1 Peter 1:22 MSG
Now that you've cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. Your new life is not like your old life.
There is often something anticlimaxical about the 'day after'. I have been focused on a Lenten calendar for 40 plus days culminating in yesterday's Easter. Earlier advent carried me through to Epiphany. I often am left with....what will I write about? What will be my scripture?
But not this year. I have been waiting for Easter so I could start a new post on Bob Goff's book, Love Does. This man is a storyteller, making a nonfiction book one that you can't put down! I have been eager to share snippets of his wisdom as I've been reading.
Donald Miller writes in his foreword:
Is it any wonder that my graphic mind read this and immediately put hands and feet on love? Love in action?This book will be troubling for some. We don't like to put hands and feet on love. When love is a theory, it's safe, it's free of risk. But love in the brain changes nothing. Bob believes that love is too beautiful a concept to keep locked up behind a forehead like a prisoner....where you and I may want love and feel love and say love, Bob reminds us that love does things. It writes a letter and gets on a plane. It orders pizza and jumps in a lake. It hugs and prays and cries and sings. Much of what we've come to know and believe about love doesn't ring true once you know this man whose LOVE DOES.
PS. If you are wondering, why the Easter egg? A reminder that every day is Easter day - the good news continues!
TUESDAY, April 7 'Drop Everything' Presence
Psalm 119:169 MSG
Let my cry come right into your presence, God; provide me with the insight that comes only from your Word. Give my request your personal attention, rescue me on the terms of your promise.
I used to want to fix people, but now I just want to be with them. (Bob Goff)
In this first chapter of his book, LOVE DOES, Bob Goff talks about the 'simple' act of presence as action. So often we want to DO something when really our best action is to stay with someone, hold their hand, or reassure without giving advice or trite platitudes. Goff writes of a time when a friend literally left his honeymoon (Goff didn't realize this at the time) to accompany him in a time of turmoil. He was just 'there', a presence, personal affirmation that Bob was worth it. This is truly love in action.
When have I failed to take the time to simply sit with someone who desperately needed that kind of presence? So often I want to do the simple thing and move on. My love message is shallow, my wants and desires placed ahead of those who cry for the love of presence. A good thought to remember when the situation next arises.
The kind of love that God created and demonstrated is a costly one because it involves sacrifice and presence. It's a love that operates more like a sign language than being spoken outright....it's more about presence than undertaking a project. (Goff, p. 9)
WEDNESDAY, April 8 Ordinary, But A-typical
Romans 12:1 MSG
So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
I used to think I had to act a certain way to follow God, but now I know God doesn't want us to be typical. (BG)
God wants to take our ordinary lives, our run-of-the-mill, every-day, typical lives and turn them on edge. He makes ordinary extra-ordinary. There is no set 'this is the Christian mold', you must fit in. Christians who truly DO as Jesus DID don't fit in! They are very atypical! And that's ok! God is at work in us when we break out of the stereotypes and embrace the unique actions of Christ.
What Jesus said we could do is leave typical behind. We could leave all of the comparisons and all of the trappings and all of the pretending of religions. Jesus told the people He was with that it's not enough to just LOOK like you love God. He said we'd know the extent of our love for God by how well we LOVED other people. (p. 15)
I tried to make my drawing today show love bursting forth into action - love in all sorts of shapes and sizes blossoming out from the center of a stoney 'typical-looking' love.
THURSDAY, April 9 Fear of Failure - Fear of Success
Matthew 7:13-14 MSG
"Don't look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don't fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life - to God - is vigorous and requires total attention.
I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I'm more afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter. (BG)
Failure is part of the process, and it’s not just okay; it’s
better than okay. God doesn’t want
failure to shut us down. God didn’t make
it a three-strikes-and-you’re-out sort of thing. It’s more about how God helps us dust
ourselves off so that we can swing for the fences again. And all of this without keeping a meticulous
record of our screw ups.
Things that go wrong can shape us or scar us. God finds us in our failures AND our
successes.
Live
bold.
Live
brave.
Live
ready to jump and be caught by God,
Especially
if the jumping really matters.
Especially
if the jump is more a leap of faith,
An
opportunity to live love,
An
experience of being in Christ.
Safety
is comforting.
Security
can be mistrust -
Surely
in ourselves, but even in God.
So we
live safe, successful lives,
Scared
to jump.
Fearful
of the impending failure
If we
leap too far.
But
even if God allows the fall to be a little painful,
God is
there,
Helping
us dust ourselves off,
And be
ready to jump again
Into
the arms of life.
Into
the arms of love.
SATURDAY, April 11 Molded by Circumstance
Isaiah 64:8 O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand.
I used to think I could shape the circumstances around me, but now I know Jesus used circumstances to shape me. (BG)
I have to consider the word circumstance when I read Goff's quote for this chapter of the book. Because I am coming to disbelieve in circumstance as the norm. Yes, sometimes things 'just happen', but often I find they happen because God is in control. Our Artist Father is busy molding and shaping us in ways we can't even imagine, through the tiny minutia of our daily lives. And the 'just happens'? God can take those instances as well and use them to fashion a new me and you. Bad stuff? Give the artist time....some masterpiece can and will be produced from it. We are molded and shaped by God's love. We can use love as our chisel to create better lives for those around us. Every prayer, every email, every phone call, every action we take in love is a impact of love's chisel in shaping who and what we are, the shape of our community and world. This isn't an instant sculpture, but an ongoing masterpiece from Creator God.
SUNDAY, April 12 NOT NO, but......YES!
James 4:8 MSG
Say a quiet yes to God and he'll be there in no time.
I used to think you had to be special for God to use you, but now I know you simply need to say yes.
Over and over throughout the Bible, God shows that he chooses the unexpected, the ordinary, the NOT-special or powerful people to do God's work. That means people like you and me. But we have to say YES to God's request. And so often, it seems, we give a negative answer without even realizing it or even more commonly...give no response at all.
This week's letter challenge from my cousin was the letter N. I found N words much more difficult to encounter. Perhaps it was my location on the beach, perhaps the busy schedule I was keeping to get my elderly mother's list of "to-do's" done before our departure in a few days. I gathered the following words:
negative, no, NOT, necessary, need, notice, normal, nice, neat, nap, neighborhood, Neptune, North star, numbers, notebook, nurture, nonsense, nonchalantBob Goff's book was 'percolating' in the back of my brain at the same time, thus the first few words on the list: no and negative, and a teenager's distinct 'NOT!' (In the same category as WHAT-EVER!) How often is this our response to God? How often do we fail to NOTICE the NEED in our NEIGHBORHOOD around us and realize God is simply asking us to NURTURE those in our community? Instead, we NICE and NEAT people take a NAP on God and don't see those tasks as NECESSARY; we assume a NONCHALANT stance. Such a job is too NORMAL!
On a totally different train of Bob Goff thought.....I also zero'd in on the word NONSENSE. Goff uses the concept of whimsical love often in the book - love that is passed on without the tedious planning of mission trips and church committees. Love that is spontaneous and just a little bit nonsensical. I found a hidden treasure on the beach yesterday that reminded me of whimsical love. An unknown artist has sculpted a sand-castle hugging the edge of one of the sea-stack rocks...on the high tide side for protection. Rather 'normal'....... But next to the ordinary castle was a little sand square house, adorned in wildflowers - gorse and lupine - with a sand-etched 'plaque' next to it with the following words: "A little place for you and me, a little place by the sea." The time and the detail someone spent in creating this mini-masterpiece for just a moment in time before the tides come and take it away!
Addendum: I went to Sunday School with Mom this morning. The subject for the day? Love one another. Sometimes I guess we need the message so strongly, God just keeps pounding it in! I get it! Now to DO IT!!
MONDAY, April 13
In the vernacular of Goff's book and the beginning of each chapter....
I used to think I had to write a devotion every day or I was letting God down, now I know God cares more about what I do during the day than what I write. (GMR)
So....this morning I am working on a prayer picture for yesterday!! Have a great day!
TUESDAY, April 14
Today was a travel day. A long day of miles (nearly 500) and meetings. But I thank God for safe travels over snowy mountain passes, for the beauty of the springtime creation we witnessed along the way, for son Luke's 28 years on his birthday, and for the church family that meets and works together to do work in God's name. A full day. A good day.
WEDNESDAY, April 15 ORDINARY PEOPLE
I used to think I had to be somebody important to accomplish things, but now I know Jesus uses ordinary people more. (bg)
Matthew 4:18-20 MSG
Walking along the beach of Lake Galilee, Jesus saw two brothers: Simon and Andrew. They were fishing, throwing their nets into the lake. It was their regular work. Jesus said to them, 'Come with me. I'll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I'll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass.' They didn't ask questions, but simply dropped their nets and followed.
Books have been penned, sermons preached, and the Bible is full of examples: God's use of ordinary people to do extraordinary acts. In reading about the disciples I found a passage indicating that by today's standards of wealth, knowledge, and business acumen, the only one of the disciples 'worthy' of their position was Judas Iscariot. And we know how that turned out! Why do we doubt our ordinary worth? Why do we doubt our abilities when it is God in action through us?
I found this chapter of Goff's book compelling, perhaps incomprehensible logistically. But love DOES! In the wake of 9/11, Goff sat down with his three children, ages 5-12, and discussed the event. He asked his kids, 'What would you want to know from the world's leaders if you could chat with them?' But he didn't just ASK, the Goff family ACTED on the ordinary response of ordinary children. They sent out letters to hundreds of countries asking to do a video chat with the heads of state. The parents promised the kids to act on any positive replies. They received hundreds of no's, and 29 YES! Come! So he pulled his kids from school, and they went on a family trek around the world. What an experience! And they visited, not with political questions asking the why's, but as friends discussing their hopes and dreams for the world. They gave each head of state a key to their Virginia home, just in case the world leader wanted to come to a sleep-over at THEIR house. (One actually visited!) Ordinary kids making an extraordinary impact because they acted on their ideas.
What impact can we have if we just begin to put our dreams for God's love into action? Ordinary people, ordinary actions. But put the power and magic of God's love into the mix, and extraordinary things can take place. THURSDAY, APRIL 16 MORE ORDINARY....
Once again, time and demands are pushing ....I will take my moments to pray from yesterday as my prayers mount and needs escalate. Pray and draw.....
FRIDAY, April 17
COME AS YOU ARE LOVE
Matthew 11:28 GNT
"Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest."
I used to think being a believer was enough, but now I know Jesus wants us to participate, not matter what condition we are in. (BG)
Come to me, all of you.....nothing about waiting until we are perfect and then making a grand presentation. Just come, now, as we are. We don't have to be perfect to practice love. Practicing love just might help us on the road to living as Jesus taught. We won't get there by reading the book. We have to get into the game to understand and learn how love works. Books provide great background insight; books can encourage us and challenge us. But we have to participate, we have to DO LOVE. And we might be surprised at how our 'condition' changes! SATURDAY, April 18 WORD LOVE
Ephesians 4:29 GNT
Do not use harmful words, but only helpful words, the kind that build up and provide what is needed, so that what you say will do good to those who hear you.
I used to think the words spoken about us describe who we are, but now I know they shape who we are. (bg)
We recently returned from another Volunteer trip and while gone I penned a brief postcard to our new little 3 yr old neighbor. Her mom voiced the little girl's glee upon our return. She carried the postcard around; they had to read it everyday; they had to find the place on the map. OUR WORDS MATTER - especially to young minds.
Love can DO through our words when we take the time to make our words matter; when we take the time to speak with encouragement and love.
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