Category: Musings

I know, I’m still a week behind.  No matter, I’ll get caught up.  Here’s  post 12 of 2019.  I was caught by unexpected beauty the other day.

I don’t know why I’d never noticed them before. It was an especially foggy morning and the drive was uneventful. Quiet and peaceful as the miles sped by and the roads wound around the countryside. The forest was cloaked in translucent white while the gray sky slowly brightened to blue as the sun rose in the east chasing the fog away.

I was on the sidewalk, and the wet grass with the sun shining on it, reflecting the drops of dew, drew my attention. I stooped down and looked more closely. The grass was filled with many tiny and perfectly spun webs, each about the size of a half dollar in diameter. Delicate and almost invisible, winking in the sun as the drops of dew caught the light.

There were so many, inches apart from each other, I couldn’t count them all.

If I had chosen to walk across the grass instead of the sidewalk, how many would I have unintentionally destroyed? They had to have been spun in the dark. Tiny spiders working hard for their breakfast. Creating miniature works of art that could be annihilated in an instant.

There are so many things of beauty we can easily miss. When we change our focus from where we’re supposed to be going to reveling in the journey itself our lives are enriched by the seemingly small and inconsequential.

To our unseeing eyes God’s creation continues fulfilling their purpose in the cycle of life. He watches over and ordains the movements of the tiniest of creatures. He feeds them and gives them water every day. His creation has continued for millennia and sings the songs he wrote special for each one.

He knows the stars and calls them each by name. (Psalm 147:4)

God unfolds the beauty in the lilies of the field. (Matthew 6:28)

He gives his beloved sleep. (Psalm 127:2)

Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you. (Psalm 116:7)

Living a life of thankfulness and appreciation for even the smallest of details makes for a joyful life full of meaning and purpose.

I got a week behind, so I’m playing catch-up.  I still haven’t mastered the ability to write when I don’t feel like I have anything to say.  Here’s to post 11 of 2019.   I’ve always loved the prophets – their prose is beautiful and sad and hopeful all at the same time.

“Though the fig tree should not blossom,
     nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
    and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
    and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
    I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places.”

Habakkuk 3:17-19

Life was about to get much worse for Habakkuk’s people, the nation of Israel. Chaldean forces would arrive, raze Jerusalem, and take its people captive to a foreign land. Raping, pillaging, enslaving. Habakkuk’s people would be forced to leave their homes, and live where they didn’t want to live. They would be forced to endure what they didn’t want to endure.

Scholars say Habakkuk was a contemporary of the prophet Jeremiah, who also warned the Jews of God’s coming judgment for their sin.

Life gets hard and we get discouraged. We pray and things don’t get better. We beg and God is silent.

Our needs are great, and we cry out to our Father to provide and he seems to ignore our pleadings. We plod through our days with our hearts downtrodden and bruised. We want rest and peace and restoration. We want an end to our suffering.

The Israelites were exiles in Babylon for 70 years before they were allowed to return to Jerusalem. They returned to a destroyed city whose walls were broken down and where wild animals had made their home. With enemies all around them, they set out to rebuild their walls and their city while prepared to fight for their lives.

The days and decades were terrible and difficult and painful and seemed never-ending.

And yet. The heart-cry of God’s faithful people will always be ‘even though – even though, I will rejoice…’   Even though my child is sick. Even though my house is damaged and in desperate need of repair. Even though my bank account is empty. Even though my spouse is dead.

With our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, we can be confident in knowing the ending of the story will always be a happy one.

“Hold fast to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”   Revelation 3:11 (church of Philadelphia)

Our Father is always listening. He hears and cares. Sometimes he says ‘yes’. Sometimes he says ‘no’. And sometimes he says ‘not yet.’

When your difficult days seem to go on and on without relief, remember that all we can see is our small world, but God sees it in its entirety. His plans will unfold in due time, and in the midst of your difficulty, he will send small mercies your way to encourage your heart and show you just how much he really loves you.

Post 10 for week 10 of 2019.  I’ve been thinking more about how broken many of us are and how that can make us feel useless and worthless.  God sees things differently.  He looks at us through the eyes of a perfect Father who loves his children at all times.

I was angry at God for some time. Months trudged by and I sank into a period of deep depression where I wanted to die. I was done. My inability to fix the problem coupled with my guilt of not being a good mother overwhelmed me. How do you prepare for this? What should I have done differently?

I’ve said this before, and it’s still true. It’s hard to talk about the difficult things. It’s exhausting to have to explain and set up the scene so your listener will come to the same conclusion you did because your life depends on it.

If they don’t agree, what’s the purpose for continuing?

In his book, you’ll see that Jonah never recovered from his depression. He started out angry and stubborn and ended his story angry and stubborn.

Can God only use us when we’re all shiny and clean? Jonah’s a great example of a typical man with baggage and pain. He hated the Ninevites for what they’d done to his people. He may have had direct family members killed by them. We don’t know the details, but we feel Jonah’s deep-seated hatred.

God saw Jonah and picked him to deliver a message of life and deliverance. “Love your enemies as yourself”, Jesus told us. “Do good to those who persecute you.”

Did Jonah feel chained to his anger like I did? Did he really believe saying no to God was going to end well for him? Did he care? Probably not.

Jonah’s anger led him in the opposite direction of obedience and God let him go. Jonah’s disobedience threatened the lives of the innocent, and God let it happen. As the waves floundered the ship filled with desperate and terrified men, and the tempest blew their hopes far away, and the lightning illuminated their ravaged vessel, Jonah instructed the mariners to throw him into the sea.

Jonah was committing suicide by proxy. He would rather die than help the wicked and the guilty.

When the fish God sent swallowed him, what was he thinking? Was he elated that he wasn’t dead? At the end of his prayer, Jonah finally submitted and proclaimed “what I have vowed I will pay.” Desperate words for desperate measures. Because in the end, we don’t usually really want to die. We only think so until it becomes a certainty.

Jonah was not a reluctant prophet, he was a stiff-necked and angry prophet who God used anyway.

God had a message for the Ninevites and God had a lesson for Jonah. And by extension, a lesson for us today.

God wants to forgive and restore.

God wants willing vessels to deliver his message.

God can use you right where you’re at.

He always gets what he wants.

Forgiving others is a choice. Not forgiving others is also a choice.

We don’t hear anything more about Jonah. We don’t know if God ever used him to deliver a message again. I think aside from the lesson that God gives the wicked the opportunity to repent, he’s also showing us how very patient he is with us when we can be less than cooperative. He delivered Jonah from the belly of the fish, he gave him shade from the oppressive heat, and he patiently reasoned with him. Like a father with an intractable child.

This story always makes me think of that passage of scripture “don’t grieve the Holy Spirit.” Don’t you think God was deeply grieved by Jonah’s attitude?

My anger finally ran its course and my depression lifted. God was patient with me while I worked through all the emotions that threatened to drown me. My accusing words and my raised fist and my closed-up heart. He still used me through this process to proclaim the Good News even while I was immersed in my own disappointment and pain. Even as I clung to his promises with my last strength as a climber grasps the crumbling rocks with shaking fingers, feet desperately and blindly searching for a foothold.

This post is for you who are struggling today with anger and hopelessness and disappointment. Yes, God wants us to rest and trust and be filled with joy. But he also knows us intimately and loves us through our mess. Hang in there and crawl if you can’t walk. Be better than Jonah – choose forgiveness and allow it to do its work and grace to fill your eyes so that love is what you’re able to give.

Just like Jesus said, “I came for those who are sick and in need of a physician.”

Let his healing hands begin the healing process for you today.