Your change sir?
"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."~James 1:17
I once heard it said that the biggest obstacle to what God is doing today, are those who were on fire for what He was doing yesterday. I dare say that there is, indeed, a measure of wisdom in that statement.
God does NOT change. He will always be there for us - never leaving us all alone in this world. He will always love us, no matter what we do - whether we perceive it as good or bad.
“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”~Hebrews 13:5
And again:
"...no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand."~John 10:28,29
God is God. He is not double-minded or fickle like we human beings tend to be far to often.
He is the same holy, righteous, loving God He has always been and always will be.
But that is God Himself. What He is doing on the other hand - His plan for all of creation of which we are a part of - that is in constant forward motion.
Take you own life for example: have you changed since the day you came to actually know Jesus as Lord and Savior? Even if it happened yesterday that answer will be yes I am willing to wager.
In my own life, there have been many changes over time. Changes within myself that I did not even realize that God had made. Changes to how I think and feel, act and react. There have been changes in what areas He has chosen to use me in. Some of those have taken me completely off guard, I may add. Sounds all good so far, right? But sometimes, while change does feel and look good, sometimes it is hardly a pleasant experience in the midst of it. And let's be honest with ourselves for a moment or two, we tend not to be the fondest of change - we do tend to be "creatures of habit", as it were.
For my own life, there have been some pretty big changes since this time last year. People whom I was quite close to are no longer near as close to me in my life. Where I was physically has changed. Ministry and service that I was involved in has changed. The future I thought I could see is now a far different view.
I would just love to tell you that all of those changes went smoothly and easily, but I do not tend to lie on here so not about to start now. Some were hard. Some painful. Some terrifying. Hardly easy. I do know that most were things that God had showed me were to change, but I was stubborn - comfortable where I was at. He did tell me and give me numerous chances to move on my own - although honestly, He knew I was not about to the same as I knew it. So He pushed the issue and events unfolded as they had to in order for Him to get me where He needed me to be. There have been changes made. Some pretty big ones but in looking back at where I was to where I am now, I am thankful that He cared enough about me to give me the solid kick I needed.
Does this all mean that the next time I feel led to change that I am going to jump at the chance? Maybe, maybe not. It would be nice to think I would but I know myself well enough to know I am stubborn by times (remember, may be saved but am still human). But I do know that change happens. It has to happen. But there is good news:
".. we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.."~Romans 8:28
Do not be afraid of change. It is going to happen. It will happen in your own life, in your walk with God, in your "church", in you as a person - well, everywhere really.
"If God is for us, who can be against us?"~Romans 8:31
Thankfully - even if not until hindsight - changes happen, and even more thankfully, God does not change.
So if you find yourself in the midst of change or seeing it as it approaches on the horizon, take heart. Do not be afraid. Trust God. He is with you and He will see you through to the other side, safe and sound.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Moose Meese?
One goose, two geese
One Moose, two meese?
No - two moose
One mouse, two mice
One house, two hice?
Two houses
Sometimes the english language just does not seem to make a ton of sense. Like I remember learning to read and thinking that knife must have been something other than, well, a knife since obviously what I knew to be a knife must start with an N not a silent K. I have little doubt that you can come up with oodles of your own beyond that or the two at the top of the page.
Although, seeing as one of the gifts that God has seen fit to give me is with regards to the written word, those words can become quite important - in particular, their meanings.
More than once He has led me to explore the meaning of a particular word. As a rule, this has been a word that I have used many times but maybe just never fully, really understood. I do have to admit that I have found these little explorations helpful. That said, am going to share a couple with you. Perhaps you may find them helpful as well.
We, as believers, tend to use a number of words with regards to our faith. I have heard the phrase "talking Christianese" more than once, and really, it fits. But do we "really" know what we are saying when we use them. Just because we can use them in the proper context does not mean we actually know what they mean or can explain them without using the word itself. Personally, I find examples or analogies to be helpful in understanding things (which, if you have been following this for any length of time, should come as no surprise to you). So without further delay...
Grace and Mercy.
You can have grace without mercy but you cannot have mercy without grace. Grace is a necessary part of mercy. I know many use those terms almost synonymous with each but they are different.
I am walking through the park and I have a bag of yummy, home made chocolate chip cookies with me. I see you sitting at a bench, minding your own business. I walk over and give you a cookie.
That is grace. You did nothing to earn it. I gave it to you "just because" I could do so. "Just because" is not a bad way to think of grace really. God offers us salvation "just because" He can do so - nothing to do with anything we do - grace not works, right.
Same scenario as above - basically. Difference being, I have seen you throughout the week/day and you have done everything you could think of to tick me off or get under my skin. You hardly deserve a cookie. More like you deserve to watch me eat the whole bag alone or share with your friends and not you. Instead, though, I give you a cookie.
Mercy - contains grace but takes it a step further again. Not only did you not earn it but you actually deserve something else - something not so pleasant as a rule.
God's mercies are new for us each day. We hardly deserve the good we get, but we do still get it "just because" He can give it to us.
I know that may seem overly simple but really, sometimes we make things more complicated than they need to be.
Now three more:
Love, Hate and Forgive.
Simplest way to define love is with the word "selflessness" - thinking of what another wants/needs above and beyond what you want or need - basically forgetting the word "I" in your vocabulary. I know I have heard it referred to as an emotion, but that is not completely correct.
It is 2am. You need to get up for work at 6am. Your new born child in the other room has just woken up, screaming at the top of their lungs. You NEED your sleep. Do you roll over, cover your head with a pillow, turn of the baby monitor and ignore them? Probably not. You get up, pick them up, try everything you can think of before you end up just holding them and walking around until 3:30am when they finally fall back to sleep.
That is love. You may need and want your sleep, but you put what your child needs over your own. Jesus was the sanest person, by far, who ever walked this earth. You think He wanted to get betrayed, mocked, tortured then executed in the most painful way possible in His day? Not bloody likely. But we NEEDED Him to pay that price for us, since we could not do so ourselves. Our NEED came first. Love.
What of the emotional thought though? Something to consider: you cannot have two different emotions at the same, exact time. Sure you can switch back and forth pretty quickly, but you cannot feel happy and angry and the exact same time.
Little Timmy has been a total pain today. From the time he awoke he has been trying to find new ways to drive you out of your mind - and he has been pretty successful. He shaved an inverse mohawk into his sisters head. Painted the cat with nail polish before letting them run wild all over the new living room set. Pretty much everything imaginable and it is only 11am. You lose it. You lose your temper (not viciously or anything of the like) and yell at him to go to his room. You are angry with him at the moment. If love is an emotion, and you cannot have two at once, then does that mean when you got angry with Timmy that you no longer loved him at that time? Nonsense. Of course you still love him. the fact that you love him is part of the reason you got angry - part of why you sent him to his room - he needs to to settle down.
God has gotten angry a time or two with us. He was angry with Israel in the OT more than once. Jesus was angry when He cleared out the temple courts when people had set up, basically, a mini-mall there. If love were merely an emotion, then at those times God did not love us - which is not possible considering who He is.
Hate. By definition, hate is to be actively opposed to someone or something.
In the tv show "The Simpsons", there is one episode in which Homers' next door neighbor Ned opens up "The Leftorium" - a shop that carries left handed versions of common right handed items. Good idea. Ned puts everything he has into the store, but things are not going well. No one comes in to buy anything. Even the local "hooligans" do not bother shop lifting there. Ned is losing everything - quickly. As the show goes on, we see Homer going through his day. He sits in his boss' office and listens to him complain about having to try and use a right handed can opener. he starts to speak, then decides to not do so. At the local bar, the bartender complains about a right handed corkscrew. Again, Homer says nothing. Homer is actively working against Ned by not saying anything - by not helping him with his need. By the end, however, Homer does give in and tell everyone he knows about Ned's store and Ned's home and life are saved.
Before the end of the show when he turns it around, Homer is "hating" Ned. Sure there may be some emotions involved, but hate by itself is not an emotion.
Forgive. Big word for us who believe, isn't it? After all, we are forgiven. We are also told to forgive others - not just people we like either.
I would say that, for the most part, we know that to forgive is to not hold whatever against whomever. But what does that look like really? It is easy to say, but doing and saying tend to be somewhat different. Let's go back to kids for this one (I love kids).
If you are a parent and have at least one child over the age of say 8, then there is a good chance that at some point your child has been mad at you and/or taken a temper tantrum. While it is hardly a regular thing, sometimes when your little bundle of joy is seriously ticked - usually because they have heard the word "no" when they did not want to - they will look you straight in the eye and say those three, unpleasant, little words: "I hate you".
If you are a parent and you have heard those three words at some point, you know how your heart feels in that moment. It is devastating. Even if they do not really know what it is that they are saying - they do not understand the meaning fully - it still hurts big time.
So in your moment of pain, what is your reaction? Not only immediately but afterward. Later on do you tell your child that they cannot have desert because they hate you? No hug or kiss for you - you hate me remember? I don't want you to sit on my knee - you hate me. Not likely. While it does in fact hurt that they said it, you do not act any differently towards them after the fact. even though you do remember their actions and words and the feelings within, you still act and react to them with love - never working against them in spite of hurt feelings.
That would be a picture of forgiveness.
Perhaps you are thinking "but it is different when it is something bigger and more adult than that". Not true. We, again, are the ones whom make things bigger. God does not tell us to forgive only the little things, but everything. He does not say to forgive only when we feel better or we no longer feel or recall the pain - He just says forgive. Not only forgive those whom we like but everyone. In spite of how WE feel, we are to forgive. After all, what is it if we can only forgive people we like for little things - cannot pretty much anyone do that already?
Have you noticed that the last three words have a common thread? It is what they are, as opposed to what they are not. If one had to label them, the best label would be "choice". Not an emotional state, although all three can be influenced and bring out emotions for certain. We choose to love - we choose to hate - we choose to forgive.
Perhaps these definitions and examples are bit simplistic (I could probably have rambled on about word origins and whatnot pretty easily - like charis for example), but as I have said before, sometimes simple is easier than complex (makes sense really).
I leave you with one final word: forsake.
"...the Lord, your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you"~Deut.31:6
(Among other places as well)
Leave we understand, but do you know forsake? Allow me a quick translation:
the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you, He will never give you up
He will never leave you
He will never Give.You.Up
Lot of comfort in that thought, isn't there?
PS: if you are not saved and you are reading through this, take note of grace: no matter how much bad you feel you have done in your lifetime, salvation is still freely (by grace) offered from God. No one who has done a lot of "good" can ean their way into heaven or into good standing with God. It is freely offered - just because He can.
Forgive the length please - may God grant you great mercy, by His grace alone.
One Moose, two meese?
No - two moose
One mouse, two mice
One house, two hice?
Two houses
Sometimes the english language just does not seem to make a ton of sense. Like I remember learning to read and thinking that knife must have been something other than, well, a knife since obviously what I knew to be a knife must start with an N not a silent K. I have little doubt that you can come up with oodles of your own beyond that or the two at the top of the page.
Although, seeing as one of the gifts that God has seen fit to give me is with regards to the written word, those words can become quite important - in particular, their meanings.
More than once He has led me to explore the meaning of a particular word. As a rule, this has been a word that I have used many times but maybe just never fully, really understood. I do have to admit that I have found these little explorations helpful. That said, am going to share a couple with you. Perhaps you may find them helpful as well.
We, as believers, tend to use a number of words with regards to our faith. I have heard the phrase "talking Christianese" more than once, and really, it fits. But do we "really" know what we are saying when we use them. Just because we can use them in the proper context does not mean we actually know what they mean or can explain them without using the word itself. Personally, I find examples or analogies to be helpful in understanding things (which, if you have been following this for any length of time, should come as no surprise to you). So without further delay...
Grace and Mercy.
You can have grace without mercy but you cannot have mercy without grace. Grace is a necessary part of mercy. I know many use those terms almost synonymous with each but they are different.
I am walking through the park and I have a bag of yummy, home made chocolate chip cookies with me. I see you sitting at a bench, minding your own business. I walk over and give you a cookie.
That is grace. You did nothing to earn it. I gave it to you "just because" I could do so. "Just because" is not a bad way to think of grace really. God offers us salvation "just because" He can do so - nothing to do with anything we do - grace not works, right.
Same scenario as above - basically. Difference being, I have seen you throughout the week/day and you have done everything you could think of to tick me off or get under my skin. You hardly deserve a cookie. More like you deserve to watch me eat the whole bag alone or share with your friends and not you. Instead, though, I give you a cookie.
Mercy - contains grace but takes it a step further again. Not only did you not earn it but you actually deserve something else - something not so pleasant as a rule.
God's mercies are new for us each day. We hardly deserve the good we get, but we do still get it "just because" He can give it to us.
I know that may seem overly simple but really, sometimes we make things more complicated than they need to be.
Now three more:
Love, Hate and Forgive.
Simplest way to define love is with the word "selflessness" - thinking of what another wants/needs above and beyond what you want or need - basically forgetting the word "I" in your vocabulary. I know I have heard it referred to as an emotion, but that is not completely correct.
It is 2am. You need to get up for work at 6am. Your new born child in the other room has just woken up, screaming at the top of their lungs. You NEED your sleep. Do you roll over, cover your head with a pillow, turn of the baby monitor and ignore them? Probably not. You get up, pick them up, try everything you can think of before you end up just holding them and walking around until 3:30am when they finally fall back to sleep.
That is love. You may need and want your sleep, but you put what your child needs over your own. Jesus was the sanest person, by far, who ever walked this earth. You think He wanted to get betrayed, mocked, tortured then executed in the most painful way possible in His day? Not bloody likely. But we NEEDED Him to pay that price for us, since we could not do so ourselves. Our NEED came first. Love.
What of the emotional thought though? Something to consider: you cannot have two different emotions at the same, exact time. Sure you can switch back and forth pretty quickly, but you cannot feel happy and angry and the exact same time.
Little Timmy has been a total pain today. From the time he awoke he has been trying to find new ways to drive you out of your mind - and he has been pretty successful. He shaved an inverse mohawk into his sisters head. Painted the cat with nail polish before letting them run wild all over the new living room set. Pretty much everything imaginable and it is only 11am. You lose it. You lose your temper (not viciously or anything of the like) and yell at him to go to his room. You are angry with him at the moment. If love is an emotion, and you cannot have two at once, then does that mean when you got angry with Timmy that you no longer loved him at that time? Nonsense. Of course you still love him. the fact that you love him is part of the reason you got angry - part of why you sent him to his room - he needs to to settle down.
God has gotten angry a time or two with us. He was angry with Israel in the OT more than once. Jesus was angry when He cleared out the temple courts when people had set up, basically, a mini-mall there. If love were merely an emotion, then at those times God did not love us - which is not possible considering who He is.
Hate. By definition, hate is to be actively opposed to someone or something.
In the tv show "The Simpsons", there is one episode in which Homers' next door neighbor Ned opens up "The Leftorium" - a shop that carries left handed versions of common right handed items. Good idea. Ned puts everything he has into the store, but things are not going well. No one comes in to buy anything. Even the local "hooligans" do not bother shop lifting there. Ned is losing everything - quickly. As the show goes on, we see Homer going through his day. He sits in his boss' office and listens to him complain about having to try and use a right handed can opener. he starts to speak, then decides to not do so. At the local bar, the bartender complains about a right handed corkscrew. Again, Homer says nothing. Homer is actively working against Ned by not saying anything - by not helping him with his need. By the end, however, Homer does give in and tell everyone he knows about Ned's store and Ned's home and life are saved.
Before the end of the show when he turns it around, Homer is "hating" Ned. Sure there may be some emotions involved, but hate by itself is not an emotion.
Forgive. Big word for us who believe, isn't it? After all, we are forgiven. We are also told to forgive others - not just people we like either.
I would say that, for the most part, we know that to forgive is to not hold whatever against whomever. But what does that look like really? It is easy to say, but doing and saying tend to be somewhat different. Let's go back to kids for this one (I love kids).
If you are a parent and have at least one child over the age of say 8, then there is a good chance that at some point your child has been mad at you and/or taken a temper tantrum. While it is hardly a regular thing, sometimes when your little bundle of joy is seriously ticked - usually because they have heard the word "no" when they did not want to - they will look you straight in the eye and say those three, unpleasant, little words: "I hate you".
If you are a parent and you have heard those three words at some point, you know how your heart feels in that moment. It is devastating. Even if they do not really know what it is that they are saying - they do not understand the meaning fully - it still hurts big time.
So in your moment of pain, what is your reaction? Not only immediately but afterward. Later on do you tell your child that they cannot have desert because they hate you? No hug or kiss for you - you hate me remember? I don't want you to sit on my knee - you hate me. Not likely. While it does in fact hurt that they said it, you do not act any differently towards them after the fact. even though you do remember their actions and words and the feelings within, you still act and react to them with love - never working against them in spite of hurt feelings.
That would be a picture of forgiveness.
Perhaps you are thinking "but it is different when it is something bigger and more adult than that". Not true. We, again, are the ones whom make things bigger. God does not tell us to forgive only the little things, but everything. He does not say to forgive only when we feel better or we no longer feel or recall the pain - He just says forgive. Not only forgive those whom we like but everyone. In spite of how WE feel, we are to forgive. After all, what is it if we can only forgive people we like for little things - cannot pretty much anyone do that already?
Have you noticed that the last three words have a common thread? It is what they are, as opposed to what they are not. If one had to label them, the best label would be "choice". Not an emotional state, although all three can be influenced and bring out emotions for certain. We choose to love - we choose to hate - we choose to forgive.
Perhaps these definitions and examples are bit simplistic (I could probably have rambled on about word origins and whatnot pretty easily - like charis for example), but as I have said before, sometimes simple is easier than complex (makes sense really).
I leave you with one final word: forsake.
"...the Lord, your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you"~Deut.31:6
(Among other places as well)
Leave we understand, but do you know forsake? Allow me a quick translation:
the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you, He will never give you up
He will never leave you
He will never Give.You.Up
Lot of comfort in that thought, isn't there?
PS: if you are not saved and you are reading through this, take note of grace: no matter how much bad you feel you have done in your lifetime, salvation is still freely (by grace) offered from God. No one who has done a lot of "good" can ean their way into heaven or into good standing with God. It is freely offered - just because He can.
Forgive the length please - may God grant you great mercy, by His grace alone.
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