Wednesday February 21^st 2024

We are in the season of Lent, and in many traditions there is the idea of “giving up something for Lent”. So today’s word is FASTING.

What do you think of when you hear the word “fasting”? Currently many who are trying to lose weight are hearing the expression “intermittent fasting” as a way to lost weight. Eat within a prescribed number of hours and don’t eat during the rest of the day.

When I first heard this, my first thought was “I sleep for 8 hours and don’t eat then, so that’s an automatic intermittent fast.” No planning, no extra thought or effort. To intentionally expand that though, might take some planning and some changes to lifestyle.

However, fasting is not just about food.

Fasting during Lent is not just about giving up candy or soda.

Intentionally giving up something is a type of fast, and when one fasts during Lent then idea is to replace that with time spent in prayer and worship and service to God.

So, for instance, someone might fast from watching the evening news and instead spend that time reading scripture and praying. Someone might fast from getting Starbucks on Friday morning and the money saved intentionally given to a charity or to their church.

There are numerous ways to fast, and sometimes those fasts can then become habits. After fasting from crime dramas one might decide not to go back to watching them. After fasting from soda one might decide to continue without it.

Fasting is a way to intentionally replace something in one’s life with something that honors and serves God. A way that will help us grow.

How will YOU fast this Lent? And how ill you then keep fasting as part of your life in Christ?

 

Wednesday February 7^th 2024

Sitting at my desk Tuesday morning, participating in our daily Morning Prayer gathering on zoom, it occurred to me: APPEARANCE.

My grandmother was known for always looking perfectly put together when she walked out her front door. In fact, living with her during the school year, I never saw her with a hair out of place. The ladies up the street would comment to me that “Mrs. Cole comes out to sweep the porch and even the seams of her stockings are straight!”.

Taking after her, I would never go out without makeup and lipstick … even to get the mail at the end of the driveway! Going to the store or church or even the dump required making sure I looked presentable.

Then came COVID and we were all entertaining guests in our homes via Zoom. And that too required making sure I looked presentable. At first.

What struck me on Tuesday was that I have “degraded” to attending morning prayer in my pajamas, no makeup, not showered. And you know what? No one cares!

In scripture, though, there is a verse that reminds us that appearance is more than just how well you are dressed. John 7:24 tells us not to judge based on appearance but to look beneath the surface.

What about when we meet people or see them in the store or on the street. Do we make decisions based on their appearance?

Two examples come to mind:

In the first, a dirty, ragged man sits on the church steps as the parishioners arrive. No one greets him or offers him assistance. They were all shocked when, as the first hymn played, he walked to the front of the church and then introduced himself as their new pastor.

In the other, several people are sitting in a pew. Two prim young ladies are on one end and two nicely-dressed young men are at the other. In the center sits a rough-looking, tattooed, leather-clad man. The thoughts of the neatly-dressed four are distracted in worship by how “that guy” is not a “real” Christian. The man in the center is holding a worn Bible and his thoughts are “Christ, my life and heart belong to You.”

So our outward appearance (clothes, makeup, car, house) is not as important as our inner appearance. What man sees is not as important as what God sees.

The other question is “What do others see in us?” That’s for another day.

I am so glad that the others gathering on that zoom call look beneath the surface – past the messy hair and lack of lipstick – to the disciple’s heart joining in prayer.

What does God see in your heart?

 

Wednesday January 31^st 2024

Everyone who knows me knows that I have opinions and freely share them. So they will be surprised (or perhaps relieved) that this week’s word is SILENT.

Not the absence of sound, but rather the kind of silence in “better to be silent and thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and erase all doubt.” OR as it is stated in Proverbs 17:28, “Even fools are thought wise when they keep silent; with their mouths shut, they seem intelligent.“

Already this week I have either extended a conversation beyond its usefulness, or expressed opinions not requested or beneficial. At least three times! It had begun to gnaw at my conscience, and then two posts appeared on Facebook that really drove it home. Yes – this is the word for the week.

Sometimes silence speaks volumes. It can allow space for listening and thinking.

Stephen Covey lists “seek not be understood so much as to understand” as one of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. And that understanding requires listening – not just listening to configure a response or to know when you can speak.

In Luke Chapter 1 we read about Zechariah – he questioned God, rather than faithfully and immediately accepting God’s plan, so he was silenced until the birth of John the Baptist. During those following months the people knew he had seen a vision in the temple causing his silence. Then his silence was broken when he announced the name of John.

Sometimes sharing one’s story or opinion is helpful, edifying, and/or encouraging. Sometimes it simply isn’t appropriate or necessary. Discernment here is key, and a period of silence allows discerning.

Yes – sometimes being silent is the same as agreeing, and we do not want to be silent at the wrong times. “Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.” So said Mahatma Gandhi.

Will Rogers said “Never miss a good chance to shut up.” For some reason this reminded me of Jesus drawing in the dirt while waiting for the crowd to stone the woman caught in adultery (John 8). He didn’t launch into a long sermon – he made a simple statement (“let him who is without sin cast the first stone”) and then sat silently until they were all gone. Then again, one simple statement – “go and sin no more”.

Silence allows us to truly listen, to absorb, to lay our words aside and take in the words of others, to watch the scene before us without simultaneously crafting a response.

Are there times you were called to be silent yet spoke anyway? (note my raised hand)

Here is a prayer I hope you will find helpful: Lord, give me the right words to say, the right time to say them, and the ability to know when to keep silent.”

 Wednesday January 24^th 2024

Sometimes we find it necessary to create words that have not previously existed. Often this happens with slang terms or medical terms that come into common usage. Back in the 1990s I was part of a group trying to add a profession to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, and at that time it was required to find the word in print in such places as a newspaper to support the request.

Today’s word is such a word: PRAYCATION.

I hadn’t heard this word before our senior minister Daniel Hetherington used it. The rest of the day I kept pondering that word.

So what is a praycation?

We know that a vacation is a time away from the usual tasks and schedule of our lives. We have come to refer to a staycation as a vacation spent at home, rather than going to the beach or the mountains or on a cruise.

A praycation then would be a time taken away from our usual tasks and schedule and spent in prayer.

In Mark 1:35 we read “Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray.” Jesus intentionally went to a place away from the tasks and schedule, the demands and the people, and spent time in prayer.

In Luke 6:12 we find “One day soon afterward Jesus went up on a mountain to pray, and he prayed to God all night.” So, He not only got up in the morning to pray, sometimes He dedicated an entire night to praying!

And of course, the Mount of Olives finds Jesus stepping away from even His closest followers to pray alone. “He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed,” we are told, leaving his disciples to wait for Him.

How would we do that?

A praycation can be long or short – just as a vacation or staycation! It can be a time of personal retreat over a weekend, or it can be a morning or afternoon spent alone. It could even be an solid hour of prayer in a quiet place.

During a women’s retreat some years back, I chose to spend the afternoon free time in prayer and contemplation in the cemetery at the convent where we were retreating. I walked among the grave markers and prayed for each of the women whose bodies were there; I prayed for each of the women attending the retreat. I walked for a while this way, in peace and quiet surrounded by the autumn leaves. When I began praying for the words of the evening session I was to present, God interrupted my prayers with a directive: Go back to your room and re-write the evening session completely. I asked God to repeat that and He did. So indeed I spent the remainder of the free time re-writing, and He made sure it flowed from the fingertips onto the page.

What would God say to you if YOU spent some time on praycation? 

All eyes are on the weather this week – cold, snow, wind…. All forces that create a variety of feelings and also a call to action. Today let’s focus on SNOW.

Here in the mid-Atlantic we are unusually cold, and our lawns are blanketed with snow. It’s lovely to look at from inside the warmth of our homes. And there are some who enjoy getting out and sledding, snowboarding, or skiing.

Typically in winter all the trees are bare and the grass is not as green and lush. Then a beautiful fresh layer of snow covers everything with a clean coat and a little sparkle.

Psalm 51:7 finds David saying “Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” When we think of sins we think of dirty transgressions… and when God washes away those sins we become whiter than snow. Not just covered up like the bare dead branches. We actually become snowy white. Our sins are not just hidden – they are gone! – as long as we ask God for forgiveness and we accept it.

Later, in Psalm 148:7-9 we read “Praise the Lord from the earth, you creatures of the ocean depths,
⁸ fire and hail, snow and clouds, wind and weather that obey him,…”

The snow obeys Him, along with the rest of the weather. God uses snow to remind us of the beauty He can make of our lives – He can make beauty from ashes, and allow us to live for Him and serve Him, unhindered by the sin that weighs us downs if we don’t ask forgiveness.

What do you want to give Him today? What forgiveness do you need so that you too can be sparkling clean like the fresh fallen snow?

 

Wednesday Jan 10^th 2024

Here we are again – it’s Wednesday, and for me that is weigh-in day. So today I have chosen WEIGHT as the Wednesday Word.

Too soon in the year for you? Well hear me out.

This morning, as every week, I looked at the weight – and recorded it – while chastising myself for carrying around all the excess pounds. Every time I carry something up the stairs I remind myself that if I just lost (however many pounds what I am carrying weighs) it would be so much easier. Every time I pick up something heavy, I make note that I carry more than (whatever it weighs) that in excess fat on my body all the time.

Every extra pound, every excess roll of fat, puts extra burden on my heart and other body systems. Yet I still do it, knowing full well that it would be better to get rid of it and that I have the knowledge of how to do so.

We do the same thing with the weighty burdens we carry on our hearts and minds. We allow stress and fear and envy and other burdens to hang on when we have the ability to cast them off.

Many years ago I gave my Sunday School class an assignment: each student was given a large garbage bag to take home. Into that bag was to be placed every piece of trash they personally created all week. Anything they would normally toss in the trash can (this was before recycling was a “thing” – I said it was many years ago!). And though I would like to have had them carry it around with them everywhere, that seemed too much to ask. Some had rather light bags, and some had fairly heavy bags when they came the next Sunday.

I asked how they felt about the assignment – and other than dumb and annoying, they agreed that it made them aware of how much trash they accumulated just by themselves.

So how about you? Do you carry around a lot of “trash”.

In Matthew 11:28 we read that Jesus said “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

All that extra weight – those heavy burdens we carry – can be given to Jesus! He can carry them for us!

Do you remember the song “Take it to the Lord in Prayer”? It asks “are you weak and heavy-laden, burdened with a load of care”, and tells us to take it all to the Lord in prayer.

All that extra weight we carry – that burdens our souls and keeps us from being the person God wants us to be – can be given to Jesus, taken to Him in prayer, and left at the foot of the cross.

Shall we pray?

Precious Heavenly Father – please take the burdens I try to carry on my own, and let me walk with Jesus, guided by Your Holy Spirit and ready to serve. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Wednesday Words - Magnify

 

Wednesday Jan 3^rd 2024

Welcome to the beginning of Wednesday Words.

A few years ago I received the declaration “I gave you words”. Each year God has built on that, so it now reads “I gave you words to encourage focus on MY Word.”

In 2024 it has been placed on my heart to ponder a word each week and share it with you.. So we shall begin with MAGNIFY.

 The dictionary defines magnify as “to make larger”. We use a magnifying glass to make words larger so we can read them more easily.

In Biblical sense the word magnify means “to extol, to glorify, to celebrate in praise”.

 On Sunday I used this as part of the message at worship. Yet I don’t feel it went far enough.

 Have you ever increased the font on a page in a document? From 12pt to 18pt for instance? This is what I do after writing a sermon or other writing that I will then present – I enlarge the font to make it easier to read.

What happens?

YES – it takes up more space and therefore more pages! Suddenly a two-page message is expanded to five pages.

In Luke 1:46-47, Mary says “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.” In order to magnify the Lord in our souls – and in our lives – we must allow Him to become larger, to take up more space, to fill our spirit with His Holy Spirit and with joy. And in allowing that, we will find that there is less space for other less important things.

Back to my font example, if you take part of a sentence and make it larger, the rest seems smaller. If you look at a paragraph or page where some print is larger, you will look there first.

We want Christ to be magnified in our lives so that He is who people see first, and so that He takes up the majority of the space.

 Is my life magnifying the Lord?

Is yours?