Work, Work, Work.

I subscribe to a number of blogs.  Most are artistic, many are money-saving.  One of the artistic ones today was about the loss of the "trophies" of life, those accomplishments and people to whom we can point and be proud.  All the "look what I did" things.  You can find it here:  Little Apartment on the Prairie

She referred her readers to another blog, saying "This post inspired and touched my heart this week: When Your Trying To Get Your Priorities Straight, in fact it's going on my fridge."

And here is that post:  Holy Experience

I was a young mom like these two women, and I remember what it was like.  My house was busy and loud.  There was laundry and housework and meal preparation and dishes and baths . . . this endless doing of the necessary things in my family's life.

"I was made for this," I thought.  And I was.  I was good at it, and I enjoyed it.  I still do. Having said that, I must admit that I am a horrific housekeeper.  I still love that old saying "Hush up, cobwebs, dust go to sleep.  I'm rocking my baby and my baby won't keep."

We are made and created to worship and love God.  We miss so much of the unseen world because we simply can't see it.  It is beyond the physical realm of the world in which we live, so the great challenge is to strive to see that unseen place.  We can only do that via Jesus, and this draws us back to Him over and over again.

It's easy to say that because these higher callings are so important, the work should usually go by the wayside.  By that I mean not that we let our homes dissolve into chaos -- rather, I just mean letting "work" take last place in our view of our priorities.  As usual, it's much easier to sway from one extreme to the other, instead of trying to find the balance between the two.

But I think work is right up there with those higher callings.  God gave us work; it is the thing that keeps us engaged and learning and involved and interested, and even connected to each other.  I believe there will be work in heaven.  The word gets such a bad rap -- "work" -- as if it's always hard.  But it can be incredibly rewarding.  I remember doing laundry in the basement of the house, folding and matching endless pairs of little socks.  And when it was all done, I had a deep, incredibly wonderful feeling of accomplishment.

I connect with God through worship.  He meets me there and fills me up.  I could never do without that, without pursuing a life of adoration and worship for Him.  But . . . I also glorify Him for giving me work.  Working with my hands and accomplishing something is simply doing what He has made me to do.  It's like a child looking up at a parent, and when we do it well, God is as pleased with us as we are with ourselves.  It's all good.

We must be careful because we are compelled to measure.  And measuring only gains us meaningless trophies.  I loved seeing all that laundry done -- but it wasn't really something I thought should be reported on the nightly news.  It's just laundry, after all.

But it was my work.  And I did it well, and God was just as pleased then as He is when I look up and praise Him or pray or ponder the unseen world.

Oh, the love of God and the balance to which it challenges us.  Talk about work.

xoxoxox

Operator, How May I Connect Your Call?

<sup>From II Corinthians 6:


11-13</sup>Dear, dear Corinthians, I can't tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn't fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way. I'm speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!


If ever there was a call to the body of Christ -- the Church -- today, it is this it.


xoxoxox

Aufedersein (Our Feet are the Same)

Some observations from II Corinthians 5:


We've been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what's ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we'll never settle for less.

I can't tell you how many times that Hunk O Man and I have looked at each other and said "It just doesn't get any better than this, does it?"  Not on this earth, maybe.  But what a gift to get just a taste of what is to come!

If I acted crazy, I did it for God; if I acted overly serious, I did it for you. Christ's love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do.

So it's all your fault.  Metaphorically speaking.

 ^14-15Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.

So knock it off with all this "my Dad can beat up your Dad" nonsense.  (So to speak.  With laughter.)

^16-20Because of this decision we don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don't look at him that way anymore. 

What a relief.  We're all the same.  The ground at the foot of the cross is level.

Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. 

So let's get to it, shall we?

xoxoxox

A Bit of History

I love history.  I love for a couple of reasons.

One is that we inevitably have a romanced view of what happened in the past, so it's a pleasant experience to remember.  One other reason is that there are valuable principles to be gained from a study of history.

I also love being a pioneer.  I have always enjoyed change, even with the pain and discomfort it usually causes.  In the end, it's always worth it.  There is something always to be learned or gained, and if we hit it just right, both.

One doesn't get to be a pioneer without looking forward.  Looking over our shoulder doesn't help us when we're moving forward because we can't see where we're going.

And let's face it, time keeps right on going, like a river.  It always picks us up and takes us -- sometimes fighting and screaming like children throwing tantrums, and other times mercifully thankful to move on.

Looking forward also means you have to have something at which to look.  Whether it's just our feet moving in steps of blind faith or a goal we're striving to achieve, God gave us eyes for a reason.

I often cringe when I hear the words "don't mess with what works."  I always wonder just how much longer it will work, and to what end?  Is this thing we refuse to change really going to last?

Of course it won't last.  Nothing really lasts -- one look at the castles of Europe or last week's leftovers will leave us with one conclusion:  things aren't made to last.  And more importantly, God didn't create the world to last.

Even Paul says this:

Phillipians 3:13-15 (New International Version)


Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.


I'm a sheep.  I do the following when it comes to my husband and other leaders.  I lead some small groups of sheep where I'm qualified and called.  But overall, it's not my job to cast vision and be a big-picture person in the kingdom.

I depend on my shepherds to do that.  And I really do pray that they don't depend on history to do it.  Because again, it is the principles of history -- and not the practices of it -- that should guide us.

xoxoxox

Here! I Got You This! Open It! Open It!

God has been doing some amazing things in our lives here lately. We were going to work on our house this week, and put it on the market this coming Monday, April 12. Instead, God brought us buyers about a month ago, and instead we're painting and packing. We saw a house last July that we loved and wanted to rent -- but weren't ready to sell ours. So that house was rented to someone else. But, those people have since moved, and the rental house is available again.

So not only did He sell our house for us, He gave us a bigger, nicer, cheaper place to live.

Oh, the abundance of God! I cannot tell you enough about the way He choose to bless me. I suppose I recognise this because I love to give gifts. At Christmas or birthdays, I spend a lot of time thinking about the person to whom I'm giving -- things they've said, ways they are. I often even pray about it. Then an amazing idea will pop into my head, and I'll either do it or wrap it up, and then the best part comes -- I get to watch them receive it. It gives me such joy to do that! No wonder God loves it so much!

We all live off his generous bounty,
gift after gift after gift.
We got the basics from Moses,
and then this exuberant giving and receiving,
This endless knowing and understanding—
all this came through Jesus, the Messiah.

John 1:16-18

xoxoxox

The Truth Hurts. A Lot, Sometimes.

I just read this -- from Luke 6, The Message --

^22-23"Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and that that person is uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—skip like a lamb, if you like!—for even though they don't like it, I do . . . and all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company; my preachers and witnesses have always been treated like this.

I've had plenty of my share of this going on throughout my life. Probably the time I remember best was sitting at a table in a study hall, when I was in high school.

More recently, I asked someone about their relationship with God, via Facebook -- and got attacked from every side from this person's friends, who felt I had asked an inappropriate question in an inappropriate way. They weren't just harsh in their criticism of what I had asked. They were sarcastic, just plain mean, and they made fun of me. Kind of like high school all over again -- or maybe grade school.

Most recently, I've been having a conversation with a close family member about a life situation. And as usual, I ended up swinging the truth around like some kind of bludgeoning club. I didn't mean to do that -- I had been trying to be gentle all along.

But the truth sometimes is a big thing and hard to handle. When I start quoting statistics of real life, or I start listing the real lives of people as examples, the truth can start to loom up and knock even me -- the one who's speaking it -- down.

Needless to say, I have not been skipping around like a lamb. I have felt like dirt (or less). I have felt defeated, and belittled, and stupid and just plain wrong. I have felt as if I should just keep my opinions to myself. I have felt like a big, fat troublemaker that everyone else wishes would just go away and leave them alone.

But when I read this passage, I was encouraged. Leave it to Jesus, huh? I am smiling when I read that all heaven rejoices when the truth is put out there. I am encouraged that I am in good company. When Hunk O Man once asked me why I was such a pessimist, I reminded him that Jeremiah the Prophet was probably no picnic to be around either. (I have the spiritual gift of prophecy -- essentially "truth telling" in the present day).

Let me be clear here -- God has not called me to be a pessimist or to go around beating people over the head with truth. The Bible and God's Word are not weapons that we use to hurt people. I have to check and recheck my motives with God on a second-by-second basis. Truth spoken without love is simply brutality.

But the truth spoken in love is not just a big help -- it is life itself. It's like somebody stuck you with an IV of medicine; the stick hurts, but the medicine makes you well.

It is easy to get overwhelmed with the reactions of people around us, especially when they don't like what we're saying. It's very easy for me to just get my feelings hurt. It is difficult for me personally to remember that it's the truth they don't like, not me. They are not shooting at the messenger -- I'm just in the way.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, Lover of my soul -- for this encouragement today. You know how much I needed it.

xoxoxox

Vroom Vroom

Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God's energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.

Philippians 2:13

And that is why I love this book. Paul is so full of encouragement! For the past 3 days or so, I've been suffering with a migraine -- change of climate after a week in Indiana, changes in air pressure, whatever. All I know is that my head hurts.

But God's energy deep within me -- that is such an encouragement when all I've gotten done is some laundry. That energy will well up within me and take over. For now, after the sun has just gone down at 9:00PM, the headache is at bay. And I'm ready to let God do whatever He wants.

It's so nice to know that I don't have to find things to make myself busy. God is at work within me! All I have to do is make myself available to Him with a simple prayer -- Please Lord, use me today.

xoxoxox