Tag Archive | Jesus

Flying Above

Jan25
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Have you ever been on a plane? I love flying, although I find it exhausting. There is something exhilarating about a huge plane leaving the ground and being fully airborne.  It’s like magic and I enjoy watching it as well as experiencing it!

From up in the air the world seems small. You realize how small you are as well. And then when you soar above the clouds, it’s almost as if you can touch heaven.

I once got to watch the sunrise from that high. It was amazing.

There are days I feel like emotionally and spiritually I am able to soar above my trials. Rising up with God lifting my wings and I can see the possibilities of the future before me.

Other days, however, I feel stuck on the ground. Mired in the trials and circumstances of life, and heaven seems so far away.  The clouds blot out the sun and life becomes a series of insurmountable mountains. I really hate those times, yet those are the times when I grow the most as I am forced to look at my own ugly sin that emerges. I am also forced to depend on God.

It might seem that depending on God would be something you would need when up in the air. When you are on a real flight, for some people, that’s where danger lies. You could crash and worst case scenario, die.

However the real danger lies when we are on the ground. When we are face to face with the temptation to sin and our emotions take us for loops that leave us crashing harder than if we had fallen from several miles above.

I long for the days when I am up. I am refreshed by them. However, as much control over I have of a plane taking off. . . is as much control I have over emotionally soaring as well. I’m not in the pilot’s seat. However, I know who is. God, Himself. Jesus. Yeshua. My Lord and the One to whom I dedicate my life.

He is with me when I soar and He is with me when I can’t get my eyes to barely lift up to the hills from whence my help comes (Ps 121).

How about you? Who are you clinging to today? Are you stuck or flying? Do you have any secrets for when you are “grounded?”

Memory Lane

Dec13
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Christmas memories accumulate like snowflakes, or ornaments on a tree. This year was the first that all three children decorated the tree by themselves. Every year they get an ornament, and I write their name and the year on it. It was fun this year to hear my 10,8 and almost 6 year old exclaim as they would hang their own treasures on the tree: “Oh, I remember this one!” and “Look! I was __(age) when I got this!”

The funniest part actually came before the ornaments, when my daughter said “Can we hang the garlic now?” (She meant garland). No vampires for our Christmas!

I remember the year after we moved, and we brought in our artificial tree from storage only to find that mice had made a home in the box and peed all over our tree. Oh, did that ever stink!  I figured it would be a tree-less Christmas until my hubby came up with the bright idea of soaking the tree in buckets of pine-sol in the bathtub. Yup, a disinfected tree that really did smell like pine!

I remember the Christmas after my daughter was born six years ago. We had been at Children’s Hospital for a week. I got to bring my precious daughter to church on Christmas Eve. I was overjoyed at this marvelous gift from God who let us keep her after her medical nightmare.  That was also the year we were blessed to be a part of the “Family Tree” at church and were given a gift card that was extravagantly more than expected.

Or how about the year when I got the tree up and my little girl managed to not only tip it over but break it in the middle? Irreparable. Had to get a new one. Totally would have expected one of my boys to have done this.

Or the year I invited a friend and her four boys over to bake and decorate Christmas cookies with us. Seven children and two adults in 7oo sq ft of space! One boy said “Wow, this is a lot of work!” It was also a lot of fun.

The kids look forward to Santa Claus coming at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. He didn’t make it last year. Something about falling out of a tree and breaking a leg. Thankfully my kids know the truth about Jolly Ole’ St. Nick and weren’t too terribly disappointed. Before you scold me on that, just realize, they still enjoy the tale and the imagination of it all even though if you ask them “What do you want Santa to bring you?” they will give you a blank stare.

2010 is a lean year. Usually there are gifts already piling up under the tree.  I put gifts under the tree as they arrive and get wrapped. We have no place to hide them. It adds to our enjoyment to see the colorful packages under the tree. So far there’s nothing there and the kids are beginning to get a bit worried! There will be something there by the end of this week, not a huge amount but something none-the-less.

My favorite part of the holiday is this: We slow down. We leisurely enjoy Christmas Eve with our church family, and celebrate the magic and wonder of Jesus coming to earth as an infant. We see the lights around town and go home to bed. In the morning we wake up when we are ready, and eventually we make a big breakfast. By 10 or 11 am we might sit and talk again about Christmas and what it means and then open gifts. Maybe later in the day we will visit with family – but generally the best times are just us celebrating our Savior together.

“Every heart that knows His name, lift your voice and sing

To the praise of God with us, this child Redeemer, King

There’s never been a greater love since the world began,

God the Father sent His Son and we held Him in our hand.

He wrapped His love in flesh and blood and took the form of man.”

(Bryan Duncan, “Form of Man”)

The Apple of His Eye

Aug16
Reading Time: 2 minutes

“Guard me as the apple of Your eye: Hide me in the shadow of Your wing.”   (Psalm 17:8 HCSB)

Psalm 17 is a psalm that talks repeatedly of God hearing me, paying attention to me, listening to me, SEEING me. He also answers me, hears what I say, guards and hides me, fills and satisfies me.  When I think of God being my “all in all” this psalm echoes that.

I think that the above verse though, was a concept that truly captured my heart as a young Christian. Feeling a bit disenfranchised by my own family, it was thrilling to know that God delighted in me and looked at me as unique and special, within the mass of humanity He loves, and died for.  I don’t get it.  I’m not unique or special compared to anyone else, yet in His eyes, I am. I’m His favorite! But then – so are you! I could feel a bit jealous about this but it’s easy to fight that because. . .

None of us deserves that kind of love.  The fact that it has been freely offered and I have embraced it, well, that puts me still at the mercy of an amazingly holy God, and I bow my knee in gratitude, only to look up and see a gaze filled, not with the condemnation that I so richly deserve for my sin, but with the love of a favored daughter.

Who wouldn’t want to worship a God like that? Who wouldn’t want to bend their knee and submit to His protection and leading and give all I have to someone who loves so passionately? So completely?

Interesting too, that when we are followers of Christ, He produces fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace. . . (Gal. 5).  Fruit. Character that goes beyond my ability to produce on my own.  Apples.  He sees me as fruitful.

Remember when Jesus walked by a tree that bore no fruit? He condemned it and it died!  (Matt 21:19). Jesus loves fruit! So maybe I’m a bit more of a fruit loop, but as long as I’m fruitful, I’m in the center of His vision and love.  If I chose to abandon Him, I may find myself cursed and withering like that fig tree. God doesn’t move – I do, and when I do, there are consequences.

The only way to be fruitful is to stay grounded in the deep, deep soil of His truth, God’s Word, and tuned into the Holy Spirit. I do this out of deep gratitude for His unfathomable love towards me! I want to be treasured as the apple of God’s eye. Guarded as precious fruit to be preserved and sheltered from storms. Not that they won’t come and I might sometimes feel bruised, but I will always be special in His eyes. I find that a truth that today lifts my heart in praise and worship of my Mighty King. How about you?

I’m attaching a video of an ooooold song by Benny Hester that thinking on this verse reminded me of. It has a long, beautiful piano intro.  Maybe you will find comfort in the words of this song: “Nobody knows me like You.”  It’s true – and that knowledge is because our Creator God – loves YOU and holds You as the apple of His eye.