I am tired of hearing my own voice in this blog. I am also exploring You Tube in a more deliberate way, looking up Christian music artists and seeing some of my favourite songs and how they are sung. I may even look at other music there too and see how I can share that as a celebration of worship, and what God has done for me, and you. I am going to share a music video each day, I think, for awhile, unless the Lord leads me otherwise. What I find is that many songs I love are not sung well, or else the video created to share the song has images which don't fit my taste. So I am going to look for ones which do both well. Here is the first one I have found, for this coming week.
November 08, 2008
November 07, 2008
joy in taking refuge in the Lord, and in humour
Strange contrast between these two, perhaps. They reflect my musings these days. Global issues swirl around us, local tragedies, mundane but important concerns, arranging snow tires, cleaning sheds, sorting the basement, getting supply teaching jobs, wondering when the snow is coming, planning lessons and making a portfolio, all these make up my days, along with making meals, cleaning up, all the usual stuff. We celebrate our current safety here in small town Ontario, our peace and refuge in Christ, and I make a plan to read the comics every day. Little signs of treasuring moments and making choices to stand apart from the pressures of life to get perspective.
Our refuge in the Lord gives us perspective, when all is busy and often unsettling. Reading the comics and laughing at stuff on the radio or in the paper (we don't watch TV) activates a part of us separate from our trials and preoccupations also. I remember how much my strong, often angry mother used humour to refresh us when she was dying of cancer. It was one of the ways my sister and I felt close to her in the last year of her life. We with her share that sense of humour. What a saving grace it can be for any of us.
I rejoice as I grow in the recognition of the depth of my faith and the rock that it is, and also in my humanity, in being able both to weep and to laugh, and to seek ways to use humour to help. There is a lovely Christian woman in my Adult education training courses who is a certified laughter coach!! She goes into seniors' residences and other places and teaches people how to laugh, even in a physical way, just to activate certain parts of their brains!! Cool idea. Reminds me of how God at times has given me the gift of holy laughter under special anointings of the Holy Spirit. He has known how much I need it.
I see, without expecting it, how I have made another link between taking refuge in the Lord, and laughter. Remember how Sarah laughed at the news of what God intended to do in her life. I will take another lesson from that, and "laugh at the days to come", like the woman of God in Proverbs. As I faithfully take care of my household and all that is entrusted to me, I will trust that God will enable me to laugh in the future, to rejoice.
Our refuge in the Lord gives us perspective, when all is busy and often unsettling. Reading the comics and laughing at stuff on the radio or in the paper (we don't watch TV) activates a part of us separate from our trials and preoccupations also. I remember how much my strong, often angry mother used humour to refresh us when she was dying of cancer. It was one of the ways my sister and I felt close to her in the last year of her life. We with her share that sense of humour. What a saving grace it can be for any of us.
I rejoice as I grow in the recognition of the depth of my faith and the rock that it is, and also in my humanity, in being able both to weep and to laugh, and to seek ways to use humour to help. There is a lovely Christian woman in my Adult education training courses who is a certified laughter coach!! She goes into seniors' residences and other places and teaches people how to laugh, even in a physical way, just to activate certain parts of their brains!! Cool idea. Reminds me of how God at times has given me the gift of holy laughter under special anointings of the Holy Spirit. He has known how much I need it.
I see, without expecting it, how I have made another link between taking refuge in the Lord, and laughter. Remember how Sarah laughed at the news of what God intended to do in her life. I will take another lesson from that, and "laugh at the days to come", like the woman of God in Proverbs. As I faithfully take care of my household and all that is entrusted to me, I will trust that God will enable me to laugh in the future, to rejoice.
November 06, 2008
joy in feedback and insights from others
I am blessed when I get comments on my blog or by email from readers. I am often surprised as to how what I say impacts others. I am grateful of course, but also realize that sometimes people pick things up in a new way, or take it in a new direction...take something particular for their situations, or have a new insight. That is stretching. It makes me examine what I said, and the intent that informed it within me, often unconscious or at least deeper than I thought.
My nephew Brian is one who reads my posts from time to time in the midst of his busy life, and he did something interesting with my blog on being a new creation. He said that every moment we can do acts which are graces from God which are new creations. That was a lovely way to work with that truth, and a testimony to God's work through our incarnated lives...that we are Christ's hands and feet and minds and hearts here in the world. That is truly awesome and also terrifying in its implications.
For me, as a writer of this blog, it makes me realize more fully that each word I say can influence a reader and that I need to be very aware of that power and very prayerful about what I say. I guess that is particularly true about what I write on the team devotional blog, and I look forward to discussing these implications when we meet as a team in a few weeks. God keeps stretching me, and for that I am grateful.
My nephew Brian is one who reads my posts from time to time in the midst of his busy life, and he did something interesting with my blog on being a new creation. He said that every moment we can do acts which are graces from God which are new creations. That was a lovely way to work with that truth, and a testimony to God's work through our incarnated lives...that we are Christ's hands and feet and minds and hearts here in the world. That is truly awesome and also terrifying in its implications.
For me, as a writer of this blog, it makes me realize more fully that each word I say can influence a reader and that I need to be very aware of that power and very prayerful about what I say. I guess that is particularly true about what I write on the team devotional blog, and I look forward to discussing these implications when we meet as a team in a few weeks. God keeps stretching me, and for that I am grateful.
November 05, 2008
joy in developing a theme
So here we are again - Wednesday, and my post is up on www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. I learn so much from writing for that blog, not least being the privilege of our blog being nominated again for the Canadian blog awards. The blog won 2nd place last year, before I was part of it. Let's see how we do this year. I will be meeting the other writers in less than two weeks' time. We have come to love each other through our writing.
My post today reflects the theme that I have been developing. I want to do more with it, but I needed to find a way to put it on to Whatever He Says that would speak to a broad range of readers. Hope it has worked.
Here it is:
Here in the Grace of God I Stand
"It is your business to learn to be peaceful and safe in God in every situation."
I read the words in Streams in the Desert and agreed with their truth. It was freeing because it was true. And they expressed what I have been trying to live and accomplish in my own life. Somehow they resonated with my understanding that the concepts of taking responsibility for our own stuff, not dumping it on others or projecting it outside ourselves, and yet resting in God and depending on Him can all be wedded together in our understanding and experience of Christ. I didn't know how it was true but I knew it was true.
This is a truth I want to proclaim to others, to help them to pull themselves up short like I have done when I was complaining or excusing myself about why I had the right to feel miserable or ungrateful. Yet I wonder how it will be received. Will others, especially those who are gripped with depression and intolerable circumstances, experience it as freeing or imprisoning? Will it become one more truth that is piled on top of others which just serve to condemn them further in their misery and inability to rise above their circumstances?
I don't know. I'm not sure how to present them, how to express them. But I do believe that if they are true, that truth will do its work. It will speak, like the words of scripture, straight to the heart of those who need to hear it. My job is not to figure out how, but just to speak their truth, as I am led.
So then I pondered why it is possible. I left the pondering with my deeper spirit, and let it speak to me. A few days later I woke up singing that childlike song, " I am a new creation". It seemed almost too simple for the complex issues I have been facing, and that I know others face. These days of increasing adult weariness and worries seem far from my years of singing this song delightedly to children, playing my guitar, leading worship and Sunday school, making butterflies and teaching about transformation and freedom in Christ.
The words washed over me: "I am a new creation, no more in condemnation, here in the grace of God I stand. My heart is overflowing, my love just keeps on growing, here in the grace of God I stand....and so on...."
"Here in the grace of God I stand." Ah, these are words I understand now. These words I live, every day, inside and out. I stand, when I want to rest, I stand when I want to sit, to lie down, to give up. I stand and I stand and I stand. In His strength and in His grace. His grace alone.
A child's song with an adult's punch line. Seemingly light and frothy, it flies like a butterfly into my spirit and lands a solid truth. Plunk. Like Luther I stand in the face of ignorance, stupidity, and outright destruction of truth.
Heavy words to describe the daily battles, but that is what they are all about. Sometimes they are just in ourselves and the little things that happen day to day. But it takes God's grace to stand in the midst of them, with lightness in our spirits, with overflowing joy, and with a willingness to praise Him for all that He has done.
And that is the connection. Because we stand in His grace, we can be peaceful and safe in any situation. Because we are new creations in Him, we can stand, without condemnation, from ourselves or others, with lightness in our spirits, never forgetting who we are. We are always His little children, but we stand boldly, with those big adult words, "Here in the grace of God I stand."
My post today reflects the theme that I have been developing. I want to do more with it, but I needed to find a way to put it on to Whatever He Says that would speak to a broad range of readers. Hope it has worked.
Here it is:
Here in the Grace of God I Stand
"It is your business to learn to be peaceful and safe in God in every situation."
I read the words in Streams in the Desert and agreed with their truth. It was freeing because it was true. And they expressed what I have been trying to live and accomplish in my own life. Somehow they resonated with my understanding that the concepts of taking responsibility for our own stuff, not dumping it on others or projecting it outside ourselves, and yet resting in God and depending on Him can all be wedded together in our understanding and experience of Christ. I didn't know how it was true but I knew it was true.
This is a truth I want to proclaim to others, to help them to pull themselves up short like I have done when I was complaining or excusing myself about why I had the right to feel miserable or ungrateful. Yet I wonder how it will be received. Will others, especially those who are gripped with depression and intolerable circumstances, experience it as freeing or imprisoning? Will it become one more truth that is piled on top of others which just serve to condemn them further in their misery and inability to rise above their circumstances?
I don't know. I'm not sure how to present them, how to express them. But I do believe that if they are true, that truth will do its work. It will speak, like the words of scripture, straight to the heart of those who need to hear it. My job is not to figure out how, but just to speak their truth, as I am led.
So then I pondered why it is possible. I left the pondering with my deeper spirit, and let it speak to me. A few days later I woke up singing that childlike song, " I am a new creation". It seemed almost too simple for the complex issues I have been facing, and that I know others face. These days of increasing adult weariness and worries seem far from my years of singing this song delightedly to children, playing my guitar, leading worship and Sunday school, making butterflies and teaching about transformation and freedom in Christ.
The words washed over me: "I am a new creation, no more in condemnation, here in the grace of God I stand. My heart is overflowing, my love just keeps on growing, here in the grace of God I stand....and so on...."
"Here in the grace of God I stand." Ah, these are words I understand now. These words I live, every day, inside and out. I stand, when I want to rest, I stand when I want to sit, to lie down, to give up. I stand and I stand and I stand. In His strength and in His grace. His grace alone.
A child's song with an adult's punch line. Seemingly light and frothy, it flies like a butterfly into my spirit and lands a solid truth. Plunk. Like Luther I stand in the face of ignorance, stupidity, and outright destruction of truth.
Heavy words to describe the daily battles, but that is what they are all about. Sometimes they are just in ourselves and the little things that happen day to day. But it takes God's grace to stand in the midst of them, with lightness in our spirits, with overflowing joy, and with a willingness to praise Him for all that He has done.
And that is the connection. Because we stand in His grace, we can be peaceful and safe in any situation. Because we are new creations in Him, we can stand, without condemnation, from ourselves or others, with lightness in our spirits, never forgetting who we are. We are always His little children, but we stand boldly, with those big adult words, "Here in the grace of God I stand."
November 04, 2008
joy in standing in God's grace
I got up very early, put on the clothes I set out last night, and prepared for a morning of teaching. There were my butterfly earrings, chosen because they match my outfit, because I am teaching little children today, and because they remind me of being a new creation. Years ago I wrote a whole master's thesis in Christian education on being a new creation in Christ and how to make that happen for others. Butterflies of course were a big part of the symbolic stuff I used for workshop plans etc. So they have always been precious to me and many Christians as a symbol of our new lives in Christ.
But for this morning I am trusting in the last line of the song, "I am a new creation". Those words are: "Here in the grace of God I stand." I claim these this morning when I am tired and a bit overwhelmed again with all that is on my plate. I stand in God's grace, and so He will supply all that I need to stay standing, metaphorically speaking, to not fall, to not falter, to not give up. That is where we all can stand.
But for this morning I am trusting in the last line of the song, "I am a new creation". Those words are: "Here in the grace of God I stand." I claim these this morning when I am tired and a bit overwhelmed again with all that is on my plate. I stand in God's grace, and so He will supply all that I need to stay standing, metaphorically speaking, to not fall, to not falter, to not give up. That is where we all can stand.
November 03, 2008
joy in following God's finger in His friendship
"Where God's finger points, there God's hand will make the way."
"It is no small thing to be on terms of friendship with God."
These two anonymous quotes jumped out at me from Streams in the Desert again. We are following God's direction and directions, or certainly seeking to, and we are trusting God's provision when we do. We are also walking in fellowship with Him, sensing His blessing on our personal choices, His encouragement in our trials, and His delight in our individual talents and gifts, etc. etc. I shudder when I think of those who are into lockstep legalistic interpretations of God's will and work in our lives. Yes, I fear to displease Him, I am in awe of Him, but He is my friend, my beloved friend, as well as my Saviour and Lord. How else could I enjoy His company and believe that He has wonderful plans for my creativity and my particularity. He is like a wonderful parent who is excited about each new stage I go through.
How much we all need to think about this as we go forth into each new day. I woke up thinking about lines from the song " I am a new creation". I was pondering them in new ways, in a daily kind of way. I will blog about that for tomorrow I think. But the point is that God is always making things new. I must find that verse in Revelation. And so as I go into this new day, with many things on my mind, much to do, I also have so much to celebrate, not least my friendship with my all powerful, all loving God, creator of the universe. I believe as I follow His finger into this day, it is all part of following it into all my future, and seeing His hand provide for all that He is opening up. May it be so for all of us today.
"It is no small thing to be on terms of friendship with God."
These two anonymous quotes jumped out at me from Streams in the Desert again. We are following God's direction and directions, or certainly seeking to, and we are trusting God's provision when we do. We are also walking in fellowship with Him, sensing His blessing on our personal choices, His encouragement in our trials, and His delight in our individual talents and gifts, etc. etc. I shudder when I think of those who are into lockstep legalistic interpretations of God's will and work in our lives. Yes, I fear to displease Him, I am in awe of Him, but He is my friend, my beloved friend, as well as my Saviour and Lord. How else could I enjoy His company and believe that He has wonderful plans for my creativity and my particularity. He is like a wonderful parent who is excited about each new stage I go through.
How much we all need to think about this as we go forth into each new day. I woke up thinking about lines from the song " I am a new creation". I was pondering them in new ways, in a daily kind of way. I will blog about that for tomorrow I think. But the point is that God is always making things new. I must find that verse in Revelation. And so as I go into this new day, with many things on my mind, much to do, I also have so much to celebrate, not least my friendship with my all powerful, all loving God, creator of the universe. I believe as I follow His finger into this day, it is all part of following it into all my future, and seeing His hand provide for all that He is opening up. May it be so for all of us today.
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