Christianity

Acts 17

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21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. 22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for

“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

(bold italics are mine)

loss and gain

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With jet-engine propulsion
You send me down the runway
Of your path for me.
With the loss of my own will
And the surrender to your plan
I can say that I now understand.

I understand the sweetness of
Surrender. The breaking of my own will
and the acceptance of your own
ushers in peace, deep peace, and your grace.
Why did I wait this long?

For too long I sought my own path.
I look back and see the carnage
Of my own will worked out:
The skeletons of broken (but forgiven)
Friendships and relationships.
The fist-shaking-three-year-old I’ve been the last couple of years.
The walls I’ve thrown up at people I didn’t want to work things out with.
The fear I was unwilling to let you work through.
The ugly words, the unspoken words.
The years of wishing my life looked differently than it does.

Oh, that you would redeem the time
And I have faith you will.
You will right all wrongs in the end, even,
especially, those I’ve birthed.
You will give words where needed,
you will give courage for the path,
you will heal the wounds and the broken bones I have no ability to heal.
You will give continued grace to accept and submit to this strange path.
And best of all, you take this three year old into your arms,
quieting me with your love and send me forth.

You send me forth on a mission of your choosing
and I accept. I accept at the loss of my own will.
And I gain. As I look back on the miles and years
of lost dreams and hopes and demands and rights
and friends, in surrender to you, I gain.
I gain your peace, your provision and your guiding hand.

Oh Lord, from this middle seat somewhere above mid-America,
take this broken will and do with it what you will.
Make right my wrongs.
As I let go, I gain everything.
For Lord, where else would I go where I would find anything sweeter?

Stepping out

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Stepping out into the pink-grey dawn
A new morning and a new day
Young and fragile as a newborn
But built for potential and strength

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Aspen trees swaying gently in the early breeze
Their leaves tinkering out a heavenward song
They greet me in the young light
And call forth my potential

Potential – what a strange word
A presence not yet present
A being not yet built
But all the plans and hopes and dreams
Fully there and ready to spring

Spring into life
Like this brand new day
Created to embrace the Sun in its rising
Beckoned to put sinews and ligaments to work

To work – to bring to life potential
To bring to life grace given in a needed moment
To give strength at a moment of weakness
Hope where a dark thought would reign

As the grey, fragile morning dawns
My own fragility comes to life
For one more day
Of potential, grace, strength, hope
And an embrace of the Son. 

Weeds

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Weeds grow, well, like weeds. They grow tall and thick and quickly. They don’t need much water and they can grow in terrible soil.

At church, Pastor Matt recently did a sermon on the need to pull the weeds out of our souls. The context was a sermon series on the fruit of the Spirit and how the fruit won’t / can’t grow if our souls are full of weeds.

The weeds will always win, Pastor Matt said, unless we get rid of them. They will continuously take over unless pulled out by the roots.

I was mulling over this sermon as I was riding my horse through a particularly thick patch of weeds in an remote pasture the other night. The weeds were over my head even as I was sitting on my horse. In other words, they were about 8-9 feet tall. This forest of unwelcome foliage had grown and flourished in spite of a particularly bad drought and in mostly terribly rocky soil and with zero effort on part of the land owner.

I then thought about the correlation of the weeds in this field and the weeds in my soul:

  • weeds = sins, roots of sins, sickness of soul
  • soil choked in drought = a soul with no nourishment from Scripture
  • remote pasture = no community, no fellowship, no soul care-taking

As my horse and I navigated this ugly patch of tall, strong, smelly weeds, I received renewed encouragement to weed in the pasture of my soul and bring to it the water of Scripture and the care-taking of community and fellowship 

For eternity

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Life on Earth is a Prologue. It is a whisper of eternity. When our life on earth ends, it is not THE END. It is the BEGINNING. The life we live prepares us for eternity. How differently we would live our lives if we thought of it as training or preparation for a different life in another place.

Life is a proving ground where we learn our own strength. It’s where we learn to be what we were originally created to be. But instead of being able to live as we were created to live, we must spend our lives re-learning what was erased by the Fall. We must re-learn how to love, how to hope, how to have joy. And all this must be done in the confines of a fleshly body that is decaying and prone to limp and stray.
It’s all part of Restoration. God is about the Restoration and has asked a frail, ragged army of skeletons to join Him in the work. And as we join in, we are slowly and painfully transformed from skeleton to sculpture and from sculpture to saint. This transformation is a mystery that is not beyond God. It’s all part of His Restoration process. And when the Restoration is complete, there will be no more tears, all things will be made new, and we will be with Him for eternity.

Not as a stranger

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I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord;
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

I know that my Redeemer liveth,
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth;
and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God;
whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold,
and not as a stranger.

For none of us liveth to himself,
and no man dieth to himself.
For if we live, we live unto the Lord;
and if we die, we die unto the Lord.
Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord;
even so saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors.

~ Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde
Anthem in Procession from Chuck Colson’s funeral

Sunday in Jerusalem

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Luke 24:1-12; John 20: the Tomb is empty and Jesus is risen, just like He said He would!

The Garden of the tomb is absolutely beautiful.

the empty tomb

 
Revelation 21:4-5: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And He who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

Saturday in Jerusalem

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Luke 23:56; Matthew 27:62-66: The people celebrate the Passover as commanded in Scripture. A guard of Roman soldiers is placed at the entrance of tomb until the third day is passed, lest Jesus’ body be stolen.

A dark quiet. Dreams dashed. Confusion. Mourning. An empty cross. A tomb holding the body of the Son of God.

Everything they knew about God and Jesus must have been in question. Did they have the faith to trust that He would return like He said He would?

What would you have been thinking on that Saturday?

Friday in Jerusalem

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Luke 22:66 to 23:25: Jesus before the chief priests and scribes at the Court of Caiaphas; then taken before Pilot (possibly at or near the Antonia Fortress on the north side of the Temple Mount);

The Antonia Fortress is in the middle of the photo, on the north side of the Temple

 then taken before Herod (possibly at Herod’s Palace, south of the Jaffa Gate);

The Jaffa Gate today, the main entrance to the Old City

 then sent back to Pilot where He is finally condemned to death and beaten by the Roman guards.

There is no sin that is not covered by the blood of Him Who died for me.

a room at the historical site of the Antonia Fortress, which today is about 20 feet underground; possible location where Jesus was beaten by the Roman soldiers

Luke 23:26-49: Jesus carries the cross to Golgotha and is crucified and dies, taking on the full wrath of God in our stead

Look for the eyes of the skull just to the right of the middle of the photo

Luke 23:50-56: Jesus’ body is taken down from the cross, wrapped in a linen shroud, and laid in a stone tomb

the entrance to the tomb is in the top right of the photo