dry bones

hosanna and hallelujah

hosanna... is praise?

it was weird thought i had.

hosanna is a word that translated means: 'save, we pray!' it is a exclamatory plea to save.
hallelujah is a different word made up of two parts that translates to 'praise the Lord!'

it struck me as funny that during the joyous triumphal entry of Jesus into jerusulem (matthew 21), it wasn't 'hallelujah!' (praise you) the crowds were exclaiming... but rather hosanna:

God. save us.

hosanna. it was, perhaps the most basic cry.
the crowds assumed that Jesus, decendant of david, was coming into jeruselem as their king to defeat the romans. Jesus was in fact, coming to save them, but just not in the way they were expecting.

it made me think: in times of distress, turmoil, we often look to a leader, a political figure, or a guide to save us. we have an innate hope of being rescued and we seek that out.

something that i never thought about is that crying hosanna is one of the highest forms of praise.  it is a plea with an assumption: that the listener can in fact, save.

i'll be really honest right now... I ask God to help me so much throughout the day. it's almost embarrasing, goes something like this: 'God, help me get up this morning (ugh!)'.... 'God help me figure out this problem at work',  'God, help me get along with this hard to deal-with person' etc. somewhere in the back of my head, i guess i always thought that prayers like this were not really a "bad" thing per se, but in essence just "tacky". i could be praying elegant prayers of praise and thanksging to almighty God, but instead i'm asking Him to help me as i walk down a spooky alley at night.

i've been reading through the psalms and i'm getting a very different look on prayer and praise. david was called 'a man after God's heart' and so many of his prayers and psalms can be accuratedly summed up by: "God, help me. i really really need help." i'm not trying to be to be irreverent, just honest. take psalm 51 for instance: david's very raw, heart-felt cry to God after he committed adultry with bathseba and murdered her husband:

¹ Have mercy on me, O God,
    according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
    blot out my transgressions.
² Wash away all my iniquity
    and cleanse me from my sin.

³ For I know my transgressions,
    and my sin is always before me.
⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned
    and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
    and justified when you judge.
⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth,
    sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
⁶ Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
    you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
    wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness;
    let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
⁹ Hide your face from my sins
    and blot out all my iniquity.

¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God,
    and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence
    or take your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation
    and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

¹³ Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
    so that sinners will turn back to you.
¹⁴ Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
    you who are God my Savior,
    and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
¹⁵ Open my lips, Lord,
    and my mouth will declare your praise.
¹⁶ You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
    you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
¹⁷ My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart
    you, God, will not despise.

the underlying tone throughout the whole psalm is "help me". i don't think there is anything wrong with this at all. God is not annoyed with us for continually asking for help, He wants us to, we are praising Him when we desperately call out "God save me, hosanna!"

Rescuer

"the ones we rescue, rescue us...."

it was a quote i had heard recently on a some movie commercial in the theater.

strange, i've been thinking about it a lot recently... enough that i wanted to write about it.

for some reason, my mind often will remember with vivid clarity a particular quote or situation that may not be the main point of the particular instance but it gets filed with a little *remember this is important* star right beside it. this function of my brain is actually super helpful... it's why it's impossible for me to be bored in boring situations. for a {short} period of time in college i attended a church where the pastor was close to the worst speaker i have ever heard in my life-- he would drone on and on the driest sermons i had ever heard. somehow i was able to pick up on little sub-points that i thought were much more interesting and managed to come away with some kind of spiritual substance from the whole ordeal. haha... now that i think about it, this feature has probably has helped me deal with several unimaginative people in the past.

anyway. all this to say, even though the aforementioned movie commercial looked decent, though not particularly remarkable... the quote was definitely file-worthy.

i want to be a rescuer.

11.4 million+ girls are trafficked yearly. that's not okay. it's sad that beautiful human beings get abused this way. i wish it could be as easy as wiping out sporting events where the largest majority of slavery happens or preventing thousands of people from clicking sites online. but it's not that simple. all you can do, is do what you personally can. it can happen in a variety of daily life choices, what you watch, what you buy, what you give your money to, how you teach the next generation. 

i support a little indonesian girl from childfund international and i may never fully know what difference that made in her life or her family's life. that doesn't mean that it's not important though. flailing your arms about how you cannot solve the world's problems is pointless... when you can indeed help to solve one person's problems. give until it hurts, and then keep giving.

rescue those your arm is right by.  

it would be silly to think of driving across town to check on a friend when your neighbor's house is burning down next door. in the same way, God puts people right by us so we can rescue them. when my family had a trying financial situation, it was surprising to see not close friends, not close family, not the inflated corporate church... but one individual without a full-time job reach out to help. people get so lost flinging money at rich people that they don't have any left for people that need it.

 rescue because He rescued us.

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:13
 

height difference

3 weeks ago i was sleeping a nice round 6 inches off the floor via make-shift mattress and cotton sheet... (ah the bliss of moving! read: back: snap, crackle, pop)

one would tend to assume with the near floor-to-body proximity i would have felt especially 'grounded' at the time. ha, i can't imagine anything further from the truth. i could have sworn the room was spinning with the crazy thoughts in my head.

a hectic move across town... and twenty billion bills later, i stare upward and see bare white walls going up to meet the speckled dots once again.

it's confusing lying flat on the floor one week to overlooking the railing from a 3 story mansion for some doctor i work for the next...
life looks different...
and the same. i'm still the same.
it wouldn't matter if i was on a 30,000 ft. mountaintop or in the mariana trench... i've got the same problems, same difficulties. there are things not even the best environment can change...

and that's actually a good thing.

it's why i need God.

i'm not enough. my problems are too big for me. my failures-- are detrimental. like the old poem says 'i cannot ever pay the debt'.

at these moments, i'm so thankful for love that has a higher vantage than me. that there is promise of sunshine behind the clouds, and order in the chaos.

God, i'm just going to be hangin on for dear life, cause on your shoulders is the only time i can see.

neither height nor depth, 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 8:39

shaking my head...

Smh... I remember back in 2011 when all the little texting speech first came out. Oh the year heralded as when the English language died!  Nearly five years later, I guess it's time to break out the hieroglyphics.

I remember that SMH acronym took me the longest to figure out back then because I always read it phonetically: ssmmmhh-- like a half sigh, half groan murmur. Not unlike the the letters psh! Believe it or not, my "version" of smh usually always fit the context.

Friend:  Smh, all I can tell u is that teacher has a lot 2 learn...
Me: Ugh, sorry to hear that!

I was reading in Romans a passage that quite literately made me SMH:

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
 
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.


And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

How can they do that?? Give up the truth for a lie? Give up a relationship with God for a relationship with a clay statue!? How can we do that? How can we get so lost in being academically "wise" that we become fools? How can we serve man-made constructs like money and "celebrity" instead of the most majestic King?

SMH. I'LL TELL YOU HOW. Sometimes you don't realize how good you've got it 'til it's gone.

"You mean to tell me he cheated on me... with that horseface girl?"
This was one of the saddest conversations I ever witnessed outside a bar downtown. A very pretty girl was being told the ugly truth by a girlfriend. No other way I can describe the moment other than witnessing straight-up heartbreak. I know I'm on the outside looking in, but I heard enough to know the guy was a total d-bag. I'm definitely not saying looks are everything, but it just seems like a sad state of affairs when you're in a relationship with Beyonce for land's sake and that still ain't enough.

Anyway all this to say, how MUCH MORE heartbreaking and unbelievable to forget the God of the universe that loves you immensely. Trading a beautiful relationship with God for a piece of trash. Romans 1 seems pretty appros these days with all that's in the news. People getting all up in arms and crusading about Target's restroom policy... and forgetting the GOD that has beautifully made us, and moreover MADE US the gender we are supposed to be! We (myself included) are getting distracted with the side issues and missing the point!

This was Paul's address to the Greeks at Athens to put things back in perspective:

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

as even some of your own poets have said,“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

God, I'm so thankful for what an awesome God you are and that you're real and you love me. This blows my mind. ♥

Smh, well I don't know exactly how that happened... but that's got to be the most pop-culture Bible  devotional ever written.  Can I get an amen re-tweet up in here? ;)
Emoji Yikes face.

context

Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? --Job 6:6 

i remember pulling that verse out for a spin one time at a family dinner.... "supposedly 'proving' that are eggs are gross and the Bible even says so". haha yep. that didn't go so well...

i can't help but think of one other memorable verse i had to memorize in my childhood: "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." --Proverbs 17:17

frankly, i didn't know how this painfully honest verse was supposed to help me... my friends were nice and loved me at all times, but man oh man brothers are just put in my life just for causing adversity! ;p

i was reading proverbs 17-27 the other day and i guess i was amazed how many references to friendship i kept seeing:

Proverbs 18:24 There are friends who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 20:6 Many claim to have unfailing love, but a faithful friend who can find?

Proverbs 27:6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

Proverbs 27:17 As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. 

i was walking outside in the cold frozen tundra we call the midwest and slipped quite dramatically on some ice, and a friend grabbed my arm to help me through the rest of the path. to me that is a friend.
my nasty bruise the next morning was good for one thing though, reminding me of this verse:

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Ecclesiastes 4:10

thankful for a few true friends and the best Friend of all. 

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
    I awake, and I am still with you.

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting!

stubborn love

...and no, i don't mean the song by the same name. but... let's just put it in there, because i love it. ;)

i think it's interesting that the ancient greeks made all their gods imperfect and irrational. every single one of them. they got angry over little insults; they let their lusts carry them away (zeus; aphrodite and ares); they would steal from each other (hermes); they got into petty feuds with one another (zeus and hera). 

it's interesting to me how even in our much more modern development of powerful "superheroes"~ all still have their fatal flaws. it's like someone out there was saying "we can't make them tooo perfect, or no one will believe it." and there you have it, boom: #relatable was born. ;)

but, i mean i get it. i actually really appreciate some of the stories in the bible for instance, that really showed people in their humanness... and how God worked though that anyway.

i mean you have moses who couldn't speak,gideon who was totally afraid,peter who was an idiot hothead,david who was an adulturous murder,and lazarus who was dead, for heaven's sake.

don't tell me that God can't use flawed people, cause i know he can.

i couldn't agree more with the 18th century hymn writers... and echo their "prone to wander Lord I feel it". i may or may not have a reputation of being 'difficult' especially with the people that love me. spiritually, i often feel like who am i for God to use me. i've been timid, i've been hot-headed, i've been hateful, i've been all flaws combined at one time or another.  

i am so thankful i have a God that runs after me with that boundless measure of stubborn love when i am just being stupid.

what better allegory of our Father's love than the story of the prodigal son from luke 15:


20 “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’

God, thanks for not giving up on me. ❤ 

thoughts on the last mile

"why am i doing this???" ever had this feeling? 

...maybe the realization hits when staring at an endless assortment of liquid detergent options in the grocery store, or downing that umpteenth cup of coffee to make it through the day... or the 3rd time in an hour G.D.F.R. comes on your hip-hop workout station (okay, that was oddly specific). 

in all seriousness though, i guess when i think about it, i've had many instances at different memorable points throughout my life that i'm like: "hold up, wait.... what!?" 

want to know the weird thing? i haven't had that feeling very recently. for the most part, life has generally been looking up... i've been looking up a lot. lol :)

anyways, probably the "why am i doing this" moment of late that i've been having usually transpires on the last mile of my training runs. i'm hot, i'm sweaty, i'm dying, and the manager keeps walking by (probably to make sure i'm not, in fact, actually dying). yeah, i just want to stop.  why am i doing this? oh yeah, some kind of race, wasn't it... or means of self-torture, one of the two! ;)    

one of the things i was thinking about yesterday is how it's kind of surprising how many verses in the Bible compare the Christian life to a race.

i mean of all comparisons, i get the whole 'life is a battle' comparison... with real physical & spiritual warfare etc. i even understand the various farming comparisons... that there is a lot of planting and waiting for things to grow. it makes sense to me that a lot examples would be centered around aspects vital to survival.

hmm but running a race? doesn't that seem a little odd to you? it's a little too sportsy isn't it? ;) i mean that would be like the Bible using [whatever that ancient greek basketball game is called] as an analogy.

anyways that being said: just initially, four things stood out to me about this comparison:

PACE-- spiritual life is like a race where moving is important. some people are jogging, some are walking, and some are sitting on the sidelines as spectators. Hebrews 12 does a good job emphasizing it is important to run with perseverance. it seems to me like the half-hearted approach is really not what God is looking for.

ENCOURAGEMENT-- spiritual life also needs some motivation, some "fuel" if you will, for the race. often this fuel comes from God as well as from other people. we need a reason for doing what we are doing. Hebrews 12 mentions being surrounded "by so great a cloud of witnesses", it is considerably easier to "keep on keepin on" with good people in your life.

DIFFICULTIES-- spiritual life is not without its many difficulties. there are a lot of things that "hinder us". sometimes it's sin, sometimes unbelief, sometimes just cares of the world weighing us down...

PRIZES-- spiritual life does have an end goal. after all, if there wasn't something positive at the end, something important to look forward to, why would one bother running? 1 Corinthians 9 and Philippians 3 talk a lot about the 'prize' in sight.


anyway, i would write more...  but i'm getting really really reeeeaaaallly tired.


that's all folks.

sweeping things under the... placemat

years and years ago, growing up in eastern idaho, i was a child with a few strong dislikes in the area of mealtime delicacies. namely, my particular distaste was for vegetables that were cooked and green in nature: broccoli, lentils, lima beans, brussel sprouts, peas... i hated them all!

one day, to my despair, peas were once again on the dinner menu~ and i resolved then and there that i simply would not eat any peas at all (in my vision) from that day forward! declaring such a goal was completely out of the question, so i devised a more devious means.

slowly but surely throughout dinner, while people were talking, i quietly picked up a single pea, glanced around the table, and put it under the rim of my plate. my little process was noticed by no one~ so i grew bolder and put more and more, completely encircling the plate. i smiled with inward glee, the rim of my plate overlapped in just the right manner to completely hide my entire store of nasty peas.

i remember even being congratulated for "doing such a good job eating all my peas" and i remember feeling so incredibly smart for my little "illusion."

"why don't you bring your plates to the sink when you're finished eating."

over the clatter of clanging dishes, as i heard those words, my heart sunk to my knees. with a dull sense of dread, i knew once i lifted my "clean" plate off the table, an entire serving of little green peas would come spilling out.


i hadn't thought of that.

--

all will be revealed. those are some scary words for all of us. it makes me think of how in life its pretty easy to be a "clean plate" to others around you with them never knowing the sin you're hiding underneath it all.

1. admitting you even have a problem is the first step & probably half the battle. Jesus did not take kindly to people that thought their little illusion was good enough: "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean." (Matthew 23:27)

2. being sobered by the vast ugliness of our sin. the reality is that we can't simply "clean it up". there is no way, it's not possible for us. one sin is enough to eternally separate us from God, how much more all of our sins!

3. realizing that God doesn't grade on the "curve" of how much it appears you're ok in reference to how dirty others are. He has a perfect standard= perfection or fail.

4.applying God's grace is our only salvation. in Christ, we are freed from the control of sin and we are more than conquerors! God's grace was never meant to be after we get ourselves "cleaned up first"~ how insulting to God's gift: he made a way for us, when He knew there was none.

5. and last~remembering the forgiveness of Jesus. the woman being stoned for adultery~ how beautifully Jesus forgave her!

let's stop sweeping things under the placemat... take our dirty plate piled high with sins, give it to Jesus, and never look back!



...and don't forget to say "thank you!"

seems to me..

that money is the worst friend you could ever know. you know, you would think that money would owe you: after all that you did to get it, surely you rightfully deserve a bit of
+respect
+prestige
+happiness
+comfort
for slaving to accumulate so much of it. yeah, ah/ funny thing...

money doesn't owe you nothing.

and you better believe i meant every word of that double-negative as emphasis. the hard, cold reality is that:

money doesn't owe you, it rather owns you.


let me tell a little uninteresting story. so in college there was a girl i knew...

i should clarify 'knew' in the very loosest sense of the word (i.e. invariably happen to see a thousand times more than i would like to in a week, and hear her loud conversations with her groupies in the lab, and may/may not have stumbled upon her daily style blog by unscrupulous googling? of her name (don't ask).

okay rambling aside, the point is: there was this girl. and i don't really "know know" her but i had aloooot of exposure to her. let's call her *britney.
*googling works both ways, even i know that.

britney was a particularly mean girl. snarky laugh, chiseled upturned nose, 6ft tall legs.. (and that's not even counting how tall the rest of her was): she was the whole shebang. but apparently her perfect exterior, posterior, and all other super-ior aspects did not make her a very happy camper. i think she chanel-ed quite a bit of her unhappiness into buying a lot of designer clothes, shoes, handbags, accessories. we're talking a lot.

any remaining negative energy i suppose was fueled right into her second largest passion: malicious meanness. ah yes, not a student, professor, nor cute visiting foreign-exchange family escaped her cruel sneering comments to her inseparable friend-pack.

one day in the lab, i was writing a research paper and per-usual britney and her driveling friend-pack decided the lab was the perfect place to socialize and be loud.

**i typed their following exact words into my email at school when i heard them so as to not forget

britney: "my super freaking rich step dad just sent me diane von furensburg luggage for my trip to itallyyyyyyy. he even signed it with a little heart.  omg omg, im like seriously 'i love you so much' right now in my head."

friend: "omg, we can't be friends right now, i'm totally serious. my target luggage is going to look so bad next to yours."

it was then... that i felt bad. no more for my poor little self. 
unbeknownst to my cackling adjacencies, their boasting was making me very sad for them. :/
i know they meant something else, something surely more glamorous, but all i could hear was:

-no dad
-new guy whose one claim to fame is being freakishly rich
-traveling halfway across the world, and all someone can muster to write to you is a 'heart'?
-"i love you so much"... but in your head? you can't say it to him?
-you love someone only for what cowhide/leather high price item they can give to you?
-a friend doesn't want to be your friend anymore because of how they will look next to you?


that's all that there is for them... things. 

owned by money. 'owned' by an unmistakable thirst to matter, to mean something by what they have. 


For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 1Timothy 6:10


in my Bible, for some reason i wrote beside that verse exodus 21:6 about a master piercing a servants ear to show ownership. money also has a way of piercing into your soul and controlling you.


note to self: don't buy the chanel earrings. ;)

i don't exactly remember

if the movie "the amazing spiderman" had the great quote in it i imagine it has.

it was something along the lines of "those who have the ability to help, must--for no one but them has their power". but anyways, i think it's just the "with great power comes great responsibility" line. clearly less poetic. that was the only one i could find that sounded like it on imbd or (imdb as it's more commonly called.)

probably my favorite scene in that movie is when peter parker chooses to create his own "justice" by not assisting the rude convenience store employee stop a robber. he of course thought it would "serve the man right" for how he treated parker. the grand sceme of things is a little bigger than that, and that particular convenience store robber killed an innocent bystander that got in his way. unfortunately for parker, this was his uncle.

before you think i'm gruesome for liking that scene. i don't like it. well, i do... i don't know, i just like it because it teaches me a lesson. i genuinely felt guilty.

why? because it's like me to not do proactive evil upon others but sort of whistle away hoping they get what's comin to them.

that's why IF the movie has that really great quote to it that i am imagining, it would really go well with this story i heard in the news.



--
doesn't that just make you shake your head!? that anyone that nice is still left? AND that she didn't reveal that she was a heroine! too cool.

anyway, what about the other end? you know the romans 12:17 deal; the you can't just NOT do bad, but have to actively DO good on top of it.

moreover, it made me think that i do have individual POWER (bestowed by God) i have the responsibility to use it if i can.  if i "know to do good, and don't do it" i am inadvertently killing souls by not offering my potential life-giving powers of kind words, listening ear, nod and forhead crinkle.

just something to think on.

this one's about pots.

i really want to take a pottery class.  my eye is twitching. i hate that. it's probably from stress.


dear diary,

i am an ugly pot. i feel like this weird deformed vessel. one you can tell was perhaps meant to hold something at one time or serve some kind of function. however, time and demand of other pressing project orders, was put to the back shelf. here i am.

from here on this ledge oh! it is hard not to envy the almost flute-like graceful sculptural vases, the milky porcelain plates, the painstakenly painted pitcher, teacups with seemingly everything handed to them--rimmed in gold! were they made just to make me discontented? surely not. how silly.

the Master makes no mistakes. i really do not question Him. some evenings i do watch from my shelf and marvel at His hands i see so clearly-- steady, strong, and expertly skilled at accomplishing whatever it was that He wanted to make. overwhemled, my eyes often move from his craftmanship to behind His worktable. plain earthy mugs holding pencils and brushes.
i squint and try to conjecture what even they must feel like, being used! they are not beautiful, really not even very functional, no handle in which to be held-- but rawly shaped to contain something for the Master.

i look down at myself. "i want to be used!" i want to scream out in my little voice. i'm tired of waiting. "when will be my time?" i breathe into the air.

"it's My time." the Master said. "I made you."




What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “ I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “ For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
You will say to me then, “ Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. As He says also in Hosea,

“ I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’
And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’”
 “ And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’
There they shall be called sons of the living God.”

so do not worry about tomorrow;

I DON'T!

though it's not common for me to worry about Tomorrow, i am very prone to worry about THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW!

%(
do-do-do-duu!

well, okay.. yeah, really not too worried about that either. though i agree the likelyhood of  an extreme global ice age catastrophe (or death by extreme heat wave in iowa) is probably highly imminent..

i am waaaay too self-centered to worry about that! i figure if it's going to happen, it'll happen to us all! i instead choose to devote that worrying-capable section of my brain to worry about things that affect me.

MONEY.

enough about that for now, i'll get back to that thought later. i went to church last sunday and the pastor spoke on matthew 6:25-34

“ For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which isalive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

so what do we as humans (solo uno worrisome creature) spend all of our time worrying ABOUT?
a-hem,

er, you know...
food, clothes, body, friends, love, family, job, money, car, health, success, politics, death, security, traffic...

we are robbing ourselves the joy of today when thinking about the day after tomorrow.


here are the greatest points out of that passage and sermon i heard:

God has already proven that he will provide for you. (v25) and He point-blank says not to worry!


You are incredibly valuable to God. (v26-30) the birds-- are you not much more valuable than they? go birdwatching! how do they behave? they are up singing in the morning not freaking out because tomorrow where are they going to get worms?! worms are like a commodity-- they're everywhere, we need them, but not that important to be honest.


You have a higher calling than most people. (v31-32) we are not to be like the pagans slave to these things, instead followers of Christ.


You have a Father who knows everything you need. (v32) He knows you need them. so comforting. Moreover, He is our Father! we are not orphans who running after things, looking for the next meal, we are a child of God. He'll take care of us.

so where do we go from there? seek God,


really TRUST,

live one day at a time.

and if i apply those points about my little friend capital MONEY ??

-God's already given me plenty of it in the past, and has been faithful to provide. I've never been destitute.

-I am valuable to God, and he wants to give me good things, but not things that take the place of Him.

-I have a purpose: it's not to be successful and make lots of money, it's to follow Christ.

-God knows I need it. (and how much!) that's all.