Happy New Year!

A brand, spanking-new year. (Anyone know the history behind the expression "spanking new"? I'd be interested to hear it. Ahem.)

I've been relaxing, as is my New Year's Day practice. I'm watching football games, and cooking up what I hope will be the most delicious pot of white bean soup.

Making it up as I went along, I was rinsing and sorting the beans, rough-chopping some sundried tomatoes, red onion, and garlic. I debated with myself as to whether I wanted to add what is left of my home-made chicken broth...but it is frozen solid in my freezer. I opted not to, saving that good, good broth for another soup for another day. I'm thinking I'll add some fresh rosemary towards the end of cooking - just a bit, for extra flavor. Rosemary smells just like Christmas. While I am at it, I might even make a fresh arrangement with lots of rosemary, branches from my sweet olive bush, and some red berries. It is that sort of day.

As I was dreaming up this particular white-bean-soup-recipe, I decided to google "white bean soup". It is downright lovely, sometimes, what one can discover, just googling and lolly-blogging about. In the interests of gracious generosity (every good blog should be shared with others!) I ran across this gem:

www.graciousbowl.com

Do pay them a visit. Of course, I'll be leaving an encouraging comment. Gracious bloggers always do.

If you are at all a soup lover, you won't be disappointed by this blog. Trying their white bean and Italian sausage soup is on my list of fun things to do next week. Seeing the fresh spinach resting on the top, absolutely sold me. I just gotta try that recipe. (Yes, they photograph their cooking experiments - how fun is that?)

Have a prosperous New Year, to all my new friends. I'm thinking of Chris...Jamie (how I have come to love you!)...Dan...Senora Smith...Jul...Lydia Joy...Caryn in New York...and more. Happy New Year to my old friends - Donna Jean, Kim Neve, Donna Conner, and so many more who visit me here on my blog from time to time.

Most of all, a happy and prosperous New Year to my church family - of whom my own dear parents are now, as of one month ago, new members. My life can't get much more blessed and full and complete. I can die a happy woman.

Well, I can die happy after we find my other twin daughter a fi - i - ne (hear the southern drawl) man of God.




Of course, her heavenly Father will do the finding. I'm just kidding when I say "we'll have to find him".

I do know this: nothing short of an on-fire, brutally handsome, leader-of-a-man, who is already about the business of the Kingdom of God, who knows exactly what he wants and pursues it, will make that daughter of mine happy. She deserves nothing short of the best...he's out there somewhere! How exciting! Will 2009 be the year? (She's so gonna kill me.) She's in no hurry; she's fiesty and happy and picky and can afford to be picky. I'm the one who needs to know that I can die happy...just in case. Nobody is guaranteed to be on planet earth, this time next year.

And no one should get married until they find the one whom they can fulfill their divine destiny better WITH that person, than without them. No one should get married until the time is right - when what needs to be done in God's kingdom requires the talents and gifts of BOTH to accomplish. Marriage is so much more than sanctified sex, or a comfortable, expected, and socially acceptable arrangement.
No one should get married until they find the one who can make them laugh; until they find the one who is so very easy to be with. The one who leaves happiness in his or her wake. Few things are more important.
But that's another blog for another day. I'll let this one be about soup and the New Year.

"Selah..."

2008 will be a memory, in three short hours from the time I write this. And mercifully so. Midwinter is now upon me. I am hearing the Lord whisper, "Come aside, beloved..."

The winter season lends itself so well to the urge to contemplate. I love New Year's Eve and New Year's Day for that very reason - the brief down time. For me, down time inevitably gives way to an original idea. I need the chance, by now, to pull in and center down and simply think my own thoughts. Contemplation is a lost art. I sincerely believe the devil has issued his "order from headquarters" that all Christians be kept, at all costs, from gazing idly out the window at falling snow. If I spend adequate time doing that, I might have a "Selah moment."

"Selah" is that Hebrew word you've read many times in the Psalms of David and in the book of Habakkuk. The word appears in the Bible over 70 times. One old theologian contends that it is a name of God. One thing we do know, this word appears only in poetry - the poetry of song. Often, it was an indication to change pitch, in order to emphasize what was to come next in the song.

To do this, to change pitch, meant the harpist had to pause long enough to re-tune his harp to a new octave. Generally, it is accepted that "Selah" means to "Pause, and deeply consider".

You and I need to pause. You and I need a bit of down time. The Lord will call you and I aside, so that He can tune our heart-strings to the next octave. What is on the horizon, what comes next in the song of our lives, means our pitch cannot be the same as it was in 2008. A change is needed. When God brings new direction, it becomes necessary to set aside some time to re-tune. Don't rush into the next verse of your song, still plunking your harp on the same old octave. It won't work. Instead....Selah.

Stop.

As I take stock of the year gone by, and the year just ahead, I compare where I am today to where I was a year ago. In many ways, this brings me to my knees because the Mighty God hath done great things for me. In other ways, this contemplation fills me with a terrible ache, because something or someone is missing from my life that was there just one short year ago.

Still. The response is the same. To my knees I go because His name is to be blessed and praised.

Regardless of whether the silence of the Selah brings us joy or pain, let's never allow a devilish conspiracy of distraction keep us from our "pause, and deeply consider." The wisdom of God waits in the wings, silently. The thoughts of God are not easily gathered, they are buried treasure. He longs for us to sing a new song to Him, but first He must give us the words and the tune.

A song is not a song without the pauses. The poem of your life cannot be read properly without stopping in the right places. A life cannot be well lived in perpetual motion.

Selah, my friend.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

...And The Evening and The Morning Were The First Day...

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (Ge. 1: 5)

From the Genesis of the sun, moon, earth, and human kind, God set it in place that each day is to begin at sundown. We think of a day as beginning each morning, just before or as the sun comes up. How very human of us...to believe that the day starts with our own conscious effort, and must needs end when we fall asleep. Not so, in God's schedule. On His clock (and accurately believed by practicing Jews), the day begins when we reach the end of our human energy, the sun goes down, and we stop to rest.

I watched the sun sink behind the trees this night. The sky was a water color masterpiece of pastel softness. Puffs of clouds dotted the horizon, and a natural sense of peace began to settle across my heart. I have always been drawn to this, my very favorite time of day. I try not to miss a sunset. I like to believe that my love for "the golden hour" of sunset has both spiritual and philosophical implications. Grace is put on vivid display, every single day at sundown. When my work is done, when I am finished, God is just getting started.

The day begins just as "I" end. Through no effort of my own, and in fact when I go to sleep, the Father is unfolding His plan for the next 24 hours, going before me into the already-new day, accomplishing His objective. God gives to His beloved, even in her sleep, the Psalm says.

Dear one! Go to sleep tonight. Rest. Lay your head upon your pillow, knowing that it is a new day, and all of heaven is going into motion on your behalf, and you needn't do a thing but close your eyes.

Now the hand of the LORD was upon me in the evening... (Ez. 33: 22)

God Rest Ye Merry!

I've always wanted to greet people I care about in this way at Christmas time: "God rest ye merry, my friend."

For many years, I never understood that old carol, "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen". It originates all the way back to the middle ages, and was written in old English. In those days, "merry" didn't mean "happy" as it does now. In those days, "merry" meant "mighty". A great and powerful king was a "merry" king, and a great and terrible army was a "merry" army.


"Rest" didn't mean to put your feet up, nor did it mean that you took a nap. "Rest" meant, in old English, "to keep in a continual state of".


"God keep you in a continual state of might and strength, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay. Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day, to save us all from satan's power when we had gone astray.

Oh, tidings of comfort and joy! Comfort and joy! Oh tidings of comfort and joy!"

This Christmas, I've been smitten over and over with the simple statement of a great heavenly host. There...filling the heavens...Jehovah Sabaoth, Lord of the Hosts, sent His great host to break centuries and centuries of silence between God and men. God could have commissioned them to say anything. These ministers of His, this great, innumerable host, are as flames of fire, carrying out His Word, down to the smallest detail. They've declared war before, down throughout human history - lots of times.

Would this be that sort of message?

God could have instructed His hosts to give only the facts: "Messiah is here."

He could have sent a message of judgement.

God dropped a bomb, to be sure. He dropped a bomb that would forever make that field in Bethlehem the greatest, most utterly meaningful, most famous "ground zero" of all time. But it was an explosion of joy.

The Grace Message was finally detonated.

A blast of mercy, engulfing the planet. Into the black of the night, into the darkness of our human spirit, came the bright light of Good News. It was tidings of comfort and joy. Jehovah Sabaoth utilized His great host, He sent the mightiest, "merriest" troops in the universe to tell us, "YEAY!" and to promptly throw a party amongst the stars, in full view of a few shepherds.

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, Peace....Goodwill....to men."

Peace.

Goodwill.

Let it sink in. Let those two words be the good news they were meant to be. Your very own tidings of comfort and joy.

Merry Christmas, dear ones. God rest ye merry...

Winter Solstice

Tonight, December 21st, marks the longest night of the year. For some reason, the whole idea of the longest, deepest, darkest night of the year, always grips my heart, and makes me turn thoughtful and quiet inside. The winter solstice is the beginning of winter, which, with all the somewhat dismal implications that come with the long winter season, actually marks the precise day, after which the sunlight hours begin to grow longer, minute by minute, day by day.

My husband finds that whole idea thrilling. He lives for spring, and relishes the thought of lengthening days.

One of my favorite Christmas songs is "In The Bleak Midwinter". I find the melody to be hauntingly beautiful, and the whole song is a refreshing departure from some of the saccharine-sweet ditties of this season. Of all the artists who have contributed their renditions of this old song, I love James Taylor's and Amy Grant's the best. If you know of a better remake of "In The Bleak Midwinter", do pass it on to me, I'd love to give it a listen.

Many parts of our country are experiencing "snow on snow on snow"...not us here in Tennessee. I'd love to see a white Christmas, but alas, again this year it is not to be.

But enfolded and tucked deeply into this day, implied in this, the longest night of the year, is impending spring. Things really do get darkest just before dawn. There is so much hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it truly is written into nature itself.

Worship God Incarnate with me this week!

Question and Answer Session

So often the comment section on blogs does not get read. And sometimes those comments are too good to miss. Thus, I want to post right here, as its own blog entry, a comment and question I received - and then my initial response. This girl is a student of the Word, I can tell, because she asks all the right questions. You can tell she is a thinker...a ponderer. I won't post the name or blog address just in case she'd prefer that I didn't, but here is her comment to my post on local churches:


Your last statement so beautifully summed up what I know to be true and long to be a part of.I too desire to live out New Testement Christianity and definetly see the relevance of a local graceful community to enable this end. I don't know why it is so difficult to find both but I am too stubborn, too broken and too visionary to settle for one or the other.So how do you find these covenant relationships that are BOTH healthy and local? For most of my life I have been part of church bodies that are local but not entirely healthy in structure or belief. More recently,I have connected with many people that are healthy and/or growing in grace, but are simply too far away for the highly effective nature of close community. What does one do in this case?Perhaps my expectations are too high? Perhaps my creativity too low?

December 18, 2008 8:46 PM
Sheila said...

First of all - thank you so much for opening up and being transparent. I will do my very best not to violate your trust...you are safe here. Safe. That is a wonderful concept and an even better feeling.

As to your questions, my first thought is that you be very secure in who you are in Christ. We all bring our quirks and imperfections to the local church, but it is best, overall, that we don't show up with yawning caverns in our soul because we have not yet understood that we are accepted in the Beloved.

So you show up, knowing that no group of people will ever meet your needs or your expectations, nor will they ever love you like God does. Look for a local church whose fundamental doctrines line up with what you believe - mainly that you agree on what I call "the essentials" - and whose worship cracks open your heart, where the Word is preached uncompromisingly, yet with grace, and whose children's/teen/college ministry has leaders who DO NOT give you a check in your spirit. (Very important, no??)

Look for hospitality. I'll grant you - it is hard as heck to find. And it won't be expressed perfectly. But you want to sense a general openness in the hearts of the people.

When you find the above - - you commit. Pure and simple.

You join hands and hearts and you go the distance, come hell or high water, and both will come. ACK! Church life is hard. It just is. Just like being married is sometimes maddening, and raising children can break your heart - but the rewards, however few and far between they might be, make every sacrifice worth it...so it is in the family of God. Don't expect it to be any different than your own family...full of skeletons in various closets, occasional conflict, boredom, or chaos. But OH HOW YOU HAVE COME TO LOVE THESE PEOPLE!

Show up ready to adapt. There is an Old Testament principle - - when the children of Israel encountered "the stranger in their midst" they were to love them, YES. But they were not to adapt themselves to the "stranger", the stranger was to adapt to the people. And so it is when settling into a new church home. "When in Rome, do as those Romans do". You probably won't be able to change a thing - so don't show up with an agenda. Accept these folks as they are, and find out, over time, how they do things.

Expect to offend and be offended, to forgive and be forgiven. Expect to be loved and cared for. Expect the word preached to challenge your sensibilities, and know that you will never get a full sense of a man's ministry until you are a year or more sitting under it. So if a message or two or five are preached that do not sit right with you, don't panic.

Maybe that pastor is "swinging a pendulum", using hyperbole, or generally hitting something hard to make the point. When a "hard right" or a "hard left" is preached...the outcome and result is rarely that radical - the outcome usually ends up being a gentle curve in the proper direction for the people as a whole - so do not worry. Sometimes if a pastor isn't on fire, no one listens. So let him blaze away, and rejoice over the idea that you are not getting watered down stuff.

Look for mothers in Zion - a healthy church will have a few. It takes time to find them, but they are waiting for you, I promise!

This is a start, and I hope and pray it helps you on your journey to finding a healthy local church. You are necessary to the body of Christ, dear one!!! We need your gifts and your love.

"Grace, Grace!" - Shout It To Your Mountain!

Shout Grace!
by Francis Frangipane


We sing Amazing Grace, but I don't think we realize how amazing grace actually is. Grace is God's power, motivated by His mercy, working to fulfill His compassion.

We are saved by grace, but what culminates in a "day of salvation" experience is actually months and even years of God quietly, yet powerfully, working in our hearts. Recall: Jesus said, "No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (John 6:44a). Do you remember that drawing power? Before we knew God, divine power was working invisibly within our hearts, drawing and wooing us to Christ.

Yet let me take this miracle of grace further, for after Jesus spoke of the Father's drawing power, He then said, "and I will raise him up on the last day" (John 6:44b). This is the power and commitment of our Father's love: from the days of our sin and rebellion even to the days long after we die, grace continues working to unite our hearts with God's. From our utterly helpless beginnings to our utterly helpless end, from being dead in sin to being dead in the grave, grace carries us to the arms of God.

Unlocking the Power of Grace"But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that, in the ages to come, He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:4-8).

Paul says that grace saved us "through faith." Faith unlocks the power of grace and releases it to function in our world-and faith itself is another gift of God. The difference between both gifts is, the grace-gift must be activated by the faith-gift. We must believe that God is "rich in mercy." We must accept as true that God loves us with "great love." We must not doubt He atoned for "our transgressions." We must be confident we are "alive together with Christ."

Grace works through faith. Believing the words of grace unlocks the power of grace; the power of grace to fully transform us comes through faith. As it is written, "For of His fulness we have all received, and grace upon grace" (John 1:16). The true stride of a Christian's walk is "grace upon grace." The same grace that turned our hearts toward Christ continues to work in us, transforming even our sufferings and trials into virtue and power. Are you in a battle? Are you struggling with finances, health, righteousness or relationships? Your grace-miracle has already been created. But you must believe that not only has God created a grace-provision for you, but Christ is motivated by love and actually desires to show you favor.

You may feel like a loser, a sinner, a person others routinely reject---and perhaps you are! The purpose of redemption was so that, in the ages to come, God might display through us "the surpassing riches of His grace." You may be poor in this world, but you can become rich in the transforming grace of God. Believe Him. A day will come in the future world of God when He will point to you and I, once fallen and depraved, filthy and isolated creatures, and display us before heaven and earth as radiant, transformed beings---a glory to His workmanship and love. And it will come to pass because we believed in the grace of God to change us.

Who cares what other people think of you? God says He loves you! Indeed, His grace is working to set you free. God knows you have been struggling with desperate issues; that's one reason why He has inspired this message. His grace is reaching to you to deliver you. The means to your victory is not more prayer or more Bible study, but faith-activated grace. Of course, I strongly believe in both prayer and study, but the power to release each of us is a free gift of grace. Don't postpone your breakthrough. Believe that God's grace is here to release you!

What We Cannot Do On Our OwnWe've been taught that grace is God's unmerited favor, which of course, it is. Yet unmerited favor is only one aspect of grace. In reality, grace is God's promise to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

The Bible says that "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness" (Rom. 4:3). It doesn't mean that Abraham believe there was a God. No. Demons believe in one God and tremble! When Abraham "believed God" it meant that he believed what God had promised would come to pass. God promised to do for Abraham what Abraham and Sarah could not fulfill on their own. The Lord had promised Abraham he'd be a father of many nations. This is the glory of God's grace: it accomplishes what is otherwise impossible for us. You see, grace not only chooses me, saves me eternally and blankets my life with mercy, but grace also works in me realities unattainable without divine help.

Consider Zechariah and the story about Zerubbabel, who was governor of Israel. The Jews had been held in Babylonian captivity for seventy years. Now, they were being restored to Jerusalem. It was Zerubbabel's task to oversee the restoration of the city. In the struggle of the battle, weariness settled on the governor. So, the Lord gave Zechariah a promise for Zerubbabel. He said, "‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6).
God was saying, in effect, "You have labored, your enemies are many and they are strong, but this work I've set before you isn't about your abilities; it's about what I can do working through you." Likewise, our salvation isn't about our works or power. It's about believing in the Holy Spirit's power and the grace of God.

Then the Lord gave Zerubbabel an important word. He said, "What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain; and he will bring forth the top stone with shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!'" (Zech. 4:7).

Zerubbabel had mountains in his life that were too much for him. He had a task that was beyond his abilities. Yet God promised His Spirit would help, and when it was done, multitudes would be shouting "Grace, grace" at the finished work.

Listen, my friends, don't run from the mountains in your life; face them with faith---and then shout "Grace, grace" to them. Let God make your mountains into "a plain."

Let's not mutter an unbelieving whisper about grace, but shout it out loud. It doesn't say, think about grace, but release your faith and shout "Grace, grace!" God's unmerited favor has been poured out upon you; now speak to that mountain of discouragement, sickness or financial need---GRACE, GRACE!

Blessed God, You have drawn me to Yourself and have sheltered my life in the impenetrable stronghold of Your grace. Forgive me for drifting back into trusting in my works or abilities. Lord, I believe in Your grace! I shout "Grace, grace!" to the mountains that stand before me! In Jesus' name!

http://www.frangipane.org/