Category: Actions

“Prepare to Be Surprised”…

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In the movie Dan In Real Life, Dan is a dad considering what to say to his daughter as she graduates from high school & heads out into the world. As he does so, he starts to examine his own life, & how often it surprised him, or failed to meet any of his expectations.  So, why is it that we’re always asking graduates what their “plans” are? Why do we try so hard to prepare for what’s coming, when in reality, we know there is no adequate preparation? Whatever happens will probably come as pretty much…a total surprise.  While plans & dreams can be great things, our expectations of what we think our lives are supposed to look like so often constrain & disappoint us. We often hold these visions so firmly, & cling so tightly, that it makes it difficult for our hands to be open to other great things God has intended for us.

 

Corrie Ten Boom, survivor of the Holocaust & author of The Hiding Place, said it this way: “I’ve learned to hold things loosely.  I don’t like it when He has to pry them from my grip.”  Living a surrendered life is not easy, but it IS what God call us to do, & it must be done over & over again.  In his Superpower Poem, Steve Gross states: “Openness to what is can take us far. Suffering is rooted in wanting things to be different than the way they are.”  How true this is, & how grand it would be if we could live each day as small children: open to whatever the day brings, playful & joyful in the opportunities that come, ready for adventure…all simply because they’re trusting in the good things they know their parents have prepared. “It isn’t that I cling to Him, or struggle to be blessed. He simply takes my hand in His, & there I let it rest. So I dread not any pathway, dare to sail on any sea, since the handclasp of my savior makes the journey safe for me” (unknown). It’s safe, we can trust Him…so let’s consider willingly surrendering our expectations to our Lord, & live prepared…to be surprised.

Just a Farmer…

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He’s always said he was just a farmer. Just. As if that were a simple achievement.  Many before him had tried & failed to make 160 acres of Iowa land their own. He tilled his own land for many years in a time when the corporate U. S. farmers began to really take things over. Hanging on to one’s own land required a steady touch & hard work, strength & patience, resilience & perseverance. In order to mold the land, one had to be willing to be molded by it. Those who would tend to that rich Iowa farmland produced strong crops of corn & soybeans. Those who could surrender to the land’s natural rhythms found themselves enlarged in kind; their lives yielded faithfully, just as the fertile soil.

 

He was only a soldier who did his duty. Only. Alongside many others, he helped to turn the tide of evil & tyranny that threatened to consume the earth in its second world war. My grandpa’s quiet humility is typical of what has been termed the greatest generation. in 1942 at the age of twenty, he’d enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard & trained in Baltimore before being stationed at the largest U.S. naval base in Norfolk, Virginia. Though he could have remained stationed there, he asked for sea duty. In times of peace, the Guard stayed close to our shores, but in World War II, it came to the aid of all our boys stationed throughout the world. As a small part of efforts to bring aid & transport troops, he’d crossed the Equator many times, passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, Suez & Panama Canals. His ship sailed to Calcutta, India & what is now Pakistan, had seen the Philippines & much of the South Pacific by the time he got out in 1946. They were crossing through the Strait of Gibraltar when they learned the war was over in ‘45. All his brothers & brothers-in-law had also joined up, & they all came back home safe, never forgetting how fortunate they were to have done so. That simple Iowa farmer had seen the world, had been a part of saving it.

Lovers of Peace…

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“Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). These are the qualities God asks us to demonstrate with our lives when He is asked by His people “What does the Lord require of us?”. This word comes in the Old Testament, an age that was under the Law. Even from then, the things God asks of us are really quite simple, but most certainly, simultaneously quite profound. In a way, they can be summed up in a code of peace. We are to have peace with God, peace with others, & peace within ourselves. If that peace exists, these qualities will be consistently demonstrated in our lives. In the New Testament, Jesus & his disciples often command us to be lovers of peace, & peace is also delineated as one of the pieces of the “armor of God”. Paul tells us to put it on every day in Ephesians 6:15: “having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” The Gospel simply means “good news”, & we associate this with God’s gift of salvation from our sins & darkness through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus.

 

But…there’s a piece of this armor that I’ve often missed. Not only does donning God’s armor mean we are equipped with that Word of the Gospel…it also means we must demonstrate the PEACE that news brings to our lives (The Armor of God, Priscilla Shirer). That PEACE is what speaks into the hearts & minds of those around us. It’s what equips & empowers us to live in hope & life. If we don’t demonstrate it, then we’re not “speaking” His good news to the world in action & deed. Perhaps that means we’re not truly allowing His Spirit to empower us in the moment-by-moment living. Another piece of good news, however, is that this peace is not something we can produce on our own, it is described as a fruit & byproduct of His Holy Spirit working in us (Galatians 5:22-23). After accepting His salvation, all we must do is allow His Spirit to work within us as His vessels. We must simply allow His PEACE to PERMEATE our hearts & minds & souls if we are to offer it over & over again to a broken world living without His hope & His life. I want to soak it in, and let it permeate my thoughts…and heart…and words…and relationships.