159 Heavenly Prescriptions

Meaning: “conveying a significance that is not directly expressed . . .”

Instead of relying on New Year’s Resolutions this year, Gentle Reader, why not rely on a few Heavenly Prescriptions? We are officially in the Season of Christmas now, you know, and in these exciting days before New Year’s Eve, it is well to remember that God has provided abundant heavenly prescriptions in Holy Scripture for the pain and suffering that sends one running to God for help and healing— prescriptions for remedies and consolation, to be worked out over time.

One such remedy for human pain and suffering is the transformation of mind and heart that God delivers to the believer who trusts in Him. How? By the renewing of the Word.

What do I mean by that, you may wonder?

I mean that when one seeks God, God points to the good remedy one needs in what should be the greatly familiar pages of Scripture (by daily consult) and illuminates the believer’s thinking through it. It is a Spirit-assisted process. Most remedies are exemplified in the perfect life of Christ and explain why believers are to seek to model their life after Him.

Beyond that, God offers consolation in times of adversity, by generously forgiving any element of fault in the believer. As further remedy, by the agent of Holy Spirit, God leads one to wholesome, dedicated practices. Regular practices of deeper and more purposeful meaning-seeking in the Word and relationship with Him bring powerful relief directly attributable to the practice of listening to Him, thinking He is all important, knowing Him, loving Him –consoling actions in and of themselves.

From there, God supplies important remedies and consolation by leading one to derive major implications on the meaning of life. I know. I’ve experienced most of these things that I write about and I can tell you that God’s goodness is more weighty than what we suffer. It is a blanket of comforting Grace. And it is well to remember this Christmas that it is goodness overflowing and fulfilled in the birth of one baby child—the Lord Jesus Christ—that will save, heal and restore to better-than-ever-condition every believer ever to live.

Heavenly Prescriptions for suffering like these, all derived from hard times, times when one feels pressured and hard squeezed, have really turned my thinking around, Gentle Reader, and have given me great and sustaining understandings to follow. Coming from an airhead debutante like me, that says a lot. The work of Jesus has made me a new me, with new thinking and understanding, made me a more fit friend to myself and others, a more fit daughter, wife, mother, sister, cousin, aunt, in-law, citizen. It is a slow refinement, but it is real. And when I come to the end of my life, I will say—it was all because of Jesus.

When one trusts God, Thoughtful Reader, heavenly prescriptions like these make any mixed adventure a truly sublime adventure, all because God is with us in it.

Have a Happy New Year!

To be continued . . .

158 Advent and Rewards

Meaning: “conveying a significance that is not directly expressed . . .”

These are the last days of Advent, Gentle Reader! Of course, you say, and you are right, this coming Saturday is Christmas!

So I really want to try to share with you two fine rewards of right relationship with our Triune God: right meaning and right fellowship. In the process, I also hope to explain some of how all these lines of reasoning we have explored in the past constitute right meaning and enable right fellowship . . . and how much both mean to believers, and certainly me, in enjoying fellowship with genuine believers and discerning and adopting right meaning.

Collectively, as I am sure you have realized by now, Thoughtful Reader, meaning has enormous impact on my life and yours. Right meaning nurtures the soul. It informs the mind. It balances the emotions. It gives the spirit life and vigor. Right meaning can present one with heart-rending certainties that inspire one to keep-on-keeping-on in the face of whatever, certainties worth wrapping a whole life around. Right meaning in-and-of-itself is a precious reward for the encouragement and everlasting benefit of all believers.

Sweet Spirit blessed me recently by sharing a right meaning of her own making—she said that one must never be just a “fair-weather friend to God.” Oh, dear precious Sweet Spirit, if she had not confided her right sense of obligation to me and in such a telling way, Dear Reader, I would have been so much the poorer for it! She is so important to me in my fellowship of believers. When I read her heart-felt remark, a sweet zing of recognition of its truth came over me! By sharing that thought with me she practiced both right meaning-making and right fellowship with another believer. Bless her!

And then her insight combined with like treasures of insight from other believers I depend on and keep in my heart. You see, regularly when feeling spent, drained of determination and focus, Holy Spirit gives me the gift of encouragement through that collection of right meanings or through right fellowship (relationship) with someone like you, Gentle Reader, or someone like Sweet Spirit; like our pastor, like my husband or sister; my sweet daughters or cousins and friends; or angelic grandbabies who give a lift to my heart and truly help me press on in the upward call in Christ Jesus.

I need my fellowship of believers, Gentle Reader. You are treasures, your fellowship a precious reward. And I thank God and you for you and what you share. You inspire me! And I hope I always do the same for you.

So let me say once again, just because an adventure seems rough, the road bumpy, and one may not understand or like what-all one finds or experiences along the way, Gentle Reader, trust right fellowship! In right fellowship it is always remembered and with gladness that God promises great riches, abundant life and precious rewards to the believer, both in this mortal life and in the immortal life to come, and right meaning and right fellowship are two priceless examples of truly many great rewards! Fine rewards! Precious rewards! Better than ever rewards!

Mixed adventuring is integral to the human predicament, Gentle Reader. Even though one is a saved believer, one can still find oneself in brutal predicaments of various kinds from mental to emotional, physical or spiritual, and for any multitude of reasons. But rewards, promises, guarantees (all things we have considered in past blogs) are not anomalies in Scripture, single instances with no significance. No, Gentle Reader, they are meaning-laden instances, repeated in page after page of Scripture, of God’s goodness, generosity and loving open-handedness, helping the believer to discover that in the face of pain, destruction and loss, God is always there, committed to us and providing for us in bountiful ways.

And wonder-of-wonders, one need only look to a shining babe in a little manger in Bethlehem for everlasting evidence of that!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

To be continued . . .

157 Advent and Adversity

Meaning: “conveying a significance that is not directly expressed . . .”

In this third week of Advent, Gentle Reader, it is well to consider the issues inherent in adversity (mixed adventure) that can make the desired result—a sublime adventure with God in Christ Jesus—difficult or even impossible to achieve.

And indeed, adverse conditions define bad times, even when the believer or trusting adventurer is totally reliant on God, Gentle Reader. Consider the adversity encountered by Mary and Joseph, preceding and following the birth of their baby. It was a difficult time. Consider the adversity that we encounter in our day-to-day lives.

But first let’s back up a minute. As we have seen, the person who delights in the Lord in good times is blessed indeed because the relationship is all good times. I spend a lot of time doing that—delighting in the Lord—and enjoy many blessings by way of that relationship. But that same person (me) running to the Lord in hard times (from which I am not exempt)—in crisis, trial, struggle, disappointment, sorrow, distress, fear, sickness, need, and so on— is, like Mary and Joseph, well familiar with an assortment of issues involved in such troublesome times. In fact, believers (including Mary and Joseph), from my experience, often encounter many if not all of the following and more in times of adversity.

Believers can find that relationship with God does not guarantee a quick fix. Troubles can seem to drag on. It was a hard time for Mary and Joseph to have to travel by donkey and when Mary was pregnant, no less. And the trip took weeks.

Believers can also find that a large amount of suffering and submission is integral to their experience before what they term “good times” ever return. Mary and Joseph’s trip and stay in Bethlehem was perilous for parent and child. Many modern-day believers find the current world economic dilemma into which we have recently entered a real and permanent reversal of fortune, not to mention a frightening difficulty.

Believers can also find that patience and endurance, of their own, can become a real trial, testing the adventurer’s conviction that reliance upon God is her/his best hope. Mary and Joseph pressed on patiently in their journey to Bethlehem only to find there was nowhere to stay except in a stable, full of animals. What dismay must have threatened their peace of mind! Modern-day believers suffering a chronic illness may face a lifetime of daunting trials.

Overall, the believer must almost always face that God has hard work in store for the adventurer before resolution of bad times will come. For Mary and Joseph, King Herod was a constant specter of menace while they were in Bethlehem. And ultimately, at God’s prompting, they had to flee the land of his rule. Today, Americans as well as most of the rest of the civilized world, must deal with the threat of terrorism—a vague term, deliberately made vague to try to dilute its identity, yet leaving the world with no consensus on its profile.

Perhaps it is character-building or service that must precede relief or improvement for the believer, even for Mary and Joseph. Or just a plain hard lot of practice and reshaping of thinking is required, to conform a person to God’s will and ways, and good times do not return for quite a while or in the same condition as before.

Or sometimes, good times never return until the faithful believer moves through death and goes home. As I said, mixed adventures can be tough going, with or without God. It’s just that without God they can be and frequently are impossible, defeating challenges. With God, there is hope—hope based on the truth of God’s character, guarantees, power and faithfulness.

Yet, even if adventure in company with God is not all enjoyable, even if it is the toughest going, I have discovered two memorable things: One, as C.S. Lewis says, if I “take the adventure God sends,” then two, as Scripture says “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28, NKJV).”

“All things” include “bad times,” Gentle Reader. Times filled with even the harshest of adventures of the mixed kind that can try our persistence and faith. Jesus’ trialsome experience on our behalf reveals this truth. But that He endured means victory for Him and us. When we endure with Him, His victory is ours! And gloriously, for steadfast believers, good is guaranteed to come out of our adversity, as it did for Mary, Joseph and Jesus; and to my way of thinking, there’s no better guarantee than that to remember this Advent and always.

My choice.

To be continued . . .

156 Advent and Fine Gifts

Meaning: “conveying a significance that is not directly expressed . . .”

It is well to note, Gentle Reader, because of God and His fine gifts, life is well worth living!

In this second week of Advent, proofs of this reality abound in Scripture. For one, Scripture specifically relates that when God purposed to create mankind, that purpose was a meaningful relationship with Him (Colossians 1:16, NKJV), meaning that each and every one of us, as our fine gift from Him, can turn to Him for family.

In our time, turning to God for family is a blessing beyond compare for families of all kinds. For broken families, single parent families, separated families, devoted families, oppressed and suffering families, dysfunctional families, young families, aging families, wholesome families—all kinds— it is truly a fine gift!

Scripture also informs us that when God planned to love humankind and for us to love Him back (Ezekiel 6:9, NKJV), that meant the fine gift that each and every one of us can know that she/he is loved by Him and meant to love Him back. I as a parent want to love my child and want that child to love me back. That love between parent and child is a pinnacle experience in family life and God means it to be repeated in His Holy Family—God loving us and us loving Him.

But there is more, because of God’s fine thinking, Gentle Reader, Scripture tells us He willed to never leave or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6, NKJV). This is a fine gift like none other! With this gift we can consciously live with the understanding that God is with us. This is the gift of knowledge that we will never be alone—His warm presence is always available to us, if we seek it!

Then there is this assurance from Scripture: When God delights to again and again provide for and protect each and every one of His children (Jeremiah 33:6-9, NKJV), Gentle Reader, this last fine gift to us means that each and every believer is safe in His great care, even through time eternal. God never fails.

I’ll say it again, Thoughtful Reader, God is the original Meaning-Maker, our unstinting resource, our most insightful friend and reliable guide; and the giver of glorious, imperishable, fine gifts from the miraculous beyond— with the Christ Child our most precious and empowering fine gift and the shining heart of Christmas!

Everything in life is a sublime adventure, Gentle Reader! Everything! And because of Jesus, we have an abundance of God’s fine gifts, gifts that make life well worth living, be it in easy, good times or in issue-laden, bad times.

To be continued . . .