Be A Glutton. Like Jesus.

In reading through the Gospels while preparing for this series on Gluttony, I was fascinated by the idea of Jesus being accused of gluttony. Imagine Jesus guilty of gorging?! As I explored this theme, I came across where Jesus threw the accusations back at the Pharisees, naming them as gluttons. So who's right? What's the difference between a glutton like Jesus and ones like the religious leaders of Israel?

Here's how Jesus recounts the accusation:

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by all her children.”
Luke 7:34-35 (NIV)

He's been walking around Israel for awhile, doing a lot of good work, preaching the good news of God's coming. Lots of people were flocking to him, getting healed, getting touched, getting fed, getting loved, getting a new heart. People hung out with Jesus and they repented, they confessed, they turned their lives around. And they invited him to lots of dinners.

Mealtime was more than just about eating. It was about hospitality, about welcome, about community, about acceptance, about embrace, about love. To dine with someone was to become associated with them, to be with them, to be for them. So be careful who you dined with! Jesus, obviously was spending lots of suppers with sinners and tax-collectors. They were also doing a lot of repenting.

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Luke 15:1-2 (NIV)

So why were the Pharisees so bothered by Jesus? And what was it about Jesus' dining with the poor and the outcasts that solicited accusations of gluttony? There were two images behind this idea of gluttony. The first has to do with wisdom:

Oh listen, dear child—become wise; point your life in the right direction.
Don't drink too much wine and get drunk; don't eat too much food and get fat.
Drunks and gluttons will end up on skid row, in a stupor and dressed in rags.
Proverbs 23:19-21 (The Message)

The second image has to do with a stubborn and rebellious son:

If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (NIV)

How could Jesus be a true prophet of the holy God if he was spending so much time with gluttons and drunkards? Either he is not full of wisdom and thus not a true prophet, or he's a prophet that has rebelled against God and has stubbornly refused to resist temptations of lamb-chops. Either way, the proper response for the religious leaders was either to drive Jesus out of the land, or sentence him to death.

Jesus wasn't scared by the accusations. He knew what they meant. And he knew what he was doing. He was bringing good news to the poor. He was healing the sick. Those who had faith were getting their sins forgiven. And Jesus wasn't going to let the wealthy or the powerful stand in the way. He turned on the Pharisees and pointed out their hypocrisy, their indulgences, their sins of gluttony:

"Instead of giving you God's Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn't think of lifting a finger to help.

"Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you'll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you're content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.

"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something.
Matthew 23:4,11-12, 25-26 (The Message)

So what would you rather be? A glutton like Jesus or a glutton like the Pharisees? Here's how it often goes for us - we're a mix of sinner and Pharisee:

Like the tax-collectors and sinners: we eat to satisfy unending cravings, we try to avoid skid row, we get drunk and get fat, our life has been pointed in an unwise direction.

Like the Pharisees: we eat too much too often, we are vain, hypocritical towards sinners and the poor, we aren’t known for being a servant, our inside life can be maggoty

But here's the invitation to us:
Like Jesus: you eat with anyone, you can welcome everyone, you can be generous with the word “friend”, you can add love and joy to a meal, you ought to encourage gratitude, you ought to help people receive forgiveness for their sins, you ought to send people away in peace.

One more story of Jesus the glutton, a stubborn Pharisee, and a seeking sinner:

One of the Pharisees asked him over for a meal. He went to the Pharisee's house and sat down at the dinner table. Just then a woman of the village, the town harlot, having learned that Jesus was a guest in the home of the Pharisee, came with a bottle of very expensive perfume and stood at his feet, weeping, raining tears on his feet. Letting down her hair, she dried his feet, kissed them, and anointed them with the perfume. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man was the prophet I thought he was, he would have known what kind of woman this is who is falling all over him."

Jesus said to him, "Simon, I have something to tell you."
"Oh? Tell me."

"Two men were in debt to a banker. One owed five hundred silver pieces, the other fifty. Neither of them could pay up, and so the banker canceled both debts. Which of the two would be more grateful?"
Simon answered, "I suppose the one who was forgiven the most."

"That's right," said Jesus. Then turning to the woman, but speaking to Simon, he said, "Do you see this woman? I came to your home; you provided no water for my feet, but she rained tears on my feet and dried them with her hair. You gave me no greeting, but from the time I arrived she hasn't quit kissing my feet. You provided nothing for freshening up, but she has soothed my feet with perfume. Impressive, isn't it? She was forgiven many, many sins, and so she is very, very grateful. If the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal."

Then he spoke to her: "I forgive your sins."
That set the dinner guests talking behind his back: "Who does he think he is, forgiving sins!"
He ignored them and said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."
Luke 7:36-50 (The Message)

What kind of glutton are you?

Be A Glutton Like Jesus. Follow His Way of Eating.

What To Do With The Bad Things That Happen To Good People

What's your initial reaction when something bad happens to someone who doesn't deserve it, someone you care about?

Anger is the appropriate response. Righteous anger is fueled by injustice, unfairness, oppression of the innocents. This kind of anger ought to move us to reflective and righteous action - respond to the cries of the wounded, intercede on behalf of the suffering.

Frustration is another response. We want to make sense of our world, to have adequate explanations for why stuff happens. We want a reason for what caused the long string of events that led up to the tragedy. And the simmering frustration can lead to bitterness, to despair, to giving up.

Job of Uz was afflicted by great tragedy. In the course of a week his possessions were stolen, his wealth wiped out, and all his children and their families murdered. The following week his body broke out in great  seeping sores. His wife in great rage and bitterness implored her husband to curse God and die. Job's friends sat with him in in consoling silence for the traditional mourning for seven days.

If only the friends would have left after that - instead they opened their mouth and tried to help Job accept his situation. They insisted that God is just and therefore Job deserved this tragedy. Job angrily resisted their insights, stubbornly maintaining his innocence:

I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer,
I stand up, but you merely look at me.
You turn on me ruthlessly
With the might of your hand you attack me.

As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice,
The Almighty has made my life bitter.
I will never admit you are right,
Until I die, I will not deny my integrity.
I will maintain my innocence and never let go of it.

I rescued the poor who cried for help,
And the fatherless who had none to assist them.
Those who were dying blessed me,
I made the widows heart sing.
I put on righteousness as my clothing,
Justice was my robe and turban.
I was the eyes of the blind, feet to the lame.
I was a father to the needy, I took up the case of the stranger.

Job knew he was righteous before God. He knew God was righteous. His mind and soul were being torn apart by the seeming incongruity caused by the unexplainable suffering. And an explanation is never given. Even though God speaks to Job, He does not reveal the reasons for the excruciating pain.

And that's part of the lesson: God will not give us explanations for the suffering of the innocents. God does something else though - he blesses the righteous, and he blesses others through the righteous. Suffering will be part of life - whether you are righteous or unrighteous. Whether you are a good person or bad person, unexplainable hard times will come upon you.

We don't have the example of Job because we ought to imitate him. He have the story because it reflects what one man's experience was like. If we're going to imitate someone who suffered, we ought to consider the way of Jesus.

His story has many similar points as that of Job. Jesus, like Job, cries out: My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? But unlike Job, at the end, Jesus also whispers: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

What will you do with the bad things that happen to you? The bad things you don't think you deserve? Obviously we are not talking about the bad things that happen to you which are consequences of your stupid, unthinking, selfish, stubborn choices. Those bad things are your own fault. We're talking about the hard times that come which someone else inflicts on you that is not connected to your choices. What will you do?

Like Job and Jesus, you can cry out to God and rage against the injustice of it - the seeming abandonment of God. Yet like Jesus, you remember that God is there, suffering with you, and he is the one hope you have for emerging from this painfulness. Your whisper of forgiveness, of letting go of the bitterness and rage, begins the process of what you ought to do next. Your desire for forgiveness, combined with your desire for justice, will keep you open towards God and his desire for bringing good and grace into the situation.

God has promised that he will right every wrong. God has promised that righteousness will prevail. God has promised that he will avenge. We must pursue justice. We must pursue truth. We must pursue righteousness. But in the end, if our pursuit results in us becoming bitter, jaded, and despairing, we lose. Our choice to forgive, to trust God, and to follow the way of Jesus in response to pain and suffering - this opens us up to new possibilities of healing and hope.

Intimacy

Intimacy.

It's what everybody wants. It's what hardly anybody seems to have. And, sadly, it's what too many of us are avoiding. Intimacy is a beautiful idea, but an elusive reality, as well as the gateway to pain, rejection, risk, heartache, and deep joy.

Intimacy is also the context for The Talk with your kids and teens about sex. Intimacy is both what leads to sex and flows from sex. Intimacy was designed by God to lead to marriage and give joy to a marriage. So when you go to talk to your kids and teens about sex, you'll want to keep it in the context of marital intimacy. Which means you'll want to consider what kind intimacy exists in your home. The more authentic you can be as you have conversations about intimacy and sex, the more effective you'll be as a parent.

This might all seem a little to idealistic. It may be. But ideas about intimacy flows out of a reflection on this poem taken from Song of Songs:

Place me like a seal over your heart, 

like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death, 

its jealousy unyielding as the grave. 


It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.

Many waters cannot quench love; 

rivers cannot sweep it away.

If one were to give 
all the wealth of one’s house for love, 

it would be utterly scorned.

Here we have a few phrases from a love poem, the words of the woman, reflecting on the intensity of the desire for intimacy with her husband-to-be. The desire for intimacy, the experience of intimacy is powerful and surging and dangerous. And it is good. A husband and wife come together and build their marriage on their passions and decisions flowing from their budding intimacy.

But then...

Everybody is avoiding intimacy. This is not to deny that at some level they are longing for it, but the problem is that they are also hurting for it. ... [they are] avoiding intimacy... half of them have been brought up in broken homes and are disabled from intimacy.

Does that sound like anyone you know? If you didn't see much intimacy growing up in your home, how are you supposed to cultivate it for your own home? Where you do you learn intimacy if not from your folks? Popular culture becomes the most influential teacher on intimacy, followed maybe by the chatter of high school. Not all understandings and expectations of intimacy are valid, some are toxic, some are unrealistic, some are fantasy. It may sound crazy, but this is why so many people turn to the Scriptures for wisdom on intimacy.

The Song of Songs invites readers to summon up the strength to take the risk. The Song gives expression to intrinsic human needs. It presupposes the human need for loving-recognition and acceptance, for the sense of being special, which makes self-acceptance more possible.

The Song invites readers to recognize that relationships are always on the way and continue to involve risk. They cannot be taken for granted.

They also raise the question whether people can rekindle love when the flame seems to have gone.

People do find security in a love relationship that leads to marriage, but once they take that for granted, they may imperil it.

Part of the thrill of the not-yet-married relationship is its not-yet-ness. It has the excitement of being on a journey. This is also one of the attractions of having an affair.

So there is a sense in which couples need to not take each other for granted, and need to see themselves as still on the way.

One image in the poems is that of wanting to get away from everyone else, and couples need that.

~John Goldingay, Key Questions About Christian Faith: Old Testament Answers, pgs 315-6

There's some rich material here for me to hear and contemplate and put into action.

Can husband and wife rekindle intimacy? It is possible.

Are you taking your spouse for granted?

What are some goals and plans for the near as well as distant future you and your spouse can set for yourselves and your family? Being still on the way helps restore opportunities for intimacy.

When's the last time you and your spouse were able to get away and enjoy each other?

Here's a thoughtful definition of intimacy: Giving loving-recognition and acceptance, fueling the sense of being special, making self-acceptance more possible. What could you do to foster more intimacy in your own home according to this definition?


Asking thoughtful questions  and getting wisdom from the Scriptures can be very helpful as you try to figure out how to stop avoiding intimacy, how to kindle intimacy, and how to pass it on to the next generation. So is seeing a wise counselor. And being part of a friendly church community that can help your family nurture healthy intimacy. Building friendships with some wise, mature, Christian couples can be helpful. Praying for this kind of stuff is the kind of prayers God loves to answer.

Catch the Foxes

Cute foxes, eh? Unless, of course you are the owner of a vineyard. Foxes have a nasty record of slipping into the fields at night and nibbling on the tender shoots, gobbling up the plump grapes, and sometimes destroying century old vines. Argh, those cute little foxes!

What are the foxes in your life? What is eating away at your marriage? What is nibbling away at your friendships? What is destroying the good and beautiful and true and free in your home?

The greatest song of the Hebrew Scriptures is attributed to a young king named Solomon. He discovers in one of his vast vineyards a beautiful woman. She is brown from the sun, dirty fingernails, windtangled hair, and to Solomon she is the great desire of his life. Together they write a poem about their surging and tender love for each other as they prepare for marriage. Their song has became THE song for Jewish men and women coming together as husband and wife.

Have you ever read the Song of Songs? You should. Here's some of it:
She
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—
for your love is more delightful than wine.
Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;
your name is like perfume poured out.
No wonder the young women love you!
Take me away with you—let us hurry!
Let the king bring me into his chambers.

He
How beautiful you are, my darling!
Oh, how beautiful!
Your eyes are doves.

She
How handsome you are, my beloved!
Oh, how charming!
And our bed is verdant.

She
I am a rose of Sharon,
a lily of the valleys.

He
Like a lily among thorns
is my darling among the young women.

Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, come with me.

See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves is heard in our land.
The fig tree forms its early fruit;
the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.

Arise, come, my darling;
my beautiful one, come with me.

She
Catch for us the foxes,
the little foxes
that ruin the vineyards,
our vineyards that are in bloom.

My beloved is mine and I am his;
he browses among the lilies.
Until the day breaks and the shadows flee,
turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle
or like a young stag on the rugged hills.

This poetry is sexual, sensual, dramatic, personal, playful, and enduring.  It's a vivid image of what love can look like between a husband and wife. And it's necessary to see, amidst the longing and desire the observation of the woman to the man: catch the foxes.

Foxes sneak into the home and hearts of a family and do their dark work of destruction. They nibble and break and wreck. The owners of the vineyard not only must work to catch the foxes (an unending task...), but they must also repair and restore the damage done to the vines.

A husband and wife will always have more work to do on their life together - the foxes come and go and do their damage, and there will always be wounds that need healed. Of course you must attempt to catch the foxes! Vigilance and protection are necessary and ongoing. But what do you do when the foxes still break through?

It's common to get tired of always fixing hearts in a home. How many times can you handle hearing the word "sorry?" How many times must you forgive for the same offense? Seven times? And what do you do when you discover you were the fox? There is always more work to do within yourself and in your home to repent, repair, restore and renew the damage of the foxes. You must find the energy to work to catch the foxes. And when you don't, you must turn around and tend to the wreckage.

What are some of the foxes that sneak in and ruin the good in your heart and home?
Your anger.
Your lust.
Your expectations.
Your pride.
Your busyness.
Your silence.
Your greed and envy and coveting.
Your fears.

Foxes are hard to catch. But the damage becomes obvious with the morning light. When you discover that the foxes have been at work in your home and heart, you must get to work. Immediately.

And what work would that be?
Love.

Love is patient and kind. It does not envy or boast, it is not proud.
Love is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
Love always protects.
Love always trusts.
Love always hopes.
Love always perseveres.

Love. never. fails.

Catch the Foxes!

From Shame to Honor

What do you do with your shame? What do you do with those experiences and deeds of the past that leave you ashamed? Ignore it? Stuff it? Relive it? Fuel it? Find atonement for it?

Whether you are feeling ashamed for the sins you committed, or for the sins committed against you, there is a way to move from shame to honor. To feel shame is to feel dishonored. How do you cover your shame with regained honor? It's not an easy road, but it includes wisdom. 

The Eastern world from which we received our Scriptures is a honor/shame culture. It is very important to attain honor, and it is despicable to be shamed - especially in public. You want to attain honor for yourself, more importantly for your family, and especially for your tribe or nation. And if you are shamed, you must work to regain your honor. If you bring shame on your family, you have committed a terrible offense. 

The wise inherit honor,
but fools get only shame.

Whosoever disregards discipline comes to poverty and shame,
but whosoever heeds correction is honored.

You can see here the great emphasis on getting honor and avoiding shame, and it's connection to wisdom and folly. Getting wisdom is the way to attain honor and avoid shame. Wisdom is also the path out of shame, it's the way to regain honor. 

Most everyone carries around within them stuff of which they are ashamed. Are temptation is to hide it from others, to bury it as a secret. A dark secret. A deep secret of which we are constantly aware, working to make sure no one finds out about it. Sadly, this adds power to the shame, guaranteeing it's control over your life. This is a foolish choice, it's an easy choice, it seems the most natural. But it adds to the shame. 

It is shameful to even mention what the disobedient do in secret. 

Don't you want to be free from the shackles of your shame? Don't you want to let loose those heavy chains of dark secrets? 

Be devoted to one another in love.

Honor one another above yourselves. 

In seeking to honor others above yourselves, you must first do some work within. You must first bring honor to yourself - not for your own sake, but for those that your life is attached to. You seek wisdom and honor for yourself in order that you may act wisely and honorably to others, to lift them up. This is love that loosens the shackles of shame and shrugs off bit by bit the chains of dark secrets.

Guilt is the state of having committed an offense, violation, sin, wrongdeed, a crime - and thus having a feeling of responsibility or remorse for that action. 

Shame is the painful, embarrassing feeling of having done or experienced something dishonorable, improper, foolish, wrong, sinful. 

The remedy to guilt and shame is grace. Guilt requires you to receive grace from the one you offended. All sins are against a person, but also against God. The solution to your guilt is to receive forgiveness, to seek forgiveness, to work to make amends. Shame requires you to forgive yourself, to give grace to yourself.

The wise action, the honorable action is to give and receive grace. This does not mean that the sin wasn't damaging, or that the violation wasn't vile. It means that it won't be held against you anymore. It means that you are letting your feeling of responsibility drive you to making amends instead of empty remorse.

It is foolish and dishonorable to withhold grace from yourself, to not forgive yourself. You add to your shame by refusing to let go of the shame, by not sharing your secret with a trusted friend, mentor or pastor. Even sharing your secret with God is a good, wise start. God can be trusted with your secret.

We believe that in Jesus through his death on the cross and resurrection from the grave God has forgiven the sins of the world. Your sins are forgiven, he has extended grace to you for your guilt and shame. We get to decide - will I receive this grace or not? Our choice - a powerful choice. Through Jesus we can begin again, guilt atoned for, shame covered and removed.

It is something we believe.
What we believe shapes how we live.

What you believe about shame drives how you live. 

What you believe about grace shapes how you live. 

Oh Lord, I believe!

Help me in my unbelief...

Sunday Sermon Notes 6.07.09

God is... Magnificent!

At Anchor we've started off June by joining in the OnePrayer series - over 1,600 churches around the world!  OnePrayer is a movement of churches coming together to serve, share and give as part of the Church.  Anchor is all about that!

Last year for the preaching themes, we prayed: God, make us...

This year, the preaching theme centers on: God is...

One of the ways that the OnePrayer series connects churches is through video-sermons.  Preachers from all over the world videorecord a sermon and submit it to the website.  Then other churches can download it and show a video-sermon of a preacher from some other part of the nation or world.  Cool idea.  We did three of them last year, and it went over okay.  The upside is that it's a neat way to connect the congregation to other good teachers.  The downside is that the preacher goes on for more than thirty minutes on the video - you've got to be really really, really good to do that.  Unfortunately the ones I previewed for this year didn't pass the test.  Maybe we'll find some that do, yet.

The first sermon was inspired by U2's masterpiece Magnificent.  Haven't heard it yet? Check it out at YouTube.  Great song about worship - about how a husband and wife want their life together to be one of worship of The Magnificent.  The song inspired me...and it prompted me to develop a sermon about God being The Magnificent.

The obvious text was Mary's Song - traditionally titled the Magnificant (because in Latin the first word is magnificant).  Interestingly, Psalm 34, in my opinion, is a foundational song for what Mary created.  I read through both songs for clues for why David and Mary magnified the LORD.  

Here's my summary: 

God is...Magnificent because he is 

Beauty-Full, Strength-Full, Mercy-Full, and Remember-Full.

God is Magnificent when he is Beauty-Full.  What are the times when you walk outside into Creation and gasp - when you sigh in relief, when you stare in wonder, when you soak up the sunrise or sunset -and then you breath out a prayer of praise and thanks to God?  It's in moments when we notice the world saturated in magnificent beauty that we see the magnificence of God.  

Sure enough it is easy to see what is ugly and defiled in the world.  Rivers polluted and forests hacked, mountains stripped and fields gouged.  It's easy to see what's wrong in the world, to miss the beauty because of what's been battered.  And yet what is most beautiful in the world is not seen in Creation alone, but within each Human.  God made us Imago Dei - in his image. We are made in is magnificent image - to look into the eyes of another man or woman is to look upon beauty-fullness.  Except that most women and men I know refuse to look in the mirror and see beauty.  They keep choosing to see what is wrong.  But if we are crafted in Imago Dei, then we have the option of seeing in ourselves and one another The Magnificent.

God is...Magnificent when he is Strength-full, Mighty-Full, when he is Capable.  When God comes through, when he helps us turn a corner, nail down a victory, start again, push through to the other side - then we praise God, thank him, and magnify Him.  How many times have you needed help from the outside - when you were too tired or confused to do the next right thing.  And so God comes to you - in the guise of a friend or stranger - and makes possible a new way forward.  When we go over these moments, we see the magnificence of God - we don't deserve those miracles, and we can't barter for them - they are gifts that God loves to give.

Scriptures repeatedly refer to the power of a seed as a picture for the power of God.  Take whatever seed you want - a peach core, a wheat grain, a mustard seed.  There is latent power and capability in that tiny little pod.  It gets put in the ground, it gets watered, it gets fueled, and then out if sprouts a seedling, and then it stretches high, it bends with the wind, and then it increases in firmness and height and it's leaves soak up sunshine; some power is at work bringing out of that seed something that is new and yet natural.  And at the right time a harvest is made possible - all from that little seed.  And so God's power is at work in you - you are the seed, your deeds are the seeds, your attitude and choices are seeds from which God will take and plant and fuel and bring forth from it more than we could possibly imagine or hope for.  

God is Magnificent when he is Mercy-Full.  When God gives you a break, when he helps you let go of your sins, when he helps you replace despair with hope, when he helps you yank out the root of bitterness and fill the space with shalom - that is worth uttering prayers of praise.  When God brings people into your life who forgive you, who make amends to you, who guide you into freedom from past guilt and shame, when you find opportunities to give mercy - when we think about it - that's a beautiful moment to magnify the Lord.  God is merciful to us, and we best value that mercy when we give out mercy to others in response.  To those who see this at work in their homes and schools, in churches and workplaces - it's magnificent!

God is...Magnificent because he is Remember-full.  God never forgets us, never abandons us, never leaves us alone.  God is loyal, he is faithful, he is persevering, he is patient, he endures.  God thinks of you - a citizen of the world he created and loves - and continues to work to help you receive mercy and give it.  He remembers you - and for those of you who have chosen to follow the way of Jesus - he remembers your sins no more.  When he remembers you - and he does it very often - he does not remember someone who is a failure, prone to mistakes, a flop - he remembers you as one made in his Imago Dei - every deed and word a seed for his work as the Great Farmer!

When God thinks of you, he thinks of you as you are according to his reality, his perspective on the world.  He remembers you according to his great mercy and might - he seeks to redeem and restore all people - his interest is not in reminding you of your sins, but of reminding you of his gifts of grace and new opportunities.  When God thinks of you, he is interested in helping you work through the consequences of your actions, which are seeds for him to do a new thing.  How magnificent is that?

Psalm 34 has become a central song for me - in where I am at in my journey.  Maybe it can be for you also - a song inspired by a Magnificent God at work in his Magnificent World.

Wisdom

Heavenly Father,
Glory, wisdom, and strength are yours.
Thanks and praise I raise unto you.
Love and Grace you have given unto me.
All I ask of thee is to give me...
Strength to do all you ask of me
Wisdom to understand what you ask of me.
Love to spread to your children.
Light to shine in this world filled with darkness
Compassion to help the weak and downtrodden
Grace to spread to your children and the world

And a song in my heart to worship you.
Honor and praise I give to you.
Love and servantsheart I give to you.

Your humble servant and child,
The Reluctant Prophet
(Anonymous)

Through Time Immortal...

Through time immortal,
my eyes have traveled.
Empires rise and empires fall.

Through war and famine
my eternal eyes have seen
death, depravity, and sins unmentionable.

My eyes travel and see.
My eyes have seen man at his worst.
But in the darkest of times
my eyes have seen the brightest of hope.

As brother slays brother,
stranger saves stranger.
As neighbor betrays neighbor,
stranger heals stranger.

My eternal eyes travel
and have fallen upon you.

What will I see?

- Daniel Alexander