Frienemies

By Cheri Cowell –

 

The oldest member of the church was talking to the new minister. “I am 90 years old, sir, and I haven’t an enemy in the world.”

 

The minister responded with great interest, “That is a great feat.”

 

Proud, the woman added, “Yes sir, I’m thankful to say that I’ve outlived ’em all.”

 

If you’ve lived any length of time, you’ve developed a few enemies, or possibly friends turned enemies. Sometimes it is something we’ve done, or should have done. But there are times when a friend sets himself or herself against us for no discernable reason.

 

We can work hard to make peace with all people, but this becomes difficult when we don’t know the problem. We need to trust that God knows the circumstances and then set about aligning our ways with His. We aren’t to worry about the situation, but instead we are called to leave it in God’s hands. In the end, when we don’t expect it, our right living coupled with a grace-filled God will produce the peace between friends that we’d hoped would come.

 

“When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him” (Proverbs 16:7 NKJV).  

Prayer: My heart is heavy when I think about this friend who has turned against me. I will take this advice and focus on living right while trusting You to bring peace between us.

 

Do What’s Live-Giving

By Peter Lundell –

 

I surf kayak at Newport Beach in Orange County. The blast of water when I face the waves, and the adrenaline-rush of riding waves to shore is worth the scare of danger or wiping out. If I can get beyond where the waves crash—they’re often four to six feet—I can hang out with dolphins, pelicans, seagulls, and occasionally sea otters. Just paddling on the open sea is exhilarating.

 

The sea to me is like the heart and voice of God. The whole time I sense Him near, hear His voice and tell Him my heart. I’m able to think clearly about my life and often find personal direction out there. Most of all I feel more alive when I surf kayak (or ski in the winter) than any other time.

 

But what does that have to do with you who are kindly reading?

 

It has to do with what’s life-giving.

 

What is life-giving to you? I don’t mean merely relaxing. Something beyond that. Something that when you do it, you feel more alive than at any other time.

 

It doesn’t have to be a crazy sport. It could be something calm and safe. It could be serving others, praying, or walking in the woods. But something more than watching TV.

 

Too many people go through life without doing things that are life-giving to them. Some people don’t even know what that would be in their lives.

 

I hope you take time out to do whatever is life-giving to you. And if you don’t know what that would be, I hope you try things out. God did not create us to merely exist. He created us to live. And the more you fully live, the more joy you’ll have and the more joy you’ll share with others.

 

Prayer: God my Creator, You have given me this wonderful world to live in. I want to fully experience it and fully live as you designed me. Show me how I can more fully engage with You and experience that which is life-giving to me.

 

“Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment” (1 Timothy 6:17 NIV).

 

Connecting Hearts

By Peter Lundell –

 

I’m sitting in a Panera and hear a guy behind me making odd sounds as if he’s a strange person talking on the phone, sporadically reacting to the one on the other end.

 

I turn around. It’s two guys talking with their hands. Their conversation is intense, thoughtful, and passionate.

 

They glance at me, and I smile.

 

I go back to the days I did Bible studies in Japanese Sign Language with our deaf congregation at the Osaka International Church. But those days are long past, and I never learned American Sign Language. As I watch these two guys talk with their hands and show full emotion with their faces, I feel ignorant.

 

And in their world I would indeed be ignorant. I can’t even “talk.”

 

Outside, looking in, I wonder what the two are saying in their silent world. One leans intently toward the other, whose hands dance in the air, fingers swirling, now fixed together, now spread. They gasp and laugh at the thought I cannot fathom.

 

I want to know their thoughts, their hearts. I want to feel, as I did in Osaka, what it’s like to not be able to hear, yet express complex thoughts with my hands and whole body. But I am only a spectator.

 

As I walk to my car, I see the two guys through the window, their hands and hearts still impassioned.

 

How many people do we see each day, who may be a lot like us but are closed off in their emotions or are somehow separated from us?

 

To most people, we are mere spectators. And they are spectators to us. But God knows every heart.

 

And of those with whom we interact, do we really connect? Do we really know them—or try? Or are we not terribly interested, just doing our tasks and moving on?

 

“You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue You, Lord, know it completely” (Psalm 139:1–4 NIV).

Prayer: Lord, lead me to care about others the way You do. Lead me to understand with my heart the way you do. Lead me to connect with them and to be a blessing….

 

I Am Never Alone

By Elaine James –

 

“I’ve prayed for you since you were baby. You are the one who had asthma, right? I know things were difficult for you,” the nun softly said.

 

While celebrating my aunt’s 90^th birthday and her 60^th Jubilee in the religious life as a nun, one of her friends at the retirement center, who is a nun also, spoke to me.  Her words surprised me as I repeated them back, “I have been prayed for since a baby?”

 

As I walked away God showed me in a flash the answers to her prayers. I no longer suffer from asthma. I was introduced to Jesus at a very young age. I have had a hedge of protection around me, and that explained so much of my life.

 

As a child I had fears that came from my illness and from observing my parents dealing with their brokenness. They ended their marriage after twenty-seven years. From my mom’s deep issues with anxiety to my dad, who had so much anger, life was difficult. My mom did not want to live when the twenty-seven year marriage ended. I became anxious and angry about life. I was in need of my own inner healing.

 

The prayers of the nuns helped me to truly find the peace of Jesus. My aunt, now long gone, had given me a lifelong gift.

 

Some days do you catch yourself saying “I don’t have anyone to pray for me?” All prayers from scripture live on. They hold true for you and me today.  Peruse the beauty of the Word for the prayers of the faithful and realize those prayers live on in our lives.

 

Paul prayed, “We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,” (Colossians 1:9 NIV).

 

Jesus prayed, “…Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21 NIV).

 

Jesus prayed for you and me. His prayers never die. They live on. We can count on that.

 

I know I am never alone. I have my God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and the prayers of the faithful.

 

We don’t have anyone? We can shut our mouths and unclog our minds from that lie!

 

PRAYER:  Father in heaven thank You for reminding me that I am never alone. Amen.

 

The Obsession Gene

By Kim Stokely –

 

I’m convinced that within me is an “obsession gene.” For the most part, this gene lies dormant within my DNA, but every couple of years, like some mutant cicada, it reawakens and consumes my mind.

When I was a child, the obsessions would center on a certain book or television show. It’s all I could think or talk about for weeks. When my husband and I married 25 years ago, my mother gave us a Nintendo 64 system for our first Christmas together. Fortunately my husband was on shift work, or my non-stop game playing through the night might have caused him to rethink his marriage vows.

Over the past twenty years I’ve become obsessed with different video games. Once, it was saving the citizens of Naboo from an Imperial take-over. My family staged an intervention when I suspected a flock of birds was actually a fleet of tie-fighters. Then there was the time I became consumed with the goal of becoming a Rollercoaster Tycoon. I even had the kids pray for the victims of a terrible crash in one of my imaginary theme parks.

As I get older, the obsessions seem to be fewer and far between. There were the brief addictions to Pet Society and Angry Birds, but it’s been quite a while since the last one.

So imagine my husband’s surprise when he saw that frightening, yet familiar, sparkle in my eyes after I returned home from a craft night with the ladies from my church.

“Oh, no.” He grabbed my shoulders. “What is it this time?”

“Knitting!”

His brows furrowed. “Knitting?”

I nodded. “Scarves! Look!” I held up the half-completed, first attempt, at a sashay scarf. The silver thread in the yarn sparkled in the kitchen light. My mind was transfixed.

Since that night, some four weeks ago, I’ve knit a myriad of the twirling pieces of neckwear. Like zucchini from a summer time garden, the scarves keep appearing. I’ve begun handing them out to strangers in the street. I don’t know how long this obsession is going to last, but my husband hopes it’ll end soon before I spend all of our retirement money on yarn.

God wants us to be that consumed with Him. Jesus told us that the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30 NIV). It’s hard, in this world of distractions, to maintain that kind of focus on God. But if I can have that kind of concentration for a video game or craft project, I know that it is possible. It’ll take a commitment to His word and to prayer. But it is something to which we all should strive.

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