Recently, my husband and I visited the Grand Canyon for the first time. Upon arriving, I walked to the canyon’s edge and saw….lots and lots of brown rock.
During the 2.5-hour drive to the canyon, I had prepared myself to be overwhelmed by God’s majestic creation and feel His divine presence. With expectations of a spiritual experience, I had exited the motor coach, clutching my phone, ready to capture my first breathtaking views.
Objectively, I could appreciate that this topography was unique and pretty in its own way, but what was missing from my Grand Canyon experience was God. I had expected to feel His presence in the beauty of His creation. But, I didn’t.
Maybe it was too many people? Or too much heat? Maybe canyons and brown rocks don’t speak creator of the universe, to me? It wasn’t that the canyons themselves were disappointing, but, my reaction was. I wondered what was wrong with me?
After my initial disappointment faded, I realized my reaction was ok, it just reflected that people find God in different places, and in different ways.
For me, I always feel God’s presence at the ocean, every single visit. The vastness and the power are overwhelming. A sense of peace and calm wash over me, and I’m reminded of the Biblical references to the Living Water.
Every person’s walk with God will be different. He meets us where we are and speaks to each of us in unique and personal ways. For some it might be in nature, while for others it might be in song, art, or stories. You never know what will be the conduit through which God speaks.
As a new writer, I am guilty of comparing myself to authors I’ve looked up to for decades. People with followings in the six to seven digit range. In doing so, I end up discouraged and disheartened, wondering if I should continue writing. But, my experience at the Grand Canyon taught me that I shouldn’t engage in this habit.
My writing may be the equivalent of a small neighborhood creek compared to someone else’s ocean, but that doesn’t make my message any less important. Many people find solace and comfort standing alongside a babbling brook. And with time, maybe my stream will become something larger. As long as God continues to give me a message, I will continue to obey and put the words on paper for others to read.
Whenever we are tempted to compare our brook to someone else’s ocean, just remember that God sees and loves them both.
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?” (James 4:1)
2 Timothy 2:24, “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome, but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.”
“Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing” (1 Peter 3:9).
I don’t know about you, but these verses aren’t always easy to put into practice. I have the best intentions each morning, freshly inspired to follow Jesus that day. But, then I go downstairs and encounter other humans. During benign before work/school conversations, something is said that is incorrect, annoying, insensitive (or insert any other negative adjective). My earlier resolve to be more Christ-like is gone, and in its place is a very strong desire to argue or correct.
Later, I ask myself, why don’t I choose peace over proving I am right? Chose quiet over pointing out my hurt feelings? Chose agreement instead of explaining why my way is better?
How do I release the urgency of correcting people’s wrongful thinking?
This desire to be right all the time? Some probably stems from my childhood when I felt the need to prove I was right or smart in order to be seen, heard, or valued.
Other times, maybe I just want to explain a situation in which my feelings were hurt by a flippant comment. I want to reduce my negative feelings, and for the other person to see their error.
But, if I want to be part of the solution instead of escalating the problem, I need to slow or stop the immediacy of my emotional reaction.
If I know the truth, and the outcome of the situation doesn’t really matter, shouldn’t I just let it go? What difference does it make if someone else thinks they are right?
If there is no significant consequence of the erroneous thinking, how do I sit with the annoyance, shame, or hurt feelings long enough to let Jesus work in me and in the other person?
What if I focused on God being my defender rather than myself and trusted that there are some battles that don’t need to be fought.
I would no longer have to prove myself right to other people. Peace could exist. Even if someone else’s emotions become negative, I could choose to stay neutral. I could see the motivation of the other person, and rather than reacting based on my own emotion, I could let it go.
My relationships would change. My heart would change.
Lord, teach me when to speak up and when to be quiet. Let me trust You to defend me. Give me the wisdom to know when the outcome doesn’t really matter. Help me chose to have a right relationship over being right.
Almost 20 years ago, a close friend uttered the phrase “the Word before the world” which has served as my daily aspiration. Many mornings, I am reading and journaling before the early beams of sunlight have reached my bed. Previously, I kept my Bible along with a selection of daily devotionals and a spiral notebook next to my bed. But, several years ago, I switched to an online format for both reading and journaling, so a small Chromebook now sits by the nightstand.
As part of my journaling, I often include excerpts of the text I’ve found inspiring. Because I’m completing this process in relative darkness, I’ve memorized the placement of certain shortcut functions. One morning, I noticed that the Copy/paste (Ctrl C & V) shortcuts were right next to each other, while the print shortcut was at the opposite corner of the keyboard. I thought to myself, there is probably a life lesson hidden in this observation.
Scripture teaches us that:
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
As we study God’s words, we are meant to immediately copy and paste them into our hearts and minds. Psalm 119:11 (I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you) is just one example of the Bible teaching us to utilize scripture in our lives. And while we are also commissioned to spread God’s word to others, I think we need some time to let scripture lessons resonate within us first.
We need to let the words saturate our own lives before we print them out for others to see. To know and understand God’s truth before our speech can be seasoned with that wisdom for others to hear. Colossians 4:6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
Frequent use causes certain keys on a keyboard to become a bit more faded when compared to other keys. I hope the same can be said of my life. That I have filled my head and heart with what truly matters! The Word before the world. Copy/paste, copy/paste, copy/paste….then print.
During early summer of 2021, we (and by we, I mean my husband) decided to construct raised garden beds behind our house. Our backyard is extremely sloped and requires a two-story deck with many stairs to get from our main level down to the grassy area below. The spot chosen has a good amount of sunlight and is enclosed by a fence, preventing the frequently visiting deer family from munching on any of the “crops”. This location would provide both the provision and the protection that plants need to flourish.
My husband and son planted a variety of fruits and vegetables in the three rectangular gardens. The plants were fertilized and watered per the local nursery’s recommendations and my husband’s research. With the deck layout as it is, gardening had to be intentional. We didn’t just organically happen to be down on the lower level, we had to tend to it with purpose.
Despite careful planning and maintenance, the bounty produced that summer was pretty bleak. With an air of discouragement, the garden beds were disassembled at the end of the season.
About eight months later, my husband comes up from the lower area, after trimming the grass and pulling weeds, exclaiming that what had looked like weeds, were actually rogue cucumber plants blooming! Even though the raised beds had been removed and no one was “tending the garden”, the seeds planted a year earlier were now producing.
This gardening experience reminded me of the verse in Matthew 13:23 “But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
The act and art of parenting is often compared to this process of planting seeds. When the boys were young, I tried to do all the “right things”- prayer before school, meals and bedtime, Sunday School, Awana, vacation bible school, youth groups, etc. I tried to show them an example of what it looked to have a relationship with God.
But, given that my example is an earthly one, it is not without flaws. Like the raised bed garden situation, I have not been perfect in the way I have presented God to my children. I have stumbled in my own walk and not always been as intentional in my teaching as I could have been.
I pray, that like the cucumber crop that came about even though we did not tend the garden perfectly, my children’s lives will still bear the fruit of the seeds I planted years ago. And even if they wander away from that internal compass (as my older one has), I pray that they find their way back and hold tight to the wisdom and love that is deep in their roots just waiting to bloom.
Proverbs 22:6 Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it.
When I came upon this insect’s situation, I couldn’t help but stop and stare (and, of course, take a picture). At first, I thought I was witnessing a bug-eat-bug situation. But, my son, upon seeing this picture, informed me it was actually a cicada shedding its skin. Seeking to confirm his explanation, I googled the phenomena.
The annual cicada, which is green, compared to the brown, longer living cicada, emerges in July and August. The cicada sheds its exoskeleton when it enters adulthood, usually done while hanging vertically on a tree or bush.
Many writers have referenced the cicada’s transformation as being similar to the maturation process of humans. Unlike the butterfly process, humans do not go into a cocoon and emerge as something completely different, but rather, over time, we hopefully, become better versions of ourselves. Our key Bible verse speaks to something similar:
Ephesians 4:22-24 to take offyour former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, the one createdaccording to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.
What the Ephesians verse mentions, but I often gloss over, is we are to put on the new self. It isn’t just that the old life is shed and underneath we are the new and improved versions of ourselves.
How I wish it was that easy! I long to be rid of all my sin patterns, like shedding my coat when I walk in the door. Paul discusses this in Romans 7:15 as well: “For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but do what I hate” Our transformation is not a one-and-done, it is a process, a daily surrendering of old unhealthy patterns.
The verses just prior to our key verse In Ephesians link this transformation of self to the hearing about and teaching of Jesus as truth. We have to constantly renew our commitment to the truth, putting on the new self which bears God’s likeness, releasing our hold on the old. It is a constant renewing of our minds and spirits that leads us to bear God’s likeness.
The cicada I encountered was lying on the ground and appeared to be trapped under the weight of its former “skin”. The cicada either by accident or choice was still hanging on to part of his former self. Which from an outsider’s perspective seemed odd- it was ugly and obviously weighing him down. He was trapped underneath it and not able to live his newly transformed life. Why would he choose to do that? Why wouldn’t he just let it go? I could ask the same of myself, do I need to let go of something I’m hanging onto so that I can live a transformed life?
