You wearing spurs?

Know why so many arguments happen? We aren't walking 'in tune' with each other - we have gotten out of step with one another. We are so focused on something else and we get all 'out of whack' with each other - sometimes without even noticing. Whenever we are 'doing our own thing', we have little concern for what the 'other guy' needs or wants in the relationship. We find ourselves running over each other quite easily and that is what leads to frustration, eventually either emerging in an argument or hurt feelings. God doesn't want this to be the way we live, so maybe we should consider how to avoid these relationship pitfalls.

Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way. (Colossians 3:15 MSG)

The peace of Christ is to be the overriding principle in our relationships. Yet we struggle so much with allowing his peace to guide our steps. What impacts his peace in us? One of the first things that impacts that peace is when we find ourselves drifting into taking things and others for granted - not really being thankful for these things and people God has given into our lives. Yes, he gives us each other - we don't find each other all on our own, you know? We are brought into relationship with one another - ushered there by the hand of God. When we are no longer thankful for these relationships, they become a thing we take for granted - and this leads to relationship woes galore! Trust me - I speak from experience!

Another thing that dynamically impacts our internal peace, and will affect how well we live at peace with one another, is not getting a steady and hearty intake of the Word of God. Now, this is more than just reading a passage and saying, "That was good." We have to ingest it, digest it, invest it, and divest it! Take it in (ingest it). Get it working on the inside of us (digest it). Find ways to let it multiply within and without us (invest it). Give it away to others so they can put it through the same process themselves (divest it). The Word of God is powerful, but it won't impact our relationships if we are always just casually considering it. We have to get into it and allow it to get into us!

The peace of God is also nurtured through worship - letting your heart soar in praise and adoration for the one who gives us life and peace. The grace of God is a great thing - but does it spark a sense of worship within? If not, then we may have become a little too complacent in our appreciation of his grace. We might want to ask God to help us 'tune up' our thankfulness for his work in our lives, then we might just see we become a little more thankful for the ones God has placed us into relationship with in this journey of faith. Life isn't about the things we get out of it as much as it is about those we travel alongside as we go through it. We need peace inside, peace impacting our actions, and we might just find we are spurring one another on toward peace in this world. Just sayin!

Recalling our past

Every now and again we just need a reminder to be grateful, don't we?  When I stop to consider some of the stuff others around me are dealing with, my "issues" pale in comparison.  When I stop to consider my "momentary afflictions", the life-long battles some face with disease make my aches and pains look like a vacation.  Sometimes we forget the principle of thanksgiving as the scriptures would teach:  Give thanks IN everything, not necessarily FOR everything.  We don't have to give thanks for the flat tire, but we can give thanks we have roadside service to get it changed!

On your feet now—applaud God! Bring a gift of laughter, sing yourselves into his presence.  Know this: God is God, and God, God. He made us; we didn’t make him.  We’re his people, his well-tended sheep.  Enter with the password: “Thank you!”  Make yourselves at home, talking praise.  Thank him. Worship him.  For God is sheer beauty, all-generous in love, loyal always and ever.  (Psalm 100 MSG)

It probably goes without saying, but God looks at our responses to what life sends our way.  He evaluates these responses - good and bad - because it speaks about what is really in our heart.  How we respond is a direct correlation to what the attitude of our heart is.  When gratitude is our attitude, the heart is probably pretty well connected with the heart and intention of God!  A little gratefulness today actually gets us a stronger connection with God when tomorrow's events will attempt to pull us away! Gratefulness if kind of like a "glue" for our souls - it holds us close to the heart of God in times when everything else would like to pull us away!

Have you ever stopped to consider gratefulness in light of what is in your past?  If we are honest, how we view the events of our past often determine how it is we will face the events of our present.  If we develop an attitude of gratefulness for those things in our past, often the things in our present are made a little easier to deal with.  "Recall" is a powerful tool.  How and what we recall is almost always a matter of the amount of gratefulness we have developed toward life's events.  How we recall is "tainted" either by any of the emotions of a spirit of fear, anger, distrust, envy, pride, or perhaps joy, peace, praise, and hope.  What we recall is often a matter of how well "glued" we are to God's heart.  When things don't exactly go as we had hoped or expected, there is no opportunity for any of the negative emotions to guide our spirit of recall when we have "glued" ourselves to the heart of God.

Did you ever stop to consider the value of the past?  Most of the time you have heard me say we need to leave the past in the past - especially as it applies to hurts, disappointments, and the like.  Yet, the past, if rightly viewed through eyes of gratefulness, is what got us to today.  Without the past, there wouldn't be a today!  Not everything in my past is worth praising God for - but he lessons learned from even the worst of failures are!  I can look back, see his protection, thank him for his provision of grace, and nuzzle up all the closer to him because I recognize those things in my past actually drew me closer to his heart.  The same is true for each of you - those things in your past you'd probably rather forget are actually things which brought you to the place of nuzzling up a little closer to God's heart!

In the moment, it is sometimes hard to see God in the midst of the problem. In retrospect, we often can see exactly where it was he was restraining us, holding us up, and keeping us safe.  The power of gratefulness comes in recognizing those moments - even if it is after the fact.  Gratefulness is a way of honoring God's leadership over our lives.  Whenever we do this, we are in the best possible position.  If you have ever opened a can of beets, you know there is a very red liquid inside.  That liquid has the potential to change what it touches.  If you will indulge me, try this the next time you open a can of beets.  Take a piece of paper towel - the entire sheet.  Put the can of beets, with all its liquid inside a large bowl.  Now, put the paper towel into the fluid - just one corner, not the whole sheet.  What you will see in time is the influence of the fluid on the paper towel.  The longer the towel makes contact with the red fluid, the deeper red the towel becomes, until it is fully saturated with the red substance.  

What you have just witnessed is the influence just a little contact can make in the ability to change things in your life.  We only need to get a little corner of our hearts close enough to God's heart in order to see the rest of our heart just "sop up" his goodness.  Just sayin!

God's two-cents

As I grow older, I hear of the passing of those who have served as mentors in some way in my life.  People who invested not only time taking me through the Word of God, but who also lived a testimony solid in every way.  Some have been relatives; others strangers God brought across my path for the specific purpose of allowing me the influence of their testimony to impact my life.  One thing I have come to understand - we all have "numbered" days on this earth.  None of us is immune to the aging of our bodies!  Try as we might to "hold back the clock", we all have to face the facts - life (breath in this physical body) ends at some point.  When it is all said and done, what we leave behind is referred to as our legacy.  Some will leave enduring legacies in the lives of many and know it.  Others will be unaware of the tremendous legacy they leave - simply because they never really had that "out front" position in this life.  I wonder what legacy we will each leave?

Teach us to number our days so we can have a wise heart.  (Psalm 90:12 CEB)

Our psalmist reminds us of a couple of important things today.  First, we cannot number our days.  No man or woman is "guaranteed" a certain number of days on this earth.  We need to be conscious of what God wants us to do faithfully in this day we have been given for we never really know we are guaranteed another.  Second, we learn to count our days as a blessing - an outcome of grace.  In retrospect, we see the influence of grace.  In the moment, we may not see more than the present challenge - but at some point, we look back, seeing the impressions of grace all along the way - kind of like footprints in wet sand.

I like how the Message translates this verse:  Oh! Teach us to live well!  Teach us to live wisely and well!  A teacher imparts knowledge.  Knowledge taken in and applied becomes the instruction by which we "solve" life's problems, is it not?  When the math teacher was trying to teach us the simple task of adding two plus two, she may have placed two pennies on one side of the desk and two on the other.  In turn, she was illustrating the "truth" of how two plus two equals four.  Most importantly to those being taught, they saw the evidence of "addition" - in the end, you had "more" because "more" was being added to the original.  I think this may be what the psalmist had in mind when he asks God to teach us to live wisely.  He may have just been asking God to show us what we have and what God is adding to our lives with each step we take with him.  In turn, we have "evidence" of the "addition".

A wise heart is the end result of God's "addition".  Let's not skip over the object being referred to in this passage - the heart.  The heart is comprised of our mind, will and emotions.  The most "unreliable" part of our make-up.  Where the mind wanders, our emotions follow.  Where our emotions take us often creates the biggest challenges for our will.  Our psalmist is giving us some pretty awesome truth in this simple verse - if we have the ears to hear and the wisdom to listen!  

It is in the "addition" of God's knowledge that we come to have a wise heart.  To our feeble commitment to live obediently, to submit our emotions to his care and leading, he "adds" HIS "two cents".  It is the "addition" of his ability which gives us the wisdom (applied knowledge) - allowing us to begin to bring reason to our emotions and true discernment to our minds.  This is how our hearts move from being unwise to being wise - in the addition of God's grace.

As our psalmist speaks, he asks God to tell US how to number our days.  In other words, he is asking God to remind us of what we have been given.  To number our days, we are not looking back in regret, but seeing the path of grace marked out in the redemption from our past, and the steps which we take today and those which lay ahead serving to create a legacy of grace in our lives.  The "numbering" of our days is a way of recalling blessing - seeing God's hand fully in control all along the way.  Sure, we made some missteps along the way, but to each misstep, God added his grace - otherwise we'd not be taking these steps today!

It is the Thanksgiving season in the United States - a time of recalling blessings and dwelling on the greatness of God in our lives.  Many have undertaking to making November a month of recalling blessings.  In a way, they are "numbering" their days - acknowledging God's "additions" of grace in their lives.  Some are thankful for family, friends, and relationships of all kinds.  Others are recounting the deliverance from the grips of a crippling and life-threatening disease.  Still others are stoked about the blessing of a new job, the faithful of provision all along the way.  Regardless of the blessing, the heart moves from a place of taking these things for granted toward recounting them as the blessing of God in their lives as they begin to "number" their days through the eyes of God.

In the short time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, many will again recount the many graces of God in their lives.  In so doing, we are further acknowledging God's grace "additions" - focusing on the awesomeness of the greatest gift anyone could receive - the grace of God in the form of his Son given for our lives.  I don't know the particular "additions" God has made in your life, but as we take a brief period of time to specifically focus on God's blessings during this holiday season, let us not forget to see the many times God's "two cents" really have added "value" and "worth" to our lives!  Just sayin!

Thank and enjoy God - FULLY!

What "marks" do you bear in your life?  Some will answer, "I have a tattoo on my shoulder - of Mickey Mouse!"  Others might say, "I have this birthmark on my back, the shape of Texas!"  Still others might be inclined to answer, "I have this scar - from a recent surgery!"  There are all kinds of "marks" we bear, aren't there?  Some are of our choosing, while others are clearly there because of nothing we did ourselves.  There are two "marks" in our lives which are both a result of our "choosing" and someone else's "doing".  These are the marks of God's grace and blessing!

God, mark us with grace and blessing! Smile!  The whole country will see how you work, all the godless nations see how you save.  God! Let people thank and enjoy you.  Let all people thank and enjoy you.  Let all far-flung people become happy and shout their happiness because you judge them fair and square, you tend the far-flung peoples.  God! Let people thank and enjoy you.      Let all people thank and enjoy you.  Earth, display your exuberance!   You mark us with blessing, O God, our God.  You mark us with blessing, O God.      Earth’s four corners—honor him!  (Psalm 67 MSG)

As I read this Psalm today, I was caught by the many times David repeated the words "thank and enjoy you" as he related how the hearts of the people should be toward their faithful God.  What does it mean to be "marked with God's blessing"?  I think it may consist of a variety of things, but there are some which come to mind as I contemplate some of the reasons I am thankful to God and enjoying his activity in my life - yours may be different, but they are indeed similar.  Some are grateful for the tremendous deliverance from life-dominating addictions which held them in their grip for long periods.  Others may be extremely grateful for the child of blessing God allowed to come after long years of trying, waiting, and living with hopeful expectation.  Regardless of the "reasons" for our gratefulness, there is something consistently evident "behind" our gratefulness - God's blessings!

Our psalmist points out a couple of things we will do well to consider this morning:

1.  God's work in our lives is to save us - sometimes from the acts of our own doing and other times from the actions of others.  His intervention in our lives is what has kept us safe.  He has chosen to "mark us" with his salvation - but also with his protection.  Scripture declares over and over - God is our shelter, our strong tower, our protector, and our fortress.  If you have ever tried to shelter yourself from the attacks of another, you might just have experienced a little bit of frustration by just how inadequate your own "protective devices" have been.  God's "business" is to save - first from our own destructive self-willed sinful state, then from those things and people who will keep us from enjoying this position of grace.  

2.  God's actions involve judgment - fair, truthful, and deliberate.  Yet, his judgment is never without mercy.  If we look at Old Testament stories of God's judgment, we will see such evidence of his mercy.  For example, when Lot and his family were caught up in living in an ungodly place - the regions of Sodom and Gommorah - God sent a messenger to offer the opportunity for grace, long before he sent his judgment upon the city.  When Nineveh was on the verge of judgment, God prepared a messenger - Jonah.  It took Jonah a while to get with God's plan, but in the end, an entire city was changed!  God is "fair" - not in the sense we might evaluate fairness - but in consistency with his character.  You see, God cannot allow sin to go "unnoticed" just because he also has the character trait of grace.  His holiness cannot commune with sin - therefore, sin must be judged.  Yet, in judgment the gift of grace is preeminent.

3.  God "tends" his people.  I think of this "tending" much like the actions of my Dad when he'd garden.  As he "tended" the garden, some weeds were plucked out, branches trimmed, dead leaves turned into the soil to give it back nourishment to continue to feed the growth around it, and water added so life could be preserved.  He could turn the most alkaline and hard soil into the richest of gardens in a matter of weeks, just by his tending it.  God is much like my Dad (or Dad was probably much like my God!) - he might pluck a little here and there, turn a little "deadness" into life again, and give us plenty of "life-giving water" to keep us alive and prospering.  In his "tending", he is constantly vigilant to bring forth growth - newness and freshness - never letting us grow stale, withering away without care.  

No wonder our psalmist encourages all the four-corners of the world to celebrate with exuberance!  To thank God and enjoy him fully!  Isn't it about time we did the same?  Just sayin!