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| There's this old commercial - I can't remember what for - some sort of baby thing - food... clothes....? - at any rate, the end is "...because little things mean a lot." I was just thinking about that, and realized how amazingly true it is. Most people can hunker down and handle the big things - crises, job losses, sickness, even death. It's the little things - the little stresses in life; the little words, or conversations - that get to you, usually. It's the stress of a difficult conversation, or of someone being annoyed with you, or of someone hurting your feelings, or of your realizing you've hurt someone's feelings - those are the things that are so hard to take in stride.
I don't know how many conversations I've had with people where they've shared with me that someone said one little thing that changed their life, or their self-concept, or their concept of the world. It happens a LOT with singing - people say something careless to someone else ("You're off pitch," or "You don't have a very good voice," or even, "You have a good voice"), and it changes the way they sing in public for the rest of their lives. Or a word of encouragement, spoken without much thought, will totally make someone's day - or week - and oftentimes they'll come back to you months/years later and tell you that it did. I once grabbed a high schooler at the first All-Out and took her out to watch the stars with me, and make a life-long friend because of that little thing. I don't know how many times I've asked someone, "How are you?" and stayed to hear the answer and developed a deep and wonderful relationship with them because of that.
On the flip side, there have been so many times when a careless or thoughtless word or even tone of voice has destroyed someone's day. Just not being thoughtful - just not thinking about what your opinion might do to someone else's mood or heart.... can devastate them. So often I've been shot down on something that meant a lot to me, just because someone else didn't realize - or care at the moment - that it did and they were busy trying to get their own way. And vice versa. I know I've stomped on a million people's toes and hearts over the years because I have too many and too strong opinions.
It's easy for me to sit around and pout over someone being careless of my feelings, or selfish - or even mean. But it's harder when I start to think about the fact that there is an enormous log in my own eye that I'm pretending doesn't exist while screaming inside about that horrible speck in my brother's.
There's a reason why the tongue is given such a lecture in the book of James:
19 Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters! Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. 20 For human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness. . . 26 If someone thinks he is religious yet does not bridle his tongue, and so deceives his heart, his religion is futile. - James 1:19-20, 26
Slow to speak. In other words - reluctant to speak unless it's helpful. What a concept. Not to shoot off my mouth whenever I think of something to say. Yeah - not always my strongest point.
Bridling my tongue - that means someone is actually reigning it in - not just letting it run wild.
12 Speak and act as those who will be judged by a law that gives freedom. . . - James 2:12
Speak AND act. Actions alone are not the only thing that will be judged. Our words just as much....
It's just so easy to think that we can flap our jaws and not have bitter consequences. But who among us hasn't said something(s) that we wish we could take back - that we never, ever should have said? Who among us doesn't have memories of ways in which we've hurt someone with our words - memories that cause us to shudder and wish we could delete files?
Here I am, crying out Paul's words:
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:24-25)
and
1 Cor. 15:57 - But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Yeah. So I'm forgiven - I sin, and yet I'm forgiven. I hurt, and yet Christ can heal. I mess up, and yet Christ loves me. And as I grow, I do it a little less and a little less. And as I grow closer to Christ, I am more sensitive to His voice telling me to shut up - and more aware of the consequences of what I might say before I say it. And as I walk with Him, He speaks words of kindness and love and encouragement through me more often.
Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person. - Col. 4:6
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| [Yeah - how many people know who wrote that? And how many know what it was about?]
Lots of wonderings here. Lots of ponderings. They used to call it belly-button gazing - I think that was implying that you were really wasting your time.
But isn't it inherent in man to wonder? Wouldn't we be less than what we should be if we didn't wonder?
Got into an interesting conversation tonight about hierarchies of worth, I think. "Hasn't a King David done more than just your average Joe, who loves his wife and family, but does nothing of significance?"
Some of you know me well enough to know how I would react to that.  But it was an interesting discussion, regardless. I find it interesting that this particular topic comes up so often. I think it's even more interesting because so few of us are likely to be in the King David league.
So we tend to admire those who accomplish more than we do... or than we even dream of accomplishing, I guess.
I think I admire those who have mastered their tongues and their passions. I admire those who are kind and loving and who don't feel the need to be admired. Ironic.
I pray that by the time I really am an old lady that I will be simply at peace, content, joyful, and maybe a little wise. That I will no longer be hurt when people sneer at me, and that it won't matter to me if people like me or not, as long as I am walking righteously and speaking the truth in love. That the contentment and delight that I have found in Christ over the past few years will grow and grow and grow and yield a hundredfold. That I will be a blessing to those around me. That when I leave this earth I will simply have left it with a witness of Christ's love.
I love so imperfectly. So imperfectly. And yet I am so thankful for the love that God has given me for those around me. That I can look at them and understand just a tiny bit the love that God has for me. That these children of God around me are beautiful because I love them - not that I love them because they're beautiful.
My love for those I love comes as a gift to me. There is nothing within me that could dredge up the depth of love that I feel for those around me. There is nothing within me that could love enough to resist the temptation to make relationships be about me - designed for my blessings. And yet, God has often stopped me in my tracks and shown me that I must hold on loosely - that I must always be willing to let go - that I must trust Him to provide my needs, and that I must be the blessing to those around me, and not demand that it be vice versa.
I fail at that a lot. But He keeps teaching me. Maybe when I'm very old and very gray I will be better at it. And I'm happy that at least I am more aware of the need to be less selfish in love.... Maybe with awareness will come success?
On a somewhat different note - Godspell opens in less than 9 days. Yeah. I'm.... numb, I think. Not that I'm stressed, or worried, or unsure.... just numb. I guess it doesn't seem real. I want so much for people to be blessed by this play. It's so different than any other one we've done. Before, I just wanted the kids to enjoy themselves and to do their best and to feel that all that time and effort they put into the play was worthwhile. And each time I came away delighted with the effort, and so proud of the kids. I'm confident I will again this time.
This time, though, there's all that... and more. This time I want so much for people to be touched in a different way. This time I want the truth of the Lover of my soul to be expressed to people who've never heard it that way before. And that includes my wonderful cast. I pray daily that Jesus will speak to the hearts of His children who are working on this tiny ministry.... that they will be drawn ever so much closer to Him because of having been a part of this. I want so deeply for people who haven't understood Christ to begin to see that He is approachable and loving and good and kind. I want.... to trust God that He will glorify Himself through this feeble effort.
It will be wonderful. I am convinced. People will appreciate and enjoy it. No one will leave disappointed. And God is in control, so I don't fret - I just feel it more passionately than before.
So, if you will, keep praying. Hard. Pray that we will, as the song goes, let our lights shine before men that they might know His kindness again.
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| From Tenth Avenue North's website - I thought this was... meaningful? Profound? True.
“I give you all of me, for all you are,
here I am, take me apart. Take me apart.”
So many of us try so hard to get better, do more, change the world,
and all we ever seem to do is fall flat on our back.
And its sad because I feel like no one ever told us that we’ll
never make it that way. It’s just not possible.
The only true path to freedom is adoration.
The forgetting of oneself in the awe of another is the only place we
can be changed; for to change into something that we are not,
we must see what it is to what we must aspire.
Or in other words,
“the worth and excellency of a soul is measured by the objects of its love.”
-Henry Scougal
Or in other words,
“We are forms of all the things we love.”
-Jars of Clay
Or in other words,
“but we with unveiled faces, beholding God’s glory, are being transformed
from one degree of glory to another.”
-2 Corinthians 3:18 Or in other words, we become whatever we love.
Love mean and sordid things and so you will be.
Love God, and the most wondrous thing will happen, Scougal explains, the life of God will show up in the soul of man. And so that’s all this song is saying.
Don’t try to be better for God.
Don’t try to figure out all the things you need to change,
just fix your eyes on Jesus.
He is your life. He is the one who saves.
He is at the center of all things,
and He holds all things together.
And as you love Him,
as you fawn over all that He is,
He’ll begin to change all that you are.
Or as my pastor says,
“for every time you look at yourself, take ten looks at Jesus.”
Don’t look at what your hands have done,
look at what his have done for you.
And as you fix your eyes on Jesus,
and on all that He is, I pray that you slowly but surely,
forget about all that you are. May the infinity of who He is so fill your finite heart and mind
that you find yourself being crammed out entirely. | | |
| [with a nod to Rev. Finney]
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."--Matthew 5:3.
What it is to be poor in spirit.
1. To have a realization of our spiritual state. In this it is implied that we understand our own guilt and helplessness, and realize as a practical fact our own utter emptiness by nature of every thing good, and of any tendency to that which is good.
2. Being poor in spirit implies that we see our own temptation to evil - to selfishness, to any and all sin. We understand that, in and of ourselves, we would desire all that is bad.
3. A conviction of being completely dependent on the grace of God for any help.
4. A conviction that we are totally dependent upon faith in Christ as the only possible way of obtaining help in our helpless condition.
5. A conviction of being dependent upon God for faith--to the sovereign working of God's Holy Spirit, and the sovereign grace of God as manifested through Christ, to produce this faith - that without the Spirit of Christ we shall no more exercise this faith, than we shall get to heaven by our own works of obedience to law. Do you believe God as you believe men? Do you take his word and trust in his promise as you take the word and trust the promise of men?
6. A deep and abiding sense of the absolute need we are in of a Savior from our utter wickedness, helpless and just condemnation. The mind must perceive and feel its guilt in such a sense as to be sure that its salvation is out of the question, except Christ shall substitute his death for ours, a ransom for our souls; such a sense of our own vileness as to lay hope out of the question altogether, except through the sacrifice of Christ.
7. Not only a sense of this dependence upon Christ, and helplessness out of him is implied, but a willingness to have it so - a willingness to cling to Christ, a setting aside self, renouncing one's self in all respects, casting away all hope in ourselves, all dependence upon ourselves, all trust in our own wisdom or righteousness, or our efforts at sanctification, and every thing else which is our own. In short it is a correct view of our utterly helpless state, a realizing sense of that fact.
Why those who are thus poor in spirit are blessed.
1. Because the kingdom of God is within them. They have already the first elements of the kingdom of God within them.
2. Because flesh and blood has never revealed this to them. If they have come to feel and realize their state, God has uncovered with his own hand the deep vileness of their souls and undertaken their cure.
3. They have already faced the greatest difficulty in the way of their salvation. After Christ has provided a method of salvation, so that God can be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus, the greatest difficulty is to make mankind see their desperate need of Christ.
4. Because he has now come to be prepared for the application of the remedy for his disease, he is in an attitude in which Christ is best pleased to see him. The thing is effected for which Christ has been laboring. When Christ has convinced the sinner of his own utter helplessness and that the more he tries to wash and cleanse his pollution, the more polluted he becomes, and that all he can do is only sinking him deeper into the horrible pit - then, then the soul is ready to receive Christ.
5. Because in a sense, such a person has already learned what the remedy is. He has learned to reject himself, and that his dependence must be utterly and forever on another than himself. He has learned how blessed it is to be nothing, to know and do nothing of himself, to be universally dependent upon Christ for every thing - for breath, for grace, for faith, for every thing; to have Christ his "all and in all."
6. Because they learn how blessed it is to trust Christ. They see such fullness in Christ, Christ is all they need, and they need nothing in themselves.
7. Because they have learned how to be composed in the midst of all kinds of trials. They know in whom their strength lies, and who is their strong tower. They can depend on Christ for all, and they know he cannot fail them.
8. Because they have no self interest. They have seen themselves to be perfectly destitute and worthless. They labor not for themselves, but for Christ.
10. Because to be poor in spirit is to be rich in faith.
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| I enjoyed this past week's youth group Bible study. It was fun to hear everyone's thoughts on when and what dating is or should be, and what love is. It was fun to hear the range of thoughts - from "I know it!" to "Who in the world knows?" It was fun to remember trying to figure it out, myself when I was in high school/college - at least a bit, though I don't think I really thought about it a whole lot. For me, love was something that could wait until I had finished school and started a career. Well.... that was my plan. A man (or woman)'s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Amen to that.
Last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I realized that I know what love is. It isn't really a definition, though, it's an experience. The definition of love, in my opinion, is that it is a decision. It isn't a feeling - 'cause feelings come and go. It isn't an emotion - that's being "in love" - and that comes and goes and comes back.... It has little to do with your heart beating faster. But it does have a lot to do with security and peace.
I saw love defined this week - again - as I lay in the emergency room wearing a glorious hospital gown, strapped to a bzillion machines, with an oxygen 'nasal cannula' (clear tubing) strapped across my nose and behind my ears. This was not an attractive woman. And yet my husband sat in my room with me for hours without a question of leaving - even to go get dinner.
I saw love defined, again, as I lay in my hospital bed, weepy because I don't like to stay alone in a hospital - and my husband sat beside me, totally exhausted, because it was midnight and he's usually in bed by 10 or 11, if he can.... but remaining steadfastly beside me, holding my hand, because he knew I needed him then.
Love means sacrifice, learning to try to be more selfless all the time, giving more than receiving, putting someone else's needs before your own. It's something that you never stop learning to do better in, and something that comes naturally to very few. It's learning to look beyond the words to see the needs - to stop and focus instead of just going on about what makes sense to you at the moment. It's reading someone's heart, someone's eyes, rather than expecting him/her to tell you what the need is. It's being willing to give and suffer for someone, even if he/she isn't all that cute any more, or doesn't make your heart jump every time you see her (or him).
And my husband is quite a master of this. I remain blessed.
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