Mysterious disappearance

So, barring the "Nemo complex", really...how does a fish disappear from a tank with no bodily remains to be found? One of life's inexplicable mysteries...

"The Lord weighs the hearts..."

"Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts." (Pr. 21:2)

"There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." (Pr. 14:12)

How is it that I can feel so perfectly right about something, so completely justified, and yet know that I am wrong? I know that I am wrong because my heart condemns me. I know I am wrong because my spirit accuses me. I know I am wrong because destruction is born of my "rightness"...not life. I know that I am wrong.

'"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord.
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts higher than your thoughts."'
(Isaiah 55:8-9)

David was not always right or perfect, and yet, God of all heaven and earth chose to call him, " a man after God's own heart". Was David always right? Was he always perfect? Was he always justified? No. But. He was a man who cared about the Heart of God. He thirsted not for legalistic obedience, but for God Himself. He passionately longed to know the heart of God. He stumbled and fell, but he rose again and again and went running back to the heart of God.


Lord, keep me from being "right" in my own eyes, for in the end it is the way of death. Give me the strength to follow Your ways and not my own.

Humanness

Last night after reading in the Abolition of Man, I found myself reveling in all that was distinctly human. I was riveted by the vivid orange of fresh cut butternut squash, unabashedly intoxicated by the smoky odor of sesame oil, and unspeakably thankful for the bluesy sound of acoustic guitar. Candlelight, caramelized onions, sparkly nail polish, snugly babies, leaves swirling outside, poetry, music, love. These things are unspeakably valuable because the enjoyment of them is to delight in being human. To say they are unimportant is to lose your soul.

Chicago...the images it left.

Chicago. People jogging along the lake on a Sunday morning, raw wind tousling them. Starbucks...everywhere. Pumpkins piled in the market. Dads pushing strollers. People, people...more people. Asters tucked under a staircase, mums spilling from baskets, pansies by a telephone pole. Statues, museums, parks. More Starbucks. The Library. Avenues of trees. A fountain hidden at the end of a road, battling to retain its form in the October wind. People crossing the roads obliviously confident of their inalienable right of way. Noodle shops. A marble marker reading Sandburg Place . Layer upon layer of city. Wind. Pulsating life. Human endeavor. Flowers, families, food, art, beauty, imperfection, history, learning, activity, growth. Chicago.

An excerpt

I was reading outside, enjoying the riotous colors of my sugar maples, and this passage held me captive. Consider it an add on to my post in September:
"Destroying the poetry of a child's soul..."

From C.S.Lewis' The Abolition of Man

"From this point of view the conquest of Nature appears in a new light. We reduce things to mere Nature in order that we may `conquer' them. We are always conquering Nature, because `Nature' is the name for what we have, to some extent, conquered. The price of conquest is to treat a thing as mere Nature. Every conquest over Nature increases her domain. The stars do not become Nature till we can weigh and measure them: the soul does not become Nature till we can psychoanalyse her. The wresting of powers from Nature is also the surrendering of things to Nature. As long as this process stops short of the final stage we may well hold that the gain outweighs the loss. But as soon as we take the final step of reducing our own species to the level of mere Nature, the whole process is stultified, for this time the being who stood to gain and the being who has been sacrificed are one and the same. This is one of the many instances where to carry a principle to what seems its logical conclusion produces absurdity. It is like the famous Irishman who found that a certain kind of stove reduced his fuel bill by half and thence concluded that two stoves of the same kind would enable him to warm his house with no fuel at all. It is the magician's bargain: give up our soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls. It is in Man's power to treat himself as a mere `natural object' and his own judgements of value as raw material for scientific manipulation to alter at will. The objection to his doing so does not lie in the fact that this point of view (like one's first day in a dissecting room) is painful and shocking till we grow used to it. The pain and the shock are at most a warning and a symptom. The real objection is that if man chooses to treat himself as raw material, raw material he will be: not raw material to be manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere Nature, in the person of his de-humanized Conditioners. "

Glorify Thy Name...

Excerpted from Lawrence Tut­ti­ett's Hymn:

Father, let me dedicate, all this year to Thee,
In whatever worldly state Thou wilt have me be:
Not from sorrow, pain or care, freedom dare I claim;
This alone shall be my prayer, glorify Thy Name.

Will it hurt?

So, how sovereign is God? Can I really trust Him? How completely can I abandon myself and rest in His love? Does He really bear my burdens if I roll them onto Him?
How long will He make me wait if I do let go? Does he really care about the details of my life? How much pain will He let me feel? Will He let me hurt?

These questions well up. They cause a nauseaus sensation in my gut. I want to know before I let go. I want an answer. I am afraid to abandon myself. I want assurances that there will be no pain...that my heart will not be broken.

Below is what Jesus said when he felt this same fear:

"24 Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. 25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.

27 “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify Your name.”
Then a voice came from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.”

The imperative reason.

The imperative reason why Mammas HAVE to get their coffee immediately upon waking...in order to answer questions like these!

"Mamma, when we come home, the house is cold. And the blankies are cold too. They were waiting for us. They were waiting for us to warm them up. The blankies were wanting us to hop under them. Right Mamma?"

"Mamma, do some animals have rings in their noses? And, if they do, HOW do they get them in their noses?" ( Courtesy of Edward Lear :) )

So, have the Starbucks ready as you never know what questions you will be called upon to answer at seven in the morning.

Futile bandaids

I love quick fixes. I want my problems solved, and I want them solved NOW! At the sight of a long term solution to a problem, I drum up a hundred reasons why it will never work. I want the quick diet, the miracle phonics program for my five year old, immediate spiritual disciplines, and the cure all daily schedule.

But, there are no quick fixes. At least, none that actually cure the disease. A bandage might hide cancer, but it will never cure the disease. My quick fixes are a futile attempt to bandage.

Faithfulness is the effort required of me, and I rebel. Small, consistent, faithful choices...that is the recourse God gives me. He says, "...let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart." (Gal. 6:9) My flesh wearies of labor without immediate results. I want instant fruit, but God does not work that way. Wisely, He encourages me not to despise the day of small things. (Zechariah 4:10)

There is no miracle diet, only daily submission of my body to Christ's lordship.
There is no perfect phonics program, only faithful, daily perseverance. There are few (if any) life changing encounters with God, unless I abide daily in His Word, practice spiritual disciplines, and cry out faithfully in prayer. There is no quick
cure for my problems. Daily, faithful decisions are the only path given, and I claim Hebrews 11:1 that,"...faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."