Category Archives: inspiration

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On That Day

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by Deborah Thomas

How could Jesus bear

the betrayal of a strident patriot seeking a messiah despot,

the arrest at night, secure in numbers, dragging him to the high priest,

the questioning from men drunk on power, driven by fear of a greater power,

the adjudicating of Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate, curious but ignorant of the riches in their hands, too full of self pride to see it,

the  postulating of Pilate to make an offer of life not his to give,

the stripping of His robe, the stabbing of the thorns, the blows from fists He could not see,

the tearing of His flesh with hooks flailing His blood into the air,

the staggering climb to Golgatha, lined with gawkers or sympathizers, neither willing or else able to help,

the nailing hammer blows to hands and feet, enough to wish for unconsciousness,

the fastening of His body to a common cross, weighted by the gravity he created,

the mocking of the son of man, son of God,

the silence of his Heavenly Father, to sacrifice His only son, for the payment of our sins,

on that day.

Such love and mercy given.

This our greatest gift of life.

John 3: 15-18 The Message

…[for]it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up—and everyone who looks up to him, trusting and expectant, will gain a real life, eternal life.

16-18 “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.

God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted;

anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it.  And why?

Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.

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A Prayer for you

May the Lord bless your Holy week.

May you find respite in the confession and forgiveness of your sins,

and rejoice in eternal life through His son Jesus.

May you enjoy His company, love Him deeply, thank Him always,

and from His storehouses, be given helpful goodnesses.

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A Daily Miracle

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Part II, a Lenten treatise

Deborah J. Thomas

Lent begins the first Wednesday of March this year. This season is one of God’s best gifts.

When I visited my sister recently, we sang a few worship songs at her piano. One captivated me, a beautiful melody about the Holy Spirit. I pondered His role, and I’m still pondering Him.

Practicing Christians know the basics. He’s the third being of the Triune: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, we say in that order.  God the Father sits and rules from His throne in Heaven, and Jesus as Son is seated at His right hand.  But where is the Holy Spirit?  Perhaps He is the most mysterious of the Trinity.

Of course, all of the Lord God Almighty is mystery.  But the Father and Son have been more revealed or at least visible, over time, than the Holy Spirit. God the Father directed mankind, and spoke to his prophets throughout scripture. Thus, He’s become more familiar to us.  God the Son came to earth and people living at that time got to see him—Son of Man and Son of God, Jesus was called. The account of the gospels taught and showed us all manner of truth about God the Son, Jesus.

But the Holy Spirit is lesser seen, lesser known. His name makes that obvious: He is Spirit. Not seen by human eyes. However, just like the wind, He’s there.  (And sometimes witnessed through evidence.) Ephesians 1: 27 states that God wished to “…make known the riches of his glory (knowledge of Him) among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you…” In other words, the Holy Spirit dwelling in the true believer. After Jesus returned to heaven, the Holy Spirit came to his followers, so they’d sense God with them, in Jesus’ s absence. Stunning! The Holy Spirit resides in any person who invites Jesus Christ into their heart. A miracle!

‘Rauch’ was the name of that haunting Hebrew melody. It transports the listener to a pre-Messianic period as if it were wafting through the doors of the Temple in Jerusalem. “Spirit, Spirit, Spirit divine,” it sings, followed by “Not by might or by power, but by My Spirit,” says the Lord God Almighty. (Zech. 4:6) The setting for this passage in Zechariah is that part of Israel’s history when the Lord instructed Zerubbabel and Joshua to lead the Jews in the rebuilding of the temple.  It would not be physical strength or societal position that would build the temple from the ground up. It would be the Spirit. In short, not by man, but by the Lord.

This principle can be applied beautifully. First, in Jesus our example, in His sacrifice and resurrection. How he endured the crucifixion is an enigma. I barely stomached watching Gibson’s movie The Passion.  I wept. Though overdramatized in parts, it showed with certainty no man could have survived the abuse, flogging, climb to Golgatha, and piecing of hands and feet in meager human strength.  It had to be the spirit of God giving him ability, which He begged God for in Gethsemane. And the resurrection? The spirit of God.  In fact, Jesus’ entire life was partnered with the Spirit—in His stories, His prayers, His miraculous healings and restoring of life to the dead.  All was unconventional, unexpected, radical, and offsetting—but done under the moving of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s the difference between climbing countless flights of stairs alone (and perhaps not making it) or taking the escalator!

I think God sent Jesus to illustrate He delights in us. That humanity is what He wants to use. Not ‘by might or by power,’—not with the strength of horses and chariots, the savvy of kings and wise men.  Not by man—man fails and comes to his end.  But by the Spirit. The Spirit is our provision, just as he was Christ’s. As He did for Zerubbabel and Joshua, he can do for us, to build us. (Be prepared for those hammer blows, at times. He doesn’t spare the anvil.) He’s our ability to cope and overcome. To forgive. To be humble and unselfish.  To serve others.  He’s the miraculous in daily life!

 

Holy Spirit, thank you for coming and being the miraculous to us. We need you.

Wake us to invite you into our days. Enter our prayer life.

Please use us purposely. Help us with life’s trials; give us strength and endurance.

This Lent, breathe into us, Breath of Life. Fill us with life anew.

In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

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Set Aside

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Part I of a treatise on the miraculous, for Lent

Everybody wants to be loved, we latch onto it. Love helps us cope with life. In 1958, Phil Spector cut a song, To Know, Know, Know Him and I thought it was cool. Here are the first nine lines.

To know know know him
Is to love love love him
Just to see that smile
Makes my life worthwhile

To know know know him
Is to love love love him
And I do
And I do
And I do

As a young girl, I began to feel I was not quite like other people.  That I was different and not preferred.  I wore glasses from the age of two. When I was five,  I was given penicillin for a boil on my behind, and broke out with a rash that never left. I was the middle child of three. My older brother liked my sister more than me. Or at least it felt like that. And my foster brother also liked Karen more.

Happily, there were some reprieves from my poor self image. I did well in school and I learned piano well. I also had two good friends, Marilou Hage, and Marcia Dorman.  My parents and grandparents loved me dearly, and my sister adored me. These things brought me great happiness.

Still, when winter came to Grand Rapids, Michigan, my life got hard. The harsh and frequent snow, and icy weather had an immediate effect upon my skin.  It chapped, cracked and bled.  I had scabs and sometimes staff infection entered the wounds.  I’d have to stay home from school to recover. My parents gave me support and understanding.  I was taken to doctors and later, the Mayo clinic to seek solutions.

Kids asked questions about my rash and scabs and it was embarrassing.  I can remember how I flushed, as I gave them a reply. I tried to hide my skin, but the eczema broke out everywhere there was a joint or flap:  behind my knees, armpits, my neck, at the bottom of my ear lobes, every finger knuckle, my wrists, and then on my lower arms, where there were no joints at all. Though my siblings never made fun of me, my classmates’ curiosity and probing made my self-esteem plummet.  Michigan winters gave me a good understanding of what it was like to feel ‘set aside.’ But I think God used those winters to offset my life in a permanent way.

I think each of us has a life experience that leaves a lasting mark. A relative of mine was abused as a girl.  My mother lost her thirteen year old brother when he ran away from home to find his mother who left the family. Georgie jumped off a train from a bridge, into the river below, and drowned.  My grandfather’s eyesight failed in his twenties, and he lost his accounting job. My former husband was mistreated by both his parents his whole life without reprieve, and no apology was given him later on. These kind of things make us feel as if we’ve been ‘set aside’, singled out, a product of the extraordinary.

Could it be that God marks us, as if to distinguish us—in love?  Surely the One who made us couldn’t want that we should have a life of unrelenting hardship and abuse.  Yes, there are cultures where cruelty and persecution goes on for years.  In The Immortal Irishman, we read how the English Parliament suppressed and battered the Irish for years, believing them to be inferior Catholics. How sorrowful that some cultures must endure dictators, oppression or depraved poverty without relief.  These things defy understanding except we know that in this earthly life, evil sometimes gains an upper hand.  A good God raises up the good to fight against the evil, for His intention is for it to be conquered and replaced with goodnesses.  Praise God this is so.

The Lord marks all of us, one way or another.  He calls all people to come to Him in earnestness, to “know, know, know” Him. True followers are given a gift, His Presence inside them. Philippians 4:11 says, “The Lord is near.” With this gift, we are ‘set aside’ from the world.  In good ways, in servitude.  For to know His presence is to love Him.

Part II will consider this amazing presence of God within us, a most miraculous thing.

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Mermaid

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One of my childhood fantasies was to be a mermaid. Ha! Of course I had no idea what this would entail, (or should I say, entale)—but with life under water, you can choose whatever role you wish it to be. I was fascinated with the notion of mermaids. I put myself into the role and felt magically transformed into a romantic and attractive creature, swishing my long fantail to get me where I needed to go. Fantasy is so great, you become whoever you want to be. There I was without my eyeglasses, no ugly skin disorder, no disabilities at all. Something transitory overcame me, and I was a swimming beauty, admired by all, lovely beyond compare, a princess of the sea. If something went wrong, all I had to do was swim away and escape to wherever it is mermaids go for refuge. Ha.
Sometimes, while swimming at our summer cottage lake, or later on, our swimming pool in Tucson, I would pretend to be a mermaid, and swim with my legs together. We would play games, such as play Mermaid Tag and “It” and the players could only swim with their legs together in the game. It was pretty fun.
When the movie The Little Mermaid came out, I thought this was one of the Disney’s best except for the ugly, dark witch. Of course every story has to have a villain, but this one seemed excessively wicked. The story line however, was most clever and I still very much like this movie, one of my favorites– for Ariel (whom we named a third cat we got since she felt so out of place), and her friends, the good godmother, and of course her dashing prince who loved her for who she was.
All kinds of things happen to us in life. Evil rears its ugly head at some point or another, sometimes more often than we would like. But there is a way of escape in the real world. God gives us a Knight in shining armor, Christ Jesus. In His comforting and strong arms, we can know rescue and delight.