Tag: Bible

A SCARCITY MENTALITY

One of my guilty pleasures in semi-retirement is reading.  I read a variety of things including both fiction and non-fiction, and I am usually reading several books at a time, including The Bible.  It amazes me how God pulls strands together from diverse readings to teach me what he wants me to know.  This week I have been wrapping up a study of Revelation, begun (actually on the second book) the Lucy Barton series by Elizabeth Strout (Thank you, Amanda Herrold!) and continuing a very unhurried read of The Sacred Slow by Alicia Britt Chole. 

The theme of my readings this week has been “a scarcity mentality.” Oh, I haven’t run across that phrase, but that is what stands out to me, and I am feeling a bit chastised by The Lord.  I know where this way of thinking began.  There were times in my childhood when things were scarce.  So today, when I am trying to de-clutter and rid my house of so many things, I am paralyzed.  “What if I need this? But this belonged to my Great Aunt Fannie Belle! This holds too many memories.”  And the clincher, “I might lose enough weight to wear this again.”  These are a few of the thoughts that keep me up to my ears in stuff, but I am working on it.  My niece, Leanne would say we should curate our homes.  I like that idea, but have a difficult time implementing it. 

This morning as I was reading Sacred Slow, the author describes how one of the first reflexes a newborn baby displays is a gripping reflex. If we place an object in a newborn’s palm, she will close her fingers around it and hold on.  In fact, babies develop this reflex before they are even born, and I guess some of us carry it throughout our lives. 

“In the beginning we open our eyes and instinctively tighten our grip around all that is placed I our hands.  In the end, others close our eyes, and our hands are incapable of gripping a single thing. Perhaps on the other side we may see this life as a journey from keeping to releasing, from gripping to entrusting.” Chole

This is where the book of Revelation comes in.  In the end, none of my possessions will matter.  The only things I can take with me to Heaven will be my loved ones who have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior.  

“A clenched fist displays the delusion of ownership. An open hand reveals the realities of stewardship.” Chole.

Lord, help me to live with open hands.

Chole, Alicia Britt. The Sacred Slow: A Holy Departure from Fast Faith. Nashville, W Publishing, 2017.

YOU’RE INVITED

Spring seems to bring a round of special occasions and invitations.  There are weddings, showers, graduations, and other events that take place before many of us disperse for summer.  In our family, we have a round of birthdays coming up, but come to think of it, every month is birthday month in our big family.  You may be receiving invitations to one event or another every week.  But I wonder if you have ever been uninvited?

Have you ever heard about a party or special event and wondered, “Why wasn’t I included?”  You may wonder why you are not an A-lister or part of the in crowd.  Why are you left out?  Maybe you are the wrong color or gender; maybe you wear the wrong clothes, or don’t live in the right neighborhood or drive the right car.    And the big lie you believe: “You are not good enough!”  If you buy into that lie, I wonder if you have ever worn yourself out trying to get good enough.   It’s exhausting.  

I was thinking about these things this morning, Good Friday.   It is always the heaviest, hardest day of the year for me as I remember how Jesus suffered.  But in many ways it is the best day of the year.  I guess that is why it is Good Friday.  Because of today I am invited to a party like no other.  John writes about it in the Book of Revelation.  I can’t think of enough superlatives to describe it, so I will compare it to another big event that is coming up.  And no, I am definitely not invited to this one!  In a few weeks the world is going to witness the big elaborate coronation of King Charles.  England will pull out all her jewels and pageantry.  But it will pale in comparison to the coronation of King Jesus.  I am invited!  And my invitation came because of Good Friday.

In every other religion I can think of, man has to work himself up to a god.  Keep enough laws, do enough good things, stay away from all the “don’ts” and then maybe, he will be good enough to reach his god or whatever form of peaceful place he has imagined.  Christianity is the only religion (and I hate that word) where God comes down to man.  God says, and I paraphrase, you can’t get good enough to reach me; you can’t do enough good things to be in relationship (better word) with me.  You are separated from me because you are sinful and I am holy.  So I will come down to you.  I will come in the form of a human, live a sinless life, and suffer and die on a cross to pay for your sins.  I will make a way, and it is the only way because without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin (Heb. 9:22).   And not only that, I am going to conquer death by rising from the grave and going back to Heaven to prepare a place for you. 

Here is the invitation: “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends”  (Rev. 3:20).   You may be wondering how to RSVP to your invitation.  All you must do is agree with God that you are a sinner, believe that Christ died for your sins and ask for forgiveness.   Then turn away from your sins.  If you would like to open your heart to Jesus on this Good Friday, you can pray something like this.  The words are not what are important; it is the attitude of your heart.

Lord, I confess to you that I am a sinner. I believe Jesus Christ is Your Son. I believe that He died
for my sin and that you raised Him to life.
I want to trust Him as my Savior and follow Him as Lord,
from this day forward. Guide my life and help me to do your will.

I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

REBOOTING

I am a gadget girl.  I love my electronics, even though I have to admit there can be times when they are frustrating.  Last Friday we changed our TV and Internet service and it’s not the simple plug and play they told us it would be.  We are getting it all figured out, but I had no idea how many devices there are in our house that needed a new password.  Twenty-two!  And I am still finding them!  Definitely a first world problem and a minor frustration, but frustrating nonetheless. 

Last fall I had to replace my Apple watch.  I had a first generation model and was beginning to have some problems so I decided it was time.  A few days ago I ran into a problem with it.  It wouldn’t swipe down.  For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Apple watches, there is a little red dot that appears at the top of the dial to let you know that you have notifications.  When you swipe down, the notifications are revealed and you can respond or delete them.  Most of the time these notifications are just a nuisance.  (Note to self: review my notification settings.)  And they are distractions from what I am doing at the moment.  However it was really bothering me that I could not swipe down; I want things to work the way they are supposed to work.  Finally I consulted Google.  DUH!  Turn it off; let it rest; then restart it.  Why is it so easy to forget this simple fix?  I reboot things all the time.  In fact, we have been rebooting our TV a LOT trying to get all our apps up and running.  This simple step of rebooting fixed my problem, but also reminded me of something the Lord has been trying to teach me.

Every year, as the months start running down, I begin asking the Lord to give me a word for the New Year.  What does He want to teach me or how does He want to direct me?  My word for 2023 came earlier in the fall than usual and it came clearly.  My word is “quiet.”  As I pondered that word different synonyms also came to mind: “still,” “rest.”  I have been harvesting verses with those words and meditating on them.  What does being quiet and still look like for me?

Quiet does not come easily to me.  I was that little girl who got “Talks too much” on her report card.  Once I got “Whispers too much” so I guess that was progress.  I have been consciously trying to speak less and listen more.  That’s really hard for me because I always want to weigh in on things.  I think I have important things to say.  Witticisms and bon mots.  But surprisingly (to me) no one has noticed that I am speaking less.  Maybe the world doesn’t need my opinions after all.  And I have noticed that things happen when I speak less.  There is a famous quote that says, “The quieter you are the more you are able to hear.”   In the words of Frasier Crane, “I’m listening.”   

At first I thought “quiet” meant spending more time in God’s word and eliminating some activities.  But what do I cut out?  I enjoy the things I do.  However I am feeling the urge to unplug, to spend some time in off mode.  And the more I do it, the more I enjoy it.  I may be one of the few people who actually enjoyed the recent icy days we had, days of staying home and being quiet.  

I am only six weeks into this word so I know the Lord has much to teach me.  I am just trying to be obedient and quiet.  I love this passage from The Kite Runner: 

“Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it.”

If you are trying to reach me, I am rebooting.

THANKFUL

I awoke this morning to a chilly reading on the thermometer and a light dusting of snow on the ground and housetops.  With Thanksgiving less than a week away, I decided today would be a perfect day to make my dressing.  The house is redolent with the aromas of freshly baked cornbread, along with celery and onions sautéing in a bath of melted butter.  Short of a turkey roasting in the oven, I can’t think any smell more evocative of Thanksgiving.  Even though it is a gray day outside, the lights from the Christmas tree create a festive atmosphere indoors.  The sounds of glorious Christmas music fill the air while the dishwasher is hums along as it gives my holiday glassware a good cleansing, necessary after a year in my Great Aunt Fannie Belle’s china cabinet.  This is my happy place and my heart is overflowing with gratitude.

We will have 18-ish at our table this year.  It’s a moving target, but there will be plenty of food for anyone who shows up at the last minute.  We are grateful for everyone who can make it, and will miss those who cannot.  With grown children and mostly-grown grands, we have a lot of moving parts now.  I try to stay flexible, thankful that I can host this holiday and mindful of my days getting shorter.  Next year is not guaranteed.  I can remember my grandmother saying the same thing at holidays in the passed.  I dismissed it as something an old woman says, but mostly because I just could not fathom a holiday without her.  Oh how I wish she could be with us this year.  

As I think back over the year, we have many reasons to be thankful on this day of thanks.  Has it been all lollipops and roses?  Absolutely not!  But Jesus has walked with us every day.  There have been days of laughter and fun, but also days of tears and grief.  We have had days that surprised us with joy and days that kicked us in the gut.  Days of celebrations and days of terrifying uncertainty.  There were nights that robbed us of sleep as we gave way to fear. And there were days that left us scratching our heads in dismay.  Although we don’t enjoy the bad days, they make the good days all the more sweet.  And there were more good days than bad! 

If I try to list all my blessings I will certainly miss some, but here is a start.  I am grateful for an enduring marriage and my husband Jerry who survived a near-fatal illness a few years ago.  Every day one of us says, “We got another day.”  We know these are bonus days and we don’t take them for granted.  I am so thankful for my growing family, and grateful for extended family scattered across America.  To those who can’t be with us, I wish you a very happy thanksgiving.  We have an empty chair at our table this year as our Mimi left us to join her beloved husband in Heaven.  Mindful of others who have left us, I can still say God has blessed us.  

When I think of all our friends, my heart could almost burst.  We have precious life-long friends, and those who have come along more recently.  I am grateful for a Bible-teaching church and a fellowship of Believers who hold the ropes for each other.  I am thankful for 48 years of affiliation with Stonecroft Ministries and the opportunities to share the Gospel.  I love my Tulsa Woven girls!  I am blessed to attend Community Bible Study, where I have deepened my relationship with the Lord and made deep friendships.  Bible Quilt Journaling and the ladies who are a part of it bless me with a different method of meditating on Scripture.

It is noon and the alarm on my watch has just alerted me to pray for America.  I have thought many times how grateful I am that I was born in the USA.  Oh how I love this beautiful land of ours, and how I long to see another Great Awakening.  Jerry and I have been blessed to see a good deal of America, but there are still National Parks we hope to explore.  I am grateful for the freedoms we have, and for those who died to protect those freedoms.

Most of all, I am thankful for the privilege of knowing God and His Son, Jesus Christ.  He has provided me with everything I need, and kept every promise He has made to me.  I don’t know what the future holds, but I know the One who holds the future.  And for that I am indescribably thankful.

I will be your God throughout your lifetime— until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.  Is. 46:4 NLT

SITTING VIGIL

It has been eight days since our 100-year old Mimi was rushed to the hospital with seizures.  The ER doctor told us she expected that Mimi would go sometime over the weekend, yet here we are, eight days later, still sitting by her bed and waiting.  The hospice nurse says that death is now imminent, but we thought that before.  This dying process is taking a long time and I am learning quite a bit in the process.  It is a lot like giving birth.  

Her type of death usually takes about four weeks, and looking back, I know when it began.  She began to withdraw from people and activities, and was eating less than her normal bird-sized meals.  Things were beginning to shut down.  There was a scary ambulance ride to the ER.  Then a CT scan revealed a large brain tumor.  We thought we would lose her within hours but she “rallied,” a word I have never associated with dying.

It was during this rally that God drew back the curtain of Heaven and gave her a sneak preview of her eternal home.  And she told us all about it.  Oh the sights she saw!  Even the hospital staff was in awe.  I will be forever grateful for that time with her.  Since then she has been mostly sleeping. 

She has been at Clarehouse since Monday, and what a blessing it is that they had a bed available.  She has a beautiful suite, but the smell of death hangs heavy.  It clings to my hair and my skin, and I wonder how long it will last.  So I moved to the deck outside her room that overlooks a creek and a copse of trees.  Occasionally a butterfly from the butterfly garden flutters by.  An owl sits in a hollow tree behind me, his nocturnal eyes closed to the bright daylight.  A light breeze blows.  In the distance I can here the sounds of cars; life goes on around us, oblivious to the eight or so people here who are transitioning from this world to the next.

I have been praying for months that God would take her peacefully in her sleep.  I guess I should have been more specific.  My idea was that she would go about her day, go to bed, fall asleep, and wake up in Heaven.  I wasn’t planning on eight days and nights of sleep!  But God is in charge and I am not.  Scripture tells us that all our days were ordained by God before we were ever conceived. He knew the day we would come into the world and He knows the day we will leave.  

People tell me that they understand that sitting vigil is hard.  Well yes and no.  There have been some hard moments, some sad moments and some long moments.  We leave for bits of time, but feel like we should come back. And when we are here we feel useless. it’s a good deal of waiting. But mostly, it is my honor to sit here with her.  She has lived a good long life.  Everyone has said their goodbyes and said what they needed to say. I am so grateful I get to spend these last hours with her. 

THE MESSY MIDDLE

It has been awhile since I have written anything.  It’s not that I haven’t had ideas that have come to me.  It is because my writing time has been absorbed by a hobby.  It all started a few years ago when I was introduced to Bible Quilt Journaling, created by my friend Dianna.  Briefly, this is a method of journaling and meditating on scripture in an “artistic’ manner.  I put quotes around artistic because believe me, I am no artist.  In the beginning my pages could have been done better by a first grader.  But over time I got better at it.  

Bible Quilting has nothing to do with sewing for those of you who may be allergic to sewing machines, but it does require some supplies.  Since I have never been a crafter, I didn’t even have a decent set of colored pencils, so I started acquiring a few things.  Those who know me well are laughing at “few things”, because this pursuit has taken on a life of its own, and I have acquired a lot of things I never knew I needed.  Along the way I discovered beautiful papers and fell down a rabbit hole!  I wanted to learn different ways to journal and find ways to use up all this paper I was ordering.  

Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, I started making all different kinds of journals…jot journals, gratitude journals, pretty daily journals for every season…and then, I discovered junk journals.  That was when the little space I was using in a spare bedroom became too small.  I got rid of all the bedroom pieces and created a craft room.  All that paper and those supplies take up a LOT of space!  

When people ask me to describe junk journaling I usually direct them to a video on YouTube, but junk journalers are all over social media platforms.  It is hard to describe, but basically it involves using bits of this and that, things you would normally discard, and using them to create journals.  I started to think twice before throwing things away.  Suddenly the most exciting thing about an Amazon delivery was the packing paper. (Unless the box contained craft paper or washi tape).  I found a group of talented junk journalers that I follow regularly.  They are mostly in the UK and I love listening to them talk as I work on my journals.  Several of the artists have formed a consortium and they create challenges for their followers.   Currently I am about to complete Junk Journal July, and my journal is getting nice and chunky.  There is a journaling prompt for every day of July, and I am almost at the end.

I could go on and on about journaling, but that is not the purpose of this post.  This morning I was working on the prompt, “stencils.”  The medium you see in the picture is a yummy concoction called stencil butter.  I had to pause to let it dry and I was thinking about what else I want to add to the page.  Right now I am in the messy middle.  I really don’t know what the finished page will look like.  My pages seem to gradually come to be on their own.  I have learned to trust the process.

It hit me that most of us live in the messy middle.  We move from one situation to another, and on a larger scale, one season of life to another.  We may have entered adulthood with a plan for our lives, firm thoughts about how things should go.  And God laughed.  Things rarely go the way we think they should.  In fact, I spend a good deal of time with my therapy clients helping them to let go of the “shoulds.”  It’s not that our plans and ideas are wrong.  It is just that life has a way of moving us from one messy middle to another.  It is sometimes hard to see how things will turn out.  And it is in the messy middle that we develop our trust muscles.  We may not know how our current page is going to turn out, but God does.  We just trust Him and trust the process.  

It is fine to make a life plan, to have goals and dreams.  But God has dreams for us too.  We become much less frustrated when we discover God’s plans for us and get on board with them.  We find true fulfillment when God’s desires become our desires.  It is then that we are in sync with our Creator, the Artist of our lives.

You know what I really love about junk journaling?  It is the taking of something of no value, something discardable, and turning it into something lovely.  That is exactly what God does.  He takes the mess of our lives and repurposes it into something beautiful.  

 Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. Prov. 19:21

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Jer. 29:11

PLAYING FROM VICTORY

In my previous blog I wrote about Cooper Kupp, the LA Rams wider receiver who went from being a zero-star college recruit to Super Bowl 56 MVP.   But there is more to the story of this remarkable man.  In 2019 the Rams lost Super Bowl 53 to the New England Patriots.  The score was an embarrassing 13-3.  Kupp had to watch helplessly from the sidelines due to a torn ACL, but he was just as devastated as his teammates as they walked off the field in defeat.  But then something happened 

Kupp says as he was walking off the field toward the tunnel something caused him to turn around.  In that moment God gave him a vision: the Rams would come back somehow and win a Super Bowl, and Kupp would walk off the field as the MVP.  He kept this vision mostly to himself, revealing it only with his wife, because obviously this was not the type of thing you could go around sharing.  People would think you were nuts!  Or a braggart.  But when he talks about it today he gets choked up, giving all the glory to God.  He says he saw it as clear as day.  And when this postseason began, Kupp says he began to play differently.  He believed.  “It was written already and I just got to play free, knowing that I got to play from victory, not for victory.”  

 I got to play from victory.  I have been thinking about that statement for days.  What would it be like if we lived our lives from victory and why don’t we?  Because if we are Christians, if we really believe what God has revealed to us in His word, then we know that Jesus has already won, and we get to share in His victory.  What if we didn’t worry about all the millions of things we humans worry about, and just did our best, knowing that we are assured of victory?    

Now just because God gave Kupp a vision of winning didn’t mean it was going to be a piece of cake. There would be setbacks, busted plays, tackles, sacks, and plays that didn’t work.  The opponents would score some points.  And there would be some hard hits with bruised and sore bodies the next day.  And that is just like life.  Even if you are a Christian, even if you believe and trust God and His word, you are going to take some hits.  You may lose ground, get bad calls, and have to endure trash talk.  We are not immune to the sufferings of this life, and we will all experience difficulties and loss.  But playing from victory means we are able to live with the end in view no matter what hardships life gives us.  

It may look hopeless sometimes; the Rams were behind with only six minutes left to play.  I recently had a birthday, and all my birthdays are now big ones now.  My friend Kay likes to remind me that we are in our fourth quarter.  But if there is anything this football season has taught me, it is how much can be accomplished with only a few seconds left on the clock.  Heck, I might even go into overtime.  As Believers we do not have to be anxious or depressed about our current circumstances because we can see that scoreboard and know that ultimately we will win.  And Cooper Kupp would be the first to acknowledge who the real MVP is.  Jesus Christ left it all on the field for us.

Christ suffered for our sins once for all time.  He never sinned, but died for sinners to bring you safely home to God.  1 Peter 3:18 NLT

THE BABY SHOWER

Last weekend we had a baby shower for my granddaughter who is expecting her first baby.  This little girl who is on the way is a much longed for and planned for baby.  We are all excited and looking forward to welcoming her into the world.  And when she gets here she is going to be well equipped!  It takes a lot of gear for a tiny baby!  And it’s all so big and takes up so much space!  I told my granddaughter she and her husband might need a bigger house.  

It was so much fun watching her unwrap all the cute baby girl things, and to see all the interesting and useful gadgets new parents want today.  I think most of us do the best we can as parents based on what we know.  But the “best” I did fifty years ago would probably get me reported to child protective services today.  My seat belt was an arm thrown across a child riding in the front seat.  And my car seat was a flimsy metal and plastic thing with a toy steering wheel on the front that would impale a baby in a wreck.  But that was the best at that time.  We didn’t know.  As parents we all have hopes and dreams for our children, and we want the very best for them.

Did you know that God planned for you and had hopes and dreams for you?  Before God ever created the universe, before He ever said, “Let there be light,” He was thinking of you.  The Bible tells us in Psalm 139 that God has a book for each of us, and in those books He recorded every moment of our lives before time even began.  I think of it as my big planner in heaven. God was thinking about and making plans for us, and writing them down in our planners. The same Psalm says His thoughts about us cannot even be counted; they outnumber the grains of sand.  He has been thinking about us since before time began.

God knew the day we would be conceived, the day we would be born, the day we will die, and every day in between.  And all those thoughts He was thinking?  Those are His plans for us, our purpose for being alive on earth.  And He showered us with gifts, especially the gift of salvation, again, before the beginning of time.  Just as my granddaughter is gathering everything she needs for her yet-to-be-born baby, God had everything we would ever need to carry out our purpose in place long before we were born.  

Have you ever thought about why you are living at this particular time in history?  God has the answer recorded in your book.  That answer is your purpose for being here.  And He even promises to come along side us to help us carry out those plans.  However, we have a choice.  We can live our lives our own way, go about our business, and never even consult Him about His plan for us.  God won’t force us to carry out His plan.  But what if we miss out on the best life we could ever experience?  

You might be thinking that you don’t have time to carry out some grand plan because you have a job to get to, laundry to fold, children to care for, and groceries to buy.  Well those things could very well be God’s plan for you today.  Not all of us are called to be a Billy Graham or a Mother Teresa.  And not every day is going to be a grand mountaintop day.  But if you ask Him, He might just help you carry out a special assignment in the midst of your daily routine.  Or He might help you do the mundane with grace and love.   

Revelation 21:4 tells us that when we get to heaven, God will wipe away all our tears.  I have a friend who believes that some of those tears will fall when we see our books opened up, when we see what God had planned for us that we missed.  Even after all these years I have to remind myself every morning to consult God about my day.  I certainly don’t get it right all the time, but I want to.  I don’t want to miss out on my purpose.                  

THE SILENT YEARS

It had been four hundred years, four hundred silent years.  Four hundred years with no word from God.  We think of it as the intertestamentary period, that time between the Old and New Testaments.  In the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, we leave the remnant of Israel trying to restore Jerusalem, still under Persian domination and in a fallen spiritual condition.  For all practical purposes, Israel remained in exile.  The book of Malachi is an exhortation to return to the Covenant, with severe warnings for failure to do so.  And then, God quit speaking until the events surrounding the birth of Christ.  

Those were years with no fresh word from God.  It is hard for us to even imagine how that would be, with our access to so many different translations of the Bible and the presence of the Holy Spirit to breathe them alive to us.  But as we enter this season of Advent, let us try to put ourselves in the place of the ordinary Jew at this time in history.  In fact, my Advent challenge is to put myself in the place of all the characters in the Christmas story.  

Advent is a word I don’t hear very much in my Baptist church, but it is something I try to observe personally.  Oh I don’t do the wreath and the candles, but I do Advent readings in my quiet time.  For me, Advent is a time of preparing the manger of my heart for the coming of the Messiah.  Advent covers the four weeks leading up to Christmas, and this year, in 2020, Advent begins today, November 29.  We think 2020 has been a long and difficult year, and it has.  But try 400 long and difficult years!  And we have had the blessing of the Holy Spirit with us to help us navigate this year, to comfort us in our grief and to encourage us when we are afraid.  As we close this weekend of Thanksgiving, I am thanking God for access to His word and for the presence of the Holy Spirit, for the privilege of knowing Him.

Like many believers around the world, I have spent more time in prayer this year than ever before. And like many, I have clung to the words of 2 Chronicles 7:14:  

“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

We tend to hold on to the promise while glossing over the condition: if my people, who are called by my name.  We want God to heal our land, but surely it is those other people who need to repent.  This year I have repeatedly asked God to show me my wicked ways.  Don’t ask unless you are serious.  He has pulled off layer after layer of wicked ways.  It is a part of making room for Christ.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his Christmas sermons tells us that Advent “is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.”   I know I am poor and imperfect! 

So I put myself in the place of those post-exilic Jews who were waiting, because this has been a year of waiting.  Waiting for the virus to go away, waiting for a vaccine or a cure, waiting for schools to open, for jobs to return, for things to go back to normal.  But more than these things, like Bonhoeffer I am waiting for something greater to come.  I am waiting for a time when there will be no more death, nor more wars, no more hatred in our streets, no more broken families, no more children going hungry.  Though we strive to make these things happen (and we should), I don’t think we will see the complete realization until the Messiah returns.  While Israel waited for His first coming, we wait for Him to return in glory to establish His eternal kingdom.  Advent looks both back in time and forward.  We remember His first coming to earth as we celebrate Christmas.  But oh how we look forward to His second coming as we sing these familiar words:

O come, O come, Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel, 

That mourns in lonely exile here,

Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

WE HAVE BUTTERFLIES!

 

Do you feel like 2020 has been a season of waiting?  Waiting for this pandemic to be over.  Waiting for a vaccine.  Waiting to go back to work or school.  Waiting to take a trip.  And waiting for this contentious election to be over.  Waiting.  I don’t like it.  I don’t like waiting in line, waiting in traffic, or even waiting for the clothes dryer to buzz. And I sure don’t want to wait for a Covid test or election results.  I know I can’t be alone in this.  We live in such an instant, fast-paced, everything-at-our-fingertips world that we have become conditioned to expect things to happen on demand.  So even waiting for the microwave to ding sometimes seems interminable.   We multi-task, we check off our to-do lists, and we become human doings instead of human beings. 

This year God has decided to teach me about waiting, about being still and quiet, and how to wait well.  Every year right around the beginning of the New Year I ask God to give me a Bible verse, a scripture that I can hang my hat on.  It is usually something that He wants to work into me, and it usually takes a year to do it.  But this year I got a word: “Wait.  On.  God.”  Emphatic, like three distinct sentences.  Wait on God.  And when God gave it to me, I knew it was from Him.  No, I didn’t hear an audible voice, but I heard it deep in my spirit.  When you have walked with God for a while things like that happen.  

But what did those words mean, wait on God?  I had no idea in January.  But as we all know, 2020 has been a year of waiting.  There have been many lessons for me about waiting.  The first one being it is okay to be still.  When you are a Type A, “Git-R-Done” girl, being still doesn’t come naturally.  But I learned the value in it.  And while the rest of you were cleaning out closets and baking banana bread (and those are good things) I was being still with God.  I spent time in the Bible, time reading, and learned a new way to journal His word.  And I have prayed.  A lot!  I learned that some of the things I thought were important really don’t matter very much.  I think I have grown stronger in my walk with Jesus.  Maybe He is preparing me for a new assignment, or maybe He is getting me ready to meet Him face to face.  He will reveal it in His own time.  The quarantine has taught me that we can spend a good deal of time waiting for the next big thing and miss the precious things that are right in front of us.

So what does any of this have to do with butterflies?  I was on my patio earlier today on a Zoom call (and haven’t we had a lot of those?)  It was a national prayer call, and the devotional theme today was about waiting.  Seriously?  It’s October and we are still working on waiting?  When God wants to teach me something He comes at me from all angles.  While I was on this call I happened to look around and see that we had butterflies.  Lots of them, fluttering around.  You might not think that having butterflies in your yard is very remarkable, but I was excited!  We have worked for those butterflies.  

Our butterfly journey began this spring when I was visiting my friend Sally.  She lives in a rural area, across the road from The Euchee Butterfly Farm and a garden area known as The Tribal Alliance for Pollinators.  Their mission is to restore plants native to the Oklahoma prairie and to establish habitats for Monarch butterflies.  We had already planted one little anemic milkweed plant (which is now flourishing), but after visiting with Sally we planted some Black-eyed Susans and Coneflowers that just happened to be on sale at Lowe’s.  

As I was praying and looking at those butterflies (yes, my eyes were open while I prayed), it occurred to me how much of a butterfly’s life is spent waiting before it finally gets to soar.  It starts out as an egg that eventually hatches into a caterpillar.  The caterpillar eats and eats until it finally quits growing and then forms itself into a pupa or chrysalis.  And there it waits, but not passively.  God is at work transforming it in a process called metamorphosis.  Lots of growing and changing is taking place until finally, the butterfly breaks free and soon flies.  Then the whole process starts all over again when the butterfly lays eggs.  By the way, if you are ever tempted to help a butterfly out of its chrysalis, don’t do it.  The butterfly needs the struggle to develop wings strong enough to fly.  

Sometimes all we can do is wait.  Earlier this year when we were on full lockdown, I certainly felt cocooned.  But if we make good use of that waiting time, God will transform and develop us into the person we need to become for the next chapter of our lives.  Maybe He is developing our trust muscles.  It hit me today, that the God who planned so intricately for something as small and insignificant as a butterfly, has a plan for me.  He has a purpose in this waiting season.  The same God who cares about a butterfly cares for me.  And it is more than okay to be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10).  In fact, sometimes being still might be the most important thing we can do.           

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