Christmas, 2020

It's hard to believe that we are at the end of 2020.  Whoever we were at the beginning of it, we are not that at the end of it. What we have done with it, and will do with it, is up to us. It's been a year to see what we are made of. Does our faith go down deep into our roots or is it just good enough for fair winds? Is God who we saw Him to be last year or have we discovered that He is quite a bit wilder and less predictable than the cliched boxes we have put Him in?

The  biblical prophets, the true ones anyway, lived with and before a God who was afire with love, with justice,  with mercy and truth.  Their encounters with Him left them speechless but transformed. God's purposes are always what they have been: to show Himself the Father of a people who would reflect His Glory.  The amazing and hard part, even for God, was that He gave people free choice, and with that, inevitably, came choices both good and bad. Realize, dear one, that your ability to choose is something holy, it is something that you yourself possess as a gift from God and with it, you will, by your choices, determine your destiny.  Of course God is sovereign but He has offered you a choice when you came into being. Choose well.  

This year showed us that earthly life can be shorter than we think and more out of our control than we hoped.  Eternal life is what we all are really about and so we should be looking in that direction, looking for what is to come and what it will be like. We have to decide if we like that and want to live forever under the direction of One in whom there is no darkness nor shadow of turning.  It is a fearsome choice. But how do I choose? pray the sinner's prayer? live an austere life? do good works? none of these completely suffice. 

God is looking for relationship with us. He is looking for us to be deeply united with Him, even one with Him--to see His goodness and His good purposes and to work with Him to accomplish them. My life is not about doing more, or feeling I've succeeded or whatever goal the world tries to put on us, my goal is to be more and more connected to Christ and know what absolute safety that Love is all about.  What if you were always jumping with a safety net? What if nothing separated us from God if we didnt want it to? The Apostle Paul said , ""For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39).

Again and again I have seen that our union with God begins with surrender--not as a threatened knave, but as a free agent who can only unite with God by choice and compatibility. Our sense of aloneness stems from our unawareness of what blissful unity is possible with our Creator, and even with His people. What if we were safe? What if when Jesus said that He keeps all that have been given unto Him and no one can snatch them from His Hands that that was true? (John 10:28). What if you were free to be a child of God and to live from that protected place in the hand of God?  There is the old expression, "safer than being tucked into God's pocket with the flap tucked down" --what if we were that safe, even if darkness raged against us and appeared to win? 

There are, no doubt, more life storms out ahead of us. But let us put them to work for us, so that we are able to run our race with great faith and confidence in the One who keeps us safe even if our bodies fail. Each minute, in good times and bad, I am making decisions that affect my eternity. Look at the choices with adventure and curiosity and not fear! Choose well and choose wisely, dear ones! Surrender more and fear less! Godspeed!

Leadership Lessons from Return of the Jedi

I'm going to post a few notes each day about what I learned about leadership from Return of the Jedi. *Spoiler Alert*

 The first one is this: Good leaders, even if they have fallen out of the saddle, and retreated to sort things out, are willing to get back up on their horse and lead when the time is ready.

 The older Luke Skywalker is found hidden away, far from the madd'ing crowd, on an island far from society. Ironically, in real life, the site where they filmed Skywalker's hermitage is Skellig Michael, one of the earliest monastic locations in Ireland. You had to be brave to live there but you went there to get away from the world and focus on God. It was for extreme seekers. You had to know how to dig deep to make it there. Luke Skywalker had long retreated from the public eye. He's tried to forget that he's gifted. He's tormented by his failure. When Rey comes and starts to feel the Force, she stares at him boldly and says, "but I couldn't feel you in it, you've cut yourself off from it, haven't you!?"

Luke knows that being on the razor edge of fighting for good puts you up close to bad, and that you can lose your balance. But he has cut himself off from the Source of his life. He is trying, like the prophet Jonah, to run from his call and bury his gift. Good leaders deal with the mess of sorting this out in their own lives. Sometimes it takes time. Working through the process of failure is what makes them good at leading when they get back up! Good leaders acknowledge that spiritual battle has real dangers and work through it. It makes them more aware of their need for God. Good leaders don't go forward in their own power, they know when to retreat, but they also know when its time to rise back up.

Sometimes they need help, a mentor like Yoda, or a reason to do it, like the young Jedi warrior Rey showing up on his proverbial stone doorstep asking for help. Rey knows she has a gift, but she needs "someone to show me my place in all this." We all need that methinks. We don't care that you've failed, we want you to use what you have to help us because if we have come asking for help we recognize that you still know more than we do--even when you have failed. If your heart is right, you get past the failure, learn from it and become a better warrior, even a mentor. If it's not, you die on the island alone and let the world fall into the hands of the enemy.

Greater Than all My Failures

 Some One larger than all of my failures is stirring inside of me. .. Let the Holy
Spirit  arise within you and do His Work. God is not worried about what you are not or not
yet. He is jealously guarding what He has planted within you. Let it rise up amidst the weeds.
His life will mold you and make you even  in challenging circumstances. It is immutable life.
It is eternal. 

On the Old Landmarks Disappearing

Today, I walked to the corner of the street where I have lived a good deal of my life.
Today, it was so very different.  The house on the corner of my street was sitting mostly in
a dumpster: knocked down to make progress. I honestly did not recognize what I was looking
at. The old landmark was gone. This is the fourth time that this has happened this year
and its strangely symbolic.  The local developer decided to buy up as much land  as he
could going down my street.. This last house was 30 year hold out. They just wouldn't sell
even though the house was abandoned, derelict, and had not been inhabited for decades.
In some ways it should have been demolished long ago, in others, it should have been
restored. Nevertheless, it was still a landmark with its own warning message.

The house next to it was demolished just before this one.  My friends lived there when
I was a child and when I told them, we were upset together. Before it was demolished
I went up to the empty window, stuck my head inside, and what hit me was a wave
of happy childhood memories.  Scores of people had lived there since the days that
I had  played there but just for a moment, it was 1967. Time is wobbly like that..

The house next to that one had been demolished last fall.  The last occupants were
a black lady and her son and her dog, Precious. That's how I got Precious.--the
people  had to move to make way for "progress" and progress didn't care one whit
that Precious would not be permitted to stay in the only other housing available
to the family.  So, while I leave out a lot of the story, I inherited the dog I vote most
like Jesus. My other dogs have not been the greatest Christians, this one outdoes me,
paws down.

Then the house two doors down from me, also fell to the wrecking ball. It shook
our house for two days and I couldn't bear to look.  It was Miss White's old house
and it was built the same year that ours was. Now instead of telling people that are
trying to find my house that I am the sixth house on the right, I will have to tell them
something entirely different. Somehow, that is just plain eerie.

Do you know why I've told you all this? Because in a similar way our spiritual
landmarks are disappearing and the wrecking ball is right next door shaking our
houses and I wanted you to ponder that with me.

 The dictionary describes landmark as "a prominent or conspicuous object on land 
that serves as a guide, especially to ships at sea or to travelers on a road, a 
distinguishing landscape feature marking a site or location."

Today when I walked down to the corner, I felt the exact same feeling of dis-ease
 that I've been feeling for several years spiritually.  I will miss the sense of coming
toward home and seeing that which marks my home area, that which is familiar
and comforting in its gift of stability. It's all changed and until I get used to it,
its going to bother me. Some change is required, some contains a deeper message.

Those landmarks had been there since I was a child. I had watched similar
ones fall along the way, but now it was right next to me, Likewise spiritually.
Proverbs tells us:"Remove not the ancient landmark," (Proverbs 22:28) 

There is good spiritual reason for that:  remove what is meant to guard
and soon a generation and all that come after will not be able to find their way.

If the foundations be shaken, what can the righteous do? (Psalm 11:3)
Our spiritual landscape is changing and nothing much looks or feels familiar.
Landmarks give us a sense of stability and order. They guide us.  They help us know
our boundaries and  respect our space. If they disappear how will we
know that we are still on the right path?

Most of the people I respected as leaders as I grew up spiritually are now
with the Lord. I heartily lament this. I often sit and wonder what they would be
preaching or saying now, here, this very minute. Others have lost their way or changed
their path, or I'm not sure.what. They don't feel the same. They don't sound the
same.  They don't preach the same--if they still preach and not just chat.from
the pulpit, if there even still is a pulpit.

When did everything change? When did the One Way sign change to Multiplex Rotary
Ahead?  When did the Stop sign change to Pause and then Sneak Through?
When did the Red Light have a Rainbow painted over it? When did  the Wrong Way
sign get replaced with Any Way You Want Will Get You There? Our landmarks
have disappeared, shifted, or are being replaced.  Some may have needed to be, most
did not

Much earlier in our North American history explorers would set a landmark  to mark
a land claim as their own. Later, unscrupulous others would come and remove the landmarks
thus taking things that were not theirs to take. A very different America emerges
if that had not happened. Compare that to the current spiritual landscape.


The Book of Job says, "Some remove the landmarks, they seize and devour the flocks"
(Job 24:2). Landmarks are removed to confuse and erase boundaries. They undo order and
leave the flocks open to danger.  So what are we to do?

God says, "One more time will I shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the
dry land and I will shake all nations and the Desire of  Nations shall come" (Haggai
2: 6 &7, )

Now we must set our eyes on Jesus alone. All is being stripped away in the purposes
and plan of God. We must seek the Truth that is revealed in and by Christ Jesus. He
alone must now be our Landmark and our High Tower. Lesser things, even all things
that are not built on the Firm Foundation of Christ, will be swept away in the coming
storm.  On Christ the Solid Rock I now must stand, for surely all other ground is sinking
sand.

Peter wrote to early Christians, "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery
trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you, But
rejoice inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ suffering, that , when His glory
shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy "(I Peter 4:12, 13) .

Beloved, this is not gong to be an easy time.  We find ourselves in a sea of confusion
and we must navigate by the Son alone.  All shall be well if we are focused on Him,
but do take care.

The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are 
many dark places.
But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands,
love is now  mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps,
the greater"--JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers

photo taken in Feeding Hills, MA

Press forward. Do not stop, do not linger in your journey, but strive for the mark set before you.

--George Whitefield

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 Stability of Trees....Learning to Live in the Place You are Planted!

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do. I feel as if this tree knows everything I ever think of when I sit here. When I come back to it, I never have to remind it of anything; I begin just where I left off.”  --Willa Cather --"O Pioneers"

Wearing Out the Saints of the Most High

And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. Daniel 7:25


The prophet Daniel writes these words as he sees future events unfolding to him in  a vision scarier
than a horror movie. He is greatly agitated because this is not a movie, but a warning and a preview
of what will happen in the latter days. Daniel sees the Antichrist rising, and he sees these two things:
that the Antichrist will "speak great words against the Most High" and "shall wear out the saints of the most  High."  These words are written for our benefit and we need to take heed to what it is they
are warning us about.

The enemy of our souls has many techniques that he uses against the saints of God.  In this verse
it says that he shall "wear out" the saints of the most High.  Life can be a long journey. We start
out well, but the question is, will we finish well? It is question we all must prepare to answer with a
resounding "yes!"   It is the strategy of the devil, even now, to wear us out, bit by bit, without our
noticing how drained we have gotten. And from the looks of it, he is winning a lot of ground. Jesus tells us, in the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25), that five were very foolish and did not labor to prepare for the long period of darkness that came while they were waiting for the bridegroom. The darkness was longer than they expected and took more preparation then they realized

In this parable Jesus places both the responsibility of preparation and the blame of  not preparing, on the virgins themselves. So in this it is important to see that while the devil is our enemy, we are the ones who decide what will happen to us.

The Antichrist (and the apostle John has told us that many antichrists are already in the world at work) will wear out or wear down the saints.  Have you ever been so tired that you could make no
effort? Have you ever been so discouraged that you could not get up? God gives to His servants
all that they need to accomplish His will. But that impartation can be whittled away. How does this happen? In several ways! In the first part of verse 25 it says that the Antichrist will speak "great words against the most High."

Even now many words are spoken against the most high and we feel the affects of them.  People live in godless ways and speak of godless things. In Ezekiel 13, God speaks against false prophets who speak in such a way that the righteous are made sad and discouraged:  "Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life " (Ezekiel 13:7) . Here it is not even the heathen that are speaking with  ungodliness but false prophets who say they are from God! Let the reader ponder this!

To hear things that grieve the heart of God, and to see things that grieve the heart of God wears
upon the souls of the godly.  This exposure to evil is not going away and is promised to increase as we near the day of the Lord's victorious return,  so we must learn to guard our hearts with the truth that God will soon blow away the wicked and His kingdom of goodness will be an everlasting one. The problem and effects of evil will be with us until the Lord's coming but we must see past the temporal and encourage our hearts in the eternal.

A second way that we are worn down is to spend our time and resources on that which does not
satisfy.   God asks, "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live (Isaiah 55: 2 &3). 

God admonishes us to incline our ears to listen to Him and to delight ourselves in rich food!
I am sure that He does not mean cheesecake! We must feed upon the rich food of the Word,
upon meat and not milk. Milk is not meant to sustain an adult whether spiritually or naturally.
If we are only nibbling at empty tidbits and the words of men, rather than learning to eat for 
ourselves from the grand buffet of God's meaty word, than we will soon be weak and thus, will
 be worn out. Satan seeks to rob us by putting spiritual junk food in front of us. Thinking we are full we soon fall flat because we have no nutrients. 

Another way that we get worn out is to do more than God has asked us to. Jesus said,   
 “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. (John 5:19).
So often we think that "more" is more valuable spiritually. So often we do not ask God if He
wants us to do something, we just do it thinking it is a good idea. So often we buy into the world's idea of what a full life is: to be busy is to be someone important and to be living life with gusto.
This will soon wear us down to a thread. Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing and 
showing Him to do.  And so often we are lured into busyness by the will of others and made to
feel bad if we do not pipe to their musical cacophony.  So let us be careful.

There, also, are seasons in life when things swing out of control and we are thrown into situations that will wear us down and there is nothing we can do about it--but that should not be ALL  of our life.  God allows certain of these ordained seasons to see if we will draw on His strength. During these times we draw upon the wells of  deep water in our spirits -- hours and days of time we have spent with God in quiet and confidence during quieter days and from the Holy Spirit who ministers grace in due season.  It is that stockpile that carries us through.

These seasons are times of testing and times when we learn more fully to not trust in our own strength but in the merciful strength that God has planted within us for such a season.  Later, when the trial is over, there is time when God gives us a chance to rest and we must take it and see its value as equally important to our busiest God-ordained movement. Our strength needs constant replenishing. If we let our strength run dry we will be like the foolish virgins whose lamp goes out just when it is most needed. This is  the plan of the enemy and  a most important consideration for all of us in these days.

Walking with God

To walk with God requires more grace and maturity of thought and habit than to fly or run.
Young Christians are apt to get impatient with the quietness and seeming slowness of riper
Christians. ...To go slow with God is one of the greatest arts in the deeper life of the Christian,
and one that it takes a long time to learn unless it is taught the soul by the Holy Spirit"

--George D. Watson, God's Eagles,

photo taken at Storrowton Village, West Springfield, MA
 

Refresh and Gladden My Spirit, O God!

O God! Refresh and gladden my spirit. Purify my heart. Illumine my powers.I lay all my affairs in Thy hand. Thou art my Guide and my Refuge. O God! Thou art more friend to me than I am to myself. I dedicate myself to Thee, O Lord.

 

Kiss the Wave

               "I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages." -Spurgeon

photo taken at Weekapaug, Rhode Island

Wait on the Lord, Be of Good Courage!

You can be in no circumstances in which the Lord can not help you, in which he will not help you, if you look simply to him, rest on him, and wait for him. For every condition in which you may be placed, there is a promise; by that promise the Lord stands pledged to appear for you and help you; he is ever ready to deliverer you; only he will have you believe his word, exercise confidence in him, plead the promise at his throne, and wait for its fulfillment. Wait, then, on the Lord at all times. Times will change, creatures will vary, but the Lord remains always the same. In youth and health, in manhood and prosperity, in old age and its infirmities, we should wait on the Lord. He will adapt his mercies to us, make all his goodness pass before us, and cause all things to work together for our good. He will never leave us, change his views of us, or withhold his tender mercies from us. He is faithful to his word, true to his character, and full of love to his people.

Whatever change there may be in creatures, there is no change in him. Health may give way to sickness, plenty to poverty, strength to weakness, and life to death, but he is the same. With him there is no variableness, neither shadow of a turn. Therefore, "wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord." 

--James Smith, Chelthenham, NY 1869 --from Grace Gems

photo taken at Smith College, Northampton, MA

Encourage Each Other in the Light

When I see  your light shining in the darkness, my heart 

leaps for joy! 

Let us encourage each other by letting

our light shine brightly in the darkness around us.

And when you feel tired and lost,

do as Christian did, as he made his way

to the Celestial City: just follow the Light. 

"Do all things without murmurings and disputings:
 That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
Holding forth the word of life..."  (Philippians 2:14, 15, 16a)

photo taken in the chapel at Corpus Christi College,

Cambridge, UK on the Feast of Corpus Christi

I Drift Along in the Peace of God

I drift along, in the peace of God, knowing that I am His, and that He is, gloriously, mine.
I drift along, in the peace, in the deep peace of God.   


photo taken in St. Ives, UK

Enduring the Heat of Adversity

When it is hot in the kitchen of your life, and you don't feel you can eat what you are being
served. then endure the heat of adversity so  you will be able to say  "When He has tested me, I will come forth as gold” (Job 23:10).




photo taken in Granville, MA
"fresh organic chilies" :)