Saturday, August 17, 2013

READY TO CHANGE TO WORLD

I've avoided writing this particular blog for quite awhile now.  I've known the title since I made my last blog entry, but what does it truly mean to be ready to change the world?  It all started with a simple every day question which was never a simple question for me.

"How are you?"

Most people don't really want to know how you are unless the answer is positive.  I began thinking about that; trying out different ways to answer that particularly painful question with a response that is both positive and authentic.  I finally decided that I am ready to change the world and that's how the question needs to be answered.

Being ready to change the world means a lot of things to a lot of people, but here is what it means to me. It means I am no longer content to live in a world where we ask one another "How are you?" without having any real concern about each other's welfare.  When people ask me "How are you?" I get all kinds of reactions when I say "I'm ready to change the world."  I'm thinking it might be a good topic for a book because I have so much more here I want to share and so much more that I am still learning based on one statement that suggests not only can the world be changed, but I have the power to make it happen.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

QUEST

Not all too long ago, I felt that every time I entered a new group setting (my work brings me into new group settings on a regular basis) I was in a different kind of jungle and was constantly trying to quickly learn my surroundings in unfamiliar places.  As I was adjusting to the weather, and the terrain, and the dynamics of jungle animals interacting with one another, I would begin to assess places of danger, places of safety and places of significance.  It is in the search for significance, that my quest is made.  I have no other reason to venture into unknown and uncomfortable places except to further witness and further experience and further make known the unchanging power of God.  This is my quest.

Monday, May 20, 2013

PEOPLE

People are funny creatures.  We laugh.  We sing.  We pray.  We cry.  We live.  People are blessed and people are cursed by other people.  We have this soul within us that serves as a conduit to another realm that impacts the world in which we live.  People are curious.  While we may have established patterns of behavior, we are unique and distinct from any other person on planet earth.  Each person can influence our world in only the way that we have design and desire to do so, for opportunity always exists.  People are part of a greater wealthy chorus of spiritual beings in a universe of glory deciding whether or not to accept our great destiny.  People are made in the image of Almighty God.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

OVEREXTENDED, OVERLOOKED, OVERTIRED, OVERBOOKED

Last week I was feeling a bit overextended.  I am in the middle of ten weeks of off-and-on travel and it was beginning to wear on me.  I am blessed to have two very good friends who were both going through similar "over" circumstances about the same time as me.  Though I don't wish for them to be "over" anything, it has been encouraging for me to know they have both been with me in spirit and I am not alone.

over & out...

Monday, May 6, 2013

My mind is drawn to the greats, whose lives continue to glorify the Great One.  Corrie Ten Boom lost her entire family during the holocaust for having the audacity to provide safe haven for both Jewish friends (she was Christian) and strangers.  She was especially close to her sister Betsie who died while they were together in the same concentration camp.  Did Almighty God say no to Corrie's prayers?  Or did He say yes to life for a far greater number of people?  Olive Flemming, Marilou McCully, Marjorie Saint and Barbara Youderian lost their husbands who were killed while trying to share the Good News of Jesus.  Did God say no to their prayers to bring their husbands safely home?  Even the most devout among Christians may have difficulty acknowledging that their request, much like the pleas of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, was answered in the affirmative.  Perhaps "no" is not the answer we hear from God Almighty.  Perhaps we are asking the wrong question altogether and when we get it right, we will get an affirmative everlasting answer.

Friday, May 3, 2013

MAJESTIC

Majestic is my King!  My Lord & Savior! 

Majestic & Holy is His Righteous Name!

His Majesty allows me in His Presence and in His courts I bear no shame!

His Majesty is in abundance!  There is no limit to His Power & Might & Majesty!

His Majesty draws me near Him while leaving me breathless!

Oh, how I travail through life, at blessed mercy of His Majesty!

I love my Majesty!  I long to be near Him always.

Forever Majestic is He in all ways possible and promised!

It is of no concern to me that which is not or less than Majesty, for there is nothing greater than the Majesty of my Lord & King!

Sunday, April 14, 2013

LIFE

I went to church this morning and learned that someone in our church family who had cancer is now, while in the middle of radiation treatment, in remission.  We have a lot of people from our church like that.  We are a very small congregation and I can think of six people who have been healed from cancer.  I can also think of one person who was not and is no longer living on this side of eternity.

I also have a very dear friend who is presently having radiation treatments.  It bothers me because she is someone who deserves to live and live without pain.  She is so gentle and kind and I have feelings similar to what I had when my other friend died from cancer.  Why her?  Of all the people in the world, why this person?  Lord, don't you know how good she is?  Of course You do.  Don't you know how much she loves you?  Of course You do, but maybe it's not about that.

What if our struggles in life are so we can give Him glory?  What if the pain she experiences is the place where the rubber hits the road in terms of Christianity?  To praise Him from a place of comfort costs us nothing.  To praise Him from a place of pain is indicative of where we are spiritually.  I would never want my friend, or anyone, to have cancer.  I do not want there to be pain in the world.  Yet if we praise Him from a place of pain, it makes life and eternal life very real.

"I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done."  -Psalm 118:17

Saturday, April 13, 2013

KINDNESS

"It's your kindness Lord, that leads me to repentance, you favor Lord is our desire."

This song has been in my head the last two days.  I find myself singing this particular line over and over, although when I looked up the lyrics I learned I had been singing it wrong.  Oh well!

"It's your kindness Lord, that leads me to repentance, you favor Lord is our desire."

I was thinking about which word I would choose to write about that began with the letter "K" (and yes, I know this entry is a day late but I am oKay with that!) and I decided to write about kindness.  So for two days I have been thinking about kindness and it has brought a smile to my face.  Even the thought of kindness is a blessing.  I wonder if that's where the popular expression "It's the thought that counts." comes from.  I bet it is.  Kindness is gentle and corrective.  Kindness is best when it is an unexpected kindness, but it is good all the time.  Kindness communicates that I want the best for you and I care about you.  Kindness softens the hardness of this world and brings healing where hurt exists.  When I think about the expression "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." it occurs to me that you can be kind to the horse.  You can gently stroke his mane, shoo away the flies and love up on that horse without forcing the horse to do anything.

Another popular expression that comes to mind is to "Kill 'em with kindness!" which basically means that kindness has some power in neutralizing an enemy position.  I saw a movie (sorry, can't remember the name) where two military units were on the front lines of battle and killing one another.  As soldiers, destroying the enemy was their job.  On Christmas Eve, both sides were reminiscing about past holidays and more pleasant times when a man from one side began softly singing Christmas Carols.  He had an exquisite voice and as he increased in volume, his comrades urged him to stop lest his voice reveal their position.  He did not stop.  Instead, he sang louder and slowly walked toward the enemy front lines.  At the halfway point, he stopped walking but continued singing and blessed the enemy with his gift of voice.  During a moment of pause, an enemy soldier joined him in chorus.  By the end of the scene, both sides were singing and drinking together as if they were old friends and not national enemies.  The movie goes on to tell how that night, that moment of courageous kindness, impacted the ending of the war.    

As people living in an often unkind world where ugly battles can be part of daily living, we can be kind and create the world that we want to live in.

"It's your kindness Lord, that leads me to repentance, you favor Lord is our desire."

Thursday, April 11, 2013

JUSTICE

Justice must be the equivalent of righteousness.  

I was reading Proverbs 10 which makes the following comparisons.
  1. Ill Gotten Treasure v. Righteousness Which Delivers From Death (vrs 2)
  2. Violence v. Blessings Upon The Righteous (vrs 6)
  3. The name of the righteous is used in blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.  (vrs 7)
  4. Concealed Violence v. Righteousness Is A Fountain of Life (vrs. 11)
  5. Earnings of the Wicked v. Righteousness Is Life (vrs. 16)
  6. Wicked Hearts v. Righteous Tongues (vrs. 20)
  7. Overtaken By Wicked Desires v. Granted Righteous Desires (vrs. 24)
  8. Storms Sweep Wicked v. Righteous Standing Firm (vrs. 25)
  9. No Hope v. Joyous Prospects For Righteous (vrs.28)
  10. Wicked Deported v. Righteous Stands (vrs. 30)
  11. Silence Perversion v. Wisdom of Righteousness (vrs. 31)
I don't know about you, but righteousness is looking an awful lot like justice to me.

I

"I" was absent.

{Published the day after the "I" assignment was due!}

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

HOME

Home is a lovely place where you hang your hat and hunker down.  It's a place to relax and just be yourself, to unwind and let loose. You can dance.  You can sing.  You can even do these things in your underwear if you want; unless of course, Mom says no.

Home is where the heart is...or so they say.  I wonder how that translates for people who don't have a home.  On a day like today, it wouldn't be so bad.  The weather was perfect for camping and homelessness.  On a day like tomorrow when umbrellas have been advised, it would be worse.  I don't think the rain would even matter if someone would just talk to me while I am on the street and in the rain.  I have nowhere to hang my hat or hunker down or sing and dance in my underwear, with no Mother to tell me to put some clothes on.

Home is a lovely word if you have one and even more lovely if you don't.

{Authored by an individual who previously experienced homelessness.}

Monday, April 8, 2013

GAIN

More and more I find myself asking "What have I gained?"

I go to church, I go to school, I go to work and what have I gained?  Time is irreplaceable.  I can never retrieve a single moment of my life.  Therefore, I must relentlessly move forward with the intention of gaining something of great value in exchange for my time.

Today a woman described me to a group of college students by saying "She is walking truth."  I'm not sure if she understood the significance of her statement or not, but to be thought of as "walking truth" is gain.  If I can somehow contribute to this world in a way that is recognized as a conduit of absolute truth, then I have gained.

I don't have much more to say.  I only have much more to gain and, for every moment you are given breath, you also have much more to gain.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

FIGHT

As an advocate, I have some fight in me.  My natural inclination is to question and oppose that which is not in my best interest, nor in the best interest of my peers.  When I haven't felt like fighting, that is usually a pretty good indication that something is seriously wrong.  I understand that, like the Mighty Warrior David, I have battle blood on my hands.  No, not blood from actual murder; but there will be injury from battle and I have to be okay knowing that I have engaged in a battle for life.

Today I read a post on facebook that Pastor Rick Warren's son has died from suicide.  My fighting inclination immediately wanted to challenge my 624 facebook friends to take up the cause for mental health, lest there be one more suicide.  Still having leftover feelings of fight within me, I picked up a book and started reading.  The following is what I read.

With a fiery look in his eye and an intense tone in his voice, he said, "Before I became a Christian, I was a fighter.  I learned ninja, jujitsu, and a variety of other techniques for taking other people down."

I nodded.  I was making a mental note: Don't mess with Raden. 

He continued "One day I was sharing the gospel in an unreached village who had never heard of Jesus.  I was in one house sharing Christ with a family, and the witch doctor from the village came to the house."  Witch doctors and magic men are common in villages like these.  They hold sway over entire communities with their curses and incantations.

"The witch doctor called me out," Raden said.  "He wanted me to fight him."  Raden smiled as he confessed, "My first thought was to walk out there and take the witch doctor down.  But when I turned to go outside, the Lord told me that I no longer need to do the fighting.  God would do the fighting for me."

So Raden walked outside, pulled up a chair, and sat down in front of the witch doctor.  He told his challenger, "I don't do the fighting.  God does the fighting for me."

Raden recounted what happened next "As the witch doctor attempted to speak, he began to gasp for air.  He was choking and couldn't breathe.  People came running to see what was wrong, and within a few minutes the witch doctor had fallen over dead."

By now the entire village had crowded around the scene.  Raden said "I had never seen anything like this and I didn't know what to do.  But then I thought I guess this is a good time to preach the gospel."  Raden smiled and said "So that's what I did and many people in that village trusted in Christ for the first time that day."  

[from the book Radical, authored by David Platt] 

It brings me contentment to know that God has purposed me as an advocate, to advocate for others with all the tenacity that Christ advocates before the Father on my behalf.  I have both given and taken my share of hits and it is incredibly reassuring to know that victory has already been won the moment the trumpet sounds.  Yet I am reminded of the words of Jesus when he says "Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?  But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled saying that it must happen in this way?"  At the very moment when Christ was threatened (this is when my fight instinct would have surfaced), he won a greater victory because he chose obedience to the Father.  Like Jesus and like Raden, my deepest desire is to fight those internal spiritual battles & like David and Joshua my desire is to move forward with external battles only when I am in obedience of the Sovereign Lord Most High.

Friday, April 5, 2013

EXPECTATION

Expectation is a powerful word.  For a very long time in my life, nobody expected anything of excellence (another "e" word) to come from me.  I was given low standards and became very bored with life.  Without expectation, there was no direction to grow.  When I did reach beyond even the most basic expectations, I was never praised for a job well done.  My life became mediocre and I never sought to cultivate meaningful change.  Expectation dwindled away and almost became extinct.

Today is very different.  My life expectations are now global in nature.  I no longer am trapped in minuscule thinking or defined by anyone other than a Sovereign Lord who repeatedly reminds me that all things are possible.  I think beyond my own body and household.  I think beyond my zip code and state.  I think beyond my nation and expect that the world will be changed because I am here.  Yes, you read that right.  I expect to influence the world with my life.      

Thursday, April 4, 2013

DIVINE

I was so excited today because I knew that tonight I would be writing about Divine.  What could be more, well, divine?  As I was driving home, I looked out at the sky which very closely resembled the color of this blog and it nearly took my breath away.  This stunning sky was evidence of Divine.  All of creation is evidence of Divine.  I am evidence of Divine.

My American Heritage Dictionary has some good definitions for the word divine.  Here is my paraphrased version.  Divine means 1) being or having the nature of a deity, 2) an expression from a deity, 3) supremely magnificent, 4) heavenly perfection, 5) to reveal or tell, 6) to know by inspiration, intuition or reflection and 7) to locate.  I think my favorite is "supremely magnificent" because "supremely" appropriately ranks Divine as Authority Above All and "magnificent" speaks to the caliber of the King.  So did tonight's sky.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Words cannot adequately capture the majesty of creation, let alone the majesty of Creator.  Yet tonight my task is to write about Divine.  What can I say that gives even a glimpse of Supreme Magnificence?

Divine causes my spirit to leap within me when it recognizes Divine.  Divine takes my breathe away and gives me breathe to live.  Divine causes acceleration and promotion with only raw materials.  Divine shields and protects me from evil.  Divine shares insight and wisdom and understanding with me.  Divine listens to me and hears me and upholds me with his righteous right hand.  Divine is merciful, never leaving nor forsaking me.  Divine is everything that ought to be always.

      




Wednesday, April 3, 2013

CHEERLEADER

Everybody deserves to have a cheerleader in their life, someone who will be rooting for you no matter what. When I think about the very best cheerleaders in junior high and high-school, my mind does not travel to the persons who did the most flips or had the loudest voice.  I think about the girl who always had a smile on her face, that was bubbly and spirited and casual and fun.  She was lighthearted and her smile encouraged others to smile without even saying a word.  She was a cheerleader regardless of whether or not there was a sporting event going on.  

We all need a cheerleader like that in our lives, someone who has just a bit of bounce in their life approach and is ready to applaud us at any given moment.  There are plenty of people in this world who will excel in their skill, but give me a cheerleader any day.  Give me an expert who is light on their feet and their specialty is joy!  Give me someone who will bring enthusiasm into everyday life, someone whose smile reaches across the ocean and perhaps across the kitchen table.  Give me a cheerleader and you have given me someone who believes in me.      


Tuesday, April 2, 2013

BELOVED

Beloved.  What's that supposed to mean anyway?  In my entire life, I cannot remember anyone having ever referred to me as beloved.  In fact, I don't think I have ever described anyone this way either.  What does it mean to be beloved by someone?

I don't know.  The Bible says (Deuteronomy 33:12b, NIV) "Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders."  This was a blessing that Moses was giving Benjamin and his tribe.  It is a blessing to be beloved or maybe in not so compounded words, we can simply say it is a blessing to be loved.  To be loved by the Lord, holds a promise of rest and protection.  To be loved is to be carried on his back so that he bears the weight of our lives.  What if we beloved others the way Lord beloves us?

Can we protect others along life's journey?  Will they find rest and live a little easier because they are beloved by us?  For myself, I don't know if I will ever actually describe anyone as beloved.  I truly am having trouble fathoming that particular word escape the confines of my mouth.  Yet this is how I long to interact with others and I think, if I am truly honest with myself, this is probably how I long for others to interact with me.  Let us truly be loved by one another.

Monday, April 1, 2013

ABANDONMENT & AFFIRMATION

Abandonment & Affirmation are two pretty big words for me.  As a child, I was abandoned by my Father and affirmed by my Grams.  It's been so long ago that I only have a couple memories of my Father.  There were decades of pain that followed, but I don't feel it anymore.  My Father left me to pursue his own life while my heart was bleeding with blood that had no tears.  It's an odd feeling to look back at something that had such a stronghold on my life for so long and today it is nowhere to be found.  My Grams affirmed me.  She loved me and told me that I was special.  As a young child, I loved to write.  She told me I was good at it and encouraged me to keep writing.  I once wrote a story.  I don't even remember what it was about, but she does.  She will tell you it was about a tree.  Somewhere along the way, I lost that story and it nearly crushed her...that was and is how important I am to her.

When I think about abandonment and affirmation and how powerful both of the words are, I am convinced I must willingly incorporate them into my life in ways that are similar and different from how they were both thrust upon me.  I have to abandon the things that I know, the things that are familiar to me so that I will become like a child.  I must abandon and reject a false sense of familiarity to embrace truths that are yet to be revealed.  Abandonment does not need to be a dirty word.  Similarly, I must affirm that which is good.  With my whole being, I must relentlessly love and encourage every moment of life.  I must relentlessly affirm and cling to relationship and friendship, lest I slip and abandon my purpose.