Earth, Wind, & Fire

Altar Frontal, Wells Cathedral UK

I wonder if Earth, Wind, & Fire ... the 70's R&B, Soul, Funk, Jazz, Disco, Rock, Pop, Latin, African, Gospel band ... got their name from Acts 2. All the variables are the same. The Holy Spirit came to earth falling upon the waiting, watching, praying followers of Jesus. He opened their ears in the sound of the rushing wind and ignited their hearts with the flame of fire. And, the result was that each one received a gift to speak another tongue or language ... a kind of music? ... so that all the nations of the world gathered in Jerusalem would hear the saving message of Jesus Christ.

Those in Jerusalem that day experienced the first fruits of God's harvest. (50 days after Passover was the Feast of Pentecost ... the Feast of First Fruits, the first harvest of wheat.) They were the first fruits! The power of Peter's words ... the power of the disciples' obedience to be available, to speak the word of God (prophesy) ... harvested the first fruits of those who believed in Jesus Christ. 3,000 people came to know Christ that day.

And, then they went home to their homes ... scattered into all the nations of the world. They took with them the Good News of Great Joy ... a new song ... that Jesus Christ has delivered us from sin, that God has forgiven us covering us in Jesus' righteousness, and through Jesus ... the ruler of this world is defeated. Defeated! Jesus is victorious! They sang the New Song of Great Joy in every language and every tongue ... and the world was lit on fire with the Holy Spirit ... in R&B, Soul, Funk, Jazz, Disco, Rock, Pop, Latin, African, Gospel ... OK, and Classical, Country, Opera, Grunge, Lullaby, Choral, Chant ... in essence World Music!

What is your song that the Holy Spirit wants to sing through you? And, where does He want you to sing it? It makes me smile to think about how the world is being lit by the Holy Spirit's fire through our song of Good News of Great Joy ... Jesus our Savior and Friend.

AMEN!

Blossom in the Present

SheKnows.com

In this my new address, I am helping to care for a number of gardens ... weeding, planting, hauling, mulching, watering. I am truly thankful for this work ... I love gardening as a gift for time to pray and think  ... and see things grow. But, I confess that at the beginning of this new leg of my journey, my thoughts turned to questions of why I went to seminary in the first place if my work is going to be selling stuff or weeding gardens. What were all those years of study and pressing thru to ordination about? Hmmm. A little pity party going on. Then, I read this in Anne Long's book Listening:

It is not the particular ministry but our availability and readiness to respond which matter. Much of what we are called to will be humble, unacclaimed acts of service, a simple response to what God was bringing to our attention. ... It is not the place where you are that is the important thing. It is the intensity of your presence there. It is not the situation that counts ... [but] that you are fully alive in any situation. It is this that puts down roots and then flowers in your life. Availability: that is obedience. That and looking hard at the place where you are, instead of wanting to work wonders somewhere else. 

Wake up call! Bloom where you are planted! I don't know who the author is of that quote, but Jeremiah had something to say about it. In chapter 29 he speaks to the people in exile and tells them to be alive wherever they find themselves. Build houses and live in them, plant gardens and harvest the blessing ... and give that blessing to others. Stop looking to go somewhere else, for some future place or time or event that seems to be the perfect answer to your prayers. Live now. Be fully alive in the present now. Be available to all and everything around you. Be attentive and listen for the Lord's work around you now. And, be blessed and bless ... in His Name.

My Dad loved sunflowers, those blooms that follow the sun all day long and bow their heads of sunshiney petals to sleep at night. Even at night they prayerfully watch the sun to await the dawn and live the new day ... the new address ... fully present and available where they are planted. Be available to God's work in and thru you today and bloom where you are planted.

Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving

About six years ago a family member lost his job. It wasn't a pretty experience and to make matters worse, these years have heaped rejection upon rejection at attempts to get full-time work. Even so, during these years God's love and care provided part-time hourly employment that enabled them to keep their home ... but it has been a long road of piecing together 3 to 4 jobs that translated into 10 to sometimes 14 hour days.

Then ... yesterday ... a promotion to full-time employment!

Praise be to God!

... was my immediate response. My heart spilled over with thanksgiving for God's answer to my prayer, their prayers over these last years. So, now I wonder what to offer as a Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving.

When God gave Moses the instructions for the sacrifices to be brought to the temple, the Sacrifice of Thanksgiving was one of them. (Leviticus 7) This sacrifice was to give thanks to God for his answer to a prayer, for his blessing bestowed. The one who prayed was to bring a sacrifice to the temple, and while the priests prepared the offering ... that one was to tell others, give testimony to what God had done. And, then they all feasted together from the sacrifice offered. This offering was praise to God ... an offering of pure praise.

I don't have to do this. I want to. I want to tell you of God's faithfulness and love and tender care for us ... how He provides for us. It isn't always in the way we want it or when we want it. But, when I choose to be present to the present of the Presence of God in my life ... the long road, the hard road, the rocky road, the windy road ... take me to a deeper road of faith in God's unfailing and loyal love for me, for you, for us.

If I were a poet, I would write a psalm. But, I'm not. So, as a sometimes blogger ... I blog in praise and thanksgiving.

... and all manner of things shall be well.

"One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after:

that I may dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD

and to inquire in his temple."

Psalm 27.4

... and she loved cats!

Of any verse in Scripture, to me this one describes the life of Julian of Norwich. We probably know her name better for the familiar and popular quote,

"... all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well" 

but she could say those words of comfort because of the one thing she asked of the LORD: to know His beauty in the Passion of Christ. From her life of contemplation on His sacrifice for us, she discovered the depth of God's love for us and for all his creation. She said,

"He that made all things for love, by the same love keeps them, and shall keep them without end."

God's love for us keeps us ... forever. We were made for His love and in that love He keeps us, protects us, saves us. And, not only us ... but all of creation. Julian knew this love. It was her daily contemplation, her daily work of worship. She gazed upon Him and inquired of Him in His temple. And, from this daily work of worship she gleaned this:

"Truth sees God, and wisdom contemplates God, and from these two come a third, a holy and wonderful delight in God, who is love."

This may sound as though Julian lived above the difficulties of life, that she was not aware of struggle and hardship. Not at all. It was an illness that almost took her life that set her on the journey of contemplating the love of the Lord Jesus. And, it was in His love that she found consolation. She said this of struggles of life:

"If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love."

In falling and rising we are kept in God's love. That brings us to this verse:

"Wait for the LORD;

be strong and let your heart take courage;

wait for the LORD!"

Psalm 27.14

Wait for the LORD. Gaze upon His beauty. Ask Him to show you his love and grace ... that is for you! Be strong in that Love. Take courage in It. Wait for Him. AMEN.