Let me ramble a bit about some wilderness wanderings with my family last week. The sites and sounds were awesome! So much of our trip is a parallel to a life with God, pictures and all. Let’s talk about what we see. really see.
Most of us have our wilderness wanderings of the soul as well. One is in the seeing beyond ourselves.
3 otter swam by in the wee hours of daylight. It seems they were created to fish and play
Let’s face it. Most of our seeing is positioning ourselves to see. Awareness is another ingredient to seeing. Capturing a photo is another step in seeing. Framing that photo is then important to explain what we saw. Maybe, God shows off sometimes. Just for us?? He loves us you know. Maybe we see (really see) that and know that He is God, Creator of all things. He has framed our world, all the molecules in the universe and beyond. He has framed you.
The rain stopped, the sun came out and set as night came. See the wolf? The sun prevails.Our Grand daughters senior dream vacation (A wilderness canoe trip). She will outfish most.
It’s entirely possible to have a dream vacation and only have an adventure, see a nice sunset, catch some fish, do some exploring and that’s about it if it works out.
There’s a better way. What if we position ourselves to see God’s handiwork in marvelous ways? What if we don’t? What if we spend some alone time with God expressing our wonder at the sights and sounds?
Early one morning I waited until I could see through the fog. kind of.
What do you see? Is life just rambling in the fog between storms? Are you positioned to see God’s handiwork all around? How about in your life? God is in the business of opening our eyes you know. I only know about this because He has done it in my life and coutless others throughout time. Like the man born blind and healed by Jesus in the Bible, he knows. He seesJohn 9:25 He answered, “Whether He is a sinner I do not know. There is one thing I do know: I was blind, but now I see!”
I strongly reccomend some wilderness wanderings. Find someplace to have a long chat with your creator. Check out going to the BWCAW sometime. Watch out for bear! (really).
Born with Spina-Bifida. 37 years, 35 surgeries and thousands of stares and comments. Life and significance can feel like a lone tiny battered island.
In my quiet time with God I recently (intentionally) asked the Lord for wisdom and a way to show our handicapped daughter how much God loves her and how much her first father loves her. Later in the day I came across this very special blog by a very special lady. please visit and read. https://writenow.wordpress.com/2019/03/04/beauty-from-slag/
Go back, click on the link first before continuing please!!
I was able to show our daughter the picture from Shirley’s blog of what some consider to be trash (slag) but mixed with glass in liquid form creates immense beauty. We had some small talk about how it was made and how beautiful it was. I also read the short blog to her. I then said to my daughter “This is you dear daughter. You have often seen yourself as slag, trash, and people have said and done mean things to you; but God has created an immensely beautiful person in you no matter what has happened to your body.
Realization of this truth was like slowly filling a clear glass picture of water but not shutting the tap off. First there were tears, then sobs and a heaving chest full of sobs came as her picture overflowed. A new radiance of spirit that most of us will never experience quietly came as the tap slowed and stopped.
Before showing and reading to my daughter as she rested in bed, I intentionally thanked God for his answer to prayer and intentionally asked for wisdom in presenting this spectacular picture of slag mixed with glass on Shirley’s blog. I see her this way. I know and see the beauty that others may miss. See picture here
the beautiful colors of slag glass are endless
I wonder how many people I walk by every day who do not know that God can take the slag of their life, melt it down and mix with His ineffable power. Only God can do such grandiose kind of work words cannot express in each of us. Thanks G.W for that great read. https://collinsgw.combecoming/2019/03/06/ineffable-power/
My daughter and I talked about the word “ineffable” in her life. Joyous tears again.
The kind of intentionality it takes to turn the trash slag into beautiful glass slag in people’s lives is huge, costly and time consuming on our part. Ask my daughter, it’s worth it. Ask God, it’s worth it. Ask Me and I will tell you that watching someone slowly realize the ineffable power of God masked by a broken body has more grandeur than any wonder the world could contain.
Please comment, thanks for reading.
Gary
The two links posted are pure gold. Thanks Shirley and G.W for your intentionality in making them so worthwhile.
First Breakfast this morning: Great are the works of the Lord, They are pondered by all who delight in them. (Psalm 111:2) A great time in the word.
2nd Breakfast: 3 eggs, 3 bacon, 2 toast loaded with peanut butter and strawberry jam.
One will last a few hours of sustenance. The other will last an eternity. One is a short time enjoyment while the other takes it’s time to penetrate and change one’s very being. One is paid for out of labor wages while the other was paid for by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Now I’m gushing a bit but that’s ok. The previous verse which is Psalm 111:1 says “I will extol the Lord”. The word “Extol” means to praise enthusiastically, rapturous, Sing the praises of, gush, eulogize, rhapsodize, rave about and the list goes on
Have you ever tried to take a picture inside with the outside showing? Normally there is glare, too much light and a flash is needed unless it’s dark outside. I actually set up the camera in the living room on a tripod and waited until the light density was similar inside to the outside. A 70 degree difference from inside to outside as it was a snowstorm just ending outside.
It’s February and very nice out… temperature wise.
In september the temperature made it’s way down into the 30’s and it was cold. October made it a little colder. November temperature went down into the teens. December made it down to zero and into a few degrees below zero. this January we found 20 below zero a few times and the beginning of February in the minus 30 below zero range (some saw minus 40’s but you get the picture). What was cold in September is now t-shirt weather. January weather seems warm from February’s view.
Our Spruce tree seems cold as the sun sets. We love our views from the inside
We live and adjust to relativities in so many areas of our lives, not just the weather.
We live and adjust daily without even thinking about it. I have 6 pairs of outdoor boots and combinations of 12 layers of different types of outer and layered coats and jackets (I can stay warm in minus 30 with a wind chill of -60 degrees). A few days ago I was outside unloading my ice fishing equipment and I thought “It’s warm out here”; I looked at the outdoor thermometer and it read -32 degrees. The wind had died down and it felt warm outside. I called dad mid January to let him know it was minus 20 degrees. He said “wow it’s warm there, it’s -42 here”. I just gave my oldest kentucky daughter a text telling her “it is 40 degrees colder here…must be nice”. She texted back “and I thought 21 degrees was really cold”
Even though it feels warm, it would still be a disaster to stick one’s tongue on the car door handle. There are some things that are not relative. You will still lose part of your tongue if stuck on freezing metal (I have a winter camping story with tin cups for another time). A bad diet seems ok until later in life. Smoking seemed ok for our health a long time ago. We can come up with an endless list of how we live life as relative. Maybe it actually kind of works; until it doesn’t.
A relationship with God is not relative. Sin is not relative. God’s love is not relative. Don’t stay outside in relativities on this one. Come inside. What God says and has revealed to man and carefully recorded and preserved in scripture trumps our relative spiritual ideologies.
I’m getting ready for tomorrow. Another snowstorm coming. Warm weather as it will stay above -10 tonight. Maybe. Tomorrow morning I will also continue getting ready for another tomorrow (someday my tomorrow will be in eternity) as I read a passage from God’s word, pray (my personal talk time with God), reflect and allow God’s Spirit to set my tone for the day. I have a personal relationship with my creator God. It’s real and I am changed. I trust the changes in me are not like the weather outside. temporary. Relative. To be more like Jesus is reality. Truth. Inside.
I stepped outside and took a 10 second time exposure. Long enough to get cold in my sleepwear.
I watched the moon set before the sun would light the morning. I pondered and identified with the Psalmist.
“You, God are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you in a dry and parched land where there is no water. ” Psalm 63: 1
I thought of the all the sailors who have been adrift in life boats after losing their vessel in storm or war; often muttering “water water everywhere but not a drop to drink.”
I think often of the happiest people I have ever seen in a third world country and they have nothing.
I think of the change of one’s whole being when they finally understand how much Jesus loves them; enough to die for them. It’s like coming home from vacation and all your plants look dead and they spring to life with water. Only we get “Living Water.”
I ponder how this passion for God in our dry and thirsty land affects my speech, word choices and topics of conversation today and through the week. Will I use alternate swear words? slang? Will I confront or come alongside when differences arise? will I wash the dishes when my wife looks tired even though I have had an 11 hour work day? Will I say a kind word to a harried cashier? Will I live intentionally? Generously?
It’s now daylight. Will I live as a child of light? A delightful sunday morning. I read on. “I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you“ Psalm 63: 4-5 (even if I don’t know the song?)
To many this would be sacrilege. but to those who have realised they just escaped hell, sacred.
I came a stranger, a visitor and casual observer. I left immersed in wonder.
The place was packed. The air as electric with excitement as a tied championship game in final seconds. Yelling, clapping and (very) loud cheering sounds from young and old alike. God winning. Testimony and story from several teens, twenties and some elderly as they declared hardships and victories before being dunked in an icy water filled cattle tank. Tears and much shaking of heads as memories of who they were “before Christ”. Gods power was evident, powerful, overflowing and permeating. All were participants in this sacred gathering.
Thirty-five quick stories and baptisms before moving on to thirty-two child dedications. The electricity was still there. Clapping, yelling and various carrying on continued as parents gave their kids to God and pleaded with the people to help them raise their kids to Love God. Not a dry eye in the place as a mom gave her child to God. “Before Christ”, Strung out on drugs at life’s bottom she had given away her young child for adoption. Now in her new life in Christ, she was now giving her child to God. A child she may never see again on earth. She desperately wanted to at least see her child in heaven someday.
[Side notes: extremely organized, the youth band was great but their drummer is an alien with six arms I think. How could over 70 events happen with people talking and take only 2 hours? Wow, they didn’t come for the cake afterwards! I still feel compelled to pray once in awhile for the barren mom with purple and pink hair. So this is where my grandkids are being raised…wow]
There was nothing ordinary about this afternoon church service. God wasn’t just “talked about”, God permeated the room and the people with his presence. A sacred excitement. We were there with His Spirit. I could picture Jesus in the eyes of the little kids standing on chairs clapping with glee. The year was 2018. I shall not forget this sacred moment.
Ask God for a sacred moment in your life and church (and by faith carry ear plugs)
Gary
PS: a bit of irony on the backstory. This meeting was held in a nice church building given to this ministry. Seems the church grew old and disbanded from lack of people and funds. This ministry grew out of that church a few years back but was attracting young people that made the church people uncomfortable. Now that ministry is a come-as-you-are church and the old church building given to them is just big enough for the youth ministry. God wins.
I re-read this often. You will get the gist. 100 years from now this may matter to someone.
Dad
When I sit to write in my own journal, I often think of you because you first introduced me to journaling. You let me read one of your entries once and I loved the little bits of personality and the depth it allowed me to see in you. I loved the wisdom it so clearly showed all laid out there in your own hand. It showed me that journaling was a valuable and even cool thing to do. It has since been invaluable to me. A means to get my thoughts all out where I can see them and sort through what makes sense and what doesn’t. Sometimes just having to put enough thought into it to form the words was the valuable part. I love that I now have pages to look back at and see the path my own learning has taken so far in life. It leaves a bit of legacy to perhaps share pieces with my own daughters someday down the road.
So, thank you and keep those pages coming, hope this will come in handy.
Love …(and signed by my oldest daughter)
Just a small glimpse of some of my past
In no particular order
Fair warning, discipline is required but the pay off is immeasurable. Please share your good thoughts.
Gary
PS: for some tips on approaching journaling, Mitch Teemley has some good suggestions. Check it out. https://mitchteemley.com/2018/10/15/journaling-for-life-2/ Also, Read Davids comment below…Again, journaling is worth the discipline for the long haul!
Luke 19:37 As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
Isaiah 55:12 “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Habakkuk 2:11 For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond.
Psalm 1: What will be standing in my life when someday I stand before the almighty God? You and I will watch all that is seemingly important fall away.
I watched a leaf fall off a tree this morning, before it’s time, yet not I thought. but Fall is a ways off when leaves die and clutter the ground.
It was 50 degrees (f) on the screen porch where I sat with a bible and a cup of coffee. The hummingbirds were scolding me for being close to“their” flowers and feeders for a backdrop in my morning meet with God. In the distance a Rooster pheasant crowed to add reverence with a dozen song birds chirping in.
I had just had a conversation with my neighbor about decluttering our garages, storage sheds and so many extras. This morning I was reminded to think about decluttering my spiritual life. The to do lists, priorities and even not taking my own thoughts and views seriously unless they really come from God. This is serious stuff when an outdoorsman begins to pray for a smaller boat!
I had opened my Bible to Psalm 1. “Lord I want to be like the tree” I prayed. “Please help me declutter my life from the unimportant”.
I drew out a rough illustrated rendition of the psalm 1 version of the two things that could happen to each of us when we stand before God. That day is coming. It will happen. Add your comments to make it personal…Some great insights from fellow bloggers. Makes me feel like a lion in a den of Daniels.
Check out a very insightful comment below from parishdynamics . Also check out some great insight from InnerDialects written from a half a world away prompted by this blog and the concept of decluttering.
This is my own little book with blank pages ment for scribbles and bits of wisdom potential. It’s a kind of sort of journal that works for me.
Psalm 1
Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.
Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.
It’s a story that needs telling. Maybe some stories are sacred enough to leave for the telling in eternity. Maybe some can be told as a teaser for story time a hundred years from now. I will leave most things out but you will get the gist.
Ominous sunset with a storm coming. I wonder what clashing spiritual forces look like?
A while after moving to a strange place, with hardly an acquaintance, my wife casually mentioned to me she had an aunt (I had never met) living in the same very small town (less than 500 people) where we lived. Odd situation I guess. Auntie didn’t like any of us or care to meet, but she had cancer and was not long for this world. My wife had never felt any urgency to get to know auntie until now. “I’m going to visit her starting tomorrow” she announced “and she probably will not want to see me”.
My wife found her address, knocked on her door and when the door opened a crack with a “What do you want” greeting, she was quick to stick a foot in the door and let auntie know who’s daughter she was, that she wanted to visit and she brought a few cookies. Auntie took the cookies and shut the door.
This went on for awhile until my wife made it inside the door to talk a little longer and visit with one old-cold-bitter women. Seems Auntie didn’t need sympathy, prying relatives and even rejected her own children half the time. Auntie had no time for prayer or anything to do with God.
Auntie believed that when one dies, that’s it. No after life, no purpose to life, no God, nothing. Burn the body and get rid of the ashes.
In all this, my wife seemed more and more confident that God was pushing her from a weekly visit over time to daily visits by the time Auntie went into the hospital. “She needs someone” my wife kept saying. The nurses drew straws (they actually did) to see who had Auntie duty. Auntie was not a nice lady and even refused to let her grandchildren visit her. She did not want to even know their names or see their faces. When my wife or her grown children would visit, Auntie would pretend to be asleep. If they tried to hug her she would say “You may shake my hand”. My wife would not ask. She would hug her anyway. Gradually her stiffening at hugs became less like hugging a wooden board.
My wife would sing hymns and read Auntie bible passages about knowing Jesus when Auntie would pretend to be sleeping. Some days Auntie would actually talk to her. She would not let any clergy see her or anyone pray with or for her.
A few days before Auntie died, My wife felt moved to ask her if she could pray for her. Auntie said “I suppose it would be OK”. My wife thanked Jesus for dying for all the things that separated us from God. She prayed the whole plan of salvation as she had been reading to Auntie in the bible. She prayed for Auntie to just believe in Jesus. If she would just believe. When she was done Auntie said something no one had heard from her lips in a very long time, “Thank you”. Then she went to sleep and My wife went home.
The next day some of Aunties kids said to my wife “What did you do to her?” Alarmed my wife said “I prayed with her, why?”
Auntie spent the last few days of her life smiling, thanking nurses and asking to meet her grandchildren. Hugs happened and Auntie was a different person. Auntie never acknowledged praying with my wife or believing in Jesus but there isn’t any other evidence to explain the complete change from an angry and bitter old dying women to a sweet little old cancerous women in pain. She actually seemed to be living beyond the pain drugs. She died much happier than she had lived most of her life.
“All I did was do what I felt God was telling me to do” says my wife.
My wife and I thought God had relocated us 300 miles from family, friends and great fishing lakes for a job and better income. Now we are thinking God had far bigger things in mind. It’s very possible that God moved my wife here and gave me a job while He was at it.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9
Gods Ways are...Different 