The Ride

"Enjoy the Ride"

The rain slipped down my nose and hit the saddle horn. I wiped a hand across my face just as a calf darted from the herd. The black little devil ran with his tail in the air, freedom bound for anywhere and nowhere.  My horse leapt into pursuit while I, caught off guard, grabbed for her mane. Sweat flying, arms flailing, hooves pounding—we caught the calf just as he veered away. My horse tried to make the turn, but she lost her footing in the mud and fell. I don’t remember the fall; I just remember being lifted out of the saddle and hitting my back—hard. When I woke up, I felt hot air on my face and hair tickling my cheek. I sat up making my horse step back. Climbing to my feet, I began to lead my horse by her reigns, but my brother rode up.

“Get back on,” he commanded.

“No, I’m not feeling very well,” I replied and kept tugging on her reins.

“Either you get back on that horse now, or you will never ride again.”

Photo by IFYR

I knew he was telling me the truth. If a rider fell and did not immediately remount, he would forever fear the ride. I placed a shaky hand on my horse’s neck thinking of what the ride meant to me; it was wind in my hair, her mane stinging my face, the pull of leather reigns in my hands, and the thrill of power controlled by a bar of metal. I couldn’t lose the ride. I stuck my foot in the stirrup, gathered my courage, and swung my leg over her back.

People experience falls in life as well. Life isn’t predictable and, sometimes, she turns too fast and you fall. I experienced some falls about a year ago—two in a row—that threw me down hard. At that point, I decided to forgive and forget. But I also decided to be cautious after those hurts by never compromising my heart again. Caution is not an evil decision, but God never called us to hide away from hurts. (He took Jesus through great hurt.)

Photo by Pony Express

For a year, I led life around by the reins. At college, I drew my circle of friends closer and found myself seeking the quiet places. God had taken two things out of my life for my good, but he had supplied me with an abundance of close friends, financial security, freedom, and family. Somehow, I didn’t enjoy any of it even though I had accepted the loss. My joy was gone.

I graduated from college, came home, found a job, and started to make close friends again.  But I was discontent. God had blessed me with much, but I couldn’t enjoy it properly. I felt as if He was telling me like C.S. Lewis wrote in his last book, “Child, you are not yet as happy as I have planned for you to be.”

Just this week, I was encouraged by a text from a dear friend about my lack of joy. She sensed that I was down and told me to “enjoy the ride.” But I had stopped riding; I was still standing on the ground holding the reins.

I began to count my blessings (as the song runs) and remembered how blessed I truly was. Life is rough; she isn’t kind. But God is kind and his “mercies endure forever”. It was time for me to enjoy the goodness of my God. 

“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.”

~Isaiah 61:10~

I didn’t want to live without joy. I decided that I couldn’t miss out on the ride and remounted. 

Mixing Christians and Politics

 Uncapped Salt Shakers

"Ye are the salt of the earth."  

Yesterday, I stopped by a coffee shop in town owned by a Christian woman. While I was browsing through the books on the shelves and enjoying the smell of espresso, I overheard a Christian man telling the owner of the shop that he doesn’t vote because he doesn’t want to contaminate himself with politics. After he left, the owner turned to me and said that many Christians in town had given her this reason for not being registered to vote. Some Christians think politics will contaminate them, so they stay away from involvement in elections. I think that this excuse is heresy. I have three reasons to back me up.

First, the Bible says in Matthew chapter 5 and verse 13 that “ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men.” If we are salt, our function in this world is to preserve it. How can we preserve the world from evil if we stay—safe and secure—in our little salt shaker? We must uncap the salt shaker and pour ourselves onto our job, our communities, and our world. Yes, it is hard to fight. Yes, you will struggle with keeping yourself pure from the evil. But we are worthless if we don’t fulfill our purpose in this world.

Secondly, some of the most influential politicians have been Christians. William Wilberforce—one of my heroes—was a politician in England during the slave trade era. Before he was a Christian, he lived for pleasure. But after his salvation, he became intensely interested in social reform.

“So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the Trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for Abolition. Let the consequences be what they would, I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.”-William Wilberforce 

 He fought against the slave trade for years and finally saw it abolished in 1833. Wilberforce poured his heart into killing evil and preserving human freedom. He was able to kill the slave trade through politics without a bloody war—unlike America. Wilberforce is only one of many Christian men who have changed the world through politics. Ronald Regan, often quoted by candidates and presidents today, was a dedicated Christian that pulled America through the Cold War and potential depression. In America, most of the founding fathers were dedicated Christians.

Thirdly, look at the life of Christ. He poured himself onto his world. Because of his great gift—salvation from eternal damnation through his blood— to the world, we have hope. Christ did not come to live a secluded life. At the end of his life when he was before the high priest he said, “I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing (John 18:20).” He always spoke in public places. He spoke to the great leaders of the Jewish world without fear.

How can we hold ourselves from the world? Perhaps, if we extend our hand to the world around us, we can save some souls or some good in this world. If we sit back and do nothing, we deserve to be judged by a God that gave everything for a filthy world. Can we withhold the good that is in us from the world? Are we too selfish that we won’t make a difference? Will we allow the weak to be trampled by greedy men and the innocent to be crushed by evil men? I will not. 

The End. And the Beginning.

"Our lives are marked by seasons"

The End. That phrase is hard and unyielding in its finality. But we must all face the end at some point in our life. I have faced a few endings in my life. I experienced one of those endings when it frosted last week.

Every Tuesday for the past month, I have walked from my newspaper building to the court house about two blocks away. The stone courthouse sits majestic and secluded among aged oak trees. The sidewalk leading up to the courthouse was lined with a vibrant mixture of red, orange, and yellow flowers. Every time I walked that sidewalk, the perfume of the flowers overwhelmed me, and I thanked God for his beautiful creation. But the frost struck a deadly blow last week, and when I walked to the courthouse, I found the flowers hanging their brown heads. Even though I mourned the flowers, I knew that it was appropriate they die in their season.

Our lives are marked by seasons. We call the transition of one season into another an end. We are such finite beings that we cannot see the larger picture. Stuck in time, we cannot see outside of the limitations of the calendar. The turning of the seasons shocks us even though nature teaches us this changing principle. 

We mourn the rotation of a season and call it an end. Nothing will ever be the same. We wanted spring, and God gave us fall. We wanted marriage, yet we’re single. We wanted to go to college, but we don’t have the money. We wanted a child, yet we had to adopt. We wanted to graduate, yet we failed another class. And the largest pain of all—we wanted life, but we were given death. Death makes a final end.

But this perspective should not be the viewpoint of the saved. Our hope is in a Christ who doesn’t know the meaning of the word “end”.

Our Savior, Jesus Christ, lived in perfect harmony with the seasons that God gave him. He lived thirty years as a carpenter, doing hard manual labor. When it was time to gather his disciples and teach the world, he spent three years without a home to call his own. After his ministry to the Jews, he was arrested by the Pharisees and killed. In all of the seasons of his life, he never uttered one false charge against God. He accepted the rotating seasons because he trusted that his Father had a purpose. He only wanted the will of his Father to be accomplished through him. And in the end, Christ killed death with his perfect blood, showed that life is only a season, and promised a new season of eternal life.

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was buried for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." -Isaiah 53:5 

God is not trapped inside the rotating wheel of seasons. He knows that nothing ever ends. When he stops something, he brings life out of it. When we cannot find meaning in our disappointments, he shows us the beauty of our present season. When we are single, He draws us closer to Him and shows us his complete care. When we cannot go to college, He provides wisdom with the trials of life. When we stay more years at college than expected, He causes us to cherish the triumph of graduation even more. When we cannot have a child, He gives us the care of the children of the world. When death kills the body of His child, He receives the soul set free.

The End. But you know it’s not the end, it is only the beginning.

LONGING FOR THE NORTH

"It was cold, spacious, sever, pale, and remote"

          Since antiquity, mankind has used the North Star to navigate their travels on earth. When they are lost and confused, when they must find the way home, when they are at the end of their knowledge—they have always looked up and to the north.

It is strange that we instinctively lift our faces to the north when we need help, since the Bible says that the north is God’s own country. In Isaiah 14:13-14 of the Bible, Satan said that “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.” Good can come from evil. Through Satan’s proud speech, we know exactly where God’s throne is located. God dwells up and to the north. I wonder if God placed the North Star as a guide so that we would look for Him when we are at the end of our knowledge.

            C.S. Lewis lost in atheism and hatred for God, found direction by looking to the north. All his life, Lewis had a feeling that he either called “northerness” or joy. Since he was a little boy, Lewis experienced an intense longing for something outside of his own sphere of knowledge. Lewis said, “I desired with almost sickening intensity something never to be described (except that it is cold, spacious, sever, pale, and remote) and then, as in the other examples, found myself at the very same moment already falling out of that desire and wishing I were back in it.”[1] This longing drew him until he met the source in the form of God. Lewis followed the pull of “Northerness” from atheism, to Deism, and at last to Christianity. He found his longing satisfied in Christ.

            I have also experienced a desire for the north. For a time in my life, I was lost in rebellion and self-will against God. I was a Christian, but I had lost my direction. When I returned, it was on a cold, starry night. I described the time in a personal essay that I wrote for my senior reading at college.

   It was a week before Christmas, and I had just returned home from a full day of work and school, when I finally stopped running. I pulled into my driveway, stopped the car, and turned off the engine.
The long drive home and my music had put me into a contemplative mood so that when I climbed out of the car, I stopped to stare up into the black sky, bedazzled with flecks of light.
   I leaned against the warm hood of my car, staring up into the heavens and searching for an answer from the celestial bodies of light. For a moment my misery was lifted, and I felt a sweet peace wash over my tired and worn soul. I felt very near to God, as if He was standing just behind my shoulder; and if I turned around fast, He would still be there offering peace with His scarred hands.    I knew that I was being given a chance to go back to Him, and I wanted to turn around.
   “God, I want out. I’m tired and miserable. I don’t want to live this way for the rest of my life.”   I had known this for a long time, but I finally admitted it out loud. This was my heart’s true desire.
 

            I still long for the north, but I am different now. I am not a rebellious creature surrendering to her creator; I am a longing creature loving her creator. When I look up to the sky on a cold fall night, I long for a country I have never seen. Just like C.S. Lewis was drawn to the north, I know that God is drawing me. Right now, I wander the earth but it will not always be this way. Someday, I will find my way home.

---

[1] Lewis, C.S. 1955. Surprised by Joy. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanich.

Broken Bottles of Perfume

This is the scent of Love-

"There came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she broke the box, and poured it on His [Jesus'] head." 

-Mark 14:3b

   Chanel No. 5 was my first perfume. L and B gave me the perfume at my high school graduation. That perfume adorned me during many firsts: my first year at college, my first time wearing heels, and my first date. But I will always associate the smell of Chanel with the them.

   
   When L and B entered my life, our family was going through trials that threatened to break us apart. I was still too young to understand the whys, but I understood the tension. And I remember the tears of my parents.

   Papa and Mama (that is what L and B insisted we call them) saw our family struggling, and they slipped their arms around us. They came without fanfare or pomp. I hardly remember the first time I met them. They simply melted into the family. L helped Dad with the farm work; B helped Mom can fruit during the fall. They were at every birthday, anniversary, wedding, and death, helping and giving to us.

   L and B were never rich for as long as I knew them, but they used to be rich. B had been the daughter of a wealthy French doctor and had received an inheritance from him when she was married. When they became Christians, they gave up their wealth and committed themselves to helping others.  The Chanel perfume had been a remnant of B’s past.

   When my younger brother and I went to college, L and B faithfully sent us a 50 dollar check every month. They were the reason that I could go on coffee dates with my friends every week. Sometimes I sent a thank you card, but sometimes I didn’t. I wish I could go back and fix that lack of love on my part. All during our four years of college, they never missed a month. They would have flown from Washington to Florida for our graduation, but by the time we graduated B was too sick to make the trip.

   Before I left for graduate school in the fall of 2012, I decided to take L and B on a dinner date. I felt like B was slipping away, and I wanted to give them a special dinner. I set up the time with L, called the restaurant, and reserved a table. I told Papa and Mama to meet me at 6 p.m.

   When I arrived at the restaurant, fifteen minutes early and holding a bouquet of flowers for B, I found them already seated at the table. B had bought a swan vase holding a single rose from a florist and placed it beside my water glass. My small bouquet of flowers from Wal-mart (I had remembered to buy flowers on the way into town, and Wal-mart was the only store open at that time) seemed tasteless and ugly. At the end of the meal, L paid the bill before I could.

   I hugged them goodbye in the parking lot and watched them drive away in their shabby white Subaru. I climbed into my truck, pulled my seatbelt down and over, put my hands on the top of the steering wheel, and sank my forehead onto my hands. I cried like a child—without restraint.

   Because of L and B, I had seen a startlingly clear picture of Jesus’ love. They had given to me without expecting or wanting anything in return because they loved me. I could never repay them. Why did they love me? But that question didn’t matter. They were only concerned that I was loved. And that is the reason that I cried into the steering wheel, overwhelmed by a love I could never return.

   Someday, I will buy my little girl a bottle of Chanel No. 5 for her graduation and will tell her about Papa and Mama. I’ll tell her that like the woman who poured her perfume on the feet of Jesus, L and B poured their lives into me. But perhaps they gave a more excellent sacrifice than the woman in Mark, because their lives were a perfume personified and poured out for the Master’s glory. They were most like Christ. 

  

     

Oh, the Rolling of the Proud Waves!

 Times that Try Men's Souls

  This is the hardest point. This is the time when the child died despite our prayers, you gave your last loaf of bread to the prophet instead of your starving son, and the three young men were thrown into the fire for their stand of faith. This is the test. God hasn’t shown up on time, and we have no more hope. What choice do we make? Will we turn our back on God?

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say;

  Have you ever experienced this point of emptiness in your life? Please tell me that I’m not alone in this feeling. Have you ever prayed for a small request, but your prayers remained unanswered for so long that only a miracle can help now?

 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us:

  We pray, “God, why? Don’t you know what the unbelievers are saying? Don’t you know that they are claiming you don’t exist after all?”

Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us:

  

  At this point, we have a choice to deny our Father or keep believing in the impossible. Can miracles really happen? Was it all a dream? Remember, faith is a choice.

Then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul:

  In our desperation, we fall to our knees and cry a broken prayer. “God, I don’t understand. But I love you. I am overwhelmed by the mockery of those who don’t know or love you, but trusting in Your plan. I trust You.”

Then the proud waters had gone over our soul.

   

  I think that this is the attitude that God is waiting to see. He wants to see if we will love Him even when the proud waves try to overwhelm us. We have always claimed to love Him; we have a chance to prove our love. Will we love Him when everything goes contrary to our will?

Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth.

  Do you remember what happened to the child that died, the mother that gave away her last piece of bread, and the three young men in the fire? Do you remember where their stories ended up? Look in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews, chapter 11. Remember that you are not the only Christian tried by the crucible of faith.

This Song is a Cry of Dependence on God. 

I thought it was appropriate for our topic tonight.

Our Soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped. 

  Father—our crystal balls are dark, we have stopped pretending to be divine, and we have stopped trying to see our future. We understand that we are only human, and we choose to trust you. We will love you and remember that you will “regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer. This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord (Psalm 102:17-18).”

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 

Psalm 124:1-8

Breathing is simple-for some

Suffocated by the Past 

“All I wanted was a good set of lungs and the air to fill them with.”

Leif Enger

   Over 80 forest fires have scorched Washington state during our annual fire season. Our little valley is filled with a haze of smoke, and the sun glows eerily in the sky like a dying coal over our farm. I stand with my hands on my hips, talking to my sister and feeling the smoke fill my lungs.

   Ok, concentrate. Breathe in and breathe out. I tell myself, trying to focus on the conversation, but I start to cough.

   I hate this powerless feeling of an asthma attack, like a massive invisible hand slowly closing and squeezing my lungs. 
   My childhood years were free of asthma, but I developed it during my sophomore year of college after a month of walking phenomena. (Not everybody is born with asthma; it can be developed later in life, especially among women.) Even though I recovered from that grueling semester, my lungs didn’t.

   I have been told that traditional Chinese medicine says sick lungs is grief affecting the body physically. I don’t know if I believe that grief causes lung disease, but it does help me make the correlation between asthma and the point of this post.

   Often, Christians are saved from horrible circumstances and broken hearts. Even though Jesus saved them and forgave their sins, they are plagued with regrets and memories of their past. A tendril of a memory drifts past, and they let sorrow and guilt fill them. Satan constricts them with their past, bringing them to their knees. They are suffocated by the vapors of their past brokenness, and they cannot breathe.

   But Jesus promised us the gift of life. He promised that we would be free of the sadness of our past. Why do we allow Satan to bring us to our knees? Don’t we know that there is no condemnation with our sweet Savior? But I know the helpless fear of crouching to the ground, struggling for the simplest of God’s gifts—air.

   You need to remember that God has given you the power to shake off this guilt. When I can’t breathe, all I need is my inhaler. I can’t breathe on my own, but if I use my inhaler (I hate to use it) I will be able to breathe. God has also given us a spiritual inhaler in the form of His word. He gave us many precious promises of His Word to chase away the suffocating presence of guilt. You need to look up the promises for yourself, but here is a small list of verses to loosen your spiritual lungs.

Remember that Jesus heals the people with pasts.

·         Psalm 147:3—He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.

Remember that we all have broken pasts. We wouldn’t need salvation otherwise.

·         Romans 3:23—For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.

And finally, remember that Jesus gives us victory over the past and promises a new future.

·         II Corinthians 5:17—Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.