Do You See What I Saw?

Look closely at this photograph. Exactly in the center, just to the right of the tree.

See it?

I’m not a smiley-face kind of person, but this one caught me by surprise one snowy morning last week. In the middle of my work on a novel set in 1860 Kansas Territory, I looked out the window and there it was.

Of course it was much bigger in real life and easier to spot. Without even thinking about it I smiled back, as if I’d received a personal message from the One who scattered snow on the earth 150 years ago as well as today.

Sometimes all it takes is a fun little hello from God. I’m as blessed by His tender kindness as much as I am his Red Sea-variety miracles.

I need them both.

Do you see Him in your surroundings, too? Take a moment. Stop and look. He might have a surprise waiting for you.

He spreads the snow like wool and scatters the frost like ashes.

                                                              —Psalm 147:16 (NIV)

Let's Get Creative!

Creativity 

Something we wish we had more of, right? 

Today I’m hosting author and speaker Karen Whiting who’s written a fun book of craft ideas for girls. Check out her suggestions for finding God's creative spark in the New Year.

 ***

I love creativity and always feel that letting myself go to be creative unleashes my soul and spirit.

One aspect of creativity is your frame of mind

• ·         Let go of the critical spirit that put down your ideas. Let go of worry about what people might say or how they’ll respond.

• ·         Be ready to fail at times. Thomas Edison had at least 99 failures before he invented the light bulb. He clung to his dream and kept trying. So be persistent.

• ·         Dream big and write down all your ideas, no matter how crazy some may seem.

• ·         Be playful. I like to walk through a craft store and touch the materials and look at the supplies (like types of glue). I like to play with children and listen to their comments. All of this gives way to creative ideas and to the crafts in my books for girls.

Creativity builds on knowledge and skill

• ·         Thomas Edison was a scientist and did study materials and how things work. Basic knowledge lets us learn to add our own touches and then turn our own visions into reality. Once you can sew you can add your own embellishments or little changes to a pattern. Once you experiment in the sewing you can create your own patterns.

• ·         Consider skills you possess, whether cooking, gardening, or work-related skills. Then consider what you can do with your ability that you have not tried before and go for it.

Creativity is bigger than one type of art

• ·         Often a person considers creativity as only being able to draw, write, or compose. But creativity is the art of developing something different and the art of being able to see other possibilities or alternatives.

• ·         So, creativity includes people who are creative at organization, diplomacy, and hospitality, and those who come up with fun activities.

• ·         Creativity also applies to people who solve problems and find solutions.

God is the author of creativity

• ·         God looked over the earth and saw chaos. Yet he dreamed and envisioned what could be and created his vision—a world of variety. He saw color and splashed that onto flowers, people, and the sky. He saw movement and created joints, limbs, and wind that moves. He saw possibilities in creating people with minds to think and create.

·         My life verse is Ephesians 3:16 which begins: 

We pray that God out of his glorious riches 

will strengthen you with power 

through his spirit in your inner being  . . .

Think on those words. God’s riches include his mind and creativity. His power includes his creative power. And his spirit is sent to enrich your life and guide you. I believe this reminds us that prayer can bring out creativity and strengthen us to persevere. I have always prayed when I needed ideas, and the prayers always unleashed ideas.

May this year be a creative one for you!

To buy Karen's book, My Mini Dream Room, click this link to Amazon.

To learn more about Karen, her books, and her speaking topics, visit her at http://www.karenwhiting.com

 

They've Come!

At last, the finches and sparrows have come to my feeder. It took a foot of snow, freezing temperatures and chilling wind, but they came.

The feeder hung outside my living room window for months while the birds skittered and scratched around beneath it, ignoring its luscious fare. Finally, when they couldn’t work things out on their own, couldn’t find enough to eat, couldn’t reach through 12 inches of snow with their twig-like legs, they looked up and there it was. Full and easily accessible.

This sounds an awful lot like my personal journey with God. Does he, in his infinite wisdom, see the storm coming and know it will work something good in my life? Does he use deep distress, frozen circumstances and chilly relationships to show me he has a better way?

Does he know that when I can’t make things work on my own, I show up at his window sill?

He’s always there, waiting there for me.

Why don’t I just go to him in the first place?

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

There is a spot between a rock and a hard place
called a cleft: a crack, crevice or fissure.

I’ve been there. Have you?
It’s not so bad. In fact, it’s rather secure and protective.
Nothing can reach me there.
Nothing but the hand of God.

That’s where Moses was when desperation backed him up against the mountain.

He was arguing with God because everything he had worked for so long and hard had shattered around his feet.

He was arguing with God because things weren’t going the way he planned. People had disappointed him. He had disappointed himself. Life was not good.

“You said you’d go with me -- where are you?” he shouted.

Had he forgotten the Red Sea?

“I am with you,” God said.

“Prove it. Show yourself.”

A death wish? No one sees the face of God and lives to tell about it.

Have you been that desperate? So desperate that death seems better than what you’re going through?

I have.

But God said,

“There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock.”

And he hid Moses in the hard place - the cleft - and covered him with his hand.
The hand that held a man of clay,
and held back the sea,
and would one day hold the nails.

And as he passed by, Moses peeked out and saw the back of God.

Have you been that close to God?
In the hard place?
Where fear and fatalism die?

It is the sweetest place I know.

So why do I wait for pain to push me into his presence?
When I can choose to be in that place

near God.
Standing.
On a rock.

“And I will … cover you with my hand.”

O God, cover me.


Exodus 33:21,22

***

I recently read an intriguing novel titled Retribution ...

... by one of my favorite authors, Randy Ingermanson. A thread running through it repeats this premise: “Great sacrifice releases great power.”

Interesting concept. Could it be true? Could it be a Life Truth?

I believe it’s worthy of the test.

Psalm 50:23 says, “He who sacrifices thank offerings honors Me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God.”

Saying “thank you” can be a sacrifice if we’re having a hard time at the moment.

And wouldn’t the salvation – deliverance, help, intervention – of God be a pretty good representation of great power?

I didn’t know I could prepare the way for God to work in my life. I didn’t know that my sacrifices of “thank you” would open the door for His power.

Wow. There's more to gratitude than I thought - especially in the wake of defeat, discouragement, illness, tragedy.

I’m not waiting until Thanksgiving.

What about you?

Mom-care

What is it about a mother that makes her do things for her kids all the time? Even when no one’s looking? Even when no one knows? Especially her children.

I believe it is the God-gene in her – not in a scientific, physiological sense, but in a spirit sense. God’s fingerprint is on his creation. He breathed the breath of life into Adam, from whom he created a woman, and Adam named her Eve because she was the mother of all living.

Of course it is a God thing.

Who else would go through pain for our deliverance?

Who else would give without thanks and then give again anyway?

Who else would say, “I’ll take care of you,” and then do it even when we’re not looking?

Psalm 121:7 says,

The Lord will keep you from all harm –
he will watch over your life.

Yesterday, when the Toyota service department technician called me out to my car to see the split rubber on the inside of the left front tire, I remembered that verse.

It was the tire closest to oncoming traffic. All the other tires were in good shape. There’s an imbalance somewhere, a misalignment. The fix is easy, but the damages could have been horrific.

This is not the first time the Lord has watched over my life, nor will it be the last. Psalm 121:8 makes that clear:

the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

There’s a little bit of Mom-care there, just like the little bit of God-care in the mother I remember.

Thank you, Lord.



Thanks, Mom.

Do You Hear It?

Oscar Hammerstein II said the hills were alive with the sound of music. Where I live, that music plays against verdant pastures and brilliantly green hillsides. Angus cow-calf pairs dot the scene like quarter notes on a musical score. Each cow has a calf at her side, and she paces her stride to match its own faltering steps.

The calves are so fresh and new that they shine like onyx in the morning sun, dark against the grass their mothers graze. There is a tenderness in it all, in the grass, in the animals – a moment set against the rush of time when nothing matters but the protection and nurturing of a young life.

I drive through this landscape every morning on my way to school. And in the late afternoon I return on the same road to see long shadows thrown across the pastures by the grazing cattle.

Yesterday it was warmer; the temperature had climbed into the high 60s, and the cows had turned their eyes away from the sun, their backs to the west. As I slowed to watch them, I wondered what there was of God out in that pasture. I knew there was something there, something He would say to me if I paused in my hurry home, and searched for His message.

The cow closest to the fence line along the road stood at an odd angle, sideways to the sunlight. Her shadow stretched wide across the grass, and several feet away lay her resting calf, tucked exactly within the edges of her cool shade, sheltered from the heat of the day.

She knew.

She knew exactly how to stand to shade her calf, and she stayed there until the glare of the sun had passed.

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1 NIV).

Our God knows, too. He knows exactly what we need, and He is there to let us rest in the shadow of His comfort.

And if we still our hearts, we may even hear the music of His love around us.

Your Oxygen

On my return flight from Colorado this past holiday season, I listened to the familiar emergency survival instructions as the plane taxied out to the runway.

If the cabin lost pressure, the stewardess said, an oxygen mask would release from the overhead compartment directly above each passenger. Using a demonstration mask, she showed us how to slip the elastic band over the back of our heads, secure the mask over nose and mouth, and breathe normally.

Then she cautioned that in the event of such an emergency, we were to put on our own masks before we tried to help the person seated next to us – even if that person was a child.

At first, this seemed like a harsh statement, but it soon made sense. How could I help anyone else if I were about to lose consciousness myself?

This practical, life-saving advice applies to other areas of our lives, as well, yet too often we fail to consider its logic. Instead, we offer advice to our friends in difficult situations when we don’t have a solid grip on our own challenges. We try to give them answers, when we’re not even certain of the questions.

It all comes down to preparation. Are we prepared? Are we grounded in the Word of God? Do we know where our lifeline is – our emotional and spiritual oxygen mask – in case of depressurization?

Sadly, many of us don’t. We don’t spend time every day reading the promises and assurances of God. We don’t fill ourselves with the confidence of His faithfulness. Therefore, when the air gets thin, we start to panic. What good will we be to anyone else in that condition, much less to ourselves?

Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 19:19). Do you really love yourself in the way God wants you to, or do you ignore His grace and belittle yourself for not measuring up? Do you love yourself enough to get the spiritual nourishment you need?

Start today by opening God’s word and taking a deep breath of His life-giving wisdom. Be prepared so you’ll be able to help others near you who may be gasping for air.

The Perfect Christmas Gift

If you were God, how would you introduce yourself to your creation?

I’d be 27 years old, a perfect size 8 with flawless complexion, no white hair and an IQ of 145.

I would not show up as a baby, completely helpless and totally dependent upon two people who arrived in town after all the motel rooms were taken and had to sleep in a lean-to. Or a cave.

Good thing I’m not God.

But why a baby?

It’s simple, really. God wanted to become a human, and there is only one way to become a human and that is to be born.

Humans can’t get away from sin. It’s an inherited trait – in the blood, so to speak. God chose to become a human so he could stop the endless cycle by paying man’s long-overdue sin account himself.

So He played by the rules and was born. But he bypassed the blood-born pathogen of sin through birth by a virgin – the virgin who conceived through the seed of God, not sin-filled man. The embryo she carried developed its own blood system, as do all human embryos, and since the mother’s blood does not mix with her baby’s, the baby inherited no sin.

A perfect human.

This god-man lived a sinless life, so when he was killed, his sin-less blood was undeserving of death, and in the eyes of God, that blood paid the penalty of sin and washed away mankind’s debt.

A perfect sacrifice.

Only God could come up with a plan like that.

But He didn’t just pay and run. He conquered death and lived again to walk beside us in our own life-living.

So, you see, Christmas is really all about sacrifice. Maybe that’s why red and green are such prominent seasonal colors: the blood-red ribbons that flow from our evergreen boughs remind of us the Perfect Life that gives the rest of us eternal, ever-life.

If we accept the gift.

And who could refuse a gift like that?

Veterans of a different battle

After two days of excruciating pain and two more of mind-numbing drugs, I learned several things.

1. It is not wise to ignore new, inexplicable pain – it’s trying to tell you something.
2. I can walk and work more slowly and the world will not fall off its axis.
3. Breakfast in bed is not all it’s cracked up to be.
4. And if that bed is “in the depths,” God is still there (Psalm 139:8b).

As I wrote in my last posting, many of us do more than we should, and need to cut back.
But more recently I learned that everything can be cut back, and life does not come to an end.

Sickness was not part of my plan last week, but as hour after hour stacked up more and more unfinished tasks and beautifully orchestrated expectations, I was forced to let go of each and every one, lie back in the arms of the Lord, and let Him carry me.

I found, again, that He is there. And I remembered that He is a veteran of pain.

As we look this week to our military veterans who have offered and often laid down their lives for our freedom, let us also consider the silent suffering by those of whom we may not be aware. They, too, are veterans – veterans of knowing that God is there, even when they don’t understand the why’s of their situations.

I have heard the dear mother of one such sufferer say with deep conviction, “O our God … We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You” (II Chronicles 20:12b).

Indeed, Lord. Our eyes are upon You

Grandparents Day

Tomorrow is Grandparents Day. Mine are long since gone, but I’ve taken their place. And it’s still a wonder to me when I recognize one of my children peeking out through the eyes of their offspring.

As a teacher, I meet a lot of grandparents, those who have picked up where their sons and daughters left off. Sometimes the family has fallen apart, and one young parent is in jail, in hiding or incapacitated. Often, grandparents help out with babysitting when both parents must work to meet financial responsibilities.

And sometimes they are just interested. They like being involved in the extended lives of their children and grandchildren.

I know of a boy named Tim who had a grandmother like that. She helped steer him into the right path when he was a youngster, and taught him that God was faithful and could be trusted.

Tim never forgot her words, and he grew up to be a leader among men and the close companion of a mighty man of God. The Apostle Paul encouraged young Timothy, writing, “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice” (2 Timothy 1:5 NIV).

As a grandparent, you never know what influence you may have on a child – even those not of your family. Your patience, your joy, and your faith can stabilize a young life and point to the Savior.

It’s never too late to begin, for “today is the day of salvation,” not yesterday or tomorrow. Ask God to show you how to share His love with the little ones around you – even if they’ve grown up and have little ones of their own.