Tag: lifewithgod

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Ingredients For Life

Tonight, while making dinner, I realized that following a recipe is a lot like our journey through life. At first, it can feel a little overwhelming, but we just have to begin. We gather what we have and lay it out on the table. We aren’t sure about the end result and realize we can’t do everything at once (even the best chefs can’t manage that). Instead, we move through it one step at a time. 

The recipe might display a picture of the finished dish, but we don’t have the luxury of knowing in advance how our time here will play out. Wouldn’t it be nice to know in advance the precise mixture to avoid missteps, eradicate fear, and create a perfect life? We may not be handed an exact recipe, but we do have some choices regarding which ingredients we use.

Some reach for ingredients like money, degrees, friendships, or pets. Others may seek out adventure, travel, hobbies, or volunteering. While these are wonderful spices to add to life, fragrant blessings to breathe in, they shouldn’t be all there is to the mixture. If they are, the recipe will be incomplete, void of the most needed ingredient.

All the friends, toys, or travel, all the goals reached or time given for a good cause can still leave us feeling empty. If not empty, our life may not be nearly as flavourful or nourishing as it could be. No person or passion can fully satisfy our hunger. Too often we leave out the critical ingredient to our life’s mixture.

We make all the plans, go to all the places, eat all the fancy foods, but disregard the One who created everything as far as the eye can see. In our flurry to consume all we can, we overlook the most important ingredient in the recipe for life—we overlook God. 

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We can never ingest enough of the world’s offerings, however decadent, to make us feel full. We may listen to all the epicurean gurus, devour every good thing, add all the spices, but our lives continue to taste bland. The truth is, we often don’t even know what’s missing until we add the most important One. Only then do we wonder how we could have gone on so long never experiencing this integral ingredient—relationship with God.

For me, knowing God made all the difference. He substituted some of the ingredients I was using making the mixture exceedingly better. Even with Him, I can’t manage to concoct a perfect life, but at least I have help and guidance on the journey. Connected to Him, my taste buds have changed. Many of the delicacies I used to enjoy no longer seem quite so sweet, but the important ones taste so much better. 

With Him, I have access to ingredients such as joy, peace, and love, and others such as patience, kindness, and compassion. He hasn’t given me a whole recipe card to follow, no step-by-step guide to the perfect life, but He has given me His Word, the Bible, which helps me to navigate life. He’s also promised to never leave me. His presence has been profoundly encouraging and comforting through the difficult bits. Mess-ups still occur, but He helps me to throw out the rotten stuff and start over.

At the end of my life, I trust that whatever God helped me make will be life-giving. That the things He was a part of will nourish others and give them strength for their journey. I know I will not get away with holding out my own concoctions, however exquisite or pleasing to the eye. The only hope in heaven I’ll have is Jesus, the One who God gave to preserve us forever with Him.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. ~ Psalm 23:6

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Weddings & Love

69263302_487623432028438_1628037293765820416_nTwo weekends in a row we have had the privilege of attending weddings. Last weekend our nephew Robbie was wed, and yesterday we attended the wedding of our dear family friend Sarah who our son Kurtis stood beside attending as the Man of Honour.

It was heartwarming to witness Kurtis handing a tissue from his breast pocket to absorb Sarah’s tears of joy and then shoving the dampened ball back in his breast pocket after her use. He held Sarah’s bouquet for the signing of the registry and smoothed her trailing veil as she returned to her place at the altar. I didn’t see what else Kurtis did that day, but what I did see was a touching display of a loving friendship.

At each of these weddings, I also witnessed evidence of deep joy and love between the bride and groom. At the altar stood two different people courageously undertaking the mystery of becoming one. They said “I do” to a lifetime of two, entwining their years together, attesting to disallowing the world and its ravages to rip their love asunder.

Our friendship with Jesus bears some similarities to our friendships and especially our marriage relationships. Jesus stands beside us in our most joyous moments but also in our most difficult ones. In times of turmoil, he smooths out the ruffled material of our lives and helps carry the things that are too cumbersome for us. Psalm 56:8 says, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” Jesus is gentle and kind to us, sensitive to our needs and diligent with his care. His love and affection toward us never fail.

It appears Jesus loved weddings too. His first miracle was performed at a wedding when he turned water into fine wine. In this, we see a display of Jesus’s intimate care and provision to us, and his desire to be present in the everyday experiences and details of our lives. Jesus’s presence welcomed and celebrated within our marriage—and every aspect of our lives—brings blessing, comfort, strength, joy, peace, and love to our marriage and our broader relationships.

Knowing that Jesus celebrates with me during my joy-filled moments and holds me during my soul-crushing ones is a source of great comfort to me. He is a faithful friend who sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24). I can look to Jesus for wisdom and help at every turn, hand him a burden too heavy, or ask him to smooth out the wrinkled messes of my life. With Jesus, I’m never alone.

In this, there is not only deep security but also deep joy. Whether married or single, we can take comfort in knowing that in Jesus we are not alone. In Isaiah 41:13, God assures us, “I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you.’” and in 1 Peter 5:7 we are invited to release our troubles by “casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”

Perhaps the most astonishing and differentiating part of our relationship with Jesus compared to our other relationships is that he was willing to die for us. “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8) Jesus’s love toward us was so great that he took the punishment of our sin upon himself, giving his life in place of ours to secure eternity. 

Jesus’s love relationship transforms our lives and our future. You need only say “I do.”

Coming September 17th, 2019

OneMoreTomorrow_Cover_042919

 

ISBN: 978-1-4866-1537-7

Print Availability: Chapters/Indigo, Amazon, Word Alive Press, and wherever fine Christian books are sold. 

eBook Availability: Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple iBooks, Kobo, Google Play, Scribd, and in Adobe PDF format for additional vendors.

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Seeing Clearly

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My sensible, new glasses. My hubby asked why I didn’t chose something a bit more fancy.

This spring, I finally relented and got prescription glasses. Prior to that I had all the usual symptoms: blurred vision when reading, the need for increased light at night, and, most alarming of all, my arm had become too short.

I’m still getting used to these seeing fixtures now precariously suspended on my formerly unadorned nose. I should probably get a locating device affixed to them since I misplace them on a routine basis. And no one could have prepared me for the amount of effort it requires to keep the lenses smear-free!

Glasses are a perfect parallel to my spiritual life. Sometimes my vision gets blurry, I can no longer see correctly, and need help to read the way. Often, despite the help, my lenses get dirty and need cleaning. It takes both a vision aid and regular maintenance for me to see properly.

When I first met Jesus, it was as though God removed my filthy glasses—ones I had no idea I was even wearing—replacing them with a heavenly prescription so that I could see clearer. Everything appeared much brighter and made so much more sense. Even the Bible, which once was merely words I strained to understand but which held no meaning, came alive.

The old glasses were covered with the film of lies I had believed and filters I had affixed. There were words graffitied across the lenses that had, at some point, been spoken and stuck to the surface. There were the scratches of sin etching the glass and insecurity that had loosened the frame. Those glasses had become too heavy for my face and didn’t fit me. They weren’t God’s prescription.

But even my God-glasses need to be cleaned on a regular basis. When I’m with God, he slides off my glasses and polishes off the pollution to enable me to see beauty once again. He tells me not to worry that they get dirty so easily, but to simply return for a regular cleaning.

I can’t just wear the glasses, gain his perspective, and forget about them—forget about him. If I don’t clean my God-glasses by reading his word, praying, listening, and gathering together with other Christ-followers, my vision is impaired and I’m less able to see clearly. With a hindered perspective, I stumble in the dark, I grow frustrated in my own attempts, I blame others for my lack of vision.

But when I abide with God—regularly sit and chat with him—linger in his presence, soak in his word, and meet up with others who love him, my vision brightens and my outlook becomes clearer. Though still imperfect, I can read the terrain of my life a little better.

I’m also more likely to see circumstances and events from God’s perspective. I don’t feel the need to gloss things over attempting to make them something they aren’t or ignore them out of frustration. I’m more apt to love a little more fully, behave a little more graciously, and tread a little more confidently. I can see better to go to the places he’s asked me to go. I’m less afraid of the dark.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. ~ 1 Corinthians 13:12

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  1. Do your glasses need cleaning or maybe you need an entire new prescription? Go to God. His are the perfect fit.