Wednesday, October 12, 2005
LORD, BE MY PASSION
LORD, BE MY PASSION
By Mary Anne P. Ledesma
Oct 9, 2005
I am grateful for this privilege of sharing with you my reflections on
the theme "Lord, Be My Passion". Such a privilege has found me awakened
in the early hours of the morning as well as gripped many times during
the day with the question: Lord, what exactly does it mean to ask You
to be our passion?
The answer I got was earth-shaking, to say the least. No matter the
wrestling with such an answer, the same response was quietly but
uncompromisingly given. And the answer was this: that to ask the Lord
to be our passion is to embrace pain and suffering without running away
for that is what it will entail. And by pain and suffering, the Lord
did not seem to refer to that which lasts a day or a week or a month,
but one of such severity that no pain-killer has yet been formulated to
numb the ache. It is the kind of pain so severe and intense that one
may be driven in utter desperation to beg for release to the point of
considering death as sweet. And, I was led to recognize that indeed,
this is the place where passion is born. When one finally stumbles on
the truth in the midst of one's inconsolable grief that every promise
of happiness and pleasure that life led us to believe in is at best,
ever so fleeting, at worst, a deceptive illusion, one finally discovers
the awesome and magnificent truth that the saints of old, the martyrs,
and the men and women of God in the Bible knew all along: that when one
is left with nothing and no one in this life but God, God is enough,
more than enough, to live with and for.
I must categorically qualify that I do not think that the pain and
suffering the Lord will permit us to have should we ask Him to be our
passion is of the masochistic variety. Certainly, that would contradict
the kind of God who has only love and yes, passion for us. Rather, it
is the pain and suffering that is necessary to extricate us from
passions we have apart from Him, perhaps some of which we are not even
aware of for you and I really know so little of our own hearts until we
ask the Lord to reveal them to us. And when that heart does become
revealed to us, what a chamber of horrors it turns out to be. In that
heart is the conglomeration of all that faith is not supposed to be
about: fear, lust, anger, jealousy, bitterness, insecurity, and a
manipulative and controlling spirit, among many others. If the Lord is
to be our passion, the heart will have to move towards facing and
purging all these demons. That in itself is so excruciating that it is
possible only astride a solid understanding of God's grace,
unconditional acceptance, love, and forgiveness. Yet such heart surgery
is one that may people choose to escape; after all, it is infinitely
easier to just continue immersing ourselves in work , or going through
the comforts of a well-ordered life, or talking about other people's
problems, imperfections and struggles, or simply pretending and denying
that these don't exist within us. When we ask the Lord to be our
passion, however, it is highly possible that He will do for us what we
are not able to do for ourselves, namely, release us from the bondage
of these passions that compete with Him. I would like to believe, and
do know from experience, that He prefers to do this gently. Yet I also
believe, and do know from experience, that gentleness too often does
not work for us because we resist too ferociously and cling to our
passions too vehemently. And quite often, the only way left is that of
allowing pain and suffering to visit our lives so that we are left with
no choice but to surrender.
And so, I submit before you, people of God, that it is probably a
terrible, terrible thing to ask the Lord to be our passion for I have
no doubt that He will answer this prayer in unimaginably startling
ways. Yet, I believe that it is even a more terrible thing to NOT ask
the Lord to be our passion for if the Lord abandoned us to our own
passions, and I praise Him that this is the last thing that He would
do, it would be better for us to not even have been born at all.
I have been in both these places. I have been to that place where I
sought and won the sweetness of human applause, that place where I
labored for and enjoyed the pleasures of human affection, that place
where I chose to merely relish the privileges of material comfort, that
place where everything that the perfect life is supposed to consist of
knew existence. I stand before you, a woman redeemed and delivered from
private hells so terrifying that a horror movie could be made of them,
to testify that nothing, but nothing, yes, nothing satisfies but Jesus.
And so with a trembling heart that acknowledges that pain is definitely
not among my favorite things yet nonetheless knows to whom it belongs
and who it is that it believes, I do dare ask: Lord, be my passion.
I sense that somewhere deep in your hearts, this prayer is yours as
well.
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HEADWATERS
HEADWATERS
By Sally I. Kennedy
Oct 8, 2005
Whoever believes in me.. streams of living water will flow from within
him. John 7:38
The mighty Roaring Fork River is headquartered in the Colorado Rocky
Mountain range along the Continental Divide. The headwaters of that
powerful river are deceiving. Up where it begins, a narrow, calm stream
barely leaks out of the mountain. It meanders and wanders, eventually
picking up speed and strenghth as it continues on its journey.
God promised that rivers of living water would flow out of us
believers. He doesn't lie, so they do. Right? At the headwaters, the
stream may be faint, maybe just a trickle. However, as the water keeps
moving, it picks up momentum from and through others.....our brothers
and sisters. A mighty, roaring river emerges.
So keep on keepin'on. You can trust that The River will keep on
flowing, growing and gaining momentum for the glory of God.
PRAYER
"Thank you, Lord, for reminding me in your word to not give up meeting
together. This week, please show me someone to invite to join in
worship, with fellow believers, in Jesus' name."
Sally I. Kennedy, author of Words from the Heart, Irish Thursdays, and
52 Little Parables from Ireland (Creation House Press)
http://www.sallyikennedy.com - sallyikennedy@bellsouth.net
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A BIRD'S EYE VIEW
A BIRD'S EYE VIEW
By Louis Casself
Oct 06, 2005
Mom got up early Sunday morning and got the kids ready for church. Dad
sat in the living room, reading his newspaper and looking out at the
snow.
They'd had the conversation before, but nothing had changed. "Why don't
you go with us this week?" she asked. He didn't look up from his paper.
"You know why," he said out loud and then in his own mind finished the
answer with "A truly great God wouldn't care about puny humans anyway."
The man replayed the argument in his mind: "If God is so perfect and
great, why would he care about helping us? If God is so powerful, why
would he make his son become a human being? Why would he stoop so low
to help us.... if God is really so great."
The house was silent except for the sound of the logs crackling in the
fireplace. From the other end of the house came a strange thump.
The man put down his paper and walked down the hall. Outside the window
huddled a group of birds. In confusion and fear, they had flown into
the window pane and fallen to the ground. They huddled together in the
snow trying to figure out what to do next. The man felt sorry for the
birds.
He thought to himself, "The birds could go in our barn and they'd be
warm there." So he went outside and opened the door to the barn. Then
he waited in the cold. The birds didn't move.
"I know, I'll shoe them over to the barn door," the man thought. But as
he tried to herd the birds to the barn they simply scattered. Only
after he left them alone did they come back to their spot in the snow.
The man had one last plan. He went back in the house and got a loaf of
bread. Carefully, he tore off pieces of bread and made a path to the
barn door. But the birds just huddled closer together, ignoring the
gift of life which the man was offering.
Stumped, the man stood looking at the birds, wondering just what it
would take to get them to safety. He thought to himself, "If only I
could become a bird and lead them to safety, then they wouldn't have to
die."
He stopped and thought about it again. And he finally understood.
-- A subscriber has indicated this was originally titled 'Christmas
More Than Humbug' was credited to Louis Casself
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CLIPPING AND SNIPPING
CLIPPING AND SNIPPING
By Sally I. Kennedy, ©2005
Oct 05, 2005
He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch
that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
John 15:2
Last year we had two hurricanes just three weeks apart. At our home,
the first storm ripped off the nails and wire cords that held the thick
bouganvilla vine into the concrete. When we were able to return home,
we found the entire enormous plant down on the concrete.
My husband got a chain saw to begin work on cleanup. We had huge piles
of tree limbs, spindly branches, and gnarly trunks, more than
twenty-five years' worth. What remained were little stumps. Literally
they looked like dead sticks that were just stuck in the ground.
We went out of town after that, and when we came back, did we have a
surprise!! Just two weeks to the day that my husband had cut it all
down, it was loaded - loaded! - with new growth. Beautiful thick green
leaves, and long sturdy branches.
I got it. I finally got the the story about "pruning" that's in the
bible. (John 15). I never had really understood it until I witnessed
firsthand this thing with our vine.
It seems Jesus spoke so often in terms of agricultural terms. The
people must have understood stories that related to trees, plants,
seeds, and growing conditions. Probably made perfect sense to them. And
now it does to me too.
You know what they say, you have to experience something to understand
it. I guess that is the gift - or one of them - that God gave me
through the loss of this bouganvilla vine. And I am grateful for that,
and for the implications of the story that are now brought to light for
me.
I fully expect the vine to bud any day now. I also expect a bumper crop
of magnificent fuschia colored flowers.
So when I experience clipping, snipping, and chopping - aka pruning -
at the hand of the Master gardener, maybe I can remember this
principle. Cutting back - for more. More growth. More production, It
works. And it works for me. Thank you, Lord!
Sally I. Kennedy, author of Words from the Heart, Irish Thursdays, and
52 Little Parables from Ireland (Creation House Press)
http://www.sallyikennedy.com - sallyikennedy@bellsouth.net
PRAYER
"Father in heaven, you have given me a mind to know you, a will to
serve you, and a heart to love you. Give me today the grace and
strength to embrace your holy will and fill my heart that all my
intentions and actions may be pleasing to you. Help me to be kind and
forgiving towards my neighbor as you have been towards me".
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HOW RICH ARE YOU?
HOW RICH ARE YOU?
By Harold Sala
Oct 04, 2005
"And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little
ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly
not lose his reward" (Matthew 10:42).
How rich are you? In 30 seconds you can take inventory, seeing how you
rate in comparison to the rest of the world. I'll ask you four rather
basic questions, and you can simply give a yes or no answer. Question
#1: Do you own more than one pair of shoes? Not too difficult to answer
judging by the display of footwear on the floor or shelf of your
closet. Question #2: Do you own your own car, truck, or motorcycle?
Again, not too tough when you consider the difficulty you may have
finding a parking place for that second car, boat, or camper. Question
#3: Do you have a choice of food each day? Last question: Do you have
more than one change of undergarments?
Listen carefully to how most people in the world answer. If you
answered yes to three of those four questions, you are rich compared to
most of the people in our world because only one in ten people around
the world can answer yes to even three of those questions.
And you think you have it tough? Yes, riches are relative. When we were
living in Asia, one of our children asked, "How come we are so rich
here and so poor when we go home, [meaning to the States]?"
Most of the people of the world live only a meal away from hunger.
Having no refrigerator they go to the market each morning to supplement
their diet of rice or beans. Shortages, storms, or famine affect them,
especially the poor of the world who grow poorer each day. According to
the United Nations, 42,000 die of starvation each day. For them,
poverty is terminal. But of course it is hard for most of us to relate
to that as we look in the mirror and plan our next diet.
Riches and wealth are relative, yet no matter where you are in
relationship to the rest of the world, what you have and need is
intensely personal. If you are hungry, the condition of the rest of the
world isn't as important as your immediate need. If you are a single
mother and your income is exhausted and you live in a large city
surrounded by thousands of unfriendly strangers and no help is in
sight, you are faced with a crisis of major proportions.
Bob Pearce, a man great in compassion who founded World Vision, wrote,
"I have lived in Asia and seen the wretchedness and poverty and the
revulsion of disease and the disgust of ignorance. I have also noticed
that when you look the other way it is so much easier to pass by until
you do not see it at all. The pain of suffering has been totally masked
out by the little world you live in. Hunger, be it physical or
spiritual--lies at our doorstep. We do not ask for it; we do not
like it; but nevertheless it is there. The needs of people knock one at
a time. Eventually every person must answer the question, "What am I
going to do about it?"
You can, of course, say, "That's not my problem!" and shut the needs of
others from your mind; or you can say, "I can't change everything, but
I can do something about the pain at my elbow."
Two friends were walking on a beach covered by starfish washed ashore
by a high tide. The starfish were destined to die soon in the burning
sun on the sandy beach. One man began picking up starfish and gently
tossing them in the ocean. The friend says, "What are you doing? What
difference does it make? You can't begin to save all of them." "True,"
he said, "but it makes a difference to the ones I save."
So is it, friend, with those you can do something about. Frankly, I
don't have all the answers, but as I have come to grips with the
enormity of the problem, it's amazing how I begin to see needs and hear
the Spirit of God say, "Help, here!" or "Do something about this!" And
when you do that, you do make a difference.
Resource reading: Matthew 10:37-42.
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