The Seeds of Relationship

By DiAne Gates –

SCRIPTURE: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7 NAS).

The law of the harvest is: You reap what you sow, later than you sow, and more than you sow. Americans have sown to the wind for generations and we are beginning to reap the whirlwind, just as God said we would in Hosea 8:7

Remember when we were children? All it took was that look from Mom or Dad. If we were misbehaving—we stopped. If the look showed approval—we continued. There was visual contact. Nothing between our face and their faces.

As we grew older, we didn’t have to watch Mom or Dad’s eyes to sense their approval or disapproval. We knew what their responses would be because we knew them. The more we know who God is, through the power of His Word, the more we experience living in the light of His mercy and grace, the more we understand and know Him too. There is to be nothing between His face and our face. That’s relationship.

Too many of us find ourselves trapped in the garbage heap of deception and lies that capture and suffocate, preventing us from having a clear picture of who God is and what He is doing. Deceptive clouds distort our vision and lies disable our GPS and our ability to find Him.

God created a spot, in each one of us, for His Spirit to live. Without Him that place is empty, and we can’t fill it. It’s reserved for God. Without the Spirit of God our lives are chasms where whirlwinds develop and grow. Whirlwinds that have the potential to destroy us. Forever.

I walked in rebellion to God for years. I knew about Jesus, but was attempting to work my way to goodness. But I couldn’t do it. I had no personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

When I could no longer walk the tightrope between church-y-ness and the world, God brought me to the end of myself. I knew I was a sinner. I believed Jesus died to save me. I gave my allegiance, my heart and my life to His Lordship. Then He forgave me. Redeemed and restored me and gave me what I didn’t deserve. Because of His mercy and grace.

I’m forgiven. But consequences of past rebellion remain. I couldn’t teach my children what I didn’t know. But I didn’t teach them what I knew, that the consequences of sin are like tire tracks through patches of bluebonnets.

The Texas sun coaxes these flowers to sweep the pastures and roadsides in Spring. But they also brings swarms of folks to have their pictures taken in this ocean of blue. And those tracks and prints leave a trail of destruction through the bluebonnets, just like sin treads and tramples our life and the lives of those we influence. While the field and the plants remain in the pasture, the trampled blossoms never recover and don’t produce seeds for the next generation of bluebonnets.
Sin produces the same affect in the lives of those we touch. Tire tracks of anger and footprints of rebellion are stamped into the lives of our children. They maim and destroy seeds of love, trust, and relationship before they can blossom and reseed.

God doesn’t have grandchildren, only children. The choice to accept His mercy and grace through the blood of Christ—forgiveness—is an individual’s choice.

Do you murmur over treads and tramples that sin has deposited across the pages of your life? Or have you given your heart completely to God so that He can transform the ashes of sin into a life that blooms, reseeds, and gives glory to Him?

Traveling Between Blunders and Blessings

By Mollie Bond –

It was the best worst day. I traveled by myself to downtown Chicago for the first time for an interview. I sent out oh-so-many applications and resumes. This was one of two companies that called back. I put on my dry-clean only clothes, prepared my answers, and gave myself pep-talks. While on the elevated train, I got a phone call from the interviewer. They cancelled. I got off at the next stop, and started the train ride into despair.

After the train ride, I still had a 20-minute drive home. While sulking, I didn’t retrieve my paid ticket. I couldn’t get out of the garage. I didn’t have $40 for a new ticket. I kept putting my credit card into the machine, praying for the gate to let me out.

Eventually, a garage employee found me crying. I couldn’t catch my breath to tell my story. She said she’d pay my way out. A single working mom footed my bill. I couldn’t believe it, and instantly felt guilty as a single person. As that gate lifted, my spirits did too. I wanted to take a minute to thank God for this employee.

I pulled into the nearest gas station and prayed. The car jolted when a woman hit my parked car. She recently lost her job and didn’t have money to fix the “fat lip” from a previous accident on her front bumper. It bounced me off my recent rise in spirits. It was the worst of days.

After I quit wallowing, God repaired everything in one swipe. Later I got the job without the interview. I was let out of the gate without paying extra and I never again forgot to grab my paid ticket. The woman who hit me gave me job tips that I passed along to others. The car was not damaged.

Those plans and the pep-talk I gave myself that morning could not have prepared me for that day, yet God made it successful.

QUOTE: “When men have done their worst and finished, it is the time for God to begin. And when God begins He is likely, with one blow, to reverse all that has been done without Him.” F.B. Meyer

“There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord” (Proverbs 21:30 NIV).

Beauty from Water and Sand

By Peter Lundell –

Beauty rises from consistent, mundane effort. I saw this when I had the privilege of hiking “The Narrows” in Zion National Park, perhaps among the world’s greatest hikes. It’s a “slot canyon,” which gets as narrow as 15-20 feet, and in which the swirling walls rise vertically, and even cantilever, to where they are in some places only 10 feet apart. Most of the time the path is the river.

Even in the upper reaches of the canyon, the water is an opaque tan. It looks somewhat ugly and in need of cleaning. But it has always been opaque tan from the sand and dirt washing down.

My shoes were constantly catching sand and small bits of rock. Whenever I cupped my hands in the water, I received a watery sand blast.

This continuous heavy erosion into the river is exactly what made the incredible canyon in the first place. And elsewhere on a larger scale, we get the Grand Canyon. Beauty rises from continuous mundane erosion.

Look at anything in life, whether something you admire or that you yourself have done. Look at a person who has a mature and admirable character, or someone who has accomplished remarkable things. These are like the amazing canyons of the natural world. They happen through relentless consistency and work that may seem painfully mundane. But the result is astonishing beauty or achievement.

Is there an area in your life where you are doing this? I encourage you to keep it up. Do you have the potential—if you did the daily, mundane work—to create a thing of beauty or be a person of more noble character? I believe every one of us does.

PRAYER: Lord, may I learn from the world You have given me to see purpose even in the small things I do, to be patient and never give up in doing what You have called me to do and being who You have created me to be.

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:7-9 NIV).

When God is LOL

By Carol Barnier –

The three-letter expression, LOL, has been rolling around in text-speak land for quite a while. When it first emerged, I wasn’t clear on its meaning. Lard On Lollipops was unlikely. Licensing of Obese Libertarians seemed even less promising, although in an election year such things are possible. Turns out, it was much simpler: laughing out loud. The problem was, this little three-letter mark of jocularity was often appearing in places where I found it difficult to determine what the text-speaker found to be so funny. . .funny enough that it would cause an actual audible guffaw. Most of the time, a simple snort was more in order. Or even just a hmphh. There have been very few times when I’ve actually laughed out loud at something I’ve read or heard.

One was when reading an interview with a somewhat younger Miley Cyrus who was explaining that she and her new boyfriend were special, more complex, capable of greater thought than one would have expected.

“We’re just deeper than normal people.”

I didn’t mean to laugh out loud right there in the airport boarding area. But I don’t know, it just escaped from me—with a great deal of volume, I might add. I don’t know if it was because of the pretentiousness of the word “normal” to describe all the rest of us mere mortals, or if it was her total lack of awareness that anyone who would actually utter such a phrase has, ipso facto, indicated a decided lack of depth by virtue of her claim to the contrary. But this was most clearly an LOL moment.

People taking themselves too seriously often brings out a chuckle in me. There are many things that do this.

Poetry being one of them. Sometimes it’s a beautiful combination of words that share something fresh and deep. But just as often, it’s the 43-thousandth time that I’ve heard “Life’s a bummer.”

Indie bands. They’re not making music . . . they’re making art, which according to my daughter means they still practice in their parents’ garage and aren’t famous yet.

But, oh how I LOVE those who are unpretentious. . .who even perhaps SHOULD be taken more seriously than they let on, but you’ll never hear it from them.

That’s my Dad. He is brilliant, and yet most of the folks who meet and talk with him would never know it. His goal in talking with folks was always to connect, to encourage and lift them up, and oh yeah. . .to make them laugh. That’s why as a pastor he was so effective. Everything he shared was carried on the wings of an obvious love and concern for others.

I’ve recently heard more than my share of folks who are sharing some concern they have for the theology of others. And while they may or may not have some truth in their concerns, what ruins it for me is the fact that they take themselves sooooo seriously, such that they look down on those they examine—even ridiculing them, and that there is a decided lack of love for those they chastise. I think the apostle Paul said they are like a “clanging cymbal.” Noisy, irritating. Frankly, they remind me of crows. Peck, peck, peck. And such self-important pecking at that.

I can’t be sure, but I suspect that when the God of heavens looks down at any of our self-important pronouncements, we provide Him with an LOL moment.

A Thorough Housecleaning

By Rosemary Flaaten –

The mocha cheesecake had served its purpose. Our dinner guests had exclaimed about its silky texture and rich coffee and chocolate flavor. But now the last half sat on the third shelf of my refrigerator. Every time I opened the frig door it seemed to call my name and lure me in for just one more bite. By the end of the weekend, the majority of that cake had made its way from the third shelf onto my muffin top.

During this same weekend I was reading the book of Joshua where the Israelite’s fearsome leader gives his final charge. Joshua knew the Israelite’s propensity to allow their hearts to wander away from the true God and that they were at greatest risk of doing this by allowing the subtle infiltration and acceptance of other gods. His admonition? “Throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” (Joshua 24:23)

I was quick to congratulate myself that I didn’t have any god statues in my house. But, as I licked the remaining crumb of cheesecake from the corner of my mouth, I was reminded that gods are anything we idolize and give our devotion. I had to admit that that cheesecake had a hold on me. That weekend I had given my devotion to a mixture of cream cheese, coffee and sugar and in doing so I had not upheld my commitment to God to eat healthily and disciplined.

So the choice lay before me. My frugal upbringing reasoned that it would be wasteful to throw out anything edible. “Keep it. Someone else in the family might want it”. But as I stood before the refrigerator, I knew I had to act on the Holy Spirit’s prompting from Joshua’s words, “Throw away the foreign gods among you.” Oh, the freedom my spirit felt when the last of that cheesecake made its way down the garbage disposal. It was gone and I was no longer held captive by an idol in my midst.

Do you have any idols that linger, pulling at your desire and causing you to stumble? Be ruthless. Nothing is worth taking the risk of allowing our hearts to be pulled away from our one true God. Do a thorough housecleaning today.

PRAYER: Help me to be strong and courageous to rout the idols from my life.

“But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you: to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to keep his commands, to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul” (Joshua 22:5 NIV)

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