Claim What is Yours!

     Last Friday afternoon, I left work with a simple to-do list in my mind.  I needed to go to the bank and cash a check, buy some gasoline, go grocery shopping and then meet my son and his wife to pick up the baby so they could have a “date night”.  I completed my checklist and drove home.  The weekend went as planned with lots of baby giggles, a nice visit with my son and daughter-in-law, and church on Sunday.

     Then came Monday and a regular work day.  At the end of the day, as I left work, I called my husband as I often do.  Because he knows that I often fail to notice my gas gauge and not knowing that I’d put $30 in the tank on Friday, he asked me to check to see how much gas I had.  I laughed at his concern and told him I had plenty of gas, but when I turned the key in the van and the dashboard lit up, the needle showed the tank was on empty.  That was impossible!  I’d only driven about 15 miles on that $30 and once I got home on Friday the van had not left the house.  I called my husband back and we talked about whether the gas tank could be leaking or whether gas could have been siphoned from the tank.  Regardless of the mystery of the missing gasoline, I was running on fumes, so I stopped and put a few dollars' worth of gas in the tank.

     Driving home, I replayed the events of Friday afternoon in my mind, mentally retracing my steps.  I know I went to the bank because the rest of the cash was in my purse.  I remembered paying for the gas, BUT I did not remember actually pumping the gas. In a hurry to check off all my tasks and get my hands on that sweet baby, I’d simply paid for the gas, walked out and started the van and gone off to the grocery store. I guess I'd had a senior moment and a blond moment at the same time! Sheepishly, I called the gas station and asked if they had any record of someone paying for gas and then not pumping it.  Of course, they did, and they were good enough to allow me to come back and top off my gas tank.

     I think many of us struggle through life like that.  We find ourselves lacking something that we thought we had.  We’re confused as to why things in our lives seem to be missing. We review the events in our lives, wondering where we went wrong and trying to figure out why things are not working out the way we thought they would.  Could it be as simple as the fact that we have become distracted and not claimed the things in our lives for which the price has already been paid?

What do you need today? Salvation? – paid for.  Deliverance? – paid for. Provision? – paid for. Peace? – paid for. Wisdom? – paid for.  The list is infinite.  All that we need or will ever need has been purchased for us by Jesus.  It may not always come on your terms or in your timing, but it is all there.  Don’t let the enemy distract you and keep you from claiming what is already yours.

Use It or Lose it!

   

   Our Easter dinner last week was simple. We had no company, so my husband and I decided on a steak and potatoes meal instead of a more traditional Easter feast. He had been craving some corn on the cob, so I added that to the menu. When the time came to eat, we wanted to use the little corn holders with the spikes on them that push into the cob, to protect our fingers from the heat and the messy melted butter.  Unfortunately, we could not find them anywhere.  We searched every cabinet, every drawer, inside any covered container, in the pantry, in the microwave cart – every place we could think to look.

     Evidently, we hadn’t eaten corn on the cob for some time or at least one of us would have remembered when we last used them and where we had put them.  We muddled through the meal like true pioneers and are recovering from the experience quite nicely, but this became one of those simple object lessons that God uses in my life so much.  If you don’t use something, you will lose it.  That’ll preach!

       There are a lot of objects to keep up with in my household, but God has given us many things in our spiritual house as well. In fact, the Bible says in 1 Peter 1:2-4,

“ Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, ³ as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, ⁴ by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

     Just like a physical object can be misplaced and forgotten, it is possible to disregard the things of the spirit to the point that they are not operating in your life.  Peter goes on to say in verses 5-9 of Chapter 1,

“⁵ But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, ⁶ to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, ⁷ to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. ⁸ For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.”

     The corn holders were mine, but they are certainly not abounding, and they are definitely unfruitful because I can’t even locate them. 😊 If I’m not staying mindful of faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love, those things will be harder and harder to find in my life, making me ineffective as a Christian.  Peter says to give all diligence to these things.  I like to think of myself as organized in the things of my household, but the system broke down somewhere.  At least the failure to keep all my things at hand has reminded me to keep the things that God has given me at the forefront of my life so that I’ll use them and not lose them!

Lessons from a Baby #4: Imperfect Imitation

Isabella Beth Ellis, age 14 months

     Our granddaughter is almost 15 months old.  She is a very busy tiny human. She crawls everywhere and recently has begun “experimenting” with walking.  After about 8 steps, she plops down on her well-padded, diapered rear end.  She is developing in all ways as a normal, healthy baby girl.

     One of those developmental milestones is learning to talk.  While she doesn’t say much that you could recognize yet, she is beginning to attach meaning to sounds.  One of the things her parents are trying to get her to say is the word “up” when she wants us to pick her up.  So far, we get “uhh” for “up”, but she is trying!

     Our home Bible study group this past week spent a lot of time discussing how we should approach difficulties.  When we talk about the situations in our lives and the lives of others we love, we should be speaking what God says  – not rehashing the nature of the problem.   After all, Proverbs 13:21 says,

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
And those who love it will eat its fruit.”

     This is an area where I often fall short.  Our human nature wants to talk about all the details of our woes and rehearse all the issues that plague us.  It’s hard to put those things out of our minds and speak the things of God and the will of God as it is spelled out in His Word.  When we realize that is what we are doing, it’s also easy to be angry at ourselves for our weakness and our unbelief.

    When Bella tries to echo our words, she doesn’t get it right, but every day she is getting a little closer to saying what we say.  Are we angry or disappointed that her words are not the perfect imitation of ours?  Of course not!  We realize that learning language is a process.  We allow her the time to grow and we delight in every attempt that she makes to communicate with us.

     I think God must feel the same way.  When we fail in our imitation of Christ and His ways, God still loves us.  He knows that we need time to learn His Word and His ways and to be more mindful of our words.  The only thing that could hurt me in Bella’s acquisition of language is if she stopped talking at all – just stopped trying.  When we don’t get things right in our walk with God, we often just quit trying.  We stop pursuing Him because we don’t think we’ll ever measure up.  To a certain extent, that’s true. We’ll never get it totally right in this life, but God’s grace accepts our imperfect imitation.  The only thing that would break His heart is if we stop trying.

First Day in Heaven

  

   I have not yet seen the movie, I Can Only Imagine, though everyone I know who has seen it highly recommends it. I know the song (by MercyMe) that the movie is based on, and I have always loved it.  If you aren’t familiar with the song, the writer wonders what his reaction will be to meeting Jesus for the first time in heaven.

     This past week, I’ve also seen a post shared several times on Facebook that features a painting called First Day in Heaven by an Egyptian artist named Kerolos Safwat.  (I don’t have permission to post the picture here, but he has a Facebook page where the painting is pictured. Please check it out.)

     The painting depicts a young woman who apparently has just entered heaven – jumping into the arms of Jesus with a look of complete joy on her face.  If you are a follower of Jesus, perhaps you’ve pictured that moment for yourself – when you finally see in the flesh the One you have loved for such a long time.

      It made me think about that first meeting for me and what it will be like – just like the questions that the song explores.  Then I tried to think of an earthly situation that would be similar and came up with this scenario.

     Suppose you write to a famous person.  Perhaps it’s a fan letter to a singer or actor.  Maybe it’s a letter to a writer or lecturer whose work you admire.  It could even be someone who is not a household name but is well-known in your field of work.  You write to this person to let them know how much you appreciate their contributions to their area of expertise.  You don’t expect an answer from them because you know they are far too busy with their career to notice you. You just want to let them know their actions have touched you in some way and made your life better, or more enjoyable, or helped you to make progress in your own career.

     Then, to your great surprise, a reply comes in the mail.  The person responds to your message and some of the ideas you expressed.  Perhaps they ask for your opinion on a project that they are about to undertake.  This person values your thoughts and ideas.  Amazing!  You eagerly write back and soon an exchange of letters and emails begins to take place. Maybe you even have a phone conversation or two. For several years, you keep up this pen-pal relationship with the person that you admire.

     After some time, you find out the person you now think of as your “Person” is going to be in a city near you for an event, and they have asked if you could come so they could meet you.  Are you kidding?  Of course,  you will!  They tell you that you are welcome to bring a friend with you and the two of you will be their special guests.

     The day finally arrives. Your friend, who is also an admirer of this person, is very excited to meet them as well.  You enter the room where the meeting has been arranged and two very different meetings take place.  Your Person strides toward you, arms wide open and says, “It’s about time!” as they give you a warm hug.  Your friend, however, meekly extends a hand for a handshake and says, “It’s an honor to meet you.”  While your Person is warm and welcoming to them, your friend gets left in the background while you and your Person pick up where you left off in your last communication with them.

     The difference is relationship.  I’ve been struggling lately with being busy with Kingdom activities (as well as earthly ones) and not spending enough time cultivating my relationship with God.  This Jesus, who I want to meet, needs to be more than just someone that I have knowledge of and whose work I admire.  I need to be in constant communication with Him. I need to read His letters eagerly and reply to Him with my thoughts. I want to partner with Him in the projects He desires to undertake.  I want to be like the girl in the painting.  When my time to meet Him comes, I don’t want to just say softly, “It’s an honor to meet you, Sir.”  I want to jump into His arms with abandon saying, “Hey! We were just talking and now look – here you are!”

    

    

      

No More Selfies!

     Don’t be misled by the title of this post.  I really don’t have a problem with people taking selfies (though some people seem to have a real obsession with this that probably isn’t healthy).  I am the world’s worse selfie taker.  I never know where to look.  I can’t get the angle right at all and I’m not very photogenic in the first place.

     The other day, I left my classroom after lunch to pick up some students and realized that I hadn’t refreshed my lipstick after eating, so I pulled the tube from the little pouch I carry with me at school and reapplied it as I walked.  Then I used the camera on my phone as a mirror by reversing the view to selfie mode to make sure I hadn’t overdone the lipstick.

     The next day, my granddaughter was visiting and was doing something cute (as usual).  I grabbed my phone to get a shot of her, but I was rudely greeted by the sight of my own face.  I missed the moment I wanted to capture because the camera’s focus was on me.

     Then I saw the parallel.  When our attention is on our own dreams, our own plans, our own problems, our own agendas – we miss the needs of those around us. 

1 Corinthians 10:24 says, “Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being.”

Philippians 2:4 tells us, “Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.”

Romans 15:1 says, “We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves.”

     It sounds to me like God isn’t much into selfies either. This is something that is difficult for me.  It’s not that I mean to be self-absorbed.  It’s just that my life is so immediate – so “there” – that I have trouble “seeing around it” to look at how I can be used of God to ease the problems of my natural family and my church family, as well as others that He might bring across my path. God only shows me the shortcomings in my life to help me change them and not to condemn me, so I’ll trust that He’ll begin to lead me to be more sensitive to those needs in the lives of others and to give me wisdom and insight on how to be a blessing in those situations.  Do you need to check your focus too?

My Proofreader

     Obviously, one of my great loves in life is writing. One of my other roles in this life is helping, teaching and encouraging others.  Because of these two interests, I have recently been involved in proofreading and editing the creations of other authors to help them present their ideas clearly and correctly.  As I worked on such a project tonight, I thought about how nice it would be if someone would proofread my life – minute by minute - to keep me from making careless errors.

     Then I realized that there is a proofreader in my life – the Holy Spirit.  He was given to me to be that constant teacher and the One who corrects in gentle ways.  Just as I look over an entire document to find flaws both great and small, He examines my life to find the places where I need guidance.  He re-words the negative things that I may think and say about myself and writes words that line up with the Word of God.  He formats the direction of my life so that everything flows together and makes sense, just as I rearrange paragraphs and insert and delete commas to make the meaning clear.

     When I edit something for someone, I submit it back to them so they can review the changes that I suggest.  At that point, it’s up to them to decide if they will accept those revisions or leave their text the way it was.  In much the same way, the Holy Spirit speaks to my heart and mind, but it’s still up to me whether to listen and allow the changes in my life to be made or whether to stubbornly cling to the way that I want to do things.

     I have created a deadline for myself to post something on my blog each Sunday night.  Some weeks there are several events in my life that provide inspiration for my writing, but other times, I may struggle to keep that commitment because God seems to be silent.  However, if I really listen to my Editor, He speaks just at the right time…..

Brainwashed!

     “I don’t understand people who aren’t me.  They’re weird!”

     If you imagine that last word said with a high-pitched whine (in two syllables),  you can put yourself right at the scene. Those were my husband’s words to me this morning.  My husband is known for his wise-cracking remarks, but I think he was only half kidding about this one.

     Sometimes it is difficult to hear all the wide-ranging opinions of others on issues from gun-control, to gender confusion, to religion, to politics to the issue of the week on Facebook and not feel like the entire world (except you) has gone absolutely crazy.  We are all sure we are right about everything or else we wouldn’t think what we think.

     So what should our standard be for how we think about all these things?  It’s a simple answer, but not an easy or instant thing to do. The Word says, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. “(Romans 12:2)

     When there is no perfect standard for what is right, then confusion reigns.  The Apostle Paul put it this way, “ These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2: 13-16)

     There is no point in arguing with a natural man about spiritual things.  They regard them as foolish things.  Until the Holy Spirit breaks through in the life of a person, they will not be ready to receive the things of the Spirit. The New Testament term for repent is metanoia which not only means regret or be remorseful for something but it also means to have a “change of mind”.  Only then are we open to truly begin to think like God thinks.

     Many unbelievers will say of us, “You Christians are all just brain-washed”.  One of my former pastors used to say, “Everyone in the world is brain-washed by something or someone. At least I’m choosing who gets to wash my brain!” That’s true – our thinking is all influenced by what we allow to “wash over us” by what we read and listen to, by who we gather around us, by what we watch.  I don’t know about you, but my brain needed a good washing when I came to Jesus and I need to remember to keep renewing my mind in Him.