Empty

Blog_EmptyRoomMy classroom is empty. And yes, I am breathing a sigh of relief, short-lived as it may be. After a few days, I’ll be going through withdrawals from my students. After a few weeks, I’ll be begging their parents to send them to summer school because I’ll miss them that much.

A year ago around this time, I was preparing my classroom for the kids. In the school where I work, we have the privilege of being as creative as we want with the materials, so it was a lot of fun setting everything up. By the end of the summer, after much hard work, everything was in place. Admitted, it was hard watching the kids mess it all up when they first plowed through the doors. I had to remind myself that’s what it’s all about—the kids, not the classroom.

It’s like that in life. We have our plans set, our schedules in order, and then life happens. Things get out of order. Our schedule gets overrun by other, more important things. And that’s how it should be.

For many years, I worked in an outreach ministry. We’d spend many hours planning and preparing for events and services. Then the people would come, and we’d have to remember…it’s not about the program, it’s about the people. Who wants a ministry full of programs yet void of people?

Days are meant to be filled, and life is meant to be full. That doesn’t always mean our schedules have to be unbendable, our plans unbreakable. When people come through and the order of our day veers from our original intent, maybe that’s how it was meant to be.

Empty rooms may be peaceful, but they are just that…empty. There are times when we need solitude and order, but there are times when we need to be interrupted by more important things. And it is in those important things that we will be filled.

 

Photo Credit: the big empty room | Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Unplugged

More info about the Wellington Musicircus at http://musicircus.net.nz/Sometimes I feel invisible. I call my children multiple times with no response unless it involves cookies or ice cream. One time I asked my son why he wasn’t listening, and he told me, “Wait a minute Mommy. I can’t hear you. Let me get these fruit snacks out of my ears.”

Having children has made me more aware of how selective our hearing can be. Kids tend to hear what they want to hear, when they want to hear it. They tune in to those things that most interest them while lowering the volume on what they don’t want to hear.

It can be like that in our relationship with God. In a previous blog post I talked about what I termed “misunderhearing”. But sometimes we take it a step further and just don’t listen at all.

Maybe our ears are plugged up with fruit snacks, just like my son’s. We jam our ears with feel-good sweet-talk rather than the nourishing truth of God’s word. The media so consumes our senses that we can’t hear what our loving Creator really wants to say to us.

The Bible says, “A time will come when people will not listen to accurate teachings. Instead, they will follow their own desires and surround themselves with teachers who tell them what they want to hear.” How true of our day and age. We live for social media likes and follows, wanting to hear what people have to say about us while completely unconcerned with what God has to say.

As a wise man so aptly stated, “You can believe in whatsoever you like, but the truth remains the truth, no matter how sweet the lie may taste” (M.B. Johnson). Do we realize what we’re missing while our ears remain plugged up with lies? Our joy is diminished, our senses dulled, when we neglect the life-giving word of God in favor of saccharine junk food.

 

Photo Credit: Ear plugs | Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Slow Down and Listen

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God, slow us down. Help us to listen to your still small voice, to hear what you are saying above the clamor of this world. Show yourself for who you truly are, not for what we’ve tried to make you to be. And as we rightly hear you, bring healing to our relationships with you and with others, as only you can.

 

Source: Misunderhearing

Photo Credit: Sunrise, People – Free images on Pixabay

Learning to Listen

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The other day, one of my four-year old students decided to step in and help mediate a conflict in which one kid accused another of name-calling. “That’s not what happened!” she said. “They just misunderheard each other.” Her vocabulary may not have been accurate, but I realize how right she is.

How many misunderstandings are really a result of “misunderhearing”? We half-listen, not hearing what the other person is trying to say because we’re already formulating what we want to say in response. Or we misinterpret what was said altogether, sifting their words through our own preconceived notions.

My old landlord always used to say, “the root of all conflict is uncommunicated and unmet expectations.” How much relational conflict would be avoided if we took to heart the Bible verse exhorting us to be “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry?” If we just slowed down enough to hear and to respond appropriately, what needless pain would we avoid?

This applies within our human relationships, and also in our relationship with God. How many times do we misunderhear his word? We take a verse out of context, twist it as we desire then wonder why it’s not working like some magic spell over our lives. Bitterness sets in as we mistakenly believe God didn’t make good on his promise, when all along we weren’t rightly hearing what he had to say.

And how extreme has our world’s caricaturized vision of God become as it listens to lies and half-truths perpetuated by media propaganda and hypocritical churchgoers, never bothering to search his word for the truth of who he is. If only we would listen. If only we would hear. How much more would we know God for who he truly is, and not what our idolatrous hands have made him to be?

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-10)

God, slow us down. Help us to listen to your still small voice, to hear what you are saying above the clamor of this world. Show yourself for who you truly are, not for what we’ve tried to make you to be. And as we rightly hear you, bring healing to our relationships with you and with others, as only you can. In Jesus’ name.

Photo Credit: Sound Waves Free Stock Photo – Public Domain Pictures

the Power to Change

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The one who turns night to day and winter to spring can usher a new day and season into what man would call the most hopeless of lives. Change is not an impossible dream. It’s just a matter of tapping into the right power source.

 

Source: Tapping into the Power Supply

Photo Credit: Free stock photo: Light Bulbs, Hanging, Lighting – Free Image on …

Tapping into the Power Supply

Blog_PowerSupplyI thought TV without electricity was an impossibility until I lived for a short time in a squatter community in the Philippines. The community ran along the tracks—so close you could reach your hand out the window and touch a passing train. There was no running water, no refrigeration, and no electricity. You’d think that would mean no TV, but somehow the resourceful people of this community found a way to tap into the city power source so they could watch their favorite shows.

Considering the situation, I realize if we really want something, we’ll find a way to get it. We may live each day believing we’re stuck in our current circumstances. But if we really want to change, we’ll find a way to tap into the power that enables us to change.

One of the biggest lies of our generation is that change is impossible. What a hopeless, depressing thought—that no matter how much we desire to be different, we’re trapped for life, bound by habits that steal all life and joy, stuck in self-destructive ways, doomed for broken relationships.

The good news is that change is possible. People may say that you were born this way, and you can never change. But what is impossible with man is possible with God. The one who turns night to day and winter to spring can usher a new day and season into what man would call the most hopeless of lives. Change is not an impossible dream. It’s just a matter of tapping into the right power source.

“Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” (Matthew 19:26)
 
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)
 
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:19)

Written in Sand

Blog_LoveWrittenInSandThere’s been a lot of verbal stone-throwing in our world lately. Those who disagree with the beliefs or lifestyles of another group don’t hesitate to speak harsh, condemning words, and those with opposing viewpoints are quick to return the favor. Truth and love are lost in the war of words, leaving the world with a skewed perspective of God—some thinking him a hateful tyrant, others believing him a lenient father who smiles and winks when those he so loves do as they please.

In Jesus’ day, an adulterous woman was caught in the line of fire, an angry mob surrounding her, stones in hand, prepared to hasten her death. When Jesus showed up, the mob hoped to trap him in their extremes. Would he grab a stone and hurl it? Or would he embrace the woman’s lifestyle that likely tore families, and her own life, apart?

Jesus catered to no one. Instead, he knelt in the sand and started writing. When the crowds questioned him, he stood, saying, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then he knelt again, writing, as one by one the accusers dropped their stones and left the scene.

What was he writing that so pierced the hearts of the crowd? Many speculate he’d outlined the Ten Commandments, a visual reminder of how far all had fallen equally short. In the end, he stood, telling the woman: “Has no one condemned you? Then neither do I condemn you.”

Most of us would like to close the story there, defining love by the lack of condemnation. But Jesus went a step further, saying, “Go now and leave your life of sin.” He did not condemn the sinner, but he did confront the sin in all its destructive capacities. True, it’s unloving to condemn. Yet it’s also unloving to turn a blind eye when someone’s life choices lead them on a pathway of certain death.

Jesus understood something about the woman, and the crowds so quick to condemn. We’re all yearning: longing for something we don’t have…seeking to fill a hole in our hearts…knowing there has got to be something better. In the midst of our search, we’ve all fallen far short of that which will truly fulfill. To condemn others for seeking to fill their void is to condemn ourselves, for haven’t we all turned to broken cisterns that hold no water? Yet for those who’ve found God alone can fill that void, how very unloving to tell another “go now, do whatever pleases you,” all the while knowing our greatest pleasure comes when our identity is found in our loving Creator.

Note that whatever Jesus wrote, he wrote in the sand. Our self-made identities are not written in stone. We are not defined by our habits. All we’ve done, seeming so worthy of condemnation, is written in sand, washed away by the love of God the moment we choose to turn from the lie that tells us freedom is doing whatever we please to the truth that freedom is found in a life lived for the one who created us with greater things in mind.

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” (St Augustine)

 

Photo Credit: Love Written in the Sand | Flickr by All Things Sprite and Beautiful