Discipler of self...

Moments of Change

2012-01-29T14:35:00.003-06:00

There are those moments in time in which one stands aware that there is a change coming. Perhaps it is not so much a change in one's circumstances, exactly, but more a change in one's perspective.

I am on the eve of one of those moments. Tomorrow marks a day of decision.....not by me but about me. It is a bit daunting to know that all that I've been working toward for several years is going to be evaluated and determined to have been sufficient or not.

There is satisfaction in knowing that I've done my best. But there is also the question - will my best have been good enough?

As I visited with a friend at church and asked for her prayers tomorrow, she reminded me, "What God's will brings you to, His grace will get you through." I am trusting in that truth.

The Means and the End....

2012-01-16T20:56:00.004-06:00

When I began to feel the Lord moving me from one vocational arena to another in 2003, from sales to ministry, I began a journey of preparation. It required getting up to date, technologically, and learning to maneuver online learning. Columbia College's certification program in Christian Education was my entry back into the education milieu since graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1976 and certification as a Medical Technologist at Baptist Medical Center's School of Medical Technology in 1977.

The Christian Education program took two and half years. Then, in 2007, with more clarity about the direction God was leading, I undertook a master's degree program in counseling and psychology. Once that was completed, in 2009 I began theological studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. Now, I am just six semester hours away from completing that course of study. It is an exciting prospect to be so near to the end of the preparation process.

Even more exciting, however, is realizing that, while God had me earnestly pursuing preparation for ministry, He was moving me into the ministry for which I was preparing gradually and naturally. Now I find myself completing the educational process and already well established in the work for which I have been training.

When I began the process of change and the education preparation, I thought I knew where I was headed. As it has occurred, I am not where I thought I was headed, but I'm right where God intended me to be, I believe.

What a joyful journey this has been, though challenging at times! The thing that I have discovered in the midst of the journey is that obedience to God is an adventure that is well worth the time and effort that it requires.

One translation of a familiar verse in Hebrews calls Christ our "trailblazer and guide". Christ was the one who recruited me for the journey. Christ has certainly been blazing a pathway for me and guiding me through it each step of the way. And now, as I move toward the end, I find that He is also the One awaiting me at the destination. All along the process He has been present and now invites me to more adventure with Him in the continued journey. This is not actually an ending. It is more like staking a place in the ground where I camped for a while and beginning the next leg of the journey.

For a homebody who resists travel in the physical realm, I find myself surprised by the degree of wanderlust and spirit of adventure I possess spiritually.

The song that comes to mind as I write this is:

"Lead On O King Eternal
The day of march has come
Henceforth in fields of conquest
Thy tents shall be our home.
Through days of preparation
Thy grace has made us strong
And now, O King Eternal,
We lift our battle song.

Lead on, O King Eternal.
We follow not with fears
For gladness breaks like morning
Wherever Thy face appears.
Thy cross is lifted o'er us
We journey in its light
The crown awaits the conquest
Lead on, O God of might."

New Testament Interpretation Research Paper for Asbury Class

2011-12-09T22:09:00.003-06:00

PHILEMON: A GENTLE AND GRACIOUS PERSUASION By Cathy Byrd

1. Introduction

Philemon, a brief occasional letter authored by the Apostle Paul while in prison, provides counsel to specific people on the practical matter of dealing with Onesimus, a runaway slave. At the same time, it offers Christians today a model for engaging in advocacy and exercising personal influence. Paul’s persuasive rhetoric in this letter demonstrates strategies that are worthy of our consideration as we seek to influence others and demonstrates Paul’s general preference for persuasion over coercive exercise of his apostolic authority. Examining the specific strategies that Paul uses to make his case, I will highlight four key aspects: appeal to honor, personal identification with others, judicious use of authority and personal power, and presumption of good.

The art of letter writing is almost lost on today’s generation that is trained to use abbreviated shorthand to communicate its thoughts and compress them into 140 characters of type. But the genius of Paul’s letter is that, though it is short, it is an eloquent and sensitive personal communication that is persuasive.
The letter follows a typically Hellenistic form, containing an introductory greeting, followed by a thanksgiving, the body of the letter, and the greetings and benediction that form the closing. It was necessitated by events that are stated or implied in the letter and brings the question of slavery to the forefront in the early Christian church, as Paul does in several other epistles. Because of the delicate and tactful way that Paul addresses the issue, Philemon can be read from either of two perspectives: 1.) a conservative reading that upholds the established social order, or 2.) an emancipatory perspective that advocates the “peaceful and gradual abolition of slavery”. Saarinen, in advocating for the latter perspective, notes that Paul may have cloaked his intention in vague and concealed language in order to comply with the Roman law. However one chooses to read Paul’s intention, Paul does make it clear that the mandate of brotherly love under the shared fellowship with Christ transcends the relationship of master to slave.

Onesimus was a slave belonging to Philemon, a Christian from Colossae. It appears that Onesimus not only ran away (Philemon 15-16) , but that he may have taken money or goods belonging to Philemon, as well (vv. 18-19). If not liable for direct loss of financial assets, at the very least, Onesimus’ absence from his master’s house would have resulted in a potential loss of the economic value of his work. He seems to have found his way to the city where Paul was imprisoned. There Paul led Onesimus to faith in Christ (v.10). Finding that Onesimus had skills that could be useful to him in ministry (v. 11) Paul sought to persuade Philemon to act toward Onesimus as he would act toward Paul himself and to send Onesimus back to serve with Paul in ministry. In keeping with the emancipatory view, one might read in this that, in complying with these requests, Philemon would likely find it necessary to free Onesimus.

Onesimus was in a very precarious situation, as a runaway slave. As Risto Saarinen has observed, the institution of slavery was legally established in the Roman empire and “in many ways sustained the daily life of both society and household, providing the basic conditions of life for both masters and their slaves.” A runaway slave in the Roman world could easily slip away and disappear into one of a number of groups – robbers, rebels, mariners, etc. However, upon capture he would likely face even harsher treatment, possibly including imprisonment.

2. Persuasive Strategies

Honor and shame were important concepts among the people in the communities where Paul travelled and in the broader Greco-Roman culture of the time. People sought to avoid shame and be recognized for their honorable behavior among their peers, family members and patrons, a very common relationship of support at the time. Paul makes use of this cultural motivation by stating the honorable course of action in the letter, “what you ought to do” (v. 8) and “no longer a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother”(v. 16).

He also leverages the power of honor by involving others who would serve as silent (or perhaps not so silent) witnesses to the communication between himself and Philemon. Beginning with his greeting, it is clear that Paul and Philemon are not the only parties to this exchange. While this letter is quite brief, it includes the names of ten people besides Paul. Timothy, Paul’s frequent traveling companion and co-laborer in ministry to the Gentiles, is seen to be present in the writing and sending of this letter (v.1). The letter is addressed not only to Philemon, but also to Apphia (possibly Philemon’s wife), Archippus (a fellow worker in the church), and to the house church members who meet in Philemon’s home (v. 2). Furthermore, at the end of the letter Paul includes a greeting from five additional witnesses to his side of this issue (v. 23-24). By involving these other persons, Paul is assuring that his letter, and its appeal to Philemon, will receive a broad hearing. While some of the content is, in fact, relevant to the other recipients, like Paul’s gratitude for their ministry (v.4-7) and the fact that Paul intends to travel to Colossae and be with them again (v.22), the letter is mostly about Paul’s business with Philemon himself. Yet, because it is ensconced within a letter addressed more broadly to the group, Philemon will have to receive its contents under the eyes of his brothers and sisters in Christ. So his reaction to the letter and his response to Paul’s request will be on display for all to see. Philemon has not only the financial value of his runaway slave at stake, but he has his reputation as a Christian and a man of honor at stake.
How can Philemon respond to Paul’s appeal in the presence of so many witnesses in a way that saves face and maintains his stature among the congregation members there in Colossae? It seems clear that he would have no alternative but to concede to Paul’s wishes or risk appearing ungrateful to Paul, his patron of sorts, since it appears that Philemon himself was brought to faith in Christ by Paul (v. 19). And even though Philemon might be well within his legal right to take action against Onesimus, by rejecting Paul’s request Philemon would also risk appearing punitive or unmerciful toward Onesimus with Paul and among the Christians at Colossae. In verse 9, “I appeal to you on the basis of love,” and in Paul’s closing benediction, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit,” (v. 25) Paul is clearly appealing not to the letter of the law in Philemon’s response in this case, but to the spirit of the law of love and inviting Philemon to act graciously, with the same love he has shown other saints (v. 5)

“The more abstract and theological purpose of Philemon has to do with the
teaching of freedom, love, and gratitude. Christians should be able to renounce their legal and moral claims and learn to act out of love and gratitude.”

Another strategy that Paul employs to good effect is personal identification with others. In the opening greeting Paul refers to himself as a “prisoner of Christ”. In this gentle way, he may be seen to be taking a stand of solidarity with Onesimus, whom Philemon would be well within his legal rights to have imprisoned for his escape. Since Paul is, also, literally, physically a prisoner in chains, presumably for his preaching activities, he is also illuminating a spiritual reality, demonstrating to Philemon and the other members of the Colossae house church that they all are indeed “prisoners of Christ Jesus”, too, by virtue of their submission to His authority in their lives. In the case of this greeting, both what is said and what is not said is significant. Notably, Paul does not include his status as an apostle in the greeting, as he does in some letters, since he does not intend to use his apostolic authority to accomplish what is being sought.
In another example of identification, Paul equates Onesimus with Philemon when he says “so that he (Onesimus) could take your place in helping me” (v.13).
Additionally, Paul’s use of many relational and familial terms in this letter further serves to identify him with his readers. Some of those are “brother”, “fellow worker”, “sister”, “fellow soldier”, “my son”, “my very heart”, and “partner”. In verses 7 and 20 Paul refers to Philemon as a brother and in verse 16, he refers to Onesimus as a brother, effectively equating their statuses with one another and with himself. Jesus, too, set a clear priority on the spiritual family relationships over other relationships, biological or legal, in Mark 3:32-35. However, becoming a brother in the faith does not automatically erase the slave/master relationship that exists legally.

Paul also uses their shared ministry of the gospel as a means of identifying himself with his readers in Colossae, too. He acknowledges their love for the saints, their active sharing of their faith, their understanding of being heirs in Christ to “good things”, and that they have refreshed the hearts of the saints (v.5-7). By enumerating these acts of generosity and ministry, Paul suggests a status in the kingdom of God for his readers as equal, in at least some respects, to his own, as ministers of the gospel.

Perhaps the most direct example of this persuasive strategy of identification is Paul’s request that Philemon welcome Onesimus “as you would welcome me” (v. 17). This serves as a powerful amulet of protection for Onesimus. Under ordinary circumstances, considering the potential for brutality in the Roman culture, presenting himself to Philemon in person could have subjected him to legal and perhaps physical consequences that could be significantly adverse. But with this letter in hand from Paul, serving as Paul’s personal emissary, it is clear that Onesimus has a powerful ally and protector. Another key factor in positioning the return of Onesimus in its most favorable light is Paul’s insistence that any debt owed to Philemon by Onesimus is to be charged to Paul, an example of Paul personally assuming the liability for and identifying with Onesimus. How could Philemon deny one who is obviously so close to him and who holds both him and Onesimus in such high regard as Paul apparently does?

The third technique employed by Paul is the judicious use of authority and personal power. Paul’s personal prerogative to act authoritatively appears to be a function of Paul’s apostolic authority over the church in Colossae. As the one who introduced Philemon to Christ, Paul says “although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do” (v.8). But it may also be a function of his patronal role in Philemon’s life. Even though Paul possesses these prerogatives, he chooses not to exercise any of them. Paul acknowledges that he has the authority to order Philemon to comply with his request (v. 8), a fact that would be clear to Philemon, but he makes it clear that he wants Philemon’s decision to be “spontaneous and not forced” (v.14). Paul desires Philemon’s consent rather than peremptorily appropriating Onesimus’s services for himself, without regard to Philemon’s prior claim on Onesimus (v. 14), which would have violated their Christian fellowship with one another.

The final technique in Paul’s letter to Philemon is the presumption of good in response to the requested action. To a degree this technique is related to the issue of honor. Due to Paul’s knowledge of the strong imperative of honor in the culture, he would be right to expect that an appeal to the honor of Philemon in doing what he “ought to do” would yield the desired result. Additionally, Paul expresses “great joy and encouragement” because of the way this congregation has “refreshed the hearts of the saints” (v. 7). So, when Paul later refers to Onesimus as “my very heart” (v. 12), one might assume that Paul is expecting Onesimus’ status with the community from which he had fled to be “refreshed”, since Onesimus is now also one of the “saints”. Furthermore, it is clear that Paul himself expects to have his own heart “refreshed” by the aid of Onesimus, with Philemon’s permission and blessing, while Paul continues in prison (v.20). These repeated references to hearts and refreshing that weave through the greeting and the body of the letter infuse it with both an acknowledgement of and an appeal to brotherly love. In verse 21 Paul expresses his confidence that Philemon is going to do even more than has been asked. Paul’s expectation of a response above and beyond the requested action here is a reflection of Christ’s own teaching in Matthew 5:40-41, “And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” Paul does not explicitly direct Philemon to free Onesimus, but it seems clear that he is appealing to Philemon’s good graces and expressing confidence that Philemon will do what he “ought to do” and “even more than I ask”. This may refer to an expectation that Philemon will grant legal status to Onesimus that is in keeping with his new spiritual status of equality with Philemon, Paul, and all of those at Colossae and in the kingdom of God.

“The nature of Paul's approach to Philemon serves as a reminder for us to appeal to the highest Christian motivations. This is a challenge to pastors, evangelists,
teachers, and all who have reason to care about the right behavior of others. We need to take the risks Paul did in trusting God and the power of faith and love.”

3. Result of Paul’s persuasive appeal

We are given no indication of the outcome of Paul’s plea to Philemon either in this letter or elsewhere. There are, however, several points that suggest the probability that Paul’s direct request for Onesimus’ service in ministry and his implied appeal for the liberation of Onesimus were fulfilled. John Knox, in his book, Philemon Among the Letters of Paul, suggests that Onesimus himself may have been the one who aided the publication and distribution of the letter, as tradition holds that Onesimus later became the bishop of Ephesus. What better or more authoritative way could Onesimus honor his master-turned-benefactor among the churches than to assure that Paul’s letter received a wide reading, becoming a testimony to Philemon’s honor and generosity? The letter also establishes Onesimus’ status as a co-laborer with Paul in the kingdom and would further serve as Onesimus’ proof of his liberation by Philemon. This wide distribution of the letter, as well as its creditable authorship, would likely have strengthened the case for its inclusion in the canon.

4. Conclusion
In summary, by utilizing the persuasive strategies listed, Paul demonstrates the close, loving relationship he has with Philemon and the Colossae church and his knowledge of what motivates Philemon – cultural honor and patronage, Christian standards of ethical behavior, obedience to authority, and affection for Paul. Paul leverages all of these in advocacy for the benefit of his beloved new son in Christ, Onesimus, and for his own needs, as well as for the needs of the kingdom of God.
As Harris notes, Paul “demonstrates a style of exerting influence without coercing, of persuading without violating the personhood of the other individual. Here is a model for parents, church people, and leaders with vested interest in the outcome of others' decisions.”

To appreciate the power of this artful and brief epistle, we might well remember these words from nineteenth century theologian and music publisher John S. Dwight’s translation of the beloved Christmas carol, "O Holy Night," which reflect Paul’s call to Philemon to accept Onesimus as his brother in Christ and the ultimate goal that will result from such koinonia:
“Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace;
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
And in His name all oppression shall cease.”
(from "Cantique de Noël," by Cappeau de Roquermaure)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Harris, Murray J. Colossians and Philemon: Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Erdmans Publishing Co. (1991) pp. 241-288.
Hays, Richard B. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction
to New Testament Ethics, New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers. (1996) p.40

Martin, Earnest D. Believers Church Bible commentary. Herald Press. 1993. eBook.
New York, NY: Harper Collins. (1996) pp. 239-279.

O’Brien, Peter T. Word Biblical Commentary: Colossians, Philemon, Vol. 44. Waco, Texas: Word Books. (1982) pp. 265-308.

Saarinen, Risto. The Pastoral Epistles with Philemon and Jude, Brazos Theological
Commentary on the Bible, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, (2008) pp. 199-211.

Laboring Long

2011-10-26T22:23:00.002-05:00

I've been pecking away now for over three years at requirements for ordination as a deacon in the United Methodist Church. I have finally gotten within sight of the "light at the end of the tunnel" . It is a great feeling to know that it's almost done!

"Just in time delivery"

2011-03-16T00:10:00.004-05:00

Years ago I was a sales representative with a major consumer goods corporation. At the time there was a new way of moving products from manufacturer to retailer, skipping warehousing. They called it "just in time delivery". The advent of large superstore retailers had made it possible. We were "drop shipping" loads of paper products directly to stores instead of to warehouses.

I am at a point in my life where I am managing multiple demands on my time. I am juggling postgraduate classes in seminary that involve heavy duty reading and weekly papers, participating in a Clinical Pastoral Education practicum, keynote speaking for a women's spiritual enrichment retreat in 10 days, giving a talk at an Emmaus walk in six weeks, writing curriculum for my student responsibilities at work, training a staff member in some new duties, and maintaing a schedule of counseling and case management at work. Some days I feel like I'm the proverbial duck, trying hard to look calm on the surface and paddling like crazy underneath. So far, at least, I'm managing to "deliver" everything "just in time". I pray that nothing untoward or unplanned comes along. That would throw a significant monkey wrench in my system!

I heard one time that "the Lord never hurries, but He is always right on time!" Well, I'm on time with everything so far, but I can't say that I'm not hurrying! Everything feels hurried. I'm starting to look forward to the completion of some of these projects! Several people have asked me recently what else I plan to do when I finish my seminary classes. My response is NOTHING! I will have had enough already of classes, papers, textbooks, and tests.

Lord, allow me to continue to be "just in time."

The woman at the well engages in theological questioning

2011-01-09T21:27:00.005-06:00

I was asked to read John 4:5-42 and prepare a prayer based on the text. So, I was reading with attentiveness. As a result I saw something in this conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman I'd never seen before.

As Methodists, we believe that there are 4 commonly employed standards used for formulating and evaluating theology, 4 "tests" of truth- Scripture, Reason, Tradition, and Experience, commonly referred to as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

As I read this familiar story, I suddenly realized that the Samaritan woman was employing all 4! In her first response to Christ's request for water she seems quizzical, even perhaps a bit defensive and argumentative, employing reason to try to discover why a Jewish man would ask a Samaritan woman for anything, given the disdain and prejudice with which Jews generally regarded Samaritans. Jesus replies in a way that entices her. Again though, she is using reason, pointing out that he has nothing with which to draw water himself and then she shifts into tradition, pointing out the history of the well and its importance to her people. Jesus responds to her. Intrigued, she references personal experience - thirst and the labor of drawing water- and expresses desire for what he offers. When Jesus directs her to get her husband, she answers honestly and continues in the personal, experiential mode.

When Jesus has shown his knowledge of her circumstances, she deflects and shifts the conversation to tradition again- asking a question that has little to do with drawing water, but rather speaks of worship. Jesus responds. Then finally, she refers to the writings of the Jewish prophets (Scripture) and states what she knows and states her belief that answers will ultimately be had.

In this conversation with the Samaritan woman, we see one of the longest and most interactive exchanges in all of Scripture involving Jesus. I find it interesting that the woman employs every way she can to figure Jesus out, to understand Him and what He is offering.

In the end, she goes to get others to come to hear Jesus. She wants to know if they see what she sees, if her conclusion is right. When they hear her testimony and hear Jesus themselves, they are convinced that her conclusion is correct.

Are we as persistent, as dogged in our pursuit of the truth of Jesus? Are we willing to reveal our doubts? Are we as honest in acknowledging the reality of our circumstances and our dependence on comforting traditions? Are we as knowledgeable of the Word?

Second thought postscript

2010-12-11T06:54:00.002-06:00

After only a few weeks, I realized that there are some items in this conglomeration of random thoughts that I might want to share with someone else once in a while.....so, I reactivated the blogspot site. There is a time delay of a couple of months before blogspot actually eliminates all of one's entries. I think now that I'm glad the entries weren't permanently lost. Just don't look for any new ones to be added.

The end

2010-11-11T04:54:00.005-06:00

This exercise of blogging over the last 5+ years has been therapeutic and helpful. But I've come to the conclusion that, since I'm the only one reading it that it would be just as useful done in a journal, if at all. There's no point in taking up space in the cloud with my dribbling. Time to move on. So effective immediately, there will be no more entries at this site.

I will wait 24 hours, then obliterate the site.

Peace.

Ten Commandments Tool.....

2010-09-06T01:00:00.003-05:00

I saw this helpful aid for remembering the Ten Commandments. This method uses the first four words of Exodus 20:2 "I am the Lord."

Idolatry - Don't worship idols (vv.4-6)

Adultery - Don't commit adultery (v.14)
Murder - Don't commit murder (v.13)

Taking - Don't steal (v. 15)
Honor - Obey your parents (v.12)
Envy- Don't covet what isn't yours (v.17)

Lying - Don't give false testimony (v. 16)
Other gods-Don't worship other gods (v.3)
Rest - Rest on the Sabbath (vv. 8-11)
Disrespect-Don't misuse God's name (v. 7)

The Consolation of the Holy Spirit.....

2010-09-06T00:34:00.003-05:00

"The consolation of the Holy Spirit" is a phrase I have heard from time to time and I had imagined that it as the comfort of the Holy Spirit. But today I read a brief essay by Ruth Haley Barton who has written about solitude, silence, and the rhythms of sacred living.

She writes in Dicipleship Journal that consolation is "a deep sense of life-giving connection with God, with others, and with whom God created one to be. It is the sense that in some deep way all is right with the world, that we are free to be given over to God to love even in pain and crisis." The opposite of consolation, she says, is desolation, the loss of a sense of God's presence. "We feel out of touch with God, with others, and with whom God made us to be", feeling "off-center, full of turmoil and confusion, and maybe even in rebellion."

Barton says that these two experiences in relationship to God- consolation and desolation - can help us with our decision making process. In addition to considering the biblical counsel on the subject, prayerfulness about choices that we are contemplating, and consulting with godly friends, we can look to how the options contribute to or diminish our sense of connection to God.

She suggests that, in efforts at decision making, one can try this exercise. In choosing between two alternatives, pick one option and imagine you've already set your mind on it. Walk around with that choice for two or three days in your mind and notice the presence of consolation or desolation. Do you feel in tune with God and who you are in Him? Then, switch options and walk around with the other choice in your mind. Do you feel less connection to God or who you are in Him? Are you sad? Is your energy drained?

We must cultivate stillness and quiet in order to get in touch with this sense of God's presence, to know His consolation in the midst of our thoughts and actions. She suggests 5 to 10 minutes of silence a day, reflecting on God and His will for you. Also, at the end of the day, take a few minutes and invite God to go over the day's activities with you, asking Him to show you when He was speaking to you that you didn't hear Him.

The goal is to recognize and respond to God in the moment, throughout the day, as we learn to consistently be aware of His presence and guiding.

Principle of replacement.....

2010-08-22T21:05:00.003-05:00

I have heard before that one can't simply remove oneself from sin or push away from evil. It is necessary to replace the sinful behavior or beliefs with others that are more valuable or good. Christ's parable of the man cleansed of an evil spirt suggests that this is the case, too. The spirit returned and found the man's soul swept clean and empty. Absent anything beneficial that had taken its place, the evil spirit simply returned, with a team of cohorts, so that the man's condition, in the end, was worse than before.

Today in our women's Sunday morning study, we were talking about the 7 deadly sins, specifically gluttony, in all its manifestations (hoarding, covetousness, avarice, overeating, excessive drinking, etc.) As we talked it occurred to me that with all sins it is the same. And, given the necessity of fleeing from and pushing away such behaviors, I asked myself what is the replacement? It seems to me that much of gluttony is born out of a lack of trust in God's faithfulness to provide for us. If we can come to trust His good intentions toward us and His faithfulness to meet our needs, then we can be grateful, generous, and content instead of covetous, hoarding, and excessive consumers.

Knowing what one believes.....

2010-07-31T15:46:00.004-05:00

Arminianism's chief tenets: (John Wesley rejected Calvinism and embraced Arminianism)

1. Humans are naturally unable to make any effort towards salvation.
2. They possess free will to accept or reject salvation.
3. Salvation is possible only by God's grace, which cannot be merited.
4. No works of human effort can cause or contribute to salvation.
5. God's election is conditional on faith in the sacrifice and Lordship of Jesus Christ.
6. Christ's atonement was made on behalf of all people.
7. God allows his grace to be resisted by those who freely reject Christ.
8. Believers are able to resist sin but are not beyond the possibility of falling from grace through persistent, unrepented-of sin.

Calvinism's chief tenets: (TULIP)
1. Total Depravity, that is every person born into the world is enslaved to the service of sin.
2. Unconditional election, that God's choice from eternity of those whom he will bring to himself is unconditionally grounded in God's mercy alone
3. Limited atonement-atonement is limited in the sense that it is designed for some and not all
4. Irrestistible Grace,that is, the influence of God's Holy Spirit cannot be resisted, and the Holy Spirit causes the sinner to come freely and willingly to Christ.
5. Perseverance of the Saints, asserts that since God is sovereign and his will cannot be frustrated by humans or anything else, those whom God has called into communion with himself will continue in faith until the end.

Over how much doctrine should one quibble? I suppose over however much one truly believes. As I've been reading about John Wesley's theology and reviewing his sermons, I am amazed at the sometimes small distinctions that he makes and the way in which it sometimes put him at odds even with friends.

Years ago I became preoccupied with the issue of "election" and "limited atonement". As I struggled with the concepts, I found that God gave me a strong sense that the gospel is for everyone, that Christ died for the sins of all humanity, not just the "elect". Today, as I read John Wesley's sermons "Free Grace" and "On Predestination", I was impressed by some points that confirmed my belief that I had never considered.

So, did God place me in the Methodist Church because, in my heart, its beliefs were what I believed or did my beliefs take form after I became aware of the Methodist beliefs that I was hearing? Either way, I seem to be where I am theologically suited.

Privileged to speak....

2010-07-13T22:41:00.003-05:00

I have been invited to be the keynote speaker for a spiritual enrichment retreat next March. Though it's over eight months away, I have already had to put to paper an outline for the weekend's messages on rather short notice. It's not as hard as one might imagine. I have begun to observe in myself a pattern of certain themes that are repeated again and again in my teaching, all of them having been arrived at through a combination of study, illumination, and hard won experience.

Now that I'm discipling women in an intensive type program that has complete turnover about every four to six months, I get a lot of opportunities to rehearse those themes, too.

I know that I have gained knowledge for the task. I also have passion for it. I pray that God will give me the ability to present the gospel in an appealing way, to excite and attract people to Him.

Our title for the event will be "Arise: Take Flight!" I will be using some video clips of Monarch butterflies at various stages of development as a supplement to our discussion and talking about the process of spiritual maturity.

Grace, grace, God's grace......

2010-07-13T22:32:00.004-05:00

"The one (justification)implies what God does for us through His Son; the other (sanctification) what He works in us by His Spirit." John Wesley

Righteousness.
How it comes to be,
if at all,
is amazing.

Covered, as with snow,
by the imputation of Christ's righteousness upon me.
Imbued, as wool is white,
through and through by the impartation of His righteousness in me.

Let it be
unto me, complete,
as God desires.

Nothing is too small for God's interest.......

2010-06-26T10:24:00.004-05:00

I have written several times about shoes. This past week I had to face the fact that a favorite pair of slide-on sandals needed to be relegated to "junk-shoe-kick-about" status or thrown in the trash. They had been a daily and Sunday all purpose shoe. So I reluctantly put them by the washing machine in the laundry area to use when I need something on to take out the trash or walk to the mailbox.

And I set out for the mall to look for a replacement pair, realizing that I would probably have to accept something less in terms of preference and something more in terms of price. I expected to have to pay top price, which for me would be be no more than $60 to $75 for a good, sturdy pair of leather sandals. I expected to have to go to the pricey department store to have a chance of success.

But before heading to the pricey department store for sandals I stopped in JC Penney's to pick up a spare pair of my favorite tennis shoe brand which was on sale and for which I had an extra $10 coupon. After paying for the tennis shoes, I decided to browse the rack of sale shoes, many of them sandals, at Penneys, not really expecting to find anything appropriate. I looked over the sandals and found them wanting on several counts....too flimsy, too trendy, etc.. and started out the door. Then,there by the exit aisle, on a display that I'd overlooked, was THE pair of sandals....very similar to the ones I'd just sidelined....sturdy, supportive, with just a touch of fashion appeal. And at half the price I'd prepared myself to pay! In that moment, I had the distinct impression of God smiling at me, delighting in giving me just what I needed and wanted.

Some would say that this is ridiculous, that God doesn't care what kind of shoes I wear or how much effort I have to put into finding the right ones. But I think God does care. He knows the problems I have with my feet and how I prefer to not have to make choices each day about shoes.....instead just choosing my favorite all-purpose pair and go. I believe God directed me to JC Penneys, on a mission for tennis shoes, then put that pair of sandals in front of me to satisfy a desire of my heart. A coincidence? Not at all. God is interested in every aspect of our lives and delights in giving us good things, even sandals.

I cannot tell you how many times I have pondered a needed/desired item, then set out attempting to be a good steward in the matter, willing to accept something less than my "ideal", if necessary, only to find the EXACT needed/desired item (or something even better!) at an unexpectedly good price.

If you have never tested God in this matter, I encourage you to do so. Ask Him to be with you in decisions over the daily matters of life. He loves going shopping with us! The next time you get a great bargain on something that you really needed or wanted, be sure to thank Him for His generous provision for your need!

Knowing.....

2010-06-25T21:18:00.008-05:00

One of the distinctive doctrines of Methodism is assurance of salvation - that believers in Christ can, and, in fact, should know without a doubt that they are pardoned and accepted by God. A. Skevington Wood, in his biography of John Wesley, The Burning Heart -John Wesley: Evangelist, cites Principal H.B. Workman's claim that the doctrine of assurance "was the fundamental contribution of Methodism to the life and thought of the Church." It was not a new doctrine, only one resurrected from obscurity by John Wesley when he realized after his Aldersgate experience of regeneration that assurance was what had been missing in his faith life. Wood says, "Wesley and his followers have always maintained that every penitent and believing soul may possess, and ought to possess, an assurance of salvation." It is a privilege, he says, of every true believer.

This doctrine is actually a prominent teaching of the Puritans, whose theology permeated Wesley's family's theological lineage. He would have heard it growing up, without a doubt. His own father's deathbed advice to him was, "The inward witness, son, the inward witness; that is the proof, the strongest proof of Christianity." Also, Martin Luther and other Protestant Reformers strongly asserted that every true believer is conscious of his own acceptance with God.

Wesley wrote about the Holy Spirit's role in illuminating our human spirit, clearly showing us what He has brought about in our lives. "He was firm in his conviction that those who are indeed the children of God will not be left in doubt by the Holy Spirit," says Wood, adding that Wesley made this the criterion by which the genuine Christian can be distinguished from the nominal (in name only). The Apostle Paul wrote, "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.." (1 Corinthians 2:12). Wood says that "....the Spirit graciously declares Himself." Charles Wesley wrote in one of his hymns that the inward witness of the Holy Spirit is "strong, and permanent, and clear."

Can we call ourselves "Christian" if we lack this assurance of salvation? Are we merely wanna-be's without it, deluded into thinking that we will be in heaven but actually headed for hell? I myself did not know it until I was 38, although I'd been baptized as a 12 year old and had attended church nearly all my life. John Wesley didn't know it until he was 35, even though he'd been baptized at the age of 8 and ordained a priest in the Anglican church at age 25. He discovered that it was this that was missing in his life through the power of the Holy Spirit, and exhorted others to seek "so clear a perception that Christ abideth in me, as utterly excludes all doubt and fear..." It is this assurance of salvation, he said, that ushers us into the love, joy, peace, and the rest of the whole fruit of the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22)

The Apostle John differentiates between "children, young men, and fathers in Christ" (1 John 2:12-14), suggesting degrees of assurance, into which we may grow. Wesley distinguised between a "clear" and "full assurance", likening the first to the light of morning and the latter to the light of the midday sun.

Wonderful Counselor.....

2010-06-21T01:50:00.006-05:00

I have always loved the section in the Hallelujah chorus that quotes Isaiah 9:6b "And His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Almighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." The way in which it is sung suggests that "wonderful" and "counselor" are two different names, but as one reads the punctuation of the text in the New American Standard Version, there is no comma and so it is read "Wonderful Counselor".

I had framed a small prayer and put it on my desk when I began in counseling a couple of years ago. It beseeches the Counselor to be present in the words that one offers. This week I have several reasons to be continually lifting that prayer.

Anyone who has worked a twelve step program knows how challenging a thorough searching moral inventory can be. It can take a week to a month or more to plow through all the junk in our emotional briar patches. When a student/sponsee has worked through all the questions and outlined the details of her life, there remains an even more challenging part.....sharing that moral inventory with a trusted person.

I have three students who have been working through their respective fourth steps for several weeks. This week it's time for step five. I have come to appreciate how powerful this step is....how potentially liberating, how very difficult, how sincerely humbling, and how absolutely necessary.

A phrase I have heard often since entering recovery work is, "We are only as sick as our secrets." My awakening to the value of confession came as a result of my own confessions thirteen years ago, spewed out like projectiles in the midst of psychosis, and the counseling that followed. Now I realize that the confessions would have been better accomplished, with less pain to all involved, had counseling occurred before, during, and after instead of only afterward. But, if I'd been in my right mind I probably would never have gotten them out. And I'm not sure any counselor would have ever advised me to go forward with what I did. In fact, one pastor had already told me that it would probably be best if I didn't. As much as I respected and valued him, I think he was wrong. God knew my secret sins should and, in fact, would come out.

Later, while studying Beth Moore's "Breaking Free", I was introduced to 2 Corinthians 4:2, in which the Apostle Paul disavows and advises against all things secret, shameful, deceptive, or distortive of Scripture for those who are in Christ. Moore calls such things "the fingerprints of satan".

Indeed, I have known the relief and freedom of getting secrets out of my heart and head where satan had used them to condemn and control. I've seen others liberated by the same process. And while I know and affirm the value, I have to take care to not approach the process with an assumptive or cavalier attitude that everyone is going to do it thoroughly and well. Also, I have to be careful and prayerful in my approach to hearing another's confession. I have to listen carefully.....not just to the student but, more importantly, to the whisper of the Holy Spirit in the conversation.

These times demand mercy, encouragement, and wisdom......none of which comes easily to me. I am prone to judgment and directive advising. I am aware of the tendencies and have to pray all the more to be constrained in my flesh and to rely entirely upon God.

This week's cases are each very different. I have to be ready for each one. It is likely to be an exhausting process. In that respect, I don't relish the thought. But in terms of the potential benefit to the women with whom I'll be walking this part of the path , it quite literally could be the difference between life and death - spiritually, relationally, even physically.

I am reminded of the "Footprints" poem. In this case one could pencil in a third set of footprints....mine.....walking alongside the student and Christ, (like the two disciples walking with Christ on the road to Emmaus). And, when the picture shifts to the single set of footprints, as in the poem, I, too, will be in His arms, along with the student, as we are both carried by Him through this difficult passage.

(I had just completed this post and gone to my email, where I found the June 21 devotional from Ravi Zacharias Ministries www.rzim.org/resources/read/asliceofinfinity/todaysslice.aspx entitled "The Hidden" which references the ways in which we hide from God and ourselves, intentionally or unintentionally. But when we are ready to see, God reveals the truth, even about ourselves to ourselves, and to those whom He's chosen to be with us in the midst of it!)

THE HIDDEN: (from RZIM)

I am of the mindset that Sunday afternoons are meant for wandering. At least for me it is a hallowed task. There seems nothing more appropriate on the first day of the week than exploring for the sake of exploration, and I am content to do so by car or on foot, in a busy mall or in my mind. On Sunday, the journey is not the means but the end—and it changes my perspective completely.

One Sunday on my way home from church something different caught my eye, though it was on a road I use daily. It was a small cemetery, contained by a fence that was deteriorating, and concealed by a tiny forest spared by contractors. The cemetery was old; the grave stones were toppled or badly weathered, some dating as far back as the 1800's. The place seemed like it had been forgotten—or perhaps like someone was hoping it would be forgotten. It was a lost plot of history hidden inconspicuously between large hotels and office buildings.

Christian theologians speak both of the omnipresent character of God and of humanity's attempts to hide, and it was these attributes that struck me as I walked among the stones of this hidden cemetery. "He is Lord of both the dead and the living," writes the apostle. For God there is no forgotten grave or child lost; there is no place we can flee from his presence. Whether we are running from his voice or crying out from the depths, our frames are never hidden from the one who formed them.

It was a striking contrast: I had driven past this cemetery a thousand times and never seen it. But God knew each one buried there by name.

Yet as I walked away, I was seized by the thought that my oversight was not accidental. It was a plot of land that had been concealed on purpose and then hidden by my own expectation of what belonged there. Contractor, consumer, or neighbor—we don't want to see cemeteries beside our hotels, gravestones beside our office parking lots, or as we stand in line for lunch. The cemetery was "lost" because we had hidden it from ourselves. It was forgotten by our own doing.

I wonder how often I behave similarly with life, drawing fences around questions that haunt or convictions I don't want to see, hiding sin or sorrow until it is forgotten. How often am I the cause of my own blindness, the hands that work to conceal the thing I need most to see? The human way is one so easily misled by our own distractions, lost by our own intentions—while our truest thoughts are like hidden cemeteries in the great worlds we build for ourselves.

For centuries, God has been calling us out of these hidden worlds and lost ways. Since Eden, God has been positing the question to people hiding behind trees: "Where are you?" As with Adam, it is not for God's sake that God inquires—it is you and I who need to be asked. The Father knows precisely where we are, and yet the Father seeks the lost, longing to gather them unto Himself like a hen gathers her chicks. To those who are hiding from themselves and from Him, God calls them to love with all their hearts, souls, and minds. To those who have forgotten, God urges them to remember. To those who do not see, God moves them to sight. And to those who are lost, the Father sends the Son to save. "For the Son of Man was sent to seek and to save what was lost" (Luke 19:10).

Our inability to flee from the presence of God is not a diminishment of humanity, but a promise of God's faithfulness. "'Am I only a God nearby,' declares the LORD, 'and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?' declares the LORD. 'Do I not fill heaven and earth?'" (Jeremiah 23:23-24). However disoriented or distanced from the Father we have become, it is not far for the one who longs to save. However lost we have managed to make ourselves, the Son has already found us. However thorough our attempts to hide or great the distance we have run, it is nothing to the one who never lets us out of his sight. Being found is only a matter of turning around.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

Watching God work......

2010-06-21T00:09:00.004-05:00

I have often been surprised by the way in which God works things out. There are times when His way is so unexpected. That has been the case recently as I have watched Him work out discord between two people.

I knew that I was not in any way to be an instrument of reconciliation in the situation and had some time ago given it over entirely to God, knowing that if reconciliation were to happen, it would absolutely have to be by His hand and according to His timing.

It is such a privilege to see God work in the situation, and within some of the most unexpected circumstances, little of which would have been foreseeable when it all started.

It is humbling to realize what a truly awesome God we have, who is both tender and disciplining. He chastises us when necessary, but allows us to save face, too, in some respects. He is our Strong Defense and Generous Provider.

I am so grateful for the close first hand observance of this work by the Prince of Peace.

Foundations class......

2010-05-27T21:17:00.002-05:00

Saddleback Church has published a DVD curriculum called Foundations. It's 11 DVDs with 4 sessions per DVD on various basic Christian doctrines. I am enjoying facilitating a class that is using the curriculum. Most everyone is a new Christian and they are really in need of these basics of the faith. Such a simple concept. Such a rich resource. I wish I could interest more people in it.

Living like there are unlimited tomorrows....

2010-05-25T21:15:00.003-05:00

At 56 years old, I'm living my life and making plans as if I have plenty of time to realize the goals I'm setting. Just a few days ago I was talking to my husband about something in our home that we'd had a while.....25 years to be exact. As soon as I realized that and considered how quickly those 25 years seemed to have passed, I thought about where I might be 25 years from now......at 81 years of age. I teach a Sunday School class where many of the members are over 80. They are active, cheerful, vital people.

This week our ladies at Bethel Village will be hosting a lady, Vicki Dees, also in her 50's, who is coming to give her testimony. Vicki has cancer. Two years ago she was given a matter of weeks to months to live. But, by the grace of God, she's outlived the medical professionals' prognosis. Her sister says that it is Vicki's passion for sharing her love of Jesus with others that has kept her alive.

One's expectations of life can change quickly at any age. But seeing how the lives of one's contemporaries have turned overnight brings home the fact of how precarious our plans for our own lives can be.

I'll continue to make plans, long term and immediate, and thank God for each day that I am privileged to work toward seeing them realized.

Universe expanding.....

2010-05-25T04:14:00.004-05:00

I've read before that our universe is in the process of expanding, everything moving outward from the center and enlarging all the time. Now I have a close, first hand experience of that myself.

Just over a week ago our son and his family moved from thirteen hours away to just across the street. It is a dream come true! And all of a sudden our lives are very much enlarged with the prospect of more expansion all the time! I find myself noticing things more.....the fruit juice pops on the end cap at the store that suddenly will be eaten at my house. I never would have noticed those before or considered purchasing them. I've expressed concern to my daughter in law about having a conversation with the oldest grandaughter, preparing her for the looser moral environment that a seaside, recreation and leisure focused culture embodies. Parenting, even in a once-removed mode, in such an environment has never been required of me before. We are more conscious of entertainment opportunities for the family than my husband and I would have been for just the two of us.

Yes, our universe has enlarged. What a fun and exciting phenomenon to behold!

A renewal....

2010-03-27T19:07:00.002-05:00

For the last six weeks our church has been working through a spiritual growth campaign that our staff designed and implemented.....RENEW: Connect, Grow, Serve. This weekend is the grand finale, which we called cityREACH. Today about 400 of our church members fanned out across Bay County and participated in a variety of service projects. I was team leader for a group of 20+ family volunteers at Bethel Village, the women's addiction recovery program where I work. Our volunteers filled Easter eggs with candy, assembled and wrapped Easter baskets, picked up pinecones, raked straw, and planted flowers in preparation for our big Easter Egg Hunt next Saturday for 150 children whose families are at risk for homelessness. It was a wonderful day of service. I've heard reports from several other venues and it seems to be consensus that it was a great day for everyone!

Being the hands of Christ in the world is something that many Christians come to slowly. Perhaps they feel inadequate to represent Christ that way. Perhaps they allow the distractions of the world to command a higher priority in their lives. Whatever their reasons for not serving, it still is necessary for us as church leaders, clergy and lay alike, to set an example and provide opportunities for others to engage in the world. Today I feel that we have accomplished that calling. Many people who've been tentative or lukewarm or simply never thought about serving before were meaningfully deployed to be the hands of Christ in the world!

A grandmother's dream come true....

2010-03-27T19:02:00.002-05:00

This week we have learned that our son, daughter in law, and their three children, who had told us a few weeks ago that they were moving to our community, are actually moving across the street from us! They've had an eye on that house for a couple of years, actually, given the current housing market. Now it's going to be real!

We are imagining what life will be like with family dropping in, Sunday lunches together, spending time by the lake with the kids, and so many other fun times to come. I could never have imagined that this would have been possible in years past. Having a son who works for himself has made it possible. They all seem excited about the move, too.

God is so good to us. We have been blessed in so many ways with our children and grandchildren. We pray that we will be privileged to live to see all of them happily grown and with godly spouses!

Taking a breath....

2010-03-18T20:27:00.004-05:00

The last time I posted I was just beginning the second semester of seminary classes in my candidacy for deacon. Reading for the class, which has 5 required texts, has occupied much of my free time. Now I find myself at mid-term, having turned in my mid-term exam and taking a few days of respite from the reading. It's spring break in Alabama and we have grandchildren visiting.

The last month has been especially challenging, personally and professionally. We are moving closer to the groundbreaking of the new, larger Bethel Village program house. I have been contemplating what the new and improved Bethel Village will look like....personnel, scheduling, student duties, programming, etc. It's somewhat heady considering it all, and daunting at the same time. We are reviewing blueprints, considering flooring, lighting, and other components. This year is going to be quite full of change on that front.

Then, in regard to my other work at the church, there is also a lot going on. We are in the midst of a six weeks' spiritual growth campaign. It has been accomplished on a somewhat tight timeframe and we've all been rather rushed in doing it. It's going well, thankfully. But once it's over there are going to be a number of other major changes coming down the line for our church in rather quick succession.And I must confess that I've avoided considering their impact on me. There will, undoubtedly, be some.

In recent years I have been learning to trust God more. And with each year I find that, even as I feel that I am trusting him more, there is still always more that challenges me to trust even more. Does one ever get to the place of trusting completely, unequivocably? Does trusting completely mean fear is defeated and love is being perfected?

When I think of trusting God, I recall the song.....

"Only trust Him , only trust Him, only trust Him now.
He will save you, He will save you, He will save you now."

I have trusted God for salvation. Now I continue to trust Him for sanctification.

One down, ten to go.....

2010-02-08T23:37:00.003-06:00

I completed my first semester of seminary courses required for deacon candidacy two months ago. The second semester began today with a course on the history of Methodism. It'll go until early May. Then summer semester will begin. I can only manage one course at the time due to all the reading required. The duties of my two jobs prohibit me biting off more than that.

There are moments when I think, "What am I doing this for?" Then I think, "Not what, but whom.....for Christ." I do feel that I am called to, and indeed, am in ministry already. This additional work is equipping me for......what? I already feel that I am doing what God has prepared me for. I'm not sure that these extra 24 hours of theological studies are going to result in any more tangible benefits. More knowledge, yes. More credibility, maybe. Once ordained I will be legally able to counsel under pastoral authority and license. And I believe that is what is driving me....having the legal authority and not only the calling. Although I don't need that in my present job. Will it give me mobility? Do I need mobility? I don't seem to at this time. But still, I go on. It still seems the right thing to do.

I've recently been interviewed by a Methodist conference psychologist as part of the candidacy process. We have another consult in two weeks. It's unlikely that anything he says is going to to derail my candidacy. It's also unlikely that he's going to tell me anything that I don't already know about myself. It's simply another of the boxes that must be checked to accomplish my goal.

One step at the time. One course per semester. One day upon another. It is nice to be content where I am and not needing to accomplish these things in order to hurry toward something else, but simply for the joy of doing them and knowing that, since God has called me to it, He'll see me through it and, in the end, I know that He wastes nothing. It all has a purpose.

Memories in my fingers....

2010-02-08T23:18:00.004-06:00

This past weekend I set out to start on a quilt. I had gone to a fabric store several weeks ago with a friend who quilts and crafts a lot and who had, incidentally, given me the pattern for this quilt. She helped me select the colors and cheered me on. I dutifully washed my fabrics, then ironed them and cut them according to the pattern's instructions, using equipment that I inherited from a relative. I began sewing the fabric squares and strips together using an old Singer sewing machine that was my mother's. I had taken it out of its ancient cabinet years ago and had it put in a portable case that I could store more easily and set on the table to use as needed.

For several hours I sewed and pressed, matched and trimmed. I got a good start on the project. Finally I laid it aside, finding that my back was achy and my eyes tired.

It's been some time since I've tackled such a large project. But it felt good to do it. It reminded me of seeing my grandmothers sewing and quilting when I was a child. I have several of their quilts. Some on display, some folded away in a chest.

This quilt is for my husband. He enjoys resting in his recliner or on the sofa with a blanket. This quilt will be the perfect size for him. It will have red cardinals on it. Each stitch will have been put there by me. As I work on it I will have been thinking of us together and remembering others from my past who taught me the skills to make the quilt and taught me the value of creating something of beauty and functionality myself. And when it's done, I hope that he will use it and think of me.

A fresh look at Psalm 37:3-5

2010-01-23T15:04:00.004-06:00

This scripture has become my "life scripture", of sorts. I find myself referring to it often. God has used it to teach me many lessons.

"Trust in the Lord and do good and you will live securely in the land;
Delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart;
Commit your way to Him, trust in Him and on your behalf He will act." Psalm 37:3-5

As I meditate on this scripture I see three invitations from the Lord:
- to trust in Him and do good
- to delight in Him
- to commit my way to Him

and, with each invitation comes a promise:
- that I will live securely in the "land" (I will dwell in the kingdom and know assurance of my faith)
- that I will have the desires of my heart given to me by Him
- that He will act on my behalf

As I accept the invitations that He extends, He is faithful to deliver on His promises! That is how I have experienced this scripture over the last 8 years, since I became acquainted with it.

I continue to meditate on it and find in it a lot revealed about the Lord. Accept His invitations, know the joy of His promises fulfilled in your life!

A sad goodbye.....

2010-01-23T13:28:00.004-06:00

Today I attended the funeral of a friend, a woman only a year older than myself. I'd known her for about 12 years, since coming to my current church. She had been involved in the church, especially in the activities of the youth as her own son was growing up. She had attended several Bible studies with me and had come for a while to the depression impact group that I conducted. After the death of her father she had become bereft with grief, stricken, it seemed, unable to pull out of it. Over a course of several years she became more and more confused and withdrawn. It eventually became clear that there was more at work in her mind than grief and depression alone. She became withdrawn and seemed to do little but sit in front of the television. Some of us visited her and tried to draw her out. Eventually, whatever was at work in her mind took a toll on her body, as well. This week she died.

Just last night I had been in my car and heard Chris Rice's Untitled Hymn (Come to Jesus) playing. It always brings tears to my eyes since I first heard it when a friend played it during a retreat that I attended. As I listened to it, I thought, "This is a song I would want played at my funeral." Then I wondered to myself, if the Lord should grant that I would live another 15-25 years, would anyone even be familiar with this song? Then today, at my friend's funeral, another friend, Julie, who is a gifted musician and vocalist, played and sang this beautiful song and I cried to think that it is such a fitting song for a homegoing celebration that it is bound to become a classic of the Christian faith! May God grant that it should be a song that those who celebrate my homegoing some day would hear and, in doing so, be comforted!

Untitled Hymn (Come to Jesus) by Chris Rice
Weak and wounded sinner, lost and left to die
O, raise your head for Love is passing by.
Come to Jesus, come to Jesus, come to Jesus and live!

Now your burden's lifted and carried far away,
And precious blood has washed away the stain.
So sing to Jesus, sing to Jesus, sing to Jesus and live!

Like a newborn baby, don't be afraid to crawl,
And remember when you walk, sometimes we fall.
So fall on Jesus, fall on Jesus, fall on Jesus and live!

Sometimes the way is lonely, and steep and filled with pain,
So if your sky is dard and pours the rain,
The cry to Jesus, cry to Jesus, cry to Jesus and live!

O, and when the love spills over, and music fills the night,
and when you can't contain your joy inside,
Then dance for Jesus, dance for Jesus, dance for Jesus and live!

And with your final heartbeat kiss the world goodbye,
Then go in peace and laugh on Glory's side,
And fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus and live!

Red Bird poetry....

2010-01-19T21:48:00.004-06:00

I bought a book of poetry simply because of the title, "Red Bird", and have been pleased to find in it many delights! I'll share the two that are responsible for its title:

Red Bird - by Mary Oliver
Red bird came all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else could.

Of course I love the sparrows,
those dun-colored darlings,
so hungry and so many.

I am a God-fearing feeder of birds.
I know He has many children,
not all of them bold in spirit.

Still, for whatever reason -
perhaps because the winter is so long
and the sky so black-blue,

or perhpas because the heart narrows
as often as it opens -
I am grateful

that red bird comes all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else can do.

Red Bird Explains Himself - by Mary Oliver
"Yes, I was the brilliance floating over the snow
and I was the song in the summer leaves, but this was
only the first trick
I had hold of among my other mythologies,
for I also knew obedience: bringing sticks to the nest,
food to the young, kisses to my bride.

But don't stop there, stay with me: listen.

I was the song that entered your heart
then I was the music of your heart, that you wanted and needed,
and thus wilderness bloomed there, with all its
followers: gardeners, lovers, people who weep
for the the death of rivers.

And this was my true task, to be the
music of the body. Do you understand? for truly the body needs
a song, a spirit, a soul. And no less, to make this work,
the soul has need of a body,
and I am both of the earth and I am of the inexplicable
beauty of heaven
where I fly so easily, so welcome, yes,
and this is why I have been sent, to teach this to your heart."

I have written before about how God has used cardinals to speak to my heart about hope, about faithfulness, about encouragement. These poems captured what I have felt in catching a glimpse of a cardinal at times in the last 12-13 years, since He first used them to nurture my heart. These poems brought tears to my eyes, as I felt that my own experience had been expressed in someone else's words so perfectly!

Stuck.....frustration or opportunity?

2010-01-08T16:44:00.005-06:00

The holidays were joyous! Children and grands were all here at once...an abbreviated version of "cousins' camp" that my husband and I both enjoyed greatly. The toy-of-the year in our household was Nerf guns. We made a couple of runs back to Target for more "ammo" to keep everyone happy. We got a kick out of watching boys and girls on maneuvers in the back yard, shooting at anything that moved. (The cats made themselves scarce!) I've heard from a number of people that their kids got Nerf guns, too. Wish I'd bought stock in the company that makes Nerf stuff.

This first week of the New Year - Y2K10 - has started out very well. I've gotten a number of "close out" projects from 2009 done at work and at home. All that remains of the 2009 year for me is to prepare the tax return. I'm awaiting the accountant's packet to do that and the arrival of the various 1099's and W-2's. For a task-oriented compulsive personality like me, having a sense of closure is heavenly!

I've had two conversations recently with individuals experiencing being in the midst of clouded places where they can't see the "destination" or even the direction of the "path" at this point in their lives. I think many of us who value the sense of accomplishment that we get from progress toward our goals and completion of tasks struggle in those parts of our life's journeys in which we seem stalled, delayed, deadended, or even disoriented by circumstances. I find myself offering empathic agreement and encouragement to persevere in the journey, avoid impulsiveness, and to simply rest in the stall or traffic jam! I have learned that lesson the hard way.....to rest in God when He seems to have allowed me to move right into the middle of a traffic-jammed or fog shrouded stretch.

Red birds, ribbons, wreaths, and recovery....

2009-12-05T01:24:00.002-06:00

I attended the 6th annual Festival of Trees this week here in Panama City, a fundraiser for the women's residential addiction recovery program where I am employed. It was the most beautiful assortment of creative Christmas collectibles......trees, wreaths, centerpieces, gingerbread houses, arrangements, and decorative accents as well as gift items. All were being auctioned through silent bidding for several days. After careful consideration of space in my house and money in my wallet, I bid on two modest entries, appropriately scaled to fit both! I had to up my bids several times, but when the bidding closed I found that I had, in fact, successfully won both items, a tabletop tree and a wreath. JOY! It was like Christmas coming early.

Because of their sizes, I was able to walk out with them instead of having to have them delivered over the weekend. So now I have some fresh new items for holiday decorating this year. My Mother had asked me last week about a rather elaborate graduated three-ringed wreath I had made in 1983, copied actually from a designers' display at the large Southern Homes and Gardens center in Montgomery, Al. Did I still have it, she asked. It's true I used it for what seemed like decades, but it finally became so sad and worn that I retired it permanently. The few wreaths I've had since then have seemed pale by comparison.

Both of these new items feature cardinals, a theme that is well established in my home decorating year round, but which is especially nice to enhance at Christmas. Our grandchildren know my affection for cardinals and they will all be here for a few days before Christmas. No doubt they will notice the tree and wreath right away! Maybe I'll plan a cardinal craft for all of us to do together for this annual "cousins' camp" event at Gigi and Papa's house.

I don't know if cardinals are native to Israel, but I can imagine Jesus delighting in their beauty, just as I do. Whenever I see one, I smile and am reminded that God loves me, is near me, and is for me, three things worthy of celebration, as Rev. Rick Warren points out in his book The Purpose of Christmas. God has used cardinals to reassure me of His love and inspire me to celebration on many occasions.

Tomorrow my Christmas cardinals will be gracing tabletops, tree limbs, and wall areas all around my house. For a few weeks I will live in the midst of their constant reminder of God with us, Immanuel.

Weeks flying by.....

2009-11-21T07:52:00.003-06:00

I just realized that it's been weeks since I posted. I recall thinking, "Wow, it's already the first of November." Well, it's now the 21st of November and we're looking just around the corner at the first of December. I have got to get myself organized or Christmas will have come and gone and I'll still be standing here with a befuddled look on my face like, "What happened?"

Bill advised me a month ago that he wants me to actually decorate and celebrate Christmas this year. Last year I did almost nothing. I was in a new job, the children weren't coming, and I really just felt disconnected and overwhelmed. I've celebrated my first year anniversary with the Rescue Mission and things seem calmer now. I actually have enough reserve energy and money to invest in a festive holiday! So, I think I'll spend some time today pulling out Christmas stuff and deciding what to use.

As has been my practice for quite a few years, I've purchased a couple of new Christmas books - "The Story of the Other Wise Man" by Henry Van Dyke and "O! Clap Your Hands", a book of worship with an accompanying music CD.

Speaking of books, I awoke Wednesday morning with a story in mind. It was about an apprentice to the Wise Men, the story of the journey to Bethlehem from his perspective, and a secret desire in his heart. I actually sat down to jot down the idea. As with most other ideas about books that I have, it's probably already been done! If it has, I'm sure God will arrange for it to come to my attention soon.

A notable day.....

2009-10-25T22:24:00.003-05:00

Today was a beautiful fall Sunday. It was cool enough to make being outside pleasant. After a morning of worship and study at church, we watched football for a while and I read between plays. Later, Bill sat outside watching two of our cats frolic and chase one another around the yard while I gathered up sticks, moss, and weeds that had been strewn about by recent wind and rain. He observed that if I did that much casual cleaning up around the yard everyday, I'd have it in ship shape in a month or so! Unfortunately, I rarely have that kind of time more often than a few times a month or so.

We ended the day with a supper of leftover beef stew cooked earlier in the week and talking about plans to add on to our house. I noticed how contented and comfortable we both seemed at the end of the day.

I want to remember this day, the feeling that it engendered.....contentment. Our pastor has been heard to say that each of us is either entering a crisis, in the midst of a crisis, or coming out of a crisis at any given time. Just for today we seemed to have a respite from all of that. It was just a quiet, uneventful, uncomplicated, peaceful day....something to be cherished and remembered.

Tradition and the Church.....

2009-10-25T22:00:00.003-05:00

I'm in the midst of teaching a series of Sunday School lessons on the twelve apostles to our senior adult Sunday School class at my church. I am using William Barclay's "The Master's Men" and William McBirnie's "The Search for the Twelve Apostles" as my primary resources. In addition to the biblical accounts of the apostles lives and actions, I am including in our discussion some of the legends and traditions that have come from extra-biblical sources. In most cases this information sheds light on their travels, ministry, and mission in the decades after Christ's death and resurrection and gives us a better understanding of how the early church grew and developed some of the doctrines that have been handed down to us through the ages.

A few years ago a candidate for elder in the United Methodist Church shared with me how she had come to think of "tradition" within the church. She said that any time the issue is raised, she goes back to the Bible, to the days of the apostles and considers how do their words and actions inform the issue? When evaluating tradition, we need to keep in mind that it is the apostolic tradition in the early church that is most instructive.

Many traditions have come along through the years and some have taken on the mantle of irrefutable mandate when, in fact, they may be merely preference or habit. They may be quite reasonable and helpful or they may be, on the other hand, destructive. But before we get into disputes over such traditions, we need to clear away the chaff and get back to the kernel of what is really necessary and what is not.

This very issue has been raised in regard to "traditions" that have developed within a faith community in which my husband and I are involved. The community's charter has come under scrutiny because of the way many of these "traditions" have wandered off the narrow path proscribed by the parent agency. While they embellish and give "local color" and "character" to the community's activites, they have, in many ways, distracted from the primary mission of the community. We are now engaged in stripping away many of these "traditions" in an effort to return to the purer, simpler practices of the community as it was intended.

It's been a useful exercise. I have been much more willing to scrutinize why I do what I do personally and more questioning of why we do what we do as a local church.

How we settle on doctrine......

2009-10-25T21:10:00.006-05:00

Recently I was included in a conversation about the

"Wesleyan Quadrilateral" - Scripture, Tradition,

Reason, and Experience. The phrase was coined by

Albert Outler, who later regretted that he had phrased it the way he did, as it has led to a lot of confusion. The four criteria for theological formulation have been hotly debated in Methodist circles for decades. Some have interpreted the phrase "quadrilateral" as suggesting equality among the four. The blue circular diagram included here is a representation that seems to capture the essence of the relationship among the four components to me, reason, tradition, and experience overlapping and contained within and dependent upon the authority of Scripture.

But in 2005 an Asbury Seminary professor, Dr. Paul Wesley Chilcote, offered another image that illuminates the relationship among the various aspects. He relates observing a mobile hanging over his daughter's crib and realized that the image offered a plausible description for thinking about this dynamic concept. The top disk he called "Scripture". Reason, Tradition, and Experience were attached to it. A student of his suggested that a wind chime is even more descriptive than a mobile.

He wrote in Good News Magazine in 2005: "In this wind chime image, Scripture, again has central place. It is the foundation, the base, the primary source and criterion for Christian doctrine and life. But Scripture itself must be balanced by the counterweight of the chimes (tradition, reason, and experience), all of which are tied directly into the biblical witness. None of these stands, as it were, independent of the Scripture or of the other norms with which each interacts. Each has its own voice that needs to sound out for music to be made....Moreover, the music of these chimes is not produced by their collision. Rather, in most wind chimes, a clapper or ball is suspended from the very center of the base..rooted as it were in the heart of Scripture...swinging back and forth among the chimes to strike the tones. This ball is, for me, the community of faith, the church, that is involved in a dynamic way with each and all of these norms related to Christian praxis. One final touch. The purpose of the wind chime is to make music. If there is no wind, then the chimes stand stagnant, purposeless, and silent. But when the wind blows..when a dynamic force sets the wind chime in motion.. then the music begins. The wind in this image is, of course, the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit that, as the Wesleys would say, animates the whole. When the fresh wind of the Spirit blows, and the church struggles to deal with the issues, questions, and concerns of the day in this dynamic way, the consequence is a song. ...The music comes nonetheless from our faithful interaction with God's Word. "

It was my thinking about the Wesleyan Quadrilateral in 1997 and my dismay in seeing how some issues were being handled within the Methodist Church by elevating reason, experience, or tradition above Scripture as the justification for action that led me to meditate on it, write about it and discuss it with my pastor at the time.

I've pretty well satisfied in my own mind how to think about these four criteria for weighing truth and their relationship to doctrine. And, I think that Methodist leaders have rightly described them in the Discipline as it is today: The Scriptures are "illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason."

Responsibility....

2009-10-24T03:34:00.003-05:00

When my Mom and Dad lived in Atlanta, my Mom got rearended several times in fairly quick succession. Generally, we think that getting rearended puts the liability always on the party that does the rearending. However, after the second or third time, the insurance company told my Mother that, when it is a recurring problem, it suggests that the driver who is getting rearended is at fault, at least in part. Perhaps she is driving too slowly for the traffic, pulling out in traffic without sufficient room, failing to signal properly for lane changes, etc. The bottom line is that every driver has to drive defensively and with due consideration to her impact on others.

This has been on my mind this week several times and I can't shake the lesson that it seems to offer. I've been dealing with a situation in which one particular person is persistently in conflict with a number of other people. The person at the nexus of the conflict persistently tries to deflect fault and lay the responsibility on others and bemoan how unfair it all is. I've gotten to the point that it no longer matters who did what to whom. The common denominator is this one person. Intentional or not, she is a lightning rod for conflict.

We all have to be aware of the impact we're having on others. If it is persistently negative, there has to be some scrutiny of our own role in the problem. Without such self awareness, we easily make assumptions like "everyone is out to get me." Then we act out of that assumption and pretty soon we've created a self fulfilling prophecy, at least from our own perspective.

Spiritual formation and conflict.....

2009-10-10T21:10:00.005-05:00

As I reviewed the list of labels that I've attached to my blog posts, I see that there are 8 on discipleship training and 5 on conflict, as well as 5 on spiritual formation. Most other topics have only 1 or 2 posts. Based on what I've observed in attempting to implement discipleship training/spritual formation on the students in the addiction recovery program, conflict goes with the territory. I guess that provides some logic to why I keep writing about these recurring themes.

I think this week I had a breakthrough as I realized that, because of the dynamics of our process - with women constantly entering, progressing, and then preparing to exit our program, usually 1 or 2 at the time, we always have a robust mix of people at differing phases of spiritual and emotional development. That very fact leads to regular conflict in the house. New ones coming in are generally very emotional, touchy, and often angry and resentful, perhaps even paranoid. Those in the middle phase have released significant angst and have begun to learn how to manage their emotions better, depending on Christ more. Those in the late phase are calm and peaceful, stable and capable of providing good examples and leadership (usually). But even then, they can be dragged off track and frustrated by the chaos of new personalities entering the mix. I've seen the pattern enough now to begin to recognize it. Now that I've realized this, I hope that I will have more patience and grace toward those coming in and be better able to prepare and comfort those who are knocked akilter by new (and generally negative) forces entering the process.

Also, it makes sense that if we are seeking to create an environment where these women can be brought into closer relationship with Christ, we are going to come under attack. Conflict and division are tools satan uses to intefere with that goal.

There is value in learning resilience and accommodation of new personalities. Learning to respond appropriately to negative personalities, even toxic people, helps make life so much less turbulent. It becomes a skill that, once learned, can transfer into making life beyond our program less unsettling.

In the last month I've attended a seminar on conflict resolution and read a book on dealing with "dragons". I can't seem to get enough of this kind of instruction right now. Does that mean that I am not handling current situations as well as I should or that even more conflict is coming? I suspect both are true.

Camp beds.....

2009-10-10T20:54:00.006-05:00

Many people apparently struggle with sleeplessness. I have always said that I could "sleep hanging on a nail." For the most part, I have not had difficulty sleeping in any kind of circumstances.

With the birth of a new Emmaus community I have been introduced to another Christian campground. Its charm is undeniable. Its beds are the topic of many conversations, I'm sure. And most are probably uncomplimentary, I'd imagine.

When I arrived in our assigned dorm, I found old angle iron constructed bunk beds with well-worn mattresses stationed around the room against the walls. I made my bed with my own twin sheets and blanket, kept in a bag just for such occasions. Then after changing clothes and bidding my bunkmates goodnight, I sat down, then tumbled backward into a sinkhole. A tie and spring sling held the mattress loosley, its tension undone by four score years or more of metal fatigue from the strain of thousands of physiques of every shape and size. Mine, undoubtedly, made it groan.

I turned on my side, nestled down in the hole and slept the sleep of one who knows she rests securely in Christ's love.

"I will both lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety." Psalm 4:8

More on shoes.....

2009-09-08T12:15:00.002-05:00

Every few years I just happen to have the time and opportunity to hit the 70% off end of summer shoe sale at a local department store. I have written before about my considerably curtailed former bad habit of having tons of shoes. Since I implemented a practice of "one pair in, one pair out", my closet clutter no longer continues to abound.

3-4 years ago I hit this sale on Labor Day by serendiptious accident and purchased three pair of solid dark nondesript sandals (at VERY reasonable prices) that I have now worn to a frazzle. Two pair had become embarrassingly scuffed and frayed. The sole finally split on one of them this past week. So, realizing I needed to replace my sandals, I headed out to the Labor Day sale in its final hours. Sure enough I found several selections of plain low-heeled sandals in my size from quality manufacturers that met my need, all in about 15 minutes. So I purchased 4 pair. Arriving home I popped open the boxes and promtly removed four worn pair from my closet, replacing them with the new sandals- 1 dressy, 2 for work, and 1 for casual wear. Now it'll be another 3-4 years before I have to concern myself with shoe shopping again, except for the periodic tennis shoe update.

Life is so much easier when one has simplified her choices and set some boundaries.

How did that happen?

2009-09-04T04:04:00.003-05:00

We are cat people. We have two adult cats that have called us their people for about 7 and 4 years, respectively. They mostly reside outdoors, except on the coldest days of winter when they'll slip in and sleep under our bed. Then we have a new 10 week old kitten, Little Bit, who keeps us entertained and stays indoors, as he is too small to evade the hawk, owl, and other predators that make their way around the edge of our wooded neighborhood.

This morning I started the day as I usually do, filling the bowl just inside the back door with cat crunchies after the nightly feeding by our outdoor pair so Little Bit can have his morning meal. When I got to the bowl I found it cleaned of all crumbs and a quarter lying in it. A quarter. It made me smile. Either Little Bit has gotten into my husband's tray of pocket change and managed to carry a quarter to the bowl or one of the outdoor cats left me a tip!

Our pastor, when asked if pets will be in heaven, says that since scripture says that it will be a happy place (no more tears) that undoubtedly dogs will be there, since he, like many of the rest of us have found so much joy in loving and being loved by our dogs. He is not a cat person and says, unequivocably, that cats most certainly will not be there. His opinion of them seems to be that they are sneaky, disloyal, and self absorbed. I don't know about that. A cat that leaves a tip for his breakfast can't be all bad!

Movin' 'em through.....

2009-09-02T23:13:00.004-05:00

Goodness, the times are hard! Everyday the Panama City Rescue Mission is getting calls from families who are losing their apartments or homes and needing emergency shelter while they regroup. As the Women and Families Manager, the responsibility for overseeing their case management comes to me. We have only 2 family rooms in which to house them. Today we vacated both rooms, moving one family into temporary transitional housing and the other into a permanent situation. Before the rooms had even gotten cleaned, we had families lined up to move into them for 5 nights of emergency shelter and case management, most of them single mothers, somtimes with a "boyfriend", sometimes not. Five nights is never enough time to begin to stabilize a family. It generally is taking 15-30 days to find jobs and get a paycheck in hand, access community resources, identify housing, gather utility deposits, round up furniture, etc. In the meantime we're working with our day center client advocate, the county school system resource person, Department of Child and Family representatives, and others.

This is challenging work and often taxes my problem solving skills. But it is a good feeling to get a family to a place of reasonable stability......although how that is defined is a moving target. It is such a fragile thing. Getting a job and moving into housing is good, but I see how quickly it can be undone by an illness that forces one out of work for even a few days or by a change in the economy that results in loss of overtime or scaled back schedules.

It makes me all the more grateful for the education and opportunities my family has had. In spite of how our circumstances have changed financially in recent years, we are still quite secure by comparison to many. We are in no jeopardy of losing housing or transportation, of going hungry or having insufficient clothing.

I see children weekly who are frightened of the future, wondering where they'll be sleeping the next night and how they'll get their clothes cleaned for school. I cannot begin to imagine the impact these circumstances are going to have on the rest of their lives. Can trust be built in such an environment? Can optimism bud? How resilient must one be to survive emotionally? And how can I help not just with the food and clothing, but with the encouragement to keep on keeping on?

Reading time....

2009-08-31T21:35:00.004-05:00

In my last post I noted that a book entitled "Unfashionable" had caught my interest and I was looking forward to reading it. Well, I didn't get around to it over the weekend and now I'm into my first module for my first course in basic graduate theological studies through Asbury Seminary's online program. It looks as though I will have quite a bit of reading to accomplish in 2-week increments from now until December 13. Oh, well, so much for personal choice of reading.

I enjoy reading mostly non-fiction. Also, I'm a bit of a news junky and enjoy perusing several internet news sites, as well as some weblog sites. But someday I hope to have the liberty to sit down with a good fiction read and not feel any guilt over having other pressing reading material demanding my time and attention!

So, what's on your bedside or chairside table these days?

Unfashionable.....

2009-08-27T22:42:00.004-05:00

My Mother brought me a slim little book with a nondescript black jacket and the puzzling title "Unfashionable". I thought to myself, "What in the world is this about?" She said she thought I would enjoy it. When I opened it I found a quote by Charles Spurgeon that had apparently been the seed that grew into this book by the grandson of Billy Graham, William Graham TullianTchividjian.

"The great guide of the world is fashion and its god is respectability - two phantoms
at which brave men laugh! How many of you look around on society to know what
to do? You watch the general current and then float upon it! You study the popular
breeze and shift your sails to suit it. True men do not so! You ask, "Is it fashionable?
If it is fashionable, it must be done." Fashion is the law of multitudes, but it is nothing
more than the common consent of fools." Charles Spurgeon

Tchividjian then launches with a Letterman-style top ten list to define unfashionable:

"You May Be Too Fashionable If....
10. You can look around at church and notice that everybody is basically the same age as you are, and they look and dress pretty much like you do.

9. You think it's very uncool to sing a worship song that was "in" five years ago - much less a hymn from another century.

8. It's been a long time since you disagreed with anything said by Oprah.

7. You've attended a "leadership" conference where you learned more about organization and props (structural renovation) than proclamation and prayer (spiritual reformation).

6. Your goal in spending time with non-Christians is to demonstrate that you're really no different than they are, and to prove this you curse like a sailor, drink like a fish, and smoke like a chimney.

5. You've concluded that everything new is better than anything old or that everything old is better than anything new.

4. You think that the way Jesus lived is more important than what he said - that his deeds are more important than his doctrine.

3. You believe that the best way to change our culture is to elect a certain kind of politician.

2. The church you've chosen is defined more by its reaction to "boring traditional" churches than by its response to a needy world.

1. The one verse you most wish wasn't in the Bible is John 14:6, where Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." That's way too close minded!"

The book is a thoughtful treatise on the divisive issue of how Christians should relate to our broader culture. Tim Keller's forward describes three views that evangelicals have traditionally held with regard to culture:

1. Christians are too assimilated into the culture around them. They have been too passive and need to "take the culture back" through politics and social activism around issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, fatherhood, gender roles, and abstinence education. The answer is to regain a Christian worldview and penetrate the culture.

2. Christians are too withdrawn into their own subculture and are indifferent to the inequality, injustice, and suffering in the world. We must stir people to connect with felt needs and work against inequality and injustice in the world.

3. Both the conservative evangelical church and the liberal mainline church have become like the world, dominated by the political economy of capitalism and liberal democracy. The church should be an "alternative" society, a counterculture, identifying with the poor and marginalized and offering a a rich, liturgical worship that shapes Christians into a new society instead of trying to transform the current culture.

He says that the many adherents of each of these 3 positions tend to define themselves against each other instead of against the world, leading to divisiveness, imbalances, and overreaching.
Tchividjian, according to Keller, critiques all three approaches, showing the strengths of each and showing how they can work together at the level of the local congregation.

This topic has been one that I have considered quite a bit in the last 3-4 years, since I myself became more involved in the United Methodist denomination as a delegate to its annual representative body. These different approaches, and the conflict among them, becomes clear as one listens to and talks with various people.

Now that the book has my attention, I want to spend more thoughtful quiet time in reading it.

Miraculous pregnancies.....

2009-08-27T21:56:00.006-05:00

This morning on a national Christian radio program, the husband and wife team were presenting questions about "miraculous pregnancies" in the Bible and inviting listeners to call in with answers. The segment I heard was about Elisha and the Shunemite woman (2 Kings 4:7-9). It was interesting to me that this particular topic happened to be on the radio this morning because just ten minutes before I had been on the phone with a young woman who was telling me an incredible story about her own pregnancy.

A week ago she had gone to the doctor, after having a positive outcome on an over-the-counter home pregnancy test. The doctor did a sonogram and had distinctly observed two 7-week-old bean shaped fetuses and had detected two heartbeats. She had called me with those results and had been in a state of shock for the last week, trying to figure out how she was going to manage as a single mother in her mid-30's, and having had a daughter 18 years ago (whom she gave up for adoption) and a son 13 years ago who lives out of town with his father. Although she was counseled by a relative and two non-profit agencies to get an abortion, she was insistent that abortion was not an option. The father involved in the pregnancy, too, rejects the abortion option and said he intends to support the children.

Two days ago she began to have some symptoms that suggested that a miscarriage might be imminent, so she'd scheduled a doctor's visit for yesterday. After a repeat sonogram and exam, she was told that there is only one fetus, not two, only one heartbeat, not two. Furthermore, the fetus was three times larger, with differentiated limbs and was determined to be 10 weeks old. She had the sonographs from each visit. How does one explain the change? How did two 7 week old fetuses transform into a single 10 week old fetus in only 1 week? Did one fetus simply absorb the other? Did one spontaneously abort without detection? Were there never really 2? Is there now really only 1? What are we to believe? She is confounded, but relieved at the same time that she doesn't appear to be having twins.

Is this a miracle (beyond the obvious miracle of human development that occurs with every pregnancy)? Did God change the circumstances in response to her faithfulness in rejecting abortion and her anxiety over expecting twins? No one knows. I do know that she is relieved and feeling better able to deal with this unexpected pregnancy. It'll be interesting to watch how it progresses and how she handles it all. Since I am now a part of her sphere of support, I'll have the privilege of watching this "miracle" pregnancy up close.

Heroes of the Faith....

2009-08-18T22:18:00.003-05:00

In the course of teaching on service and spiritual gifts, I often refer to Rick Warren's S.H.A.P.E. format- spiritual gifts, "heart" (or passion), abilities, personality, and experiences.

One of the things that I think is so important in that process is the "experiences" part. We must learn to consecrate our past to God, surrender it to Him, so that we can have those confusing and often painful experiences reinterpreted through God's redemptive work in our present lives. Coming to accept that the experiences of our lives have been allowed by God can be a confusing concept for young Christians until they accept and embrace how God can transform those experiences. As I've heard it put, "Our tests become our testimony," truly a Romans 8:28 phenomenon.

Carol Krau of the UMC General Board of Discipleship writes, "We recall past experiences, and we may assign new meanings to those experiences (in light of our current reality). We use those experiences to help interpret our current reality. We imagine the future from the perspective of our past and present experiences. " She explains the role that experience plays in meaning-making, which is a primary function of learning. "We evaluate information and experience in light of its relevance to our lives and to the ways in which the information helps us perceive and interpret the world."

She shows the interaction of faith and experience when she says, "We compare our experience with that of people whose stories we find in Scripture and throughout church history. The stories, symbols, and rituals of the faith shape our perception of God and of ourselves. Through the interplay of stories, themes, and experience, we envision the future that God desires for God’s people."

Benchmarking our own faith experiences against those whose stories we read, in the Bible or in non-canonical sources, gives us a sense of connection and helps us come to new understandings of life, God, others, and ourselves.

When I was in grade school and junior high school, I loved reading biographies. Our church library had a good collection of Christian biographies. I read about lots of missionaries, church fathers, spiritual mothers, etc. It was an experience that helped form my faith. I still enjoy reading stories about the faith of other people and how it has been lived out in practical ways in their lives.

There are biographical stories that are broadcast on Christian radio from time to time also. I enjoy listening to these.

We are in the process of considering installing a church library. I think I would like to investigate purchasing a collection of biographies for our youth, then do an informational campaign to invite them to learn about heroes of the Christian faith!

Smile :)

2009-08-16T15:50:00.005-05:00

I had written in February (Be careful of the appearances you give...2/10/09) about becoming aware of how I seem to appear to others to be always busy and how that contributes to the appearance of unapproachability to people. It's been on my mind more and more. There have been at least 4-5 times recently at church when I was going from a classroom to the office or delivering attendance folders to classes that someone would simply say to me, "Smile!" I have decided that I must have a "determined" countenance that looks overly stern or uninviting to others. I have noticed in recent months a very deep vertical line above the bridge of my nose that probably has arisen from prolonged squinting of my eyebrows, perhaps from working at the computer or from driving.

How do I change this? Is it just a habit? Is it really a problem or just a nagging fear? Am I overly preoccupied with tasks and insensitive to the needs of people?

I recently had to have some sun-damaged spots treated at the dermatologist's office and, while there I asked him about the cost of Botoxing out the deep vertical line to give my face a more relaxed look. $200 every 4-6 months is not something I would even begin to give consideration to in order to look more relaxed.

Proverbs 15:13: "A joyful heart makes a cheerful face...." But does the absence of cheerfulness on the face necessarily indicate that the heart is NOT joyful! I am very joyful in the work that I do. I just want those who observe me to know that it is joyful work and not a burden in any way!

Ecclesiastes 8:1 : " A man's wisdom illumines him and causes his stern face to beam." Maybe I need to pray for wisdom, not for wisdom's sake alone but for the serendipitous benefit to the face!

If you catch me deep in thought or in a determined task-oriented mode, remind me to smile!

Life in the church.....

2009-08-15T06:28:00.005-05:00

Working as program manager for a Christian women's recovery program is a joy. Most of the time the women coming to us are ready for a real change in their lives and, having tried so many other routes, are now ready to give God's way a chance. Yesterday, however, I had a conversation with a young woman who, having submitted an application, was now deciding whether or not she wanted to come into our program. When I asked her about her faith life, she first told me she was agnostic. Then she said that, although she believed in God and, in fact, felt she had a personal relationship with God, she did not believe in organized religion.

In our program the women attend a minimum of 2 hours of church worship/Bible study on Sunday morning, then Bible study on Wednesday night, and all of our curriculum is Bible based. When I told this young woman that, she said that she would not be interested in our program.

It breaks my heart that so many people fail to appreciate the benefits of church. Oftentimes they are simply using it as they would any consumer good, to get what they want. Or they perceive it to be only imposing constraints and demands and avoid it like the plague. How can we believe that we have real Christianity when we practice only a minimal kind of vertical engagement with God and forswear any engagement with His people in the horizontal dimension? There is a real aversion to accountability with other Christians. It's as though people say, "you have no right to tell me how to live or to hold me accountable to any kind of standard."

In my other role as director of adult Christian education in a local United Methodist Church, I have a hard task I need to address. An individual in a leadership role needs to be confronted about some issues that have been reported to me. I accept that it is my responsibility to address the issue. If I ignore it and let it go, it could do irreparable harm to others spiritually. It has already led to some confusion for some young Christians.

Sometimes I just want to scream when I see people within the church, especially people who've risen to levels of leadership, fail to "get it" and being careless about the impact of their behavior on others. It's in those moments that I have to remember how patient God has been, and continues to be, with me. And I have to turn to Him and plead for myself to be given the grace to handle this part of Christian life with grace, too.

Summer days long ago.....

2009-08-03T22:51:00.004-05:00

This weekend we had our three oldest grandchildren visiting- ages 12, 10 1/2, and 7. We spent much of the weekend sitting out by the lake where they swam, played on a float, and rode a SeaDoo for hours at the time with their mom and dad.

It brought back happy memories for me. When I was in 4th grade and a few years older, I would visit Lake Blackshear in Georgia with a friend of mine who lived across the street. Her grandparents lived on the lake, in a house not too unlike the one we now live in. They had a floating dock that we could untie and paddle out into the middle of the lake and anchor. We spent many happy Saturdays there playing in the lake.

During those summer days when we weren't visiting at the lake we would play "kick the tin can" until dark,, which was about 9PM in Georgia, and have marathon canasta games that would last for days. Those were simple and happy years. Later life would get more complicated. But for a few innocent years life was the best of what life in a small town could be.

Habits of the heart....

2009-08-01T23:14:00.005-05:00

I've heard it said that "if you can do it once, you can do it twice. If you can do it twice, you can make it a habit." Well, tomorrow will be my "twice". This is the second time in a month I've been assigned to duty in the Chapel worship service. This time, though, I'm not assisting, I'm conducting the order of worship. I'll do everything except the sermon itself. And since it's the first Sunday of the month, my friend Leslie and I will also be doing a duet for the special music.

It's a new thing for me to be contemplating invocations, pastoral prayers, and benedictions for the worship service. Tomorrow I'll even be leading the communion sacrament. I'll meet with the pastor for consecration of the elements before the service, then the guest speaker and I will offer the elements to the congregants when we come to communion time in the service.

When I completed my "Inventory of Religious Activities and Interests" in January, preparing for candidacy for ordination as a deacon, I was surprised by some of the findings. I scored "very high" in counselor, scholar, spiritual guide, and priest (in that order). My lowest scores were in preacher and musician. I had moderate scores in administrator, teacher, evangelist and reformer.

The priest designation confused me a little until I read the description- "conducting public worship, sacraments, and liturgy." When it dawned on me that conducting public worship didn't necessarily mean preaching a sermon, I was comfortable with the "priest" designation. Tomorrow I will be acting more in the role of "priest", not preacher (thankfully!). But it occurs to me that most Thursday evenings at Celebrate Recovery, though considerably less formal and structured, I've been doing essentially a priestly function for over three years!

I've begun a digital file of the prayers I've prepared for each service. Just another little part of my obsessive compulsive documenting of things that I do. I expect, over time, I'll be able to observe patterns in my style, overuse of certain words or phrases, and will hopefully be able to be more spontaneous, comfortable, and competent for the task! Right now, though, I don't feel particularly well equipped in any of those three.

More of hearing God.....

2009-07-28T22:02:00.003-05:00

I was teaching a class recently. In the curriculum, a quote by C.S. Lewis was referenced:

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." -from The Problem of Pain

Many of the individuals that I teach have known pain. Many bear deep emotional scars from childhood and have self-inflicted wounds from their years of addictions. It is generally the case that, in their pain, which finally has brought them looking for recovery, they have begun to yearn to hear God's voice. They've listened to so many tempting voices, so many promises of comfort, security, or significance from so many sources, including their own hearts. By the time they come seeking what we offer, they are usually ready to begin hearing the truth. They generally can't say that that's what they're looking for, but very soon after they begin to hear it, there is an amazing transformation that begins to happen. They begin to say things like, "I believe that this is what I've been searching for...." or "Finally, I feel like my prayers are being answered..."

It's interesting watching hearts grow ears, or rather watching the ears of one's heart finally get tuned to hear what they were designed to listen to, once all the static and cacophony of noise from the world is muted.

"Open my ears, that I may hear
Voices of truth Thou sendest clear;
And while the wave notes fall on my ear,
Everything false will disappear.
Silently now I wait for Thee,
Ready my God, Thy will to see,
Open my ears, illumine me,Spirit divine!"

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/o/p/openeyes.htm- listen to the hymn and read the lyrics here.

"He who has ears to hear, let him hear." (Mark 4:9)

Hearing God.....

2009-07-28T21:20:00.007-05:00

There's an interesting essay at the internetmonk blog site about "hearing" God. I encourage you to read it.

http://www.internetmonk.com/articles/V/voicehead.html

The author refers to the way in which evangelical Christians will say that they feel "led by God" to do this or that of that "God told me.."

I have heard God speak to my heart on a number of occasions. Sometimes it was like a sudden and startling "voice" in my head, a comment or command that came out of seemingly nowhere and was so unexpected, I knew it wasn't my own thought. Some examples.....

1.) I was standing in a book store looking at a number of book titles by a particular female teacher/TV evangelist. I had been toying with the notion of writing a book about a particular topic that the Lord had been instructing me on in my recent studies of the Bible. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I "heard", in my head, not in my ear, "I don't need more clever wordsmiths. I need faithful teachers." I almost jumped out of my skin. I knew instantly that God was settling the issue of any speculating I was doing about writing a book. And with that, I resolved to simply teach what I was being taught in the Word and not waste time thinking grandiose thoughts about book writing or public speaking.

2.) I was driving home from a business meeting out of town. I had been having a considerable amount of difficulty with a particular co-worker who seemed out to sabotage my work in several offices on which we both called. I'd had to deal with her on three different occasions over issues related to what appeared to me to be her view of me more as a competitor that as a collaborative team member. I was puzzling over what in the world I had done to her to make her so obviously antagonistic toward me. As I poured over the day's events in my mind, again, suddenly, without warning came the clear impression (almost visible in my mind's eye!) of "passive aggressive". I had not yet even begun to think of graduate school in counseling and knew nothing about the passive aggressive personality at the time. So when I got home, I googled it, read about it and it was so much like the individual I'd been contending with that it was amazing to me! Where else could that thought have come from except God answering my plea for understanding?

Such experiences have been fairly common in my life over the last 15 or so years. I've noted them in my journal each time such an event has occurred. Do I believe that every such experience is a word from God? No. Do I believe that satan (lower case is intentional) can "plant" thoughts in our minds in an attempt to deceive us into thinking we're hearing from God? Yes. Do I believe one's subconscious can generate a thought that seems to be from outside oneself but is really just an expression of one's own desires? Yes.

"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." (John 10:27) I have grown in my ability to "test the spirits", as we are instructed to do in the Bible. And let me say right now that, having had a psychotic break in 1997, I am VERY cautious about testing anything that my senses tell me, since I know that my senses can be wrong about what they're sensing. But do I believe that God can and does "speak" to people? Absolutely. But I also believe that, first and foremost, God speaks to us through His written Word, the Bible. If we are not relying on it and seeking God within its pages, then we likely will miss or misinterpret any other speaking that we might hear Him doing whether it is by his Spirit, through His people, or in our circumstances.

How We Grow.....

2009-07-26T19:51:00.004-05:00

"And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." Luke 2:52

One of the topics that we cover in Purpose Driven Life class is the "How We Grow" topic. Come to think of it, we cover that same topic in Boundaries and I discuss it with each student as I do case management. So the "how" of becoming a mature adult is covered several times in the course of one's time in our addictive recovery/discipleship program. Sometimes I show them the series of photographs I have of lifestages of a Monarch butterfly. Sometimes we talk about oak trees or cedar groves. Occasionally we talk about Erikson's theory of human development. More and more I go to this scripture as the summary of any discussion that has to do with growth.

In this scripture one can see that Jesus himself grew in wisdom (intellectually), stature (physically), and in favor with God (spiritually) and men (socially). It has always been comforting to me to realize that God Himself came as a dependent and vulnerable baby, trusting in the caring of family and community to raise a child, that He experienced learning and growing from a human development standpoint, and at the point that He was an adult embraced the reality that He had Himself preordained for Himself to fulfill in His adulthood.

Maturity is a journey. Sadly some of us get stuck in deadends or lost in rambling trails because we didn't have a clear understanding of the destination. If we simply look to Jesus, how he grew, and strive to follow in His footsteps, we can get to the place God intends for us, too.

Another heartbreak.....

2009-07-26T19:37:00.003-05:00

After successfully introducing our newest little kitten to the household just over a week ago, on Thursday evening his bigger adopted "brother", Diego, went out about 7:00pm and didn't come home, like he usually does about 9:00pm.

Now we're pretty sure that something is getting neighborhood cats....a fox, coyote, hawk, something. I talked to the neighbor across the street and her dog that stays inside was really upset one night last week, she said....maybe the night Diego disappeared. She told me she'd heard reports of other neighbors hearing coyotes howling in the woods near us.

Once again, we're saddened by the loss of a sweet companion. But now we have a decision to make about our newest young feline addition. Little Bit is far too small to be allowed out for a while and keeping him inside all the time doesn't seem practical in the long run. We're just baffled about what we need to do. We certainly don't want to be setting up a situation where dangerous wildlife is stalking our neighborhood. Our two older (and significantly larger) outdoor cats are much more leery of noises, people, and, I assume, predators, than our little Dora and Diego were. Neither of them ever met a stranger or ran from anything - their downfall, I'm afraid.

We'll probably be overly protective of this little guy and he'll wind up running away just to escape the smothering.......

It just took talking it through with myself......

2009-07-23T21:02:00.005-05:00

This morning I met with a pastor friend whose educational and candidacy process I have observed and cheered for ten years. She is now being appointed as a candidacy mentor for me as I begin my journey toward ordination as a deacon in the United Methodist Church. I was talking to her about why I had made the decision to pursue ordination - in order to counsel under a pastoral license - instead of electing to continue with additional graduate school classes and internships in order to be eligible to obtain a state license as a mental health counselor. My intention from the first moment I considered graduate school was to become a pastoral counselor.

As she and I talked about the educational component of my candidacy program - 24 hours of graduate theological studies to be completed through Asbury Theological Seminary- I suddenly realized that what I am having to get for the pastoral license in semester hours is exactly what I would have had to get in additional semester hours in my counseling masters study had I pursued the licensed mental health counselor route. Then once I am commissioned, I have to complete two years of probationary status, the same time that I would have had to counsel under supervision before I could have gotten licensed in mental health.

It made me laugh to realize that for either route I might have chosen I was looking at essentially the same cost in money, time, and hassle. Somehow it gave me some relief to realize that. Now I don't feel like I am unnecessarily "wasting" anything. I've just chosen a more specialized route to a legitimate counseling goal. It's what I needed to get my attitude right for the next phase of studies. And I've had a little break in the midst of it and gotten a head start on the vocational component in my work with women in recovery.

When I walked in to meet with her this morning I was having a little debate in my head about why I was putting myself through this and questioning whether I was up for 8 more graduate courses. But when I sat down and we began to talk and this dawned on me, I realized God was not going to let me short cut anything. I'll have the same number of hours and supervised practice that any state licensed counselor would have, it'll just be with the particular biblical focus that He'd intended for me all along, too! It feels great to finally be settled on this course of action and no longer equivocating. I am ready to begin!

Another feline in the family.....

2009-07-21T20:20:00.003-05:00

After our 10 month old female feline, Dora, disappeared a few weeks ago, her brother, Diego, seemed lonely. Our two older outdoor cats would come and go and basically ignore him. He'd wander around the house, at times seeming to be looking for her. It was sad.

Last Friday I had a brainstorm and remembered that there are generally always kittens around at the mission. So I went by there and found that yes, there was a little grey male that they called "Little Bit", about 6-7 weeks old. He looked healthy and happy. I scooped him up and asked the guys if I could give him a new home. They agreed that it would be best for the kitten. So we introduced Little Bit to our household Friday night. We kept him cloistered in the den for the evening and the next day and introduced Diego to him. Diego seemed interested, but Little Bit was just frightened initially. By Sunday, though, the two were getting better acquainted. Today, Tuesday, my husband tells me they were playfully tusseling in the sunroom on the rug. Yeah! Sucessful adoption! The other two older outdoor cats have sniffed and dismissed the youngster. But Diego has hung around all afternoon and evening with Little Bit and the two of us.

We love our pets and they are a source of endless entertainment and companionship to us both. This afternoon Little Bit caught sight of a reflection from my watch and chased it for about 10 minutes as I moved it around the floor and wall. Dora and Diego had engaged in the same kind of playful behavior at that age. We hope that Little Bit will be a companion to Diego and that the two of them will stay close to home for us to enjoy, too! He'll be visiting the veterinarian in a few days for his shots. We're back to a full house of pets.

Holding on.....

2009-07-18T04:41:00.004-05:00

I recall hearing that we should not place a comma where God has put a period. I think the reverse is probably equally true: do not place a period where God has put a comma. I was talking to a friend this week who commented that he'd been praying for God's guidance and was experiencing only silence. Circumstances in life had lead to what appeared to be one of those proverbial forks in the road, or more appropriately an acute turn. As I considered the circumstances, it seemed to me that he was being impatient and feeling the need to make a decision when actually delaying making a decision made more sense.

As we talked about finding God's will in the midst of silence, it occurred to me that one of the reasons we don't hear from God is that we are straining to have Him confirm something within the narrow range of options that we have envisioned for ourselves when what He is intending to do is actually outside the scope of our vision. In such a case, it seems likely that He would just wait until we tire from our straining and are ready to really listen to Him. Sometimes we cling so tenaciously to the limited vision of what we can imagine. We have to get to the place that we're willing to simply turn loose of our expectations and demands and be ready to accept God's choice for us.

In a similar vein, sometimes we continue along a path long after God has directed us elsewhere. Perhaps we are afraid of change, perhaps we are willful in continuing to do that which pleases us or is easier to accomplish, or perhaps we just don't hear the instructions. Whatever the reason, eventually, if we persist, we get to the place that we finally do have to acknowledge that we've gotten far from God's leading. We should have accepted God's period in our life instead of trying to operate with a comma, or worse, continuing headlong with disregard for God's will.

Shoes, shoes, shoes.....wear what you choose

2009-07-16T23:43:00.008-05:00

I am realizing that it is time to purchase a new pair of athletic shoes. I have a particular brand and style that has become my favorite. I buy a pair and wear them until they begin to look too worn for "good" designation, then I relegate them to "yard" pair and go buy another replacement pair, throwing the previous "yard" pair in the trash. I try to watch the ads and purchase my replacement pair on sale, but in a pinch, I'll pay full price.......I like this particular shoe that much.

Over the years my taste for shoes has changed dramatically. There was a time I was a real shoe horse. I especially loved color coordinating shoes with clothing and I had boxes and boxes of very high heeled dress shoes and casual flats with all kinds of ornamentation on them. Many had matching handbags. I have to admit, it was a costly and indulgent habit.

I pretty much got cured from that when my daughter started college. One day she told me that some yellow shoes I wore to an event at her college were an embarrassment to her. I decided in that moment to never wear anything but plain black/brown/white/or beige shoes again and, for the most part, I haven't. There are some hot pink house slides and a pale pink casual flat that break up the monotony of black on the floor of my closet.

As with the athletic shoes, I have a couple of brands whose plain black flats I've purchased over and over, changing only when the style was discontinued. The fact that I developed a foot problem several years ago further entrenched my reformed shoe habit.....no heels, no decorations, nothing to call any attention to my shoes....just sturdy support, comfort, and nondescript style.

Walking through a shoe department does not tempt me in the least. There might be no more than 2 pairs in the entire department that would accomodate my narrow range of preferences. I waste very little time in trying on shoes. I know my style, color, and size and can direct the sales clerk in a matter of seconds to what I want.

Odd how a single encounter can change one's preference and practice in such a matter. It probably says something unflattering about me......that I am incredibly stubborn and will cut off my nose to spite my face. Rather than have risked another dressing down by someone for my gaudy choice in shoes, I'd simply quit choosing anything that could call attention to my choice at all. Maybe I was overly sensitive to criticism. Maybe I realized how incredibily foolish it was to spend money for decorative features for something that is, essentially, utilitarian.

Sometimes when I read Ephesians 6, about one's feet being "fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace", I am reminded of how shoes brought something less than peace in my spirit. The less I think about shoes the more at peace I am. So day after day I rotate among the 2 or 3 pair currently in the rotation and any discussion by my friends of shoe shopping can cause me to immediately tune out. Shoes, quite simply, are just no longer my thing.

Come to think of it, I've also abandoned massages, pedicures, manicures, and eye liner.....all due to similar utilitarian reasons. I am reminding myself more and more of my grandmother, Annie Elma, a real no-nonsense, practical kind of woman. I've observed, though, that I have to restrain myself, at times, from making judgments on others who have not made the austere choices that I have. I have to remember that my choices are not a reflection of any moral superiority, but simply personal preferences I've made, based on circumstances that have nothing to do with right or wrong.

My grammar teacher told me punctuation was important.....

2009-07-13T23:04:00.010-05:00

A woman, without her man, is nothing.

A woman: without her, man is nothing.

In reading a book, Flawed Families of the Bible: How God's Grace Works Through Imperfect Relationships (David and Diana Garland, 2007, Brazos Press), I came across these two statements at the end of a chapter on Tamar and her difficulty in seeking to secure her place of belonging in the Israelite family of her deceased husband.

Regularly, I see women who operate out of identities defined by the first statement. They feel they have no identity separate from a relationship with a man. Self-esteem is non-existent because they have no self except as it is related to another person in whom they expect to find significance and security. Sadly, most have come belatedly to discover that significance and security cannot be found in such relationships, no matter how much of oneself she gives to it. Yet they cling to the hope that the NEXT relationship will be different. A pattern develops that is the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

The second statement, I believe, more closely reflects what God intended in the Garden of Eden when He made woman as a helper to man:

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. (Genesis 2:18,20)

I read in a Christian booklet on domestic violence that the Hebrew word used in Genesis 2:18,20 to describe this role of woman, "helper", is used only 16 more times in the Old Testament, and in all of those other references it is used to describe God as the one who saves, upholds, and sustains His people (as in Psalm 46:1) There is no indication of a position of inferiority or subordinate status in any of the uses. Also, the word "suitable for" literally means "in front of", signifying one who stands face to face with another, essentially equal and qualitatively the same.
(God's Protection of Women: When Abuse is Worse than Divorce, 1982 Thoman Nelson, Inc.)

There was a time in my life, too, when I would have identified more with the first statement than the second. It was only when the Lord allowed me to get to the place that it seemed that my identity, my security and significance, and even my life were all being lost along with my relationship that I began to really understand that my identity was not in that or any other human relationship, but that it could only be grounded in my relationship to Christ.

This is the challenge that I have with many of the young women with whom I find myself working in recovery. It's a much easier case to make with a 40+ year old woman who's been around the block a half dozen or more times in relationships than it is in a tender aged youth of 18-25 who still believes that a savior-knight-soulmate is going to magically appear from among the questionable lot she keeps associating with. That's one of the reasons that we find ourselves ambivalent about accepting younger women into a recovery program. As soon as they get some relief from their current pain and feel that they are able to stand on their own again, they set off to find the NEXT relationship that will make them feel like someone special.

A couple of days ago I was in the company of 4 other couples- all of whom are in first marriages, the youngest with 10 years of marital bliss, the other 4 of us with 25 to 37 years of, well......mostly blessed marriages. In every case, I believe that the wives would say they have identity first in Christ, then in relationship to their husbands. Similarly, these husbands would testify to the fact their identities are first in Christ, then in relationship to their wives and that their wives are suitable helpers for them.

The story of Tamar tells us something about relationships. God can and does use even the most impossible circumstances to bring about His purpose. From Tamar's desperate and deceptive tricking of Judah after his despicable treatment of her in a culture that had little use for childless widows, came Perez who became an ancester of Boaz, who fathered Obed by Ruth, who fathered Jesse, who fathered King David, who led to the family line of Jesus. A few courageous (though flawed) women are sprinkled pivotally in the lineage of Jesus. I think it says a lot about the place that women hold in God's heart and the place that He expects men to hold them, too.

Assurance of faith: rare or common?

2009-06-30T00:34:00.004-05:00

A Christianity Today online book review of the 2008 book, The Advent of Evangelicalism: Exploring Historical Continuities, edited by Michael Haykin and Kenneth Stewart introduced me to a quote from David Bebbington's Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, published in 1989:

“Whereas the Puritans had held that assurance is rare, late and the fruit of struggle in the experience of believers, the Evangelicals believed it to be general, normally given at conversion and the result of simple acceptance of the gift of God."

Assurance: full confidence; freedom from doubt; certainty. Did I possess it as a newly baptised 12 year old? Did it come with my relinquishing of control over my own life and more mature understanding of Christ's lordship at age 38? Or did I feel it at 43 when I came to grip with the consequences of embracing the authority of scripture?

My own experience in coming to "assurance" of my faith leads me to conclude that I am more "Puritan" than "Evangelical" in my theology, if Bebbington's assessment is accurate.

I think it was there to some degree as a 12 year old. It was that modest and immature measure of assurance, a naive trust in the few promises to which I'd been exposed, that gave me whatever amount of hope I clung to in the many despairing times through the following 26 years before I finally gave over all of myself to Christ. At 12 there were many aspects of my life that had not yet appeared, therefore they had not yet been given over to Christ. But it was the experiences of those 26 years - and since - that have strengthened my assurance, bringing to full fruition through the testing to which it was subjected. So, I guess I have come to believe that untested faith leads us to an assurance of faith that is similarly untested. For most of us, the testing of our faith will bring forth a seasoned assurance that we can boldly proclaim and depend upon.

This topic of assurance, "knowing that you know that you know" with regard to one's relationship with Christ, is one that we talk about in discipleship classes. I have told students that many of us, upon professing belief in Jesus, then proceed to live our lives at the foot of the cross being yanked back and forth across an invisible line of "assurance", like a ball on an elastic line attached to a bolo paddle. Our enemy, satan, spends years unilaterally jerking us around, causing us to question whether or not we've really "gotten it" and feeling tremendous guilt and shame in the process. It's only when we are finally well engaged in the process of santification that we begin to develop resistance to satan's taunts and our own doubts and begin to develop real assurance. John Wesley experienced it. I experienced it. And I believe many Christians experience it as a "rare, late fruit of struggle".

A way out of temptation....

2009-06-29T23:52:00.004-05:00

"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." 1 Corinthians 10:13

Three times in recent days I have found myself involved in discussions that have arisen over the issue of temptation and this scripture has come up each time. In one discussion we were doing a comparative overview of the temptation of Eve (Genesis 3:6), the temptation of Jesus (Matthew 4), and John's comment that "all that is in the world" is one of three things - lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, or pride of life. Our review of the three sciptures led us to consider the way that Eve responded to temptation compared to the way that Jesus responded to temptation and the way in which we are to respond to temptation. When we came to the obvious conclusion that Jesus' response to temptation was to turn to the Word, suddenly it dawned on me that, of course, God has provided a way out for all of us in any temptation......through the truth of His Word!

I think sometimes we are looking for something or someone miraculous or supernatural to pull us out of the tempting circumstances in which we find ourselves, or we are looking to have some kind of superhuman strength of will in ourselves to resist when, all along, we should simply (and powerfully) be relying on the promises and principles of scripture. If we have spent time in the Word, it should be readily available to us to remind us in any circumstance what is the proper way. This "reminding" us of the Word is the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

Amazing how I've always heard that scripture and, until just this week never made the connection of it to Jesus' example of how to respond to temptation.

Thinking about ministry....

2009-06-25T03:44:00.002-05:00

When I began my certification studies to become a Christian Educator in The United Methodist Church, the first thing I was challenged to do was contemplate my "calling", to think about what it was to which I felt God inviting me. From there I had to articulate a personal "theology of ministry". It was a good exercise and helped me to clarify what I wanted to accomplish through that course of study.

Now that I am involved in the candidacy process to become an ordained deacon in The United Methodist Church, with a specialty in the area of counseling, I have the same challenge again. Not in a formal, stuctured, assigned way as before (at least not yet), but through the testing and stretching that is occurring. I am being asked to step up to new tasks and opportunities, all of which will be within the scope of ministry that a deacon would do. Specifically, I have been invited to assist in Sunday worship in our traditional chapel service. Participation in services - through prayer, reading, etc. - is not exactly new. I have performed such tasks occasionally in the past as a lay person. But now, the idea of being regularly engaged in such a role, to even become part of the rotation for preaching - when necessary- suddenly makes this whole process of candidacy very real. It's not just a hypothetical, academic process.....but it is now part and parcel of my ministry, too. One often is challenged to step up to the tasks of a role long before the role has become official or even fully understood. That is how I feel. I am being given the privilege of experiencing the function of the role without yet having earned the credentials to actually be entitled to it. It is exciting. It is humbling.

I thank God for the opportunity to be molded through experience. I thank Lynn Haven UMC for its love, acceptance, and support as I begin this new aspect of ministry there.

"Go" missions.......

2009-06-20T17:38:00.006-05:00

The Alabama- West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Chruch has a new email newsletter for missions. There are good articles about mission efforts in our conference and being accomplished by our UMC Christian brothers and sisters in the conference. Check it out!

http://www.awfumc.org/newsletter_detail.asp?pkvalue=164

From the newsletter for June 2009:

Go! Jesus sent his disciples out many times. Take a look at Luke’s Gospel in chapter 10 (verses 1 -24) for one example. Jesus sent the 70 to cure the sick and proclaim the Kingdom of God. These were not the main 12 disciples, but others he had appointed. I imagine that those 70 were just ordinary folks. They had such success that the Bible says they returned with joy, and I can picture Jesus doing a little jig because he was so excited about what the Holy Spirit did through them.Jesus knew that it would take more than just him preaching and teaching to crowds to make a difference. In the passage from Luke, he sent those 70 not to synagogues or other buildings to preach and be in ministry; instead he sent them to peoples’ homes. Those ordinary folks went out in pairs to make relationships with other ordinary folks right where they were. And what a difference that made!If Jesus was sending out his disciples and others to meet people where they were, we also should be going out to where people are today. It’s not just the preachers and the church leaders who should go (or be sent), but our own “ordinary folks” – those who sit in the pews week after week. Let us send our own “ordinary folks” out to heal the sick and proclaim the Kingdom of God with others wherever they are.Going out to where others are can be difficult, and may take us out of our comfort zones. It can be risky, frustrating and frightening. But extraordinary transformation can come through intentional relationships; and in reaching out to others we ourselves are transformed. What would the Kingdom of God look like if every one of our congregations reached out in intentional ways through personal relationships, meeting people where they are? “But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:14-15a) Go!

Living out our commission.....

2009-06-17T22:39:00.011-05:00

Today in Purpose Driven Life our students were studying the final few chapters on evangelism, our mission in the world to unbelievers. We were discussing the characteristics of a "worldly person" compared to a "world-class Christian". Rick Warren cites 4 areas by which the two types of individuals might be differentiated:

Primary Focus: Worldly people are self-centered. Their focus is entirely on themselves. World-class Christians are focused on God and others.

Time: Worldly people are interested in the here and now, this moment, and immediate gratification. World-class Christians are more concerned with eternal things, the impact of today's actions on the future, and understand delayed gratification.

Place: Worldly people are "local" in their interest and effort. World-class Christians are mindful of and recognize their connection to others on a global scale.

Response: Worldly people look for reasons why they can't and make excuses. World-class Christians seek ways to creatively fulfill the purpose to which they know they've been called.

The aspect that captured our attention most was the idea of "place". In Acts 1:8 Jesus tells His disciples to ...."be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth." We discussed what this means for us today and concluded that "Jerusalem" is right in the midst of where we live - among our friends and family- in the familiar daily context of our lives. "Judea" is among those who are like us - those with whom we feel commonality. They represent a comfortable, easy to engage arena. "Samaria", on the other hand represents those who are not like us, those with whom we have little in common, and may even be those whom we dislike or consider enemies. And "to the ends of the earth" pretty much caps off the commission to go and be witnesses to everyone in the world. If we view the four domains as a set of concentric circles, "Jerusalem" (and those it represents) would be the inner circle. "Judea" would be the next outer circle, "Samaria" would be further out, still. And "to the ends of the earth" would be represented by all the space outside the three named circles. We discussed ways in which we could visualize and connect with each domain.

Some of us have a very constricted domain circle that consists of only that one inner circle. For us there is nothing beyond those with whom we interact in familiar quarters day after day. And, if we do any evangelizing even with them, it is largely through example and behavior over time - good or bad - and without any intentionality.

How sad that so many who profess to love the Lord completely ignore this call to the larger domains of mission! They make excuses, ignore the need, and selfishly think of their own comfort and convenience more than those whom Christ calls us to love and serve. We need fewer impotent worldly professors of Christian faith and more powerful world-class Christian disciples.

2009-06-05T09:22:00.004-05:00

My mother, sister, and I have scratched our heads a little bit and laughed together about some of my father's perculiarities since his life-threatening hemorrhagic stroke seven years ago. I think he'd always had a little bit of an obsessive-compulsive tendency, but it seems to have been exacerbated by the results of the stroke.

He is a compulsive saver and converter. He saves empty peanut butter jars and uses them to keep cereal in so that it doesn't get stale in an opened box, which is pretty smart. But most people use containers designed for that purpose. I think he likes the size of the jars, as they travel easily. When he comes to my house he brings several of them in one of the plastic bags in which he packs his miscellaneous items.

He then uses the cereal box cardboard, too, cutting it into handy note-taking sizes. He keeps a few in his pocket, on the desk, and around where he can write on them, when needed.

I do applaud his Scottish thrift and his creativity in repurposing things. He's always had an entrepreneurial spirit. When something catches his attention he will give it a studied once-over. Beyond the typical "how is this made" question that one might ask, sometimes I think he's wondering, "What other uses could one find for this particular thing?"

God works in mysterious ways.....

2009-06-03T23:08:00.009-05:00

Whenever I talk about faith and healing with students, I remind them that God uses a variety of means to accomplish healing and that healing itself can be of many types. God certainly uses the miraculous processes within our bodies that He designed and crafted into our DNA and all that it produces and directs. God can most certainly also miraculously and inexplicably touch us by His grace and make whole that which was not whole just an instant before. And God can use the wisdom and skill that He has called and equipped dedicated practitioners with and the technology that He has providentially provided for humanity to bring about healing.

With regard to the types of healing, we talk in various classes about the fact that healing, being restored to wholeness, may be partial or complete. It may be physical, psychological, emotional, relational, financial, etc.

What seems significant to me is not how healing occurs, but that it is God who heals and sometimes does so very unexpectedly.

In the past week in two unrelated venues I have been reminded of the story of Jesus' encounter with the crippled man who had lain for most of four decades beside the pentagonally-porticoed pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. With crowds of infirm people gathered all around the porticoes, Jesus observed the man there and asked him, "Do you want to be well?" The man, instead of answering the question Jesus asked, began making excuses for why he'd lain there for so long. Later, in verse 12 we discover that he didn't even know who Jesus was. He knew only that Jesus had told him simply, " Arise, take up your pallet and walk."

There is no evidence that any act of faith was required on the part of this man for Christ to heal him.

Sometimes we think that there must be a tremendous gesture of faith on our part, as individuals seeking healing for ourselves or others. And there are numerous examples of Christ's healing miracles in which He says, in one way or another, "Your faith has made you whole." But in this one case, at least, faith is never mentioned. And in the story of the man whose friends lowered him through a rooftop, the scripture seems to suggest that it is not the infirm man's faith, but that of his friends that is noted as Christ heals him.

The mechanics of the various healing miracles intrigue me, too. In one instance Christ simply speaks the Word, in another he touches with His hand, in another a woman touches his clothing, in yet another He makes a paste of mud and spit. Sometimes it's at a distance, as with the centurion's slave. At other times it is by the bedside of the ill person. There seems to be no pattern, no predictability, no rhyme or reason that can lead us to know for sure how, or even if, God will heal in a particular situation.

Recently I've been privileged to watch as skilled surgeons and intensivists applied all their skill and wisdom to the care of two young children in dire medical circumstances hundreds of miles apart. A four year old boy was injured in a tragic accident involving a tractor driven by his grandfather. The other, a two year old boy, was physically abused and nearly killed by a foster parent. Each has made progress in his recovery in ways that, to most of us observing it all, can only be attributed to a miracle from God and an answer to prayer. Both still have a long way to go to full recovery. But those of us who continue to pray for them are encouraged by what we have seen.

In the case of the child injured in the tractor accident, tens of thousands of people have been checking his Caring Bridge journal and praying for him. His name has traveled across the nation in updates on Family Life Radio. In the case of the abused child, mostly a mere dozen friends and family members (and a sizable contingent of state agency personnel) have been rallying to his side and at least one church has had him on its prayer list. Though now that the abusing couple have been arrested and charged with attempted murder many more are aware of him and, hopefully, are praying for him- and them.

The four year old has moved out of intensive care to a regular room and is making great progress. The two year old leaves tomorrow for a brain rehabilitation center 150 miles from home and family. He has a lot of work ahead of him and time waiting to see if new brain cells are going to proliferate in the damaged sections of his brain. Thankfully, he is in a phase of development where brain growth is still occurring. The cognitive and motor skills that he's gained over the last two years will have to be relearned, if possible. He's tracking movement with his eyes now. A few days ago he smiled at a family member, though we don't know if it meant recognition or just registered interest. It's a start. We are grateful that he will apparently be able to respond to his evironment in more than merely reflexive ways.

If any healing, my own or someone else's depended on my prayers or my faith, would my prayers and faith be righteous enough or effective enough to avail anything? ( Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. James 5:16)

However it is occurring- by the natural healing power of their created bodies, by the gracious touch of God's grace, by the wonders of modern medical science, or by the effective prayer of a single righteous person somewhere in the world- I thank God that it is occurring for both of these little boys.

Sad, but true.....

2009-05-22T22:12:00.004-05:00

My husband serves on the board of a local agency that promotes and provides educational opportunities for preschool children. He's been telling me for some time about the studies on how children who are read to from a young age develop language and reasoning skills compared to those whose lives are devoid of books and reading.

Today I was with a young mother and her 2 year old child. I suggested that she read him a book to entertain and comfort him. She looked at me as if I'd suggested she jump over the moon. She said to me that she is not a good reader and had never read a book to any of her three children. The sudden realization that something that I take so for granted was being denied these children brought tears to my eyes. It struck me as terribly sad. I recall my joy as a child, being read to and learning to read. I've watched my grandchildren's joy from very young ages as they were read to by their parents and grandparents. All of them are voracious readers now.

Maybe in my retirement years I'll volunteer as a reader at a preschool daycare.......

The joy of playing in the dirt....

2009-05-17T18:42:00.005-05:00

The spring ritual of filling pots with colorful flowers was mostly accomplished this weekend. With each plant selected I was thinking of my grandmothers and mother, their yards, the care they gave to them. It's funny how smells like potting soil and flower blossoms and the sound of water spraying into a watering can triggers so many memories in my mind.

There's something very satisfying and comforting to me in participating in this little spring ritual. And I get to enjoy the results for months. When my hands are busy in the dirt, my mind is calm. It is very soothing and therapeutic. If I had the time and the money, I'd do a lot more in the yard.

We had a yard man help us for a couple of weekends.....pruning azaleas, cutting back vines on the fence, shaping up and transplanting sago palms, and extending the edges of flower beds along another section of the yard. He also reslatted a child's wrought iron picnic table and a garden bench for me. I probably paid more for the wood and labor than I could have paid to replace the two items with functionally similar items, but replacements would not have been as decorative as the wrought iron frames I have, so I am satisfied that I got a good deal in being able to rehabilitate them.

I thank God for the years of following my grandmothers and mother around and participating in garden club with my mother in law. I've learned the names of many plants and basic rules of horticulture and design. It provides a satisfying hobby and a delightful way to reflect on people I love and how they'd touched my life.

Spiritual malnutrition.....

2009-05-16T20:36:00.005-05:00

In my last post, I had written about the necessity of learning to feed ourselves, spiritually. This devotional arrived in my box this week from The Master's Business wirter, Lorraine Ezell. She details a couple of types of spiritual malnutrition. I agree with her completely!

Coffee Break : "Malnutrition"

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears." 2 Timothy 4:3
The word malnutrition is defined as: "lack of proper nutrition; inadequate or unbalanced nutrition." When we think of malnutrition, a vision of those precious little children overseas that are nothing but skin and bones and bloated bellies pops into our minds. But did you know you can be over weight and still be malnourished? The size of your body or the amount of fat it has on it is not necessary an indication that you are receiving the proper nutrients to keep from being malnourished. You've heard the term "wasted calories". Wasted calories are what you get from eating foods that have no nutritional value-- they're called "junk food".

To maintain a healthy body you must give it a well balanced diet of the proper nutrients. It's true of the spirit man as well. There are many Christians who are malnourished because they are lacking proper spiritual nutrition. These are the ones who don't read their Bibles, pray or spend time in praise and worship. They are not receiving spiritual nutrition, therefore, they are not spiritually healthy.

There is another group who are malnourished because they are not getting the proper balance of spiritual nutrients. They look spiritually fat- but remember fat does not always mean well nourished- even spiritually. They are the ones who go from one seminar to another, one conference to another, one meeting to another always looking for something that will make them feel good for the moment. They are "conference junkies". They don't take what they received back with them and apply it to their lives. They don't have any personal devotion time. They don't pray or read the Bible for themselves. Once the meeting is over, they begin to look for another one so they can "fill up". Let me stop for a moment and say this so that you won't misunderstand. There is nothing wrong with going to meetings and conferences, etc., but when that's all your life consists of, then you are not receiving the proper combination of nutrients you need to be spiritually healthy.

My body has to have Vitamin C in order to be healthy, but at the same time I can't live on Vitamin C only, I have to have other vitamins and minerals along with it. To be spiritually healthy you have to have a well balanced spiritual diet that consists of all the spiritual elements.

Are you spiritually healthy or malnourished?

Coffee Break is a morning devotional written by Lorraine Ezell mastersbusiness@bellsouth.net http://www.mastersbusiness.org/

Manna and feeding ourselves....

2009-05-02T02:56:00.007-05:00

This week I was having a one-on-one session on discipleship with one of our recovery program student interns. She is working an evening shift at the mission shelter and isn't able to attend the Monday evening class. It was a good session. I shared with her information from the REVEAL study conducted in over 500 churches by WillowCreek Church in Chicago that showed that church satisfaction increases for people in the early to middle stages of their Christian journey (seekers, new believers, and early committeds), but actually declines for those who've entered the maturing discipleship stage. That seems counter intuitive, but when you consider it, it's really not. It's people in the discpleship stage who gravitate toward missions work beyond the church and in parachurch organizations, who start new ministries, and who teach.

Those who've moved to deeper commitment to Christ have to start to view their pastor and home church differently. It's less a matter of their pastor instructing and inspiring them and more a matter of them beginning to see themselves in ministry with the pastor. They come to identify themselves more in connection to the church universal and less tied, perhaps, to a single "home" church. Church is less and less likely to be the place where they get deeply inspired and fed every week and more likely to be a place where they now serve and lead others. Their meaningful engagement with the Bible begins to be in the one-on-one time spent with a mentor or in a small accountability group or in daily alone time with God. The weekly worship time in the larger congregation is generally geared toward the early to middle stage believers, the "average" attendee, not the deeply committed disciple. That person has to learn to be a "self feeder", to seek out and enjoy time with God in venues other than Sunday morning worship.

I've had the opportunity to talk to several people over the last year about this phenomenon and the way that one's engagement with the church changes in the maturing discipleship stage versus earlier stages. Each one had begun to feel somewhat "disconnected" from church and confused and guilty about it. Once they saw the REVEAL information and understood what was happening, they were relieved and renewed.

This week as I reflected on my conversation with my student intern, it occurred to me that in Exodus 16, when God introduced His children in the wilderness to manna, they too had to be "self feeders". We are told in verse 4, "Then the Lord, said to Moses, 'Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion everyday, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction.'" Later, when the manna appeared like frost in the morning, we are told "When the sons of Israel saw it, they said to one another, 'What is it'? For they did not know what it was . And Moses said to them, 'It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. 'This is what the Lord has commanded, Gather of it every man, as much as he should eat; you shall take an omer apiece according to the number of persons each of you has in his tent.' And the sons of Israel did so and some gathered much and some little. When they measured it with an omer, he who had gathered much had no excess and he who had gathered little had no lack; every man gathered as much as he should eat......"

As I thought about the provision of manna, it occurred to me that God didn't instruct Moses to establish a force of official gathers and preparers. The Levites weren't charged with the duty of seeing that every person got the proper amount. Each person was to gather his own manna daily, not hoarding, but gathering only what was needed. On Saturday each was to gather a double portion, so that on Sunday, no work was required.

The Bible refers to our "daily bread". We are to gather our own manna each day. One who has been mentored into a stage of maturing discipleship should understand this and be equipped to "self feed" on the Word daily.

My student intern cried as we talked about this. She said she had been feeling distant and disconnected from church, that her level of satisfaction on Sunday morning recently had not been what it was when she first started attending. She had felt guilty and confused and wondered, "Am I losing 'it' (speaking of her passion for the Lord)? As we talked, however, I found that her desire for the truth of the Bible was strong, that her commitment to serving others is real, and that she is lively and engaged in discussing her relationship with Christ. She came to the conclusion that, no, she is not "losing it", but rather that "it" (her relationship with Christ and the church) is simply changing, becoming more mature, demanding a different kind of discipline and effort - daily and deep, pursued through godly conversations with mentors and through personal devotional time. She was relieved. She was reassured. I think she also gained an appreciation of how vital one's discpline is in pursuing the spiritual life. We cannot rely on others, even our pastors, to do the work for us. We have to feed ourselves.

It has always annoyed me somewhat to hear supposedly Christian people comment that they "just aren't being fed" by a particular pastor or congregation. It is not the job of the pastor or the congregation to feed us, if we've grown beyond the milk stage of our faith. We all have to learn to gather and fed ourselves the manna.

My turtle friends....

2009-04-25T19:58:00.003-05:00

My husband, Bill, has dubbed me a turtle conservationist. I carry a plastic pad in the back of my SUV so that I can rescue errant turtles that make their way onto the roadways around our area. I've rescued some big ones and some small ones. Once a toddler grandaughter was with me and she squealed with delight when we rescued a turtle from a side street and relocated it to a marsh a few blocks away. She talked about the turtle for the next several visits.

This weekend Bill's friend from Nashville, Pete, was here visiting and, while fishing off our dock, he hooked a turtle that tried to snag his shrimp bait. He and I were able to disengage the hook after some maneuvering using needle nosed pliers and a hemostat and sent the turtle back to his watery home. All this occurred while Bill and our cats watched us. I have no idea how susceptible turtles are to infection and whether our little boxed friend will survive his misadventure or not. But we made the effort.

I'm also a spider rescuer. If I find one in the house, I use a plastic cup and piece of paper to capture and relocate it to the outdoors. Now even Bill gets in on the action, alerting me to the presence of an arachnid visitor and urging me to hurry along with the relocation.

We have not adopted the same policy with roaches. Fortunately, we don't see many of them, having contracted with a pest control company to do that for us! You might think us inconsistent in our humane efforts, but I have never heard that roaches are as beneficial as spiders in controlling the other pests around the home!

This is a test.....

2009-04-20T20:35:00.005-05:00

When people change their email addresses or change service providers, they may send out a "test" message. They want to make sure that their messages are coming through, that they are still connected to others. The perception of the internet seems to be that it is such an immediate and intimate form of communication......but is it really?

Here in the blog world some of the posters put a gadget on their page entitled "followers" to show who among their online network visits their blog. I've put that gadget on my weblog a few times for days or weeks at the time. Only one person has logged in as a follower of disciplerofself in the four years I've been blogging, although one out-of-state writer who happened upon my blog posted disciplerofself as a link from her blog. After browsing around other people's blogs, mostly among my church friends, and noticing a dozen or more "followers" on some, I decided to take it off mine. I decided it's embarrassing to announce to anyone who might happen by that my blog has only one follower, and besides, I don't post for other people anyway. Although it has been nice the few times that someone has read something here and commented on it or started a conversation later about the topic. For the last four years it's been a personal thing, giving voice to some things that are important or interesting to me. I used to journal everything in hardbound journal notebooks, but if I wanted to find something later, it was so difficult to find it in my bound journals. Having them posted online makes finding them later so much easier, especially with the convenience of sorting by "labels"! So there you have it. This weblog is my personal catalog of thoughts and musings, mostly for my own amusement and use. It's not intended to be a means of "connecting" with others. I'd rather do that face to face and with give and take!

So if you've happened by here and found something worth spending a few minutes on, I'm glad. But I'd really be happy if you'd give me a call, meet me for coffee, greet me and converse in the hall at church, or stop by the house sometime when you're out our way!

Speaking of trees.....

2009-04-14T07:42:00.003-05:00

Recently, I was visiting with a woman about her spiritual growth. She expressed grief over how, in spite of her faith in God, she had repeatedly relapsed in her alcohol addiction. As we talked about her spiritual life, something occurred to me and I shared with her the following information.

God uses several images of trees in scripture. One image is that of the stately, solitary "oak of righteousness", growing by the river and putting roots down deeply into the earth. The other is the image of cedars, a coniferous species that, instead of deep taproots, put out an intricate web of shallower roots that intertwine with one another in groves, just like the majestic redwoods of California.

As I explained to her, the first represents to me the relationship that the believer develops with the Lord. Our taproot seeks out His nourishing presence and provides us the stability to withstand the winds and droughts of life. On the other hand, the groves of cedars and redwoods represent to me the relationships that the believer must also develop with other believers, interwining our lives together to obtain further stability and strength. As we talked about her life she had vigorously pursued the deeper life with God that sustained her, but she had failed to build a meaningful network of relationships with others that could assuage her loneliness in life and give her the encouragement and accountability that could assist in her battle with alcohol.

I pulled up information from the internet on both types of tree root systems and we talked about how God has designed us for both vertical relationship with Himself and horizontal relationships with one another. One has only to look at the cross to be reminded of the two dimensions and read Acts to see how the early Christians embodied both dimensions in their lifestyle.

God gives us many lessons in the natural world that point to spiritual reality. I believe that this botanical lesson from the trees merits our reflection.

Only God can make a tree....

2009-04-13T21:59:00.007-05:00

From Friday mid-afternoon to Saturday evening, I drove for 16 hours, with a night's sleep and several stops for food along the way to delivering grandchildren back to their parent's care. The drive was mostly up Interstate 65 through the state of Alabama and south Tennessee. As I have observed on several occasions, the variety of shades of green in the spring always delights me. This April excursion was a pure joy as I observed the variety of trees along the roadside.

I had heard one time that Alabama enjoys the distinction of having the greatest diversity of tree species of any state in the nation. My attempts to confirm this revealed that it does indeed. From an Alabama forestry website: "Green woodlands dress more than 22 million acres of the Alabama landscape, roughly two-thirds of hte state. (Only Oregon and Georgia have comparable abundance of forested acreage). Moreover, forest diversity in Alabama is greater than in any other region in the United States, with more than 200 kinds of native trees. These mixed forests consist of a great many hardwoods often thought of as emblematic of other regions: oaks, maples, hollies, elms, and five species of buckeyes (Ohio has just two). Also abundant are the softwoods and conifers - juniper, hemlock, cypress, and eight distinctive species of pine. "

Add to that the lovely blooming understory trees like redbud and dogwood and the blooming wildflowers of the season, especially the streaming ribbons of red clover along the roadways, and one can easily see why the ride was a visual feast. I arrived home shortly after dark on Saturday evening, with several tasks to do before sunrise Easter Sunday, but was happy and relaxed, having enjoyed the beauty of the ride and the Christian music CDs that accompanied me.

As I reflect on the Holy Week just past, I am reminded that many disciples on Saturday of that first Easter weekend must have been grieving and despairing over the events they'd witnessed. The emotions of the week for me 2000+ years later are considerably different, knowing, as I do, that Sunday morning brought a joyful surprise outcome. I experienced peace, delight, anticipation, and gratitude all week. He is risen indeed!

Trees by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918, killed in action in France in World War I)

I think that I shall never see

A poem as lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

The Way of the Beatitudes....

2009-04-12T23:01:00.015-05:00

(This post contains some information from a post in October 2008)

For several years I have taught the Beatitudes as a process through which one goes from brokenness to healing, spiritually and emotionally. Since it is my practice to consider the spiritual aspect of a person first, this way of helping a person understand herself and how God is working in her life is the prelude to discussing other aspects of the individual's life.

I first came to understand the Beatitudes this way as a result of a period of brokenness in my own life and through my study of the Beatitudes. Later, I read Martyn Lloyd-Jones' book, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, and was surprised to discover how similar his view of the Beatitudes was to the way in which the Lord had instructed my heart. Dr. Harold Westing of Denver Seminary shared with me his diagram of them, developed from the Lloyd-Jones' book. I have adapted it a bit, but it is very similar to Dr. Westing's. (click on the diagram above for a larger, clearer view of it.)

This scripture, occurring in Matthew 5, and detailed by Matthew as the preface to the Sermon on the Mount provides, I believe, the pattern for living that enables us to live out the rest of the the Lord's instruction. I have since found several writers who have observed a progressive process in the Beatitudes. In fact, I have an entire shelf devoted to books on the Beatitudes.

I have been asked on several occasions about the "discrepancies" between the Matthew 5:3-12 Beatitudes and Luke's account in 6:20-26. As far as I can see, there is no discrepancy, simply two styles of delivery in two locations to two target audiences. In the Matthew account we have a spiritualized version written by a Hebrew for Hebrews. In it Christ assumes the rabbi's posture for teaching, sitting, and it occurs on a mountain. This version emphasizes "The Way of Piety" that leads to transformation. In Luke, we get a Greek version for the socially conscious Greeks, delivered on a level plain and delivered in the prophet's posture, standing. It emphasizes "The Cause of Mercy" that leads to social justice.

In Matthew, although the section immediately preceding the Beatitudes talks about crowds following Jesus and him healing many, when chapter 5 begins we are told that his disciples came to him and he "sat and taught", in the rabbinic style. In Luke, we read that he is in the midst of diverse people, all of whom seem to be clamoring to have their respective needs met. In this one his tone and style is that of the prophet- blessings and woes. The constant between the two is Christ himself and his message. What we see in each depends on where we sit, or stand.....on the mountain or on the level plain and whether we are personally more inclined to the reflective inner life of pietistic pursuits or more inclined toward social activism and works of mercy. Each is simply a different facet of the same prism.

It seems to me that, in the last generation or two, within the church we have increasingly taken an either/or position between the two, polarizing them to such an extent that we have difficulty reconciling the two, just as some have difficulty reconciling the two versions of the Beatitude texts. Some have felt the need to stake a claim to one or the other position while diminishing the value of the other position because of personal preference or calling. I have, at different times of my life, been on both ends of the polar extremes with this and now am striving to embrace all of Christ, the Teacher and the Prophet, piety and mercy, holiness and justice, inner and outer focused. Both are necessary in the community of Christian faith.

In Acts 6:1-4, the Greek Christians complained that the Hebrew Christians were not treating the Greek widows fairly with regard to distribution of food. This happened as the number of new converts was growing. The apostles had the people seek out seven persons of good character, known to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and appoint them to the task of administering justice in the matter. They, the apostles, then could return their attention to the ministry of the word and prayer. Even here in the first generation of the church the battle lines were drawn....pietists (Hebrew Christians) versus the social activists (Greek Christians). And so we see the process begin. Christ anticipated it and prepared for it within the church. He gave us the Beatitudes and the Sermon, twice - an account from each perspective!

The implications for community life are significant. How we reconcile the two perspectives and live authentically with one another is reflected in the respect we show to one another and how we go about attending to the goals of each group. We cannot afford to have individuals staking claims on either extreme to the exclusion of the other, looking askance at one another and suspecting the authenticity of one another's spirituality. Such maneuvers leave people turned off and wary of the institutional church. It also denies the fullness of Christ, his desire that both should be part and parcel of our carrying out his work in the world.

A.S.K.

2009-04-12T15:36:00.007-05:00

Matthew 7:7-8 "Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened."

It has always been interesting to me how, when something became a matter of interest and desire to me, eventhough unspoken to anyone, there would always "appear" some book, quote, teacher, or other source that would bring information that addressed the issue in a very prompt, timely, and direct way. There have been times that it has been so promt, timely and direct as to be disconcerting, causing me to wonder just how it could happen that the information would present itself at just the time I had needed or desired it and not a moment sooner, unless it was by the divine providential hand of God. And this started long before the advent of the internet's easy access to almost any topic.

I'm sure that there are those who would explain away this phenomenon, pointing out that the information was always available, just undetected by me until my interest was piqued, so that, at the moment I became interested in the topic, I had only to look and find it there, right out in the open. I've heard this explanation in regard to cars, too. Oddly, when one makes a car purchase of a particular model and color, suddenly one seems to see the same model and color around every corner. It's a matter of heightened awareness, not suddenly altered availability.

There is a quote attributed to Guyatama Buddha that goes "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." And while I have used that quote myself on occasion, I prefer the more proactive and directive quote of Jesus cited above from Matthew 7:7-8. It tells us to ask, seek, and knock, in other words, to be intentional. My sense of it has always been that Jesus' quote had to do specifically with regard to pursuing the kingdom of God. But, in my experience, whether it is in pursuit of the kingdom of God or pursuit of knowledge about almost anything, the principle is the same. It gives me great comfort to realize that God, who possesses all knowledge and wisdom, is so very generous with it and desires to give it to us. When I reread Matthew 7, it seems clear that Jesus' instruction to ask, seek, and knock is not just about pursuing the kingdom of God or even about pursuing wisdom, but actually is about pursuing any "good gift" or "good thing". There, however, is the rub, determining what are "good gifts" or "good things".

Martha Stewart, the noted domestic diva of my generation, included a section in her signature magazine that was entitled "Good Things". In any given month it could be a diverse assortment of information, items or events that might appeal to readers. Sometimes they were "good" to me, other times they were better described as neutral or merely curiosities. I can't recall any that I would classify as out and out "not good". I suppose the definition of "good gifts" or "good things", like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, depending on the interests and desires of the individual.

In James 1:17 we are told that "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." ( Additional comment: This chapter also tells us that God gives wisdom generously to all who ask, without doubting, (vs. 5-6) and does not send temptation to us. Temptation, it says, arises out of our own lusts(vs. 13-14) (see 1 John 2:16 for a description of the lusts that entice us). The additional qualifier that James provides of the "gift" - good and perfect - leads me to conclude that, some desired gift, while it might generally be considered good by or for anyone, God may have determined that it is not perfect for me and therefore not one that I will receive. "Perfect", in the scripture, from the Greek word "teleios", generally refers to that which is complete, mature, having attained its full stature or measure, wanting nothing in order to be complete, or having consummate integrity and virtue. In other words, while something might be considered "good", it may not be God's best for me, because it is not both good and "perfect" specifically with regard to His plan for my life.

James 4:2-3 also tells us "You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures." God is certainly not going to give us those things that arise out of our selfish desires. Such things are neither good nor perfect for us.

So, back to Matthew 7:7, is it about aking for the kingdom, wisdom, or things? Does it matter? The bottom line seems to be that God is the One who makes the determination about whether or not something, anything, is right for us, good and perfect. Furthermore, He determines when and how we receive it. But this scripture makes it clear that we must be intentional and proactive in asking, seeking, knocking. Is that to stretch us and make us consider what it is that God would consider good and perfect for us, to teach us to "ask aright"? Is it to force us to examine our motivations? Is to invite us to consider what it is that we really should want, considering God's desires for us? Or is it simply to assure us that God does listen and will respond, that He rewards those who seek Him (Hebrews 11:6)?

Because Matthew 7:7 repeats the instruction 3 times, each time more emphatically, it seems to me that Jesus is telling us that, whatever we desire, we must persist in our pursuit, assuming that our motives are correct. I've always thought that it was interesting that, in English, the three verbs - ask, seek, knock - when made into an acrostic, spell out "A.S.K.". It begins with asking and ends with having the door opened to us when we have found the true object of our desire.

Lord, teach me to ask aright; teach me to persist in the effort.

An Easter like none before....

2009-04-12T13:44:00.005-05:00

Because of my staff job at a church, there are some Sundays that I don't even get into the sanctuary for worship.....instead I am teaching, counseling, handling an emergency, or looking for a curriculum resource for a teacher or home group leader. Today was not one of those days. There was no Sunday School, so I had the luxury of simply attending worship, and attending worship, and attending worship, and attending worship!

Bill and I started with a 6:30am waterfront sunrise service at A.L. Kinsaul Park, hosted by Lynn Haven UMC. About 200+ of us gathered in a gusty, cool morning breeze to sing resurrection songs and hear a message by Pastor Nic Gibson as the sun rose on a beautiful Easter morning. Nic preached about the good news of salvation becoming transformation. He referenced a weblog by his brother, Stanford Gibson, in which Stan quotes a vintner who calls himself a "wine nerd, but not a wine snob". As Nic told it, the same could be said of us as Christians - some are "spirituality nerds, but not spirituality snobs." The spiritual snob (read: self-righteous) disdains the spirituality of others whose spirituality is not the same as her own and that causes her world to be diminished as a result. The nerd simply loves and adventurously pursues spirituality for itself, not judging others' and consequently allowing her own world to be enlarged and stand on its own. For the snobs it's a comparative thing, desiring that it should be better than someone else's. For the nerd it is simply a choice made out of love for the object itself. His scripture was from 1 Corinthians 15:1-10.

In one of his prayers he used the phrase "free us from the guilt of our past, the boredom of the present, and the anxiety of the future." Somehow that resonated with me. Although I don't feel any of those three at the moment, I have at times in the past and I certainly know a number of people for whom all three fit right now.

He also talked about adventure movies and superheroes and called Christ the ultimate superhero, the one that everyone talks about when he saves the world from disaster. His analogy was this: consider that we sinners are poor hapless individuals tied to a railroad track, assured of certain death. In such a situation, he said, we don't need a spiritual psychologist telling us how to reorient ourselves to our reality. We need a superhero savior with a knife who can free us from our bonds. That image resulted in chuckles throughout the group.

After the sunrise service, Bill and I went home, where I retrieved a crockpot of warm sausage pinwheels and a container of fruit kabobs to take for the staff at the church, many of whom were arriving at 7:00am and working until after noon. I hurried off to the 8:00 traditional service and left Bill at home to himself for the rest of the morning. Senior pastor Doug Pennington's sermon at the 8:00 service was on Thomas and doubt. His message had us feeling more in sync with the "doubting Thomas", sympathetic rather than critical, and joyful when the doubt has been put to rest personally by the risen Christ. He referenced the hallmark Methodist doctrine, assurance of salvation. Thank God that we can have that! His scripture was from John 20:19-29.

At the 9:30 traditional chapel service Jim Luther talked about the triumphant, enduring nature of love, God's love for us expressed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. One interesting point from his comments was about his archeological studies in the Holy Land, where he visited a family burial tomb, in the same area and similar to the one in which Christ's body would have been laid. He noted the practice of allowing the bodies to decay and dessicate, leaving only bones. After a period of time, the bones would be placed in a family ossuary, actually "mingling with the bones of one's fathers". So, when the Bible references being "laid with his fathers", it was a very literal reference. His scripture reference was from John 20:1-18. A friend, Leslie Baker, and I sang the hymn Morning Has Broken, made famous by Cat Stevens in the 1970's, at that service and again at the 11:00 traditional chapel service with Jim Luther. It's been many years since I've sung special music on Easter Sunday. Leslie and I are both feeling the desire to return to the traditional choir - Wednesday night practices and all.

After singing at the 11:00 traditional chapel service, I slipped out and went to hear our youth pastor, Neal McGee, preach in the Youth Center. His message, entitled "Then and Now" talked about the worship and joy felt by the followers of Christ on that Easter morning as the risen Christ proclaimed the Good News to them and challenged us to the same as we proclaim the Good News to others.

After the last service, several staffers were in the office commenting on how calm and peaceful the day's services seemed - no hurried rushing, no overcrowding, no emergencies, no technical gaffes, etc. Using two venues for nine services was a challenge, but appears to have been well planned and carried out. When I told Doug I'd had the chance to hear all four pastors preach he said, essentially, that I either deserved a crown or to have my head examined!

It was a joy to have a leisurely morning and to spend the first half of it listening to quality preaching from four pastors who are all important in my life. This Easter has set a new standard that will, undoubtedly, be difficult to meet in future years.

Another event of worthy note this Easter weekend is that I received the results of a ministry inventory that I took in January. My deacon candidacy mentor emailed it to me after reviewing it herself yesterday. I was very encouraged to see that the results support what I have believed is my calling in ministry. I scored a very high 96th percentile on counseling, as well as very high scores on scholarly pursuits (96) and spiritual guidance (90). The surprise in the assessment was the score on "priest" (82), indicating a strong interest in assisting in the conduct of public worship, sacraments, and liturgy. Moderately high scores on administration (76), teaching (71), evangelism (73), and reformer (62) are all compatible with the areas of ministry in which I am working or seeking to work. My lowest interest scores were in the areas of preaching (31) and music (33). Since those are the areas in which I feel least competent it makes sense that my interest and activity in those areas would be low. This Thursday I have a meeting with members of the Alabama-W.Florida Conference Board of Ministry. It is in support of my goal of certification as a Christian educator in the UMC. I don't know if this inventory or my candidacy for ordination as a deacon will come up, but I hope to be prepared for whatever they might ask.

Finally, this past week our daughter informed us that our youngest grandaughter, age 6, will be receiving Holy Communion for the first time today at the late afternoon Easter worship service at their church, Red Mountain Church, PCA, in Birmingham. One by one we are having the privilege of watching our grandchildren affirm their faith in Christ. Our prayers for them to know the Lord are being answered, as we have fully expected. Our pastor says that for children raised in homes where Christ is honored and worshipped, who are taken to churches where He is exalted, it is a natural thing to come to faith. While I agree that believing is a natural consequence in such environments, we have seen many children from Christian homes abandon their faith later or simply never achieve a degree of obedience that reflects solidly embracing the belief and embodying it in behavior. Our prayers now are that our grandchildren, having made decisions affirming faith in Christ, will cooperate with the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives through obedience to the Word and will know the peace and joy of living abundant lives in Christ.

So, on this Easter I find that I have much to celebrate and, gratefully, have had the time and freedom to do exactly that!

Assisting in recovery......

2009-03-30T03:54:00.010-05:00

When I chose to get state certified as a substance abuse recovery support specialist, I was essentially making two commitments - to develop and maintain a degree of professional competence through continuing education in addiction issues and to be available to those who are making a commitment to achieving sobriety as a supportive resource and accountability partner. In my work at Bethel Village Women's Addiction Recovery Pathways Program I do that everyday. I also do that in my role as a team leader with Celebrate Recovery, a Christian 12 step fellowship that meets at Lynn Haven UMC. But from time to time, the Lord directs others my way who are in need of Christian support for their own spiritual journey, including the need to give up substance use, abuse or dependency. It is a privilege to be trusted with the emotional support and care of someone who is making that decision. It is, however, a bit daunting to have that responsibility, especially given the potential for physical consequences of withdrawal that can accompany stopping alcohol.

This weekend I have been in prayer for a person who is discontinuing an abusive, self-medicating relationship with alcohol. My conversations with the individual led me to believe that the desire is sincere, the commitment is firm, and the need is great. Utilizing a detoxification unit as a precaution against the potential effects of physical withdrawal was not really practical for the individual at this time. While the frequency of use certainly indicated a pattern of dependence, at least psychologically if not physiologically, the degree to which the quantity had created a physiological dependency was not known. This was a judgment call, to move forward with the risk of withdrawal. Prayer and time have proven that the concern about physiological dependence was unwarranted. The individual appears to have successfully made a clean break.

Now begins the really hard work of facing the emotions and reality of life situations that led to escapist behavior. The process of entering into fellowship with someone in need is an act of faith in God, that He is going to equip both of us with what we need to move toward wholeness in the life of the helper and the helped.

Beyond Blue......

2009-03-28T02:44:00.006-05:00

It's been a while since I posted on mental health issues. I find that many people in my church and among my acquaintances, knowing of my experience with depression and of my having led a depression impact group for six and a half years, refer people who are needing help to me regularly. Yesterday I received a call from a person with a multitude of issues in life right now. There is not much that I can do, really, to address the specific problems any particular person faces, but I can listen and, as much as anything, that seems to be the greatest need most people have.

It's a sad thing, but many people with depression find that they wear their family and friends completely out. Their struggle becomes a seemingly endless slog through misery and family and friends eventually simply tune them out, or worse, depart in exasperation when the depressed person is unable to muster up the will or energy to "just get over it". They've heard it all for the umpteenth time and all of their advice and encouragement appears to have gone unheeded, so they simply quit.

The interesting thing is, though, that allowing people to verbally process their pain, however many times it takes, often eventually results in them getting to the place that they're ready to change. And, it seems to me that depression often is the companion to resistance to change. We sense that something is coming or has, in fact, already come and we are unable or unwilling to accept the reality of the situation. Our anxiety and anger over it all, when internalized, becomes the depression that pretty soon appears to be the problem when it is actually the result of the deeper emotional and psychological problem.

Therese Borchard writes a weblog on depression at Beliefnetcalled "Beyond Blue". ( See link on my list of links) . Her posts are helpful for anyone struggling with depression or who finds herself in the role of support to a family member or friend with depression.

Tick, tock, tick, tock......

2009-03-27T07:26:00.004-05:00

After what has been essentially a decade long journey, a good friend of mine finally received official notification yesterday that she will be ordained as an elder in the United Methodist Church at our annual conference in June. She's been a minister now for about 4 years. It's been a long road. She and I attended a fundraiser last evening for a local charity and shared a moment of celebration over the somewhat anti-climactic news. We've prayed together, cried together, sought God's will together, and celebrated small victories along the way together. Now, just as she reaches the end of the pursuit, I reminded her that now I need her to help me accomplish somewhat the same goal, ordination as a deacon in the United Methodist Church. I'm beginning a bit more in the middle of the journey than she, since I already have bachelor's and master's degrees in hand, but nevertheless, the road ahead is daunting. The clock begins ticking this spring with the official background check and psychological assessment. I have five years to check off the boxes, cross the "t's" and dot the "i's".

I, too, am already in ministry. My partime job in Christian education in a local congregation and my fulltime job in counseling and administration in the healing ministry of a local rescue mission, connected with the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions, allows me very satisfying engagement in spiritual formation and Christian counseling with adults whose lives are broken. Just this week I had a session with a "student", a fifty year old woman who has battled alcoholism for over two decades. The Holy Spirit was very present with us as we had our case management meeting. We both were aware of it. I came away from the experience humbled by how God had directed the conversation along lines that I had not had any idea we'd explore and led us both to insights that provide a foundation for further exploration. All I can say is, "Wow!"

The bottom line is, whether or not I am deemed acceptable by the authorities of the United Methodist Church for official status in ministry, God apparently has already determined that I can be of value to building the kingdom and helping those who are hurting to find healing and joy in this life.

Churches remembered.....

2009-03-22T03:35:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I attended a wedding at First United Methodist Church in Clayton, AL, where my family attended when I was a fourth grader. It was strange being there after many years away. I remembered the stained glass windows. I think they are more beautiful now, however, than I remembered them. And above the altar is a stained glass picture of Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.

In the spring of my fourth grade year we moved to Shellman, GA, and my parents joined First Baptist Church there. It, too, was very traditional in architecture, including stained glass windows. They give the interior a holy feel. The choir loft and baptistry make it clear what goes on there.

For many years in Montgomery, AL, my husband and I attended First United Methodist Church in Cloverdale Park, an historic and beautiful gothic styled church made of stone, with flying buttresses and ornately carved details throughout, as well as the stained glass windows that generally go with such architecture. Its slate floors and massive carved doors had a substantive feel to them.

The church I attend today is a much more modern facility. There are not even any windows in the sanctuary, as it has a hallway outside around three sides and backs up to storage and utility functions. It's far less readily recognizable as a church and could, in fact, be a college lecture hall. There are a gold cross and candlesticks on an altar table and portable altar rails, but there's nothing permanent, it seems, that defines the space as worship space. If the church's membership were to suddenly collapse, the building could easily be repurposed as a private school or small college. The only evidence that it is a house of worship is signage, a painting of Jesus in the lobby, and a backlight glass picture in a small chapel of the resurrected Jesus.

There are moments that I miss the traditional look and feel of the churches in which I grew up and raised my family. Then there are moments when truly dynamic worship occurs, even in our more nondescript setting, and I am reminded that God doesn't inhabit a building, but its people. And I am thankful that there is ample evidence of His presence among the people with whom I worship today.

Biblical expressions of the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the Christian faith.....

2009-03-14T21:41:00.008-05:00

One recurring theme that I find myself teaching the women at Bethel Village is the Great Commandment - Matthew 22:36-39- "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law? And He said to him, " 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." We talk regularly about the two dimensions of the Christian faith- the vertical relationship with the Lord and the horizontal relationship with others that are reflected in the two axes of the Cross.

When one examines the ten commandments (Exodus 20:2-17, Exodus 34:11-27, and Deuteronomy 5:6-21), it is apparent that the first 4 reflect how we are to relate to God Himself (the vertical dimension); the following 6 reflect how we are to relate to others (our neighbors- the horizontal dimension).

1. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself an idol.
3. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God.
4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10.You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

When explained this way, almost everyone can grasp the two dimensions and see how important each is in one's Christian growth. Last week, though, as I watched again the national simulcast video of the Purpose Driven Life, I heard Rick Warren say something that I'd not caught before.

He noted that John 3:16 is perhaps the most widely recognized and known scripture: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Obviously, this scripture refers to that vertical dimension, originating in God's love for us and reflecting the benefit of our belief in Him, eternal life. But then Rick Warren refers viewers to 1 John 3:16: "We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." Hitchiking on that vertical dimension, originating with His love for us, Christ then transitions to the horizontal dimension again - our responsibility to love our brothers and sisters in Christ because of His love for us. I love how these two verses compliment and complete one another, just as the Great Commandment brings unity and harmony to the Ten Commandments.

This shift in our thinking about the Christian life - from being exclusively about our relationship to the Lord to also being about our relationships with others - is something that we have to constantly be exemplifying and teaching with our students. Many of them are caught up in very self-centered thinking, and even that is often not very loving. So it is a challenge for them to get beyond themselves.....to learn selflessness. I guess in that respect, they are no different from the rest of us.

Pursuing patience and other aspects of the Fruit of the Spirit....

2009-03-07T08:44:00.006-06:00

It was one of "those" weeks.....a trial presenting itself from every direction I turned. It started last Sunday when, after 3 weeks of seeking a facilitator for Purpose Driven Life classes, I finally resigned myself to teaching the Sunday session and the Wednesday session myself. I guess I must have needed it. I decided to give this spring's participants as close to the same experience that we all enjoyed when our church did the original course in October 2003. So, we started with the one and a quarter hour simulcast video, which is a good overview of the entire curriculum. It was a little long, but it set up the study of the book well. One point Rick Warren makes in the video is that, with regard to the fruit of the Spirit, in order to grow in those areas, God sends us challenges that are the opposite of the desired goal. I'd always heard that was the case with patience, but hadn't considered that it might also be the same with each of the others. (Galatians 5:22 - love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control) I should have figured that out on my own, though, since, in order to cultivate peace He sent me conflict. In order to cultivate faithfulness, He allowed me to experience rebellion. In order to experience joy, He allowed me to experience sorrow. Aha, the pattern was already well in place!

Mondays are always busy....getting off to a fast start with case management, numerous appointments for the students, one student with financial issues that required a significant amount of time and phone calls, and demands, demands, demands. I also have begun teaching one of the classes for the late phase, advanced students on Monday evenings, so it's a long day.

Tuesday I had a church staff training session for a half day, then back to the residence to do more case management, weekly reports, a monthly report, and try to clear a stack off my desk.

Wednesday was such a blur, I can hardly remember it. But Thursday... well, Thursday can be described only with the word "explosive". Everyone seemed to be having a bad day of it. I had to mediate and deflect and call down and keep on going. One person, in particular, has seemed recently to be having a particularly hard time containing her anger. This was another test for me.

As God would have it, however, our students' Purpose Driven Life class, taught on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons by me, had us at chapter 21, entitled "Protecting the Church", a lesson on unity, conflict, and resolution. I pulled additional resources from my bag of tricks (actually from Ken Sande's The Peacemaker curriculum and an essay I developed from Craig Jutila's boat analogy for responses to conflict). We often take only 30-45 minutes in this class, but Friday, after a long week fraught with stress and conflict, we used the entire hour...plus a few minutes. There was some honest expression of recognition of individuals' own sin in this area. At the end of the session several commented that they'd really enjoyed the session and learned a lot from it.

One of the things that came up from one student was the opinion that it would have been nice to have known these things before she'd run into difficulty with poor response to conflict, then perhaps she could have avoided it. I shared with her, as I had learned in life, that because we don't always listen well to the lessons we hear or have the ability to apply them due to lack of experience and understanding, sometimes we actually have to experience things the hard way, then, when the lesson from the scripture is presented, it resonates loudly and clearly and with perfect timing to show us what to do with it. I compared it to my training with a consumer sales organization years ago. They took us in for a week of brief training, then put us in the field for a couple of months.....more or less to struggle along the best way we could.....then took us back for more intensive training. The second session was so much more instructive because now I knew what it was that I was needing to learn, what I was going to be facing in the field.

Field experience in any area in which we need development is helpful in getting us to the place of realizing how little we know and how desperately we need help. It can be a humbling experience, having to learn things the hard way. But it seems to be part of God's pruning, His way of teaching us humility, and, as I have experienced it, a tremendously effective way of instructing us in righteousness through pridefulness and failure.

Spring returning.....

2009-02-28T22:17:00.003-06:00

In the last two weeks I've noticed the signs of the season.....several blooming trees in my own and my neighbors' yards, the emerging green on brown branches, the red maples' firey early explosion, bulbs rising out of flower beds, and robins all around. After months of cold weather and cold viruses, I'm ready for it.

A garden patch was tilled at our women's shelter site on Friday. Now we've got to get the seeds in the rows. I'm not exactly a green-thumbed horticulturalist, but I have had a few gardens through the years. This year, I hope, will be one of them.

The photo here is my swing in the backyard, overlooking the lake. It's one of my favorite late afternoon spots when the weather permits.

Blessed by Babbie....again

2009-02-28T21:35:00.019-06:00

A week ago I wrote about Babbie Mason's song "Trust His Heart" in a post entitled "His hands, my hands. This weekend our church held it's 14th annual Hope for the Heart weekend for women and Babbie Mason and her songwriter friend, Donna Douglas, were the special guests. They wowed us with their wonderful musical talent and their own testimonies. I was so happy to hear Babbie sing "Trust His Heart".

About 70 women in our church, including me, set tables for lunch, each with her own dishes and accessories. The variety of table settings was a visual feast! Some were whimsical; others were elegant; still others were sophisticated and dramatic. Mine was an ode to Babbie Mason. For years I've collected hands and hung various hearts on them. My table centerpiece was a selection of favorites from the collection. Several years ago I had made placemats with an appliqued hands/heart motif. I used Johnson Brothers' Heritage White hexagonal plates and red depression glass dessert plates. Sterling flatware inherited from my mother in law graced each place setting.

It was delightful sharing my collection with others and also sharing with them how I have been blessed by Babbie Mason's music for years.

A church observed....

2009-02-26T21:02:00.002-06:00

Tonight a young woman who works the night shift at the local mission told me she had seen a gentleman who is a member at the church I attend at the mission at 6:00am on a weekend morning helping some homeless men with an enterprise that he and another man have organized to give these men work. She was at our church for a weekly Christian 12 step fellowship meeting. While there she observed workers preparing for the annual women's weekend. Also, two men came in with a large cooler to get ice for a meal their small group was serving to homeless people at a weekly downtown feeding site. This young woman commented that "there must be something going on at this church. Everyone I see who goes here is really busy with the Lord's work."

Would that it were true! She has observed a dozen or so members engaged in ministries of service to others and assumes that it is true of everyone here. It is true that our pastors and congregation have made big gains in fostering a culture of service over the last year or two. We've ramped up our missions participation- local, regional, and foreign. Still there are those who defer to others, who take the position that they needn't do anything because there is always "somebody else" who will do it.

Our small groups are making progress in establishing service as an expected function of the group, on at least a quarterly basis. Some new ministries, like a prayer shawl ministry, are being born out of the conversations and connections through those small groups. People are finding common passions, interests, and abilities and joining together for impact.

There are moments when I am so proud of the kingdom impact that members of my faith community are having. Then there are moments when I contemplate the magnitude of the impact that we could have if only all the people who call our church their spiritual "home" caught the same vision and set about to contribute their time, talent, and treasure to the task of seeing it come to fruition.

In the meantime, I respond to this young woman and others who say, "I hear such good things about your church", by saying , "Yes, we do have a lot going on for the kingdom!"

His hands, my hands....

2009-02-20T23:06:00.005-06:00

Lamentations 3:41a - Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven.

Hands have been of particular interest to me since the time that the Lord really got my attention and I rededicated my life to him in 1992. About that same time a song by Babbie Mason came to my attention, entitled Trust His Heart. The chorus lyrics are:

"God is too wise to be mistaken.
God is too good to be unkind.
When you can't understand, when you can't see His plan, when you can't trace His hand,
Trust His heart. "

Next weekend our church's annual women's inspirational weekend ministry event will be held and Babbie Mason is the guest speaker. I have been looking forward to it since I found out. About 10 years ago for this same annual weekend event I was one of the table hostesses, which entails setting a luncheon table with one's own dinnerware and accessories. I used a hands and hearts theme then, spending hours and hours of time making appliqued place mats using a hand pattern created from my own hand. This year I am going to again be a table hostess and use the same hands and hearts theme.

As God would have it, I have also been preparing a study guide for a young adult small group to accompany a book that they will begin studying next week, as well. It is "Yours Are The Hands of Christ: The Practice of Faith", by James C. Howell. The group was seeking a study on growing in service. I gave them several from which to choose a few months ago and this is the one they selected. There are twelve chapters, each focusing on an aspect of Christ's hands and how they were employed during His earthly ministry: living hands, praying hands, unfurling hands, teaching hands, touching hands, healing hands, feeding hands, serving hands, holy hands, pierced hands, sending hands, joining hands.

While my task of reading and reflecting on this book was undertaken in the context of my role as adult Christian educator for our church, it has been a joy to contemplate Christ's hands at the same time I was being reminded of the significance of His hands in my faith journey. I could add some additional aspects of Christ's hands from my own experience: guiding hands, disciplining hands, comforting hands, revealing hands, giving hands, restraining hands, rewarding hands, and many others.

As I set my table next week and place the mats and other hand-themed accessories on it, I will be reflecting on His hands and will thank Him that He has allowed me to use my hands to serve Him.

The photo is a banner that was made by my sister in 2002 when I was the lay director of a women's retreat and used the heart/hand theme.

55 and hitting my stride....

2009-02-19T22:09:00.004-06:00

Today has been a wonderful day.....my 55th birthday! Before 7:00a.m. I had already received 5 phone calls with birthday wishes. There were a half dozen cards, numerous posts on my Facebook wall, and several impromptu renditions of "Happy Birthday to You."

One of the best greetings I received today was this: "This is the day that the Lord hath made....YOU!" What a delightful twist on a familiar scripture! (Psalm 118:24)

There are moments that I feel, well, over the hill. But on days like today I feel that this is the best time of my life.

Two days ago I had the opportunity to share several hours of drive time with a 75-year-young friend as we traveled to a workshop on Aging and Ministry. She is an absolute inspiration! As we talked about getting, ahem, "older", she told me this story. It seems her grandson came to her some time ago and said, "Grandma are you old?" She said that she was fairly certain that this grandson had heard his own mother refer to her, the grandmother, as "old". So, she said, "Well, let me think about that for just a minute." She feigned her best thinking-cap posture and waited briefly, then said to him, in very conspiratorial fashion, "You know, I'm not old, I have just lived a lot of years!" Later she heard him tell his own mother that Grandma is not old, she's just lived a lot of years!

As she and I laughed and talked about the essence of aging, she gave me some real pearls. One is that gratitude is the oil that makes aging soft and supple. Another is her observation that people who are stingy, mean spirited, and disengaged in life in their elder years were probably also that way in their youth. She said she does not waste time fretting about things that are lost, gone, or past. Instead, like the Apostle Paul she strains forward toward the things that are ahead of her.

What a special blessing and birthday gift it was to me, to spend time with this wonderful Christian woman, twenty years my senior, who gave me the gift of a glimpse at what my own seventh decade can look like! May I have even a fraction of the beauty and grace she has as I follow in her steps!

God's sense of humor.....

2009-02-19T21:20:00.003-06:00

Last week I read two devotionals on Wednesday and Thursday regarding the Gerasene demoniac in Mark 5,("The Right Weapon" and "Managed or Solved?" by Lorraine Ezell at www.mastersbusiness.org). The first one was on how the people sought to manage the problem through restraints and other physical means. Then, when Jesus dealt with the problem, he addressed it with spiritual means. The point was that sometimes we try to manage the symptoms or consequences of a problem when we should be solving the root of the problem.....the spiritual issue.

In the work in which I now find myself, I have to do both....implement the physical management approach (restricting students' access to the secular world and the substances they used/abused, addressing the behaviors and thought patterns that got them where they are, etc) and introduce the spiritual solution (a relationship with Christ and learning to walk in Him daily).

The two brief devotionals were tremendously helpful in giving me clarity on the task that I have. Over the last 5 years I have been engaged in Christian spiritual formation in a church environment and have found it very rewarding. But now I am also involved in substance addiction recovery and, while spiritual formation is the primary tool, there is an additional strategy required to deal with the behavior and thought patterns that our students bring into the program. That strategy includes setting boundaries and curfews, dishing out consequences for rules violations, monitoring their radio and CD listening, checking their bags and mail, and numerous other things that don't appear to have a thing to do with spiritual formation.

The same day I read the second devotional, "Managed or Solved?", I received another devotional from a regular source, www.hispeace.org, Ken Sande's Peacemaker Ministry website, entitled, "Congratulations: You've Been Promoted to Management!" , that dealt with the concept of stewardship in conflict management.

God has such a sense of humor! My new job is indeed a "management" position, but now I have a much greater appreciation of what that really means and how it fits with my primary task of bringing the solution to the problem of sin in their lives to them through teaching them about Christ.

Waiting for word.....

2009-02-15T04:38:00.004-06:00

Wednesday morning, while Bill was out of town on business with our son, I stopped by a friend's house to pick something up on my way to work. While I was on her porch Bill called on the cell phone and heard my friend's dog barking. With some excitement in his voice he asked, "Is that a dog?", thinking perhaps that I had gotten a new pet for us. I had to tell him it was my friend's dog. But it got me to thinking that he's waiting for me to initiate finding a new pooch for our household. So I spent a couple of hours Wednesday afternoon at local animal shelters. Coincidentally, the same day a feature story on the front page of the newspaper was about it being Animal Adoption Week and several local animal agencies are having a big event at a local pet store this weekend. After visiting with several dogs of varying mixed pedigrees, I found a little fellow that just keeps coming back to my mind. He's a one- year- old shih tzu named Rascal at the Humane Shelter. He is an owner-surrender animal. He's very cowed down, giving the impression that he has been abused, said the veterinary tech. They don't yet have him up for adoption, as he is going to have to be evaluated by an animal behaviorist (?) before he can be adopted out. I didn't know we had such a thing in Bay County! I held Rascal and walked him around on the grounds. He is very tentative about people. He has a cute little underbite and big, black, imploring eyes. I can see him in our home, sitting in our laps, lying in our bed. I think that the thing that is striking about him is that, just as I felt with Abby when I first found her, he needs us. This is a little fellow that deserves to be happy and, as anyone who's familiar with the Byrd house knows, our pets are happy.

I talked to our veterinarian about Rascal. He seems to think that with time and care Rascal can be all that a little companion dog should be. So I put in an application to adopt Rascal when he's cleared. Now we wait.

PS. A week after this post, we learned that Rascal's behavior assessment indicated that he would not fare well with cats. Since we have three in our home, our application was put aside and he was adopted by another family. We know God knows best, for Rascal and for us.

And speaking of being careful.....

2009-02-14T05:32:00.002-06:00

For several months now, almost every time I'm in the truck listening to Christian radio, I hear Slow Fade by Casting Crowns. It's a powerful song about how insidious and subtle the intrusion of sin is in our lives. If we are not actively maintaining our guard and equipping ourselves with the Word, we are subject to the erosion of the culture's bombardment against us. This is my concern for young Christians who have been discipled just enough to think, "Okay, I've got this Christian thing down pat." Failing to stay with the disciplined life and continuing to grow in the principles of scripture is a sure set up for being set back. Learning to persevere in the faith takes time. So many people don't make the commitment of time to get to the place of being able to exercise discernment about the negative influences that come their way. Six months in a "long term recovery program" is just a bare beginning for women who have spent their lives at the mercy of a culture that has chewed them up and spit them out. As I see some of them graduating and preparing to go back, some I believe have "got it". They understand the necessity of maintaining their discipline, they have made good plans for avoidance of the old influences, they have enough self awareness to know their weaknesses and triggers. For them, I have hope. For others, I fear that it will be a case of slow fade. They don't seem to have the passion and understanding to know how dangerous the world they are returning to is going to be, even now after their time out from it. Some will, inevitably, call at some point in the future saying, "I need help again. I'm right back where I was."

There is an old rhyme I encountered once and recorded in my journal:
"Some want to live within the sound
of the chapel's ringing bell.

I want to run a rescue team
Outside the gates of hell."

That's what I feel that I am doing sometimes - intercepting and redirecting, with God's strength and power, almost at the last minute for some. When we send them out, I just pray that God will be faithful to complete the good work He's begun in each of them. But they have to do their part in that, too, by continuing to be obedient and diligent. I pray, also, that I will have done a good enough job in laying the groundwork for that to happen.

Slow Fade by Casting Crowns

Be careful little eyes what you see
It's the second glance that ties your hands as darkness pulls the strings
Be careful little feet where you go
For it's the little feet behind you that are sure to follow

CHORUS:
It's a slow fade when you give yourself away
It's a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray
Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away
People never crumble in a day
It's a slow fade, it's a slow fade

Be careful little ears what you hear
When flattery leads to compromise, the end is always near
Be careful little lips what you say
For empty words and promises lead broken hearts astray

CHORUS

The journey from your mind to your hands
Is shorter than you're thinking
Be careful if you think you stand
You just might be sinking

CHORUS
Daddies never crumble in a day
Families never crumble in a day
It's a slow fade.

*Oh be careful little eyes what you see
Oh be careful little eyes what you see
For the Father up above is looking down in love
Oh be careful little eyes what you see*

Be careful of the appearances you give....

2009-02-10T16:24:00.003-06:00

I am a busy person. I like being busy. And I enjoy the satisfaction of getting things checked off my to do list. But more and more I realize that I may just be giving off vibes that I am too busy for the people who actually are the more important part of my daily life. One can be so task focused and engaged that people perceive them as unavailable.

This was brought home to me once again this week. I had a unexpected opportunity to pick up a student and bring her home from a work site. On the way we had a nice time chatting. She shared things that were a pleasant surprise about her future plans and things that are happening in her life. I realized how little I know about this student. As we arrived at home, she said to me that she was glad we'd had a chance to talk, that she had wanted to talk to me about these things but that I just always seemed to be so busy! I told her that it is true that I usually have several things going all the time and that I like having things to do, but I reassured her that her needs and those of the other students are the most important part of my day and that I will always be available any time that she wants to talk. She thanked me for that and seemed genuinely surprised and appreciative.

I have to be more careful to be available - present - at rest - enough to be approachable.
I recall once that someone told me that "B U S Y" means "Being Under Satan's Yoke". It is true that it is difficult to do God's work if one is in too big a hurry and too preoccupied with her own agenda.

"Teach me timing, Lord......", as one prayer goes. Slow me down.......Give me greater awareness of and availability to others.

Neighborliness.....

2009-02-10T16:11:00.002-06:00

In the early hours before dawn my husband had to catch a flight. Neither of us slept well, waiting for the 4:00am alarm to ring and preparing for the dash out the door. So, by the time the alarm rang, we were both up moving about, him getting dressed, me packing for him. We were both getting things together and into the suitcase and vehicle. We were hurrying along trying very hard to meet the airline's deadline for check in. As we arrived at the airport we realized we had left home with his suitcase, but had forgotten the briefcase, each of us thinking the other had it as we loaded up. I dropped him off and made a mad dash back home to retrieve it. Realizing there was no way to make it, I called a neighbor at 5:10am to ask for help. Fortunately he and his wife are early risers and he answered my call with a bright "hello". I explained my plight and he offered to go over, get the briefcase, and meet me part way. His help cut at least 10 minutes off my trip and I returned to the airport to deliver the briefcase. Bill arrived at his destination only slightly worse for the wear and the day continued otherwise uneventfully.

This isn't the first time that I've called on these neighbors since we moved in three years ago, but this was probably the most inconveniencing need that I've had. I'll have to say that they rose to the occasion in quite neighborly fashion. I had the opportunity to go over after work to thank them again for the help. Somehow, though, I just feel that something more needs to be done. And, it being Valentine's Day weekend, it would be a nice time to treat them to an appreciative gift of thanks.

It's nice to know there are still neighborhoods where people help one another out in a pinch.
May I be perceived by others as being as available and willing as this neighbor has proven to be.

A new month, a new cold....

2009-02-05T22:34:00.003-06:00

I'm in the midst of my third cold in about as many months. It may be my imagination, but they seem to follow visits with grandchildren. Exposure to unfamiliar strains of cold viruses, perhaps? Maybe it's just that, after months and months of burning the candle at both ends, my immune system is sagging.

At least I seem to be getting over this one a little faster. I've actually tried to get more rest with this one and been more conscientious about taking vitamins and cold meds to battle the symptoms.

Unfortunately, though, I seem to have passed it on to my husband. Poor baby! Now we are taking care of one another - getting pain reliever and cough syrup, pouring juice, etc.

I was talking to an older friend recently and she was commenting on how she and her husband have grown in their ability to care for one another more effectively through sickness. They've both been through some major health threats in recent years and have had alternating opportunities to minister to one another in the midst of it.

Bill was talking to a single friend of his who has also been under the weather with a lengthy cold. We both thought how sad it is that he is alone in his misery with no one to comfort and wait on him in his sickness.

Bill and I find ourselves encouraging one another to take better care of ourselves. As we've both noted, we can't afford to both be sick at the same time. We need one another and we need one another well!

A household amiss....

2009-02-01T14:38:00.003-06:00

The cats, all four of them, have sensed the change in our household since Abby's departure Friday morning. We've put away her beds and gathered up her snacks and toys. But it's more than that.

One of our older cats, Patty, is quite feral and does not allow Bill or me near her. But how she loved Abby! She would weave in and out of Abby's legs and nuzzle her. She would follow Abby around the yard wanting her to play. Abby tolerated the little cat rubbing all over her, but one had the sense that she seemed a little humiliated by Patty's attention. Patty hasn't come around to eat the last two days. Perhaps she knows Abby's gone.

It was a nightly routine, as Bill and I got up to go to bed, to have Abby run outdoors for a quick minute, then follow us to the bedroom. The last two nights have seemed strange without the sound of her coming along behind us.

We had talked about the fact that, because it is so hard to lose a pet, that we would not get another dog. But within 24 hours Bill said to me that maybe we do need to think about getting another dog. It is so lonely around our house without her.

I've heard it said that a man who marries quickly after the death of his wife is actually complimenting his wife, indicating that he was happy in marriage and doesn't want to be alone. Is it that way with a dog, too? Would we be disloyal to Abby to get another dog or would we be indicating what a joy she was to our household?

We'll see........

Saying goodbye.....

2009-01-30T19:20:00.004-06:00

Last night was a long night for my husband and me. Our little 15 year old mixed terrier mutt, who's been declining for the last year, awakened us shortly after midnight in great distress. She was obviously in pain. We got her and ourselves together and to the emergency vet on call, which happened to be our own familiar doctor. By the time we got there, she had calmed down somewhat and there was no clear diagnostic indication of what had happened to her, just a generalized anxiety that the vet said looked like post seizure behavior. We opted to have her treated with a dose of valium and wait to see what the morning brought.

I had an early morning appointment and left before she awoke. By 7:30 am my husband called to tell me that she was once again in significant distress and he was on the way back to the vet. Shortly thereafter he called to tell me she was gone......euthanized by our gentle veterinarian who had helped us extend her life and had given her, and us, wonderful care.

We've known since this time last year that her time was coming to an end. Her continued quality of life and our rising monthly vet bills were testimony to the vet's care and our commitment. We feel that we did all we could and that we enjoyed extra months of time with her that we would not have had otherwise.

It's hard to say goodbye to a sweet pet who's shared many significant events in our lives over the last decade and a half. She was a comfort and a joy to us both. Today we have cried, prayed, remembered, and regretted her death together.

The thing that has been most noticeable is how the sound of our home has changed. Gone is the sound of her rabies tag clinking against the leash loop of her collar, the sound of her nails tapping on the hardwood floors, the sound of her barking at neighborhood people and pets strolling along our street, the sound of the pet door flapping with her excursions in and out, the sound of her rooting around in her bed putting the blanket in just the right wad for her to curl around, and the sound of her sighs as she settled in to sleep in her bed on the floor beside us after she quit being able to jump onto the bed. We'll miss her company, her cocked head as she listened to us talk, her warm body snuggled against us on the sofa, her waiting for us at the front door as we drove into the driveway, and her patiently waiting to get the last bite of every sandwich.

As I recall the good times with Abby, I pause to consider who was taking care of whom?

Jumping through hoops.....

2009-01-30T19:04:00.004-06:00

When I was in junior high and high school, I played basketball. I was pretty good, making the varsity team as a freshman. Later I was a cheerleader. I was reasonably athletic. But that was many years (and pounds) ago. Today I wear a pedometer and hope to achieve a respectable number of steps so that I'm not labeled as "sedentary".

Today I officially began the process of preparing for ordination as a deacon by working through the candidacy book with my assigned mentor. It was a couple of hours of sharing our personal faith journeys with one another. At one point I came to a question in the text regarding my doubts about becoming an ordained minister. As I explained to my mentor, I really don't have doubts about my calling or that I am, in fact, already working in the area to which I've been called. The only real doubt, as I expessed to her, is whether or not I have the patience to "jump through all the hoops" that I have perceived lie like a minefield in the path between where I am and ordination. She nodded empathically and then told me that even the process of jumping through the hoops can be an unexpected blessing. An intriguing thought....... and a well placed suggestion designed to help get me in the right frame of mind for high jumps?

Holiness and a Mont Blanc pen.....

2009-01-24T22:42:00.005-06:00

A couple of years ago a friend gave my husband and me really nice Mont Blanc pens. Bill's is a ball point pen; mine is a cartridge fountain pen. I enjoy using it and generally keep it clipped inside my journal. Several days ago, I apparently left it lying on the table beside my chair, next to the journal and one or both of our kittens, now dubbed Dora and Diego, got it and managed to loosen the cap from the pen. Thankfully, there was no damage to the pen and no ink leaked out, but the cap was lost. I searched and searched all over the den, fussing and fuming all the while, angry at the kittens . Bill just looked at me disgustedly as I stomped around looking for the cap. What idiocy, being angry at kittens for doing what kittens do, seemed to be his response. Finally, I gave up, accepting that they could have very easily toted it off, out through the pet door and into the yard where I'd never find it. I emailed Mont Blanc to see if a replacement cap could be purchased.

Two nights later I had a dream in which I was teaching from a book on holiness by Nancy Leigh Demoss. I was striving very hard to get the point across to a group of new Christians that holiness is not an abstract and ancient notion, but something that we as Christians really are expected to embrace and strive to achieve. It was at that point that I awoke. Arising from the bed, as I walked to the dressing area and began getting dressed, I was thinking about the dream and remembered my tirade against the kittens. I hung my head in shame and thought to myself, "who am I to teach anyone about holiness? " I was repentant that, once again, an angry spirit that I have struggled with so often in my life had erupted. I had momentary flashback recollections of other similar outbursts of temper in the past. It led me immediately to asking the Lord to forgive me, again, especially in light of the fact that I am in a position of responsibility for teaching by instruction and example.

It was at that point that I turned from the bathroom mirror and opened a closet in my dressing area. There, on the floor at my feet was the cap of the pen. The kittens had apparently managed to carry it or bat it from the den, on the far end of the house to this opposite end and had lost it under the closet door where I found it at the very moment I was having a conversation with the Lord, sorrowful over letting my temper get the best of me because of that very pen cap. God's timing is impeccable.

I know that, as one who has accepted the calling to teach in the church, I am held to a standard more exacting than others. God is faithful to remind me of that regularly, something that is, unfortunately, necessary because I regularly am found wanting. I cannot teach what I do not have. I guess I better go back and reread Nancy Leigh Demoss' book and spend some time reflecting on the scriptures on holiness.

Leaping or plodding.....

2009-01-17T22:55:00.002-06:00

In recent months, as I completed graduate school and UMC certification studies and sought employment opportunities, I had been feeling a nagging impulse to take the next step in the UMC church toward a local pastor license as a means to being legitimately entitled to counsel with some official pastoral authority. As I talked to members of the district board of ministry, I was advised to consider ordination as a deacon instead. When I looked into it, it seemed to make sense. So I met with the district board of ministry and advised them of my interest in pursuing ministry as an ordained deacon. I was assigned a candidacy mentor. I completed the application to the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry. Now I have completed an online survey with the GBHEM.

I had also talked at length with an individual who is an ordained deacon about the process and about my goals. She offerred to serve as an advocate for me with the conference board of ministry, advising them of my interests and goals. She did that last week and I received an email from her encouraging me to move forward with the candidacy process, having received a thumbs up from the conference board.

So, I've paid my fee and am awaiting the results of the GBHEM survey to review with my assigned mentor. I really don't have a clue what all is going to be involved in this process....except that, like most everything else I've tackled, it'll undoubtedly take a great deal of time and will be fraught with its share of frustrations.

As I have chosen Christian counseling as my preferred career now, however, I do believe it is important to have some kind of legal standing. I have chosen not to go the route of state licensure in clinical mental health. Instead I want a pastoral licensure of some sort. We'll see how this plays out. I do feel God's calling on my life. I do feel His guidance in it all. I am willing to go where He leads.

Lambs and broken legs.....

2009-01-17T20:21:00.005-06:00

In my job I work with individuals in substance abuse recovery. While in the program they take several classes on spiritual topics from books that are familiar to many - Purpose Driven Life, Crown Financial, Changes that Heal, Boundaries, etc. Several of them are currently in a discipleship class called "Sheep to Shepherd". As I talk with them about what they are studying in various classes, I have been impressed how almost to a person, the ones in "Sheep to Shepherd" mention, almost immediately, the reference in Psalm 51:8, "Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice." They are surprised to learn, as I was the first time I heard this, that when a sheep is constantly inattentive to the shepherd and wandering from the flock, the shepherd will break its leg and carry it over his shoulder while it heals, creating a bond of dependency that makes the sheep more attentive to the shepherd from that point on. They each report that they feel they have been through such a radical process of being broken and nurtured by God.

While I'm not prepared to say that God was the means of my own brokenness, I certainly believe that, by His sovereign will, He allowed it and that, once it occurred, He certainly took me into His arms and carried me through to the point that I was healed enough to maneuver again. And that, since that time, I have been much more aware of and attentive to His voice. On the other hand, there may be occasions when it is necessary for God to inflict injury for our own good. As Job observes, "How enviable is the man whom God corrects. Oh, do not despise the chastening of the Lord when you sin. For though he wounds, he binds and heals once again. " (Job 5:17,18) I am also reminded that God put Jacobs hip out of socket with the result that he walked with a limp the rest of his life.

I would like to know if this story of the shepherd breaking the leg of the recalcitrant lamb is true. It's a good object lesson, but like many object lessons I've heard, it may be constructed to make the point rather than a report of a generally accepted practice.

The old fashioned way......small delights

2009-01-17T09:02:00.004-06:00

When I was a child, if a part of a piece of equipment broke, one sought out a replacement part. One didn't have the financial luxury to simply replace the entire piece of equipment. Increasingly, it appears, our culture has developed a "disposable" mindset. If anything goes awry, just junk the whole thing and buy a new one. So why does this come to mind?

I have a Westbend slow cooker that is a four piece unit- heating base with power cord, retangular metal cookpot, and a top. I inherited the cooker from my mother-in-law. It was already well used by the time I married into the family in 1972, so I'm guessing it must be about 45-50 years old. It is my favorite way to cook rump roasts, chicken breasts for chicken salad, stews, and corned beef. The top was a molded plastic style that had, in the last year or so, developed a crack. I continued to use it until the crack spread all the way across the lid, leaving two halves. At that point I had three choices: throw the whole thing away and buy a new one, employ duct tape to hold the two lid pieces together, or try to find a replacement top. After pricing the new Westbend cookers online at $60-70, I decided to try to find a replacement top. I called a local small appliance repair shop. They suggested I contact Westbend directly. Duh! So I located Westbend online and - tada! - they had a replacement parts division. (Thank goodness Westbend is one long standing company that has managed to weather the economy through the years!) Scrolling down the list of manufacturer's listed models, I didn't find my particular cooker, but I did find one that looked very close and it had a list of available replacement parts. For under $10, I was able to purchase a replacement lid. I placed the order and said a little prayer that it would fit. Otherwise, I'd be out the money and still need to replace the cooker.

When the lid arrived a week or so ago, I unwrapped it as I said another prayer, then went to the cupboard to retrieve my lidless cooker. As I gently placed the lid on the cooker, I gave out a squeal of delight to find that it fit! The way my Mother used to calculate that, I just saved about $50.

This morning I am initiating the new lid. Winn Dixie had rump roasts on sale buy 1 get 1 free, my favorite sale! So into the Westbend slow cooker went my small rump roast, seasonings, and a cup and a half of water. In about 4-5 hours we'll have a tender, perfectly cooked roast with au jus gravy. Bill, Abby, and I will enjoy a meal and I will have the satisfaction of having solved a small problem the old fashioned way.

PS- the roast was delicious!