One Day More

We are swiftly approaching the one year anniversary of the pandemic lockdown. We had no idea last March the implications of  "one day more." 

I was browsing last night through a series of blog entries about the pandemic that I had never posted.  I was amazed by how temporary we thought covid was among us.  This will be over soon. Get a grip.  One day more.  Life will return to normal.

But now, a whole year later, it has not.

We have been changed by an unforeseen and sudden storm.  We have struggled on many levels. We have "made do" with what we have.  And when it got heavy, we readjusted.  We became stronger.  And we realized this is all about God's power in our lives and trusting Him.  Even in the really hard stuff.  Even in the loss.  Even in the unexpected dimensions of God that we have found.  One day at a time.  One day more.

I am not training for anything more right now than staying healthy.  But whether in my physical or spiritual strengthening exercises, I have noticed that a change of posture, shifting my attitude, standing differently, lifting my daily weights alters how I face my tasks and shores up my courage not just to get through, but how I walk the path of this long journey.  There is grace in not knowing what was coming down the pike.  There is recurring grace in knowing God's faithfulness in unlikely places. One day more.

We need not focus on how things are so different, or on what we lack.  But as Jesus asked His disciples, standing in front of 5000 hungry people, "What do you have?"  God takes it and multiplies it.  He enlarges our hearts.  Far more than we know.

"As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises."  (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest) 

How has God trained us in the past year?  For what is He training us now?

He always surprises me. 

One day more

       of God's faithfulness.

Even in this very day.

 

Take advantage of every opportunity,

make the most of your time,

redeem these moments...

                  Ephesians 5. 16

 

Just Like This

I was baking with one of our grandsons a couple of weeks ago.  We worked step by step through the process. As he dipped out the flour from the big plastic tub, the measuring cup was overflowing.  "Take a knife and smooth over the top, to make it even," I said.  I showed him, and then let him do it.

A few days later, he was baking something at his house.  It is my daughter's home school way of tactically teaching measurements and fractions.  When he saw me walking into the kitchen, he announced "I used your little trick with the measuring cup."

He watched, he listened, he copied my actions.  You never know what a child will observe.  You never know what sticks.  No doubt he will remember this trick the rest of his life.

Along that same line of watching, listening and practicing, I have learned a lot about prayer by observing those who pray.  I have been impacted not by eloquent words, but in their daily continually conversing with God.  

One of my most memorable observations about prayer was not just because of an answer.

It happened in the foyer of our church, back in the olden days when churches had both Sunday morning and evening services.  I have no idea what the sermon was about.  I have no idea who preached.  But after that evening service, as the pews emptied, people lingered in casual fellowship as was their custom.  The rhythm of conversations, the tenor of the voices, almost sounded like a choir practicing their parts.

I was about 11 or 12 at the time.  In the lingering, my dad was talking with one of the ancient women of the church whose faith was as visible as her deeply engraved wrinkles.  As their conversation was coming to an end, she concluded by asking my dad, "Bob, what can I be praying for you this week?"

"Oh, there is nothing to pray about," he replied.

"There is always something to pray about," she said.  "What has been on your mind?"

"Well, our house in New Jersey still has not sold after almost a year," he confessed.  "But God is not interested in stuff like that."

I had been following their conversation like a ping pong match, looking from one face to another.

At that moment, after my dad's remark, I looked at this old woman's face.  She had a twinkle in her eyes.

I can remember even now her facial expression.  She knew something we didn't.

Two days later, the house was under contract.

But the "answer" to prayer was not what wowed me.  It was that twinkle in her eyes.  She absolutely knew something we didn't.  She jumped at the opportunity to pray as a first response, not last resort.  And that pattern over the many decades of her life drew her in closer communion with God and subsequently pointed us to Him.  I watched and listened, and I saw what she did.

Praying was her passion, not just because as a woman in her 80s, she did not have anything else to do with her time.  But there was nothing better.  Praying had been woven into her heart as a thread that held everything else together.  She was not compelled by the answers, but to know Christ more.  She knew that prayer went far beyond the issue at hand.  She knew prayer is not telling God what to do, but realizing who He is.

I have often thought about those few minutes in the foyer.  She did not know that incident would stick in the heart of that little girl standing next to her, who was not even involved in the conversation.

Or maybe she did. 

As far as I can tell, she was not consciously thinking, "I am going to teach that young girl about prayer that she will never forget."  But she just continued to live faithfully, pray continually, love others well, and leave a trail of crumbs behind her. 

Oswald Chambers once said, "Which are the people who have influenced us most?  Not the ones who thought they did, but those who had not the remotest notion that they were influencing us."

 

The prayer of a righteous person

has great power as it is working. 

                       James 5. 16

When we seek God,

when we pray,

something always happens,

a shift in the tectonic plates

    of the world,

    and in our hearts,

even in something we may not realize.

Something happens,

     and something else does not. 

Have I even considered praying

                         about this?

The Forgotten Saint

 

It occurred to me this Valentine's Day that somehow the "saint" part has been dropped.   Saint Valentine's Day has evolved into just another holiday whose origin has been forgotten and has morphed into another excuse to eat chocolate.  Ask any child in this generation about what Valentine's Day means, and it won't be about a saint.

Valentine, known as Valentinus, was a priest who lived in Rome in the mid-200s AD when being a Christian meant certain death.  He aided Christian martyrs during their persecution, and as a result was arrested and imprisoned.  He survived in jail for a year before he was brought before the emperor Claudius the Second who offered Valentinus to save his life if he worshipped the Roman gods.  Valentinus refused.   He was condemned and martyred on February 14, 270 AD, beaten by clubs, stoned and beheaded.  Hardly a Hallmark moment.

Legend tells that before his death, Valentinus fell in love with the blind daughter of the jailer, who along with her father had converted to Christianity.  As a way of saying good-bye on the eve of his death, he wrote her a message and signed it, “From Your Valentine.”  The jailer and his daughter were also later sentenced to death by the emperor.  Chocolate and soft music did not enter the picture until centuries later.

And it seems very appropriate that a holiday that is associated with love is also associated with God.  Valentinus risked his life and died a martyr’s death not to earn God’s favor or gain points with God.  Valentinus did it because he loved God.  He knew what God’s love meant.  It was not something he deserved or earned, but because that is how God revealed Himself to us. 

Valentinus was not an exceptional man, but an ordinary person.  What distinguishes a saint or any faithful Christian is not a special mandate, but their response to the circumstances around them.  They have no special powers, nor do any of us, but they loved God with listening ears, willing hearts, and eyes wide open. 

"They differed from the average person in that when they felt the inward longing, they did something about it.  They acquired the lifelong habit of spiritual response," noted A. W. Tozer in The Pursuit of God.

Those who love God and follow Him are just people like ourselves, but by responding to God in the ordinary, they know how to respond to God in the extraordinary.  They have been trained by the everyday patterns, practices and transformative habits they have chosen.  

A friend recently told me about a young man who had a sometimes-working car and had been given another mediocre used car.  She suggested selling the two and buying something better.  He replied, "Oh, I was going to give one away.  I know so many right now who need a car."

My guess is that this was not a solitary act of personal selflessness, but a pattern in his life.   He couldn't think otherwise, because he had done it so many times before, even in the unrecognized, even in what would be considered much smaller kindnesses. 

A saint chooses to do something about it.  A saint chooses to love others.  And God gives the power to do that.  Even in "the little stuff" which is never insignificant at all.

And He calls us to be and do the same and distinguished by His grace in us.  

"...loved by God and called to be saints."  Romans 1. 7 

And that's what St. Valentine's Day is all about.

Happy Birthday, Abe

There was a time when I was a little girl when we actually celebrated the birthdays of Lincoln and Washington on their real birthdays, instead of being mashed together on a convenient Monday sometime in the middle of February.  It was supposed to be a time of remembrance for their lives and the vital role they contributed to our country, not just a day off.

So today, in light of Abraham Lincoln's 212th birthday, I am posting the conclusion of his second inaugural address, given just a month before his assassination in 1865.  Keep in mind that the Civil War started one month into his presidency and concluded five days before he died.  These words are engraved in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D. C.  They reflect his character.  They reflect our timely need as a country for reconciliation and healing.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

He did his best with what was before him.  As we should do the same in whatever our struggle.

 

Seek peace

    and pursue it.

          Psalm 34. 14 

 

 And also reflecting his character, he said once about his portrait:  "There are no bad pictures;  that's just how your face looks sometimes." 

Local Color

It is a cold bleak-grey beginning of February -- and how in the world can it already be February? 

I looked outside the back door this morning.  And in that rather frigid view, suddenly I saw a spot of bright red as if on a blank screen.

 

The cardinal dressed in all of his winter finery perched on the rail for just a moment, and then, flew away again, late for another appointment.  But just a glimpse of that unexpected cheery bird made me smile.  He reminded me that there is a spectrum of visible light and a range of magnificent colors far beyond my myopic vision, about to break into sight.  And God's glory is just waiting to burst forth, beyond our comprehension.   Perhaps this day is extraordinary after all.

The glory of God landed with that bright red bird on the railing.  And it was as if He were saying, "Now watch what I do with the rest of your day."

God surprises us

   like waking in the morning

to a snow that snuck in silently

       while we sleep.

I do not have to be aware

     for God to be working.

Just to know He always is.

God brings incredible beauty even to a cold February morning that He has spoken into being.

It was that flash of color that landed in front of me, a reminder breaking through, that this long winter of our discontent will not last forever.  Or the pandemic. We can pull up our hoods and just slug out this never-ending month and wait for brighter days to come.  Or we can be the bird in someone's day, an unlikely splash of color in some unexpected moment and intricate kindness.  How can I make that happen today?  Circumstances may not change, but my heart can, from despair to His glory, and invite someone else with me. We are all changed by grace. The world is changed by it. 

Spring is coming -- as it always does.  And God will bring it.  Already done, just waiting for its ripening, which is what the Februaries are for. And as is the faithfulness of God.  We do not always see the brilliance of what is and rarely the splendor of what is yet to come.

Remember not the former things,

nor consider the things of old.

Behold, I am doing a new thing;

now it springs forth,

do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness

and rivers in the desert.

                     Isaiah 43. 18-19