's grace, as they see it evident in ours. There is no greater "sacrifice" God could have offered than his gift of grace as evident in his Son's death for our sin. In turn, there is no greater gift we can bring than to allow his grace to be an expression of his love within and through us. In turn, we will judge less and embrace more. We will hold our ground significantly less and find the good in the other more freely. In fact, we might just see ourselves becoming a more loving and compassionate creation when we really begin to understand the greatest gift we bring is the reflection of his grace back to him! Just sayin!

Trust doesn't always come easily

But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. (Romans 3:23-24)

I like to revisit familiar passages from time to time because God is always so faithful to bring something to mind within these familiar words. I don't know about you but it seems like people are always looking for the next 'new thing' in this world. Apple puts out the latest version of their device and people line up, sometimes even camping out for days just to get the first of the shiny device. Why? There is an enticement to have the 'new' and 'shiny' because media has hyped it for months prior to the arrival of the device. Our appetites have been whetted and there you are 'lusting' after the new. I guess God didn't great this desire to obtain 'more' as a 'bad' thing, but as a way of driving us to 'want more' of the right stuff. The problem is that we sometimes don't want what he wants us to have - we want what we want to have.

If someone came along and told you there would be something new added to your life today, what would be your first inclination? Would you have that sudden burst of excitement? Would you fear not knowing exactly what it would be or how it would affect your life? If God spoke a few words into your heart today, telling you there would be something new added, would your level of excitement and anticipation change? I honestly have to admit to being occasionally just a little bit 'afraid' what he might add would drastically change my life. Why did this create angst in my life? I didn't want something to disturb my comfort - I had become very comfortable with what I know right now - I wasn't sure I wanted anything new to disturb that comfort. God knew there might be temporary 'discomfort' from the 'new' he was about to add into my life, but he also knew the 'permanent' blessing that would come with the 'new'.

We only see the discomfort - he sees where that discomfort will lead us. He knows how much deeper it will make us dig in, what will change within our hearts, and how much more secure our foundation will be as a result. God knows 'where' we are headed - we only know we are about to get moving. God knows 'what' will come - we only know what will be left behind. God knows 'when' we are going to be challenged - we just know a challenge might require something from us. God knows 'why' we need to get movement in a certain direction - we only know that movement may cause us some discomfort. I guess one of the hardest things we are called upon to do sometimes is just trust God with the where, when, why, and what. The 'new' is indeed something we want and need - we just don't 'know' like he knows, so we dread it.

God doesn't set out to create chaos, but sometimes our present has to be disturbed a little in order to bring order in an even greater way than it existed before. God has gone before us, so nothing can stand against his power in our lives. The moment we realize he is 'setting things right', the less we stop worrying so much about how he will do what needs to be done in us. Just sayin!

Truly experience the ride

Then he told them what they could expect for themselves: “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat—I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? If any of you is embarrassed with me and the way I’m leading you, know that the Son of Man will be far more embarrassed with you when he arrives in all his splendor in company with the Father and the holy angels. This isn’t, you realize, pie in the sky by and by. Some who have taken their stand right here are going to see it happen, see with their own eyes the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:23-24)

I am less likely to get lost if I know where I am going. If I understand what is expected before I set out on a journey, I am less likely to attempt to escape the hardship of the journey than when I am caught totally unaware at some blind turn. I guess Jesus knew that about us - we need some idea of what is ahead if we are to even take the first step. I don't know about you, but if I want to let him lead, I have to do a whole lot of letting go and that isn't always that comfortable. I remember a good friend of the family taking me out on this huge rope swing that was attached way up in a gigantic oak tree. The swing went way out (and I mean way out) over this huge canyon. The drop was gigantic and it was super-scary, but oh so awesome. I remember him telling me to just enjoy the ride. In essence, he was telling me to let him keep me safe as he swung me out there. My body was securely placed between the rope and his - I was safe. Sometimes God does the same thing with us - he asks us to just trust him with what seems like some pretty scary stuff - to let him take the lead. What we do next makes all the difference in how we experience the ride!

What good would it do to get everything we want and then lose it? That is a very good question and perhaps one we should use as a 'check and balance' kind of question from time to time. There are times when we find ourselves swinging out over huge canyons - about to wet ourselves from the fear of it all - but in a brief moment God asks us to just trust. We don't want the scary stuff, but without it we don't realize the good stuff just beyond. As I looked down into the depths of that vast canyon, do you know what I saw? Beauty all around! There was so much to be taken in that my senses were overwhelmed with the beauty of it all, but before I enjoyed the beauty I had to trust the one who was taking me for the ride. We try so hard to get 'everything' - thinking we want this or that - but in the end, what beauty was added in the 'getting'? Our lives are not something to be trifled with - they are a gift from the creator of all things. We twitter away our lives trying to 'get everything we want' in life, only to find the ride revealed nothing of the beauty we hoped for. Why? We led and he did not.

We go through life getting things backwards - trying hard repeatedly instead of letting go, holding onto what God tells us won't get us to the place we desire to experience. We want it all, but we don't want to submit to the methods God uses to give it all to us. I don't know about you, but this struggle is real in my life. I want God's best, but I used to think I had to get it by my own efforts somehow. The moment I realized he was telling me to just get securely between him and the rope, the ride would be much more enjoyable. He'd have the control and I would enjoy the outcome. I don't who else needs to hear this today, but hear it clearly - we can TRY all we want, but if we ever want to see something DONE then we need to trust the one who has already done it! Just sayin!

Trying to do life alone?

Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer. (James 1:13-15)

Did you realize that sin actually grows in the dark? That is why it is so wrong for us to hide our sin - in the dark it has a greater chance of growing. We lust and that leads to looking - looking leads to action - trying to stop leads to us thinking about that sin time and time again. It is a cyclical thing. Shame makes us want to hide our sin - but that is the worst thing we can do when we sin. Don't conceal your sin - confess it. Sin needs to be brought into the light in order to be free from it. "You can’t whitewash your sins and get by with it; you find mercy by admitting and leaving them." (Proverbs 28:13) Confessing your sins to God brings forgiveness and cleansing - healing comes when we confess our sins in honesty to others. We are not meant to live this Christian walk alone - because we cannot fight the appeal of sin on our own. We need the accountability that comes when we 'partner together' to overcome sin in our lives.

We deal with this 'internal' temptation to given into sin in community with others who know how to walk close to Jesus. We find we are not fighting alone - we have others fighting along with us. As we 'fight together' we are sending the enemy into flight in large ways. Emotional healing comes when we stop hiding our sin and begin to realize we have help from others who walk with us while we are fighting our sin. Sin is a killer unless we deal with it - hiding it doesn't deal with it - it just attempts to cover it up. The peace we crave comes when we stop concealing our sin. We are only as strong over our sin as we are honest about our sin. That scares a whole bunch of us, doesn't it? Honesty about what we struggle with the most is tough business, but as long as we conceal our sin we allow it to grow - to continue to entice us from within.

Some of us are intent about living free of our sin - some of us are 'kind of intent' - when we partner with one who is more intent than we are, we find our level of accountability is brought to a new level. We begin to set new limits on our temptation - we stop hiding that sin and bring it into the light. A pastor friend once told me we will always seek to hide until we are surrounded by others who don't hide. It is a lot easier to stop hiding when we begin to allow others to see our 'real' life and who live 'real' lives themselves. If we have a tendency to always hide our sin, we may be hanging around with a group of others who also are hiding their sin. Remember, when we are with someone who craves righteousness, we find we are freer to crave the same things.

Sin needs not only forgiveness - it needs healing. Sin's forgiveness comes through Christ - at the foot of the cross. Sin's healing comes in community together - as we partner together with others who crave righteousness (freedom from sin). Eventually the appeal of sin will become less and less in our lives - because the appeal of righteousness will be greater and greater. God guides our steps toward confession, but he also guides our steps toward healing. Don't try to do life alone - it isn't going to end well. Just sayin!

God is patient, but...

Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. (Romans 5:6-8)

If God had to wait for your timing on some of that 'life change' that really needs to happen in your life, just how long do you think he'd have to wait? I am going to admit something to you about my life - I don't like waiting, but I don't seem to mind it when God is kept waiting on things he clearly has asked me to do! God asks for some form of obedience and I drag my feet, not because I don't think it will be good for me, but because I just don't like what he is asking me to do. As a little girl, mom would tell me I had a couple chores to do before I got to go play, despite the fact my friends were beckoning from the back porch for me to join them. I did the chores, but do you think I had much joy in completing the tasks well? Not really - I just wanted the outcome - to go out to play. There are times we just want the outcome, but we don't like the time it takes to get from where we are to where we need to be.

God is an 'on time' God. He isn't a "your time" or "my time" kind of God. Yes, he gives us the length of rope it takes to get us to the place of surrender in our lives, but he is perfectly on time with his 'desired outcome'. We need 'getting ready time', but God has been ready for that posture of obedience in our lives for quite sometime. Knowing what to do between the time the request hits our heart until our mind catches up with the tug upon our heart requires grace and patience on God's part. On our part, it requires adjusting to the 'next steps' we are being asked to take in order to realize the outcome. Basically, we need to move from hearing to doing and we all know how difficult those actions can be that have to happen between hearing and doing. 

God continually puts his love on the line for us - from the cross to our place of perfect obedience. He is there in the midst of our muddle, no matter how 'ready' we are to have that muddle cleaned away. Grace doesn't know the bounds of time, but his love pulls us tighter as we attempt to lengthen the rope! God doesn't lessen his grip on our lives just because we take a while to move into that place of obedience he is requesting of us. His grip grows stronger, but not in a punitive way. His grip just keeps his request for obedience front and center in our hearts until our minds (will and emotions) have a chance to catch up with the action he requires. We want to wait a while - but while we are waiting we want to enjoy the privilege of the outcome, don't we?

We cannot have it both ways. Mom showed me when I did my chores then I was free to enjoy the rest of the day with my friends. That one hour spent doing chores afforded me about twelve additional hours of running, jumping, bike riding, hiding, doll dressing, and trampoline jumping. One hour of obedience - actions done well and without resistance - resulted in the outcome of multiple hours of something I considered much more 'pleasant'. Some of us need to remember to get from where we are today to where we know we need to be tomorrow will require a little bit of 'unpleasantness' on our part in order to enjoy the multiplied blessings we will definitely consider 'pleasant'. Just sayin!

Holding on tightly

But let me run loose and free, celebrating God's great work, every bone in my body laughing, singing, "God, there's no one like you. You put the down-and-out on their feet and protect the unprotected from bullies!" (Psalm 35:9-10)

Times were different when many of us were children. Back in the 60's when I was a wee one, no one thought it odd to allow their children to play in the front yard - oftentimes running from one neighbor to the next depending on who had the neatest toys to play the next go-round of imaginary play. If my grandsons want to ride their bikes, it take a whole lot for mom to not restrict them to riding in circles in front of the house! Today, we sequester our children from the world around them, arranging instead for "play dates" because we have a society in which we do not feel comfortable allowing them to run "loose and free". Sad, isn't it? I wonder, though, just how much of our life's celebrations we miss out on simply because we live so sheltered? I think it may be bigger than we think - fearing stuff that is both very real and some that isn't all that real at all!

Our psalmist penned these words right in the middle of a huge battle. He was surrounded by nay-sayers and those who were against him. In fact, he has been in this battle for quite a while. Right smack in the middle of the mess, he speaks about the freedom of his pursuers vs. his own freedom. You might imagine he would complain about being "hemmed in" - forced to see and do only what his enemies would allow him to do - but he speaks of being "loose and free". What his pursuers failed to recognize was the celebration every believer enjoys within which is not limited by the restrictions we feel "without". He could have chosen to pull in and live a very sheltered life. Safe and secure from the things which might hurt him in the world around him. Many of us do this without even noticing we are doing it. We simply "live life" without really knowing what is going on around us. "Let me run loose and free, celebrating God's great work, every bone in my body laughing and singing..." It was a prayer as much as it was a statement. He was conscious of the impact of the negative influences around him - he did not want to be negatively impacted by their presence.

We live in a society in which "bad stuff" (even "horrific stuff") happens. We are going along, totally unprepared for the tragedies of life. Then, without notice - we are plunged smack-dab into the midst of something we never thought we'd have to deal with. We cannot control our world. Try as we might, we cannot "pull in" and sequester ourselves in our own safe little cocoons. In fact, David's prayer hits it right on the head - he prays for God to continue to allow him to run free and loose. He is mindful of the heart's response of fear - how it paralyzes, pulls back, and tends to limit activity which we perceived as a threat. We may not be faced with literal assault rifles or rocket launchers pointed our direction in our moment of fear, but whether we face the diagnosis of cancer, the loss of a job, or the uncertainty of being left alone after a loved one has passed, we all face our "fearful moments". What we do in those moments determines the impact these moments will have on our lives (often for a long, long time).

What do we do with that fear? We take it to God. God is delighted for us to recognize when it is we are beginning to "pull in" and feel less like we are running "loose and free". We need to learn how to be honest with God. We can do that one thing with our "fear" that delivers us from the "sequestering" effect of fear - we pray! We open our heart honestly to God - admitting we're "surrounded". Isn't this what fear does? It makes us feel like we are surrounded. If we are not surrounded by enemies on the outside, we surround ourselves with "walls" to keep others out and ourselves "safe" - don't we? We want to be unrestricted in our praise and enjoyment of God! Fear keeps us from enjoying God as we should. We just don't sense his presence when we are surrounded with fear's tight grip - walls thicker and harder than a concrete bunker. Instead, we are attempting to "deal with" our fears. WE don't deal with them - God does! How? In freeing us to praise and celebrate his goodness, his faithfulness, and his grace! Now, that is something I can hold onto! Just sayin!

Pondering the list

"Are you serious?" Whenever someone poses this question, they may not really be seeking the truth about your level of trustworthiness or your desire to commit to something. In fact, they might just be saying this to exclaim some message of surprise - like they could not possibly imagine what we just did or said as even remotely possible! There is another saying: "Let's get serious now." This one is often spoken as a word or two of admonishment designed to get us focused (refocused) on what is at hand. I can see the difference in these two 'serious' questions, but there are times when all it want to answer is the "are you serious" one and definitely not the "let's get serious now" one. Why? One doesn't require more than a sharing of superfluous info while the other requires me to do something with the info I have.

Listen to me, all you who are serious about right living and committed to seeking God. Ponder the rock from which you were cut, the quarry from which you were dug. (Isaiah 51:1)

When you get serious about something, there is a process that occurs - beginning with conscious thought - you focus your capacity for understanding and processing on the subject or task at hand. It is like you have made a mental determination that the subject or task is weighty enough to require your attention and time. In turn, you make a determination to undertake it with some level of earnestness. I can just cram new stuff into the freezer, but from time to time I need to 'rotate the stock' so the older stuff gets used up before the newer stuff I cram in there after the grocery run. I have to commit to the task mentally - then do it!

I'd like us to take a moment to think about the things we take seriously in life. Could you indulge me for a moment? If you have paper and pen, take a moment to make two columns. On the left, put a title at the top "Pretty Serious About" - on the right, put a title "Not So Serious". Now, as you go throughout your day, will you take a moment here and there to write down the things you are really serious about - those things you give your capacity of thought to, which you have determined to be weighty enough to require your focused attention, and those you have some sense of earnestness in seeing completed. If it is a workday for you, you may already have an agenda, but not everything that makes it to our agenda is really going to fit in that "pretty serious about" column, is it? Sometimes we just do 'stuff' because we have to! I usually undertake this "exercise" on a pretty regular basis. Why? Simply because I have a tendency to allow things to drift into my realm of thought and attention which really are demanding too much of my attention and time! As I refocus on what it is I am serious about - I often see my list can be a little too self-focused (taking time and giving attention to what will satisfy my needs rather than the needs of those God places in my life). Now, this may not be the case with you, but it could very well be. If so, putting this down on paper actually helps us to recognize the things which are consuming our time and even consuming "us". If you are serious about RIGHT living and committed to SEEKING God....ponder....

Hmmm....now do you see the connection between what Isaiah advises us in this passage and my little exercise? As you took time to write those things out in one or the other column, you were "pondering" what it is you are committed to - what you (or others who have influence in your life) have determined to be worthy of your thought and attention. You can think of pondering as a kind of "chewing upon" exercise. You kind of keep pouring over and over the list until you begin to see how each of the things listed is really affecting your relationships with God or each other, and even balance in your life. There is much to be gained by taking time to ponder. Isaiah was speaking to a nation of "believers" who had taken their eye off of the things which were most important. In fact, they find themselves driven into servitude to nations around them and living under the burden of being "slaves" to another. God's intention was for them to live free - unburdened. How did they get to this point? Maybe if someone had asked, "Are you serious?" a little earlier, they might not have drifted this far! I don't know about you, but as hard as it is to hear an accountability partner ask me the tough questions, I appreciate their words! It is often exactly what I need in order to refocus!

- Ponder the rock from which you were cut. Are you familiar with the passage from I Peter 2:5 which refers to us as living stones? When we actually take time to consider the rock from which we are cut, we are considering the things which make our "cornerstone" so reliable. His love, grace, and forgiveness. His truthfulness, commitment, and transparency. In turn, we begin to emulate the "stone" from which we were taken - we begin to look and act like Christ.

- Ponder the quarry from which you were dug. I live close enough to some of the copper mines in Arizona to know what a mine looks like. I also have been to the quarries from which granite is taken. Having this experience allows me to recognize some things about a quarry. First, it is a pretty dirty place. There is a whole lot of "turning over" of soil until you find the thing you desire most. God has taken us from a whole lot of "dirt". Second, once the copper is removed or the granite cut, it is a thing of beauty and function. We are not dug from the quarry of sin to just "exist" - but to be a thing of beauty and function in the kingdom of God. So, ponder on and see how much balance you get back into your life as you do! Just sayin!

Huh, my mess? What?

Really! There's no such thing as self-rescue, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. The cost of rescue is beyond our means, and even then it doesn't guarantee life forever, or insurance against the Black Hole. (Psalm 49:7-9)

Simply put - pulling one's self up by your bootstraps means you are going to 'rescue' yourself - be a success on your own. I don't know how that works for you, but when I have tried it, I fall again! If you are into "self-rescue" - the constant exertion of effort to pull yourself out of the mess you find yourself in - you are likely to fall again because you won't stand very well on your own. Many of us try to deal with life by a series of "self-rescue" attempts - don't we? We simply cannot bring ourselves to admit we messed it up - let alone admit we need someone else to help us out of the mess! As my kids were growing up, they'd pull out all kinds of toys. The floor would be littered with building blocks, little people, and remnants of this and that. By the end of their playtime, just at the point of needing to pick things up so we could "move on" to whatever came next, they'd sit there in the midst of the mess and whine about having to clean up what THEY had done! I cannot tell you how many discussions we had about 'owning' the mess and picking it up. In the end, I'd sit down next to them and begin to help them pick up what they had brought out. Why? It wasn't because I was delighted to "deal with" their toys and mess - it was because I wanted them to understand the love of a faithful God. In fact, when they asked for help from me, I was hoping they'd see just how easy it was for them to approach God with the "messes" of their life they'd be sure to have over the years.

The instruction is really quite plain here - we cannot pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and simply move on. The mess has to be dealt with - just like the toys scattered over every inch of the floor. As long as the toys remained where we needed to walk, we'd never be able to navigate without stubbed toes, painful pricks from sharp edges, and a halting gait that suggested our wounds existed. Our failures, no matter what they are, form the same kind of "blockage" to our path of freedom. We stumble upon them time and time again - unless we let God get down with us, guiding us in clearing them away! On our own, the things of our past which are littered all over the floor of our lives are way too much for us to handle. We just sit there in the middle of them, wondering how we will ever be able to tackle such a big mess. Silly, isn't it? We had no concept of how "big" our mess was until we finally realized we needed to clean it up! As we are "making" the mess, it doesn't seem like much to us, does it? When it is time to clean up - we get pretty disgusted by how much work it is going to be to 'clean up' the mess of our lives - especially on our own! Sin is just like this - we engage in all kinds of sinful deeds or thoughts - then wonder how we find ourselves surrounded by all kinds of daunting things. Thank goodness for our faithful God! He doesn't hesitate to sit down with us in the midst of the mess of our sins, one-by-one picking up the pieces, and moving them out of the path we most need to travel! In church circles, we might call this the activity of grace and mercy in our lives. In parable language, we see God sitting with a child, tenderly guiding the child until each of the pieces are picked up, put away and no longer in life's path where they could cause harm or create delay.

Some of us have more "pieces" scattered around the "room" of our life than others might. We have "pulled out" and "engaged with" more things that serve to just clutter our "space". The amount of mess doesn't matter to our God - it all needs to be cleaned up! Our Lord reminds us we are incapable of doing the "clean up" ourselves - it is beyond us to "pay the price" of our own rescue. My kids used to attempt to "get out of" having to pick up their mess by giving me all kinds of hugs and kisses - sweet talking their way as best as they could in an attempt to just 'leave it all there' for the next day. In the end, did all the sweet talk and affection do much good? Nope! The mess was still there and it still needed to be cleaned up! We might try to sweet talk our way out of the mess we are in - but God is too graceful to let us get away with it! In fact, after all the "loving" is over - he still reminds us about the mess needing attention! He opens his arms and sits right down IN the midst of our mess. We aren't there all alone - he is there WITH us. He is not there as the "mess police" - but as the one who is capable of providing for the "cost" of our rescue. As a mother, I had many demands - dinner needed to be made, dishes needed to be washed, clothes needed folding, schoolwork had to be completed. It "cost" me something to sit down with the kids and help them pick up hundreds of Legos, Barbie doll clothes, and little people! Guess what? It costs God something, too! Yet...he doesn't "balk" at the cost! In fact, he already paid it!

The floor was usually riddled with toys, but you'd also observe fragments of juice boxes, little bits of strings torn from some shabby cloth, or other such "debris" from who knows where. These weren't of any value - they were garbage - they weren't part of our lives, but they needed to be dealt with in the midst of the mess. In "picking up", some of the stuff clearly needed to be discarded. When God is asked to sit down in the middle of our mess, he does so with the intention of not only picking up the pieces, placing them in order once again, but he is also showing us how to discard the stuff which has no value in our lives. He helps to rid us of the debris! Just a few thoughts on the value of admitting we cannot pick up the pieces on our own today - or always identify what we need to part with in the end. Just sayin!

Be the means

This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear. (I John 3:16)

Wouldn't it be terrible if God's love disappeared from this earth? What is the need you walk by today? It may seem insignificant at the time, but each 'passed-by' need is one less expression of God's love to a hurting and very needy world. Living sacrificially doesn't come easy to us, does it? Who do we think about first on most occasions? Do we cook dinner because we think the family is hungry even when we are probably not hungry ourselves? Do we speed ahead, closing the gap in traffic as cones are directing traffic down to one lane and that yahoo on your right has sped ahead of everyone trying to get in between you and the car in front of you, bypassing his 'rightful' place in line? Do we slow down to talk to a small child reveling in the discovery of a punch of dandelions, plucking those white blobs of billowing seeds one by one and letting them go aloft into the air without scolding or shooing him away? God's love isn't hard to express, but sometimes we might not realize there is an opportunity to 'give sacrificially' when we listen to our inner voice of 'flesh'. We won't want to make dinner because we aren't hungry. We won't give an inch to let that 'interloper' into the traffic merge. We will send the child away in the name of 'weed control'. God's love will have disappeared as easy as that.

Do we have 'means' to do something about the need of another? Most of the time we think of 'means' as financial ability, but more often than not the need is met by other means. Time, talent, and yes, even our invested treasure - all are a 'means' by which the need may be met. Turning a cold shoulder to a need is a lot easier sometimes than taking the time to meet the need. It is easier to send the kiddo down the street to revel in someone else's yard than it is to take time to laugh and encourage his sense of discovery. It is unlikely that one car in front of you will make a difference in the time it takes you to get to your destination, but it could make all the difference in the time he needs to get to his. It isn't that you are the only one who can cook that meal for the family, but they sure enjoy what you make more than you might realize. We have the 'means' to meet so many needs without even having to dip into our pocketbooks, my friends. 

Love one another as I have first loved you - does this sound familiar? Jesus spoke those words to his disciples and those who were within hearing distance. The instruction he gave was actually recorded so all of us could 'hear' them at some point. The rest of that verse tells us it is how others will know we are loved by God and that we are his disciples (learning at his feet, living by his truth, and trusting in him with all we've got). (John 13:34-35) For love to disappear, we just need to ignore this instruction. God doesn't expect us to do more than he did - he expects us to do what he did and in turn, what seems like it won't be 'more' than what he did, his love is multiplied - making it more! Love is meant to be multiplied - through us by his movement in and through us. If we miss the opportunity today, the 'multiplication' factor is interrupted. So, don't miss the opportunity to see this love thing multiplied - you are God's means of loving a hurting world. Just sayin!

We are in the same boat

His love has the first and last word in everything we do. Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

His love has the first and last word in everything we do...

How true are these words in your life? I'd have to admit to you that Christ is not always the one in control of my actions - sometimes I just plain take over and cast his sage wisdom aside in pursuit of something I want to do. I deliberate over my actions and sometimes still choose the wrong path. Anyone else here with me? The good news is that if we are in Christ and he is in us, his LOVE has the first and last word in everything we do - even when we get a little out of control sometimes. His love pulls us back - not once, but repeatedly. For some of us, that 'repetitive action' in our lives is kind of 'shameful'. We see the frequency of our departure from his control in our lives and we get down on ourselves. Before long, the guilt of our wrong choices begins to make us feel 'full of shame' - as though we had a 'new identity' because of our wrong actions. The opposite is quite assuredly the truth - our identity is based upon OUR actions, but HIS.

Everyone is in the same boat...

All are included in his death because all deserved the same judgment for their sin - regardless of how 'big' or 'little' that sin is, how frequently it is committed, or how 'bad' one feels. His death included all so all could be included in his life. There is no lie the enemy of our souls can tell us that will keep us from that life - no lie we can tell ourselves about how 'unworthy' we are to experience his love. Everyone is in the same boat and it isn't a sinking ship! It is a very 'sea-worthy' vessel because he built it and he captains it! We have not gone too far - nor are we too lost. His love has the first and last word not only in what we do, but in who we are!

A couple of things for us to think about today:

- We make wrong choices, sometimes more than others. We make right choices, sometimes less frequently than we desire. Even in the midst of this 'up and down' kind of existence, God remains the same. We are not going to be tossed to the side and declared unworthy of his love just because we fall from time to time. His love is what actually picks us up, cleans us up, sets us right again, and helps us actually begin moving in the same direction with him. Not once, but each and every time we choose unwisely and need his forgiveness and restoration.

- We may not realize how much we are loved, but that doesn't make us any less loved. We may not appreciate fully his grace, but that doesn't mean we aren't showered with the blessings of grace over and over again. His love has the first and last word - that word is grace. We don't deserve grace - we don't earn grace - we don't even want it sometimes. We just receive it and experience the intensity of his love when we do.

- We don't realize just how messed up we are, but we see how messed up others are all around us. Why? Shame turns the eye away from our sin and it sees the magnitude of sin in another - oftentimes the same sin as we are trying to avoid seeing in ourselves. Shame makes us critical of others - grace helps us see the sin in ourselves and it brings it to the foot of the cross. The 'same boat' means we aren't unique in our struggles - it means we are all equally in need of this grace! Just sayin!

Whose are you?

Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth. (Ephesians 1:7)

Abundantly free - how many of us live as though we were set free and now live free? Most of us struggle with some form of guilt (because we did something wrong) or shame (because we believe we are bad because we have done wrong). Guilt is meant to drive us to a place of repentance; shame just keeps us believing we will never 'measure up' and will always be lacking in some way. Either way, we are likely not living free if we are given to constant feelings of guilt and shame. We are never going to prove our worth in our own efforts. We cannot do all things - reinforcing our shame that we will never 'be enough'. 

We have all sinned - we are all inadequate in and of ourselves. Our 'misdeeds' have both penalties and punishments 'chalked up' as 'demerits' on our chalkboard of score-keeping throughout our lives. We only see the chalk marks - God only sees the blood of Christ that permanently erased the marks. We believe the lie we are not valuable - because we have sin in our lives. We live within the lie - outwardly we live as free, but inwardly we are enslaved to our sense of shame - disgusted by our sinful deeds. To move beyond shame, we need to stop looking ourselves and start looking squarely at Jesus. When we change that focus, we stop seeing our misdeeds as 'demerits' on the board and we see the blood of Jesus that erased them all.

He thought of everything - provided for everything we could possibly need - including our release from the shame we have embraced because of our misdeeds. Shame is part of our identity - we take on the misdeed as something that defines us. Guilt tells us to go to Christ and confess the misdeed, but shame holds onto the misdeed as part of who we are at the core of our being. The truth is quite the opposite - for our identity is defined by whose we are - Christ's first love. Our identity is based in another, not in our actions. Christ reminds us we will never fix the problems of our lives - they were already fixed to the cross by the nails that bound him there on our behalf.

We don't live 'barely free' - we live 'abundantly free'. How? In Christ we are new creations - our identity is changed at the very core. The misdeed's guilt is taken away - the identity we now associate with is HIS identity within us. Stop focusing on the old identity of the sinful man or woman we have been and begin to see the new identity we live within because we have given ourselves to Christ Jesus as his first love. Healing from our shame is only possible as we move from focusing on who we are and what we did; focusing on who he is and what he did. His 'doing' sets us 'abundantly free' - his 'being' sets us 'abundantly free' from our past identity. Just sayin!

When silence answers it all

Although I don't know the author of this saying, it remains quite true: "Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something." Proverbs 29:11 reminds us, "A fool lets it all hang out; a sage quietly mulls it over." Proverbs 10:14 provides a little more thought on the matter: "The wise accumulate knowledge - a true treasure; know-it-alls talk too much - a sheer waste." Do we talk because we have something to say - or do we talk because we need to say something? It is a telling question, isn't it? Talk too much and you just fuel fires; speak wisdom in the midst of chaos and you can re-establish order and set the course once again in the right direction.

Proverbs 10:19 goes a little further by telling us, "The more talk, the less truth; the wise measure their words." How measured are you words? I have had to learn that lesson the hard way - by saying way too  much when I should have been more 'measured' in what it was I said. Ever joined me in that muddle? Too many words can actually fuel the fires of discontent, anger, discontent, and mistrust. I have had to ask God to put a 'muzzle' of sorts over my mouth at times - because what would have come out if I gave full rein to my thoughts via my words, the things said would only have inflamed the situation at hand. It was a hard thing to learn we may think things that should never find their way into words.

I learned what I may not have been able to speak out at that moment because wisdom dictated I remain silent on the matter didn't mean I didn't have a means to bring those thoughts to the surface. I still had the opportunity to talk about those things with God directly. I found times of quiet reflection with him, just speaking my heart in the truthful expression of what was capture in my thoughts. These times brought clarity and gave me peace in the matter. If you have ever refrained from speaking everything you thought when with another and then spoken to God about it a short time later, you know what I mean. It is like he shows you how good it was to resist the urge to 'spill it all' in that moment when you wanted to say it, but how healing it was to finally get it out with him and hear what he had to say about the matter.

Wisdom dictates silence sometimes. Learning when to respond and when silence is the best response is a difficult lesson indeed. Did you ever stop to consider that silence can be the most powerful response one can give at times? When my kids said something that was absolutely selfish or just outright mean, I sometimes just looked at them for a bit and didn't say anything. It wasn't because I was 'stunned' into silence - it was because God knew if I said what I thought at that moment, I would have brought more damage than health into the relationship. So, if you have learned the 'art' of listening to the still small voice warning you to just not say anything, maybe it is time to begin to listen a little closer. It could be the greatest thing you 'never said' that brings the greatest blessing into the moment. Just sayin!

Break out the water

God—you're my God! I can't get enough of you! I've worked up such hunger and thirst for God, traveling across dry and weary deserts. (Psalm 63:1)

Whenever we find ourselves in the midst of the "excesses" of life, we often crave what we most need to help us deal with the excess the best. So, we crave what we most need to deal with what we find ourselves enduring or living within! Sometimes we are "enduring" stuff by our own doing - like when I eat a huge bowl of Cheezits or eat a whole candy bar. The sodium from one and the sugar from the other just cause me to "crave" the very thing which will help my body deal with the excess of sodium or sugar - water, movement, and something a little more sensible. Take a look at some of the things that develop a more "spiritual" craving within you and you may just be surprised at how much you have been 'craving' because you are deficient in those very things.

Here we are presented with an example of traveling across dry and weary deserts as a source of both intense hunger and thirst. We all have them - deserts of sorts - making us intensely hungry and thirsty, but do we know what we hunger and thirst for in those desert places? We may live in the greenest parts of the world, but we endure deserts! The desert of loneliness has cravings all its own doesn't it? We may find ourselves suddenly without familiar acquaintances. Perhaps it is the result of a move to a new job place, the loss of a spouse, or the lack of solid friends we can pour our hearts out to when we most need it. We find ourselves enduring a sense of deep loneliness. At the core of loneliness is the idea of being without a companion in the journey. This desert may be labeled a place of isolation - whether you wanted it or not, you are isolated. In the place of isolation we find ourselves without the people or things we have found ourselves relying on in the past. As we examine the purpose of this "loneliness" desert, we might find it hard to imagine a "good" purpose! Being isolated is definitely NOT God's plan for us humans - he made us specifically to "relate" to others, not to be alone. So, what "good" comes out of this desert?

I can only share some of the things having come out of my times of being on a journey in this "loneliness" desert. I have learned I actually NEED other people. There is nothing more revealing about our "dependence" on the feedback of others, the sense of hope rendered in a simple touch, or the enjoyment of a good laugh, than to be isolated and alone. We need connection. In fact, believe it or not, we crave it! I believe God may actually allow some of us to walk this desert to draw us closer to those he has given in our lives. You know the saying, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder"? I think it is realized the most in the desert of loneliness! God's lessons to you may be a little different, but if you will allow him to speak to you in your desert, he will reveal the lessons!

The desert of despair seems to be walked frequently by some. This is a most difficult desert to face. It is one in which we have lost hope - we are without any sense of things ever getting better. In this desert, we often find ourselves out so far on the limb, the weight of our burden so great, hearing the cracking of the limb as it strains to keep us upright. We are "stuck" - we cannot go further out on the limb or turn back. This is indeed a most difficult desert to cross. Yet, the most hopeless place is often the place our faith begins to take flight! In the desert of despair, we begin to look for solutions we often ignore when things are smooth sailing. Things like intimate prayer with our Maker - pouring out our hearts to him with eager desperation. In the moment of despair, don't we often find ourselves looking back to God? Did you catch that? We are looking "back" to God! It is an amazing thing, but despair often drives us back to God - maybe even without ever recognizing just how comfortable we had become without him!

The desert of brokenness is almost as hard to endure. The very thing we need in this desert is the very thing we have absolutely no ability to accomplish on our own. It is only by the restorative and regenerating touch of our God we cross safely through this desert. We may be "broken" by a whole lot of things - bad relationships, words that have left us scarred, or just a series of bad choices which resulted in us being "undone" by life. In the desert of brokenness, we need "repair", don't we? What we drink the most freely of in this desert is God's grace. It is indeed a refreshing and restorative "drink". The purpose of any desert is to cause us to hunger and thirst. Hunger for the best, thirst for what will refresh truly. We may have a lot of desert-crossing experiences in our days on this earth. No desert is without hunger or thirst of some kind. What we do with the hunger or thirst determines the outcome of the desert-crossing! Just sayin!

Pssst...are you digging in?

"But my people didn't listen, Israel paid no attention; so I let go of the reins and told them, 'Run! Do it your own way!'" (Psalm 81:11-12)

What is the purpose of the reins when riding a horse or having a horse pull a wagon? They let you direct the horse, don't they? At least, that is what someone told me when I mounted a horse as a young girl and attempted to get that large beast of an animal to go where I wanted it to go! Heaven knows, I have had some opportunities to ride some of the most stubborn horses, or at least it seems they were more stubborn than they were willing. No matter how hard I pulled the reins a certain direction....there was no turning them from their chosen destination! Gotta ask - - - - what was the purpose of the reins with these horses? I think they were there for nothing more than decoration! Or was it because I really didn't understand the purpose of the reins?

All I could do with those horses was to "give them the reins" and let them lead where they wanted. As you may very well imagine - it was most often right back to the barn! They did not want to take me down the trail, up the hill, or across the meadow, but wanted a leisurely afternoon enjoying oats and the shade of the barn! Imagine that! Sound like anyone you might be acquainted with in this life? I know God has tried to tug on my reins more than a few times, facing nothing more than my resistance to be "turned" down the trail he desired. In the end, he gave me the reins to head for "greener pastures" as I saw them - oftentimes right into what was not really all that beneficial or rewarding to me.

Guess what the outcome of my resisting the leading of God was? Yep, you guessed it - the pastures turned out to be fields of nothing more than briers and thorns! Isn't it amazing how strong-willed we can be? We put up all kinds of fight - then end up calling out to God to get us out of the briers! If you have ever resisted the 'reins' in your life, then you might have recognized the first failure was in not listening. The lady who taught me to ride when I was in Girl Scouts actually told me to speak to the horse, or use some little click of my mouth to get it moving. Try as I might no amount of sweet talking that stubborn horse did any good. The more I talked, the more he looked at me like I was goofier than goofy! The silly part of this was my believing the horse CARED about what I was asking it to do! In truth, he cared no more about going down the trail on the trail ride than he did about how the stock market was performing that day!

I wonder just how much we are like the horse - hearing, but not really listening. In fact, we just don't care about what God is asking - simply because we have our own agenda, or our "selective hearing" turned on. When this is the case, we usually end up with a little "heel digging" going on, don't we? We dig in, no matter how sweetly God urges us onward. God isn't like us - he doesn't try to manipulate us - he simply asks and then waits. If we care to listen - we enjoy the ride. If we don't - well....you know where that leads you. When God gives us the reins, he is actually allowing us to do our own thing - choosing our own way - even when he knows it will leave us hurt or longing. When we give full rein to something, we are letting our imagination or feelings develop in an uncontrolled way - a very unreliable way to operate. God's choice in giving us full rein is to allow us to realize the futility of our rebellion.

The stubborn horse did insist on a return to the barn, but not until after about 30 minutes of digging in his heels and refusing to move beyond the first few bends in the trail ride. But...he did not get the oats he imagined! Instead, the owner put him in the corral with the others, to be ridden by another. We often set out to get our own way, in belief we will realize a certain end, then find ourselves poorly disappointed with the outcome. Truth is, there is no good thing guaranteed to anyone who takes the reins of control out of the hands of God! Reins serve a purpose - to control the direction and lead down certain paths. I have seen riders so in connection with their horses making reins really unnecessary. The rider and horse just seem to understand the destination. There was a bond and a trust relationship between the two. I think we need the reins less and less as we develop a deep connection with God. In time, we begin to sense his leading, not so much by the tug of the reins, but by the subtle movement of his hand, the simplicity of a word from his lips, and the gentleness of his touch. Just sayin!

So, time for retreat?

God is solid backing to a well-lived life, but he calls into question a shabby performance. (Proverbs 10:29)

Just met with the financial advisor and one of the questions I keep asking is how 'solid' the backing of every investment is right now. As I near retirement, I want to be sure my investments will be solidly backed. Backing sometimes comes in the form of a 'thing', but it can also be a 'place' and a 'person', right? Be in the right place and have the right person 'backing' you there and you are likely going to do okay in the end. A sanctuary is kind of like having that 'well-backed' place and it is usually a place provided by some pretty 'phenomenal', as well. There is something special about having a place of sanctuary, isn't there? When we have a place of retreat, we somehow feel a little better knowing we can go there to recover from the things of our day that beat us down and made us more than a little weary. Another word for sanctuary is refuge or bastion - a place of 'backing'. The purpose is for our protection - God provides a fortress for our defense and so that we can develop a good offense.

Scriptura tells us our Lord is a stronghold (sanctuary, bastion) to those with integrity. Yet, this same stronghold brings judgment to the wicked - those with 'shabby performance'! What is a place of refuge for one is the very thing which will destroy the other! We see this as true throughout scripture, don't we? Look at Israel and the surrounding nations - Israel enjoyed God's presence as their stronghold (sanctuary, bastion) while the heathen nations found the presence of God as a threat and a thing of dread! God is a SOLID backing (bastion, stronghold) to a well-lived life - yet a life lived in the shabbiness of sinful self-indulgence is unable to enjoy the safety and protection of this same sanctuary. Not only is God our stronghold, but walking in the way he outlines for our lives is a place of "sanctuary" for us. Sometimes I think we imagine a stronghold or sanctuary as being "some place" rather than being a journey of consistent progress in the right direction. As we are "on the way" we enjoy the sanctuary of the presence of God. We don't need to "retreat" to a physical place to enjoy his presence (sanctuary, bastion). We simply need to be walking in the way of the Lord.

Integrity is the "key" that unlocks the door of the sanctuary. The moral soundness of our walk is important! In order to understand this a little better, allow me to use a picture to illustrate. Think of getting dressed in the morning. If you are female, there may be a few different items you will don to keep things in place and modestly covered. If you are a guy, you probably might wear a few things us ladies would not, like a tie or a belt to hold all those things you like to attach to your waist. Now, if you were to dress today by leaving off some of these things you use to "hold things in place" or "attach important stuff to", how would you feel? You'd probably feel a little less than "perfectly" put together. Integrity is the condition of having things together in right order. When we try to make God our sanctuary, we are able to do so when things are in "right order" between us and God. God calls into question any "shabby performance" - simply because his presence is enjoyed best when we have things in order within our lives!

We all need "backing" in our lives. No one is able to live life completely without the help of another. Try as we might, we will never be able to accomplish quite the same degree of performance as we can when we are doing it with the help of another. There is no stronger assistance, no better "backer" of our lives than God himself. We may hunt high and low attempting to find other things and people to "back us up" in life - but nothing outshines God's backing! The 27th verse of the same proverb says, "The Fear-of-God expands your life; a wicked life is a puny life." Isn't a sanctuary a place where we can "spread out" in rest, repose, and refreshing? The idea of sanctuary leads us to believe we can "recover" and "retake" ground we may have lost during previous failures in the battle. God is more interested in our living well than he is in pointing out our failures, but it is good to know when we fail there is a place of refuge to turn for healing and restoration! We all need to consider our sanctuary. Maybe it has been a long time since we have "retreated" into the presence of God - allowing him to heal and restore. Today could be the one that helps us move from shabbiness into integrity. His presence is both a place of defense and offense! Sometimes we don't walk well - recognition is the first step toward sanctuary! Just sayin!

Gritting your teeth?

Albert Einstein was known for his amazing mind. Do you know he published over 300 scientific papers, had his PhD by the age of 30, and actually won the Nobel Prize in physics at the age of 42? As accomplished as he was in his field of study, do you know one of the most memorable things he said is repeated time and time again, maybe not verbatim, but pretty doggone close. "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." Do you know how many mistakes a scientist has to make before he finds the proof of his theory? Too many to count! Do you know how many mistakes I have made along the way, attempting to live out this Christian walk with grace and stamina? Too many to count! How about you? Too many to count? 

Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven’t stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works. We pray that you’ll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us. (Colossians 1:9-12)

Most of the 'successes' I have known in life are not really mine - they are because God has worked through me to bring about that success. I have tried that 'gritting my teeth' kind of endurance and I am here to tell you it doesn't really work all that well. If you want the truth, every moment of gritting my teeth, trying to hold up under the pressure of the crisis at hand was compounded by my stubbornness in being unwilling to let go of my 'grim strength'. When I finally let go of what I was clearly making a whole lot of mistakes with it was amazing to see how God brought new light, helping me to actually see things I had been missing all the while. It is kind of like the scientist that knows they are onto something pretty close to the solution, but they cannot seem to find that one final piece. 

I know that anytime God asks me to do 'something new', I don't always do very well with it - how about you? Do you just immediately get up, do as he instructs, and see immediate success? If you are in the company with a great many of us, the answer to that one is likely that you didn't do very well with those instructions. You and I are not dissimilar in our taking on 'new things' and 'new truths' as God would have us do, but we also probably don't all 'take them on' in quite the same manner. We do and see things differently, so we get different results from the same truth. How is that possible? If you have ever tried to follow a pattern to crochet something, you may have realized your 'work' doesn't quite resemble the one in the picture. Why? You aren't the creator of the pattern - you are just trying hard to follow it stitch by stitch!

God is the creator of the pattern we call 'life' - we go about each day attempting to follow the instructions laid out in that 'pattern', hopefully seeing something remotely resembling the pattern emerge in the end! Don't miss the truth in this passage - we don't follow the pattern in our own 'grim strength of gritting our teeth' to get it done. We only come close to the pattern when we allow the creator of the pattern direct the 'stitching' of our day's work all together. We can go on trying to get it done in our own strength, or we can let go of the obviously inferior strength we have been putting into it and let God's strength come through. I guess making the mistake of doing it in my own strength way too many times has taught me there is really a whole lot more enjoyment in getting it done in his! Just sayin!

With or To?

Mom always told me if I wanted to have friends, I had to show myself 'friendly'. In other words, don't be closed off, aloof, or stand there with your nose up in the air. Go for it, put yourself out there, and be a friend to the one who needs a friend. That is what she modeled and I certainly took a long time to learn that lesson. Why? I was terribly insecure as a child - not really thinking others could ever like me because I didn't know that I had anything 'good' to offer in a relationship. As I cam to Christ, do you know what happened? God became my 'security' - he took all that made me 'insecure' and gave me what will always make me feel totally secure. He gave me his heart and his hand. As I took his hand, I experienced his heart. As I experienced his heart, I understood there was an internal 'anchor' that made me secure no matter what came my way. 

Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you. How? you ask. In Christ. God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Become friends with God - he's already a friend with you. Not a friend TO you, but a friend WITH you. There is a difference, you know. I can be a friend TO someone by doing something nice and seeing that their need of the moment is met. I can be a friend WITH you when there is an investment of heart that goes beyond the superficial. God's intent was not to have a bunch of 'hand-holding', but a whole passel of 'heart-holding' friends! We are made new in Christ Jesus - all things put right WITH God. What does the best friend in your life look like? When I ask that question, you may begin to describe their physical appearance, but I would like you to begin to look at their 'heart' a little. Now, describe that best friend. Is the description different? Yes, because the heart reveals much more about the true 'identity' of an individual than their appearance does.

Think about how Christ came into this world. Born of a virgin, wrapped in swaddling cloth, laid in a manger. Born 'on the road', to a pair of young people no more aware of how to raise a baby than any other first time parents. We don't see much recorded about his young life, but I imagine Jesus playing with his sibs and neighborhood boys. I see him learning the craft of carpentry from his father and listening as his mother described the ways a woman was to be cared for as he became a young man himself. I see him running, jumping, poking holes in the earth to discover hidden treasures, and even taking a pile of garbage to the local trash pile. All of us see the baby, but how many times do we see the teen, voice changing, stubble growing on his chin, and growing out of everything at break-neck speed?

He became a friend WITH us - experiencing life as we experience it everyday. He likely cried because he was hungry, enjoyed the wonder of butterflies in the spring, and took lessons as did his sibs and friends. He isn't an aloof friend - he is a 'right here, right now' friend. He isn't a fair-weather acquaintance - he is a friend WITH us at all times, in all seasons, regardless of our temperament or our desire - he remains faithful WITH us. WITH or TO - which type of friendship would you say you exhibit toward him? I know I began with the friend 'to' him - but at some point, that friendship went way beyond a mere acquaintance. I cannot tell you when or where, but it happened. I began to desire the healer more than the healing. I didn't look for the benefits of relationship as much as I desired the closeness of just being closely knit together.

WITH describes a closeness that has sticking power. Desire is born out of being WITH him. Heart connection is formed when we are WITH him. Just sayin.