Category: Devotions

Last night one song came to my head in the oddest , really cool way: and it had nothing to do with the price of beans in China. We use those phrases to emphasize a point, but here it actually had nothing to do with anything I was doing and was “random” in the most wonderful way.

Page 180- It wasn’t just the alto lead on the chorus, or the Bass walking down the scale to hit the Bb, it was something about the song I loved. The song, “On the Jericho Road.” It’s amazing how quick I forget today the things I need to remember, but I can sing every verse of that song from over 60 years ago. It ends with the phrase, “There’s never a care, for Jesus is there.”

So fast forward 60 plus years after I began singing the song, 94 years after the song was written, in the middle of a lake my eyes were opened once again like Blind Bartimaeus. Let me remind you about the song, as some of you may be in the dark. (pun indented- he was healed of his blindness)

Jesus didn’t randomly walk; On the Jericho Road was a place he would walked: a lot. It was a road between, yes you guessed it- Jericho and Jerusalem. It’s a 15 mile walk about but don’t let that deceive you- the elevation goes from 878 feet below sea level to 2472 in those miles. In between the two places. Bethany is on that road, that Jericho Road. Jesus is found on that road in Mark 10.

“ Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.”

Our eyes are opened at different times in our lives. Sometimes Jesus heals our emotional blindness, sometimes it is blindness we have chosen, sometimes it is blinders others have put on us, and other times it’s just like, “duh, why haven’t I seen that before?” Jesus healed Bartimaeus but he before he did, he asked him what he wanted him to do. Actually, he didn’t say I want you to heal me, he said, “I want to see.” Jesus asks me what I want him to do. I either make a list and highlight, or I hem and haw and try to make it sound spiritual. This man spit it out: “I want to see”. I want to watch the birds fly, see a child run, see the waves dance on the shore that I can hear, and know what the voice speaking to me looks like. I want to see. He didn’t say that, but I imagine he thought it.

In the past year or so, God has opened my eyes. I am getting older. What is my life worth? How am I really making a difference, what if the best years are over? Those are questions I don’t think I am alone in asking inside my heart. But lately God has opened my eyes to answers that I hadn’t asked for. I have been thrown into a basket of others who are teaching me about love in a way I haven’t “seen” and definitely experienced. Many times, God answers our prayers with what we need rather than what is on our list because he knows what we need to “see” not what we want to “see.”

So, on a boat in the middle of the lake God opened my eyes. It wasn’t on the Jericho Road, it wasn’t anywhere near a road and it wasn’t in Israel, it was actually in Northern Wisconsin. I was driving the boat. The kids were trying to stand in the middle of the pontoon while I switched directions and threw them off balance. Yes, the mothers were there, and it was actually very safe! Well, maybe kind of safe. But the bigger thing I “saw” was the way I could actually throw them to the side of the boat, yes, it is kind of fun, was to pull back on the throttle quickly, halting the forward progress. That would send them all over the boat staggering and laughing. It was like a light bulb going off: my Bartimaeus moment in the middle of a lake not on a road. God changes the speeds of my life not to throw me off, but to laugh and enjoy each speed. I love my sabbaticals: they renew refresh and bring new ideas to my already bursting cranium. The reminder of the song and the last phrase, “There’s never a care, for Jesus is there” was all the blind man on the road needed. My Jericho roads, the places I frequent, the places I go by and don’t see anymore because I have seen them so much are the places Jesus wants to open my eyes. On a boat in the middle of the lake, having fun was an eye opener and a gentle reminder that Jesus opens eyes for a purpose. Jesus gives us people to invest in us, love us, dote on us, spoil us simply so our eyes can be opened. What are you looking at but not seeing? Maybe you need to start walking the Jericho Road, or better yet, come on up to the lake! I will take you for a spin. If you aren’t dizzy when we get done, maybe you will have a “I want to see” moment. God seems to show me a lot of them at the lake.

If I could, but I probably would not. Because if I could, I usually do. I hear people say, if I could do this or that, I would change the world and I think, no you wouldn’t or you would have already tried. It seems valiant our efforts when we are outside the gate looking at the bucking bronco, but things change slightly when we get on the saddle and they open the gate.

If I could, I would think more before I speak. Remember Nehemiah, chapter one we read,

“4When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

5Then I said:.”

I don’t think, if I am honest, I have sat down and wept and mourned for days fasting and praying before I did the saying! What if I did? Then, if I could, I would with wisdom and perhaps counsel from God!

Forget the update, I needed the date.

Someone sent me a note the other day giving me an update! I kind of sat back down in my seat, not that I was rising to go run a marathon or anything, and read it again. Seems to me, no one sent me the “date” so the “update” was kind of, well a big surprise.

The definition of “update” is the act of bringing someone up to date, or update the version of something. I get it all the time with the computers. “Your update is ready to download” which is confusing if you don’t understand computerese.

Jesus did an update: brought an old commandment with a new version. It’s in John 13. “A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one anther as I have loved you, that you also love one another. “

So Jesus updates the Ten Commandments. They leaders loved their checks and balances. The crossing stuff off the to do list on the fridge kind of mentality: did that Lord, didn’t do that.

But Jesus does an update. Love like he loved, and then he repeats himself telling us to also, which means in addition to, love one another. Is that kind of remind you of telling someone to do something and by the quizzical look on their face you get the idea, they didn’t understand the update!

I was totally confused with the update because I didn’t get the original. Perhaps why we don’t get Jesus update to love one another is because we haven’t read enough of the original, the Bible, so that an update is possible. If you don’t download a computer program, you will never need to update it! If we don’t know God’ word, and understand God loving us through the history of the Old Testament, we won’t really need an update!

Updates also, maybe it’s because my computers are old or I am, take your pick, takes times. The circle spins in the middle of the computer screen and we impatiently wait for it to download so we can get on with life. Learning to love like Jesus loved, is a lot more megabytes than some of us have room in our hearts for. Delete a bunch of old files, clean up your computer hard drive, called the heart, and get ready for an update!

Strangely Dim….. our row sang the right words,, At first by accident and then out of refusal to accept the “new version”. The reasoning behind the change of words the pastor explained…. the putting a new tune to it didn’t go with our brains either. It’s like singing Happy Birthday to a different tune; it can be done but why? So that bothered me the rest of the day… or perhaps not bothered …okay yes, it bothered me.

What is strangely dim and why did the author put it there. So,,, according to my research “Turn your eyes upon Jesus” was written by Helen Lemmel. She was a gifted musician and singer and taught music at Moody Bible Institute. She was inspired to write “Heavenly Vision” which we call “Turn your eyes upon Jesus” based on the remarks made by a very gifted artist who felt called after praying for two years, that she must lay down her love of art in order to fix her eyes solely on Jesus, and on His calling to the mission field. She subsequently served for more than 38 years as a missionary to Muslims of Algeria. She also authored several books and tracts. The following is an excerpt from her tract, Which Passion Will Prevail?

“Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen harmless worlds at once — art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the good hiding the best.”

It is easy to find out whether our lives are focused, and if so, where the focus lies. Where do our thoughts settle when consciousness comes back in the morning? Where do they swing back when the pressure is off during the day? Dare to have it out with God, and ask Him to show you whether or not all is focused on Christ and His Glory. Turn your soul’s vision to Jesus, and look and look at Him, and a strange dimness will come over all that is apart from Him.”

– Lilias Trotter

So in light (pun intended) of knowing now what I know about the words “strangely dim” I still want to keep the old words and the melody even more than it simply being a part of my musical history. Trotter was an artist. I connect with artists. She loved putting colors on canvas and making them leap out in beauty. Yet, her love for God and serving him was stronger than her love for painting. To use “dim’ for an artist whose idea of light makes the canvas live, was to remind us that to dim the lights means you can still see the objects; they are simply not as bright. But as we are in the “dimness” our eyes get used to it and we think it’s light. God made our eyes accustom to darkness so we can see.

But strangely dim…. I see (pun intended) is not the same kind of dimness we think about. It’s a strange dimness. We can’t see as well; we can’t accustom to the darkness and the oddity of lack of light. When we focus on what God wants us to see and His beauty, the things in life that draw us away from him are strangely dim. They are there but it’s different, it’s odd, it’s dark, it’s strange and because we are focused on God, the light is so bright from His glory that we can’t accustom our eyes to the attraction the other stuff used to have on our lives. The more we focus on Him, the more we have a hard time getting our eyes to see what is in the darkness; it’s a strangely dim situation.

So actually the song written with the original words remind us that turning our eyes to Jesus who is the “light” does affect our ability to focus on things that are not in the light. I’m not sure God is calling all of us to lay down our paintbrushes and go to the Mission field, but he is called us to a mission.

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In the early hours of the morning, before the sun came up, the kids stood in line for the bus and the garbage man came to grab the black and blue containers outside my friends home, I struggled with 1 Corinthians 14. It’s after the love chapter: what could be more difficult than love? Actually, love is not a feeling, love is not a place, love is not a ring. Yes, love hurts, love is not endless, and it fades, and you sometimes have to do more than, tell someone you love them in a song. Love isn’t as easy as some people make it look and it’s much easier than others struggle to express. So the struggle? The struggle is to internalize, process then pass it on.

1 Cor. 14 reduces it down to three things.

“Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy. 2 For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. 3 But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort.”

We get so scared of the word prophecy. It’s like that word no one wants to utter on the playground. It’s actually being the mouthpiece of God. So technically, we prophesy all day. Sometimes we actually are the mouthpiece of God. Other times we are our own trumpet blaring loudly. Tear the verse apart-

Follow the way of love. Stopping there could take a long detour. Simply spoken, love leads you to do things that honor others and honor God by honoring others. Do that. Do you want the things that the Holy Spirit has for you? Things like, evidence God is working in your life, such as actions of love, joy, peace ? From there, the verse talks about tongues which is another topic people hide under the coffee table so they don’t have to understand it’s meaning. So skip it because it doesn’t really help or hinder the meaning of the verse and jump right into prophecy, or being the mouthpiece of God.

We are mouthpieces. Just bring up a topic, any topic, and you will find people loudly sharing their mouthpiece. We try to convince others, persuade by vocalization loudly proclaiming our opinion and hope someone else quits talking so we can assert another opinion. God doesn’t really speak opinion have you noticed? We do, but God pretty much says, love me, love the one beside you. There isn’t much room for opinion there. There is plenty of room for love. The verse ends by telling us to encourage, strengthen and comfort. Well, that’s more of a piece than a mouthpiece. However, if we take the mouth-piece and live it, it will become something that shows encouragement, lives to strengthen others and demonstrates comfort. That’s a bit harder than just being a mouthpiece. I like to talk, spoiler alert, but there are times when I sit and marvel as I watch God unfold in front of my eyes a living canvas that words cannot describe. Prophecy or the mouthpiece of God? Yes- big time! Can I do it? I can try, and somewhere through my efforts and my struggle to be Jesus, I pray I encourage, strengthen and comfort. At least I am walking along side and making an effort to blow God out so others see, feel or hear his voice and hopefully they hear God louder than they hear me.