This morning my girls and I are off to Barrie and Toronto. I have another course in Teaching and Training Adults, and Sarah will catch the bus to Toronto to meet friends at the University Fair, which Rachel and I will attend with her again tomorrow. We will catch up with Sarah this evening in Toronto after my course, and stay with my friend Jean, looking at pictures of Sarah and Rachel's trip, and having a girly night. Then tomorrow we are off to see cousins and then on to the fair, and Word on the Street, a big event a Queen's Park. Then home tomorrow night. All in all a busy but interesting weekend. I will enjoy being with my girls in a special way, and continuing on with their visions and plans for their lives. They are young with lots of energy. I am moving out of middle age into the next stage.
Yet I often quote the "60 is the new 40" adage and say I am trusting in that. It seems I am trying to make up for lost time. But I am also trying to be focused in my preparation for future work and ministry. Yet I love taking opportunities and then sometimes wonder where I will find the strength. It comes from somewhere, usually, and I believe that somewhere is the Lord. And so I was encouraged by today's words in Streams in the Desert:
"The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty." (Zeph. 3:17)
"the living Christ passes moment by moment into my redeemed body, filling, energizing, vitalizing it with the presence and power of His own personality, turning my whole being into a 'new heaven and new earth." Then all that is in God Almighty is mine and in me just as far as I am able and willing to appropriate Him and all that belongs to Him. This God, "Mighty," ALL Mighty God, is our INSIDE God. He is, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the midst of me, just as really as the sun is in the center of the heavens, or like the great dynamo in the center of the powerhouse of my threefold being. He is in the midst, at the center of my physical being. He is in the midst of my brain. He is in the midst of my nerve centers." .....My life, physical, mental, and spiritual, is like an artesian well - always full, overflowing."
These words were written by a Dr. Henry Wilson, at the age of seventy. I speak them into my being, and trust that they will inspire me further as I move ahead with all my activities this weekend, and for the rest of the year, and the rest of my life.
September 27, 2008
September 26, 2008
joy in a day of faith
Today is Faith Day with the Catholic board with whom I do occasional teaching, as well as with the regular board. We are being paid to celebrate faith at a special gathering to which I have to catch the bus in a short time. What a nice event to be included in. I opened my devotional today in Streams in the Desert and read the prescribed reading: "We walk by faith, not by appearance. (2 Cor. 5:7) . I read all the rest and decided it was too good not to share, but wondered if that was copping out of my own theologizing.
Then I came to the computer and found the magazine I had been reading there last night, Faith Today. In it I had enjoyed articles by two people I know, one a professor at Tyndale Seminary, and the other the director of the organization I did mission training with, Emmanuel International. Both people are great writers. The feature article for that month was on the Spiritual Formation movement, which I encountered and enjoyed at Tyndale last year, and another professor's picture popped up there too, Tyndale now being the hub of that movement in Canada and beyond. God was reminding me of a very few of the many influences in my life which have helped me along the road of faith in His provision and sovereignty, based on His sacrifice.
It seems that I am to share these readings about faith, as reminders for all of us. But of course it's not just about faith. It's about faith in Jesus Christ, and that's why the confidence that I spoke of yesterday can be real. It's not based on me, and what I do or don't, feel or don't feel. It's based on Him.
Here are the excerpts from Streams in the Desert for today:
By faith, not appearance; God never wants us to look at our feelings. Self may want us to; and Satan may want us to. But God wants us to face facts, not feelings; the facts of Christ and of His finished and perfect work in us. When we face these precious facts, and believe them because God says they are facts, God will take care of our feelings.
We must choose between facing toward our feelings and facing toward God's facts. Our feelings may be as uncertain as the sea or the shifting sands. God's facts are as certain as the Rock of Ages, even Christ Himself, who is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Then I came to the computer and found the magazine I had been reading there last night, Faith Today. In it I had enjoyed articles by two people I know, one a professor at Tyndale Seminary, and the other the director of the organization I did mission training with, Emmanuel International. Both people are great writers. The feature article for that month was on the Spiritual Formation movement, which I encountered and enjoyed at Tyndale last year, and another professor's picture popped up there too, Tyndale now being the hub of that movement in Canada and beyond. God was reminding me of a very few of the many influences in my life which have helped me along the road of faith in His provision and sovereignty, based on His sacrifice.
It seems that I am to share these readings about faith, as reminders for all of us. But of course it's not just about faith. It's about faith in Jesus Christ, and that's why the confidence that I spoke of yesterday can be real. It's not based on me, and what I do or don't, feel or don't feel. It's based on Him.
Here are the excerpts from Streams in the Desert for today:
By faith, not appearance; God never wants us to look at our feelings. Self may want us to; and Satan may want us to. But God wants us to face facts, not feelings; the facts of Christ and of His finished and perfect work in us. When we face these precious facts, and believe them because God says they are facts, God will take care of our feelings.
We must choose between facing toward our feelings and facing toward God's facts. Our feelings may be as uncertain as the sea or the shifting sands. God's facts are as certain as the Rock of Ages, even Christ Himself, who is the same yesterday, today and forever.
September 25, 2008
joy in not throwing away confidence
Today is a throwing away day. I am sorting again, a deeper sort, continuing to ask myself the right questions. Do you really need this? Do you still like this? Do you want this? By the end of the day more of my own stuff, and my mother's stuff, will be in bags and boxes ready for a charitable pick up, a drop off at the thrift store, the recycling depot, or the next garage sale. I will feel a little more pruned and refreshed, and a lot more organized. These days when supply teaching is more sporadic I will consider my time well spent.
Not that I haven't been trying to do this for a long time, as I have rummaged in the space between dreams and reality, my old dreams and my new ones. But somehow today is more intentional. But it is also hard because my body, although better slept, is feeling creaky. My exercise routines haven't really kicked in fully yet. But deep down I have confidence that I will see my way through. Yet this morning I was tempted to think that I had thrown away my confidence as well. The baby with the bath water.
Then I read the excerpt for the day from Daily Light on the Daily Path. Aha. There were the words I needed:
So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. Hebrews 10:35
Imagine throwing away confidence!! And yet in one way or another I have done a lot of that in my life. Not so much about things, but about myself and the possibilities of what God can do with and in my life. Maybe that is why He has had to speak to me so directly sometimes.
And I guess my problem that way is not unique. We see such discouragement all around us. My main job as a parent seems to be in instilling confidence in my children. Same with my teaching. Guess it will be the same with my counselling one day. I need to learn those lessons on a rock bottom, basement type level, each day these days. Facing the throwing away of stuff and yet learning not to throw away confidence with it, when I get discouraged at how I have not faced some things before. But then I can use it to build my confidence, reminding myself that at last I AM facing them more resolutely, as I also have done so many times in my life, and I will build on that.
May it be so for all of us today.
Not that I haven't been trying to do this for a long time, as I have rummaged in the space between dreams and reality, my old dreams and my new ones. But somehow today is more intentional. But it is also hard because my body, although better slept, is feeling creaky. My exercise routines haven't really kicked in fully yet. But deep down I have confidence that I will see my way through. Yet this morning I was tempted to think that I had thrown away my confidence as well. The baby with the bath water.
Then I read the excerpt for the day from Daily Light on the Daily Path. Aha. There were the words I needed:
So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. Hebrews 10:35
Imagine throwing away confidence!! And yet in one way or another I have done a lot of that in my life. Not so much about things, but about myself and the possibilities of what God can do with and in my life. Maybe that is why He has had to speak to me so directly sometimes.
And I guess my problem that way is not unique. We see such discouragement all around us. My main job as a parent seems to be in instilling confidence in my children. Same with my teaching. Guess it will be the same with my counselling one day. I need to learn those lessons on a rock bottom, basement type level, each day these days. Facing the throwing away of stuff and yet learning not to throw away confidence with it, when I get discouraged at how I have not faced some things before. But then I can use it to build my confidence, reminding myself that at last I AM facing them more resolutely, as I also have done so many times in my life, and I will build on that.
May it be so for all of us today.
September 24, 2008
joy in God's knowledge
Here is the post I wrote for my Wednesday contribution to http://www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com/:
Talking the talk...walking the walk
At dinner last night my daughter asked if I believed that all of my mother's family are in Heaven now. I said "Yes". She recalled how she felt when she went into the room at the funeral home where Mum was laid out after her body was brought there while Rachel was still at school. She remembered how she felt jealous that her Grammy was with Jesus, and she was still here on earth. And yet she had never really heard Grammy talk about her faith. She knew that she was a serious Anglican, and had attended the same church for 60 years, and was much beloved by people there. And she knew that my sister and I had had some good chats with Mum in the weeks before she died.
I spoke of the term "inarticulate faith" that I have sometimes heard others use to label Christians who have spent all their lives in churches where they say the liturgy and pray the general confession every Sunday but may never have been led through the Sinner's prayer, or taught the Four Spiritual Laws. I recalled the many stages of my watching over my mother's life through all my years as a Christian. It had often hurt me that she didn't really understand my motives for being a missionary, that she had difficulty seeing me as someone qualitatively different in my life after I grew in a serious way as a Christian. I had come to see that as part of Mum's story, and not about me, but it had still hurt. It had still made it hard to overcome the barriers with Mum to talk with her about Jesus, and encourage her to look forward to being with Him.
But Mum's debilitating cancer and her growing dependence on my sister and me in her last year of life changed a lot of that. I sang hymns to her, prayed with her at times with her request, and I was with her when she died. I could write many stories of the joys and sorrows of life with my mother. But what I am getting at here is that I never did pray the Sinner's prayer with her, or go over issues about her salvation in the way that some other evangelicals might have urged me to do. I knew her too well. She had seen a lot of people who talked the talk and didn't walk the walk, and for many years I think she often lumped me with them. But in her dying days she was glad of everything we did for her, including our prayers, and those she knew came from others.
Mum never appeared to sort out a lot of stuff spiritually or have a deep assurance of her salvation in the way that I do. She didn't seem to find a great joy in her faith in the way that I do. But I believe, just as I know so surely that she is with the Lord, that she had a real, often inarticulate, faith that was there for her deep deep down. I saw her face when she received communion, I felt the humbleness in her spirit as she knelt in church, even though I could be wounded by her sharp tongue soon after. But so much of this may be conjecture and assumption. What is known only to God is what really matters and mattered then.
Something similar was going on with her family too. I remember her mother, my Grammy, asking me to read the 23rd Psalm to her after I had tied her shoes in her nineties. I remembered praying with my aunt, her sister, in her final years, and finding an eagerness to have more assurance of faith. I remember the well worn Bible in my uncle's personal effects returned after his untimely death at the battle of Vimy Ridge. I remember the assurance given to me about my father when I sent someone to visit him in hospital and talk about spiritual things. That discerning prayerful person told me that Dad had been sleeping at the time he dropped in, but he felt the Lord impress upon his spirit that my father did know the Lord, and that I should relax.
Yes, there was a lot of unbelief around in my mainline churched family. Yes, we didn't talk the talk a lot in our family at home or in the extended family. Yes, my father's father was a wonderful Christian Anglican bishop. He definitely both talked the talk and walked the walk. My cousin said of him that when he walked in the room the air changed. And he christened me and all my cousins as infants. His mantle rests upon us. There was faith, and there was lack of faith in our family. Only God knows how much of both.
What I am trying to say is that God knows our hearts, and those of others. We are not the judges of faith, or talking or walking the Christian life. Yes, it's great when there is openness and reality that is clear to all, carried with gentleness and fervour. But what really counts is what is going on inside. Many of us, and especially my family, are and were introverts, despite lives of public service. Questions of faith are intimate. Neither I nor any Christian has the right to barge into people's lives and inflict harsh questions upon them. Our job is to be close to the Lord ourselves and wait for His instructions about each person we meet. And sometimes, especially with family members, those instructions are to relax, to rest in Him, and trust that He knows the whole story, and that is what matters.
2 Timothy 2:19: The Lord knows those who are his.
Talking the talk...walking the walk
At dinner last night my daughter asked if I believed that all of my mother's family are in Heaven now. I said "Yes". She recalled how she felt when she went into the room at the funeral home where Mum was laid out after her body was brought there while Rachel was still at school. She remembered how she felt jealous that her Grammy was with Jesus, and she was still here on earth. And yet she had never really heard Grammy talk about her faith. She knew that she was a serious Anglican, and had attended the same church for 60 years, and was much beloved by people there. And she knew that my sister and I had had some good chats with Mum in the weeks before she died.
I spoke of the term "inarticulate faith" that I have sometimes heard others use to label Christians who have spent all their lives in churches where they say the liturgy and pray the general confession every Sunday but may never have been led through the Sinner's prayer, or taught the Four Spiritual Laws. I recalled the many stages of my watching over my mother's life through all my years as a Christian. It had often hurt me that she didn't really understand my motives for being a missionary, that she had difficulty seeing me as someone qualitatively different in my life after I grew in a serious way as a Christian. I had come to see that as part of Mum's story, and not about me, but it had still hurt. It had still made it hard to overcome the barriers with Mum to talk with her about Jesus, and encourage her to look forward to being with Him.
But Mum's debilitating cancer and her growing dependence on my sister and me in her last year of life changed a lot of that. I sang hymns to her, prayed with her at times with her request, and I was with her when she died. I could write many stories of the joys and sorrows of life with my mother. But what I am getting at here is that I never did pray the Sinner's prayer with her, or go over issues about her salvation in the way that some other evangelicals might have urged me to do. I knew her too well. She had seen a lot of people who talked the talk and didn't walk the walk, and for many years I think she often lumped me with them. But in her dying days she was glad of everything we did for her, including our prayers, and those she knew came from others.
Mum never appeared to sort out a lot of stuff spiritually or have a deep assurance of her salvation in the way that I do. She didn't seem to find a great joy in her faith in the way that I do. But I believe, just as I know so surely that she is with the Lord, that she had a real, often inarticulate, faith that was there for her deep deep down. I saw her face when she received communion, I felt the humbleness in her spirit as she knelt in church, even though I could be wounded by her sharp tongue soon after. But so much of this may be conjecture and assumption. What is known only to God is what really matters and mattered then.
Something similar was going on with her family too. I remember her mother, my Grammy, asking me to read the 23rd Psalm to her after I had tied her shoes in her nineties. I remembered praying with my aunt, her sister, in her final years, and finding an eagerness to have more assurance of faith. I remember the well worn Bible in my uncle's personal effects returned after his untimely death at the battle of Vimy Ridge. I remember the assurance given to me about my father when I sent someone to visit him in hospital and talk about spiritual things. That discerning prayerful person told me that Dad had been sleeping at the time he dropped in, but he felt the Lord impress upon his spirit that my father did know the Lord, and that I should relax.
Yes, there was a lot of unbelief around in my mainline churched family. Yes, we didn't talk the talk a lot in our family at home or in the extended family. Yes, my father's father was a wonderful Christian Anglican bishop. He definitely both talked the talk and walked the walk. My cousin said of him that when he walked in the room the air changed. And he christened me and all my cousins as infants. His mantle rests upon us. There was faith, and there was lack of faith in our family. Only God knows how much of both.
What I am trying to say is that God knows our hearts, and those of others. We are not the judges of faith, or talking or walking the Christian life. Yes, it's great when there is openness and reality that is clear to all, carried with gentleness and fervour. But what really counts is what is going on inside. Many of us, and especially my family, are and were introverts, despite lives of public service. Questions of faith are intimate. Neither I nor any Christian has the right to barge into people's lives and inflict harsh questions upon them. Our job is to be close to the Lord ourselves and wait for His instructions about each person we meet. And sometimes, especially with family members, those instructions are to relax, to rest in Him, and trust that He knows the whole story, and that is what matters.
2 Timothy 2:19: The Lord knows those who are his.
September 23, 2008
joy in the endless song
Another hymn we sang at church on Sunday morning was called "My Life Flows on in Endless Song". We sang it in memory of the former choir director, who died of cancer a few years ago. It has a lovely tune, and wonderful words. This morning this was the song flowing through my mind, as I rejoiced in the healing God is doing in my heart of some very toxic wounds from a very very long time ago. Although I am not laughing hilariously these days, or feeling "on top of the world", I am so very grateful to those in my life who are with me on this deep journey, and for the fruit that is coming. There is a deep calm settling into my heart and this song illustrates how that can feel at times, especially the following verse:
Through all the tumble and the strife,
I hear that music ringing;
it sounds and echoes in my soul;
how can I keep from singing!
Chorus:
No storm can shake my inmost calm,
while to that Rock I'm clinging.
Since Love is lord of heaven and earth,
how can I keep from singing?
You can hear the tune and see all the words if you search "My Life Flows on in Endless Song" or "How Can I Keep From Singing?". There are several cyberhymnal sites which I have tried to cite but with difficulty, so a search would do it more accurately for you.
May the blessings of song and calm be with us all today, in His love.
Through all the tumble and the strife,
I hear that music ringing;
it sounds and echoes in my soul;
how can I keep from singing!
Chorus:
No storm can shake my inmost calm,
while to that Rock I'm clinging.
Since Love is lord of heaven and earth,
how can I keep from singing?
You can hear the tune and see all the words if you search "My Life Flows on in Endless Song" or "How Can I Keep From Singing?". There are several cyberhymnal sites which I have tried to cite but with difficulty, so a search would do it more accurately for you.
May the blessings of song and calm be with us all today, in His love.
September 22, 2008
joy in looking for laughter
At church yesterday we sang an anthem "Laughter lends itself to praise". When Kelly preached she told a few stories on herself which produced great laughter in the congregation. At coffee hour after, and at the supper before our evening service, I could hear lots of laughter. When I work with my worship leading colleague, we usually manage to have a few laughs. I was in a tired rather serious mood a lot of the day, even though I was smiling. In the morning I had told a friend at coffee hour that my niece had given me a framed picture of me laughing at her birthday party because she wanted me to remember that I could laugh, and do it really well sometimes.
But although my parents had good senses of humour we didn't laugh a lot in my growing up years. I do remember though once when Dad had his appendix out and was lying in his hospital bed with stitches that something I said made him laugh so hard he really hurt with his stitches. I am glad that memory stays with me.
I have been lying in bed thinking how serious my blog posts are and how tiresome it is becoming to me. Of course so many things are very serious in all our lives. Yesterday I sent out a very serious email prayer request for a friend in dire straits. I got emails in return that indicate to me that there are many serious issues in many lives. I am training to be a counsellor to help people deal with their pain and I appreciate my own counsellor so well because of the sensitivity to my emotional pain.
Yet I so often experience myself as a burden, as too heavy and serious, when I know that I can be great at telling a joke, particularly on myself. So this morning I determined that whatever is going on for me, I am going to search for laughter in whatever way I can. One of the spiritual experiences I have been privileged to enjoy has been the gift of holy laughter, laughing in the spirit as a gift from God that was very healing. I have also had the gift of tears.
We need both, and we need balance. But it feels to me that my blog has got a bit overbalanced on the serious side so I may need to lighten up! Here's to laughter in your life and mine, today, and this week.
But although my parents had good senses of humour we didn't laugh a lot in my growing up years. I do remember though once when Dad had his appendix out and was lying in his hospital bed with stitches that something I said made him laugh so hard he really hurt with his stitches. I am glad that memory stays with me.
I have been lying in bed thinking how serious my blog posts are and how tiresome it is becoming to me. Of course so many things are very serious in all our lives. Yesterday I sent out a very serious email prayer request for a friend in dire straits. I got emails in return that indicate to me that there are many serious issues in many lives. I am training to be a counsellor to help people deal with their pain and I appreciate my own counsellor so well because of the sensitivity to my emotional pain.
Yet I so often experience myself as a burden, as too heavy and serious, when I know that I can be great at telling a joke, particularly on myself. So this morning I determined that whatever is going on for me, I am going to search for laughter in whatever way I can. One of the spiritual experiences I have been privileged to enjoy has been the gift of holy laughter, laughing in the spirit as a gift from God that was very healing. I have also had the gift of tears.
We need both, and we need balance. But it feels to me that my blog has got a bit overbalanced on the serious side so I may need to lighten up! Here's to laughter in your life and mine, today, and this week.
September 21, 2008
joy in the depth of the Father's love for us
How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory
Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished
I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast inJesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom
Stuart Townsend
These were the words that were singing in my heart as I lay in bed very early this Sunday morning. I shed tears of gratitude and relief again into my pillow as I nestled into the security of His love and faithfulness.
This week, and yesterday in particular, and many times in the past few months, as my blog posts show, I have been meditating upon the ways God is making my paths straight, my steps level, and strengthening my "feeble arms and weak knees." When I experienced the empowering and blessing of the course yesterday in Teaching and Training Adults at Georgian College, it felt like that. It was as if I was in my 20's again, preparing for new opportunities in my field of work. It didn't matter what I had or hadn't done with my gifts, abilities and opportunities. What mattered is what I can do now, and what God is leading me into, and how I can steward all that He has given me and what He delights to encourage me to use as I find joy in using my gifts to help others and to do His work in their lives. It was great to witness excellence in presentation and design, and to be called to further excellence in all that I can do myself.
But most of all it is wonderful to have Sunday again, a day set apart in many of its hours to celebrate His goodness in word and music. What a privilege it is to live in a country where we are free to do that openly and peacefully. May those of us who do be willing to preserve that heritage, but most of all may we never lose the awesome sense of the depth of our Father's love for us, and the price He paid to make that a reality in our lives at every level.
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory
Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished
I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast inJesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom
Stuart Townsend
These were the words that were singing in my heart as I lay in bed very early this Sunday morning. I shed tears of gratitude and relief again into my pillow as I nestled into the security of His love and faithfulness.
This week, and yesterday in particular, and many times in the past few months, as my blog posts show, I have been meditating upon the ways God is making my paths straight, my steps level, and strengthening my "feeble arms and weak knees." When I experienced the empowering and blessing of the course yesterday in Teaching and Training Adults at Georgian College, it felt like that. It was as if I was in my 20's again, preparing for new opportunities in my field of work. It didn't matter what I had or hadn't done with my gifts, abilities and opportunities. What mattered is what I can do now, and what God is leading me into, and how I can steward all that He has given me and what He delights to encourage me to use as I find joy in using my gifts to help others and to do His work in their lives. It was great to witness excellence in presentation and design, and to be called to further excellence in all that I can do myself.
But most of all it is wonderful to have Sunday again, a day set apart in many of its hours to celebrate His goodness in word and music. What a privilege it is to live in a country where we are free to do that openly and peacefully. May those of us who do be willing to preserve that heritage, but most of all may we never lose the awesome sense of the depth of our Father's love for us, and the price He paid to make that a reality in our lives at every level.
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