I’d just finished sewing a little music-themed dress for my
granddaughter (her mother teaches violin), but something seemed missing: a
fluffy petticoat for its full skirt. She’s
turning 3, which is that “princess ballerina” age. On one recent visit, her
parents put on a classical tape and helped her pull on a little girl’s play
tutu. Oh, the imaginative moves she made in her “dance show” for grandparents. In her mind, she was the prima ballerina in the tutu that looks like a mushroom. I could make her a fluffier one, I
thought. Then I thought I heard a
whisper, “I will provide.” The “I,” of
course, is God, who knows I try to stretch every dollar.
Right away I thought of checking the sewing supplies area at
a local large thrift store, one so overwhelmed by donations that finding things
can be an adventure. I went to its
crafts corner where there was a huge tub of random scraps and larger pieces
with a sign that said, “Don’t leave a mess.”
About six inches down into the bin I found about three yards of what was
probably netting for a wedding veil. Yes,
that will work, Lord, I said, finding myself smiling. The checkout clerk
said, “How about fifty cents?” I gladly
put my two quarters (plus tax) on the counter, wondering how much it cost in
the first place off the bolt in the fabric store. A couple days later, I’d
stitched what would pass for a little girl’s tutu/petticoat.
When I get to heaven, I’ll have a lot of “how did you know,
Lord?” questions for how He supplied not only our needs (over and over and
over!) but our special, unique “wants.” I’m grateful that the Bible includes stories
of miracles of supply—like Jesus telling Peter to go fish to get the temple tax
that the local authorities said they’d better pay. Not land a fish, sell it, and use the money.
But this:
Go to the lake and
throw out your line. Take the first fish
you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and
give it to them for my tax and yours. (Matthew 17:27)
Philippians 4:19 has long been a special verse for me: “And
my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ
Jesus.” Next to this in my Bible I wrote (probably a note from a long-ago sermon):
“Jamestown went from 500 to 7 because they didn’t appropriate the riches of the
land.” Yes, even thrift stores can hide the “riches of the land” as
answers to our desires and needs.
Along the same line, here’s another gifting,
sewn up the same day. These three shirts
for my grandsons (ages 2, almost 5 and 6) resulted from a large bag of unwanted
fabric I was given. When I went to cut
them out, I realized that whoever pre-washed the fabric had included something dark
in the load that stained portions of the fabric. But by cutting carefully, I was
able to squeeze the three shirts out of it.
Is there a bigger lesson here? I think so. When God supplies
my needs or even wants, He doesn’t always deliver in the way I anticipated. But
every good and perfect gift—the little daily surprises as well as the
incomprehensible truth that God loves and cares intimately for me--comes from
Him (James 1:17).
Our street got a fire hydrant transplant a few weeks ago. I
suppose it’s routine maintenance—you don’t want your house to have a fire and a
neighborhood hydrant that only sputters.
The night before, city workers went door-to-door explaining the water
main would be cut off, so fill the tub for flushing water and set aside enough drinking
and cooking water for the day. The next morning, huge trucks and excavation
machines rumbled down the street. If I’d been caring for my grandboys that day,
they would have been easily entertained by the excavation parade!
The inconvenience took me back to the few times I’ve been in
another country and pure, available water isn’t a given. Certainly that was
true thousands of years ago when Isaiah lived in the Holy Land. Though
considered to have an arid climate, the desert areas of the Holy Land at times
experience cloudbursts that fill and flood creek beds or wadis, leading to
dangerous flooding. That probably was in the back of Isaiah’s mind when he
wrote of spiritual floods:
When you pass through
the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will
not sweep over you. (Isaiah 43:2)
Reading that reminds me of the desperate scenes reported in
news media of victims of hurricanes, tidal waves, and floods. But that is not
the focus on this passage. It’s when life’s problems overwhelm us, we’re to
remember that God will be with us.
There are a lot of things about adversity that I don’t
understand. But because of my faith in God’s promise to be with me in and
through it, I persevere and hope.
Those who don’t, are prone to blame. Like a runaway flash
flood, they harm anyone. I was reminded of that recently in reading Safe People by Drs. Henry Cloud and John
Townsend. The book was first published in 1995 (Zondervan), but its principles still ring
true. In a chapter about traits of “unsafe” people, the authors acknowledge
that we all at some time or another will experience problems that aren’t our
fault. If we’re injured, we need to seek medical help. If we are bereaved, we
need to grieve. If the person who wounds us emotionally or physically doesn’t care,
and never changes their behavior, we need to work through positional forgiveness.
It’s all hard work, and “unsafe people” don’t want to do all
that. “They stay angry, stuck and bitter, sometimes for life,” the authors
wrote (p. 37). “When they feel upset, they see others as the cause, and others
as the ones who have to do all the changing. When they are abused, they hold on
to it with a vengeance and spew hatred for the rest of their lives. When they
are hurt, they wear it like a badge. And worst of all, when they are wrong,
they blame it on others.”
How much better the faith walk that allows God to change our
character, from blamers to blessers. From those who complain about the floods
of life, to those who grab onto the life ring of hope. Later in the same
chapter, Isaiah wrote:
Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! (vv. 18-19)
Far wiser than my town’s street department, God knows when I
need some spiritual “maintenance.” When I
allow Him to dig out the corroded parts of my personality, a better life is
ahead.
“It’s just splendid!” I told my husband as I craned my neck
to see the rainbow that appeared as we were driving home. “Brilliant colors,
and a second one is trying to emerge!”
He was a bit disappointed because, as the driver, he couldn’t
turn around and see what I was seeing. Finally, he was able to turn off to a
side street and pull over long enough for me to snap a photo of the quickly disappearing rainbow. He accommodates my crazy “photo op” moments.
I wonder how Noah felt as he emerged from the ark--dirty,
tired, wondering just how they’d start over in a world that was probably little
more than a landscape of mud. Imagining
this, artists have some vegetation growing through the muck of a worldwide
flood—enough, of course, that the “scout” dove came back when some greenery in
his beak. As the once-swollen black clouds, relieved of their water burden,
dissipated, Noah caught sight of the first rainbow. The God-sign of
regeneration, it must have been stunning in its brilliant blending of the
spectrum’s colors. I cannot imagine it.
Here was hope in an arched palette, and every time it re-appeared, a reminder
of the Creator who went way beyond a black and white world.
One passage that always reminds me to hang in there with
life’s difficulties is Romans 15:4:
For everything that
was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and
the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.
Noah didn’t have the scriptures, just stories passed down
through generations that Moses would later put into written form. But still, he believed...and obeyed.
Sometimes I yearn for Noah’s grit in starting over in regard
to seemingly impossible things I pray about. Some people I care about (and pray for) are
stuck in the false belief that their miserable lives will continue to be
miserable. If only they’d get out of the dark, manure-thick pens of the old
life in the ark, and have courage to step on the gangplank to a new life with
Jesus! If only they’d look up—and see the rainbow!
An old poem I quoted recently says, “God has not promised skies always blue.”
But every so often He hangs a sky-wide reminder that out of the storms,
something splendid can emerge. So, yes, I get excited about a rainbow. It's fleeting, just a few minutes while
the sun and drizzle are just right to refract the sun’s rays. But it’s reminder
enough to hold onto hope.
My husband had decided to bring home the bacon, for real.
Our local store had a bargain if you bought two packages, and he couldn’t
resist. BLTs (bacon-lettuce-tomato-sandwiches) are high in his love language.
Yes, we know bacon isn’t on the same health level as kale and bean sprouts, but
sometimes we sin against nutritional guidelines. I cook it up, drain it, and
stack the pieces between paper towels in a container headed for the
freezer. Besides adding crunch to BLTs,
bacon turns scrambled eggs into gourmet delights.
OUT OF THE FRY PAN....
As I stood watch guard over the sizzling fry pan, I had a
nudge that there might be a spiritual lesson here. (You’re probably thinking,
this lady fried her brain, too!).
The heat that releases the fat from the meat is like adversity releasing the
spiritual fat from our lives. This takes
me back to James 1:2-4, which became front and center in my life when I jumped
out of the frying pan into the fire—I mean, graduated college and went into the
“real world” for my first job. On this
bigger stage, I faced many more testings of my faith:
Consider it pure joy,
my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the
testing of your faith develops perseverance.
Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete,
not lacking anything.
In college, I hopped through curriculum hoops for ten weeks
each, wrote papers and took tests. Then, on to the next class. In the School of Life, those lessons and
tests just keep coming and I never really know how well I am doing. My only
hints of a “passing grade” are experiencing the closeness of the Lord and
discerning tiny changes in my character. Said another way, the “fat” of fleshly
entitlement slowly melts away in the heat of life’s hard places.
Am I “fully cooked”? Well, no. How would you answer that for
yourself? Actually, James wrote the answer in the verse above. This spiritual “cooking” goes on until we’re
mature and complete. To me, that is spelled H-E-A-V-E-N. James alludes to that
a few verses later:
Blessed is the man who
perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the
crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. (v. 12)
If I stirred up your taste buds for a BLT, well, glad to
know there’s a kindred spirit out there.
