Better Than a Fairy Tale

“We all dream dreams and know very well that they don’t always work out.  Life is particularly hard on high expectations.  Things hardly ever fall together the way we would have scripted them.  The fact is, if we put our hope in a certain set of circumstances working out in a certain way at certain times, we’re bound to be disappointed because nothing in this life is certain.

 

“So what’s the solution?  To give up on dreams?

“No, it is for us to realize that if we belong to God, there are even bigger dreams for our lives than our own.  But in order to walk in those bigger dreams, we may face greater obstacles than we ever imagined and find ourselves compelled to rely on a much more powerful and magnificent God than we ever knew before…

“Some people might call it a fairy tale, but it’s really a miracle.  And a miracle is better than a fairy tale.”

--from Larry Libby’s foreword, A different Kind of Love Story   Joni Eareckson Tada and Ken’s new (transparent, riveting) book about their challenging love story. 

photo: Thistledown Cards

Faithfulness in a Little Thing, Today

“A little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in a little thing is a great thing.”  --Hudson Taylor

"It has come home to me every forcibly of late that it matters little what the work is in which we are engaged, so long as God has put it into our hands.  The temptation I have often had to contend with is persistent in many forms.  ‘If only I were in such and such a position’, for example, ‘shouldn’t I be able to do a great work…it is all IF and WHEN.  I believe the devil is fond of thee conjunctions…the plain truth is that the Scriptures never teach us to wait for opportunities of service, but to serve in just the things that lie next to our hands…the Lord bids us work, watch, and pray; but Satan suggests, wait until a good opportunity for working, watching and praying presents itself—and needless to say, this opportunity is always in the future…since the things that lie in our immediate path have been ordered by God, who shall say that one kind of work is more important and sacred than another?"

--excerpt from Mountain Rain, Eileen Crossman

 photo from Thistledown Cards

God's Deliverance and God's Destruction

While reading this morning, I saw a huge shape flying out of the corner of my eye and I turned in time to see a bald eagle land in the tree outside my window.   Captivating, to watch this majestic bird survey the landscape, impervious to the cawing crows pestering him mercilessly.   I watched him for a length of time and then he flew past my window, massive wing span soaring. 

“Scripture uses the imagery of eagles some thirty times, many as an image of strength and deliverance, speed and power.  Along with three other creatures of strength, it appears as one face of the four mighty cherubim who attend the throne of God…the eagle symbolizes the speed and power of both God’s deliverance...protection... and God’s destruction…The eagles' hunting skill and sudden attack on their prey lend themselves to images of sure and sudden disaster in depictions of God's judgment...” (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery)

“You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself…”  Ex. 19:4

“But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint”.  Isaiah 40:31

“Clouds and darkness surround Him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.  A fire goes before Him, and burns up His enemies round about.  His lightnings light the world; the earth sees and trembles.  The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.  The heavens declare His righteousness, and all the peoples see His glory.” 

Psalm 97:2-6

And to think of it…He is our Father, our King, our Deliverer-- now and for all eternity.

Lessons Learned #9 Bearing Good Fruit

Lessons Learned #9  (yep, still working on them)

The kids and I were talking yesterday about powerful literature and movies, and discussing why so many Christian attempts are poorer than their counterparts.  We don’t get a pass just because we ascribe to the Truth.  Excellence must be earned, and nothing short of excellence, in whatever our calling, does not bring the highest honor to our Creator God; in fact, sometimes it downright shames His Name.  While none of our accomplishment contributes the least pebble to our justification, and unless the Lord uses it particularly, is not even indicative of our sanctification, it is our responsibility as a use of the talents He has entrusted to us.  Much of this is developing our gifts; much of flows from developing our inner character to become more like Christ, to continually be asking for the gifts of the Spirit.

I recently read an article on the fantasy genre, in which the author was bemoaning the wretched collection of this literature by poor authors.  He made the point, if you want to write like Tolkien, you need to be a Tolkien.  Well, we all wish we were that brilliant.  But the point is, Tolkien studied hard,  worked hard, wrote laboriously and endlessly, started with the grammar and structure and language of things, created whole worlds from which to build an enduring story.  We want too many shortcuts.  Spiritually, too.

RC Sproul says, “I don’t know how many times, when giving exams to college students, I have seen something like this written in response to an essay question:  “Dear professor, I didn’t prepare adequately for this examination.  I’m so sorry.  I won’t let it happen again.  Please be merciful to me because I really do love Jesus.”  These students made the argument that I should not require responsible behavior from them because of their profession of faith in Christ.  When I saw a plea like that, I jotted a note on the exam page, saying, “I am delighted to hear of the state of your soul, and I hope you’ve grasped the doctrine of justification by faith alone, but when grading my students, I practice justification by works alone.”

"I see it in Christian ministries—we think that because we’re in Christian ministry, we do not have to be concerned about productivity.  On the contrary, our calling as Christians is the highest calling there it, and the idea of being productive is not the invention of capitalism, it is the mandate of Christ.  He saves us in our futility can calls us to be fruitful.  He makes it clear that if He were to leave us to ourselves, we would be completely impotent.  We would produce nothing worthwhile, because, as our Lord says in I John 15:5, “without me you can do nothing”.

"What is the fruit Jesus is concerned to see in our lives?...The fruit of a changed life, a changed character, a character that is strengthened and nurtured by the source of holiness, Christ Himself…So Jesus said, those who are in Me and do not bear fruit are cut off; those who do bear fruit are cleansed, purified, nurtured, and pruned, so that they may become even more productive….

Abide in Me, and I in you.  And as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.  John 15:3-4

"Here Jesus introduced that rich word abide, which has to do with remaining close to Him.  Jesus declared that our productivity, our fruitfulness, is directly linked to our abiding in him.  As Christians, we will bear fruit, but it will vary in degree.  The closer we stay to Christ, the more fruit we will bear.  The more we wander out from the center and neglect the means of grace that He has given to us, the less fruit we will produce."     –RC Sproul, Commentary on John

Good reasons for staying in the Word every day in memorizing, reading, meditating.  The other day I took a shower in the bathroom one of our children uses, and saw she had taped several 8x10 pages of Scripture she was memorizing in rows just below the ceiling, 14 or 16 font.  We all have pockets of time.  Thinking back on the discussions about the pressures young mothers face, if the fruit of these exhausting laboring years is the formation of the lifetime character of our children, can we afford that fruit to be stunted, not ripe, full and flourishing, because we did not stay close in daily fellowship with our, their, Father?  We export what we import.

all photos courtesy of Thistledown Cards

Good Friday Gifts

Jesus’ legacy, His last will and testament: “ Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.” (John 14:27)

O sinner, you are in the most perilous situation any human being could ever be.  You are at war with God, estranged from Him.  It is a war you cannot win.  I urge you as strongly as I can to flee to the cross that you might have peace with God; that your name might be in this last will and testament.  Christ gave Himself on your behalf and took upon Himself the just wrath of the Father against you.  If you trust Jesus for this substitutionary work, you will have the unspeakable inheritance of peace with God.

O Christian, you know what it means to sin, to displease Christ, to feel a wedge in your relationship with Him.  We all go through that when we are brought under conviction.  Christ chastens us, but at no point after our redemption is He ever at war with us again.  When we are reconciled to the Father through Christ, the war is over…

“Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid…”(John 14:27)

“In the multitude of my anxieties within me, your comforts delight my soul.”  (Psalm 94:19)

“And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever.”   John 14:16

Here, the word comfort comes from two Latin words that meant “with strength”.  Thus a comforter was someone who came to strengthen you.  It wasn’t the one who came to wipe your tears after the battle; it was the one who came to give you strength for the battle…

-all notes from RC Sproul, Commentary on John 14 

Secrets of Our Lord

I think one of the most startling things about the stories coming in from our daughter’s trip is how everyone she meets has an almost unbelievable story they’ve lived through in this torn country;  those who lived through the Killing Fields, and the persecuted believers over the border  where to be a believer is a sentence of death, loss, bereavement. 

One thing I have been struck with continually in my life, and have often spoken with the children for them to understand in others, is how every person has a profound story, were it known.  We so seldom get below the surface to even know well the people we worship with every week.

The most important thing, however, is that we are known, and known perfectly, by God, and interceded for perfectly by the Son, and guided and led perfectly by the Holy Spirit.

I love this, from In the Secret Place:  

“The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him”.  Psalm 25:14

There is something individual and incommunicable about the blessings which the God of salvation gives my soul.  Not one of my sisters and brothers in the family has received a boon which is quite the same.

It is a secret at birth. The regeneration of hearts that were formerly far from Him is accomplished in innumerable modes.  At times it comes in the stillness, at other times in the storm.  It may be a gradual process, for which the preparation has been going forward through many years; or it may be an instantaneous revolution that has no preface and no explanation…as multiform as the sunsets of a golden summer that do not repeat themselves two evenings in succession…

It is a secret through life.  Because I have my special temperament, which regeneration marvelously ennobles but which even a change so radical cannot destroy, my Lord’s training of me assumes a certain form and pursues a certain course.  If I am a sanguine soul, He will teach me the patience and quietness that I need.  If I am dull and phlegmatic, He must rouse me into action and zeal.  If I am brooding and melancholy in my surmises and thoughts, He will bid me be of good cheer.  I may trust Him, who read my heart, to guide me, to chasten and sober me, to cleanse my sinfulness, to quicken my lethargy, after a fashion he does not observe with my neighbor, whose necessities are different from mine.

It is a secret in death…When I arrive at the brink of the River and feel its chill, the God who has led me thus far, will have His own revelation of helpful comfort and his own whisper of satisfying peace…--Alexander Smellie

And from Ann Voskamp, on the meaning of the Cross, as we come into Good Friday:

He stretches open His arms on that Cross and cries, “For you. For all your regrets and for all your impossibles, for all that will never be and for all that once was, for all that you can’t make right and for all that you got wrong, for your Judas failures and your Peter denials and your Lazarus griefs, I offer to take the nails, the sharp edge of everything, and offer you myself because I want you, to take you, you in your wild grief, you in your anger and your disappointment and your wounds and your not-yet-there, you, just as you are, not some improved version of you, but you – I came for you, to hold you, to carry you, to save you.”

Photo courtesy of Thistledown Cards 

Because He has Set His Love Upon Me

Indeed, the Lord has His gallery of heroes.  Our daughter met, these last few days, men who have been imprisoned, tortured, threatened and otherwise persecuted for their faith.  But all they really want to talk about is the glory of what the Lord is doing among them.

She's sat on the dirt floors eating with men and women who have given up who-know-how-much to provide loving hospitality to this visiting group, from the meager bit they have— “Definitely one of the poorer villages we visited, but they were overflowing with love and just beamed at us.  They were overjoyed to serve us a meal, even though it had probably cost them a lot.”

And I read Psalm 90:  Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him…I will set him on high, because he has known My Name.  He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him…”

When we set our hearts on something, how do we act?  Think?  What do we then do?

And Psalm 89:  Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us….the footnote reads, “Wanderers in the desert leave no monuments, but God can give eternal significance to the deeds of hands that serve Him…”   

Wanderers in the desert…Men in Cambodia who killed under the Khmer Rouge, who killed just to eat, and now pastor several churches; men who have given all they have, and barely eat every day so they can proclaim the gospel to just one more village, just one more person.  Women who raise up families in barest poverty but surrounded by love.  Or women out on the mission field who invest every gift they’ve been given, into their husband’s work and in raising their family joyfully, amidst beating back the jungle and the paganism. 

The heavenly monuments will encase some remarkable stories.  In our own sphere, shall we set our hearts on the eternal significance of our work, serving Him with what He has put in our hands to do? 

 Capturing Barefoot Photography, in Cambodia