The Fruitful Life

Maybe, if we are feeling the load of life, part of the answer is to lighten our pockets by giving out from the things we’ve been given.  Your own heaviness may lighten and others will be nourished and blessed as, in your own struggles you hand out simple pieces of the fruit you’ve been given.  He gifts us abundantly.  Maybe part of our “burden” is that we are holding on to too much of it.  Share in simple ways in the opportunities He brings your way today, and in responding as others come to mind.  The simplest things might be exactly what someone needed.

Follow the Bouncing Ball

He has torn the veil.  He has spilled His blood.  He has given us an inheritance and His Spirit. He has poured out forgiveness and His word.  He asks us to believe.  He calls us to action.  He invites us to listen for specifics, to get to know His voice, and to respond to do the work of His Kingdom in our time.  He will always make a way to provide the means for what He asks. 

We sometimes pray prayers that continue to ask Him to do the work that He has asked of us.  When we pray “Keep our hearts and minds and eyes on You,” we may be acknowledging our struggle to stay focused; but maybe we are simply not willing to keep at the effort of following, to lean in to get to know Him, to take the time to listen, to let Him become King of every area of our lives.  We would be better off if we stop throwing the ball back into God’s court.

Jesus came and did it…prayed, listened, taught, fed, befriended, healed, forgave.  This isn’t a tennis game; it is a mission.  Are we in or not?  We can work up a sweat of bouncing the ball back, but never really participating in the work forward.  We walk off the court, wiping our brow and pretending we’ve engaged, when we’ve just deflected every invitation He sent.

Granted, we do need His mercy and His help continually, but let’s be sure we are doing our part to learn and hear and yield and respond.  We can do a quick check by asking ourselves this: “When did I last hear His voice? What did He say?  How did I respond—dismissing, continuing the conversation to learn more, obeying what was clear?”

When was the last time God “offended” me by suggesting I do something contrary to what I was inclining toward? When was the last time He surprised me by His delight in me? Both will certainly happen when we each are giving Him room to speak into our lives.

Follow the bouncing ball and discover the song He is singing.

Photograph from morguefile.com by dieraecherin

Watch For It!

Be watchful for the opportunities today to notice a bruised heart, to speak a kind word, to help a stranger, friend, or neighbor. Ask for eyes to see better and ears to hear better, for our days are chock full of moments to bless. Vision and ambition are great, but they can (and often do) blind us to the more important gift in the moment.

Unhurried

It occurred to me this morning that part of the gift of the vast creation all around us is an unending display of the variety and power and imagination God holds and the reminder that lavish scenery should be to us of His ability to answer our prayers and meet us in our needs.  His creativity (ability to devise a unique and good solution) and His inventiveness (ability to figure out what will work and how to set it in motion) and His artistry (the beauty and breath-taking way He comes up with) and His care (nourishing, nurturing, and strengthening us as we follow) are unrivaled. 

But to enter the realms of these possibilities so to experience the wonder of His work requires some decisions on our part. He is undoubtedly a God able to do instant miraculous things.  Sometimes He does.  And sometimes He is cooking up a solution that needs to simmer like a stew, whose flavors can’t be gained without the time for it to develop deeply, whose work is wider and deeper than we could have imagined.  He is after delight yes, but also of deep and mature work.  Are we willing to wait if that is the recipe He is working on?

I am not saying that it is easy to learn to hear His voice.  It is harder still to follow—to yield our own kingdom for the promises of His.  But it seems our current inclinations in a world of ever-increasing speed and expectation has reduced the time we are willing to give God to work.  Often, frankly, we want our happiness and we want it now.  In our impatience, we miss so many masterpieces and settle for our own fast food drive-through solutions that satisfy the taste buds of the moment.  We miss the formation of sitting at His feet listening, of being shaped as we see the unfolding of His wisdom, of gaining the experience of trust that reveals His utter faithfulness, of receiving the prizes He had in mind. 

Of course, He can and does still work when we don’t choose as we could have.  That is the miracle of grace and restoration and the heart of the gospel.  But let’s be honest with ourselves and not use those precious gifts as an excuse to do what we know is not His best.  That’s the thing about the drive-through menu…it is all listed right there as a choice, shiny and colorful and seemingly inexpensive.  Let’s please be more discerning with our precious lives.      

It Was No Accident

She was young, yet her age wasn’t an obstacle.  Her heart, somehow, was already responsive and ready. 

She didn’t require answers from a God who had spoken.  She didn’t demand understanding when her heart heard His voice.  She didn’t give room to her fears to come in and whisper a bazillion “What ifs?”  She was a lovely canvas on which God had been given full permission to create beauty, life, and a path by which He could draw mankind to Himself in any way He chose. 

Still, at each moment along the way, like us, she had to continue to choose to trust Him.

We saw it first when she was barely past girlhood.  Her words (without having to text her friends to get their opinion and support) were these:  “I am the Lord’s servant, and I am willing to do whatever he wants. May everything you said come true.” 

She didn’t insist on convenience or happiness for herself.  Mary believed Him as the one designing the plan and who was in charge of the timing and the outcome. 

As the years went along she obviously didn’t shift to a different mindset.  It was after a few decades of watching and waiting for His plan to further unfold when she was simply sitting at a wedding celebrating and noticed a tension arising when the wine supply had run out.  There was no question about where provision could come from or who had the answer, even though her son hadn’t done a single miracle yet.  Her simple effort now was to encourage the servants to believe Him.  Perhaps she was so practiced at being ready that she could now anticipate when God was about to do something.  Is this the fruit of those who ready themselves for His call?  There was only one way for Mary to do life:  “Do whatever He tells you.”

Today we each have the same opportunity.  Just check--is following Him at the top of your to-do list today?  If so, keep your ear tuned, for He will make very good use of your yes. 

We don’t accidentally become His disciples.

Photograph from morguefile.com by Marinapriest

Becoming

As we enter another year, maybe it would be helpful to remember what inspires us.  I am guessing that most of us appreciate those who have weathered storms, pressed in with grace and integrity in the face of difficulties, and developed character by believing a good outcome would eventually come if they did the right things now. 

The best outcomes usually don’t happen instantly.  Set your minds now for what kind of person you want to be in the year ahead, then do what it takes in the moment, even if it isn’t the most convenient or comfortable.  When next December arrives and we get to the last days of 2017 you will have more peace and be content in a deeper place for having lived well through whatever struggles come.  You will be stronger, wiser, more mature.  We will all have some difficulties.  Who will we become for having encountered them?  

Photograph from morguefile.com by BBoomerinDenial

A New Year, the Same Goal

My goal for 2017 comes from a decades old song that impacted me from the beginning… “to see Him more clearly, love Him more dearly, follow Him more nearly day by day.” 

My hope is that whatever the weather of the days ahead, whatever the circumstances of my life, whatever the junk I discover in myself that needs to go, I will press in, surrender my will to His, and trust in His vast ability to do good work in and from my life.  I cannot imagine any greater thing than the opportunity to know Him more in the year ahead. 

Onward.  Welcome 2017 and the lessons and provision and miracles ahead.