One Way to Remember

Remembering: It’s a worthy act when we stop to partake with grace. When we remember those before us who cleared the road ahead or laid the foundations or laid down their lives.

Out of curiosity I looked up the word remember in a Bible reference and found a varied list:

Remember the Sabbath day …

Remember that you were slaves …

Remember, O Lord, your great mercy …

Remember your creator …

Remember the poor …

Remember my chains ...

Do this in remembrance of Me …

“I will remember my covenant 

between me and you and 

  all living creatures of every kind.” 

  Gen. 9:15

 

Many have died to obtain our freedoms, and we pause and think of them this Memorial Day. May we impart the grace of gratitude as we take time to say,

“I thank my God every time I remember you.” Phil. 1:3

SHOW DON'T TELL

Canada geese along the Arkansas River in Colorado.

How do these Canada goslings know what to do? Are mom and dad standing on the log squawking out orders like the famous insurance mascot duck?

Of course not.

Those furry little balls are simply doing what they see the grownups doing. The elders are showing, not telling—a feat which embodies the standing mantra in the writer’s world:

“Show Don’t Tell.”

The first time I heard this I didn’t understand. How can a writer show without telling since words are all he has?

Here’s an example. Which sentence shows?

1. She was so angry she could have choked him.

2. She squeezed her fingers around the arms of the chair instead of his throat.

Number 2 is the correct answer because a picture is worth a thousand words.

Show me the money.

Practice what you preach.

People evidently prefer show over tell or these clichés would not be cliché.

Last week a guest speaker at our church picked up on the writer’s catch phrase and proved that it’s nothing new.

“Show them, don’t just tell them,” he said of sharing our faith with others.

A couple thousand years ago a man named James pressed a similar point when he said, “I will show you my faith by my works.”

And roughly a thousand years later, a Franciscan monk put it even more succinctly:

“Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, use words.”

        —St. Francis of Assisi

Let’s work on our “show don’t tell.” How well are we showing others what we believe?

Who is Your Enabler?

A woman from church recently encouraged me that God had equipped me to accomplish certain tasks that lie ahead.

Her words were “apples of gold in settings of silver” – exactly what I needed to hear.

I munched on that golden apple, relishing the taste of knowing God had prepared me. I thanked Him for enabling me.

Social norms immediately swept through my mind, denouncing my use of the term enabling, but I resisted the taint now associated with the word.

Merriam-Webster lists the following definition for Enable: 1 a: to provide with the means or opportunity … b: to make possible, practical, or easy … c: to cause to operate … 2: to give legal power, capacity, or sanction to

The next entry in the MW dictionary adds an r to the end of enable and the word becomes enabler, the less-than-flattering term that today bears a load of negative connotations.

Again, I resisted. God enables us but not in a passively harmful way. He empowers us, strengthens us, gives us what we need to serve Him and grow in faith.

One morning soon after, my devotional reading took me to John 6 and the account of people deserting Jesus because of something He said. He explained to His disciples that He knew even some of them didn’t really believe.

“This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him” John 6:65 NIV).

Though surprised to see the word enable, I was thrilled to find it. Vindicated somehow.

Of course God enables us. How else would we have strength for anything?

The choice is ours, the power is His.

Phil. 2:13 NIV

What Are You Watching?

“Pursue Me,” the Lord whispered in my heart.

Considering this call, I remembered that we humans tend to follow our eyes. We are drawn toward the object of our viewing, hence the great care and money advertisers put into visual imagery.

I wondered, has the Lord not been the object of my viewing?

“Eyes on the prize,” says the world. Nowhere else is this worn but worthy cliché more vividly displayed than in the rodeo arena. Young bull riders are cautioned not to look at the ground when they’re strapped to the shifting hide of a snot-slinging bovine.

Why?

Because that’s where they’ll end up—on the ground. Their bodies will follow their focus, so they tuck their chins and lock eyes on that hairy hump just above their fistful of bull rope.

The principle applies to our spirit. We lean toward that upon which we are focused. And so the Lord says, “Pursue Me.”

The prophet Isaiah heard similar words from God:

“Look to me and be saved.”    —Isaiah 45:22

“But Lord,” I cry. “I’m so busy running after my personal goals.”

No wonder I’m confused, dismayed, frightened. Where did I get off track? Where did I turn aside and lose sight of Him? When did gold, gusto and glory blind me to His leading?

Helen H. Lemmel got it right:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His glory and grace.

Thank you, Lord, for not giving up on me.

Good Friday — Dark Saturday

Photo by AJ Spencer

When I was a youngster, school officials dismissed classes early on Good Friday—the Friday before Easter Sunday—so families could attend church services commemorating the crucifixion of Christ. Easter vacation usually came the following week.

Today that vacation time is called spring break and we never hear the term “Good Friday.” In fact, very few churches hold services any more.

But everyone knows what Black Friday is—the big spending day after Thanksgiving.

I’d argue that the heftier expenditure occurred on a hill outside Jerusalem one spring Friday a couple thousand years ago—the day the Light went out.

The Gospel accounts of Christ’s crucifixion tell us the sun was darkened, the earth shook and the dead climbed up from graves ripped open.

Imagine living during Dark Saturday—the day after the death of Jesus. Sure, the sun came up again, but how cold and dismal the world. How puzzled and fearful Jesus’ followers must have been when they saw dead men walking, not as zombies but alive, and the One who had given life dead and buried.

Jesus had called Himself the Light of the World. He said men would not walk in darkness if they knew Him. What did His disciples think that Saturday, a Sabbath that prevented them from doing anything other than sitting and thinking?

Sometimes we feel the same. We brood over the death of a dream or missed opportunity, and we have no idea that resurrection life is about to come with the dawn.

When God first said, “Let there be light,” light appeared before He made the sun and moon and stars. There is so much more to the Light of the World than we could ever imagine.

Today, let His power shine in your world. And may you be confident in the knowledge that darkness will never conquer the Light of Life.