Yes, we grow whopper apples in Washington state. But the
saying “apple of my eye” has nothing to do with juicy fruit. Scholars say the
English idiom goes back to 9th century English literature, when it
just referred to the dark part of the eye. It was still around for Shakespeare,
who dropped it into a conversation in his play Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare lived about the same time as
the 1611 King James translation of the Bible, so it’s understandable that when
scholars came across a similar Hebrew idiom, they used the English saying:
Deuteronomy 32:10: "He found him in a desert land, and
in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept
him as the apple of his eye."
Psalm 17:8: "Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me
under the shadow of thy wings."
Proverbs 7:2: "Keep my commandments, and live; and my
law as the apple of thine eye."
Lamentations 2:18: "Their heart cried unto the Lord, O
wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night:
give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease."
Zechariah 2:8: "For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After
the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that
toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye."
Of all these, I like Psalm 17:8 the most. It reminds me that
I can appeal to the God who not only created me but cherishes and protects me
even more than I try to protect my eyes. Even though I may mess up and fail,
He’s there to lift me up and restore me when I honestly and humbly ask for his
help.
CHERISHED
On the window ledge just above my computer, along with an engraved stone, I keep a print of
an artist’s rendition of Christ praying over the world. It's a reminder
of His agonized prayer at Gethsemane. I cannot look at that without tears
stinging my eyes as I recall Hebrews 7:25:
Therefore he is able
to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives
to intercede for them.
Jesus may have returned to heaven some 2,000 years ago, but
in the mystery of who He is, He is still very present and inexplicably involved
in every detail of our lives—when we love on Him and adore Him, and even when
we turn our backs on Him. “Apple of His eye,” and the protective shadow of God
(His “wings”)—there’s no better place to be.
One of the delights of grandparenting is hearing these
little people sing nursery rhymes with all their mispronunciations and off-key
enthusiasm. Recently, I got a recital of this one:
Twinkle, twinkle,
little star, how I wonder what you are.
Up above the sky so
high, like a diamond in the sky.
My memory has faded a bit on this, but it’s likely I sang
that song in jest to my children when they were lots older (grade school age)
as we enjoyed a crazy family summer sleepover in our back yard. The night sky was
clear enough for us to see the blinking lights of airplanes headed to, or
coming from, our local small airport. At times a pinpoint crawled across the
sky, likely a satellite. And then came the treat of the night: falling stars,
happening so fast that we could barely point them out in time. That night was
one of my favorite all-time family experiences. Well, family minus one, because
sometime during that open-air sleeping time, a slug crawled onto my husband’s
face, and he left in disgust for the bedroom.
So here comes the “star” sign that caught my eye:
The biblical counterparts to this, I believe, are the
parables about heavenly rewards. One is in Luke 19:12-27, called the “Parable
of the Ten Minas.” (The same lesson, with the term “talent,” is also told in
Matthew 25 and Mark 13). A “mina” was about three months’ wages, no small sum.
The nobleman who dispersed these riches had to go away for a while “to have
himself appointed king” (which, of course, refers to Jesus). When he returned
for his servants to account for their investment, one’s investment ten-folded
itself. Another had quintupled the
entrustment. Both were promoted to greater responsibility. But one did nothing
with his mina. He folded it a cloth and
hid it. He didn’t even put in the savings and loan at 1% interest. The story doesn’t have a happy ending for the
fellow who just chugged along doing nothing for his master. He had a chance to be a star or at least a
twinkle. Instead, he moped in the darkness of his own apathy.
I find this story scary yet hopeful. We’re apportioned
different gifts and abilities but we’re not to sit on our hands and do nothing.
If we can’t be an asteroid that lights up the whole sky before it crash-lands,
we’re to at least “twinkle” wherever God has placed us. That means to aspire
after the character modeled by Jesus, serving and loving on others. Our Father
has impeccable vision, and that faint twinkle of light (which probably
described each of us in the span of eternity) is seen for how much it’s fueled
by pure and fierce devotion to Him.
The summer and winter Olympics begin and end—so
appropriately—with a torch. From Greece, birthplace of the Olympics, a torch is
ignited via the sun-reflected heat in a parabolic mirror, then begins its
journey to the current games site. There’s a lot of pagan mythology in the
torch background, but it’s a good cousin to this décor saying:
Be the light.
The Olympic flame has an on-again, off-again world-wide
life. In contrast, Jesus is all-on.
[Jesus] said, “I am
the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but
will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)
To this statement, the religious types of His day
complained, “You’re just saying that about yourself. Who would back that up?” (John 8:13).
He replied that He did
have a witness to His claim to be the light: His Father in heaven (John
8:14-19).
That was tough teaching for folks who figured “righteous
living” depended on keeping umpteen hundred little laws handed down (and
invented) through antiquity. Of such people, the apostle John wrote, “The light
shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (John 1:5). They
weren’t expecting God to visit this planet!
Later on, in the letter written in his old-age, the apostle
John urged right and “light” living, as opposed to religious “pretenders” whose
man-imposed rules for living and behavior just kept them in spiritual darkness:
God is light; in him
there is no darkness at all. If we claim
to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by
the truth. But if we walk in the light,
as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of
Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:5-7)
That quote is powerful.
Re-read it. It reviews two choices: to walk down life’s road in the
darkness of grudges, bitterness, fear and other negative attributes. Or to get
so close to Jesus that we bask in His glow.
The ritual for the Olympic torch begins with the heat of the sun. We
have so much better: the Sun of Righteousness, who has risen with healing in
His wings (Malachi 4:2).
Somewhere, long ago, I saw this sign. I should have bought
it, because it is so "me"!
I want patience, and I
want it right now!
With maturity comes the realization that patience is a
slow-brewed quality. It takes time to ripen that personality trait. Like sauerkraut. Well, maybe cabbage to sauerkraut isn’t the
best illustration. Maybe cheese? Instead of the petulant “right now” slogan,
I’ve mellowed to appreciate this one:
Often, when things aren’t going my way, or happening as fast
as I want, I am drawn back to an old friend, Psalm 37. It has hard words like “fret not,” “trust,” “delight,”
“dwell,” “commit,” “be still,” “refrain from anger,” and “a little while.”
I once heard “fretting” called a “spiritual heartburn.” It’s
the acid of impatience that wants its own way and timing, not God’s. Over and
over, God has to remind me:
“Be still before the
LORD and wait patiently for him.” (v. 7)
Sometimes He wants me to stop and change direction. Sometimes He just wants me to stop trying to
manipulate an improbable or impossible situation. My Plan A or Plan B are just
plain wrong. His Plan C, even though it
may take more time, is far better.
That’s where prayer enters into the situation. The
unchangeable God is the One who can break down stubborn wills or circumstances
thought to be unchangeable. That’s why I keep praying for people and
circumstances that left me wounded. I
can’t change them. But God can. My job is to aspire to greater godly character.
It’s what the psalmist describes as righteousness,
blameless, generous, faithful, uttering wisdom, speaking what is just.
I’ve been the victim of someone’s “rage”—an angry outburst
full of lies and misinformation. When that person left, I realized I was
trembling from this emotional wounding. But I also asked the Lord to help me look with His eyes on this
troubled person. I can’t fix the world. But I can leave those problems in God’s
lots-capable hands.
Do not fret, trust,
delight, commit your way to Him, be still.
Good things do take time,
when they’re left to God’s perfect time.
Several years after our parents died, my sister brought me my
dad’s old Bible, which she had stored away and thought I should now have. She had kept a lot of family
“heritage” things as I was still single at the time of their deaths, and moving a lot. Now that I was married and "settled," she felt I should have our father’s old
leather-bound Bible. As I leafed through it, noting portions he had marked, I was grateful again for a Christian dad. But now this old Bible had a strong, stale odor from storage. The best I knew to do was seal it in a plastic bag and put it in
a bin with other family “heritage” things that had interest but not regular usefulness
for me.
Some day my family will have to decide what to do with that
plus my Bibles in various versions.
My current one, a quarter-century worn and marked up, wouldn’t win any beauty
contests. But when I open it, it is my old friend who leads me to the throne
room where my Savior waits to chat with me.
I thought of such aging and antique Bibles when I saw this sign:
My most valued
antiques are my old friends.
One such human “antique” called the other night. Our friendship goes
back more than three decades, with part of that time her living on
the other side of the nation. She’s now back in my town, but often on the
go helping her adult children and grandchildren in another state.
It’s not the usual “girlfriend” relationship that’s
stereotyped by coffee dates or shopping trips. But it's been built by years of personal contract, and now safe enough that she
entrusted me with a key to her house in case she ever locked herself out. (That has happened with her on-the-go life). If there’s a big family concern, she
knows I will pray, and vice versa. We share articles of interest to each
other—the observation of Proverbs 27:17: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man
sharpens another.” One time she remarked, “We’re friends who can just pick up
and keep going where we left off.” We’re low-maintenance in our friendship, but
stay in touch enough to know we’ll always be there for each other. I’m reminded
of Proverbs 17:24 (and I change the last word to “sister”): “There is a friend
who sticks closer than a brother.”
One person I pray for has few up-close-and-personal friends like this. Oh, this person is on social media, but that's not the same as face-to-face contact (and hard work) of truly nurturing a friend. You can't hug a screen. While contemporary media can
encourage “sharing,” it also enables the faceless "out" of “unfriending” someone. It
doesn’t nurture the honesty and loving admonition that comes from just being together--particularly the believer-to-believer friendships that can grow deep and sweet with time.
And isn't that also true of spending time with our Truest Friend, Jesus?
When I married and moved to a small central Washington town,
mornings just got better. In Portland, greater Los Angeles and Chicago,
I woke to the roar of traffic. Now, the twitters and tweets of birds come
through the open window. It’s so peaceful and a poignant reminder that the same
Creator God who made things that fly also made me, and has never gone out of
business!
I’m not famous as a “morning person.” Like a diesel engine,
I need time to warm up, and more so as I age.
My morning routine now includes a heat pad on a painful knee. But my new
“normal” is okay. “Wake up and be
awesome,” urges one of the signs I liked. Sometimes upon wakening, I pull
on old concerns like a ratty old robe. I’m prone to identify with King David in Psalm 5.
There he rehearses how mean and demeaning people have made his life miserable.
But there’s a golden verse toward the beginning:
Listen to my cry for
help, my King and my God, for to you I pray.
Morning by morning, O
LORD, you hear my voice; morning by morning I lay my requests before you and
wait in expectation. (Psalm 5:2-3)
One of my morning habits is making the bed before starting on the day’s duties. It’s like closing the night chapter and opening
the day chapter for whatever God has ahead. No matter what yesterday brought,
this is a new day. David also wrote:
Weeping may remain for
a night, But rejoicing comes in
the morning. (Psalm 30:5)
Then, as part of morning devotions (besides reading the Bible), I often pick up a hymnal kept next to my devotional "spot." Dozens are part of my spiritual heritage, their tunes easily recalled, and their words uplifting with praise and Biblical truth. Godly men and women who condensed spiritual
lessons to rhyme continue to speak.
Fortified by song and God’s Word, I’m ready to add my voice
to the day, remembering another psalm:
This is the day the
LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:24)
When I look in the mirror and acknowledge the aging process, I
also remember that God created me for more than this earth. But for now, the
morning tweets and twitters (which have nothing to do with the cyberworld)
outside my window declare that I can wake
up and be awesome—in God’s sight.
“If it doesn’t
challenge you, it doesn’t change you.”
I’m not sure what the author of that saying intended, but it takes me
back to a book that profoundly impacted me as a young adult. It’s The Shadow of the Almighty, the
biography of missionary martyr Jim Elliot, written by his widow Elisabeth
Elliot. The book traced his passion for sharing about Jesus (including the
remote Ecuadorean tribe that killed him and his colleagues in the 1950s) and shared
his devotion to God in journal entries that included quotes like this: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot
keep to gain what he cannot lose.” About
three years after reading his biography, I found myself on the campus of
Wheaton College, where he graduated decades earlier and where he had first met
“Bets” (Elisabeth) and knew she was the one—but
not quite yet. (They would marry years later in a simple civil ceremony on the mission field.)
I hoped to earn a master’s degree in communications at Wheaton as a door to work in Christian
publishing. But often as I walked on campus and gazed at the same buildings
where he studied, I wondered if I could ever have such audacious faith.
I had no
idea how God would stretch me—to give what I could not keep to gain what I
could not lose. My neat-and-tidy plan to sprint through the program was
interrupted by my parents’ deaths just six months apart. I found myself
stretched in new areas through nearly unbearable grief and intimidating
after-death tasks, including emptying the very full family home.
A year
later, I returned to graduate school. At times I wondered if I’d make
it—physically, intellectually, and financially. Then, as graduation neared and
I finished my thesis, I started job hunting. One by disappointing one, my
inquiry letters trickled back with curt “not hiring” replies.
That
faith-stretching time of my life is one reason I resonated with “If it doesn’t
challenge you, it doesn’t change you.” Those bewildering, stretching, humbling years
of higher education left me with this important lesson: When life belittles, God is
bigger. My job offer—a God-thing--came
just days before I had to vacate college housing with no place to go.
That job
was a good experience, but marriage and motherhood changed my address and
vocational direction. Four diplomas hang on the wall in my bedroom (high
school, college, Bible school, graduate school). But I’m still “in school” for
a degree that Jim Elliot described in his journals: the A.U.G.—“approved onto
God.” He took this from 1 Timothy 2:15-16:
Do your best to
present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be
ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
Or, said
another way, don’t resist when God is
taking the “raw you” and stretching you spiritually and vocationally to better
serve Him. People who don’t change and grow, stagnate. Those who turn away
from challenges backtrack…and lose, not gain.
