The One That Didn't Get Away

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a long slow morning. No fish in sight, although we knew they were there.  No bites. No hits.

But in the most unexpected places and ordinary days, God surprises us in unsuspecting ways. Perhaps a fish in an unlikely stream. Sometimes a lot more astonishing than that.

God may not give us that big trophy fish we want, but He is generous in what we need ....or what someone else desperately needs.  Even if we may not realize it in that moment.

We go into a situation -- or even this day ahead of us -- with a lot of expectations, or none at all -- of what we will find, what we will do, or even what we think God should do.  But we have only to be faithful in following Him.

God does not call us to abandon our ordinary work or occupations, where He has strategically positioned us, but to see it differently.  God enlarges our vision.  He has rooted us in these places and postures not just for doing something to fill up our time, but by being responsive to the people around us -- ministering, blessing, encouraging, lifting up, bring the name of Jesus to this hard and barren patch of ground, and giving grace the space to grow there.  It is an exercise in "Trust Me in this."

Just an ordinary, mundane day at work, school, or wherever we find ourselves today?  Never.  See it differently:   the care of souls.  

And He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."  Matthew 4. 19

We may not catch anything we can take a picture of.  But stay at it.  And carry a big net.  God is giving us a bigger story. God is blessing people through us -- and for the most part, we are unaware of it.

The fish are there.  We just don't often recognize those opportunities scurrying through the deep.

I can never seem to see fish swimming in the streams.  But one time when my husband was fishing, I meandered over an old bridge, enjoying the view. I looked down below the surface of the water.  "Boy, that is weird how those rocks are all lined up like that," I thought.  And then I realized, those were not rocks, but huge trout lined up like planes on the runway at O'Hare airport. Oh, wow, was all I could say.

At the end of the day, fishing is not just about how many fish we catch, because if it was, there would never be enough. But surrounding us is what God brings into this day.  And that is always more than we can imagine.  Look up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enlarge our vision in this day, O LORD.

Keep us faithful even in the ordinary, even in the drought.

May we embrace deeper things in this day.

And be responsive to You.

Weight Lifting for Dummies

Two of my objectives this year are to try something hard and do something different.  To put those initiatives into action, my husband and I signed up for a strength development class in January at our local YMCA.  Over the course of twelve weeks, three times a week, we met in a class of six to ten led by a personal trainer, a rag tag group of varying ages and states of fitness.

For 45 minutes every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, we lifted weights and worked our way through sets of exercises of increasing intensity.  Our trainer did not stay in front of the room barking out instructions.  To my initial horror, I could not just hide in the back row. She traveled around the room correcting our form and providing support.  In those first few weeks, she did not laugh once at my feeble efforts and pathetic selection of weights. But she encouraged my every attempt.

There was no competition there, a refreshing surprise. We all lifted different weights. We all had a different story, coming at it from another place.

And along the way, each training session, I felt myself getting a little bit stronger.  

About the ninth or tenth week, the trainer suddenly upped the ante, introducing a whole new circuit of strength-building measures. I tried to follow along. You have to be kidding.  This is way too hard. But I did what I could.  It was the hardest workout yet.  I glanced at the clock, the minute hand moved at a snail's pace.  Done.  

But when we returned two days later, the same workout faced us.  I dreaded it.  But this second time through, surprisingly, wasn't so bad.  It was not that the weights suddenly became lighter, but each time, I was getting stronger.  Same situation.  Different reaction.  Strength comes in layers.  Endurance develops in the process of just working through it, and at times, choosing to add a little more weight to my bar.

In our lives, we tend at all costs to avoid discomfort, inconvenience, and anything we can possibly label as suffering or affliction.  Yet sometimes that heavy weight in our days or on our path is not an obstacle at all, but meant to make us stronger.  How do we respond to it?

Seek the LORD and His strength.  Seek His Presence continually.  1 Chronicles 16. 11

Initially, I didn't notice much difference in my abilities.  But one day last week, I hauled out a carton of yogurt containers from the refrigerated section at Costco with one hand. "There is no way you could have done that before," my husband remarked.

Sometimes what we are faced with or going through is absolutely hard, hefty and massive.  But He is here already....and always. Because God does the heavy lifting. Not just in this moment to lend us a hand, but leading us through, every moment along the way.  Not throwing at it a cheery and cheesy phrase, "Come on, you can do it." But true strength comes in turning to Him. 

And I realized it is not just an exercise in lifting weights, but in strength development.  

For You equipped me with strength for the battle ....2 Samuel 22. 40  

What is God forming in me through this struggle? Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow with each repetition and new exercise. Not meant to defeat us, but to build us up for what is and what is to come.

 

Through and Through

One of the delights of hiking is not just wandering in the wilderness, nor checking off another trail on the map, nor a sense of accomplishment, nor survival, but discovering what is all around, the wonders of going through.

We may sense where we are going, but sometimes even that surprises us.  We may be alert to the scenic overlooks or the majesty of an old growth forest, but there is always something new emerging on the trail or even coming together in our thoughts, working our way from point to point and back again.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. -- poet T. S. Eliot (1943)

Sometimes the degree of difficulty is beyond us. And where is the strength to go forth and not just sit down defeated?

Many friends right now are on unfathomable terrain, enduring cancer treatments, the vestiges of divorce, difficult decisions, the suffocation of loneliness, too loud to think, too quiet to handle, looking for exit doors or an emergency helicopter to rescue them from circumstances. Pray for me, they ask. Pray for this. Pray that God would do that.

We are surrounded by desperation. And most people are really good at disguising it.

While watching the recent Paris-Roubaix women's cycling race, amidst crashes and traveling over cobblestones, the commentator remarked, "Everyone has a story getting through."

The key word here is through.

Sometimes our path is hard.  But always God is here, not just in a difficult moment, but leading us through. Through is one of the most promising words in the Bible, seamlessly woven in the stories there.  Everyone has a story getting through. Even us.

Through means moving from one side out to the other, continuing in time toward completion, a movement to a particular destination.

But in moving through, God calls us to walk differently.  Not in fear, or our own agenda, but in His Presence. Even in this. We find His faithfulness on the most unexpected paths and in the most unlikely places.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you, when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consumer you.  For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior...Because you are precious in My eyes, and honored, and I love you.  Isaiah 43. 2-4

But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. Exodus 14. 29

Your way was through the sea, Your path through the great waters, yet Your footprints were unseen. Psalm 77.19 

We may not know where we are going or how, but God is leading us through.  He calls us not to rush through and miss the wonders. He calls us to trust in His slow work, even when in what appears as the long way around. 

And then, our prayers take another path -- praying not for something or someone, or for God to do this or that, but to pray through.  Every moment along the way draws us closer to Him, even the hard stuff, even the unexpected, nothing random or insignificant, nothing God does not redeem.

I may not know what to pray for someone, not knowing what is really on their path either visible or invisible, nor their destination or outcome, or how God is strengthening them, but I can pray them through. 

God takes care of the details on the journey.  He carries us through and even into the though, when we can't quite see our journey. "Trust Me in this. Let Me see you through. Allow yourself to be led."

Through and through.

 

 

   

A Little More Love And A Larger Bowl

This is what I started with: a relatively small bowl of anemic looking noodles. And we had twelve people coming over for supper in a matter of hours.

 

 

 

A dilemma, perhaps, but I pulled out my secret weapon:  a recipe for pasta salad casually shared with me after a church potluck supper forty years ago. The recipe, now almost indecipherable from age, has fed more people at our table than can be counted, including family get-togethers, out-of-town company, and home groups in every town where we've lived. 

The recipe does not call for special or exotic ingredients, but what waits patiently in the pantry and remains largely forgotten in the bottom refrigerator drawer.  We are all surrounded by small things, proximate and seemingly needless, yet never insignificant.

We tend to see the ordinary and familiar as dull and mundane. But what emerges are the elements of the sensational, simply because it is so unexpected.   

My grandmother, having lived through the first pandemic, two world wars, the Great Depression, widowhood, raising my mom single-handedly, and living on a shoe string most of her life, would look at a difficulty and say, "Now what can we do with that?"  Not a problem in her twinkling eyes, but an opportunity to get creative.  On so many levels, she could take a proverbial empty cupboard and turn it into a feast. Because she knew the little things count.

How can I see this situation differently?  also happens to be very biblical.

Facing a hungry mob on a hillside, the twelve disciples lacked any imagination at all.  ...for we are here in a desolate place. Luke 9. 12

Jesus didn't say, "Good luck with that problem. Try to think of something."  But He said, "What DO you have?"  He may have even chuckled a little under His breath. Now watch this!

And taking the five loaves and two fish, Jesus looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them...And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.  Luke 8. 16-17

What appeared as a desperate situation, God covered with His fundamental law of leftovers.  He provided not just enough, but more than enough.  And not by coincidence, supplied a gift BASKET of leftovers, for each one of those twelve doubting disciples.

What can we do with our own predicaments? Despise not the day of small things. Zechariah 4. 10   

God uses what we have and turns it into a feast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How can we change things up?  Add a little kindness to the conversation.  Pour in an overflowing cup of grace.  Visit, call, encourage and pray. Seize the opportunity to help someone.  Mix in the sweet and the savory.  Make use of a few orphaned vegetables at the bottom of the package. Finish off a partial bag of pepperoni's.  And oh, there's some feta way back on the fridge shelf.

God blesses.  God redeems. God multiplies.

And for those twelve hungry people who came to our table last week, we didn't just have enough.  We had more than enough.  Because that is how God's faithfulness works. What can I add to this situation?  A little more love.  And a larger bowl.

And one friend even went home with a container of leftovers. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because The Little Things Count Pasta Salad

Dressing

2/3 cup oil

1/3 cup white vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1 clove of garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Mix all dressing items together and pour over the following ingredients:

Salad Mix  --(ingredients and amounts subject to what you have)

1 small package crumbled feta cheese -- or other cheese cut into small cubes

1 box rainbow spiral noodles, cooked and then chilled

1 cup raw broccoli florets

1 cup raw cauliflower, cut in bite-size pieces

1/2 cup raw carrots, sliced into coins

1 can pitted black olives

1 cup chopped celery

1 bell pepper chopped (any color)

1 small cucumber chopped

1 cup grape tomatoes (or 1 medium tomato chopped)

1 jar artichoke hearts cut up

Marinate the dressing and salad mix for 4 hours in the refrigerator

Optional protein:  Add grilled and sliced boneless chicken breasts

 

 

Where the Wild Things Are

A few days ago, my husband and I sought out the wonders of spring in the mountains.  A trail, historically a pilgrimage for wildflowers, was recommended to us.  We hiked all the way to the end of the trail and saw nothing green other than some winter-weary rhododendrons and some scraggly pines that were barely holding on.  It was a pleasant hike, but nothing shouted out of the ordinary.  Other than the mild temperature, the woods around us appeared to be stuck in the monotones of January.

On the way back to the trailhead and our truck, we spotted a small side trail that did not even appear on the map.  We hiked about a mile in, again a nice path, but where were the flowers?  A wildflower pilgrimage planned for next week might need to be rescheduled.

We returned home.  In the remaining afternoon daylight, Bill washed the vestiges of winter off our old truck.  And I headed into our barren yard, littered with branches and sticks from howling winter winds.  Time for spring cleanup.

And there, I saw them.

Under disintegrating leaves blown like snowdrifts against the large rocks and amidst large tree limbs crisscrossing the hill, wrestled down by icy storms, in the most unexpected places, I found wildflowers scattered all over the hillside.  I assumed there was nothing there.  And I almost missed them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wonders were already there, and I was just now discovering them.

In our comings and goings, our doings and done, the familiar and ordinary, God sometimes ignites a burning bush on our path to get our attention.  He reveals Himself in unexpected ways and in unlikely places.  And calls our names.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our grumbling and complaining blind us not just to the possibilities of so many wonders all around us but the actualities of which we are so unaware.  God has given each of us a patch of ground.  What do we find there?  Not so much wild flowers, but what God has already planted, nurturing throughout the seasons.  He surprises us with the evidence of His Presence and faithfulness all around us.  

These tiny unexpected flowers manifest hope.  Not the wishful thinking of the world, "Oh, everything will be ok." But the steadfast hope of God on whom we can stake our lives. This world is not so barren at all, but thriving and ready to burst forth.  Right down to details underfoot and often ignored, God reminds us are not alone.

Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you.  I will help you. I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.  Isaiah 41.10

God guides us on trails not on any map. But we do not aimlessly wander. Our paths are not unknown territory to Him. This place where we are is not a wilderness at all, but where the wild things are. Who or what has He put on our trail today? How is He trying to get our attention?

And then, how do we respond?   All of creation rejoices. The trees hold up their arms in praise. The birds sing among the branches. In ancient times, flowers were even carved into the columns of the tabernacle. As God renews the face of the ground, the wonders comprise His manifold witness. The awe we feel is a call to worship.  And a reminder of His steadfast love.