Guard cats and fear alarms

Because it had a likeness of our black-and-gray tabby, named Augie, our neighbor couldn’t resist buying me this sign for the window: “Beware: Guard cat on duty.” Ha! The only thing he guards is his food dish. Whenever he comes inside, he pads over to his water and food dishes and sits about eighteen inches away from them like, Read my mind. Thus I was a bit amused the other day when I answered the door to a muscular fireman and his petite woman assistant. I was expecting them for a smoke alarm program the fire department is conducting. But I wasn’t prepared for his opening remark: “Do you have a cat? Would you please put him out? We’re allergic to cats.”

Dutifully I scooped the lazy lug from his sleeping corner and deposited him in the chilly shock of “outside.” They proceeded with their ten-minute smoke alarm business. When they got ready to leave, Augie was waiting on the front porch, eager to get back to the warm indoors. The sight of him alarmed (no pun intended) the woman assistant, who again pleaded “allergy!” So once again I had to remove the cat, this time from the porch. Funny, there were no allergy flare-ups while they were in our home (which has eleven years' worth of cat dander in it). And our overweight, geriatric feline is the antithesis of vicious, with the rare exception of guarding the back yard from Pancho Villa and Ho Chi Minh (my nicknames for the local desperado cats who dare to invade his home turf). They haven’t been around much since I threw a rotten tomato in their yowling direction.

Our cat’s wimpy representation of the idea of “guarding” helped me appreciate even more the spiritual concept of “guard.” Even a thousand burly firemen (not the “allergic” ones) can’t come close to the “guarding” we’re promised in Philippians 4:7: “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (KJV). One of the key words in this passage is “keep” (more accurately, “guard” in NIV, NASB, ESV, and the New King James). The Amplified version puts it: “shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

The translation makes a difference. “Keep” has a passive sense, like putting a keepsake in a cedar chest. “Guard” implies deliberate, powerful action. The original Greek, phroureo, was a military term and referred to guarding in a garrison. Of this, Greek scholar W.E. Vine remarked that it described not just protection but “inward garrison as by the Holy Spirit.” One Bible scholar said it’s the peace of “holy repose” that floods the believer’s soul when he leans hard on God. It’s being able to say, “The news or situation is bad, but God is bigger than this and I will trust Him.” Or, as Frances Ridley Havergal wrote in the refrain to the beloved hymn “Like a River Glorious”:
Stayed upon Jehovah,
Hearts are fully blessed;
Finding, as He promised,
Perfect peace and rest.
Remember that, next time your “fear alarm” goes off. Your Holy Guard stands ready.

A vine at a time

Last week, I “retired” our tomato plants. About the middle of October, I realize that few of those tight green marbles will ripen as we inch toward the first frost. We have only five tomato plants, but they may as well be fifteen. Clipping a branch at a time, I save out the tomatoes with a yellow blush of potential. These I wash and put in a covered box with a red apple, whose off-gassing helps them ripen. Finally, I yank out the main stems that seem to be super-glued into the soil. Goodbye, a couple hours. It’s the down side to having fresh tomatoes the last part of the summer. It’s not my favorite chore, but I get through it.

In the midst of this chore, I thought of tough things in life that loom much more tangled and messy than my autumn tomato patch. One story I’ve often shared with people needing encouragement comes from the life of Dr. A.B. Simpson (1843-1919), a Canadian preacher, theologian, author, and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Think back a hundred-plus years, before cars, air travel, phones or the internet. Dr. Simpson was preaching in Ireland when he posed the question, “What is it to abide in Jesus?” Then he gave this answer: “It is to keep on saying, minute by minute, ‘For this I have Jesus.’”

That phrase of trust lodged in the heart of the event’s pianist, a young woman whose family lived across the Irish Sea. During the service she received a telegram asking her to come home immediately because her mother was dying. “I have never traveled alone,” she told him. “But for this I have Jesus. I must make a long journey to the south of England. For this and all else that goes with it, I have Jesus.” As it turned out, in those days of slow travel, she arrived home ten minutes after her mother died. Her family was so distraught that responsibility for the funeral service and legal details fell to her. She later told how she kept claiming, “For this I have Jesus,” as she had to do things she couldn’t have done in her own strength.

The message from Simpson’s sermon is echoed in Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (KJV). Or, as the Greek-to-English translation is clarified in the Amplified Bible: “I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me—I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who enfuses inner strength into me, [that is, I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency]." My copy of the Amplified version was once my late mother’s, given her in 1962 by a godly aunt. Fifty years later, as I read the same words that my mother had underlined in red, I sense how she embraced this truth for her own overwhelming life challenges. They ranged from being the firstborn of nine in a family that knew profound poverty, to her life-long battle with asthma, to her final, hard-fought battle with cancer.

“For this”—for the intimidating, scary, impossible things of life—“I have Jesus.” The best part is that besides coming alongside in our challenges, He sees the eventual spiritual outcome. Leaning on Him, stretching with Him, and depending on Him are all part of growing in the faith. “For this,” there is a purpose.

I just checked the tomatoes in my “ripening box,” and a few are turning red. There’s another parable here, about God at work in the dark places, but I think Simpson’s hopeful counsel suffices for today.

Sniffing out Truth

Dogs! Take them on a walk and they only want to sniff the bushes that gazillion other dogs have “marked.” Pictured at right is “Molly,” a neighbor’s dog whom I take care of when they’re away, and incurable shrub-sniffer.

It’s hard to think deep thoughts when you’re trying to keep up with a dog that wants to check every bush on the block in record time, but I tried. While Molly kept her nose in greens, I kept mine on the sky (with the exception of times I needed to whip out the plastic bag for her “deposits”). And it struck me: a lot of people spend their lives sniffing out the bad stuff instead of embracing the beauty around them.Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it so well: “Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes. The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”

The “bush” reference is to Moses’ encounter with God in Exodus 3. Like Moses plodding through shepherd duties, I tend to grind out the days by getting through my to-do lists. (Nothing against to-do lists—they both remind and motivate to do what’s needed.) But two books given me this past week by spiritually-sensitive friends have reminded me to look for those common bushes, afire with God.

One was by Ann Voskamp, who as a farm wife and mother of six home-schooled children knows the distracting tyranny of having too much to do. But in One Thousand Gifts (Zondervan), she traces her journey of finding splendor—no, God-joy, in the ordinary. She calls this eucharisteo, the practicing of giving thanks in all things. Her book is the chronicle of that: thanks for the rainbow hues in soap bubbles, of the glory of a harvest moon, even “ugly-beautiful” like mismatched socks.

Author Ruth Meyers encourages focused praise through 31 Days of Praise: Enjoying God Anew (Multnomah). Her month of scripture-based praise-prayers targeted some course-corrections needed in my own prayer life. Touching where we all live, she invites us to thank God for our weaknesses (and His power to remove or change these), for His power at work in untangling the “snarls in my soul,” and for what He’s doing through the people in our lives who cause more pain than joy. Meyers said that as she follows the psalmists’ example of praising God, “sooner or later (often sooner) the Lord releases me from being a slave to my distressing emotions” (p. 29).

She also included a heart-stirring, one-line prayer from the writings of missionary Amy Carmichael (whose Dohnavur Fellowship in India rescued hundreds from temple prostitution): “O Lord Jesus, my Beloved, may I be a joy to thee.” You can’t pray that and say, “I don’t have any purpose in life.” Our purpose is to bring joy to the One who created us. Praise is one avenue, and living day-by-day for His glory through vocation and relationships is another.

So back to Molly the dog. Yes, life stinks at times (like those “marked” bushes along the street). But God invites us to look up, to His glory, and declare it through the praise of our lips and the praise of our lives. And, in so doing, to realize that we stand on holy ground.

Navel-grazing

I’d just sent my husband off to his substitute-teaching job after one of his favorite breakfasts. I was virtuous and made him waffles with bits of bacon in them. Before going to the computer for my “work,” I took some time after washing dishes to glance at headlines in the morning paper. On the rug in front of me, Augie our cat began his morning routine, licking his already-overgroomed belly. Parts are so bare they look shaved. I thought of the cliché “navel-gazing,” except in his case it’s “navel-grazing.”

“Navel-gazing,” which gives a word picture of constantly inspecting one’s belly button, has come to mean excessive introspection, self-absorption, self-analysis or focus on a single issue. In other words, people start singing a one-note solo, often a pity-party song.

I was thinking about that when I read this headline: “Hit-run victim helped men at homeless shelter.” My momentary sadness deepened when I learned the victim was born with cerebral palsy and was driving his motorized wheelchair when hit by a suspected drunk driver. Tonight, as I do the first Wednesday of every month, I will speak to convicted drunk drivers at an “educational panel” required as part of their sentencing. Two others also speak out about the dangers and prevalence of this serious problem, of which the audience members, because of their arrests, are now a documented part. They’re surprised by the statistics that 12,000 a year die on American roads because of impaired driving. That’s 1,000 a month, about one every 45 minutes. And just as many people grieve their deaths as those who lose a loved one in other tragic circumstances, like war. Most important, drunk-driving deaths are 100% preventable: by not drinking and driving.

Why am I there, since I don’t drink alcohol? Because my family was almost killed by a drinking driver in 1997. Alcohol so impaired his driving abilities that he crossed the center line at too high a speed and smashed into our car. We were about 250 miles from home, headed home from a vacation.Though injured, we survived. But that incident, like the deaths of my parents six months apart when I was 30 and still single, became a defining incident in who I am. Yes, I grieved those losses for a season, but I moved on. I knew I needed to transform the pain into something good instead of prolonging a pity party. In other words, moving past navel-gazing.

Back to the 57-year-old man with cerebral palsy. Despite his disability, he graduated from a university with a major in business and later got a master’s degree in psychology. He was an advocate of handicap-accessible streets and volunteered at several charities, including a shelter for homeless men. For that he received a distinguished award for community service. In an interview after that honor, he said, “I have two choices. I could stay home and be bitter and think ‘poor handicapped me, wah wah,’ or go out and help people and think positively.” Upon reading that, I put down the paper and said “Wow!” That’s a message able-bodied people need. He didn’t spend his life navel-gazing (or even navel-grazing--massaging a certain area of his life to get more sympathy). He pursued compassion and excellence to the limits of his abilities.

I can’t do much about my cat’s excessive grooming. Because he seems healthy otherwise, we’ve decided it’s not that big a deal. We did switch to a gluten-free cat food (more expensive, of course!) upon hearing that it sometimes helps aging cats who overgroom. In a way, I’m glad he has that somewhat-bare belly. For when he does his feline acrobatics to groom, God usually sends me a message: to check where I might be navel-gazing and turn my eyes instead to how He helps me through difficult times. The Bible is full of reminders of that, and one came as I read my Bible just after reading about drunk-driving victim.
But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more.
My mouth will tell of your righteousness, of your salvation all day long, though I know not its measure (Psalm 71:14-15).

The prickly and the pruned

Besides born-to-bite dogs (see last week’s blog), I encounter many thought-provoking sights during my morning walks. One day I took along my camera to photograph two very different roses just a block apart. One is part of a neglected bed of about four rose bushes. A confusion of spindly canes spill out of the weed-choked soil, bearing few blooms. Another yard has weed-free, pruned, cared-for roses with brilliant flowers.

Their contrasting conditions reminded me of John 15, which records Jesus calling Himself the true vine and His Father the vinedresser. Verse 2: “Every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” Roses aren’t grapevines, but they have commonalities. Both can go wild and get diseased, limiting their fruitfulness. That’s why, in my rose bed, every year I lop off dead or diseased branches, prune off suckers and encourage a “shape” that maximizes strength and access to the sun. The point of it all is to help the branches “abide” in the main stalk, drawing life and nourishment from the soil and water. The spiritual analogy, of course, is that we allow God to prune away the suckers and disease of wrong "me-centered" attitudes and habits that impair abiding in Him.

One of Max Lucado's insightful books is titled It’s Not About Me. In the book's acknowledgements, he told of having a quick visit with an old friend over lunch. Lucado asked him, “What has God been teaching you this year?” The friend responded, “He’s been teaching me that: It’s not about me.” Lucado’s book explores that concept, lifting up the glory of God as a reminder that it’s all about Him.

“Abide in me,” Jesus said, “and I in you.” He is the “main branch” to whom we must remain attached to know true life. The Greek verb (meno) that we usually translate “abide” suggests a continuing, nourishing attachment. No matter if you’re a rose vine or grape vine, you can’t attach and detach at your convenience, like the pump at a gas station. It’s an all-out commitment. And here’s another beauty from that passage. Meno, the verb form of “abide,” has a cousin in the noun form, mone. Know where that’s found? In the incredibly comforting message Jesus left us about heaven in John 14:2: “In my Father’s house are many mone" (most accurately, “dwelling places,” not the misleading idea of "mansions" as some of us grew up reading)." The nature of our residence in Heaven will be intimate connection with the Savior. How that will happen, I’m not sure—but God does.

For now, I see the Creator in carefully-tended roses that help declare the glory of God. And I’m reminded that God loves me so much that He won’t leave me the unruly way I am. He knows how and where I need to be pruned--to abide in Him, and to bring Him the glory.

Sound (grrr)-bite

It happened here....
So much for healthy habits, like walking three-quarters of a mile to the nearest grocery store to buy fresh green beans. Half a block from the store, as I passed a group of apartments with dead grass and junk outside, I remember thinking, What a messy yard. Just then, a resident opened a door and his dog zoomed out, zipped through the hedge, and headed straight for my legs. In seconds the dog had bitten both my calves before his owner grabbed him. When I lifted my pant legs and saw the blood, I knew I had a problem. I remember saying, “I need to wash my wounds.” The residents offered me the garden hose. Eventually, because I pressed the point, they brought out dish soap, some tissue and a bandage. And then I walked home, with lots of time those eight or so blocks to think! I had done nothing to provoke the attack (my thoughts about the unkempt yard never left my brain). I was walking on the public sidewalk at a normal pace. Yet it happened.

Sometimes life is like that. We’re doing what we should, then kaboom, we’re attacked spiritually, emotionally or physically. Even back in the apostle Peter’s time, people were wrestling with this age-old question of why suffering was part of their lives. If they were following Christ, shouldn’t they get a break from life’s tough stuff? The answer is simple: No, because we live in a fallen world.

“Be self-controlled and alert,” Peter counseled the Christians. “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). I’d paraphrase that now: Your enemy the devil is like a vicious dog that specializes in surprise attacks on your calves!

The venerable Bible teacher William MacDonald noted that Satan has different poses. Sometimes he’s on the destructive offensive, like a roaring lion. Having a drinking driver smash into your car (what my family lived through in 1997) is lion-stuff. Other times he’s sneaky as a snake, luring people into negative lifestyle choices like financial irresponsibility or immorality. He also disguises himself as an “angel of light,” who tries to deceive people spiritually. He enjoys hearing people whine, “I deserve better. God isn’t fair to me.” Excuse me? Who isn’t fair? Peter’s advice: “Resist him, standing firm in the faith.” The reason? You’re not the only one under spiritual attack around the world. In some parts of the globe today, it’s bad, really bad for believers.

As for my encounter with an out-of-control dog, I dutifully reported the incident to the Humane Society and had my bites checked at a walk-in clinic. They seem to be healing and so far I’m not foaming at the mouth from rabies. But trust me, I’ve altered my walking route to the grocery store. Hopefully, the opposite side of the street will be safer!

4-H and Weeds

My husband and I recently visited the county fair, browsing exhibits of food, crafts and animals. My favorite: enormous pigs, asleep and crammed into tiny cages like giant packaged sausages (which some of them may become!). In the 4-H crafts building, I noticed an adult mentor conversing with a young 4-H member about her project. The expression on the young person’s face indicated her openness about “doing it better.”

Seeing them reminded me of one of the first verses in Proverbs I memorized as a youngster: “Hear counsel and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end.” Or, in today’s language: “Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise” (Proverbs 19:20).

As I grew up, I experienced the truth of that verse when godly adults loved me enough to have the courage to offer “advice” and “instruction” about changes needed in my attitudes and behavior. Some of their counsel was like the four “H’s” of the 4-H program, reflected in other verses of Proverbs:
Head (thought life): “The Lord detests the thoughts of the wicked, but those of the pure are pleasing to him” (Proverbs 15:26).
Heart (values): “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23).
Hands (work ethic): “From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands rewards him” (Proverbs 12:14).
Health (the physical-emotional link): “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones” (Proverbs 16:24).

So what does weeding have to do with all this? Home from the fair, as clouds moved over the sun to temper an already-hot day, I decided to weed our large rose bed. Kneeling between those thorny bushes with hand tools, I stabbed and pulled, filling a large bin. I found myself comparing weeding to growing in our spiritual walk. Sometimes we’re blind to our spiritual “weeds” until someone who’s more spiritually mature comes along and says, “This doesn’t belong in your life. You need to root it out.”

By the way, the roosters over in the fair’s chicken barn were quite a sight, too. One was strutting all over his three-foot cage and crowing. Talk about pride! And of course there’s a proverb for that: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).