Good News

Dad’s birthday celebration would have been in July. He wouldn’t have wanted anything, though.  He never did.

While growing up, my dad never let me pay for anything. Not a meal, not a tip, not a parking meter, not even the price for him to repair something around my house. There was never a cost that was ever owed to my father.  I often asked when would he ever let me pay.  His response was always the same.

“Your day will come.”

Once my siblings and I surprised Mom and Dad with a trip commemorating their 50th wedding anniversary over a weekend.  And, they went.  And then, they took us back the next year.  And then the next year.  And the year after that.  And the year after that.

He lived to be 87 pulling out his dollar bills.

I’d always have to laugh at him,  “When will my day come, Dad?”

His motive wasn’t rooted in pride.  This was a father who understood the fatigue of finances and durations of difficulty building a business and putting food on the table with six placemats. He understood a candlewick that burned on both ends. He grasped the concept of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

With adult children of my own and emerging livelihoods and a number of placemats on their own tables,  I am a witness to their hearts towards sacrificial generosity and magnanimous benevolence.

These are the days that have come.

But you know, it is how the Good News went out.

Living as an example to people who were progressing in faith, Apostle Paul humbled himself by preaching the Good News without expecting anything in return.  He said, “I borrowed from other churches by accepting support from them so I could serve you at no cost.” He understood the degree of help needed to the people he loved.

That’s a message of the Good News.

You have a Father, too.

Try as you might though,

there is no cost to you.

2 Corinthians 11:7-8

Poolside

What a sweet month June is.

An invitation came to sit on the side of a neighbor’s pool every Saturday morning for one hour in June.  The invitation went out to others to come sit as well.  There was no long-term commitment.  There was no heavy expectation to know something or necessarily say anything.  Many faces were unfamiliar, but we just all had a Saturday morning hour in June.

I have this natural tendency to hole myself up in a chair in the corner of a room content as can be, making it all about me.  But, a Saturday morning and a chair around the pool brought diverse women together in God’s chosen little community.

Wouldn’t you say that our comfort zone doesn’t like to be disturbed?  But if we permit, God presents many opportunities to put others in our path of His choosing.  He assembles hearts.  It might be for our benefit, but it also might be for theirs.

It’s like in Romans when Paul says, “When we get together I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours.”

Both young and old, inspired Biblical conversations each Saturday morning with mutual desires to develop resilience and perseverance through life’s circumstances.  God’s word is the sword to fight our battles.  We all need an army of saints.

“And let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do, but encourage one another especially now that the day of His return is drawing near.”

Don’t be like me operating with natural tendencies.  Consider extending or accepting an invitation to challenge who you are in God’s identity.

Romans 1:12

Hebrews 10:25

Empty Nest

It was about a year ago in June 2023 when my son got married. 

Two weeks before he officially “left the nest” a brood of birds was hatching right outside his bedroom window in the weeping cherry tree. Day by day I witnessed the activity of momma bird constructing the nest and caring for her young.  Although, it seems quite illustrative that I would miss these little fledglings fly away from the nest while I went away to Nashville to watch mine.

I quite literally came home to an empty nest.

Less than one full year has passed and in June 2024 my daughter has birthed her fourth little hatchling, Ruth Annette.

The end of one’s nesting begins another’s.

I have a sweet window into this momma bird and her activity.  She is busy.  She is beyond selfless, extremely provisional and dare I say, exhausted!  Every chirp is heard and handled.  I see momma bird coming and going, coming and going, coming and going.

You want to know what the Kingdom of God is like?

“The Kingdom of God is like a tiny mustard seed planted in a garden; it grows and becomes a tree and the birds make nests in its branches.”

Jesus said to make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.

You want to know what this little momma bird is busy doing?

She is primarily making the Kingdom of God

…in the season of the full nest.

Luke 13:19

Matthew 6:33

Adoration

“…and I will ADORE you.”

I have recently begun my prayer time with the lyrics to this song in adoration to the Lord.

I find myself repeating this chorus. It’s how I am working to get in the mindset of my word for the year.

Adoration.

For me, this is a deliberate and conscious effort.  I have a history and a tendency and even a hurry to go straight into my begging and pleading, throw in some lamenting.  But, rarely ADORING.  I have been known to reduce God to a casual greeting.

In recognition of me not being great at spending much time in adoring Him, I tried to intentionally fit its rightful place in my time of prayer.  Because, its appearance was so rare, my introduction of it felt clumsy.

Adore?

What does that even mean?

I know it, intellectually.  “Utmost esteem.”   That’s the greatest and highest amount.  None greater.  That means my highest love.  Of course, I love God.  But, is it my utmost? Of course, I respect and admire God.  But, can none go higher?  I can’t help but put it up against those in my life who experience my full-fledged adoration.  When I compare that with my innermost feelings, I begin to question where I have God, actually.

So, I’d find myself stopping first and mustering up this emotion before proceeding in prayer.  How can I be so breezy?  I know adoration is important to Him, because it’s important for me.  A bold prayer from King David to the Lord was, “point out anything that offends you.”  So, I know He can be offended.

Don’t misunderstand.  I’m amazed He charts my path and both precedes and follows me.  A hand of blessing is on my head. Yet, the issue I discovered for myself is I don’t always bubble up with the same intensity of spirit in devoted love for him the Creator, as I recognized that I do in ease with those He created for me.  My heart can physically ache and devotion deeply roused for those God gave me and formed in His image. So, similar to that, how can this same spirit of mine intensify in like manner to His formless Presence.

It’s hard for me to admit that I can easily feel the desire of those around me more genuinely and real than the One I’ve never seen.  Why can cherishing, loving dearly, holding in admiration be more natural with those He made for me instead of, “the Spiritual Almighty” who made them.

I stop myself from trying to reduce Him to an imaginable and tangible God within my limited thoughts and ways.  His nature, so divine, sacred, and holy.  Mine is not.  I’m just a dot.  I am small.  Hardly perceptible.  Scarcely detectable.  Yet, somehow, praise God …recognizable.

But, this too is by design.

I cry out in real emotions to His spiritual presence that I try and “will this” to be.

I call on the Holy Spirit to help me.

I just can’t love ones on earth greater than the love of He.

Even if He’s not physical,

I can adore His invisible, yet present Holy Trinity.

I grapple and think it’s like saying I love air.  But, then the wind blows and I’m touched.  I’m refreshed.  I breathe it in.  It expands my lungs and sustains my very life giving me every waking moment by moment.  Breath by breath.  He is in the air and I’m blown away.  “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to know.”

His Spirit is a presence.   It’s occurring at this time!  At this very moment!

This is a gift coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights.  “Every good and perfect gift is.”

He comforts in a heavenly holy lap.  He envelopes in an ethereal embrace.  He cushions in His celestial care.  I bear down on my thoughts to increase the volume. I imitate David in Psalm 139 and Solomon in Kings. Not wanting to sound disingenuous like royalty but not irreverent with my words so contemporary.  I position myself on two knees literally.  I symbolically bow to Thee.  Isn’t this what it must take to accept one as unworthy and complicated as me?

I repeat back to God His attributes.

I visually lay them down at the foot of His cross and remember “He Who’s Overall” using the technique of pointillism to produce a degree of luminosity.

Small dot by small dot I replicate a cross over every people, tribe, language and nation.

It’s to Him I pray with all creation.

He will work forever on my sanctification.

For me, right now,

this is my adoration.

Psalm 139    

James 1:17

Revelation 7:9