Tag Archives: Choices

Off Kilter

Posted on January 31, 2016 | Leave a comment

1 John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

Ponderings:
The image of a teeter-totter came to my mind.  On one end are the options of darkness and sin and on the other light and forgiveness. They’re the competing elements of life that bring up the issue of finding balance.  Choosing to hover between those options is only going to leave us Off Kilter much of the time.

That struggle and making balance our goal is the inescapable evidence of our incompleteness and our need. Why would we want to settle for balance when we can get off the teeter totter and stand on firm ground with these promises?

“God is light; in him there is no darkness at all…If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

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Posted in 1 John, Reality, Sunday

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Divine Reading

Posted on January 13, 2016 | Leave a comment

It was just a few years ago that I first heard of Lectio Divina (Latin for “Divine Reading”). It’s not a theological analysis of biblical passages but choosing to read and ponder your personal relationship with God through his Living Word.

Genesis 2:15 “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

God took a risk when He gave Adam the possibility of choosing not to obey rather than physically preventing him from eating. Think about the trust involved in giving that freedom to Adam…and to us!  That’s prime Divine Reading [and pondering].

For God to be willing to risk letting his creation make a wrong choice seems like the ultimate submission on his part. The omnipotent God staking His reputation on “our” choices because “He first loved…” is pretty amazing when you think of it.  He did have a plan but sometimes I just wish he’d done it the other way.

Lord, give me this day the courage to make you proud.

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Posted in Divine Reading, Genesis, Prayer, Wednesday

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Chant Rant

Posted on August 8, 2015 | Leave a comment

We have come through a long, and well-developed, period of esteem building that hasn’t had the effect we’d hoped. It’s a good thing to be capable, to be strong, to be skilled but there’s a falseness to how we’ve promoted that. We’ve outstripped God himself with our motivational chants and as a result we have, and are, a people who do not recognize that we have settled for better when we could have had best. I’m convinced this is our biggest sin; not the things we do or say. I’m also convinced this keeps people away from the life-giving Jesus.
We have settled for words we hoped would build self-esteem and character but they have spiraled out of control inwardly until all that is left is the conflict of our own inner realities and our programmed ideas of how we SHOULD respond to life. It’s no wonder we are stressed. Inside we know our inadequacies and outside we forge onward based on these personal and cultural mantras we need to rethink:
Have it your way
You can do it
Take care of yourself
Accept yourself
You deserve it
Love yourself
Love is never having to say you’re sorry
It’s the real thing
Be true to yourself
Believe in yourself
Feel good about yourself
I’m OK, you’re OK

From the day we’re born finding “the real me” is the task we set out on. Our messages over the years are many but they are not always correct or valuable. Sometimes they seem completely misleading. We are bombarded with basic tools for a reality of success, achievement and pride in our efforts. Those are good and worthy values but they are also part of our struggles.
The messages themselves are a part of the problem but so is our response to them. We need to become aware these motivational message have a downside; leading people to make self-sufficiency their god (with a little “g.”) But there is the big “God” to be considered. He is Sovereign. He is in charge. If we believe that, our quest becomes our opportunity to find ways to transform those messages of success, achievement and pride of accomplishment so they impact hearers in a world-changing way.
Our language of encouragement needs to be transformed from stress producing to stress reducing. No more motivating chants like “you can do it” when they haven’t a clue how, or “have it your way” when it’s obvious they don’t know what that way is. This is culture language that has left us bereft because our inner truth and “fake it ’til you make it” just leave us with a load of stress. We faked it and we didn’t make it; we couldn’t do it. Now what? When did “not getting my way” become failure? When did “need” become weakness? That seems like the biggest hurdle between searchers and Jesus’ promise of abundant life.

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Posted in The Real "Me"

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An Unbelievable Plan

Posted on June 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

Genesis 18
v2. He [Abraham] looked up and noticed three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he ran to meet them and welcomed them, bowing low to the ground… v10 Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”
15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”  But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

Of Interest:
…[Sarah]  “I didn’t laugh.”  But the Lord said, “No, you did laugh.” so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”  But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”
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v 13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ I had to double back to Genesis 17:17  to find this; “Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old?”  So laughter isn’t the issue here, nor is eavesdropping.  I think it’s the “little white lie.” Sarah tells that is the story.

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She’s been overheard and now she’s worried. These men are honored guests but they are strangers to Sarah.  She’s worried when caught that she’ll be in trouble. Right at the beginning the tense changes from strangers to v10 “Then ONE of them said…”.  And that “one” may be the key.  We don’t hear much about SSarah and her relationship to the Lord.  Maybe God really is a pretty much a stranger to her at this point.  There is evidence that she has prayed before.  She has been saved by her prayers out of some terrible situations her previous lies put her in.  …Maybe those were just “foxhole” prayers.  Maybe Sarah is caught in this place; the “not Godless, but not Godly either” way of life.  Whatever her flaws, God has a plan that includes her and a miracle in store for her.

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Isn’t that just how life goes for us?  We fumble about, manipulating life with “little white lies” and sometimes acting like God must be a stranger to us. We pray our own foxhole prayers to get us out of sticky situations.  Then Grace steps in and we discover, at long last, that God has indeed included US in his plan despite our flaws. We can hardly believe it, but that realization is when we begin to understand what a “miracle.” God has for our future as well.

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Posted in Genesis, Not Godless but Not Godly either, OT Snippet Slog

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Best and Wisest

Posted on June 8, 2015 | Leave a comment

Genesis 13
Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord or the beautiful land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) Lot chose for himself the whole Jordan Valley to the east of them. He went there with his flocks and servants and parted company with his uncle Abram. So Abram settled in the land of Canaan, and Lot moved his tents to a place near Sodom and settled among the cities of the plain. But the people of this area were extremely wicked and constantly sinned against the Lord.

Of Interest:
Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord.

My Thoughts:
Lot must have heard throughout his life the oral history that spoke of the perfection and beauty of the land God had promised, and there it was. Did he remember those stories as he saw the Jordan Valley laid out before him? This new place that seemed be exactly what God had promised, so beautiful and good…except for one tiny little snag…the people of the area were extremely wicked and constantly sinned against the Lord.  Lot may have reasoned; “good land, good oral history, good faith, and…God promised…how bad could it be,” right?

I have been in that position of making choices in my life with that same kind of reasoning. Lot was caught in the very same tension of decision making as we are today.  For the most part we assume “worst and clearly stupid” have been eliminated from our decision-making process because we now belong to God.  We forget we are still vulnerable to being blindsided by our self-confident “how bad could it be?” mindset. We forget that while “how bad could it be” may look better than “worst and clearly stupid” it still looks pretty poor compared to best and wisest.

 

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Posted in Genesis, Not Godless but Not Godly either, OT Snippet Slog

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