Friday, February 15, 2019

Gratitude

Thank you for the food we eat,
Thank you for your word so sweet
Thank you for the birds that sing,
Thank you God for everything.  Amen

Philippians 4:8-9
Finally, believers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things [center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart].The things which you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things [in daily life], and the God [who is the source] of peace and well-being will be with you. (AMP)

It’s widely accepted that stress is among the worst emotions for health and well-being.  Stress has been singled out as the underlying culprit in everything from heart-disease to hemorrhoids and nearly everything in between.  Fear, guilt, shame, worry, and anxiety  are just a few of the negative emotions that feed the stress response. Interesting to note that these are emotions God’s word encourages us to avoid, or the Cross of Christ has made the way for us to be free of.

What about the health effects of positive emotions?  A recent internet search for ‘gratitude and digestion’ brought up nearly half a million hits.  I read half a dozen of them; enough to reinforce my long-held belief in the importance of emotions when it comes to health in general and digestion in particular.

A few years ago, the Smithsonian magazine had an article by a photographer who captured tears and photographed them under a high powered microscope.  Tears of joy and happiness look very different than tears of grief and onions.  The emotions we experience change our body’s chemistry.  Tears reflect those changes.  Naturally occurring changes in body chemistry is undeniably powerful, and unconsciously manipulated by heart-held beliefs and the thoughts we ponder.

Drugs are synthesized attempts at duplicating the body’s natural ability to produce these powerful responses.

The chemicals released in our bodies when we are feeling grateful produce the optimum environment for healthy digestion, leading to healthy lives.  Fear, shame, and guilt are not the emotions to be laboring under when you eat.  Starting today, if you aren’t already in the habit, begin to be mindful of things you are grateful for, including but not limited to, what’s on the fork in front of you.  

Several years ago I stumbled on the frozen water crystal experiments of Dr. Masaru Emoto. He took water, that had been exposed to different emotionally charged environments or words, froze it, then photographed the frozen results.  If you have 3 or 4 minutes, check this out:
Water crystal video   Keep in mind that the human brain and heart are about 73% water, and suddenly Proverbs 18:21, The power of life and death are in the tongue, isn't so hard to figure out.

Our eleven-year-old grandson broke his leg skiing a couple weeks ago.  He told me about the horrible pain, laying in the snow, waiting for ski patrol and the people who stopped to help.  When I asked  what he felt when they stopped, without hesitation, he said, "Grateful! Unimaginably grateful!"  And I knew that flood of gratitude played a major role in his broken body that day; and will continue its miracle-work every time that memory is replayed and its power is released.

Gratitude, is a powerful force, let's release it!  Thank you for the food we eat, thank you for your word so sweet. Thank you for the birds that sing. Thank you Lord for everything! Amen

Saturday, February 9, 2019

Say What?

All great revelations were, at one point, revolutionary. After a couple of years (decades or millennia) they are relegated to common-place- and this-is-how-it’s-always-been status. Sad really.
Twenty-five years ago Gary Chapman's The Five Love Languages was one such revelation. Thankfully, in many circles, it hasn’t lost its luster, and the truths explained on its pages are still helping mend relationships and build bridges of deeper understanding. 

With Valentines Day just around the corner, there’s a good chance you wont find the time to read this great book to figure out the best way to express your love to the loved ones in your life—so here’s the condensed version:
1. Words of affirmation 
“Having you in my life is the greatest...”
“You are fantastic.”
“I really appreciate that you...” 
2. Spending quality time together
“I’m going to ______, care to join me?”
“Let’s get together for ______.”
3.  Gifts
“I saw this and thought of you.”
 “It’s nothing fancy but I made this for you.”
“I remember you saying how much you liked it when you came to my house, so here, it’s yours.”
4.  Kind acts of service
“I’ll watch the kids so you can...”
 “I would love to help you ....”
 “Here’s a meal, I know how busy you’ve been lately...”
5.  Physical touch
Holding hands, touching a shoulder, a hug.

A word of caution, there’s a really good chance your native love language is different than that of the person you want to bless. There’s a good chance you are going to feel awkward, just like I feel every time I say, ‘gracious’ at a Mexican restaurant. Maybe so awkward that you abandon the idea altogether. Don’t! Just stick with it.
Love’s expression isn’t about you. It’s about the other person, (adults and children alike). It’s not important that you know you love them. It’s important that they know it. And the easiest way to communicate that is in their language. And just like the Tijuana taxi driver who drove me to the airport in San Diego back in 2003, he knew I was linguistically challenged, but that didn’t lessen his appreciation of my efforts to navigate the verb tenses and sentence structures of his native tongue. Your loved one will appreciate your efforts as well.
If you’re not sure what your loved one’s language preference is, just look back over their life and recall what they’ve done in their attempts to show you love and appreciation. Or, you can just ask what it is that you can do or give them that would make them feel loved. And whatever they say, do not demean it. You will belittle their request for a hug, or help by declaring it insignificant and then trumping their request with something more in tune to what speaks “I love you” in your preferred language. When a hug, a hand, or an hour of solitude is what they want, don’t insult them with a box of chocolates. If they say flowers or wool socks, don’t belittle it by throwing a party with 50 of their closest friends.
Love is never about self. Authentic love is always about someone else.

Thursday, February 7, 2019

There's no going back

How many times had I heard someone say about a missions experience, “You need to go at least once. It will change you forever,”? In 1999 I took the challenge, hopped on a plane - passport in hand – and prepared for the promised transformation. I'd expected the change to come by way of witnessing unimaginable poverty and suffering; delivered in the form of shock so profound it would propel me into higher levels of compassion. I braced for the jolt.  It never came. Nonetheless I was changed as promised.  It just didn't come by observing a country's poverty.   

The world-rocking began almost imperceptibly with a question.  “Are your beliefs rooted in Christ or  culture?” Had I been duped into thinking my own hodge-podge of mingled truth with tainted teachings processed through a grid of limited perspective resulted in some worthless doctrines and a  less-than-powerful theology?  Yikes! 

As difficult as that realization was to face, I’m grateful for it's discovery!

Walk with me through the process of exposing one of those limiting beliefs.

Somewhere along life's way I had fashioned a belief that, in essence said,  'if you don’t read your Bible everyday you are a lazy ingrate who has no right to expect God to do anything for you. You aren't willing to bother with the bare minimum of reading His Word'.  Having taken that idea to heart had turned my adoption into a performance game. It was that trip to Asia that started the questioning and of that belief's validity. One question led to a dozen.

What of the billions of people who don’t have 14 translations of the scripture piled up on their nightstand? 

Or, of those who might have access but because of their gender, financial or physical limitations,  are denied the education necessary to accomplish the requirement of daily Word consumption? 

Or what of those who, by some unfortunate reason, were incapable of learning to read? 

My heart’s cry became, "God, how do You communicate with that person? How do You make Yourself known the them? I want to know that God, rather than the one who is limited by how well I perform the duties deemed - by forces I didn’t know -necessary to qualify for an audience and your grace." I sensed His smile at the challenge, and He’s been revealing Himself since. 

I traveled half way around the world and back to realize that the greatest mission field in need of  the Gospel was my own heart.  And in the spirit of full disclosure, there wasn’t much space in there for His Truth. My heart had become a repository of have tos, got tos, need tos, and supposed tos, that were all stuck together with a lethal combination of  shame and fear. 

My heart’s capacity to believe had become so crammed with this sort of thinking that God had been relegated to somewhere between my heart’s foyer and its front porch. And the Lord doesn’t clear space for Himself in the human heart.  Space clearing is our responsibility. 

No, this isn't my desk - just a picture I found online at marriannemcdonalddotnet closet therapy.
Since I started examining my beliefs  keeping those based on truth and surrendering those I recognize as based on something less, like culture,  or personal preference, or fear, or traditions.  Jesus said it this way in Mark 7:13 "Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."  NIV

The Lord doesn’t live on the front porch anymore.
The process has left me forever changed, and yes, it all began with a whispered question while I walked on the streets in another country.