The Hardest, Most Tedious Things

Do you know what this is?  This is one of the

hardest, most tedious things I have undertaken

in a long time.  It’s diced, fresh Arkansas grown

tomato. It was to garnish the shredded chicken

tacos that I fixed my wife for supper a couple of days ago.  

Isn’t it funny, and I don’t mean ha-ha funny, how sometimes it is the simplest of things that drive us the craziest?  I mean, we take on “hard” things regularly like dealing with problems at work or balancing the budget when the end of the money gets there before the end of the month or even the everyday grind of getting the kids up and dressed and fed and out the door in time for school (which will be back on us in just a few more days)!  

But then something little, insignificant comes up, like not knowing a quick, safe, good way to dice a tomato, and all of a sudden it’s like our world explodes. “There’s no way I can get everything done that I have to do!”  “Why do these things always happen to me!” “I’ll never have my wife’s supper ready when she gets home from work!” It’s like because our schedule is messed up, or we have been inconvenienced our world is going to crumble.

Did you know that Jesus had days like that, too?  In Mark (3rd book, New Testament), chapter 5, we learn how Jesus responded when He faced a similar situation.  The story starts in verse 22.

Jesus had just gotten out of a boat that brought Him from one side of the Sea of Galilee (a large lake in Northern Israel) to the other side and He was approached by a man named Jarius that Mark describes as “one of the rulers of the Synagogue”.  That would have been a man of considerable importance in their community, basically a teacher or elder at the local Jewish church. He told Jesus that his daughter lay “at the point of death” and he begged Jesus to come and heal her. Of course, Jesus agreed to.  As they traveled toward the house of Jarius the crowd that had been following Jesus began to grow larger and press in all the more tightly.

In the crowd was a woman who had a discharge of blood and had suffered from this affliction for 12 years already.  Like most of us would, she had sought out doctors and spent everything she owned trying to find a cure. The problem had only gotten worse.  Having heard about Jesus and where to find Him she worked her way through the crowds trying to just get close to Jesus. As she got close to Him she reached out and just touched the robes of Jesus because she believed that if she could just touch the hem of His garments she would be healed AND SHE WAS IMMEDIATELY HEALED.

Jesus, knowing that power had gone out of Him turned to this crowd, this mass of people and said, “Who touched my garments?”  I’m sure that as His disciples looked out across this teeming mass of people they thought what an impossible question that is to answer, but the woman knew (and Jesus knew).  She fell to her knees before Jesus and told the whole story. Jesus called her “Daughter” and told her to go in peace because her faith had made her well!

But we were talking about the way little interruptions messed our days so thoroughly.  While Jesus was still talking to the woman, someone came from Jarius’ house and said not to trouble the Master (or Teacher or Rabbi, depending on your translation) any longer.  “Your daughter is dead!” As Jesus heard the report He turned to Jarius and said, “Do not fear, only believe.”  

Jesus sent everyone away except Peter and James and John and the travelled on to the home of Jarius.  As they arrived they saw the commotion and crying and Jesus asked them why they were weeping. “The child is not dead,but sleeping.”  They actually laughed at Jesus because they had all seen dead before and that child was dead!

Jesus put everyone out of the house and took Jarius and his wife and Peter, James, and John into this 12 year old little girl’s room.  Jesus stepped to the side of her bed, took her by the hand and said, “Little girl, arise!” and immediately she got up.

Now, the reason we went through this story is to show you something about the little things that add chaos to our lives.  Now I don’t know if the woman who touched Jesus’ garments was on His agenda for the day or not, but I can pretty well guarantee you that she wasn’t Jarius’ agenda.  Even though Jesus was delayed by the woman, He wasn’t prevented from doing what He was going to do. Lesson 1: Our timetable and God’s timetable aren’t always the same (but His is always the right one).  Lesson 2: It ain’t over until God says it’s over. Lesson 3: God often has little things to teach us (like “Trust” and “Obedience” and “Proper Priorities”) that He has to make time in our schedule for us to learn.

By the way, supper came out fine.  And the easy way to shred your cooked, boneless chicken breasts is with your portable mixer at slow speed.  If you have a secret for dicing tomatoes, let me know.

Getting Ready

     It was bedtime at my house and my wife had already nodded off, but I wasn't quite ready to go to sleep yet, so I opened my  Bible.  I was reading in a book called 1 Chronicles.  Now if you're not familiar with it, it's in the Old Testament past 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings but if you get to Job and Psalms and Proverbs, you missed it.  Now in all fairness, 1 Chronicles is one of those books that have a bunch of crazy (to us) names that we would rather skip over.  But often times, in the middle of the crazy names, God will show you an absolute gem that he picks out just for you.
     That's just what He did for me tonight.  I was reading about as King David (the same guy who killed the giant when he was a teenager) as he was wrapping up his affairs and turning over his kingdom to his son, Solomon, when all of a sudden  in
1 Chronicles 29:28 (ESV) said:  "Then he died at a good age, full of days, riches, and honor. And Solomon his son reigned in his place."
      Can anything more or greater be said of a man and his life than "he died at a good age, full of days, riches, and honor."  The age that my Heavenly Father decides I have finished my task, my purpose, my mission for Him, my life will have been "full of days", days that matter, that count for the purpose of eternity.  Because of the presence of the LORD, when you see LORD in all caps understand that that was Hebrew code for crying out the name of our God, Yaweh.
     (If you are not in a personal relationship with God the Father through faith in Jesus Christ, please don't call Him that.  It would be like you, as a stranger, came up to my wife and addressed her as "my precious Verna."  That would be very rude, and, trust me, I would be offended.  Addressing her that way is reserved for family and loved ones.  If you don't know Jesus as your personal savior through His sacrificial death, burial and resurrection you ARE NOT part of the family.) 
      Because of the presence of Yaweh in my life, even though there may have been times in my life that I couldn't find two dimes to rub together,  my life has been so rich in so many ways.        And filled with honor?  Every little thing that I have had the opportunity to do or even take part in for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords has been such a wonderful blessing and honor my heart is filled with joy.   Whether it has been standing on a muddy levy in India and watching crowds of hands fly up when you ask them "Who would like to give their heart and life to Jesus now?"  Or praying one on one with people lined up waiting to pray and/or give their heart to Jesus.  Or even that precious youth you ministered to years ago and they are all grown up now, but when they see you, they go to the effort to come over and hug your neck and say "Thank you for the time and prayers you invested in my life.  You can't imagine what God is doing in my life now!" 
      You talk about honor?  How honored it makes me feel that in ANY small way my  Father and my King would allow me to do even a small part of His kingdom's work. 
      Billy Graham used to have a featured singer by the name of Cliff Barrows and Cliff used to sing a song that as it runs through my mind, all I can say is, "Amen."  It was called The Longer I Serve Him, The Sweeter It Grows.

Do you ever do any of the online devotions?

    Do you ever do any of the online devotions?  If you've given your heart to Jesus you really need to find a way to keep in touch with Him, kinda like a friend you really care about but they live across the country.  I suggest you start by praying.  Now praying is just a church word that means "Talk to Him!"  And stop occasionally to listen to what He might be telling your heart (don't pay any attention to Joy Behar, talking with God is one of the things He created us for).

    The next is read His word.  That would be the Bible!  I'm not overly concerned about which translation, there are many good ones out there.  I'm old enough to have started with the Authorized King James Version (which I only recommend if you are a fan of Shakespeare and speak the king's English flawlessly), but right now my personal preference  is the ESV (English Standard Version, but if you walk into a Bible book store and ask for an ESV they will know what you are talking about).  There are several good choices depending on your need, but getting into Bible translations is an entire blog feature on it's own.

    There is another thing on this "You Really Ought toDo" list.  That's meditate.  I don't mean sit with your legs crossed in a way that hurts me just thinking about it and contemplating your belly button.  You do, though, need to think about what you have read and how it applies to your life.  It really is amazing the way you can apply things when you stop...get quiet (physically and mentally)...and think about how God means this set of verses or concept to my life.

Ok, that brings us to what prompted me to do this blog today.  I am in the process of doing an online devotion by Franklin Graham and it is very good (you know, "Gee, that's a great thought, I never thought of it that way" stuff).  The venue that I'm doing it on is the "Bible" app by YouVersion (I'll try to add a link for it at the end.).  They asked three, actually 4, questions and I don't know exactly how much space they allow to respond but when my response ended the little counter at the bottom said (-1035).  I figure that means I said too much.  So I'm going to answer them to you.  Now this is my personal stuff but you might as well learn now that I'm a real person who has lived a real life.  Here it comes...

Who in your life has been a mentor or role model for how to follow Jesus? What are some lessons you have learned from this person?

I have been fortunate to have had many good mentors over the course of my life.  Surprisingly enough, a couple of them were young people from the youth I have worked with down through the years who came back into my life to teach me lessons or help me through difficult decisions.  But if I have to pick a single best mentor, the most important, the one who had the most lasting impact on my life, it would be my father.  He went home to be with the Lord while I was still a youth but in that short time he was with me he lived a life that showed what it really means to "be in the world but not of the world".  Every day I hope that I can live up to the example he showed me.

What does it mean to surrender your will to God?

What are some ways you have made Jesus the anchor of your life?
I am a very good person to ask about surrendering one's will to God.  The reason is that I have spent so much of my life bargaining my will against God's will.  He would impress His will on my heart then I would explain to Him how He could work so much more effectively by letting me make my modifications or corrections to His understanding of what I should be doing.  You could have no idea how many times that I told young people that "deferred or delayed obedience was disobedience", and yet it was working alright in my life, I thought.  Finally, in the last few years, I am learning what it means to, not just surrender, but totally surrender my life to him.  As I learn more and more about surrender I have first, the opportunity to do to do things that I never imagined I would do, and second, live in a world more and more filled with "peace that passes understanding".

What does God do when you surrender your life to Him? 

I have retired with no retirement plans.  I do not stress when money gets short or occasional meds go unpurchased.  As long as God has a purpose for me He will keep me here.



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By the way,  this blog does conform to all that new EU stuff.  And if it doesn't somewhere, blame Google who owns all this stuff.