To Know Him in the Now

Now is the time.

All your sins, past and future, are forgiven through the cross of Christ. You are free. You are free from guilt over your yesterdays, and free from anxiety over your tomorrows. This is only possible because God always inhabits the Eternal Now. It is well said that He is the great I Am, not the great I Was, nor the great I Will Be.

"Now" is always the acceptable, and in fact the only available time to receive the grace of God. (The Bible says, "Behold now is the day of salvation", which means the very same thing...)

This applies to me, though I first came to know His salvation 38 years ago. "NOW" is still the only possible opportunity I have to work out my salvation - now is the time to fear and tremble, lest I be found trying to add to His gift of righteousness. Now is the only possible opportunity I have to labor to enter His rest. Now is the only possible opportunity I have to practice His presence, to savor His sweetness, to taste of His goodness, and boast in His ability.

The only real obedience is now obedience. Planned obedience doesn't count, and past obedience counts even less. Past obedience doesn't accrue in some imaginary balance scale, the weight of which absolves me from present devotion.

I either love my brother now, or it is as though I never have and never will. (You know...your brother...your sister...the ones with names and phone numbers and addresses and children and burdens and joys and hurts and fears and they offended you and you can't quite get over it and now is your only acceptable time to make it right, to live in love again.)

I either practice His presence now, or He is only real to me in my memory, not in this moment.

Grace is not reserved for those weeks and months after I first believed. Grace is more for the present moment, a throne to which I now run with my actual life, not with my version of the story. God only deals in reality, He doesn't deal with my spin on reality.

I either hunger for Him now, or I am not hungry at all, with no guarantee of an appetite tomorrow. My heart is either tender now, or it is hard. Past tenderheartedness is not insurance in the event of future callouses. Past fire doesn't make up for present lukewarmness.

Who you are now....is who you are. You are not who you used to be, and you are not who you intend to be.

Does your "now" find you falling short? If so, you have just become human, because it is our "now" that forever finds us out. When we stop living in the land of memory and good intention, we always find ourselves in a time of need. Oh, how we need the grace of God.

"I need Thee, Oh I need Thee! Every hour I need Thee!"

Whatever you need to do to change your mind, to make things right, to take joy, to be unjaded and uncritical, to fully obey, to fully love, to fully forgive, to draw those you love straight to your heart....do it.

Now.

Now is all there is.

Typical Tuesdays...

It's a classic-jazz sort of Tuesday...

and a give-the-baby-his-bath sort of Tuesday...

Got to have the blackmail pictures...

Have you ever seen a baby with his own spa-tub??

...and proud of it.

giving his Mimi "the look"...

...and it will be a get-in-the-Anatomy/Physiology-lessons, spaghetti dinner, clean-the-laundry-room sort of Tuesday. A watch the birds at the back feeders, sip on diet Coke, go to my son's basketball game tonight, reflect-on-my-blessings sort of Tuesday.

He's been smiling at me. Yeah. Babygrandson has been smiling at his Mimi.

Bliss.

Underlined Bits

The following is an excerpt from the book Spiritual Rhythm, Being With Jesus Every Season of Your Soul, by Mark Buchanan...a book recommended by Ann Voskamp, and after reading it, I'm on my second reading....I highly recommend this book. It put many of my own recent heart experiences into words for me - it resonated deeply, and gave form and substance to what before were only the thoughts in my mind...this is the gift all good writers give to the world!

"Often our pursuits are trivial. They might masquerade as great dreams, but it's by their fruit that you know them. We gain things that perish only to lose things meant to endure, things we were to guard with all our hearts:


we get a big house, but estranged children; we win the applause of strangers, but lose our friends; we acquire wealth and status, but grow cold toward God; we acquire much and spend much, but give little and - really - get little. The Bible tells us to seek the Lord. It tells us to seek peace and pursue it. It tells us to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness.


We can know all this, and even do it, but lose our way along the way and end up chasing things we'll never catch, or if we do, wish we hadn't."

Quick, Easy, Feeds a Crowd...

This is a go-to recipe, here at the cottage. I am sure it, or something like it, is out there somewhere, in some official form, as a recipe. But this one, I made up myself. It is a perennial Atchley favorite, and couldn't be easier.

First, gather your ingredients, and take a picture of them, because you are a goober-blogger-geek:

2 or 3 large green peppers (I used 3); some red onion; a whole box of penne pasta; a sliced kielbasa; olive oil; a cup, give or take 2 or 3 cups, of Parmesan cheese (in other words, as much or as little as you want); and don't forget a bit of coarse salt and fresh cracked pepper. No table salt, please, because I am a salt snob. And a pepper snob. And a purse snob, but that's another post for another day. I buy most all my purses at Goodwill, and the only rule is that they had to have retailed for over $200 at one time.

gotta have the real deal...it's all in the parm...oh no. I am a parmesan snob, too! (Not really. I use the already grated, in the bag stuff, when I absolutely have to.)

make sure your cutting board is at least ten years old, a gift from your oldest son, and that it shows lots of "love". Because I am a cutting board snob. If there is no patina, there is no dinner.



Put your penne pasta on to boil. Cook it up according to package directions. While that is cooking away, heat up some olive oil, in your cast iron skillet. Cast iron is best, big and heavy, because I am a skillet snob. Get the oil screamin' hot, but not smokin'...

(see the pasta boiling? I wish to the moon that was a copper stock pot you see there, because I am such a copper pot snob. All my pots except my big stock pot, are copper. Alas, 6 or 8 quart copper stock pots don't come easily, because they are not found at thrift stores)

Toss in your green peppers and onion, and stir around for a minute or two. Find your newest, turquoiseyest utensil, because I am a utensil snob.

...some fresh ground pepper...

Toss in the kielbasa, and stir some more...careful now! Cast iron gets hottttt...keep it movin', girls, keep it movin'...

Toss in your cooked penne, your Parmesan, add another splash of olive oil, and break out the plates. Your tongue is going to beat your face to death trying to get to this. It is that good.

Word for 2011

Finally, I've composed my thoughts. There's been a word rolling around in my spirit in the latter part of 2010, and I knew it would be my word for the following year. It would be the word that would characterize my hours and my days. I didn't choose it, I believe "it" chose me.

The word?

Sow.


Sow - [soh],verb

1. to scatter (seed) over land, earth, etc., for future growth; plant.
2. to plant seed for: to sow a crop.
3. to scatter seed over (land, earth, etc.) for the purpose of growth.
4. to implant, introduce, or promulgate; seek to propagate or extend; disseminate
5. to strew or sprinkle with anything.

–verb (used without object)
6. to sow seed, as for the production of a crop.

Legalism is the counterfeit to spiritual sowing. God cannot and will not bless the works of my flesh. He cannot be pleased with any works of righteousness I could ever do. But when I sow, believing in a righteousness outside myself, I will reap some 30, some 60, and some 100 fold. You see, grace provides seed for the sower. My seed is a gift. I didn't earn a single seed. The ability to sow is a gift.

But I have to sow.

I will sow, in 2011, with intention. I will sow in several specific areas, and into a few specific people. I will sow in faith in the finished work of Christ.

I heard it said recently that where I am today, good or bad, is a result of decisions I made 20 years ago; and where I will be 20 years from now will be because of the choices I make today. Sowing. Reaping.

That being the case, I am excited about my next 20 years, because the revelation of the grace of God is so very strong on my life right now, in a way it wasn't 20 years ago.

Right now, were I to sow with what I myself am able to accomplish ("sow to the flesh") I will reap corruption in 20 years. But if I sow to the Spirit ("Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord"), I reap life...pressed down, shaken together, and running over.

You reap what you sow, more than you sowed, later than you sowed it. All sowing is an investment into the future. It is never God's will that I build and someone else inhabit. It is never God's best that I plant, and someone else eat. I want to sow into relationships, into my health, into the Kingdom, and also be there when the seeds sprout, and then throw a party when one seed becomes a hundred pieces of fruit, and each one of those pieces of fruit contains yet a hundred more seeds!

Call me foolish, but I am absolutely convinced that I will reap a blessing that is all out of proportion to every single seed I sow in 2011. I shall not sow sparingly.

Our friend Joe Ewen said that adversity is a precursor to opportunity, and persecution is the herald of the hundred-fold return.

Thank you, persecutors! Seriously. I mean sur-russly. Thank you, thank you. Bless you! Come by my house anytime in the coming year, so that I can share the bounty with you - because it is by your hand and your mouth that I have been so unfairly advantaged! When the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you, life becomes enchanting and incredible.

Since that be the case, I best get to sowing, because every single thing I plant is going to produce a massive bumper-crop, to the glory of God.

My Boyfriend...

My man...a picture I snapped with my phone, while we were having dinner, after strolling the riverfront in Savannah.

Cute, or what?

This man can calm me down and fire me up. Rein me in and set me loose. He can make me happy as a clam and mad as hokey pokey, and it is all just a day at the office for him. I love...and I do mean love...his passion for the gospel, preached carefully, passionately, and properly.

And in a day and time that seems to be dominated by sissies...by men who hide behind sarcasm and live under the law (the law is for sissies...only real men live by grace through faith) untaught Christian men, yoking everyone they know under heavy burdens, not lifting a finger themselves to help bear them...

...amongst self aware, religious men, cold and dead, my man glows like a happy hearth-fire. His courage to preach a New Testament, Pauline gospel is the thing I love the most about him.

Well...and those eyes. And those hands. And the way he plays the guitar, and the way he plays the drums, and the way he can fix cars...

...and the way he can soothe crying grandbabies. Now that's hot - holla!

No, it isn't our anniversary. Or his birthday. Or anything in particular. I just think he's a home-girl's best thang. My boo.

And he will read this, and look at me very...very...quizzically.

Road Trip - Savannah

A bit of lunch...

An over 110-year-old building...and cute traveling companion, who lets me eat where-evertheheck I want...

Celebrating my roots (both Scottish and Presbyterian...)

Celebrating a good, good day in Savannah.

I love the perspective a road trip gives me. There is a certain lightness to facing life with only one very small suitcase and a GPS. We are letting serendipity rule, going where we want, when we want, the way we want.

This is how we roll. No agendas, no schedule to keep, no one to feel like we have to please...just me n' my boo.

Today, we strolled Forsythe Park, visited a Revolutionary war cemetary, saw the statue of John Wesley - my favorite Arminian, Godblesshim. We navigated the cobbled street on the river, where I ate some good ol' Low Country Shrimp N' Grits.

I have more pictures for you, but this lousy internet service at our suite doesn't have the "umph" to download any more pictures...I've tried for the whole first half of the Stanford/Virginia Tech game, to no avail. I'll try again tomorrow, when the destination is...

Charleston, South Carolina!