The 7th Day

      It was an imperfect Sabbath Meal from beginning to end...our first.  The Challah bread was bumpy and so were our transitions from one part of the meal to another.  My husband, "Celebrate the Feasts"  book in hand guided us through each scene.  The candle lighting, blessing of the cup, hand washing, covering of the knives, blessing of the bread and the salting of it( which made us all giggle).  "I think the Jewish people would be eating by now." announces the youngest boy and indeed he was probably right as we fumbled through.  
      Finally...food.  It had been a long day of preparing for this meal that begins as the sun slips away each and every Friday evening, and so goes the Jewish calendar.  Why all of this ceremony? Our way must be more efficient.  Cook it, say grace, eat it, leave the table to yet go try to satisfy ourselves further with an activity of choice.  One by one the table empties.  Not for the Sabbath Meal though.  Perhaps that's why God planned the time around the table for His people to be a Holy time.  A time "set apart" for thanksgiving and communion which reflects the 7th day of Creation.  How could we be filled around the table and somehow even more satisfied by lingering there together?  A prayer of Thanksgiving...at the end?  But that would require each person to stay put until the meal was officially over, to consider others more important than themselves,to  intentionally not fill schedules to the brim that require all the rushing around on a Friday evening.  That's just seems downright un-American but does it have to be?

       What comes of stepping into this other culture and enjoying a Sabbath meal you ask?  Old Testament history for one thing but also one of the most peaceful, Christ centered, times around the table we have ever had, that's what!  Enjoying food, good and plenty, enjoying God our Creator and Redeemer through Jesus and slowing down to enjoy each other.   The practice of intentionality is not legalism.  Traditions or routines that lead one to know Christ more are not either.  Only that those practices become essential to one's salvation justifies the scarlett letter "L" and we should be careful about the branding with our lips. The fact that Christians go about "this" or do "that" out of their inclination to acknowledge their Savior should be observed with grace and seasoned with salt whether "old school or new school", whether the first fruits are presented with our standard of excellence or not.  
     God instructed his people to participate in ceremonies and the building of spiritual markers and yes even traditions because He knows our hearts are prone to wander.  In his grace he invites us to remember Him in all things and shows us ways we can do it regularly.

        Thankyou Father, for walking us through how to keep you in the center of everything and for knowing that some of your children need you to extend the hand of "ceremony" as a teaching aid in faithfulness.

       "Therefore whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God."  I Corinthians 10:31

Book Club in 3-D

     God did something really cool today.  It was the first "book club" meeting to chat about "One Thousand Gifts" (by Ann Voskamp) at the park.  I pulled up and the kids tumbled out of the van and of coarse, the door was left opened in their anticipation of playground "freedom".  As I meandered around to close the door a woman frantically got out of her van begging "Have you seen two little boys?" She was calling their names out into the empty park.  Seriously, they disappeared.  At 4 and 6 years old they left the house while a caretaker was sleeping and could have been anywhere and gone for any amount of time.  Two Mom's waiting for the book chat jumped up and ran to their cars to help search.  I ran down to the field and asked the guy on the riding mower if he had seen them.  In fact, he had seen them 30 minutes prior and said they were down by the busiest road in Augusta hanging out by the development sign but that there was a man with them.  Adrenaline pumped as I left my kids with another Mom who had pulled in to join us and drove to search for the boys.  My hunt came up with nothing.  God's eyes are always open.  After returning to the park along with the others, we Mom's just stood together speechless, gut-wrenched for this other Momma...left searching. Calling the police was the next thought on everyone's lips but we had all moved in such a hurry we didn't have enough details to give them, not even the desperate Momma's name.  Nothing to do, but pray to the God who knows the number of hairs on those little lost boys' heads.
      After leading in a desperate prayer on their behalf, asking God for protection and for a protector to come along and be His hands and feet, I lifted my head to see a tall, bald, tattooed man, awkward to interrupt prayer, ask if we knew two little boys that he had found on the very edge of the dangerously busy road.  It was him...and his girlfriend that God had sent to the rescue before we even had bowed heavy hearts in prayer.  Ecstatic, we told them that we were just praying for them and that God had used them for those boys.  Taken aback but overjoyed they beamed and accepted our request to join us in offering a prayer of thanksgiving to God.  "Father, thankyou for what you have done.  For answering our prayers before we even uttered them.  By sending Bruce and Jane and giving them a heart to protect these children.  Bless them, today, Lord and may their eyes be opened to seeing more of your fingerprints on their lives."  Total strangers giving God the glory through "eucharisteo" for the things He has done.
     As they were about to leave, they muttered something about good karma, then Jane said "It was nice meeting you, can I come and join your Bible Study sometime?"  Wow, God!  Eucharisteo...offering thanksgiving and finding the joy (chara) of seeing you at work...just what we were trying to get at with this book chat.  And there it is on page 44 

"When one is thirsty one quenches one's thirst by drinking,

 not by reading books which treat this condition."   

Jean Pierre Caussade.  

     Opportunities to act in prayer and not just speak about praying are everywhere.  Ann writes on page 60 that "Three times a day, Daniel prayed thanksgiving for the everyday common, for the God-love spilling forth from the God-heart at the center of all.  The only real prayers are the ones mouthed with THANKFUL lips."  (Daniel 6:10, Phillipiams 4:6, I Timothy 2:1) Interesting how everyone knew Daniel was a praying man becuase he did it (humbly, not pridefully but) PUBLICLY. Thinking about our morning and how God answered the first prayer before we even prayed it (because he already had it in His plan to do) but how the thanksgiving prayer ushered in an opportunity for this couple to see how they fit into His plan.  One lady noted that perhaps God allowed it all to meet with this couple today and to reveal Himself to them through our prayers of Eucharisteo (greek for thanksgiving).  My spirit can't help but agree.  How He pursues! Now THAT is my kind of book club!!!!

For the Love of Sheep

Have you ever asked yourself why? Why would the God of the universe give a care in the world about the details of my days? Especially after all He's already done by paying my fine on the cross (back in the day, way back in the day) so I can have a future with Him in heaven!

Psalm 23 refers to the Lord as our Shepherd. Hasn't He already loved this sheep enough by laying down His life for it? But yet "He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside the quiet waters, He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness"...why? The end of Psalm 23:3 tells us why. It is
"for His names sake."
How thrilling to know there is purpose behind our lives! If He didn't have us here for a reason, He would have taken us already! But yet Jesus desires us, as believers, to bear testimony to His name. Why? It's simple...for the love of the sheep! When I go about my day reminded of the good He calls me to do, this verse reminds me that my walk with Him builds credibility to His name. Not that He needs it. He is God! He knows though, there are lost sheep out there that need to see His love for them in action. So through the lives of His children He meets that need to draw others close to Him.

In fact, I'm reminded of the task He's set before older women in the book of Titus, Chapter 2.
" ...to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to their husbands..." Why?
"...so that no one will malign the Word of God."

Did you see the purpose? So His Word is not undermined or misunderstood. Why? For the love of the sheep of coarse! So that no one will miss out on a relationship with the Shepherd! Being on a love mission with Jesus really ought to change the way we go about our days.

In light of this He gave us the prayer of Psalm 20:12

"Teach us to number our days,

so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts."

Praying you and I live with purpose, just like Jesus....for the love of sheep!

Grace Candy

A craving....for something sweet....happens to everyone. I never realized it was grace I was craving that day until now, but it wasn't exactly as sweet as it could have been, when the forgiveness I was seeking from a friend was not received with grace. Sour it tasted, burning in my throat. Rejected.

"Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you compassion. For He is a God of justice, blessed are those who wait on Him." Isaiah 30:18

Gracious He is! He is the storekeeper of a shop full of grace candy! Recently, He delivered a generous portion to me. Extra....again....on top of the salvation He gave. I didn't deserve either helping, but it was like a Christmas stocking or Easter basketful when the Spirit moved and the call came. "I'd like your forgiveness," someone else said. I heard myself in her voice.

"How sweet are your words to my taste, yes sweeter than Honey to my mouth." says the Psalmist in 119:103 This time the grace was for me to give....would I share sweetness?

And then again, as if I had served the breaking blow to the party pinata, a different Spirit led encounter...craving grace in her request from me? In the same week? Is there enough?

James 4:6 says "But He gives a greater grace...."

Then IT came, not sour but sweet....remember the glove? The left handed, wrong-handed glove for my son. The big faux paus wrapped in zeal from a previous blog? Humbling is God's grace when we are on the giving end and even more so on the receiving end. My son comes in with the sweet result of plans well made since 2 months ago....a glove...for Mom...bought with his own birthday money. It fits ...on the correct hand....a great big piece of grace candy!

"...grace abounded all the more." Romans 5:20b

A Mother's Day Blog

The last few days the anticipation of Mother's Day has been overshadowed a bit by the sheer business of ...well life! This time of year always makes me very nostalgic as I look at my life before I became a Mom and then pregnancies and deliveries, then the awkwardness of not having a clue what I'm doing and the heart-wrenching adventure of just trying to figure it all out...still. With little motivation towards craftiness the rest of the year, I've spent the last 2 days scrapbooking like a mad woman! It's cyclical. The end of the school year, my wedding anniversary, Mother's Day and our boys' birthdays (all in the same month) compel me to sift through hundreds of pictures, take out a loan to pay for the developing, then cut them to pieces, stick them on carefully selected background paper and embellish them with stickers, quotes, scripture verses, dates and places.

I wonder if my children will ever really appreciate the effort it takes to put the history of the past year of their lives down into a book. Yet Mom's all over this country, in some form or fashion, go to great lengths to preserve a piece of the past for their kids. It may be through photos, quilting from old clothes, making home videos, shadow boxes, recipe books or keepsake chests but there is something to be said for remembering where you came from. Why do we do this? It doesn't take a genius to see that we Mom's love our children and want to be remembered by them.

How my heart resonates with God's as I lay out these scrapbooks. That His great love for us motivated Him to put everything important down in a book, so we can know where we came from and what our heritage is! How hurtful it would be for my children to toss aside my labor of love. Their scrapbooks are full of true things that have happened in their history and as a Mom, I was able to show them this history because I was there. Has God not laid out for us the past, present and future in His Word out of His unfathomable love for His people?

Genesis 1:1 says

"In the beginning God created, the heavens and the earth."

My Father knows where I came from because He was there from the very beginning and He wrote it all down and has preserved it through centuries for me and for you. His desire is for us to remember Him and to know Him and his vast love for us. He still wrote it all down in the Bible anyway, knowing that some would not read it, believe it or appreciate it. Now that is a love wth purpose!

If you want to know about your ancestry and the history of mankind read Genesis 1 & 2.
How bad things began happening in our world; read Genesis 3:9-23
How law began; read Exodus 19 & 20
How we will never measure up to the law; read Romans 3:23
Who Jesus is; read the book of John
What God did to make us clean; read John 3:16
How God calls and equips Christians to live on this earth; read the book of James
What Heaven is like; read Revelation 21 & 22