Monday, February 20, 2012
a MONUMENTAL Heartthrob
Having seen a trailer for his latest work, I imagine that I'll soon be spending ANOTHER Tuesday nite "camped out" to see Kirk again - this time on a BIG screen, instead of a small one and with a sincere interest in his content instead of his cuteness.
If you agree with Kirk - and me! - that "our families are worth fighting for," plan to see Monumental in its ONE NITE ONLY showing on March 27th!
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Thank God for all I missed ....
As fate would have it, however, I just so happen to love a man who both works out without headphones and, though he's had his iPhone over a year now, doesn't have a single song on it.
Not.one.song.
How did this happen?! Seeking to put a song in his heart, I put an 8 hour playlist on his iPhone for Valentine's Day. The list included this little ditty by Darius Rucker, which perfectly sums up how I feel about the man who makes every day picture perfect.
Nite Light
For the past several weeks, I've been reading in Exodus. Though this has nothing to do with the post itself, let me just say that Exodus is perfect for the adventure-loving Bible reader. There's even some sci-fi-like stuff tossed in there (the plagues and all. Tell me THAT'S not stranger than fiction?!), but after all that action in the beginning, the book sorta tapers off into "Here's how to build the Temple," like a Harlan Coben thriller that suddenly turns instruction manual. No disrespect intended, but to be honest, six verses in to the "priestly garments" part, and I'm longing for Leviticus!
Regardless of the literary structure of the second book of the Law, the fact that it's so fresh in my memory is probably what made this excerpt from Linda Dillow's Calm My Anxious Heart jump out at me, as I read it last nite:
God doesn't keep us immune from trouble. He says, 'I will be with you in trouble.' In the book of Exodus, we find the children of Israel camped by the edge of the Red Sea. It was nite, pitch black except for the pillar of fire God had placed between His people and the Egyptians. Can you imagine their fear? The screaming threats of the enemy filtered through the darkness. What would they do when dawn broke? Each mother hugged her child to her breast in fear that this would be their last nite.None of us are strangers to the proverbial nite, nor are any of us immune to fear, so we can all use Dillow's reminder that God is always at work, when we can see Him and when we can't. Whether you're sick or you're scared or your short on this month's mortgage, you can know that the God Who neither slumbers nor sleeps is wide awake, working all things to the good of those who love Him.
Who could have imagined the miracle that awaited them? Hidden in the text is the tiny phrase, 'All that nite, the Lord drove the sea back' (Exodus 14:21). While the Israelites were quaking in their boots, the miracle occurred 'all that nite.' Because it was nite, they couldn't see what the 'wind of God' was accomplishing on their behalves. God parted the Red Sea, and they walked on dry ground to freedom.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Family Annual 2011
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Saturday, February 4, 2012
Put Your Hands Up!
Yes, that Moses, the guy who wrote as God dictated His Ten Commandments and penned the first five books of the Bible, the Moses who pleaded with Pharaoh to "Let [his] people go," the Moses who killed an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew.
Yeah, so I never said that everything a girl can learn from Moses is necessarily a "do as I do" sort of situation. Today, though, Moses - well, his example, more like - taught me a couple of things that are as relevant in my Christian walk today as they were in his walk through the Desert of Sin 5,000 years ago, and no. I'm not being allegorical about that. "Sin" is the actual name of the desert.
Join me, if you will, in Exodus 17. Having made it through the aforementioned desert, the Israelites are now in a place called Rephidim. They've had their fill of manna and are insisting on water to drink, doing a trick they could've learned from me, basically saying, "God, in spite of all the miracles You've worked on my behalf - the plagues You've sent, the seas You've split - You must not REALLY exist if You don't give me what I want RIGHT NOW." God does, of course, provide, but the Israelites soon learn that thirst is the least of their problems.
They're attacked by the Amalekites. The Amalekites were the descendants of Esau; the Israelites were the descendants of Jacob. Anybody sensing the tension? It doesn't take a PhD in Bible History to know that the former group had a birthright-sized bone to pick with the latter. In spite of themselves, God was on the side of His Israel, and the passage tells us that,
"As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning. but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning." - Exodus 17:11
Following this prescribed pattern was so important that, whenever Moses's arms got tired, his brother and another guy would sit on either side of him and hold up his hands (v. 12). By this, we can know that the victory was NOT due to the Israelites' battle prowess. But there's also a couple other things we can know from this passage, as well.
The first is that God DOES have a prescribed way of doing things. Now, I'm NOT suggesting that we should throw up our arms whenever we're fighting one of life's many battles. Out of work? Reach towards the sky, and BAM: instant employment. Infertility? Hands to Heaven. Congratulations! It's a BABY. In fact, I'm a sports fan, and if you do that gesture in my direction, I'm either going to assume you're saying, "touchdown!" or that Kentucky's scored another three point basket.
What I AM saying, however, is that God blesses when we do things His way. Why did He only give enough manna for that day? "In this way," He said, "I will test them and see whether they will FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS" (Exodus 16:4). I'm not promoting legalism here, but it's undeniable from these texts and others that God wants His people to do things His way.
The second principle that jumps out at me from this passage is a symbolic one. After reading the same account in May of 2003, I described it this way in my journal: "It's only when our arms are useless - stuck straight up in the air, for instance - that God can really work without us trying to interfere and, inevitably, mess things up."
There are a lot of other times in early Exodus when God tells Moses (or his brother Aaron) to do this same gesture. "Stretch out your hands over the dust, and it will become gnats" (Exodus 8:16). "Stretch out your hands over the waters of Egypt, and they will become blood" (Exodus 7:19). "Stretch our your hands over the sea, and it will divide" (Exodus 14:21).
Time and again, God tell His children to lift up their hands, in a sense, relinquishing their control of the situation, so that He could get to work in it. It reminds me of something Louie Giglio says in his "How Great is Our God" talk. He's mentioning how understanding the vastness of the universe helped him to grasp the vastness of God. That changed Louie's life. In the way only he can, Louie said,
"[Until then], most of my praying had been advising God, correcting God, suggesting things to God, drawing diagrams for God, reviewing things with God, counseling God."
But in understanding Who God is, Louie was finally able to toss his arms in the air and say, "You know what? You're gonna be better at this than I am, God. You take control from here." And if you know anything at all about Louie's ministry, then you know God's done exactly that!
This is a lesson I learn and relearn a thousand times a day. We are to "Cast our cares upon Him" - another image, by the way, that involves us throwing our arms up just like Moses had to do! - and while I'm pretty good about doing that, I'm even better at picking my cares back up. When my arms are full of my struggles, though, how can they be free to lift them up to the only One Who can fix things, the God Who is big enough, as Louie (and the psalmist) puts it, "to breathe stars"?
So, see? Exodus isn't all about the Golden Calf, and Moses is more than just the baby who was hidden in some bulrushes. He's a guy that a girl can learn a lot from, if only she'll put her hands up and listen.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Wedding Album
I know ours isn't exactly the traditional wedding album. My mother's - and even my sister's - come to mind. They're both of the typical ilk - composed of mostly 8X10 images that are beautifully bound in a leather casing that's been embossed with a couple of names, a date, and, in some cases, a pair of bells. But let's be real. If Jeremy and I were after "traditional," we probably wouldn't have waited 34 years to get married.So here you have it - a non-traditional album without a trace of leather on it - that contains the courtship, engagement, wedding, and honeymoon of me and that blue-eyed boy I was lucky enough to marry. Knowing me (and my Shutterfly obsession), I'll probably make another album one of these days. It may even include a little leather on it.
Until then, though, this one will do just fine.
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Thursday, February 2, 2012
What's so Bad About "Daily Bread"?
I tend to get stuck on a favorite food and eat nothing but that for weeks - even months - on end. Don't believe me? Just ask Jeremy how many times we've eaten homemade pizza since getting married or Elizabeth Wexler how many times she's heard me give the same order at the Sonic drive-through.
It's probably because of this tendency that I'm not all that put off by my reading of Exodus 16. In it, the Israelites have just been freed from their oppressive Egyptian captivity, but in their haste to get the Sam Hill away from Pharaoh, they must've forgotten to pack a lunch, because they're all wandering around in the Desert of Sin wondering when in the world it's gonna be time to eat.
If you know anything at all about the Children of Israel, then you know how they handled the situation. They grumbled, cursing everyone from Moses to the God Who'd just parted the Red Sea that they might safely cross it.
It's embarrassing how much in common I have with this motley lot. Their cycle of belief and unbelief, of contentment and complaining is exactly how I contend with conflict. Graciously, though, God chooses folks like this to be His people, and just as graciously, God heard the Israelites' cries for food and fed them in a way that would've been fine by me. He gave them the same meal. Every morning. For FORTY YEARS.
What's the big deal about that? I'm over a decade in to my almost-daily trips to Chick-Fil-A. If a little of something is good, then a lot of it is even better, right? Turns out, that's the very thing that strikes me about this Old Testament account - my desire for "a lot." While I'd have been absolutely fine with the same supper for nearly half a century, it's a lot harder for me to get my head around just having enough in the cupboard for that day's dinner. But that's what God commanded. They were to take "enough for that day" (verse 4). No more, no less.
Why would He, Who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, choose to delve out His provision drip by drip? Heaven knows, He could've flooded them with food - enough on the first nite for the entire forty years - but He didn't. Why? Well, He tells us in verse 4. "In this way, I will test them and see whether they will follow My instructions."
I can't help but wonder if they, like me, ever worried that God would forget to provide for them? It doesn't matter, if they did worry about it, because He didn't forget. He faithfully provided, in spite of their doubting and in spite of their complaining. Every day they'd go to get their allotment. Just enough for that day - no more, no less. He, Who cannot deny Himself, has been just as faithful to provide for me ... in spite of MY doubting, in spite of MY complaining.
I think the experience of the Israelites has so many applications in my life. Whether it be food or money or strength or energy, I want a stockpile. I want to know there's a trove where I can get what I need, so that I don't have to trust God to give me "daily bread." In other words, I want to walk by sight and not by faith.
But that's not the way God works. That's not "following His instructions."
He knows we are "prone to wander." When there's a big reserve - or enough manna on hand to make it through the next forty years - we tend to do things our way, and we begin to forget our daily, desperate need for the One Who promises to "bring [His people] in and plant them on the mountain of [His] inheritance-the place, Lord, You made for Your dwelling, the sanctuary, Lord, Your hands established."
Knowing that He's bringing me to His dwelling place makes me so excited. I just hope He serves homemade pizza.
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