BeLOnGings

 

While having breakfast with our friends Roy and Rosemary Millar yesterday Hilary noticed a little bird in their back garden in what appeared to be a cage.

“No, that’s not a cage” Roy said. “It’s a feeder. The birds are able to fly in, eat the seed, and then fly out again.”

The happy finch now refueled took off in flight towards Belfast Lough. We too having  feasted on Rosemary’s ‘healthy’ version of the deadly Ulster fry set off in the same direction for a stroll along the shoreline.

The wide-ranging conversation between Roy and I, two former doctors, turned to the world’s ills.

Roy mentioned Victor Frankl, holocaust survivor and founder of “logotherapy”. In Frankl’s best selling book “Man’s Search for Meaning” he chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate, which led him to discover the importance of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most brutal ones, and thus, a reason to continue living.

Roy quoted the figure of 60% of all illness being traceable to people failing to find purpose in life.

He recalled the story of the Ten Boom sisters, also concentration camp inmates. Corrie, author of The Hiding Place, told of how it was her older sister Betsy’s trust in a God who worked all things together for good, (even the lice, which kept the German guards at bay!) who was the inspiration for her survival and subsequent fruitfulness as a witness of Christ throughout her long life.

I recalled another elderly lady and ‘hero of faith’ we had just visited. Maureen had left with her new husband for Africa soon after they married. They both knew that the doctors had said that given Jim’s poor health, a move to the climate of Malawi, or Nyasaland as it then was, would be a fatal decision. Convinced this was how they were being lead, they went anyway. Jim outlived the doctors predictions but still died as a relatively young man. Maureen stayed on identifying fully in language and living with her new African ‘family’  When she finally retired and returned to Northern Ireland her daughter brought her along to our community where she experienced the power of the Spirit in community. “I have to go back and bring this new dimension of the ‘good news’ to my people” she said, and so instead of winding down to enjoy a well earned rest in her later years she found a job back in her beloved Malawi and became a door for others to go and serve her family there.

I remember the first meeting we had with the local leaders there being told, “Whatever our mother Maureen tells us….we will do!” such was the respect in which she was held.

As we entered the common area of the Belfast nursing home she had just moved to, we realized this could not be an easy transition from her last assisted living situation. There she was surrounded by others who were mentally alert but because of her physical limitations she now found herself wheelchair bound and the only ‘lucid’ person in the room. When she saw us walk in her countenance brightened!

We moved to a  more private space. “It’s the fellowship I miss.” she said, “……but I shouldn’t complain. they are very good to me here.”  We talked for a while recounting God’s faithfulness in our lives and when the time came came to leave, I said, “Can we pray together?” “Oh yes please” Maureen beamed.

As her head turned upwards, eyes closed, her face was transformed into the most beautiful visage one could imagine, and  as she opened her mouth to speak to the one she loved, oh so much, volumes of thanksgiving and praise, that delighted little bird took flight from what looked to us like a cage, and soared into the clear blue sky…………

 

 

I was sitting at a red light and out of the corner of my eye noticed the young man in the car next to me. As our eyes locked I gestured a greeting. I could see he had  that Mel Gibson fighting Celt, “Ya wanna pick a fight?” look. So to ensure, as they say in Belfast, that I wouldn’t “get me head in me hands.” I wound down the window and in a friendly tone enquired, ” ‘Bout ye mate?’

“Not too well!” he replied gruffly, lifting a crutch up to the open window.

The lights turned green, and so in the split second remaining I sped off delivering as a  parting shot, “May you be healed!!”

I’ve no idea whether he wanted to take a swing at me with his crutch for a bad pun or whether he received it as the genuine blessing I intended.

Immediately the scripture came to mind from the KJV, “Be instant in season and out of season.”

The brief exchange had been both instant and instinct.

Later when I researched further the Greek work here for “instant”, I discovered an alternative rendering was, “Be present”  To which I would add…….to the Christ in you and to the Christ at all times all around you, that grace might flow in every instant from a heart instinct as we connect to the grace that at all times and in all things enables us to abound in every good work……even as we’re abounding up the Newtownards Road in our car : – )

At the end of that road I came to my friend’s house where I found the sign I posted above, on the door.

“Ha!….only in Belfast!” I thought again : – ))

I was about to end this brief blog here, but then checked my email. Here’s what Greg from our fellowship in Minneapolis had just sent me….. another motoring story with the same punchline.

“I had a long conversation with an 80 year old man while my oil was getting changed. Our conversation spanned many subjects, politics, life, death, and technology. One thing he said stood out to me. He told me he always drives “a nice cool 60” on the freeway and watches everyone speed by him. He told me “The devil tells us to speed up, God tells us to slow down.” He told me that I made his day by taking the time to talk with him for an hour rather than staring at my phone. His words were a good reminder to me in this busy time to stay present with God and the people around me. “

This reminded me of a dream I had this morning in which I was returning from a  trip to take charge of a large community for which I had responsibility. I recognized some anxiety within myself about whether things had gone well in my absence. The anxiety grew when I met and engaged in conversation with a man delaying me even more.  However after leaving him I had a reassurance from Father that giving my attention to this man was all I needed to do…….and the anxiety about the “big deal” had left.

I felt the blog was now complete and looking up at the wall of Abby and Stephen’s home where we are staying saw the sign on their wall

P.S. Last week I didn’t blog because the computer went caput! Fortunately (the last) Adam (he said there were several before him!) in the Apple store, helped me reset and restore what had been lost…….Mmmm there’s another lesson in that!

 

 

 

 

My friend Mike shared with me how he had wakened the other day with the song “Now is the Time” playing in his mind. I remarked that I had just been talking to Ben about finishing our album “The Whole of Creation”. Ben had felt he should include a second version of that song on it. As we drove into Minneapolis airport this morning there it was for the third time on a giant billboard in front of us,………”NOW IS THE TIME”

Another song that’s been going round in my mind the last few days is entitled, “Are you Ready for the Storm?” As I went walking yesterday humming the melody, my attention was caught by the above tree…… an oak that looked like it had been twisted in two by powerful winds.

I recounted the verse in Psalm 29:9 “The voice of the Lord  twists the oaks and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry “Glory!’

A footnote gives another quite different reading, of “twists the oaks” – ‘Causes the deer to give birth’ 

A few years ago I went for a walk with my friend Brian Rupe, a YMCA camp director in Pennsylvania. He was pointing out the damage done by a tornado that had just touched down on the property. As we gazed at those contorted oak trees strikingly illustrating that verse…… a mother deer walked across our path with her two newborn!!

The power of God’s voice that destroys is also the power that creates.

Atop the twisted oak above did you notice the figure….wielding a sickle?

Before leaving home I snapped another picture of the original painting by Colin Davidson that is the cover of the Come Lord Jesus album inspired by the verse in Rev 14:15………“Thrust in your sickle and reap for the time to reap has come for the harvest of the earth is ripe.’

 

Do you notice the background as the harvester goes about his business?

In these dark days of gathering storm clouds in our world we ready ourselves to receive the wind of the Spirit, that will tear down …..and at the same time bring to birth in order to bring in the harvest of the earth.

I lifted the painting off the wall and initially tried different positions to avoid the reflection from the glass, but then I realized I should just snap it “as is”, on our ‘star quilt’ gift from our Indian friends with the emerging light….

In Peter’s words reflecting on his “mount of transfiguration” experience

“We weren’t, you know, just wishing on a star when we laid the facts out before you regarding the powerful return of our Master, Jesus Christ. We were there for the preview! We saw it with our own eyes: Jesus resplendent with light from God the Father as the voice of Majestic Glory spoke: “This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of all my delight.” We were there on the holy mountain with him. We heard the voice out of heaven with our very own ears.

We couldn’t be more sure of what we saw and heard—God’s glory, God’s voice. The prophetic Word was confirmed to us. You’ll do well to keep focusing on it. It’s the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts.” (2 Pt. 1:16-19 Msg.)

As we arrived in Amsterdam, once again insistently from the Father came the message:

Hilary is enjoying creating photo albums of some of our adventures….using those free coupons of course as all Proverbs 31 wives do : – )

I’ve come to see that the Bible is God’s photo album.

For example Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is a snapshot revealing at a certain moment in time the condition of that church’s life and the nature of Paul’s relationship as a father to the believers there.

He was answering some concerns that had been brought to his attention. Their unity in Christ was faltering as people were breaking into factions. Paul identified the root problem as the pride of immaturity. He also pinpoints a failure to distinguish between soul and spirit.

The world with it’s pervasive culture tries to ‘capture’ our souls (to profit itself) by that which is EMOTIONAL and LOUD.……yet what is offered leaves us feeling empty…….

One of my sons sent me a song by the popular Father John Misty expressing the disillusionment of many in his generation in the establishment……including the church establishment. The punch line (a play on Springsteen’s famous song) – “Bored in the USA”

We in the church, when evangelized by the world, employ the same marketing techniques, and most immature believers know no better than to be wooed emotionally by BIG names, numbers and noises while at the same time being conditioned to be spectators sitting in rows to passively watch the TV, the computer, the basketball game, the movie, the band and now, “the ministry”…..all happening – out there!

Failing to understand this critical distinction between spirit and soul we mistakenly take the bible snapshots and with our ‘soulish mind’  try to apply them in our current situations.

The result? –“Bored in the church!” (Maybe this was the sort of church experience Father John Misty felt more razed in than raised in?)

God’s intention is that we learn how to be genuinely lead by the Spirit – in here!

When we relinquish the illusion of control and tune in to God’s voice that is STILL and SMALL speaking in our spirits, we find ourselves being wonderfully and continually FILLED!!! 

The result of this way of living is that we escape from being prisoners framed in our own bad photo album to become actors moving in His marvelous movie.….in fact the same movie that Paul and the Corinthian church were playing in.

Recently I was in a first Corinthians church type situation. It metamorphosed from a boringly predictable service to a glorious rerun of one of the New Testament miracles where someone received back their sight! No one had any notion this is where things would end up, but as the designated actors knowingly or unknowingly played their parts, alternatively resisting then yielding to the Spirit’s prompting, a very antagonistic and tense situation gave way to tears and hugs of joyful reconciliation. Hope was kindled as the young people saw unfolding before their eyes the sort of “demonstration of the Spirit’s power” that St. Paul was promising his Corinthian family, that transforms lives and situations.

I wondered, “Was this also how that scene ended, from which that Corinthian snapshot was taken?”

The Trinity Studios movie is called Creation Restored. It is written and directed by the Father, stars Jesus the Son and is produced by the Holy Spirit. When you are awakened by the Spirit to find that Father has cast you in this, the real Christ movie, life can never be boring again as you realize in a living and exhilarating way…..SCRIPT — U – R !

 

P.S. You may have noticed I just discovered the color button : – ) I guess that makes it

Trinity Studios in glorious technicolor

P.P.S. We are planning to be in Ireland (also England and Netherlands) from May 1st – June 7th. so that may influence blog posts over the next weeks.

 

Last Saturday, the day before Resurrection Sunday, we had a visitor.

“Look! A hawk” I exclaimed, pointing to the large bird just outside our window.

“That’s not a hawk Papa!” said Ivan, our encyclopedia of animal and bird knowledge. “That’s a peregrine falcon!”

So I went to the fount of all knowledge……..google : – ) and discovered that to Native Americans this, the fastest bird alive, is highly esteemed as a heavenly messenger. I knew this visit was related to the impending death of a dear Ojibwe friend, Warren, whose spirit did return to God a few hours later…. at the beginning of “the third day”.

Later that evening Hilary showed me a letter she had just found while sorting papers in our room.

It was one of the old fashioned airmail letters. It had been written by my mother and father and sent to us on our honeymoon in America 42 years ago. Subsequently it must have returned with us to Ireland and hidden there for 20 years before sneaking a passage back to America when we moved to live here. It continued to lie unnoticed in our bedroom …..until last Saturday evening.

As I read it I realized it contained that message from heaven we had been promised……in fact it contained 2 messages. The first was a personal one. Earlier that evening I had done something I rarely do……….falling back into a bad American habit I reached for a big bowl of ice cream!

I chuckled as I read the last sentence written in my father’s artistic script

“Paul, go easy on the ice cream”

The second message I realized came earlier in the letter, for my father had informed me that the leading elder in the Irish church back then had just died in his early 60’s.

Like Abel in the grandstand of faith (Heb.11:4) my father, though dead, was still speaking, at the timing and direction of his, my and Warren’s heavenly Father.

I knew that Our Father was highlighting His view of brother Warren, and that A leading Jesus elder (among the Ojibwe people here) had just died.

Warren had been the fastest, strongest and meanest man on the Rez. Then near the end of his life he met Jesus and the new gentle giant would sit tenderly holding his wife Mary’s hand tears running down his face as he listened to others testify about how they too had been rescued out of dire straights.

I recalled St. Paul’s words at the end of his life now more full of meaning,

…….the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge will award to me on that day – and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” (2 Tim. 4:6-8)

Again I googled to see “What age was St Paul at his death?” – 61 yrs.

“Mary” I said at the funeral. “What age was Warren?” – “61 yrs.” she answered.

Warren’s life was a testimony to God’s promise in Is. 61.1  for at the end of his life on earth he was a captive who had been released to fly free as the Baapaase – red headed woodpecker, for which he was named at his birth.

His Ojibwe name took on even more meaning for me when I recalled how that Saturday morning little Isla lying on the living room floor spontaneously began singing,

“Baa ba black sheep have you any wool.

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full

One for my master and one for my dame

And one for the little boy who lives down the lane.”

Warren had indeed been a black sheep as we understand that term, but in the end he was able to give back the warm love offering of a bag of wool to his Master Shepherd Jesus, to his Dame, Mary, and to all of us ‘little boys’ who knew him.

Later someone told me that in the Middle East a black sheep actually represents wealth!

This is Warren’s testimony in his own words from just a few months ago,

“I met the Kyles, Hilary and Paul, through my friends Carol and Kevin about 4 years ago. I started participating in their retreats. My way of thinking started changing, slowly at first, after coming to the retreats. I couldn’t believe how happy these people were – hugging and laughing and dancing and not even drinking!!

I am a Native American and I grew up on the Fond Du Lac reservation. I drank, I beat people up, and I partied for 50 years. My body finally started getting sick from it. I had to be life flighted from northern Minnesota to Minneapolis, and I died when they were taking the fluid out of my body. There I met Jesus. He said “Warren, you need to go back and do what you have to do”. I spent a month in a hospital bed then and it took me a good 2 years to get back to be able to walk around. My whole body had been shutting down.

But I started drinking and partying again when I was able. Finally I had a large stomach bleed. I lost nearly 6 pints of blood. I thought I was gonna die. When I started to be put under for surgery for my liver, Jesus again said, “Warren go back and do what you have to do”.

A few months later my ammonia started getting very high and dialysis hurt very badly. I was ready to die. Father God came to me. I heard that me, Warren Barney was saved!! I am saved!!…. and I am healed just enough.

My friends had planned a get together for me because I was going to go on hospice. But when I was walking up the aisle after playing the big drum, whoosh like something just came into the room and came over me, my whole body, my whole being and it felt really good. I wanted to tell everybody right then!! It was a very spiritual moment for me. I was healed just enough.

This was when I really started praying and believing. I have finally been sober for 18 months thanks to the prayers and help from these people and retreats. The desire to drink and party is gone now. I still struggle with health issues but God is helping me work through them and I know God is a good God and a loving God.”

I wonder which scripture came to your mind?

Possibly Psalm 27:4 as we hum,
“One Thing I ask for and that shall I seek                                                                                                                                       To dwell in the house of the Lord.”

But if there is a hierarchy of scripture, I favor Jesus words about Mary over David’s to God.

“Only One Thing is needful…and Mary has chosen the better part.”(Luke 10:42)

I believe worship should be a marriage of stating objective truth and expressing subjective experience. I think Charles Wesley got a good balance.

Nowadays however our hymnody seems to again have been evangelized by “The Century of the Self” and has lost that balance singing more about what we feel or think about God or what we want from God than about God himself and a response to the completed work of Christ!

I can’t remember the tune to:

“One Thing I ask for and that shall I seek                                                                                                                      To obey the voice of the Lord”  : – ))

This year during the lenten season we have been pondering John’s gospel. Time and again Jesus reminds us of how his love is demonstrated in his heartfelt obedience to the Father.

For me this simplifies the life of faith to One Thing, which I summarize this way,

“Love who and what I have set in front of you – right now.”

What that looks like can only be revealed for each one of us as we learn to abide in Him and be instructed each moment by the Spirit within.

For Jesus it was no different,

“The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue to know the word that sustains the weary. Morning by morning He waken my ear to hear like one being taught. The Sovereign Lord has opened my ear…and I was not rebellious” (Is. 50:4-9)

…….even on that last morning of Gethsemane, sensing where things were going, he nonetheless double checked with the Father in the garden how that day was meant to end.

The One Thing Jesus is recorded as telling us specifically to learn from Him is meekness and humility of heart….resulting in rest for our souls. He address’s this direction to those who are “weary” (Matt 11:28-30)

Thus He simply divides the world into just two groups…….those who are “weary” and those who are submissively receiving a word from Father to sustain those who are weary.

May we be of those who are daily migrating from the first group to the second!

P.S. My friend Jim Hart also does a good job of balanced worship as President of the Institute of Worship Studies. I received his seasonal meditation this morning.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God,      did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied himself,      by taking the form of a servant,      being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form,      he humbled himself      by becoming obedient to the point of death,           even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him      and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,      in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,      to the glory of God the Father. —Philippians 2:5-11, ESV

Dear Paul, A blessed Triduum to you and yours! The hymn text above from Paul’s letter to the Philippians is one of the most beautiful summaries of the story of Jesus the Christ found in scripture. The self-emptying love (or Kenosis) of the Incarnate God is at the very center of the entire biblical narrative. We read that the only Son of God did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped at, but in contrast, took on the scandal of the deepest fear of all mankind: an ignominious, painful, agonizing and humiliating death and descent into the lowest region of God-forsakenness. The focus of this hymn stands in stark contrast to the narrative of another biblical figure, said also to bear the very image of God, who did attempt to cling to equality with God—Adam. The primal sin of Adam was the arrogant grasping after God, and we, fellow sinners, have inherited the same propensity. We want to be God. In his Kenosis, Christ Jesus reverses this sin of Adam, reconciling, restoring and healing all of us, in fact all of creation, to true union with God. Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote, “Basically, in Jesus Christ’s death, Descent into Hell and Resurrection, only one reality is there to be seen: the love of the triune God for the world, a love which can only be perceived through a co-responsive love.” One more important detail: von Balthasar continues, “The founding of the Church is not an end in itself…. It is the whole world which is reconciled with God through the Cross and Resurrection of Christ (Col. 1:19ff). And yet the achieved reconciliation has need of the Church’s ministry in its service – a ministry which constitutes, according to Paul, the meaning of the mission Christ has conferred.” In other words, in this great act of God’s self-giving love in Christ we also see, hear, and are summoned to the call to mission. As we enter into the core of Holy Week, let us remember with “co-responsive love” the costly, immense sacrifice of our Savior, bearing our arrogance, humiliation and sorrow. But let us also enter into the victory of Christ, celebrating the fullness of God’s love, the divine life that reaches out to reconcile all humankind and all of creation to God. Remember. The Lord be with you, James R. Hart, President

It is said that the mosquito is Minnesota’s State bird. Fortunately they are not due to emerge from the cold for few months yet.

A few nights ago I was wakened with a severe cramp in the adductor muscle group of my left leg.

I lept out of bed sensing it was Father’s iron grip…….getting my attention. I glanced at the clock. It said 2.21, so I knew I should get my bible out and pursue the reason for this rude awakening.

Sure enough I was lead to a book, the second chapter and twenty first verse. The message was perfect for the situation I had been holding before the Lord. It was confirming a disciplinary step I sensed I should take. In Hebrews  we read “No discipline seems pleasant but painful at the time” for the recipient yes…. but also for the one called to implement it!

A few nights later I was up again during the night. I had turned to the same verse and was checking with Father if he really wanted me to follow through on this, when  I noticed a mosquito hovering nearby. “It’s far too early for mosquitos!” I thought, and then watched in disbelief as it landed…..on my left adductor muscle group – and then sunk it’s proboscis into me!

I knew it was Father who had sent the little lady along (it is the females that bite) because I needed this strong and painful double witness on my left adductor group to embolden me to obey!

Yes, “No discipline (training) seems pleasant t the time…… Later on, however, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” (Heb.12:11) As I obeyed, and ‘truthed it in love’, the fruit was indeed good!

And now I know why God created mosquito’s………they are His messengers……sent to serve!

Psalm 119:91 says “ALL things (even those pesky mosquitos) serve you.” which is why we can, as it says in 1 Thess.5:20, “Give thanks in ALL circumstances.” (even when called upon to donate blood to an unworthy cause : – ))

 

 

 

 

Well I was all set to send this week’s blog and as usual asked Hilary what she thought. She said “I don’t think so dear.”

I have come to appreciate this as one of the greatest gift’s God has given me  – a godly wife who is strong and loving enough to say,”No” (Ps.62:11)

So I went back to just Living Life, Looking and Listening, and Learning to Love, open to Father giving me another message………and found myself doing again today what I talked about in one of the first blogs………taking one of the grandchildren for a walk in the stroller to give his mum and dad some space……The only difference was that this time round, it was our next grandchild…Asher instead of Isla!

We paused for a photo shot in front of another local view that again featured in one of the early blogs…….. the Trinity of skyscrapers in Downtown Minneapolis: “Father, Son and Holy Spirit – Let your glory fill the earth.”

I realized it is now exactly ONE YEAR since I began this blog

When we discover how God works cyclically we notice these recurring  patterns.

Because of Christ’s redemptive work reversing the curse we can now as individuals and families by faith experience a cycling upwards instead of a downward spiral!

Although Asher, born to Ben and Kim (nee Larson), is the latest in the Kyle line, another grandchild has since been born in the Larson line. I had the joy of marrying Kim’s brother Rob and his wife Julie who have now given birth to a son they were lead to call Aiden. His name means FIRE

St Aidan was the Irish monk sent out from Columba’s monastery on Iona to evangelise the English from his base on Holy Island, where, at the turn of the millennium, when I happened to be visiting my friend Andy Raine, I discovered this statue of St. Aidan carrying The Flame.

A few months ago local friends who had also visited the island brought back a photo to show me from the cemetery in the shadow of The Flame statue. It did not surprise me for I remembered seeing these headstones myself in that graveyard

My father was also called George (Gilbert) Kyle, and my mother Anna Kyle! They were the ones who passed the torch of faith on to me that is now being passed to our grandchildren!

Kim and Rob’s father, John Larson, had a plaque making business in Mexico for many years. This is one of the plaques he gave us that hangs in our hallway with a quote from Lord of the Rings.

 

Who would have thought back then he would publish a prophesy about the union and sequential fruit of that union between the families? (God knew : – )

“From the ASH(ER)es a fire (AIDEN) shall be woken.”

This is also a forshadowing of the ultimate union between Christ and the body of Overcomers who are being prepared to receive from their King a crown to rule and reign with him on the earth for a thousand years. (Rev.5 and 20) for,

“…….the crownless again shall be King”

I noticed the RAINBOW in my photo over the word “again” – for God has made a New Covenant that out of the ashes, what was lost to Adam’s family will be restored through Christ who has now given us “the right to become –  children of God” (Jn.1:12) so that we might “be woken” to “Arise and shine” with Him. (Is. 60:1)

“When this age shall end and the time has come

For the Trump to sound and our Lord to come

Then as one we’ll rise and our Flame unite

With the one who loved and bought us.”

……God’s covenant will NOT fail, for our common Adamic family line….. nor for your immediate family line no matter how ‘broken’ it may now seem!

P.S. Thank you for reading over the last year. I can track my little band of consistent readers by Mailchimp, and each time I go down the list of friends a smile broadens on my face as I picture and pray for each one of you dear folk! Although I haven’t activated the ‘Comments’ option, I love hearing from of any of you anytime!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took off into the airwaves the other week to talk with one of my Irish friends on Skype. As we finally made a bumpy landing and connected eye to eye and ear to ear he complained of a bad case of “Dinasoaritis.”

He said he started going to a ‘successful’ mega church and realized when it came to following the bible passage he was the only one in his row who was looking at a paper version of THE book of THE face!

“Facebook!” he said, “That’s the magic carpet on which everything in the church seems to fly forward, and since I’m not on Facebook and have an old Nokia push button phone I don’t think I fit.”

I told him I was finishing off the blog about the “trouble” of Ps. 46.

He recounted how in recent years he had been shaken and his ‘mountain‘ of savings had slid into the sea! But he knew now this had been good thing because he was forced to trust not in his material assets but in God alone as his ‘refuge and strength’

I then said, “Imagine if the internet crashed and the IT ‘magic carpet’ on which we are all flying was pulled out from under us, where would that leave us?…..where would that leave the churches?”

To the early Celtic believers the Holy Spirit was represented by the Wild Goose… a fitting complement to the gentle dove, because fire, water and wind are types of the Spirit in scripture and these are elements that cannot be tamed and controlled by man.

Do you remember when the wild geese flew into the engine of  flight US 1549. Captain Sully was credited with making a ‘miraculous’ landing but “The heart of the king (Sully) is in the hand of the Lord who directed that flight to the (Hudson) watercourse as He willed” (Prov.21.1 Adapted!)

As we learn to fly in the Jet stream of the Holy Spirit then no matter what happens we can be confident that we will land laughing on that same river that flows through our hearts and “whose streams make glad the city of God.”(Ps.46:4)

As we believe Isaiah’s gospel message,

“How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news…. ‘YOUR GOD REIGNS'”

…..we tune in to the voice of the ‘air controller’ in our hearts saying.

“Be still and know that I am God.” (Ps.46:10)

 

P.S. I apologized in advance to my friend Eugene about poking fun at him in last week’s blog and told him he had of course the right to reply. He said in his usual magnanimous way,

“Happy to be a vehicle of humour anytime for my Edgar Allan-faced American brothers and sisters!”

I don’t know if Eugene realized that Edgar Allan Poe the famous American literary figure was of ‘dour’ Ulster Scots extraction!

Also my google search revealed that one possible origin of the expression “Po faced’ is the face one would make if a used chamber pot was presented to one. With dung picturing in Ezekiel the idols of the heart…. maybe when we get rid of the last of these we will indeed be able, like the Scottish air traffic controllers, to not take our ‘old self’ so seriously!

 

 

I thought with it being around St. Patrick’s day I should pass on to you a photo my friend Eugene sent me from Ireland. (I’m glad he was able to safely free himself from the driver’s seat and calmly record the event!) I’m publishing his name and photo because he is a holy man who lives out Ps.119:168,(KJV) “Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.”

What relevance has this to today’s blog? Well I’ve been lead to make last week’s blog the first in a Trinity, so I needed a second racial joke in order to balance things out for my German friends and  introduce a few thoughts on our entering into deeper communion with the second member of the Godhead – Jesus. You’ll have to wait until next week to see which nationality gets made fun of in the name of the Holy Spirit : – )

Enough of my Paddy humor, now let’s get serious…but not about ourselves…in fact that’s the problem!!!

Last week I talked about learning to Drop Down in order to Delight with Dad in our hearts instead of Debating with the Devil in our heads. This week focuses on a Double Dose of Jesus Joy.

Jesus Joy is also located in our hearts, but is connected with our heads as the following photograph illustrates

 

I was directed to work as a delivery/deliverance man for 3 months for Jimmy John’s. This is me and my friend and co-worker Greg, beside our vehicles which are topped with the same symbol that is on our foreheads. For Greg and I the JJ stood for Jesus Joy. Our goal was with every sandwich delivery to also bring along a double dose of Jesus Joy deliverance. (You might notice our two vehicles were cons-trucked out of Eugene’s salvage : – )

So driving at breakneck speed to the corporate office or the private home or the local college I would seek to ‘get out of my head’ and Drop Down into my spirit in preparation for the upcoming 10 second encounter, so that I would receive from Jesus, the TREE of LIFE, a leaf for the “healing of the nation” I was about to meet. (Rev. 22:2)

I remember on one occasion I had barely opened my mouth when the lady exclaimed delightedly, “You’re from Ireland!…I’ve just been there!…O how I loved it!” She was thrilled as I gave her a copy of “O Ireland.” On another occasion I mentioned to the Korean receptionist about my trips to her homeland. She was so happy to get a copy of my ‘hit’ song there, Lord Jesus We Enthrone You…..and I was privileged to plant yet another seed. And so with a song, a smile, a listening ear, an inspired question, an encouraging comment, an essential oil, or a prayer as I drove away, I sought to feed both body and spirit.

This high pressured “Freaky Fast” environment was a challenging learning curve for an old guy like me.

The One Way

to survive…

and to thrive….

and have others thrive….

was In Christ to Abide

……and have His word

…..abiding in me

…..offered free.

The poem that is Psalm 1 talks about “the man” who we are in Jesus Christ and “the tree” which is who He is in us. As we identify with our “new creation” man, “Christ in us”, we will, “delight in, and meditate (‘chew the cud’ Msg.) on God’s law day and night”

The Hebrew word for law here is Torah, which is made up of 4 characters that together pictorially represent, “What comes from the Leader nailed to the cross.”

As we abide in this One who is “The Word” we will find as the psalmist says that we become “blessed fruitful and prosperous in ALL that we do!”

A few years on from sandwich delivery I continue to trust that the life giving word that I need in any and every situation will come up like ‘cud’ from where I have stored it in my heart through this practice of bible meditation.

In Jeremiah 31:33 God promises “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” 

…………… as we co-operate in this process we all get to wear that Jesus Joy deliverance hat –

…………….not on, but in our heads

…………….and on our hearts.