Category Archives: God’s character

Ordinary to Extraordinary

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Summer is the time for vacations and kicking back, the time when people make time for each other. It’s a break from the usual routine and a chance to celebrate being together. And like it or not, concentrated togetherness always presents fresh opportunities to practice flexibility and tolerance. It’s also the perfect time to highlight creativity, even if it pops up in the most unusual of ways.

For example, when our cottage was packed with as many relatives as it could hold a week ago, finding bathroom privacy was difficult. One day in particular I kept my eye on the bathroom door, hoping to soon find it open. Each time I checked, though, it was closed.

When finally I got my chance, something interesting greeted me. The toilet water was a rich royal purple. How this happened I wasn’t sure, but I had to admit someone had been creative, elevating the ordinary to the extraordinary.

Wick removal programTP off course

The week was full of things like that. There was a pile of votive candles with all the wicks carefully removed, and a skewed roll of re-wrapped toilet paper, twice. Crusty pans were left overnight in the most unusual

Needing a soakEmerald's self-feed

places, and Emerald’s first attempt at self-feeding left a mess that matched the crusty pans.

Living in crowded community offers all sorts of let-it-go moments. We can square off with these odd-ball situations by criticizing, confronting, or complimenting. It’s our choice. Responding with a calm determination to find something good about each circumstance encourages us to chalk up the messes to the diverse ages and stages of those living under one roof, and it frees us from stress.

Also, thinking from God’s point of view helps to put things in perspective. The Father, Son, and Spirit are all of one ilk, divinely superior to any other being (such as us). When we humans complicate things unnecessarily and make messes as a result, the Trinity has every right to demonstrate righteous anger, especially if we purposely violate a standard these three have set for us.

We’ve seen this righteous anger repeatedly in Scripture, each time the Israelites chose to rebel and then experienced God’s stiff discipline. More often than not, however, he also offered them an opportunity to try again. Love was his motivation, which is why he patiently forgave them and offered a clean slate. If we wonder what to do when our crowded homes become creatively disheveled, we should follow his example.

It isn’t always easy when we’re the ones on clean-up, but searching for something upbeat in even the most peculiar situation is the route to elevating the ordinary to the extraordinary.

Royal

As for the purple toilet water? I would never have guessed.

It was Nelson.

“God is not a God of disorder but of peace.”               (1 Corinthians 4:33)

Keeping an Eye

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All of us treasure our eyesight. In reading through scriptural references to the eyes, we’re told we can gain much by what we allow ourselves to look at and can get into trouble the same way.

One biblical reference to an eye, though, has always puzzled me: “Keep me as the apple of your eye.” (Psalm 17:8) I know being the apple of someone’s eye means you’re very special to them, possibly more important than anyone else. It’s a position of loving favor. But what’s the logic of an apple being put together with an eye?

In the psalm above, David is talking to God, confident he is the apple of his eye. And he’s right, since God has already told him so. In Zechariah 2:8 God warns that anyone who hurts his people hurts the “apple of his eye” and will have to pay serious consequences.

Since the Bible contains the oldest references to the apple-eye phrase, I decided to research its meaning: (1) the ancients thought the eye’s pupil was a sphere much like a round fruit, calling it the apple of the eye; (2) the original Hebrew for this idiom was translated “little man of the eye.” The Latin word pupilla, which is much like the word pupil, means “little doll.”

Apple of his eye

So here’s the connection. When we stand face-to-face with someone, looking at each other closely eye-to-eye, we each see our own reflection in the pupils of the other. And so the phrase “apple of my eye” refers to a very close, one-on-one relationship with someone.

Only one person at a time can be close enough to see their image in another’s pupil. It doesn’t work with two. Thus there’s only one person who can be the apple of another’s eye. So how did this work with David and God? Or for that matter, with God and us?

Because the Almighty is who he is, superior to us in countless ways, he can (miraculously) be eye-to-eye with all of us at the same time while still remaining one-on-One. He’s a personal God, able to be all things to all people simultaneously. I can be the apple of his eye at the same time you are. It’s one of those divine phenomenons of 100% here and also 100% there.

God the Father has told us no one can look directly at him and live. But he’s given us the apple-eye expression as a way to understand how important each of us is to him, hoping we’ll feel the same in return.

In a related Scripture, God tells us he’s willing to guide us with his eye (Psalm 32:8). As we’re gazing at him, he passes along his all-wise guidance, which is then easy to receive when we’re that closely focused on him.

So no matter what happens to my earthly eyesight, I don’t want anything to damage my apple-eye vision.

“[God] shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye.” (Deuteronomy 32:10)

Loss or Gain?

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Nate's mailThis week Nate got two pieces of mail, reminders of someone who used to live with us but now is missing. One envelope even said, “We want you back!” It used to hurt when this kind of thing happened, but after 3½ years, it doesn’t zap me like it used to. I know my heart is healing, and I’m grateful.

But there will be more pain-producing moments in the future. It’s true for all of us, since no life is without its share of grief. If we aren’t dealing with a loved one’s death, we’re processing other losses – a job, a prodigal child, a bank account, an opportunity, a friendship, a home.

Of the billions who’ve lived on the earth, not one has escaped travail. We can trace that back to the first humans when they lost Eden, and that was just for starters. Never, as long as we live, will there be a loss-less life.

So how do we cope with such a dismal prospect?

Surely God doesn’t want us to live on red-alert beneath a banner that says, “WATCH OUT!” Scripture tells us, “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning.” (Ecclesiastes 7:4) This probably means that as we move through life’s losses from grief to healing, we somehow gain wisdom along the way. If life is hunky-dory, we don’t learn much.

The biblical Paul insisted that every struggle he endured (when persecuted for his faith) was minor compared to what he gained in the way of salvation. This was quite a mouthful, considering all he’d experienced:

  • temporary blindness
  • 195 lashes (He kept track.)
  • 3 beatings with rods
  • 1 stoning with intent to kill
  • 3 shipwrecks at sea
  • multiple robberies
  • unnumbered whippings
  • intense physical pain
  • severe thirst and hunger
  • extreme cold without proper clothes
  • multiple imprisonments
  • the deaths of friends

Each of these included painful loss and a struggle to heal, physically and also emotionally. But Paul was willing, actually eager, to tackle trouble for two reasons:       (1) to testify to God’s bringing him through; and (2) to grow in wisdom.

Most of us won’t have to cope with such a list of agonies. But as we endure different losses, we have a choice: to respond as Paul did, leaning into God’s sustenance, or to resist healing, clinging to our losses.

Pregnant Katy

When I see Nate’s name in my mail, I miss him a great deal, but I no longer cry over the envelopes, a credit to God, not me. As the Giver of all gifts, he’s shown me he continues to give, in the midst of our losses. Hans and Katy’s new baby will be born in a week or so, and soon after that we’ll witness Klaus and Brooke’s wedding. Nate won’t be with us for either of these major events, but just like Paul, I have a choice. I can continue weeping over my loss, or I can rejoice in my gains.

The choice is easy.

“Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’ For it is not wise to ask such questions.” (Ecclesiastes 7:10 )