Tag Archives: God

Dumpster Diving

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Dumpster Diving

We had not been married for a long time yet. I suppose had I been a bit wiser I might have known that what I was about to do could lead Betsy to wonder what she had gotten into. There they were, sticking right out of the dumpster, two beautiful 6” x 6” pressure treated posts waiting to be re-homed. I could imagine them perfectly placed in our landscaping to keep the dirt from washing away.
I waited for my opportunity. We were sitting in a restaurant waiting to be served. I was getting a bit anxious. Wonder if someone else spied “my” treasure and pounced on it before I had opportunity? Time might be against me. The thought never occurred to me that others may not see what I did sticking out of that ugly green hulk. Betsy did not. Decidedly so, Betsy did not. I realize that now. I didn’t see it then. The thought never occurred to me that she might not understand my urgency in getting up from the table before dinner was served to climb the side of that dumpster, pull out those two timbers and load them up before returning to the table. It is a testament to her patient forbearance that she took it in stride and went right ahead with dinner. Only years later did I discover what she was thinking…
God is a dumpster diver. Yes, God IS a dumpster diver. He dove after Moses, David, Rahab, Paul, and a whole lot of other people that had been thrown away. Moses was a murderer, David too small and scrawny, Rahab was a ‘woman of the night’, Paul a religious, narrow-minded persecuting zealot. All of them were damaged goods. All of them had been ‘thrown away’ by their families, their nations, their national leaders and in general, by any self respecting person of their day. They were the refuse in the dumpsters of society. Jesus was criticized because He frequented the homes of outcasts, ate and drank with them. It’s hard to find anyone in the Bible who accomplished much of anything who was not thrown away by those who knew them best.
But God sees in us what other people don’t see. God sees in us what we don’t even see. God sees all that we were made to be and He sees all that we still can be. Until the dumpster is hauled off and its contents burned in flames, those who have been thrown away, seen as not much count, are still valuable to God. I think He searches the dumpsters of the world looking for those that everyone else has given up on. When He gets His hands on them, they become something of beauty to behold!

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5264996529_ea04afe959_zRipples

I am looking at myself. I must have been 8 or 9 years old sitting on the bank of a creek. My mother, an artist by trade, painted me sitting there looking at the stick I had just tossed into the water. Surrounded by the beauty of trees, rocks, and hills I watch the ripples extend in all directions. Up and down and side to side the ripples move across that stream. My stick moves quietly down the slowly moving stream, bumping, rolling, and bouncing its way perhaps all the way to the ocean!

That was long ago and far away but still my mind goes back. I still love to toss rocks and sticks into the water.

Like that stick changing the face of the water by its presence, so does everything around us change by our presence. A kind word or a harsh one, an act of generosity or of selfishness changes forever our world rippling across time.

Easter Sunday has just come and gone reminding us of God’s power to change us forever. Jesus’ solitary Life, freeing us from captivity to ourselves, was a tidal wave reaching across all of time changing our lives forever. As you and I are caught by its force we are changed. We in turn change others, who then change others continuing the ripple across time.

Easter Sunday is behind us but its wave crashing across our lives stretches to this day and all our days. That one act of obedience in death forever changed the world, time and eternity cascading across time. Our every action, word, or attitude which springs from a life changed forever by His, ripples across the stream wherever we are.

Why?

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WhyWhy?

Over and over we have heard, “Why!” perhaps more as an exclamation than as a question. Why did a 20 year old kill his mother in cold blood and then proceed to kill twenty children and the adults who cared for them? What turns a rather anonymous young man into an instantly infamous killer?
The world we see is the temporary world for it will end. The world we do not see, the world of the spirit is the permanent world for it preceded all we see and will exist after all we see is gone. In the same way that we cannot understand the lights in the sky and the paths they take at night without understanding the celestial world, we cannot understand much that takes place in this physical world without understanding the spiritual one. Hence, we must be students of Scripture, quick to prayer and humble in obedience in order to begin to understand these things. It is at this point that those whose lives are lived apart from the world of the spirit come up empty.
The truth is that our world is fallen and infected through and through by sin, our desire to live apart from God. The nature of sin is, in some ways, like a virus which lies dormant in the human system. Much time pay pass in which thought it is present, symptoms are virtually absent. This may be because of medication, time, age, circumstances or some unknown.
In our country we are able to keep some of the most catastrophic effects of sin at bay by means of law enforcement, our military, our money, our location, walls, borders, government, etc. When we have periods of relative peace we may think that the virus has been licked! But it has not been. It is still present and active. In much of the world and in many segments of our society the effects of sin are much more apparent. Newtown, CT by all accounts has been a good place to live. People are prosperous, well educated and caring. It is possible in such a peaceful setting to forget some of the symptoms of this virus we call sin. For whatever the reason (s), one of the more violent symptoms of sin emerged Friday, December 14th.
Jesus was asked once (Luke 13:1) if certain people were worse than others because of catastrophic events in their lives. His answer was sobering. “Unless you repent you will all likewise perish!” Jesus is saying that we live in a world affected deeply by sin and we are all more threatened by that world than we would care to think. Those asking the question wanted an answer to their question, “Why?” which would allow them to grasp the situation and control their destiny. Jesus’ answer reaffirmed much of what He taught about the uncertainty of this life, this world and all that is in it.
Perhaps a better question might be, “Because the virus of sin is throughout our society and our world, why do these terrible things not happen more often than they do?”

Five Degrees of Quiet

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Five Degrees of Quiet

At times it may seem hard to bring a quiet and calm to our soul. It is not so much finding calm as it is how deep the calm. Here I describe five depths or degrees of quiet and listening.

The first degree of quite is being in a constant state of stillness. This kind of quiet is like a quiet pool of water interrupted at times by pebbles or rocks thrown into the water or by branches falling into the water. These ripples sent across that quiet interrupts it to some degree. These disturbances come from living in a world alienated from God and from that in ourselves which strains against the reign of Christ.

The second degree of quiet means pulling away from this. This is harder and requires greater movement to become part of a more undistrubable quiet. The first quiet can exist even in a crowd. This second degree of quiet is discovered alone.

The third degree of quiet grows from the second. In the second degree there is something inside that longs to go back to the place of activity where ripples often come upon our pond. There is a longing for the world around us with all its activity and distraction. But in the second degree of quiet if we persist long enough or deeply enough we find ourselves transported to another place. This third degree of quiet is one where we no longer wish to leave. We sing of this “In the Garden”;

I’d stay in the garden with Him
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.

The fourth degree of quiet is found at that place between the two words; the seen and the unseen. It is the place between life and the life to come. Mostly people only come to this place one time. Sometimes they venture there in a coma or in those hours or days as their body is beginning to lose any ability to return to the place where ripples come. The quiet is deeper here for from it there is no return. This is not a place of quiet from which there is retreat. This is the deepening place of quiet which I have often observed in those dying from illness and lingering nearer and nearer the time of departure to the final, the fifth degree of quiet. Here the presence of even those nearest and dearest to us fades and the presence of those inhabiting eternity, that vast cloud of witnesses who have traveled this road before grows ever clearer.