Category: Devotions

So….. it sounded good. The reviews on line were great. Grandmas chicken recipe, fried chicken and duck tenders; what could be better? Well, most anything would have been better. Somewhere we missed the no air conditioner, must spend $6 per person, $3 extra for sharing a meal, and food not served at the same time. Jim’s fries were fried hard and cold, chicken had no taste, my baked potato and green beans were good but $8 was a bit spendy…they had very little food that wasn’t fried. I don’t do greasy fried foods much of at all. There were 14 of us and 11 of us would give it a thumbs down… haven’t talked to the other 3 since then…

So who do we believe? When something is rated highly, well recommended and you are up for an adventure sometimes you have those times where you slightly regret what you chose. However on the bright side, we laughed a lot, had a great tome as sweat was running down every part of our body. You can always find something to redeem the moment. If you look you can spot a ray of sun on. Rainy day, even if it means the rain will stop tomorrow.

And that brings up our responsibility as one who recommends and rates something highly. Do we really recommend the experience to someone else or are we just being nice? I wouldn’t eat there again and if someone in Peoria ask me for a cool place to eat, it would not be that place… would one truthful? Would I be kind and truthful? Would I be objective and not worry about people liking me or not liking me based on my experience and recommendation? Would I go on the web site and write a negative post to counter the raving reviews which weren’t really accurate in our circumstances?

There is a time to speak the truth and then there are times to just walk away. Don’t rant and rave over something that doesn’t deserve the accolades and don’t trash something just because your experience wasn’t like another’s. We just all went away saying, well we had a lot of fun. Army men fights, spilled water and laughter…. sometimes that’s the nicest review to give.

Helplessness. How does one handle the feeling of helplessness? How does one hold the heart of a friend in ones hands and have nothing to offer but love? I can’t find it, put a band-aid on it, turn back time or see the future. I can’t offer anything but love and it feels so helpless. Why do we as people want to fix things? Because they are broken. It’s not the why did the chicken cross the road question, it’s very simply the fact that I want to stop hurt and plug the hole and then patch and dry wall and paint it. When I cannot do that, I feel helpless. And yet in our helpless condition we start looking at life. Life that is full of frustration, hurt, accidents and broken legs. Why? Why not? Helpless? Because there are moments God wants us to look at our humanness and see Him. When I am doing something I begin to think I did it. Well, of course I did it, but without God my “did it” moments are pretty measly. I am helpless. I am not without help. My help comes from God who made the heavens. That psalm gives me hope and help. I can hug and love. I can pray and praise. I can sing and share. I can cry because there is nothing else to do and there are times crying is on the menu. And when I think it can’t get any worse, and it does, I can simply say “seek to find abiding presence in God, not answers ” and somehow my helplessness doesn’t seem to deep and the mountain of doubt and fear so high. If I seek to abide in the presence of God, I don’t need as many answers as I think I need. So easy to write; so hard to do…

I don’t believe in happenstance. I don’t believe that luck or being In The right place at the right time exists. I believe God does things to meet our needs in the right place, right time and the right way.

It was one of those days, a typical Sunday morning. I put the guitar and the worship order and words in the truck and headed to where I would be leading worship. I was going a bit fast up the oxbow hill, after all it’s a hill, and noticed a sheriff car behind me. Right behind me. Like on my tail behind me. A million thoughts went through my head, one being, I can get pulled over and still have time and not be late. And then, I have only had one ticket in 45 years of driving. I did have a few more thoughts going through as I waited for the lights to pull me over when he suddenly pulled out, passed me and as he did hit the lights. However, he wasn’t slowing down as if he expected me to pull over. He was moving out. I lost sight of him around the Next bend. I found him again in Douglass, right outside the Methodist church where I was pretty sure my aunt and Uncle were sitting. In a matter of seconds, the ambulance was coming toward me. Was it happenstance that someone passed out, ( I got the scoop from my uncle later in the day) to avoid a ticket? Probably not, but perhaps I should be a bit more cautious…my guardian angel doesn’t need to work overtime… In worship, the computer screen went white, and the PowerPoint didn’t work,so I just had them pick up a hymnal and we did the first two songs out of the book before the reboot and words appeared on the screen. Was it luck that the one song I would be singing was in the hymnal and I turned to a song that everyone knew as I picked up the book? Probably not, but as the pastor got up to speak and began talking about guardian angels it did make me think that God probably had a lot more to do with my day than I tend to give him credit for. The Wills of Psalm 91 are many and we sometimes forget that God isn’t as fickle as we are. God will deliver me, will-cover me, will be my shield, and he promises that I will not be afraid of the terrors at night nor the dangers of the day… That includes the bogey man and the imp on my shoulder that tells me something bad might happen.

So was it just luck that after lunch I ran into Savers and was looking through some kids books and found this one sitting right in front…like it wanted me to grab it? I am not sure how and why God put me where he did today, but I have the feeling he wanted me to not just read Psalm 91 but memorize and live it…

It happened the other day. I had been gone for a few weeks. When being picked up from the airport my daughter brought “the dog”. I sat in the backseat with the dog and for the next hour and ten minutes I had to pet, rub, pet, rub, love up, snuggle and pet “the dog”.

It happened again this morning. My thought was to get up and let the dog go to the bathroom and then lie on the couch and sleep a bit longer. Nay. It became a love me, pet me, rub me, pet me, rub me and snuggle me moment. I had the dog all to myself. No one or no other dog was anywhere near to compete for attention. That didn’t seem to matter: it was as if the dog couldn’t get enough love, get close enough or be held long enough.

How would I feel differently if I fought to get as close as humanly possible to God like the puppy was trying to get to me? Would I truly lay down at the end of the couch after a love session exhausted and happy? Would I sleep better knowing that all I had done was all I could do to be loved by God as the puppy had been trying to get every inch of love out of me?

And then, I turn to go into the house and the puppy acts as if he hasn’t had any life for eons,,,, and we start it all over again… what if I desperately sought God like that?

We have been in Germany. It all began when we decided to help others and become foster parents. I, especially, wanted to make a difference in kids lives and felt we had a lot left in the tank to offer. We went through the training and were approved. Our house didn’t make it so well. The windows were 2 inches too short and a few other things. We decided that was too big of a list to try to finagle and we closed the door on that idea… We were at the fair and Jim was talking to someone about corn stoves and I looked across the aisle and there was a foreign exchange group. I walked over and asked if they ever had kids who wanted to ride horse. She told me she could give me 4 names right now. We talked about it later and after thinking about it thought it was worth a try. After all they would be going home when they were done with their year. The person we chose was almost totally based on a photo… a photo of her and her grandfather. The way she looked, if someone loved their grandpa that much they must be wonderful. We were not mistaken. This week I had the honor of meeting Ompa; Gerhart.

That kid that came to us from Germany as a 15 year old kid is now quite the young lady. Baihley has been over here and went on holidays with her, she came back last year for 6 weeks to spend more time with us. Truly a denial by social services turned into a blessing we had no idea was waiting.

We have been in Germany. We have sat at the table, walked through former concentration camps, climbed steeples, laughed until our sides hurt and ate together. When Jesus ate with people it must have been just as much fun for him. Eating together opens the heart. Jesus did that a lot. Walking through their lives tells us so much about ourselves. We are people; created by a wonderful creator who loves to put things together that make people smile. There is no other reason for a giraffe or hippopotamus but to make us giggle.

This week we were thankfully blessed. Their daughter lives with us for 9 months and has become part of our family. Then she returned, as part of our family. Now we, are a part of their life. Oma and Ompa, the castles, picking hollyhocks to take back to Minnesota, talking, laughing; especially laughing and yesterday wandering through a church that was bomber during world war 2, makes several hearts become one heart. We had no clue what we would experience. We found out beer gardens are not what they are in the states, that bratwurst have no buns, that German chocolate cake isn’t German, that most of what we think about is the same regardless of language or culture. Children, parents, friends, sickness and God are a part of people’s lives regardless of the degrees on the longitude and latitude spectrum. We walked more steps than we have ever in a weeks time period, we ate more, sat at a table in the backyard and talked more than we normally ever do. Over here they sit and talk. No television on, no cell phones in people’s noses, although they have them, we drank , laughed and learned what Germany history means to them now. My grandmothers family came from Germany. It’s in my blood but now it’s in my heart.

Jesus spent time with people That’s how he loved people. We have seen that this week. We have felt that this week. We are coming home exhausted but renewed. And we have new family from a place far away. They told us that’s how they felt when they came to America three years ago to get Johanna. We showed them our fun spots, ate picnics in the park, bonfires and laughed…. they saw our world and now we have seen theirs. Maybe there is no deep spiritual meaning. Maybe there is no deep change in someone life when we spend time with them but Jesus simply showed us that eating supper, sharing hollyhock seeds , walking through old castles and laughing is investing in people. Those investments are so much better than any other kind…