Worn

 

 

Somewhere in time, for several weeks actually, I have been hearing the 10^th Avenue North Song “Worn” played on the radio.  It’s very popular so I hear it many times.  I do believe the song is also resonating with people.  There are times when we all feel tired, week and worn.  Many times the circumstances around us leave us looking for rest and peace. 

It made me think of King David of Israel.  Before he was King, he was a mighty warrior.  He was a defender of his country and he served the King Saul with everything he had.  Instead of prizing his loyalty and rewarding his victories, King Saul instead become jealous and tried to kill David. 

David spent years on the run.  Hiding in caves and living off the land to avoid Saul and his armies.  When you read the Psalms David wrote during this time, you can read that he was feeling worn.  He wondered why such things would happen to him.  He had always sought to do right, but everything still went wrong.

I know in this day and age many people are feeling worn.  They married till death do they part, only to find a few years later, only one of them took the vow seriously.  Single mothers, doing their best to raise their children by themselves, find themselves alone dealing with a hurt and angry teenager.  People are fighting illness, loneliness, poverty and depression.  Maybe that is what is making the song the cry of many people.

 

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart that's frail and torn

I want to know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that's dead inside can be reborn
Cause I'm worn

 

Here is one of my favorite versus in the Bible – John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation: but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

This gives me hope for two reasons.  The first reason is it says in this world we will have tribulation.  It’s not something we did wrong; it’s just something that happens, at some point, to all of us.  The second reason is because Jesus has overcome the world.  He is the one that will let us see redemption win and our struggle end.  He is also the one that can take the ashes of a broken life and make something beautiful.

Valentine’s Day

 

 

Somewhere in time, approximately fifteen hundred and seventeen years ago, Pope Gelasius marked February 14^th as the day to commemorate the life of Saint Valentine.  The man came to be known as Saint Valentine, was a priest that violated an ordered issued by the Emperor Claudius II.  The order was that young people were forbidden to get married.  I read that one reason he issued this order to was to keep young soldiers single. They fought better without wives or children to worry about in his mind.  Valentine violated the order and married young couples anyway. 

Valentine was arrested and put in prison.  He was beaten and finally beheaded.  He died on February 14^th. 

I don’t know how the day morphed into what we celebrate now.  It does make sense that Valentine was about love, the kind of love celebrated by two people, but he died for his Christian faith. His faith led him to violate the law by marrying people against the Emperors order.  The day was set to remember a martyr. 

One thing I read, said when Valentine was in prison, the Emperor Claudius liked to talk to him.  His big mistake was trying to convert Claudius to Christianity.  This is what eventually resulted in his death.

When the Bible was translated from Greek into English, they ran into a little problem with the word love.  The Greeks had several words for love and in English we only have one. 

There is “philio” love, which is the love of friends.  There is “storge” love, which is the love of family.  There is “eros” love which is the love associated with sexual attraction and finally “Agape” love which is the supernatural love, the love that goes beyond natural affection.

We tend to base our celebration on “eros” as the focus of love is on our sweetheart or spouse.  We even celebrate a little “philio” love when we celebrate with friends.  As kids, we sometimes would give Valentine cards to every person in our school classroom; this is “philio” love.

On this holiday we don’t necessarily celebrate “Agape” love.  I think this is sad.  Agape love is the strongest and the best kind of love.  We don’t have to earn it.  We don’t deserve it but sometimes we still receive it.  God gives us agape love.  Saint Valentine showed agape love to the young people he helped marry and died because of it. 

Consider this:

John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

That is the type of love we should celebrate on February 14^th.  This is what Valentine did for the young couples he married.  This is what Christ did for each one of us when he died on the cross. 

Amy Grant - Say You'll Be Mine (Official Music Video) from amy-grant on GodTube.

The Prodigal’s older brother

 

 

Somewhere in time, approximately two thousand years ago, Jesus told a parable about a prodigal son.  The story was of a man who had two sons.  The younger son asked for his inheritance and left home to spend his money on riotous living.  After exhausting all he had, a famine fell on the land and he was starving.  He had taken a job feeding pigs and prayed for food as good as what the pigs were eating.  It was at this time, he realized the servants in his father’s house were better off than he was.  He gathered together is meager possessions and went home.  His intention was to ask to be a servant in his father’s home. His father had other thoughts.

Once home, his father threw a great celebration.  His son was lost to him and now he is found.  The story can be found in Luke, Chapter 15, starting in verse 11. The point of the story is if you have strayed, it’s never too late to return.  God is waiting to welcome you home.

Today I don’t want to talk about the younger son, the one who was welcomed back. I want to talk about the older son.

The older son stayed with the father.  He worked hard for his father to make sure the family continued to prosper.  When he comes home and sees the party for his younger brother, he becomes indignant.

Luke 15:29-30 “So he answered and said to his father, “Lo these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.””

In my opinion, the older brother felt like it was doing right, but perhaps he wasn’t doing it with the right motives.  Do we do our good works only to get some recognition from men?  If we do, it’s the wrong reason.  It may also be that he was growing weary.  He was working and working and he returned to find a celebration in honor of someone, in his mind, who hadn’t worked at all.

When I was growing up, we had testimony time at church. This is where someone would stand up and say what had brought them to Christ.  I always felt a little left out.  People would get up and say they were caught up in drugs and then Christ saved them.  All I could say is I was five years old when I became a Christian.  I wasn’t saved out of something horrible, but the decision I made was no less as real.  Of course, my testimony didn’t make the older women cry or the men want to pat me on the back. I felt like the prodigal's older brother. I wanted a little celebration for making the right choice also.   

As I was thinking about the prodigal’s older brother, I ran across a verse I thought he could use. 

Galatians 6:9 “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.    

When you are always the one doing what is right and standing strong, you may grow wearing in well doing, but don’t lose heart.  The season may be long, but serving God is still the reason why we are here. 

For everyone who feels like the prodigals older brother and wants to cry out – Hey, what about me?  Don’t worry, your reward is coming. 

Luke 15:31 “And he said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.”  That is what the father said to the prodigal son.  Perhaps that is what our heavenly father is staying to us now.

 

Big Daddy Weave - Redeemed (Official Music Video) from big-daddy-weave on GodTube.

Beautiful

 

 

Somewhere in time, this week, I have been thinking of our definition of beautiful.  I have a younger friend that is getting married.  She is beautiful, inside and out, and I surprised she lasted this long as a single woman.  One thing about my friend is she is not a thin, wisp of a woman. She is not model skinny or picture perfect, but she is a beautiful woman.  Somewhere along the way we lost sight of what beauty really is.  We let media determine what is beautiful.  What we see in magazines or on TV is someone’s idea of beauty.  If you have done something worthy of a magazine cover, but they don’t think you are perfect enough, they will retouch your picture and take away your wrinkles and scars. They may even make extra weight is miraculously disappear. 

Why is this necessary?  Wrinkles and scars are evidence of life. Wrinkles can be proof of wisdom earned from years of living.  Scars are proof of trials overcome.   Extra weight, in many cases, can be a sign of plenty and a sign of good times.  Why do we shy away from such things? Why don’t we showcase and celebrate this?  I don’t understand.

Somewhere along the line, we decided that beauty was something that could be seen.  Well we are wrong.  Beauty that is only skin deep fades and is not beauty at all.  Sure we may think a person is attractive, but when they show themselves proud and selfish, it makes them much harder to love.

Beauty of the heart, mind and spirit will last the test of time, but it may not photograph well.  In my opinion, it is more important that we celebrate kindness, compassion and love. These are the marks of a true beauty, the kind of beauty that doesn’t fade. 

This is true of men as well as woman.  We woman don’t care if our husbands lose their hair. We don’t care if they gain a little extra weight.  We are more concerned that they are healthy.  If the one we love is kind, caring and faithful, that is normally all we need.  Everything else is window dressing. 

To God, the physical things, height, weight, skin color are not as important as the points of character we display.  He doesn’t even care if we are brilliant, or if we struggle.  He cares that we are honest and we display integrity in everything we do. He wants us show compassion to the needy, strength to the week and love to the hopeless.  God standards are what we should strive for.

Proverbs 31:30 “Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing. But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.” (A woman or man who fears the Lord shall be praised – my own translation.)

The next time you put on wrinkle cream, or pluck a white hair, or stand on the scale – remember.  You are beautiful. 

MercyMe - Beautiful [Official Music Video] from mercymemusic on GodTube.

What a week

 

 

Somewhere in time, this week, actually it started last week, I have been saying, what a week.  I was reading a magazine once and it said that God never gives us more than we can handle, and then it went on to say, I wish God didn’t have such a good opinion of me.  It was meant to be humorous and I found it so.  

There is a movie that came out a few years ago, called Evan Almighty.  In the story, a man is chosen by God to build an Ark.  Setting out to accomplish what God wants him to has caused him to be suspended from his job.  He is ridiculed by his neighbors.  At the scene where is wife is taking their three sons and leaving because she says her husband needs help, we see him look up to the sky and say: “I know everything you do, you do because you love me”.  After he utters these words, the sprinkler system comes on and he his drenched in water.  He again looks up and says, “Love me less”.

I started to wonder if God really makes sure we don’t get more than we can handle. I’m sure he does and I’m equally sure He knows we can handle more than we think we can. But God never promised us things would be easy. He never promised we would always feel blessed. He promised that He would never leave us of forsake us.

Early this month, I heard that watching Gold Fish swim was a stress reducer.  I had a small one gallon tank containing a pump that would aerate the water.  I cleaned it up, set it up and went to buy four small little fish and some food.  At first things went well and then the smallest fish started to look funny and quickly died.  I worried that I fed them too much or not enough, but I wasn’t sure what went wrong. 

The next day, after church we stopped to pick up some food to take home.  The battery on our car died and we had to get help to leave the restaurant.    

That same day, at home, we had a perimeter wall next to our house that was leaning.  My husband went out to try and fix it.  He tried digging out the other side and pushing it back up to straighten it.  The entire wall crumbled down instead.

This was a week of calling contractors, trying to get someone else to fix the wall.  It was also an expensive week, a new car battery and a contractor bill. 

My stress reducing fish, all died, one at a time, every few days.  If you’re worried, I won’t be buying any more fish, too much stress.

If we feel loved and cherished by God, it has more to do with us, than with Him.  He never moves, but we do.  Sometimes we pull away because we think we can handle things on our own.  Sometimes we draw close because we know we will never make it without Him.  Either way, we are the ones moving. 

Bad things happen, it’s a part of life.  People get sick, pets die, things break.  None of that has any bearing on God’s love for us.

John 3:16-17 “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

 

MercyMe - Move (Official Music Video) from mercymemusic on GodTube.

Standing on the Promises

 

 

Somewhere in time, in 1886, R. Kelso Carter wrote a hymn called “Standing on the Promises”.  I remember singing this as a child and this song has been stuck in my head this week.  I pulled out my book, “Then Sings My Soul” by Robert Morgan and I looked up the song. 

R. Kelso Carter was raised by strong Christians, yet his own faith wavered somewhere between hot and cold, devoted and living to please himself.  It was during this time, he developed a heart disease.  He did everything in his own power to combat the disease and he finally had to give up.  Sometimes faced with eternity, we realize the importance of God in our lives now.  From this experience, he recommitted his life to God completely.  No more on again off again, but complete dedication to Christ.  While reading and studying his Bible he noticed some of God’s promises and this inspired the song.

              Standing on the promises of Christ my King.

Through eternal ages let his praises ring.

Glory in the highest I will shout and sing.

Standing on the promises of God.

 

All of this made me think of some of the promises God made.

Hebrews 13:5(B) “For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.””

Philippians 4:19 “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind.”

After thinking of all God’s promises, I found the most amazing one is the promise that God, will take us in His family and call us His children, if we only believe.  John 1:12 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”

The greatest promise of all, by believing in Jesus Christ we are transformed into children of God.  All of us who believe are part of God’s family. 

Like R. Kelso Carter, you may be wavering, but today is the day to make your commitment to Christ. Don’t put it off. No one is guaranteed tomorrow.

 

 

 

Sanctus Real - Promises (Official Acoustic Performance) from sanctus-real on GodTube.

Broken

 

 

Somewhere in time, this week, I have been praying for people who are sick.  Not with the cold or flu, but with life threatening illnesses.  My sister’s husband is battling cancer. My cousin just found out she has ALS. My Aunt is suffering with Leukemia.

The question is why. Why do some people get sick, while others stay healthy? Is it in the food or the water or our DNA?  I have been told that ALS is not hereditary yet, my father, two of my uncles and one aunt died from the disease.  Why us?  Does God love other people more than us?

I don’t believe that. I know that God died for each of us the same way.  He loves each of us enough to die for us, so why do bad things happen?

I have known for a long time that the world is broken.  In the Garden of Eden, we didn’t have sickness and disease, we had paradise. Yet humans chose to believe the lie of the serpent and the perfect world God created became broken by our hand.

Sometimes I can get depressed by what is happening around me, to people I love.  It seems hopeless.  Yet I know, deep down, that our hope is not in this broken world, our hope is in Christ.  If he can make the universe and everyone in it, he can take care of us in our distress.

Jesus was speaking in Luke 4: 18-19 (The Message Bible) “God’s spirit is on me; he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor,  Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, To set the burdened and battered free, to announce, “This is God’s year to act!”

I know he said that several years ago, but I know he is still here to set the burdened and battered free.  He came to give hope to the hopeless and strength to the powerless. My prayer for 2013 is that this will be the year for God to act in miraculous ways in my family.  I pray this for your family also.

Bebo Norman - The Broken (Official Acoustic Performance) from bebo-norman on GodTube.