Drink Deep

As I think about how I am to begin practicing the goodlife I figure it might be helpful to pick a focus. 

I choose to consider taste.  In hind sight, I’m not sure why I pick taste other than perhaps it is something to do with the way my Little Love has been putting things into her mouth with such relish lately.

In the living room, she spots a piece of lint on the floor that fell from the laundry basket or was tracked in on a foot and grins big before quickly shoving it into her mouth.  She does all this lightning quick, before I have time to pluck it from her little hand.  That edge of the carpet that has been pulling away from the kitchen threshold?  Yeah…she’s swallowed that up a time or two when I was looking the other way.  I can tell by the way she coughs as I catch her looking guilty with another piece in hand.

At the table, she grabs strawberries and bites big with the pink juice dripping gloriously down her chin, accompanied with a squeeze of each berry that leaves them in mangled bits that cover her hands and booster tray.  She smears it around with an artist’s flourish and concentration that is quite endearing, if sticky.  She takes bites of mama’s food and sometimes dada’s to—the vegetables, the curry, the beans and rice.  She tries it all, and loves most of it. 

Outside, as I pull weeds she sits nearby on the sidewalk grabbing blades of grass.  Knowing that she often tries to put these in her mouth, I tell her she can pluck them, but not eat them.  She listens, but takes it as an invitation to scrape up a bit of dirt to sample instead. 

In the swimming pool, she is ready to try the leaf that is crumpled at the bottom of the shallow pool.  I distract her with something else for a few moments only to find that while I have been surveying the cloudy sky she has grabbed the hose end and placed it in her mouth instead.

In the bathtub, she nimbly folds her head forward into the water and drinks deep of the soapy water.  She must know that Natalie Babbit wrote that it was delicious. 

I can’t help but laugh.  This girl has tasted and seen the Lord is good.

 

In many small moments, I have for a few seconds caught a glimpse of God’s goodness, but I feel like I’m so busy managing all the messy bits that I don’t often just delight in them.  How to move beyond this? 

Jason reads one night: “You’ve had a taste of God.  Now like infants at the breast, drink deep of God’s pure kindness. Then you’ll grow up mature and whole in God.” 1 Peter 2:2-3

Drink of God’s kindness.  Taste it.

I think of what this picture has looked like in my own arms this last year—my baby drinking deeply.  This is the way God wants me to experience him?  He wants me to drink eagerly, letting his kindness pour in as much and more than I can take in.  Somehow this will grow me up mature and whole in Him.   

It’s a beautiful image.  Babies are made to drink deep, but they do learn in those early weeks how to do it.  So how do I learn to drink deep of God’s kindness? 

How do I move away from managing moments to delighting in them?

I think of the Revolution in World Missions book I have been reading this week.  K.P. Yohannan writes of native missionaries and their children going hungry overseas and here I am wondering how to taste the Lord’s kindness.  Something in me is unlocked in reading this. 

I think He must be teaching me how to drink.

I recognize that God has been watching me struggle.  He knows what I have not seen until now.  I have been living the good life all along without really recognizing it or giving thanks.  He opens my eyes to see all this grace right before me.  His kindness has been there all along.

Left-over lentil sloppy joes in the refrigerator.

Fresh clean water to drink straight from the tap. 

The pineapple and melon on my counter top. 

The jars of legumes, grains, and nuts hanging on my wall. 

The English muffin with egg and cheese I share with my little love at breakfast.

And this is just the start of what is sure to be a long list.

I repent as I consider these brothers and sisters.  I wonder how do they drink deep of the Lord’s kindness? 

How myopic I have been. 

If I am honest, I often too easily tire of my own good food.  I like the luxury of eating out.  I ponder whether I make a bad choice when I buy conventional foods.  I think of that potato I threw out earlier this week, somewhere around the world someone would have salvaged it to make dinner.

In so many ways, I have failed to interpret all this abundance in terms of God’s goodness.

It is dangerous to forget the abundance of God.

“Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don’t become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God, the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery;
the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness, those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions; the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock; the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.

If you start thinking to yourselves, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!”—well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today.

If you forget, forget God, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I’m on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it—destruction. You’ll go to your doom—the same as the nations God is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn’t obey the Voice of God, your God.”  Deuteronomy 8:11-20

With eyes opened I can see how good God is.  I can see that I have a lot to learn about being disciplined and allowing the Holy Spirit to bear the fruit of self-control.  I know my heart will be better for being open to it. 

As I have been thinking about those native missionaries, it comes to me.  They go hungry holding out food that is greater than the stores of my pantry and the contents of my refrigerator—the Bread of Life that transforms a life.

“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying,“Take and eat; this is my body.”  Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.  This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.  I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”   Matthew 26:26-29

They know what it is to really drink of the pure kindness of God.

Through them, I am learning too.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we drink deep of God’s pure kindness. May we be overwhelmed by the changes it works in us.  May we find Him gently drawing us into disciplines in our lives in order to allow us to bless our brothers and sisters around the world out of His more than sufficient abundance.

Jessica :)

Blessed are the Poor

It was as I was driving back from a trip to the store for a few baby items that I saw her sitting on a bench holding out her cardboard sign.  She was bundled in a coat and scarf, with bare hands holding the words “Anything Helps.”  The temperature was chilly, but not terribly cold.  I found it a bit odd as the only people I had seen there before were waiting for the bus.  

I looked at her, really looked and got all knotted up inside as I recalled that I did not have any food packs in my car.  I had recently finished making up the latest batch, but they were sitting inside the front room at my home.  A year or two ago, I would have run home and circled back, but life with an infant makes it a bit harder to do that.  Instead, I offered her a smile, lifted up a prayer, and when I got home I moved the packs to just inside the front door so I would see them next time I left the house.

I think of this as I listen to the story of Bartimaeus again.

Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging.  When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”

So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.”  Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.

The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

“Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

Mark 10:46-52 NIV

Bartimaeus calls out and will not be quieted.  In the face of opposition he is persistent.  And Jesus stops.

In her book, Come Along, Jane Rubietta writes of this moment:

“He throws away his cloak.  If you were blind, you would never do this, because if you let go of your cloak, you lose your primary possession, the one thing that keeps you warm on a cold night, cushions your seat, pillows your head, perhaps even collects the fruit of your beggings. 

No hesitation: he scrambles to his feet with the nimbleness born of desperation and hope.  He is not begging for crumbs or coins.  He is asking for what only one person can give him.  The man who just walked down the road.

Bartimaeus moves carefully to where Jesus’s voice sounded and halts in front of him. 

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks.

What a world-opening, eye-opening question.

Bartimaeus sucks in a huge breath.  This is it.  It’s all or nothing. And he leaps into that chasm called faith: “Rabbi, I want to see.”

There it is, out in the open, for everyone else to see too.  What gall!  What temerity!  What gumption for this beggar, this street person, to call out to the very Messiah, the miracle worker who walked the streets and talked with anyone, so different from a regular king or other royalty.  To ask for a miracle, to ask to see.”   (p.49-50, 2008, used with permission)

Download the template for my food pack cards here.

I think of the woman on the bench again, with her desire right out there on a cardboard sign for all to see.

“Anything helps.”

Anything? 

Relationship.  Money.  Work.  Home.  Health.  Education.  Love.  Jesus. 

In baring her heart, is she being brave?  Manipulative?  Honest?

Is it desperation that brings her here to this place? 

Could it be that she, too, wants a miracle? I wonder.

Could it be that she is calling out in the only way she knows how in this busy world? 

I wonder at her poverty and think of Jesus’ words. 

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”  Luke 6:20

I wonder about Jesus’ words. 

I wonder about my own poverty.  Where am I poor in spirit?  

What would my cardboard sign say on it today? 

Could it be this woman with the sign is more in touch with her own poverty than I am right now?

 She knows what she wants.

Jesus asks, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Am I desperate enough to reveal the desire of my heart for all to see and bring it to the Messiah?  Do I even know what it is?

Blessing waits on the other side of this revelation.  Healing waits.  Do I want it?

Will I receive what Jesus gives? 

If I do, might it be that he will open my eyes to the signs written by hand on cardboard and others written on the hearts of the people I encounter each day. 

Photo by Missi Kershner, used with permission.

Do I want to bless others? 

Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, all who have faith in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.  And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” John 14:12-14 TNIV

Perhaps the woman with the sign is waiting for the blessing that will come as I identify my own poverty, receive the miracle of the heart, and allow the Spirit to work in me.

 I consider this and bring to Jesus a longing to be fully present in the moment.

I receive and along with Bartimaeus, I follow Jesus down the road.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we bring our desires to Jesus.  May we receive the miracle and find that in our poverty, He gives us the kingdom of God.  May we live changed--following Jesus, allowing His Spirit to work in us, making us a blessing to everyone we meet.

Jessica :)

P.S.  Enjoy a free download of the insert that I created for food packs here.  You can print them on cardstock, color them (or let your kids color them) and cut them down to size or be a little more creative than that as time allows.  The food packs are put together in a quart size bag include a fruit cup, a can of Vienna sausages, peanut butter crackers, granola bars, a mint, a utensil pack, and a card.  We keep bottles of water on hand to go with them.

Gracious Words on Tough Days

"Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” Proverbs 16:24

***

It is late when the phone rings and his name pops up on my phone.

“Hi honey,” I answer.  “Are you just leaving?”

“Yes.  It’s late.  I’m sorry,” he says. “It has been a long day.  I’m tired, hungry, and feeling a bit angry.”

“Will you go straight to meet your friend,” I ask.

“Yes.  It’s too late to come home for dinner now.”

“I thought so; but please make sure to stop for something on your way.  You’ll be too hungry if you wait to eat until you get home.”

This is not how I thought the evening would go.  I can tell he is agitated and I wish I could reach across the miles between us and give him a hug.

“You’re upset, aren’t you?” he wonders into the phone. “I’m sorry.”

“About dinner?  No.  I figured you wouldn’t be home as it got later and later.  Plus, dinner is not ready yet because I set the rice to simmer on the wrong setting.  I’m trying to fix it now,” I say half smiling and half groaning inwardly.   I add, “I did hope you might be able to pick up a few things for me; but they’ll keep until later.”

“You’re sure you’re not mad?” he asks again.

“Yes.  I’m sure.  What I am concerned about is that you’re headed out angry and hungry and tired.  That is not a very good mindset for a conversation with a friend.  So what I am doing is praying for you.  I’m praying that you would receive God’s peace right now.  I’m praying that you would leave behind the frustration and anger and weight of the day, that they would just fall away.  I am praying that you would know that I am not upset, but I am thankful for you and glad you are making time for your friend.  I am praying that you will be fully present with him—to listen well and respond with the grace and peace of Christ.”

“Thank you,” he lets out with a sigh.

“You’re welcome.  So.  If anyone cuts you off on your way they probably have had a rough day like you.  Be gracious.”  I encourage.  Then, knowing him I ask, “Do you need to go now so you can unwind a little on your way?”

“Yes.  That would be great,” he says honestly.

“Okay.  Well, I’ll see you when you get home.  I love you.  Bye.” 

After I hang up the phone and fix a plate for dinner I think about my husband. 

I think about tough days.  Mine has been full too and I am feeling tired. 

I think about how I love prayers and words of blessing any time.  Yet, on tough days words of blessing provide release from what has come before and the peace to walk forward with renewed energy and reclaimed purpose.

I think about how my husband has done this for me so many times.  I think about how thankful I am to be able to do the same for him. 

I think about this and give thanks for the way marriage makes the both of us better.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we extend just that to others.   May we know the joy of lifting up one another with encouragement in the strength of Christ.

Jessica :)

Today is a Gift

A few weeks ago, as I was checking Facebook,  I came across a quote my brother-in-law posted. 

It captured my attention. 

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift.  That’s why we call it the present.”

-Winnie the Pooh, by A.A. Milne

I wrote it down on a post-it note and stuck it to the sheet of glass that sits on my desk. 

Since then, I have noticed that when I sit down at my computer I look at it.  I have read it as I sit down to write or work.  I have considered it as I put something on the calendar. 

I take in Pooh Bear's wise words.  They are a good reminder of the way I want to live.

Today is a gift. 

James 1:17-18 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.  He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.”

Today is a gift, God’s present to us.  Will we receive it as such?

We are His gifts, firstfruits.  Will we live as such—firstfruits, blessings to the world?

This week…

Let’s consider this and respond to God’s goodness.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we receive today as a gift, God’s present to us.  As we embrace it as such, may we find that we welcome each encounter with another person, each challenge, each moment of sheer joy, as reason to trust God and give Him thanks.  As we do, may we discover that we are first fruits, both the blessed and the blessings of God.

Jessica :)

He Already Has

When Independence Day rolls around, I am aware of the rhetoric that, often, comes with it.

“God Bless America.”  Words sung and said with hopeful longing by many.

I wonder what would happen if we opened our eyes up. 

I wonder if we began to really see—the freedoms we have, the places we live, the relationships we tend, the beautiful parks around our homeland, the grocery stores filled with food, our favorite restaurant or amusement park, even in considering the poorest here in the US who have so much compared to others around the world—if we would discover something we may not have realized.

 

...from the mountains



God has blessed America.

How would we live if we embraced this?

Would we realize that God blesses that we might become the blessing?



...to the prairies

To Abraham God promised: 

“I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you.”  Genesis 12:2-3 TNIV

If we realized that we had been blessed to be a blessing, might it change the way we live?




....to the oceans white with foam

 

Might we live generously with our time and our resources?

Might we stop striving to get more and realize that what we have is enough? 

Might we discover that it was never things, but communion with God and community with others that we really wanted?

Might we discover that there is always room for one more person in need around our table—the widow, the orphan, the poor, the lonely, the rejected—and invite them to join us?

Might we discover that we can live on what we have, without digging ourselves into a mountain of debt—finding the things worth having are the ones worth working for?

Might we delight in the simple moments—laughter with friends, snuggling up with a good book, the cool swimming pool in the summer heat, the smile that our spouse or child flashes in our direction?





I wonder.

I hope that we will.

Let’s live as a blessing.

Happy Fourth of July, friends. 

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we realize that we have been blessed.  May we live as a blessing to each person we encounter.  May His blessing ripple through us to all the people on earth.

Jessica :)

P.S.  We have such a beautiful country.  The photos in this post are from exploring the National Parks, something my husband and I love to do.  The first was taken at Glacier National Park.  The second was taken in Badlands National Park.  The third was taken in Redwoods State & National Park.  The last was taken at Canyonlands National Park.  Thank you to my husband for the last two photos. 

In Spirit and Truth

I’ve been thinking about the words that our teaching pastor at Crossroads shared last Wednesday.

Worship is ascribing ultimate worth to something that engages your whole being.  When we worship the character and direction of our life is changed. 

It makes me wonder what is changing the character and direction of my life.  What is it that I am worshipping? 

Is it God?  Or is it something else, an idol?

Chuck said that idols are the things we have wanted so much and when we get them, they don’t satisfy.  They are the things that if we don’t get them, they don’t forgive.  God is not like this.  He is the antithesis of an idol.

When we get Him we are satisfied.  And He is willing to forgive.  What good news!

We talked about what Jesus had to say about worship in John as he talked with the Samaritan woman:

“But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way.  For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” John 4:23-24 NLT

We worship in Spirit.  We worship in the presence of God, as we go about doing life sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  We experience Him.

We worship in truth.  We worship as we spend time learning about who the Bible says God is.  It reveals the character of God to man.  (This is a good thing, because I so often think things of God that are not true to who He says He is in Scripture.)  

Scripture is the test against which our experience of God will always agree.

So this week…

Let's live worshipping in spirit and in truth.

Let’s worship seeking Him who satisfies, Jesus Christ.

Let’s seek Him in Scripture—spending time drinking in the truth and allowing it to penetrate our hearts.

Let’s seek His presence in all we do—whether waking or sleeping or coming or going or somewhere in between. 

Let’s be sensitive to His leadings and follow in obedience.

Let’s live lives of praise because He is good.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we worship the God who alone is worthy of it.  May we find that He satisfies.

Jessica :)