Apples

I don't know about you, but I can usually get along with anyone if I try hard enough. The key, of course, is my willingness to try. The guy who darts into line before me in McDonald's might be a challenge, but hey, we'll only be together for the next three minutes anyway. I can grin and bear this. That fabulous PTA mom with a rabid need to one-up me on her child's upbringing versus mine might prove more difficult. If I get along with her I'm really just chosing to face her over and over again. We all have our little system of weights and measures, designed to give us the answer on a piece of tape that snakes out of the machine. To get along or not to get along? It just depends.

Loving people is harder, it takes more effort, but you can do it if you really, really want to. I know this because I've been there, too. Real love involves surrender to Christ, when thankfully He sort of takes over and does the hard part through you. It's surprising to find yourself in the midst of mounting frustration with an individual, wondering when your patience is going to run dry, and then to see that first bloom in your heart, out of the blue. To realize, "Hey, I really do love this person." It's a relief, another way that God proves His strength in uncertain times, and I'm always grateful for it.

But trusting a person. Now, that's hard.

Trust is a uniquely integral part of any relationship, isn't it? In fact, I think we could measure any relationship we have in direct proportion to the trust that is or isn't involved. I don't know about you, but the minute my trust is sapped, I'm on my guard with a person. After all, if you don't trust someone, you can't ever get past the doubts that tint everything they say, everything they do -- everything. Sometimes those doubts even burrow through to their very core, their very identity, making you wonder if you even know this person. And most of the time, that lack behaves like a sand pile: the higher you try to mound some semblance of trust upon it, the more it seems it will collapse when you put any real weight on it. You're just not sure the footing is safe.

Our enemy knows this. In fact, his first attack on mankind began as an undermining in the relationship of trust between Eve and her Creator. The tree and the garden surrounding it may have been the setting for his first attempt at sabotage, but Eve's heart was where the battle really raged. Satan went for the throat on his first strike, leaving her wounded and fearful, wondering if she had lived a life of naivete in regards to the God she had never doubted before. "What if" plagued her mind until she felt she had no course but to test those waters...and murky depths they proved to be. It was only later, as she hid in the trees that were invented just for her that she must have realized the trick on her psyche.

And the game hasn't changed, has it? I believe that our personal doubts and dilemmas, our weak places in the realm of trust are the prime ground for our enemy to mount his offensive towards us. We may not have our hearts set on an apple, but we have it set on something we feel is our right, our future, our destiny. The plans we weave in the stillness of night hours are precious to us. The secret hopes and ambitions we only admit to ourselves are carefully guarded. After all, we don't want to subject them to any danger -- anything that might dash them to pieces. We preserve them with an almost maternal nature, our claws flashing at any sign of compromise. Our enemy watches all the while, noting these things, plotting his best strategy. And in that opportune moment, when we are finally upon our knees before our God, His hand outstretched towards that very dream of ours, our enemy shouts, "Aha! You see? He only meant to take it all. You can't trust Him."

And so the choice lies before us, even as it lay before Eve as she gazed at the new object of her affection. The thing that drew her, that haunted her thoughts. The thing she kept on reserve. Her "just in case it all goes to pot"....

Will we give it over? Will we step onto that new plane of trust with our God? Will we put Him to the test...in even this?

Believe me, my friend. He is up for the task. He does not cower under the weight of that moment. He isn't thinking up a back exit in case of failure. "Is that your dream?" He says, raising a brow. "Really? Is that your ultimate? The best hope your imagination can muster?" He waits for our nod and then, with hand outstretched and smiling broadly, says, "Hand it over. Trust me."

"I can do much better than that."

The begets

be-get  /bɪˈgɛt/ [bi-get]
–verb (used with object), be-got or (Archaic) be-gat; be-got-ten or be-got; be-get-ting.
1. (esp. of a male parent) to procreate or generate (offspring).
2. to cause; produce as an effect: a belief that power begets power.

I love reading the Bible.

To be honest, it is an aquired taste for me, bored to tears as I was with it in the beginning. "Once you get saved, you develop a hunger for God's Word." Oh, I think I did. But I was saved at age 7 and the only translation of God's Word I had was KJV. I remember eating up God's spoken Word from the pulpit, from VBS, from my Sunday School teacher's feltboard figures...even from Jimmy Swaggart, bless him. But as I pulled my little Gideon's New Testament out to read for my 7-year-old self, my thoughts would drift in and out, steady as the tide. The pace of my reading was just about as slow until I was lost and swimming between words that were over my head. Needless to say, I usually climbed out in favor of a kiddy pool somewhere.

But God is faithful, right? He has developed my reading a little since then and, thank heavens, my attention span. He has shown me in moments that unfolded unexpectedly just how present He is in His letter to mankind. How fresh His breath blows on the page if I will just open my heart to hear Him. Now I consider it to be my lifeline and have hung onto it so many times that there are dogeared grip-marked pages to remind me of my desperation for His voice. There are passages that were so flooded with tears that they became my lifeboat. There are places where the lines dip a little from my collapse upon them.

That said, I still usually skip over the begets.

The begets: the long lists of geneology linking books, plots of land, and generations of the Bible together. The fingerprints of humanity in God's divine plan. Proof that He was paying attention ('cause usually, I'm not) as to who gave birth to whom. Who belonged to what family. Who had 3 kids -- or thirty. Sometimes, in the midst of some good reading, I come upon this list and just wonder, now, who was this Book's editor? By the time I get through this list, I'll have forgotten what I read on the other side of it. And I have never, even to this day, managed to actually like reading the begets.

They do, however, make a very pointed statement to me from time to time -- some as profound as the pronunciation of some of those names. Sometimes I'm just reminded that the day-to-day does make an impression on the Lord. That His wisdom spans the ages of history even to the ages of children. That each person who breathes a breath on this earth is factored into His equation. But today that statement was different as I was "interrupted" by yet another list of foreign and seemingly obnoxious names. Today that statement was, No, beloved. This belongs here.

You see, life has taken on a whole different feel for me lately. To be honest, I'm still struggling in the seams a little, adjusting to the fit. The softly worn places I so loved in the knees have been patched a little and the fabric is rough on me most days. The elbow room I used to have has been tightened in alterations and I kind of stretch every now and then, trying to determine my range of movement. I'm smothered some days in it and dying for closer contact on others. I'm feeling the part of a stranger and looking for friendship in the eyes of others before reminding myself that they already know me. Do I sound like a lunatic? No, I've just been faced with a difficult decision or two. And as one living on the other side of those decisions, I can tell you the scenery may be the same but I feel as much at home as I would in the land of the Perruzites, Hittites, and Amalekites.

But you know what? I belong here.

No matter what the story seemed to be progressing towards back there in previous chapters, this is where I've landed. And if I've followed the Lord in obedience, this is what I should be doing, as strange as it may seem. No, it may not appear to have much to do with what I envisioned sometime back there. Maybe my comfort is being stifled a little by the shift in focus. A lot of these circumstances may address a past I thought had been left in the land of my ancestors. The newness of this direction might scratch a little, it may irritate, and I may want to rip the tag out. None of this seems to fit. But, if I would only look a little closer, I would be reminded there is a purpose for this passage, too, and a reason for the new digs.

But God, we were just getting to the good part. When I finally get through this, I'll have forgotten what I was working toward before.

No, He says. You will just have a better handle of what I was working toward. My purpose in the whole thing -- the common thread that ties the end to the beginning. My constant effects on you, creating and changing and generating power. The record of my productions through it all...

My list of begets in your life.

"Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.

"Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands..."

Isaiah 49:15-16

Overcome, again

They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony...
Revelation 12:11

Ever sense the flood of the Holy Spirit poured out in a worship setting? Ever feel that anointing wash over you, welling up so tightly inside you can barely breathe? This has happened a few times in my life, and those times are forever inscribed on my heart.

One such occasion happened recently, when a group of ladies entered the space before our congregation to lead us in celebrating our Savior. Their faces were shining with joy, and even before they sang the first note, I knew this would be something special. When their voices rang out, it was like birds set free from the cage, their praises flying over us, above us, and sailing up to the Father. As I heard them my own voice choked and though I desired more than anything to participate, a holy hush fell over my spirit.

You see, these ladies had been recovering from various addictions. They had seen the power of God at work in their lives in such personal and intimate ways. They, more than anyone, knew the pain and isolation of their individual situations. They had felt those bonds like no one else around them. And they knew, more than anyone, what it had taken to set them free. Now they praised Him with all of their might, their song dancing before the Lord just like David -- naked and unashamed, abandoned to His marvelous Grace. And it filled me with such awe I could only stand in wonder, a spectator of the miracle, just gazing at the work of our blessed Savior.

For that, my friend, is what we are. We are each His work, His masterpiece, Ephesians 2:10 says. He spends time on us -- think of it -- He spends time on us every day of our lives, molding and fashioning us. Filling in our emptiness and vacancies with His brilliance. Shaping us into something pleasing, something beautiful. We are made to praise Him, to look at what He is doing in our lives and realize what He will make us in the end and thank Him for it. No matter the obstacles. No matter what circumstances appear to be. Our lives are our testimony, for we are bought by His blood all the rest is a tribute to Him. His power. His honesty. His excellence. His glorious mercies.

The enemy attempts to thwart our Father's work with every mirror trick in the book. His aim is to contort the beauty God is establishing in and through us. His best diversion is to give us a wrong perception of truth. To make us see our lives as failure, as tragedy, as ugly and wasted. As nothing special. Nothing unique. Certainly nothing glorious.

But one day the word of our testimony will crash through the heavens like thunder. Every crisis our Lord broke through, every day He saved, every moment He redeemed of our lives will cry out in praise to His Name. Every chain He smashed and every fear He defeated will testify of His power. A glorious shout will be heard as the song of the redeemed rises to Him -- oh, sweet melody! And our hearts will be freed as the words ring out, the words of our testimony to the Lamb, our lives, a display of His splendor:

He has overcome!

Seated above, enthroned in the Father's love
destined to die, poured out for all mankind
God's only Son, perfect and spotless One
He never sinned, but suffered as if He did.

All authority, every victory is Yours
All authority, every victory is Yours

Savior, worthy of honor and glory
Worthy of all of our praise, You overcame
Jesus, awesome in power forever
Awesome and great is Your name, You overcame.

Power in hand, speaking the Father's plan
You're sending us out, light in this broken land

All authority, every victory is Yours
All authority, every victory is Yours

Savior, worthy of honor and glory
Worthy of all of our praise, You overcame
Jesus, awesome in power forever
Awesome and great is Your name, You overcame.

We will overcome, by the blood of the Lamb
and the word of our testimony
Everyone overcome.
We will overcome, by the blood of the Lamb
and the word of our testimony
Everyone overcome.

Savior, worthy of honor and glory
Worthy of all of our praise, You overcame
Jesus, awesome in power forever
Awesome and great is Your name, You overcame. (John Egan)

Praise You, Jesus. The word of my testimony: You overcame.