God's Timing

God made time but He exists outside time for He always was and always will be. We live in such a small world compared to God's.

God sees everything whereas we are pretty focused on what is about us or what comes into our world by way of information. A case in point is prayer. Why are some prayers answered very promptly while others takes years to answer? This can cause lots of trouble with new believers who want answers now.

We are operating in an "instant" access and "instant" gratification society. God doesn't play that game. He has a perfect plan and perfect timing for everything in our lives but we will have to learn to wait. Wait is not a popular word. WAIT ON THE LORD. We'd rather be doing something. Because prayer is "slow" we may be tempted to put that on our "later" list. We shouldn't but if we are honest...do we really pray to God about every thing that worries us?

A friend has been praying for years and years for her son to get a kidney transplant. Why so long? These delays are hard for us.

Mary, the mother of our Lord, had to make the journey to Bethlehem when she was in the last stages of pregnancy. She got pregnant when she was a teenager and before she was married. But, she had a cousin, Elizabeth, who had a miraculous baby before her. The miracle was that she was too old. But, God changed the timing for her. God made these two women at the opposite ends of life connect with their pregnancies BECAUSE IT WAS IMPORTANT THAT JOHN THE BAPTIST announce JESUS.

Now Elizabeth and John, her husband had prayed for years for a child and when it was too late (by all normal standards) for this to happen God answered the prayer and Elizabeth had a baby in her old age.

Who could figure out this divine plan. God's timing was perfect. It was just not man's timing. People have to wait for God's answer because HIS TIMING IS RIGHT and a delay to an answer to prayer may mean God is up to something MAGNIFICENT.

Think about it and keep praying.

Being A Mother

I don't think there is anything more challenging or rewarding than being a mother.

Who can forget the first glimpse of that baby cleaned up and wrapped up and carried to the mother in the hospital. Of course it is love. The relationship started months ago with that first little movement. Now the real child comes.

And with the baby comes mother nerves. Is the baby okay. Check fingers and toes. Can I nurse this baby? How can I manage this awesome responsibility. When I go home can I take all these nurses and helpers with me?

I think the sight of the baby causes most of us mothers to realize we are way beyond our depth. Who forgets the first visit to the pediatrician. Is the baby gaining enough weight? How can I possibly cut his toenails? When will I ever sleep again through the night? And then, in doesn't seem long, the first partings. Dropping off the little one to nursery school and rushing back a few hours later to make sure that the kid is okay.

As I said a few blogs back I can't imagine how hard it would be to go through all the challenges without a husband. Most of the children accepted into Touchdown Camp are from single mom families. Most of them are carrying an impossible load of work, children and responsibility.

Some of them have not had good parenting experiences themselves. One mom recently came to Patty Cardona with an unusual question. How do I learn to hug? Her children had been receiving hugs at Verbo church but she herself did not know how to do this for her own children.

Count yourself blessed if you had a mother who could hug you. Count yourself blessed if you had both a mother and a father who listened to you, helped you with homework, took you for ice cream and watched you grow up..

When we look at the needs around us, we know, that all the love we have received can be used if we just step out and reach out to others to help them.

Left Overs

We don't think much of leftovers in middle America. They are just something you take home from a restaurant or put in the refrigerator for another time.

One day Jesus was teaching the multitudes speaking of the kingdom of God and healing but there was a problem at the end of the day. No food. (see Luke 8) The disciples wanted the crowds to go away to some of the towns. Where they were ministering was in an isolated place. Jesus had another idea: "You give them to eat." As usual the disciples looked at their resources. Here it was: five loaves and two fish.  The crowd was around five thousand. Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit in groups of fifty. Then he blessed the small resource given and gave the crowds to eat.  AND THERE WERE LEFT OVERS 12 baskets full of fragments.

In another account there is the admonition about the leftovers "let nothing be wasted." 

Every summer at camp we see very hungry children. Lunchtime is very hungry time with children having been out playing sports. We teach children to bless the food and we always have enough.

Children who are poor are used to not having enough to eat. Some of them even try to stuff their food down their shirts to take home. A left over  that consists of their lunch.

We serve a God who feeds people with the Word of God but he also sees human need. Our Lord knew what it was to be hungry. He had gone without food for 40 days in the wilderness. Jesus came from a poor family. The poor and their needs were no surprise to him.

Recently Patty Cardona mentioned that the cancelling of summer school was a real hardship BECAUSE THE CHILDREN WERE FED lunch.  It is hard for us to imagine being so close to the edge that a few lunches per week make a difference.

They do.  Left overs count. Think about it.

The Royal Wedding

Well, having seen what I think of as the wedding of the century with all the eyes of the world on the couple. Heard the vows. Seen the tradition. What do we make of all of this?

I am a sucker for a real love story and it looks like this is one. Not that marriage is ever easy but it is a HOLY estate "not to be entered into lightly". Everyone is aware that marriage, at best, can be painful, wonderful, amazing and challenging all at the same time. And, to top it off if the couple is in the public eye it must be much more difficult.

A real love story can reenergize a family. A reall love story can get a nation, even one restrained to the point of shouting and cheering. The announcer said he had never seen anything like this.

Who will forget the pictures of the thousands and thousands waving the British flag as various of the roylaty including the dear Queen Mother in yellow dress and hat passed by. There is something about a wedding that is royal because marriage is ordained of God.

There can be a miracle in a wedding. Love makes those who have grown a bit cynical take another look. A couple really in love (even if the kiss was rehearsed) is still a couple in love from the most humble to the most royal.

God made male and female and he put them together to create other human beings raised inside that love between the man and the woman. We need not on this royal wedding throw any cold water. I am sure we are all praying that this will be the one with the "happily ever after" ending.

So hard to believe there can be wholeness in this very dark, fractured world. But, wait. We have just celebrated the ressurection of Jesus from the dead. He is alive and all love comes from God.

Hang on. Hold hands. Forgive and trust that ONE much stronger than yourself will see you through the years.

More Than A Sunday Church

This week I had a chance to visit the after school program at Verbo Church. The tutoring program started in October and goes until June. This program was generously given by a large church to jump start a vision that Pastor Orlando Cardona had to use the church MORE THAN ON SUNDAYS.

The Sunday school rooms were in place. Twenty-four children were selected from the Touchdown Camp to participate. When I visited on Tuesday, Sandra and the two tutors were very busy helping the children with math problems. There are good reports of improved grades but there Is a bonus to the program in that parents are required to attend a parenting class taught by Pastor Orlando and Patty!

Good parents don't just spring up. They need to be taught. Being a parent isn't a picnic even with the kids who are easy. We need to have reserves of wisdom and of love and of patience that are far beyond our own. I can't imagine how tough it would be to be a single mom working several jobs to just barely make enough to pay the rent. We are trusting God for another miracle that this little school. A Bridge of Hope to the neediest in Redwood City can continue and even be expanded.

People can live without a lot of things but they need these non-tangibles to go on. They need hope, and so do the children. And they need love, and so do the children.

Holy Week

There is a minor character in the drama of Holy Week by the name of Simon, a man of Cyrene. He was just passing by as Jesus came out of a night of torture and bruality. Jesus was weak. He could not carry the cross up the hill where he would be crucified on Good Friday. Instead, a stranger was "compelled to bear his cross."

It is likely that the man of Cyrene had no idea who Jesus was. He was a criminal on his way to be crucified. The soldiers made sure that Simon would carry that cross right up to the hill.

Jesus perhaps staggered and fell on the way. The soldiers would have continued to abuse him. Simon could only slow down with the heavy cross on his shoulders and watch this abuse. Jesus had been beaten up. He had lashes across his back and shoulders so he could not have carried the cross without falling and fainting from the pain. The soldiers had no sympathy. They just did what they had to do to get the prisoner up the hill to the torture chamber of the cross.

The cross so heavy was carried not by a disciple as they had all run away but by a stranger. So what does this carrying of a cross say to us? Does it perhaps mean that when we see someone suffering from dire poverty that we should reach out a hand and carry that poverty by extending food or clothes?

Does it mean, perhaps, that if we see children locked in apartments with no summer school that we do something for Jesus by carrying these kids out of those places and put them in camp?

Does it mean that if we see someone beaten and abused by others that we do what we can do IN JESUS' NAME? It is interesting that in the trek up the hill we see Jesus, as we would be: weak, bleeding, beaten and not able to carry his own cross.

The man of Cyrene, comes and bears the cross and then disappears from the story. Perhaps he heard later who Jesus was. Perhaps he fell to his knees and believed for the cross that he had had the honor to bear.

Bearing a cross is not about a hardship that we are carrying but it is about carrying something for another in Jesus's name.

Satisfaction

Aren't we all looking for this? We want something, not quite sure what it may be that gives us a deep sense of well being.

The world may tell us that satisfaction comes from more money. But, we only have to look at the wealthy to know that that is not necessarily true. In fact, the wealthy seem to be less satisfied, by in large than the poor. The poor live simply and they are very focused first on basics like paying the rent, getting food in for the family and taking care of loved ones.

It is not about achieving, it is about being in relationship to others that we can find deep satisfaction. Wealth, in fact, can isolate a person from what he or she most needs and that is love and interaction with others and not just the rich who are just as "edgy" and self focused.

Jesus talked about a kernel of wheat falling to the ground and dying before it came to life again. Like so many illustrations we need to think about this.

l. The kernel is not important until it goes into the ground.

2. While it is "unseen" the life that has been put into this kernel sprouts and the plant grows. Roots go down into the soil and the kernel becomes a plant that emerges into the light again.

3. The plant then reproduces and more kernels fall to the ground.

This pattern is a cycle.

There is death to the kernel as it was. There is hidden growth in the ground. There is resurrection of the new plant which becomes much more fruitful by bearing more kernels that can then fall to the ground.

Of course, that is fine for a plant but Jesus spoke in parables so that those who had ears to hear could really hear what he was saying about them.

Satisfaction? Do you have it? Are you willing to die to self in order to find new life? Are you willing to be invisible and hidden so that the growth can take place in order to make your life both satisfying and fruitful?

Think about it. Are you satisfied?

Living Above Our Circumstances

Most of us believe that we are in charge of our circumstances. That is what gets us into trouble to start with. It is true that we may have done something to land us in our circumstances, but getting us out is not all up to us.

Here is why. God sees our circumstances and is above them. He has promised us that ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD FOR THOSE WHO LOVE GOD.

Apostle Paul wrote that he has learned how to abound or be abased. In other words, he knew how to live with plenty and live without. Now, we all might prefer the first choice but that is not always how life goes.

How do we do when are job disappears? When the money goes down? When we are abased? Paul says to live above our circumstances we must:

l. Rejoice in the Lord always.

I think rejoicing involves thinking back on all the ways God has taken care of us in the past. Rejoicing helps us reflect on God's unchanging character.  His faithfulness, his mercy etc. Rejoicing is a celebration of our unchanging relationship with the Lord. He still loves us even if we are paupers.

2. Let the Lord strengthen you in the trial or circumstance that is pressuring you.

Talk to him about your work. Let him into the pressure area. Spend time with your eyes and heart upon the Lord who can make a way through the Red Sea. Who has provided a Savior? Who is only a prayer away?

3, Cast your cares on the Lord.

Think of a fisherman throwing his line out into the sea. He casts it out there and then he waits. We cast the current care on the Lord with a prayer. Something like this: "Lord you know the pressure I have about X, Please strengthen me and guide me with your wisdom."

It is very easy to let the circumstances become god to us. We think it is in charge. We will never escape it, we will never survive it.

Remember, Paul was in a Roman prison (not a good place to be) when he wrote the letter to the Phillipians. He told Christians to rejoice. He was practicing rejoicing in his circumstances so he could live above his circumstances and be used in his circumstances for God.

His courageous, outrageous faith burst out of the prison he was in and gave us a roadmap to follow. Pull out of your bog. Get your feet into the path of faith. Let God into your circumstances today.