News from August 2010

I can do Proverbs 31 in the summer

August 31, 2010

Did a quick scan of the News feed on Facebook today and there it is in print, the bemoaning of the end of summer, the anticipation of buying things suitable for a lunch, and all the “don’t-tell-anyone-but-I-am-secretly-glad-school-is-around-the-corner” posts by moms.

It has been a quiet summer for me, quiet in that really enjoyable sense with the whole “schedule thing” dropping out of sight; I wasn’t sorry to see it go. It was also quiet because everyone had something to do this summer. I did miss seeing my crew every day, but I loved hearing how much fun everyone was having; it was a great summer. Still great if you count the Red-haven peaches which are ripe right now; pleasure in a bowl.

I don’t know how one would describe the other months of the year, but September looms. It is like this big thing around the corner; I will admit, the word that comes to mind is, “yikes!” So, it is almost annoying to me that, on the Bible reading guide I am following, Proverbs 31 falls on the last day of August. Sigh.

She has no fear, this Proverbs 31 woman. She laughs at the days to come. There is not a hint of dread in these verses (maybe they were written at the end of June). She makes things with her hands. She is clothed with strength and dignity. She speaks with wisdom, and her instructions are good. She shows good leadership, manages the house well and is never idle. She has outstanding, praiseworthy qualities. It makes me wonder, “Is this woman even real? And why isn’t there a Proverbs 31 man?” I digress…

Did all of this come naturally to her, or did she sit on the edge of her bed in the morning and say, “You can do it!” I mean, how much self-talk went into this woman’s routines? I can do Proverbs 31 in the summer when I feel well rested, but add a kazillion things to the list and I’m not feelin’ it so much.

If I could pick one quality that I would like to own today it would be the ability to laugh at the days to come. I over-think; I take things too seriously; and I internalize too much. But how do I not do this? I already know the answer to this, it is to continually own what Jesus is saying to me. He wants to show me how to live freely and lightly, but I keep putting weight onto the day.

This morning I was listening to my iPod in bed, listening to the book of Acts in preparation for the Fall. It really struck me how many times I heard “…and the Holy Spirit said…” and then the people responded. I lay there thinking about how many times the Holy Spirit has said something directly to me, and I responded (fewer times than I would like). The Holy Spirit is always right. Funny how great you feel when you know you are doing what is right (there are exceptions, like when the Holy Spirit asks you to do something really hard, that doesn’t feel great in the moment).

Every year (probably about this time) I find myself asking, “Why don’t you listen more?” I am a race-ahead kind of person and hope God blesses, rather than the reverse. It is no wonder I sometimes dread the days to come; I could be racing headlong into a wall.

The real key to the whole Proverbs 31 thing comes at the end when it says, “a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” A woman who fears the Lord can laugh at the days to come because, though not all the days are known to her, they are all known to Jesus. A woman who fears the Lord has inside information which allows her to to set her burdens down and have peace in the moment. Isn’t that what we are all after, I mean if you really boil it all down to one thing? Peace.

I am not much for resolutions, but I don’t want to walk around with a concerned look on my face this year. The truth is, though, 5 minutes from now something could happen that could put a knot in my stomach. Isn’t that true? How am I going to laugh then?

Well, it won’t happen on its own. It won’t happen by avoiding signs of conflict. It won’t be by isolation. It won’t even be by simplifying my schedule. People think that; people think if only they can get their life down to the very basics, and handle the most minimal of responsibilities only, they will have a sense of peace.

The absence of community does mean fewer people to argue with, but then I have decided to live outside of God’s plan. God wants us to work in circles, so what about that? And busy and not busy is not the ballgame either. I have been incredibly busy and have experienced heaps of joy; and I have had nothing on my plate and in the quietness been almost strangled by fear or sadness or worry.

C.S. Lewis said it best and this is what I need to return to minute by minute, in the middle of the quiet and in the middle of the whirlwind of life: “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

God I just have to pray that you would be before me and behind me and beside me as I walk into this new season. Don’t let me get ahead and don’t let me disappear, but to look at you first and then stare down the day — just one day — and live it well.

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

August 28, 2010

“Labels are devices for saving talkative persons the trouble of thinking.” — John Morley

Being understood is hard work, I find. Conversations crash and burn when the wrong word takes dialogue sideways; I slip up in something I say, or I have a “look” that is misinterpreted, and it is hard to get the whole thing back. Sometimes it is impossible; some people are excellent at remembering everything I said, and there is no undoing.

Writing; you’d think that would help. Sometimes it does, if I am patient in the writing process and truthful and unselfish. But there too; so much room for error. How a sentence sounds in my head is not how someone else might read it and how someone might read it is also dependent on the mood they are in. Writing comes without a look in my eyes, without gesture or body-language; so the person is left with the print and it can seem cold, no matter how many warm words I try to put on the page.

It frustrates me when I am misunderstood. I know who I am in my heart; I know what my intentions are, but sometimes things go haywire and I wonder, “How did we get here?” Or, “How do you see me like that? I’m not that way at all.”

We all add to people or take away from them based on very little information and often on misinformation; we see a little, we hear a little, we understand a little and we profile. We do the same to God.

I see this in my own life, how I have theories about who God is and how He thinks and operates: I see a little, hear a little, understand a little and I create Him as I see Him. I often read the Bible, looking for what I want to see about God; hiding from what I don’t. And yet Proverbs 30:5–6 says

“Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.”

I have been proven a liar about people; some I thought too much of, some I thought too little. I have misunderstood God in a similar way. I have made God big for some things and inadequate for others (I prove this every day by how I live and by what I worry about). I have read some of His words and like those, but the words I don’t like I try to make sense of, but with my sensibilities. I can’t imagine a God I cannot imagine so I shrink Him down so He can be written about neatly in a pamphlet, or handed out to people like a sedative.

Some people turn their back on God when they misunderstand Him. I am thinking of Oprah and how one word derailed her. She was sitting in church and the pastor, quoting Scripture, said, “We serve a jealous God.” She could not, nor cannot, wrap her head around that word “jealous” and her whole spiritual journey took a turn over that word. How can God’s Word be so flawless, when that word seems so flawed?

God’s Word creates a tension in us. C.S. Lewis grappled with how to understand God in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (where Aslan the lion represents God):

“‘Is – is he a man?’ asked Lucy.

‘Aslan a man!’ said Mr. Beaver sternly. ‘Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion, the Lion, the great Lion.’

‘Ooh,’ said Susan, ‘I thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.’

‘That you will, dearie, and make no mistake,’ said Mrs. Beaver; ‘if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.’

‘Then he isn’t safe?’ said Lucy.

‘Safe?’ said Mr. Beaver; ‘don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king I tell you’.”

I think this may be the finest description of God by a writer outside of the Bible: unsafe, but good. Can’t you see, though, how this might leave a lot of room for misunderstanding? As I grapple with God’s flawless words I try to understand Him as my shield and refuge, but often my experience makes me feel MORE exposed, not less. I prefer life to have a sense of balance and order and predictability, yet the journey He takes me on feels wild instead. Is this good?

Misunderstandings about God, His words and actions, can cause a range of reactions from outright rejection to muddling about in confusion. It isn’t like I have come to a place where I am comfortable with God. I am mostly uncomfortable, to be honest. Every day I wrestle in some way, trying to understand God; trying to understand His “flawless” words and His goodness in the middle of what doesn’t always feel good.

Recently I heard Donald Miller describe the tension of trying to follow this God who still is so mysterious, whose actions are still so hard to understand, and it connected with me. Following God, he said, is a “difficult challenge that is going to create a beautiful story.”

It is in the middle of this tension I seek to understand God, and it is this story that my life is trying to write.

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

Afterword: Back to Oprah, I would love to ask her, did you really sit with that word a while before you created a new God that suited you better? Because “jealous” takes on a whole new meaning when the underlying characteristic of the jealous one is “goodness” not “selfishness.” One of the most untamed passages about the most committed kind of love includes the word jealous (Song of Songs 8:6–7):

Place me like a seal over your heart,

like a seal on your arm;

for love is as strong as death,

its jealousy unyielding as the grave.

It burns like blazing fire,

like a mighty flame.

Many waters cannot quench love;

rivers cannot wash it away.

If one were to give

all the wealth of his house for love,

it would be utterly scorned.

I wonder how God feels to be misunderstood about His jealousy? His love for us is zealous, passionate and fiercely pure; protective and loyal and unconditional. His love goes to the grave and then beyond it. There is no corner left in us that His love does not fill.

Would we prefer something less? Something a little shakier? Would we like just a little of that and not to be engulfed by it? God is not some petty, insecure man who can’t let his lover have a life. God’s jealousy is quite the opposite; His jealousy thunders, “don’t you dare!” to any evil thing that wants to steal life when God promises to give us life and give it to us abundantly (John 10:10). His jealousy cannot fathom anyone separating the two of us. His love is about giving to, not taking away.

Please God, love and guard me jealously!

August 25, 2010

My heart is steadfast, O God;
I will sing and make music with all my soul.
Awake, harp and lyre!
I will awaken the dawn. (Psalm 108)

I am trying to think of the last time I woke up exclaiming, “Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn!”

When was that?

It really matters how I wake up; the first perception, the first thoughts I allow myself to think, the way I swing myself out of bed, my attitude when I walk to the shower. Who I am in the morning is my decision, isn’t it? Even though some people are naturally alive and awake in the morning, and some are not, isn’t waking up on the wrong side of the bed the result of a choice?

On the most basic level, we have gone after this as a family; you don’t have the privilege to wake up moody here. That isn’t to say that every day is a sunny and happy day, but in the Klassen house, you are not allowed to wreck everyone else’s morning by being grumpy and irritable. Illegal. It’s fine to be quiet, it’s fine to express what you are struggling with, but at the same time, being considerate of others is a choice we are saying that each one of us can make (Josh has the opposite problem, he is too cheerful, too full of mischief too early, he has to contain all of that or everyone turns on him). Some mornings we have to turn around and go find ourselves again so that we can come out and be civil.

But obviously there is more to it then that; more to the morning than simply being nice to others. The way I wake up really does set the course for my day. It is amazing how quickly a bad day sets in. Without even consciously thinking about it, I can be immediately worried, overloaded, frustrated, angry. I can immediately dread pushing the covers off and having to face whatever I have to face. There is no Polyanna way to get around this; sometimes the day ahead is less than inviting.

Sometimes I think if I pray first thing, I will have a change of heart and mind, but peace is a slippery thing. I have it in my hand, and it’s gone. I grab it again, and it’s gone again. Some things we are dealing with don’t just vaporize when we pray and push forward.

What is it like for someone who’s concerns are far greater than mine?
* What about the person living on the street?
* What about the person with a terrible illness?
* What about someone who is in deep trouble?
* What about someone who has that problem that won’t go away, day, after day after day?

What would I say about the mornings then? What about when you wake up and it feels there is nothing really worth waking up to?

David (from the Bible) knew all about trouble. Did he ever get any breathing room? I think that’s why Psalm 108 doesn’t begin on a note of praise; it begins with the words, “my heart is steadfast.” That’s self talk. That’s telling yourself to remember what you believe. That’s digging deep and finding determination that is rooted in faith. There is work to steadfastness that feels more like a pull than a glide. Steadfastness is really not about feelings; it is about convictions that you hold to no matter what. Stand firm.

Even if I don’t feel what I want to feel first thing, even if everything is out of balance, can I at least fix my gaze on what I know about God’s presence with me first thing in the morning? So, even if I don’t exactly feel chipper, can I “sing” anyway? Can I choose to do that?

I can relate to this passage this morning because I feel, “discombobulated.” Didn’t sleep great, my head is swimming in details and issues (things I need to do that I just can’t get to because of big disruptions; and when things get pushed off and pushed off, it starts to feel stressful), too many varied things I have to pay attention to. My head actually hurts today.

So who will I be this morning, who will I be today?

I serve a God who never leaves me. His love is measureless. His wisdom is perfect for every situation. My entire life is in His hands and He is the keeper of my soul. He is about hope, not despair. He is about windows, not walls. He is about leading me, not following me. He invites me over and over to trust Him, this is His timeless message, and when I follow it is always the right thing. Is He big enough for today? Yes. Is He completely present? Yes. Will He give me everything I need to tackle what He wants me to tackle? Yes. God is all about Yes, isn’t He?

Sometimes I think mornings feel overwhelming because I have the perception that I am alone in “all this” but that is where I need to steadfastly go back to what I know: I am not alone. I not only have partnership, I am not even in charge. I don’t even have to carry what I think I have to carry, all I need to do is listen better and follow better.

I love how David says, “I will awaken the dawn.” Usually we are woken up, and sometimes it is an unpleasant awakening. But David gets the jump on unpleasantness; he gets the upper-hand on the day, meeting with God before anyone can say anything.

Our God says to the complicated dawn, “Beat you to it! I AM up already.” And that means that Jesus and I already have a plan for how we are going to tackle this day.

—Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

August 20, 2010

I have come to realize something about myself, I don’t like researching things. Research is like opening up Pandora’s box. One question branches out into a family tree of questions and before long I find myself lost in details I didn’t know I didn’t know.

Take cellphone plans, for example, if you have ever thought, “Maybe I should change my cellphone provider/plan,” buy Advil first. There are few things as frustrating as figuring out cellphone plans.There are so many options now and the options have options, variables, fine print, contracts and no contracts, and so many details and exceptions to these that, after a while, I feel like I am losing my mind! I think “they” do this purposely so that after a while people will say, “Enough!” dip their hand into the cellphone sea of information and go with whatever they pull up.

As soon as you start researching things you enter a maze where figuring out one thing, leads to something else you don’t understand. I started looking for a simple cellphone plan, the most inexpensive, no-contract one with a good texting option and I ended up trying to figure out the world of GMS phones and SIM cards, unlocking phones and what is “jailbreaking” a phone? Agh! Why can’t it be simple: one, two, three, make a decision, done. Well, it can, but then you don’t always get the best deal.

Proverbs 26:16 is an interesting little verse on this topic, “Lazy people consider themselves smarter than seven wise counselors.” As I was digging into the meaning behind this verse, I thought this was an interesting note:

“The lazy person thinks he has life all figured out and has chosen the wise course of action, but he is simply lazy. J.H. Greenstone says, for example, ‘Much anti-intellectualism may be traced to such rationalization for laziness.’” (Notes on the verse from bible.org)

When I go to the shelf and buy something without researching alternatives, I am doing so because it is easier; I don’t have to expend any mental energy on it. I am doing what Proverbs 26:16 is describing. By choosing not to think, I have taken the sluggard’s course of action.

The thing is, cellphone plans are not going to make or break my life; but some things will. Huge, life altering decisions are often made without “seven wise counselors.” Sometimes we endure years of pain and heartache because we get all Frank Sinatra and just do it our way. It seems our default button is “I’m right;” we have such a tough time being a student. This isn’t smart; it’s anti-smart.

I want to be wise about the decisions I make, but, oh, my head gets tired sometimes. I get tired of figuring new things out; especially things that are hard to figure out. I would like it if things were a little more compartmentalized, you know, deal with one thing and then deal with the next. Some days I don’t have the energy to spend more time on yet another thing. As I am listening to myself I am thinking about the danger of making decisions when I am worn out or under pressure. Careful. Then, especially then, I need seven wise counselors.

I am really not an expert on anything; I need all the help I can get, so I have come to really respect good researchers. One good website comparing 15 plans, or one really smart friend who has done the work ahead of me, and things begin to take shape for me. I know a few people who LOVE researching things; anything! Mike and I have phoned them more than once and asked them if they know something about a pretty random thing we are learning about. Inevitably, they do and they are more than willing to share their wealth of information. It is like seven wise counselors in one shot! AWESOME!

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

August 19, 2010

Strange, the things you remember. When I was around 10 years old my family made a trip to California to go to Disneyland. I hardly recall anything about the trip (except, “It’s a Small World,” for obvious reasons), but I do remember staying somewhere along the way at a little motel with a pool.

We had driven a long, long way that day in a very small car and when dad pulled up to the motel and it had a sign that said “Heated Outdoor Pool,” that was (to quote Seinfeld) “Gold, Jerry; gold!” We couldn’t get the suitcases into the room fast enough! I ripped through mine, found the suit, and was out like lightening to the pool’s edge where I stopped short. The pool was completely green; not just a shade green, it was unmistakably, thick-and-rich, pea green; a soup-bowl only the Jolly Green Giant could appreciate.

Imagine my disappointment! I couldn’t believe it. I dragged my feet (a special ability kids have) back to the room and lay on the floor, on my back, in my swimsuit, staring unresponsively at the ceiling. I thought bad thoughts about the management. How could anyone let something so good, so beautiful, so refreshing, go? The pool was right there, it was once a place of unparalleled joy, and now it was a cesspool.

Proverbs 25:26 is telling me to hang onto that image because, “If the godly give in to the wicked, it’s like polluting a fountain or muddying a spring.” The idea of “giving in” is to totter, slip, to be dislodged or to let something fall; to be shaken so as to be overthrown.

That could happen to me. I could be someone who was once a refreshing presence to others, but I could totter, slip, be dislodged; I could let something fall; I could be shaken up so that I end up many, many shades away from who I want to be.

God loves everyone, but that doesn’t mean everyone is living in a way that God loves. There is something called “wicked.” There are things that make God wince and sigh and shake His head. There really are things that anger Him. If I could ask God to not be angry, would I? Never! I am glad that God, who made me, has standards. I am glad that His goodness is 100% good without anything I need to overlook. I am glad this means He doesn’t overlook things in me either; and it makes it a gigantic relief that Jesus died for my wickedness, taking my sins, though they were like scarlet, making my heart as white as snow (Isaiah 1:18).

What is so awful is when you take a redeemed child of God, someone forgiven, someone who has been made new by the love of God and somewhere along the way they begin to choose “wicked” over good. Proverbs 26:11 has the best description of this: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness.” It is unthinkable that someone who understands the word “saved” in terms of what Jesus has done for us would now go back to what they were before. This is like filling a sweet, clear spring with mud.

Can’t imagine doing that? It happens all the time. Sometimes it is a dramatic fall; an obvious big step between what a person knows is right and something that is clearly and obviously wrong. Usually, it looks like someone teetering on the edge between what is good and godly and what is wicked. Usually it involves little compromises. Most often wicked creeps up, like a little spot of green at the bottom of a pool.

As I am writing, I realize it would be easy to deflect this topic. I could read and write this and think, “Be careful, don’t do anything bad.” But here is what is also wicked: a lack of gentleness, unkindness, unforgiveness, bitterness, stubbornness, gossip, selfishness, self-righteousness, judgement; all of these things darken the waters. All of these things make me an unrefreshing presence.

This summer Josh, who drinks A LOT of milk, was not around; so the milk sat in the fridge a little too long. I grabbed the jug one day and poured myself a glass and took a big drink, assuming the best. It was not. I had anticipated that cold wonderfulness and instead I got something extremely distasteful.

What do people anticipate when they walk up to me? Do they expect one thing and get another? Green and unmaintained instead of cool and clear; sour instead of nutritious and thirst-quenching?

At any moment, in any place, Jesus asks His followers to be a refreshing presence to others. I guess the question I am left with today is, can I take a cup of who I am and offer it to someone, freely and without checking first?

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

August 18, 2010

I was listening to the news last night; updated reports on the flood in Pakistan and an interview with an artist who is writing a song to draw attention to the disaster there. The commentator said that Pakistan has not received equal media attention, nor an outpouring of aid like, say, Haiti, did. An article I read also refers to this issue and calls it an “image deficit.” Denoja Kankesan writes,

“We often note an image deficit with regards to Pakistan among Western public opinion,” said Elizabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman at the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The idea of having an image deficit interested me.

In the big world, and in our small ones, image makes some people insiders and makes others outsiders. Image rewards one and oppresses another, gives to one and takes from another. Even though “image” is incredibly subjective, we give it the power to define acceptable and unacceptable, in and out, and (this should make us shudder) lovable and unlovable.

In our small worlds, one child loves school because they are popular, another one hates it because they can’t make a single friend. Is the contest so different on the larger scale? Are our governing bodies more inclusive than the kids in the schoolyard? Image, apparently, means that one person receives aid, and another will languish without it.

Right now British Columbia is dealing with a boat-load of Tamil migrants from Sri Lanka; we have not put out the welcome mat, let’s just say; we are suspicious of them. We think terrorists are hiding in the mix; maybe the whole lot of them are bad. And what will we do with them? You’d think we were tight on space here in BC. That’s laughable. It must be hard to be Tamil. You might be a father with a wife and a child who just wants a job, but first you have a mountain to climb because you have a serious image deficit.What if our first reaction was empathy and our second was discernment? What if we asked how these people might bless our province instead of assuming they will curse it?

What is commanding my heart in all of this is that the Person I am modeling my life after vehemently protested anything that hinted of image deficit. He made a point of dining with people who had massive image deficits; He looked for them; He loved spending time with them and chatting it up with them. There was no touchable and not-touchable to Him. There was no desirable and not-desirable to Him There was no lovable and not- lovable to Him.

Jesus spent his life bringing good news to the poor. He proclaimed freedom for prisoners. His message was about recovering our sight, and He did so, literally for those who were physically blind, and He did so internally for those of us who were blind inside. Jesus was about releasing people from the oppression of image deficit and to declare God’s favor for everyone; everyone! (see Luke 4:14–28)

The thing that should be outstanding about me is this kind of acceptance. God never placed the burden to judge others upon me. He never asked me to fix everyone’s behavior. What He asked is that I would share the news about the freedom He offers, with love and respect for all. He asked me to hold up His Image to remind us who we were fashioned after.

That isn’t to say He never called me to discern right from wrong when it comes to my own life; He did. I am to conduct my life in a way that honors God’s boundaries, set in place for me with the desire to protect me and guide me along a right path. In relationship, in community, we are also to try to rescue each other from our destructive tendencies, in a way that is bathed in love; absolutely drenched in God’s Spirit which desires that none would be lost.

Can we love like that? God, can I? Can you remove that pin that keeps jamming my ability to just see people as You do, without any image deficit? Your Word calls me to, “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy…” (Psalm 82:3–4).

When we gather as Christ-followers, can this “church” be free from image deficit? Can we eliminate the “cool and the uncool” from our gathering. No one was created with a deficit; all are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) so the church should be a place where, more than any other, opposites attract. The church should be a mixed marriage where people, somewhat incredulously, ask, “How did you meet?”

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

August 16, 2010

Part 12 of “Consider This”

The topic of today’s post is on being corrected; and there is nothing I like better than being corrected (ha). I am building this around a verse that comes from a scene in the Bible where we meet a man named Job, who had a pretty good life, and then everything (I mean everything) fell apart and Job lost everything (I mean everything); to top it all off, his health fails and he spends his days in a great deal of physical pain. In the middle of his suffering some friends (I say loosely) who have assessed his situation (as friends do) come to tell him where he went off the tracks. To summarize:

Bad things do not happen to good people. Obviously, Job, you sinned and offended God and all of everything that is happening to you is your fault.

Comforting. After all the finger wagging, Eliphaz brings it all home by saying,

Consider the joy of those corrected by God (Job 5:17)

It is unfortunate that this line comes where it does, because there is truth in what he says, it’s just that he makes a large assumption: that Job’s troubles have come because he has offended God and has brought calamity upon himself.

I can relate to Eliphaz in this because sometimes I have a warped view of hard times as well. I have to work to keep my head straight about God’s grace and love; I have an easier time believing God wants to correct me than embrace me so when things go wrong in my life, I jump pretty quickly to the assumptions of Eliphaz. It takes effort for me to step back and figure out:

Are things going wrong because things go wrong? Things break, plans don’t work out, we are mortal, we live in imperfect and polluted environments and to quote Rush, “Why does it happen? Because it happens. Roll the bones.” It’s not God, its just life.
* Are things going wrong because I have broken something and I am “reaping what I have sown.” It’s not God, it’s me.
* Are things going wrong because someone else has broken something and their dominoes are touching my dominoes? It’s not God and it’s not me, it’s you.
* Are things going wrong because, while God has been trying to get my attention, I have not been listening and now He is REALLY trying to get me to stare at something before I do something even more destructive to myself or others? It’s….yeah, it’s God.

I have a hard time figuring this out for myself, let alone figuring it out for other people. Sometimes “things going wrong” are actually the result of a complex web of events, information and misinformation, and actually being able to pinpoint “the root cause” is not so simple. People want it simple though. They want to point one finger at one thing but sometimes all four are at play: life, me, you, God.

When things go south I want to know why; there must be a reason! God, why? Why am I going through this? I believe God wants to tell me something about what I am experiencing, but I can see how I blockade Him. At the time I think I am being so open to hearing whatever God wants to reveal to me, but in hindsight I see that I wasn’t ready at all. As a result, I have put myself through so much pain,

I have analyzed things endlessly, when I think God was trying to say to me, “Uh, actually Teresa, that’s just life. There is no deeper meaning to it. Stuff breaks; that broke. You will have days when you see that everything is a bit fragile and fallen and that’s about all there was to that.”
* I have been so sure of myself at times that I couldn’t see the “me” in it. I couldn’t see that I dove in recklessly or that I put fuel on something or that I was just plain wrong until much, much later when I realize: Would you look at that. I was wrong all along.
* I have beaten myself up over things that really were someone else’s problem, but I was so busy self-flagellating that I just couldn’t let it be that. I so couldn’t imagine that I could be without fault in a situation that I killed myself trying to fix what was someone else’s brokenness.
* I have had such blinders on so that I could not see God whistling and waving for what might have been days or months or years trying to catch my attention. In my experience, God does this. He whistles and waves for years, and nudges and calls. He sends things my way, once and twice and three times to help me see a pattern I need to address. And then one day, He gives me an illustration I can’t miss and that hurts; but it’s effective.

Eliphaz was wrong when he said that Job brought everything upon himself. Eliphaz was right when he said that there is joy when God is involved no matter whose fault it is. The joy is that

If life is the problem, God says He is with me like a shepherd is with his sheep, guiding me and helping me and getting me to where I need to be.
* If I have been a problem, God says that I can turn from my ways and make things right (as right as I can, from my end of things), and that there is forgiveness and a new day.
* If others are being a problem, God says that I can still love my “enemy,” here’s how, and here’s how to move forward in confidence without heaps of baggage and bitterness.
* If God is helping me figure out what is problematic in my character, he will shine a light into my life so that I don’t have to live with dark and disturbing corners, he will make me into a new person as we go.

When I journey with Jesus as my redeemer, friend and leader there is, strangely enough, joy to be found even on hard days; not that this is our first emotion, but somewhere down the line we can see it. I have actually cried looking at joy standing there, still with me, while I am bleeding. This isn’t the kind of joy that puts a forced smile on your face, this is joy that is a trusting-confidence that a new day and a new way is being created even as we speak; it is the joy that one feels when you know, all is not lost.

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

August 14, 2010

Part 11 of “Consider This”

Ever feel like God has forgotten about you?

I have now written 10 blogs in this “series” I have called Consider This and they have all been things that we tend to forget about God, but the one in Psalm 74:20 is interesting because this one is directed to God; this one asks God, “Have you forgotten?”

You walked off and left us, and never looked back.
God, how could you do that?
We’re your very own sheep;
how can you stomp off in anger?
Refresh your memory of us… (74:1–3, MSG)

God have you forgotten I am actually the man on your side?
* Have you forgotten I am the woman who loves you?
* I am the student who has given up a lot of things to serve you?
* I am the one who has followed you since I was a boy, and now that I am old, have you now deserted me?
* We are the ones who believed your promises, have you forgotten?

Now, consider again your covenant, God (Psalm 74:20, NASB).

The Bible is full of people who have pointed things out to God (Moses and the entire nation of Israel, Job, Elijah, most of the prophets, the Disciples to name a few), spelling out that they were alone or lonely or hungry or in need of rescue; did God hear them and had He forgotten His promises? Everyone knows God is powerful enough to rescue them; does God know?

It was you who split open the sea by your power;
you broke the heads of the monster in the waters.
It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan
and gave him as food to the creatures of the desert.
It was you who opened up springs and streams;
you dried up the ever flowing rivers.
The day is yours, and yours also the night;
you established the sun and moon.
It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth;
you made both summer and winter (74:13–17, NIV)

God, we know you can do all these BIG things, where are you when we are needing something small like $1,000 or a job or an answer or relief or revenge or healing or just a word, God, just one….little…..word?

Silence. Silence. Silence.

This is confusing for us. This is confusing for people asking questions about God and faith. When we look at the world (or just our world) and the state that it is in, has God forgotten?

I don’t have a neat little answer for this. I wish I did. I just know that God did not enter into our contractual agreement; He is the one who drew up the covenant and it is us who have forgotten, not Him. He has always said, in bold print,

As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:9–11, NIV)

I think I say that I want to follow God, but often in reality, I want Him to follow me. I want to make plans and for Him to bless them. I want Him to get me out of a jam and fix things. My wants become expectations, and unmet expectations derail me. God confuses me when I get confused about His role and mine.

I came across this passage in Zephaniah 3, a beautiful description of the tension that exists between God and man. In this case it is describing His relationship with Jerusalem, but it also describes me, or any of us. God says,

The LORD within her is righteous; he does no wrong.
Morning by morning he dispenses his justice,
and every new day he does not fail…

But our response, my response is:

She obeys no one, she accepts no correction.
She does not trust in the LORD,
she does not draw near to her God.

Those words, “draw near” are everything, not because they solve everything for me; drawing near to God does not mean He will reward me with all I ever wanted (remember Job?). But unless and until I draw near to God, I will always overestimate “me” and continually underestimate Him. Drawing near allows me to look at God closely, to know Him, to trust Him.

If I take it upon myself to judge God from any distance, then I will love Him or hate Him based on whether He gives me what I want, how and when I want it. I will not see any greater purpose in anything, and I will interpret any waiting time, any discomfort, as cruel. If I do not draw near, He and I will be connected by a thread and eventually, inevitably, I will walk away when God does not show up, believing He has deliberately forgotten His covenant with me.

Ultimately, if I am frustrated that God is not meeting me or operating by my standard, then I am following god, not God.

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

August 13, 2010

Part 10 of “Consider This”

Guilty pleasure: in summer I run out to Value Village (love Value Village) and buy old, used magazines to read; we’re talking “People,” “Vogue,” “O,” “Us;” anything that doesn’t require something like a brain to get through. Then, floating on the lake on an air-mattress or lounging around at the beach, I read all about what sources are saying about what other sources are saying about celebrities; fascinating! Plus I get to see what they are wearing and who wore it best because I will never actually own any of these clothes; important!

What’s interesting about reading these slightly out-of-date magazines is that I get to celebrate who is together and, a few magazines away, feel bad about how they broke up all in one sitting. I get to read about an exciting new film some actress is in and then just an hour later, hear how badly she behaved on set, fought with fellow actors the whole way through and bombed at the box office! Best friends become worst friends, romance ends up in scandal, and million dollar dresses are on one magazine’s best-dressed list and in another’s worst. It’s a mad world we live in.

I am not exactly looking for life-lessons in these gossip magazines; it’s pretty hard to when you don’t know what is actually real; but I guess the outcomes speak for themselves. When you are looking at someone who is married 5 times, or is in rehab “again,” or is at the bottom when at one time they were “the most sought after,” there is a window into what must be true: disappointment, disillusionment, embarrassment, loneliness, confusion. One can assume.

Outcomes; that’s really what I am thinking about today. With the thousands of years that humans have occupied the earth, with quite a lot written down about the comings and goings of them, you would think we would be less likely to do really stupid things; but we aren’t. What we do, has been done before (nothing new under the sun, the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us, and he wrote this eons ago) so why, oh why, do we not take the lessons to heart?

It isn’t just the immediate consequences that we ought to consider but the aftershock, the thing that generations after us will feel; how about that?

Let me turn this around a little. Hebrews 13:7 calls us to, “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” There is so much pain to be avoided, so many mistakes we can bypass, so many good things we can have going on in our lives (and blessings to hand to the next generation) if only we would intentionally consider the outcomes of those who, in some way, are leading the way.

I have leaders in my life I watch. Some of them have official positions of leadership; others are leading and probably don’t even know it. Some people are leaders in “categories” that interest me (like acceptance, compassion, conviction, creativity, relationships, parenting, resourcefulness, youthful-optimism/curiosity); they are people who seem to have a grasp on a single thing that I am trying to understand; I watch them; I try to imitate so as to understand and own what I see. I have seen an outcome that I admire and I want that.

Right now, I am really challenged by someone in my life who has this really pure outlook about people. While I might jump to assess and categorize, this person is just curious about them and is so free of judgment. The things I notice, they don’t really spend any time on; I am convicted. Why are they like that? I want that.

I am also challenged by someone who has been a leader in the faith for well over 30 years now and isn’t moaning, curled up in a ball. Quite the opposite. He still has vision and passion and conviction; he still “sees it” and is still living it and moving through it. What has given him such staying power? I want that.

I want a certain outcome; as much as some people’s lives stand out as a warning, I am turning to see those whose lives point to a better way. I am going to make lots of mistakes, even as I have a desired outcome, I just don’t want to wreck the whole thing by mindless living.

To consider something is to think about it, with the intention of taking some action. When we consider the lives of those who are leading, when we think of qualities we want to imitate and grow in, it means watching and then it means taking initiative; we don’t wait for someone to do it for us or plan a program around it. We become like the persistent neighbor in Scripture, going after the outcome we want and not giving up right away:

“Imagine what would happen if you went to a friend in the middle of the night and said, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread. An old friend traveling through just showed up, and I don’t have a thing on hand.’ The friend answers from his bed, ‘Don’t bother me. The door’s locked; my children are all down for the night; I can’t get up to give you anything.’ But let me tell you, even if he won’t get up because he’s a friend, if you stand your ground, knocking and waking all the neighbors, he’ll finally get up and get you whatever you need. Here’s what I’m saying: Ask and you’ll get; Seek and you’ll find; Knock and the door will open.” (from The Message, a paraphrase of Luke 11:5–9)

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

August 11, 2010

Part 9 of “Consider This”

I am reading a book called The Book Of Awesome by Neil Pasricha. He says, sometimes we forget the things that make us smile,

“That’s why on one chilly spring night I started a tiny website called 1000 Awesome Things. For a boring guy with a nine-to-five job, it became a getaway from my everyday…with so much sad news and bad news pouring down upon us, it’s fun to stop for a minute and share a universal high five with the rest of humanity.” (P.1–2)

The website turned into a book; here are some of the chapter titles:

1. The other side of the pillow
2. Old, dangerous playground equipment
3. Illegal naps
4. Being the first table to get called up for the dinner buffet at a wedding
5. Fixing electronics by smacking them
6. When you push the button for the elevator and it’s already there
7. The five second rule
8. Using Q-tips the way you’re not supposed to use them
9. The thank-you wave
10. Getting grass stains

Every chapter ends with the same word: AWESOME. For example, in one really short chapter titled, “Neighbors with pools,” Pasricha writes,

“Hey there, neighbor. Thanks a lot for paying for that massive, expensive pool! Great job installing it, heating it, chlorinating it, vacuuming it, and skimming it. You sure it’s cool if I take you up on that offer to swing by for a quick dip? AWESOME!” (212)

You can’t read a book called, “The Book of Awesome” without smiling; you can’t read it without getting the feeling he is describing. Awesome things are (for the most part) awesome universally.

So here is a contribution of awesomeness:

“Consider the Wonders of God”

Take a long, hard look at the wonders of God; it is infinitely impossible to grasp! They are more amazing than anything you or I could ever imagine or figure out.

He pulls water up out of the sea, distills it, and fills up his rain-cloud cisterns.
Then the skies open up and pour out soaking showers on everyone.

Does anyone have the slightest idea how this happens?

Look how he arranges the clouds, how he speaks in thunder? Just look at that lightning, his sky-filling light show illumining the dark depths of the sea! This isn’t just weather, these are the symbols of his sovereignty, his generosity, his loving care. He hurls arrows of light, taking sure and accurate aim. Whether for discipline or grace or extravagant love, he makes sure they make their mark. The High God roars in the thunder.

Whenever this happens, my heart stops— I’m stunned, I can’t catch my breath. Listen to it! Listen to his thunder, the rolling, rumbling thunder of his voice. His word thundering so wondrously, his mighty acts staggering our understanding.

He orders the snow, ‘Blanket the earth!’ and the rain, ‘Soak the whole countryside!’
No one can escape the weather—it’s there. He shines a spotlight into caves of darkness, hauls deepest darkness into the noonday sun and no one can escape from God. It is a wonder to behold!

Ask the animals what they think—let them teach you about God’s wonders; let the birds tell you what’s going on. Put your ear to the earth—learn the basics. Listen—the fish in the ocean will tell you their stories. Isn’t it clear that they all know and agree that God is sovereign, that he holds all things in his hand—Every living soul, yes, every breathing creature?

Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what he has made crooked? Who can make crooked what he has made straight? God’s works are so great, worth a lifetime of study! Splendor and beauty mark his craft.

His generosity never gives out. His miracles are his memorial—this God of Grace, this God of Love. All he does is just and good; what God does is forever true; his promises never fail, his Covenant will be kept forever.

He’s so wondrous, personal and holy, worthy of our respect.

AWESOME! *

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

“Consider the Wonders of God” is a collage of scripture From Job 12, 36–37, Ecclesiastes 7, Psalm 111 from the NIV translation and The Message paraphrase.

August 10, 2010

Part 8 of “Consider This”

Who am I?

Am I the product of my parents? His genes, her genes and there you have me?

Am I little of him and a little of her and a dash of my grandparents so that you could slice and dice me and say “this came from this side of the family” and “this came from that side.” Is that who I am?

If I look to my future and all that I might be someday, do I look at the watermark left by my ancestors and hope to meet, or perhaps exceed it slightly? On the other hand, do I look at them and say, “This is all I will amount to?”

Am I my country, my city, my neighborhood, my house? Am I “that” person, “that” label, “that” and no more?

What about if life has left marks on me along the way, so that I can hardly even see whom I was if I wanted to? Maybe at one time there was potential but now, now there are all these dents, rust, pieces missing. Is this who I am?

How relevant, how irrelevant are all of those things? Will they be a leg-up for me or prove to continually ride and deride me? Will they shelter me or disable me?

Turn around and look, Isaiah 51:1 says: “Consider the rock from which you were cut, the quarry from which you were mined.”

“He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.” (Deuteronomy 32:4)

How have we forgotten this? Do we think we came from some landfill? Some chemical cocktail? Some mistake? How are we able to look at our own picture and just see an imprint of something we are stuck with, and not more, so much more? Only because

You deserted the Rock, who fathered you;
you forgot the God who gave you birth. (Deuteronomy 32:18)

Remember: you have a number on your birth-certificate, a mother and a father, relatives and more relatives, but you are more than this collection. You may have been handed blessings by them, or you may have been handed curses; this matters, but it doesn’t matter nearly as much as knowing the Rock from which you were cut in the first place and with absolute hope and assurance, raising your hands to your Maker you can say (shout if you will!):

‘You are my Father, my God, the Rock my Savior.’ (Psalm 89:26)

On those days when you wonder who you are, consider the Rock from which you were cut and the quarry from which you were mined because this is who you are.

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

August 9, 2010

Last week I attended The Global Leadership Summit and had the opportunity to hear Jeff Manion speak (among others). Jeff’s talk was titled Land Between based on a book of the same title. I thought I would write about it this morning, because I so often find myself there.

If you ever find yourself saying, “for now” (as in, “I am working in this job for now…” or “I am living with my parents for now…”), this is the land between. If you ever look back at where you were or look ahead to where you want to be, you are in the land between. The land between might be a place you find yourself in a holding pattern; the land between might be a place you are in pain; sometimes you don’t know how you got there, sometimes you don’t know how you will get out; you just know you are in between.

Manion had us look at the story of Moses and pointed out what the land where Moses was living actually, physically looked like. There was Egypt to the left (all green and lush on the map) and then there was The Promised Land of Israel to the right (also green and lush) and then there was the desert of Sinai; barren and brown. This was where he wandered, in the land between. God told Moses in Exodus 3 that he would take him out of Egypt into the land of promise; there was no mention of “in between.”

Two years in and they are still there, in the land between. God is feeding them Manna for breakfast, lunch and supper and the people are sick of it. In Numbers 11:4 we hear their complaint, “If only we had meat!” Manion did a masterful job of drawing this out and then said that the land between is fertile soil for complaint. The thing about the children of Israel is that they weren’t just complaining about their situation; they were complaining against God. They were sick of eating the same thing day after day after day. They were essentially saying that life was better where they had been; life was better without God.

Jeff asked, what are you sick of? Are you sick of living here? Are you sick of the bills? Are you sick of your marriage? Are you sick of leading? Are you sick of healing a broken church?

How is God going to meet Moses here in the land between? How will God meet you?

You should read Moses’ honest prayer in Numbers 11:11–15. It is absolutely loaded with “I, me, I, me.” I have prayed prayers like this. The land between is fertile soil for emotional breakdown/meltdown. Moses says, “put me to death right now!”

Whose voice do you hear in the land between when

You are the couple facing medical tests?
* You are the one struggling to make ends meet?
* You are the parents with a child who is running away from God?
* You are the pastor navigating ministry during a time of division?

In the land between you can feel like you have a hose hooked up to you, draining you dry. Any leader gets this, understands this feeling. Church leaders feel it every time someone leaves the church. It’s like a breakup; like people are saying, “It’s not you, we just want to date other churches right now.” Be prepared for disappointment, sometimes years of it, and sometimes being a disappointment. Be prepared to feel like you can’t do it any more.

God tells Moses to go and get 70 elders. He says they will help to “carry the burden of the people.” Go and meet with God in the “tent of the meeting” and there God will take the same spirit He has put on Moses and put it on them; basically giving him 70 “mini Moses’” God uses the same language here that Moses used in his prayer: “I will, I will.” The land between is also fertile soil for God’s provision.

Manion highlighted another famous meltdown: Elijah who was running for his life. He also prayed that he might die; he said, “I am not accomplishing anything!” He wakes up and sees and smells bread. He expects a lecture and God makes him lunch. God says, “Hey, you could really just use something to eat.”

What if God still does that? What if God is still good? What if God is still gracious? Open your hands and let God provide in the land between. Maybe God will give you patience, a job, strength, contentment, courage. Maybe He will pull you out of depression, or give you what you need daily, perhaps an email of encouragement, a “spookily” well-timed verse.

Back to Moses’ story; God is providing during the “Manna Riots.” He addresses the lack of meat in Numbers 11:18–20 (read it); God says, “I will give you so much meat it will come out of your nose! Because you have rejected the Lord…” The people had turned a corner in their complaining, lashing out against God and this bordered on “cosmic treason.” God responds and says (11:23a), “are the Lord’s arms too short?” Are you questioning God’s goodness or competence?

God sends meat. Truckloads of meat. And then He disciplines them. So what does this mean, if you complain God will drop you? No. We need to remember that God disciplines. He inflicts pain for redemptive purposes, to rescue us. We are naive if we think we are immune to correction. When we entertain a spirit of complaint against God, God does discipline.

So…transformational growth happens in the land between. Trust me here, God says. Israel is an unruly mob indoctrinated in idolatry. They are not ready for the Promised Land. They were a people of slavery and they must become the people of God. This time, in the land between, is a time of preparation for them to be God’s people. God says, “I need you to learn to trust me here, at this place.”

Here we learn to pray. Here we learn to depend. It does not happen automatically; time does not automatically heal, in the land between time can make us bitter and acidic. The time we spend in the land between will determine who we will be in the future. We learn about faith (or not) here; we die here or we grow here.

Complaint, in the land between, comes as an uninvited guest. Even as you try to dislodge it, it sneaks back in, it resists eviction. Good pushes out bad, but bad also pushes out good. We need to keep inviting trust back. Even when we don’t “get it” we need to keep inviting it back.

I have visited the “land between” more than once. Sometimes I am there a few days, weeks. I have been in and out of there over the course of a year and years. I do not like it there. I do not like the sense of waiting, of walking in circles; I definitely don’t like it when the land between is painful. But Manion is right, it is the place where I can hear what is going on between God and I. There is so little furniture in the land between that the room echoes and I am so aware of what is going on inside me.

Sometimes God is just calling me to chill out in the land between; I am just in need of less noise and to be less noisy. God imposes rest on me and wants to make lunch for me but I am itching to move. In this kind of “in between” I need to just sit down a while. I say, “I don’t want to be here anymore!” and I hear God’s Spirit say, “Just stay; I am here.”

In the land between I see a lot of things in me: sometimes impatience, sometimes selfishness sometimes bitterness like barnacles beginning to attach itself and I am reminded of what I never wanted to be: bitter. So why am I bitter? I am reminded that I have always said that I never wanted to run away. So why am I running? I let Him chip off the barnacles; I let Him nudge me to move towards, instead of away. But don’t misunderstand me; this is a messy process. I don’t glide in the land between; I am clumsy; I am half a disappointment but I am seeing God do His best work here.

I really don’t like that; I want God’s best work to be somewhere in the two green areas (the one behind or the one ahead). If there is one thing I am getting though, it’s this: when we say, “God’s timing and our timing are different” this is really, really, really true. I believe God could spend all day in between because “it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Philippians 2:14)

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

August 4, 2010

Part 7 of “Consider This”

What do you do while you are waiting? I usually try to find some distraction, so I

a) Read a book

b) Journal

c) Play “Angry Birds” (my new, ridiculous, obsession)

d) Listen to the CBC (I’m not kidding)

e) Make a list

f) Phone someone

On most days, I would prefer not to wait. I would like to time things out perfectly so that no time is wasted because the way I see it, waiting is just the thing I do in between what’s important.

But what if waiting was the important part?

James 5:7 says, “Dear brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return.”

Now, when is the last time I thought seriously about the Lord’s return? To tell you the truth, I don’t think a lot about it. I am not scanning the skies; I don’t wake up and say, “today?” I think about Jesus a lot and I understand the exciting inevitability of meeting Him when I die; but as for today, I think more in terms of the present journey. I don’t know when He is going to return (the Bible says I cannot) so mostly I have been looking at what’s now and what’s next.

The assumption in the book of James though, is that I am waiting; it is telling me that actually I have been waiting for 42 years; my whole life. Waiting implies a part one and part two and it is strangely comforting to know that about my life. This is only part of what God has for me and there is more to come; but I am stuck with a question then: what shall I do in the meantime?

James continues,

Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains in the fall and in the spring. They eagerly look for the valuable harvest to ripen. You, too, must be patient. Take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near.

James doesn’t say, “Since you are waiting, keep yourself entertained.” Strange, because I think this is what most of us have heard. Also, he doesn’t say, “Wait it out.” He says, “As you wait.” He assumes we all get it that the big thing is not the here and now; this isn’t all there is; so we can all agree then? We are waiting for the Lord’s return. Now, in the meantime, consider the farmers.

I am a city-girl, but even I know that while a farmer may wait for a valuable harvest, there’s a whole-lotta legwork that has happened beforehand: soil prep, seed-planting, weeding, tending and such. That should keep us busy for a while (while we wait). There is the knowing where and when and how. And then there is an eye to the weather, oh yeah and the patience part.

Patience. James says, while you are waiting: be patient. Perfect; because patience is so easy (ha). I think of patience as “biding my time and biting my tongue” but there is more to it then that. Look what we must consider about patience:

Patience means having a long, enduring, and expectant spirit. We must not lose heart half way through the season. We only have so much time while we wait, so don’t cut out early.
* Patience means keeping one eye on what we are planting and one eye to what we can imagine is coming and persevere. Every day is one day closer to Christ’s return, so get busy.
* Patience means enduring through misfortunes and troubles and learning from them. Don’t check out because of hard-times, be steady, steady; be watchful and see what will happen during this time of your life.
* Patience means that even though there will be detractors and those who both offend us and are offended by us; though we might even be injured by other people’s actions, we must keep our hat on and be mild and slow with our responses.
* Patience means we must be long-suffering, slow to get angry, slow to go after people. If you knew you were waiting half-an-hour for something, would you bother getting into a useless argument? Try to think of your life as half-an-hour.

Waiting takes on a bit of a different feel in light of all that. Yes, it is what I do in between, but it isn’t a time to be wasted. And no, we don’t wait forever, so hang in there. In fact, it is such a short amount of time, best not waste it. We only have so much time to plant what we will, so much time to tend what we have, and then we will see what comes of it all.

– Teresa Klassen

August 2, 2010

Part 6 of “Consider This”

Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings. -Victor Hugo

Yesterday morning I sat on my lawn-chair and a Robin hopped by on the grass with a lime-green worm as big as my finger in its beak. I don’t even know how that Robin managed to hold on to it because the worm was flipping around, protesting its capture something fierce! But the bird puffed out its crimson chest, oblivious to the worm’s displeasure, thrilled that it had found the mother-load. The bird flew off with its catch and would have a fine feast of it somewhere with its family (though undoubtedly some chick would beak off, “Not green worm again, I don’t like green worm” and the dad would say, “You’ll eat it and you’ll like it!”).

The Bible calls us to

“consider the ravens: they do not sow or reap…” (Luke 12:24 NIV)

Humans don’t do nearly as well as the birds, living on a wing and a prayer. To be like that Robin, without cupboards, would stress most of us out.

Is it possible that we can forget what freedom tastes like and come to fear it, rather than long for it? Can we come to actually treat open spaces with suspicion, preferring the cage over the sky? I wonder if we build “bird-houses” because it makes us uncomfortable that they don’t? Is having a floor and four walls so important to us, that the thought of gliding over the treetops fills us with dread rather than amazement?

What words do we assign to our present experiences? Are they descriptive of trust or apprehension?

Remember the children of Israel in the desert? Just now it occurred to me that the word we use for their experience is “wandering.” But if you were in the mix, knowing that someone was taking care of your every need, wouldn’t “holidaying” be a better description? The whole thing started with a campfire experience, with just the right amount of getting-there stories to recount later, good weather every day and, better than better, not once did they have to run into town for food or drink; they were fed morning and night by God himself. God wasn’t even subtle: cloud by day, pillar of fire by night; it wasn’t like God went away and they were wondering if He would come back.

So why were they so stressed out?

The Israelites in the desert didn’t see any beauty in it. They weren’t pinching themselves saying, “Can you believe it?” Instead, they sat by their tents at night worrying, “My life is going nowhere.”

Where is “there” and “nowhere?”
* Where is where we ought to be not where we could be?
* What is stable and unstable?
* What does predictable give you that unpredictable doesn’t give you more of?
* Is having something in your hand so much better than seeing how it gets there?

Consider the birds, they do not sow or reap; they have no storehouse or barn; yet God feeds them. And Jesus says, “you are so much more valuable than birds” (Luke 12:24). Is Jesus saying quit everything; just check out? No, He follows up His statement with: “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?”

So yes, quit something: quit worrying.

God is calling me to not only be OK with “not knowing” everything, but to actually relish it. Consider the birds that swoop and glide and occasionally seem suspended in mid-air, caught in some sort of up-draft; they sing for no reason, bathe in whatever puddle they can find and only create enough of a nest to rest in. Consider this.

Like us, they have a beginning of a story and an end of a story, but the whole middle is being written as we live. The whole middle is all about where we find ourselves, and who can say where that will be? Birds venture out. We need to consider venturing out…

Venture

1 : to expose to risk
2 : to face the risks and dangers of
3 : to go ahead in spite of danger

Yes, like the birds, God wants to add “venture” to our vocabulary and our experience (adventure, you see?) and quit making up dangers as an excuse to stay indoors. Quit worrying; God is with us and as P.D. James said, “God gives every bird his worm, but He does not throw it into the nest.”

– Teresa Klassen (http://onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

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