Know

     

It is hard to admit as a life long Christian that there are times when I have doubted. Is there really a God? Is there really a heaven? Did Jesus really raise from the dead? We have been told by some that it is all a bunch of bunk and we are gullible fools to believe. 

There are some who I have heard say they were "believing" for a kind of insurance incase it is true. I am not so sure that's going to fly in the end. I don't think God wants a tiny piece of our heart that we will rely on when judgement comes, "I didn't say you didn't exist" but did you truly believe? James 2:19 says that even demons believe. 

I attend church regularly but to keep my focus on the preacher, I take notes in a notebook. I then file it away rarely looking at them again. I had some notebooks where I made a reference list of the Bible verses mentioned and the sermons they were mentioned in so I could look them up. It might have been handy a couple of times, but in my journey to save less stuff, years of notes were purged. 

Before I purge my latest notebook, I have decided to re-read my notes and use this blog to share my thoughts and ideas from some sermons. Some are my thoughts and some are of the teacher, and I pray all are "approved by God."

From a sermon called "A Sure Salvation" by Steve Gwilt, I gleaned some of these thoughts combined with my own. It felt good to hear that doubt is good and helps us to grow. Phew! Doubt should have us seeking the truth in the Bible, our compass, where am I headed? Doubt can teach us to grow and re-focus and even make our faith stronger. 

What makes one doubt? Well, surely the world we live in is constantly testing our faith. Sometimes life is just too hard and we wonder why God would let things happen. As long as man has free will, there will be good and bad. We have choices for our responses to life and when we take a "wrong turn", we can always turn around in the other direction. Did you ever stop to think that when you doubt that you are actually calling God a liar? Don't give up on God as he never will give up on you.

If you are in a season of doubt, pursue prayer, the Bible, worship and fellowship. I find church attendance is a blessing to be able to be with like minded Christians. We are so fortunate in this country to have that freedom. Attending a church helps us to center our lives on Jesus. 

And as others are on their life journey, whether they are unsure of what they believe or don't believe at all or believe and are going through trials, the most important thing we can do is to be loving towards them. Love is mentioned 294 times in the new testament and 26 times in I John as agape love meaning giving and selfless. 

Today: Know and Love. 

Reflections on Wednesday of Holy Week

This year I have been doing a little studying on what happened on each day of Holy Week. Today I learned about Wednesday. First was noted that Jesus sent two of his disciples to find a particular home owner and to prepare a room for Thursday's last supper. The second notable event was also a preparation for something--for Judas's betrayal. Two disciples went to obey Jesus, the other to forsake him.

In re-reading the latter event (Matthew 26:14-16) it struck me this time that the priests did not come to Judas asking him to betray Jesus, but Judas went to them and asked how much they would pay him. Somehow in my mind I had twisted the story that the priests sought out Judas and having to make a quick decision with money as the motive, he decided to betray Jesus. This wasn't the case. With pre-meditation he sought to betray Jesus. It wasn't a decision made on the fly. How very sad. This was another prophecy fulfilled.

As I think about these passages, I wander down many rabbit trails. One I wanted to investigate was just what was the value of  30 pieces of silver. The internet has many different answers and they all don't agree. So, what source is best? The Bible, of course.

In Zechariah 14 when he asks for pay for what they think he is worth, they paid him 30 pieces of silver. He threw it down. A slave/servant gored by an ox was valued at 30 pieces, where a free person was valued at 60. There you have it, the symbolic meaning and prophecy of 30 pieces of silver for Jesus who came as a servant to the people. Side note: poor Joseph was sold by his brothers for only 20 pieces of silver--makes me wonder about the term, "worth more dead than alive". 

Skip ahead for a moment, for those who don't know the events, later Judas throws down the money in the temple and goes off and hangs himself. And that brought me to a seemingly unending source of rabbit trails. In researching when Judas died, I am led to believe it was after Jesus rose from the dead sometime. Some sources imply he was with the other disciples when they saw Jesus. I cannot fathom they would have allowed the traitor to be with them, unless he was so wrought with guilt and they somehow took Jesus's teachings to heart and forgave him or in the darkness when Judas kissed Jesus, were they blind to what he had done? Jesus had told them one would betray him, so I think they should have realized. Another rabbit trail  I am also surprised that in his greed that Judas hadn't spent the 30 pieces of silver, but still had them, perhaps symbolically weighing down on him in guilt? Having them jingle in his pouch, a constant reminder of what he had done. Perhaps he didn't really believe in his heart that Jesus was the Messiah until he rose from the dead. Was he there at the crucifixion and perhaps the words, "Forgive them not for they know not what they do" were for him too. Did those words break him? There are so many rabbit trails here to explore another time.

One last thought, my mind also wandered as to why wouldn't the priests recognize Jesus after all his appearances at the temple? There are passages where Jesus left the temple without being noticed. This implies that he was ordinary looking. Also they had planned to grab him during the night to avoid any riots and it would be harder to recognize him in the dark--remember no street lights. 

I will now remember Wednesday of Holy Week as the day of two preparations: the preparation of the upper room and the day the Judas prepares to betray Jesus, a day of good and evil intentions. 

Please note, I am not a biblical scholar and these are just my reflections. I stand open to any corrections one might want to bring to my attention.

2020 The Hugless Year

I love hugs. 2020 halted them. Who would have ever thought? However, even before 2020, my grandchildren were not "into" hugs. It's not that they don't love me, I believe they do, but for some reason, they are not a big deal to them. To me, they are, should I say, "were"? I understand this day and age that one should not force a child to hug you or anything that they feel uncomfortable doing. I understand the principle, but there are two sides.

I am wondering if the disparity could be life experiences. As a senior citizen, one is so often reminded of mortality. Kids don't think, "this might be the last time I get to hug grandma" and have regrets later if they didn't. They don't think that way and shouldn't, but the thought does cross older peoples' minds at times. One last hug for the road to the grandchild until we meet again. May they remember the love of a hug. It just seems children don't value them the way an older person does.

Surely hugs are just a fleeting physical expression of love and what we have learned in 2020 is there are other ways to show love, yet even those other actions have been limited with the pandemic. I imagine there are those who were thankful for a year when people didn't tackle them with hugs. For some it was a relief but for many the lack of hugs hurt.

It is interesting that in Ecclesiastes where the familiar passage tells us there is a time for everything, actually says in 3:5 "a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing." I guess these are those times.

I hope this time to refrain ends soon. As we enter a new year, we look forward to moving on from our year of refraining from so many things. I imagine some of those things we refrained from will carry on. I am not sure people will ever shake hands again. As for me, I look to a new season of love and hopefully hugs from those who feel comfortable doing so. 

Jesus Knows

Those who know me well know that I have a tender heart, a heart that makes tears flow very easily. I can't help it. It's just the way that I am. One afternoon driving home after a trying day, my thoughts overflowed bringing me to tears. It was at that moment that the Christian radio station quoted the Psalmist's poetic writings, "You keep track of all my sorrows. You've collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book." Psalm 56:8 (NLT)

Here I am crying, and David is saying in his anguish (he was a POW at the time), that he knows that God is aware of every tear drop and just as the hairs on our head are numbered, so are our tears, as if collected in his bottle and each one written down in his book and acknowledged. Not physically, but metaphorically, I believe it is true.      

The shortest verse in the Bible is, “Jesus wept”. This was when Lazarus died. A study of the translation reveals these were silent, personal tears. There was another time in the Bible that it was noted that Jesus wept, Luke 19:41, "As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it." This word for wept translates into "wept aloud". His love of his country, patriotism and seeing what it had become brought him to tears.             

I know the events of 2020 have brought many to tears. Our country is in pain in so many ways. For Christians, we hold on to the belief that God is in control. Jesus came to earth as a child, living on earth and experiencing life as a human, including shedding tears. He suffered physical and emotional pain, grief, anger, humiliation along with joy, peace, love—all the feelings. There could be another two-word verse in the Bible: “Jesus knows.”

Whatever you are going through, Jesus sees it all and knows. All our tears, shed and unshed, are known by God, not actually kept in a bottle, but may this imagery remind you, he was born, lived, and died all for you, that is how much he cares. May you reflect upon his love and in this birth, we celebrate now that leads us to life everlasting and a life of no more tears, "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Revelation 21:4. 

As we all navigate through the unknown seas (salted like tears) in this coming year, may you know that although you may sometimes be alone or those who feel alone even in a crowded room (pre-Covid-19), know you are never alone. Jesus is there. Jesus knows. Every tear drop that falls is seen. At this Christmas time and as we enter a new year, may you have the hope and the joy that only God can give. Merry Christmas.

                                                                                                                                                          

Christmas

Our Christmas days were always only just the three of us, Mom, Dad and me. No extended family. I didn't know any different and it was nice and quiet and happy. I am so blessed and thankful to have two kids and 5+ grandkids and of course, my Dad and George to celebrate Christmas with now. I am just so grateful to God for family and for His great gift to us on this day and the tears of joy I feel now reflect that I don't take this for granted. I have today. You have today.

If your Christmas is not as happy this year for so many painful reasons out there, I hope you will find the blessings that you do have. You always have something to be thankful for no matter how small. You may think, easy for me to say, and that is true compared to the struggles some of you are going through. I am sorry. May memories of Christmases past bless you and remember those memories and when you lived them are a gift from God

It can be a lonely time for some but God came to earth for you too and he died for YOU too. If you are alone, you may not have many gifts under your tree, or not a tree or even gifts at all, but you have one big gift to unwrap from God and this is a good day to unwrap that gift, the promise of Eternal Life, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." I hope we see you there. Obviously, these are my beliefs and I know some chose to believe differently. I just wanted to share with you the hopefulness that Christmas gives me and my family. May you find your hope.

When the blue faded away

I think it all started when the Blue Laws started fading to white and disappeared. Once upon a time, children, stores were not open on Sunday. You would spend the day with your family, maybe go for a ride or pop in to see other family or friends. 

This was at a time when TVs didn't have remotes and it really wasn't necessary because you only had a few channels to chose from anyway. You didn't have videos to rent, DVRs to record. The TV programming ended at midnight. You watched what was on and if you didn't like it, the TV went off and you did something else--read, play games, pursue a hobby or go outside. You called people on the phone, if your party line wasn't busy being used by someone else. If they weren't home, you couldn't leave a message. You couldn't text them. 

I remember Sunday rides--often aimlessly going wherever the road took us. The families actually gathered for family dinner on Sunday. When we were first married, we kept up this tradition for awhile visiting my parents on Sunday. 

Then stores began opening on Sunday. You had an extra day to run your errands. This provided more jobs for the workforce too. Schools began allowing sports on Sundays, theater rehearsals and any other activity. Sundays faded into another Saturday, the weekend.

While that was happening, technology was booming. Our choices for entertainment grew and grew. TV viewing went from a couple of channels to eventually 100's. We could rent movies to watch at home and even record programs on TV to watch at our convenience. Then came the internet with a whole other expansion of possibilities to entertain us. 

As things progressed, some things got left behind--the biggest one, family time. Since Sunday was an extension of Saturday, other things filled up the time. Sunday was not a leisure day any more and as that happened, families didn't get together for Sunday dinner. Families didn't visit each other any more. The day got filled up with watching kids' sports or other activities or running errands. Why would anyone sit down together to play a board game when each could do their own on their electronics? Reading and hobbies occupied less time. 

As everyday became a day when one could run to the store to purchase anything--even alcohol and movies could be called up on demand or streamed on the internet, and people could text someone at any time of day or order anything on the internet to be here the next day, we became a world of wanting things in an instance. The more convenient and easier things got, the more we want and want it now. 

What did we lose? Family. The "Cat's in the Cradle" song, all too real. 

Growing Old

And just like that layers and layers of life piled high on each other

and we had indeed 

grown old together.