"My Way" Robbery

     When my children were approaching their teens, a time when many second generation Christians become rebellious, I prayed that the Lord would not let that happen to mine. I knew many of my friends were in that situation, but I didn't think I would be able to bear it. One of the things I did not yet understand is that there is no such thing as hypothetical grace. God gives us his grace for the reality of need, not just the possibility. The other thing I did not know was what a huge blessing that troubled time in my son's life would be in mine. The greatest blessings of my spiritual life have come to me through my son's addiction.
     All my Christian life I had longed for an experience like Hagar had in the wilderness when she realized God saw her, knew her struggle and provided help. She named the well He provided Beer-lahai-roi, well of the living God who sees me. My wilderness was at the side of the road on the way to addiction treatment. As soon as my son said, "I will never believe in God because I can't see Him and He can't see me.", a car pulled up behind us, a believer sent by God to encourage us. After decades as a Christian, God settled the matter once and for all, I knew for certain--the living God sees me. And that has been a blessing not only for us, but for the many with whom I have shared that story since.
     When we started this journey through my son's addiction, I told God I needed him to be real, as real as the view from my window and the furniture in my room. And I needed to hear from Him, not generically through His word, but specific guidance for our situation. God answered that prayer by His Spirit's words impressed in my mind. These messages were seldom what I wanted to hear, but they were what I needed to. Even now, after the crisis has passed and our family reaps the benefits of our son's sobriety, the intimate communication between myself and the Spirit continues.
    If God had answered my prayer for stray proof children as I asked, I would have missed the greatest spiritual blessings of my life--our encounter with God, deep intimacy with the Spirit. And all these blessings came to me through my straying son. Blessings I would have robbed myself of if God had done things my way.

Run to the Battle

     In my many times reading I Samuel 17, the very familiar story of David and Goliath, I had never really noticed verse 48, until this week. "As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him." It has caused me to reevaluate my prayer time with our mothers of prodigals prayer group. I have pictured in my mind, standing next to Jesus between our prodigals and the forces of evil coming against them. I knew I had no strength of my own to protect them, but I wanted to be standing in prayer next to Jesus as He fought for them. Now I am rethinking that idea, maybe Jesus is not standing braced for Satan's attack. Maybe He is running to the battle line, and in order to be next to Him, I need to be running too. Exactly how that works out in my prayer life, I am just beginning to explore.
     The important factor in applying any verse is how it fits with scripture as a whole. I believe running into battle is Christlike because the God who saved us is anything but passive. He provided our redemption. He chose us before He even created the Earth. He seeks us. He calls us. He gives us the faith to believe. And He is the one who keeps us safely in his hand until He takes us to heaven. God is not waiting to see if we want to take Him up on his offer of salvation. He makes it happen through thousands of seemingly random circumstances.
    Jesus' earthly ministry demonstrated his willingness to battle the Jewish leadership. In John's gospel especially, Jesus goes out of His way to heal on the Sabbath, knowing it would provoke the Pharisees. He didn't tell those in need to come back tomorrow. He didn't wait for someone to ask Him about the Sabbath so He could secretly slam the Scribes. Our gentle, but just, Savior sometimes ran headlong into danger.

     

 The Devil defies us,

      as he does our King

      God's Word is our stone

      and prayer is our sling.

      The battle continues,

      though the war has been won.

      To stand with our Savior,

      His people must run.

     


   

Voting Loud

     I have my own theory about why voters are turning out in record numbers for this year's mid-term elections. Both parties have gotten into a lazy habit of labeling their opponents instead of listening, reacting, instead of reasoning. In logic it resembles the "straw man" fallacy where, instead of arguing with your opponent's actual position, you argue with one you yourself have substituted. Although our modern version is even lazier, we simply build the straw man and throw rocks at it. Apparently the glue that holds these labels on is made from the brain cells of those attaching them. Early in his campaign, Donald Trump, for no apparent reason, was labeled a racist. There were probably millions of racist labels left over from the Obama years, when anyone who opposed Obama's election or policies was called racist. I'm all for recycling, but reusing presumptions that were never valid in the first place is like making a casserole out of spoiled leftovers.
    I said all that to say this, I think voters are turning out to send a clear message--we are not racists. We like what our president is doing for our country. Most presidents don't even attempt to keep their campaign promises until their second term. Trump has torn through them like a to do list. I had  "yuge" doubts about Trump, but great admiration for those he chose to advise him. Proverbs 13:20 says, "He who walks with wise men will become wise." But it is hard to express support for anyone with a "racist" label stuck over your mouth, so now, in the privacy of the voting booth, we are making ourselves heard. This election, we are voting loud.

We Live In Strange Times

     By today's standards, our parents could have been charged with abuse for spanking us and neglect for letting us run around unsupervised, and yet we did not need free meals at school because our parents provided for us. We didn't need supplemental lunches in the summer because our moms had lunch for us at home when we came in from running around unsupervised. We live in strange times. Not that I want to see children go hungry. I take feeding people very seriously. If you come within a quarter mile of my house, expect to be offered food. My problem is that free lunches only address a small part of the need. What these kids need are parents to provide food and a place to live and supervision and, most of all, love. A meal is a poor substitute for a mom.
     Even in my childhood, a few moms worked. My best friend in grade school was in gymnastics, flute lessons, tap dance, horseback riding, and Bluebirds to keep her busy between school and when her mom got off work. The concern of that time was latch key children, those who came home from school to an empty house. Now, even moms who do not work, may not be home because their friends, pleasures, or addictions, are higher priority than their children. Even with the after school programs most schools offer, many students don't have a permanent home to go to afterwards. They and their moms (dad is seldom in the picture) couch surf from place to place, scrounge for food, have phones for friends.
     As I said, we live in strange times. I wish today's kids had a dad at home to spank them when they need it, and a mom at home to listen to the adventures they had while running around unsupervised. Because now that those things are considered crimes, sexual abuse and violent, even fatal, child abuse and neglect are more prevalent than ever. Strange.

Whee!

Whee!

Today my granddaughter and I “whee’d” the leaves,

such as they are in the front yard.

Most of which are from our half-dead birch tree.

And most of those blow into the yard

of the empty house across the street,

to no one’s disappointment.

So we gathered small fistfuls of yellow leaves

and tossed them in the air

as we sat in the sun warmed grass.

Grandma and Brie share a much missed moment
and a word that captures its spirit—

“Whee!”

Why I'm not Worried About the Mid-term Elections

     I am not worried about the mid-term elections because God has never required cooperative vessels to fulfill His purposes.  If He did, the Exodus story would have gone like this:

  Moses:  The Lord commands you to let my people go!
  Pharaoh:  No!
  Lord:  Well okay then, I'll just wait until a more open minded Pharaoh is on the throne.

Oops, wait, that's not what happened. God's plan was to deliver Israel from Egypt 400 years, to the day, from when they came in. He did not need Pharaoh to have a change of heart. Pharaoh never did have a change of heart. God just made the consequences of defying Him more unpleasant than letting millions of slaves have permanent time off.
     But Pharaoh was a political leader and an unbeliever, surely God needs His own people to cooperate. If that was true, the calling of Moses might have sounded like this:

   Lord:  I am calling you to lead my people out of Egypt.
   Moses:  Not qualified. Thanks for thinking of me, but no.
   Lord:  Would you mind taking a message to Aaron?

God did not give Moses the pass or play option. He had chosen Moses and would not allow a substitution, as if God's will was like basketball. God provided Himself as Moses' divine helper and Aaron as his human helper, but God didn't need permission from Moses to use him any more than He needed it from the bush.
     Of course, the best example of an uncooperative believer is Jonah. Jonah had serious stinkin' thinkin' and, if the revival in Nineveh was a church ministry, we would blacklist Jonah from even handing out the programs. But God did not reassign the job to someone more willing, nor did He perform a divine version of a Vulcan mind meld to make him willing. Once again, God just made the consequences of disobedience so unpleasant that Jonah decided to visit Nineveh after all.
     I used to tell my children, "You can do God's will the easy way or you can do God's will the hard way, but you WILL do God's will." So, though I am disgusted with the attempt to assassinate the moral reputation of Supreme Court pick Kavanaugh, and I am sick to death of lying political ads, I am not afraid that God will somehow lose control of our country if the election does not go favorably. If God's will was dependent on man's, man would be sovereign. I will vote for those who best represent Christian values because bad political leaders have the power to make life difficult for us, but they do not have the power to make life difficult for God. God is sovereign and, although not running unopposed, I refuse to live as if He was being voted out of office.
    

Me Too, Maurice

     The Me Too in the title does not mean I was sexually assaulted by someone named Maurice. Especially since the Maurice I am referring to is Maurice Chevalier, the French actor. Although, being French, and an actor, I wouldn't put it past him. He has been dead for decades and we did not run in the same circles even when he was alive. What I am me too-ing is his song from the musical "Gigi", I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore. True, I miss the looks, muscles and eyesight that growing old has taken from me. But I would miss more the spiritual beauty, strength and perception, that growing old in Christ have given to me.
     I'm glad I'm not young anymore because when I was a young Christian, my prayers were  puny. Morning prayers were often a recitation of my day planner with "Bless" tacked on for good measure. They were equal parts talking to God, worrying, and hoping for the best. I didn't really believe God would respond to my prayers, because when He did answer them, I regarded it as a bizarre coincidence. I would spend hours devising ways God could give me what I wanted and would shoot my ideas up to Him as if God had, or needed, a suggestion box. I trusted God to satisfy my needs, but thought I was on my own for my wants. But the main reason my prayer life was so poor is because my view of God was so small. I approached God like Oliver Twist begging for more gruel. It never occurred to me that God delights to give gifts that delight His children, just as I love doing that for mine.
     I'm glad I'm not young anymore because when I was younger I never really knew if I was in God's will, though I hoped I was. I accepted positions in my church based on my natural abilities and comfort level. I did not realize God supplies the abilities and uses us most when we are uncomfortable. Through those BSF daily application questions that I found so irritating, I learned to apply whatever part of God's word we were studying to what was happening in my life. Being in God's will is simply the Holy Spirit intersecting  my daily Bible study with my daily life.
    I'm glad I'm not young anymore because, until recently, I thought of God as passive and remote.  The most direct intervention of God in our lives began two years ago, through our son's addiction. Stopped on the side of the highway, unsure if our fearful son would make it to Billings for treatment, God commanded a busy Christian headed the other direction, to turn around and talk to us.  He arrived at the very moment I was praying for God to show Tracy that He is real and good. And in the years since that time, the Holy Spirit has continued to speak His thoughts into my mind. I never dreamed a relationship with God could be so real. And I never would have pursued this deeper intimacy if not for the deep waters of Tracy's troubles.
    I'm glad I'm not young anymore because trust is the beauty mark of a Christian, and I learned to trust through decades of experiencing God's faithfulness. The years have also made me more understanding. I understand others' frailty--and my own. I understand God is big, I am small, and so are my problems. I know God hears me, delights to upgrade my requests, and remembers the dreams I have forgotten about. In 46 years as a Christian, even a slow learner like me can pick up a few things. And for the sweetness of the learning to come, I'm glad I'm not young anymore.