Heaven - From the Lucado Life Lessons Study Bible.

         This  statement by Max Lucado caught my eye recently and I've gone back to re-read it several times since then:
         "We are not happy here because we are not at home here.  We are not happy here because we are not supposed to be happy here.  We are 'like foreigners and strangers in this world..'  (I Peter 2:11) 
         "Take a fish and place him on the beach.  Watch his gills grasp and scales dry.  Is he happy?  No!  How do you make him happy?  Do you cover him with a mountain of cash?  Do you get a beach chair and sunglasses?   Do you bring him a Playfish magazine and martini?    Do you wardrobe him in double breasted fins and people-skinned shoes?"  p. 1645.
          I love  the imagery that brings to mind: a fish sitting on the beach, wearing shades and designer clothes  with an irritated expression, flipping through a magazine, tossing it aside, sipping on his drink, looking even more disgruntled,  and  setting that aside as well...
          Only, that isn't the whole  image Lucado presents. When I got to the witty part, it was easy for me to forget that he  starts off by  talking  about a fish who is dying.  As this poor Charlie the Tuna  gasps for water, people give him everything but....
         I can clearly see that showering a beached fish with money, prestige and "the good life"  isn't going to help him any.  The only thing that will help him, as Lucado says, is to send the fish back home, back to his natural environment.
        Unlike the fish, we can (and should) enjoy things here on earth.  Lucado isn't against being happy and experiencing the joys of earthly life.
         But he is saying that like the fish we are out of our natural element.
         And if we do feel happy, contented (satisfied?) day in and day out  with the things of this world, then something is wrong.  If we don't regularly feel that deep, unsatisfied longing in the gut for something better and if we never realize that the pursuit of wealth, new experiences, prestige,  sex and alcohol can't totally fill that void within us, then we're in worse shape than the fish.
        As he puts it, The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves to be home on earth.  As long as we are aliens, we cannot forget our true homeland.
      In other words, Disneyland is great for the moment; but it can't take the place of Heaven and shouldn't take away our need to "phone home" on a regular basis!
         
       

=/

    Opposites do attract!
    My husband and I once took a spiritual gifts "inventory" at church - I totally maxed out  on encouragement and mercy.  I totally bottomed out (couldn't have gone any lower) on the gift of service.  Guess what?  My husband topped the chart on service (he couldn't have gone any higher) and bottomed out on mercy!  But he also topped the chart on discerning truth.
    So last night we get into a discussion on Iraq - I'm actually just wanting to recount the highlight of this great romance/thriller novel that I read on Iraq and how I just loved the part where they go into an underground church and everyone there, no matter what their previous background, loves and cares for each other (think lots of Happy Faces here), etc. When he starts telling me what our govt. should have done differently - not intending to stir up anything at all.
   So then I start looking at things from the Iraqi point of view, thinking about the people, their culture, and how they would feel if our govt. had dictated to them even more than it has... and boom... we were into a heated discussion that probably would have left the Iraqi's scratching their heads at how idiotic Americans can be...
   Like... don't these crazy Westerners have a life????
   And really, that's maybe the whole point of this blog... I'm thinking that maybe I don't... =/
   Like, maybe it's time to do something crazy wild (as far as my sedate life is concerned) and go busting off to a whole 'nother country (and I don't mean Texas...)
   But without my better half???  Who will argue with me at 11 P.M., apologize at 8 the next morning (even though he was right, incidentally), take me out to breakfast, and then break out a map of Israel to discuss all the fun places that I might get to see - never complaining that he isn't going to get to go -  and then head out to  bust out the paint cans so that he can spend his day off finishing   the bedroom, my headboard request having derailed him by a week or so....
   If I know what long-suffering, unselfishness, and servant heart mean, it's because of Phil.  I'm going to miss him!!

I didn't like writing this sooo... chances are...

      ...you aren't going to like reading it...   :(
      Clearly, I'm very unsure about writing this; what is on my mind today is definitely not PC and could be misinterpreted easily.  Also, the thoughts I want to share are disparate - not connected very well yet very much on my mind (which is pretty jumbled, even on the best of days!)
     I know it will sound silly - and maybe also judgmental (although I don't mean it that way) - but I have trouble with the phrase "love me some..."  Almost all my friends use it and I don't have any friends that are greedy, selfish, uncaring.  All are giving and tender-hearted.  So if it doesn't bother them, I know it shouldn't bother me.
    But it does.  The subject in that sentence is implied:  [I] love me....  is really how it starts out.  And I think that is one of the big problems of our society:  I love me!
   However, I realize the sentences that start off this way actually mean:  I love ______________.  But by putting the pronoun "me" early in the sentence, it paints a vivid picture in my mind.  Somehow, I always turn the sentence around  and see the person saying, I love this (item, thing, experience...) so much that I'm incorporating it into myself, I'm hugging it to myself, I'm loving myself by acquiring this.
   Again, I respect and love all my friends and all my friends basically use this phrase.  The problem I have is not with people who use it but with where it originated.  Hollywood, I'm guessing.  And the mainstream message that permeates our society - I'm loving me by buying, consuming, having this, that, or the other!
   So... do I do that?  Just ask Amazon.com......  Just ask who gets the last Hersey-with-almonds bar around here in our home!!  (Always!!!)   Yep, even though I don't use the phrase, I definitely live it...  And perhaps that is why the concept bothers me so much: I've bought into the current  mindset as much or more than anyone else.
   Last night I couldn't sleep and so I was trying to pray.  As the minutes slid into an hour or so, I did something out of the norm for me - I asked God what He wanted.  I did this more than once because each time I threw this question into the night air, the next thing I knew,  I would realize that I was thinking about what I wanted....  This happened about 4 times until  I finally gave up on this type of prayer, thinking maybe I was too tired or it was too weird a request.
   This morning I had a quiet time first thing  - something I don't always do honestly so don't get the wrong idea here.  Usually first thing in the morning, I love me some Hersey's (there!  I did use it!) and then eventually get around to reading me some Scripture - but am often unable to corral  my rabbity thoughts into more than arrow prayers because the day is advanced by that time and my mind is going in a thousand different directions...
   But this morning, I got on my knees and tried again with the weird prayer thing.  This time, I phrased it, "Lord, what is on Your heart?"  I did that several times and each time, I got the same instant impression.
   Twelve people.
   And the unnamed thousands  they represent.
   1.   Youcef Nadarkhani.        Iran  - In prison since Oct. 2010.  Sentenced to die. Guessing that's hard on his family!

   2.   Llmurad Nurlieve .          Turkmenistan  - In prison since August 2010.  He's asked for a Bible to read but the authorities won't give it to him.  Pretty sad...  I'm looking at the Bibles on my book shelf thinking, I'd gladly give him one of mine!!!!

   3.   Vahhik Abrahamian.       Iran - In prison since Sept. 2010.  He has dual citizenship and could have left Iran after his first imprisonment to live in his native Holland but chose to stay in Iran instead. Why?  So he could share Christ with the Iranian people. Pretty brave guy!  Could I do that? Honestly... no.

   4. Dr. Kiflu Gebremeskel.     Eritrea - In prison since May 2004.  He  has  a Ph.D. in mathematics from Chicago University and was a professor in his country.  Until he resigned that job to take up another - namely leading  a Christian church. His wife and 4 kids have not been allowed to visit him.  Don't think I could handle that either!  Knowing that PHil was in prison somewhere and had been for 7 years and we couldn't see him???

  5.  Kidane Weldou.              Eritrea - In prison since March 2005.    During a wave of persecution against Christians in Eritrea, he and other pastors were told to keep their mouths shut about what was going on. Guess what?  He didn't...   He got the news to friends in the West and now there's a real possibility he's cramped into a metal shipping container for days on end at times, convinced he's forgotten. And since it's hard for me to remember where Eritrea even is and I once taught geography, I'm guessing that for the most part, he's right - he is forgotten... But not by God!  (And so, I hope, not by me...)

   6.  Haile Nayzgi.                Eritrea - In prison since May 2004.  Same deal as above. Except that the charges against him  have yet to be released.  Ugghhh....  So much for civil rights...

   7.  Yang Rongli                  China - In prison since Nov. 2009.   Scheduled to be released 2017.  What's the deal there?  Preaching Christ is supposed to net  a 6 or 7  year sentence in China... Isn't that one year too many??  (And I imagine a year in a Chinese prison is pretty looooonnnnnnggggg)

   8.   Pastor Wang Xiaoguang. China - In prison since Nov. 2009.   His crime? Participating in a prayer rally on SEpt. 14, 2009. I can't imagine this...

   9.   Y Wo Nie.                   Vietnam - In prison since August 2004.  His wife finds it hard to get menial jobs and some days has no income.  Their youngest son is often sick. Since the father is a political prisoner, I'm guessing his wife and kids are ostracized - not much help for them.... Again, I would help them.. if I could!!! (But.... do i pray for them...?)

  10. Yang Xuan                     China - In prison since Nov. 2009.   The good news is that his daughter, Esther, is allowed limited visits to her dad in prison. Also to her mom in prison.  Their crime? You guessed it - participating in that iniquitous  prayer rally on  Sept. 14, 2009.  Why didn't they do this rally thing inside the church?  Because the police raided their church the day before...

   11.  Imran Ghafur.               Pakistan.  In prison since July 2009.   He's using his time to study God's word and has sent a message thanking all the Christians who have been praying for him, promising that he'll deliver his thanks personally when he is released.  If he is released...

   12.  Tohar Haydarov.          Uzbekistan - In prison since March 2010.  He's been charged with selling illegal drugs.  HIs church says his only crime was to serve God - that he is honest and the police set him up.  He's been sentenced to 10 years.  He looks pretty young in his pictures.. Wondering what he'll look like when he's released...

These are the prisoners that were highlighted on the Voice of the Martyrs website "prisoner alert" page.  I knew that already.  I just didn't know that when I asked God what was on His heart (repeatedly - since the first time I asked, He didn't respond with "you!!!"), that every time He would answer by bringing this list to mind.  I guess I just thought these were some good people with impossible-to-pronounce-names whose situations were not fun to read about. Or think about. And therefore, hard to pray about... for me, at least.

Now I know they are more than just weird names and tough situations - they are the answer to the question:  God, what is on Your heart?
   

Two-pager turners, opposite ends of the spectrum...

   

   Over the past  five years, two novels and two novels only have actually caused me to  read feverishly late at night and at times also  halt part way through the book so that I could actually start writing down clues, determined to figure out the plot!
      The first book to have this affect on me was Randy Singer's The Cross Examination of Oliver Finney.  I'd never heard of Singer when I bought it - I just liked the title, the cover, and the blurb on the back.   As I neared the end of the mystery, I found myself declining invitations to go to lunch during in-service so that I could go out, buy a small notebook and start writing down all the various facts, hints, and innuendos Singer had deftly scattered  throughout the plot.  Can we say "obsessed"?  (Coincidentally, he still fooled me.. and he played fair!)
     Several days before I bought the notebook and became super-sleuth, I also purchased the companion book, The Cross-Examination of Jesus Christ - again  all in an effort to figure out who the bad guy was!!!   Singer uses various codes in his novel - each chapter has a clue with a different "cipher" giving new, vital information.  You can figure out the encrypted clues yourself  (I couldn't but I'm sure others who are into codes can) or you can buy the companion book, which gives more hints on how to crack the various codes. It is a brilliant way to get readers to buy an exciting novel and then have them wind  up reading about Christ. And really,  I feel this was his main goal - not to hook buyers into getting two books, although for a writer that's a fair goal, but to get people who might not otherwise read about Christ to consider His claims as the Messiah.
 (Coincidentally, you don't have to buy the non-fiction book - Singer explains each coded message at the end of each chapter in the novel. But if you want to try to beat the author at his game, the other book helps!)


       This summer has been a bonanza for sequels - almost as if some of my favorite authors decided to help me celebrate my retirement by cranking out the next book in their series.  One of these obliging authors, Davis Bunn, ticked me off, however!  I read his last two books,  Gold of Kings  and The Black Madonna.   Honestly, I had a little trouble staying with Gold of Kings but had no problems with The Black Madonna, really loved it - so much so that I went back and re-read Gold of Kings and on the second read, fell in love with it as well. But The Black Madonna was a great read anyway I looked at it.
     Except for the fact that.... The Black Madonna left things hanging - the anti-hero in a desperate situation  =/ !!!  So when I saw that Bunn had a new novel coming out, Lion of Babylon, I pre-ordered it for my Kindle and then waited anxiously for it to be released.
    It came and I got mad!   Huge Bummer!!!  This was NOT the sequel to anything.  It was a whole new novel!!  Agggghhhhh!!! I didn't know how he could do this to me!!!
    I complained ... to Phil, to the dog who was the only one awake when I actually started my new novel, to our son...  But then I got into this novel and ... honestly, I love it more than any of the others that I have read by him.  And that's saying a lot. Bunn has a background in international finance and yet, somehow, he's currently Writer-in-Residence at Regent's Park College, Oxford University.  (His web page and blog explain how he got from point A to point B.. an interesting story in and of itself).
    Although I was basically set against this novel from the first, I'm not yet half-way through and I found myself, once again - for the second time in 5 years -  taking notes on a thriller, determined that I'll figure this out before all is revealed!  In that sense, it's been hard to put the book down, truly a page-turner as I avidly look for fresh clues and anxiously await what might be lurking around the next corner...
    On the other hand, I've found myself actually turning back a page or two, trying to recapture some of the phrases that he uses because I love them.  I guess I'm saying, the book is not just suspenseful, it's a delight to read.
   For example, I love the passage where a hard-nosed  American is explaining an Intelligence operation to a very smart, low-key Iraqi. The situation, which involves a lot of back-stabbing, danger, and denial (of course!),  causes the Iraqi to respond with, "This is very curious... It is almost Arab." :)
  There are other passages that I love even more but it would take forever to find them on my Kindle. And I want to get back to the novel to find out what happens to the main characters, all of whom are  so real that it's hard for me to remember that they are, actually, not....  It's that type of a book.
   The book itself is dedicated to Anne Graham Lotz, which pretty much says there is a Christian vantage to all this, although I haven't come across it yet.  Still from the first page, it's obvious that the hero of the story is Christian - an American who soon joins up with a devout Iraqi Believer, almost as if they are two sides of the same coin.  At the same time, one of the most likable and noble characters in the book (so far) is Muslim and he's every bit as memorable, admirable as the others and I really like that.
    I started off mentioning two books - they are opposites in some respects. The hero in The Cross-Examination of Oliver Finney  is a flawed older man, a judge who has a dry wit, a smoker's cough,  a compassionate nature lurking under his crusty exterior, a major secret, and a desire to do something well for God.  He also stands out in my mind as if he were a real person, someone I feel nostalgic about b/c I never got to meet him in real life.. .if that makes any sense.
    And then you have the young, lithe, compassionate but rock-solid Marc Royce, former intelligence operative in Baghdad, working feverishly to save a friend while attracting the attention of a beautiful Iraqi woman...:)
    Heroes at the opposite end of the spectrum but both books are truly great reads in my opinion. So good that I felt like I would be failing in some way if I didn't stop and  put in print how amazing they are.
 
 
 

The mysterious sweetness of life...

     The sweet elixir in our hummingbird feeder is three-fourths gone.  But as I sat and watched one hummingbird feed this morning, I couldn't detect any sign that he was worried about how long his food supply would last.  He just drank repeatedly and I hope deeply of the nourishment we provide free of charge.
 
 


 For a while there was just one bird feeding; now there are two and often they fight each other. One repels the other as best he can, defending his space - which really is our space!  Often they fly perilously close to the glass window behind the feeder.  There's no need for this - our yard is more than big enough for both of them and their supply of food never runs out.  The truth is, for all their beauty, they can be vicious little territorial creatures.


And still we provide for them.  As far as they are concerned, the elixir comes from nowhere.  I feel sure they have no clue that often they are watched, that the glass in our window is transparent and that a whole world exists mostly out of their sight, out of their realm of experience.

    If they could talk, I wonder if they would argue with each other - posturing various theories about where the mysterious sweetness of life comes from, whether or not there really is some unseen being watching over them and if there is, why does this being allow so much fighting and carnage to go on in their world?



But I say love your enemies...In that way, you will be acting as true children of your father in Heaven.  For He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the just and unjust alike.   Matt. 5:44-45

Focus makes all the difference...

Briton Riviere's Daniel in the Lion's Den and Daniel's Answer to the king.

Romance, Pure and Simple...

      BAck in the Fall of 1972 during  my first week of college, I got a phone call saying my Great Uncle Nathan had died. He was in his 80's and I didn't think I would be affected by his death because we had never been that close.  But I found to my surprise that I missed him.  He was, as my mother would say, a character and when he died he definitely left a void.
     He told me that when  he was a boy he used to hide every time his dad would get out the wagon to go to town. He knew that he not only wouldn't get to go but also that he would be given a list of chores to do before his dad got back. Apparently, hiding didn't help any and he still always got a list of tasks to work through in the requisite amount of time. To fail in this endeavor meant certain "licks" with a belt so he learned to work diligently at a young age.
      As a young man, he continued farming.  But after he had married and they had  several children, he felt that the Lord was "calling him to preach."  He couldn't go to seminary so he copied Bible verses onto scrap sheets of paper and tucked those pieces of paper into his hat band.  Then he'd head to the field but before he plowed a row, he would memorize one of the verses and  tuck it back in his hatband. When he got to the end of the row, he'd pull out the verse to check himself for accuracy. In this way, he taught himself the Bible.
    His first wife was upset when Nathan decided to preach -it wasn't an easy life and involved a lot of traveling.  She said that she hadn't married a preacher and she wasn't going to live with one. IN a day when it was practically unheard of, they separated but never divorced.   She kept the children and when she died a few years after their separation, the children were basically grown.
   People began to feel sorry for the preacher who was a widower so a little matchmaking ensued.  One of the community members talked about a woman named Jewel, who was a "widow-woman" and a fine Christian  with no children.  On top of that she had a sweet disposition, could cook, and played the piano.
   That was enough for Nathan. He "called on" her, talked to her for a bit and then, the next day, he came right back and proposed to her:)  She was taken aback and said gently that they didn't know enough about each other.  He replied that he knew all he needed to know about her....  She diplomatically explained that she needed a little more time to get to know him...
   Since he didn't live in her community, their courtship took place via letters.   Many years later, as a college student, I was shocked when aunt Jewel brought out a bundle of these letters, neatly tied with a ribbon.  The Nathan I had known was an elderly, plain-spoken, weather-beaten, sort of crusty old farmer and Missionary Baptist evangelist.  He could be stern and as a child, I remembered my siblings  putting me in the "picture" window to watch for Nathan and Jewel because Nathan didn't approve of card-playing.  If I saw their car, I'd sing out a warning and the rest of the family would gather up the Rook cards (or even the Old Maid cards!!!), fold up the card table and plump up the cushions so that by the time Nathan and Jewel arrived, no sign of  the iniquitous playing deck could be seen - everybody innocently watching black and white t.v. or reading the paper.  That was my Uncle Nathan!!!!   But when I saw the letters he had written to Jewel - wow! He had etched flowers and vines all over the outside of the envelopes in pen and ink. Not kidding!  By the time I learned of their existence Jewel's eyes were failing, so she would ask me to read one to her but every time I started, almost immediately she would blush and say, "No, don't read that next part there... Nathan probably wrote some things he shouldn't have; he had a big romantic streak in him..."
    Indeed...  The letters were quaint and at the same time.. um, passionate!  So much so that she made me promise I would throw them away when she died and then, because it worried her so, she went ahead and threw them away herself, something that even as a college student I knew must have been like tossing part of her heart away.
   At any rate, he began sending flowery letters to her regularly - although the first ones were pretty innocuous  because they weren't engaged yet.  And then she became concerned again that things were going too fast. So she wrote to him and said she thought they shouldn't correspond anymore for a while.  The letters immediately stopped coming and during this interval the mailman became "sweet" on her, as she put it.
   But she missed Nathan and when she was sure of her own heart, she wrote to him once more, saying she thought it might be a good idea for them to exchange letters  again.  That was all it took!  Within days, the decorated envelopes came winging her way once more and when they continued to come, the local mailman  reluctantly gave up...
   Some time later,  Nathan and Jewel were married in a little country church. My mom played the piano for the simple ceremony.  AFter they left the church, my uncle was driving down a narrow country road, his arm around Aunt Jewel, when he came upon a 90 degree turn in the road.  He didn't make it - one of the tires went dangling off the pavement over a little stream and they had to get some help to get the car back on the road.  Nathan told her later that she could plainly see it had been a long time since he'd driven with a sweetheart by his side and that he was out of practice:)
    Their marriage lasted for decades, ending with Nathan's death.  They traveled to Singings and Dinner-on-the- Ground at various churches as well as to his family reunions in Texas.  To save money, he would coast the monster cars that he drove down hills, scaring Jewel to death because she was convinced that when he took his foot off the gas peddle, he was in danger of losing control of the vehicle. He was always tanned - I didn't realize until just a few years ago while looking at his photos  that he must have been  at least half  Native American. Jewel was probably the palest person I ever knew and to protect her skin from getting sunburned, she would hold a newspaper over her arms while he drove them all over the countryside.  

Visiting an orphanage, 1960

       He wouldn't celebrate Christmas because he said no one knew for sure when Christ was born.   As kids, my siblings and I were relieved that Aunt Jewel's birthday was Dec. 25 - we felt like that was God's way of preventing a disaster by making sure she did get at least one  gift on Christmas Day!  He also objected to women wearing shorts - I never saw my aunt Jewel in anything besides  a dress, thick hose, and on weekdays, a full-size apron.  (After Uncle Nathan died, Aunt Jewel's health declined and she was admitted to the hospital for evaluation. A young doctor came in one day, gave her a pep talk and said that in the morning, a nurse would be coming to take her picture. She got up early the next morning so that she could put on her best dress, her hose, her Sunday shoes, and fix her hair.  She didn't understand that the doctor meant they were going to x-ray her!)
    We didn't always agree with Nathan's strict beliefs but we always respected him.  As I look back on his life - starting out when people went to town (Cabot) in a horse and buggy and dying a few years after the EAgle landed on the moon - he saw tremendous change.  He went from farming to preaching, buried one wife and married another.  And really, the verse that comes to mind when I think of him is "Jesus said to him, 'No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."  Luke 9: 62.  Setting his hand to the plow and not looking back.. That would be Uncle Nathan.
   Except there were those letters  ;>)