Category Archives: God’s character

Glad to see you!

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Put a dog in front of a mirror and he has no interest in looking at himself. But put a 4 month old baby there, and she lights up with excitement.

Emerald can’t rejoice enough at her reflected duplicate. Somehow at this early age she’s figured out that the face in the mirror will change in response to her smile. She’ll grin and giggle at her grinning, giggling reflection until we get tired of holding her up to the mirror.

Noticing... Delighting... Committing!

This charming phenomenon seems to be universal with babies. They’re social beings from the very beginning, genuinely appreciating the responsive expressions of others. There’s only one source for this: the Creator himself. As he “knits them together in their mothers’ wombs” (Psalm 139:13), part of what he does is install a people-oriented piece that causes babies to relate to other faces.

Emerald has the sense to know that if you smile at someone, they’ll smile back at you. Daily she tests it in the mirror, and it works 100% of the time. The same thing happens when she smiles at us. We can’t help but smile back at her.

Why is that? Scripture gives us the answer: “A cheerful look brings joy to the heart.” (Proverbs 15:30) God wired each of us to respond to what we see. And if I would scowl at Emerald, she wouldn’t smile back but might look puzzled or even turn her lower lip down and start to cry.

God watches us closely, and that includes our facial expressions. He’s made our features unique, and the way we use them to express ourselves is probably of interest to him. Surely he’s pleased when we give smiles and “cheerful looks” to others, since it brings them joy as Proverbs says. And beyond all doubt he’s gratified when we turn toward him with a pleasant expression.

But we should check ourselves on that. As we approach Bible reading or church attendance or a prayer time, do we do it because we feel we should? Or because we feel guilty when we don’t? Or do we do it with joy, looking toward the Lord with an expectant smile? Our expressions reflect what’s in our hearts, and the question that should weigh heavily on all of us is, “What will God reflect back to me if I look toward him with dreary obligation or a sense of false guilt?”

Scripture tells us that just as Jesus was a reflection of his Father, we’re to reflect Jesus, not just in facial expressions but in what we do, where we go, who we’re with, what we wear, what we eat, what we think… all of it.

Reflected smile

If we can learn to do that, we can be sure he’ll smile back at us.

“Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.” (Proverbs 27:19)

Hard to Focus

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It’s been snowing again in Michigan, bringing winter’s unique beauty to the landscape. In an effort to send a picture-text to my grandchildren, I’ve tried again and again to capture a blizzard-in-progress. But the camera, whether it’s my phone or the old fashioned kind, has trouble knowing what to focus on.

Unfocused snow

One picture will be of a distant tree with blurred snowflakes in the foreground. The next might highlight one snowflake with everything else unclear.

People can have the same problem, not sure what should be the main focus. A husband might zero in on his job, which then blurs his commitment to his family. A wife might make her children the focal point, which isn’t fair to her husband. And for those of us who are Christians, our main focus can easily stray from the Lord and his Word.

But how can we check ourselves against focusing on the wrong things?

The first step is to decide what our main focus should be, just like a camera chooses one small part of a complicated scene to hone in on. My iPhone camera has a focus feature that activates as I touch the part of the picture I want it to focus on. A small blue square pops up in response to my finger, and when I “click” the camera shutter button, that area of the picture comes out in sharp focus.

The problem with photographing snowflakes is that they’re always moving. A camera’s focus-feature gets confused when it can’t successfully zero in on one item.

That’s true for us, too. When everything in our world keeps changing, we get confused about how to keep the main thing the main thing. It may even be difficult to determine what the main thing ought to be. And that’s why it’s important we choose to focus on those things that never change. As far as I know, it’s a very short list: (1) God, and (2) his Word. If I let my focus wander from those, life can get blurry in a hurry.

We can know beyond all doubt that God is who he says he is and will do what he says he’ll do. He won’t waver, change, or back away from any of his promises. And the intense love he has for us will never lessen.

Five fingers

Back in the 1960’s when Dad took Kodachrome pictures on a manual-focus camera, he’d line up his subjects in an effort to get a family photo but would have trouble finding someone to focus on who wasn’t wiggling. So he’d say, “Someone hold up five fingers and keep them still!” He’d turn his lens until the fingers were perfectly focused and then click the shutter. Because the faces were gathered around the hand, the whole group was perfectly in focus.

It works the same way when we close in tight to the Lord. Finding the right focus is easy after that.

“The Lord’s plans stand firm forever; his intentions can never be shaken.” (Psalm 33:11)

Enraged

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TobyI grew up with a scruffy but loveable dog named Toby. We had him for 15 years, and he was an important member of my childhood family.

BaronThen when Nate and I were newlyweds, we adopted little Baron and loved him like a baby.

 

Penny, 9 weeksOther dogs have come and gone through the years, but when we bought a 4 week old Golden Retriever named Penny, we figured we had our long-term family dog.

In her 3rd year, however, something snapped inside her. It happened on a day when Nate and I had taken her to the beach, her favorite fetching place. While he walked the shoreline, I threw a stick for Penny, who never tired of retrieving.

 

Penny retrievesAfter 30 minutes, I leaned over to attach her leash as I’d done many times before, but this time she looked up at me, unexpectedly bared her teeth, and in a full blown attack clamped down on my hand, biting all the way through.

“Penny!” I shouted. “Stop! It’s me!” She and I had spent most days together, and I’d been the one who fed her, played fetch in the yard every morning after carpooling, and loved her wholeheartedly. But she was in a blind rage and didn’t know me. Intent on her attack, she released my hand and bit me again and again, moving up my arm toward my throat.

She pulled me to the sand, shaking me like a hunting dog shakes a rabbit, and I felt myself being dragged to the water. I remembered that if a dog ever attacked, the thing to do was jab your fingers in its eyes and it would quit. But Penny had been my friend, and there was no way I could do that. Thankfully, Nate came running back from his walk just then, shouting and waving his arms. Penny let go of me and ran, her strange attack over.

Once in a while we hear about people raging in a way much like Penny did, turning in unexplained fury on those they supposedly love. It’s impossible to understand and gives rise to anger within us when we think of the innocents they’ve harmed, especially if they are children. Our instinct is to want them to suffer exactly as they’ve made others suffer, which sounds fair. But God tells us vengeful thinking isn’t right.

Incredibly he says, “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling.” (1 Peter 3:9) Instead “be transformed by the renewal of your mind…” (Romans 12:2) He’s saying, “Let me give you a radically different way to think.” But of course we aren’t able to push away thoughts of pay-back without his supernatural power flowing through us.

He’s willing to give us that, though, if we’re willing to receive it. But vengeance must be left to him, he says, and in the end he’ll see to it that perfect justice will be done.

“When Jesus was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.” (1 Peter 2:23)