Hijacked

By Charlotte Riegel –

My plans were all set for the day. I arose earlier than usual, showered, dressed, had breakfast and felt energized as I started into the day’s activities. Hubby was still at the table finishing up breakfast when the doorbell rang. I was delighted to see my neighbor standing there and greeted her with enthusiasm.

December had been a busy month for both of us and we were overdue for a visit and catch-up session over tea. “Hello! I’m sooo glad to see you,” I said with a hug. “Do you have time to come in and have tea?”

“Well, yes, that is why I’m here,” she responded with a smile.

I put aside my planned work projects knowing I still had time to work on them before my meeting in the afternoon. I soon discovered the importance of this little tea party as my friend shared about some rough waters of life she was encountering.

It was well past noon when she left. I hurriedly prepared some lunch still thinking I could make adequate preparations for my afternoon business meeting. Beginning to feel stress rising within me and aware there was no way I could make the necessary phone calls I released a sigh of dismay and decided to offer a cancellation of the planned meeting so as not to waste the time of the other party involved. He said we should meet anyway and work with the information already available to us. I was very grateful my hijacked morning had not destroyed the rest of my day.

Elaine Townsend, wife to Cam Townsend, founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators, often encouraged new missionary recruits with the following words: “Interruptions are the most important part of the day. The rest is just filler.”

Reflecting on the day’s events at bedtime, I recognized the tea party as having been a divine appointment and thanked God for helping to salvage the remainder of my day.

“Help carry one another’s burdens, and in this way you will obey the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2 GNT).

Steak and Honey

By Mollie Bond-

Sizzling, succulent, scrumptious. In other words, a Brazilian steakhouse. I winked at my friends Tammy, Jennifer, and Callie at the decadent restaurant as the servers slid out the fabric-covered chairs. Slightly drooling, we found our way to at the salad bar, which included raw fish, mozzarella carved from the wheel, and basil salad dressing. The girls waited for me to finish. At the last bite, the real fun began.

“Turn the cards!” Tammy said with much flair as she picked up the card next to her plate. We flipped the card to green. When we needed a moment, we flipped the card back to red. However, I saw most tables had green cards because of what came your way with a green card.

Meat sizzled past my ear. Foot-long skewers of meat came right to my table. The server slid the sharp knife through the meat while the tongs I held keep it from falling. Instantaneously, lamb, beef, chicken, spicy sausage, and filet mignon wrapped in bacon, were rushed to my side with one flip. Just as we started whispering in an un-lady-like manner about how a belt needed to be loosened, Callie said, “I can’t even taste what I’m eating anymore.” It reminded me of the verse in Proverbs that warns about eating just enough.

“What is this?” as her fork held up some type of meat. Defeated, the fork and the meat landed back on her plate. She’s right. The more we ate, the less appetizing meat sounded. Even bacon.

I wondered how many other times in life do I gorge myself? What about in my finances, or my quest for a better job, or my desire for more down time? Contentment, knowing when enough is enough, is so hard to come by in America; especially in American Brazilian steakhouses.

PRAYER: Father, I’m turning my card to green to You. Yet I am leaving it on red for that feeling of discontentment. I’m glad for the many good things in my life, and I’m determined to enjoy them fully.

“One who is full loathes honey from the comb, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet” (Proverbs 27:7 NIV).

Cheering for the Underdog

By Dawn Wilson –

It all began with a tub of crickets.

After a family dinner at an Outback Steakhouse – just my husband and I, our married sons and their families – we all decided to go to my oldest son Robert’s house. Megan, my oldest granddaughter, wanted to show me her newest reptile.

Yes, you read that right. Megan, now 12, adores reptiles. She has a big tri-level tank for them in her bedroom. Meg already had a leopard gecko named Lizzie, a blue-tongued skink named Azul, and a bearded dragon named Odin, but that night everyone wanted to meet Megan’s new friend.

“This is Mushu,” she said. “She’s a frilled dragon.” Now that was a treat, especially when Mushu flared her frills!

But then Robert declared it “feeding time.” The critters usually get meal worms, but tonight was a treat. The four pets would share a delightful tub of live crickets. This “family night” was not for the squeamish!

I watched, fascinated, as my favorite of the reptile clan, Azul, stalked and snapped up crickets with a sweep of his colorful tongue.

“Do you think crickets feel anything?” I suddenly asked the family. Honestly, my youngest son Mike looked at me, wide-eyed, like I might be part reptile. “No, really,” I continued. “I keep thinking about Jiminy Cricket. Do you think they have emotions? Can they feel anything?”

“Not for long!” Robert’s wife Tracy said.

But then, no doubt overcome by the reptiles chomping on scurrying crickets, Carrie, Mike’s wife, started cheering for the little hoppers!

“Run, crickets, run!” She shouted, to my granddaughters’ delight. They chimed in – “Run, crickets, run!”

I’ll never forget that night… Carrie cheering for the underdogs (or rather, the undercrickets). The cheering brought back fond memories of the movie Rudy. America, always bent on success and ladder-climbing, still loves to cheer for underdogs.

We were all once underdogs. Pathetic and incapable of saving ourselves, we didn’t stand a chance. The enemy stalked, desiring to destroy.

But for God, we’d all be without hope and forever lost. While we were dirty sinners, the scriptures tell us, Jesus died for us (Romans 5:6-8). It was not for the righteous He came, but to call sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32); and each time sinners do come to repentance, the angels in heaven rejoice (Luke 15:7, 10).

When I remember all the excitement on our family night—understanding the crickets’ fate and cheering for them to escape—I realize that will be nothing compared to the eternal joy over sinners escaping Satan’s grasp as they believe in the Savior’s death and resurrection on their behalf. Can you hear heaven cheering for the desperate underdogs, now overcomers?

“But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57 NIV).

The Great Irony

By Peter Lundell –

I messed up three times in two days in an area of my expertise, that of making and fixing things. I felt foolish, incompetent, and made no excuse for my errors. But rather than sink into self-condemnation, I talked to God about it. And as I did I grew closer to him. My mistakes and weaknesses magnify my human frailty and lack, as yours probably do to you as well. In a positive view, this enforces humility in me. In turn I crave the embrace of my heavenly Father, who loves me anyway.

Then I reach a profound irony, not unlike the Apostle Paul’s “when I am weak I am strong”: When aware of my human failing, I move closer to God and experience a greater measure of His peace, His power, even His pleasure, than when I am outwardly successful or victorious.

Success is great—I want more of it—yet the other side of the irony is that when I focus on my success or victory, I easily become self-confident. Which is fine, but it diminishes my sense of needing God and drawing close to him. I subtly lose intimacy with God.

The irony is capped with the result that I find myself gravitating toward whatever highlights my shortcomings—not that I try to be an incompetent fool, but that I cultivate a heart and mind to affirm my shortcomings. Doing this is truly better than the self-orientation we as humans gravitate toward if our focus is only on our victories and successes.

I think God lets us fail and struggle because he loves us. He has implanted shortcomings in us to draw us near to him and to receive completeness in him. In his eyes, that is the greatest success, the greatest victory.

“[The Lord] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NIV).

“Lord, I am so imperfect. Open my eyes and heart and mind to always embrace my inadequacies that they would draw me closer to You, that I would always find my completeness and my value in You.”

Walk, Stand, Sit

By Heather Allen –

Roughly twenty to one. Those are not great odds in a face-off. I did not have a sling or five smooth stones. My life was not at risk, my future was.

The loudest in the group of my would-be friends turned hard eyes on me, her face twisted into a snarl. “You are just a Jesus girl.”

And with that, it was done. The horde moved down the hall, a repetitive bell reminding them school was in session. I stood alone. Wow, Jesus girl? There are moments when Satan’s mask slips. I almost pegged the wrong enemy.

Two solitary school years began that day. No matter who you are, at some point you will have to choose who you are going to walk with.

We drive our daughter to the south where tea flows and generous smiles beam. The brick dormitories that could be her home stand bookishly solemn, reminding me of the lateness of the hour. The breeze catches my sweater. We head for the campus coffee shop. Laughter circulates through the air, companions bend over a paper, a grinning barista is ready to help.

I trail my daughter, wondering how our home will move on when she moves on. The campus President graciously shuffles his schedule and shares lunch.

He looks me in the eye. “There are three questions you must ask.”

1. Does this school and its instructors believe in absolute truth?
2. Does this school and its instructors believe God’s word is literal?
3. If yes to the first two questions, how is the truth of God’s word incorporated into the classroom?

I sit back letting my breath empty. I should have studied for this.

Six people enter the conversation and we start talking about Psalm 1. I squint at the window and up to the clouds. Should I fall on the floor and declare Holy? This passage again. It has been spoken to me at least four times in two weeks. Okay God, I hear you. If Psalm 1 were a location, I just moved in. My attention shifts back to the college President.

“Do you see the sequence? First a person walks with those who are rebellious against God, and then he takes his stand with them, and then he sits and remains in the dwelling of the wicked, who are arrogant and scornful.”

His last words on the subject went something like this,

“If you have trained your child to live righteously, if you have carefully instructed them eighteen years, and this is the first time they are leaving your influence, why would you hand them over to those who are ungodly? Would you have them alter what you have spent so much time building? Why would you pay for your child to walk in their counsel?”

Good questions, thought provoking. Leaving this circular mind with a few more.

We wave goodbye to the South, our time is up. Winding down the Appalachians confident, knowing He will keep us as we journey. He has a path for us. I know He will lead.

“For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” (Psalm1:6 NIV).

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