Clouds

The other day I had a few minutes before a meeting so I sat on a bench and looked up into the azure sky and watched very fluffy white clouds. There were two of them. One slowly was moving into the other as if pushed by an invisible hand.

We know that "The heavens declare the glory of God." And just for a minute I saw the incredible beauty of what God had made.

Beyond what we can see, there is a Kingdom of Heaven which can only be seen through eyes of faith. When we look at the physical world in all its beauty we can be in awe of what we do not understand about the Creator of it all.

We cannot grasp the unseen through the seen because we have to have our spiritual eyes opened to see the Kingdom of Heaven. Much like a little kitten whose eyes are closed for a time after being born cannot see the real world until its eyes open, we cannot see what God has revealed in the spiritual world until we have our eyes of faith opened. Faith comes from the hearing of the Word of God (the Bible).

Jesus was born as a helpless baby. He was crucified, died, and was resurrected. During his final days on earth Jesus told the disciples that He would come again in clouds of glory. When He left them He was taken up to heaven in a cloud and disappeared from their sight.

Can you imagine those big, tough guys all looking up into heaven until that cloud slowly disappeared. They waited and looked, but Jesus was gone.

They walked away with a promise that He would come again "in clouds of glory." I don't think that any of them for the rest of their lives could ever look at a cloud in exactly the same way.

I am sure many of us have had the experience of flying through clouds. There is a kind of holy hush as the plane goes through these clouds because we are aware that we are in a different place from planet earth. We can break through from gloom into sunshine on the top of the clouds,or we can encounter unexpected turbulance...if the clouds are storm clouds.

How often do I miss God's message in a cloud, a tree, a mountain, a sunrise or a sunset?
Clouds are being moved today. Are you looking up?

The Good Shepherd

One of the most wonderful things in the world is to discover that we are under the care of the most tender shepherd. The Good Shepherd cares for his sheep. He leads them and He goes before them. They may not know where they are going but they follow the One who knows the way.

The Good Shepherd speaks to his sheep.

My sheep hear my voice.

The Good Shepherd never deserts any of His sheep. In his life, Jesus, the Lord, lay down his life for his sheep. Peter denied Jesus..but Jesus came back to claim him.

The cross shows our Good Shepherd and where his love for us led him. We can never fully understand this kind of commitment. We can only be in awe of a shepherd who cares for us in all our sin and brokenness and stretched out his arms on the old wooden cross for a world of sinners.

He came for all of us. He calls all of us. We reach out to others with our imperfect love and imperfect ways.

Christian, the Lord says, "Follow me."

Jesus has given us all we need to find protection and grace. He ever lives to make intercession for us, his little sheep. When we don't know where to go, we can always go to the Shepherd of our souls.

And so as we reflect on His commitment to us we look out at the world he died for and pray
 
Lord, help me to hear your voice and help me to obey.

A Call is an Assignment from God.

Calls do not only come to pastors and other leaders: they can come to any Christian at any time.

Calls are mysterious in that they originate from God and tend to be a "bigger" task than the individual would have attempted on his own. The call stretches us beyond our comfort zones or abilities into a dependency on God to work through us to complete the assignment.

Paul was called to "preach to the heathen." Galatians 1:15-16. This was not Paul's idea, to say the least, but he obeyed the assignment and this took him many places and he endured many hardships.


Calls come with power that you might call "staying" power. The call is not a one season thing. It is a life direction.

I can't think of any Christian work in which the leader has had the "call" that has failed because it is God's idea, not man's and God knows what He is about. Most of the time we don't

When I was first called to plant seeds of Biblical truth in children, I did not have a clue what to do. I went to my mission's pastor and he instructed me to start a non-profit for children. At the same time I was talking to my friends about wanting to do a work for children in the local area. God started to give me a deep concern for the children that I didn't have before. I saw the faces as I walked the main street of my town. I had no idea that I would become president....not ever having had a position like that but when we incorporated in l994 that was the unfilled spot and my friends told me I was it!


The heart of the call is obedience to the Lord and bowing to His plan over us for Christian service. Never in my thoughts had I considered children's work. The call changed all that.

The leader must continue to hold to the call and not let up. When discouraged get back to home base which is prayer. God is always over the call and the called person.

In putting together a team we must allow God to position people as He directs not as we might think. In several cases I thought I know who would be good in a position but allowing time for prayer the person got a "no" and another person got the "yes". We need to allow God to pick and wait for God's pick.

When we star to lead we are in the wrong position. Nothing will happen. We have to let God work and go where He is working and not worry about the rest. The call directed Paul and it must direct us.

On Love and Christian Community

Over the weekend I had the very dusty job of helping clean out our garage that really needed a makeover. I had some great helpers and we were able to get through the archives of the garage and pull out boxes that hadn't been touched in years.

One of these boxes contained love letters from my husband written many, many years ago. Since it was Valentine's weekend I read the letter and it hit me in a very powerful way that what was there was LOVE just in its beginning stages. I was in college and he was in medical school.  We had exams, 100 miles apart, and only weekends to get to know each other. That included strict dorm hours in those days.

One of the good things was we had lots of time to build up a friendship and there was no email so letters were long, personal and reread for nuances. We were uncertain; we were fragile; we were under pressure but we continued.

It seems to me there are some things that would pertain to us as Christians in community.

We are instructed in 1 Peter 3:8  "Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love a brethren, be pitiful, be courteous..."

How do we as a group get to this stage?  We have to go through a process of getting acquainted with each other. We have to not just go out there and do a project. We have to let God work on us so that we are of one mind and have the compassion between us that reflects who we are.

"God is love and he that dwells in love, dwells in God, and God in him."   I John4:16

When we are in true Christian community we should be experiencing God's love in us and through us for the members of the group. Not that that is perfect but there should be a warmth and caring that is real.

Love is consistent or constant.  We want to be there for each other in a deep way not just because we have a job to do together.

Love is persistent. We need to keep loving and caring for each other through times where a member of the community may hurt.

Love is overwhelming. Once we experience God's love in community we will just want more of that time together because we are having God's love perfected in us as we care for each other. One of the things about falling in love is that the "I" becomes "us".  A group in God's type of Christian community will reflect this.  Of course this oneness is not a matter of months ..it takes years.  It is like a marriage that has gone on so long that one person starts a song and the other can finish the next stanza. It is like a couple so content that they can just sit reading the paper happy in each other's company.

It is impossible to share all we have learned and how much being in community has change each of us. But, above all things as you start your group...aim for this kind of oneness.

The Amazing Grace

Amazing grace is not just a song or a religious feeling. Amazing grace is real because God's love is real and still reaches down to very hard situations here on planet earth.

For example, in our Project Lost Sheep group,  a missionary who had worked with us in camp had a God sized problem with her Grandmother's house that was in a trust. The house had not been improved in many years and beyond this the drains outside had not been repaired so that there was a huge problem of decay and smell in the house. The furniture had been invested, the rugs, and drapes etc. plus there was no money to fix this problem..or so it was thought.

We came together around this missionary to pray and to start a Christian Makeover of the house. It was a tough case. D's Dad was in a wheelchair, another missionary who rented a room was about to move out. But beyond this, their ministry work was affected by the very dark situation in the home.

We prayed and started to work in summer of '06.  The kitchen was dark. Lights not working. Dishwasher not working. The linoeleum was warped from broken pipe.  We addressed the smell problem with a dehumidifyer but started to paint in the kitchen. As we came together in community..some gave hours of labor, some gave money...we knew that we needed much more than we could give alone. But, Amazing Grace was with us and continued to unblock the impossible. Money was "found" that had been set aside for repairs in the house that was put their by the deceased grandmother. Money was found for  a new dishwasher and floor. D. found the best buy on blinds for the kitchen-family area.

A decorator on our team contacted her carpet man who gave carpet for the living room, dining room and  hall at cost. A local painting company did the living room and dining room at no cost and then won the bid for the exterior of the house.

In the meantime Amazing Grace was working on the house next door and the people decided to do extensive drainage. Since this house was above the house we were working on it meant that much of the water coming down the hill was going out the street and not under D's house.

On the second Christmas we were able to throw out all of the old furniture...sofa, chairs etc as the carpet was going to come in.  There were many blessings of "items" needed for storage found for nothing or next to nothing.

A woman on our Project Lost Sheep team was moving out of her apartment and graciously

gave to us: her sofa, lamps, a table and chairs plus kitchen ware ..all in excellent condition.

This will give you some idea of the joy we experienced as we sat last week on the sofa in the painted living room and sang Christmas carols.

A little girl present put it in a nutshell. THANK YOU GOD,  she prayed.  WE LOVE YOU. God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that all who believe in him should not perish but have everylasting life.

May you find Amazing Grace in your life .....