Month: February 2014

Beauty – Does it matter?

Recently my boys, 15 and 17 years old, and I went to see the movie Monument Men. It sparked an interesting debate, which is the only form of communication acceptable to these particular teenage male siblings, regarding whether or not Art is worth someone’s life. Ideas being proposed were as follows:

Art is often symbolic of greater meaning. Much of the art that was being saved in this film was religiously themed, as well as being of great importance to the cultural identity of the people where it was located. They were attempting to preserve someone’s national treasures.

If those who were part of the unit believed that what they were preserving was worth their life, perhaps it was, at least to them.

The opposing position stated that no mere object was worth the sacrifice of a human’s life. Negating any deeper significance, these works of art may contain or inspire.

I always feel moved by the following song by Sara Groves

Why It Matters

Sit with me and tell me once again
Of the story that’s been told us
Of the power that will hold us
Of the beauty, of the beauty
Why it matters

Speak to me until I understand
Why our thinking and creating
Why our efforts of narrating
About the beauty, of the beauty
And why it matters

Surely, when we look at the natural world around us; we understand that beauty matters to our creative God. Not once – but twice, when God gave instructions for the temple he gave an amazing anointing.

Exodus 31:3-5(ESV) and repeated again in Exodus 35:31

3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, 4 to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, 5 in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft.

The Spirit of God was given for the express purpose of enabling the workmen to devise artistically what God was imaging perfectly. 

Artistic expressions of devotion were affirmed by Jesus, when he rebuked those who criticized the woman who anointed Him as an expression of her love.

6 But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.

He does not call it worthwhile, noble, acceptable, and appropriate or any other uptight word; He just calls it a “beautiful thing”. Such artistic words…

The ultimate expression of all that is beautiful comes in the description of the New Jerusalem given in Revelations 21. The writer of Hebrews 11:10 said that Abraham was looking forward to this city whose “designer and builder is God”. He knows how to do it right! 

Watching the news the last few weeks from Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, Thailand and the CAR, has brought the last verses of Sara Groves song to mind.

Like the statue in the park
Of this war torn town
And it’s protest of the darkness
And the chaos all around
With its beauty, how it matters
How it matters

Show me the love that never fails
The compassion and attention
Midst confusion and dissention
Like small ramparts for the soul
How it matters

Like a single cup of water
How it matters

Our world so desperately needs the beauty of the love of God! However, we express that beauty, whether by creating the statue or giving the cup of water; it matters!

The Author is Present

Even in the very limited capacity in which I am writer, I find it incredibly frustrating how difficult it is to communicate ideas effectively. Often I long for the ability to represent with greater clarity the thoughts God has laid on my heart. Author Annie Dillard says, “The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going…Writing is mere writing…It appeals only to the subtlest senses- the imagination’s vision, the imagination’s hearing- and the moral sense, and the intellect. The writing that you do…is barely audible to anyone else.” [1]

It is like a two year old attempting to describe the magnitude of Niagara Falls, or an artist who can never quite reveal visibly the image that rests in her imagination. If only I could say it like I feel it, or better yet sit down with you and explain what I mean. Even then, I fear the words to illustrate the intricacies of the message would fail me. What I can give is only a pale fragment, like a corner torn from one of the multitudinous journals I have scribbled in for a lifetime.

Since the notes that I pass on are filtered through such a limited scribe, let me recommend that you go to the source yourself. John 16:13-14 (ESV) states,

13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Henry Blackaby describes it as follows:

Because you have the Holy Spirit, He guides you into all truth and teaches you all things. You understand spiritual truth because the Holy Spirit works in your life. You cannot understand God’s Word unless the Spirit of God teaches you. When you read the Word, the Author Himself is present to instruct you. Truth is never discovered, truth is revealed. When the Holy Spirit reveals truth to you, He is not leading you to an encounter with God. That is the encounter with God![2]

How incredible it is to have the Author present to instruct you! He sits down with you to explain what you need to know about God. What is wrong if that is not our experience that when we read the Scriptures? Perhaps we have never turned from our sins and invited the Holy Spirit to dwell within and guide us.

1 Corinthians 2:14-15 states, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

Maybe you need to meet the author…

Hebrews 5:9 Amplified Bible

9 And, [His completed experience] making Him perfectly [equipped], He became the Author and Source of eternal salvation to all those who give heed and obey Him,

[1]

Dillard, Annie. The Writing Life. New York: Harper Perennial, 1989.

[2]

Blackaby, Henry, Richard Blackaby and Claude King. Experiencing God. Nashville: Lifeway Press, 2007.

I am not a good parent

     I am actually not a very good parent. There, I confessed it. I said it out in the open for the entire world to hear. My husband is the education commissioner over our denominations colleges, seminaries etc. in Asia. He has a grueling travel schedule and so is seldom home. For the past five years, living overseas I have been in the unique position of being a married single parent to two teenage boys. Beyond the obvious challenges of being a mother and raising boys, the fact is that I have never enjoyed the hard work of character formation.

     You know, all that discipline, correction, reproving, I just wanted them to want to do the right thing without my having to make them. Yes, I understand fallen human nature and the need to instill morals, righteousness, and obedience to God’s commands. I know a child with no boundaries will go up selfish, entitled, and spoiled. However, my intense dislike of being the boundary police has caused my lines to waver and be inconsistent more often than not. I pray God will have mercy and fill the many gaps I left with His grace.

     Now that I have two adult children out on their own, and hopefully another soon to leave the nest; I find my relationship to them much more relaxed. Now that I do not feel compelled to “fix” them, I can enjoy just knowing them. I would so much rather discuss writing and literature with my oldest, enjoy arts and crafts with my second, discuss world politics and social causes with my third, and share music with my youngest; than I would force them to eat right, be polite, do their homework and go to bed on time!

Having spent all my parenting years struggling to find the proper balance between mercy and punishment, I was intrigued recently by this quote from John Stott,

“All parents know the costliness of love, and what it means to be torn apart by conflicting emotions, especially when there is a need to punish the children. Perhaps the boldest of all human models of God in the Scripture is the pain of parenthood which is attributed to him in Hosea, chapter 11.” [i]

In Hosea God speaks of his relationship with his children like a parent.

  11 When Israel was a child, I loved him,
    and out of Egypt I called my son…
3 Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk;
    I took them up by their arms,
    but they did not know that I healed them.
4 I led them with cords of kindness,
    with the bands of love,
and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws,
    and I bent down to them and fed them.

He then describes their incredible rebellion and disobedience.

“They have refused to return to me”; “My people are bent on turning away from me.” “Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit,”

God knows they deserve only judgment, but the father heart of God cries out,

“8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
    How can I hand you over, O Israel?
    …My heart recoils within me;
    my compassion grows warm and tender.”

      So I wondered, does God ever long to get beyond the continual discipline, need for constant correction phase of relationship with us? John 15:14 seems to indicate that He does.

“14 You are my friends if you do what I command you.” God as a good parent wants all that he teaches us to become so ingrained in us that it is obvious that He put his law within us, and wrote it on our hearts. (Jeremiah 31:33) It is this internalization of values, which we all long to see in our own children.

     When we love Him, we desire to please Him and do what He commands, and then the best part happens; He starts calling us friends. No longer needing the constant rebuke and correction of children, but having such a desire for unbroken fellowship that we follow His commands so that we do not hurt our friend.

I love being friends with my children! While I realize that I will never get beyond the need for correction from the Father in heaven, I am longing for more moments of sharing friendship.

[i]

Stott, John. The Cross of Christ. 20th anniversary edition. Nottingham: Intervarsity Press, 1986,2006.

I thought I knew the story…


Growing up in a Christian home, school, Bible college, I am constantly amazed that God can continue to teach me from stories I have heard all my life.  Surely, I could not learn something new from the story of Daniel and the lion’s den. Why have I never realized this before? The speaker in the church we attend pointed out that Daniel was obeying a command of God given to Jeremiah the prophet when he prayed. The command was given in Jeremiah 29:4-7,

4 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce…. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

It has been a while since I brushed up on OT prophetical literature, but it is there in Daniel 9:1-2,

In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.

So yes, it is quite possible that Daniel read and followed the words of Jeremiah to seek the welfare of the city where he was exiled, and that is what he was praying for when he prayed three times a day. 

Feeling only a very small measure of what it is like to live far away from one’s homeland, compare expat to exile, I am convicted that I do not pray for the welfare of the city-state where I live.

However, that was not all I learned. In Daniel chapter 6, the story of the lion’s den, Daniel is shown following his custom of prayer, thanksgiving, petition, and plea (ESV). Yet not once does he receive any reassurance or promise from God- no answer- until he is already face-down in the dust at the bottom of the den and with roaring lions licking their chops over his head. In fact, I think he did not even have an opportunity to apply these “helpful” strategies, and probably was curled up in a fetal position waiting for the fangs until the room started to glow and the guy with wings carrying lion-sized, extra strength, duct tape showed up!

Somehow, Daniel did not need the constant reassurance I seem to demand from God. He knew he would probably die since there was no indication that God promised him deliverance. He just kept on with his normal life of devotion, which may even have included praying for the welfare of the city whose officials were trying to kill him. All day long, he may have waited for the foolishly arrogant, now repentant king to find a loophole in the law. No messenger came with assurance from God he would be delivered, no last minute reprieve arrived, and yet the king gives the greatest testimony, “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!” Whether as the highest counselor in the land, or the man condemned to be torn apart by lions, with no assurance of heavenly intervention he continued to serve.

Wow! Maybe I need to go back to Sunday School…