THEO

The Word of the Lord stands forever.  I Peter 1:25 NIV

Bob Gass of “The Word for You Today” writes in his February 24, 2012 devotional:

Let’s read what some of the most notable leaders in history have said about the Bible. William Gladstone, prime minister of England: “There is but one question of the hour: how to bring the truths of God’s Word into vital contact with the minds and hearts of all classes of people.”  Goethe: “I consider the gospels to be thoroughly genuine; for in them there is the effective reflection of a sublimity which emanated from the person of Christ; and this is as divine as ever the divine appeared on earth.” President Ulysses S. Grant: “Hold fast to the Bible as the anchor of your liberties.  Write its precepts on your heart and practice them in your lives.  To the influence of this Book we are indebted for the progress of made, and to this we must look as our guide in the future.”  President Woodrow Wilson: “A man has deprived himself of the best there is in the world, who has deprived himself of this: knowledge of the Bible.  When you have read the bible you will know that it is the word of God because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty.”  President Abraham Lincoln: “I have only to say that it is the best gift God has given to man.”  Like the law of gravity, the Bible will never become redundant.  Whittier wrote:  “We come back laden from our quest, to find that all the sages said, is in the book our mothers read.”  Your Bible—read it every day.

As August rolls around each year, the craziness hits—as predictably as the triple degree temps of August in Texas.  Perhaps this year I am finally wise enough to spot the cyclical theme.  And it isn’t just a theme of heat or busy-ness.

August normally involves closed doors for me.  Often those closed doors have kept me awake at night, wrestling with a panicky feeling that the earth is not going to continue to rotate at the proper speed or angle.

That sounds silly, like an exaggeration, yet it is honestly the physical reaction my body has had to some of those closed doors.   Like one of my old bosses used to say, “Terri, you have the Dallas syndrome, every crisis is the biggest one yet.”  (I might add he said it with a smile and love.)

I want to change, and like our President, I want change I can believe in.  (Although he and I might not agree on what change can be believed.)

My change begins by thanking God for two of those specific crises that hit me in past years.  Both involve teachers dropping out of THEO during August, right before classes would start. Both crises leave me holding the bag on classes I am not capable of teaching—Biology or Beginning Writing.  In both cases, I had the wisdom to stop, drop and roll. Oh, I mean stop, drop and pray, but that was after I wanted to roll on the ground in agony wondering why I was being tortured so cruelly.

Looking back, I can see with sparkling clarity that God used those moments to provide for my needs–beyond all I had asked or imagined. He was taking my “fine” teachers and replacing them– in both cases—with His excellent teachers.  His expectations for THEO exceeded my own.  He wanted more for our homeschooled students.  He just didn’t want fun ladies who would cover the material; He wanted  kind, Christians who would love the kids as they pushed them to excel, who would seek His ways and plans before their own ideas of right.

This August is the same but I am different. I no longer stop, drop and pray. I pray and keep walking, leaving the latest crisis with the Lord.  He has provided beautifully again and this time, I didn’t lose one step, a moment of sleep, or one breath worrying over the situation.

He can be trusted.

If you pray for Him to change you, then He will honor that prayer and send crisis—in all shapes and sizes.  Use them to build faith muscles that trust Him.  He won’t “just see you through;” you will come out on the other end richer than you ever.

This is my testimony and reminder, my rock in the desert, to remind me of His provisions, His faithfulness.  His love is everlasting. His refining effect on me is change I can believe in.

Cheer up! You’re worse than you think.
— by Bob Glenn

One of the occupational hazards of pastoral ministry is that you are often the subject of people’s destructive criticism, gossip, slander, misrepresentation, foolish inferences, ignorant speculations, and the like. And any pastor who’s being honest with himself – even a hard-nosed guy like me – will admit that the hurtful things people say are just that – hurtful. They hurt.

How do you heal the hurt? How do you prevent the hurt from festering, from becoming a root of bitterness toward your enemies?

The answer is to remember this: you are far worse than your enemies make you out to be! They don’t know the half of it.

Now they may not be correct or truthful in what they are saying about you, but you (and your spouse) could tell them things about yourself that would make their mouths hang open in shock and disbelief. You could tell them things about yourself that would make their petty criticisms pale in comparison. After all, what is wrong with you is so wrong, that it took the one perfect person who ever lived to die for you and suffer God’s wrath for you.

Now I know that this may not seem all that encouraging – in fact, you might think that it would only make matters worse. You’re already wounded. Why pour salt into the wound?

And let me say that it would be very discouraging if you stopped with bringing to mind what a mess you are. So don’t stop short. Go farther. Go all the way to the cross and realize that even though you are far worse than your enemies think you are, Jesus went to the cross willingly. He was not reluctant to die for you: “No one takes my life away from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18)! Even though you are a million times worse than any of your enemies know, Jesus does know, and he loves you anyway.

The cross proves it.

The late Jack Miller used to put it this way: “Cheer up! You’re worse than you think.” In a strange way, this does put a smile on my face. As bad as people may think I am, I’m worse than they think, even worse than I think, but Jesus knows me fully and loves me so much that he went to the cross in my place.

“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”  —-Eleanor Roosevelt

Beautiful young people are never accidents of nature; all are beautiful because of God’s hand, not merely a few.

However, she got it right that we have the choice to become more beautiful with age, or not.  Again, God factors into the equation, but our choices do as well.

What am I doing with today?

I am constantly waiting and annoyed. I am annoyed with the salesman who calls on my telephone and then takes 20 seconds to speak. I am annoyed by my husband who tries to talk to me and work on his computer at the same time, leaving me waiting for his responses as if my time didn’t have any value.

I am annoyed at my children who do the same thing….and I am annoyed with the cashier who moves too slowly in checking my groceries because she is chatting with the sacker…

But then, I stop. My cheeks flush in humiliation.

As I suddenly realize I leave you waiting, waiting, constantly waiting Lord.

If I show up for time with you every day, then I might lose my focus for a few minutes to check to see what email came in to make my computer ding. Or maybe to look at my calendar to see what the day holds.

Please forgive me Lord.  I shudder to think I keep You, THE King of the universe, waiting on me.

It isn’t about me.  My time is not the most precious commodity.

You alone can be trusted with an endless supply of time.  We can’t, not yet, not this side of heaven.

But in heaven, we will be trustworthy to know how to value that which is immeasurable.

Gold holds its value because it is rare, in limited supply.

And yet, you gave us water and air to breath in abundance.  You knew we wouldn’t value them, but we need them.  We don’t need gold and yet we value gold at more than air or water?

In heaven, we will have the right perspective to value things properly.  Properly means valuing things as You value them, not as the world does.

None of us is equipped to be a homeschool leader.  But all of us should follow the call of the Lord if He is pushing us to do something in a leadership position.  He who calls will enable.

Recently a long time friend of mine decided to start a homeschool co-op like N-Tech.   She said how much it helped her to know I thought she could do it.  I do think she can do it, but not because of her talents, which are many. I think she can do it because the Lord will provide.

Not one of us is a perfect person, far less are we perfectly equipped to be a leader of people, even if those people were perfect, but they aren’t.  We are the least equipped of all to be a leader of other imperfect people.

But when He puts a call on our heart to do something for others in our homeschooling community—or in any community, God is calling us into His training program, literally His boot camp.  The longer I live the more I can see it never was about my helping others, but always about God designing a personal boot camp for my soul.

As I told her, N-Tech is perhaps the single thing in my life which has grown me up more than anything else.  Yet I still have lots of room to grow.

If He is calling you to do something, do it.

But be ready. Not only won’t it be easy, but it will be painful as He refines you, as He knocks down your passionate beliefs, the things that you think you know about how life should be. He knocks down our idols, the deepest ingrained wrong opinions that we are willing to fight a brother over.

And I am so thankful that He has knocked down my wrong opinions and beliefs.

Apparently I had some deep ruts that He needed a heavy plow to knock down in my soul.  He used 100 families over eight years to flatten out the road in my spirit. There were many times I didn’t think I could stand the pressure, but today, I am so thankful He called me into leadership. Thankful, not for having the point man position of our 100 families, but for the change He has used it to make in my life.

There are more ruts to be taken care of, but for now, I can enjoy the improvements He has made. He isn’t finished yet, but now we are closer to having a workable surface for Him to build on. What I currently have is a flat, usable section of road for the Lord to lay His foundation on.  I expect He will clear more roads in my soul in  the future but for now I am content to revel in the result of 8 years of hard labor, one section of cleared road.

At 47, I am thankful for many more years to see what the Lord will build on my cleared land.  I only wish I had jumped in sooner….but He reminds me…His timing is always perfect.  He can only call when we are ready to begin the journey of change.

Deuteronomy 5:12-15 says

We keep the Sabbath to remind us that God brought us out of Egyptian slavery with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm—verse 15

That speaks to me today. 99% or 99.9% of our country works on the Sabbath to catch up what they missed doing the other six days.  Isn’t that like slavery? Working seven days a week and never finishing all of the work?

God has saved us from slavery with His mighty hand and outstretched arm.  Does the outstretched arm imply more work than had He only used His mighty hand?  I believe God can do anything with a word, so I have to believe that outstretched arm is telling us His care, His concern was great when He did save us.

We work seven days a week because we feel we are making a difference?

Or maybe because we fear we aren’t?

Or maybe because our time is short?

I get it, finally.

The work is there from God. He doesn’t need our efforts to do it, but He allows us to partake in His work.  But we serve Him, not the work. How easy that is to forget.  He has numbered our days. He isn’t an unrealistic manager or job foreman who doesn’t have realistic expectations of what we can accomplish.

He is a loving foreman, overseeing our work to make sure we are assigned the very job best suited for us. Sometime that job is least suited for our current personality and spiritual condition in order to reveal to us a new weakness, to get us to call out to Him.

Other times, we are assigned to the job that is perfectly matched with our soul, our gifts, our values, our goals.

In either case, He doesn’t give us more work than we can accomplish in 8 or 10 hours a day.  He knows we need down time, we need money, we need food, we need entertainment and exercise, we need worship, we need time with Him.

I have always been a workaholic, but I guess until today I never noticed how that is so out of balance with my picture of God.  My picture of God is that He has it all under control and that He loves me immensely—more than anyone has ever loved me before. So why would I work non-stop doing work He hasn’t asked me to do?

As Solomon said, there is a time for everything. Maybe that should be reworded to say there is time for everything.

I haven’t ever said it, but I have thought it….why don’t you grow up?  You are acting so childish?  I have thought it about my children, who are, duh, children, growing up!  In my case, when I demand them to be more than they are, I was setting the bar too high for them.

Today I was challenged by a new thought relative to setting the bar too high…

As believers Paul has admonished us similarly in I Corinthians 3:3 where he asks the Corinthians, “Are you not walking like mere men?”

Well, that question seems to parallel my question to my children, why are you acting so childish?  I have to stop and wonder what Paul was thinking when he wrote that phrase—walking like mere men.  I don’t know about you but I am a mere man, or in this case a mere woman.   I don’t have the super human strength of a super hero, or the mental capacity of some computer. I am a mere man, but dust.

If we can take the Bible at it’s every word, then we must believe Paul when he challenges the Corinthians, and thus us as believers, to not walk as mere men.  What constitutes walking as better than mere men?  His contrast in I Corinthians 3 paints a clear picture of what is expected.

• Men of flesh
• Babes in Christ
• Milk to drink
• Still fleshly
• Jealousy and strife among you
• One says I am of Paul, another says I am of Apollos

Compared to:

• Spiritual men
• Able to eat solid food
• Implied not fleshly
• No jealousy and strife among you
• All of Christ

He didn’t elaborate a lot in this letter, but he has previously listed lists which can humble even Saint Teresa in other portions of his writings to the early Church.

I don’t know about you but this opens my eyes to my capabilities; whereas before I have excused a lot of my own behavior as just the way I am, human nature.  Apparently, God has other plans for us.  He sees us as super strong Christ-followers who can tap into His wisdom at any moment.

So why don’t I? In fact, why do all of the people I know walk as mere men?

I could easily say it is because we aren’t studying His word; we didn’t know. But I confess that I have read that scripture at least 100 times over the last 30 years of my walk with the Lord and it never occurred to me that I was capable of behaving anything different than a mere man.

I knew I should let the grace of our Lord Jesus shine through my life.

I knew to give Him the reins in my decision making and in use of my time, resources and talents. But this is more.  I am capable of behaving different than mere man.

I have recently said about one of my female family members, “She was dealt a different deck of cards to play with in this game of life.  She didn’t get the same deck you and I got.”    Did God short change “her?”  I said it to somehow excuse her life of poor choices that tragically resulted in her early death.  But what does that say about my worldview. Am I limiting God?  If He put it in His word, I either believe it is true or I don’t.

If I don’t believe this admonishment, then what else is at stake?  Well, a whole bunch—undefiled marriage beds, fathers don’t provoke your children, or how about “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except by Me.”

This is painful.  It is occurring to me that I sort of like living as a mere man.  I sort of like having one foot in this world and one in the next.  But both feet in this world while my heart and actions and soul are in the next?

I have always dismissed the Gnostics of the early Church as shallow thinkers, irrational, not worthy of my consideration.  Yet in fact, my rose colored glasses are off, I now see that I often live like a Gnostic, where my knowledge doesn’t affect my actions.

Unfortunately I am not alone in this problem. I am joined by an army from our Christian society. My friend’s mother-in-law often refers to her 32 year old grandson as having such a good heart. Well, that is a Gnostic statement.  He may have a good heart but only God can see his heart; friends and family alike see his actions, and they are anything but good—even by the world’s low standards.

Today is the day. Today all past goals and visions have been shunned as filthy rags ( Isaiah …) in order to embrace the new goal of walking out my Christian journey on this earth as more than mere man.  I confess I don’t completely know what that looks like, but for today, God has given me some direction as the first things that need to be cleaned out of my soul—my mind, my life and my passions.

I am confounded at times by my own obsession with money. I have prayed for specific amounts of money, which never came. Regardless of my lack of miracle money, the Lord provided what I intended to buy without providing the money.

Our God created money as a method for us to keep track and to indicate fairness, a method of efficiency.  Money is not evil….

But He is not limited or confined by His own creation.  He is more than capable of providing our needs without ever giving us a dime.

Open up your minds to comprehend all He wants to do for you.

I was just reading Acts 3:1-10 about the lame beggar who Peter and John healed.  He was begging for money; they had something far more valuable to him—healing.  That healing then allowed him to earn money without having God give him a dime.  His request was answered but in a manner which was incomprehensible to him.

It is the same with THEO’s chairs and tables and location and so many other tangible things.  He has not blessed me with the riches of Bill Gates, but nonetheless, our God has blessed me.  He works in a stealth manner to provide all that we need and more.

And in the end, I like it so much better this way—despite my frequent pleas to ask God to reward me or Phil financially with a fatter paycheck or pennies from heaven.

I recently read that it is a difficult marriage of God and man.  We, without any resource, marry God, who has all of the resources.  Despite our finiteness, He is a loving husband to us.  Providing for us, but not smothering us with His provision, sneaking behind to make us think we have provided for our own needs.  Giving us a picture of the joy He feels in providing for us, He allows us to work, to earn money, in order to provide the needs of our own children.

He is so gracious to us. He lets us participate in the provision, in creation, despite the fact that He always remembers our frame is of dust.  How can He do this?  His creativity is limitless.  Our minds cannot comprehend; they aren’t big enough. They are too confined by walls, some physically put there; others we build throughout our lifetimes.

It isn’t about the stuff. It is about what we become when He uses us to provide for many.  He is allowing us to share in His position, in His powerful position as the owner of the resources.

Now that is an awesome and loving God.  Praise His Holy Name today and all days going forward….for eternity…..

What if I make my meeting with the Lord my power meeting of the day?  How do I prepare for the big meeting with a client or with an important person?  I do my homework; I make sure I am fresh and rested, presenting my best side.

But instead, with You Father, I stumble out of bed, meeting with You when I can’t present my best side, when my eyes are barely open. When I can’t concentrate well or focus.

And I wonder why my quiet time isn’t rich? Why I don’t hear from You very often?

If I make You the priority power meeting of every day Lord, I suspect all the other meetings will fall into place just fine, without incident.

Going forward, I vow to:

• Make my time with You my daily power meeting
• Which means giving you my best time of the day
• Presenting my best focus on You, not answering the phone or email in the midst of our time together.

I will wait on You, not leaving you waiting on me.

Then, I will leave my other duties to You.  And rest in You. Let You carry my yolk.

I love You Lord. Please keep me keeping You in the cross hairs of my life, my mind, my attention, my time.

Funny, it isn’t all about me, but it isn’t all about any other living person.
It is all about You, always has been….we just missed it….