Category: Different Thoughts

Posted in Different Scriptures, Different Thoughts, Uncategorized

spilled milk.

Posted on by Wick

Imagine- you’re in the midst of dinner, and your daughter reaches out for the butter dish.  As her arm stretches out across the table, she inadvertently knocks over her glass of milk.  Everything at the table freezes, and gasps are heard from her sisters as all eyes immediately look to you.  There is a layer of fear masking her face as she waits for your response.  You can’t believe she would ever do such a thing.  How could she be so careless?  She obviously has no right sitting at this table.  You respond by asking her to leave the house.

That would never happen, obviously.

As much as we might get frustrated as our children develop their fine motor skills, our Love for them far outweighs any accident they might make.  As they grow, our children experience that Love, and learn it’s depth.  They have the ability to form their identity around the perceived Love felt toward them.

It’s the same in our marriages.  Imagine if I’d accidentally turned my wife’s favorite white shirt pink by washing it with a brand new Detroit Redwings jersey.  Walking up the stairs from the laundry room, I keep my head down, knowing she’ll be unhappy.  As I show her the shirt, her jaw drops at my incompetence.  She tells me firmly that I’m not good enough for her anymore, and there’s the door.

Thank goodness, that would never happen either. 🙂

A marriage is not two perfect people discovering step by step how perfectly they were “created for each other”, so that every step closer to each other is a step toward perfect wedded bliss.  Marriage is two imperfect people, committing to a life together where we are continually refined, forgiven, and grow in our ability to reflect the Love of God.

1 John chapter 4 talks quite a bit about the Love of God.  You’ve probably heard the song, “Beloved, Let Us Love One Another, for Love is of God, and anyone that loves is born of God….etc.”  But I want to point out a verse found later in the chapter…

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18

Apparently this was an issue in the early church, and one that is still found in some areas of our walk with God.  The above situations seem obviously silly.  No parent or spouse would ever respond that way. Why?  Because of their love for the other.  Yet, many times we’ll attribute that same judgmental love to God.  We don’t serve a God who’s sitting up straight, nose high, at the end of the table just waiting for one of his clumsy children to spill the milk.   He’s not shaking his head at how incompetent His bride is, as she stumbles along attempting to be the Body of Christ.

As we continue to grow in our faith, and learn about how we are loved by God, we are able to let go of our Spiritual “performance anxiety”.  We are freed from sin, but we may still spill the milk on occasion.  We’ll put ourselves before others.  We’ll make rather silly decisions that require a bit of cleaning up.  The same is true of those we love.  Thankfully, one of the most emphasized messages throughout scripture is the overwhelming Love of God.  Love that we are called to echo in our own lives, toward others as we follow God together.

May we respond lovingly to the milk-spillers in our lives this week, knowing that our own wobbly arms often knock the glass over as well…

Posted in Different Thoughts

peace.

Posted on by Wick

It was so peaceful I had to snap a picture of it.  Sure, she requires a light, or a noisy fan/radio, or mom/dad laying with her usually.  But here she was, sleeping peacefully in her own bed.  Here we are in the 4th week of Easter, and I”m struck by this concept of Peace that we haven’t heard much about since Christmas.

It’s right there in the midst of the “Hallelujah Chorus”.  He’s the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6)!  (Hallelujah!)  But this is so much more than a holiday icon.  More than words meant to flavor a Christmas card, & give meaningful alliteration to worship pastors who like to shout out short phrases during singing while surrounded by poinsettias.  Sidenote: You may wonder, as I did, why “Prince” of Peace?  Why not “King”?  The answer might be simple, as seen in definitions of “Prince” here.  It’s not always a statement of royalty, but also “the one of highest rank, the chief of any body”.

He is actually the foremost authority on all things peace related.  The source of Peace above all over peaces.  (read “peace” here as so much more than cessation of war)  This God-man who we see hanging on the cross, battered and scarred.  The resurrected Jesus who walked with his followers on the road to Emmaus.  In many cases, these moments of death and resurrection become reduced to a mathematical equation:  Sin created a “negative”, and Jesus was the only positive large enough to bring us back “out of the red”.  God paid the giant debt, and now we’ve all got great cosmic credit scores again.

But what we see happening on the cross, through the resurrection, and so on – is not an objective math lesson.  As cute as it might be to say “3 Nails + 1 Cross = 4Given”, there is so much more happening here than the clearing of our sin-debt.  Jesus is actually blazing a trail for all of humanity to follow.  God became man, and by his life He created a way for humanity to live a life of sacrificial love for others, dying to self and being given a new source of life.  Redefining the human experience, and providing new foundations for us to build on.  He accomplishes nothing less than the birth of a New Kingdom of Love, one that will never end.  He then gives us His Spirit to actually be our source – so that our efforts are not merely “attempts at looking like Jesus”, but are actually the presence and work of Jesus Christ breaking through into a world that is desperate for the presence of it’s Lord.

And so, in my frustrations with my daughter, I feel like maybe God often looks at me with the same fatherly love.  Wondering why I don’t rest in His peace more often.  Why we feel ourselves tossed about by the waves of anxiety, pressures of false foundations, and so on.  Wondering why I feel the need to always be busy doing something, instead of napping in His presence (or at least breathing slower).

And so I will remember this week, as I continue to proclaim the resurrected Lord as my King – He is not only Lord of all.  He is the very source of True Peace.  As His Spirit continues to become our source, we will find ourselves more and more founded on a peace, even one that is beyond our understanding…:)

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:7

Posted in Different Moments, Different Thoughts

the benefits of begging.

Posted on by Wick

A couple weeks ago, our church had a “Family Scavenger Hunt” that was to benefit our church’s food pantry.  Each family was given a sheet of instructions that included a list of food items.  Each item was assigned a different point value, and the goal was to get as many points as possible.  We grabbed our list, and off we went to a neighborhood that had safe sidewalks for our girls to go door to door.   Pulling their little red wagon behind, the people didn’t stand a chance.  The cuteness level of our daughters was breaking any sort of measuring device that day, and we got 2nd place in the “Hunt”.  But we won, also.

We won because it was an experience of wrapping the story of our family in the even larger story of God’s moving in our world.  I’ve posted before on the fact that wherever “Kingdom work” is being done, the veil between heaven and earth becomes just a bit more thin.  We joined God’s work in marrying heaven and earth that day, and our daughters experienced the joy of being connected to feeding the hungry.

Rewind almost 20 years, and see my own family.

We didn’t live on the streets.  We had clothes, and gas, and all that.  But we were hit by life pretty hard, and lived on foodstamps and the donations of some church food/clothing pantries for a season.  My kids have no idea the story they’re connected to, but someday I’m sure they’ll learn.  My hope is that they’ll be thankful for where we’ve come from, but receive their IDENTITY from where we’re going.  Our prayer is that the story we’re telling through our family today becomes the plot they find their character being developed within – with a resurrection-powered resolution on the far horizon, but moving ever closer.

The more moments we share as a family that are centered on joining in the work and heart of Jesus – the more likely my children will naturally see this as the story they are growing up into.  As parents, it’s so much more than simply taking our children to church, or even praying with them at meal times.  It’s about learning the heart of Jesus ourselves, and then just as we do when crossing a busy parking lot, we say to our children with outstretched arms, “Hold daddy’s hand.”

As we invite our children to walk with us, as we follow Jesus, some pretty amazing things can happen.   The hungry can be fed.   The unloved can be loved.  Heaven and earth can come crashing together.  As our kids experience this reality, they continue to be challenged by a world who’s commercials present a completely different reality of self-absorption.  With their hands in ours, we move through this journey of sharing the resurrection power of Jesus Christ with a world in need of healing and New Life.

Kinda feels worth skipping soccer practice, eh?
How is your family finding itself in the midst of the Story God is telling this week??