Unadorned

By Cyndi

I’m sitting here writing next to my undecorated Christmas tree. It’s about six feet tall–no lights, no ornaments, no icicles, not even a star at the top yet. Only crookedly poised in its stand, with a lean to the left, and a blanket around the bottom. There it is. Naked and bare, by Christmas standards. Then I thought, “Isn’t this how we stand before God? Naked at the foot of the cross?”

In Psalm 139:14 it says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Just the way we are. Without ornaments, without ribbons, without lights or flashy commercialized decorations. God loves us. Period.

Isn’t that what Christmas is about anyway? This is the time of year we celebrate God sending His Son, Jesus, to be born in our world as a baby. Just like us. Without hoopla, without formal announcements, without Facebook friends commenting. He came.

He humbly came to reveal His great love for us. We weren’t getting it through the prophets and teachers. We weren’t getting it through the laws and commandments. We weren’t getting it through the kings and priests who were leading us. We needed to see Him face to face, to eat dinner with Him, to laugh at jokes with Him, to know He understood where we’re coming from. He came.

So it’s okay that my Christmas tree is still bare. I’ll decorate it soon. But it’s beautiful just as it is. A reminder. He loves me just the way I am.

Servant-Leadership

By Robert

Here are four pictures from Mark 10 of servant-leadership and walking in the Father’s love.

Mk.10:13-16 Children
Little children were coming to Jesus. The disciples tried to stop it. “Don’t bother the master, where are your manners,” they said. Jesus became indignant, “Being childlike is the only way to enter the kingdom.” He said it is not about hierarchal leadership, making people respect a position. It is about childlike simplicity, childlike wonder and awe, childlike faith that you can crawl into God’s lap without thought of self-consciousness.

Mk.10:17-24 Rich Young Ruler
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom.” Again Jesus speaks to those that have position, power, or security in temporal things as opposed to those who have greater riches in eternal things. This is a very hard word for those whose identity is in the temporal.

Mk.10:35-45 Sons of Zebedee
They wanted position: “Jesus, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” But apparently they had no fear to talk with Jesus about such things. He was very approachable. He was not hung up on positional authority being honored. Jesus said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them…Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Mk.10:46-52 Blind Bartimaeus
He cries out and the disciples shush him, believing that Jesus is too important to be disturbed by a meager blind man. Jesus, not only stops to talk to the man, but even asks what He can do for him. Jesus allows Himself to be interrupted in order to heal (serve) someone.

It’s all about love–putting more value on people and relationships than positions and protocol. He was a true servant-leader. Picture that.

Only Love Matures

Empowerment for Maturity

Understanding how maturity occurs is a very powerful tool in our hands for freedom. So many Christians get stuck “working harder” and end up battling condemnation. 1 John 4:18 says that “perfect (mature) love casts out fear.” When love is mature in us, it frees us of fear. All fear is based in some form of not believing we are loved.

Shame – Fear – Control Stronghold

There is a concept called the shame-fear-control stronghold by Chester and Betsy Kylstra. When someone is controlling (whether through overt anger or passive withdrawal) and relationship is cutoff, it is driven by fear. Fear, in turn, is driven by shame. Shame is based in lies we believe about ourselves. These lies are worded as such:  “I’m flawed,” “I’m helpless,” “I’m bad,” “I’m dirty,” and so forth. Prayer Ministry is the tool that can change this.

Love Not Law

It is love that addresses both fear and shame. So in a very real sense, all sin and shortcoming is about a love deficit. There is a lacking, a shortage, or deficiency of love. Something in my heart is struggling to believe that God is good and loving and has the very best in mind for me. Therefore, trying harder, sacrificing, and living “white-knuckle” Christianity does not mature us anymore than shaking an empty piggy bank more violently will produce any coins. Romans 7 says that the law is what stirs up the sinful passions of the flesh, not what restrains it. Knowing we are loved at a deep heart level sets us free from fears and the need to control. It empowers us to rest and to respond to the “unrest” of others with maturity and compassion. Fear will be “cast out” and love will take its place.

Father Loves You

By Robert

Jack & Trisha Frost of Shiloh Place Ministries laid such a foundation of the Father’s love in my life. As you read today’s post, see if you heart can embrace God’s passion for you.

God is not ashamed to be called your Father. He delights to be a Father to you and to have you as His child. He is passionate in His love toward you. You are the apple of His eye. He rejoices over you with joy and with singing. He is thrilled to be your Father and to have you as His child. You are the child in whom He loves and in whom He is well pleased, just like Jesus.

He’s not ashamed of you, put out by you, nor disappointed in you. You are not a burden to Him. He loves you. His banner or standard over you is love. His total heart response toward you is love. He never thinks a negative thought about you. His thoughts toward you are good and loving, to give you hope and a future.

All things are opened to His eyes. There is nothing you’ve ever done that He didn’t already know about before He created the heavens and the earth. Your failings and short comings do not challenge or threaten Him in any way. He is all powerful and all knowing. He is fully able to finish the work He began in you. His total heart response toward you is love. He is love!

Milk and Cookies

By Cyndi

As my friend and I were having lunch the other day, our conversation began to turn towards all the negativity in the world today and how it would be nice to see more positive things going on.                                                                                                      

This reminded me of something Jack Frost said one time in a meeting. He talked about how most of us older folks (over 40) can remember someone in our childhood years who gave out “milk and cookies.” By milk and cookies, he meant those positive affirmations. Maybe our parents were always fighting or never home, but there was the neighbor’s mom who always let us come over and play making us feel welcomed; there was a grandfather who encouraged us when we struck out over and over again playing baseball; there was the aunt who took the time to teach us to bake, showing patience as we cracked eggs onto the floor and made mistakes as we learned. There was someone, somewhere who loved us and showed us kindness and affection even when we felt like we had failed.

Unfortunately, that is not necessarily the case today. Many young people have no one who expresses love to them in a healthy, Godly way, so all they know is rejection and abandonment. So what is my response? How can I give out some “milk and cookies” today?

I could let my son bring all his friends over after a soccer game and have a cookout. I could have patience and try to help the teenage driver trying to parallel park next to me. I could even volunteer to work with the scouts, a youth group, or a local Boys and Girls Club. Maybe it would just be a smile, a touch on the shoulder, a wink, or a thumbs up to someone–but something to express to them how much Father thinks the world of them and loves them unconditionally.

We are His hands on this earth and we can choose to look for the positives or look for the negatives. Anyone up for milk and cookies?

Two Levels of Obedience

By Robert

Why do I speak kindly with my wife and show her patience? Is it just because it is the right thing to do? Maybe it’s because I don’t want to look like someone who is curt or angry. Maybe I fear God will be angry with me if I don’t. These types of responses all represent one level of obedience, actually a level where many of us live.

Empathy is higher.

A second level is a place where love compels us, not fear. We could say that this is “really” living. When we live and obey at this level, we have moved from a semi-depersonalized existence into agape. But to do this requires a developed personhood where I have value for my own thoughts and feelings first. I need to be in a place of feeling comfortable in my own skin, embracing and rejoicing in who God has made me to be—where issues of shame that have made me feel like an object have been resolved, and I’m walking in the dignity of being God’s child, fearfully and wonderfully made. It is then that I can express that to others.

Empathy: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.

If You’re Happy and You Know It

By Cyndi

Are you happy? If so, are you showing it? What is happiness based on anyway? It could be wealth, health, family, or a job—to name a few things. Happiness can be determined by how nice a vacation you had, or what size house you have. Maybe your son or daughter getting accepted in a specific college would make you happy. Maybe driving a nicer car or having a brand new flat-screen TV would boost your happiness level up a notch. But does your happiness have to depend on external things?

I remember one day, several years ago, when we were living in the Dominican Republic. I was at the kitchen sink bleaching out fresh lettuce, rinsing it for the third time, looking around at my unfinished cabinets with no doors, through the iron bars in the windows at the clothes hanging on the line outside. Day-to-day life took a lot more work down here, I’d thought. Dust constantly blew in through the open windows of the house, the electricity would randomly go off—we never knew when or for how long. Our groceries had to be bought at the market in town, where you would weave in and out of about four city-blocks worth of little stalls, and I was homeschooling my son. Oh, and there was all the ministry things to do too. But that day, standing in my bleach-stained T-shirt and incomplete kitchen, an overwhelming sense of happiness came over me. I was living with less “things,” making less money, but truly satisfied with my life.

Now, we live back in the states and I try to remind myself of that particular day, especially when I start feeling unhappy and dissatisfied. I remind myself that happiness can come from very simple things. It can come from reading a book, listening to rain, or taking a walk. It can come from watching my son play soccer, fluffing up my cat, or singing songs at church. Laughter, gratitude, friends, family—all these things make me happy.

So what makes you happy? I mean, really happy. That deep down in your core happy. I encourage you to find out. It may be something simple like enjoying time with your family, lying under the stars at night, watching a sunset with your spouse, or having lunch with an old friend. We can choose to be grateful for the things we do have, and not focus on what we don’t.

God has given us a free will to choose and make decisions for ourselves. We can make a choice to be happy and grateful, even when the entire world around us is down and depressed. Being thankful is a choice. If you’re happy and you know it, show it. Happiness can be contagious—catch it and spread it around.

Coloring Outside the Lines

By Cyndi

Crossing boundaries is like coloring outside the lines in a coloring book. The lines are what make the picture—they define it, express it, they reveal what it is supposed to look like. They help us learn to improve our coloring skills by giving us a framework to function within. Children scribble-scrabble with their crayons. Coloring books help them learn small motor skills, to control hand movements and train them to do what they desire. As youngsters mature, instead of haphazard strokes on a page, mindful and purposeful marks and colors are chosen to create a picture in the way they wish to express it.

Boundaries have a purpose in our lives; they define our picture, who we are. My boundaries, like the coloring book page, are a picture of what I will or will not do.  When someone tries to get me to do something I don’t want to, and they begin to push me, they have crossed my boundary. As I see it, they colored outside the line—my line. This might take the form of a spouse using the silent treatment, or someone using anger to manipulate or control me into doing something I have already said no to. If I am talking with someone and indicate I need to go, and they continue to draw me into conversation, they are coloring across my line.

Many times those who do not respect boundaries and scribble-scrabble over others are struggling with insecurity and fears of being rejected. They are still learning the “small motor skills” of self-control. Part of growing in our spiritual walk is understanding how to honor one another’s rights, choices, and feelings rather than randomly coloring all over the page. We also need the maturity to set loving boundaries with others in a way that still values them. By doing this, it helps us all mature and learn to color within the lines, freely expressing ourselves, yet respecting everyone else’s picture.

I Love Maps

By Cyndi

I love maps. I really do—especially world maps. What I like about them is being able to see the big picture, the entire world at one time, and how things relate to one another. On a map, I can look and see how far away Cuba is fromFlorida. I can look at Colorado and see how far away the Rocky Mountains are from the Smokey Mountains. Robert was just in India last week, and I can determine from a map that he was totally on the opposite side of the world from me. Maps help me put things in perspective as to where I am.

There are times when I wish I could see the map of my whole life, from beginning to end, pinned up on a wall, but I can’t. However, I do know Someone who can—Father God. He knows all about me, when I was born and when I will die; everything that has happened in the past, and all that will happen in the future.  As the song goes, “He’s got the whole world in His hands,” and since I’m on that world, I’m in His hands.

God knows every little thing about me. For some people, this causes fear, as if He’s a “big brother” surveillance camera, waiting to catch them doing something wrong. For me it brings peace. It causes me to be at rest knowing that this world is not just some freak happenstance, and my life isn’t some chaotic randomness of time and events. No, I believe God has a map of my existence, where He can guide and direct me daily. He knows where I am in relation to everything around me, and He has a plan. Jeremiah 29:11—“I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord. They are plans for peace and not disaster; plans to give you a future filled with hope.” Now that’s a good perspective. I really love maps.

Idiosyncrasies

By Cyndi

The other night I was helping my son study for a vocabulary test, and I have to admit, there were some words on the list that I didn’t know. But one which I did know was idiosyncrasy. What a great word. Isn’t it fun just to say it? It has a unique feel about it. I feel different just for saying it. The definition of it, according to dictionary.com, is “a characteristic, habit, mannerism, or the like, that is peculiar to an individual.” Hmm…I know a verse that mentions the word “peculiar,” 1 Peter 2:9—“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people…”

It is so interesting to see how diversified we all are. Each one of us has certain quirks and tell-tale signs that identify us. We have different likes and dislikes. We have our own marked style of how we talk, how we walk, how we dress, and how we eat. For example, take eating Oreo cookies. You will find multiple modes of what some say are the “right” way to do this. I know within my family there are at least three “best” procedures to eat them, and they all must include milk. However, the fact is, there is no right or wrong method, just your own.

One of my idiosyncrasies is how I put my shoes and socks on always left foot first. The order has to be left sock, left shoe, right sock, right shoe. I do not know why I do this, but I do. Just like I have always put my left earring on first before my right, and wear my watch on my right wrist instead of my left. I have some peculiar habits that make me who I am and not someone else.

God delights in our individuality. He created us in His image (Gen. 1:26), yet has given each one of us our own characteristics, distinguishing us one from another. We all develop unique habits and mannerisms that pertain solely to us, making us peculiar people. We are supposed to be diverse. Revel and enjoy your idiosyncrasies. You are special.