Fine Lines—Just Walk ‘Em

By Lori Freeland –

This week I found myself thinking a lot about fine lines. While walking a fine line is a tired cliché, the words paint a clear picture that fits with my current mindset. Imagine a child following a thin shadow line down the sidewalk step by careful step, a little wobbly, yet just making that next move forward one small shoe at a time.

Here are a few of my fine lines. Can you relate?

Trust myself. Yes, I need advice. On many topics. Being a kind wife and a focused mother, keeping strong finances, crafting an engaging story, and editing and tightening my articles. Other people ahead in the journey offer wisdom I haven’t gained and skills I haven’t mastered. But I need to listen with my ears open and decide with my heart closed. I can seek out opinions and that’s what I’m going to get—opinions. There may be a small percentage of truth in even the worst advice and I try to find it. But then I need to come back home, close the door, and sift through the information alone. In my heart, I will find what’s right for me.

Love my work. For me it’s my writing. If I’m not madly in love with my story, why should anyone else be? But I can’t love it so much I close my ears to solid advice. That’s a fine line if I ever saw one! Love it, but let it go. Still working that one out!

Release my children. No, not into the wild, but my natural inclination to yell “duck and cover,” throw my body over my kids, and protect them from the world may not be the best plan to grow them into the people I want them to be. The statement, “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” finally makes sense now that I’m striding in my mother’s slippers. When my kids hurt, I ache. I’d do anything for my little and not so little people. But that may damage them the most. Failure is the first step to success. And to endurance. Real life requires both.

Set myself apart. As a Christian, I am to be different. Set apart. A light in the dark. But if I lock myself in a brightly lit room, how will I know if my light is on? I need to step into the dark and check my batteries. I also need to remember the point of my light isn’t to clear the room; it’s to provide a safe warm place for people to come together and support each other. I need to remember, “But the greatest of these is LOVE” (I Cor. 13:13 NIV emphasis mine). But means stop and go the other direction. I can sit and judge others all day. I’m not winning anyone to Christ that way. Relationship over ranting. I can do that one!

What fine lines are you walking today? Leave a comment and share!

She is a…a…Sinner!

By Kathi Woodall –

“Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is–that she is a sinner’” (Luke 7:36-39 NIV).

This story from Luke’s gospel reminds me of three different groups of people in this world.

The first group sits inside the church and thinks, “This is a good place to be. I’m comfortable here. How dare anyone come in here with their alcoholism, or drug abuse, or divorce, or this, or that.” So they sit, inside, thinking.

The second group sits outside the church and wonders, “What’s going on in there? Something is missing in my life and something deep within me thinks the church might be able to help. But I can’t go in because of my alcoholism, or drug abuse, or divorce, or this, or that.” So they sit, outside, wondering.

The third group kneels at the feet of Jesus and doesn’t think or wonder about anything. They don’t have to because their actions speak more than their words ever could. They have come face-to-face with their own depravity and recognized their inability to overcome it. Tears stream down their faces and land on the feet of Jesus. Each tear cries out, “Take my alcoholism, my drug abuse, my divorce, my lying, my stealing, my anger, my indifference, my vulgarity, my…” So they kneel, at His feet, forgiven.

This third group is much like the woman at the feet of Jesus. He says of her and to her, “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven – for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little. Then Jesus said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’” (Luke 7:47-48 NIV). The third group of people knows these words weren’t just meant for the women alone but for all who kneel at Jesus’ feet and accept His gift of forgiveness.

The tender moment of forgiveness may have made a great ending to the story, but the story is not done. The third group of people doesn’t just sit there, continuing to weep and lament over their sins. With the glory and the beauty of their encounter with Christ ever forefront in their minds, they rise up and leave the home of the Pharisee. Each one goes to a different place where Christ has told them to go. Each one has a unique job for the kingdom. But they all go, and they go in peace.

“Jesus said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace’” (Luke 7:50 NIV).

Not Going Anywhere?

By Janet Morris Grimes –

Stuck. Drifting aimlessly. Going nowhere fast. Maybe going nowhere at all. Three steps forward. Two steps back. Or is it four?

And since I am stuck, accomplishing nothing, I take a look around. I no longer recognize my surroundings. How did I get here? And where is ‘here,’ anyway? Is this even the right path? Am I lost? And if so, why am I the last to realize it?

I am supposed to be somewhere. Somewhere else. Anywhere else. Accomplishing something. I am sure of it.

But I am here. Stuck. Is it getting darker? What’s that animal noise I hear in the distance? Oh wait, it’s getting closer. I should run. But where? And to whom?

How did this get to be my journey? And why am I having to travel this road, wherever it is, alone?

Stuck. I hate that feeling. Mainly because I might be the one to blame.

By following the same patterns that led me to that place, to this place, I end up with the same results. My current surroundings frighten me, so I go back. Like the Hebrews, yearning for a past where they knew what to expect. But their past required them to be a slave. They overlooked that part in their flight from the unknown.

Perhaps that’s why their journey took 40 years instead of 40 days. Two steps forward. Three steps back. I’m certain that’s not the way God mapped the rescue effort.

They were unwilling participants in their own rescue.

They were stuck. Shame on them. Shame on me.

As it turns out, the Hebrews and I aren’t the only ones who suffer with this problem.

The disciples wandered a bit as well. They doubted. They fought among themselves to be the favorite. They thought like humans, instead of like the spiritual beings Jesus was developing them into.

They bumbled around, like me, the last to figure out what was happening to them.

Bless their hearts.

It is through this bumbling around that we can learn from them. How not to do what they did. Or rather, how to do what they ended up doing. They learned. Eventually.

In John, Chapter 6, the story is told in this way. “Later that evening, the disciples walked down to the sea, boarded a boat and set sail toward Capernaum. Twilight gave way to darkness. Jesus had not yet joined them. Suddenly, the waves rose and a fierce wind began to rock the boat. After rowing three or four miles through the stormy seas, they spotted Jesus approaching the boat walking mysteriously on the deep waters that surrounded them. “I am the One. Don’t be afraid.” Jesus spoke to the disciples.

“They welcomed Jesus aboard their small vessel, and when he stepped into the boat, the next thing they knew, they had reached their destination” (John 6:16-21 The Voice New Testament).

Perhaps they should have invited Jesus into their vessel much earlier in the story. That had to be a long and exhausting three or four miles of boat-rowing.

Maybe that’s what’s missing when we are stuck. Not going anywhere.

We need to welcome Jesus into our vessels much earlier in our journeys.

Or better yet, never leave home without Him.

Behind the Battle Lines

By Jennifer Slattery –

A few summers ago, our family spent a week in Branson. While there, we met a woman passionate about the life movement and we engaged in conversation. She told me a story of a pregnant girl she reached out to her. One day, she spoke with the girl’s single, impoverished father who asked her, “Are you going to be here to help pay the expenses once the baby’s born?”
What he was asking was, “Do you really care, or are we just an agenda, just a battle to fight? Will you, so focused on speaking truth, walk with us when we put action to your words?”

This stuck with me, and is something I ask myself every time I’m tempted to engage in a battle. And there’s plenty of battles to fight, aren’t there? If we want to, we can spin from one to the next, Bible thumping every unsuspecting passerby hard enough to leave them dazed … and enraged.

At Easter, we’ll fight the Easter Bunny. Come Christmas we’ll write articles, boycott stores, and give long-winded sermons fighting for the phrase, “Merry Christmas.” Then we’ll grab our picket signs and line every street corner in protest of abortion.

Oh, how easy it is to hold a picket sign for an hour or two. It’s much harder to become actively and consistently involved in a young girl’s life.

Here’s the thing, while we’re drawing battle lines, people are dying. And seeing a “Merry Christmas” or an “abortion is murder” sign isn’t going to save them. In fact, I often wonder if most often our long-winded debates fall on deaf ears because it is impossible, yep, impossible, for man to understand spiritual things apart from Christ (1 Cor. 2:14). There’s only one way to change societies, and that’s by changing hearts. And there’s only one way to change hearts, and that’s by bringing them to the cross.

Let me explain it another way. Or, better yet, read how the Bible explains it:

Romans 1:21-28
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.

You see, absence of God leads to depraved thinking. Many of the battles we fight are the result of depraved minds—deceived thinking. So how do you fight a depraved mind? You don’t. You introduce the depraved mind to Jesus and let Him change them from the inside out.
Think about it for a moment. What if every dollar and hour we spent on picket signs and protests we spent on outreach, instead? One-on-one, demonstrating, relationally, the love of Christ? How many lives would be changed? How many souls would be saved? And once those depraved minds were transformed by the love of Christ, how many issues would there be to fight. Folks, what if we’re merely chasing fires? Instead of fighting fires, would it not be more effective to start making people fire proof?

Now, I’m not saying never speak truth, but I am saying never let your truth mask your love. The next time you’re ready to fight a battle, before you enter into that debate, ask yourself, “Would I die for this person? Am I ready to stand by them and to walk with them?”

Jesus answered both questions with a resounding yes. A yes that drove Him to the cross.
I believe He wants us to offer the world the same answer, because truth without committed and consistent love is painful, destructive.

Repellant.

A Dream

By DiAne Gates –

SCRIPTURE: “How precious are Thou thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with Thee” (Psalm 139:17-18 NAS).

A dream. A realistic dream. A dream that remains alive and vivid hours later. A week later. What about you? Ever had such a dream? Did you dismiss it? Miss it? Or forget about it?

In the early hours of last Tuesday morning, I had such a dream. I’ve never put much stock in dreams. But this one—so lifelike, so clear, so intense.

Monday night I went to bed mulling over a problem and the dream opened with me telling two men about my problem. One, a dear friend, the other the pastor of the church where I grew up—Dr. Homer Lindsay, Sr.

I finished stating my problem. Dr. Lindsay got up out of his chair, came over, and put his arm around me. He leaned close to my ear and said, “DiAne, you remember Jeremiah 29:11, don’t you?”

I replied, “Yes sir.” And we quoted it in unison, his voice recognizable and intelligible. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”

The dream ended, my eyes flashed open, and a sense of comfort and hope that only God can give wrapped around me and carried me through the morning with a renewed sense of security and joy.

Until four A.M. the following morning when my husband woke me. “DiAne.” He spoke in a voice I’ve come to understand means trouble. “We have a problem. It’s my heart. I want you to drive me to Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.”

We were in Longview, Texas—two hours away from Dallas and Presbyterian Hospital.

I sprang from the covers and pulled on yesterday’s jeans and a shirt. “O Lord!” my mind raced and my heart quaked. “What’s he thinking? I can’t drive two hours with him. In the car. About to have a heart attack.”

Another thought zipped through my mind. Look at his color. I turned on the light and looked at his face. His color was good. Warm. Not the pasty gray of a heart attack. Immediately the dream of the previous night flashed across my consciousness and the peace of God took control of my terrified heart and I heard—drive him to Presbyterian in Dallas.

We made the drive in record time. And for the next thirty-six hours, the medical staff at Presbyterian Dallas accomplished the necessary tests to confirm that my husband did not and was not having a heart attack. His previous bypasses and stints were unchanged and blood was coursing through his arteries as it should be.

For once in my life, I rested in the promise God confirmed to me the night before all this transpired, and reminded Him of that promise during that two-hour drive Wednesday morning. I traveled through those thirty-six hours at peace with the knowledge God was in control—not me.

Almost a week has passed and I paused this morning to contemplate how many times I’ve missed or dismissed God’s instructions and warnings. Choosing instead to race ahead of the stresses and strains of life. Always running. Refusing to be still. Neglecting to rest in Him.

Father in Heaven, help me remember. Remember to listen and heed your Word and Your warnings. Remember that You are the same yesterday, today and forever. And remember that You think of me—all the time.

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