Believing What We Don’t See

Posted on September 1, 2024 by Barbara Harper

When you talk to people about God, some respond with, “I don’t believe in what I can’t see.”

Before we’re too hard on our skeptical friends, let’s ask ourselves what we’d say if someone told us they’d seen a fairy underneath a mushroom in a garden. We’d likely say something like, “Oh, really? Show me.” And when they couldn’t, we’d say inwardly, if not outwardly, “That’s what I thought.”

We tend toward belief in what we can see, hear, feel, taste, and touch. That’s the scientific method we grew up with, after all. We learn about the world around us by examining it and testing it.

We also try to fit our experiences into our current frame of reference. When we hear that a mild-mannered neighbor has been arrested for assault, we’re astonished. We never saw anything to indicate he was capable of raising a hand to someone. We try to make sense of his behavior by wondering if he was ill, drugged, drunk, or provoked in some way.

How many times have we heard someone say, “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

When someone chooses not to believe in God because they can’t see Him, we usually point out that there are several things we believe in without seeing. Wind, for one. We see its effect. We can track its movement on weather maps. But we don’t see wind itself. We could say the same about gravity, electricity, love, and many other life experiences.

And we could point out that, just like wind and gravity and such, we see evidences and effects of God at work. We see His hand in creation. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).

We could also point out history. How do we know such persons as George Washington or Alexander the Great or others really existed? We might have some of their own writing or effects to examine. But more than that, we have historical evidence in documents and testimony about them.

We have the same with God. He has spoken through His Word over the course of thousands of years, with various people giving their testimonies of what He said to them, which all provides a coherent whole.

The field of apologetics, which comes from a Greek word meaning “speaking in defense,” according to Wikipedia, explores these kinds of things. Many books have been ably written by men such as Josh McDowell (Evidence That Demands a Verdict) and Lee Strobel (The Case for Christ, his own testimony of coming to Christ while in the process of trying to disprove Christianity), and others.

These have done a much better job explaining and defending the evidences for Christian faith than I could, especially in a small blog post.

Faith is not a blind leap in the dark. Faith is based on God’s Word and testimony about Himself and His gift of opening our eyes and hearts to His truth. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Recently, I began to ponder just how much of what we believe in is unseen.

Our Savior. “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8).

Our protection. Once the king of Syria came after the prophet Elisha, because God had warned his people through Elisha how to avoid the king’s armies. Then, “When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, ‘Alas, my master! What shall we do?’ He said, ‘Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.’ So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:8-23).

Similarly, in the book of Esther, God is not mentioned once, but His fingerprints are all over that narrative.

I hope one thing we might do in heaven is hear more about those “behind the scenes” times God was protecting us.

The heavenly realm. I marvel at Ephesians 3:10, which says “that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” Imagine, beings in heaven learn more about God by seeing how He deals with us!

Not only are there unseen beings in heaven, but later in Ephesians 6, Paul tells us to put on the whole armor of God, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

Coming glory. “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

All of God’s promises fulfilled. We’ve seen multitudes of God’s promises fulfilled in our own lives and through people in the Bible. But some of what has been prophesied has not happened yet. Hebrews 11 is often called the “hall of faith,” telling how God worked in and through the lives of many heroes of the faith. But, the passage says, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (verse 13). Later in the chapter, the writer says, “And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect” (verse 39). Some of the promises were fulfilled in biblical times, some in our time, and some are yet to come.

Our heavenly home. The writer of Hebrews says of those who “were strangers and exiles on the earth,” “For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city” (Hebrews 11:14-16).

What do we do with these invisible realities?

We keep believing. “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 1:45).

We endure. “By faith [Moses] left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27).

We lay up treasure in heaven. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

We live with eternity in view. “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:1-2).

We run the race, looking to Jesus. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

We do the work He left for us. 1 Corinthians 15 deals with the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and our resurrection after we die. At the end of the chapter, after talking about mortality putting on immortality, and death being swallowed in victory and losing its sting, Paul says, “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (verse 58).

Ephesians 2:8-10 says we are saved by grave through faith, not works. But “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” We work, not to earn salvation, but as a result of our salvation.

We look forward to heaven. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).

We’re encouraged. “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).

We are blessed. After His resurrection, “Jesus said to [Thomas], ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed'” (John 20:29).

In the second half of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, which tells the story of the Pilgrim’s wife, Christiana, one character only looks down, gathering up debris with a muck-rake. Someone stands above him, offering a celestial crown. But the man with the rake never looks up. The Interpreter tells Christiana, “Now whereas it was also shewed thee that the man could look no way but downwards, it is to let thee know that earthly things when they are with power upon men’s minds, quite carry their hearts away from God.”

Our senses are so filled here, we forget there are unseen realities. But those realities are more firm and lasting and important than what we see. “For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18b). May God give us grace to look up, believe, and live for eternity.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. John 20:29b

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Laudable Linkage

Posted on August 31, 2024 by Barbara Harper

Here are some of the good reads found this week:

If You Confess: How to Bring Your Sins to God, HT to Challies. “When it comes to confessing our sins, many Christians fall into one of two errors — both of which steal joy, disrupt peace, and undermine assurance.”

When Life Feels Crushing, HT to Challies. “Some seasons are like that. They aren’t just overwhelming. They aren’t just hard. They aren’t just exhausting. They’re paralyzing, and from a humanity standpoint – they feel unbearable.” Sarah offers some helps for those times.

What Are Spiritual Gifts and How Do I Discover Mine? HT to Challies. This is probably the most helpful piece of writing I have seen on this subject.

Is “Allah” Just Another Word for God? HT to Challies. “There’s confusion about the word ‘Allah.’ Recently, a commentator claimed that ‘Allah’ is just the Arabic word for God, and that it doesn’t specifically refer to a different god. Her reasoning? ‘Arabic-speaking Christians pray to ‘Allah.’’ Is that true? Yes and no. Some nuance is needed. Here are four points to understand.” I appreciate clarity on this from one who knows.

Transgender, Intersex, and the Olympics. I appreciate the advice and example to wait and be sure we have the facts before we speak out on something. The topic here is two Olympic boxers who identified as female. “Political and religious conservatives jumped on the story immediately, decrying transgenderism and the unfairness to women in allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports.” That’s a valid concern but wasn’t the issue here. The women were intersex, not transgender.

More Than Bodies: Examining Our Assumptions About Disability, HT to Challies. Our prayers ad concerns for disabled friends tends toward a desire for healing, for whatever their disability is to be “fixed.” But their needs go deeper.

Eliminating Negative Self-Talk: 4 Key Reasons and Actionable Tips. “Do you respond to a compliment by putting yourself down? Do you verbally attack yourself because of your own clumsiness, forgetfulness, or aging body? You, my friend, may struggle with negative self-talk. So do I. And I’m guessing we aren’t alone. What a relief, huh? But the everybody-does-it response won’t cut it. It can be a comfort but not an excuse.”

Come boldly, believer, for despite the whisperings of Satan and the doubting of your own heart, you are greatly loved.–C. H. Spurgeon

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on August 30, 2024 by Barbara Harper

Some weeks overflow with blessings. For others, we might have to search a bit. But I am thankful for this weekly exercise to appreciate and thank God for the good things He brings into our lives with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. A quiet week. No appointments or outside obligations besides the usual. I love a quiet week at home.

2. An offer for dinner out. I love when my husband asks “Do you want to get something out for dinner tonight?”

3. New Bible study and Sunday School classes have started for the fall session at church. We’re going over selected psalms on Sunday morning and delving into 2 Corinthians Wednesday evenings.

4. A published devotional. Christian Devotions has published a short piece I submitted titled Adequate Shelter.

5. Things that make me smile. This is a screenshot from a reel on Instagram. I think I’d have a shot at this competition. 🙂

How was your week?

August Reflections

Posted on August 28, 2024 by Barbara Harper

August is one of our busiest and most enjoyable months, with my oldest son coming to visit for his birthday and mine for about eight days (not counting travel days). Usually the family members who live locally visit more often and we have a few family excursions.

Our visit was a little low-key this time with Mittu sick for a couple of weeks and unable to come over except for Jeremy’s birthday. But the rest of us talked a lot, played games, ate out a couple of times, and had a couple of outings. As always, it went too fast!

The first part of the month was preparing for Jeremy’s visit, and last week was recovery time. 🙂

Family funnies

On the way home from church, I saw a car repair shop’s sign for “Painless Dent Removal.” I thought that was odd–did they mean painless for the car owner, as in low-cost? Or were they anthropomorphizing the car to be funny and appealing? I mentioned it to Jim, and he said it was paintless dent removal, not painless.

Card-making

This one was for the baby shower of a lady at church.

It didn’t turn out quite as well as I had envisioned. I probably should have only used one border instead of two (those came in a set of baby-related strips). But I loved cutting out those pink onesies with the Cricut along with a couple more for the inside! With my children and grandchild being all males, I don’t get to use my pink papers very much.

This was for Jason and Mittu’s fifteenth wedding anniversary:

The little hearts were a crocheted set I had bought somewhere. And the swirly parts of the white cardstock were embossed with the Cuttlebug.

This was for Jeremy’s birthday:

I couldn’t find an odometer in the Cricut files that I liked, so I used a window frame and cut out the horizontal lines.

Watching

We didn’t watch much this month beside the Olympics. As I said earlier, I only saw the last hour or so of the opening ceremony, so I missed the controversial parts. We saw the NBC coverage most nights. It was frustrating that there were some parts of it they didn’t show—I didn’t even know about rhythmic gymnastics until afterward. On the other hand, they couldn’t show everything from all the competitions in prime time coverage.

It seems like there were more athletes talking about their faith and giving glory to God for their achievements than I remember seeing in other Olympics. That was neat to see.

Reading

Since last time I finished (titles link to my reviews):

Be Decisive (Jeremiah): Taking a Stand for the Truth by Warren Wiersbe.
A Boy’s War by David Michell, nonfiction. David was a student at Chefoo school for missionary children in China when it was taken over by the Japanese during WWII. The school was eventually sent to an interment camp, where they remained until the end of the war.
Shadowed Loyalty by Roseanna M. White, fiction, audiobook. What do you do when your beliefs in God and His will for your life clash with your mob family? Not my favorite of Roseanna’s books, but an intriguing premise.

My list is a little shorter than usual due to the Olympics and family get-togethers.

I’m currently reading:

Be Hopeful (1 Peter): How to Make the Best of Times Out of Your Worst of Times by Warren Wiersbe
Help for the Hungry Soul: Eight Encouragements to Grow Your Appetite for God’s Word by Kristen Wetherell
Write a Must-Read: Craft a Book That Changes Lives—Including Your Own by A. J. Harper (haven’t actually looked at this much the last month)
Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance (just picked this one back up after letting it sit a while. Not sure I’ll finish it. Several f-bombs and talk of ancestors murdering people.)
What’s a Disorganized Person to Do? by Stacey Platt (just started–want to read a small section at intervals)
Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens (audiobook)
Hope Between the Pages by Pepper Basham

Blogging

Besides the weekly Friday Fave Fives, Saturday Laudable Linkage, and book reviews, I’ve posted these since last time:

God’s Solutions Are Better. Sometimes we come to God asking for Him to solve our problems in a certain way, but He has something else in mind.
Christianity Is More Than Getting My Needs Met. God wants us to come to Him with our needs and promises to meet them. But God also wants us to glorify Him—not because He needs glory, but we need to give it to Him.
This I Call to Mind. In the midst of an utter wreck of his life and country, the writer of Lamentations remembers God’s mercy and faithfulness and finds cause for hope. We can, too, no matter what is going on in our lives.
Don’t Wait Until You Feel Like It. It’s wonderful when will and mind and emotion all work together. But when they don’t, we’re not faking it if we do spiritual things without spiritual feelings. We’re taking ourselves in hand and battling our fleshly nature.

Writing

Not much has happened on this front, with the other family things going on. Our critique group has taken some time off this summer, and while the break has helped with time for other things, I am looking forward to getting back at it.

As we change the calendar to September, we look forward to celebrating Labor Day with the family and Jesse’s birthday in a couple of weeks. I’m anticipating fall breezes and color, but we won’t experience much of that til the end of the month. I’m trying to enjoy the time at hand and not rush past it too soon in anticipation of what’s ahead.

How was your August?

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Don’t Wait Until You Feel Like It

Posted on August 25, 2024 by Barbara Harper

It’s time to read the Bible. But I had a late night last night and tons of things to do today. I’m just not in a mental frame to read the Bible right now.

It’s time to pray. But I just don’t feel like praying right now. I’ll wait til I am feeling more spiritual.

It’s time to get ready for church. But I’ve had a lot of appointments this week. I just don’t feel like being around a lot of people and activity. I think I’ll just watch the service from home.

Have you ever faced any of those scenarios? I think we’ve all had times we haven’t felt like doing what we know we need to.

Sometimes it even feels like we’d be faking it if we proceeded with prayer, Bible reading, or going to church without the proper spiritual feelings in place.

But I’d like to suggest that we wouldn’t be faking it. Instead, by doing what we ought to do even when we don’t feel like it, we’d be battling our fleshly nature, what the Bible calls our “old man.”

We received a new nature at salvation. But we still have the old one as well. Our old nature constantly pulls us in the direction giving in to ourselves, yielding to fleshly desires.

If we never felt like doing any spiritual activities, we’d have cause for concern about our relationship with the Lord.

But even having experienced the blessing of prayer, Bible reading, and church attendance, sometimes we’re still sluggish and reluctant to participate in them.

What can we do?

Get enough rest. Sometimes the cause is physical. I’m often too drowsy for my morning Bible reading if I stayed up too late the night before. Those times of life when a full night’s sleep is impossible—when a new baby is in the house or we’re sick—we may have to adjust our time with the Lord into smaller breaks throughout the day.

Search our hearts. Sometimes that sluggish or negative feeling might indicate something is wrong somewhere. We can ask God to “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psalm 139:23-24). If He brings something to mind, we can confess it to Him, ask His forgiveness, and make arrangements to do whatever else we have to do to make it right (apologize to someone, return an item, etc.).

Search whether we’re filled with other things. Almost every mother I know has had to tell her children they can’t eat sweets or munchies before dinner, because those things would blunt their appetite for good, nourishing food. Maybe we need to lay aside something that’s dulling our spiritual appetites.

Get help. Elisabeth Elliot wrote in On Asking God Why, “When I stumble out of bed in the morning, put on a robe, and go into my study, words do not spring spontaneously to my lips–other than words like, ‘Lord, here I am again to talk to you. It’s cold. I’m not feeling terribly spiritual….’ Who can go on and on like that morning after morning, and who can bear to listen to it day after day?” She chose to read psalms or hymns to help get her heart in the right place.

Don’t turn away from the primary means of reviving us. “I will never forget Your precepts, For by them You have revived me and given me life” (Psalm 119:93, AMP). God uses His word, prayer, and His people to work in our lives. When we neglect them, we’re denying our souls the very things they need to thrive. One of my former pastors used to say that one of his best times of prayer happened after he had to confess to the Lord that he didn’t feel like praying.

Don’t expect perfection. We haven’t failed at our devotional time if we haven’t run through our whole to-do list—pray so many minutes, read so many chapters, journal so many pages. Remember, it’s not a routine or a performance. Time in the Bible and prayer is simply communicating with the One who loves us best, getting to know Him better.

Ignore the feelings. That’s part of maturity. Every day we have to do things we don’t feel like doing (go to work, wake up before we want to, make or at least provide for dinner, say no to excess sugar). If we only ever did what we’d felt like—well, many of us would be couch potatoes in dirty laundry living off fast food.

I’ve only rarely had this problem, but sometimes people don’t feel like eating. Or they might, but they don’t want what’s available. But if they eat, the food nourishes them.

J. Sidlow Baxter once wrote an amusing account of trying to get into the habit of regular prayer. First he had to fend off the constant pull of distractions and duties. But then he had to just do it.

I found that there was an area of me that did not want to pray, and there was a part of me that did. The part that didn’t was the emotions, and the part that did was the intellect and the will.

So I said to my will: “Will, are you ready for prayer?” And Will said, “Here I am, I’m ready.” So I said, “Come on, Will, we will go.”

So Will and I set off to pray. But the minute we turned our footsteps to go and pray all my emotions began to talk. “We’re not coming, we’re not coming, we’re not coming.” And I said to Will, “Will, can you stick it?” And Will said, “Yes, if you can.” So Will and I, we dragged off those wretched emotions and we went to pray, and stayed an hour in prayer.

If you had asked me afterwards, Did you have a good time, do you think I could have said yes? A good time? No, it was a fight all the way.

What I would have done without the companionship of Will, I don’t know. In the middle of the most earnest intercessions I suddenly found one of the principal emotions way out on the golf course, playing golf. And I had to run to the golf course and say, “Come back”… It was exhausting, but we did it.

The next morning came. I looked at my watch and it was time. I said to Will, “Come on, Will, it’s time for prayer.” And all the emotions began to pull the other way and I said, “Will, can you stick it?” And Will said, “Yes, in fact I think I’m stronger after the struggle yesterday morning.” So Will and I went in again.

The same thing happened. Rebellious, tumultuous, uncooperative emotions. If you had asked me, “Have you had a good time?” I would have had to tell you with tears, “No, the heavens were like brass. It was a job to concentrate. I had an awful time with the emotions.”

This went on for about two and a half weeks. But Will and I stuck it out. Then one morning during that third week I looked at my watch and I said, “Will, it’s time for prayer. Are you ready?” And Will said, “Yes, I’m ready.”

And just as we were going in I heard one of my chief emotions say to the others, “Come on, fellows, there’s no use wearing ourselves out: they’ll go on whatever we do…”

Suddenly one day weeks later while Will and I were pressing our case at the throne of the heavenly glory, one of the chief emotions shouted “Hallelujah!” and all the other emotions suddenly shouted, “Amen!” For the first time all of me was involved in the exercise of prayer. And God suddenly became real and heaven was wide open and Christ was there and the Holy Spirit was moving and I knew that all the time God had been listening.

The point is this: the validity and the effectuality of prayer are not determined or even affected by the subjective psychological condition of the one who prays. The thing that makes prayer valid and vital and moving and operative is my faith takes hold of God’s truth.

The Christian life isn’t without emotion. Emotional highs and lows are expressed all through the Bible, especially the psalms. But emotions are variable and unreliable. They shouldn’t be running our lives. One of my college professors used to say, “Good feelings follow right actions.”

God understands our human frailty. “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). Jesus is the One who told his disciples (and us), “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41).

It’s wonderful when will and mind and emotion all work together. But when they don’t, let’s not wait til we “feel spiritual” to do spiritual things. God may use what we didn’t feel like doing to create the right feelings.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Laudable Linkage

Posted on August 24, 2024 by Barbara Harper

I have several good reads to share today:

Hope In Hindsight: Navigating Unexpected Journeys, HT to the Story Warren. “Just as Stephen looked to the stories of Scripture to remind him of who God is and what he has done, we can do the same when we face uncertainty in our futures. When plans are interrupted, when hardship comes, and when we’re confronted with the reality of sin and death in a fallen world, we can look to the story of Scripture and the story of our life and see the goodness of God woven throughout.”

Maybe You Don’t Need a Therapist, HT to Challies. “I’ve found that for a growing number of people there is an assumption that to be a human is to need therapy. We’re all maladjusted, and the purpose of therapy is to adjust us so that we’re high-functioning members of society, living flourishing, mentally healthy lives. In this model, therapy is something like a weekly medicine we all need to mentally survive a hostile world.” But such an approach raises concerns, which the author discusses.

When Spiritual Disciplines Took Over My Life, HT to Challies. “Scrupulosity can be jaw-droppingly deceptive. Spiritual disciplines are essential for growth, and we want to encourage one another to practice them. But there’s a difference between healthy spiritual practice and someone who’s struggling with OCD. Since the outward behaviors may be the same, we need to look below the surface to identify scrupulosity.”

On Biblical Mandates and Cultural Expectations, Part 3. “Once we’ve invested the time and effort it takes to be informed about what the Scripture says, and what the law requires, and what the culture expects, we need to get down to the business of making decisions about how we respond to specific demands from those authorities.”

The Rise of Hyperpleasures, HT to Redeeming Productivity. “If humans experience pain and pleasure on a 1-10 scale, then hyperpleasures are those activities which take us ‘off the scale,’ so to speak. They give us experiences that make us feel like a 20, 30, 100, 1,000, and so on. The particular number is arbitrary, of course, but the principle remains — these are pleasures that go far beyond the ordinary range of enjoyment, principally by removing those discomforts we experience in our ordinary pleasures.”

It Takes Years to Grow, HT to Challies. “We think transformation will be quick, and sometimes it is. But generally speaking, God isn’t in a rush. There’s a certain kind of holiness and beauty that develops only after decades of walking with God. You can’t microwave it. But when you see it, it’s a beautiful thing.”

Mom and Dad: Show Your Need, HT to Challies. ““I have one regret of how I parented . . . I wish I would’ve shown my kids my need for Christ more. I worked so hard to show them my godliness that I didn’t show them my need. I should have been more transparent. I should have shown them just how much I needed Jesus.”

To Everything in Motherhood, There Is a Season. “It would have been impossible for me to explain my grief in that moment. I was missing something. Not people necessarily, but a time of life with those people. . . Yet, each new season brings new joys.”

People Who Were Bookworms As Children Often Display These Seven Unique Traits, HT to Linda. “Many of us were those so-called bookworms as kids, and it’s fascinating to see how this early love for reading has shaped us into the adults we are today. You see, spending all that time with our heads buried in books did more than just help us ace our English tests. It subtly carved out traits within us that are not only unique but pretty advantageous, too.”

Do Quests, Not Goals, HT to Redeeming Productivity. “The conventional term for this sort of personal campaign is a ‘short-term goal.’ But I suggested to OBW participants that they drop the G-word in favor of something more fanciful: the quest. If that sounds a bit whimsical, hear me out. Whereas ‘goal’ has become a tired and bloodless descriptor for the (supposed) intention to do something great, the word quest instills the right mentality for achieving a real-life personal victory.” I’ve never thought of a “goal” as tired and dull, but the quest mentality does have some good points.

This is a good time for my occasional reminder that linking to a site doesn’t mean 100% endorsement of everything on that site.

Any theology that minimizes God’s holiness and tolerates people’s deliberate sinfulness
is a false theology. — Warren W. Wiersbe,
from Be Decisive (Jeremiah): Taking a Stand for the Truth

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Barbara Harper

Here we are at another Friday already. Let’s slow time a moment and savor the blessings from the last week with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Family outings. My oldest son, Jeremy, was with us through last weekend before going back to RI. Friday night, Jesse, my youngest, had us over for jambalaya. This was the first time Jeremy had gotten to see Jesse’s new house.

Then Saturday we went to a Hummingbird Festival at a local nature center. Didn’t see any hummingbirds. 🙂 But we did see some owls, turtles, and other nature displays. The guys went on a guided nature hike.

Then we went to the new-to-us Mexican food restaurant I mentioned a couple of weeks ago where I had the scrumptious shrimp, onion, rice, and cheese dish. Yes, I had that again, and Jesse tried and loved it, too.

2. My birthday was after Jeremy was scheduled to leave, so we celebrated it the Sunday before he left. After church, we went to one of my favorite restaurants, then headed home for presents and cake. Mittu usually makes my traditional birthday Texas Sheet Cake, but she was still sick, so Jim and Jeremy made it.

On my actual birthday, Jim brought me flowers and a Chick-Fil-A breakfast biscuit. 🙂

Then Jason, Mittu, and Timothy dropped by after the Kid’s Club at church with a card made by Mittu and a couple of Chick-Fil-A goodies (a chocolate chunk cookie and a brownie).

Then in a fun coincidence, the Strands game had a birthday theme on my birthday. At first I thought maybe that was on purpose, though I couldn’t remember having entered by birthday on their site. But when I looked it up, I saw that was just the theme that day.

3. Luscious weather. The day of the Hummingbird Festival was pretty fair weather. We still got hot and sweaty, but some delightful breezes blew occasionally. Rain had been predicted but didn’t come, except for a few drops. The cloud cover helped a lot.

Then Sunday afternoon, we went into the back yard for family photos and for Jeremy to try out his new drone. Rain was forecast again and the clouds looked threatening. But the wind and temperatures felt so good. I know we’re a long way from fall and we’ll have a lot more hot and humid days til then, but that respite felt so good.

4. Family humor. We laugh a lot when we’re all together. 🙂 As an example, when we went to the bird festival, the volunteers explained that a bird banding event was extra–they try to catch a hummingbird in a net and attach a band around its leg. That doesn’t sound too pleasant for the hummingbird, but the sessions would explain why it’s done. We didn’t sign up for that part. After we paid for our general admission tickets, volunteers placed a band around our wrists. Jeremy joked that when you’re a nature center and banding is your only tool, you band everything and everyone, including visitors. 🙂

Then while waiting in line, I pointed out to Jesse one of the features the sign listed was a “live animal display.” I commented that the wording seemed funny–why would they designate “live?” The first display we saw had a stuffed bat and bat skeleton and a glass case with pinned butterflies specimens. Jesse said, “What happened to the live animals?” 😀 We did see some later.

5. Connect Four is a program at church were ladies who want to participate can sign up, then they are divided into groups of four. Each group is supposed to meet once a month over the next four months, to do whatever the group wants to do. Probably most meet for lunch at someone’s home or at a restaurant, but some do other activities like hike or play games. Our group had they first get-together yesterday. Thankfully I had at least met and talked with everyone, so none was a complete stranger to me. But it was fun getting to know everyone better. The conversation flowed for a couple of hours.

It’s been a nice blend of activities and rest. I hope you’ve had a good week as well.

This I Call to Mind

Posted on August 18, 2024 by Barbara Harper

In some ways, it’s easy to call on the Lord for help when some outside issue comes upon us—illness, job problems, weather threats, and so on.

But when we’ve gotten ourselves into a mess because of our own actions, lack of action, thoughtlessness, or selfishness—well, that’s a different story. We’re ashamed. We feel we deserve whatever trouble we’re in, so why would God help us out of it?

Actually, we don’t deserve any blessings or help, whether we’ve done good or bad. God blesses us out of His grace, not what we deserve.

But sometimes the consequences of our actions are designed to bring us to the end of ourselves so we’ll look to Him.

I’ve just finished reading through Jeremiah and Lamentations. The prophet Jeremiah’s task was to warn God’s people of impending judgment. God had reached out to them and sent various messengers for years. But the people continued to worship idols, rely on nations that did not know God for help instead of going to Him, and various other transgressions. Now God was sending the Babylonians to desecrate their land and bring most of the population into exile.

The book of Lamentations is set just after the Babylonian invasion. As the title indicates, the author mourns the devastation. Jerusalem had been under siege for so long before being taken into exile that parents were cannibalizing their own children. People had died. The temple was destroyed. The author says, “I have forgotten what happiness is” (3:17).

In the middle of these Lamentations, the author makes an astonishing statement.

Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
    the wormwood and the gall!
My soul continually remembers it
    and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope (Lamentations 3:19-21).

What does he call to mind?

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”

The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
    to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
    for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for a man that he bear
    the yoke in his youth (3:22-27).

In the midst of an utter wreck of his life and country, the writer remembers God’s mercy and faithfulness.

God’s chastening is not a sign that He’s done with us. The ESV note on verses 31-33 says, “[God] sends judgment in order to effect restoration . . . God’s first instinct is not to punish. He only does so when his patience with sinners does not lead to repentance” (p. 1488).

The prophetic books of the Bible are known for their condemnation of sin and warnings to turn back to God. But they are also full of God’s expressions of mercy and pleading in love for the return of his wayward children.

I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, And like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you (Isaiah 44:22, NKJV).

Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares the Lord (Jeremiah 31:20).

Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? (Ezekiel 18:23).

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster (Joel 2:12-13).

When we’re down in the dust, God doesn’t want us to stay there. He wants to give us hope. He wants us to look up to Him. He wants us to recall His love and mercy and come back to Him.

Let us test and examine our ways,
and return to the Lord!
Let us lift up our hearts and hands
to God in heaven . . .

I called on your name, O Lord,
    from the depths of the pit;
you heard my plea, ‘Do not close
    your ear to my cry for help!’
You came near when I called on you;
    you said, ‘Do not fear!’

You have taken up my cause, O Lord;
you have redeemed my life (Lamentations 3:40-42; 55-58).

Come, let us return to the Lord.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Laudable Linkage

Posted on August 17, 2024 by Barbara Harper

I have not done as much blog reading this week with family here, but I have found a few thought-provoking posts:

How Can Christians Fight the War on Lies, HT to Challies. “This post-truth age poses profound challenges for Jesus followers. How does the church proclaim the gospel in a world where all truth claims are viewed with suspicion? How do we engage in meaningful dialogue when emotional resonance often trumps logical argument? And perhaps most critically, how do we maintain the integrity of our witness when the very concept of objective truth is under assault?”

Is Modern Tolerance an Aspect of Love? “What is the role of government? According to scripture, it is to protect us from evil, not protect evil.”

Impossibly, Gradually, Miraculously Changed, HT to Challies. “The apostle Paul talked about our slow path to holiness. We are, he said, being transformed (that’s the certain part) from one degree of glory to another (that’s the slow part) into the image of the Lord (that’s the beautiful part). More miraculous than an ocean of polished shell and glass, more changed than a river full of rocks is the transformation of a human heart by the Holy Spirit.”

Don’t Forget to Remember: Lessons from a King and the Pride That Hides. “Asa didn’t fall into overt, obvious pride. The Scripture doesn’t say anything about his rebellion or foolishness, arrogance or selfishness. His was a sin harder to detect: the pride that hides. It hides behind Bible readings and worship songs, formal prayers and spiritual disciplines.”

Seven Encouragements for Parents of Prodigals, HT to Challies. “I don’t think we or anybody has ever gotten to the bottom of it and its amazing portrait of the gracious heart of God.”

I Do Not Know This Year, Lord, HT to Challies. This poem about trusting God for the year ahead was apropos for me since my birthday is coming up next week.

Better a brief warfare and eternal rest, than false peace and everlasting torment.
—C. H. Spurgeon

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on August 16, 2024 by Barbara Harper

It’s Friday again, when I pause with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to reflect on the good things from the week.

1. My oldest son is home. He came in last Friday from RI. It’s been a low-key week so far—Mittu has had a horrible respiratory infection (tested negative for Covid, flu, and strep), and Jim, Jason, and I have had touches of various things through the week. But we’ve enjoyed being together and talking, and we hope to get out to do some things later on.

2. Clingman’s Dome is the highest point in TN. There’s an observation tower with a great view of the surrounding area. Jim and Jeremy hiked the trail to the tower Monday and enjoyed it the scenery.

3. Jeremy’s birthday. I’m glad he could be here to celebrate it!

4. An easy fix. I was having trouble with my most-used outlet in our bathroom working intermittently and then not at all. Jim took his tester in there, thinking he might have to replace the outlet. After he unscrewed and tested it, he found an inner screw was loose. That took care of the problem!

5. A revitalized hair dryer. In the course of trying to fix the above problem, we thought at first my hair dryer might be having trouble. It was what worked the least in the outlet before it went kaput. Jim opened it up and cleaned out the lint and dust. Now it blows better than it has in a long time!

That’s our week! How was yours?