GOOD, GOOD GIFTS

Ask me how I'm doing as I'm walking into the church building on Sunday morning and I may start crying all over you. Ask me how I'm doing as I'm walking out after worship and you'll get a totally different answer. Study and fellowship with other believers, then an hour of feasting, singing, and reveling in the beauty of my Savior...Sunday truly is a good, good gift from my Creator!

I think of my dearest friends in terms of perhaps odd metaphors. One I think of as a Red Hot Chili Pepper. Her vivacity, intensity, directness, and honesty stand in sharp contrast to the banality of so many relationships. Even her physical appearance and presence charge the air around her with a somewhat spicy electrical buzz.

Another dear friend is like dark chocolate, strong black coffee, or dry, dark wine. Complex. Intense. It takes time and long talks to truly savor the richness, the powerful emotions, the depth of love and thought and passion of this woman. Like deep water. Splash in the shallows and you won't know this woman at all. Dare to dive deeper and she will absolutely change your world.

Another friend is Sunshine. Even if you have never met this woman, stand in her presence five minutes and your spirit will feel noticeably lighter, brighter. Not that her life has been one of airy ease and innocence. Rather, like Gandalf, she has fought dragons in dark places...and has emerged glowing with the radiance of heaven.

And then, there is the Garden, all that is fair and lovely and green and growing. Bright blossoms bobbing in a gentle breeze. Deep roots, strong branches, cool shade. The gurgle of water and the buzz of bees. A fullness of life and of living, stretching up-up-upward, tendrils reaching out to embrace the world around her with grace and gentle welcome.

Spice. Wine. Sunshine. An oasis in an arid, often brutal landscape.

Today, I am reveling in this truth: God gives very good gifts indeed.

THE MAN WITHOUT A NOSE

There is a man in my neighborhood without a nose. I see him sometimes when I'm out running errands, at Dollar General, at the grocery store, at the gas station.

Did he have to have to have his nose removed because of some cancerous growth? Was it torn off in a fight? Was he born without a nose? I don't know what happened to his nose. I just know that when I see him, I smile and say "Hi" and he nods in answer. It is very, very hard to look someone in the eye and smile when there is a hole in the middle of his face.

I passed the man without a nose as I was driving down the highway last week, and seeing him again got me to thinking. Does he have a family? Grandkids? Does he like to eat fish at the lake, or to drink coffee with the old guys at Autry's? What makes him laugh? What makes him smile? Where does he work? Does he prefer Wranglers or Levis?

In my tiny little mind he is simply The Man Without a Nose. But unknown to me, that man has a wealth of life experiences, of stories, of personal likes and dislikes. He has a history - he is somebody's son, somebody's brother. He is so much more than a man without a nose.

Years and years ago, Steve and I attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings with young Marines as part of his job as the Substance Abuse Control Officer. "Hello, my name's Bob, and I'm an addict." "Hi, I'm John, and I'm an alcoholic." Although I understand there was some purpose in uniting attendees this way, something about that ritual disturbed me. I understand better now what it was. It narrowed each person into the one big, nasty thing wrong in their lives. It reduced them to an addiction, a broken past, a history of failure.

Sort of like my neighbor. When you first see him, you notice one big, nasty thing wrong with him. I wonder how many people get past that one thing to find out anything else about him. And I wonder how he sees himself.

In this fallen world, we all have big, nasty problems. Addictions. Deformities. Sexual perversions. Spitefulness. Critical attitudes. Pride. Gossiping tongues. Discontent hearts. It's a long list of disgusting sins, and we are all on that list somewhere, every single one of us.

But for the Christian, we are not defined by our sin...we are defined by who we are in Christ. By Christ's work on our behalf. By God's unfathomable love for us. By the Spirit's ongoing work of sanctification in each of us.

I am not what I once was. Scripture tells me that in Christ, I am a new creation. That even now, God is making all things new, including me. Although huge chunks of it still cling to me, although daily I must struggle against it, my old sin nature no longer defines who I am. It would be wrong for me now to try to shrink my understanding of myself down to the Big Ugly Sin that plagues me. Nor can my brothers or sisters rightfully pigeonhole me this way either. Bigger things are going on here now...huge, eternal, cosmic things that are swallowing up my sin in the enormity of God's love and grace.

As messed up as I am, I am Christ's beloved, a daughter of the High King of Heaven, an image bearer of God.

I wonder if the man without a nose knows about the amazing love of God?

BACK TO THE THREE SISTERS

I've missed my walks back on the farm this summer, but working days at Wal-mart kind of wiped out my energy and enthusiasm for tromping through the weeds and the creek bed.

However, with school starting back up this week, it looks like maybe my crazy schedule will allow some time to get outdoors again. School in the morning and early afternoon, evenings at Wally World. In between, I've been managing to squeak in my 40-minutes-and-four-hills. So good to get reacquainted with the Three Sisters!

Monday, I spied a flock of turkeys in the valley below the green barn. They spied me, too, and nervously trotted toward the cover of nearby woods. The bull was taking an afternoon dip in the big pond, lolling about in the shade of maple and beech trees that grow down to the water's edge. Grasshoppers, grasshoppers, grasshoppers everywhere, bzzzzting and flitting in brown clouds with each step I took in the tall grass.

It is too hot to wear jeans when I walk, but shorts aren't really a great option, either. Bare legs in nettles....ouch! And then I'm always a tiny bit wary of inadvertently stepping on some nasty snake hiding in the grass. Yes, jeans and boots would feel a tad safer. Cooler weather will be here soon.

Some folks, when they walk or jog or bike, like to listen to music or to recorded sermons or books. Me, I just like the quiet. My mind never seems to "Shut up!" Always whirring, churning, processing. How exhausting! But for some reason, I find I'm able to gear down the engine when walking back on the farm.

I listen. For the rackety-tap-TAP! of a woodpecker. For squirrels, who crash through the underbrush like tiny buffalo. Who'd have thought such a small animal could make so much noise? For an owl hooting from the far hill. For deer stepping fairy soft through mouldering leaves. For whatever tiny quiet thing might make the next faint sound.

And I look. For paw prints along the creek bank. For shadowy shapes moving suddenly under the dark shade of the trees. For a pair of bright eyes peering from behind a rotting stump, a flash of brilliant orange.

And I smell. Hay, toasting in the sun, like fresh home-made bread baking in the oven. The dank punkiness of the creek bed where isolated pools of slimy green water simmer in the heat. The tang of sneeze weed. A herd of black cows, nodding Hello as they loll in the shade, with that distinctive rich, wholesome aroma that testifies, "You're in the country now."

And I feel. The crunch of dry grass underfoot. The scratch of horse nettles and pigweed on bare legs. The cool shade of maples here, the sizzle of a ripe August sun on the next hill. The burn in my legs as I climb the massive shoulders of one, two, three great sleeping giants.

I don't hear the phone or the buzzer on the washing machine. I don't see the computer or the unfinished school project spread out all over the kitchen counter. I don't smell the gas-soaked jeans of the son who's working on his truck, or dinner cooking in the oven. I don't feel the coolness of the AC or the sluggishness induced by too much time indoors.

And I don't think about work, or school, or finances, or so-and-so's health issues, or the size of my waist, or what I'm going to write for next week's article.

Forty minutes. Four hills.

It's good to be walking again.

WHAT TO DO?

My oldest is in Des Moines with her sweet husband. The two little girls, they're in Maine with Grammy. Reu is meeting with Mrs. Doris to go over illustrations he is painting for her next book. Nate, Tom, and Ben are hauling hay. (Yes, they knew how hot it would be before they left. Actually, they hauled hay yesterday, too, in 100+ degree weather, with a heat index of 116. They consider the temperature and humidity a challenge - some kind of a Man thing.) Baby M should've been here at 6:30 this morning, but was running a fever. Grandma is keeping her today instead.

Anyway, what that means for me at the present is that I am sitting in my house, all alone. Ever heard of a blue moon? Guess we should be expecting one tonight! Well, here's a question I haven't had to answer in a long, l-o-n-g time: What do I do with a morning home alone?

Hmmmm......

First, I started the laundry. The hay-hauling clothes from yesterday were already funking out the laundry room, so they went into the washer first thing after my lonely little breakfast. Then, I started a pot of sauce for lasagna - am getting a head start on tomorrow's dinner and fixing a pan for the freezer. A nice long phone call from the adventurers up north - sounds like Martha and Helen are having a grand time exploring coastal Maine! A bit of book-keeping and paperwork. Some physics and math homework to check over.

It is Way Too Quiet in this house.

My hay-haulers should be home by lunchtime. Reuben and Dad have just pulled up in the driveway. This afternoon, we'll be back at schoolwork and regular household chores, and I'll have a household of rowdy young men crashing about, laughing, wrestling, debating, pontificating. And in a few days, I'll have my girls back, too, chattering non-stop about their East Coast adventures. My favorite kind of music.

OPEN UP

I tend to be a very private person.

Okay, maybe that sounds weird coming from someone who writes in a public forum, processing life and thoughts on a blog that just about any Joe or Sally can read.

What I mean, at least partly, is that when I am struggling with some great difficulty or painful issue, or when life gets too big and hairy, I tend to hunker down, pull in, and close the blinds. I need to process things internally before I can deal with them externally. Only after a period of quiet reflection and several long, deep breaths am I able to open my eyes to the help that is mine in the friends that God has given me.

That's changing, though. I'm not nearly as private as I used to be.

I enjoyed lunch with a friend from church recently...not one of those bosom friends, but still a gracious, godly sister in Christ that I have known and loved for several years. During our meal, she asked rather cautiously about a particular issue that my family has been confronting and struggling with for a long time. "Well, I hesitated to ask you about this...I didn't know if this was something too private and sensitive to bring up."

"Sherry," I replied, "if there is anything that I am learning in the midst of this, it is that I can't afford to be private. Everything has to be out on the table. Secrets kill. We need the prayer and encouragement of every available soldier."

Not to say that we all need to go indiscriminately publicizing the nitty-gritty nasty details of the struggles we face. I'm not saying that at all. But we do need to be open, honest, transparent, and vulnerable with someone...with family, with trusted friends, with our church family. And we certainly do not need to labor at maintaining some facade that hides our hurt, that proclaims to the world a lie that everything is fine.

Of course, there's no guarantee that those we confide in will respond appropriately. They may be judgmental or critical. They may offer unbiblical counsel. They may exacerbate the problem. They may even gossip or make light of our trials. No way around it, life in this fallen world is just messy!

But I need to learn to be honest about my struggles, and my sister needs to learn to relate to me in this with grace and integrity. And vice versa. Sanctification isn't a Lone Ranger process for any of us - we truly are all in this together, learning from each other's trials, mistakes, wisdom, and experience. And we can't even begin the business of pointing each other to Christ and to the much-needed balm of Scripture if we simply hunker down, pull in, and close the blinds.

GOD'S WORD, A LIFE TRANSFORMER

Our pastor challenged the congregation to read through the entire Bible: “Read the whole book. And when you finish, read it again.” Frustrated by the daunting pace of trying to read the entire Bible in one year, I received encouragement from a wise older brother: “Don’t try to race through. The main thing is, read some Scripture every day, and just keep on reading.” Reading through the Bible took me a little over two years.

I can’t express the euphoria I felt when I finished the last verse of Revelation. Yes! I had read every word that God had written to me! Did I remember it all? No. Did I fully understand everything I had read? No. Did I glean from Scripture all God had to teach me? Absolutely not. Which is why I immediately started over again, back at Genesis 1:1. You know what I discovered on my second read through the Bible? And the third? This Book just gets better and better.

In Knowing God, J.I. Packer gives two reasons we should be reading the Word of God. First, we should be reading and believing and obeying God’s Word because He told us to. We are His creation, subjects in His kingdom, and it is our duty to obey His command to know Him by knowing His Word.

Second, we should be reading and believing and obeying God’s Word because it is true. Psalm 119:160 says: “The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.” (English Standard Version) Jesus prays for His disciples, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” (John 17:17) Scripture tells us the truth about God and the truth about ourselves. As Packer puts it, Scripture is “the index of reality.”

God’s law “gives us a working definition of true humanity. It shows us what man was made to be, and teaches us how to be truly human, and warns us against moral self-destruction,” writes Packer. Just as our physical bodies need nourishment, so our souls are created to be fed and strengthened through worship, truthfulness, self-control, and the like. By refusing the good spiritual food served in Scripture, we not only become de-humanized: we become miserable. Packer writes, “We are only living truly human lives just so far as we are laboring to keep God’s commandments; no further.”

God’s law is true. His promises are true, also. Herein lies the great strength and solace of the Christian. Throughout Scripture, God speaks promises that still stand today. Knowing God’s promises and meditating on them empowers Christians to live by God’s promises.

Packer concludes: “What is a Christian? …he is a man who acknowledges and lives under the word of God.” A Christian is one who knows the God of Scripture as Father, and Jesus Christ as Savior. He lives a life of obedience to God’s commands, strengthened by God’s promises. God’s Word – because it reveals God Himself – is the Christian’s very life. Does that describe you, Christian Reader?

God’s Word is the life of the individual believer, but what is it to the corporate body, the church? Look at Acts 6:7: “And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.” The church was being persecuted and its members dispersed, yet it continued to grow. Why? Because “the word of God continued to increase.”

In Acts 13, we find Paul and Barnabas preaching to the church in Antioch. The culture was against them. The established religion was against them. What happened? “When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region.” (Act 13:48-49, emphasis added)

Today, many are saddened by decreasing church attendance and by the moral decline rampant in society and in the church. Satan seems to have a stranglehold not only on our culture, but on the church itself. While numerous programs have been developed to reach the unsaved and to encourage professing Christians to live godly lives, I think we often miss the obvious. We want a three-step program for salvation, and another for sanctification. God gives His children and His church something infinitely better – His Word. Read it. Believe it. Live it. Learn to love the God who wrote it.

GOD KNOWS ALL ABOUT YOU...WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HIM?

(Today's post is taken from a series of articles written for my local paper last month. Part 2 tomorrow!)

We have been using J.I. Packer's Knowing God (available at Intervarsity Press - click here) as a springboard to examine and contemplate various aspects of the person and character of God. Recently, we have considered God's wisdom and majesty. Future articles will look at God's love, His grace, and His wrath. But how do we even know anything about God in the first place? And how do we make the cosmic leap from knowing about God to knowing Him personally?

Certainly, the world around us speaks about God. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge." (Psalm 19:1-2, English Standard Version) The intricate detail and incredible precision of the tiniest cell astounds us. Massive planets hurtling through great chasms of space in a delicately choreographed ballet...this, too, challenges our comprehension! Creation is covered with God's fingerprints, so to speak, giving us glimpses of the great God who designed, created, and sustains our world.

Paul writes, "...(God's) invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they (those who reject God) are without excuse." (Romans 1:20) In fact, Paul tells us that denying the existence of and the holy character of God requires deliberate, intense effort on our part - we "press down" the knowledge of God, much like we might compress a coiled spring, holding it down only under great tension.

God reveals Himself to us through His creation, but we also learn of Him through the changed lives and the testimonies of others who have encountered Him. In chapter 9 of the book of John, we read of a man who had been born blind. When Jesus healed this man by restoring his sight, his family and neighbors were astounded. "Who healed you? How did he do this amazing thing?" Many responded by placing their faith in Christ. The religious leaders, on the other hand, questioned the man repeatedly, refusing to accept the miracle and to acknowledge Christ. Finally, the healed man answers them in exasperation, "I have told you already, and you would not listen." (John 9:27)

Likewise, many of us know people whose lives have been radically transformed by Christ, people who have moved from darkness to light, from bondage to freedom, from self-absorption to God-focused living. If we bump up against these people often, we must respond either by acknowledging God's work in their lives, thereby glorifying Him, or by persisting in resolute unbelief. Like a willful child plugging his ears, like the religious leaders mentioned in John chapter 9, we refuse to listen.

But maybe you say, "God did not reveal Himself to me in creation. No, my science teacher told me this world is a product of materialistic, naturalistic, evolutionary processes. I don't see God here at all."

Maybe you say, "I did not hear about God's justice, love, and mercy from my transformed neighbor. I have never heard of Christ's atonement or of forgiveness."

Yes, God speaks to us through creation and through the lives of others, but He speaks to us most clearly and most directly through His written Word.

J.I. Packer writes, "God...knows all about us before we say anything (Psalm 139:1-4); but we can know nothing about Him unless He tells us." Packer continues, "God sends His word to us...to woo us as well as to instruct us; it not merely puts us in the picture of what God has done and is doing but also calls us into personal communion with the loving Lord Himself."

God knows all about you, Reader. What do you really know about Him? Maybe you feel like God is angry. Maybe you think God is disengaged. Maybe you assume that God cares more about your personal happiness than your personal holiness. But what do you know?

God wants you to know Him and to love Him...and He's written an entire book for precisely that purpose. Today would be a perfect day to start reading God's Word to you. What could be of greater value than a life lived in personal communion with the Creator and Lord of the universe?!