Time for a Time Out

Lately, I’ve been a little cranky and last Sunday I discovered the reason. I haven’t been “keeping the Sabbath.” While the phrase sounds antiquated and may bring up images of sour-faced, black-clad Puritans, the concept is both timeless and timely. Here’s how I got off track: I simply neglected to set aside Sunday as a day of rest.  I became overwhelmed with too many projects and a seeming lack of time and found myself working on Sundays.

Now I am not a Pharisee who refuses to cook or clean on Sunday though I do try to reserve the other days of the week for the heaviest chores as well as errands. But I try to frame Sunday as a day only for church, family and friends. So including work on my Sabbath roster led to a shift in priorities for the day.

After facing the facts, I have decided I need to rearrange my schedule and reclaim my Sabbath. Like an out-of-sorts toddler, I have placed myself in time-out. While many folks use Sunday as just another day of the week, God set it aside as a special time for us to regenerate and to worship. My new game plan is to try to take time out each Sunday to redeem my day of rest and all the benefits it provides.

“If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath

    and from doing as you please on my holy day,

if you call the Sabbath a delight

    and the Lord’s holy day honorable,

and if you honor it by not going your own way

    and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,

then you will find your joy in the Lord…”  (Isaiah 58:13-14)

Who is the I AM?

When the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, God heard their cries and called Moses to become their deliverer. He told Moses to go to Pharaoh and demand he set God’s people free. Moses responded by asking what name he should give the Israelites when they asked what was the name of the God of their fathers.  “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”  (Exodus 3:14)

Thirty chapters later, Moses tells God: “Now show me Your glory.” It is actually a fairly brazen request that sounds more like a demand; yet it is issued in response to God telling Moses He is well pleased with him. God shows him even greater favor when Moses asks to see His glory for what he is really wanting is to know more of God’s heart and His character. God tells Moses he cannot see His face but that He will hide him and pass in front of him. In the next chapter, He passed in front of Moses and proclaimed: “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.”(Exodus 34: 6-7)

I have experienced all of this truth God proclaimed of Himself to Moses. When I act like a spoiled child, He patiently tolerates it for a while before He chastises me. I have seen His grace in the way He allows events to unfold in my life and the lives of others and in the beautiful friendships with which He blesses me. I have felt His compassion when I think I cannot endure one more broken heart. His all-encompassing love simply overwhelms me like a tidal wave. And His faithfulness? My life is a testimony to the faithfulness of God who will not let one of His good promises fail. My prayer is that those who do not yet know the true I AM will one day soon experience all of His fullness. 

Choose Life

Deuteronomy 30:19-20: “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life…”

Last Monday in the English composition class I teach, we discussed assisted suicide and euthanasia. Then I saw a tv program about the same topics where an organization was criminally indicted for helping people end their lives. Sadly, they won the case. I can’t comprehend why people in our nation can define hate speech yet they have trouble determining whether someone helped a person commit suicide. And even worse, people won’t weigh in and say such actions are evil.

They point to palliative care and claim it is the same measure. I assure you, it is not. You see, I helped my mother die too. But let me tell you how. I sat on her bed and sang hymns to her. I held a straw to her mouth so she could sip water and juice. I spoon-fed her rainbow sherbet when she could barely swallow.  I held her hand as I listened to her and laughed with her and cried with her. I did not in any way try to help her “exit” this world according to her schedule. Thanks be to God, she would’ve never wanted that.  We  understood God alone is sovereign and He alone gets to determine the length of our days.  Lest you think what about those who kill themselves? There are hundreds of stories where a person turns from suicide at the last minute. With these evil people who “help” them, they have no choice but to die.

God gives us a choice daily and He tells us which choice to make. The Life-Giver will always tell us to choose life. It is the enemy who has come to steal, kill and destroy. There is only one time in history where God condoned choosing death: when His Son who knew no sin willingly laid His life down so that we might have eternal life with Him. My prayer is that people who are so desperate to die, will turn instead to the only One who can truly give them life.

Swimming Lessons

A couple of summers ago I taught myself to tread water for a fair amount of time. It was a huge feat since I nearly drowned at age three and never took swimming lessons. So this summer, I decided to try to improve my pool-flailing (that’s probably the only way to describe my version of swimming). Having spent hours in the pool, I can navigate from one end to the other without gulping mouthfuls of water. But let’s face it, it’s hard to teach yourself something when you have little knowledge to go on and no proper example.

Like me, Mom didn’t grow up swimming nor did she ever take any lessons. But when I was in high school, she began going to a community college pool with my grandmother. She would play around in the shallow end but she never ventured to the deep. Then one day, a complete stranger, an older gentleman who was probably in his 70s, offered to teach Mom to swim. She was very hesitant and told him she was afraid of drowning. He replied, “Oh darlin’, that water will hold you up.” I guess he had an honest face because mom acceded and in no time he had her swimming laps the length of the Olympic-sized pool.

It is amazing how his simple offer and genuine concern affected Mom’s life. Recalling that story was a good reminder how often the smallest gifts we give can make a huge difference in someone’s life. And that the most important gift we give is ourselves and our time.

Galatians 6:10: “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

In the Dark

A few weeks ago I dreamed I was in a house surrounded by windows through which I could see a storm swirling all around outside. Oddly enough, I was smiling and felt perfect peace even as I watched the wind toss objects around. Then I left the safe, light-filled haven and went into the storm to seek a friend who was lost and desperate. When I found him, he was in utter darkness. The storm never scared me, but the darkness did because of what it represents for my friend.

After I woke up and pondered the dream, I thought of Psalm 139 in which David says: “even the darkness is light to You.” Several summers before Momma died, God gave me that psalm to cling to. I have returned to it often when I feel confused or  “in the dark” as to God’s will on a matter. The psalm brings me comfort when the storms of life assail me just as they did in the dream.

Despite the darkness of this world, God who is the Light, said that those walking in darkness will behold a great light. (Isaiah 9:2) So my prayer is that all in my life who have not yet embraced that light will do so. In the meantime, I will continue to take comfort in Psalm 139…

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?

    Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

    if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,

    your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

    and the light become night around me,”

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;

    the night will shine like the day,

    for darkness is as light to you.

Gifts from the Garden

So far this summer I have received tomatoes, cucumbers and blueberries from friends’ gardens and I am grateful for the delicious produce they have provided. But when I think of gardens, I often picture the kind covered in roses, hydrangeas and azaleas like the Mobile Botanical Gardens.  After Mom died, I went there several times and God used the tranquil setting to provide great comfort. 

So I guess in the wake of losing Dad, I shouldn’t have been surprised when gardens popped up as a theme in novels I was reading recently.While I haven’t had the opportunity to visit a garden yet this summer, I have enjoyed the abundant purple, pink, and fuchsia crepe myrtles and the vibrant blue hydrangeas which brighten the streets I travel daily. Last week, I even took an armchair trip via DVD to several gardens in England.

All of this has brought to mind the gardens in the Bible—Eden where the story of mankind starts and the idyllic New Jerusalem with its orchard and river where the story ends. Right in the middle of the story though is the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus poured out His sorrow-filled heart to the Father.  Somehow it comforts me to know that when the Savior needed solace, He too sought out a garden. It was there in a garden Jesus submitted to God’s plan and willingly chose to die for my sins. While God can provide generous treasures in a variety of gardens, there can be no greater gift to come from a garden than Jesus’ sacrifice.

“I come to the garden alone

While the dew is still on the roses

And the voice I hear falling on my ear

The Son of God discloses.

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,

And He tells me I am His own;

And the joy we share as we tarry there,

None other has ever known.”

--C. Austin Miles

One Fourth = 4 F's

When I was three, my Dad made me a baton so I could stand in front of the tv and conduct the Boston Pops orchestra during their Fourth of July concert. That was how our family always spent the holiday. We didn’t host a backyard BBQ or take a trip to the beach. On occasion, we traveled somewhere in the city to watch live fireworks, but usually we stayed inside with the AC and watched our favorite music and fireworks display from the comfort of the couch. Then when I became a teenager, my best  friend and I cooked for my family—BBQ chicken (in the oven), potatoes and green beans with a “flag cake” as dessert. 

I’ve always love this holiday because like most every American, it represents for me the privilege of living in a free country where I can vote and where I can speak my mind without fear of jailtime. Even more so, though, the Fourth represents the faith which is my inheritance and which, thanks to being born in the USA, I can practice freely. Each Sunday I go to church without fear of government or economic retribution for openly worshipping God. It is a privilege and a freedom many believers do not share.  But despite the chains the world uses to shackle Christians, Christ has given us all true freedom.

He provides freedom from sin, from worry, from fear, and from the eternal consequences of sin. While America is “the land of the free,” the Lord is the Lord of freedom.  So this Fourth I am celebrating the four f’s of my faith, family, friends, and all the freedom the Lord has given me, including the freedom to serve Him. 

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36