Blue on the River

Hi, I’m Blue, the guest blogger. You’ve probably heard of me: “Me and you and a dog named Blue,” or something like that.

D’s busy getting ready for what she calls a women’s retreat up in Larkspur, Colorado. She’ll be gone about three days talking a lot. No dogs. Sounds boring.

Anyway, she asked me to do a blog for her about the Arkansas Riverwalk where we take a pull almost every morning. She doesn’t call it a pull, but that’s exactly what it is because she’d never make it without me. I’ve gotta pull her all the way along the river about a mile or so and then pull her all the way back again. I’m either going to have great shoulder muscles or no hair on my neck, one or the other. She gets such a tight grip on the leash that I have to strain to get anywhere.

I still have a good time, though—there’s so much to smell! D’s not as fond of the bushes as I am, and only occasionally lets me follow my nose. But that’s how I find out who’s been there. Chihuahua, female, 4 years, 5 pounds. (A little chubby, if you ask me.) Collie, 9 months, male, way too excitable. Pit bull, 8 years, male, nonaggressive. And that big white one that makes me nervous. D says not to worry, he’s just poofy. Lots of hair. I could take him, she says. But she sure chokes up on my leash when we pull by.

Some of these fellas look just like the people they’re tugging along the trail. Like that white poofy one. The woman on the end of the leash has white poofy hair too. I’m black and white, a fairly even mix of both. And D.? Well, I think she has a little more white than black. Come to think of it, she … Never mind.

This morning we crossed paths with one of those little mops on a stick. All bark and no bite. Like some cowboys I’ve met: all hat and no cows. I should know; I’m a cow dog, a Queensland blue heeler, though I don’t see too many cows anymore. Lots of deer at the river—skinny, long legs, big ears. I know better than to heel one of them. They’d kick my lips off.

Occasionally I smell a bear. This morning I heard one gruntin’ in the Russian olive shoots along the back water where the bull frogs hide. I don’t think D noticed because she just kept going, mumbling something about “river of life” and “the voice of many waters.” I don’t pay much attention until she says “no.”

Besides, I’m too busy checking out the squirrels that run de-lib-er-ate-ly in front of me and dash under a rock on the river bank or up a tree. You think I get to chase ‘em? Nope. And the Canada geese squat over on the other side of the river, honking and raising my ears. I can’t get at them, either. There’s just no swimming that river; it’s too fast. Sometimes it pushes people along on big plastic floaty things—bunches of ‘em, like they’re all out there on purpose with one guy holding a paddle up front.

Well, that’s all I have to say about the Riverwalk. It’s just about my favorite place to go, except when she makes me jump in the back of the truck to get there. I don’t get enough bacon treats for that trick. I like the car better. It’s closer to the ground for these old bones.

You probably figured out that I can’t spell D‘s whole name. Who has a name with three syllables, anyway? Every self-respecting mammal I know has a short name. Blue, for example. Duke, Red, Jack, Buck, and so forth. Of course there are plenty of others like Lady and Junior and Fluffy, but I don’t hang out with those types if I can help it.

Then there’s Mike. There’s a good, solid name. But that’s another blog.

You are worth the wait

I just completed another draft of my inspirational romantic-suspense novel and laid it aside to let it simmer. In a few weeks, I will go back to it with fresh eyes and work through it again.

The manuscript is not perfect. I need to grind down a few rough spots, flesh out certain scenes—do the whole nip-and-tuck thing. I will cut away entire sections and breathe life into others. It’s not ready for the publisher, maybe not even for an agent, but I’m not giving up on it. I believe in it.

I believe in the story’s message: that Christ cares about individuals. That He went out of His way to talk to people one-on-one and still does. That He imparts peace through His presence.

Considering the value I placed on this story, I was a bit surprised by the almost parental zeal I felt. And that’s when I realized that God believes in me the same way. I am His work.

I am not perfect. I have rough edges ready for grinding, places that need to be fleshed out, and others than should be surgically removed. But He believes in me. He’s not giving up on me. I am not yet perfect, but by the time He’s finished, I will be.

Someday I’ll be published in paradise. God will say, “Look what I did. Look what My son’s blood bought.”

I am His workmanship created in Christ Jesus.

So are you.

Don’t give up on yourself.

He hasn’t.



Ephesians 2:10

Please, bug me.

Some people don’t want to be bothered. God is not one of them.

Jesus told his followers of a man who banged on his neighbor’s door in the middle of the night because he needed extra food for an unexpected guest. The neighbor said, “Go away. It’s late, everyone’s in bed, I’m not getting up.” But he did. He got up and gave the man what he needed.

Why? Not because he liked the guy, but because he kept banging on the door.

Do we pray like that? Do we go to God and pound on the door until we get an answer? Jesus said we should. He told us to ask, seek, and knock.

Jesus didn’t speak English, so I don’t think He lined the words up like that so they’d spell out a neat little acrostic. I believe He was showing us three levels of communication—and commitment.

When I worked as a reporter for a mid-size daily newspaper, I used these levels nearly every day.

“Is flagpole one word or two?” I could shoot out a question in the newsroom while sitting at my desk, and hear someone throw back an answer. Asking required very little effort.

Seeking took a little more work. I had to stop what I was doing, pick up the Associated Press Stylebook and look up the answer. It meant searching, hunting, discerning, discovering.

Knocking involved total commitment. If I wanted to see the chief editor or general manager, I had to get out of my chair, go to his office and knock on the door. That was the only way to talk to one of them face to face to get my answer, find direction, lodge a complaint, or pick up an assignment. It took the most effort.

So what kind of prayers do we pray? How much effort do we put into talking to God? Yes, the Lord knows the very thoughts of our hearts, unlike the editor or general manager. But I believe Jesus gave us a bit of vital information when He said to ask, seek and knock.

How badly do we want to hear from God?

Are we pounding on the door?

Luke 11

Catching Up in the World of Not

I just bought a Nook. I used to think they came with a Cranny, but this one didn’t.

It took one entire afternoon to get the thing powered up, set up, registered, online and everything else because I come from a different world. In my world, people watch TV on their television, not their telephones. They listen to music on stereos not earplugs. But I’m learning: I’m now reading via something that is Not a bOOK.

The most unsettling thing about my Not bOOK is the touch screen. Of course there’s not actually anything on it to touch, and after being told all my childhood years to keep my fingers off the television screen and the windows and the mirrors, I feel like I’m breaking some kind of universal law by touching it in the first place.

It depends, however, on what part I touch. Not that I can feel what I’m touching, like keys on a keyboard or a piano. It’s more like pointing than touching. I point my finger at an icon—a word that used to mean little statues in grottoes—and voila! the screen changes. Touch it for too long, like say, a second or more, and it changes again into something I didn’t want. I aim for nano second—that moment in time that is Not a second.

Another Not with a Not bOOK is the page. They’re called pages but it takes more than one screen’s worth to hold all the words on what was once a page, so when I “turn” one by barely touching the edge of the screen, I may get two or three screens before the used-to-be page number actually changes. So they’re not really pages on my new Not bOOK. Not that I care, mind you.

In a way, it’s fun playing catch-up in the Not world. What I need now is Nice-cream: dessert that does Not have sugar, fat or calories.

F.R.E.T. part 3: Suicide by Stubbornness

In this final installment on what it means to fret, resentment and envy take center stage. These two were the core of my personal acrostic, bookended nicely by fear and turmoil (see two previous posts).

In those dark days of depression I turned to the book of Job because I wanted to read about someone else who felt beat up, someone with whom I could relate. I was stunned to find my R and E falling from the lips of Job’s friend.

“Resentment kills a fool and envy slays the simple” (Job 5:2 NIV).

The very things I had been clutching were killing me. Suicide by stubbornness?

When I resent someone who has not lived up to my expectations, or resent an unforeseen situation that alters my plans, I fill up a place in my heart with poison. When I envy others who have succeeded at that to which I aspire, I add bile to the mix: a deadly concoction.

Confession broke the vials of resentment and envy; brokenness was the big break I needed.

Do not fret. Do not fear, resent or envy, for turmoil results. It’s a simple directive not easily carried out unless I follow His instructions. And I find them in Psalm 37 where this whole fretful journey began for me. It tells me over and over that God is with me in this struggle, and it tells me what to do. How can I have time—or space in my heart—to fret if I am trusting, doing, delighting, committing, listening and waiting for Him?

For me as a writer, it is a war of words and the battlefield is the mind.

Norman Vincent Peale said, “Change your thoughts and you change your world.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The ancestor of every action is a thought.”

A hard-nosed Jewish lawyer waylaid by the living God said, “… we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (II Corin. 10:5 NIV). That’s the winning catch phrase for me. Because of Jesus and His power, I’m no longer a prisoner fretting my life away. When I fix my mind on Christ, and remind myself what He has said and what He has done, I find freedom.

Thank God, I don’t have to fret.

Fear

In my personal acrostic of the word “fret,” fear was the first and most obvious element. It took up most of the room, so I had to push it out, make a conscious effort to get rid of it—something I could not do on my own. Of course that realization led to more fear, so I turned and ran straight to God’s word.

The breed of fear I battled was not the kind we read about when we’re told to fear the Lord. And we shouldn’t be surprised to find two different meanings, just as we do when we say we love our spouse and we love lasagna. Not the same thing.

I found wonderful things in the Bible about fear: “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and sound mind” (I Tim. 1:7); “Perfect love casts out fear” (I John 4:18); “I sought the Lord, and … he delivered me from all my fears” (Ps. 34:4). These tell me God didn’t send the fear, His love will chase it off, and He’ll snatch me from its clutches.

I also read a fabulous novel by J.M. Windle titled Betrayed. I highly recommend it. In the book, the main character hears the biblical story of Sarah and how her husband’s fear landed her in a harem. The character learns that God rescued Sarah, and that she can be like Sarah if she will “do what is right and do(es) not give way to fear” (I Peter 3:6). I won’t say more because it’s a great read and I don’t want to spoil it for you, but did you notice the “do” and “do not”?

The “do” part fills in the vacuum of the “do not.” Psalm 37—where I first discovered “fret”—is full of “do’s.” Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell, enjoy, delight, commit, be still, wait, refrain—all this in just the first eight verses.

Fear is a paralyzing poison that immobilizes us into doing nothing. Why do you suppose the big cats roar? The intimidation tactic turns their targeted prey into hotdog-on-a-stick.

Franklin D. Roosevelt said we have nothing to fear but fear itself. He may have been thinking of Psalm 34:4. John Wayne said courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway. Sounds like the first eight verses of Psalm 37.

But Jesus said, Don't be afraid, I'm here.*

In the middle of the night when all I see is darkness and all I hear is the beating of my own heart, what Jesus said wins out over the platitudes of men who once lived.

When I need help, give me the words of the God-man who still lives—the One who will back them up with His presence.




*Mark 6:50; Matt. 14:27; Matt. 28:20

Don’t worry. Chill. Relax.

The singing King of Israel tells us three times in the 37th Psalm, “Do not fret.” He’s not suggesting we shouldn’t play the guitar—he’s talking about an attitude of the heart and mind.

“Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong … do not fret when men succeed in their ways … do not fret—it leads only to evil” (Psalm 37:1, 7, 8 NIV).

That is exactly the kind of teaching I need: clearly repetitious.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines the word fret: to cause to suffer emotional strain: VEX. The Hebrew language defines the word with more sensory detail: to glow or grow warm; to blaze up, burn.

The dictionary definition summons images of Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. The Hebrew version sounds more like me.

The “frets” of this Psalm crystalized for me one day when I went openly to the Lord and confessed my sin. My journal entry that morning read, “I have three bed fellows: fear, resentment, and envy.”

The confession had a cleansing effect, as if the Lord had said to me, “Come clean.” When I did, release began.

Further journal entries examined the objects of my fear, resentment and envy, and as I wrote—a process akin to prayer for me—the recorded words of Jesus spoke in my heart:

“The truth will set you free.”

Only then did I see that the ancient acrostic poem in Psalm 37 had become an acrostic for me: Fear, Resentment, Envy—the first three letters of the word fret. So where was the T?

“Torment” was a possibility, considering the way I felt. But I found what I was looking for in the book of Job, the last two verses of the third chapter:

“What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.”

That was the word—turmoil. Turmoil and peace cannot coexist in one’s spirit. Turmoil and quietness do not walk hand in hand. Turmoil does not allude to the restful presence of God.

Turmoil roiled in my heart.

If you know what it’s like to heave on the waves of turmoil, join me over the next several weeks and dig deeper into what it means to FRET—and what it doesn’t mean.