Enjoy the Rhododendrons
A very full day from beginning to end, Father, but one that was surely full of Your blessings! From worship to precious time with family, You are a good, good God! Praise Your Holy Name!
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
One of the wonderful ladies in one of my churches was born and raised locally. In fact, the house she lived in for many years still stands…but not for long. Her parents and an aunt who lived there for many years are all with the Savior and the home was sold a few years back. The current owners of the property have built a new home behind the old one and at some point, the old one will come down.
Every time we go to church, we pass this house and with the advancement of spring a magnificent rhododendron (mountain laurel) has been showing off its spectacular array of blooms! (That is an actual picture above!) As you can see it is smack up against the old home. My struggle with the whole thing was telling her about it.
As many people would be, she and her brother are both distraught that the place where so many good memories took place will soon be no more. Memories of mom and dad and the farm and…well a time when life was simple and pure. And now there will be no physical place to attach them to, the memories will only be in their hearts and minds.
Even with all of that, she is a plant lover and I knew she would love seeing the rhododendron in all of its splendor!
The heartaches of life and the joys of life quite often fill the same space and time in our lives. Just because we struggle does not mean that we cannot find joy – quite often clouds do have silver linings! And we must make every effort to embrace the joy we experience and savor every single moment of it for we have no guarantees as to how long the joy will last or even be available to us.
I have a favorite Point of Grace song entitled “How You Live (Turn Up the Music)” and it speaks of embracing life while you can…don’t wait.
The song speaks for itself. Google it. Listen to it. Enjoy the rhododendrons while they are still here.
Wake up to the sunlight with your windows open
Don’t hold in your anger or leave things unspoken
Wear your red dress
Use your good dishes
Make a big mess and make lots of wishes
Have what you want but want what you have
And don’t spend your life lookin back
Turn up the music
Turn it up loud
Take a few chances
And let it all out
Cause you won’t regret it
Lookin back from where you have been
Cause it’s not who you knew
And it’s not what you did
It’s how you lived
So go to the ball games
And go to the ballet
Go see your folks more than just on the holidays
Kiss all your children
Dance with your wife
Tell your husband you love him every night
Don’t run from the truth cause you can’t get away
No, no…
Just face it and you’ll be okay
(refrain)
Ohhhhh
Wherever you are and wherever you’ve been
Now is the time to begin
To give to the needy
And pray for the grieving
Even when you don’t think that you can
Cause all that you do is bound to come back to You
So think of your fellow man
Make peace with God and make peace with yourself
Cause in the end there’s nobody else
(refrain)
No cause it’s not who you knew
and it’s not what you did
It’s how you lived
May 26th, 2019, Sun, 7:13 pm
A Bottle of Cold Water
Variety is Your specialty, Father. Stormy this morning, with lightning, some rain, and gusty winds and now sunny and breezy! Never a dull moment! Thank You for Your abundant blessings!
Mark 9:38-41 (<<click to read the passage)
There are only a few verses in this passage but the first had a message and the last do as well!
A cup of cold water – or in today’s vernacular, a bottle of cold water – doesn’t seem to be a big deal. Now I realize that if you did it in the middle of a blazing hot desert it would be but I don’t think that’s the point. I truly believe that Jesus was stressing whatever we do – no matter how small – is significant as we minister His love to one another. In essence, when we do so we are ministering to Him.
As believers we put a lot of emphasis on sins of commission, that is the sins that we commit in what we say and do and think – and rightly so. We must strive each and every day to not do what we shouldn’t do. It’s not easy but extremely important!
An area that is less emphasized is the area of sins of omission, that is sins we commit when we don’t say and do and think the things we should. This is a little more difficult to pinpoint on our checkoff lists! Even now trying to think of some examples I’m having to ponder a bit.
Here’s one – you’re with a group of people, friends even, and the course of conversation goes into off-color jokes or stories. We may feel uncomfortable but should we perhaps say something? Should we excuse ourselves? If the Lord is prompting us to take a stand, do we? We don’t necessarily have to make a stink about it but it may be one more way for others to see that we are set apart. We have a higher standard which we live by. Again, holier-than-thou attitudes can have an adverse effect but if we respond in love, you never know who will be impacted.
Or how about the times we find ourselves face-to-face with someone who we can see has a need and we hesitate to act. What if it is a ruse? What if they are just taking advantage of me? Our culture seems to be full of individuals who do just that but what about that one person who isn’t doing that? They may not even be putting themselves out there as needing help but you feel a tug at your heart to do something? If the Lord is prompting us to do something, no matter how small, do we?
Lord Jesus, I would ask for a discerning spirit. May I realize when You are prompting me to extend a bottle of cold water in Your name. And even if I am embarrassed or taken advantage of, that it would all be for the good because it is done as a gift to You. Amen.
May 23rd, 2019, Thurs, 12:24 pm
Grow Up Already!
Father, thank You for the opportunity to do a little outside work. It’s a beautiful day and I was able to work on one of those tasks the allows me to see an immediate reward for my efforts. Thank You for the blessing!
Mark 9:38-41 (<<click to read the passage)
One of my struggles as a bus driver (and this is one that I’m pretty sure all bus drivers and teachers, too, have to deal with) is tattling! The scenarios all have different characters and “infractions” but they all go something like this, “Bus Driver, so-in-so is doing such-in-such which they shouldn’t be doing, and I, of course, have done that hundreds of times myself BUT I am wanting them to get in trouble so…!” And then quite often they will wrap it up with an “And I told them to stop.” It is constant and usually happens multiple times a day. And that is sort of like what takes place in today’s passage.
The Apostle John is one of our most beloved Biblical characters. He was a part of Jesus’ inner circle. He wrote the Gospel and three epistles (letters) which bear his name and each of them speaks extensively of love, Jesus’ love for us, our love for Him and our love for one another. But he was not always of that frame of mind. When he and his brother James were first chosen by Jesus to follow him as apostles, he nicknamed them “Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17).
We’ve all known a few sons (and daughters) of thunder – rowdy types who are a lot of action without a whole lot of thought. Early on after the group of them was not welcomed by a Samaritan village they said to Jesus, “Lord, should we call down fire from heaven to burn them up?” (Luke 9:51-56)
And now in verse 38, John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he wasn’t in our group.”
Yesterday, we spoke of emulating children – innocence, trust, faith are characteristics we want but while we want to hold on to those things there are also attributes of which we need to let go. We need to grow up, already! The Apostle Paul addressed it in 1 Corinthians 13:11 (NLT),
When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.
And of course, that’s what the Apostle John did – he retained all the wonderful things and grew past all the selfish things. He followed closely in his Savior’s footsteps…and so should we.
May 22nd, 2019, Wed, 12:36 pm
To Be First, Be Last
Father, life has so many highs and lows and they can feel like Mt. Everest highs and Death Valley lows! But the one constant in our lives is You! It is such a comfort that You are the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). I am grateful for the stability You provide in my life!
Mark 9:33-37 (<<click to read the passage)
Of all the jobs I have had, one of the most rewarding, hands down, would be when I served as a Children’s Pastor for five years. At that point in my life, I was challenged to complete a course of study leading towards ordination. The denomination I served in connected that area of ministry with being ordained as a deacon. Individuals who were pursuing pastoral ministry, as in the pastor of a church, would seek to be ordained as an elder. I went the elder route because I strongly felt that I was the pastor of a church – my members were just much younger and shorter!
The Lord led me down other paths but I still love children! (And that for sure helps with being a school bus driver!)
In the second portion of the Scripture from yesterday, Jesus gives a visual for how the disciples (and ourselves, as well) should interact with one another. We are to love another as we love ourselves (Mark 12:31). And love, when it involves leadership, is expressed in servanthood.
So why use a child to drive home the point? In their culture, in particular, children were treated as second-class citizens (according to my Life Application Study Bible). Using a child then helped Him emphasize his command,
“If anyone wants to be first, he must be last of all [in importance] and a servant of all.” AMP(emphasis mine)
We live in a culture which places an exorbitant amount of emphasis being on top – and it makes no difference how many people you have to step on to get there! Unfortunately, even the Church, in some instances, has fallen victim to this detrimental mindset.
Lord Jesus, may our greatest goal be to serve. May nothing be below us. May we always be looking for ways to lift others up. As John the Baptist declared in regards to You, “He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.” (John 3:30 NLT)
May 21st, 2019, Tue, 5:25 pm
Avoiding Pitfalls
Once more I sit with You, Father. You surely know me much better than I know myself. And I know You much better than last year or the year before that but You are so much deeper and wider than my finite mind can begin to comprehend. But the more I know, the more like You I become. Help me, Father, to draw closer still. Amen.
Mark 9:30-37 (<<click to read the passage)
From my perspective, I feel that many people – believers and non-believers alike – don’t read the Bible much because they feel that it’s too hard to understand. I will admit that there are some parts with which even the greatest of scholars grapple. But a good part of God’s Word involves people just like you and me. They are far from perfect. They struggle. They make poor decisions. They say and think and do things that are truly out of line with what God would have them (us!) say, think and do.
Here’s a prime example – at the beginning of this passage Jesus once again predicts His pending persecution and death. As before, the disciples weren’t getting it but what they were doing was “arguing” amongst themselves “about which of them was the greatest.” Really? They had spent a great deal of time with God’s Son, they had seen miracle after miracle and they were “arguing about which of them was the greatest”?
Humanity at its finest, right? And as in all of these situations which we read in the Holy Scriptures; our initial reaction is to be shocked that whatever character it is would respond that way! Then when we stop and think about it we realize – ashamedly so – would I have done any different?
Get into the Word of God. Immerse yourself in its pages. Read the folly of others and learn from it. In doing so maybe we can avoid the same pitfalls. And if all else fails, we may at least come to the realization that when we fall flat on our faces that we are not alone – others have trod the same path – and that God is not there to bash us but graciously extends His hand to once more lift us up and sets us on the path of righteousness once again.
May 20th, 2019, Mon, 9:58 am