Bible
Two Hearts Beat as One
I was getting ready to mow the back yard when God brought an image to my mind. I thought of an article I read online a few months back about an elderly couple who died holding hands. This doesn’t happen often, but I literally dropped everything and got to my laptop to get this all down while it’s still fresh in my head.
The couple was Gordon and Norma Yeager, married for 72 years when they were both involved in a car accident. When they got to the ER, they were both more concerned about the other than themselves. Finally, they got moved to a room with side-by-side hospital beds where they could hold hands.
He died first. But that’s where it gets interesting. I’ll quote a bit of the article.
“Someone in there said, ‘Why, then, when we look at the monitor is the heart still beating?'” Sheets recalled. “The nurse said Dad was picking up Mom’s heartbeat through Mom’s hand.”
“And we thought, ‘Oh my gosh, Mom’s heart is beating through him,'” Dennis Yeager said.
That to me is what a Godly marriage looks like. That is also a beautiful picture of fellowship and community in the body of Christ. That’s a perfect picture of divine love shown in it’s fullest and most complete expression.
We should be so connected and intertwined as believers that I cry when you hurt and I suffer when you are in pain. That your sorrows are my sorrows and your joys my joys. I think the Bible calls that carrying each other’s burdens.
Most of all, I want to be that way with Jesus. I want to be so close to Him that people can feel His heart beating through mine. I want to be so intimate with Him that His heartbeat literally becomes mine and I can see people through His eyes and reach out to them with His hands and love them with His heart.
I want my heart to be broken over what breaks the heart of God. No just when I’m serving in missions or when I’m in a church service, but all the time, everywhere I go for everyone I meet.
May that be your heartbeat also. May that be the one desire of your heart.
By the way, if you want to read more about the Yeagers, you can go here. http://abcnews.go.com/US/iowa-couple-married-72-years-dies-holding-hands/story?id=14771029
From one beggar who has found the Bread of Life and is trying to tell everyone else how to find it, too.
Good Conversations
I had a really good conversation with a good friend I’ve known for a while today. It was at Starbucks, so of course quality beverages were involved. In this case, it was two chai frappachinos with caramel on top. I highly recommend one if you ever get the chance.
It was one of those conversations that makes you a better person. It was one where I realized again just how blessed I am to have friends like this. I truly believe that I will look back 50 years from now and see that I am more like Jesus because of conversations like this one.
What will you remember about your conversations 50 years from now? Will you remember anything worthwhile that you said or heard? Will you be able to point to those times where you changed for the better because of the healing and encouragement and blessing spoken into your life?
I know I am who I am because of God speaking life into me through so many friends and family members. Not all the words were easy to hear, but every word carried the power of God to transform and renew me.
Thank you, friend, for blessing me every time I see you. It’s because of you and others like you that I am finally able to see myself and love myself the way God does and love others the same way.
May you be blessed a thousand times over for your words of comfort and kindness to me. May you never forget how fond your Abba is of you and always feel His smile of approval over you in everything you say and do.
The same goes for all of you reading this right now.
Sometimes
I really, really hate to admit this after all my talk of how God has healed me in the past. It feels like I’m pulling a fast one on you after I’ve announced to everyone how God has been delivering me from my fears. But here it is.
Sometimes at night when I’m tired, I get overwhelmed for a moment by fears.
I fear that this time I really have said or done the absolute stupid and wrong thing and a particular friend is gone for good. He or she has un-friended me and taped a picture of me to a dartboard for target practice.
I fear that I will always be single because no girl will ever find me attractive or desirable and I will always be left with this unfulfilled longing inside of me.
I fear that I’m really not good at anything and really won’t ever find a career that really makes me come alive to who God created me to be.
I think the difference this time is that I can name these thoughts as lies. It may not completely take away the panic and the pain, but it helps when I see these thoughts for what they are and their true origin from the father of lies.
I know now that most of the time a good night’s sleep will help these fears go away. Sometimes, it’s a glass of warm milk. Sometimes, it’s just practicing deep breathing. Sometimes, it’s saying, “Abba Father” over and over. Sometimes, it’s resting in the eternal Arms of my Abba Father and listening as He sings over me to calm my anxiety.
It’s okay for me to have setbacks and regressions, because they keep me grateful and thankful for the times when I am living out of faith and not fear. And those times are more and more prevalent.
There will always be something to fear. There will always be those moments when you give in to that fear. The question is: Can you name that fear for what it is and claim the promises of Jesus over it? Sometimes, you have to claim them out loud, but even when you don’t have a voice to speak them out, they are still powerful and true and for you.
Perfect love casts out all fear. In my case, perfect Love is casting out all fears, one at a time. I hope you find this to be true for you. Because the freedom is so much more than worth it.
Speaking Life into Each Other
Have you ever posted something on facebook with one specific person in mind, just hoping that person would read it and comment on it? I have. . . I mean, a friend of mine has. . . . ok, I’m so busted. That was me.
Maybe if you’ve done it, too, you were like me and felt crushed and ignored when said person didn’t comment or even like the post.
I realize now how co-dependent and passive-agressive that was (not to mention somewhat OCD). Looking back, I see just how silly and juvenile that was.
The thing with co-dependency is that you always need to be liked and affirmed and acknowledged. The sad part is no matter how people do, it will never be enough. It’s kinda like a drug, where you need more and more to feel normal.
What I need are friends who will tell me the truth in love.
As I have mentioned before, I am in the healing process. I am finally learning to like me. I can finally stand to look at myself in the mirror. I can finally like being around me.
It’s because I have people around me who speak life and healing and wisdom into me. I have people who see me the way God sees me and help me to see myself that way.
In a conversation with a friend at Starbucks, I had an interesting revelation. My friend said that Hebrews speaks of Jesus as putting a human face on God. Then I got to thinking afterward, maybe you and I put hands and feet to Jesus when we serve each other and those around us in need. When we speak the words of Jesus into each others’ lives.
I am a lot better at not wigging out when people don’t respond to my posts or texts. I get that people have lives and issues other than me and that I can’t realistically demand to be the center of everybody’s attention all the time. That’s not healthy.
But I know that I have God’s full attention 24/7 and that He is speaking to me all the time. Sometimes when I’m alone with my Bible open or sometimes when I’m in a one-on-one conversation with a friend or sometimes through random posts or texts or sightings around town.
I am coming to the point where it’s not about me, but helping people to find their YES in Jesus and come to know and believe about themselves what God says about them and sees in them. That’s my ministry and calling.
May you be as comfortable in silence and solitude as you are in a crowd and learn to love yourself as God does. It is so very freeing.
Voices
I heard a provoking question tonight at Kairos. What does your voice tell you?
I’ve never thought about it this way, but usually those kinds of voices never tell me anything good or positive.
Things like “You’ll never amount to anything,” or “You really are a nobody.”
If you try to take steps to make your life better, the voice will say both “Who are you to do that?” and “If you’re gonna try, it has to be perfect or it’s no good.”
My voice that stuck with me for the longest was “If people really knew the real you, they wouldn’t want anything to do with you,” with the close second being “No girl will ever find you attractive so don’t even think about dating.”
Those voices don’t ever go away by you ignoring them. They only get louder that way.
The best way to get rid of those voices is to drown them out with another Voice. The Voice of Truth.
This Voice says, “You are my beloved. I love you just as you are right now where you are.”
The Voice says, “You are good enough and smart enough and beautiful enough because you are My masterpiece.”
The Voice says, “I am your Abba Father and I am very fond of you.”
Sometimes when you can’t hear that Voice, you need someone who will remind you. Sometimes, you will be the one to remind someone else.
I have family and friends who remind me daily of what God sees in me and what He says about me. I try to help people see themselves the way God sees them and hear what God says about them.
This is a repeat, but it it is also my mantra (or one of them): What you think and what you feel will lie to you, so you go with what you know. You go with the promises that God has spoken over you and what He has said about you being wonderfully and fearfully made.
You recognize that voice in your head for what it is and renounce it as the mouthpiece of the father of lies.
May you have ears to hear the good things your Abba Father is saying about you tonight and every day after.
Wheat and Weeds
I keep thinking about wheat and weeds a lot. Not because I’m in need of medication (and yes, they do make pills for this), but because I’m still thinking about a particular sermon I heard Sunday. It was that good.
I’m wheat. Just go with it and it will make sense further on (I hope). I am planted in a field where wheat and weeds are mixed together and sometimes are hard to tell apart.
My job is not to try to decide which is which.
I could make a list of top ten most dangerous weeds– that is, the people I’d most like God to take out and smite. The problem with that is that I am most likely on someone else’s List of Folks for God to Smite Tomorrow.
Or I could just be the best wheat I can be and love people.
Oh yeah, I forgot one thing. I was once a weed.
In other words, I once was purpose-less and no good for anybody or anything. I once had no hope at all and was headed for a grim ending.
But God made me wheat. Is that anymore hard to believe than God changing me from dead to alive, from sinner to saint, from stanger to family, from alienated to beloved? No.
If God can to that in me, He can do it in anyone. Trust me on that.
From this moment on, I am believing the best about everyone I meet. I believe God can change anyone, make broken and dead people whole and alive, take your mess and make it your message, and help you find your YES, the reason you were born.
I choose to see you not as you are, but what you will look like when God gets through with you (and trust me, what I’m seeing is absolutely stunning!) I’m praying to see you with God’s eyes and love you with God’s heart and be God’s hands and feet to help you get to where God designed for you to shine.
Cause that’s just what wheat does.
Back to Your Future
I’ve always been intrigued by time travel. I’ve always been a sucker for movies like The Time Machine (the first one, not the remake) and Back to the Future (all three). Even the remote possibility of going back or forward in time is exciting.
If you could go back, what would you change? What mistakes would you avoid? What brave, courageous thing would you do? What would you tell your younger self?
I have a novel idea. I wouldn’t change a thing. Not one single solitary thing.
Sure, my life isn’t what I thought it would be. I’m not even close to married and my job status sure isn’t what I thought it would be when I was daydreaming back in the olden days. My bank account is missing a few zeros, too.
But I’m rich where it counts. I’m blessed in all the ways that really matter.
I have family who has stuck with me. I have friends who actually like me and have yet to bail on me, despite some extremely dumb and dorky moments on my part.
The reason I still believe that God is real is because I have seen Him lived out in the people around me. I’ve had so many show me Jesus and what He can do in someone’s life if given even the smallest chance to work.
I don’t know what the next few days or weeks look like, but I know God does. I am trusting my unknown future to a known God (to borrow one of Corrie ten Boom’s most famous quotes).
I don’t know where I’ll be, but I know it won’t be alone. I’ll have my brothers and sisters with me. All of them, including the ones who may not share my DNA, but call on the same God as Father.
My future’s looking bright. And I want to do everything in my power to help you realize yours.
May we all find God to be more than faithful, more than able, and more than enough, no matter what comes next. Amen.
Random Saturday Night Ponderings
I had a really good night. I ended up playing volleyball and partaking in some high quality oreo cheesecake. The fact that such a thing as oreo cheesecake even exists makes the world a better place to live in, don’t you think?
One of the discussions was about who we would want to play us in a movie about our lives. I picked John Cusack (with Mark Ruffalo a close second). My friend picked Jennifer Aniston. Friend, you have chosen wisely.
I love those kinds of nights where the conversation is good and not too serious. Where I am not always paranoid about saying something wrong or stupid or just plain lame. Where not everything has to be ultra-spiritual religious talk, but can still be edifying.
I think even in those times we can still mutually bless and encourage and challenge one another. We can still walk away better people, more compassionate and more understanding and more like Jesus.
If you’re like me, then you know how blessed you are to have good friends who bring out the best in you, who bring out the God-colors in your world and remind you that you really are the Beloved and Favored of God.
And yeah, I recommend the oreo cheesecake if you ever find it on the menu. It’s that stinkin’ awesome. In fact, it should have its own federal holiday. A National Oreo Cheesecake Day. I declare that June 8 is that day.
May you have a blessed night and remember once more that your Abba Father is fond of you and will be singing over you all night until you wake up in the morning.
Baggage Part II: Polaroids of the Past
If you’ve lived long enough to make at least one incredibly stupid decision, you’ve got some of these. Maybe you’re like me with lots of small regrets, moments of time captured in your mind as clear as the images on a polaroid.
They call it flash bulb memory, where you can remember every single detail of a certain moment in time where something in your life changed. Those happen in good moments, in tragic moments, and most of all, in moments where you and I screwed up.
Maybe you are like me and have been carrying around a suitcase full of those images for years. The suitcase keeps getting heavier and heavier as you compile more polaroids of shame and guilt. More moments you would give anything to go back and undo.
Jesus wants those polaroids. Not for the reasons you think. He’s not going to be shocked or surprised by what He sees. He knows about each and every one. In fact, He was there when they happened.
He wants all of these pictures, not to hold them over your head every day or to make you feel perpetually ashamed. He wants to take them from you and case them as far away from you as possible. As far as the east is from the west. As far as the heavens are above the earth.
I am not my mistakes. Neither are you. Who I was in my weakest moments is not who I am. The way you acted all those years ago isn’t really you anymore. If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a brand new creation. Not a better you, but a completely new you.
It’s time to stop being weighed down by the past and start walking in the freedom that comes with new mercies and clean slates each morning. It’s time to really live in the freedom Christ purchased for us, the condemnation-free life that is now ours.
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