The Star

When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.  (Matthew 2:10)

When I was little, I engaged in two rituals every Christmas Eve night.  One was conspiring with my brother to determine the most effective and stealth way to catch Santa Claus in the act of descending our chimney.  The other was peering out my bedroom window at approximately midnight to glimpse the star that marked the birthplace of Jesus.  My window faced the east, and it seemed perfectly reasonable that a large, bright star should appear in the distance to mark the celebration of Jesus' birthday.  I fell asleep disappointed each year, having failed to espy either Santa or the star of stars.

Although I'm now an adult, I still love to imagine the size, shape, and brilliance of the star that appeared over Bethlehem, leading the Magi to the humble birthplace of our Lord.  Was it a bright, round orb, or did it have intricate protrusions, like a magnified snowflake?  Was it symetrical, or was part of it longer than another part of it - like a cross, perhaps?  I also love to picture the Magi making their way to Bethlehem.  Did they watch where they were going, or were they unable to take their eyes off that stunning star?  Did their pace increase as the star appeared closer and brighter, or did they slow down, humbled and perhaps weakened by the reality of encountering the Son of God?

Perhaps it's because I've given birth to a baby, held her in my arms and appreciated how precious and how helpless she was.  Maybe it's because I'm a simple woman whose feeble mind is easily overwhelmed.  I know it's because I'm a sinner in need of a savior.  I just can't fathom the depth of love God has for you and me that He would cause His flesh to be born as our flesh, that He would sacrifice His utter perfection in order to save us from our horrid sinfulness, that He would watch the love and kindness and healing His Son showed us, knowing that we would mock and slaughter Him like a common criminal.  That's a love that no human is capable of understanding fully, but it's a love every human desparately needs.

Luckily, I don't need to fall asleep Christmas Eve night with disappointment at not seeing a star in the eastern sky.  The light from that star lives within you and me through the brilliance of the Holy Spirit, and it can never be extinguished.  A Star was born in Bethlehem and He lives in the heart of every believer, two thousand and thirteen years later.  No greater gift has ever been given or received.

Merry Christmas, friends!  Celebrate the birth of Jesus, the depth of God's love for you, and the gift that lives within your very heart.  May God richly bless you today and in the year to come.

Abounding

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.  (2 Corinthians 9:8)

There is a man I know quite well, named Robert, who speaks very little about God, but nonetheless exudes kindness, mercy, and forgiveness.  As a young child, he lost his mother and sister within a two-year period to a disease that antibiotics would now easily cure.  His father, feeling that the young boy needed a mother to care for him, quickly married a widow with two children of her own.  But this newfound stepmother treated Robert as a burden rather than a son, and his father was too honorable a man to divorce the woman. On his 18th birthday, Robert's stepmother kicked him out of the house, forcing him to fend for himself.  Not long after, he was drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam, a scared and lonely kid whose country blamed him for being involved in something he never had a desire to be part of.

Robert had every reason to be bitter.  Life had dealt him a cruel hand.  But instead, he chose to embrace the strength and generosity God had given him through the spirit of the living Christ.  He studied diligently and earned a steady job as a machinist.  He met and married a vibrant, loving woman, and started a family of his own.  He was determined to raise his children to be strong, loving, and most importantly to know they were loved.  All the while, he regularly welcomed his father, stepmother, and step-siblings into his life and home for holidays and family events, and he tended to them and their homes as best he could when they required care.  Regardless of the past, he believed in honoring his parents and showing them hospitality and grace.  Sometimes it was uncomfortable, difficult even, but he always met them with patience, humility, and warmth.  Today, Robert is enjoying hard-earned retirement as he joyfully dotes on his children and grandchild.

Robert, like all men, is imperfect.  He, like all men, is in need of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.  But he never fails to remind me that when you have God, you have all you need to make a way in this life.  When you choose to follow God's path, you will in all things, at all times, have all that you need to abound in every good work.  When you choose to follow God's path, every day is Thanksgiving, no matter your circumstances.  When you choose to follow God's path, love abounds.

Robert speaks very little about God.  Instead, he allows his life and his actions to do the talking.  This Thanksgiving, as always, I have the privilege of sharing a meal with him and immersing myself in his humble example of love.  I have the honor and privilege of calling him Dad.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.  Remember that with Christ at the head of the table, you are part of a family unlike any other.  Eat, remember Him, and be filled with His abounding love.

Feeders of the Faith

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  (Ephesians 4:11-13)

October is Pastor Appreciation Month, so it seems appropriate to take a moment and reflect on what it means to be a pastor, and what pastors mean to us.  Being a pastor - much like being a teacher, a nurse, a parent, and so many other things - involves much more than the title implies.  At first glance, it might seem that a pastor simply delivers a sermon on Sunday mornings, and officiates weddings and funerals when requested.  Assuming this is all that pastors do (it's not), even these things require much more planning, preparation, skill, and faith than we realize, and they are almost never performed on the nine-to-five schedule that many of us are accustomed to.  A sermon is not just a speech; it is an oratory spiritual meal for congregants.  A wedding is not just a rite or a ceremony; it is the joining of two lives in commitment to God and each other.  A funeral is not just a final farewell to the dearly departed; it is a reassurance of the risen Christ for the grieving and brokenhearted.  I've not performed any of these duties, but I have witnessed them performed many times. The words a pastor uses, and the manner in which he delivers them, have the capacity to inspire one to faith in Christ and to heal a broken heart - or not.  No pressure, right?

Of course, there are countless things that parishioners, wedding parties, and mourners never see of their pastors, among them: prayer; triaging the needs of those who enter the church building, call, or email looking for help; juggling the business aspects of keeping the doors of the church facility open; being creative while also being true to the Gospel; visiting the sick, grieving, and shut-ins of the community; fielding multiple questions, suggestions and complaints of church members; and inspiring others to service by engaging in frequent, humble service themselves.  Pastors choose a vocation that causes their every word and action to be subject to scrutiny, both from those inside the faith and from those outside the faith looking for any excuse to discredit Christianity.

What does your pastor mean to you?  The word "pastor" has the Latin root of "pastorem," meaning shepherd, and more specifically "to tend, keep, pasture, feed, guard, protect."  Among those descriptors, the one that stands out to me is the word "feed."  Christ saves, redeems, and sustains us through His life-giving blood and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  He alone is the leader of the Church.  But pastors feed our faith in word and deed.  They teach us, comfort us, hold us accountable, and inspire us to service.  Such is a calling of utmost responsibility and honor.

Thank you, Pastor Norm, Brian, Deona, Debbie, and all at Christ Church in the past, present, and future who have impacted our community (and us individually) for Christ.  We appreciate you!  Let us take a moment this month - and anytime the Spirit moves us - to thank and pray for all those in our lives who have fed our faith, whether they are ordained or not.

Walking in Obedience

And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands.  As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.  (2 John 1:6)

A while ago, I asked God to guide me and show me how I can best serve Him.  I've long known that to counsel and otherwise tend to victims of crime was my calling, and I have pursued that calling in my professional life.  But there is a longing to hone that calling in ways that intentionally expose these victims to the healing love and grace of Christ.  Only Jesus can heal the deepest of wounds, and the desire to share that truth has been impressed upon me with greater urgency of late.  So I asked God to illuminate ways in which I could satisfy that urgency in accordance with His will.

A word of caution, in case you were usure about this: God answers prayer, but not always in the way you expect.  Rarely does He choose the path of least resistance.

In addition to calling me to walk more fully in my own truth as a victim of crime, a walk that produces both pain and freedom, God has recently placed a most unusual challenge in my path that jars me out of my comfort zone.  I have a dear friend, an amazing man and elder brother in Christ, whose calling is ministering to prisoners.  For years, he has prayed with prisoners, led Bible studies among them, and taught them to read God's Word.  An untold number of prisoners have come to faith in Christ through my friend's willingness to minister to them.  We have supported each other in prayer over the years.  In the past few months, he has begun doing what has always been his greatest desire - counseling inmates on death row.  Over lunch recently, he asked me to pray specifically and frequently for a particular prisoner he is counseling, someone destined to die for a crime so horrific it turns my stomach and summons an anguish I'd rather not feel. 

My friend knows that what he is asking of me is not easy.  He knows that I've spent countless hours with hundreds of crime victims and their loved ones who have suffered the terrible impact of human cruelty, some of them on the brink of death themselves.  He knows that I have tasted that suffering myself, and it is bitter.  To honestly and purposefully pray for the salvation of one who has caused such immense suffering is a daunting request, and one never before presented to me.  As you can imagine, my friend has very few supporters, very few people in his life that agree with what he's doing or have sympathy for the importance or difficulty of it.  If I'm being honest with you, the temptation to join the ranks of those detractors is strong, and I am ever weak.

Ultimately, I cannot refuse my faithful friend's request, nor can I refuse the opportunity God has placed in my path to grow in my own faith.  If I believe in the salvation and healing power of Christ, who pulled me from the pit of my own sin and despair, how can I not pray for that same salvation and healing for a man whose days are literally numbered?  My Jesus knows no depth too deep, no sin too awful, no person too fallen.  Grace is for all who choose to believe, not just those I deem worthy.  After all, there is a scar somewhere on my Lord's precious body that has my name on it.

The lesson in all this for me is that I cannot faithfully and effectively pursue a ministry of sharing the truth and grace of Christ with anyone unless I am willing to share that truth and grace with everyone.  To withhold God's love from anyone who needs it is to deny what Jesus did for me on the cross. 

May we all walk in obedience to His love.  It's okay if it's not easy.  Obedience rarely is.

Our Own Worst Enemy

“Refusing to accept God’s love because we are unworthy – of course we’re unworthy! – is another golden calf.”  (Madeleine L’Engle)

If you consistently fail to show up for work, or the quality of your work is poor, do you get to keep your job?  If your test scores are low and you don’t turn in your papers on time, do you pass the class?  If you treat others badly long enough, do they stick by you?  Of course not, as it should be.  So, when it comes to something as important as your salvation, you’d better have all your ducks in a row.  After all, God is considerably more important and influential than your boss, your teacher, or your friend.  You’ve got to be good everywhere, all the time.  Wait…not just good, but perfect!  If you’re not, then you can’t possibly be worthy of God’s love or His saving grace.

Hmm…but there have been countless times when you haven’t been very good, let alone perfect.  In fact, you’ve been downright rotten at times, haven’t you?  (Dont worry, you're in good company).  Your list of should haves is almost as long as your list of shouldn’t haves.  Committed a crime?  Had unkind thoughts about God?  Well then, case closed!  As if that's bad enough, there’s nothing you can do about it.  Even if you are a perfect person from here on out (an awfully tall order!), you can’t go back and fix the times when you’ve messed up.  There is no way God could love you, really love you, if you’re such an incurable screw-up, right?  And there’s surely no way God would ever consider extending His gift of grace to you, right?  Why would He?

The reason it’s so difficult to accept God’s grace can be summarized in one word:  pride.  I know this all too well.  I’ve frequently questioned how or why God could possibly love and want to save a screw-up like me.  And in questioning that love, I’ve actually thought myself virtuous.  (I’m acknowledging my sinfulness and that I’m not worthy of God’s great and perfect love.  How humble I am!).  In reality, nothing could be more selfish, more arrogant, or more prideful.  Of course I’m not worthy of God’s great and perfect love.  No one is.  That is a given, yet somehow I think I have the authority and the influence to negotiate the terms of God’s love for me.  Somehow the ugly and shameful parts of my life are more significant than God’s ability to love me despite them.  What I’ve done and who I’ve been are somehow too much for the God of all creation to handle, too far beyond His vast reach, of greater significance than the cross of Christ.  So why not continue living as a victim?  Why not continue wallowing in my imperfection and adding to it in resignation?

Let this sink into the depths of you, as will I:  God’s grace cannot be earned.  We cannot make God love us or want to save us.  He simply does, more than we can fathom.  We can’t put qualifiers on God’s love for us.  His love is utterly complete and perfectly justified as is.  God created us, and what God creates He loves.  What God loves He wants to keep – not because of what we’ve done, but because of who we are to Him – His children. He sacrificed His one and only perfect Son for us because He loves us so.  We don’t have to understand it, to analyze it, or to make it fit.  All we can do is acknowledge it, accept it, and gratefully choose to live in it.

Thank you, Lord, for loving us despite ourselves!

Beauty from Ashes

"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion - to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.  They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.  They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated" (Isaiah 61:1-4a)

In the arid mountain bowl of south-central Colorado lies a small town by the name of Cañon City, population just over 16,000.  In addition to its close proximity to the famous Royal Gorge, Cañon City is best known as the "prison capital of the world."  Within or just outside city limits are no less than nine state and four federal prisons or penitentiaries.  One of the prisons, Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility, is older than the state itself and another in nearby Florence houses some of America's most infamous inmates, from mobsters to terrorists.  Maybe it's because of such a unique distinction, combined with the empty, arid landscape, that Cañon City feels especially isolated, lonely and oppressed.  I'm sure many of the locals would argue that it's all about perspective - after all, I live just a few miles from two prisons next door to each other between Monroe and Lebanon, and I don't have the same feeling about my surroundings.

It was with this essence of loneliness, this burdensome, tangible aura of pain and sadness emanating from within the walls of Cañon City's many prisons, that I embarked on a two-plus hour rafting trip along the rapids of nearby Arkansas River.  Drifting through the beautiful walls of the stunning Royal Gorge, the thought of so many caged and lost souls easily faded into sun-soaked peacefulness.  But then we passed through the steepest part of the gorge, where the famous Royal Gorge Bridge towers above the river as one of the highest suspension bridges in the world.  Normally a bustling tourist destination, the bridge was eerily empty, closed due to a devastating wildfire earlier in the year that spared the bridge but destroyed most of the surrounding attractions.  The small trees, shrubs and grasses growing in the walls of the gorge had been scorched, leaving blackened skeletons dotted along our river route.  Thoughts of those prisoners returned, and of the ways in which my own life and the lives of those I love have at various points been imprisoned by sin and tragedy.

It was while my raft-mates were discussing the ravages of wildfire that I noticed it.  Beneath the charred remains of trees and shrubs were tiny bright green and purple specks, almost imperceptible to the casual passer-by.  Upon closer scrutiny, it became apparent that these specks were the shoots of new plants and wildflowers, struggling to poke their newborn heads through the surface.  The combination of dirt and ash had provided the ideal breeding ground for new growth, brilliant in color and thriving with hope and determination.  It was, as the saying goes, a God moment.

Wildfire is a part of nature's life cycle, and even if the fire is man-made, God's magnificent creation has a way of regenerating itself stronger and more vibrantly than before.  And so it is with mankind.  We experience the devastation of pain, struggle, tragedy and loss.  Some of it is a natural part of life, and some of it is man-made, caused by our own sin or the sins of others.  Like nature, we are capable of regeneration, of recovering and emerging a stronger, more vibrant instrument of God.  How?  By coming to the cross of Christ, by bearing witness to the suffering of the Lamb of God, by accepting Christ's victory over sin and death, and by allowing the Holy Spirit to consume us and guide our path.

Whether caged within prison walls in lonely Cañon City, Colorado, or chained by sin and sorrow in the suburbs, all is not lost.  Life, healing and growth are possible no matter how harsh the circumstances.  Nothing can destroy that which God has created and which lives in Him.  Nothing.  Beauty instead of ashes.  Beauty from ashes.  Praise God!

He's Got This

“Look at the nations and watch – and be utterly amazed.  For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.”  (Habakkuk 1:5)

In a recent sit-down with my Bible, it occurred to me that there are numerous books of the Bible that I tend to routinely ignore.  I pour over the Gospels, Paul’s letters, and numerous gems in the Old Testament like Daniel, Isaiah, and Psalms.  But when it comes to books like Habakkuk, I tend to just skim right on by.  Can you relate?  How easily I forget that there’s a reason all the books of the Bible exist: it’s because God thinks they have some important things to say.  Point taken.

In its three short chapters, Habakkuk beautifully addresses one of the most common dilemmas of human existence: the crushing injustice in our world and our perception of God’s unwillingness or reluctance to intervene in a timely fashion.  In speaking of the corruption in Babylon, Habakkuk summarizes the dilemma nicely in his dialog with God:  “How long, O Lord, must I call for your help, but you do not listen?  Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?  Why do you tolerate wrong?  Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.  Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails.  The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted” (1:1-4).  I don’t know about you, but I think Habakkuk and I would have been good friends.  His words have flooded my heart and crossed my lips more times than I’d care to admit.  Have they yours?

The book of Habakkuk is less about God exercising His perfect timing and will, although His answer to Habakkuk does address it (see the verse cited at the beginning of this post).  The book is more about we the faithful resting in the knowledge that God has it under control.  He absolutely does see the injustice around us, and He absolutely does have a plan to right the wrongs.  It is up to us to trust that God knows what He’s doing, even if we don’t see His justice exercised before our own eyes as quickly as we’d like.  It could be that the enemy is allowed to swell in power and pride so that his eventual fall will be harder and more complete than it would otherwise.  In the meantime, our patience and trust in God strengthens our faith and solidifies our hope.  As Habakkuk concludes, “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines…yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (3:17-18).

All too often, our world is cruel and full of violence and corruption.  True faith and abiding joy is realized when we trust God to address the injustice in His perfect way, in His perfect time.  It’s a good reminder today and always.

And to think how many times I've skipped past Habakkuk…

Where the Road Ends

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.  (2 Chronicles 7:14)

There are some people who get lost while driving and calmly navigate their way back to familiar territory while taking the time to enjoy the unexpected view.  I’m not one of those people.  I fall into the panicked, sick-to-my-stomach group of folks for whom being lost (especially while alone) is all but intolerable.  Even with the benefit of GPS, all I can think about is finding familiar ground, and when I do, the sense of relief is tangible.

It’s easy to recognize when we lose our way on the road, but it’s not always so easy to recognize when we’ve lost our way in life.  It tends to happen more slowly in life, one poor decision and circumstance at a time.  Things snowball and before we know it, we’re miserable and we can’t seem to figure out why.

There are two women with whom I once shared a wonderful friendship, but a couple of years ago, I destroyed that friendship by choosing to engage in hateful gossip about them that had nothing to do with me, and which made a difficult situation for them much worse.  I felt completely justified in my sinfulness at the time, not recognizing how lost I was.  I prayed about it, and thankfully, God reminded me that my internal compass was stuck.  The GPS of my soul kept saying in that disappointing, nasally voice, “recalculating route,” until I finally oriented myself in the right direction.  I reached out to these two women, sincerely apologized, and showed them some long-overdue compassion.  It was difficult and awkward, but it was needed.  They responded more graciously than I could have hoped, and one of the women just last weekend emailed me to say she is sleeping better now that she has in years.  Praise God.

When it came to my salvation and my faith in Christ, God relentlessly pursued me until I finally stopped running.  And still today, He pursues me whenever I errantly choose to run circles around His love, rather than living in it.  The key is in learning not to run.  When someone runs from the police in crime shows on TV, it means he has something to hide.  It also means he’s making life much more difficult for himself that it needs to be.  The same applies to our relationship with God.  If we feel the need to run from Him for any reason, then it means our compass is pointing us in the wrong direction.

There are many detours and adventures on the road of life.  Sometimes it’s smooth sailing, sometimes we hit some potholes, and sometimes we choose to ignore warning signs meant to guide and protect us.  No matter what road you’re on right now, just remember one thing: there are no dead-ends with God.  We are never truly lost if we remember that all roads lead back to Him.

(In)Dependence

Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.  (1 Peter 2:16)

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.  (Representatives of the United States of America, July 4, 1776)

This week, we will celebrate the ultimate of American holidays, Independence Day.  Flags will wave with pride, fireworks will burst with brilliant color, and friends and relatives will gather for good food, pool parties, and laughs.  It's good to be free, to live in a nation that believes in and fights for democracy and individual freedom.  The Declaration of Independence is a magnificent document outlining all the reasons why the American colonists should officially break free from the oppressive Kingdom of England.  Not only is the document logical and concise, but the language is stunningly eloquent.  I can only imagine the electricity in the air when the Declaration was being crafted and ultimately signed.

Long before our Founding Fathers declared us a free nation, God provided us with a clear path to ultimate freedom - no matter our country of residence.  The life, death, and resurrection of Christ provides us a freedom unlike anything any nation could declare, fight for, or secure.  What makes God's freedom unique is that it is not based on independence, but rather dependence - on Him.  We've been granted free will to embrace or to deny the truth of Jesus Christ.  Those who deny the truth of Christ believe themselves to be fiercly independent, to be the masters of their own lives and everything in them.  Those who embrace the truth of Christ, however, find freedom in being totally and completely dependent upon God.  By surrendering every aspect of our lives to Christ, we realize an unparalleled freedom.

Life, Liberty, and Happiness.  Those words were capitalized by the Founding Fathers when they wrote the Declaration, and I'm certain it was not by accident.  All of life comes from the Creator, true liberty comes from surrender to Christ, and happiness comes from the realization that in Christ, we find complete fulfillment.  It is in being a servant of God that we find true freedom.

As the saying goes, with freedom comes responsibility.  We do not choose to be servants of God because it's a cool, get out of jail free, feel-good way of life.  On the contrary, we choose to be servants of God because He is the Way, the Truth and Life.  He created us to serve Him, which undeniably exposes us to danger and to persecution.  We serve Him because it is our greatest honor and privilege to glorify God with our whole lives.  It is dependence on Him that we strive for in our quest for freedom.

We are one nation under God.  This Independence Day, as we pledge allegiance to the flag, let us also renew our allegiance to the Creator.  Let us make a Declaration of Dependence on our Lord and Savior July 4th and always.  Life, Liberty, and Happiness are ours to enjoy in Christ.

Remembering

"Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent.  But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you."  (Revelation 3:3)

This weekend, we will attend parades, services, and family gatherings to both remember and celebrate.  We remember those who sacrificed their lives for our freedoms, and we celebrate that freedom.  As the saying goes, with freedom comes responsibility, and one of those responsibilities should be remembering.

Most of us understand that the freedoms we enjoy in this country are due to countless sacrifices throughout history that continue today.  Those who died in battle, those who were injured, those who kept the homefront afloat, and those who lost spouses, parents, children and siblings along the way... It seems they have all been swept into nice, neat, typewritten summaries in textbooks collecting dust on shelves.  Too easily lost and forgotten are the intimate details of those lives, the circumstances of those sacrifices, and the many ways (both subtle and profound) that life and human history have been forever changed by them.  It doesn't seem quite respectful or patriotic enough to simply recognize that.  We should dare to expose ourselves to those stories, to allow their collective weight to soak into our bones.

Not only is it important to seek and to appreciate the full story of our history as a nation, it is also important to learn from that history.  If our past is an important part of how and why we've arrived at where we are, then so too is it an important part of where we go from here.  It is one of the best ways we can honor those who gave their lives for us.

The same holds true for the sacrifice God made for our ultimate freedom.  Over 200 verses in the Bible contain the word "remember."  Some of those verses call on us to remember God's sacrifice of His Son on the cross, but many of them call on us to remember the plight of mankind throughout human history - what happened to folks when they chose to remember and keep God's commands, and what happened to folks when they chose to forget or deny God.  There's a very good reason that all those stories are included in the Bible.  It's so that we can better understand our ultimate purpose in life - to love and to serve the Lord, to remember Him.  Nothing could be more important.

All of the Bible is about our Lord Jesus.  As we are all part of God's creation, all of our lives, our stories, and our choices are ultimately about Him.  Amid all the festivities this Memorial Day weekend, let us remember to...remember that.

To all of you reading this who have served our country and have sacrificed for the freedoms we enjoy, my sincerest thanks to you.  God bless you.
 

Like the Wind

"The wind blows wherever it pleases.  You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."  (John 3:8)

Within the dense woods rounding out my parents' three-acre property stands a stunning sycamore tree that I long ago claimed as "my tree."  It stands nearly twice as tall as any other tree surrounding it.  It reflects the first of the sun's rays at dawn and the last of its rays at dusk.  But the quality I most admire about this tree is that its leaves respond harmoniously to the slightest breeze.  I like to say that the leaves twinkle, since the sunlight often bounces off them in glorious patterns, much like the ripples of a lake or river do.  When a storm comes, the long limbs of the tree bend until it seems they will break, but they never do.  When the storm is over, the gentle twinkling of the leaves continues, curiously brighter than before.

This is how I imagine the Holy Spirit living and working in us.  We are like the tree, stunning members of God's glorious creation, standing tall as one of His children.  The love of Christ is like the sun, providing the light and life we require for health, contentment and salvation.  The Holy Spirit is like the breeze, moving us in glorious patterns to reflect the light of God's love like a beacon for all among us.  And the storm is like the tests and trials we face in life, from which we discover in our faithfulness our inner strength, emerging cleansed and inspired to reflect God's love more brightly and completely than before.

The wind has a considerable impact on human life, from providing cooling comfort on a hot day to harming people and property during gales.  The wind storm this area endured in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike in 2008 was proof of just how quickly and easily the wind can change our paths and alter our perspectives.  All of this is quite amazing, considering that we cannot see the wind, only the effects of the wind.  The same holds true of the Holy Spirit.  One cannot see it, but one can certainly feel it and experience the effect of its movement.  It cannot be controlled; rather, it does the controlling.  Like the trees, we who are filled with the Holy Spirit bend, move, reflect and act in obediance and faithfulness.  Much as the heart sees to it that blood flows throughout the body, the Holy Spirit sees to it that we have the power required to act according to God's will.

I cannot imagine my parents' property without my favorite sycamore tree, nor can I imagine my life without the Holy Spirit living within me and directing my path.  With the power of the Holy Spirit moving us from within, we have the capacity (and the responsibility) to impact the world around us through our obediance to that power.  Exactly how that unfolds for each of our lives is something only God fully knows.  At the very least, we know that we can daily choose to reflect God's love and be a cooling breeze for someone suffering from the many ills and discomforts of this life.

Twinkle on, friends.

The Thinking Man

The Lord built the earth by wisdom.  He built the heavens by understanding.  By what He knows, the seas were broken up and water falls from the sky.  My son, do not allow them to leave your eyes.  Keep perfect wisdom and careful thinking.  (Proverbs 3:19-21)

An acquaintance recently posted the following comment on Facebook:  "Don't pray in my school and I won't think in your church."  What I find most fascinating about this comment is the assumption on the part of its author that "thinking" is an alien concept to church-goers, an activity incompatible with the church.  This assumption reminds me of one of my college professors, who unapologetically claimed that Christians are shallow thinkers.  Apparently we are all high on the so-called opiate of the masses, oblivious to logic and fact. 

This is one Christ-follower who begs to differ.

Most everyone is familiar with the famous quote from Rene Descartes, "I think; therefore I am."  In other words, human existence as we know it depends on the ability to think at some level.  Because I'm thinking, I'm alive.  Sooner or later, though, most of us get around to thinking about why we're thinking in the first place.  We think about why we're here and exist at all.  We think about what our purpose is, about where we're going, and about what this life means.  We think about the good things and the bad, and wonder why those things happen when and in the manner they do.  Hopefully, we get around to discovering the answer to all those ponderings: God.

So, if God is the answer, if He is the key to life, then how do we go about discovering the logic behind the answer?  The instruction manual, of course!  I suspect my Facebook acquaintance might consider the Bible to be nothing more than a novel filled with fanciful stories to be read from when bored and quickly returned to the shelf to resume collecting dust.  What he and many others fail to understand is that the Bible is a treasure-trove of history, science, symbolism, and love.  There are intricate wonders in the Bible so magnificant in their complexity and wisdom that they defy any and all attempts to rebut them.  God's Word has consistently stood both the test of time and the test of...well...testing.

How has Christianity managed to thrive, despite routine attempts to undermine and destroy it?  I doubt the answer is that millions of mindless saps have managed to convince millions more mindless saps to believe in a lie.  I don't know about you, but I don't want to just blindly follow some random theory about the origin and purpose of life.  I want to know exactly why I believe what I believe!  I believe because there is historical evidence that Jesus lived and died on earth as the Son of God, that He rose from the dead, and that He ascended to heaven.  More importantly, I believe because the Holy Spirit lives in me - powerful, irrefutable proof and all the evidence I'll ever need.  Yes, God touched my heart and He touches it anew each day.  But make no mistake, I would not believe in Jesus Christ if I did not think He was the Way, the Truth and the Life.

After Jesus rose from the dead, He told Thomas, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29). Christians are far from shallow thinkers.  Following Christ in this fallen world takes faith, but it's a faith based in fact.  If you ask me, that's pretty smart.  That's using your head.

I think; therefore I am.  I think because of I AM.  I am because of Him.  He is Life.

Class dismissed.

Now What?

Then he said to them all, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”  (Luke 9:23)

Within this past week, we’ve transitioned from Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem to the sorrow of His arrest, scourging and crucifixion to the joy of His resurrection.  That’s a lot to think about, consider and experience in one week’s time.  Today, folks have gone back to their normal routines, or perhaps taken some time off in accordance with spring break schedules.  The plastic eggs have been emptied of their candy and stored away.  Next Sunday, the pews in most churches won’t be quite as full as they were just a day ago.

In other words, Easter is over…now what?

Let’s imagine for a moment what it would be like if each day of the year was Good Friday and Easter Sunday wrapped into one.  What would that feel like?  How would we behave?  How much of our time would be spent on worship, in prayer, in studying Scripture, in serving others, in giving?  How often would God enter our thoughts?  Would we be more or less likely to get stressed out from our daily chores and obligations?  Would we feel inspired to reach out to others, or would we feel like retreating back into our own little worlds?  Would we feel further from God or closer to Him?

Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead once, which was all that was required.  Our salvation is secured by accepting and proclaiming Jesus as our Lord and Savior.  But as Christ-followers, we are called to take up our crosses daily.  This means that death of some kind is required on a daily basis.  For me, pride, selfishness and occasional spite (among many other sins) are frequent flyers on my daily cross.  My salvation may have been secured the day I accepted Christ, but I’m need of a Savior on a daily basis.  This means every day must be Good Friday.

In addition to telling us to take up our crosses daily, Jesus adds, “and follow me.”  I don’t know about you, but I’m not too keen on following the dead.  Not to sound crass, but the dead don’t say much and they certainly don’t do much.  If dying on the cross for our sins was the end of Jesus’ purpose, then there would be no point in taking up our crosses daily – we’d be walking around aimlessly, continually lugging those heavy things around with no relief or purpose in sight.  That’s no way to live.  Following Christ means that after laying our sins at the cross, we are ready and willing to go where God wants us to go, and to do what He would have us do.  That is most certainly a daily process for me.  We can only follow what is alive and in motion, as Jesus is in each of us.  So, every day must also be Easter Sunday.

Christ died and rose once for all of us, for all time.  Let us accept the invitation, the challenge and the privilege to take up our crosses and follow Him – today, tomorrow, and always.

 

Don't Turn Away

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  (Romans 5:8)

 

As Christ-followers, Easter is the most significant time of the year for us.  On Sunday, we will celebrate in worship and around family tables the resurrection of our Lord.  Some of us will participate in fun-filled egg hunts and perhaps exchange pastel-colored candies.  All of this is appropriate: the triumph over the grave that Jesus secured for us calls for nothing less than utter jubilation.  But before we partake of the festivities of Easter Sunday, I challenge us to step into the sorrow of Good Friday.  The resurrection was not possible, nor can it fully be appreciated, without the slaughter of God’s Perfect Lamb.

 

Most of us would agree that our culture is inundated with violent images.  Deadly force, bloody gore, and torture have become pillars of mainstream entertainment.  For better or worse, we’ve learned to tolerate it.  We know that what we’re watching isn’t real.  We know they’re just actors and that bloody mess is ketchup, makeup or special effects.  We might get caught up in the adrenaline of the moment, but when the credits roll, we carry on with our day no differently than before.

 

The real thing is entirely different.  Ask a solider returning from war, or someone who has watched their loved one slowly wither away from the ravages of disease.  Over the years, I have counseled countless crime victims in hospital emergency departments.  One afternoon, I was called to the bedside of a woman who had been beaten so severely that only one of her eyes was unharmed.  The rest of her, from her hair to the soles of her feet, was saturated in blood.  She moaned in pain, unresponsive to any question or statement directed toward her.  When the doctor or nurse moved any part of her for any reason, her screams echoed off the walls.  Despite my training and experience, I was grossly unprepared for this moment.  Despite my compassion for her, it took every ounce of willpower in me not to bolt from that room and never return to any hospital, ever.  The terror from the sights, sounds and smells in that room is indescribable, but I stayed by her side.  How, then, can I turn away from the suffering of my Lord?

 

It doesn’t get more real than the crucifixion of our Lord.  The suffering that Jesus endured is so difficult for us to consider, and it’s even harder to watch portrayals of it such as in “The Passion of the Christ.”  It's so difficult because we know that our sins contributed to His suffering, and that God allowed His Son to be slaughtered in order to save us from eternal death.  Such a sacrifice demands our attention to it.  Such a sacrifice on our behalf demands that we not deny or run from the reality of it.  It’s okay that we cry, that we wince, that our stomachs are churned in disgust and horror.  It’s the reality of our sinfulness and the sacrifice made for our redemption.

 

Praise God, He is risen!  But before He rose, He was slaughtered.  Before He overcame the grave, He entered it in the most painful and humiliating way possible.  Let us reflect, meditate, and be fully present in the reality of Good Friday.  Let us not turn away.  Why?  Worthy is the Lamb that was slain for us.

 

Sweating Blood

And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.  (Luke 22: 44)

Of the four gospels describing the ministry of Jesus Christ, only Luke’s account includes the stunning detail that Jesus sweated blood while praying in Gethsemane.  This detail is quite illustrative in conveying the depth of despair Jesus was feeling just prior to His arrest.  Mark describes Him as being “deeply distressed and troubled,” and in Matthew 26, Jesus says, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (v. 38).

It's very fitting that Luke - a physician - chose to include this detail in describing the depth of despair Jesus felt.  The sweating of blood is a very rare medical phenomenon called hematidrosis, which can occur under extreme stress or if someone suffers from a blood disorder.  Blood vessels from within burst and blood seeps through the pores of the skin much like droplets of sweat.  Perhaps the most stunning fact about hematidrosis is that it renders the skin and underlying flesh especially tender and vulnerable to injury.  This means that the scourge inflicted on Jesus was likely more painful and caused greater injury than it would have otherwise.  When one considers the extent to which Jesus was whipped and beaten, plus the agony of being nailed to and hung from a cross, plus the fatigue and mental anguish He experienced, well… I would venture to say that none of us can fully appreciate that kind of suffering.

Jesus felt such mental and emotional anguish in Gethsemane because He understood the suffering that He was about to endure.  He had heard and witnessed with human ears and eyes the cruel punishments the Romans inflicted on those who offended them, including crucifixion.  For Jesus to claim to be the Son of God was certainly offensive to them.  But only Jesus could know the severity of pain caused by the physical embodiment of the sins of humanity.  No system of measurement devised by mankind could ever begin to quantify it.  We can’t possibly wrap our minds around it.  But He could.  And He chose it.

The fact is that Jesus loves us so much that He chose to endure pain beyond our imagining, pain inflicted by us.  He loves us so much that He didn’t hesitate to die the cruelest possible death so that we might escape our own much-deserved agony of an eternity separated from God.  He loves us so much that He faithfully followed the will of His Father, who mysteriously, inexplicably believes that you and I are worth it.

Why should we devote ourselves to Jesus?  That's why.  Sweating blood was just the beginning.

 

Somebody Tell Them

He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” (Mark 16:15)

It’s happened to most of us at one point or another:  You notice an hour or two after lunch that you have piece of lettuce stuck between your teeth like a green flag flapping in the breeze.  You remove the unsightly obstruction and go about your day, but then it hits you…How many people saw me with lettuce in my teeth?  And why didn’t any of them bother to tell me?  How about those times when we notice that a stranger’s shoelaces are untied?  Do we risk stopping him and telling him (gasp!), or do we just assume that he’ll be okay, that he won’t trip and fall?

These are common social situations that challenge us to overcome a minor amount of discomfort to do the right thing for another person.  We know we don’t have to say anything.  After all, someone will eventually tell them, or they’ll discover it on their own, right?  But we also know what it’s like to have food stuck in our teeth and for our shoelaces to come untied.  We would want someone to alert us.

What about sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ?

In some parts of the world, evangelism is a crime punishable by imprisonment or death.  Our own culture frowns upon talking about Jesus and sharing our testimony publicly.  Those who do are sometimes mocked or otherwise regarded with disdain.  This makes it uncomfortable for many Christians to strike up an honest, open conversation about who Christ is, what He did for us on the cross and through His resurrection, and what salvation and life in Christ means.  But what could be more important?

Years ago, a former employer of mine named Adam drove 45 minutes in the middle of his busy day to take me to lunch and to share the gospel of Christ with me.  Jesus was not yet a discernible part of my life at that point, so I found this conversation to be quite uncomfortable.  I could tell that it wasn’t the easiest conversation for Adam, either, but he was undeterred.  I will never forget his sense of urgency.  My salvation was simply more important to him than anything else he had to do that day.

The Christian rock group City Harbor sings, “Somebody tell them that the lost are saved.  Somebody tell them that their debt’s been paid, and let them know that love is calling out their names.  Somebody tell them they’re the child of the king, and there is an end to this suffering…  Too many times we’ve all held back the truth from those put in our path.  So let us be the voice of love.  Somebody tell them now.”

Someone in our midst needs to hear the Good News, and there's no time like the present to share it.  Don't assume somebody else will tell them.  We are that somebody - you and me.

A Time and a Place

 

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

A few weeks ago, I met with a politician as a requirement of my job, a meeting that I regarded going into as a “growth experience” (meaning that I was not exactly looking forward to it).  I’ve had very little personal experience with politicians, and what I know of them is…well…not positive.  More importantly, I am not by nature one who is good at “schmoozing” with others.  But, with talking points in mind from my colleagues and dressed for the part, I met with this man.  An hour later, I emerged from my meeting having failed miserably in meeting my objective.

Just this past weekend, a woman who might be considered a telemarketer called my house asking if I’d like to renew the satellite radio connection I have in my car.  On par with my displeasure in speaking with politicians is speaking with telemarketers, so this was yet another conversation into which I entered reluctantly.  Ten minutes later, I hung up having purchased another year of commercial-free listening for my traveling pleasure.   To say that it is rare for me to purchase anything over the phone is an understatement.

These two encounters were, on the surface, highly uncomfortable and completely out of character for me.  But they also had something most welcome and unexpected in common – Jesus was on the agenda. 

In introducing ourselves, the politician spoke of his faith and how it has influenced his work, leading to a nearly hour-long discussion about Jesus.  With time running out, I did manage to slip in at least some of what I had come to talk about, but mostly I had to laugh.  When my newfound brother in faith asked why I was laughing, I said, “I have no idea what to tell my colleagues that you and I discussed.”  He looked me square in the eye and said with thoughtful sincerity, “Tell them that we talked about Jesus Christ.”  Indeed.

While discussing the benefits of renewing my radio connection, I told the telemarketer that I do enjoy satellite radio because my travels often take me in and out of reception for local stations.  She asked me what station I liked to listen to.  In my reply, I indicated that my choice of station usually depends on my mood, but that most often I listen to the Christian rock station.  “Oh!’ she exclaimed, “have you heard that song ’10,000 Reasons’?”  This sparked several minutes of comparing our favorite songs, until she realized that our call was being recorded for quality assurance purposes and that she’d better get back to business.  (I should add that she gave me a discount).

We have been socialized to avoid open discussions about faith with certain people and in certain situations.  While meeting with a politician on work time?  No way!  When speaking with a telemarketer?  Not a chance!  There are numerous other examples we could cite as being off-limits to talk of Jesus.  But if I truly love Jesus, if I am committed to following Him anywhere, then there are no limits.  If Christ comes before all else – before my work and my luxuries – then He must be granted free reign in all places.  Most importantly, Jesus has not just saved me and redeemed me, but He loves me daily with a love that is beyond compare.  How can I be silent about such love?

When is the right time to talk about Jesus?  Anytime.  Where is the right place?  Anywhere.

Staying in the Chord

Never stop praying.  (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

Recently, I had a brief but impactful conversation with an elderly woman I barely know.  She confessed to currently lacking a passion for God.  It's not that her belief had waned.  It's not that her health had declined.  She was careful not to use her advanced age as an excuse.  She seemed somewhat dismayed by her lack of passion, yet committed to running the race, to staying the course.

Oh, how I share in her dismay.  I have experienced the unspeakable joy of being utterly and competely in love with Jesus, but also the agony of feeling completely disconnected from Him.  Right now, I am somehwere in the middle.  While I know that Jesus is my desperately-needed Savior and I will never regard Him as otherwise, I also know that when it comes to keeping Jesus in the fore of my heart and mind, I fail time and again.

I can't speak for my fellow traveller, but I find that one of my stumbling blocks is that I tend to unnecessarily complicate my relationship with Jesus.  I too often assume that if I'm not on fire for Him, then I'm not suited to be anything for Him.  If I'm not actively and enthusiastically pursuing a lofty, high-profile purpose for God, then whatever I'm doing must be a colossal waste of time.  If I'm not "feeling it," then there must be something wrong with me.  These things pile up and I begin to feel guilty or unworthy, causing me to dstance myself from Jesus.  Distance makes communication difficult, and as we all know, any relationship (including one with Jesus) depends on communication.

Our wonderful worship leader, Debbie Alexander, is fond of advising vocalists in her charge to "stay in the chord."  My vocal range is best suited for the alto section, but I totally lack any natural ability to harmonize.  It takes work for me to stay in the harmony, rather than slip into the familiar lines of melody reserved for my soprano sisters.  But Deb's point is that as long I stay in the chord, even though it's not perfect, it will still sound good.

Jesus wants us to share all of our lives with Him, not just our endless praises and passionate petitions, not just our highest of highs and lowest of lows..  Just as in human relationships, we are motivated to have those hearfelt talks when emotions are high.  But when we find ourselves in the middle, in a "not bad but not great" season of life, it's easier to keep quiet or to stick with the superficial.  But without our authentic voices, part of the chord is missing.  We can't sing a duet with Jesus if our mouths are closed.

We don't always have to be "feeling it."  Like it or not, we're not always going to be on fire for God.  All He asks is that we don't stop talking to Him.  All He asks is that we stay in the chord.

More than Words

"You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life.  These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life."  (John 5:39-40)

These verses bring to mind the common misconception among readers of the Bible that the Old and New Testaments tell two very different tales about God.  It's almost as if God has dual identity (or multiple personality) disorder - there's the wrathful God in the Old Testament, the loving God in the New Testament, and seemingly little reconciliation between the two.  I fully admit that this is how I approached the Bible as a newcomer to the faith.  Like a lot folks out there, I disregarded the Old Testament and focused all of my reading on the New.  After all, Jesus is what it's all about, right?  Can anyone else relate?  It was not until much further along in my faith journey that it occurred to me that the entire Bible is about Jesus.

I am far from being the most knowledgeable person in the room when it comes to the Scriptures.  As I endeavor to learn more about God by spending time in His Word, I delight in the things I discover and enjoy sharing those discoveries with other believers.  But every once in a while, I find myself bragging about what I know (or think I know), talking about God's Word irreverently as if it's a trivia game in which I must demonstrate how intelligent I am.  Surely God must favor one so studious!

When I read the above verses from John the other night, they fell on me as they never had before.  (I love when God does this, even if it's to convict me).  What they told me is that authentic faith does not come from diligently studying the Scriptures.  It comes from being in relationship with Christ.  Reading the Scriptures can lead someone to accept Christ, and it can deepen and nurture one's faith in Christ.  But true faith comes from having a living, dynamic relationship with the Bible's protagonist.  It occurred to me that when someone engages in a game of academic one-upmanship with God's Word, it might be because he or she is compensating for a lack of relationship.  I stand convicted of this in my life.

The Bible - all of it - is our blueprint for life, a gift God has given us to understand Him as best we can.  But unless we allow the Word to come alive in our hearts through a purposeful, committed relationship with our Savior, then the Word will remain...well, words.  We should all delight in the riches that the Scriptures offer, but let's never forget that faith is about so much more than words.

Then God

What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.  (Job 3:25)
In my anguish I cried out to the Lord, and he answered by setting me free.  (Psalm 118:5)

Our church family has experienced our fair share of loss and struggle recently, both shared and carried in silence.  The need faced by our loved ones and ourselves seems at times to be overwhelming.  It's strange to me, but I have always been struck by the ease with which the sun keeps shining and the birds keep singing despite the magnitude of tragedy in life.  It's not that the world should stop spinning just because of one person's woe, but somehow it seems that we should hear a sympathetic groan from the creation in which we roam.

One of the most uncomfortable Bible study exercises I've engaged in was to list my greatest fears - the things that, if they happened, would surely destroy me.  The point of the exercise was not to fill me with a sense of panicked doom, but rather to challenge me to answer the question, "What then?"  If my Number One Greatest Fear were to come true, what then?  It's hard to go there mentally and emotionally, and yet many of us arrive there at some point in life, or at least flirt with the fringes.  So what happens when, as artist Natalie Grant sings, the sacred has been torn from your life and you survive?

Isaiah 61:1 tells us, "He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted."  The bigger picture is that God has a plan for all our lives, a perfect will to be accomplished in ways that are beyond our understanding.  But today, here and now in this life, we can fully understand and experience the perfect comfort that only Jesus can provide.  We've been promised both suffering and a comforter and healer for that suffering.  Natalie Grant continues, If hope is born of suffering, if this is only the beginning, can we not wait for one hour watching for our Savior?  This is what it is to be loved and to know that the promise was that when everything fell, we'd be held.

Are you hurting right now?  Absorb this "note from God," penned by Beth Moore in her marvelous study, Breaking Free: 

My child,

I loved you before you were born.  I knit you in your mother's womb and knew what your first and last words would be.  I knew every difficulty you would face.  I suffered each one with you.  Even the ones you didn't suffer with me.  I had a plan for your life before you were born.  The plan has not changed, no matter what has happened or what you have done.  You see, I already knew all the things concerning you before I formed you.  I would never allow any hurt to come into your life that I could not use for eternity.  Will you let Me?  Your truth is incomplete unless you view it against the backdrop of my truth.  Your story will forever remain incomplete... until you let Me do what only I can do with your hurt.  Let Me perfect that which concerns you. 

I remain,
Your Faithful Father

So...When our greatest fears are realized, what then?  Then God.

What God Makes New

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!  (2 Corinthians 5:17)

 

Recently at the grocery store, I ran into someone I had not seen in many years.  I almost missed her, as my distaste for both shopping and crowds often prompts me to zip through the aisles with tunnel vision.  Luckily, I glanced her way, we recognized each other instantly, and we struck up a conversation.  I found myself becoming one of those shoppers that I silently grumble about, taking up time and space in the aisle socializing.  Ah, irony!

 

The lady I met at the grocery was my boss from a drug-store job I held while in college, a job that provided me more of an education about people than my psychology courses ever could.  My boss and I got along wonderfully, which helped us to weather some of the most bizarre and memorable encounters of my life, among them a lonely weekend shift when I unwittingly thwarted an armed robbery.  My boss endured numerous struggles in her life, many of which she shared with me as we stocked shelves.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, she was stealing money from the store in order to address some of those struggles.  Meanwhile, I was a quiet young thing taking classes, saving a little money, and trying to figure out life.  What my boss and I had in common was that God was not a discernable part of our lives.

 

Standing in the cereal aisle at Kroger, I listened patiently as my former boss spoke of the recent death of her husband and other struggles she’d endured.  Through the recounting of the pain of her struggles, I noticed something I had not seen before: a penetrating peace in her eyes and the ease with which she smiled.  After her husband’s death, a young widow’s testimony in church had inspired her to accept Jesus into her life.  Praising God, serving others, and caring for the brokenhearted has become her life’s focus.  With a growing lump in my throat, I longed to tell her how my life had also steered toward God, how God had planted a small seed in me through her all those years earlier, but I didn’t.  The aisle was growing ever more crowded and time was running short.  We hugged and went our separate ways.

 

I have thought about her often since our chance encounter, and what I keep coming back to is this: God works miracles in the lives of those who turn themselves over to Jesus.  She and I both struggled in our own ways, we both fought to be independent, and we both ignored God knocking on our hearts.  How utterly amazing that God made a way for each of us, in our own time, to answer the door to faith in Christ.

 

No matter where we’ve been, what we’ve done, or what we’ve been through; no matter how long we have wallowed in sin and misery, the loving arms of Jesus are always ready to welcome us.  The risen Christ not only saves us from our sins, but He makes each of us a brand new creation.  Thank you, Lord, for loving us that much!