And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. 

Hebrews 11:6

I was so encouraged at church on Sunday.

The message was about investing in others and how anyone can do it, no matter who they are.

Our church has a beautiful partnership with Youth Horizons, helping mentor fatherless youth.

Talk about the heart of simplicity.

Here’s the quote in my brain right now:

“…I wonder if the difference is not in the fact that when Christians gather with a commitment to hear the voice of Christ, they receive the direction for which they seek.

Such a group experience can help us keep our eye single.  Christian brothers and sisters may warn us if we are taking on too many activities, or if we are getting too puffed up, or both; as one friend said to me once, ‘You need to lay low in the Lord.’  They may encourage us that we are moving in the right direction.  They may stir us up to love and good works.”

Foster, pg. 187

I’m feeling that need to “lay low in the Lord” right about now.  I’m guessing I’ll be back, but I want to keep my eye single.

He is so, so Good.

Have you read “When Godly People Do Ungodly Things” by Beth Moore? 

Good, good stuff.

She talks about how to arm yourself against the enemy’s tricks and our own flesh.

She uses the name Had for those who have failed in either of the above. 

I like what she has to say to Hads everywhere…

“In case no one has said it to you yet, I sure am sorry you’ve been Had.  It’s horrible, isn’t it?  Devastating not to live up to your own expectation.  To become such a pauper to Grace.  I’ve been Had a time or two myself.  It’s been a while, but I remember well what it was like being him. 

God says He doesn’t want me to forget.  I asked Him why.  He said too many people have been Had out there.  All sorts of ways to be Had.  Good and Proud think there are just a few, but if they’re not careful, they may be Wrong.  And someday they may even be Had. 

But I don’t hope so. 

I don’t wish anyone to be Had. 

I used to wish I could be Good and Proud again, but I don’t anymore.  I don’t want to be Good, Proud or Had.  I just want to be Healed.

God says He will never let me be so Healed that I forget about Had.  There have been more Hads than Good and Proud may ever know.  Sometimes it takes a Has Been to know a Had.

One thing is for sure.  Had needs a lot of Help.  Healed’s nickname is Help.  He got the name because he is what he does.  He can’t stop.  Healed Hads Help.

God wanted to make sure I never act like I haven’t been Had.  So He left the scars.  He kept a set on His own hands and feet…

My scars bear the marks of death.  Don’t let anyone tell you that being Had won’t kill you.  It will.  It was meant to.  If it doesn’t, you’ve been Had for nothing and you’ll be Had again.

Christ raises the dead only after they die.  Before I was Had, God kept saying, “You are not yet Dead.”

So instead I was Had.

Christ let Lazarus lie dead for four days, but not because He was mean.

Scripture said He loved Lazarus even though He let the illness kill him.

Perhaps we all need to know how it feels to be dead for awhile. 

But do we believe we might see the glory of God?  That’s what Christ told Martha she would see.  When He raised Lazarus from the dead, Christ did not raise him sick.  He raised him Healed. 

I have a suspicion that Lazarus never got to kid himself into thinking he couldn’t get sick again.  He just asked for Grace never to become Had again. 

Come on, Had.  Let’s you and I go on a walk together.  It’s time for you to go home.  Maybe to a part of God’s home where you’ve never been.  I’ll walk with you.  You don’t have to hang your head with me.  Then again, you can if you want.  You can cry, get mad, throw rocks, and kick at the dirt.

Been there.  Just keep walking.”

A funny thing happens when you tell a class you’ll be gone for a week for VBS.

They all want to tell their VBS stories to you when you return!  Smile.

There is a couple I want to tell you about.  I’m going to be honest, so hang on.

The first time this couple came to class, I had to ask God to help me not judge.

Here’s why: In a study our small group was doing at the time, she challenged us to think about how much we judge by outside appearances.  I started to get prideful in my spirit; I don’t do that!  If I see someone poor on the road, my heart bleeds.  If I see a girl dressed in a way that should make her father tell her to change, I want to hug her and tell her all the reasons she doesn’t have to do that.

Who me judge?

But there is an area in my heart.  Just like there is in everyone’s. 

Deep breath.

It’s hard for me to not jump to conclusions about someone’s character when their teeth are bad or when the way they speak comes across as low education or when they don’t smell good (but I think they have the ability to do something about it.)

Yuck and yuck.

Anyway, there’s my background to this story.

I worked with the wife in class quite a bit when they first started coming because she has braces on her feet due to neuropathy.  Walking backward was very difficult because she would trip on the braces.  We started talking and she was delightful!

The husband was very kind.  He works and talks slowly, so I would have to slow my mind down when we would talk, instead of thinking of all the other things I could be doing or people in the class that may need my help then, too.

I really started to like this couple as the weeks went on.  They only came on Tuesdays, and I had started thinking of ways to help them better once a week.

They saw me with my boys once and after that would often ask about them.  One time the husband gave me a business card of his and told me he would take a photograph of the boys I already had and doctor it up so I could frame it.  He made sure I knew he would do this as a gift, not for payment.  Break my heart.

Anyway.  Today.  They asked me how VBS went and the husband started to share his story.  He told me how he wasn’t raised in church and didn’t give his life to Jesus until he was 23.  After that happened, his pastor asked him if he would sit in on some classes at Bible School that following summer and be a male presence.  The pastor told him the ladies would continue to teach the kids, but that the kids would be better behaved if a man was there in the room.

Well, little did my friend know how much he would learn sitting in that room!  Having never grown up hearing the stories of the Bible, he soaked them all in.  And at a level that his new faith could understand.

What a wise pastor.

His wife came over about this time in our conversation today and her man explained to her what he was telling me about.  She said she had been raised in church and gone down to the front when she was 9 to accept Jesus.  But no one had counseled her after that.  When she saw what a change came over her husband after he accepted Jesus, she realized she wanted to give her whole life to Him, too. 

At this point her husband took over the story: “She met me at the door one evening with tears in her eyes.  She told me how, after she’d put the kids down for a nap, she’d gone to her bedroom, shut the door and told God she wanted Him.”

Here’s (selfishly) my favorite part of this conversation:

The wife picked back up and said, “That was in 1961.  We’ve been Christians a looong time.  You know, the first time I met you I knew you were a Christian.  You can see Jesus in people.  I saw Him in you.”

Oh, how that makes my heart soar! 

You know, this heart so “prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.  Prone to leave the God I love.”

So, “here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it.  Seal it for Thy courts above!”

Now I won’t deny

The worst you could say about me

But I’m not defined

By mistakes that I’ve made

Because God says of me

I am not who I was!

I am being remade!

I am new!

I am chosen and holy

And I’m dearly loved!

I am new!

Who I thought I was

And who I thought I had to be

I had to give them both up

Cause neither were willing

To ever believe

I am not who I was!

I am being remade!

I am new!

I am chosen and holy

And I’m dearly loved!

I am new!

Too long I have lived

In the shadows of shame

Believing that there

Was no way I could change

But the One who is making everything new

Doesn’t see me the way that I do

He doesn’t see me the way that I do

I am not who I was

I am being remade I am new!

Dead to the old man

I’m coming alive

I am new!

Forgiven, Beloved

Hidden in Christ

Made in the image of the Giver of Life
Righteous and Holy

Reborn and Remade

Accepted and Worthy, this is our New Name!

This is who we are now!

Jason Gray, “I Am New” via www.azlyics.com

[When the heroine, Hadassah, was about to be given to the lions in the arena for her faith…]

“My son is alive,” he said in a choked voice.

“God is merciful,” she said softly and lightly touched his hair. 

The light caress reminded Atretes of his mother.  He took Hadassah’s hand and held it against his cheek.  Looking up at her, he saw again the bruises that marked her kind face, the thinness of her body beneath the ragged, dirty tunic.  She had saved his son.  How could he walk away and let her die?

He stood, filled with purpose.  “I’ll go to Sertes [the guard],” he said.

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” he countered, determined.  Though he’d never fought lions and knew there was little chance he would survive, he had to try. 

“A word in the right ear, and I’d be in the arena as your champion.”

“I have a Champion already, Atretes.  The battle is over.  He’s already won…”

“A Voice in the Wind” by Francine Rivers

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

– Jesus (Matt 6:21)

Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”

“No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards declared.

“You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted.  “Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him?  No!  But this mob that knows nothing of the law – there is a curse on them.”

Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?”

They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too?  Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”

– John 7:45-52

Just a quick one tonight.  Been a busy weekend.

“…simplicity and solitude walk hand in hand.  Solitude refers principally to the inward unity that frees us from the panicked need for acclaim and approval.  Through it we are enabled to be genuinely alone, for the fear of obscurity is gone; and we are enabled to be genuinely with others, for they no longer control us.

It is not difficult to see how dependent simplicity is upon solitude.  Enslavement to the opinions of others is the source of a great deal of duplicity in modern society.  How often we discover our action to be prompted, not by the divine Center, but by what others may say or think.  Sadly, we must confess that our experience is all too frequently characterized by endless attempts to justify what we do or fail to do.  And how violently this problem rears its ugly head the moment we seek a simpler lifestyle.  Whereas before we were tyrannized by the desire to look affluent, now we are tyrannized by the desire to look scant.  If what we own can look slightly austere and unvarnished, then perhaps others will think we live in simplicity.  Painfully, we know we are too dependent upon the approval of others. 

We sincerely want to do what is right, but our own self-consciousness betrays our lack of true simplicity.  Our struggle affirms the observation of Francois Fenelon, “These people are sincere, but they are not simple.”  The grace of solitude must be rooted deep within if we are to know simplicity of heart…

The sincere are not yet simple.  They have a kind of artificial rigor that makes us feel uncomfortable, though we cannot fault the virtue.  They put us on edge and make us feel ill at ease.  This often concerns us because they seem so spiritual, so determined to know God.  We wonder if our discomfort stems from a resistance to God and his way.  In reality, however, it is due to the fact that these deeply committed folk are trying too hard.  They lack the ease, freedom, and naturalness that mark true interior simplicity.  We would prefer less perfect people who are more at ease with themselves.”

Foster, “Freedom of Simplicity” pages 14,15,113

I missed Jeanette’s funeral.

I was very sad to not have been able to show my respects. 

It would help if I read the newspaper.

I cannot read or watch the news.  I cannot handle it.  I rely on my man to let me know what I need to know and occasionally do I indulge a story I see linked on Facebook.

But that’s it.

I suppose this situation is a reason why that is not always a good plan.

Either way, I “happened” to see a mother/son team who comes to Fall Avoidance at the gas station yesterday.   I rolled down the window and we chatted while he pumped gas.  He said they had just been to Jeanette’s service. 

Oh, man.

He mentioned a couple of other ladies from our class had asked where I was.

How disappointing to not have been there and shown what respect I had for her.

Since I didn’t make it there with my presence, I will do it on here with my words.

Jeanette made me a better teacher.  She regularly pointed out that some participants weren’t ready for some of the exercises I was having them do.  She reminded me that the job of a good teacher is to adapt the class to differing levels of ability.

Jeanette pointed out the strengths of other teachers.  The co-worker that I see as a mentor teacher to me subbed for the class sometimes.  When I would ask how it went at the next class, Jeanette would always be kind and point out how she’s “a pro.”

But you know what?  I doubt she ever said that to this teacher’s face.  She appreciates quality, and felt it was more her job when she was with you to encourage you in areas you can grow.

There is something so crucial to that kind of person.  We want to please them.  They make us hold ourselves to a higher standard.  Their voice can get in our head – in a good way – making us ask the difficult questions about the path we’re heading down.

I want her to know how deeply I respect her.

I am grateful the mother/son team let me have their extra bulletin for the funeral.  It will go in my chest.

I never want to forget the lessons she taught me.