Archive for August, 2009

You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.
Flannery O’Connor

Ever thought about oddness as a witnessing technique?

There are times when we succeed at living our faith and we do seem odd to others. We don’t react the way they expect. We don’t make the choices they expect. We don’t even say words they expect to hear.

I don’t think about it a lot, but people are watching. What I do. What I say. How I react. And sometimes it make them stop for a second and wonder.

They might think about what I’ve said or done. They might think about what they expected. They might even think about what could cause the difference.

And sometimes they ask.

Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy.  (1Pet. 3:15 MSG)

Sometimes we must speak the truth even if we aren’t sure we believe it and aren’t at all sure we can live it. Sometimes we embrace what we know without feeling it in our hearts because we know the One who said it in the first place.
(Come Closer, Jane Rubietta, p 26)

It feels like hypocrisy – saying what we’re not sure we believe or can live. But maybe not.

Maybe it has nothing to do with me. Maybe the key is “we know the One who said it in the first place.” If the truth I’m telling is God’s truth then it has everything to do with Him.

He is unchanging. He is faithful. He has a plan. And His truth is true. Always. Even when I’m weak. Even when I don’t feel it. I can still count on it. And sometimes saying it out loud actually helps me believe it.

The picture that comes to mind is someone standing in a boat in choppy seas (not a wise thing to do – but we’ll leave that for another time). Know who God is. Know what He’s said. Then plant your feet firmly on Him and ride the waves that come.

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.  (Heb. 10:23)

The other day I was working away on my laptop when Lilly decided it was time for some attention. That, of course, means walking across the keyboard.

Music started playing. I jumped. She jumped. Even Glenn jumped.

It took me a minute to realize that it was those first eerie sounds from Cats – of all things!

I have no idea how she did it. Or what keystrokes I’d need to do it again.

There are a lot of things like that. Things that make me wonder. Or things that make me think “I’ll ask Jesus.”

There are things we will never understand in this world. That’s just the way it is. I can go on the internet and find answers to a lot of things, but then there are things that just don’t have answers.

That’s where trust comes in. Trust in God. That there is an organized mind behind it all and I don’t need to know all the workings of it.

I don’t need to know. I say it to myself every once in awhile. It leaves a kind of calm.

There are things I can leave in His hands – and that’s good.

Jesus invites us to live weightlessly—to walk on water!—by holding his hand.
(Jane Rubietta)

This was the third Sunday I have gone to church and had to leave because of fumes. Carpet cleaning fumes – floor stripping fumes – I don’t know which. But they certainly have been fuming!

Anyway, my Sunday message was from a book, Come Closer by Jane Rubietta. The quote is from the first chapter, Come to Abundance.

I’ve been thinking about it for days. What would it mean to live weightlessly?

If I’m holding his hand then my stuff isn’t weighing me down. You need both hands to grab your stuff and hold on tight—or grab more. So it must mean that my stuff doesn’t control me—that I hold it lightly.

If I’m holding his hand then my fears aren’t weighing me down either. In this age of shootings, planes flying into buildings and all the rest. there are lots of fears to add to the ones that come naturally to me.  But holding his hand means that I am not alone. It means that nothing will touch me unless he wants it to. And then we face it together—holding hands.

Imagine being able to walk on water! Peter did it—until he took his eyes of Jesus. But he was saved by taking his hand. We can be saved from drowning, too.

Take his hand and don’t let go. Look in his eyes. See his love, his confidence. And we’ll live weightlessly!