Seeing Him in the Sky

This is a photo my niece Jennifer took last summer. Can you see God in the sky?

This is a cool picture, but the truth is, we can see Him in the sky EVERY day!

As Psalm 19 says:

¹ The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
² Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
³ They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
⁴ Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.

Every time we see the beautiful sky God has made, it is telling us of His glory!
Isn't that amazing?

Thanks for the inspiration to: missionary Ralph McIntosh at http://www.actsfoundation.org/

Trash Theology

So I was thinking about Jesus at the recycling center.

I know. It's strange. But stay with me here.

(image from wikipedia.com)

Here in Hawaii we have to put a five-cent deposit on plastic bottles and aluminum cans, which we can get back when we recycle them. I think a few other states do this too.

(Oh and they also tack on a little one-cent tax that you don't get back, but that's another post.)

So a lot of people go to the recycling center. It's not just for the homeless anymore.

Anyways, I was thinking about the theology of recycling.

Does anyone remember a long time ago when they had returnable glass bottles? I know, we're talking a LONG time ago.

I'm dating myself a bit here, but when I had my first job at a grocery store there were still a few people using the old glass Coke bottles.

Here's how that worked: People would pay the bottle deposit when they bought the Coke and then bring back the empty glass bottle to the store and get the deposit back. Then the store would send the bottles back to the plant to be sterilized and refilled with Coke.

(Image from dnkvariety.com)

Okay, all you young people are shocked. "The SAME bottles?" you say. "To be USED again?!"

Yep. Back in the day, we used to WASH things.

But nowadays, when you bring back your used bottles and cans, they melt them down and make them into new bottles and cans.

Are you seeing the link to Jesus yet?

Here's a hint: 2nd Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Get it?

Did you ever see that bumper sticker? You know the one that says, "Jesus saves; Buddha recycles."

Now that's clever. But actually it should be THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

Because Jesus doesn't just wash us out and stick us back out there in the world.

He actually REMAKES us into a NEW creation.

And that's why the recycling center is called....

The Redemption Center!

Searching For Real

My kids lose things all the time.

Especially my three-year-old girl. It seems like I spend half my day looking for her blankie and/or sippy cup.

And usually I find it sitting out in plain sight.

Even the older kids are always losing stuff.

Here's an example:
Me: Okay! It's time to go! Everyone get in the car.
Kid: (wailing) I can't find my shoes!
Me: Where did you leave them?
Kid: I don't know!
Me: Did you look in your room?
Kid: Yes! they're not there!
Me: Did you look in the shoe-chest?
Kid: Yes! I looked EVERYWHERE, Mom! I can't find my shoes!
Me: (sighing) Okay I'll come look.
(The shoes are sitting in the middle of the living room.)
Me: They're RIGHT THERE!!!
Kid: Oh. I didn't see them.

Sometimes I wonder if I am the only person in this household capable of finding anything.

Truthfully though, I think the problem is that the kids spend more time whining about the lost thing than they do looking for it.

They'll just give a cursory glance around the room and call it searching. I'm like, HEY! You've got to actually LOOK for the thing! Check under the couch! Pick up that pillow and look under it! This isn't rocket science, folks!

However, it seems that sometimes this is how we search for God. We run a casual eye over the surface of life and say, "Where is He?"

Jeremiah 29:12-13a says:
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the LORD.

God wants us to seek Him, not just halfheartedly, but with all of our heart.

And when we do, we WILL find Him.

A (Mom's) Hymn of Faith

Though the fig tree may not blossom,

Nor fruit be on the vines;

Though the labor of the olive may fail,

And the fields yield no food;

Though the flock may be cut off from the fold ,

And there be no herd in the stalls—

Yet I will rejoice in the LORD,

I will joy in the God of my salvation. 

Habbakuk 3:17-18

"Blossoming Orchard" by Van Gogh

http://www.canvaz.com



I read these verses, entitled "A Hymn of Faith," this morning and thought what a lovely picture of trust in God it painted.

Even when everything is going wrong, or seems to be, we must still rejoice in the Lord.

But since the farm metaphors don't really resonate with me, I thought I'd write my own "Hymn of Faith," from a mom's perspective:

Though my house may never be clean,

And my laundry basket never be empty,

Nor can I banish that strange smell from the sofa cushions;

Though there may be no money in my wallet,

And no milk in my fridge,

And payday is not until next week;

Though my car's engine may make a scary noise,

And the kids be screaming in the backseat,

And one of them just threw up--

Yet I WILL give thanks to God,

And I will rejoice in His blessings.

"I'll do it myself!"

Any mother of toddlers has heard these words, usually shouted at top voice.

My three-year-old twins are no exception to this. They are champions of Do It Myself-ness.

My son in particular loves to be independent. He wants to be Superman.

Every day getting into the van, we have a struggle over opening the automatic sliding door. He wants to open it himself, but, although he can press the button inside to close it, he's not strong enough to pull the handle on the outside to activate the opening mechanism.

As you can imagine, this causes a lot of delay. I've actually starting to leave the van door open inside the garage in order to avoid the whole thing.

My little boy simply refuses to accept the fact that he's not able to open the door from the outside, and he needs Mommy's help in order to do it.

This reminds me of us as Christians in a way. We want to do it ourselves.

More than anything, we want to rely on our own righteousness. We want to be "good enough" for God. We say we're saved by grace and all that, but do we act that way?

In fact, many times what we do is live by a set of rules, and try to get everyone else to agree that our version of the rules is the correct one.

But we don't earn God's grace by being good enough to deserve it. We can't.

So why do we keep trying to be good, using our own strength, instead of allowing God to work through us? I don't know.

Not only is relying on our own righteousness much harder, more frustrating and utterly doomed to failure, it can actually separate us from God.

Galatians 5:4 says, "You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace."

When I read this, I found it incredibly convicting. Is trying to be justified by my own "goodness" actually alienating me from Christ? God forbid!

Why can't I just be humble enough to admit I CAN'T do it myself?

Mary's Response to an Angel Visitor

"The Annunciation" by Paolo de Matteis

The Magnificat, or the Song of Mary, is found in Luke 1. Here is the beginning:

⁴⁶And Mary said,

My soul doth magnify the Lord,

⁴⁷And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

⁴⁸For He hath regarded the low estate of His

handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all

generations shall call me blessed.

⁴⁹For he that is mighty hath done to me

great things; and holy is His name.

(I apologize to those who prefer the more modern translations, but I like this one in the King James.)

This is famous as the response of Mary to the news that she will bear the Savior. Her song is often contrasted with the answer of her cousin's husband Zacharias, who received the news that his old and barren wife would bear John the Baptist. He said, "How can I know this is true?" to the angel Gabriel, which was a bad move on his part.

Zacharias gets struck dumb for nine months after that little breach of etiquette. Although there's no Emily Post for Angelic Visitations, it does appear that as a Levite and high priest he should have known better.

However, in re-reading the account in Luke, I noticed that the Magnificat does not in fact follow the Annunciation, but instead it occurs after the Visitation.

"The Visitation" By Edward Von Steinle

Putting that in normal language, the Song of Mary is not the Virgin's response to the angel Gabriel at all. She doesn't sing it until she goes to see her cousin Elizabeth.

She doesn't produce this beautiful song of steadfast faith until after she's had time to absorb the shock of being visited by an angel and getting pregnant by the Holy Ghost and all. Plus, it's also after Mary receives confirmation of the word of the angel through her cousin, who calls her "the mother of my Lord."

All Mary says to the angel Gabriel is, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word."

One could interpret that as a shell-shocked, "Um. Okay." (speaking of more modern translations...)

So although it's certainly true that Mary had great faith, greater than the priest Zacharias of course, she was not some idealized paragon who immediately spouted poetry upon hearing the most shocking news anyone had ever received. She took her time and allowed God to work through her, and when the time was right she was ready to sing her beautiful song.

In other words, the greatness of Mary's faith was not found in her own abilities, but in her willingness to allow God to demonstrate His power through her. And God was patient with her, allowing her to seek the comfort of her cousin Elizabeth and giving her time to learn to accept the strange new thing that had happened to her.

This should be a comfort to those of us who aren't quite ready to sing praises to the Lord after an unexpected turn in life sends us reeling. God understands that we need time, and He is patient with us as well. He wants us to submit to His will, but He doesn't force us.

But if we are able to respond, "Behold the handmaiden of the Lord," He'll bless our timid acquiescence with abundance.

He will take our, "Um. Okay," and turn it into poetry for His glory!

Rest and Trust

"Mother and Child" by Mary Cassatt

My three-year-old daughter loves to sit in my lap.

She will call out "Sit with me, Mommy! Sit with me!" while I'm doing the dishes or reading the mail or working on the computer. All she's asking me to do is sit on the couch and let her rest in my lap. That's it.

She has no other agenda when she calls for me to sit with her. Small children live in the moment. She is not like me, thinking of the dinner that must be made soon, and why is the cell phone company still billing me wrong, and oh my goodness when will bedtime get here?

She just wants to be with Mommy.

Psalm 131 says:

¹ My heart is not proud, O LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
² But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

³ O Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.

That's what we should be like with God. Instead of worrying about what's coming next in life, we should simply rest in Him.

My little girl does not concern herself with dinner because she knows Mommy will take care of it. When she is hungry, she asks me for food, and she is certain she will get what she needs.

If only I could be like that with God!

Lord, help me to rest and trust in You, like a child trusts in her mother.