A Joye Ride

I spent the afternoon on the bus for the assisted living folks. Every Tuesday is visit the doctor day. The activities director drives those residents that can get out to see their doctors to their apppointments.  I rode along with her to help those in wheel chairs.  I think I deployed and stowed the ramp 8 or 9 times in four hours.  It was a delight to be a part of the process.  There's one senior citizen that I've enjoyed a great deal. Her first name is Joye and she was a music teacher and administrator for nearly 50 years.  She was our first pickup.  Her doctor's office had called saying she was ready to go. When we got to the office, it wasn't quite true. It took another twenty minutes or so.  Instead of my usual impatience, I intentionally focused on letting God be God and entrusting Him with the schedule.  In short I chose joy with Joye.

However, I might have been a tad bit late in hiding my impatience. Joye figured out we had another run to make.  She couldn't have been kinder.  She did everything she could to speed up the process.  She kept such a happy heart and a joyful attitude. It was contagious. The activities director and I tried on different glasses frames while we waited. It was fun.  I found a pair of frames that I liked and the AD said looked really good on me.  All for a mere $390.00. I think they'd look good on anybody.

I realized the importance of the serenity prayer today. Change those things you can change, accept those you can't and be wise enough to know the difference.  What could have resulted in my being impatient and frustrated all afternoon turned out to be a joy. The rest of the afternoon I remained calm and at peace even when we got lost, missed an exit and had to double back to one office to pick up something left behind.  I look forward to next Tuesday's Joye ride.

Body Life

I was thinking about the blessing of the church community. Sundays are such a wonderful day of fellowship with people in your local body. My pastor refers to them as your "nuclear family."  These are usually the people with whom you accomplish the "one another" commands.  Within this body you have all levels of intimacy. Some people you may talk to every day. Some you may be related in a biological way.  For example, sisters may attend the same local church or parents and their adult children.  Some people you may only see and talk to on Sunday.  But these aren't the only believers in your life.

Today I had supper with my stepmother. She's a believer and in lieu of my Dad's confinement to a facility, she and I have spent more time together. I appreciate her encouragement.  On the way home from her house my BSF leader called. BSF has about four or five hundred women meeting in one church.  They are for the most part believers.  We don't even talk about what church we attend but gather to study the Word of the Lord and to fellowship with one another. I'm sure a myriad of local churches are represented among the larger class.

 Our church has a short term missions team in the Ukraine for eight days. They are meeting brothers and sisters in the Lord around the world.  They left bearing some gifts but more importantly they are teaching, preaching, serving and encouraging these Ukrainian believers in various ways.  What an opportunity for them. In fact, for the size of our church I am amazed at how many short term missions teams serve each year. I understand that another team will be heading to South Korea for three weeks sometime this summer. We have had teams go to Uganda and recently sent a family there on a more permanent basis.  We all need to be a member of a local body but how blessed we are for the entire body of Jesus Christ.

The Fruit Not the Root

Today I went on a scenic ride / shopping trip with some senior citizens in their van. As we were driving the road along the Benbrook Dam one of the ladies mentioned how dead everything looked. The grass was a brownish yellow, the trees were leafless and bare.  One of the other ladies commented that the roots were not dead though. If they were, there wouldn't be any green grass this spring.  From the surface it wasn't a pretty picture for sure.  But what laid underneath was vastly more important.  There was still life just waiting for its Creator to call it forth. 

I pondered how many times in the past I have judged the spiritual lives of other professing Christians.  How I saw the dead yellow and brown grass or bare tree and deemed them to be apostate or an unbeliever. What unmitigated pride.  How wrong to put myself in a position that God alone holds. Only He can see the heart. Only He knows whether He has called forth life or not.  All I could see is the external fruit of a life.  It's all we as humans can ever see in another life. While I think it is important to be careful if the fruit is putrid, dead or absent, we can't deem that to be true of the root. 

Gratefully this summer other people didn't do to me what I had done to others. They held out the hope that in spite of a leafless and bare tree; deep down inside was life. The root wasn't dead. Little fruit returned, because life was there all along. We are to be wise about the manifest spiritual fruit of other people--especially those in leadership or teaching positions.  But we must not judge the heart or the root.  That right is God's alone.I appreciated my senior friend's wisdom as reflected in her comment about life being in the root of the grass. I look forward in the next two or three months to taking the same route and seeing the green grass and bluebonnet filled fields that now appear to be so very dead. 

God of Order

I've helped a lot this week in undecorating from the holidays. There could have been a lot of chaos but in each case the person in charge was very methodical in the way things were taken down and packaged. It will make next year so much easier and better to decorate. I've helped decorate after someone has just tossed everything in storage whether it's a closet, storage unit or attic. It was a living mess. Ornaments were broken, lights were tangled, wreaths had tape all over them, candles were chipped and it seemed to be such poor stewardship. This year great care was taken to protect the decorations and to label them carefully.

Our spiritual lives can be like that. We shove all sorts of sins in closets or attics hoping just to get them out of sight. We don't remember or perhaps realize what the mess will be like in a year.  As a person who did it the wrong way I want to encourage you not to be deceived and think that all is orderly and well when it's not. God is a God of order not chaos.  We may want to tuck things away but He won't allow it for long.  He is committed to His children and the goal of holiness for their lives.  He will shine the light and open the storage unit door.  He'll straighten out the mess but it takes time and a lot of effort. It truly is much simpler to handle things correctly which means biblically in the first place. 

Who Are You Trusting God or ?

I was at church today helping to take down the holiday decorations. A close friend and I were talking about her children.  She has two daughters still at home.  The older one went to spend a week with her older brother and his wife who just had a baby. The younger daughter has never stayed in her bedroom alone.  She was scared. She talked to her Mom about it. I loved my friend's counsel to her last child.  "Who are you trusting in God or (her sister)."  What an excellent question to ask ourselves as we ferret out relationship idols.  Women have a tendency to seek from others only what God can provide. We want others to be only what He can be to us.

We can go too far the other way and refuse to fellowship. It's the "Jesus and I" mindset. It's equally deadly to the spiritual life. God has set us in local churches who serve as a nuclear spiritual family.  We need one another in order to be able to obey the one another commands.  We can be unbalanced in both directions. We lean too heavily on people and not on the Lord. That's why it is good to ask ourselves occasionally "Who Am I Trusting In God or?"  The young girl found out who she truly trusted when her sister was gone.  We often discover the existence of an idol when God removes it.  It's much harder to have the Lord remove the idol than it is if we voluntarily give it up.  Of course that means that we must examine our own hearts frequently to be able to spot the idols in our hearts.

Speaking of the one anothers.  There were three of us putting plastic containers of various sizes in the church attic.  One person was in the attic area where the Christmas decorations are stored. She arranged the boxes. I was pushing them up the ladder. A young (and strong) pastoral intern was moving them from the top of the ladder over to the attic area.  We got done in an amazing short time. The work was much easier. I think our system resembled what it looks like when the individual body members work in unison and unity.  It made an arduous task so much more enjoyable.

The Damage of Sin

I spent some of my day taking down holiday adornments at a local care facility. I remember how carefully and beautifully the Activities Director did everything.  She spent many a late night getting everything ready.  It was wonderful and the comments from residents, family and friends continued throughout the season. But it took two of us roughly 4 or 5 hours to undo every beautiful thing she had done.  Things were taken down, arranged for easy access next year and packed in a crate.  One swoop through and it was all over.  It was almost as though it never happened in the first place. But pictures and people's memories were too strong for that.

It reminds me how sin can swoop through a life and make it seem as though everything that went before didn't matter.  It's not true but a person's reputation, lifelong reputation, can be destroyed with one scandal.  A sin can wipe out any of the good works that truly may have been done through the Lord's Spirit. It can ruin a testimony and cast doubt on the Lord.  I've been sharing with the Lord how much I desire to bring Him glory. He's been sharing with me my past and present failures.  Not to beat me up but to encourage me to repent because He loves me. 

It's a hard process for sure. Not one anybody really wants to go through. But is is the pathway to holiness and that's God's goal for us this year and until we see Him again.  So while it's hard, I continue on baby step after baby step. Setting my face like flint even for a brief moment but willing to keep turning toward Him countless times throughout the day.  It would be much easier if I could just hold my face toward Him for a longer period but prayerfully that will happen in time.  Until then I take my little baby steps, turn my face repeatedly and trust Him to take away my mourning over sin and give me joy.  I solicit your prayers as I fight. 

It's A War

I'm reading Ephesians 6: 10 -18 as part of my quiet time.  Verse 12 is pretty clear: ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places."  Unfortunately we can fall off the balance beam to the left or to the right when thinking about demonic activity.  The ultra charismatics go too far left and see a demon behind every bush.  They thus have a reason for every sin known to man.  The ultra reformed go too far right and say that there is no such thing as demonic activity. Everything is a result of our fleshly disobedience solely. The Scripture takes a balanced approach.  It acknowledges the existence of spiritual forces of wickedness and rulers to name two groups.  We shouldn't look over our shoulders for every hint of demonic influence but we can't look down with our heads in the sand either.

The answer is to be wise about the existence of the enemy and his work.  We fight not against flesh and blood but a spiritual battle. That means we must fight with spiritual armor.  This includes the truth, righteousness, faith and the Gospel. Once we have appropriated such grace of the Lord we are to stand firm.  But only when we have fully dressed ourselves are we to stand.  To try and stand without the armor is an invitation for a mortal wound that the enemy would love to inflict.  We are to be strong in the Lord and the power of His, not our might, but we must dress in the garb that He has provided us.  We must do it daily.  Anything less is asking for it. May this new year we remember that it is a battle.  We know who wins at the end but it is our responsibility to fight.  Every believer here on earth is part of the church militant.  Only when we see the face of Jesus do we join the church at rest.