Walking on a Winter Wednesday, down by the Water

   Too often, after writing down in this blog what I have felt to be important in my life, I forget it quickly, and, at the end of the day, realize that, although I have been led to think on and write about something, I have failed to live it.

   How is that for a sentence with a bunch of commas in it?

   Yesterday, I was challenged to do my best in all the circumstances I found, to consciously think, when choices came up, of the best thing I could do.

   I don't know how many choices I overlooked, but I did manage to consider the alternatives some of the time. One such choice was how to spend my morning.

   It was a pretty day, sunny but chilly. One thing that my wife likes to do is to go down into the Village area and walk by the ocean, so, instead of just doing stuff around the house, I took her there.

   The paths are level and a good place for her to walk. The crowds are not there in the winter, and there would be time to dawdle along and talk to people along the way. The sun and wind were also factors.

   I also had on my agenda for yesterday to write a letter to a boy in Kenya that we sponsor through the Compassion program, so I took my camera for some shots of our Island to send to him.

   What we saw mostly were people.

   People watching the ocean.

   People feeding the seagulls.

   People with dogs. They said he was a Doodle dog.

   People rockin', restin', readin' on the porch by the Library.

   And we stopped to chat with strangers on vacation. The first couple was from near Roanoke, VA, close to where we lived for 3 years a few years back. When we asked a second couple, a few benches farther down on the path, they also said they were from near Roanoke. They were as surprised as we were when we told them about the first couple we just had talked to, no doubt feeling that they were the only ones from that area on the Island that particular day. Small world.

   Then it was a couple from Allentown, PA and another from Philadelphia.

   The walk was good. The weather was not windy, but sunny and getting warmer. The people were nice.

   It was a good decision to make on this day, and I was glad that I had thought of a better thing to do on a Winter Wednesday.

   It was the right thing to do. No regrets.

 

Dangerous Thinking...

   As I reread Matthew chapter 6 this morning, I thought of the 9 valentines that yesterday I had stuffed into envelopes to go in the mailbox today. (7 grandchildren and 2 foster grands)

   Here were 9 young lives that needed to be pointed to the path for good living, as Matthew describes it. Like these:

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them"

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth"

“So do not worry about tomorrow" (or be anxious)

   What if they could grasp these early in their lives and pattern their days in this way? Two of these kids are in college, and the rest are on the ladder toward that. Their lives are in front of them.

      "Do the best you can with what you have where you are"

   There is that old past, present, future thing, again. If we live the best we can each day, we don't have to keep looking over our shoulder at the past, nor worrying about living with our regrets in the future.

   I got up in the quiet this morning and had an hour before anyone else stirred. Time to think on all these things as I read, but soon things changed, and there were things to do.

   While in the midst of coffee and oatmeal, newspaper and conversation, plans and memories, I found myself being anxious about what I could write that might sum up what was percolating through my brain.

   Then the thought: What I'm doing right now is important and even that is worth doing to the best of my ability. What if I did everything, I mean everything, the best I could, could I look with satisfaction on my efforts, all my efforts?

   So I come back and think, then write it down, and then I wonder...

   Could I live one whole day that way?

   What would it look like to live one whole day the best I could?

   Not yesterday, not tomorrow….Today

I Want Honesty in Prayer

   Yesterday, the pastor giving the sermon in our church talked from Matthew 6, the verses involved in the Lord's Prayer: (NASB)

“Pray, then, in this way:

‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
 ‘Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
 ‘Give us this day [e]our daily bread.
 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
 ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’]

   This morning, as a part of my reading in Matthew, I came to the same verses, and, I thought, there must be something here that I need to focus my attention on.

   Now I have to confess that the act of praying this prayer, out loud in a worship service, is hard for me. It is not because I do not believe, it is the feeling of rote that stops my voice from participating.

   I honestly try not to put motives in other's lives, but the voices that I hear, seem to be devoid of passion and more in the tone of "this is what we do at this time in our service". I wonder to myself how much of prayer to God is involved and how much of knowing the right words to say.

   So I am often silent when this prayer is a part of the ritual of a service.

   I read the prayer in Matthew and Luke, and I try to see the meaning in each of the words and phrases. It is a powerful praise and petition to God, with meaning that transcends my thinking.

   And when I pray these words, I want to have time to dwell on the meaning. It is just not something I can do while I try to repeat them along with others and being led from the front. It does become rote for me, and I don't feel that I honor God in that way.

   That is just me.

   I want my silence, not to be a condemning of other's prayers, but an honest effort to be in tune with God and what He wants to show me as I pray.

   So, if I am standing next to you one day, and I do not voice the words when the congregation leader asks us to speak this prayer, it is all about my inability, and nothing about anyone else.

   And, I do believe...

 

Business As Usual

   Just another day.

   Up, reading, walking, breakfast, checking email, and so it was this morning.

   Then there was this one particular email, asking for prayer for Christians, specific individuals, who were in the throes of persecution.

   I remembered a verse from Matthew 5 in my readings earlier, verse 10:

   “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

   And just as I am about to delete the email, I notice the sender's name.

   iCommitToPray.

   I had felt burdened by the stories of people around the world who were being persecuted for their faith in Jesus, and I signed up to pray for them.

   Here I was about to toss this email in the trash without even reading it, just like another piece of spam. Some commitment!

   So I read, and I prayed, and I felt ashamed that I did not care much about them at all, and what they were going through.

 

A teenage girl, Naigaga Saidha, was beaten and disowned by her Muslim family after she confessed her faith in Christ during an evangelism event in the remote village of Bwite. Naigaga has recovered from her injuries and is now living in another village with a family of Christian converts from Islam who care for other disowned children.

   And I wondered if this day would be "just another day", or "business as usual" for them, and what would that entail?

I Can Do It Myself...

   One of the books I mentioned yesterday,

   This guy is hiking the Appalachain Trail, a 2,000 plus mile walkway from the mountains of North Georgia to the mountains of Maine, and he is doing it alone. Like a turtle, he carries what he needs with him. He crosses into civilization occasionally, but, except for this resupply, he's got it all in his backpack.

   He is his own cook, his own doctor and his own psychiatrist on the long walk, and he has a "can do" attitude. He meets others on the trail, and in the towns along the way, but they are only bit actors, not part of any supporting cast.

   He does not say it in the book, but to me he seems like one of my kids who would say when I wanted to help get something done, "I can do it myself".

   I was reading the above book before I went to sleep last night, and this morning, something in my reading made me think of that "can do" attitude.

   I was in Matthew 5, in the Beatitudes section, and I paused at verse 3.

   "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

   There are 7 "Blessed"s in these next verses, and, even as each verse begins with "Blessed are..", all the other 6 after verse 3, end the sentence with "they shall", denoting a future event.

   Verse 3 ends with "their's is…", denoting present tense.

   Who are the "poor in spirit", and why is their blessed state in the here and now?

   From the reading of several commentaries on these verses, I understand that it is not lack of money or material possessions Jesus is talking about. He is referring to those who realize a poverty of spiritual things. They understand that they cannot do it all themselves.

   "To be poor in spirit is to have a humble opinion of ourselves; to be sensible that we are sinners, and have no righteousness of our own; to be willing to be saved only by the rich grace and mercy of God; to be willing to be where God places us, to bear what he lays on us, to go where he bids us, and to die when he commands; to be willing to be in his hands, and to feel that we deserve no favor from him."

   They are satisfied to be where God has placed them.

   I want to live that way. I don't want to just do it my way, I want to do it the right way.

   Not having read to the end of the book, but yet not seeing any reference to God in the narrative, I don't know the spiritual condition of the hiker, but I can realize that God is on the AT, regardless of whether or not he is seen.

   And this hiker is not doing it by himself.

   Prevenient Grace: "this is the grace that “goes before”—that grace which precedes human action and reflects God’s heart for his creation."

   Hopefully we will all find that we definitely cannot do it by ourselves.

Words On A Page

   I like to read. My kids know this, and many times over the years, I have gotten books as presents. They are always appreciated, and I read them in the knowledge that someone thought I would enjoy them and picked them out for that reason.

   Other people mention books that they have read, and they think that I would like them too.

   Books are more that just "words on a page", they can be windows into the soul, of the writer and of the reader.

   I like books that are personal in nature; ones that show the hearts of the characters portrayed, be they fictional or real. Ones that ask the question, "is that me?" or "how would I fit in here?"

   Here is what I have read thus far in the new year:

   Visions and Voices, a pictorial look into the one-room schoolhouses in Montana, with photographs and testimonies of the ones who taught there and those that were taught.

   In the Kingdom of Ice, a book about Arctic exploration in the late 1800s, the struggles to reach the North Pole by boat.

   AWOL on the A.T., a man's personal story of hiking the 2,172 mile Appalachain Trail.

   All of the above engage me on a personal level, asking me those questions about my life, what I might do in those situations, how I might respond to those environments. They are more than just "words on a page".

   I read other things also. There is a blog by a girl that I once taught in school for a few months. She has a way with words that I like, as she writes of her personal experiences in a big city up north. Even though she lives a couple of generations below me on the age spectrum, her honest thoughts and struggles speak to me., and I try to see myself and ask, "what would I do?"

   God's Story, as recorded in the Book of Matthew, has been my reading in the mornings over this last month, as I ask the question "what would Jesus have me do in my life right now?" and "where do I fit in Life's story?".

   Readings for pleasure? Sure

   Readings for instruction? Of course

   Readings of Inspiration? Naturally

   Words on a Page? More than that,

             Glimpses into my own life and soul.

   And I am grateful to those who can write well, and to God, who can put me in His everlasting Story, and help me to see it.

   Psalm 31:15, a Psalm of David

   "My times are in Your hand;"

   And I'm glad

A Forgotten Figure in a Manger Scene

   I was reading in Matthew 2 this morning and ran across this phrase:

 "an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "

   That got me to thinking about a man, one who was critical to the Christmas Story, but did not gather much press after that one event in time…Joseph, the husband of Mary, the leader of that family unit that included the Savior, Jesus Christ.

   Here is a man, a strong man, a compassionate man, a listening man, a man God spoke to through his angel, not once but several times over those years.

   As I think about his life, what little we know of it, I am struck by what he brought to the story. The life of Jesus was in his hands, and he responded.

   He is maybe forgotten for the most part, but with his concern for Mary, for the child, and the importance of his obedience to the voice of God through the angel, he looms large in the story.

   In the manger scene we used at Christmas, I can't even find him, but I know he is there, and I will try to put him in the proper perspective next year.

   I'm glad his name jumped out at me from those few verses. He is a role model for all us fathers.