More Like Mary

I always enjoy reading Luke's account of the Christmas story. It's most familiar to me, and contains the most human interest of the four gospels, in my opinion. First Elizabeth finds out that, after years of barrenness, she is pregnant with the prophet of the Lord. Months later, Mary accepts the call of the Lord to bear Jesus, and she hurries to visit her cousin Elizabeth. As soon as Mary walks into the room, Elizabeth's baby John "jumps" in her womb. Amazing! Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and speaks words of encouragement to Mary, including these found in Luke 1:45:

And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.

Mary will be blessed because she believed the words of the Lord. I secretly delight in verses that contain feminine pronouns (and yes, I know that most of the "he's" do apply to me), because they instantly draw me closer to the text.

How does this apply to me? Obviously, no angel has appeared to me with a prophetic word. Yet Scripture is filled with promises to me, as a believer, from my Father:

I will never leave or forsake you.
I will provide for you.
I will complete the work I began in you.
In Me you will have fullness of joy.
I will accomplish what concerns you.
I will enable you to complete the good work that I have laid out for you.
I'm coming back.

And those are just what I can think of off the top of my head. Promise after promise of provision, power, and His presence fill the pages of my Bible. Like Mary (who was asked to do a far harder task than any I will probably face), I need to choose to believe what was spoken to me by the Lord.

Questions

Sometimes I come away from Scripture with more questions than answers. Reading in Luke 8 about Jesus healing the man with all of the demons. This man has been an outcast on an island, naked and crazy. Jesus comes and heals him, sending the demons into a herd of pigs. You would think that the observers would be excited and happy, eager to follow Jesus and see what He would do next, or what He would do for them. No. Verses 36-37 say:

And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned.

The people were so afraid that they asked Jesus to leave. Why? Were they afraid of what Jesus would do to them? Were they fearful of what belief in Jesus would require of them? Were they scared of what they could not understand? I have thought a little about it, and I don't know. I can't think of a parallel for my life, exactly. I know I have been fearful of what the Lord will require of me, and have kept my heart from Him sometimes because of this, which is comparable to them asking Jesus to leave. . . I just don't know.

Thoughts?

Ethiopia Thoughts

I'm back!! I plan on continuing to share thoughts from my quiet time, but also wanted to write about the things the Lord showed me in Africa, so there may be "Africa" posts mixed in with "quiet time" posts.

I think that travel helps me to broaden my image of God. Somehow I tend to imagine that the Lord is just working here in the USA, in the life of my church, my friends, me (just a wee bit of self-centeredness). Seeing Christians in other countries helps me realize that God is SO much bigger than I think that He is.

The first Compassion program that we visited was the Child Survival Program (CSP) in Holeta, a little village outside of Addis Ababa. The CSP is a program in which the poorest of the poor moms are linked in with a Child Development Center. They work with a health worker and a program implementer to have their needs met. These women are usually illiterate, frequently single moms, often destitute. They live in huts with mud or cow dung walls and mud floors. There is often no bed, no crib, no playpen, no toys, no inside kitchen or plumbing. Babies crawl on dirt floors. There are no diapers, no wipes, no sweet-smelling disinfectant. Imagine having a baby in such an environment.

The moms shared their testimonies with us. One mom talked about, how, pregnant with her third baby with no means to support herself or the two children she already had, she was going to commit suicide. She had it planned and was waiting for the opportunity. One night she had a dream in which she saw her baby laying on a Bible, and felt that God was telling her that He would take care of her baby. She didn't know what this meant, but she delayed her suicide plans to find out. A week or so later she was asked to be a part of the CSP, giving her food, medical care, emotional support, and literacy education.

The same God that speaks to me, and works in my church is sending dreams to illiterate, impoverished African women to show His love and care for her and her children. God is not oblivious to anyone's suffering. He is caring for "the least of these".

Appropriately, I read in Luke this morning about Jesus standing up in the temple and sharing these words from Isaiah 61:

¹The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
² to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,

I Can't Wait

Ha. Ironic title considering the name of this blog.

Reading in Luke 21 today, and Jesus is talking about the end times. I'm reminded again that when Jesus comes back, we will all know it. Once more, however, there's a verse that I have (I'm sure) never read before (Luke 21:27-28):

And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

"Straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is near." Wow. I'm generally not someone who is into visual images, but this one resonates with me. Maybe because I'm such a Lord of the Rings nerd and have a pre-made image (complete with soundtrack) to picture in my head. Near the end of the third movie, when Gandalf and Aragorn and the warriors are taking their last stand against Sauron's evil minions, there is a moment when the eagles come and then everyone stops, looks up, and waits for SOMETHING to happen. It's the moment when the ring has been thrown at last into the lake of fire and destroyed, ending the power of that evil in Middle Earth. The battle stops, the evil tower falls, and the good guys win.

What will it really be like when Jesus returns? I can imagine people in countries like Haiti and Ethiopia who are literally bent over working or hauling water straightening up, dropping their utensils, and rejoicing. Martyrs unjustly imprisoned lifting their eyes up to the sky. Those of us in our hamster wheels removing our eyes from our laptops and tuning in to reality.

Someday our Savior will return, and we will, with joy and thanksgiving, straighten up and raise our heads.

Another Puzzle Piece

Yesterday's post was about faith. Today, as I was reading in Luke 18, God showed me some more pieces to that puzzle. The chapter starts with the story of the persistent widow, who keeps bugging a judge to give her justice. The unrighteous judge eventually gives the woman justice, and Jesus compares God to the judge to show us how much more God wants to give us justice. The account begins with this verse (Luke 18:1):

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

and ends with this question (Luke 18:8):

". . .Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"


Once again, my trusty ESV Study Bible footnotes give me some insight. For verse eight, it points out that we need to exercise watchfulness and prayer to demonstrate our faith. When I was praying and thinking about these verses, I looked back at the first verse of chapter eighteen, where Jesus says that we need to not "lose heart."

So, if I want to live out faith, I need to pray, to watch, and to not lose heart. Praying seems straightforward--I should bring my requests to the Lord and ask for both what I need and want. This parable specifically refers to seeing God's justice done, so I want to be careful in how much I extrapolate. I need to watch. What does that mean? I think to be looking for evidence of the Lord working, acknowledging that, and thanking Him for it. I need to wait expectantly and be eager to see what the Lord is doing.

Finally, we are to "not lose heart". This part of the exhortation is the tricky one for me. To not lose heart implies that my heart has been fully engaged in the process. Too often, I think I pray and I watch, but I don't really believe in my heart that God is going to do it. It's doubly tricky for me to differentiate between promises that God has given, and desires of my heart. In this parable, the widow is praying for justice. God wants justice, and promises that, eventually, He will bring justice to the earth. Praying in accordance to His will should make it easier for my heart to believe. When I pray for God's provision or presence, I need to believe with my whole heart, because He has already promised these things.

However, what about believing in something that is not promised but is a desire? I still am not sure what the Lord wants from us in that situation. How do we take heart if it's something that is good (like marriage, children, healing) but that we don't know if God is promising? I will keep searching for the rest of the pieces of the puzzle. . . Please share your pieces with me if you have some that will help complete the picture!