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The Impossible Love List – Love is Patient
patience – μακροθυμέω mak-roth-oo-meh’-o; to be long-spirited JKV = suffereth long Be patient? Ugh. Some people try my patience more than others. What does that mean? Right here at the top of the list the Apostle Paul generated for me, is a trait that exposes my heart for the temperamental, selfish thing it is. To offer patience is to practice Agape, which I am commanded by Jesus to give. I am to respond to people and situations as one who “suffereth long.” I am to be, as the Greek defines it, a woman who is “long-spirited.” I am to respond to an irritant with patience whether it’s the first or thousandth time I’ve encountered…
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The Prize Package
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you. ~ Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. ~ My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me. ~ As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. Part of my summer reading has been a book written by CS Lewis called Reflections on the Psalms. He spends some time unpacking his personal thoughts (which Lewis is very careful to own as ponderings rather than theology), about the spiritual frame of reference the Jewish poets had in comparison to the…
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A Path to Imprisonment – Part Four
Ingratitude ~ Idolatry ~ Immorality ~ ~Imprisonment~ ____________________ We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. ~Romans 6:6-7~ Imprisonment: captivity through habitual immorality. When God gives a person over to their sin, they are in a most desperate, dangerous place. In that place of ‘being given over’, there is opportunity for a hardening of the heart so that the senses are progressively dulled to the possibility of a different existence. None of us is exempt from empathizing with one imprisoned by…
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A Path to Imprisonment – Part Three
Ingratitude ~ Idolatry ~ ~Immorality~ ~ Imprisonment ____________________ Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? ~Proverbs 6:27-28~ Immorality: non-conformity to Gods moral code. Once I have embraced ingratitude and placed myself and my desires on the throne of my heart, it’s only a matter of time before immoral behavior surfaces. Romans 1 tells the tale of descent when three different times God gave the people over to their desires. The description of their hearts screamed of idolatry. They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images. They exchanged…
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A Path to Imprisonment – Part Two
Ingratitude ~ ~Idolatry~ ~ Immorality ~ Imprisonment Idolatry: excessive or blind adoration, reverence, or devotion I’m not sure the transition from ingratitude to idolatry needs too much fleshing out. What happens to me when I become consumed by what I don’t have, to the degree that I’m no longer grateful for what God has placed in my life? It’s really not complicated. I find that before long, determined to look after myself, I begin clearing a path to the thing I mean to have. My happiness, defined by me, driven by my desires, laid out according to my timetable. That is self-worship and that is idolatry. I can be an…
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A Path to Imprisonment – Part One
~Ingratitude~ ~ Idolatry ~ Immorality ~ Imprisonment Recently I heard a pastor talking about the way the words listed above relate to each other. He posed what for me was a very compelling progression of thought that I want to try to dig into for myself. The premise is this: a person who embraces ingratitude can potentially move through the above sequence until they find themselves imprisoned; shackled because of their own unchecked behavior. Each step deserves a bit of time, so I think this will be 4 entries. Ingratitude: the state of being ungrateful. I don’t like thinking about my own ungratefulness. For a follower of Jesus, there is simply never a good reason to…
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The Throne of My Heart
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Upside Down
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Love Of
Life is about God, …about love of God Life is about people, …about love of people ~Mark 12:30-31~ As I sit with the description of love found in 1 Corinthians 13, I see a beautiful list of……….. ……..impossibilities. It strikes me that each bit implies I will face moments that would illicit a response other than one that would express love of God and people. Why is God eager for me to know that love is patient, if He isn’t aware that impatience will be a temptation… or that love bares all things, if my tendency isn’t going be to bail when a relationship gets difficult? We are much more familiar with what…
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Accessibility
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Driven to Readiness
Rise up, you women who are at ease…. Why am I driven, at this particular stage of my life, to understand aspects of behavior and how that plays out in an average day, (Launch Points, Respond or React)? I feel certain that I live very near the end of this present age, an age that will culminate with Jesus return to earth and eternal reign. Having said that, you could make an argument to dig a trench, jump in, and wait it out. But I know that as the age of grace draws to a close, so do the opportunities that are unique to it. I believe life is about love…
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Respond or React
A man’s steps are of the Lord; how then can a man understand his own way? ~ Proverbs 20:24 ~ RESPOND: to do something in reply. REACT: to do something in reply, emotionally. If you read Launch Points, you’ve thought a bit about whether you launch predominantly from your heart or your head. This delves a bit deeper. What most characterizes you as you encounter people and circumstances? measured, balanced, careful, thoughtful, pragmatic, grounded, intentional. ~ triggered, hasty, spontaneous, impulsive, impetuous, off-kilter. I’m speaking more about a default reply that shows up in the normal course of a day….just daily life. It’s important to point out, you can launch from your head and…
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Launch Points
When wisdom enters your heart, & knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you…. ~Proverbs 2:10-11~ I’m always looking for bits about how people take in information. It’s very interesting to me to learn why a person sees life the way they do, & even more, how they respond based on what they see. Largely, I believe we take in information from either our hearts (emotionally), or our heads (cognitively). This is simply a point of entry (in truth, all stimuli enters through the brain but for some of us it moves at lightening speed to our hearts). The perfect scenario would be that information, once absorbed, would have…
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Lenses and Judgments
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Regaining Objectivity
Folly is joy to him who is destitute of discernment, But a man of understanding walks uprightly. ~Proverbs 15:21~ Loss of awareness follows the loss of objectivity. Both are dangerous. Both keep you from being present and capable in your life story. The one who’s lost her objectivity and subsequently, her awareness, can no longer bring her full faculties to bear. She becomes relatively ineffective in her own story, and in extreme cases, ‘out of the game’ of her own life. God cares deeply about having his children present and able to ‘be’ in the moments of their lives. He is about reestablishing awareness where it’s been lost and restoring…
