Out loud

Unseal my lips, O Lord, that my mouth may praise you.  Psalm 51:15 (NLT)

I find within myself a resistance and reluctance to pray and/or to offer God praise.  I don’t think I’m alone in this.  I suspect people SAY they pray a lot more than they REALLY pray, but that’s hard to check up on.  I do see the “pushback” on the praise thing every week at church from those in attendance that stand silently but don’t sing.  I feel for them because I see this in myself almost daily. 

I need God’s help to unseal my lips, to get me to open my mouth to and for him. It’s a struggle.  In fact, I’m so easily distracted that I’m bad at silent prayer!  For me, often I have to pray out loud in order to really pray at all.  And there’s all the difference in the world between listening to others sing a song of praise to God and actually singing it yourself.  I’d go so far as to say it’s much like the difference between watching someone else kiss a girl versus actually participating yourself.  

If you’ve struggled to connect with God in prayer and praise lately, you might give this a try.  Say it or sing it out loud.

Funeral

For God……made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.  But we have this treasure in jars of clay….  2 Corinthians 4: 6-7 (NIV)

We had my grandmother’s funeral yesterday.  After her stroke, she lasted a couple of days.  The thought about our bodies being “jars of clay”  (other translations render it “earthen vessels” or “perishable containers”) was one that came to mind as I watched her passing.  My grandmother was a neat lady that loved her Lord and though her “jar of clay” broke and crumbled after 94 years here on earth, the light that lived in her through the power of God through Jesus Christ still shines and she is with Him now.   She loved to garden and I suspect she’s running her tiller, laying out rows of vegetables even now…….

Communion

Then He took a loaf of bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them saying, This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.  Luke 22:19 (Amplified Bible)

Had a neat celebration of Good Friday last night that our new pastor, Jamie Duncan, put together for us.  It included several stations where we were reading bible verses, praying, watching film clips from THE PASSION, writing confessions and nailing them to a cross, etc.  I was reminded how incredibly costly and deadly serious it was for Jesus Christ to sacrifice Himself for you and me.  Afterward, we gathered in a circle for Communion (just being in a circle instead of in rows made it feel really different) and he talked to us for a few minutes about the covenant we were celebrating and participating in.  And then Jamie demonstrated how Jesus took a fresh, wonderful-looking loaf of bread in his hands and started breaking it into pieces as he quoted what Jesus said about His body being given for us.  That simple gesture of breaking the loaf hit me like never before.   It’s all symbolic but that helped me to an understanding I never got with little pieces of saltine cracker in a silver tray. 

Substitute Teacher

My 94-year old grandmother had a stroke Tuesday night and is in the hospital, most likely in her last days or hours.  One never knows, of course.  She’s a neat lady with a lively mind and very strong opinions that has lived a full life.  She loves the Lord, her family, the ARP church, foreign missions, PBS, gardening, and fresh vegetables…all of which, I’m sure, are well-represented in heaven.

My grandmother was an elementary teacher for many years and was, I am told and can fully believe, fairly strict and demanding of her students.  I imagine they enjoyed a day off whenever she was out and a substitute teacher was called in.  I know I always liked that!  My favorites just showed us a National Geographic film.  I probably learned more from watching them than I would have with my “regular” teacher. 

So with that in mind, here’s the link to your “substitute blogger” for the day, Mr. Tim Stevens.  I hope to be back soon……

http://www.leadingsmart.com/leadingsmart/2008/03/open-letter-to.html

Crime and Punishment

Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!”  And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in gravesclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth.  Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!”   John 11:43-44 (NLT)

I’m a decent reader, but I don’t think I’d have every made it through this one.  I just finished listening to Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky on CD.  25+ hours, folks.  This is possible when one spends a lot of time driving.  The Cliff Notes version is that a poor, proud, and very lost young man kills two women with an ax and deals with the fallout very badly.  I wasn’t much into it frankly, and was pretty lost in the Russian names, when in drops this powerful scene with a young prostitute reading aloud to the killer the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.  The fallen woman was a Christian despite her position in life and trembled with emotion as she read how Jesus brought life out of death.  Here’s the line at the end of this scene that I loved the most…..

“the murderer and the harlot strangely come together over the reading of the eternal book.” 

Maybe you had to be there, or at least be familiar with the novel, but isn’t that a wonderful picture of God’s grace extended to us all, even the most undeserving?  In the book, it took a long and twisting road even after this, but that’s when redemption really started for the hero/anti-hero in the story.  And isn’t that truly what salvation is like?  A journey we make mostly in the dark until we confess, repent, suffer, and find Love…or more accurately, Love finds us.

For a more scholarly blog on this book from an apparently learned (and most likely much better) Christian, you can check out http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2008/03/13/the-depth-of-crime-and-punishment/

Wednesday Bonus

..the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.  The way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know over what they stumble.  Proverbs 4:18-19 (NASB)

I usually only post a couple of times a week, but I thought this word picture was SO powerful I just had to offer a rare Wednesday Bonus.  We don’t use words like “righteous” and “wicked” any more except in church, but you know who you are.  Not sure?  Righteous people choose to do right and wicked people choose to do wrong.  Now just think about this one.  I’ll mess it up if I add more…..

For you Bible scholars out there, I think I hear echoes in John 11:9-10 but I can’t explain it comprehensively.  Help me out if you can, or corrrect me if I’m wrong.

Better Days

And He shall wipe every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain….. Revelation 20:4a (NASB)

Better days are coming because of our God.   The world we live in isn’t as He created it and as it should be and He is making all things new.  In the meantime, because we inhabit a fallen, sin-filled world, there is death and sickness and pain and sorrow.  My lovely bride is sick this morning.  A friend of mine just lost her father.  Several others are going through problems in their relationship with their spouse.  A fellow I know is dealing with substance abuse and all the fallout that comes with that in his family.  An entire family nearby is hurting because their kid is making some really bad choices.  Still others are faced with aging and ailing parents and the hard times associated with getting older.  I can go on and on and on and so could you  This is  messed up place and as Christians we can’t pretend that it’s not.  But we do have a Hope and confidence that better days are ahead, that God is, even now, in the process of redeeming His creation……us included. 

Far from God?

For though the Lord is exalted, Yet He regards the lowly; But the haughty He knows from afar.  Psalm 138:6 (NASB)

Psalms is an amazing book.  Psalm 136 has the refraim “For His lovingkindness is everlasting” 26 times.  (For any of you that criticize some praise & worship music for redundancy…)  Immediately following that, Psalm 137 asks blessings on one who does violence to the children of the writer’s enemy.  Sorry, it’s in there and it makes me cringe.  People do that to me from time to time.  Read it for yourself if you must. 

And then Psalm 138 drops this insight into the character of God right in my lap.  The NLT translates it: ”He cares for the humble, but keeps His distance from the proud.”  I’ve felt a certain “distance” from God lately.  I’d like to put it down to fatigue, but this verse suggests a very different reason for that distance doesn’t it?

Song of Hope

Feel like a teenager when I do this, but here are a few lines my favorite song on the radio these days.   My wife says it’s stuck in her head, too.  I’ve been a bit caught up in “doing more” lately and just know I need to slow down, look up, and be satisfied with and loved by God.  Nothing else.  My favortie line is ”Just to know You and be loved is enough.”  That’s a “WOW” concept for me.  Come on and sing along…..

From  “Song of Hope” by the Robbie Seay Band

 All things new
I can start again
Creator, God
Calling me Your friend
Sing praise, my soul
To the Maker of the skies
A song will rise

I will sing a song of hope
Sing along
God of heaven come down
Heaven come down
Just to know You and be loved is enough
God of heaven come down, heaven come down

Because your love is better than life,  my lips will glorify you.   I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.  My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.  Psalm 63:3-5 (NIV)

 

The Wall (Part 3)

Some of you may remember a classic Pink Floyd album (mine was actually on 8-track) entitled “The Wall.”  I wore that thing out in 1979-80.  The most famous lyric is “All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.”  I’ve spent the last couple of posts writing how measuring and keeping score and building walls is bad for us.  Today I want to look at what I use for construction material and how I build MY walls.

“Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!  And if your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire.  And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you.  It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell.  Matthew 18:7-9 (NASB)

Jesus is the speaker here and being more than a little hard core, I’d say.  The New American Standard translation here uses the interesting phrase “stumbling blocks,” and the examples Jesus cites are EXACTLY what I use to build my wall….my hands, my feet and my eyes.

I can use my hands and my feet for out and out sin, but more often the stumbling blocks that I use in wall construction are simply doing too many things, going too many places, and getting too busy.  I’ve got too many plates spinning and I need to put some down so I can focus on the most important things.  And I travel too much and need to be home more.  I can lie and tell myself it’s no big deal, that I can handle the load and the stress, but Jesus tells me it would be better to cut off my hands and feet than to allow them to build walls that I stumble over, that separate me from God and people that I’m called to love.

My eyes can cause me to stumble when I lust after people, or money, or power (And I’m not above ANY of those things), but more often my eyes cause me to stumble just by distracting me.  I so easily lose focus and clarity because my eyes begin to roam and I’m attracted by stuff here on earth.  I know in my heart it’s only temporary and it won’t last, but it still gets me off track.  Jesus said if I’d be better off with only one eye if two get in the way.  Maybe with one eye I’d be forced to more clearly decide where to focus. 

I can’t use my hands, my feet and my eyes to both build walls and follow God.  I’ve got to choose.  And I have to make that choice every single day or I stumble into my very own wall.