The Eiffel Tower, the ultimate symbol of Paris

The Eiffel Tower, the ultimate symbol of Paris, started as a albatross in the eyes of the Parisian people. Today, it defines what the rest of the world thinks of when they think of Paris. Prague also has an Eiffel Tower–a copy of the original. Been both places.
From a distance, it is impressive
From a distance, it speaks to the world
Close up, it overwhelms yet when you ascend it, it also expands your view of Paris and of the world. Looking out from the top, you are grounded yet with your head in the clouds. Why do we feel that life is a serious venture that has very little joy? Why not in the seriousness have our heads in the clouds a bit too? Dreams, hopes, prayers, are essential to balance the stresses and distresses of life. Lord, help me to see the little joys within the intense disappointments. The gold and silver threads among the dark.

Just because a person doesn’t look sick…

Just because a person doesn’t look sick doesn’t mean they aren’t.  When you look at the verse in scripture about how man looks on the outward appearance and God looks on the heart, you don’t take the meaning as seriously as you would if you were  the subject of “man looking at the outward”. There are illnesses that people suffer with on a daily basis that to others it appears they are merely making the illness up. Just because they don’t have  visible evidence and they don’t constantly complain does not mean that there is nothing wrong with them. I live with my daughter, who has chronic fatigue syndrome. She is not a complainer and “doesn’t look sick” so friends and family just consider her lazy because she, being 21, doesn’t go out and get a full-time job. It is very difficult to be treated and have her treated horribly because they don’t understand, nor do they wish to, her illness. They don’t see the concessions we make around what she can do. They also have no idea of the many times she has to, at the last minute, cancel something she planned to do. She may have been really excited about the particular thing, but when the time came to do it, had to cancel because, physically she couldn’t. We know that the things she does do all come with a price. If she wishes to go Salsa dancing, for example, she tries to “bank” energy hours a couple of days beforehand and two or three days afterward she spends extra time recuperating. It appears to everyone else that she does whatever she wishes and if so, should be able to handle working. The problem with working or going to school full-time is not the first or second day. It is the day after day without time to re-energize, so the energy that she went into the job with within a short time depletes and she can no longer go at all. Chronic Fatigue (CFS) is more than just being tired. It is a state of bone tiring exhaustion added to a list of other annoying things, like dizziness, pain, sensitivity to chemicals. UTube has a video done by Sleepydust that explains CFS about the best we’ve found. When Sarah was diagnosed six years ago, there was almost nothing out there on CFS. Now there is so much more. Yes, those with CFS get depressed. You would too if you felt like you were a prisoner of your body and that others just looked at you and figured you just need to rest a little and get on with life. It hurts so much to have my mom treat Sarah like dirt because SHE thinks Sarah is “scamming me”. How do you explain CFS to someone that is convinced they have the answer and that I refuse to see it?  This illness doesn’t just impact Sarah, I get treated horribly too because everyone is convinced that I could do something about lazy Sarah and don’t. It seems like when you tell someone that Sarah has CFS, they always seem to say, I think I have CFS too. I’m tired alot. Wish it was that simple. I wonder, do they have weird symptoms come and go? Some being just annoying and others horrible?  I’m sorry, but I just had to talk to someone.

Roaring Lions

I Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
I’ve been thinking about the similarities between the lion and the devil.
1. Lions hunt in the dark
2. Their roar is thought to attract other lions
3. Stalks its prey
4. I’m wondering if the roar would also serve to strike terror into its potential victims. Satan, the first terrorist. Satan seems to like to operate on our fears. Faith drives away fear and defeats the power Satan has over us. That doesn’t mean that Satan will not stalk us if we have faith, it merely means we are protected from attack by our faith.
5. Lions generally hunt in groups and if in this verse, it refers to the devil being a lone lion hunting, he would be seeking a vulnerable prey.
6. The lion is primarily interested in devouring its prey.  How might Satan devour us? To what purpose?
I’ve heard people say that there is no danger from a roaring lion and that the devil may sound like a lion, but he would be a lion with no teeth. I don’t know where they came up with that, but a roaring lion would strike fear into its prey and how long do you think a lion without teeth would last? No, the lion has teeth. We need to stay out of the lion’s territory and not be out playing in the dark, which would tempt an attack.  It is easier for a lion to catch prey that is vulnerable than to spend time and energy going after something that would take work to attack. When we are vulnerable, Satan seems to show up too.

The Transfiguration (Mark 2:13)

It was almost a week later when Jesus took Peter, James, and John up the mountain. I’m sure the disciples were a bit frightened when Jesus started to glow and then on top of it Elijah and Moses show up. I’m convinced that we would have been a bit shaken up to have that happen too. Peter seems to talk randomly when shaken. He suggests building 3 shelters, one for Jesus, one for Elijah and one for Moses. Why would they need the shelters? He didn’t suggest building shelters for himself and James and John and they would be more likely to need them. What might the shelters be for?
A cloud surrounds them and a voice comes from the cloud. Last time the voice came a dove was involved and it was at Jesus’ baptism. This time, the voice says,”This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” The first time it also said, “This is my Son”. Do you think that Peter and company were starting to get the idea that there was something different about Jesus?
Jesus told them not to share what happen here until the Son of Man had been risen from the dead. They discussed the event among themselves only. I wonder if they figured no one would believe them anyway. Can you picture Peter keeping a secret? Instead of wondering what it meant, it seems they got hung up on what rising from the dead meant.
Perhaps they were leaning toward wondering if Jesus might actually be the Messiah when they asked about the teachers of the law saying that Elijah had to come first, before the Messiah would come. Jesus’ reply went against everything that the teachers of the law had determined about the Messiah. They were teaching the conquering Messiah when in fact that would happen at the end of the age. They did not see the Messiah as coming as a suffering Messiah and then after leaving coming again as a conquering Messiah. They, like us, would have read what we wanted to read into that. Jesus specifically pointed out that it was written that the Son of Man would be rejected and and suffer. In referring to John the Baptist, He pointed out that Elijah had come already. I’m sure that if we compared Elijah and John the Baptist, there would be several likenesses.
What should I consider from this passage?
1. Having a mountaintop experience is great, but I am not to live “stuck” in that experience. I must come down from the mountain and face the life I had before ascending.
2. Being on the mountain will change my outlook and life from then on.
3. It is easy to miss the point of being on the mountain and get side-tracked on to something else.
4. When God chooses to reveal Himself to us, how should we react?
5. Others may not understand our experience and so sometimes it is better to wait until it is fulfilled before sharing with them.

Jesus Predicts His Death (Mark 8:27-9:1)

Today Jesus wants to introduce a subject to his disciples that he knows will be misunderstood. I’m sure he knew the answer to the question before he asked it. “Who do people say I am?” and then “Who do YOU say I am?’ There was a lot of feedback on the first question, but only one answer to the second. Peter said what to the Jewish mind was unthinkable unless it was true. To say a person was the Messiah (Christ) was to say he was God and that was blasphemy. The people were seeing Jesus as a precursor to the Messiah and not actually considering him to BE the Messiah.
Jesus then began to teach them about what would happen. He referred to Himself as the Son of Man. Remember the story about the Fiery Furnace and what the fourth person was referred to? The Son of Man which was another way of saying a god. There also was one of the prophets, I was thinking it was Isaiah, although I may be wrong, that mentioned the phrase, “Son of Man” several times. Jesus clearly told the disciples what was going to happen. But notice, Jesus referred to Himself in the third person, “The Son of Man must…”
1.  suffer
2. Be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law
3. Be killed
4. Rise again after 3 days.
Peter didn’t take this well and took it upon himself to rebuke Jesus. The Jewish feeling was that the Messiah would come conquering and rescue them from their enemies. Peter, couldn’t put what Jesus was saying into what he had been taught all his life. How could Jesus be the Messiah and die?  Peter was rebuked and Jesus went into a teaching about “the things of God”. Notice that when Jesus said,”If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”, that He was literally telling them that He would be crucified. Crucifixion was considered the most humiliating death for the worst criminals and yet not only would Jesus be crucified He was making it plan that following Him would be complicated and difficult.
Yesterday, we read about the blind man being healed and the steps it took for his healing. I wonder if Jesus had another reason to heal the man the way He did. What if Jesus was using it as an illustration of Him dying and the disciples slowly coming to see what the real plan was?
Since yesterday I was thinking about Jesus leading the blind man out of town by taking his hand. I wonder what they talked about. Can you imagine anyone just taking another person’s hand and leading them a fair distance without having a conversation?
Jesus seems to be sensing an urgency for the disciples to understand God’s plan for Him. I’m sure they were like us and even though the words were there and heard, because we could not imagine that thing happening, we ignored it and didn’t take it seriously. When we don’t like what we hear we pretend it wasn’t said. Doesn’t change the truth, it merely makes it more difficult for us later.

Healing of the blind (Mark 8:22-26)

I watched a Youtube video on chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). I guess I was trying to find a way to explain to so-called friends and family why it is that my daughter, Sarah, cannot work full-time and cannot do some of the things they think she should be doing. Makes you wonder why God heals some people and not others. Today my reading was Mark 8:22-26. Jesus heals a blind man from Bethsaida. Bethsaida was not far from where Jesus was living in Capernaum and Jesus had probably been to Bethsaida at least a couple of times. This was another case where other people brought the infirm to Jesus and begged for healing. Remember the friends who destroyed someone’s roof to drop the paralytic thru? There were other times that the person himself did not ask for healing, someone did it for him. Interesting that prior to this the sick had just touched Jesus’ clothes and were healed yet Jesus took this blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. Taking someone by the hand is definitely touching them. Why wasn’t he healed right then? This is also the second time Jesus put spit on someone to heal them. In Mark 7:33, He spit and touched a guy’s tongue, here He spit and put the spit on the guy’s eyes. I’m not sure we would be excited to have someone put their spit on us. Even then the guy could only see shapes and outlines of things. It took Jesus putting his hands on the man’s eyes for him to see clearly. Can you imagine being able to see after being blind and then told not to go into the village and tell everyone. Like we’d keep something like that quiet.  Sometimes it seemed like the people were only interested in what they could get from Jesus and perhaps Jesus was not wanting to be mobbed at this time. The people who brought this man knew he was blind, the man knew he was blind. The question is not whether the man was blind or not it is whether Jesus would take the time to heal him. The people who brought the man begged Jesus to touch him. Why didn’t the man ask for the touch? Why do you suppose that Jesus healed this person differently than most of the others? What do you think the people were wondering when Jesus led the man out of town and put spit on him? If you were a bystander what would you be thinking? If you were the blind man what would be your thoughts? What would you have done, even though Jesus told the man not to go back into town? You know that the people who brought the man had followed them out of town. There is no way they were not going to be there for the healing event. Since Jesus told the man not to go back, would you have reasoned that He didn’t tell you that so as soon as the healing was over would you have run into town and told everyone? Something that exciting would have been difficult not to tell anyone.
What impact does this story have for me?
1. It’s okay for other people to go to Jesus on my behalf.
2. I need to allow Jesus to lead me where he wants me to go in order to receive from him.
3. Sometimes having not so great things put on me/happening is a step in the healing process
4. Healing sometimes takes time and more than one step.
5. I may not see everything clearly at first, only shapes and outlines giving me the assurance that God is working.
6. There will come a time when I will see clearly
Perhaps this is God telling me to be patient concerning Sarah’s healing. Then again may not. It also seems like everything boils down to trusting God to know what He is doing. Difficult concept and easier done on some things than others.

Thoughts from December 2008

I

can’t believe it’s December already. It’s been a challenging year so I’m thinking that with all the challenges used up this year that next year will be amazing. I remember last year, I prayed for a flat screen tv for Christmas. Those things are expensive and I had limited finances. About a week before Christmas, some people that had no idea what I prayed for delivered and set up a 32″ flat screen in my living room. God is so amazing. Just a couple months before that, I had prayed for a 10% raise and got that too. This year, for Christmas, I am praying for a really great job. I was “downsized” in August from the job I had gotten a promotion into last year.
In the meantime, I’m trying to stay busy and to spend time studying my Bible. I used to teach Bible studies/Sunday School classes/women’s retreats and found it invigorating. A lot of things happened since then. I figure I need to get back to spending time with God.
Been reading the Gospel of Mark. Mark 8:1-13 tells about Jesus feeding the four thousand. Here Jesus didn’t directly come out and say to the disciples to feed the crowd like he did earlier. Perhaps He wanted them to say, “Why don’t we feed them like we did the 5,000?” The disciples were still about what it would cost. The other feeding can’t have been that forgetable. Jesus just asked, “What DO you have (how many loaves) that we could feed them?” Perhaps a “start with what you have” idea. Note that they were able to find a couple of fishes to throw into the pot. If we start with what we know we have we may also find that we have more than we thought. The people ate and were satisfied. To me that says they got more than a few crumbs to eat. THEN there were still 7 basketfuls of broken pieces left. Go figure, the initial amount would not have filled one basket.
So, how does this story impact me?
1. Just because it looks impossible, doesn’t mean it is.
2. Take inventory of what I have available to allow God to use.
3. Even though others may not see the possibility, ask them to “sit down” and watch
4. Give thanks and go to work making it happen.
5. Expect to “make a profit”. Allowing God to use what I have is like investing in the stock market and making an amazing return on my investment.