The Easter When Everything Changed

I personally think that I will remember this Easter for many years to come. It was the Easter we spent isolated in our houses while the world changed. True story! But it needed to change. So much of life is waiting. The biblical tradition has a long history of waiting in it. Abraham and Sarah waiting for a baby; Noah waiting for the rain to start; Elijah waiting on a mountain; Daniel waiting for the exile to be over; Anna waiting for the Messiah to be born; John waiting on Patmos for Jesus; the list is much longer.

 I’ve been waiting for a long time for what I sense I’m seeing. There are destined times and epochs in the “kairos” time of God. “When the fullness of time had come…” Just when time is about to burst with waiting, it explodes into the purpose of God. The preparation for a servant of God takes a long time, again, I can give you a longlist: Moses, David, Daniel, Jesus, Himself, Paul, Timothy, John the Beloved. God can do what He wants without us, but He has chosen to work with and through us, so He has to polish, temper, and strengthen us so that we don’t snap out of pressure or lose our faith in the process.

Let’s face it, it's been cloudy for a good, long while. The prophet Ezekiel speaks of a “cloudy and dark day” when the sheep are scattered and the Shepherd has to go out and gather them. I have seen that look of fierceness on the Face of the Great Shepherd in these last days, I have seen His determination to gather those that are lost. The clouds of false belief; man-made religion; lethargy induced apathy; confusion, dismay, and inability to endure have clouded the Face of the Living God from those that need most desperately to see Him. So He is going to rise up and go looking for the lost sheep. He is going to blow the hindering clouds away. He is going to go into every last highway and byway looking for those stuck in the thorny bushes of hopelessness, despair, and shame. He asks us to go with Him. He asks us to gather with Him for He has told us, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and who does not gather with Me, scatters” (Matthew 12:30.

 I have seen people who know God and walk with God come back to life in the last week. I have seen hope born, courage arise, purpose return. I’ve seen the glaze disappear from the eyes of the believers who have looked for Him so long, more than they who wait in the cold, dark night for morning. A cloud the size of man’s hand appears overhead. The Lord is standing up to move. Don’t miss it. Prepare your heart, shake off your slumber, fill your lamp with oil, trim your wick. Stand up with Him.

Stepping it Up a Notch at 60

 “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” (Psalm 90:12-14) 

While we are eternal beings in an ultimately real sense, we are also mortals while on this earth. The Psalmist tells us to “number our days” that we might gain perspective of how short earthly life is compared to eternity, and how imperative it is that our earthly sojourn count much for the eternal kingdom of God.

 A couple of us at Women of the Word are turning 60 this year! With that comes a soberness of heart that causes us to turn to the Lord, and implore Him to use us as He wills. There can be nothing held back from Him in this hour. As our bodies age, our spirit can burn every more brightly because we identify with our Lord and understand His purposes and ways in an even greater way. The desire and pursuits of earlier decades give way to increasingly wholehearted and unreserved abandon to our God and His passionate work to win all peoples to Himself.

 There are some things that can not be completely done when we are young because we do not yet have the experience. Maturity in God happens over the course of decades-- line upon line of faithful walking with God, day in and day out, through the many storms of life. While youth has energy, the seasoned have come to know that of themselves, they can do nothing and their self-trust has given way to trust in God alone, or at least a deeper understanding of that. There are no shortcuts to some things. Knowing where you end, and where God begins is a great wisdom.

 Paul writes, “Moreover [let us also be full of joy now!] let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance. 4 And endurance develops maturity of character (approved faith and tried integrity). And character produces joyful and confident hope of eternal salvation. Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us. While we were yet in weakness [powerless to help ourselves], at the fitting time Christ died for us in our ungodly condition Romans 5:3-6 Amplified).

By the time we turn 60, our character is soberingly starting to show itself for what it is. Now is our wake-up call to be awake, and surrendered, and fit for the Master’s use. For if not now, when? If we have not taken the claims of Jesus upon our life seriously, we had best get down on our knees. And if we have, there are always deeper, more wonderful depths to plumb.

I feel that I am only getting to the starting line and I have endeavored to run the race with sobriety for these many decades! God views our life from the finish point. He stands at our finish line and beckons us to run well, run with abandon, run with character, run with grace. So let us do that, with all our mind, heart, soul and strength. There is no time to lose, and no time like the present to press into God.

The Light at the End of the Alley

"The light at the end of the alley, the sunset at the end of the mountain day,
silently speaking of things way beyond themselves, things we can't quite 
reach, but can sense within,  things of which we catch but a fleeting glimpse. 
The road ahead is filled with that which will cause wonder and cause 
us to wonder.  But tonight, here it is right before me. 

--photo taken in Colorado Springs, CO

The Indwelling Truth in Presence & Power --George MacDonald

Our Lord had no design of constructing a system of truth in intellectual forms. The truth of the moment in its relation to him, The Truth, was what he spoke. He spoke out of a region of realities which he knew could only be suggested—not represented—in the forms of intellect and speech. With vivid flashes of life and truth his words invade our darkness, rousing us with sharp stings of light to will our awaking, to arise from the dead and cry for the light which he can give, not in the lightning of words only, but in indwelling presence and power.

How, then, must the truth fare with those who, having neither glow nor insight, will build intellectual systems upon the words of our Lord, or of his disciples? ....

 To men who are not simple, simple words are the most inexplicable of riddles.

[George MacDonald, unwritten sermons I: "I shall not be forgiven", p 24 of this link]


photo taken in West Suffield, CT.
 

Perhaps they are not stars...

"Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy." --Eskimo proverb

photo taken at Smith College, Northampton, MA