PURE

This white rose bush is my favorite among the dozen-plus roses growing by our driveway. It's named “Mount Hood” for Oregon's snow-capped inactive volcano. But when my husband chose that variety for our rose garden, he remembered a dark night on Mount Hood several years earlier, when an impaired driver crossed the center line and crashed into us. Our car was destroyed, we had injuries...but we lived.

After that traumatic event, I struggled with bad feelings toward the man who hit us and tried to elude responsibility with lies and denials. Yet I knew God's way was not to nurture enmity against this man. Jesus taught, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). Even in far-lesser offenses, it's so easy to let bitterness and pride taint the heart. I love this old ditty by an unknown author: To dwell above with the saints we love, Oh, that will be glory!/But to dwell below with the saints we know, well, that's another story!

On our own, without other people to bug us and badger us, we might do quite well. But “purity of heart” isn't a matter of isolation or always having our own way. In Psalm 73, Asaph (one of King David's temple musicians) struggled with trusting God when he saw nonbelievers enjoying prosperity, fame, and good health. Such people even declared faith in God as unnecessary for them: “How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?' (73:11).

WHY TRY?

This bothered Asaph, who complained, “In vain have I kept my heart pure, in vain have I washed my hands in innocence” (v. 13). If purity didn't really matter, why try? His attitude adjustment about the rewards of faith came as he returned to worship. He admitted he was looking at other people and not at a holy God.

When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered,

I was senseless and arrogant; I was a brute beast before you.

Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me to glory. (vv.21-24)

I've long appreciated Asaph's psalm. He pulls no punches: life doesn't always favor the godly with bouquets of roses, riches, popularity, health, yada yada. But God never changes. In a song that Asaph's king, David, wrote: “To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless” (2 Samuel 22:26).

My “Mount Hood” roses bloom for a season, then go to a winter's death. How different for humans who trust God: Asaph put it this way in beautiful words I memorized and often recall:

Whom have I in heaven but you? And being with you, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:25-26).

So yes, blessed are the pure in heart. And even if, in all honesty, we struggle to feel our hearts are pure enough, God has the “pruning” solution: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Oh my, did my rose care lead to a sermon? I confess so. But I'm grateful that even in the ordinary tasks of life, God has a message for me. Maybe for you, too.

Tablet talk

When my first grandchild was born, a friend gave me this erasable tablet with the suggestion that I use it to teach him to write his name. As you can see, we’re not making much progress when he’s on his own. But I’m guessing that in the next half year (he is now 3 ½) we’ll see an attempt at spelling J-O-S-I-A-H.

My greater concern is that he gets it “right” on his Proverbs 3:3-4 “tablet”:

Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. (NIV, an identical verse is in Proverbs 7:3)

            Although the proverb names just two characteristics, they’re powerful:

            Love conveys kindness and mercy, the type of outlook that seeks justice for others.

            Faithfulness expresses loyalty, behaving responsibly.

The “bind them around the neck” conveys the idea that such behavior will be as noticeable as wearing a richly ornamented necklace. Talk about fashion coming full circle since Bible times! (How “fashion” changes.  When I graduated from high school in the ‘60s, girls wore demure single pearls on fine chains!)

So where does one shop for the “love” and “faithfulness” necklaces? That’s where the next verse, so much better known, comes in:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.  (vv. 5-6)

These days of the electronic revolution have brought a new meaning to the word “tablet.”  In Bible times, a “tablet” was usually a clay plaque inscribed with a sharp instrument. When I was a child, “tablet” referred to a thick notebook of glue-bound newsprint with wide-apart writing lines for little learners. What did these cost?  Twenty-five cents?  Fifty cents?

 And now we have mini-computer$ (dollar sign intended) even smaller than those newsprint “tablets.”  Because they can download virtue as well as vice, they bring new meaning to that old verse. We make the choice of what is dumped into our minds.

 It comes back to this:  Trusting God. Acknowledging Him in our behavior and life choices. And making sure that unworthy scrawling is erased through confession, so that God can write His imprint on our lives.

Confessions of a Blue-zilla

 Hydrangeas top the list of my favorite flowers, probably thanks in part to growing up with a hydrangea bush outside my childhood bedroom window.  Though largely neglected, every year it filled with huge pompoms of blue or purple blooms.  Orphaned by the time I married in my mid-thirties, I opted for a simple, low-cost wedding.  I wore a simple home-made gown and borrowed veil, and carried one white rose nestled in hydrangea, picked from someone’s yard.  For this frugal bride, there was no “bride-zilla” trauma to find the just-perfect designer gown and florist’s bouquet.

I still like blue. Our bedroom and quilt are blue. So are my kitchen and favorite recliner. I wear a lot of blue. And I have several hydrangea bushes in our back yard, including one that this year produced this amazing bloom. 

I'm prejudiced, but I think blue is one of God's best colors.  He brushed the sky and oceans blue. When He gave plans for the furnishings of the tabernacle, He assigned blue and its spectrum neighbor purple for their colors. In our culture, blue has come to symbolize loyalty, hence the term “true-blue,” meaning “staunch, unwavering in one’s faith or beliefs, unchanging, loyal.” I actually thought about that symbolism  in deciding on what to put in my garden-fresh bouquet.  What better trait than “loyal” to have in marriage?

Not that I have been perfect.  I take comfort in knowing that Peter, after three years of intimate follow-ship with Christ, lost it at the worst time.  As Jesus awaited the trials that would lead to his death, Peter cowered in the shadows, denying any relationship with his Lord. Paint him yellow. But Jesus didn’t write him off.  After Jesus’ resurrection, He came to His disciples at the Sea of Galilee, providing them with a huge haul of fish from which they could fix lunch. “Simon Peter,” Jesus asked repeatedly, “Do you love me?”  Simon squirmed around the more intimate, true-blue meaning of Jesus’ choice for the Greek word “love.”  Could he, the cowardly one, ever be worthy of His Savior again? Yet through this exchange (recorded in John 21), Jesus indicated He wasn’t giving up on Peter. 

 This same Peter wrote a struggling church, "If you are struggling according to God's will, keep on doing what is right, and trust yourself to the God who made you, for he will never fail you” (1 Peter 4:19 TLB).  In other words, stay true-blue to Jesus.  He will never fail you.

As though an illustration of this concept, the “blue” in hydrangeas comes from an acid soil environment.  The pink and purple varieties rise from a more alkaline soil. Similarly, those “acid” times for our faith have the potential to “true-blue” our faith.  As fellow disciple James put it, “Whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy.  For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything” (James 1:2-4 TLB).

There are other blue flowers—periwinkle, lupine, lobelia and columbine come to mind—but I will always be partial to hydrangea. Any serious Christ-follower will have those “acid” testing times. But to bloom forth with brilliance is the right and true-blue response we need in living out our love for Christ.

Some lessons from viral fame

Thanks to U-Tube, Nora was probably the most famous musician of 2007.That year, her owners uploaded a video of Nora playing the piano, and her renown went viral. Her style was, well, what you’d expect from a five-year-old cat from Philadelphia.

The big cat, rescued from a shelter by a piano teacher, had heard enough during her master’s lesson days to know that when you press those black and white things, they made noise. If you did it while someone was watching, they praised you. Though Nora had a decidedly eclectic style, a Lithuanian composer-conductor actually wrote a four-minute “catcerto” to a video of her random plunkings. Performed by the Klaipeda Chamber Orchestra, that too went viral on-line. Her owner said of Nora’s exploits, “She does like attention.” As the sixth animal in the household, it proved an effective way for her to get verbal praise and petting.

Fast-forward a few years to a talent competition in England, April 11, 2009. A very ordinary, even plain, 47-year-old unmarried woman stepped on stage and took the mike. The audience twittered over the audacity of this woman thinking she could make it where glamour and style counted.When she opened her mouth, the judges dropped theirs in amazement. As Susan Boyle brought vocal excellence and drama to “I Dream a Dream” from Les Miserables, her dream came true. Overnight, this unknown daughter of a miner and typist—youngest of ten born when her mother was 47—became an internet sensation. Ten minutes after hearing her sing, an engineer created the YouTube channel dedicated to her shocking “Britain’s Got Talent” performance. Just overnight, it generated 20 million views.

She was the unlikely winner. Because of oxygen deprivation at birth, she was always a bit “different” and as a child was bullied. But she found her love in singing, and regularly sang in her church choir and in karaoke bars. She took some singing lessons to improve her skills. Finally, to fulfill a promise to her late mother, she mustered the courage to audition.

Today, the frumpy look is gone. Her clothes are more stylish, and her hair and face show a beautician’s touch. But the voice is still there, smooth and vibrant. Remarkably, when asked what she’d do with her new wealth, Susan replied, “I’d like to get some teeth fixed but I don’t have a lot of needs.”

The difference between the two ‘net musicians? Nora was random, a novelty who thrived on attention.Susan quietly prepared, then dared to try. Nora reminds us that humor and fun can crop up in unusual places. Susan’s story reminds us that a lot of hard work precedes what the world calls “big breaks.”

Few, if any of us, will sing like Susan and wow a crusty panel of talent show judges. More of us will be asked to be faithful in becoming better at what we do well, regardless of public acclaim.It’s easy to be Nora the cat, looking for approval from The Master for some plunking around. It’s harder to take what God has given you, work at expanding and perfecting those skills, and blessing others along the journey. But someday, when you least expect it, your final performance will come and you’ll stand before The Master.

Now? Never forget Philippians 3:14: “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”