The Baby Will Come

Photo: hipshakingmama.wordpress.com

In 1972, pregnant with my first child, I asked my mother, "How much will it hurt?"
"Don't worry," she told me. "You forget about it after the baby comes."

She was wrong about that.
I didn't forget--not then, and not through my second delivery. I still remember.
I remember the urgency.
I remember the  intensity.
I remember the whole, round, bigger-than-me desire to have the whole thing over with.
I remember how much, partway through, I wanted to give up the whole job.
But, once begun, I was stuck.
Once conceived, once carried, and so long anticipated, the baby would come.

The earth does the same thing.
God implanted in it the perfection of Himself, the pregnancy of His promise, and that child will, with or without our permission, be born.
And we groan in the waiting for it.
Every day, we feel how things ought to be and long for them.

Why do we know so much evil when God is so merciful? we ask.
Birth pangs.
Why do poverty, and sickness, and injustice continually plague us? we ask.
Birth pangs.
Why can't men and women just get along? we ask.
Birth pangs.
Every day, the earth swells with expectation of God's return, it leans into its own pangs of wanting, it opens the way and says, between cries, 
"Come, Lord Jesus!"

Creation was subject to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one Who subjected it, in hope that creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as if in the pangs of childbirth right up to the present time.--Romans 8:20-22


Do you remember your own pangs of childbirth?
Do they give you any insight about the world's imperfections and what joy might still be in store?

New Temple, New Fire, New Freedom

photo:markpinoondrums.blogspot.com

 

The Holy of Holies.
The place where God dwelt among His people.
The place where men could not enter for fear of death because of God's monumental glory.

This the measure of the magnitude of what Christ has done:
The same glory that dwelt in the Holy of Holies now dwells in us.
God promised.
The nations shall know that I, the Lord, make Israel holy by putting my sanctuary among them forever.--Ezekiel 37:28

Forever. He dwells with His people forever. Even after His brick-and-mortar sanctuary has long lain in ruins.
Christ not only rent the temple curtain.
He sent His Spirit, the same Spirit that dwelt in that sacred place, and made it resident in you and me.

Christ freed us in this and, in a way, also freed Himself.
No longer is He confined to a place, but He is broadcast like seed among a walking, talking people.
No longer does humanity come to the temple--or to church--to see God.
Humanity looks at us.

God has completed His covenant, not by re-building a new temple, but by building up His people.
In what ways do you know that you are the construct of God?

Taking the 'Crazy' out of Busy

photo: www.sodahead.com

I couldn't say it better than Francis de Sales:

Flies harass us more by their numbers than by their sting. Similarly, great matters disturb us less than a multitude of small affairs. Accept the duties which are entrusted to you quietly, and try to fulfill them methodically, one after another. If you attempt to do everything at once, or with confusion, you will not only burden yourself with your own exertions, and by entangling your mind, you will probably be overwhelmed and accomplish nothing.

In all your affairs, rely on God's Providence, through which alone your plans can succeed. Meanwhile, on your part, work on in quiet cooperation with God, and then rest satisfied that, if you have entrusted your work entirely to God, you will always obtain that measure of success which is best for you, whether it seems so or not in your own judgement.

...When your own work or business is not particularly engrossing, let your heart be fixed more on God than on it; and if the work be such as to require your undivided attention, then pause from time to time and look to God, even as navigators do who set their course for the harbor by looking up at the heavens rather than down at the deeps on which they sail. Doing this, you will see that God will work with you, and for you, and your work will be blessed.

What one task can you begin to intentionally share with God? Mine is dishwashing.
Thanks, Francis.

St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life

What to do Today

pic: www.ingodsimage.com

Moses messed up at Zin.
The Israelites were thirsty and complaining AGAIN, and God told him to speak to the rock to make it produce water, something Moses had done before under God's instruction.
But this time, Moses had enough of the Israelites' griping:
...and Moses said to them, "Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?" Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff.--Numbers 20:10-11

Pic credit: www.trekkersbiblestudy.org

You have to feel for the guy. The Israelites were ungrateful, unfaithful, and blasphemous. We would have gotten mad, too. So he hit the rock instead of yelling at it. Big deal.
But you and I have never seen God.
Not face to face like Moses did.
He, more than every other living man, should have known what God wanted.
He wanted Moses to believe Him.
And He wanted him to do it right then, without hesitation.

That's why God excluded Moses from His rest, his promised land.  
In that critical moment, Moses didn't believe.
Moses' fleeting unbelief denied him rest, and it can do the same for us. But God gives us hope:
It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them and did not go in because of their disobedience. 

God links our hope for heaven to something we have to do and He give us a time to do it:
Therefore, God set a certain day, calling it Today...Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.--Hebrews 3:6-7

We are to believe Today.
Today is the day we hear His voice.
Today is the day we believe.
Today is the day we enter into the rest of knowing God.

Do you remember a time when God showed you the heaven to come by giving you something of Himself today?

You've GOT to be Kidding

Photo:howtomakeyourmanperfect.wordpress.com

Teenagers.
Don't you hate it when they pout?
After all, what does pouting really say?
"You've got to be kidding."
"This isn't even close to good enough."
"What about ME?"

Teenagers. Go figure.
They are world class pouters.
And I, of course, being older and wiser, am not.

And, then I got out of bed.
"Oh, man...the cat threw up again."
"Who left their wet towels on the floor?"
"Turn on the air, will you? It's really hot out there."
"I don't want cereal for breakfast. Can't we have french toast?"

Complaints. Whines. And yes, pouting.
Nothing is good enough.
And, just like a pouting teenager insults what I have given her, I insult what God has given me.
Yes, the cat threw up, but she also calms and cuddles.
Yes, someone left wet towels on the floor, but the floor is tiled and nothing is harmed.
Yes, it's 90 degrees today, but it's not 30 below and it's not snowing again.
Yes, cereal isn't the most exciting breakfast, but it's easy and nutritious and doesn't burden anyone.

Turn back, my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has been good to you; He has kept my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling. I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living.--Psalm 116:8-9
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you, it is the gift of God.--Ephesians 2:9

What God gives me is GOOD--not because it makes me happy, but because it comes from Him.
Thinking it is anything else simply becomes pouting.

What He Gave Me

Most people grow up with an expectation of disappointment or an overriding attitude of fear.
It's true.
I didn't know it for a long time but when I started to ask, almost everyone told me this.
Disappointment and fear: is this how we are meant to live?
No, of course not.

I grew up with an expectation of wonder. And I got it from my dad.
When we were young, Dad took us out for rides on Sunday afternoons (gas was 25 cents). He never told us where we were going, so we looked with anticipation around every corner, asking "Are we there yet?"  When we finally arrived, always at a place Dad had found just for the occasion--a waterfall, or a pristine sledding hill, or a remote Hopi village--he presented it to us with a flourish as if to say, "Isn't it wonderful?" And it always was.
And that was our framework for life.
He showed me what a really fine tomato tastes like.
He marked out the profile of the man in the moon.
He plunged my hands into yeasty, rising dough.
He rolled me down a hill fragrant with just-cut grass.
He stood me in front of President Lincoln and told me to think.
He showed me what the world looked like from the sky.
And it was all wonderful.

My father told me to be smart and careful, but not to be afraid.
And, more importantly, he taught me to LIVE. 
And, without meaning to, he taught me about God.

Do not fear, for I am with you--Isaiah 41:10
For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity--2Timothy 1:7
I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.--Psalm 27:13

Today: Don't Miss It

photo:jronaldlee.com

Stop.
You are missing something.
Right now. This minute.

It's your life.
What happens when you are doing something else.
The bloom opening between breaths.
The tap of first rain.
Silent minutes that neglect to announce their passing.

They belonged to you,
gifts showered one by one.
You were meant to pick them up,
smell each in its turn,
let it run down your hand and arm
until it becomes only cool shine,
and makes room for more.

I sometimes fear that, having ignored too many little drops,
I how hear only the crash of life's wave,
bearing down, almost to shore.

But I looked up today,
and it came.
The one drop.
Fragrant, cool, sweet with washing.

This one, I kept, and savored,
remembering that the waterfall would never roar
if each droplet, in its turn, did not fall. 

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfall.--Psalm 42:7