Weather Changes

Yesterday was a windy, warmish October day.  So I washed my dirty sheets and blankets and even mattress cover and hung them outside to dry.

I breathed the smell of them thankfully as I snuggled into bed last night.  I am pretty confident that was the last hung-dry-outside opportunity till May.  And it makes my heart ache, because I was made for warmth.

But I will be watching and believing that there will be different opportunities this winter.  


Opportunities for good conversation.  For change in my heart and in my words and in my motives and in my actions.  

For fires and books and thinking and dreaming and working diligently.  For praying.  For surrendering.  For listening and sometimes speaking.  For hope and joy and choosing to trust.

Trust in the Lord, and do good;

dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

These are words to cling to whichever land we dwell in.  Trust in the Lord.  Do good.  
Dwell, really dwell in the land.  And befriend faithfulness.

Passage from ESV Psalm 37.4 

 

The Flip

I sit on the couch any given morning, the patter of children not yet heard.  I draw back the curtains, pour coffee, pray, and read.

Lately I've been watching the house across the street being flipped.  After a foreclosure, the purchaser at auction is revamping it for resale.

In one day the color changed from purple-blue to sandstone.  The trim moved from periwinkle to deep earthy-brown.  The door went from white to eggplant-brown.  My eyes adjusted quickly, as the change was beautiful.

Still, the yard.  Our former neighbor loved gardening and planted much.  But the last two years of neglect showed in an overgrown, weedfull, mish-mash landscape.

We watched with astonishment as a landscape team came and worked for two days.
My husband said, "I want them to come and do that to our yard."

Neat, orderly, visually satisfying.  I've never seen it lovelier.



I haven't seen much inside, but I'd guess it's the same.

It's a total flip.

So I sit on the couch in the early morn, and I read in 1 Corinthians 6:

"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived:  Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."


The house across the street is a picture of the miracle I so often forget.  A miracle of a changed heart.  Before Jesus, I was dirty, rundown, neglected, dark, and deceived.  But I was washed clean, purified, made holy, given good standing before God.  All because of the life of Jesus living in me.


I think that's an incomparable flip.

Text from 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, bold mine.  Photos from Aunt Lorna of the cherry orchard in bloom.

A Choice, Part I: From the Beginning

Let's just say, for fun,

That Cain gave his produce

To God 

But not his heart.

His brother Abel

Brought the best of his livestock,

And gave God his heart as well.

Let's say that God loved them both.

Loved produce and meat, Cain and Abel.

Loved so much

He couldn't let Cain escape his rebellion.

Glossing over it with a "thanks for the produce" wasn't love.

Instead God called Cain on his condition.

He invited Cain into a relationship with Him.

(If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?)

He warned Cain of the sin waiting to destroy him.

(But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door;

it desires to have you, but you must master it.)Genesis 4.7

We know his choice.

How Cain chose to blame his brother for loving God

Instead of loving God himself.

Cain opened the door to that crouching sin,

Murdering the shepherd of the flocks.

Hundreds of years later

David, a murderer, adulterer, king,

Worse than Cain in his sin,

And confronted by God like Cain

Chose the other way.

Repentance.

Love of God.

He penned these words, close now to the hearts of

unknown oodles of souls.

The sacrifices of God are a

broken spirit; 

a broken and contrite heart,

O God, you will not despise.

Psalm 51.17

Even so,

The Shepherd of the flocks 

Had to die for David's sin.

For all sin.

Staying broken,

Knowing always

My need of that Shepherd,

For only He

can keep me clean.

And praying,
As I raise these children.
Though they make bad choices, sin,
That when they hear his voice,
They will not harden their hearts.

to be continued.....

Favoritism

"For God does not show favoritism."

Romans 2.11

I had asked Him, before I started reading Romans 2 that morning, to show me something.  

I've been starting my journal entries, "Lord, hear me saying..."  and sometimes, later on, I'll write, "Lord, I hear you saying...", because He does share things.  And if I know what I'm saying to Him, I'm better able to hear what He's saying back to me.  It's powerful, you should try it.

Back to favoritism.  This verse, meshed between much discussion on Jews and Gentiles, hit at my heart.  At my insecurities.

For some reason my thoughts ended up back at the mall with a friend when I was a teenager.  It happened plenty of times...we'd go into a clothing store and the salesperson would walk up to that friend and ask if she needed any help.  I was completely ignored.

My junior year of college, her freshman year, we attended a Greek dance.  Yes, we were both Greeks.  A guy immediately came up to her and asked her to dance.  I was completely ignored.

The result?  Subconsciously I decided I must be really ugly.  

I gave sales people and unknown Greek guys a lot of power over who I thought I was.

For God does not show favoritism.

Who do I give power to?  Who do I trust to define me? 

Then there's the other side...when I am favored.  There's been plenty of those times, too.  

Using ASB Student Council to get out of class and teachers just winking.  Getting private information because of my position, not that I really needed it. 

The problem is, though it might feel good to be favored, I don't necessarily trust those who show favoritism.  Who knows when they'll change their minds and make someone else their favorite?

Not so with God.  He sees all.  He knows all.  He made all.

He has no favorites, for He is limitless in His love and grace and showers it upon all who will take it.

For me, it is a daily necessity to turn to Him.  To trust Him and to turn away from my natural tendency to find my worth in others' opinions.

...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  Ro. 3.23,24