Category: Devotions

I sit here in the silence. It’s silence of one hears silence. If I listen I hear birds, geese, frogs, kids laughing on the lake and water. I sit here looking at life. I see a paddle board with two people on it moving slowly across the lake, two boys in a paddle boat pulling in crappies, I see the canoes flipped upside down, the birds flirting to and fro and the tree where the beaver is chewing. I also see John 15. That’s where the Bible is open to. It’s the abiding chapter. The sit on the patio in an Adirondack chair and think about what God means by resting chapter. It’s the chapter that reminds us without roots delivering the nutrients to the tree limbs the leaves don’t unfold and grow. And after all that abiding talk and resting and letting God feed your heart and grow your soul he throws verse 12 in. Love as I have loved you. It would not be so bad if John has used a different example. But Jesus said love like he loves. How about I love like Sam, or Ellen or Jared? They have faults like me and tire out too. How about giving me a comparison to love that makes me feel like I have the chance of doing ok. No, I get the Jesus loving example. Sometimes it makes me hurt just thinking about it. Love hurts isn’t just some lyrics in an old rock song. For those of you who never heard of the song or the Everly Brothers, google it! Living like Jesus said and loving people just hurts sometimes. Which is why we need to be connected to the vine! The Vine/Jesus has not only the ability to keep our focus and our loveometer going but somehow Jesus has a way of drying tears without sopping the handkerchiefs. The key verse is actually before he talks about the loving people in verse 11. So your joy May be full! Fill up your joy tank and loving comes easier. I am not sure I believe that 100% but I am trying.

I didn’t grow up with T.V.. We didn’t have one. We did have a radio however. Radio was our best friend.  What I have discovered in these later years of my life, one of my comforts is listening to baseball on the radio. It takes me back to a very good time in my memories. I have Sirius X-M radio in my car and I do travel a-lot. If I am on the road and I need something to listen to, I find myself on the sports channels and listening to baseball. Doesn’t need to be the Minnesota Twins, it just needs to be baseball.

During this interesting time we are in, I haven’t missed a lot of things that others are challenged by. I have however, desperately missed listening to spring training and the opening of baseball.  For some reason I really connect with sports. I am too old to play much anymore, my mind is willing but the body can’t follow through, but if I need to chill out, it’s a football game or baseball and I have been known to even watch soccer.

James talks about sports.  In Verse 22 of chapter 1, it’s right there in black and white.

^“22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ²³ Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴ and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. ²⁵ But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.”  

So let me translate for you- “do not merely just listen to the coach, read the playbook and think you are a player.  You have to run the plays. For if you simply read the playbook and think you are a player, you are like the person who puts on the uniform, gets the black line under your eyes and grabs the helmet but never leaves the locker room. You can’t call yourself a player and you won’t know the game. Only those who actually dress up, know the playbook and run onto the field when the coach nods his head can be considered a player. Only those players have a chance of scoring and winning”

Perhaps that’s a bit far fetched in my attempt to reword James 1, but it’s true. We have many people thinking they are something they are not. I don’t read a lot for pleasure. Some do. During this time many have cleared their bookshelves, gotten books online and borrowed from others. Just reading about France doesn’t make you a frenchman. Just reading about how to cook doesn’t make you a cook. You have to engage and discover. Being a Christian is so much more than reading the Bible. It’s the experience of letting the Holy Spirit move you onto the playing field of life and rub shoulders with people. It’s messy, it’s tiresome, you will get hurt and you will get dirty. But only when you be Jesus, do what Jesus would have done, can you consider yourself a disciple of Jesus. That’s a Christian- being Christ like. So grab the playbook and find what position you play and get in the game!

 

I have been dating an older man. It ended yesterday. It started rather innocently. Someone at church said, you have to meet these new people. He plays bluegrass. That’s all I needed to know. I went into the adult Sunday school class and was introduced to Wayne.

It has only been a few years though it seems forever. It began with cowboy church and then slowly progressed to Wednesday morning coffee hour. It grew to include life: at Charlie’s Wednesday night, his home, and eventually in hospitals and nursing homes,. Where Wayne was, I would go with a guitar in hand. I learned what Wayne would teach me. He would come in with his amp and mandolin on the front of Monica’s walker. Oh yes, Monica is his wife and very supportive of our dates. In fact she would drop him off at Charlie’s and I would bring him home. Many times I would go to NE Rochester, knock on the door and let myself in. I would go get the amp and mandolin out if they weren’t already waiting. Wayne would grab me a Diet Coke and we would play until our fingers were sore. Often Monica would be out running errands but if she was home she would sit in the recliner and sometimes sing. Other times she would take a nap and her snoring was our bass. We would laugh, play and enjoy the moment music brought.

Several years ago I went to the birthplace of country music in Bristol, TN. At the end of the museum was a large wall of fame where people could write notes. I wrote Wayne’s name down and sent a picture fo Monica. If anyone deserved to be on a wall of fame in bluegrass it was Wayne. A self taught musician in his mid years, he was amazing. He played in southern Wisconsin in bluegrass bands. His girls tell me he played so much better when he was younger. I heard the cd’s. They were probably right and yet there is something that changes with age in music that can’t be described. It’s beauty in its own right. The most wonderful thing about older aged people, they aren’t too busy to spend time with you. Never did I call and ask if Wayne could jam ( what musicians call playing together), did Wayne or Monica say “nope too busy.” There may have been a dr visit to work around, but never too busy to play. If I could come down, Wayne was ready.

The hardest thing in life is watching the body fail the heart. Several weeks ago Wayne couldn’t play. His mind knew the songs, his heart remembered the melody but his fingers failed to make the music. The last few times We were together it was just my hands playing and my voice singing to Wayne. It was ok but it wasn’t the same.

My dates with Wayne ended yesterday. Jesus called him home. We all talk about the angel band and singing around the throne, and that may be true. Yet I can see Wayne sitting in a corner with a bunch of others who have the same heart. I can almost hear them call out “wildflower in the key of D.” Every jammer knows exactly what that means.

Yesterday I cried about as many tears as the songs we played. Why Wayne and I hit if off, I am not sure. But he knew something and I wanted to learn. What I learned goes far beyond Soldiers Joy, Red Wing, Ashokan Farewell or Old Mountain Church. What I will never forget is how the love of music granted us the chance to become friends.

Love counts not the years.

Love is patient and kind.

Love knows no time.

Except the time that I’m with you

As I sit here thinking, I have no instrument to play. That’s usually my way of handling grief and pain. Instead, I have to use my words to grieve. Our words fail us. We don’t know what to say. Wayne always said before I would leave, “ come back any time.” I can’t come back to where life was but I can come back to the feeling music gives. I can play the songs and they will be memories of the sweetest kind. Tears may come but that will just be softening of the heart to play more music. Just like April showers bring May flowers, tears shed in a song, makes memories last longer. Our dates are over, but forever on my heart will be the moments in the key of D, G and once in awhile C. Those are priceless and I am forever grateful that God, and Monica and Jim (my husband) allowed me the chance to have dates with Wayne.

I have heard this song so many times but for some reason yesterday in worship it hit a twang inside. We are planting corn, flowers and gardens. I am well aware of weeds. When I was a kid we had to walk the bean rows and pull weeds. My dad would pay me one penny for every goldenrod I pulled out of the field. Believe me when I say I earned those pennies. It was one of our defenses against weeds: remove them.

Nowadays we till, spray, Cultivate, respray, listen to the agronomist and add something else to the combination. We are using everything we can, many defenses against the weeds. We would like a great abundant crop. Therefore we attack anything that wants to grow that may take away from our crop growth and yield.

As we sang that song yesterday it dawned on me. Jesus gives us one option. We don’t have spiritual roundup, or heavenly hoes, or Emmanuel’s eliminator when it comes to getting rid of anything in our lives that keep us from growing, we have only one line of defense. The line in the song, my one defense, my righteousness smacked me right between the eyes. I have tried other ways to keep sin out of my heart. I don’t think I am the only one. I make sure I don’t watch things that divert my attention, I don’t listen to what I shouldn’t and I put blinders on. Although that’s a good thing, if Jesus isn’t turning the wheel, I am going to continue to drive erratically. I don’t need the formulas as much as I desperately need the one who created the formulas. “ I need you Lord I need you, every hour I need you, my one defense, my righteousness, O God how I need you.” Remind me to walk letting Jesus be what I need not settle for other things that may divert my attention but don’t change my heart. Let me focus on his righteousness and not my feeble attempts. Let me confess, find rest, reach for His grace and let that be enough. Then, I will find His defense is a much better spiritual weed puller and heart ground tiller than on my own I could ever.

•