Author: marettej

Psalm 92:2. ” to declare Your loving kindness in the morning and Your faithfulness every night.” Certainly this doesn’t mean our life. Most certainly this doesn’t mean today, and definitely not yesterday. I was awoken yesterday to someone calling my name with the words following , “there is water everywhere in the basement,” That defined our day. Semis full of corn were still hauling and I had to go judge a 4H event, but our day was defined. Boxes that we jut carried down as a young lady who needed a place to live for a few months moved in . Wet boxes, soggy rugs, water running everywhere and shoes totally drenched within the first few steps. Talk about a wake up call; that was a unique one. It colored the day. Not the color I would have chosen but it colored the day. As we ended the day driving around checking fields ( that’s what farmers do after a bad storm), we had it pretty good. We jut had a wet basement. Our cattle didn’t get washed away down the river to walk out on someone else’s front yard. Our trees are still standing. We don’t have large 50 pound rocks and logs washed on our lawn from the torrents and power of the water bringing them from miles away. Our road isn’t closed and the dam is visible. As I drove through southern Minnesota I saw many fields still under water, many more not planted and still more the corn looking weak and yellow. Our corn stands almost waist tall and deeply green and growing, with the rain and the heat coming it will grow two inches a day.

How do we define loving kindness and faithfulness. How do we declare? The news declared yesterday all day the disaster all around us. It almost gets to where you don’t want to watch the news; the declaring of it just way too much to hear.

Do we declare the loving kindness of God in overkill mode like our radio and television stations do the bad news? I sat down this morning to watch the haze on the fields and the sun slowly come up Psalm 92 was on my heart. So, I drew it. Rather boring that first attempt at the letters. Basic, uneventful, simple and boring if I may say so. And yet, God is far from boring in our lives, we just perceive it that way. Our anticipation of what God will do in our life this day: we have no clue, and then, he starts to color. Isn’t it amazing how just a bit of color changes the page? I did not think about the man who opened the door for me yesterday as loving kindness. I sometimes overlook the phone call, the pat on the back, the simple things someone does as loving kindness from God. Yet, all those things color my life with his loving kindness. I sat at lunch with two dear friends talking about what God is doing in our lives. I stood hand in hand with a friend and a total stranger praying: her life overcome with grief with the death of her husband a year ago and picking up the pieces of her life seemingly a burden almost unbearable. I listened to a young girl give her demonstration and my heart had all these other things come to mind of the past, of fun moments when I was her age, of the thrill of a blue ribbon, of the anticipation and nerves and I said to myself, God is so faithful and I am not even looking.

What will the colors look like by evening. No clue, but I can tell you he will have faithfully walked me through the mud, the garden, the smiles, the laughs and the tears…. that’s the promise this verse gives me and I will cling to it.

When I was a kid, I heard things that probably weren’t not meant to be heard. I don’t mean stuff a kid shouldn’t hear, I mean lines said that didn’t make sense to sense to a child so it was interpreted logical in my mind. Father, Son and Holy Spirit had a pecking order. The Holy Spirit came last. So in my mind, it was the least rather than a triune of blessings, the Holy Spirit was just hanging around at the end of the line.

The Spirit is an odd word. We have been teased with spirits, demonic, cartoonish creatures that are mystical and scary. I have come to understand that the spirit of something is a gift. I have the spirit of hospitality within me, I love to be with people and make them feel loved. I know others who have the spirit of peace. They just seem to have peace in the oddest times. Others the spirit of kindness; it’s just a part of them. Having a spirit of something isn’t like having a talent, it’s deeper and more a part of your inner heart. Spirit is compassion, spirit of tenderness, spirit of logic, spirit of understanding or the spirit of giving.

Think of it as the glass that holds our abilities. We have many abilities but we all have ways to hold those abilities and keep them in safe, collected and usable. If we don’t have our glass, stuff falls all over. The spirit of Jesus is different. We have Jesus. We have his spirit. It’s the glass that holds the rest of our life together in one place so we can make the other parts of our life work together. Having his spirit is like the type on a stamp whose sticky refuses to stay. It’s the glue when bonding wood together even if we see using nails. The spirit of Jesus is a deeper part of giving Jesus control of my life. I can give my energy to my job but not embrace my job. Think about a baseball game. There are fans and then there are fans who have the spirit. A fan sits and cheers and has a foam finger and maybe a jersey. A fan who has the spirit of the game, has his face painted, hat backwards, matches the team in every aspect of his apparel, dances to every song, knows the chants and it usually on the big screen because of the spirit of his behavior. He has his glass full and there is no mistaking who or what he is living for at that moment.

So if we got up each day and picked a cup out of the cupboard and instead of pouring in coffee, we asked good to fill our cup with His spirit and kept that spirit collected so it could be an effective part of our life that day, what would it look like in our day? The prayer at the top of the page may be the end result. I love this prayer from the Valley of Vision prayer book.

“Fill me with the spirit of Jesus, that I may be occupied with his presence…

May his comforts cheer me in my sorrows

His strength sustain me in my trials

His blessings revive me in my weariness

His presence render me me A fruitful tree of holiness

His might establish me in leave and joy

His incitement’s make me ceaseless in prayer

His animation kindle one me undying devotion.”

The prayer then goes on to pack the final punch.

“Send him As the searcher if my heart, to show me more of my corruptions and helplessness that I may flee to thee, cling to thee, rest on thee as the beginning and end of my salvation.”

That’s what we get when we have the spirit of something. It’s so much a part of us we can’t separate it from ourselves. The water is no good without the glass to hold it in so we may drink. Our lives without the spirit are not effective… we need the glass of the spirit to hold the rest of what God has blessed us with to be able to pour out on others while not just splashing on the floor and giving no one a blessing.

It’s one of those nights. Fishing, grilled chicken and salad, s’mores and campfire and no expectations. Can that really happen? To have no expectations in life? We live in a world where we are expected to drive in the right lane, put our turning signals on, have our lights on when it’s raining, take out the garbage on Tuesday night, mow the lawn alternating patterns so it grows right and send a card on every birthday. We have expectations whether or not we admit them or we ignore them.

We get disappointed when others don’t meet up to our expectations. Oh we say it’s ok but when it comes down to it, they blew it; we expected more. Someone one told me if I expect nothing I will never be disappointed. That’s true to some degree but I want to believe I can expect some things in life.

I expect you to answer my phone call or at least call me back to find out why I called you. I expect you to smile back at me. I expect you to come stand by me and put your arm around me when I am hurting. I expect you to come when I invite you for supper. I expect you to eat my fresh hot chocolate chip cookies. I expect you to hand me over the baby so I get a baby fix. I expect you to ask Jim where I am if we are not together and vise versa. I expect church to be full of Bible verses. I expect music to be joyful and dance worthy even at funerals. I expect joy to be found in flowers, friends and baseball games. And yet, I realize often I will be left with disappointment , empty hearts and moments of “really?” And then days like today; there were no expectations. Today we slept late, laughed at rainy weather, laughter again, went shopping, found surprise bargains, went fishing and catching, played card games and had moments of simply being in a beautiful place in Gods world and saying “this is beautiful.” There are days when expectations are standard. There are days when they will be met and days we will say, “oh well maybe tomorrow.” And then there are days God just gives you what you expect; being blessed and being loved just because you are his child… tomorrow may not be quite as beautiful as today, but we will always remember the days when God simply loves on us and we giggle in return and say, “thank you for letting me expect you to show up.”

Habakkuk 3:19 “Though the cherry trees don’t blossom and the strawberries don’t ripen, Though the apples are worm-eaten and the wheat fields stunted, Though the sheep pens are sheepless and the cattle barns empty, I’m singing joyful praise to GOD. I’m turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God. Counting on GOD’s Rule to prevail, I take heart and gain strength. I run like a deer. I feel like I’m king of the mountain! (For congregational use, with a full orchestra.)”

I don’t think of myself as a pessimistic person. I am usually the one in the group that finds something good about the situation and laughs in the midst of life gone amuck, however the first part is this verse sometimes can suck the last part of the verse into a vortex that changes my focus. The thoughts and don’t moments in life. A cherry tree without its blossoms is a useless tree. If there are no cherry blossoms there is no fruit and no beauty. A cherry blossom is absolutely breathtaking. Strawberries aren’t worth much is they never ripen. Try eating a green on and you will find out quickly it’s not a luscious fruit delight! The verse continues to depress us. Wormy apples, what fields with no crop, empty animal pens and quiet barns. I enjoyed as a kid walking into the barn before milking. The cows were glad to see you, there was a comfortable smell that made the heart relax and feel good about the moment. But an empty barn meant no cows, no milk, which meant NO money. But the word though means regardless of we can. Regardless of , though, things don’t seem to be the way we want, we will praise him. Not just praise but turn cartwheels. On a good day when I was 10, I could not do a cartwheel. Yet, my heart can flip around like a yo-yo on a string regardless of what my orchard, my garden or my barn holds. Our culture emphasizes why we have and what it looks like we have. Though, regardless, I will praise. I will take heart. I will have hope that tomorrow will have meaning regardless of what things around me look like. The leaves can fall off the tree, worms eat the plants and the fences be broken and the barn door open, yet because of the God I serve who rules, I can do cartwheels for God…. love that idea now if I could only live it.

I love this book. It’s a simple book actually very simple. I love this book for many reasons but one of the biggest is I grabbed it running through Heathrow early in the morning coming back from Uganda. Sometimes simple things have so much meaning. It’s also my prayer book. I tore out some pages awhile back. Those pages were confession pages. In our culture of churches, we don’t use confession. Perhaps because we are afraid of what it had become but I think more because of what it might become. For an addict, confession is the first step to recovery. For the Christian, confession is commanded. It’s one of those commands we put on the warming burner in back of the stove. If I confess, if someone else hears my confession, they may think less of me. If someone knows what I am struggling with, it’s a reflection on me. That’s what I somehow believed growing up. Whether taught by commission or omission, our churches did not confess. “Fess up” was a common thing said when I was a kid. In other words admit you screwed up. Usually punishment followed. We bring that into church. Punishment follows confession. That’s not Bible. The Bible seems to indicate that confession makes one stronger, more like Christ and frees from the power of what caused you to sin. Admit it, pray for each other and walk on. ” Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin.”

Psalm 32:5 So why did I throw out my confession pages? So I don’t go back and be reminded. I do that well. Confession is a drive through car wash. There are many signs in a car wash that tell you not to back up. Go straight ahead. Confession reminds me to keep walking ahead. Don’t look back at the dirt on the floor in the car wash, look forward to the clean car as you drive ahead… it’s good to confess, it’s good to write it down and then it’s good to drive ahead and be reminded of the clean heart of forgiveness!