Love Is:

flowerMary shuffled with a limp while carrying the dirty dishes from the dining table to the kitchen.  She tried to hide the fact that something was wrong from Jim, her husband of 42 years, and even though his back was to her as she walked, he knew instantly something was amiss.

“Is your hip hurting again honey,” asked Jim?  He had turned to see her final two steps as she reached the kitchen sink; she was clearly favoring her left side.  “Hon, how bad is it?”

“It’s okay Jim, just a little stiff from the arthritis. I’ll be fine; go read your paper and rest,” Mary replied with just a little white lie.  Her hip and knee were on fire it seemed.

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Those Things We Can Do; We Must Do

DSC_0606America ought to be a place where the treatment of all people equally and with fairness as one of our highest goals.  Our country is founded on that basic belief. We must fight for an equal opportunity for any individual to achieve their own goal.  But we cannot and should not provide for, nor promise an equal outcome for all Americans.  Every person has the right to dream their own dream and choose their own horizon.  The height of the sky is an individual’s choice; reaching their unique horizon ought to be the principal result of an individual’s effort and not of their circumstance, nor as a gift from the government.

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Trust

In_GOD_We_TrustAs a normal course of life, we are asked to routinely trust a diverse array of situational commands delivered by people we have never met, or machines we never wanted to.  Yet we accept these often life changing commands as routine because we trust the source.  More precisely, we choose to trust the source.

  •     “In an emergency, the bags will drop from the ceiling above your head.  Simply pull on the chord to start the flow of air.  The bag may not inflate, but (TRUST ME) air will be flowing.”  We are asked in an airplane emergency to trust that lifesaving air is actually in an empty bag.  I’ve never heard anyone ask, “I don’t trust you – prove it.
  •     You are driving your car towards a busy intersection, and the green light is shining in your direction.  Other cars are approaching in a perpendicular path, but they SHOULD have a red light.  You TRUST that the other cars will stop. We TRUST that the light is working properly and the other drivers see the light, know the law, and will obey it.  We bet our lives on that scenario every day.
  •       One more from the airlines.  “In case of an unplanned water landing, use your seat cushion as a water floatation device.”  My seat cushion is barely the size of my seat, and only two inches thick.  I believe it will float in the Pacific Ocean, but I am to TRUST that the cushion will float with me holding on to it.  Really?  Yet here I sit in aisle 4 during a flight back home, TRUSTING that the aircraft, crew, and the Laws of Physics that we will land safely.

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Renee

photo (2)She is perfect.  From the tip of her black hair covered head to the bottom of her finger sized feet, she is as flawless as the finest diamond ever cut by a master jeweler. Perfection is not limited to her beautiful, 7 pound, 14 ounce body, with skin so soft you scarcely feel it when you touch her. Every part of her human and spiritual existence is unblemished, perfectly made in love, without even the hint of sin.  In this moment, Renee only knows trust, love, and faith, no other worldly feeling or emotion has stained the brilliant white light that fills her tiny body. The strength in Renee’s hands when she grips my finger, just moments after she entered our world, unleashes love in me so powerful that I welcomed the tears that swelled in my eyes.  The last time I felt love so pure and strong was when each of my children was born.  Now I am beginning to understand how much God loves me, and what He sees when He looks at me. Continue reading

The Christmas Story

God created the earth with the intension of living with us, of walking with us daily in His garden paradise. In the beginning, God only had one simple rule.

 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die”

“Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”

Genesis 1:1, 27; Genesis 2:15-17, 25

 

But God gave us the gift of free will, so that our love and adoration to Him would be real, and honest.  Unfortunately, that left people to make their own choices, and their own mistakes.  That first mistake lead to the end of paradise.

“He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”  The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”  So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.”

Genesis 3:10, 13

 

Mankind soon discovered that a life separate from God was no picnic, yet our suborn pride kept getting in the way of good choices. (Of God’s choices)

“So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.  But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly.  They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.”

Exodus 1: 11-14

 

The moment Adam and Eve left the garden God started planning our return to Him, our eternal righteousness.  He chose Moses, and unlikely hero to be a leader to His people.

“One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.”

“God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

Exodus 2:11-12; Exodus 3:14

 

Pharaoh did not obey God’s demands easily, but eventually relented.

 During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.”

Exodus 12:31, 32

 

God’s people escaped Egypt, but their stubborn pride once again got in the way.  So, a journey that could have taken 11 days, took them 40 years to complete.  Only one person who fled from Egypt crossed the river Jordan.

“Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.”

“Then the Lord said to him (Moses), “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”

Exodus 33: 3; Deuteronomy 34:4

 

For thousands of years we struggled to follow in God’s way.  We fought Him, then obeyed Him, then fought Him once more.  He sent many prophets to remind us of our divine destiny, but we just would not listen.

“The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.”

“No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god and did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.”

Judges 6:1, 33

 

However, God’s plan for us was in full swing.  He was sending forth great leaders and prophets to tell of a chosen one, a Savior for all time.  Salvation was on its way.

“The LORD swore an oath to David, a sure oath that he will not revoke: “One of your own descendants I will place on your throne.”

“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”

“The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.”

Psalms 132:11; Isaiah 9:6,Jeremiah 23:5-6

Now was the time; God’s plan to right what was wronged in the garden was now in its final stretch.  As foretold by dozens of people, the Savior of mankind would be born in Bethlehem.  King of Kings; Lord of Lords.  The Messiah.

“In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.  The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”  Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.  But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.  You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”  “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”  The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”

“So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.  While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Luke 1:26-35; Luke 2:4-7

 

For all of eternity God planned for Christmas day.  Everything that transpired in history, from the garden to Abraham, Moses, David, and Mary: God’s overarching plan was to rid the world of sin, and bring all of humanity back home.   To do all of that, He needed to enlist the help of His Son.

Why, after the many times people let Him down, why would God keep trying to bring us back to Him?

One word: Love

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

John 3:16 

Merry Christmas!  This is your day to celebrate.

A House and a Home

It’s Thanksgiving Day, and during this month our home has undergone the transformation from scary Halloween ghosts and witches, to the earthy displays of leaves glowing in autumn red, pumpkins greeting friends from the front porch, and the smells of morning pastry floating from the kitchen.  The sun has only graced us for two hours, but the hustle of cooking for multiple meals, final touches on table decorations, and last minute cleaning is well underway.  We love Thanksgiving Day because we get to host the event – which means family will be arriving soon, bringing with them the laughter, love and fun that defines the day.

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Too Much, Too Many

Since the dawn of time, or since I was a little boy- whichever is longer, I can remember being told that too much of a good thing would be bad for me. I could not understand if something was good, how then could too much good be bad?  Of course, my early onset selective memory conveniently misplaced the upset stomach that resulted from a solo attack on a quart of chocolate ice cream; or the burned back and shoulders suffered from not slathering on DP 45 sunscreen at the beach.  Still, how could anyone have too many Legos, too many marbles, or enough video games? Our backyard pool could have been bigger, my bedroom was certainly not roomy, and my closet was just too small to be clean.

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The Reflection Looking Back

A mirror is supposed to reflect backwards what actually exists, but almost always what we see is not all that is present, sometimes the image we see is not a realistic reflection of the truth……………

Last night was a long one for Bill; too little to eat, too much to drink and way too little sleep.  The alarm only accentuated his pounding headache, so knocking the clock on to the floor of the hotel room seemed a fair exchange for waking him this early.  Rolling out of bed, Bill walked, in not so much of a straight line, to the bathroom.  What he saw in the mirror was not a pretty sight; although the mirror had been cruel to him for many years now, so he should have expected nothing less.  Before washing his face Bill looked at his reflection in the mirror.  The bloodshot eyes were no surprise; most mornings were met with varying shades of red surrounding black pupils.  His once thick, black hair was thinning across the top and offered more grey than black.  The sagging bags under his eyes were pronounced, looking like a wave of exhaustion pulling down his face.   There is a crooked scar just under his right eye, a reminder of falling asleep while driving home late one night from somewhere that he should not have been.  The morning beard is a staggered mixture of white and black.  Why did the architect of this hotel make the mirrors so big?  There was nothing here Bill wanted to see.

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Sharpen Your Spoon

Is it just me, or does the world want more out of us, but continues to offer less in return? Are we paying more for what was a free service only a few years ago?  Flying is a perfect example of the negative change in the cost to value relationship of so many services or products we use. Flying used to be a luxurious form of transportation: good food, free movies, and big suitcases – a pampered existence for a few exciting hours.  Now, you pay extra to bring clothes to your destination, unless you can squeeze them into a lunchbox sized carryon; if you are hungry, then bring your own food, and if you want entertainment, bring a credit card.  The cost is up and the value is down.  When I was young, ice cream was sold in a 4-quart container; we called it a gallon of ice cream.  Now, since the makers of the ice cream have grown weary of raising prices, they have decreased the amount sold to 3.5 quarts.  Since when is 3.5 quarts equal to a gallon?  Everywhere, we are asked to pay more, and offered less in return – except in our transactions with God.  His cost has stayed the same, and His value has not tarnished.  His gifts are free and the value is immeasurable.  Yet, even with a cost to value relationship so tilted in our favor, the darkness in this world wins too often, so we believers need to do more.  The amount of pain, sickness, and hurt; the abandonment of all things Christian by governments big and small, and the stress of living in uncertain economic and political times, calls us to do more.  We, who believe in God, must dig deeper to help those who do not know how, or where to dig.  We need to sharpen our spoons.

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The Second Sin

Most of us try to be first; first in that “over 40 year old 5K race,” first to get the promotion, first in line at the theater, first on line to buy concert tickets, first to get the view of the morning sunrise, first in your college graduating class, or first to get control of the TV remote.  Being first has been a preoccupation with humankind, from the beginning of the Olympic games where we proved who was best at some sport, to the first to file a patent so we can lay claim to ownership of a design or idea.  It is a natural human condition to want to be first, with a few notable exceptions: the first to die, the first to pay taxes, the first to sin.  The reasoning behind not wanting to die first is obvious, and no one enjoys paying taxes so why do it first?  To sin is to willingly separate from God, so why be first at something so bad?   The initial sin is almost expected, because we all fall short of perfection, but the second sin is by choice – after observing or doing it once, we with full knowledge do it again. So maybe, it is better to be the first sinner, rather than the second. Perhaps the first sin is not the worst, but it is the second sin that we all must avoid.

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