Red Bird Devotions #24

Flat Rabbits

As I was driving to the gym this morning at 5:48, I noticed a rabbit (and two raccoons and three white-tailed deer) trying to avoid certain death as my car zoomed by. This rabbit was different than the other wildlife that I observed on my short commute; while the maybe-somewhat-smarter raccoon and deer ducked for cover in the nearby forest of trees, the rabbit, being a city dweller, ran under another car—albeit stationary. And the first thought that came to mind was, “he thinks he’s safe there.”

Sometimes, I think we are like that. Our lives start getting uncomfortable, or painful, or out of control, and we think our protection lies somewhere in this world. We think if we can just find a way out of this suffocating circumstance, these painful memories, or these dizzying demands on our time, that we will feel safe and relaxed. But we’re wrong—just like that rabbit was wrong. In the same way we know eventually that car will start up again--and eventually it will back over that creature that looked for protection behind its wheel--when we run to anything but the one true God for comfort, that "false protector" will eventually pull us away from the real one—and maybe even crush us.

As Christians, we know where our Real Security lies; it is not in ease or comfort or wealth. It’s not in education, or influence, or beauty or other relationships. We only have real safety when we hide ourselves with Christ in God—He is truly our Rock and our Refuge--all other things will disappoint.

And instead of having life to the full, we will just be a flat rabbit.

The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
   my shield and the horn of my salvation.
He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior…

2 Samuel 22:2-3

Red Bird Devotions #23

Love Language

Though my father-in-law, Ralph, has been gone nearly 15 years now, I still think of him often, and fondly.  Ralph Haverkamp immigrated to the United States from the Netherlands as a young man in his mid-twenties.  Knowing almost no English, he would only visit restaurants with pictures on their menus because he could see what food was available there, and then he would point at the photo when the waitress asked him for his order.  Slowly but surely, Ralph’s English vocabulary grew though he never dropped his heavy--but delightful-- Dutch brogue. 

I met Ralph when he was in his 50’s and I struggled to understand him at first.  He was so good-natured, though, that he would keep repeating a word or phrase until I understood what he was saying.  His pronunciation of the hard “ch” sound (like we use when saying “cheese”) made the words “chef--pronounced shef” or “Chicago--pronounced shicago” sound like they are spelled: Chef and Chicago. When he said “jiffy,” it came out as “jippy.” He said other funny things too, but those are the few I remember.  Another thing I do recall, however, is this:  Although he had learned to speak English fluently and well, when Ralph was rushed… or angry… or agitated, his Dutch always came out.  Dutch was his native language, and in times of uncertainty, when he was operating on his own intuition, it was his default method of communication. 

Don’t we, as Christians, do the same thing?  We lay our lives down as living sacrifices--saying that we will serve God and not ourselves anymore.  We live with renewed minds and learn the language of love.  But then, sometimes, when we are stressed, or anxious, or even just hungry, we fall back into our default language of self-absorption, sarcasm, and shame.  We react when we should respond.  We tear down when we should build up.  We start to speak our native language of sin once again. 

Sin is our default, folks.  Yes, we have been forgiven.  We have been covered by Christ’s Robe of Righteousness.  We have been freed from the dominion of sin in our lives.  But still, because we inhabit these “bodies of death” instead of our eventual perfect bodies, we have to struggle against our default. The struggling is hard. But, because of Jesus, we are able...especially when we fight on our knees.

What language have you been speaking lately?  Spend time language-learning by sitting at the feet of the Very Best Teacher.

Become fluent--and consistent-- in the language of love.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.  Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. 

Romans 12:1-2

So, I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?  Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. 

Romans 7:21-25

Red Bird Devotions #22

Beyond My Bench

(Repost from June 5,  2012)

While I have been hanging out in Iowa City (my third trip on the ten day tour), during Tess’ college orientation, I have had opportunity to do lots of people watching (this is because I chose not to do the parent portion of the orientation since I had just done it two years previous).  

As I sat in the ped mall—a very cosmopolitan, outdoor, community-inviting section of downtown Iowa city—I ate my Jimmy John’s Turkey Tom Unwich and my cake batter froyo, I watched a traditionally-dressed Indian woman talking on her cell phone and guiding her tiny beautiful daughter, who stopped and stared at my yogurt, with her dark and delicate hand.  I saw another mother, Caucasian, obviously mid-forties, dressed in the clothes of a teenager, trying to look like a teenager, and walking with her soon-to-be college bound daughter, who was dressed in the same type of clothes; it was easy to tell who the real teenager was. I noticed a 50-something biker dude all decked out in spandex shorts and shirt, and he looked great from the back, but when he turned around, he had a huge belly which was showcased by his tight white biking apparel—and his phone—which had to be plastered with sweat to his skin—was also zipped inside.  Maybe he’s new to the sport. and wanted to make sure he had his phone in case of emergency.  I saw guys and girls walking hand in hand, girls and girls walking hand in hand, and young mothers with strollers and ice cream-stained children trailing behind them.  I heard a little girl on the bench beside me telling the people beside her that she had never seen so many birds up close.  The birds at the ped mall—pigeons, and sparrows, and little un-namables with very cute perfectly round heads—reminded me of the birds I had seen while in Holland in the town centers.  They are so tame and plentiful—looking adorable while they feast on everyone’s crumbs.  I saw two preppy guys and a magnificent-looking Siberian Husky retreat into a mysterious door on the side of a bar.  I eyed some parents on the bus with worried-looking faces—each wearing Iowa pins and carrying remarkable amount of Iowa paraphernalia—obviously here for orientation; as they clung to one another, their son sat aloof beside them trying to act cool and not scared. I watched a grandma, adoring her grandson as he toddled into the fountains of water erupting in the playground.  I told her that I was adoring him too, and she beamed.

I wondered about all of these people.  What were they thinking?  What were they doing out and about on this Monday afternoon?  Were they thinking about the doctor’s diagnosis?  or their late rent? or the fight they had with their spouse before they left?  Were they proud of their middle school baseball star? worried about their chronically sick child?  their wayward teenager?  their ailing parent?  Did they wonder how they would make it with their son away at college? Were they excited to be married?  depressed about their impending divorce?  rejoicing in being a grandma?  mustering up the courage to ask the admired one on a date? Were the moms delighting in their children? or just trying to make it through the day?  Were they appreciating the little ones’ dependence or yearning for an early bedtime?   Did they feel appreciated?  obligated?  taken for granted?  I thought about saying “Good job!” to the little Hispanic man cleaning the high light fixtures on the side of a building, but I didn’t. Maybe I should have. Maybe he needed encouragement. 

Everyone’s got a story.  Everyone feels pain.  Everyone feels joy. Everyone feels.  Sometimes that’s hard for me to remember.  Sometimes I get so wrapped up in my story, and my lunch. and my bench, that I forget to look beyond.  My world becomes all about me.  That’s not how God wants me to be.  He wants me to watch these people, get involved with their stories, and love them lavishly.  He wants me to show them Who He is by getting to know who they are. 

He wants me to get out of my own little world and into His big one.  That’s not an easy task for an introvert like me.  But I can do it, through Him, because I desire to obey.  and to become less like myself. and more like Him. 

Dear Jesus, help me to have eyes to see beyond my bench…and hands to reach your world.

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

^{1 Peter 1:22-23}

Red Bird Devotions #21

Living For Jesus

When the children were babies and Brent would rock them to sleep, he always sang the same song. Brent is not a singer (and I think maybe this is the only song where he knew all the words. He learned it in Cadets as a child) but his slightly off-key voice always sounded so sweet as he sang this to our sleepy babies lying in his arms.

I remember one night, when I was sad, my sweet husband sang this same song to me. As I listened to the words coming out of his mouth, I was struck by the solidity of the truth they contained. So…I decided to share them with you. Here they are:

"Living for Jesus”

Living for Jesus, a life that is true,
Striving to please Him in all that I do;
Yielding allegiance, glad hearted and free,
This is the pathway of blessing for me. 
O Jesus Lord and Savior, I give myself to Thee,
For Thou, in Thy atonement, didst give Thyself for me.
I own no other Master, my heart shall be Thy throne.
My life I give, henceforth to live, O Christ, for Thee alone.

Living for Jesus can be so simple.

And we make it so hard.

When we yield allegiance to ourselves and make Him our only Master, we truly will be glad hearted and free.

Let’s try it, shall we?

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

John 8:36

Red Bird Devotions #20

Heavenly Math

Do you ever play “Nerts”?  I do.  It’s one of the only card games I will play with my kids because it doesn’t involve any adding.  I’m horrible at adding, and at math in general, which I used to feel bad about until I read about the life of C.S. Lewis and found out that he was really bad at math too, and look how much people like him.  So anyway, as I was saying, Nerts is fun card game that involves building piles of cards in order.  If you are stacking upon your personal card piles, you must stack them in descending order and you must alternate colors, i.e. If I had a black ten (of any suit), next I would lay down a red nine (of any suit), and so forth, and I could continue this descent of cards in that pattern.  But, if I chose to lay down cards in the shared card piles in the middle of the table, I would need to start with an Ace of a certain suit and then stack cards of that suit and color in ascending order until I get to the King.  Your main goal in the game is to get rid of all of your cards, upon which your cry “Nerts!” and you win the game.  I explained all of this to you so that I could also elaborate on a spiritual truth that God revealed to me recently. 

In her book, Practical Theology for Women, Wendy Horger Alsup says that, “We have an outward, earthly reality in which we’re perplexed, persecuted, and wasting away [descending!]…In contrast, we also have an inward, eternal reality that reflects our sanctification, God’s renewal and transformation [ascending!] of our depraved souls into children who mirror God’s glory.  It is not natural for us to focus on what God is doing on the inside, but if we are to have any hope of enduring our earthly reality, then we  need to “fix our eyes” on this internal reality.”

And here’s what I thought of: Nerts!  You know, the ascending thing in one pile and the descending thing in the other.  Our lives, when we are Christ-followers are really like that.  And if you think about it long enough, it’s super exciting.  Because even though this earthly “tent” of my body is steadily billowing down (it takes a lot of work just to keep some air in the rain fly), my spiritual self—Christ in me—is just gearing up and getting better and brighter every day.  Woo Hoo!  That is encouraging news!  

I can work and fight and resist, but no matter how much I oppose the idea, my physical self is fading.  On the other hand, if I work and obey and discipline myself to listen to God’s voice, my spirit will grow and become strong and victorious—and nothing will be able to hurt me.  I am completely secure and safe in God’s hands.  No amount of bruising and battering in my physical life can threaten my future because He has put the deposit of his precious Holy Spirit in me. 

Still having trouble with them, there cards?  Check it out:

The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, 

   shining ever brighter till the full light of day. (Proverbs 4:18)

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

…but those who hope in the LORD 

   will renew their strength. 

They will soar on wings like eagles; 

   they will run and not grow weary, 

   they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)

Earth+time = deterioration

Heaven+time = renewal

Now that’s math that even C.S. and I can understand. 

Halleluiah!

Red Bird Devotions #19

Dangerous Amnesia 
(repost from 3/22/10)

“Sometimes we forget love”.

When I saw this posted as my son’s Facebook status, it made contemplate my life. I don’t ever forget love, do I?

I do.

Sometimes, when I am rushed and burdened and trying to complete the last lines of a well-thought out essay, and my precious daughter comes to talk to me, to give me a kiss good-night, I kiss her hurriedly—really wishing her already to bed—really only caring about completing my agenda; Then, I forget love.

When my teenage son is grumpy because he is over-homeworked, over-exerted and under-slept, and all I can do is criticize him because of his forgetfulness or his lack of joy; Then, I forget love.

When my husband isn’t like me and I judge him for the way he thinks or acts or perceives life in general, and not only do I think it, but I tell him I think it; Then, I forget love.

When I so desire someone to know Christ, and I give them a Bible and I talk to them about God and I tell them about Grace, but I don’t invite them to be a part of my life, nor do I get involved in their life; Then, I forget love.

When I pray to God for me and my family and my stuff, but I never ask God about Himself or about His purposes or about His Joy, and I never see beyond myself to His Majesty; Then, I forget love.

When I forget that it was Jesus who died to take my place—on a cross, with nails and blood and pain and with all the horrors of my sin heaped upon his broken body; Then, I forget love.

O Father God, keep reminding, keep reminding. I don’t want to forget. To Love.

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

Colossians 3:12-14

Red Bird Devotions #18

                               

Obedience is Always Attractive

I was not an obedient child.  It’s not that I didn’t understand the rules, I just didn’t want to follow them.  And it caused me a lot of pain—literally and figuratively. Now that I’m and adult, and a Christ-follower, I have seen the blessings that come from obedience and the pain that comes from disobedience.  

And I have decided that obedience is always attractive.

Really.  Look how much we appreciate obedient children or well behaved dogs or even reliable friends.

When we are obedient in our Christian life, people notice and they are intrigued by our faith. When we are obedient, we portray Christ accurately and attractively.  When we decisively walk the straight and narrow—not veering to the right or left—but keeping our feet on the path that God has shown us in His Word, we begin to see God in His infinite beauty.  He becomes more and more clear to us—more and more attractive—and of great value.

Obedience is not hard, but it does take discipline.  Our natural ways are often not God’s ways.  Obedience means listening to God when He speaks through the Word, through Godly friends, through scripturally sound books.  Obedience also means doing what we hear God telling us.  James 1:23-24 says, “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.”  Hearing and doing must go together if obedience is the goal. 

When we do hear God speaking, we must obey immediately, because as I told my kids, delayed obedience is disobedience.  Delayed obedience can also make us doubt that God even spoke at all; it can encourage us to disregard that still, small voice.  When we continually ignore God’s promptings, His voice will get harder and harder to hear.  But when we hear Him speak and we jump to obey, when we continue to do this, focusing on God’s plan and not our own comfort, he says that we will gain freedom and blessings from His hands, “ But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does. (James 1:25)

The act of obedience takes a choice.  It involves just doing the next thing God asks of you again...and again...and again.  Like I tell everyone I meet with, walking as a Christ-follower requires a long obedience in the same direction.  It requires an everyday reliance on God's Spirit within and moment by moment choices to die to your own natural inclinations.  

Obedience is our path to freedom.

Obedience invites God’s blessing.

Obedience is attractive because God’s ways are beautiful…and beautiful lives point our broken world back to their Father.

Obedience does not guarantee we will know what the future holds, but it does give us confidence in the pure character of God—and the knowledge that His ways are always good.  So, in obedience, we can rest….and trust…and give Him glory.

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Be careful to obey all the law… do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.

Joshua 1:7

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