Have you ever been on a safari? My friends who have been say they are amazing, life-changing experiences.

Once your plane lands, the safari company takes care of all the arrangements. They plan your travel, your rooms, your meals, your adventures. A High School classmate of mine who works for one of these companies tells about the amount of thought and planning that goes into making these experiences enjoyable, memorable, and as pain-free as possible.

A safari exposes you to a new world; encourages you to see the interconnection of people and nature; gives you an appreciation of vastly different cultures. Those who have been pause in silence while remembering the awe they experienced.

Of course, there is travel, expense, and discomfort involved in going on a safari. There is a fear of the unknown that holds many of us back. Talking with those who have been on the journey is reassuring. Talking with someone who works in the industry gives you a deeper insight into the daily wonders, and dangers, of living in a bush camp; of the efforts made to give visitors the best possible experience; and the importance of a healthy, supportive relationship with the local villages.

It may feel like a bit of a stretch, but often I feel I am on safari with God. I have signed up and gotten on the plane, but He is planning out all the details; He is setting up the adventures.

For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. Ephesians 2:10

This is my 52nd post. I was not sure I would make it – a year of weekly posts. That’s a lot of self discipline I didn’t know I had. But God has been there, is here, for every step of this adventure.

He has given me words, and ideas, and a garden, and a computer, and Christian friends. I have no delusions that this little blog is changing the world, but I remain convinced that God wants me to write it, and continue writing it. And that’s enough.

I don’t need to know today what adventures the Lord has planned for me in the future. I don’t need to plan them myself. Like the guide on a safari, God knows what places to avoid, where the best viewing is, and what experiences will benefit me. I will trust Him to lead me.

It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed. Deuteronomy 31:8

He has exposed me to a world I knew little about. He has shown me how much more there is to know. He has deepened my sense of interconnection with the world, and given me an appreciation of vastly different cultures.

Of course, there is spiritual travel, emotional expense, and intellectual discomfort involved in trusting God to lead me. There is a fear of the unknown that sometimes holds me back. Talking with those who have been on the journey, with other believers, is reassuring. Talking with someone who works in the industry, with ministers and faith leaders, gives me a deeper insight into the daily wonders, and dangers, of Christian living; of the efforts made by the Church to give visitors the best possible experience; and the importance of a healthy, supportive relationship with the surrounding community.

But I have to pause in silence as I remember the awe I have experienced in His presence. Nothing can compare.

I will go before you and level the mountains. I will break into pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and riches hidden in secret places, so that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name. Isaiah 45:2-3

Will you go on the God safari with me? It is an amazing, life-changing experience.

Betsy

As Lent approaches, I am thinking about what, if anything, I will give up, As a Protestant, how and if I observe Lent is a personal decision; it’s between God and me. The Spirit sent Jesus into the wilderness to fast, and God instructed the Israelites to give up yeast before Passover. What, if anything, is God asking me to give up?

Years ago, I was in a Bible study and confessed that I was sometimes afraid of what the Lord might ask me to do. “What,” I pondered, “if He asked me to kill my child?”

Immediately, a friend chimed in, “He would never ask you to do that!” A pastor’s wife, she was voicing the theology most of us carry of a loving God who brings life, not takes it.

The problem is that God did ask someone to kill their child.

God said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” Genesis 22:2-3

And Abraham obeyed this command, following it to the point of tying Issac down and taking the knife in his hand.

Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you. Genesis 22:16-17

We take comfort in God stopping Abraham from completing the act, bur Abraham did not know that He would. That, my friend, is radical faith.

Has God ever asked you to offer to Him something you hold dear? A relationship? A hobby or habit? Your reputation? Your profession? Your wealth?

I still hesitate in asking God’s advice because I am not sure I am ready to follow it. Mentally, this makes no sense. God is Creator, and all knowing, and the source of all truth and wisdom; why would I hesitate to follow Him? I regularly ask Him to do what I want Him to do (healing, peace, reconciliation, change). Why do I fear what He may ask me to do? Is this not the double-mindedness that James warns us of in his letter (James 1:6-8)?

What if God asks me to give up something I hold dear?

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Mark 110:21-22

It’s hard to give things up. Part of cleaning out my garage has been getting rid of stuff. A lot if it is not stuff I hold dear, but stuff Nick held onto. Even after three and a half years, I find it challenging and emotionally charged to rid my garage of his stuff.

My daughter reminds me that when we are asked to give up some of our treasure, it may not be about us at all. Perhaps God knows that someone else needs it more than we do.

In a study years ago, the teacher asked, “What are you holding onto so tightly that it hurts when God rips it from your hand?” Because God does not want us to value anything more than we value our relationship with Him. Not our reputation, not our family, not our money, not even our theology or our plans, and certainly not our stuff.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Matthew 16:24

So, I hesitate to ask for God’s advice. Am I ready to follow it? His advice is not one of many various options from which I can pick and choose what I want. His advice, His word, is life.

Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock. Matthew 7:24

What is God asking you to give up? Ask, but be prepared to follow.

Betsy

I took a minute the other day to look at my garage. What a disaster! Dark and dirty, stuff piled everywhere. Could I even find something if I needed to? What was that stuff on that shelf back there I couldn’t get to?

I know; it’s January. Time to shape up and get organized!

But it looks too hard for me.

What is it in me that makes me want to give up before I have even started?

Faced with this seeming overwhelming task, I am reminded of the old saying: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. But how to start? How do I take that first bite?

I am fascinated by the space between idea and action. For some people, this space is large and extended; for others, it seems almost non-existent. This space is the home of intentions; and intentions can be messy. Intentions elevate manslaughter to murder, and recklessness to bravery. Sometimes bad intentions hide in kind acts. Sometimes, a lack of action negates good intentions. Are your intentions honorable? Are mine?

For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. Matthew 12:34-35

For now, I intend to make my garage an inviting space. One bite at a time.

So on Day One, I spent an hour in the attic. It’s a walk up attic; very handy, but everything gets piled at the top of the stairs, and the back half of the attic is almost empty.

If I was going to save some of this garage stuff in the attic, I needed to make room!

It amazes me what an old lady like me can accomplish in an hour! It’s encouraging. That elephant is tasty!

On Day Two, I actually began moving things to the attic; mostly things I had taken out of the attic and not returned. I intentionally did not put them at the top of the stairs. The picture above is after day two; only to say that it had been worse! I am not turning this into a garage blog, but I’ll keep you posted!

This little success has encouraged me. The untilled garden space in the backyard looks like another elephant, especially since last year’s garden was such a failure. Perhaps my intentions were askew last year. I was more interested in writing about my garden than actually growing food. I was more interested in your approval than God’s.

One bite at a time; one day at a time. The garden, the garage, spiritual growth, life.

God does not ask us to solve all the problems of the world. God does not ask us to perform herculean tasks. God asks us to search our intentions, our heart, and take the first bite.

They said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat? And Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” Mark 6:37-38

Not enough to feed five thousand or more. Not an obvious solution. Just one first step, good intentions and faith in Jesus.

Wherever you are, whatever you are facing, whatever elephant stares back at you, even if it’s as seemingly insignificant as a messy garage, you can trust God to help you face it, tackle it and conquer it.

In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Romans 8:37

Betsy

Just for kicks sometime, read through the New Testament and every time Jesus says “I am” read “God.”

After all, that is God’s name, YHWH, I am who I am, I am (Exodus 3:14).

God the bread of life; God the light of the world; God the alpha and the omega; before Abraham, God.

And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Matthew 28:20

We are not alone. We never have been. Not as a people, not as a race, not as a generation, not as an individual. Recognize it or not, admit it or not, God is.

I have been physically alone more these past three years than I have ever been. A little quiet alone time was always something I treasured when people crowded my life. But after Nick’s death, and with Covid, that quiet aloneness was sometimes overwhelming. But I was never really alone. God was with me. God is with me.

It seems a little haughty somehow to claim that God is with me, but that is exactly what He promised; not just that He is with me, but that He is with us. Not because we are worthy of His presence, but because He desires to be with us.

Sometimes, when I am frustrated that people can choose not to believe in God, I wish He would do some mighty act that would prove His existence. But He has. He had done many mighty acts, and people still deny Him. We may wonder how the crowd from Exodus could deny God while still receiving manna, but are we much better? Did raising Lazarus from the dead bring religious leaders to their senses? Did Jesus’ resurrection? Perhaps it is not the mighty acts that prove God’s existence, but the smallest incidents of individuals feeling His presence.

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown, it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches, Matthew 13:31-32

So that smallest of things, you and me knowing that He is, could be just the thing that brings in His kingdom. Yahweh. Just saying it aloud causes us to breathe in and out, causes us to breathe, which gives us life. It seems a little thing, but it is not. Because He is with us. And His presence in a place makes that place a temple. Like Marine One, which is not a specific helicopter, but whatever helicopter the president is on, so the temple is not a specific place, but the place where God is. And if God is with us, then we are His temple.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. I Corinthians 3:16-17

I feel woefully inadequate to the task, the littlest of seeds. But of course, it is not the beauty of the building that makes a place a temple; it is God. So my “job,” if you will, is to acknowledge God’s presence. God is, and God is with us, YHWH, Emmanuel.

The glory that you have given me, I have given them, so that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. John 17:22-23

I am, with you. God is, with us.

Betsy

I woke up to the sound of wind this morning. A low humming that rose and fell in pitch and volume. I’m sure there’s some scientific reason for how wind creates sound, but does that make it less amazing? I can’t see it; the only evidence it exists is the tree’s reaction to it. And that sound. Tornado and hurricane survivors speak of the sound of a freight train – powerful sounds, powerful forces, the wind. If I were blind (and indoors), could I identify that sound as wind?

From inside my home, I watch the barren tree limbs move as if by free will. They are dancing round about, back and forth, with no apparent purpose; and then they rest, as if tired from their exploits. The leaves on the magnolia tree shake and shiver. Then the sound picks up, and the dancing begins again.

Wind, breath, spirit. The Greeks and Romans envisioned wind as a god blowing air across the land. Simplistic to our 21st century brains, and yet. Isn’t there something beyond our grasp in the wind? Isn’t there something majestic and powerful and beyond our control?

And suddenly from heaven came a sound like the rush of violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Acts 2:2

Wind can be a gentle breeze on a warm day, cooling and refreshing us. Wind can uproot trees and blow away buildings. The wind ushers in changes in weather and stills the sails in calm seas. Always changing, ever present, unpredictable, uncontrollable. Somewhat like God. We know it’s there. We can feel it; we can hear it; we can see the results of its presence. But the wind does not operate at our beck and call, nor is it restricted by our expectations.

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. John 3:8

We do know, 2000 years later, that wind is created when air particles move from high pressure areas to low pressure areas; and we know the variation in the way the sun heats the earth causes the different air pressures. Somehow this knowledge does not take the mystery and beauty and wonder out of the wind. Nor does this knowledge enable us to control the wind.

Wind is amazing to watch. How many of us have stood at the window watching as the newscasters urged us to get to our “safe place”? I know I have.

Is it any wonder the wind reminds me of God? Mighty and marvelous, gentle and refreshing. Able to lift a kite into the sky or a ship across the sea. Able to change the landscape in a day.

Thus says the Lord: I am going to break down what I have built, and pluck up what I have planted – that is, the whole land. Jeremiah 45:4

I believe in wind. I have felt it. I have heard it. I have seen the tree branches and leaves move, even if I can’t see the actual wind. I know it can revive me on a hot day. I know it can harm me. A source of comfort, a source of change, a source of power. A lot like God.

I believe in God. I have felt His presence. I have heard Him whisper in my ear. I have seen obstacles and situations move and change, even if I can’t see God. He revives me when I am burdened. He holds my fate in His hands. A source of comfort, a source of change, a source or power.

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Genesis 1:1-2

I woke to the sound of wind this morning…

Betsy

I like to plan. It gives me a false sense that I have some level of control over what’s happening in my life. I tell myself that I plan to make sure everyone else has an enjoyable time, but I fear I am trying to avoid their criticism.

I am not alone in this love of planning. There are entire industries devoted to helping us plan. It’s hard to imagine what life was like before there were calendars. The Covid shutdown may have wiped them clean for a while, but I was eager to get back to planning things.

What I have learned, over time and through much frustration, is that I must make plans in pencil, preferably a pencil with a large eraser. This was certainly true while Nick was suffering through surgeries, chemo, and failing health. It has also been true this past fall. Awaiting the birth of twins, their arrival on Thanksgiving week, extended family coming and going with their own plans, surgeries and biopsies thrown in the mix, why bother owning a pen?

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such-and-such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. James 4:13-14

And now it’s the new year. 2023 – shouldn’t we have flying cars? Did you make a new year’s resolution? I will admit I stopped making them a long time ago. I eased into it by dubbing the upcoming year “the year of the house,” or “the year for travel.” But I found that I rarely knew in January what the upcoming year would hold. Last January, I didn’t know what a blog was. Last January, my daughter was not pregnant and lived in Fort Worth.

So I will make my plans in pencil. I hope to have a garden. I have been scheming on ways to enrich the soil, hinder weeds among the sugar snaps, frustrate the robber squirrels and chipmunks. I plan to continue this blog. Maybe I’ll have a better garden; hopefully I’m a better writer. God willing, I will have some new things to share. I’d like to spend some time at the beach, and much time at the lake. I plan to spend a lot of time with my grandchildren, and my children and my family and my friends. God willing.

Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” James 4:15

Because who besides God knows what the new year will bring? For the world, for our country, for my family, for me. As civil rights activist Ralph Abernathy famously said, ” I do not know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”

That’s why I do not stress about not being able to plan in pen. It’s a little scary to be open to wherever the Lord may send my way. I make my plans, but I prepare myself for God changing them. I try to leave words like “never” and “always” out of my vocabulary. I keep telling myself that any relationship is more important than any plan I make. A hard lesson for those of us who like to plan. I remind myself that my plans need to be subject to His plans.

His plans are better than mine; better for the world, better for His kingdom, better for me.

And He is with us. No matter what happens. To the end of the age.

Now to Him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21

Happy New Year!

Betsy

I have heard a lot of talk recently that our world is in crisis, and that “the end is nigh.” I have a sense that this is a lot of fear-mongering and marketing for a cause. But what if they are right?

On the one hand, haven’t people always felt that way? Isn’t this just God’s way of reminding us that our world could end today via a massive stroke or car accident? Shouldn’t we always be ready to face Jesus?

Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. Hebrews 4:7

On the other hand, what if it is true? What if God is warning us that these are the end times? What if He is just warning our country that it is in its end times? How do I respond to that? 

Does disaster befall, unless the Lord has done it? Surely the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secrets to his servants, the prophets. The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy? Amos 3:6-8

A few years back, billboards appeared around my town that proclaimed that Jesus was returning on thus and such a date. I must admit that I scoffed. After all, we all know that only the Father knows the times He has set (Acts 1:7). So I rolled my eyes and called him a fool. Guilty; see Matthew 5:22. What if God had given him that specific word and directed him (or her) to proclaim it? Maybe, like Jonah, they were pronouncing a judgement that wouldn’t happen. Maybe whomever God intended this message to reach repented. Who am I to scoff?

So what if the doomsday predictions are correct? What if our society collapses? What if there is a civil war? What if God unleashes the angels of war, disease, famine and death upon the earth? What if our lives become really, really hard? What, as a Christian, is my response?

The end of all things is near, therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. I Peter 4:7-9

Hospitality does not seem to be the plan of most “preppers,” unless they plan to share all that they are now hoarding. I grapple with what I would do if evildoers came to take what I have saved for myself and my family. Certainly we are called to care for our families. Certainly we are called to keep enough oil in our lamps (Matt. 25) and prepare for famine (Gen. 41). But Jesus also tells us not to store up earthly treasures, which thieves can steal. Jesus calls us to store up heavenly treasures instead. (Matt. 8:19-21)

Maybe the answer is to not put our faith in what we have stored. Perhaps I should not have faith that my government, the CDC, big agriculture, the marketplace, my IRA, or private gun ownership will be able to stem the tide of disaster if God has ordained it. Perhaps such a disaster instead gives us, as Christians, the opportunity to witness to a better Way. A way of love; a way of putting other’s need above our own (Phil. 2:3-4), a way of laying down our lives for our friends (John 15:13).

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their crosses and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 16:23-25

So yes, repent. The end may be nigh, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Today is the day to draw near to Jesus. Come what may, Jesus has shown us the way.

Lo, I am with you until the end of the age. Matthew 28:20

Happy New Year!

Betsy