Month: November 2016

Today was a honey-do day.  One of the tasks was a fairly easy refastening a shelf to a wall.  But sometimes I find easy tasks ending up being not as easy as I thought they would be.  Have you ever started a simple plumbing job only to end up making five trips to the hardware store and then surrendering and calling a real plumber?   The challenge of today’s shelving task was finding just the right screw.  I needed one that expanded when it was screwed in.  Those aren’t so rare but I needed just the right size.  I needed a Goldie Locks screw – not too big and not too little.
 
On my workbench I pawed through cans of shiny and rusty nails, screws, bolts, washers, etc.  Surely I fingered through a few thousand such items when suddenly there it was; just what I needed.  As I picked it up it must have been thrilled.   For decades it had been overlooked.  It must have despaired thinking it was quite useless and would never be used.  Everything longs to be used.  Everything needs its moment that justifies its existence. As I screwed it into the wall I remembered a somewhat disheveled man who we asked to help take up the offering one worship morning. He beamed. He stood two inches taller. He could not stop thanking me for asking.  The next week he showed up with his hair combed and his shoes shined.
 
God has something special for each of us.  Never despair.  Never think you don’t matter.  Never think your life is or was of no importance.  God has a task just for you.  Each day be available and someday whether you know it or not, God will use you for something no one else could have done.  Oh how grand.

Last evening in class some of my students taught me a new word.  I had no idea this word existed.  It is “subitize.”   It is pronounced “sue baa tize.”  I felt a bit dull because it wasn’t the high school math teachers who taught me this word.  It was the kindergarten teachers.  Subitize means to perceive at a glance the number of items presented.  Unless you are Rain Man the limit for most of us is seven.
 
In Matthew 10 Jesus said, “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”  Our Heavenly Father is the Master Subitizer. 
 
On a very clear night with little light pollution the average person can see about 2000 stars.  We cannot subitize them.  They were counted by astronomers with sky maps.  That is such a small sampling of what is really out there.  “He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name.”  Psalm 147:4.  He doesn’t call them Sirius and Arcturus.  Those are the names we have given them.   He calls them by the names He has given.  Each is special.  I have often wondered what is His name for our sun.

Our personal names are those our parents gave us.  I wonder what He calls us.  We shall know someday.  “I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.”  Revelation 2.  One thing we know for sure. He knows you and me.  He knows all about us because He is the Master Subitizer.

We have a small music box containing three separate cylinders, thus it plays three different tunes.  I like it best when all three songs are playing at the same time.  I know that sounds strange but each time the music is a different delicate cacophonic dissonance of never before heard music.  Each time is an original composition created by different starting times. If you concentrate you can pick out each separate tune as you filter out the other two.  I know the definitions of cacophony and dissonance imply unpleasant jarring sounds.  But the softness of the music box produces something eerily beautiful.
 
There are millions of prayers simultaneously ascending to God’s ears.  Each moment He hears the beautiful sounds of His children intermingled with need, worship and love.  As a teacher I sometimes have to ask my students to politely wait their turn for I am not capable of grasping their concurrently spoken ideas.  Our Father has no such limitation.  You can speak.  I can speak.  We do not need to wait for our turn.   Neither the softness of our thanksgiving nor the pained anguish of our needs interfere with His caring cognition.
 
The wonder of our Heavenly Father will challenge our intellects forever as we seek to grasp the immensity of His love for us.  Paul wrote, “Open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.”  Ephesians 3.
 
Thusly as we all speak to Him it is music to His heart. 

History provides us with moments of great importance.  Decisions, decisions, decisions weigh heavily on our hearts.  Sometimes proximity blurs the importance for us and we forget other much more important moments.  Not a Tuesday night but a Thursday night 2000 years ago a decision was made not for the continuity of the Roman government but for the universe.  God had sent His Son, His only Son, to earth and the culmination of that was would He or would He not while being human suffer one of the most horrific of deaths at the hands of those He had created.
 
There was silence in heaven as He fell to the earth in Gethsemane begging His Father for another way to save mankind.  There was not another way.  Satan pressed in smothering Him with the prospect of eternal loss, not only for Himself but for everyone.  Rising from the ground He made the decision.  But even yet the physical horror was yet to come.  We can now count the beatings, the humiliations, the number of thorns in His brow, the betrayal of Peter, the wooden cross on his back almost stripped of all skin by the lashes with barbs embedded in the strips of leather, the nails in His hands and the thirst-the incredible thirst.
 
Satan was sure he could break Him.  No one would so endure when with the flick of an eye bring it instantly to an end.  All heaven and all hell waited to see what the end would be.  Any other decisive moment in time pales in comparison to this.
 
On Sunday morning the angels sang because WE won.  We won not just four years.  We won eternity for everyone and anyone who will decide to accept the gift.

While walking my dog this afternoon we met a lady with a snarly little dog.  My dog which was for sure five times the size of the offender was a model of decorum.  I was so proud of her.  The lady said to me, “You will have to excuse her.  She’s pregnant.”  I’m tempted to say, “That’s not the first time I have heard those two sentences.” But I won’t say it because I don’t want to get into trouble.  Being that I have never been pregnant makes it appropriate for me to say nothing.
 
So very often saying nothing is the correct response to a majority of comments.  I have often thought the Quakers were really on to something significant. “Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles.”  Proverbs 21:23   How often have I returned from being at a gathering or a committee meeting and wished I had refrained from opining.  Usually what I had to offer was not constructive and was only spoken because I wanted to appear bright.  I wasn’t.
 
Jesus, the smartest man who ever lived, could have silenced His accusers in so many ways, but instead He chose to be quiet.  “And the high priest arose and said to Him, ‘Do you answer nothing? What is it these men testify against you?’  But Jesus kept silent.”  Matthew 26   So many love the sound of their voice while not realizing what they hear is not what others hear.  It’s usually a bit shocking to hear one’s recorded voice for the first time.  We barely recognize the person speaking.  And yet even though I think this to be a wise course of action, we should not miss the opportunity to say something encouraging and uplifting to a discouraged soul.  A few wise words are a treasure.

It was crazy beautiful.  There I was with my leaf-blower in hand trying to blow the leaves out of the yard and over the bank only to have a stiff breeze pick them up and blow them back.  I was in a mini-cyclone of swirling bright red and yellow maple leaves.  Someone might ask why was I so lacking in I.Q. to be trying to blow them away.  Could I not wait until the day was calm?  I am tempted to respond like a small child with “cause.”  But this time I had a reason.  It was beautiful.  I was lavished with color.  Sometimes we do things just because it’s delicious.  My eyes were feasting.  My mind was semi-drunk with hues.
 
Being human is so wonderful.  We are capable of euphoric moments of sheer delight; standing during Handel’s Messiah, drowning in the lushishness of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, tearing when a baby cries his first sound, gasping when seeing my bride coming down the aisle on her father’s arm, marveling at a field of California poppies or standing in St. Peter’s Cathedral surrounded by the works of Michelangelo and hearing the haunting chants of monks echoing across the stone floors and against the stone columns. 
 
It is a taste of so much more to come. “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love.”  I Corinthians 2:9.   We will go from wonder to wonder and we will wonder how can something be so beautifully wordless.  The challenge will be to stay clear headed and not become inebriated with magnificence beyond all imagination.

For years one of my sons worked on Wall Street.  For years I listened very carefully to him.  I was always hoping to glean just a tidbit of information that might alert my attention to a particular stock.  I knew better than to ask.  Insider traders go to jail. But I couldn’t resist hoping I could put two and two together for a hot tip.  I never got it.  He was always super careful and I was never able to glean an iota of investment information.  I don’t bother anymore.
 
But I am still fascinated by the idea that insider information might be helpful.  Being that I am a family member in God’s family, I listen carefully for insider information.  Maybe I can glean a tidbit of information that might make gaining eternal life a bit easier.  But, wait.  How much easier can it be?  Romans 8:23 says eternal life is a gift.  The last time I checked the dictionary the word gift meant receiving something for free. 
 
Now let me think about this. I am a family member.  I have connections.  Jesus is my Savior and Brother.  If there was a shortcut available surely He would tell me.  But how can there be a shortcut when something is already free?  So I have to conclude my kinship with Jesus isn’t going to make the deal any sweeter.  It’s already as sweet as it can get.  And I can begin reaping the benefits right now.  I Peter 1 says,   “. . . you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”  Note the present tense in that promise.  I was about to say, “Sorry, I don’t have any inside information.”  Instead I should be rejoicing that there is no insider information needed!

I just discovered my dog eats tomatoes.  Dogs don’t eat tomatoes!  This is truly weird.  What other strange appetites and behaviors are housed inside my beautiful friend?  I thought I knew her well.  Could it be that my wife of 54 years also has secrets?  Probably so; and probably for good reasons.  It’s not always wise to know everything about somebody. Has Ecclesiastics 12:14 ever bothered you?  Or maybe even more so, frightened you?  It says, “For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”
 
That seems like a short trip straight to hell.  But hang on.  Don’t despair.  Don’t go to the fridge and pig out on a half gallon of Breyers.   Isaiah 43:25 is a verse for you.  “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.”   Now we are talking Good News.   Our heavenly Father knows everything about us.  Jesus said He even knows how many hairs we have or don’t have.  And yet He still loves us.  He still wants to live with us forever.  He must like us.  And He blots out our sins so others can’t snoop and pry.
 
There is a huge difference between loving and liking.  Loving is wanting the best for us.  Liking is wanting to be with someone.  How grand it is that our heavenly Father who knows all about us not only loves us but likes us.  Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you…that where I am you may be also.”
   
I wonder what other things my dog likes to eat?