Called by God

 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God - this gospel God promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.  Specifically, this promise was in regard to his Son, who in the flesh was a descendant of Dave, and who was declared the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, as seen in the resurrection of the Christ, known as Jesus. Romans 1: 1-4 

Paul is introducing himself through his relationship with Jesus, with whom he may have only experienced in the Spirit and not directly in the flesh.  Paul took very seriously that visitation of Jesus on the road to Damascus.  Jesus' glory was fully revealed to him on that road in such a way that he was forever changed.

 Although Paul might have seen Jesus, having traveled in Jesus' time and venue, he was, at least, on the edges of the conversations about Jesus, enough that he took on the vendetta of persecution of early Christians. In many ways we are like Paul.  We hear of Jesus.  We hear other people talk about him, maybe some not favorably.  

Some, like Paul, have a spiritual experience with the Christ.  I would propose it is actually the hallmark of being introduced to Christ:  more than what we hear or what we intellectually know, but rather what we have experienced in His presence.  It can be hard to convince others of our experience with Christ, but like Paul, our lifestyles could be the most convincing way to do so.

Paul's turnaround was dramatic!  Once on the sidelines (Acts 22:20) then in the fray. Once a persecutor, then a supporter and leader. Has your experience of Christ changed you?  Motivated you?  Caused you to be either supporter or leader? Our other relationships change us, whether it is being a friend, friend, spouse...every relationship asks something of us.

I once kept a sign in my office:  "What are you going to do about what you believe?"  Maybe it should have said, "What are you going to do in response to your relationship with Christ?"

Life at the Margins

Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality.  At the present time, your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need.  Again, the goal is equality.  As it is written:  "The one who gathered much did not have too much and the one who gather little did not have too little."  2 Corinthians 8:13-15

I would have once identified as someone at the economic margins:  single mom on welfare, living with abandonment as a family curse.  But generosity prevailed.  Others shared with me, including my family.  This included those who met my need of community and belonging.  God paved a way out for me through education, advancement and eventually wealth.  I bought my own house, provided all my children needed....and sometimes wanted.  Then through re-marriage, more stability came to our family.

I have kept my feet on both sides of the low-resource and high-resource divide.  This has caused my career to stay focused on those in need and kept me from abandoning my post.  There are skills I developed on both sides of the economic and cultural divide, and I share them liberally with people in each.  I provide access and support for people to move from the low-resource side;  I provide avenues and encouragement for people to share the wealth they have in a way that feels productive.  I love it when cultures come together, valuing each others' tenets and practices.

Having both experiences has caused for greater generosity in me to those in need, too.  I don't need it "all" when some don't have the basics.  I recognize that only God is good and his supplies to our household are enough.  I don't answer the world's cry for "more," just enough for healthy living.

"The goal is equality..."  Paul says.  

        isotes - equality, equity and fairness

        husterema - need, deficiency - in reference to poverty, want

I have come to understand what this gift of wealth, position and power is for.  This is my mantra:  "Power shared is power gained." Hoarding takes too much effort; Giving is freedom.  Positioning is stressful; joining with others shares responsibility.  While this obviously includes financial poverty, the stability I gain emotionally and spiritually can be shared, too.  If I gain, so will you...and, in turn, others will gain their needs from you.

God wants to supply all our needs, of which most are deeper and more complicated than just financial.  We are his carriers.  

Praise the Lord!

 Hallelu yah!  (Praise Yahweh)

Praise God in his sanctuary;

praise him beneath the massive sky!

Praise him for his acts of power:

praise for his greatness - in its multitude, abundance and excellence!

Praise him with the blast of trumpets 

and clashing cymbals!

Praise him with your whole body -

dancing and singing!

Everyone, everywhere, every creature with breath

(and every animal, too)

praise the Lord!

Hallelu yah!

Psalm 150

This is my favorite psalm...and it makes me think that I don't praise very well in church worship.  These actions describe how I act at football games and concerts, so I know how to praise!  We were made to praise! 

What has caused us to eliminate praise from worshiping God?

I looked up all the words translated for "praise" in the Old Testament.  They describe what our praise should look like:

rum - extol and exalt - raise up above all others.

barak - bless - kneel before, congratulate; thank

halal - praise - shine a light on; clearly reveal and make known

gush - celebrate - pour out; belch out

sabah - praise - stroke, address in a loud tone

sapar - proclaim/tell - recount; rehearse; keep a record

naba - eagerly utter

ranan - shout joyfully - cry out; ring out; sing out

t'hilla - praise - a song of adoration; especially a song of public praise

I like old hymns and some modern praise and worship songs, but very few of them do the kind of praise we are called to do before the Lord. I am ashamed to say my greatest practice of praise has been in support of my alma mater's football team.  I love when the ENTIRE crowd sings the fight song, then the football team joins in and sings the alma mater.  The fight song is sung raucously!  The alma mater is sung almost spiritually.  One calls us to the battle; one calls us together.

What would be our Christian, God-raising fight song?  Definitely think trumpets and cymbals!  Actually, songs we sang as children rise to my mind:  I'm in the Lord's Army!  Father Abraham!  I've got the Joy, Joy, Joy, down in my Heart!  These are enthusiastic!  We would have hand motions;  we would march and sing loud!

Then the ones that call us together.  Of course, Jesus Loves Me.  The B-I-B-L-E.  I've got Peace like a River...these draw us in.

As adults, I think we need to be more deliberate in our praising.  Sorry, choir leaders and worship leaders, sometimes we drone on in long-winded, low-affect, not-God-focused songs.  I personally feel a revamp on my praising.

What about a crowd chant.  One side of the pews do one part; the other side responds.  I've actually done that in church (and the football stadium).

Hallelu  yah!

The Wealthy

Tell the wealthy:  In regard to this season of life, don't become arrogant and don't put your hope in your wealth, which can be uncertain (name all the ways), but rather put your hope in God, who abundantly provides us with all things for our enjoy enjoyment.

Here's how:  

• do good (work good, do well, act right)
• be rich (abundant, use your resources) in good deeds (your business, any labor)
• be generous (ready to distribute)
• be ready and willing to share (liberally).

In this way, the wealthy will lay up treasure (Paul's compounding of words to exaggerate meaning - amass/reserve) for themselves a good foundation (first principles/underpinnings) for the basis of actions that demonstrate what you care about and will build toward your expectations.  Then you will have life indeed!  1 Timothy 6:17-19 

Our pursuit of wealth is misplaced, of course, we would say, but in America, in a culture of wealth - accumulation, it is difficult for us to be separate ourselves from it.  Yet Paul tells Timothy, let's reconfigure what the pursuit is.  Truly, we could all agree that our pursuit is the good life, the God life, a happy life... but our culture has taught us all the wrong ways to define it.  We measure the God-blessed life as one of (material) blessing.

I think the original language deserves exploration for this "life."  The word used is "Zoe."  It has literal and figurative meanings when used in the Bible.  Most of all, it means to possess vitality:  the energy for what life brings.  This means that life is full of meaning, passion and pursuit by for the essential and immediate needs (i.e. food) and an ethical pursuit.  What if I pursued ethical standards as energetically as I pursued a good steak or an abundance of my favorite dessert?

To really pursue an ethical life is to get a full understanding of the "why" of life and to filtrate and prioritize values.  Too often we have a set of values that are thin and wavering.  Sometimes we have to exercise prioritizing values which come into conflict with each other.  How does that happen?  I say I value my family and my career...and it is the easiest example to demonstrate values which can come into conflict.  Prioritizing says I know which one leads.

Zoe can also mean life that is real and genuine, especially in devotion to God.  My life's meaning comes from a relationship with God that is lived:  when belief is translated into action and love into loyalty for God.  And not lazily.  A Zoe life is an active and vigorous pursuit of devotion and demonstration of the Triune God.

English translations often translate Zoe into "heaven" or "eternal life."  The original, not so much.  To have the "good" life now, fully is to enhance the "good" for all - those in need, those in our family, the community of believers - and to give as if your life depended on it...because it does!

Now

 Yet, a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.  John 4:23, 24

Now - nyn - in the present moment, in the presence of

This is Jesus' lesson for the woman at the well.  She and her culture had misplaced their object of worship to a place and not a person.  Do we do the same?  Do we cause our object of worship to be a place, like our church, or even something that might seem worship-center, like in nature?  Jesus' lesson is that worship takes place in the heart and in relationship with God.

How do we translate Jesus' statement to ourselves?  Does only the moment matter?  Does only our focus matter?  I want to see NOW as the moment where I understand/plug into the full weight of glory, full of meaning and full of gratitude for having the presence (Spirit of God) with me now.  

I want to find ways to be aware of God NOW - in traffic, in front of my computer, cooking at the stove, in exercise.  I want to capture that essence in the here and now!  The world may careen down its path to some end.  I want to bask in the sense of God's presence now and take in the experience of now.

Can I mentally sit still?

Can I take it in?

Can I love it and bask in it?

My head is ringing.  The list for today is long.  Someone wants to eat.  How can my spirit find the "space" for my soul to connect with the Spirit and her true nature that is calling me towards the Triune God in every situation?

In heaven will there be no passage of time?  Will only the moment matter?  I am going to seek to make this moment be filled with the weight of glory and full of meaning, mostly because it means so much to God.

Amen.

God loves me!

 When the time was right, Christ died for me while I was far from God, powerless and weak.  (Romans 5:6)

I could do nothing for myself, so my Daddy did it all.  I am weak and incomplete, but still have favor with him. This move by Christ put me in right position with God, as his daughter - now rescued from a wasted life and at peace with God.  It is cause for constant celebration.  (Romans 5:7-10)  

So, God is for me and nothing can stand against me.  No one can condemn me.  Nothing can separate me from God and his promise of deliverance.  Nothing will remove me from His love, which is at work even in trouble, hardship, persecution, hunger, poverty, danger, or even death.  (Romans 8:31-34)

It is his love I need (and have) most as the difficulties come.

First, we loved ourselves for our own sake.

Then we loved God for our sake.

Next, we loved God for his sake,

and then we love ourselves for God's sake. 

              (Bernard of Clairvaux)

Dear Lord, let your love permeate every relationship I have, even the relationship I have with myself.  Amen.

Long Thoughts

 I was listening to a great interview of James Taylor, who was reminiscing about his childhood in the Carolinas.  He remembered the woods where he spent time with the trees and there he could have "long thoughts" with himself.  How little our thoughts are "long" any more.  We exist with sound bites, trailers, ditties, the shunted language of the digital world.

I am thinking about the places I have been able to have long thoughts with myself:  in a cabin in the woods, on a wooded hill, on a bus trip in Scotland, on a jet ski on a lake in the Tehachapi Mountains, laying in the grass below El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.  The visual memory is vivid.  The message just as clear in each.  

I even remember being stuck inside my house in a snowstorm, in a cast for a broken ankle, my kids out-of-state.  No way to go anywhere.  Even there, God had a word for me.  "Be still and know that I am God," he says.

There is never enough space for God.  He can fill me and, more expandedly, have me fill the space he creates.  Will I ever be still enough to hear it all?

Do less, so you can be more.