Mary and Elizabeth: the Heart of Friendship

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Hey, girlfriend!
A hug, sometimes a kiss, and smiles all around. We love our friends and love being with them. It doesn't get any better than this...or does it? We laugh, have fun, and enjoy each other, but  is there more? Are we missing the best of what our friendships can bring? 

Fun and affection sometimes relegate God to a back seat and our friendships are no exception. The sheer enjoyment we find in one another's company can leave us forgetting that these encounters, so often full of pleasure, have a higher purpose, too. We can get more than pleasure out of our friendships. We can dedicate them to God.

And we have an example.
At that time, Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed, "Blessed are you among women..."--Luke 1: 39-42

Wouldn't it be wonderful if our friendships brought not only a feeling of contentment and well being, but an encounter with the holy? I'm convinced that they can, and more. They should.

We come together, after all, from different places, different lives. We meet to share out stories, our songs. We come to laugh together, and to cry. God has afforded us a privilege unique to women. He has made us want strong bonds with close friends, but we don't often honor them as such. Like all of our life's encounters, our friends are intentional parts of our lives. God sent them to us for a purpose--the same purpose as He sends every other circumstance and person--to draw us nearer to Him.

So what does a godly friendship encounter look like? It looks like Mary and Elizabeth's. 

First, we enter one another's homes. We visit each other in the places we live our lives. These are our intimate places, the ones we breathe and eat and love in. They expose us just by the looking. But we share them with our friends.

Then we greet one another. Not just a Hi, or even an embrace, but a greeting heartfelt enough to make a baby leap in the womb. A greeting that acknowledges that we are special to one another. Not "Wassup, girlfriend" but more like a sincere "How wonderful to see you."

Then we share. We listen to one another. Casual friends are not very good at this. Casual acquaintances talk mostly about themselves. Have you listened to your conversations? Most relationships have a giver and a taker, an alpha and a beta. True friendships share equally. Friends listen to one another as often as they tell.

Then we bless one another. We hardly ever do this. I have one relationship in which a friend prays for me every time before we part. Every time. I can't tell you what this adds to my life. I feel blessed every time. Truly blessed. What more can we do for a friend than to bless them?*

Mary and Elizabeth's love for each other wasn't substantially different from the love I feel for my own friends. As women, we are given a heart to love with--husbands, children, and friends. We spend so much time learning to love husbands and children properly, but don't think nearly often enough about what a truly godly friendship can bring.

If I really care about my friends, I will do these things for them, and with them because, each in our own way, we are all truly
blessed among women.

*Sister Fran Ferder, Enter the Story, Give Us This Day, May 31, 2014

But I Don't Wanna Give it Away!

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Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.--Psalm 118:27 (KJV)

Whenever the ancient Hebrews offered the best of their flock or herd to God, they tied it to the altar still alive, kicking and struggling. Once there, the shepherd bent back the animal's head and slit its throat with his own hands. Then, hands red with its blood, he watched it die.

Yuck.
I'm glad we don't have to do that anymore.

Not so fast.
Actually, I'm thinking that we do.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. --Matthew 5:17

The New Covenant Jesus introduced changed the old one, but did not put it away. We can eat pork now, but we must eat it to God's glory. We do not have to abandon disobedient children beyond the city gate, but we do have to abandon them to Christ. We don't have to slaughter our animals in church, but we do have to kill what is not godly in ourselves.

We are no longer required to kill a sheep, but we still have to raise the knife.

What do we have to kill now?
Put to death, therefore, everything that belongs to your earthly nature...--Colossians 3:5

Great. My earthly nature. Isn't that just about everything?
Well, yes, it is. Everything, at least, that doesn't resemble God.

This is going to hurt.
Well, yes again. It will hurt. That's what sacrifices do.
Do you really think that those Hebrew shepherds didn't look at those spotless lambs they kept having to bring to the temple and wonder whether they would be able to feed their family on what they had left over? Of course, they did. And so do we.

What are we supposed to give? Time, talent, and treasure, isn't it?
So what does that look like? Warning:  Some of this may sound familiar...

Time:  If I spend an hour or two praying or reading and studying my Bible, who will do my other work?
Talent: If I fix the church's computers, who will fix mine? If I take someone else's mom to the grocery store, will someone take mine? If I adopt this child, will my others suffer?
Treasure: If I give ten percent, or even more, what will happen to saving for a rainy day? If I ever need something, who will meet my need?

Remember, we have to bind up the sacrifice while it's still alive, not wait until we don't care anymore, until it's become comfortably surplus. When it finally goes up in smoke as incense, we need to watch it rise with some regret.

It's true that we are not to be foolish in this--there are limits. We are not usually called to give away all of our earthly attachments and possessions, but that does not mean we are not to give away any of them.

In the end, what I bind to the altar is concern for myself.
My comfort, my pleasure, my affection, my habits.
That's right. My hesitance to offer real sacrifice points to lack of faith, lack of trust in God. Every time we cling to something, we uncover an instance of unbelief.
We say that we believe that God has our back, but when we can't let go of something, whether it's material or human or emotional, that is the single thing we most desperately need to lay down. 
I'm sorry, but we have to kill it. 
"But I don't know what I'd do without it...." Exactly.
We don't know what we'd do without that thing or person or feeling. But God does.

Raise the knife against it, my friend. Raise the knife to it and trust God that, if you are not to kill it after all, He will stay your hand. He's done it before.

My Real True Love

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This is the irony of age--that I have spent  a whole lifetime caring for and satisfying a body that slowly falls apart. 
And I can't do a thing about it.

Let's face it.
I love myself. More than I love anyone else and more than anyone loves me.
I am my own best friend.
But my affection is misplaced. I am also my own betrayer.

My hands hold tight to what does not last.
The man who loves his life will lose it...--John 12:25
My head trusts my own reason above all others.
For the wisdom of the world is foolishness in God's sight.--1Corinthians 3:19
My heart leads me to destruction.
The heart is deceitful above all things.--Jeremiah 17:9

So what do I do with this body, this life--or what is left of it?
How do I focus on what does not crumble to dust?
How do I live in blood and bone and skin, emotion and thought, but disdain its rule over me?

There is only one way I know--
I must live not to find satisfaction in indulgence, but joy in denial.
I cannot become like Christ and, at the same time, pamper my flesh. I have to go past it, through it.
This is life's purpose, its real journey.
If I can do this, then I will still die, but I will not die with my body. I will live with my Lord.

Is It Time Yet?

I always got a kick out of our first glimpse of the adult Jesus at a party with his mother. When she asks Him to do something, He tells her He doesn't think it's a good idea.  Sounds like conversations I've had with my own thirty-something son:
"Not now, Mom."
"Really? Now?"
Sounds a bit like what Jesus said to his own mother:
Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.--John 2:4
At least He called her 'dear woman.'
But, aside from the common familiar comedy of it, the situation reminds me of something important.
Even in the kingdom of God, there are times for things.

Jesus knew this at the above wedding, when He told His mom that it was not yet time for Him to be acclaimed for public miracles.
He knew this later, when His friends went to Jerusalem for the festival, but He did not:
Therefore Jesus told them, “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do.--John 7:6
He also knew when His time had finally come:
Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified."--John 12:23

And He also knew when the time had not only come, but was over:
 “It is finished.”--John 19:30

It is the same for us.
There are times for things.
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to reap, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance...--Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

It's true.
Once a life situation begins, it will probably end.
Once we pick something up, we will probably have to put it down.
Once we take someone into our life, we will probably have to let them go.

Not worship, love, or my battle with sin, of course. Those will continue all my life.
But the others? They will all, at some time, end.
And it's OK.
Their time has either not yet come, or is over.
Really.

Breaking the Lease

I woke up today tired of the weight of this world, tired of unrelenting regret born on old sins, the same ones I slog through time after time.

And I prayed for relief:
"Father, please show me some good today.  Please show me that this sadness will not last forever.  Is there some way to know now that I can some day leave this heartache behind?"

And He said to me:
He waits for His enemies to be made His footstool.--Hebrews 10:13
Wait. Even God has to wait.  Even God looks forward to a time when He will ruthlessly remake all things, when all weights will be cast aside.

And, Oh, when the time comes, what a transformation He has in store!
The seventh angel sounded his trumpet and loud voices in heaven said, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ and He will reign forever and forever."--Revelation 11:15
The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.--Matthew 13:43

This world is not yet entirely God's kingdom.  It still bears the marks and influence of its most recent landlord, the devil, but not forever.  God will remake it--all of it.

I cannot know real relief until that day.  Until then, I will live with this surrounding pain, the effect of sin, my own and others'.  This morning, all I looked for was a little relief, a little rescue.  And what did my God show me?  An inheritance, a righteous kingdom, a holy priesthood, a shining sun in a perfect home where thrones ring 'round Him, my Father, and His Christ.

We dealt with you the way a father deals with his own children--encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God who calls you into His kingdom and glory.--1Thessalonians 2:12
Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.--Matthew 6:10

Amen.

Anywhere But Here

Some circumstances just stand out in life.  Like signposts punched into the crossroads of days, they mark places we don't forget.

One of the markers in my life came from my sweet stepmother Maggie.  While my father suffered from Alzheimer's, getting progressively sicker and more difficult and unpredictable, she served him patiently and with almost seamless love.  It cost her, and she grew thin from it, but somehow, the weariness rarely showed on her face.  She smiled and comforted with hardly any visible personal distress.

One day, when I asked her how she was doing, she took my hands, looked me in the eye, and said, "I don't ever want to be anywhere but here."  Years later, I still find that absolutely amazing. It seems like I spend so much of every day's space thinking about somewhere else.

I confess impatience with life.  It's not just that life brings trouble.  It's that life is so often so darned, well, ordinary.  And I am willing to do the mundane, but in the process, I sure expect something significant and enlarging and ALIVE.  But life doesn't work that way.

When the woman saw that the fruit was good for food and pleasing to the eye and desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.--Genesis 3:6

Eve had the same problem as I do.

I constantly look here and there for something better than what I have, thinking that life is bigger than what lies right at my feet. But God has already shown me the path of life. He says so.


These are the days of my life.  Right here.  Right now.  Just as they unfold, the beautiful and the mundane.  If I don't live them, waiting for something different,  I will not only miss the grand and lofty, I will miss everything.

These days, every one of them, are gifts from God.  I need to live them, expecting beauty not because of what the days bring, but because of who God is.  The wonder of days, after all, does not come from their own unfolding hours; it comes through God's ordination.  

Days have beauty simply by virtue of their creation by God. That is why I rejoice and am glad in them.

I have come so that they may have LIFE and have it to the full.--John 10:10 (my emphasis)

I do not ever have to wait one more minute for life to begin.  It races by second upon second.  I spend it as I talk or write or love.  I also spend it while I grumble or argue or look around somewhere else.  Life is my Lord's wonderful gift, unwrapping itself with each breath.

Breathe in, breathe out.  Live. Now.

So Close in This First Hour

Around here, summer nights often bring sudden storms. Thundering, shaking rumbles become a startling alarm reminding me that men do not comprise the most powerful force on earth. I remember that You never appear to men in sun-bathed meadows, but in fire and flash. You dwell nearer in a thunderstorm.

I doodle through so much of life...sashaying from one task to the next, making phone calls, picking up a broom or a book, going to the movies. So little consequence.

Someone told me recently that most folks live a life of 25,000 hours. Only that. If that is true, and the math bears it out, of how much value is each one of those? How much have I sacrificed if I lose the full value in even one of those hours?

But hours with You are never wasted. Your very presence demands significance. And I think you intend us to understand this, too. I have always though that life is more important than most people suspect.

You gave life, above all precious gifts, and expect me to LIVE it.

For those God foreknew, He also predestined, to be confirmed to the likeness of His Son, so that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called. Those He called, he also justified. Those He justified, He also glorified. --Romans 8:29-30

My life draws an unbroken line from Your glory through all of creation to my own glory, a superb gift of eternity directly from You. 

You make me, you choose me, you call me, you save me, you transform me. You give me Yourself.

This is LIFE. The same life I wake up to every morning. Each of the 25,000 hours gifts from You to be lived with and for You.

You knew this from the creation of the world and You flash Your presence in shining thunderbolts before a rising sun just to say 'Hello.' You want me to know that You are near and sharing Your best. This is the Life You have put in me, miraculous Life, unreproducable Life, resounding with a thunderous crash, echoing Your glory across the whole earth.