Tuesday, December 13, 2011

A Lesson About Generosity



Last week Phil had lunch with a friend and came home to relate this story to me. 

Our friend has two daughters who are adopted.  For Christmas they received $100 from their grandparents.  They chose to use this money to buy presents to send to kids in need.  Their father related the great joy they took in doing this.

Phil said to him, “This shows me that you are raising caring and generous girls.  That is such a good thing to instill in them.”

Our friend said, “What it shows me is that they trust me to be their provider.  They know they can give that money away to the needs of others, because they have complete confidence that all their needs will be met by me and their mom.”

What a great lesson about giving!  I can give fearlessly because I have no doubt whatsoever that my heavenly Father can meet my every need without fail.  

May I keep this lesson at the forefront of all the decisions I make concerning money over the next year. 



Sunday, December 11, 2011

The Radical Experiment

I recently had several blog entries in which I shared quotes from the book Radical by David Platt.  Platt had so many challenging things to say and the final chapter was no exception.  That chapter is entitled "The Radical Experiment: One Year to a Life Turned Upside Down."  In it he presents five challenges to undertake in the coming year.  I intend to take the challenge, and I'd like to invite as many of you that will to take the challenge along with me.  I know a year is a long time, but even if you fall short, you'll probably be further ahead than if you never attempted it.

Here are the five challenges:

1.  Pray for the entire world.  Although this sounds daunting, Platt suggests a resource called Operation World (www.operationworld.org).  Every day they present a country and tell specific needs to pray for in that place.  All this information is available free online or you can order a book that will place the info in your hands.  There is even a version for children.



2.  Read through the entire Word.  There are many resources available for doing this: online calendars, daily reminders, and many versions of the Bible set up to accomplish this very thing.  This past year I used 24/7 A One Year Chronological Bible.  I am a big fan reading chronologically, and I liked the version presented here, which is the New Living Translation.  It was very understandable and easy to follow.


3.  Sacrifice your money for a specific purpose.  Platt emphasizes that the key word here is "sacrifice."  Don't just give of the excess you have, give above and beyond what you feel is comfortable.  There are some things to consider as you decide where and how to give.  Spend your money on something that is gospel-centered and church-focused.  Give to a ministry that you feel passionate about.  If you don't have one that you feel that way about, find one.  Give to someone you can trust and in a way that is sustainable.  There are lots of possibilities.  Contact me if you need more info here.  I'll be happy to help you figure it out.

4. Spend your time in another context.  By this, Platt means to take some time in the coming year to go on a mission trip.  It could be out of the country or it could be in another city or state.  Just go somewhere to get another perspective, to see how others live, to experience another part of the world.  Dedicate whatever amount of time you can to make this happen; it might be a week, it might be a month.

5.  Commit your life to a multiplying community.  Be an active part of a church family.  Be a part of seeing it grow by making disciples of those who come.  Commit.  Be faithful.  Let others know you can be counted on.

I intend to take steps to make all these things a reality in my life over the next year.  I'd like to invite you to join "The Radical Experiment" with me.  If you're willing to give it a try, please let me know.  I'd like to be a part of encouraging you to stay on track throughout the year.  Let me help hold you accountable, and let me pray for you.

Let's do it for the glory of God and the love of our Savior, Jesus Christ!  Let's make it a "radical" new year!

Monday, December 5, 2011

Highlights of Our Trip

I thought I'd share a few highlights from our trip out east.  Phil had meetings in New York for the Teaching American History Grant he works with and I tagged along.  Then we took the train to DC to attend the National Council of Social Studies conference.  The pictures are not in chronological order but it's just too much trouble to change them.

We were able to have dinner and a candlelight tour at Mount Vernon.  Mrs Washington was delightful!

Andrea Boccelli was in concert.  Phil enjoys his music and would have liked to see him but instead he took me to the event of my choice...

Handel's Messiah at the National Cathedral.  I enjoyed it immensely. 

We toured the 9/11 Memorial.  It was a very solemn occasion.

Rockefeller Center was decorated for the holidays.  Beautiful!

We watched skaters and enjoyed wonderful weather.

We saw all our favorites at the Today Show.  We even shook hands with Matt.

I got this close to Michael Buble.  He sang in the studio.  Here he is collecting toys for the toy drive.

At the Museum of Natural History we saw this Christmas tree decorated with origami ornaments.

We saw the big Christmas tree but it was lit the night we left.

We had a good time kicking off the holidays.


At the NCSS this was the most interesting thing I came across.  Kids did history projects that they posted on the internet.  The projects were about local historic sites.  They then created these QR codes to place at the site.  People can scan these codes with their phone to access the kids' stories.  This idea took me in a lot of different directions.  What do you think?

I almost forgot to include the fact that I accidently attended the funeral of a billionaire.  What are the chances!


Saturday, November 26, 2011

Troop Carrier or Luxury Liner?



This next post is a lengthy story from the book Radical by David Platt.  It was too good to leave out of these posts so I have copied it in its entirety.

************************************************************

The language of Matthew 10 envisions Jesus as a military commander sending soldiers out on a mission.  He summoned his disciples, and then he sent them out.  In light of the needs before them and the danger around them, the disciples knew they were entering the battle.

In the late 1940’s, the United States government commissioned William Francis Gibbs to work with the United States Lines to construct an eighty-million-dollar troop carrier for the navy.  The purpose was to design a ship that would speedily carry fifteen thousand troops during times of war.  By 1952, construction on the SS United States was complete.  The ship could travel at forty-four knots (about fifty-one miles per hour), and she could steam ten thousand miles without stopping for fuel or supplies.  She could outrun any other ship and travel nonstop anywhere in the world in less than ten days.  The SS United States was the fastest and most reliable troop carrier in the world.

The only catch is, she never carried troops.  At least not in any official capacity.  The ship was put on standby once during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, but otherwise she was never used in all her capacity by the U. S. Navy.

Instead the SS United States became a luxury liner for presidents, heads of state, and a variety of other celebrities who traveled on her during her seventeen years of service.  As a luxury liner, she couldn’t carry fifteen thousand people.  Instead she could house just under two thousand passengers.  Those passengers could enjoy the luxuries of 695 staterooms, 4 dining salons, 3 bars, 2 theaters, 5 acres of open deck with a heated pool, 19 elevators, and the comfort of the world’s first fully air-conditioned passenger ship.  Instead of a vessel used for battle during wartime, the SS United States became a means of indulgence for wealthy patrons who desired to coast peacefully across the Atlantic.

Things look radically different on a luxury liner than they do on a troop carrier.  The faces of soldiers preparing for battle and those of patrons enjoying their bonbons are radically different.  The conservation of resources on a troop carrier contrasts sharply with the opulence that characterizes the luxury liner.  And the pace at which the troop carrier moves is by necessity much faster than that of the luxury liner.  After all, the troop carrier has an urgent task to accomplish; the luxury liner, on the other hand, is free to casually enjoy the trip.

When I think about the history of the SS United States, I wonder if she has something to teach us about the history of the church.  The church, like the SS United States, has been designed for battle.  The purpose of the church is to mobilize a people to accomplish a mission.  Yet we seem to have turned the church as troop carrier into the church as luxury liner.  We seem to have organized ourselves, not to engage in battle for the souls of peoples around the world, but to indulge ourselves in the peaceful comforts of the world.  This makes me wonder what would happen if we looked squarely in the face of a world with 4.5 billion people going to hell and twenty-six thousand children dying every day of starvation and preventable diseases, and we decided it was time to move this ship into battle instead of sitting back on the pool deck while we wait for the staff to serve us more hors d’oeuvre.

Are we willing to obey the orders of Christ?  Are we willing to be like him?  Are we willing to risk our lives to go to great need and to great danger—whether it’s in the inner cities around us, the difficult neighbor across the street, the disease-ridden communities in Africa, or the hostile regions in the Middle East?  Are we willing to fundamentally alter our understanding of Christianity from a luxury-liner approach that seeks more comforts in the world to a troop-carrier approach that forsakes comforts in the world to accomplish an eternally significant task and achieve an eternally satisfying reward?

Friday, November 25, 2011

My Shield




Last year our choir sang this song.  The chorus is taken from Scripture and this is what it says:

But thou, oh Lord are a shield for me
My glory and the lifter of my head
Thou, oh Lord are shield for me
My glory and the lifter of my head


I still have the CD in my car and I was listening to it and singing my heart out on a trip to Chattanooga today.  Of all the things I'm thankful for this season, the truth of these words has to be at the top of the list.

In the past year there have been trials in my life that Satan wanted to use to destroy my faith.  But because the Lord was a shield to me, those things were just glancing blows.  They bruised me; they left a scab, but they were not lethal.

Sometimes I feel ashamed, disgraced or discouraged.  I pick at the scab, and it bleeds.

And that is when the Lord is the lifter of my head.  He speaks to me, and I know He is there.  He tells me that this is not over, that time will bring healing, that He is always in control.

Praise God!  Just wanted you to know that I shouted "Hallelujah!" a few times today.  And it felt really good.

Monday, November 21, 2011

The Long Way Home


We took the long way home today.

After spending the weekend in Indiana visiting relatives with my parents we made one last stop this morning.  We went to Mitchell, Indiana, to eat breakfast with my aunt Mary.  Mary is the only one in Dad’s family who still lives in their hometown.  Mitchell has it own claim to fame.  Not only does it host the annual Persimmon Festival complete with a Persimmon Queen; it also is the hometown of Mercury astronaut, Gus Grissom. (I think my Uncle Ralph went to school with him.)



After breakfast we headed south.  Our usual route home is straight down I-65.  But the detour to Mitchell took us south on the two-lane back roads of southern Indiana.  And as we rolled along toward home my dad recollected his younger days when he had traveled those roads as a kid.  I heard about how:

*his older brother John had taken him for rides in on these hilly roads at speeds of 80-90 mph.  I asked, “Were you scared or did you think it was fun?”  He said, “I just thought it was stupid.”  He said John would even drive a loaded dump truck so fast he thought it would roll over.

*his mother was a saint, full of compassion and love.  She was a hard worker even after being burned over half her body.  The fire also badly burned her toddler son, my dad.

*his dad, just like most dads, had his good points and his bad points.   Although he was not a Christian at the time, he never worked on Sunday (aside from milking and feeding that had to be done).  He didn’t go to church, but the rest of the family walked to the church just down the road.  On the other had, his son Norman was in the Navy and sent money home for his dad to save for him.  His dad bought a cow with the money.

*Uncle John owned an excavating business and was the first president of the Lions Club of Orleans.  He lived near my Uncle Norman who laid gas lines for a living.  These two brothers married sisters.  I still remember going to their house where we saw color TV for the first time.

*the fields we were passing were ones that my dad had farmed with his dad.  He said he would drive the tractor, which would bundle shocks of wheat.  Sometimes Dad would forget to pull the lever and the shock would get too big, which would cause it to jam.  He would have to get down and pull the wheat out by hand.  It sounded dangerous to me.

*the roads we were traveling were the same ones they rode to take hogs to market in Louisville.  On the way home dad said they would stop in Palmyra to look at tractors.  We saw the tractor dealership there.  Dad still loves to look at tractors.


The route we took made our trip a couple of hours longer than it should have been, but it was time well spent.  I was happy to be there to listen to my dad share a piece of his childhood with me. 

Friday, November 4, 2011

Radical by David Platt

Last month I had several posts from books by Richard Foster.  This month I am beginning with excerpts from Radical by David Platt.  The sub-title of the book is Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream.  It has been a challenging book and I'll share several ideas from the book here.



The first chapter is called "Someone Worth Losing Everything For."  It's about how much we should love Jesus.  The second chapter is "Too Hungry for Words," and it deals with how much we love God's Word.  Here are some excerpts:


“This is the picture of Jesus in the gospel.  He is something—someone—worth losing everything for.  And if we walk away from the Jesus of the gospel, we walk away from eternal riches.  The cost of nondiscipleship is profoundly greater for us than the cost of discipleship.  For when we abandon the trinkets of this world and respond to the radical invitation of Jesus, we discover the infinite treasure of knowing and experiencing him.

“But is his Word enough for us?

"This is the question that often haunts me when I stand before a crowd of thousands of people in the church I pastor.  What if we take away the cool music and the cushioned chairs?  What if the screens are gone and the stage is no longer decorated?  What if the air conditioning is off and the comforts are removed?  Would his Word still be enough for his people to come together?

"[We did an experiment.]  We called it Secret Church.
We set a date—one Friday night—when we could gather from six o’clock in the evening until midnight, and for six hours we would do nothing but study the Word and pray.  We would interrupt the six-hour Bible study periodically to pray for our brothers and sisters around the world who are forced to gather secretly.  We would also pray for ourselves, that we would learn to love the Word as they do.
(I'd love to do this sometime.)

"What is it about God’s Word that creates a hunger to hear more?  And not just to hear the Word but to long for it, study it, memorize it, and follow it?  What causes followers of Christ around the world literally to risk their lives in order to know it?

"We are afraid that if we stop and really look at God in the Word, we might discover that he evokes greater awe and demands deeper worship than we are ready to give him.
(I think this is SO true!)

"An old preaching professor used to take his students to a cemetery every semester.  Standing on the perimeter overlooking scores of headstones, he would ask his students in all sincerity to speak over the graves and call people from the ground to rise up and live.  With some embarrassment and an awkward chuckle or two, they would try it.  Of course, one by one they would fail.  The professor would then look at his students and remind them of a core truth in the gospel: people are spiritually dead, and only words from God can bring them to spiritual life.
(How often do I forget the power of God's Word?)

"And salvation now consists of a deep wrestling in our souls with the sinfulness of our hearts, the depth of our depravity, and the desperation of our need for his grace.  Jesus is no longer one to be accepted or invited in, but one who is infinitely worthy of our immediate and total surrender.
(This is addressing how we word our invitations to salvation..."invite Him in"...Accept Him as your Savior.)

"But that gift of grace involves the gift of a new heart.  New desires.  New longings.  For the first time, we want God.  We see our need for him, and we love him."

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Life With God: Final Post


“If gossip or empty talk is a struggle, we train through silence.  If greed, we retrain our view of possessing things by engaging in simplicity, frugality, giving.  If cursing, we train by blessing those who provoke our anger, taking up the habit of blessing for a month or so until we are more apt to bless than to curse.
(What practical words!)

“We address our vices by attending to the opposite virtues, and then seeking which Disciplines will train us in those virtues.

“Fasting is feasting on God.”

“Pause for a moment and consider how much time, money, energy, and thought you spend on meeting these basic needs for yourself, for family members (and pets), for friends and visitors in you home.  All of it is fertile ground for learning the ways of life with God.

“Grace is not a ticket to heaven, but the earth under our feet on the road with Christ.

“Bonhoeffer conceived of relationship with God in terms of ‘existence for others, through participation in the being of Jesus.’

“In Bonhoeffer’s life and teachings we witness the difference between the soft complacency of ‘cheap grace’ and the tough-minded discipleship of ‘costly grace.’
(Although I have often heard of Bonhoeffer, I have not read his works and I need to.  He was an amazing martyr for the faith during the Nazi occupation of Germany.)



“Grace is the action of God in our lives.

“God comes to us not to overwhelm us and overpower us, but to interrupt us in the midst of our ordinary routines, on the ground of what is familiar to us—everyday life, the arena in which most of life with God takes place.  He whispers rather than shouts, gently prompts rather than shoves, I am with you—will you be with me?

“Grace enables us to do with God what we could never do on our own.

“Grace is the invisible made visible in ways we could never dream of, much less bring about….grace operates like this: the more we use it, the more there is of it.

“God makes grace accessible to us by empowering us with the means for growth.

“Mother Teresa knew with every fiber in her body that John’s call to love does not refer to some warm feeling or abstract ideal.  She demonstrated, at great cost to her own comfort and feelings, that love involves clearheaded action toward God and others, rooted in Jesus’ sacrificial action on our behalf.


Thursday, October 20, 2011

Life With God by Richard Foster



I have just finished a book called Life With God by Richard Foster.  The subtitle is Reading the Bible for Spiritual Transformation.  So that’s what it’s about…reading the Bible.  It also ties in to the spiritual disciplines we so need to develop in our lives.  I love Mr. Foster’s heart as he shares it in this book.  I will be sharing some excerpts from the book.

“Freedom comes not from the absence of restraint but from the presence of discipline.  Only the disciplined gymnast if free to score a perfect ten on the parallel bars.



  Only the disciplined violinist is free to play Paganini’s ‘Caprices.’ 


This, of course, is true in all of life, but it is never more true than in the spiritual life.  When we are on the spot, when we find ourselves in the midst of the crisis, it is too late.  Training in the Spiritual Disciplines is the God-ordained means for forming and transforming the human personality so that in the emergency we can be ‘response-able’—able to respond appropriately.”

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Reflections on Autumn in Canada


The camp road

Phil says this has been the best trip of his life.


We have reveled in the glorious weather and scenery we enjoyed.  Except for a couple of days of rain, the rest of the days were picture perfect.  The fall colors were at their peak and the temperatures were most comfortable.  We did some stargazing on several nights, which included a spectacular view of the Northern Lights. 

View from Bear Track


Sundown Point







We enjoyed great food and fellowship.  Suppers of partridge, walleye, and wild rice (Fawnda outdid herself); breakfasts of blueberry & wild rice pancakes and delicious coffee (thanks, John); and other wonderful dishes (I made a chicken pot pie) tasted even better after a hard day’s work.  We ate well and had great conversations that deepened our ties to one another.

John & Fawnda

We played a couple of new games.  I finally had a chance to play “Ticket to Ride” which is very popular among the staff at camp.  We also played a quick an easy card game called Golf.  I’ll be happy to teach it to anyone who wants to learn.  Phil even played and enjoyed the games.


I spent some of my days working with the Bates children.  They are a wonderful bunch of kids.  I also spent time working of ideas for next years’ camp.  I feel like we made good progress.


And I read…ah, the luxury of quiet time to read.  I’ll be sharing some of what I read in later posts.  So many good things to think about.





Saturday, September 10, 2011

Friday Friends

Since I've retired I now have Fridays off.  That means that I am able to attend Friday Friends, a ladies' Bible study at my church.  It is a wonderful group of ladies including moms of toddlers, single ladies, stay-at-home moms, homeschool moms, and retired moms like me.  We share food, fellowship, prayer requests and Bible teaching.

This past Friday I had the opportunity to teach the group.  When I told Phil I was trying to decide what to teach, never to be one to withhold his opinion,  he said, "I know what you should tell them.  You should tell them to get up from the table immediately and go home and bake something.  Teach them to take better care of their husbands."

Then he reminded me of this cartoon that we saw a few weeks ago...


Now don't worry.  He was being sarcastic.  

But it got me to thinking about these verses in Titus 2:

3 Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

So I went with it.  What a great discussion we had!  We got down to the nitty-gritty of what it means to love your husband, what loving your children really looks like, what "being busy at home" is all about, and last, but certainly not least, what it means to be subject to your husband.

None of this stuff is easy.  It's hard work.  It's messy and pesky and confusing.  But it's what our real life, here and now, is all about.  And if we can't apply our Christianity in our homes with our husbands and children, where can we apply it?  On the other side of the coin, if we don't talk about the struggles we have in living this out in our homes and marriages, how can we overcome, how can we stand the storms?  Because they're there for all of us, and they're tough.  If we never tell people how we struggle, we make them feel like they are the only ones who feel this way, that what is happening to them is not natural.  And we set them up for discouragement and failure.

So we shared, honestly and openly.  And it was good for our souls.  

Saturday, September 3, 2011

‎"With self-discipline, most anything is possible." -Theodore Roosevelt


I think discipline in one's life is one of the things most lacking in our culture today.  When you think of all the negative things that come from lack of discipline (anger, weight gain, being unhealthy, debt...I could go on and on) and all the good things that come from discipline (peace, health, wealth, etc.) it's amazing that we don't emphasize it more.  So I've taken to re-reading the book, Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster.  He opens with these words:


Superficiality is the curse of our age.  The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem.  The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.

With so many good books out there to read, it takes a lot to commit time to a book I've already read.  But this book is so practical that I know I'll get something new from it that I didn't get the last time I read it.  

The first discipline is meditation on the Scripture.  A couple of highlights:

Moses learned, albeit with many vacillations and detours, how to hear God's voice and obey his word.  In fact, Scripture witnesses that god spoke to Moses "face to face, as a man speaks to his friend" (Ex. 33:11).  There was a sense of intimate relationship, of communion.  As a people, however, the Israelites were not prepared for such intimacy.  Once they learned a little about god, they realized that being in his presence was risky business and told Moses so: "You speak to us and we will hear; but let not God speak to us, lest we die" (Ex. 20:19).  In this way they could maintain religious respectability without the attendant risks.

The history of religion is the story of an almost desperate scramble to have a king, a mediator, a priest, a pastor, a go-between.  In this way we do not need to go to God ourselves.  Such an approach saves us from the need to change, for to be in the presence of God is to change.

And where do we meet God?  Where do we come into his presence?  In His Word.  The author goes on to suggest practical ways to meditate upon God's Word.  I got a least one tip that I want to put into practice.  Good thoughts.



Friday, August 26, 2011

Tribute to My Mom



My friend Rachel wrote on her blog about Proverbs 31:

The ancient acrostic poem celebrating the virtuous woman was never meant to be a standard women struggle to meet, but rather a blessing that celebrates the accomplishments they’ve already made. [Jewish] men recite the poem to their wives at the Sabbath meal, and Jewish women often praise one another for accomplishments in homemaking, career, boldness, and justice by declaring “eshet chayil!”—woman of valor!


Today is my mom's birthday.  She is 76.  I can't tell you what a treasure she is.  She is a "woman of valor." I declare this blessing upon her:



Irene, woman of peace,
Gifted with mercy,
Your children rise up to bless you.
Faithful to your husband,
You have brought him good all his days.
He has “confidence in you
And trusts you without reserve.”
Always diligent in all your tasks,
You “do not eat the bread of idleness.”
Your home is immaculate and inviting.
You work in the garden and put up
Stores for the winter.
We reap the benefits of your labor.
Generous and kind, you set a feast before us.
All those who gather at your table find
Love and hope in the conversation there.
Always ready to fight for your offspring,
You battle for us daily in prayer.
“Many women do noble things,
But you surpass them all.”
You have lived your life
In the fear of the Lord.
Today we lift up praise to the Lord
For the blessing He gave us in you.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!




Thursday, July 28, 2011

Audience of One

Didgeridoo

Yesterday I read something interesting in a book by Beth Moore.  She said,  “…the glory of our Lord Jesus surrounds us constantly.”  And then she gives the following list of examples we might have experienced:

*  Empowering someone to forgive us for something that seems unforgivable
*  Feeling like the only one in the audience during a sermon or lesson
*  Having our eyes opened anew to a portion of Scripture
*  Attending a dying loved one who knows Christ
*  Working through some detail that no one else knew anything about
*  Having an impending disaster averted
*  Feeling His powerful presence as we engage in worship

When I read this list I immediately thought of Mike Barris.

In the late 1980’s Ed Brown invited a man to speak at our church.  He was a gifted musician and that is how Ed had met him.  His name was Mike Barris.  Mike was from Australia.  He came with a wide assortment of strange Australian artifacts and instruments.  He cracked a bull whip and explained that the noise it makes is actually a small sonic boom (breaking the sound barrier).  He played a didgeridoo, an Australian aboriginal instrument pictured above.

He used each artifact as an object lesson to teach a Biblical lesson.  And this is where he got me.  Every lesson spoke to my heart.  The main thing I was dealing with was serving the Lord out of duty or obligation, rather than out of love. 

At the end of the service I was ready to run to the altar.  I even remember thinking, “I’ll go down first, before everyone else comes.”  I went down and cried and prayed for a good while before I realized that I was the only one who had come.

It was a life-changing experience that led me to think of my service to the Lord in the proper light and with the loving attitude He desired from me.

And it has always been mind-boggling to me to think that God called Mike Barris from Australia to come to Dunlap on that particular evening just to speak to me.  

God is so good!