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Do I Value Diversity as Much as God Does?

3/6/2020

Spring is blooming all over my yard. Dozens of daffodils are popping up on the hill, the quince bush is full of blossoms, and the pear trees are starting to bud. The diversity of the creative energy of God always amazes me. When he decided to make flowers, he didn’t make just one species. Our planet overflows with flowers in a splendid array of shapes, sizes, and colors.

God treasures diversity, not only in flowers, but also in the people who populate our world. Each one of us was made to reflect a tiny bit of the image of God.

Over seven billion people from thousands of ethnic groups live on earth. God is so much greater than we can imagine and so far beyond our ability to comprehend, it takes people of many different races and cultures to even begin to reflect a tiny smidgen of his image.

One of my faith goals is to treasure diversity as much as God does. I need to see the wonder and beauty in those who are different from me, appreciate diverse ethnic groups from around the world, and practice love and acceptance for all people everywhere. This is not a natural human response to those who look, sound, or act differently than us. We are sometimes fearful of people who have a different worldview than ours. This fear is amplified by news outlets seeking increased ratings, politicians manipulating voters to get elected, and thousands of posts each day on social media. Nonetheless, if I say that I'm a Christian, I need to have the attitude of Christ. The Son of God was sent into our messy, fearful world to show us how deep and wide and high God's love is for every single person he created and to teach us how to relate to one another in that love.

The creation story says that each day when God completed his creative work for that day, "God saw that it was good." (Genesis 1 NIV). I can see this goodness when I focus on the creative energy of God, meditate on the life of Jesus, and rely on the presence and power of the Holy Spirit within me. If I mindfully appreciate the blossoming spring flowers, I will clearly see the beauty all around me. And if I intentionally look for what is beautiful and good in all of the people God created, I will surely find it.

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How Can Love Conquer Hate?

2/10/2020

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This is Valentine’s week. Whether you enjoy it, or can’t wait for it to pass on by, February 14 will roll around this Friday. Cyberspace is already cluttered with love memes, gifs, wisecracks, sweet sentiments, and gift suggestions.

I treasure the blessing of being surrounded by loving people. I've known my husband since we were children. We have been married for forty-seven years and he still rocks my world, makes my toes curl up when he kisses me, and enriches my life with love and laughter.

In addition to marital bliss, I am blessed with the love of family and friends. I don’t take that for granted. I know what a gift love is in our fractured world. I am especially thankful for the agape love of God, our Father, that we see so beautifully expressed in the life and ministry of Jesus, the Son.

Although love was certainly in the air as I clicked my way around the net this morning, there was also a jarring juxtaposition of hate. On the same social media sites brimming with love and good will, there were messages and memes rife with rancor, hate, judgment, and divisiveness. Some of these venomous posts were made by people who claim to be followers of Jesus. This puzzles me. How can those who claim to love God express hatred for so many of the people God created?

What causes this great disconnect? I mulled over the implications of the dichotomy of love and hate as I dusted this afternoon. I have a collection of nativities from all over the world that I keep out year-round. There are currently thirty-seven of them displayed on a wall of shelves in our den. I reminisced about where we had found each one as I picked up all the Marys and Josephs and angels and shepherds and wise men and babes in a manger made of wood and clay and bread dough and glass and pewter and stone. I dusted each piece and put each one back in place on the shelves. In the process, I touched Jesus thirty-seven times.

Oh.

The amazing force of the gospel of love is never released until we touch Jesus and he touches us. Until that happens, we only have religion and religion is never enough to overcome hate. Religion consists of rules and regulations. It allows us to use God as an excuse for bigotry and exclusion in the name of piety. God becomes little more than an extension of our political position, the head of another civic organization, a symbol to validate our prejudices and judgmental views.

God does not call us to be religious. He calls us to have a relationship with him through his Son, Jesus. This relationship requires us to love every person whether we want to or not. It commands us to forgive, accept, embrace, and include even when it is inconvenient and outside our comfort zone. Having a relationship with Jesus is the only way to know his heart of love. It is the only way to channel that love to everyone he brings into our circle of life.

We need to remember that before we say something snarky about a person or group, post something hateful online, or look down our noses at anyone in the wide world around us. The commercial day for celebrating love will be over after Friday. But the time for celebrating the truth of the love of God never ends. The only way to stay in touch with real love is to stay in touch with Jesus through learning about his life and ministry, spending time with him in prayer, and seeking to become more like him by looking for ways to bless others. Learning to love like Jesus is an excellent way to bloom where we are planted, living a faith of hope and joy.

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When Does Christmas Come?

12/9/2019

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Holiday decorations appeared on the store shelves in early September. I spied the first festively themed movie on TV in October. Folks discussed on social media whether the day after Halloween was too early to put up the tree. My Christmas cactus started blooming last month.

This made me wonder: How do we know when Christmas has come? Is the season here when we put up our Christmas trees and start decorating our homes? Does Christmas arrive whatever day we have our celebration with family and friends to open gifts together? And which day will that be anyway? Some families wouldn't think of getting together any day except December 25th. Others have established a tradition of sharing a meal and presents the weekend before or after Christmas day. My clan is gathering during New Year's week. So, when does Christmas come?

I suppose a lot depends on how we define Christmas. If the season only means decorations, buying and wrapping lots of gifts, baking cookies and pies, holiday parties, Santa, reindeer, carols, and cramming way too much activity into one short month - then the holiday may rush toward us crowding our days until we are exhausted. We survive our celebrations, then we gather up the wreckage of wrapping paper, put away the decorations, and breathe a sigh of relief until December rolls around again.

But what if that is not all there is? In the Dr. Seuss tale, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," the Grinch has a moment of epiphany:

Ah.There's the thing. Maybe Christmas means a whole lot more than a fun holiday to lighten up the cold dark winter days of December. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the traditional hustle and bustle of our cultural Christmas. Sharing a joyful time and making memories with people we love is a gift and a blessing. But there is also a perspective for much greater significance to this season in these words from the gospel of Luke.

No one knows the exact date when Jesus was born. It could have been any month of the year. Churches traditionally celebrate the birth of the Christ Child in December.The date hardly matters.The event itself is what is so amazing.God ripped away the distance between himself and the people he created. He shattered time and space, crossed the great divide, and came to us in human form. Why?

The all powerful, holy, creator, King of the universe loves us. He created us to have lives overflowing with joy, grace, hope, and truth. He fills us with purpose and possibilities. And the moment we realize this, whatever month or day of the year it happens to be - Christmas has come.

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Truthful Prayer On a Terrible Day

11/6/2019

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It is toxic for my faith to pretend everything is okay when it's not. It is good for my spirit when I'm honest with God. Hey, I might as well be. He knows everything I'm thinking and feeling anyway. It is liberating and healthy for my soul to pray the truth. Once upon a time, I had a really bad, terrible, frustrating day. So I talked to God about it. I told him my truth and he told me his.

We had just moved to a bigger city for my husband to teach in the medical school there. I was excited to have more shopping options than I was accustomed to in my small hometown. But, my enthusiasm waned rather quickly that morning. On that difficult and exasperating day, my prayer went something like this.

Dear Lord,

I've had it. I'm done.I think I am now officially allergic to everything but air. I guess that will be next. Okay, so I've gotten used to the shellfish allergy thing. It has limited my lifestyle considerably since it has progressed to the point that I can no longer walk into a restaurant that serves shellfish or a grocery store that sells fresh seafood because now even that tiny amount of exposure causes a severe allergic reaction. I've adjusted. I just don't go to those places anymore. I've tried to focus on what I can do instead of what I can't and be thankful that I can still eat out occasionally at the handful of restaurants that don't serve shellfish. But it is so frustrating to not be able to go to a potluck dinner at church or out to eat with friends because I might be exposed to something that could make me sick, or you know, kill me. I feel so isolated sometimes.

And why do I have to be allergic to all these insects? I live in the south for crying out loud.There are bees, spiders, gnats, and all manner of stinging, biting little critters everywhere. And it never gets cold enough to kill them off until January or February, and some years not even then.Today pushed me right over the edge.

A spider or a gnat or some other small creature I can't see bites me while I browse through the produce section inside of Walmart. I take a Benadryl tablet and hope that will be enough to prevent an anaphylactic reaction.

I drag myself out to the car in utter disbelief. It's the second time this has happened. This month. Inside of Walmart. My soul is so utterly downcast. Will I have to become a hermit and never leave my house again?

I drive home and plop down on the couch completely defeated. My face, tongue and throat are swollen.There is pressure in my chest. So I pop another Benadryl and grab my EpiPen and wait. I think about how it's beyond ironic that the epinephrine in the EpiPen is one of the many medicines that cause bad side effects for me. I won't use it unless absolutely necessary. I unscrew the cap and prepare to jab myself in the thigh if needed.The tachycardia I get from the epinephrine is less traumatic than the whole, you know, stopping breathing thing from the allergic reaction. While I wait, enveloped in a disorienting fog from taking two doses of Benadryl, I notice the Kindle on the table beside me and decide to look at my Facebook page.The very first thing I see is a Bible verse posted by a friend.

"Don't be afraid for I am with you. Don't be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up." Isaiah 41:10 NLT

Oh.

I see. I remember. You created everything: shellfish, spiders, gnats, me. You are with me. You are my God. You give me strength and help. You hold me up. So, I choose to be hopeful instead of discouraged, grateful instead of complaining, trusting instead of afraid.

The Benadryl finally works its magic. I put away the EpiPen and meditate on your goodness, on all the ways you bless me. Thank you that I can pour out my frustration, my thoughts, my problems, my truth, my heart to you. Thank you, thank you, thank you that I can come before you with whining and afterward walk out into whatever else this day holds with singing.

Amen and Amen.

Praying honestly is one of the ways I am learning to bloom where I am planted, living a faith of hope and joy.

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God Doesn't Hide

10/12/2019

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When I was a child, we invented an entertaining game that all of the neighborhood kids loved to play at night. It was a variation of hide-and-seek that we called "Shine the Light." We scattered giggling into the darkness while the person who was "it" chased us down wielding a flashlight and tagged us by zapping us in the face with its bright beam. Some of the kids fought over who got to hold the flashlight first. Not me. I liked to be one of the hiders. I checked to see where the light was bouncing off the trees and sidewalks and ran in the opposite direction.

I play that game sometimes with God. He shines his light for me to see quite clearly the path I should follow. Instead, I gallivant off onto a completely different road. I even play a subtle variation where I spend days, weeks, months, even years, pretending to prayerfully struggle to know God's will, but it's just, you know, too hard to discover.

The only problem with that game is that it is never one God plays. My loving Father wants me to know his plan for my life. He doesn't hide himself or his will from me. If I need guidance about relationships, career choices, where I should live, ministry options, or how to negotiate the chaos of daily life, God always directs my steps when I turn my heart and mind toward him.

When I want to understand God’s will for my specific circumstances, I have found these three strategies to be helpful.

I look at what is written in God's Word.
The Bible is a great resource for understanding who God is and who he calls me to be in him. It commands me to love my enemies, forgive those who have wronged me, welcome the stranger, visit those in prison, help widows and orphans, feed the hungry, and love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. There is no ambiguity in those instructions.

I stay in touch with other believers.
Sharing my thoughts and questions with Christian friends and family, members of my small group at church, and those involved in all kinds of ministry brings clarity. I read a wide variety of books, articles, and blogs. I often gain the most insight from writers who have a different faith perspective than me. They help me see things in a different light.

I remember that God's will is always a persistent and growing awareness.
Years ago, when we were trying to decide which country God wanted us to live in to serve as international missionaries, an older missionary told us that he had learned God's call comes to different people in a lot of different ways but there is always one factor that is the same. There is a persistent and growing awareness that this is what God wants for you. The initial holy nudge you feel to go in a certain direction has staying power and that impression grows over time.

I am so thankful that God doesn't hide. He wants me to know him. He wants to show me his plan for my life. I just have to look for all the places he is shining his Light and walk toward the road he illuminates. It’s one of the ways I learn to bloom where I am planted living a faith of hope and joy.

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What's Happened to Kindness?

9/25/2019

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I gain perspective and insight from reading the Bible in different translations. I often have five different versions of scripture scattered about the desk when I study a specific passage seeking deeper meaning and clarity. Long ago, when I was a wee little baby boomer child, I only had the King James Version. So, one of the first Bible verses I ever memorized is etched in my mind in these ancient words.

Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. – Ephesians 4:32

I imagine the teachers who shared that verse with a roomful of rowdy children used it to remind us of practical applications in our childhood world: don’t hog all the crayons, stop yelling at each other, share the bottles of glue, don’t hit the other children, invite everyone to the table, pass the plate of cookies around to everybody, use kind words to speak to each other.

I’ve been watching newscasts, scrolling through my Facebook feed, reading tweets, and listening to folks talk to each other at the mall. It is painfully obvious that we have forgotten how to be kind to one another.

As believers who seek to follow the way of Jesus, we are commanded to be kind, to be tenderhearted and caring toward others, and to practice forgiveness. The Bible clearly says it; but, oh my, how often we refuse to do it. What’s happened to kindness? Why do people who call themselves Christians hurl hateful words at other people? I see this happen repeatedly in the routines of daily life. In the past month, I’ve heard an impatient customer berate a fast food worker, listened to a father scream at his children in the mall, read vicious rants on my social media feed, and overheard a group of women using vile epithets to talk about a group of teenagers from a cultural group different than their own.The decibel level of hateful rhetoric seems particularly loud in the political arena, which might be anticipated, and in many churches, where one might hope that the hatefulness of the world would not so consistently intrude.

In Politics
We live in a wonderful country.The American landscape is enriched by a vibrant tapestry of lovely people from different backgrounds and ethnic traditions who express widely diverse opinions and ideas. Sadly, we have abandoned civil discussion. We seem to have lost our ability to conduct conversations that lead to consensus and compromise.Those who support a different party, have a different opinion, come down on a different side of any issue are labeled by the opposition as morons, stupid, communists, socialists, fascists, bimbos, radicals, blowhards, liars, dummies, criminals, racists, idiots, dangerous, traitors, fools.

That's irresponsible language for anyone to use. It's especially jarring and offensive when it spews out of the mouths of those who claim to be followers of Jesus.

I hear Christian people say, "I have the right to my opinion." True enough. We live in a country where we are free to say what we think without recrimination. However, as Christians, we give up our right to our own opinions the moment we give ourselves to God. Christians are to be little Christs who live like Jesus. The act of following in his steps requires that we surrender our wants and our words to his will.

Jesus asks us to live a life marked by love, kindness, gracious speech, forgiveness, and caring about other people. It is possible to hold passionate political positions and still exercise kindness, grace, and love if we are mindful about the way we express our political views.

In Churches
There is an alarming trend in many churches today. Supporting a cause and a political position has become more important than following Jesus and loving people. The poor are suspected, the marginalized are neglected, and thinkers are rejected. Diversity has been thrown out. Conformity to a particular worldview has become the standard for righteousness.

Jesus said the world will know we belong to him by seeing how much we love each other. Cause driven churches who abandon the way of Jesus in favor of supporting a specific cultural view have done more to damage the reputation of Christ than all the unbelievers in the world put together. When I discuss faith matters with folks who either have never gone to church, or used to attend but have walked away, the single most prevalent reason I hear for this decision is that churches have become too politicized on both the left and the right. Folks look at these kinds of churches and see belief systems, political affiliations, dogmatic theological opinions, and lists of rules and regulations. But, they don't see Jesus there.

Churches compelled by the love of Jesus focus on people rather than political causes. Churches that want to be like Jesus welcome everyone: strangers, immigrants, refugees, people of every race, the rich and the poor, the sick and suffering, the physically and mentally challenged, traditionalists and creative thinkers, crying children, rowdy teenagers, single parents and blended families, the elderly, the lonely, widows and orphans, sinners and saints.Jesus invites every single person on the face of the earth to come to him. His bride, the Church, should do the same.

Dwelling on the current political quagmire and focusing on churches that have veered off course is depressing and nonproductive. So, I think I'll go meditate a while on Ephesians 4:32. And I'll do my best to not hog all the crayons, stop yelling at others, share the bottles of glue, invite everyone to the table, pass the plate of cookies around to everybody, and use kind words to speak to those around me. It’s a good way for me to learn to bloom where I am planted living a faith of hope and joy.

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Did God Hurl That Lightning Bolt?

7/29/2019

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We were on our way to the beach for a family vacation when we stopped for lunch at a Mennonite restaurant with delicious food and delightful crafts and artwork. We discovered a framed print while browsing through their gift shop that we liked the moment we saw it because it so clearly expresses one of the truths of our faith journey.

The print hung in my husband’s medical office for decades and has been displayed in our home since he retired. I’ve been looking at it today and thinking about the place where God's will intersects with God’s grace.

The Will of God

When we are trying to figure out God's will for our lives, we can count on three things.

God wants us to know his will. God wants to show us how to live our best life. It’s not like he’s trying to hide his plan from us. He speaks to us through the Bible, other people, books, circumstances, experience, and the patterns for living Jesus gave us during his time here on earth. We just have to listen and pay attention.
Our Good Father never wants to harm us. Some people will tell you that everything that happens in life is God's will. That's one of those "churchy" clichés that sounds good on the surface but lacks substance when you dig deeper. Some folks claim sickness, death, cancer, accidents, storms, destruction, election results, volcanic eruptions, and all manner of trauma and disaster are God’s will. That’s not true. It is not the nature of God to harm the people he creates and loves. And he loves every person in the world. Here's one example. Is it God's will that certain people die in a tornado? No. Atmospheric patterns on our planet cause violent weather events. Sometimes, people in the path of a storm are injured or killed. I've been struck by lightning. Inside my house. Twice. Did God hurl those lightning bolts at me? No. Both times, I was washing dishes at my kitchen sink right beside a window in a house located on top of a hill. It is the nature of lightening to seek water and high ground. (Side note: I’m officially off dish washing duty on stormy days now. In fact, a random cloud scuttling across the sky is enough to persuade me that chore can wait.)
We are free to follow our own way instead of the way of Jesus. God has a plan for our lives that he wants to clearly show us. He sent his Son Jesus into the world to model how we are to relate to God and to other people. But he doesn’t force us to be like Jesus. He always gives us the option to choose his way or our own.Jesus says, "Love your enemies," but instead of doing that we can make lists of entire groups of people to hate. Jesus says, "Forgive just as I have forgiven you." But instead we can refuse to let go of grudges against people we feel have done us wrong. The more we shout that we have rights and demand our own way the harder it becomes to live like Jesus, see God's plan, and understand his will.

The Grace of God

The grace of God encompasses all he is and all that he freely wants to give us in and through our relationship with him. We have continual access to his presence through prayer. He loves us unconditionally and completely just as we are. We can’t do anything to make God love us more. And we can’t do anything to make him love us less.

God wants to bless us with abundant life in him. God’s grace is the free gift of his love, forgiveness, peace, mercy, truth, and light. He will never lead us where his grace cannot keep. guard, protect, enable, reassure, sustain, and hold us in the goodness of his hand.

Grace and peace to each of you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May we bloom as we discover his will, living a faith of hope and joy.

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Connected by Grace: So, Why Are We Arguing?

5/3/2019

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My husband graduated from Ensley High School in Birmingham, Alabama decades ago. Over the years we have run into numerous people who also graduated from Ensley. This might not seem so strange if we still lived in Birmingham. But we have lived all over the world since then, and yet, we keep meeting people who went to Vic's high school. They are everywhere: repairmen, deliverymen, people who drop by the office, visitors passing through town, the folks sitting next to us at the theater, the Sunday School teacher in a class we visited. They all attended the same high school located in a city we haven't lived in since 1975.

My favorite story about this connection happened when we were missionaries in Colombia, South America. We were studying Spanish in the capital city of Bogotá. We attended a church that shared its facilities with two congregations: the local Spanish-speaking residents and English expats that worked in international companies throughout the city. One group had a worship service while the other went to Bible study and then we swapped locations. During the half hour break for the changeover, both groups met in a central area for coffee and fellowship. During the break one Sunday, Vic and I walked over from the Spanish service and introduced ourselves to an American couple attending the English service for the first time.They had moved to Colombia due to a job transfer and had been in Bogotá just a few weeks. The husband said they were enjoying the experience of living in a different culture.Then he chuckled and said, "One of the main reasons I'm glad to be here is because everywhere we go, we meet people who went to the same high school as my wife. We are finally living in a place so far away that she won't run into any fellow graduates." The wife put down her coffee cup and smiled, "Yes, I doubt I'll run into anyone in Bogotá, Colombia who went to Ensley High School in Birmingham, Alabama."

It is amazing how many ways our lives are intertwined with the lives of other people. We graduate from the same school, discover we have friends in common, work in the same field, have the same unique hobby, find out we once lived in the same neighborhood.If we are Christians, we share a common faith that intertwines our lives. Our mutual relationship with Jesus should be a powerful force for connection and unity.

Unfortunately, we currently seem more focused on what separates us than on what unites us. God's family includes people from different countries, ethnic backgrounds, political parties, denominations, cultural views, languages, and faith traditions. Despite these differences, we are blessed with the gift of belonging to each other because we belong to Jesus. We sure don't act like it sometimes. We will never reach our potential for sharing the gospel of grace and love if we spend our time drawing lines in the sand, arguing, and demanding that everyone think exactly like we do on every single issue.

To practice healthy faith, we need to focus on how we are connected to one another. There are so many ways our lives are intertwined with our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we concentrate our energies on the great truths we hold in common, we become an unstoppable force for impacting our communities and our world with unstoppable grace. When we practice intentional unity, we are empowered to encourage and love one another, share the gospel with joy, minister to those in need, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, heal the sick, and welcome the stranger in the name of Jesus who said, "In as much as you have done something for one of the least of these, you have done it for me." Matthew 25:40 NIV

I long for reconciliation among believers that will change light to darkness, hate to love, despair to hope, disunity to connection. We have the power to choose.

You can scream and argue all you want. I opt to look for the things that unite us. I choose to respect wherever you are in your faith journey. I will not require you to be in the same place on the path as me. I will not focus on divisive ploys. I will not belittle. I will not judge or condemn. Instead, I will focus on all the ways we are connected. We are united by the grace of Jesus, by the unconditional love of the Father, and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We may not have gone to the same high school (although it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find out you graduated from Ensley), but if we belong to God, we belong to each other. And that is more than enough to propel me toward the kind of unity that helps me live a faith of hope and joy.

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When Bad Things Happen Do We Choose Fight, Flight, or Faith?

4/6/2019

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We love to take long trips in our motorhome. It is a joy to explore our beautiful country, visit National Parks, and view the breathtaking scenery along the way. The journey is as much fun as the destination.

While we were getting ready for one of our travel adventures,we left the door to our motorhome wide open as we shuttled from the house to the RV stowing last minute items onboard before leaving on our camping trip.

Unfortunately, a little bird with a compromised sense of direction flew inside and zoomed around desperately trying to find his way out. We tried to help by chasing him, flailing our arms, and yelling. I guess we terrified the poor little creature. He escaped, but he left something behind, and it was all over our bed. When we recovered from laughing at the absurdity of the situation, we changed the sheets and headed for the open road just a little later than our originally estimated departure time.

Sometimes, people of faith live under the misguided perception that bad things will never happen to good people, especially if the good people happen to be us. But the truth is that life is chaotic, we will go through dark times, and sooner or later a messy bird of some kind or the other will swoop down unexpectedly into our tidy clean spaces. If we live long enough, eventually bad things, whether small and aggravating or huge and heartbreaking, will come our way. We can respond in one of three ways.

FIGHT. Look for someone to blame for our current woes. Get mad at other people. Get mad at God for allowing such a horrible thing to happen. Dump angry words with wild abandon on anyone in the path of our problem.

FLIGHT. Run away from the negative situation. Move. Avoid the person we disagree with, change jobs, change churches, change friends. Substitute busyness for solutions. Hide in our rooms feeling sorry for ourselves.

FAITH. Hold on to our faith to get us through whatever trauma comes our way. God is with us in the turmoil. He never gives up on us even when we give up on ourselves. He helps us in our time of need even when we tumble so far into despair that we cannot feel his presence. When our dreams are crushed, when we are broken and wounded, when bad things happen, we have no need to fear. The love of God the Father, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit are with us.

"I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither the present nor the future, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39 NIV

We can trust with absolute assurance that no matter what comes our way, God is with us. He holds us in the palm of his hand with tender grace and unconditional love. This is how we bloom. This is how we live a faith of hope and joy.

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God Provides: He is Reliable When Life is Not

3/20/2019

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Update March 18, 2020: I first posted this devotional to my website on March 20,2019. I never imagined that one short year later we would be living through a worldwide pandemic. And yet, here we are. The Covid-19 coronavirus spans the globe. During these unsettled times, it encourages me to remember my favorite name for God: Jehovah Jireh, the God Who Provides. In the midst of disease, death, confusion, and uncertainty, I get up each day and do my part to slow the spread of the virus and flatten the curve. We don't know how long we will need to self-quarantine. We don't know when the disease will peak, We don't even have enough testing capability to know how many of us are already infected. But, I do know this. Even now: Jehovah Jireh.

The first year Vic and I were married, getting by financially was a struggle. We lived in a tiny apartment located in a deteriorating area of Birmingham. It had a leaky gas hot water heater that forced us to leave the windows open 24/7, even in winter, so we wouldn’t suffocate from the fumes during the night. It was furnished in an eclectic mix of cast offs from relatives, flea market finds, and homemade treasures. Burglars broke into it three different times but never took anything because we didn't own a single thing valuable enough to steal. We were young, madly in love, and finally on our own, so obviously, we thought it was the most awesome apartment in the history of the world.

Vic was in medical school and I taught first grade at a small Christian school. We had a very limited income, a strict budget, and $10 per week to spend on groceries. I made a lot of "rice and" dishes: rice and a smidgen of meat, rice and beans, rice and a can of soup. I devised a creative bill-paying system. I kept the bills in a drawer in our secondhand desk arranged by due date and paid them in order every month until we ran out of money. There were always a couple left over that rotated to the top of the stack to be paid first the next month. It worked. No angry bill collectors pounded on our door and the utilities were never turned off. Life was good.

Sometime during that year, we heard a sermon at our church on the different names for God. One intriguing name comes from a complicated narrative found in Genesis chapter 22. The short version is that Abraham trudged agonizingly up a mountain to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God. On the way up, he spied a ram caught in a thicket to offer to God instead. Filled with gratitude that his son was spared, Abraham named that place Jehovah Jireh, which means The Lord Who Provides. It’s a strange story but it has a happy ending and it’s the source of one of our favorite names for God. Those two words became our secret faith code to each other. Every time we were backed into a financial corner, we just smiled and said, Jehovah Jireh.

Vic made a rustic hand-carved plaque to hang on our apartment wall inscribed with that precious name for God to remind us to trust in the Lord when things get difficult. That little plaque has traveled with us everywhere we have lived. We moved 16 times in the first 14 years of our marriage, so it has been on quite a journey. It hung on walls in the homes we lived in during medical school, residency, and a stint at seminary. It wandered all over Alabama, went to North Carolina, and traveled with us to Bogota and Barranquilla, Colombia where we served as missionaries. Today it hangs on a wall by the back entryway of our home so we see it every day as we go in and out of the house

Back then, I thought of God’s provision only in the limited terms of our financial needs. Four decades later, I know that it goes far beyond that. We lived in Colombia during the dangerous drug war years. There was constant fighting and violence. An embassy was bombed a few blocks from the corner where we stood waiting for a bus. In a city of seven million people, God provided a friend who happened by and drove us to safety. Our car was stolen at gunpoint with our two small children in the backseat. God provided a way for us to get them safely out before the two armed robbers raced off with the car.

The Lord continued to provide for all our needs after we moved back to the states. When people I loved died, God provided comfort and strength to put one foot in front of the other. When relationships fractured, God provided either the grace for forgiveness or the strength to walk away. When I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, God helped me discover healthy living strategies that led to my recovery.

In the darkest moments of life, God provides his great light to help me find my way. He fills me with his presence, grace, mercy, peace, and love. He opens my eyes to see that possibilities are everywhere. He cultivates in me a sense of gratitude that comes from him alone. He teaches me to bloom where I am planted, living a faith of hope and joy.

Jehovah Jireh. Yes, indeed!

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I love to read and write devotionals that focus on joy and practical faith. I'm a fan of camping, traveling, healthy living, and practical life hacks about everything.

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