PUSH-POWER

My son and family were over to help me with some yard work, and the oldest grandson gave mowing a try. Let's just say he needs to grow a bit and develop those leg and arm muscles. But he gave it his best effort! I snapped this photo because the incident reminded me of one of my go-to verses when I feel overwhelmed: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13)

I know of folks who twist that verse into claiming God's empowerment for unworthy, self-serving, and even God-dishonoring goals. But when this verse planted itself in my heart, I took it within the context of Paul's “writing office”--a Roman prison. He didn't write, “Hey, loving the vacation! Beautiful view, incredible food, sparkling swim pool.” Far from it. He was in unwanted, unsought, primitive circumstances. But he was making the best of it. And this letter, centuries later, would be known as the “epistle of joy.”

Ironically, a lot of negatives framed this particular letter to the church at Philippi. Paul would rather be traveling and preaching than sitting in a Roman prison. He felt a special bond to this church, a Roman colony in current-day Northern Greece (then known as Macedonia). He sought to remind them of his own life lessons: to expect to suffer for Christ. To be humble. To pray. To let God stretch and grow their faith. To overcome opposition inside and outside the church.

Perhaps it's the undergirding message of “persevere” that made this book of the Bible so special to me in my young adult years. I'd gone through a lot of challenges and turmoil in my twenties. I won't bore you, but there were a lot of disappointments and humbling experiences. Times I felt like asking God, “Did I make the right decision? Am I pushing faith too hard? Is this goal really bigger than I can really handle?”

So, like my grandson straining against a too-heavy lawn mower, I was wondering if I wasn't big enough or smart enough for tasks I'd envisioned as my life work. Once God had shrunk me down to size, my song changed from “I can do all things—I'm smart and clever” to the more realistic “I can do this through God who strengthens me, because I sure can't do it on my own.”

God doesn't excuse us from making big goals, as long as He's part of the process. The end result may be something we never anticipated. Like little-kid-big-mower, I needed to grow strong in some areas before God could entrust me with bigger things in His plan for my life.

So yes, my grandson's dad (my son) took over the mower and finished the lawn. Give us a few years and that grandson will grow like Kansas corn in the summertime. His limbs will muscle out. His voice go down a few pitches, and that bare little chinny-chin-chin will sprout hairs.

Isn't that a picture of us as growing Christians (puberty's progress aside)? God has His best plan, His best time, and His best purpose—to grow us up as Paul wrote the Philippian church: “That he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).

REMEMBER....

I was leaving an early-summer family potluck when a relative handed me a bag that reduced me to tears. Packed in it was a “memory quilt” she sewed to honor my late husband. It was filled with photos of him and our grandchildren that she had solicited from my son and daughter, and had transferred onto fabric. Memories washed over me as I, too, “remembered” the featured moments and experiences . I was overwhelmed by her planning and painstaking work.

Remember....it's a word full of the past while it looks to the future. In the Bible its Hebrew equivalent zakar is defined as “to remember, imprint.” Over and over, Moses and others admonished the Hebrew people to remember. The miracle of the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. The daily provision of manna as they wandered in the desert. Miracle sources of water. Victories over enemies as they claimed a new homeland. The word zakar keeps coming up as Jewish history marches on through kings, national corruption, exile, and a remnant returning to their homeland.

I think all of us have memories we'd like to erase, but they hang on like burrs on our clothing. Many are not our fault at all, but the consequence of living in a fallen world. Like the traumatic night my family was almost killed by a drinking driver. Or the times someone disappointed me with poor choices or verbal abuse. But I trusted that God, who knew me best, would help me see Him past the temporary pain.

Let's just say that if God had a “Memory Quilt Factory” to produce love-blankets, He would choose to showcase the best of His true children. When we accept Christ as Savior, all the icky things of our “old life” were nailed to the cross where Jesus died. Discarded as unworthy of the “quilt of life.”

With each day's “happenings” and choices, our heavenly “memory quilt” is taking shape. Some negative life choices need to be confessed, forsaken, tossed aside. But every day brings opportunity to bring new and lovely “raw materials” to the Master Craftsman. We can only imagine....what our final “life quilt” will look like.

THE GREEN-MATO EPISODE

I was in junior high—that awkward age of growth spurts and hormone-stoked self-consciousness—when my home-packed, brown-bag lunch knocked my day off-kilter.. All right, you know how BIG a deal it is for some kids on the cusp of the teen years to be just a bit “different” from the stereotype of his or her peers. For me, the crisis was the sandwich I pulled from the lunch bag that my mother had packed.

Okay, backstory. This was January, and Mom was using up the last of her holiday-hued “fancy breads,” which included some to which she'd added green food coloring to mark the colors of Christmas. My standard peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, usually slapped together on whole wheat bread from the store, had a new look. Green.

I don't know why—maybe she was low on store bread?—but that day I had my PB&J on homemade green-speckled bread—probably the zucchini bread resulting from our garden's ultra-productive zucchini vines (harvested/frozen). The ultimate old-time homemaker, Mom also rescued tomatoes still green at the first frost, turning them into “green tomato preserves.” My sandwich combined both very “uncool” green products.

Hoping nobody had seen my unique (and embarrassing) sandwich, I slipped it back into the sack and survived the rest of the lunch break with just apple slices and cafeteria milk. I would go hungry rather than risk the ridicule of my “cool” friends who were letting me sit at the “cool-kid table.”

I snicker now over the self-consciousness of my pubescent-self, way back in an era when boys and girls somewhat dressed-up for school, not wore ragged jeans and funky tee-shirts. When even what you pulled out of your lunch sack marked you as a winner or loser. (How times have changed...) But I wonder if, when it comes to our faith in an almighty yet compassionate God, we're apt to keep Him in a sack with a tightly rolled top. Got to be careful about “cool” faith, you know.

Perhaps we need some reminders. Like those offered by the Bread of Life. Jesus. Who said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry” (John 6:35).

Which brings me back to an uncomfortable analogy—of our tendency to “hide” our faith when it defines us as different from the world around us. Jesus denounced our tendency to be “ashamed of Him” (Mark 8:38). In earnest and robust words, the apostle Paul essentially scolded those who were timid about identifying with Christ:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of every one who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentiles. (Romans 1:16)

Powerful words, recalling that he once went town-to-town and persecuted Jesus-followers himself until his own dramatic vision-encounter with Jesus. After that, for Paul there was no finicky check-the-lunch-bag-for-possible-embarrassment religion. He was all out for the One who called Himself “The Bread of Life.”

In recounting my junior high episode, I'd led to ask: Would Jesus eat peanut butter with green tomato preserves on dyed-green bread​? I think He would, and maybe laud whoever prepared it for injecting fun into an ordinary life event.

Got an abundance of green tomatoes? Check this link:

https://www.acouplecooks.com/best-green-tomato-recipes/

GRANDMA'S BARBER SHOP

For more than forty years I've cut hair. Untrained, unlicensed, unpaid, with the warning, “Results guaranteed or your hair back in a bag.” Definitely not a career. Maybe this photo of my “shop” (the kitchen stool in front of the kitchen sink) will confirm my truly amateur status. But it was good enough for my husband, who realized my minimal skills were adequate for his minimal (buzz) hair cut. With the money I saved, we could even eat out for dinner (well, maybe drive-through take-out). And home-brew haircuts worked out great for my son and grandsons, whose busy lives meant trips to the barber were not only expensive but hard to slice into their family's packed lives. A cheap cape and a clipper set kept my clientele coming every few months.

The scenario, of course, wasn't perfect. A couple grandsons are not the perfect haircut models. One hates to have his head handled. A money bribe usually helps. But then his little brother thinks he needs a bribe, too. After all, there's a Lego (c) set he's saving toward. My insistence that they should be paying Grandma seems to float over the top of their financial figuring.

Somehow we get through the quick cuts with their eyebrows reappearing, necks cleaned up and ears still intact. They're fascinated by the amount of hair collected from three little boys and a dad. I offer to bag it up so they can put it out for the birds to build nests. How true that is, I'm not sure, but it is something of consolation for the “I-hate-haircuts” kid who needs an altruistic goal for his trimming.

Just a caution: I do only kitchen-stool family haircuts. No “chemical services” around here. And I see a real hairdresser for myself—an every-two-months cut-only pampering. My hairdresser is great, skilled at the basics and even with the exotic. Last year or so she told me about a call from an out-of-towner who wanted a Cruella DeVill hair dye. If the name doesn't ring a bell, that's the wicked lady in the cartoon “101 Dalmatians” who sported a “do” that was bleached white on one side, and black on the other. Imagine being the hairdresser who achieved that! (My hairdresser did meet the challenge.)

My family “cuts” are pretty simple (besides being free). Easily scheduled, too—often after having a dinner at Grandma's house.

Oh dear, can I pull out a spiritual lesson of all this? Maybe the example of Jesus, who came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom (Matthew 20:28). Sometimes God calls us to ordinary tasks—like helping someone with yard work, mending clothes, taking a meal, or sitting down to listen. Or giving a busy family “kitchen stool” haircuts when “not perfect” is okay...and helpful.

BROKEN DOORS

My fix-it list includes this tired-out door to a backyard tool shed. It was already old when re-purposed there and exposed to the extremes of weather. Sometimes when I'm outside moving hoses to water the nearby lawn, I think of the classic painting of Jesus knocking at the door of our hearts. (1) The artist's rendition of the door actually looked quite stout, which may not have been true in Bible times. Probably the artist was trying to convey how hard-hearted some people are to letting the Savior come and change their lives.

Doors are a powerful symbol. A quick look at scriptural doors:

*Doors of hospitality. Job speaking: “My door was always open to the traveler” (Job 31:30).

*Doors of weighing words. King David: “Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips” (Psalm 141:3).

*Doors of private prayer, the counsel of Jesus: “When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen” (Matthew 6:5).

*Doors of earnest prayer: “Ask....seek...knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7).

*Doors of conversion (missions report by Paul and Barnabas): “They reported...how he [God] had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27).

*Doors of spiritual opportunity (reported by Paul): “I will stay on at Ephesus...because a great door for effective work has opened to me” (1 Corinthians 16:9). “When I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ [I] found that the Lord had opened a door for me” (2 Corinthians 2:12).

Back to the classic artist's rendition of this analogy, illustrating Revelation 3:20:

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. (NIV)

Commentators suggest this is a picture of the church at the end of the ages, when true faith has been muddied by those who strayed from the stark and hard message of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. They've repeated the sin of the Laodicean church, “neither hot nor cold.” Lukewarm faith, busy with life's treasures and pleasures and low in spiritual passion (Revelation 3:15-17).

Or maybe my shed's broken door symbolizes people so eroded by life's pleasures and trials that they'd crumble when touched by a nail-pierced Hand. But the Bible offers a hope not found in the natural deterioration of earth's things. John's vision of heaven included this triumphant sketch of “He who was seated on the throne”: “I am making everything new” (Revelation 21:5).

Something to think about. What does the door of my life look like? Is it scarred, battered and unwelcoming? Or renewed in Christ, and welcoming?

1. Image and story here: Christ at Heart’s Door | The Warner Sallman Collection