Tuesday, August 26, 2014

To Decide or to Yield

From Oswald Chambers in “My Utmost for His Highest” on August 21st.

“The statement we so often hear, ‘Make a decision for Jesus Christ,’ places the emphasis on something our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him— something very different.
Ah yes, to yield to Him. That’s never been easy for me. I can feel my spine stiffen (as well as my spirit) when I’ve believed that is the required response.

I remember a time in particular. It was a number of years ago, possibly thirty years now. Husband believed that we (read he) was called into mission aviation. I, on the other hand, did not feel the “call” to missions. Now, I don’t mean to make light of having a “call” upon one’s life, I was just sure it wasn’t upon my life.

          Sure, he was a licensed private pilot. He felt we should move out of state to allow him to attend a trade college where he could get training to repair and maintain aircraft. It was a noble calling. I just couldn’t see uprooting our school aged children and move “so far away”. So we bantered back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth.

          Months later a couple came to our church to give a presentation on their ministry in missions. Now here was a couple I could listen to. Their mission was in France! Now, possibly I could muster up the courage to become a missionary in France. The food, the culture, the food, the fashion… did I mention French cuisine?

          Husband wanted to be sure we sat up front and center. He wanted to hang on to every word. I complied, it was missionaries from France! What could go wrong?

          This presentation happened so long ago the couple was using an old revolving slide projector. I believe they had just brought up the third slide when my breath caught in my throat. The Missionary Husband stopped at that very slide to expound upon the small Cessna airplane being shown and extol the virtues of mission aviation! WHAT!!! What was this? Some cruel joke my Husband had prearranged? I turned and looked quizzically at him. He looked at me just as questioningly.

          I began crying, no, scratch that, it was a primal, moaning sound that was escaping my lips. Did I mention tears? They were falling from my eyes and smearing my makeup, leaving me looking like a fallen TV Evangelist’s Wife.

          But I knew… I knew this was the Lord speaking to me. Directly to me. Up close and very personal. That was the day I yielded to call. The call to be a missionary.

          The story continues on. It tells of being accepted to Missionary Maintenance Service (MMS) (not an out-of-state trade school, after all) where we were to raise our own funding by making presentations at various churches.

          I learned a lot from that process. From large mega churches that invited us in to present our missionary vision in small part during the morning service and then to return for the evening service. No provision was made for the in between times for meals or respite. We were on our own and wandered a mall. There was no ‘love offering’ to cover our travel expenses.

          The most humbling of experiences was in the small, rural churches. Potlucks were the standard fare and the church was full when we returned from someone’s home who had taken us in for the afternoon. Upon our return, we would often be notified by MMS of persons who offered us support and wanted to receive our newsletters. More often than naught, it was the elderly widows living on very fixed incomes who would be the supporters. Yes, I was humbled and learned much from their example.

          Suffice it to say, we never were able to raise the amount of support we needed to go forward in the mission and health issues precluded our ability to travel half way around the world to serve our Lord.

          In review, what did I learn? To yield. And still I struggle with that! I am always keenly aware when I am being asked to yield. My spine still stiffens, but my spirit does not. That alone causes me to relax. As Oswald Chambers wrote, “He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him— and that is something very different.”

Wishing you everyday grace,
Tamara
Hebrews 12:11 (NASB)
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.


Monday, August 25, 2014

Are We Making Good Decisions?

Saying “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is like saying “cigarettes don’t kill people, people kill people”. Even “cars don’t kill people, people kill people” can be touted. The fact is people are not making good decisions.

When it comes to guns and gun control, we know the second amendment grants us the right “to keep and bear arms”. With that being said, I think we only need to look at the first amendment that “prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion” to realize the how we may have distorted the original context our founding fathers may have intended.

Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world. We have legislative controls on drugs – both legal and illegal. Statutes designed to prevent crimes against children and women abound, yet still we have violence and death.

We as a nation have learned that no matter what laws are established, enforced, and/or regulated there are always going to be those who disobey the laws or feel they are above the law. That is why prisons abound and are in some measure overflowing and overcrowded.

On a personal note, I am still evaluating some of my long held beliefs concerning gun control and capital punishment to mention only two.

Watching the news and seeing what Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is doing and proposes is frightening. They are a very real and a very present danger to this nation and our core beliefs. 

To read and hear about persons being beheaded unless they renounce their religion and claim allegiance to ISIS is beyond comprehension. Until we open the history books and read about the Muslim Conquests in the 7th century or the Spanish Inquisition in the 12th century or the Crusades which occurred between the years of 718 – 1492.

All these wars, all the loss of life and destruction was done in the name of God in an attempt to “convert” peoples to either Christendom or Allah. I do not believe the Prince of Peace was involved in any of these historical events. Nor do I believe He was involved in the “manifest destiny” which was the widely held belief that American settlers were destined to expand throughout the continent that included the decimation of the native peoples who previously inhabited these lands. The establishment of chattel slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries caused a divisive split in this nation and a civil war. 

I hope that I would have been an abolitionist during that era, or helping to house those traveling on the Underground Railroad. So many factors would come into play, such as where in the nation my family resided and what my spiritual beliefs were.

All I know for today is that I want to be a part of community - the community of faith and to be Christ to someone who may need a touch from the Prince of Peace.

Wishing you everyday grace,
Tamara

Psalm 34:14 (NASB) 
Depart from evil and do good;
Seek peace and pursue it.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Holy, Wholly, Holey

The long dimly lit road of clinical depression seems to never end. Even on the darkest of days the simple act of breathing is an act of hope. The “dark night of the soul” is how I often refer to my walk with depression.

Ann Voskamp publishes a blog entitled A Holy Experience and she recently wrote concerning mental health: Our Bible says Jesus said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick.” Jesus came for the sick, not for the smug. You can read her wisdom here

I still believe that life should be lived as Eucharist theology…hearts are made to be broken and loved in all that brokenness. 

First Corinthians 11: 23-26 reads, “Let me go over with you again exactly what goes on in the Lord’s Supper and why it is so centrally important. I received my instructions from the Master himself and passed them on to you. The Master, Jesus, on the night of his betrayal, took bread. Having given thanks, he broke it and said,
This is my body, broken for you.
Do this to remember me.
After supper, he did the same thing with the cup:
This cup is my blood, my new covenant with you.
Each time you drink this cup, remember me.
What you must solemnly realize is that every time you eat this bread and every time you drink this cup, you reenact in your words and actions the death of the Master. You will be drawn back to this meal again and again until the Master returns. You must never let familiarity breed contempt.” 

Yes, brokenness, doesn’t that describe all of us? Broken in one way or another, yet some seek to sit at the Master’s feet hoping to be healed. While others turn away.

The psalmist wrote, “Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none.” 
- Psalm 69:20 (NIV)

What happens when the healing doesn't come? Do we lose faith and turn away? Some do. Some do not. Some stay the course in spite and despite the lack of “a cure”. They become a living witness to those of us who recognize their struggle. 

They are numbered among those who by the mere act of putting one foot in front of the other continue on and praise God even when the pain and depression washes over them like an unholy wave. In them I see grace, every day, grace. 

We hear their chorus of “holy, wholly, holey” for they are indeed sanctified, complete(ly) and worn. May we lift them ever higher through the act of prayer.

Even so, Amen!

Wishing you everyday grace,

Tamara

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Due to Circumstances Beyond My Control...

"The miracle of mindfulness in the savoring of the ordinary life is the lens unto the sacred."   Dolores Leckey, Seven Essentials of the Spiritual Journey
Due to circumstances beyond my control... generally speaking, most circumstance ARE beyond my control! I deactivated my Facebook account and my Pinterest account recently. I grew weary of the "drama" on FB and the accidental posting of my physical address (don't ask...). Most of you are aware of my previous long term employment, it's not a good idea to have your address posted for former incarcerated persons to find. I already had a former inmate send me a message on FB. I found that to be rather disconcerting and I ignored the message.

As far as Pinterest is concerned, I should have put all my pins under one heading, "Things I Love and Will Never Get Around to Doing". Yes, it was merely a collection of things that "caught" my eye and then I hoarded and herded them into cute and creative cyber files such as Creature Comforts for recipes. Believe it or not, I even had one for Minimalist pins! What? Hoarding pins for minimalist reasons? 

In all honesty, the first two weeks were like going through the "withdrawals" from these social media sites. What I can tell you is that I have gained some time back into my day! I often had kidded that "Do you suppose that on my death-bed God will return those wasted on-line hours to me?" No, that will not happen. I am tasked with making the most of my hours now, today, at this very point in my existence.

So, what am I doing with my "new" found time? I am reading an interesting book on my Kindle. It is entitled "Spotting the Sacred: Noticing God in the Most Unlikely Places" by Bruce Main. It was a free (yes, you read that correctly - F.R.E.E.) offering from Amazon! 

A quote that Main's wrote, is "French mathematician Blaise Pascal believed the greatest enemy not only to prayer but also of the whole spiritual life of a person was inattention, drowsiness, and complacency. Pascal called this inattention "the Gethsemane Sleep." 

The God-Life is present in the actions of ordinary people and he (Christ) used these God-present actions as illustrations for spiritual growth, and then challenged his listeners to digest these observations and use them as motivation for acting more God-like in the world.

How often do we notice successful persons yet fail to notice that behind that facade of confidence are often brokenness and dysfunction? The challenge is to retrain our eyes, our hearts, and our ears to view life differently and more deeply.

Theologian Frederick Buechner claims that Jesus possessed the ability to notice God's presence in the ordinary stuff of life. Beuchner wrote, "All his life long, wherever Jesus looked, he saw the world not in terms simply of brokeness . . . but in terms of the ultimate mystery of God's presence buried in it like a treasure buried in a field." He continued, "and sometimes even in the midst of our confused and broken relationship with ourselves, with each other, with God, we catch glimpses of that holiness and wholeness which, not matter how buried and unrecognized, are still part of who we are."

You see, I've been attempting to find grace every single day and to list it in my journal. Hence, the change to my header. That was also the challenge given to me at the beginning of this year. 

It is almost like being a child again and changing the game name from "Eye Spy" to "I Spy God" and then being keenly aware that it was, in fact, God who provided the divine opportunity! I no longer want to be in "the Gethsemane Sleep" and miss an appointment with my Creator or his creation.

I think paring down the computer social media was and is inline with the previous year's goal of minimizing. Along with this we've also eliminated the cost of cable television or satellite television. We are using an antenna for the purpose of watching local television. We are getting over 30 stations, and more than half of them are in Spanish. Not to worry. My favorite channel is PBS.

My favorite programs on Netflix appear to be those produced in Canada. There was a short run series called Alphas that I liked, and now there's Continuum that centers around time travel. Both of these are Canadian - thank you my brothers and sisters to the North! Most of the regular stations (CBS, NBC and ABC) all offer some of their programs online. We can connect the computer to the television and watch if we are so inclined.

The news has been problematic for me. Sometimes I declare a moratorium on the news due to its negative impact. I am so opposed to our involvement in the middle east. Hubs and I were just talking about it the other day. Syria, Iran and Iraq have all been in existence for a number of millenia. Our nation merely for over a couple of hundred years. How do we propose to be their peace keepers? It would be like a two year old telling his great, great grandfather how to live his life.

I mourn over seeing the cost of war to those whose lives are ravaged by it. My heart and soul hurt for the Syrians, the Israelis and the Palestinians and now those in Iraq and Iran being uprooted by I.S.I.S.

The current ebola crisis that is effecting west Africa. The national authorities of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia have activated their national emergency committees, prepared Ebola virus disease response plans and carried out needs assessments.

WHO's (World Health Organization) Regional Director for Africa, Luis Sambo, visited the affected countries from 21 to 25 July, meeting with political leaders, ministers of health, and other agencies. He stressed the need to "promote behavioural change while respecting cultural practices."

I only need to look to my state's southern border to see the influx of children, mere children who are seeking peace and less turmoil in their own lives. I mourn for their parents who send them on their way, not knowing the outcome - have their sons and daughters made it safely here? Only to be sent back to their native country by our government while some have died in transit.

My husband related this to me: A reporter was at a site where protesters were decrying the treatment of the child immigrants. The reporter asked the person he was interviewing, "How many children will you be taking into your home to care for until this crisis is remedied?" The interviewee turned and walked away from the camera. It is one thing to decry and protest, but entirely another to open one's home. Dear God, touch my heart and pierce my spirit, I pray!

The only thing I know for certain is there can be no peace without justice. And justice seems to be fleeting in the realms of our nation and in this world.

Within the past month the state of Arizona attempted to execute a death row inmate. It took nearly two hours for this Arizona death row inmate to die. Executioners injected him with 15 times the amount of a sedative and a painkiller that they originally intended to use. This is unacceptable and horrific. Frankly, this is causing me to review and reevaluate my stand on capital punishment and the incarceration of non-violent offenders. I've previously stated how opposed I am to the privatization of prisons. They are a "for profit" business that precludes the necessity to provide offenders with any type of training that would help them with skills to prevent recidivism.

Perhaps it is Bible study and the digestion of the book I am reading that is causing me to reflect upon my long held "beliefs". Reflecting upon our established beliefs in not a bad thing and it can lead to change, not unlike repentance.

Wishing you everyday grace,

Tamara

Proverbs 21:3  New American Standard Bible

To do righteousness and justice
Is desired by the Lord more than sacrifice.