Dining...

We have a culture fascinated with eating out.  When we were raising our children, it was a luxury we seldom experienced.  But we did dine!  We ate very well.

 Big meals, home raised beef, home grown vegetables....oh yes.  We ate very well.

We didn't think up this concept of entertaining ourselves around a table filled with food. Table fellowship is almost as old as humanity. Food is indeed vital for our existance. 

And gluttony is indeed a misuse of the Creator's design.  Seems man can misuse every single thing God has created....

Fellowship around a dining table can be so good for us, or so very wrong....

Scripture is rich with stories that include the dinner table. 
I found this warning in my morning quiet time....
"When you sit to dine with a ruler, note well what is before you,  and put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony. Do not crave his delicacies, for that food is deceptive."      (Proverbs 23:1-3)Sitting together with a table of food can be much more than a time to taste food and fill a belly. It can be a time to bond with other people, and even a time to be caught off gaurd in compromise.  We are admonished to carefully consider what it is that's on the table.  Often, it is not just food. 

Indulging the appetite of our human flesh has always gotten us into lots of trouble.  Self-restraint is an exercise lost on many of us for the most part, whether it is over eating or some other excessive behavior. 

Food can and should be enjoyed, but I wonder that we don't get caught up in 'craving delicacies'...pleasing our bodies and  poisoning them at the same time. 


I purpose to enjoy the people at the table more than the food on it.

Home...

Home.... Webster says it is the 'sacred refuge of our life'.

Some online definitions I saw were 'the physical structure within which one lives'.
Another, 'the social unit formed by a family living together'.
Yet another, 'the place or region where something is native or most common'.


Words are so powerful. A simple four letter word... 'home', so full of application.

There are a lot of people who are homeLESS.  The saddest of those are the people who have big houses, and yet are homeless.

There are homeless people who own places, even lots of land....and never are 'home'.

There are people who are surrounded by people, live among them...with them...and are homeless.


I am blessed with a physical structure to live in. I am blessed with a husband who loves and cherishes me. I am still geographically in the same area that has always been home.

Yet sometimes the world around me and all that is in it seems so foreign. There have been so many compromises, so many alterations, so many adaptations, so much has changed.  Sometimes I feel quite homeless.


"....But the People of Israel made themselves at home among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. They married their daughters and gave their own daughters to their sons in marriage. And they worshiped their gods. The People of Israel did evil in GOD's sight. They forgot their GOD and worshiped the Baal gods and Asherah goddesses. (Judges 3:5-7 from The Message)

 I am called to love, sent to disciple, and instructed to be light in dark places. 

But I never want to feel at home among people who have compromised God's standard and refuse to line up their lives with His design and plan.

"...We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord."(2Cor. 5:8)


There are days when I so identify with Paul......days when my spirit longs to cry out "Come Lord Jesus."     

Yet there are those who are not ready....
  

Driven...

Power. Money. Success.  We Americans seem to be driven by them. We drive ourself, and we drive others....pushed by a need and want for more, more, more....

As I begin in John 10 I realize that God has never driven me . It is my own desire that has driven me. Sometimes that desire has been to be more Christlike and driven me to seek Him with an honest an undivided heart.

Sometimes that desire has driven me away from Him.

Jesus  is a Shepherd not like a cattle driver.  Which causes me to remember how my father-in-law would deal with his cattle.  He led them.  He had a certain call.  They recognized him and would follow him into the corral.  They were led.  Not driven. 

I am led.  I want to be led. 

Whether led to it, led around it, led away from it, or led right through it...I purpose to follow Him.

I purpose to listen and follow His Voice, never to balk and run or to be driven by my own wrong desire.


(.....I understand a shepherd would sometimes injure the leg of a disobedient sheep, carry it on his own shoulders until it was able to walk again.  The sheep would become close and very bonded to the shepherd while being carried around, and when the sheep was able to walk and put down, it stayed as close to the shepherd as it could get...   Sounds a bit familiar....)    

Kicked out....

Ever been kicked out? 

I remember being kicked out of a click of girls in school. Of course, I was taken back in a week or so and somebody else was kicked out. 

I've known of people getting kicked out of college. 
I've known of people getting kicked out of a movie theatre.
I've even known kids who got kicked out of their home.

Most of the time, getting kicked out is a result of bad behavior...though not always.  (...I don't remember that I behaved badly in school, but maybe I did...and I am regretful this morning to have participated in that kind of behavior towards anyone else..)

As I continue to reflect on the man with new vision in John 9, I see that he got kicked out. 

This man, blind for as long as he had lived, now sees.  He is interrogated about it as if he had done something wrong. His family is approached. He is challenged about his honesty. The religious leaders throw out their chests and wave their credentials.

Then they kick him out.

Oh that will resolve it....right.  NOT!!

Rather than listen honestly and consider the testimony.....they kick him out.
Rather than honestly consider why they are so against such a wonderful thing....they kick him out.

I am thankful that I am given sight. It matters that some people don't understand. I may be 'kicked out' of certain circles, ridiculed, accused, or avoided. 

But that's ok.  I'll just keep trusting Him......the One Who gave me sight and directs my steps.

Declare...

I remember hearing my grandmother say "......well, ... I declare !!!  "

I don't recall just what it was that she ever declared, but whatever it was, I would have believed her. 

Being believed is a valuable thing. 

Continuing my study in John 9 where  John records the story of the blind man that Jesus' healed.  Afterwards, he is bombarded with questions.  Why were you blind in the first place? Were you really blind?  Are you pretending to be that blind man that has always been down on the corner? Just who did this supposed miraculous thing?  How was this done? If that happened, it was illegal !

ugh... 

I sure understand the response of this man with new vision.... "....I know one thing for sure: I was blind . . . I now see." (John 9:25 The Message)


I declare....I have been blind.  And Jesus has given me new sight. 

Why....

We look for reasons. We want to explain...

"...who sinned.... causing him to be born blind?"
( Jesus' disciples concerning a blind man in John 9:2)


"...I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble.. reap it."
(Job's friend Eliphaz in Job 4:8)

The age-old question...why do bad things happen to good people?

"No one is good, except God alone."
( Jesus Christ in Mark 10:18)

I suppose perhaps the question should be why not?

While scripture clearly teaches that we reap what we sow, it is also clear that we don't always get what we deserve.

Paul didn't deserve to be an apostle. (1 Cor. 15:9)
The centurion didn't deserve having his servant restored to health. (Matt. 8:8)
The prodigal son didn't deserve to be restored into the family. (Luke 15:21)
Jacob didn't deserve protection from Esau. (Gen. 32:10)

....and I have done nothing to deserve the privileged life I have enjoyed.

Why was I born into a church-going Bible-believing family?
Why was I born an American and not an Ethiopian?
Why have I not had some dreaded disease?
Why do I not have a physical disability?

There is no answer. Certainly, the reasons are not of my own doing.

What IS of my doing is the choices I have made. I can prevent some bad things from coming into my life sometimes, simply by choosing to be obedient and NOT choosing the participate in evil. (...it's that same principle of choosing evil, picking and eating the fruit from that awful tree...)

But just because I don't, doesn't guarantee a trouble-free life.

Just ask Job.

Can't....

Somewhere in my life I've heard it said that  'Cain't couldn't never do nuthin'....' 
It was an admonition to make an effort.  It was a warning that if you decide you can't succeed before you even try, you will certainly NOT succeed.

There is truth in the saying.

 We have to WANT to try....and it is really hard to want to do some of the really hard things...  Our flawed nature does not naturally WANT what is good and right.  In that, I'm afraid that it is true that we 'cain't' do 'nuthin' about it.

But God can.  And He will, but only by our honest request and permission, only according to His will and not our own.


"  You're the One I've violated, and you've seen it all, seen the full extent of my evil. You have all the facts before you; whatever you decide about me is fair.   I've been out of step with you for a long time, in the wrong since before I was born.

  What you're after is truth from the inside out.

Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.  

Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life.  
God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.  Don't throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me.

 (selected verses, Psalm 51 from The Message)



We certainly 'cain't' do 'nuthin' about our flawed nature.  How thankful I am that He is willing to restore mine....

"...Change my heart, O God,

Make it ever true...

Change my heart, O God...

May I be like You. "