Tag Archives: Restoration

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Pleasant Words and Abominations

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Picture of a farm home

“Evil plans are an abomination to the Lord, but pleasant words are pure.”  Proverbs 15:26

I recently spent a couple of weeks with my mother-in-law.  As she likes to listen to the news a lot, I heard just about every broadcast regarding the Judge Kavanaugh hearings.  Our culture seems to have lost the concept that people are innocent until proven guilty.  As I listened, to the newscasts, I was struck by the fact that I was listening to them in Danvers, Massachusetts.  For those who are unaware or need a refresher, Danvers was originally Salem Village.  In the late 1600’s the town held witch trials that resulted in the death of 25 people…19 were hung and another six died in custody.  (One of the victims was Rebecca Nurse whose house is shown above.  See also Britannica.com)  The trials started due to the behaviors of some girls that could not be explained medically and were, therefore, assumed to be satanic.  Lack of information, bad assumptions, and false accusations led to a tragic end.  The words of the girls and others involved led to the abominable deaths of innocent parties.  Contrary to the poem many of us learned in grade school, words have the power to harm and destroy; they also have the power to heal and encourage.   That’s why our use of words is so important.

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Pride and Humility Part 2

Humility Extolled

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"Only the poor in spirit can be humble. How often the experience, growth, and progress of a Christian become such precious matters to him that he loses his lowliness." Watchman Nee

O Lord, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their heart, You will incline Your ear to vindicate the orphan and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth will no longer cause terror.  Psalm 10:17-18

As I stated in the last post (Pride and Humility Part 1 –  Pride Renounced), we live in a culture that promotes autonomy, independence and self-assuredness.  When controlled, these characteristics are useful tools in life.  However, left unchecked, they will likely lead to pride.  Prideful arrogance impedes a relationship with God, inhibits relationships with others, multiplies guilt, brings dishonor and insures judgement.   Alternatively, humility is often despised by our culture because it appears to be the weaker trait.  However, it is desired by God because it yields rewards in both this life and the one to come.  Following are a few of the benefits.

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I’m Stuck

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I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry.  He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.  He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord.  Psalm 40:1-3

In 1995 I had a grand mal seizure and was put on seizure medication without a thorough investigation of the circumstances.  We would learn later that I did not need it.  Problematically, if you take seizure medication and don’t need it, it can cause seizures.  Consequently, for the next nine years I endured petit mals or absence seizures.  The first one occurred after my wife and I returned home from a dance.  While we were talking with our children, Marie noticed that my expression changed to a vacant stare.  In order to avoid alarming our children she moved close to me, took my hand, lead me to our bedroom and had me sit down.  In a few moments I returned to normal function.  Through experimentation and discussion, we learned that while I could not initiate movement or speech, I could be led by others and I could nod faintly in response to yes or no questions.  However, for the most part I was immobilized and temporarily stuck in a very confining world.  As I think about those seizures, I’m reminded of times when I’ve been stuck in life.  Usually, I’m immobilized by one of three things:  fear, fatigue or indecision.  Can you relate?

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Our Temples Revisited

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“They assembled their brothers, consecrated themselves, and went in to cleanse the house of the Lord, according to the commandment of the king by the words of the Lord.” 2 Chronicles 29:15

It’s February and for this month I’m doing a “best of” series to allow time for me to update the website, get ahead on some writing and spend some time on my soul.  In a sense these plans are a type of resolution.  By now some people are still pressing on with New Year’s resolutions, some are faltering, and still others have given up.  Resolutions vary widely but common ones are getting organized, taking better care of their bodies, overcoming bad habits and seeking better attitudes in the New Year.  Some are successful while others are not.  The difference is diligence and fortitude.

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Rest, Respite and Repose

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By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.  Genesis 2:2-4

It is clear in scripture that we are to live our lives to the fullest in service to our Lord and fellow man.  It is how we fulfill our responsibilities as good ambassadors, stewards and children of God.  We are called to run with endurance as one striving to win the prize.  Yet God also understands how He designed us and that part of living well is rest, respite and repose.  In one sense these are all synonyms as reflected by the definitions of rest that I have found.  However, they each carry a slightly different connotation.

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Hide and Seek

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They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.  Genesis 3:8

Sometimes when our grandsons come to our house, they like to play hide and seek.  It is such a different game than when I was a kid.  As children, they have not yet learned how many clues they may give away in the process of hiding nor have they learned to listen for clues that I may offer.  As an adult, I’ve learned to listen for those clues.  Fairly certain of their hiding places, I usually take extra the time to “search” rather than going directly to them which allows for more enjoyment of the game on their part.

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, I believe that we often try to hide from God.  Three common reasons we do this are: like Adam and Eve, it may be due to sin; there may be trials in our lives that cause us to doubt God’s goodness and love for us; or it may be as simple as lack of engagement in our spiritual life.  Pulling away from God is exactly where Satan wants us as it leaves us open to temptation.  Through his lies, he seeks to either turn us from God or at least immobilize us and lose our passion for God and engaging in the work that Lord may have planned for us.

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Dry Bones

Revival

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“‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.’ Thus says the Lord God to these bones, ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life.  I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin and put breath in you that you may come alive; and you will know that I am the Lord.’”  Ezekiel 37:4-6

Most mornings, the pain in my body wakes me before the alarm goes off.  Laying there a bit irritated that my body has deprived me of sleep, the morning inventory and ponderings begin.  How much pain is there and is it the kind can it be ignored?  How much energy is available and will it improve as I start moving or quickly fade?  How angry is my gut and how well will it cooperate with eating throughout the day?  What is planned for today and will it have to be adjusted due to the responses to the prior queries?  At best, I will encourage my body to get moving and function relatively normally (for me) throughout the day.  At worst, I’ll end up more like a slug accomplishing the bare minimum.  More often than not, it will be somewhere in the middle of the two.  Notice that there is no “This is the day which the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it”, nor is there a mental or spiritual inventory.  In those early moments of the day, it’s usually all about the body.  Short sighted, focused and exhausting.  I long for days when I awaken refreshed and alive.  Whether or not one is ill, this life can be wearying.  Trials and illness most certainly sap the strength from us on every level encouraging us to withdraw and become self-focused.  However, jobs, family, relationships and social obligations are just as capable of draining us of physical, emotional and spiritual strength. Without attention to our souls, we become like the bones in Ezekiel’s vision: dried up, hopeless and cut off.  In those times it’s important to remember who we are, where our strength comes from and where or hope lies.

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Pure Delight

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“I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart.”  Psalm 40:8

Sunday morning I was reading Psalm 40 and verse eight jumped out at me.  It says:  “I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart.”  I had to ask myself if doing God’s will was truly my delight or if I have allowed distractions to keep me from true joy.  Not only that, but the word delight has been on my mind since then.  It’s not a word that I hear a lot these days.  When I looked up the definition, the definitions of both the verb and the known had a modifier.  It doesn’t mean to please or pleasure, but it said “to please greatly” or “great pleasure”.  Merriam-Webster adds that an archaic definition is “the power of affording pleasure”.

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Checking Our Baggage

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But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.  1 Corinthians 11:28

Some of my family members tease me about the amount of luggage that I take on a trip.  In my younger days before the health issues took center stage, I used to be able to pack rather efficiently.  However, things are a bit different now.  Because I no longer tolerate cold weather or changes in weather well, my luggage often contains everything from shorts to winter sweaters.  Further, in addition to a case for my toiletries, I have another one just for the medicines that I need or may need.  Consequently there is some concern when we’re flying as I’m worried about the weight limit for checked luggage.  It requires a bit of scrutiny to make sure that I take what I need but not so much that I’m over the limits.  I am most efficient and discerning when I have time to lay everything out that I think I need and then carefully examine it and evaluate what I truly need versus what I can leave behind or risk going without.  If I’m not careful, it’s easy to go over the limits and find myself weighed down with luggage and additional expense.  Life is like that too.  If we don’t examine ourselves and sort out our lives, we often carry around a lot of unnecessary and even harmful baggage.  In the book “The Emotionally Healthy Church, Peter Scazzero compares us to an iceberg.  “About ten percent of an iceberg is visible to the surface.  That is the part of our lives of which we are consciously aware.  Note, however that the Titanic sank because it collided with a section of the submerged 90 percent of an iceberg.”  In other words, many of our problems with other people and how we handle difficult situations is greatly impacted by the 90 percent of which we are unaware.  That is why several passages in scripture, including the one above, call for us to examine ourselves.  It’s not intended to make us feel bad about ourselves, but rather to deal with negative issues so that we can walk more closely with our Lord, enjoy better relationships and, in general, have a better quality of life spiritually and emotionally.

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Reminders

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“Cross again to the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Israel. Let this be a sign among you, so that when your children ask later, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’  then you shall say to them, ‘Because the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.’ So these stones shall become a memorial to the sons of Israel forever.”  Joshua 4:5-7

God knows us and how forgetful we can be.

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