Open Doors, Closed Doors

While we're on the subject of a "second calling," here's something F.B. Meyer said:

When you are unsure which course to take, totally submit your own judgment to that of the Spirit of God, asking Him to shut every door except the right one,

But meanwhile keep moving ahead and consider the absence of a direct indication from God to be the evidence of His will that you are on His path.

And as you continue down the long road, you will find that He has gone before you, locking doors you otherwise would have been inclined to enter.

Yet you can be sure that somewhere beyond the locked doors is one He has left unlocked.

And when you open it and walk through, you will find yourself face to face with a turn in the river of opportunity--one that is broader and deeper than anything you ever dared to imagine, even in your wildest dreams. So set sail on it, because it flows to the open sea.

I LOVE the imagery of this, but I''m not sure I agree with his idea of considering the absence of a direct indication from God to be evidence that you're on the right path.

Maybe it's ok to a point, but I think at some point you've gotta have a WORD!

What do the rest of you think?

You've Got to Have Friends!!!

Here's another excerpt from the "Second Calling" book:

I remember a time when a woman I barely knew at work asked to go to lunch with me and then blurted out that she wished she had more friends. I remember nearly choking on my sandwich as I tried to encourage her to get out, take a class...anything but look at me as a potential friend. I was working so hard at that point that just going out for lunch was a burden. Even my longtime friends were feeling neglected during that time. I would sometimes call them during my long commute; otherwise, they were lucky to hear from me for months. I finally told the woman that I made a lousy friend, looked at my watch, and said I needed to get back to work.

Now I see how confused I was about the priorities of life. I wish someone had told me that if I was too busy for friends, then I was too busy.

And THAT is why I ate lunch after church today with Susan, Carol, Brenda and Sandy, and why I conversed a couple of times by email with Annette and Laura this afternoon, and why I'm taking a day off tomorrow to spend time with Lisa and her girls.

IF I'M EVER TOO BUSY FOR FRIENDS, I'LL BE TOO BUSY!

Second Calling

OK, Annette and Carol and anyone else at a crossroads! I've just finished reading "Second Calling: Finding Passion and Purpose for the Rest of Your Life" by Dale Hanson Bourke, who was a superwoman-type business executive, also editor of Today's Christian Woman at one time, currently volunteering with groups like World Vision and International Justice Mission.

These things really spoke to me:

ABOUT GETTING OLDER--

God, as it turns out, doesn't really care if we are sagging or graying or aching. In God's economy, the fact that we are becoming less physically attractive may be just the way he wants us. God is mostly concerned with one aspect of us: our hearts. He wants them to be in tip-top shape. He wants them strong, responsive and enthusiastic.

WHAT REALLY MATTERS--

To come to a place where I must slow down a bit and consider what I'm doing is a gift from God. I don't want to waste any more time running after "the good that is not the best," as Oswald Chambers puts it.

It's not a loss of ambition; it's a willingness to find a new identity and to let that identity be defined by a holy calling rather than what other people believe you should be doing. What strikes me is how counterintuitive this sense is. Few decisions made in our second stage of life represent a natural progression toward what has been built in the first half of life. It's as if we have to completely turn our backs on our first-half identities in order to invest fully in our second callings.

One of the most surprising aspects of this new season of my life is a strange disinterest in goal setting. My goal setting has often been replaced by praying and a profound sense that if God doesn't set my goal, it isn't worth achieving. Prayer is our passport to the greatest adventure of our lives. If we do nothing else in the second half of life, we must learn to pray. In fact, I am beginning to believe that prayer itself is our primary calling. Everything else is just gravy.

I'm excited about what God is going to do with my life when I retire, but I think the thing that hit me the hardest was this quote: "The Christian life can only be lived in the present." I need to quit trying to figure out what my future holds. When people ask me what I'm going to do when I retire, which happens EVERY DAY, I guess I'll just say that I'll know when God tells me! I have a couple of visions that could be God-given, but time will tell. I don't even NEED to know right now...

Apocalypse Now?

With things escalating in Israel, I was interested in this entry on another blog today.

It would seem foolhardy to suggest that we're not living in the last days, but some of us are itching for Armageddon. True, world events seem to be escalating toward a climax. But then again, they have been for 2,000 years (see Acts 2:17; 2 Tim. 3:1; Heb. 1:2; 2 Pet. 3:3, etc.). I'm sure those believers who endured the fall of Jerusalem, the black plague, the inquisition, the Holocaust and the bombing of Hiroshima were watching the second hand of the doomsday clock with particular interest.

I must confess: I grew up hearing the imagery of Armageddon--imagery of the variety that I was forbidden from watching on television or in the movies. Horses wading in rivers of blood beneath a mushroom cloud with Larry Norman singing "I wish we'd all been ready" in the background. Scary stuff. But I was comforted by the assurance that I would be watching these events unfold from the safety of Heaven.

Since then, my eschatology has gone through a series of adjustments. I became aware of believers in China wasting away for their faith in Maoist "re-education camps." I heard stories of God-fearing Sudanese families separated and sold into slavery by Islamic extremists. I helped a destitute Sri Lankan pastor distribute tsunami aid to Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims in his town--only to hear several months later that he was beaten to within an inch of his life by a mob of angry Buddhists. Needless to say, the prospect of skipping tribulation now seemed a little self-serving at best.

Unfortunately, our Western versions of eschatology have bred some unhealthy extremes. Some of us are nearly giddy about the bloody precursors to the Second Coming. If Jesus warned that there would be "wars and rumors of wars" before His return, why would we want to delay His arrival by seeking peace? Others are convinced that the church will eventually so infiltrate society that Jesus will return to a world already conquered by His people. This group seems unaware that those who overcame the beast did so with their blood, not at the ballot box.

Now, I'm not delusional enough to think that all evangelicals can unite under the banner of one eschatological perspective. However, in the eyes of the secular world (and many evangelicals like myself), the two options of dominionism and escapism leave something to be desired and demonstrate an embarrassing level of disunity on a very relevant topic of discussion.

The Second Coming is not something to be feared and loathed--or gleefully anticipated for the destruction of our enemies. It's not an evangelistic bludgeon or a tool for the opportunistic to promote their political agenda. It is the V-Day to the cross's D-Day, the fulfillment of God's promise to dwell with His people, wipe every tear from their eyes and finish making all things new.

Sure, in modern parlance, John was freaked out when he saw what was to come, but not too freaked out to say, "Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!"

Matt Green, editor
Ministry Today

I loved that! It's exactly how I feel!!

Ok, I've blogged early, so I can snuggle up with a good book tonight! I've got two--"Exodus" by Leon Uris, which takes place during the l948 Israeli war, and "Second Calling," which will inspire me as I think about retirement!

The Years the Locusts Have Eaten

Another thing Mark Buchanan says is:

The right thing is faith--to have faith in the one who doesn't always remedy life's unfairness, but who does far better. He redeems it--its unfairness, its brokenness, its disease and death, and He gives us back sevenfold all the years the locusts have eaten.

I can vouch for that!! Today I got to spend the entire day with the grandchildren God has given me, not flesh-of-my-flesh-and-bone-of-my-bone grandchildren, but grandchildren nonetheless!!

I lost a granddaughter, but God gave me TWO in exchange! Emily is the age Madeline was when she died, and Samantha is the age Madeline would be if she had lived!

Doesn't God come up with great ideas???

Pride

Once someone came up to Mark Buchanan after church and said, "Pastor Mark, when did you finally overcome your pride?" He was serious. Mark says:

There was a movie made in the late 90s called "The Saint." Val Kilmer plays a master of espionage and burglary. He's a man of many disguises--a Russian commando, a sniveling journalist, a mystic poet, an effeminate booking agent--but he always takes the name of a saint. His disguises are so thorough, so precise in detail, that they fool even those who know him intimately or who are on the hunt for him. In one scene he sits down right beside the man who has been obsessively tracking him for years. He looks straight at the man and asks him a question. The man has no idea it's him.

That's what pride is like. It keeps showing up in disguise, bearing a saint's name, mingling freely in the crowd, unrecognized by even those who seek it out. When that young man asked me about my secret to conquering pride, I had a surge of pride in thinking how very godly I must look. There it was, pride, sitting down right beside me and duping me again. Pascal once said that real humility is so elusive that when he wrote about it, he often felt proud of how eloquently he'd written.

I was reminded of this by something that happened to me at church tonight. My little support group and I encouraged and prayed with T.M., and I even ended up talking to the elders on her behalf, and tomorrow I plan to help her and her husband L. fill out the application form to go to an excellent rehab.

See, I could have told you that much and you would have been impressed. Frankly, I thought about it.

But the whole truth is, the REST of my little support group and I ate lunch together Sunday WITHOUT HER and seriously discussed canceling the group for awhile because T. monopolizes the conversation. Well, wasn't THAT a Jesus-like response to her needs?

Now you know the rest of the story.

I don't know why God puts up with me sometimes.

Uzzah and the ox cart

Back to Mark Buchanan's book, "Your God Is Too Safe," he talks about the time in 2 Sam. 6 when David brings the ark to Jerusalem--

And as it comes, David dances. His dance is a kinetic outburst of sheer joy. It is a pantomime of trust and surrender.

But things go tragically awry. There's an accident: An ox stumbles, a cart lurches, the ark of the covenant totters, slides, threatens to tumble to the ground. Uzzah the priest is right there, though...when the moment of crisis comes, Uzzah is prepared, saving the day.

God smote him dead. Why? Uzzah simply tried to keep the ark from tumbling to the ground.

This is why:
Uzzah's idea of carrying the ark on an oxcart was in clear breach of divine command. He forgets the one thing needed: worship. This is supposed to be about worship.

Uzzah teaches us, at great personal cost, a valuable lesson about God. God is not safe. God is not a household diety, kept in our safekeeping. And--be warned--God's safety is not our business.

The safest thing to do with a God like this is not to play it safe with him. It is never to get so caught up in keeping the traditions or hastening the innovations that we forget to throw ourselves headlong into His brusque and tender embrace. It is to never get so busy protecting God that we fail to take refuge in him. It is to never become so preoccupied in our Keep God Safe march that we forget to dance before our God with all our might...tripping the light fantastic all the way into the holy wild.

I wanna dance!!! Is anybody with me??

The Israel-Lebanon conflict

Having not entered Lebanon when I went to Israel in March, I guess I didn't relate much at first to the conflict going on there. Now that I realize that Nazareth was bombed, it makes me very sad. I loved Nazareth! We went to the town well (of course, it had a gaudy church on top of it!) and archeologists are quite certain that it's the same well where Jesus would have played around as a child (because there has never been another spring in the town of Nazareth).

I saw firsthand from our Palestinian guide the bitterness of the Arabs who lost everything in the war of 1948. The idea of the Jews and Arabs ever living in peace seems like a joke to me, and yet I know we're supposed to pray for it.

Anyway, here's an article from Christianity Today about it:


Christian Arabs in Israel have mixed loyalties. As non-Muslim Arabs and citizens of Israel, many of us have adopted a cynical, seen-it-all spectator pose.

We imagined we would have the same attitude in this round of reprisals between Israel and Hezbollah. We had no dog in this fight, so we lacked total sympathy toward either.

On the one hand, Israel—the spoiled boy of the region supported by the great superpower—was provoked this time by a Muslim fundamentalist Lebanese militia that killed Israeli soldiers near the border and kidnapped others. Israel was furious and reacted with raids from air, land, and sea. Great destruction and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese became refugees. Israel overreacted.

On the other hand Hezbollah—led by the charismatic leader Hassan Nasrallah (ironically his name meaning "the victory of God")—has allegiance to lunatic Iranian leaders and had no right to attack and kidnap Israeli soldiers when, six years ago, Israel withdrew from Lebanon behind the international border.

Hezbollah (meaning "the party of God") reacted to Israel's sophisticated attacks by bombarding civilians in the northern parts of Israel using simple missiles.

The people of Nazareth thought they were immune. First, it is an Arab town in the lower Galilee region of Israel where one-half of its 70,000 residents are Muslim. Secondly it is a town located 30 miles away from the Israeli-Lebanese border—a distance that Hezbollah missiles have not been able to reach in the past.

It's raining missiles
We got the first warning on Monday night around 11:30. I was sitting in front of the TV trying to catch the latest news about the war from four different stations (two Israeli and two Arab). Suddenly I heard a boom. Then my mom called. She has never called during the hours when my children are asleep. Within a few seconds, Israeli TV reported that missiles fell in Nazareth Illit (a Jewish town east of Nazareth), and in Givat Ela (a small Jewish settlement on the western side of Nazareth). My home is located approximately halfway between both locations. No casualties were reported.

It seems that the Hezbollah fighters are not accurate in where they aim their missiles. We naively reckoned that they would not hit an Arab town. These missiles launched at the neighboring settlements were not going to transform our apathy and cynical perspective as people caught in the middle of crossfire.

On Wednesday afternoon I was working on my laptop in my office on the ground floor of our home. Three more missiles hit Nazareth. One landed on an empty garage in the middle of Nazareth, miraculously not causing deaths, only damaging the building and causing minor injuries to pedestrians.

The second fell in a poor neighborhood and killed 3- and 8-year-old brothers who were playing near their home. They were Muslim.

The third fell about half a mile from my home on undeveloped land. I heard the explosion and rushed to see my family. They were anxious. The TV was on high volume. Land lines as well as mobile phones were ringing and my 3-year-old daughter was restless. Obviously she wondered what was happening and why she was deprived for a moment the attention she was used to.

We hold a Bible study in the Baptist church on Wednesday evenings. Should we cancel it because of the shock and dismay in Nazareth? No way. We decided to convert the Bible study to a prayer meeting. We had prayed the day before for peace, too.

Called as peacemakers
Such terrifying experiences like missiles raining on your neighborhood have a tendency to raise "purpose-driven" questions: Did Jesus put us here in his hometown without a purpose?

To the Christians in Nazareth, the answer was obvious. We had simply neglected it. Our calling as the remnant of Christians in the birthplace of our faith is to pray for the people of this broken land.

As followers of Christ, we have an obligation to become intercessors for the lost. We should also share with courage the prophetic message of the truth. Leaders in the Middle East have failed in bringing us into an era of peace. It is merely a chronicle of continuing violence pockmarked with ceasefires. The voice of the peacemaker urging reconciliation in the midst of enmity and hostility should be heard clearly.

Less than a mile from where a Hezbollah missile hit the empty garage in Nazareth, the Prince of Peace declared: "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

It was realized 2,000 years ago when God sent his son to give hope. He was the anointed who said:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. (Luke 4:18-19)
Will his followers rise to the challenge of reflecting this message of compassion, love, care, justice, and mercy to the nations in this troubled area?

The author of this Christianity Today article, Botrus Mansour, is a lawyer and general director of Nazareth Baptist School.

Flinging myself into the wind

More from Mark Buchanan, this time on the mysterious working of the Holy Spirit:

That a faith based on staggering mysteries--the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Cross and Resurrection, the imparting of the Spirit--should have become shorn of mystery, so plodding and prosaic, so mundane and managerial, is a bitter irony. It's an irony that Jesus' famous statement to Nicodemus, you must be born again, has in our hands been turned into a slogan and a formula. Out of Jesus' mouth, in Nicodemus's ear, that statement proclaimed a staggering mystery. It was the ultimate antiformula.

"The wind blows wherever it pleases," Jesus goes on to tell Nicodemus, who struggles in his literalism and rationalism to understand. "You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).

This is no formula. This is a description of the in-breaking and surprising move of God. This is something we can't work for, work up, predict, direct. It doesn't slot neatly into a program. You just hear it coming and fling yourself headlong into the hurricane.

I decided some years ago to just fling myself headlong into the hurricane whenever and wherever I hear the Holy Spirit blowing, and what a trip it has been! I've met my best friends in the hurricane, people like me who just want more of God and aren't afraid to let the Holy Spirit work however he wants to. Thanks, my hurricane friends, especially Annette and T-Mark!

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God Is Not Safe!

Mark Buchanan, one of my favorite authors, says this:

The safe god asks nothing of us, gives nothing to us. He never drives us to our knees in hungry, desperate praying and never sets us on our feet in fierce, fixed determination.

He never makes us bold to dance. The safe god never whispers in our ears anything but greeting card slogans and certainly never asks that we embarrass ourselves by shouting out from the rooftop.

A safe god inspires neither awe, nor worship, nor sacrifice.

The safe god has pretty much killed the power of recognition in us, and so when the real God comes into our midst, we mostly don't even bother to look up.

The safe god has no power to console us in grief or shake us from complacency or rescue us from the pit. He just putters in his garden, smiles benignly, waves now and then, and mostly spends a lot of time in his room doing puzzles.

It's as though God was a half-daft old uncle, hair sprouting from his ears, a bit runny about the eyes, winking at our little pranks and peccadilloes.

Well, that's nice.

BUT GOD ISN'T NICE. GOD ISN'T SAFE. GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE.

God's main business is not ensuring that you and I get parking spaces close to the mall entrance or that the bed sheets in the color we want are--miracle!--on sale this week.

HIS MAIN BUSINESS IS MAKING YOU AND ME HOLY.

I may share more from this book, "Your God Is Too Safe," in the next few days. This book convicts me, challenges me, even haunts me. I can't get over it.

An Intricate Tapestry

I just read this quote: "Behind all the causes, effects, and surprises in our lives, God's hand is moving. My history and yours are intertwined with everyone else's in an intricate tapestry of events, none of which are outside God's control. And in this elaborate confluence of things, everything matters."

I had flashbacks of "the old days" at the Peach Festival parade today. I remembered Ginger and all her little friends wearing their frilly dresses and riding on the Princess Elberta float. I also remembered both Jody and Ginger in their ball uniforms, riding in trucks with their teammates and throwing candy out into the crowd.

Wasn't that just yesterday? How did they get in their 30s so fast?!

Thankfully, the intricate tapestry of my life has a couple of new little children woven in by God's design, at least for now. I got to collect my precious "borrowed grandchildren" after we all finished passing out water in the Peach Festival parade, and they spent the rest of the day with me! We went to McDonald's for lunch (Emily was scared of Ronald McDonald so we spent most of our time outside), and Samantha and I watched cartoons while Emily napped and then we splashed and played in the unheated hot tub on the deck (thank God for a shade tree over it) for THREE HOURS. Then Joe brought us home some pizza, which we ate while playing a Polly Pockets game on my computer.

It was a great day, and tomorrow is Sunday, which is always my favorite day of the week, so LIFE IS GOOD, AT LEAST ON WEEKENDS! Work is another story, and we won't talk about that.

Passion

This was written by a counselor, Katie Brazelton, not me, but I liked it, so I thought I'd just post it before I curl up with a good book tonight. TGIF!!


I'm passionate about puzzles. Okay, maybe "passionate" is overstating it, but I'm a puzzle enthusiast who's watched God transform my hobby into a ministry of helping women unscramble the puzzles of their lives to find their unique purpose.

We use the word "passion" to characterize everything from a sports fanatic's enthusiasm to the impulse that motivates a dastardly crime. In a world that's passion-driven instead of purpose-driven, is it OK for a good Christian woman like me to talk about living a life of passion?

Passion is the sizzle that makes life worth living. Passion is what God puts into each of us and what we experience when we live the life he designed for us to live. Living for God can transform your casual hobbies, job, ministry, or childhood dreams into world-changing passions. Your passions may have to be put on hold for a season, but you'll know when you're finally living in your "sweet spot" because of the extravagance and abandon with which you humbly give yourself away.

I meet women every day who struggle to find their life purpose. They live with uncertainty about what they should do to please God. But I've seen time and time again how God-given passion unlocks women from their guilt and frees them to do and be what God designed them to do and be, which leads to significance beyond measure.

Advancing the Kingdom in the Kitchen
The Bible is full of examples of ordinary people whose lives were changed from average into extraordinary when they allowed God to transform their daily routines into passions. Consider Martha (Luke 10:38-42), the beleaguered martyr who wanted Jesus to tell her sister Mary to get up off her derriere and help her in the kitchen. Look in on the scene in Martha's home a few months after the famous Martha-the-whiner story took place, when Mary is about to anoint Jesus' feet:

Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. (Bold added; John 12:1-2)
Amazing! Martha's still in the kitchen, still exercising her gift of hospitality, but this time she's not complaining! A few months earlier, Martha was drained by duty. Although she was gifted with the ability to see what needed to be done, she'd been burdened by the load of doing it.

Then a miraculous event seemed to transform Martha's humdrum obligation into a reverent and worshipful, behind-the-scenes passion. She stood at her brother Lazarus' graveside four days after he died, and then watched Jesus call him out from the grave. After this, I can only imagine that serving Jesus and others in an arena that came naturally to her took on a whole new meaning. Hospitality became her unpretentious sweet spot, because she started using it to serve others, instead of to feed her ego. She was advancing God's kingdom from her kitchen.

Now, Martha's passionately serving in her area of God-given giftedness to help people practically—without complaining. Jesus equips all of us differently, and he values Martha's wholehearted, nonshowboat service, just as much as Lazarus' witness and Mary's worship.

For What It's Worth
Living a passionate life costs nothing short of everything. Scripture tells us, "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it" (Matthew 16:25). I've learned a life of passion is a sold-out life, a life born out of dying to myself, a life where I sometimes feel like a fool for Jesus.

Contrary to some popular thought, God's greatest desire for us is NOT that we be happy. It would be difficult to argue that the apostle Paul was happy and living in his sweet spot when he was in a Roman prison—even though he was passionately writing letters that were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Or dare we mistake Stephen's passionate prayers on behalf of his murderers for happiness when he was being stoned to death (Acts 7)? Some of our Christian life will be extremely difficult, and we're to passionately love God then as readily as we accept the happy times of sweet passion that he grants us.

This kind of unconditional, extravagant passion is what drove Mary to anoint Jesus' feet with a costly ointment that was probably her very dowry, her ticket to marriage (John 12:3). This is the passion that inspired King David to leap and dance before the Lord with all his might as he brought the ark back to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:14). But in these stories, you'll also notice that Mary's tearful worship made Judas angry and that David's exuberant abandon earned him a tongue-lashing from his wife. Living out your godly passion might cause people in your life to be upset with you, shy away from you, or call you crazy. The passionate life costs everything … but it's also worth everything.

Passion in the Percolator
Are you trudging through your days? God knows your obligations and commitments. He also knows when fear, guilt, shattered dreams, fatigue, a broken heart, or heavy responsibilities may be hiding the desires of your heart from view.

Trust me: God won't waste your background. He's always had plans for the assorted passions he gave you. His idea of where you're ideally suited may be far different from yours, but he's known for eons where you'll be the most fulfilled and precisely when you'll be ready.

And this is from Robert's email today on the very same subject: I pray that you and I will hear from the very same God. Who knows what He wants to say to you? I would have never dreamed just a few years ago that I would be sitting here in South Africa. It seems crazy ... but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Playing it safe is NOT safe when God calls you elsewhere! Can I hear an amen from across the big pond??? I only hope that each one of you can find the incredible satisfaction that I have deep in my soul. To know that you are being used by the maker of heaven & earth for His divine purposes is beyond description. I pray this sense of serenity, fulfillment, and joy for you my friend.

Beyond Walls

For Carol and Susan (and whoever else wants to read this):

Here's my report since you two couldn't come!

Beyond Walls was awesome! They really cut loose and sounded great! I know I'm not a music critic, and I know Mark thinks I tend to be biased, but it really WAS wonderful! They sounded like they'd been together for years!! I hope they enjoyed performing as much as the audience enjoyed hearing them!

They also had printed information for anyone who wanted to take it. Listen to what it said:

"Beyond Walls is a music ministry composed of members and friends of the Creative Arts Ministry Team at First Baptist Church in Clarksville, Arkansas. The Creative Arts Team is composed of around 45 members and friends of First Baptist (hey, I'm one of them!) and is committed to lead that fellowship in worship on Sunday mornings at 8:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. each week. If anyone is interested in a new church home, FBC is "A Place for You."

Beyond Walls' mission is to reach beyond the walls of the church to share the love of Christ through music. It is the sincere hope and focus of the band that everyone would have a relationship with Christ.

If you or someone you know would like to talk to or pray with any member of the band...Just ask. Thank you!"

Is that not COOL?! I'm so proud that I'm a member of a church that has people willing to do all that hard work in order to touch the community.

A prayer

Lord, help me to relax about insignificant details, beginning tomorrow at 7:41:23 a.m. EST.

God, help me to consider people's feelings, even if most of them ARE hypersensitive.

God, help me to take responsibility for my own actions, even though they are usually NOT my fault.

Lord, help me to be more laid back, and help me to do it EXACTLY RIGHT.

God, help me to take things more seriously, especially laughter, parties, and dancing.

Lord, help me not be a perfectionist. (Did I write that correctly?)

God, help me to finish everything that I sta. . .

Amen

Wow!!

I had a great birthday! I think this was the first birthday I've been truly happy since Madeline died. It's so much fun being around little girls again! Samantha even gave me a Grandma card!! The Edingtons went to the Marina with us for supper, and then we went back to their house and ate cake--an awesome HOT TUB cake Lisa designed and made! I'm hoping Mark can post a picture of it on my blog sometime so everyone can see it.

It's really fun having young friends! I'm always amazed that they want to be friends with old farts like us, but it works for me!!

I also talked to both of my wonderful kids. I wish they lived closer, but I guess that's life. They're great kids and I'm so proud of them and love them bunches.

It's also SO COOL that Joe and I are still so crazy about each other after nearly 37 years of marriage.

GOD IS GOOD!!

I LOVE YOU!!!!

How awesome to have cards and email cards and presents and kind words showered on me in celebration of my birthday! But the kind words really mean the most. Here's something Nicole Nordeman said about that:


I doubt many people would argue about the power of the spoken word.

We don't need a master's in psychology to know that our hearts leap at the sound of affirming words. It's just how God wired us. Any co-worker with a new hairdo will agree. Any toddler who is potty training or husband who just closed the “big deal” will nod emphatically as well. We possess a tremendous ability to very simply "make someone's day" with heartfelt praise or to even alter the course of a life with the power of our words.

Oprah, Bill Gates, and Tiger Woods have all, at one point, attributed their early success to the empowering encouragement of someone else. Perhaps it was just a small phrase or statement, but one that was instrumental in building up or perhaps even just holding up hope and belief for a brief second. That can be all the time it takes to get someone to look at the mirror differently.

Conversely, it doesn't take that same graduate degree to know that the power of words can be unleashed as perhaps the most primitive of weapons. Most of us would agree that whoever penned that little ditty about "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" was obviously never a fifth grader. Words can not only hurt, but they can leave shrapnel in the soul long after the explosion hits and the smoke clears. Next time you need a reminder about the power of the negative word, dust off the book of James. It's been said that the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body. I think the spirit would agree.

So... having taken a moment to consider the power and impact of both our life-giving, affirming words as well as the life-robbing, destructive power of the tongue... here's one more thought to chew on, (pardon the pun). What about the power of words never spoken? For me, I can look back on my life and count too many times when I'd wished I'd listened to my gut (and the Holy Spirit) and just had the courage to open my mouth and let my heart spill out, regardless of the awkward moment. You've heard the rather overused challenge to live each day as it if were your last... but there is real wisdom there. Why wait to say "I love you?" Why wait one more day to forgive? Or to ask for forgiveness? There is a reason that Paul, in Ephesians 4, encourages us not to let the sun go down on our anger. Perhaps because he knew, as a hunted and persecuted man, that a sunrise the next morning was not something to be assumed. He understood, better than anyone, the importance of keeping his accounts short.

Say it now. Go there. The tongue might be powerful, but so are clenched teeth and a firmly set jaw. And silence can speak volumes we never meant to say. Matthew 12:34 reminds us that what is in our hearts, will come spilling out of our mouths. If your heart is full today, or even broken, consider springing a leak and letting someone know. The relief and healing that may follow will make you a believer in the power of words, all over again.


My dear friends and family, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!!!!!

Worship

Just wanted to post some thoughts on worship...

Worship itself—like love—is difficult to define. In Scripture, it is shown (such as in Psalm 89:7 and Hebrews 13:15), but not explained.

"For many people, worship means singing in a church service or listening to an album, but it's so much more than that," says musician and author Michael Card, whose latest CD, A Fragile Stone, features a collection of what might be called "thinking man's" worship songs.

In his book Jesus Among Other Gods, theologian Ravi Zacharias writes, "Worship is a posture of life that takes as its primary purpose the understanding of what it really means to love and revere God."

"Music is merely an expression of what is already going on inside of your heart," says popular praise and worship artist Ron Kenoly. "Worship is a heart attitude before it is anything else, before it becomes translated as music."

"It's a lifestyle first," concurs Mac Powell. "We tend to think of worship as something we do, accompanied by music. But it's everything we do, because we're God's children. The music is only a part of that, a way to help take our minds off the pressures of daily living and turn our undivided attention heavenward."

In his Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis suggests our temporal worship should be considered only preparation for the eternal praise we will lavish upon God in heaven: "Meanwhile, of course, we are only tuning our instruments. The tuning up of the orchestra can be itself delightful, but only to those who can, in some measure, however little, anticipate the symphony."

With that image in mind—every worshiper like a member of a symphony, playing together for an audience of One—we can understand musician and worship leader Chris Tomlin's belief that worship music helps bridge denominational divides. "Conservatives and charismatics can stand in one room, listening to the same music, worshiping the one true God," he says. "Music unites."

It does that by turning all thoughts to one deserving person, the triune God. "That's where worship differs from other music, even other Christian music," says Smith. "Instead of drawing attention to the performer, it points only to God. Its direction is vertical, not horizontal. Instead of evoking thoughts of human friendship and love, it evokes the traits of God and praises him for those traits."

Risky business?
Worship in heaven will be perfect and pure; here on earth, we're still working out the glitches.

"I had more cautions about doing a worship album than anything else I've ever done," admits Smith. "I was afraid people would immediately think I was trying to jump on this worship bandwagon thing. It's one of the few times where I've woken up in the middle of the night and knew God had a word for me, and that word was, 'This is what I'm calling you to do.' So, of course, I did it."

Chris Tomlin's concerns lie with listeners. "We have to avoid worshiping the worship music instead of God, to whom it's directed," he says.

This is not a trivial—or new—issue. Even Augustine wrote that he feared music appealed to him strongly because of the aesthetic pleasure it afforded him rather than because of the sacredness of its words.

Tomlin's solution: "No matter how beautiful a song is, how catchy, we need to always remember that we're sending it up to God. Sending it with ourselves attached."

Twila Paris says, "I pray that more than ever God will lead each of us into a place of true worship," she says. "That we will encounter his presence and power and that his desire will be accomplished in us."

That is, after all, what worship is all about. And regardless of tempo, rhythm, or volume, it is precisely what God is looking for. Jesus said, "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks" (John 4:23).

That some journalists have called the current resurgence in worship music a "fad" and a "trend" doesn't worry people like popular worship leader and recording artist Matt Redman. "To be honest, I find that quite funny," he says. "If it's a trend, then it's the only eternal trend there is! Worship is here to stay—throughout all time and eternity."

I regret that I can't credit the source for these thoughts. I have way too many online magazines and can't find the exact one I got this from. I hope I don't get sued...

"Conservatives and charismatics can stand in one room, listening to the same music, worshiping the one true God." "Music unites." That is so true! That's exactly what we experienced at the International Worship Institute. And I'll never forget singing in the mass choir with a wonderful diversity of races. My young African-American friend Andrea helped me by keeping her hand on my elbow so I could sway the right way as we sang, because I, unfortunately, have no rhythm. I can't wait to do it again next year! Maybe if I do it for the next 20 years, I'll get the hang of swaying! I'm praying that at least 15 people from our church will go next summer!It's just too incredible to miss!

Aaaah, Birthdays!

My friends took me out for lunch after church today, and I got the whole cake/birthday song routine, plus a gift certificate for a massage, which I think I'll get after handing out water bottles in the parade Saturday.

I debated a long time about what my wish would be, and they finally broke it to me that it wouldn't come true anyway, so I wished I'd lose 50 pounds!

I actually thought I was 57 all year, but I did some refiguring and it turns out I've only been 56, so I feel like I gained a year!

It's really nice having friends...

Called to Great Things

I'm posting this thing Joy Strang wrote mostly for my friend Annette, but if the shoe fits, wear it, Girlfriends!

Do you have a sense that God has called you to great things? Don't be surprised! You're not alone. Throughout the ages God has used women to help bring about His purposes on the earth.

In the turbulence of the mid-1600s in England, a revival movement began that released women to minister in unprecedented ways. George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, believed that because the Holy Spirit dwells in men and women alike, and since it is He who rightly interprets the Bible, both genders have the same capacity to speak for God.
As a result, early Quaker women traveled the world-sometimes leaving their children for months in the care of their husbands, extended family members or other Quakers-in order to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. They endured incredible hardship from persecution, often being jailed or even martyred. But their influence was powerfully felt, both within the church and beyond it into society, as they led the way in the abolition of slavery, the fight for women's suffrage and prison reform.

During the next 300 years God reiterated through other nascent revival movements that He could use women. Methodism, the Holiness movement, the Salvation Army and the Pentecostal outpouring each opened the door to women to step beyond the roles of family to impact the church and society.

How was this possible? History has shown that when a wave of revival sweeps in, those who wholeheartedly pursue God often are carried farther than they ever thought possible. As the Holy Spirit sovereignly moves among God's people, old religious forms lose their power. The evidence of His anointing on certain chosen vessels removes the traditional barriers created by gender, race and age.

Just as these women had a purpose and a call that impacted many for God, so you were created with a unique destiny that only you will be able to fulfill. Along the way you may have lost sight of that purpose. You may have bought into the view that there are limits on what you can do. Ultimately, what you believe rules you. If you believe your life purpose is simply to fill limited roles, you'll fill them and stop there--never knowing more was available to you.

God is opening the door for you, as a woman, to move into all that He is calling you to do. Won't you say yes to Him today?

Annette, don't take this as a prophetic word or anything, but wasn't it interesting?

No jokes tonight!

No jokes tonight! I'm getting my mind focused on worship! Sunday is my favorite day of the week! I'm pondering this quote I just read from Charles Spurgeon:

"Praise should be proportionate to its object, therefore let it be infinite when rendered unto the Lord. We cannot praise him too much, too often, too zealously, too carefully, too joyfully. He deserves that nothing in his worship should be little, but all the honor rendered unto him should be given in largeness of heart, with the utmost zeal for his glory."

I keep thinking of something I heard from the worship leader at the Beth Moore conference I went to recently. Travis said that when we get to the other side, we're not going to say, "I wish I had restrained myself more." I'm sure he's right!

Soooooooooooooo I'm going to worship with ZEAL tomorrow!

Can't wait!!!

I (Don't) Have a Dream!

My best friend and I were challenged a couple of years ago when she visited me one November and we heard a sermon by our Minister of Students on the importance of having dreams. Kevin and Annette don't remember it, but the three of us stood outside afterwards, and we told Kevin very sadly that we didn't have a dream. So we started praying about it and met again at Christmas. I asked her if God had given her a dream yet, and it turns out he had given us BOTH the dream of going to Israel. Long story short, we went in March, and it was wonderful!

Now Annette is getting a new dream for her empty nest years, but I don't have one, and I think I really need for God to give me a new one for my retirement years. This story got me thinking about that--

The first day of school a professor introduced himself and challenged the class to get to know someone they didn't already know. A young man stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder. He turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at him with a brilliant smile. She said, 'Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I'm eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?' The student laughed and enthusiastically responded, 'Of course you may!' She gave him a giant squeeze.

“Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?' he asked. Rose jokingly replied, 'I'm here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids.' 'No seriously,' he asked. The young man was curious about what may have motivated her to take on this challenge at her age. 'I always dreamed of having a college education and now I'm getting one!' she told me.

After class, they walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake. They became instant friends and every day for the next three months would leave class together and talk nonstop. Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon, easily making friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and reveled in the attention from the other students. She was living it up.

At the end of the semester, the students invited Rose to speak at their football banquet. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she accidentally dropped her three-by-five cards on the floor. Frustrated and a little embarrassed, she leaned into the microphone and simply said, 'I'm sorry I'm so jittery. I'll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know.'

Rose cleared her throat and began, 'You've got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die. There are so many people walking around who are dead and don't even know it! There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up. Anybody can grow older. That doesn't take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding the opportunity in change. Have no regrets. The elderly usually don't have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets." Rose concluded her speech by courageously singing 'The Rose' and challenging the students to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives.

At the year's end, Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those years ago. One week after graduation, Rose died peacefully in her sleep. Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it's never too late to be all you can possibly be. It’s never too late to dream.

I'm very grateful for the vision God gave me back in December to begin loving and supporting my worship pastor and his family wholeheartedly (what a joy!), and I'm plugging away with my support group (which isn't an easy ministry to have), but I think there's something else God wants to do in my life, too.

Maybe I'm just jealous because Robert's in Africa, I don't know......

I know one thing I want to start doing every year, and that's going to the Worship Institute! I've definitely got a vision for that! I'll let you know when I get some direction...

'In the last days, God says, 'I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.'' Acts 2:17 (NIV)

BREAKING NEWS FLASH! Disregard! I think maybe God gave me my vision just as I was crawling in bed. It's nothing I can share yet, but I'll let you know when/if the pieces come together!

Bathroom Humor

Not much to say tonight, so I'll revert to a little bathroom humor. I never said this would be a high-class blog!

There was a nice lady, a minister's widow, who was a little old fashioned. She was planning a week's vacation in California at Skylake Yosemite campground, but she wanted to make sure of the accommodations first. Uppermost in her mind were bathroom facilities, but she couldn't bring herself to write "toilet" in a letter.

After considerable deliberation, she settled on "bathroom commode," but when she wrote that down, it still sounded too forward, so, after the first page of her letter, she referred to the bathroom commode as "BC." "Does the cabin where I will be staying have its own 'BC'? If not, where is the 'BC' located?" is what she actually wrote.

The campground owner took the first page of the letter and the lady's check and gave it to his secretary. He put the remainder of the letter on the desk of the senior member of his staff without noticing that the staffer would have no way of knowing what "BC" meant.

Then the owner went off to town to run some errands.The staff member came in after lunch, found the letter, and was baffled by the euphemism, so he showed the letter around to several counselors, but they couldn't decipher it either.

The staff member's wife, who knew that the lady was the widow of a famous Baptist preacher, was sure that it must be a question about the local Baptist Church. "Of course," the first staffer exclaimed, "'BC' stands for 'Baptist Church.' "

And he sat down and wrote:

Dear Madam,
I regret very much the delay in answering your letter, but I now take the pleasure in informing you that the BC is located nine miles north of the campground and is capable of seating 250 people at one time. I admit it is quite a distance away if you are in the habit of going regularly, but no doubt you will be pleased to know that a great number of people take their lunches along and make a day of it. They usually arrive early and stay late.

The last time my wife and I went was six years ago, and it was so crowded we had to stand up the whole time we were there. It may interest you to know that right now there is a supper planned to raise money to buy more seats. They are going to hold it in the basement of the 'BC.'

I would like to say that it pains me very much not to be able to go more regularly, but it is surely no lack of desire on my part. As we grow older, it seems to be more of an effort, particularly in cold weather. If you decide to come down to our campground, perhaps I could go with you the first time, sit with you, and introduce you to all the folks. Remember, this is a friendly community."

Speeding down the road

Today I have to go to Little Rock for a meeting, so this is an appropriate time to post a driving story--

A blonde woman was speeding down the road in her little red sports car and was pulled over by a woman police officer who was also a blonde. The blonde officer asked to see the blonde driver's license. She dug through her purse and was getting progressively more agitated. 'What does it look like?' she finally asked. The policewoman replied, 'It's square and it has your picture on it.' The driver finally found a square compact mirror in her purse, looked at it and handed it to the policewoman. 'Here it is,' she said. The blonde officer looked at the mirror, then handed it back saying, 'Okay, you can go. I didn't realize you were a cop.'

Hey, that reminds me of a true story from the IWI (I don't know why!). Annette and I got off the elevator on the wrong floor and went to the room we THOUGHT was ours. Two big guys were standing in the door. I said, "This is our room!" and then looked at the room number on the wall, said "Oops!" and took off running back toward the elevator, "sans Annette." She had noticed a whole box of bottles of booze by the door, so she HAD to stay and tell them that we (WE!!) were drunk on the Holy Spirit! Afterwards, she reminded me that I had said I would die for her, yet I took off running without her! Annette embarrasses me sometimes, but that just makes my life more interesting!! I really DO think I'd die for her--I just don't want to witness to drunk guys with her!

Attitude is everything!

I'm back from the International Worship Conference now, and re-entry was a little bumpy. I had such a great time that I didn't want to leave! Joe is still having complications from his surgery for skin cancer, and I now have a bad cold.

So I decided to post this today. I'm really trying to improve my attitude!

There once was a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head."Well," she said, "I think I'll braid my hair today." So she did and she had a wonderful day.The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw that she had only two hairs on her head."H-M-M, " she said, "I think I'll part my hair down the middle today." So she did and she had a grand day.The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that she had only one hair on her head."Well," she said, "Today I'm going to wear my hair in a pony tail." So she did and she had a fun, fun day.The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that there wasn't a single hair on her head. "YEAH!" she exclaimed, "I don't have to fix my hair today!"

I wanna be like that woman!

That's What I'm Talking About!!

(Title of this post stolen from Napolean Dynamite and T-Mark.)

OK, so I'm a LITTLE anal to be so concerned about it, but sure enough, I messed up on my very first post by saying "comma" when I meant "apostrophe" and I'm SURE my English teacher daughter read it and was thoroughly embarrassed by her mother!

NOW I understand why an article I read said "successful bloggers..aren't afraid of getting things wrong in public."

Now I'm afraid to write anything else. So I'll post something that I think is hilarious, but if you don't like satire or don't know who Bob the Tomato is, you won't appreciate it.

This interview was conducted at Larknews headquarters in downtown Denver on February 19.

Larknews: Are you surprised by the continuing success of VeggieTales?

Bob: (laughs) Absolutely. It's kind of ridiculous, but I'm enjoying it.

Larknews: Do you care to comment on Gary Rushmore's — AKA, Mr. Lunt's — moral failure?

Bob: (sighs) There are so many rumors swirling around — yeah, he blew it. I'll say that much.

Larknews: In what way?

Bob: There was a young intern on the set. The whole cast and crew were tired out trying to finish Jonah. He found himself in a vulnerable position and made a mistake. It could have happened to any of us, really.

Larknews: It's been hard on you?

Bob: Very hard. Gary's a friend, a founding member of VT. For his sake we've tried to keep it quiet so he can work through it without too much scrutiny.

Larknews: Do you think his reputation as "the Love Songs guy" may have made him feel like the resident Casanova?

Bob: That may have had something to do with it, but I can't speak to that. This is between Gary and God right now.

Larknews: Can I ask what Gary's situation is now?

Bob: He's chosen to go through a restoration process, which I admire him for. It's funny. When somebody blows it outside the church, people forgive quickly. Hugh Grant, Robert Downey, Jr. — the list goes on. But Christians tend to eat their wounded.

Larknews: People wonder who wrote some of the more popular videos, like Josh and the Big Wall?

Bob: Everything we do is a collaboration between Larry and me.

Larknews: Meaning?

Bob: Meaning that for every 30-minute video, I write the first 11 minutes and the last 11 minutes, and Larry writes the middle 8. Or vice versa.

Larknews: How is it having such a close writing partner?

Bob: Overall, it's the best working relationship-slash-friendship I could hope for, but like anything it can be tough. After a while I get on his nerves, he gets on mine and we have to take some time away. That's normal. A couple years ago during [Madame] Blueberry we weren't sure wanted to keep doing VeggieTales. We thought we'd have to give up the work to save the friendship, but we stuck with it and we're stronger for it, I think.

Larknews: What are some of your fears?

Bob: (sips water) Fear of over-ripening. Bruising. Your standard fears.

Larknews: Why stay in Chicago? Why not move VT to L.A.?

Bob: Climate. I'd rot in 3 days in L.A. During the summers I go north to Canada. We all do. For self-preservation.

The Lark: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Bob: You mean if God grants me a long shelf life? (laughs) I guess I'll still be doing kids
videos, if I'm not too wrinkly.

Tomorrow I'll be going to the International Worship Insitute (FINALLY!!), so I may not post for awhile. Since I don't have a readership, I don't guess it matters! Ha!

Outta here,
Kathy

Dang!

My first post! This is scary!

It needs to be something momentous, fascinating, and relevant. (Is the word relevant too cliche to use?)

It must have great style and show superior writing skills. (As John Eldredge would say, "Do I have what it takes?")

It should stir passion in the hearts of its readers. (Does its have a comma or not, for crying out loud?!)

I don't think I'm ready for this pressure yet. Maybe later...

Kathy