To God be the Glory

A good friend of mine frantically asked for prayers via FaceBook recently--something he NEVER thought he would have to do. In fact, he had gone on his annual two week holiday sabbatical from FaceBook about a week ago, so I was surprised to see him back online. Anyway, his dad had fallen, had bleeding on the brain, and the situation was dire. I have known Shaun for over 30 years; we served in the military together. Although he was quite the joker, he was no soft guy--he was a cop, in fact a cop who worked out in the missile field in the frigid North Dakota winters, and later did special ops and intel duties. Anyway, although I rarely see him, he remains one of my dearest friends from the military. Over the next 24 hours, he posted twice again, once with an update to say his dad was doing better, and then finally, the post below. Notice he is beside himself with thanks to all who prayed, but most of all, choked up over the grace and goodness of God. His first line, in all caps. says it all--GOD IS GREAT INDEED!!!!!! AMEN!!!!.

Also, recently, another friend of mine lost his best friend, Isaac Tinsely, age 30, to leukemia. This young man had his whole life in front of him...a fiance, a life he had already dedicated to bringing the lost to salvation in Jesus Christ. For over a year, friends, family, and people who had never met him prayed for him. There were fundraisers, a campaign "10sley Strong," printed on bracelets and t-shirts and posters throughout our small town in western North Carolina. He beat leukemia once, but it came back with a vengeance. His family and friends and his church were sure he would be healed. We all prayed and prayed. He had a stroke, but inexplicably started to come back from seemingly insurmountable odds. However, after two weeks of struggling to breathe on his own, to fight the cancer that had taken over his entire body, he took his final breath, and went to be at home with his Lord and Savior. This young man's friends and family, as heartbroken and shattered as they are, are all over FaceBook giving glory to God, sharing photos and memories of Isaac. His fiance wrote one of the most poignant, beautiful things I have ever read:

"Tonight my heart is selfishly shattered into a million peaces. My soulmate went to be with the Lord. He is no longer suffering or in pain. I am thankful I was able to hold him as he passed over. The last thing he got to hear was my voice telling him how much I love him. I would not change this year for anything. Isaac and I grew so close and experienced things together most people never do. A piece of my heart is forever gone but I have comfort knowing he's with the Lord."

Two situations. Same prayers. To the same God. Both prayers answered, but to our human eye and human (selfish) hearts, one answer seems like yes, the other seems like a "no." We want all our prayers to be answered like Shaun's prayers. Or do we?

God, in his infinite wisdom, created the universe. He planned out our lives before we were even born. He has numbered our days, our heartbeats, our very breaths. Everything that happens, EVERYTHING, happens to glorify the Creator, not the created. He planned it all. Before a tear drop even falls, it must go through His Hand first. In that I find comfort.

Yes, I am ecstatic for Shaun that his father is on the mend and can spend more time with his family. And I ache and mourn for Isaac's family and friends and Havyn, for the loss of that precious young man. We could drive ourselves crazy with "what ifs" and "if onlys" and wonder about how we would feel if the situations were reversed. But our God is not a capricious God. He doesn't play roulette, or flip a coin. Everything works together for His glory. His word says so.  

God's will is inscrutable, His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. When I create a universe out of nothing, and breathe life into dust, maybe then I will feel qualified to question His wisdom. Until then, I am so glad God is in control.

Friend for Life

These lyrics say it all....

Friend for life, who took my pain, the cleansing flood You remain
Wash over me till I can't be seen 

Living water swallow me, deepest river wash me clean
Jesus, savior more of Thee, more of Thee
Come and ruin me with Your love, So no other is enough
Come and leave your mark on me; Jesus, more of Thee--More of Thee 

Friend for life I'll carry on through the pow'r of this flood
Let it spill over, over till I can't be seen 

Living water swallow me deepest river wash me clean 
Jesus savior more of Thee more of Thee
Come and ruin me with Your love so no other is enough
Come and leave your mark on me Jesus, more of Thee, More of Thee 

Deep is the stain inside of me, but deeper the river that washes me clean 
I've been the one who cries in the night, But you've been the friend of my life 

Living water swallow me deepest river wash me clean 
Jesus savior more of Thee more of Thee
Come and ruin me with Your love so no other is enough
Come and leave your mark on me Jesus, more of Thee, More of Thee 

*c2001 Sweather Weather Music/Rocketown Music/Word Music, Inc. (ASCAP)

Tis the season...

Yep, tis the season...for Christmas letters.  How I hate trying to summarize the past twelve months into a few simple paragraphs that will fit neatly on one side of some pretty holiday stationery, and won't bore the socks off the recipients.  Half of the people on my Christmas card list are on FaceBook and see everything that goes on in my life anyway, and the other half I either talk to often enough  them to know everything, or I hardly ever talk to them so it would take 23 pages to fill them in because I just send them that annual Christmas greeting.   I enjoy getting Christmas cards, and I admit if a Christmas letter is more than three paragraphs, or has the name of every single grandchild, pet, and vacation spot visited, I lose interest quickly.  

Maybe I should start a new trend in Christmas letters.  Like offer a reward at the very end for the first person to actually read the entire letter and follow an instruction.  You know, maybe "return this letter to claim $10 off your next meal at Ruby Tuesdays."  Or perhaps just write a bullet paper, listing each month of the year and put an event for each month, or better yet, a picture of an event that happened that month.  I could also go the religious route, and select a Scripture verse to go with each month.  And I have blogged enough this year...in two separate blogs...to be able to just link blog entries from one of them for each month.

Well, whatever I decide, you, the lucky friend or family member, will get to regale at my genuine cavalier sense of humor and love of life.  That is if I feel like using a lot of ink to print that many copies.

Or I could always look on Pinterest.   

Not

In Christ. On Facebook.

Neither Jesus nor St Paul ever used the word "Christian," yet Paul used the phrase "in Christ" over 150 times.  Over the years I have given a lot of thought and prayer to what it means to be a Christian, to be "In Christ." And I would be lying to say I haven't struggled with it, because it is a process--sanctification takes a lifetime.  

Sometimes it is easier than other times to be a Christian. Church definitely is one of those places it is easy. Also, in my car, or at home, or with fellow believers. Gets a little harder to be a Christian in the car when someone pulls in front of you and then flips you off.  It also isn't easy to quote Psalms when some 15 year old cashier is rude to you, or when your dog throws up on the good rug. And it is extremely difficult to maintain one's Christian decorum and keep pleasant thoughts when friends and family are hateful--especially sisters.  And your mom. But I must admit, the most challenging place to be a true Christian these days is not even a place at all, but it sure takes up a lot of our time...the internet.Cyberspace The web. Social media.And, while I do trust in God's omniscience, I seriously doubt Paul or any of the apostles could ever have foreseen Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Being on FaceBook is a nice pastime, a safe hobby, as long as I don't start taking myself or other FaceBook posts too seriously.   

I have Christian friends, and non-Christian friends, but I try to keep things on social media fairly innocuous--as much as I can, I try to stay away from the big three:  politics, money, and religion.  And, while I want to be myself, I also don't want to just put a bunch of pointless information out there either--there really is such a thing as too many cat videos. One of the most valuable lessons I've learned? Sitting on my hands is the equivalent of biting my tongue when I want to say something a little too hastily, or spout off some sarcastic witticism before I read the entire post, or before I jump to false conclusions about what someone is trying to say. There are enough devil's advocates and internet trolls lurking about cyberspace ready to pounce on a lively debate and discussion to plant seeds of discontent and hate--I don't need to add to that number. And yes, sadly, not everyone really cares about seeing all 9,752 photos of my adorable grandchildren.  

There are times I will comment on someone else's post, or deliberately read posts where the obvious objective is to stir the pot, knowing that I will definitely NOT agree with what is being discussed. There is something to be said about an intelligent banter, as long as no one starts getting offensive or shooting their mouth off too much. Sometimes I just like to sit back and read all the comments and replies and comments to the replies. Other times, all it takes is a cursory scan of two or three lines, and I hurriedly hit the page down or back key. And yes, there are subjects I will definitely not entertain thinking, reading, or discussing--not out of fear, but out of respect for God's commandments. Normally, though, the fewer obscenities, the better the grammar and spelling, the more likely a post is to keep my attention; repeated expletives really just highlight someone's small vocabulary, and while minor misspellings are understandable, the post should have some sort of sentence structure that makes sense.  

Leading up to the 2016 election, I initially tried to steer clear of posts even hinting at controversy.  Then, the more polarized the country became, it became harder to navigate social media and still remain, well, sociable. First I tried to ignore a lot of it, even resorting to "unfollowing" some of my friends because I just couldn't handle all the frenzied feeds popping up on an average day. News hoaxes. Weird links.  Suggested websites. Folks screaming at each other IN ALL CAPS.  Immediately after the election, there was great mourning by some of friends, and gleeful "i told you so" by others. None of it made me feel any better.  Some even made me really sad.  At first I commented on a few--initially, only posts that I agreed with. You know, posts celebrating conservative, Christian values. But then I noticed my Christian friends were getting dragged into arguments. And they did not always fare too well.  Trolls were jumping in on their comments. Nowhere was safe!  Now what?  I decided this is all out war! So, I updated my friends list and decided to "follow" all of them.  Even my liberal friends.  

And that is how, in a recent discussion, I repeated some clever meme I read somewhere about how lately the world seems to worry about offending anyone and everyone but God. I thought it was perfectly germane to the issue being discussed, but another participant did not understand what I meant, so I queried "?????", to which she replied with a long answer about how so-called Christians, in her recent experience, have shown more hate and less acceptance than those who do not profess to be Christians. And then she said, "with all due respect, if we offend people, then we offend God." I was in the middle of rolling my eyes, and then, I took a deep breath.  Thought about what she said--she was right.  I had used some clever little saying that I thought fit the context, trying to show how righteous I was, and how I could fit in to this conversation and still maintain my superior Christian ethics, and there it was...her simple reply...if we offend people, then we offend God.    

So many times, on social media, in the news, in personal encounters, Christians are described as two-faced, racists, bigots, misogynists, and homophobes (we are not).  The recent election, unfortunately, has equated Christianity with Trump, and somehow, being Christian now equals close-mindedness, and hatred of all things different. All the hot button topics--gay marriage, abortion, transgender bathrooms, medical marijuana, immigration, poverty, Clinton, Trump, Black Lives Matter, racial profiling--these are gut-wrenching, emotional issues, and are viewed differently by different people. But, as a Christian, being in Christ, I am united to Christ, part of Christ.  So when I view these issues, and, stepping out on a limb here, when fellow Christians view these issues, we are all viewing them as we feel Christ views them.  We forget that not everyone is using that same frame of reference, so when I as a Christian say abortion is wrong, what the rest of the world hears is "you are wrong."  And so the argument begins. Doors slam shut. The walls go up. Fists fly.  Flags get burned. Rhetoric is thrown about. Bibles are thumped.  And no one comes out any wiser...just madder. More close minded. Backs turned. Arms folded. Unfriended. And the biggest loser?  The Gospel.  

Because I forget to be In Christ, Christ-like. I stop reflecting Christ when I project my own agenda. I am commanded to love others, to love everyone. Get that board out of my own eye before I get the tweezers out to remove a splinter from my neighbor's eye.  How in the WORLD does a Christian profess or exhibit love? By listening. By understanding. With an open mind. And an open heart. The world is listening and watching us.  It is not my place to pass judgment.  Or convince.  Or convict.  But to demonstrate, through my actions and words and deeds, how even a sinner such as me (yes, me) is precious in His sight. I am still sinning. And I will keep sinning. But I am also a saint, in Christ, chosen by Him before creation. It is that miracle, that "stupendous reality" as John Piper puts it, that I should be putting across.  In person. In all I do. In all I say. And yes, on FaceBook.

Notice we are to be SALT of the world. Not the pepper. Pepper is too spicy. And it makes you sneeze.