Waiting for the Right Word

By Cynthia Ruchti –

“Oh, that was unfortunate,” my husband said when a television reporter inadvertently chose a word that was so close to the right one, but not quite. It went something like this:

“Harmony Corners police officers were called to a rural home Saturday night to investigate an alleged claim of invasion of privy.”

We’ve heard and read others over the years. Comedian Norm Crosby made his living messing up words just enough to entertain his audiences.

My father-in-law’s battle with hearing issues created some laughable moments. We took a family trip to Lion Country Safari in Florida one year. He persisted in calling it Lion Country Sapphire. It wasn’t a one-time slip-up. Grandpa was convinced the right word was “sapphire.” So he said it…a lot.

Whenever we think about that trip, we remember elephants, water buffalo, lions, tigers, gazelles- and the color blue.

Was it all a hearing problem? He hadn’t gone far in school before his father needed him on the farm. But he seemed unconcerned that some words didn’t make sense. Like Pepsicola, Florida. Or calling his Oldsmobile Sierra a “Sahara,” his apparent desert-mobile.

My husband observed, “Maybe Dad felt self-conscious about his lack of education. Maybe he’d been bullied as a child. His poor self-esteem might have exasperated the problem.”

“You mean, exacerbated?” We broke into hysterics.

I’m grateful God was careful about the way He expressed himself to us through His Word.

“Cast your careers upon the Lord, and He will sustain you.” You mean, cares, Lord?

I can almost hear God saying, “Yeah. Those too.”

PRAYER: Lord, You, the unerring One, speak eloquently to my heart. Help me catch every nuance, the significance behind Your word choices. Help me keep my sense of humor about my verbal slip-ups, but walk so close to You and pay such careful attention to Your world and Your people that they are few.

“For we all often stumble and fall and offend in many things. And if anyone does not offend in speech [never says the wrong things], he is a fully developed character and a perfect man, able to control his whole body and to curb his entire nature” (James 3:2 Amplified Bible).

And Do Good

By Cynthia Ruchti –

“Stronger” is my word-of-the-year, whispered to my spirit when I asked the Lord what I should specifically focus on for 2013. A few years ago, the thought was Brave and Bold. Last year, it was Enjoy. And I did. So this year? Stronger.

For me, that means stronger in spirit. Stronger in my relationships. Stronger in a business sense. And…cough, choke, gasp…stronger physically. My knee replacement is healed. Time to move more.

When I decided—rather than just continue to toy with the idea—that it was time to get serious about getting stronger, which in my case can’t help but get my weight in better alignment, I considered the kinds of things that make up my normal diet, and what was going to have to be jettisoned.

I eat gluten-free of necessity. So cake, donuts, cookies, pies, breaded and deep-fried foods have long been absent from my table, except for the occasional yummy gluten-free variety that passes the taste test…which means very few.

What does that leave, Lord? I distinctly heard him say, in a holy, resounding voice, “Potato chips.”

Ouch. Really? I mean, I have so few legitimate indulgences. Even I recognize the ridiculousness of that statement in light of world-wide poverty and hunger.

What I’m realizing is that I can’t just eliminate a bad thing—too many potato chips—without filling in that gap with a good thing—like cucumbers and carrot sticks. If I eliminate without replacing, all the sensations like crunch and chew and “full” start to rebel.

Jesus talked about it when he cast out a demon. In essence, He said, “Plug the hole or nine worse ones will come in to take its place.”

I read it in the Psalms just today. “Turn away from evil and do good” (emphasis mine). God did not merely tell us to turn away from the wrong things, but to replace them with good. Turn away AND…

PRAYER: Father God, in every area of life, help me grasp how the harmful or worthless things I turn from need a counterpart of something good to take their place. Watch less TV? Spend more time in Your Word? Eliminate potato chips? Ex-er-cise.

“Turn away from evil and do good,” (Psalm 34:14a NLT).

He Lost His Head

By Cynthia Ruchti –

“I promise it won’t hurt.”

“I’ll be there on time. I promise.”

I heard it again the other day. A dad promised his young son something not within his power to control. “I promise we’ll find your bike.”

He can promise they’ll try as hard as they can to find it. But no dad can truthfully promise the bike will be found.

King Herod feared John the Baptist. He was confused and convicted by John’s teaching, but the Bible tells us the king liked to listen to him.

John the Baptist was a truth-teller who plainly told Herod he was in an adulterous affair with Herodius, his brother’s wife. Herod had John arrested but gave him preferential treatment because he understood John was a righteous, holy man.

But Herod made a foolish promise for a foolish reason. He liked the way Herodius’ daughter danced. He promised her anything she wanted.

The girl, egged on by her hateful mother, asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. “The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her.” (Mark 6:26 NIV)

Herod knew the right thing to do. But he caved to the wrong thing because he’d made a rash, unwise promise. And John the Baptist lost his head because of it.

What kind of trouble can parents cause when they promise something to please a child, but can’t deliver on the promise? We can promise we’ll do our best. We can promise the pain is survivable and temporary. We can promise we’ll try. But only God’s promises are unfailingly reliable, because He has the power to control the outcome.

PRAYER: Lord, keep me from making ridiculous promises, and keep me faithful to my Christ-created promises to You.

“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘yes’ in Christ.”( II Corinthians 1:20 NIV)

That’s Going to Leave a Mark

By Cynthia Ruchti –

I remember more than once hearing my mother comment on some childish prank with the words, “Be careful. That’s going to leave a mark.”

She may have been talking about slipping the old fashioned kind of clothespins—someone does remember clothespins, right?—over our noses. Or she may have been referring to the practice of grabbing a sibling’s wrist with both hands and twisting in opposite directions. “Snake bite!” Followed by hysterical laughter and a chase scene.

“Be careful. That’s going to leave a mark.”

One of my sons, who shall remain anonymous, stuck a suction cup to his forehead the day before school pictures. Left a mark.

I wonder how many moms peer through a tattoo parlor window at their teen son or daughter and think that thought.

The phrase resonates today in a different way for me. What if I focused even more attention this year on making my life one of worship, worshiping the Lord every chance I get, in every circumstance, no matter the situation or how difficult it is, and for even the smallest moment of joy? What if…?

What if I determined to weave worship into every life experience in a more intentional way than I already do? What if I gave voice to the praise in my heart more often?

That’s going to leave a mark.

It’s bound to leave a mark on my life.

What a beautiful, invisible tattoo it would be if this new year were marked as a year of worship, if my life were one continuous stream of ceaseless praise to the God who made me, the God who planned out my days, the God who already knows what this year will hold, the One who sustains me through it all!

Ceaseless praise. That’s going to leave a mark.

PRAYER: Even though I know others will be watching, Lord, this is really between You and me. Hold me to this course, I pray! Hold me to the commitment to make worship a re-MARK-able part of this new year.

“He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise for our God. Many people will learn of this and be amazed; they will trust the Lord” (Psalm 40:3 CEB).

Faithful

By Cynthia Ruchti –

Have you noticed that when you go through a season of difficulty, certain words take on new meaning in the lyrics you sing in church or the song carried in your heart even while you sleep? Have you been startled, as I have, to find a word popping up far more frequently in the Bible than you realized when that’s the very word you crave? Like hope, joy, endurance…?

The year someone close to our family had a heart transplant—someone who had long resisted admitting his need for God—the word heart seemed to be peppered throughout the Word of God. When he went into surgery, we handed him a Bible we’d gone through by hand to underline the word heart. We hoped the hundreds of references would quietly speak to him about a God who cares about the human heart, even broken hearts, sick hearts, damaged hearts, and desperately ill hearts.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3 KJV).

“Give me an undivided heart, that I might honor You” (Psalm 86:11 NIV/NLT).

“My flesh and heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:26 NIV).

As this year draws to a close, I’m now seeing another word threaded throughout Scripture—faithfulness. How is it I never noticed the frequency of that word? I knew, of course, that faithfulness is important to God. But I now see it as part of the very underpinnings of a life lived for Him.

In Daniel 6:4, we read that this was said about God’s servant, Daniel. “They (his enemies) could find no occasion or fault, for he (Daniel) was faithful.” He was faithful. Faithful.

Christ’s birth itself proves God’s own faithfulness, that no matter how many years had passed since the first stirrings of the promise, He would be faithful to provide a Messiah, faithful to rescue.

I’m singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful” with renewed passion this year. In this, too, He leads the way. We the faithful come to adore Him because He is the Faithful One.

PRAYER: Lord, Your faithfulness completely overwhelms me. To a world that has lost its grip on faithfulness, You come and teach the meaning of the word. The meaning of the Word. Thank You.

“O Lord, You are my God; I will exalt You and praise Your name, for in perfect faithfulness You have done marvelous things, things planned long ago” (Isaiah 25:1 NIV).

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