Welcome to Unseen this year. I had a hard time getting this post written. It turns out I was missing a piece of information. Hope it helps you as much as it did me.

Beauty

Let not your adornment not be of braided hair or gold jewelry, but of the inner beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight 1 Peter 3:3-4

Well, here we are in a new year. Maybe one of your new year’s resolutions was not to have any new year’s resolutions. Maybe it was to take care of yourself better. That can look different for different people. For some it is health and fitness and for others it is pampering and beauty. For me it is all of the above.  The health and fitness I can do better than the pampering and beauty because it involves self-discipline and fits well into my perfectionist view of life. Pampering is difficult because there is limited time and it seems wasteful. Stephen Covey, in the 7 Habits of highly effective people, encourages us to take care of ourselves in his seventh habit, Sharpen the Saw. His illustration is a man who is sawing away with a dull blade. Someone suggests to him that he stop and sharpen his saw so that it works more efficiently and he replies that he is too busy working to stop and sharpen his saw.  (I still haven’t completely mastered this concept.)  Beauty is a big piece of pampering. I love the luxurious feel of having someone wash my hair for me, or help me try a different makeup trick.  Apparently I am not the only one who feels this way because the beauty industry generates millions of dollars a year, between fashion, fragrance and hair care products and pretty stuff.

 I was talking to a friend yesterday who recommended nutrition and hydration rather than lotions and gels that may not do anything but mask the bigger problem. Then the deeper truth hit me that the same thing is even truer in our spiritual lives.  When Samuel went to anoint a king to replace the rebellious Saul, he looked at Jesse’s oldest son and was sure that he was God’s choice, because he was strong and handsome.  God told Samuel that he had rejected him as king, because man looks at the outside appearance but God looks at the heart. (1^st Samuel 16:7)  What can we do to make our inner selves more beautiful? Ironically, it comes down to the same three things – fashion, fragrance and adornments (Pretty stuff). Let's look at some of what God says about what  makes for inner beauty.

Fashion

Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Romans 13:14  14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

Ephesians 6 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the enemy.

            Fragrance

But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.  For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.  To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. 2 Corintians 2 15-17.

 

 

 Revelation 5:8

And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.

Adornment

Isaiah 52:7

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

1 Peter 3:3-4

Let not your adornment not be of braided hair or gold jewelry, but of the inner beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.

 

Physical beauty will fade and is not worth that much to begin with, no matter what our twisted world  view says. Let's work together this year to not just mask the problems but to treat the "Heart" of it.

Beyond Our Control

Consider the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Matthew 6

This has been a difficult couple of weeks with many ups and downs. There have been many things that are out of my control, and it seems like the harder I try to get them in control the worse they get. I have been so frustrated and overwhelmed which has made me irritable and unreasonable. I finally sat down and cried, telling God I had just had it. I looked over and through the mist of my tears I saw something unexpected. It was a robin. That in itself is not so unusual, but the fact that it was November made me take notice. The robin was happily hopping from one seed to the next, chirping a cheerful tune. It was not worried about where they next bite was going to come from, but enjoying each one as it came along. As I watched its carefree trek through the parking lot, I thought of the old TV announcement. “Ladies and Gentlemen, due to circumstances beyond our control…” followed by whatever the problem was. I realized that although my situation was out of my control, it was not out of God’s.

I am not the first or the last to try to control my own circumstances. One of the earliest examples is the tower of Babel. They decided to make their own way to heaven. Remember how well that worked out? All their languages were confused, frustrating High School students in foreign language courses ever since. Then there was Abraham, who knew God had promised him a son, but couldn’t see the result. He got impatient and he and Sarah took matters into their own hands.  Ishmael, Hagar’s son, was the result of their efforts to control things. While God did bless Ishmael and make him into a great nation in his own right, that nation has been at war with the children of Israel ever since. Many more instances occur in the Bible and in our lives.

Fortunately, God has provided for all our needs, including our need for security. He tells us in Psalms 46:1 that he is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in times of trouble. In verse 10 he urges us to Be still and know that he is God.” He reminds us that we are in a battle,  and that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against powers and authorities and rulers in high places. (Ephesians 6)He says that he is the Lord our God who upholds us with his righteous right hand.(Isaiah 40:31) TAKE HEART

Through it

Well, it has been a week of highs and lows, or as we call them at Faith works, Highlights and lowlights. I had a really great story that I have been working on that will help a lot of people. Maybe next week. Last night I was walking my spoiled rotten mutt at 3:30 am when I heard form God. Read on to see what he told me.


Through it.


When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. Is 43:2


 Well, people's prayers in this part of West Texas have been answered. God sent rain. Then he sent some more, and then more still. When it stopped early this morning, the dog decided it was a great time to go out. I groggily put on my shoes and got the leash. We made it Ok for a few minutes and then began to have trouble picking out a route that did not include puddles. Not able to find a path I gritted my teeth and stepped into the puddle, completely soaking my Ked's. I told Benji, "Well I guess we gotta go through it." Immediately I was reminded of the old children's game, "Goin' on a Bear Hunt." I spent countless hours on my Grandpa's lap playing, with the cave being the fireplace with glass coals lit from below. I spent countless more hours with my children on my lap, playing the same game. After announcing that they are going on a bear hunt, the leader and children proudly announce that they are not afraid. They get to one obstacle after another such as a tree, a big rock or  a river depending on which version you play. They have to get past all the obstacles to get to the cave where the bear is hiding. No matter which version you play, there is at least one obstacle where this is the conclusion. "Can't go over it. Can't go under it. Can't go around it. Gotta go through it.!"


This feels like my life right now. There are several places in my life where I am sure God is working but I am having to wait and walk through it. I confess today that I am not very happy with God. A friend of ours passed away this week. I know all the Sunday school answers and the right things to say. I know she is with Jesus and I know she is not in pain and I know we will see her again, but I am still angry. I think God missed it on this one. Why would he take someone who was totally committed to Him, who was generous and helpful and compassionate and leave some of the turkey's who are actively spreading chaos and destruction? Do you know what I did? I told God that I was upset with him. I did hear the words I heard in church a couple of weeks ago about how "It came to pass, it didn't come to stay." That helped some but what helped more was just a reassuring sense of His presence, and a conviction that He was there with me, even in my anger. No lightning, no condemnation, but just a reminder of his faithful love.


Apparently I am not the only one to struggle with these things. Look at Isaiah 43:2.When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.
Joshua 1:9 says Be strong and courageous. Do not tremble or  be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you may go. God reassured Hagar that he is the God who see (el roi) in Genesis 16:13. So many other verses in the psalms and the gospels in particular tell us that God is with us in our struggles. We have to walk through some things but we do not have to walk through them alone. We have our God and we have each other. Hold on to both.

Light show

Welcome to Unseen today. It was a long week at my house, but God is good. Read on to find the remarkable reminder that I had of that this week.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalms 19:1

                This past weekend we had a balloon festival in Abilene. People packed into the park to see the colorful hot air balloons. There was live music from local bands and shrieks from children on air castles. The air was thick with the smell of all kinds of food that are not good for you. Those who were brave enough (not me) took tethered balloon flights. On Saturday night, they held a Night Flight. After dark, balloons lit up from the fire hovered on tethers. Hundreds of people came and “oohed and aahed”. Then came Sunday, when the balloons and booths were packed up and the trash cleared away. Sunday night was another story altogether. With much less publicity but much more splendor, God produced a light show. The lunar eclipse was fantastic. Not hundreds, but thousands upon thousands of people stood transfixed looking at the sky. The bright full moon was slowly blotted out by a planet crossing into our line of sight. Then the color went from dark to blood red, and slowly came back to normal, revealing the huge full moon again.                

                The science behind both of these events is awesome, especially to science nerds like my family. The ingenuity that it took to manufacture and operate the huge balloons was impressive, but it paled in comparison to the sheer majesty and wonder of the creator. Think again about a God who spoke the earth, the moon and countless galaxies into existence. Monday morning I heard a radio host talking about the eclipse and she was remembering when the Hubble Telescope first sent back images from space. She said she looked at the points of light and thought, "Oh, look at the pretty stars." Then the announcer explained that each point of light was not a star but a galaxy. Taking nothing away from the might and power of God, there is a more important lesson here.
            
               As I was looking at that fabulous "blood moon", I remembered the verses in Revelation about the moon being turned to blood. I remembered the beautiful verses in Psalms 19 that tell us "the heavens are telling the glory of God" (v 1-6). The next verse that came to me was Jeremiah , "I have loved you with an everlasting love.". (Jeremiah 31:3) Then came John 10.:29. "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from the Father's knowledge." Finally, was one of my life verses. Do not fear for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name and you are mine." Isaiah 43:1. The lesson for me was that not only was God awesome and powerful, but he was also loving and personal. This all powerful God loves not just us, as the human race, but me! He knows my name and he knows the hairs on my head and he has plans for my welfare and not for my calamity to give me a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11) Of course the enemy has tried to make me feel inferior and insignificant this week because that is who he is and what he does. This week, though, I have been able to remember that he is a liar. Like no other religion or sect in the world, we serve a God who loves us.

Family

Family

Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor."1 Pet 2:17

One summer my husband was working at a sales job where he went into various offices in the area. One day, he made his sales pitch to a woman, and she asked his name. When he told her, she said, "that's my name, too! Who's your dad?" They talked for a while trying to place each other on the correct branch of the family tree. Then she told him that there was a family reunion in New Mexico a couple of weeks out. We were engaged at the time, and we talked it over with family. The two of us, my in-laws, and my brother-in-law drove to New Mexico together. We did  not know what to expect because this was a branch of the family we had never met. We were told, though that only a couple of McCabes had come over from Ireland, so if you were here, you belonged.  We were immediately made welcome, and quickly discovered similarities. There is "the nose", which appeared on most faces. (When I was telling this story to my children, they pointed to their faces and asked, "This one right here?) Most of the men had jobs that fell into one of three categories. The women were all crafty and had organized a craft sale over the weekend. There was also a cut-throat horseshoe tournament, which our family held their own in. Most everyone had sunflower seeds in their pocket, not just our men. The family church service on Sunday morning made it clear that beliefs were similar as well. We all enjoyed finding new family members and promised to keep in touch.

There is a tendency in the church today to be "clannish". It is easy to stick to the Sunday School, the church, or the denomination that we come from and to exclude others. We may do this from convenience and we may do it because of disagreements in doctrine or tradition such as sprinkling vs. immersion, instruments or no instruments, or blue song books vs. overheads. If we do separate ourselves we are depriving both ourselves and our extended Christian family. We truthfully have more similarities than differences. We all come together because of our love for God and our gratitude for what he has done for us. There is something that we can learn from every group of believers and there is something they can learn from us. In our part of the country we are seeing a greater unity in the body. In the past few months there have been gatherings of believers from every denomination, called One Kingdom, coming together to pray for the city and the nation. There have been Racial Unity Summits to help different cultures learn to understand each other and worship together. There was a wonderful rally, called Abilene for Israel, where Jewish and Gentile believers met to pray and worship together.  This really opened my eyes to our extended family in other countries. Aside from the fact that we are commanded to pray for Israel and to "pray for the peace of Jerusalem" we can learn so much from their reverence for God and their care for each other. Also, it helps us to understand the roots of our Christian faith.

John Chapter 1 tells us that to everyone who believed in Jesus God gave the right to become children of God.(John 1:12-13) Much of Romans 8 deals with the beautiful picture of God's adoption of us and the way we can call him Abba Father and have become joint heirs with Jesus. In 1 Peter 2:17, we read, "Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor."
and 1 Thessalonians commend the believers there for their love of the family of God everywhere.

God has given us a gift in our human families, our church families and the extended family of believers. Have the courage to accept that gift and receive the blessings it can give us.

Guest spot

Welcome to the guest spot on Unseen. Thanks Darell.

Matt and the Butterflies

By Darell Martin

 

Matt got into our car after Wednesday night Bible class with an excited look on his face.  He explained that his eighth grade Bible class had taken a field trip to a park just outside of town.  He wanted us to go back out there now with him “to see,” he said, “a beautiful sight.”

 

Joanna and Jonathan had just gotten in the car. Mom, always wanting to encourage anything spiritual in her kids, looked at me and said, “Let’s go see what this is all about.”

 

We drove outside of town to the small park, stopped the car and the four of us followed Matt as he walked ahead excitedly, yelling back, “Hurry, before it gets dark.”

 

He took us to a bunch of trees and said, “What do you see?”

 

I said, “A whole bunch of trees.”

 

He laughed and said, “Watch this.”  He proceeded to shake the trees and we watched as thousands upon thousands of Monarch butterflies fluttered this way and that.  It was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen.  All of us began shaking trees with “Ohs and Ahs” until darkness forced us back to our car.

 

After that, Mom had placed a plant—Greg’s mist flower—in the back yard that attracts Monarchs to its nectar.  She even hung a butterfly house close by for them to rest on.

 

We found out that Monarchs actually migrate down several corridors to a certain spot in central Mexico, and the central part of Texas, where we live, is one of those corridors. They begin as an egg, laid by a female Monarch on the stem of a milkweed plant.  They hatch to become a pretty, multicolored caterpillar that spends its time around milkweed, eating to its heart content.

 

Then a change takes place.  The caterpillar climbs to a spot and attaches itself with a little silk, which it spins.  A shell forms around the caterpillar and soon becomes hard.  Within that transparent chrysalis a metamorphosis is taking place, changing this earth-bound worm into a beautiful butterfly that will journey thousands of miles from its home in the northern United States toward its final resting place on either the Oyamel fir trees of the Transvolcanic range of southern Mexico or the eucalyptus trees of Pacific Grove, California (Rosenblatt, 1998)

 

Now think of the tomb of Jesus.  It was really only a cocoon or chrysalis in which his earthbound body lay.  But that body, which had felt hunger, thirst, pain, tiredness, loneliness and sadness, had gone through its own metamorphosis.  It had transformed into an incorruptible body.  It was no longer earthbound; it was free of, not only Earth’s gravitational pull, but its fallen nature as well.

 

Jesus has been resurrected never to die again.  And one day, he, the pioneer of resurrection, will come back and shake the trees for the rest of us to fly away with him to the home he has prepared. 

 

All Choked Up

Welcome back to unseen. Lots of changes, good and bad over the last 2 or 3 weeks. Thanks to those of you who have prayed for my husband during this time. As usual, God has lessons for us during difficult times. Read on to see what I learned from mine.
All Choked Up

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,² but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,and who meditates on his law day and night.³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers. Psalm 1:1-3

We went visiting this weekend and in the Panhandle, it is a little cooler than it is here. We sat out on the back patio with the dog for a while and talked. My mother-in-law is having some health problems and I asked if there was anything I could do for her outside while it was cool. After some cleaning chores, she said that she really needed the grass out of the flower beds. With the dog supervising, I got down in the soft grass to work on the flower beds. It felt so good, with the cool, damp dirt on my hands. She showed me what she needed. There were long tendrils of grass filling most of the flower bed. It was using up the nutrients and the space that the flowers needed. In some places it was so thick that the sun couldn’t get to the flowers the way they needed. She reminded me to get the roots and identified which plants were desirable and which were weeds. After a while she asked if I was tired and wanted to stop, but by that time this story was churning in my head so I finished the task. The result was a cleaner, healthier flower bed and a story about what God can teach us through the natural world.

First and most obvious is the fact that just as the weeds were using up the energy and resources needed by the plants, there are things that choke out the word and the spirit in our lives. The ones that bother me most frequently are the evil threesome of resentment, guilt and worry. Like the grass, they are all three intertwined and mixed together, feeding off each other in a destructive cycle. Your weeds may be different, such as addictive behaviors and people, or toxic anger. Whatever they are, like my mother-in-law said, you need to get the roots. Positive thinking, will power and punishment/reward programs won’t work. It is a spiritual issue and one that needs to be dealt with. Finally not all the things that end up choking us are bad things. Guilt can be a motivator for change and anxiety a prompt for better planning. It is good to help other people and righteous anger has its place. The problem comes when things get out of balance and when we are not connected to the source of our life.

Passages about plants and nature are all through the scripture. The challenge this week is to narrow them down. The first that comes to mind is Psalms 1.
Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,
² but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,and who meditates on his law day and night.
³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—    whatever they do prospers
.Jesus teaches us about spiritual growth in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13, and specifically talks about the idea of things choking out the word.  In John 15:1-9 he encourages us to abide in him, the vine, so we as branches can bear much fruit. This is such a beautiful picture.