It’s In The Details

Reading through the text in Exodus, something seems to be clicking for me. Why all the detail in the creation of the Tabernacle? The clothing for the priests? The curtains, the lampstands, all of it – even the curtain rings and clasps! Even the underwear for the priests! Why so much detail?! I mean, why include this in Scripture?

And today, the thought occurred to me – well, all the pieces mattered to God. They all had a purpose, and a reason. Just like all of us do in the Body of Christ.

You may think, well it’s just a curtain ring, big deal. But if that curtain ring were to fail, the curtain would sag and not hang properly. It might cause the curtain to rip or something. It reminds me of when Paul said that if one part of the body suffered, the whole body suffered. [1 Corinthians 12:25-27]

When I was little, I used to think that only the “Important” things mattered to God, and that I shouldn’t waste His time in praying for unimportant things. [like He’d run out of time, right? lol] When I got older and learned about sub-atomic particles, I realized that God is not only God of the universe, holding up galaxies by His Will alone, but He is also God of the tiny and invisible [to us] things as well, things that by another definition might be called minutiae.

He even made the dust so sacred by breathing Life into it that He was willing to step out of His Glory for a moment and die for it – for us, you and me.

I may be dust, or a 4^th toe, or a curtain ring – and I’m good with that. God loves me, because He cares about the details, too.

Happy Passover!

Love, Vanessa

Pruning and Blooming

Found this in my drafts folder, that I wrote last Autumn but never posted for some reason. 

—™˜–

As I was deadheading my flower pots the other day, I was mildly surprised at how much the spent blooms concealed.  Once I started clearing them out, there was a lot of junk underneath the leaves, lots of debris and fallen petals, just hiding there beneath the fading flowers.  I knew it needed to be done, and there were many almost-but-not-quite-spent blooms that had to be cut back, along with the dead stuff.  I knew it was good for the plants, that it would bring forth more blooms and fresh growth. 

And I wondered if that’s how the Lord feels when He deals with us, sometimes. 

Our hearts can look okay, especially if you don’t look too close.  But there can be a lot of … crap in there.  Crap we haven’t dealt with, or let Him take care of.  Things we like to keep hidden.  Shameful thoughts, painful thoughts, mean and sinful thoughts.  I wondered if He looks at me the way I look at my plants.  “I know it seems severe, and I know you think there’s still something good here, but trust Me, getting rid of this stuff will make you so much more happy and beautiful!  Your spirit will shine!” 

I wanted to be picky with my garden deadheading.  Clip this dead flower here, cut that dying one there, dainty dainty nip and tuck.  It wasn’t long before I was wishing I just had a big hedge-trimming kind of tool to just zip the plants down to the tops of the pots and be done with it. 

There’s a line from some cartoon my husband and I once saw long ago, where a character said, “He needed killin’.”  We laughed and it became part of our family joking around.  Dark, perhaps, but it’s kind of how we joke.  But it went through my head as I trimmed my flowers, especially as I cut blooms that weren’t totally dead yet but would be in a day or two.  “They needed killin’, they’ll bloom so much nicer now!”  It wouldn’t surprise me at all to hear Yeshua say to me, “Those thoughts, they need killin’!” 

Yes, Lord, they do.  They’re not thoughts that are good for me, or anyone else, frankly.  Good thoughts, healthy thoughts, Christ-centered thoughts cannot bloom where angry, selfish thoughts live.  I suppose that’s kind of what Scripture means when it says:

John 15:2 (HCSB) Every branch in Me that does not produce fruit He removes, and He prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit.

Colossians 1:10 (HCSB) so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God.

John 12:24 (HCSB) “I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop.

John 15:16 (HCSB) You did not choose Me, but I chose you. I appointed you that you should go out and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.

I suppose pruning is never fun, neither for the prunee nor the pruner.  But, it needs doing, and once it’s done, the results can be so beautifully worth it.  And if the Lord loves me enough to prune, well isn’t that in and of itself, a kind of blessing?  Doesn’t it show that He believes there is something bloom-worthy in me and He wants to bring it out? 

I’d like to believe that. 

cross posted on my daily blog

Submission

—™˜–A friend of mine is studying the nature of submission in their Christian walk.  There is a lot of frustration in that there isn’t really a clear definition of what that exactly means. How does one go about being submissive?  How do we know we’re doing the Lord’s will and not our own, when we’re trying to be submissive?  And what’s this stuff about “all the blessings that will come to you if you are submissive”?  As my friend rightly points out, there are simply too many instances, Biblical, historical, and current, which prove that blessings don’t always follow submission. 

Then there’s the notion that if you’re submissive to something you may not have wanted to be submissive to, God will somehow make sure that it’s what you really wanted to do all along and just didn’t know it until He made you do it.  “Thank you for the beating Lord, please Sir may I have another?!” 

Um … no. 

And as I was thinking over these things last night, a couple of things occurred to me.

Submission – there is no law that says you will be blessed if you submit, or that it will even be good for you.  The blessing may come in the afterlife, or it may be for the benefit of someone else.  Perhaps the only reward for submission is the knowledge that you pleased your Lord.  If the King needs soldiers, and He calls you, you go, because that’s what He wants.  It’s about HIS goals being accomplished, it is so NOT about good things coming to us.  If they do, woo!, but if not, well it’s not about us anyway. 

That’s a real gut-buster.  Our egos want it to be all about us, that our lives go the way WE want them to, according to the plans WE have laid out, according to OUR will.  And I think that’s where the real test of submission comes in.  When the King calls, will you go?  Nope, it’s not about you, and it’s not that He doesn’t care, exactly, it’s just that it’s not about you and there is a much bigger picture you can’t see. 

I was reminded of Christ, in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before His crucifixion.  His prayer has haunted me for some time now.  He prayed, “If there is any other way, Father, please let this cup pass from Me, but if not, then Your Will Father, and not Mine.” 

So, He didn’t really want to suffer, but He knew He had to, and He was WILLING to, because He knew it was the only way.  [Seriously, do you really believe God would allow His beloved Son to be slaughtered if there had been any other way for sin to be paid for, like you just being a good person?  If that’s all it takes to get to Heaven, then Christ died in vain.]  Christ submitted, He was obedient, even though He knew He’d not see a blessing for that obedience on this side of the grave.  He submitted knowing He wasn’t going to like it.  He understood that in that moment, it really wasn’t about Him and what He wanted at all, it was about the Father, and what the Father wanted.  God also didn’t try to convince Him that He’d come to appreciate it later.  “You’ll be glad You did, Son, just wait and see.”  Christ did it because He was obedient, He submitted, He knew there was value in what the Father wanted.  Obedient unto death, even death on a cross. 

Philippians 2

Christ’s Humility and Exaltation

5 Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. 7 Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, 8 He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death — even to death on a cross. 9 For this reason God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow — of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth — 11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

So, He’s not promising a blessing if you’re obedient.  He’s not promising you’ll like it, now or later.  He’s not promising that your life will get better or you’ll be happier or anything like that.  He’s asking if you love Him.  Love Him enough to do what He asks, no matter what, no matter the cost to our selves, our dreams, our lives, our will. 

Do we?  Do you?  Do I?  I believe this is where the submission rubber hits the obedience road. 

Can you say road rash? 

How to Get Apologetics in Your Church 2: How Churches Can Respond to Doubt – Apologetics 315

The church faces a very real problem in dealing with doubt – but it is a problem that must be boldly resolved for both pragmatic and Biblical reasons.

The Bible offers every church a solid guide for responding to doubt with love and wisdom – a strategy that leads people to faith, strengthens disciples, creates an enduring passion for evangelism, and honors God.

To arrive at these conclusions we will look at, and answer, five key questions:

• “What is doubt?”
• “What are the effects of doubt?”
• “Is it okay to have doubts at church?”
• “Does the Bible recommend we respond to doubt at church?”
• “What guidance does the Bible give for how we respond to doubt?”

via How to Get Apologetics in Your Church 2: How Churches Can Respond to Doubt – Apologetics 315.

A very excellent article on doubt in the church and how to deal with it.  Please click through and go read the whole thing.  You’ll be glad you did.  🙂

~Ness