cloak of Love

UpWords from Max Lucado

A Cloak Of Love
Do you own a cloak of love? Do you know anyone who needs one? When you cover someone with concern, you are fulfilling what Paul had in mind when he wrote the phrase "love ... always protects" (1 Cor. 13:4-7 NIV).

The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament is known for its word study, not its poetry. But the scholar sounds poetic as he explains the meaning of protect as used in 1 Corinthians 13:7. The word conveys, he says, "the idea of covering with a cloak of love."

Know anyone in need of a cloak of love?

A few years back I offered one to my daughters. The whirlwind of adolescence was making regular runs through our house, bringing with it more than our share of doubts, pimples, and peer pressure. I couldn't protect the girls from the winds, but I could give them an anchor to hold in the midst. On Valentine's Day, 1997, I wrote the following and had it framed for each daughter:

I have a special gift for you. My gift is warmth at night and sunlit afternoons, chuckles and giggles and happy Saturdays.

But how do I give this gift? Is there a store which sells laughter? A catalog that offers kisses? No. Such a treasure can't be bought. But it can be given. And here is how I give it to you.

Your Valentine's Day gift is a promise, a promise that I will always love your mother. With God as my helper, I will never leave her. You'll never come home to find me gone. You'll never wake up and find that I have run away. You'll always have two parents. I will love your mother. I will honor your mother. I will cherish your mother. That is my promise. That is my gift.

Love, Dad

Know anyone who could use some protection? Of course you do. Then give some.

Watching Dancing with the Stars brings me joy. I would really like to take ballroom dancing. Maybe that will be my next goal.

Well back from the weekend in Middletown. It was nice to visit and have no preplanned agenda. Went to Walmart with my Mom and spent a few hours there. It is not easy to go from store to store with my mom as she doesn't get around too quickly these days. Also it was very cold and icy outside so we spent our time out in one place. As we were browsing around who do we run into but Stephanie & Michael and Katie! I had thought of going to PA to visit them but decided against the trip so now we got to visit for awhile anyway. Katie made student of the month. They went back to my mom's to play with Midge for awhile but we finished up shopping and then went to Denny's to eat. Once we got home we relaxed and waited for 24 to come on. Slept in Sunday and Monday.My sister Anne came over on MOnday AM to go over some things and then I packed up and drove home. Wish I wasn't always feeling like I am going to fall asleep when I drive. It doesn't matter if I am tired or have just gotten up but after I am on the road for awhile I just start to nod out.

Back to work today. Day was a little hectic as Ryann is no longer with us and Natalie who is suppose to fill in for her was out sick. Doris had to do all the runs so she was really tired. I tried to pick up some of her work so it was a bit busy.

Friday and Saturday I am going to a class at church for small group leaders. Let's see where this leads. I still feel like I am floating and not grounded anywhere.

Time to pay some bills....

In my anguish I cried to the Lord, and he answered by setting me free. The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?
--Psalm 118:5-6
New International Version

THOUGHTS ABOUT TODAY'S VERSE...
The beginning of the year has been a trying time for people I care about. Maybe it's been that way for you or those you love. My prayer for you, and for them, is that they may know the comfort of God's presence. Whether it's the popular little poem "Footprints" or the familiar "Yea though I walk through the shadow of death, thou art with me," the presence of the Lord is absolutely vital to standing up against our anguish! The Lord does long to be with us, especially at those moments when we feel most alone. He told us that by experiencing it himself at the cross.

MY PRAYER...
I am thankful, O God, that you refused to be God from a safe distance. Because you came and felt what it was like to be abandoned, forsaken, and alone, I know I can trust that I will never be forsaken by you. Please give me a clearer sense of your presence with me in my life today, I pray through Jesus. Amen.

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Adoniram Judson (1788-1850) was gifted with a brilliant mind. He learned to read at age 3, could translate Greek at 12, and enrolled in Brown University when he was 16. While there he was befriended by Jacob Eames, a man who rejected the miracles of the Bible. When Judson graduated as valedictorian in 1807, he had been so influenced by Eames that he denied his Christian faith.

One night, when Judson was staying at a village inn, he was disturbed by a man moaning in the next room. The following morning he asked the innkeeper about the ailing man. He was told that the man had died and that his name was Jacob Eames.

The startling coincidence of being near his friend at the point of his death stunned Judson. He felt compelled to search his own soul and to seek God's pardon for denying his faith. From that point on, he began to live for the Lord. God led him to pioneer missionary work in Burma. At the end of his life, Adoniram could look back on his ministry that had planted dozens of churches and influenced thousands to become believers.

What kind of influence are we having on others? Do our lives encourage faith in the Savior, or do we cause others to doubt? —Dennis Fisher

We cannot live our lives alone,
For other lives we touch
Are either strengthened by our own
Or weakened just as much. —Anon.

Your life either sheds light or casts a shadow.

One of the greatest obstacles we face in following Christ is fear of the unknown. We yearn to know in advance the outcome of our obedience and where He is taking us, yet we are given only the assurance that He is with us and that He is in charge. And with that, we venture into the unknown with Him.

You can't do everything, but you can do something. What you can do, you should do. Today, determine that in the power and grace of God you will do it. —Haddon Robinson

Good words. My plan for the day is to get started on doing what I should.

Read the following in my daily devotional:


We may say that people need to show themselves worthy of respect before we can respect them. But respecting another person is much more about who we are than about who the other person is.

Well it is Monday and Christmas is almost here. Here's to a good week.

One more week till Christmas. Seems a little different this year as we did not put up a tree--didn't really have any desire to and we will be down with family to celebrate so it seemed unnecessary to go through all the trouble to put the tree up and more so to take it down when the only ones who would see it are John & I.

Getting my new puppy was a good thing. she is doing good and she makes me laugh. I gave her one of our old bed pillows for a bed--I put a pillowcase on it and I just had to rescue her as she crawled between the case and the pillow and got trapped in it. She has lots of toys to play with but seems to enjoy attacking me the most. Her teeth are quite sharp. She also steals anything she can get and brings it back to her kennel. My slippers are one of her favorite things. I've found John's glove inside and one day she was trying to drag my coat to her kennel.

Work has been pretty slow and I hope it picks up as it can be boring whenthere is not enough to do. We had our annual Christmas dinner on Friday night. Good times but the room was a bit cramped. We went to a different place this year. Closer to home which was nice.

Played pool tonight-- I really enjoy that game. I won 7-3. Have some presents to wrap but am not motivated just now. I think we may get out early on Friday so I plan to clean and wrap then.

That's it for now

Trials

Read the following in Christianity today--



My Soul's Dark Night
The best of evangelicalism didn't prepare me for this struggle.
By Charles Colson with Anne Morse

I am a product of the best in evangelicalism: converted 32 years ago in a flood of tears after hearing the gospel, discipled by a strong prayer group, taught by great theologians. I know the strength of evangelicalism in bringing people to an intimate relationship with Jesus.

But what happens when you have relied on this intimacy and the day comes when God seems distant? What happens in the dark night of the soul?

I found out this past year. Weeks after finishing The Good Life, my son Wendell was diagnosed with bone cancer. The operation to remove a malignant tumor took 10 hours—the longest day of my life. Wendell survived, but he's still in chemo.

I had barely caught my breath when my daughter, Emily, was diagnosed with melanoma.

Back in the hospital, I again prayed fervently. Soon after, my wife, Patty, underwent major knee surgery. Where was my good life?

Exhausted from hospitals, two years of writing The Good Life, and an ugly situation with a disgruntled former employee, I found myself wrestling with the Prince of Darkness, who attacks us when we are weakest. I walked around at night, asking God why he would allow this. Alone, shaken, fearful, I longed for the closeness with God I had experienced even in the darkest days of prison.
What happens when you have relied on intimacy with God, and the day comes when he seems distant?

An answer came in September. I was standing alone on the deck of a friend's home in North Carolina, overlooking the spectacular Smoky Mountains arising out of the mist. I was moved by the glory of God's creation. It's impossible not to know God as the Creator, I realized, for there is no other rational explanation for reality. God cannot not be.

It struck me that I don't have to make sense of the agonies I bear or hear a clear answer. God is not a creature of my emotions or senses. God is God, the one who created me and takes responsibility for my children's destiny and mine. I can only cling to the certainty that he is and he has spoken.

I'm not sure how well the contemporary evangelical world prepares us for this struggle, which I suspect many evangelicals experience but fear to admit because of the expectations we create. At such times, we can turn for strength to older and richer theological traditions probably unfamiliar to many—writings by saints who endured agonies both physical and spiritual.

Teresa of Avila was a 16th-century Spanish mystic and author of The Interior Castle. Teresa, who suffered from paralyzing illnesses, wrote, "For his Majesty can do nothing greater for us than grant us a life which is an imitation of that lived by his beloved Son. I feel certain, therefore, that these favors [sufferings] are given us to strengthen our weakness."

John of the Cross, persecuted and thrown into prison, wrote the classic The Dark Night of the Soul. "O you souls who wish to go on with so much safety and consolation," John wrote. "If you knew how pleasing to God is suffering and how much it helps in acquiring other good things, you would never seek consolation in anything, but you would rather look upon it as a great happiness to bear the Cross of the Lord."

In the evangelical heritage, we could draw on spiritual forebears like the Puritans and Charles Spurgeon. "When thy God hides his face, say not that he has forgotten thee," Spurgeon once wrote. "He is but tarrying a little while to make thee love him better, and when he cometh, thou shalt have joy in the Lord and shalt rejoice with joy unspeakable."

The point of these older traditions is that faith becomes strongest when we are without consolation and must walk into the darkness with complete abandon.

Faith isn't really faith if we can always rely on the still, small voice of God cheering us on. A prominent pastor once told me he experienced the Holy Spirit's presence every moment. Contemporary evangelicals regard this as maturity. Perhaps it is—or maybe it is a form of presumption. True faith trusts even when every outward reality tells us there is no reason to.

As theologian Michael Novak explains, true faith says, "Let this be done, Lord, according to your will"—even if we don't know what "this" is.

Evangelicals must rely on more than cheerful tunes, easy answers, and happy smiles. We must dig deeply into the church's treasures to find what it is like to worship God, not because of our circumstances, but in spite of them.

Following the events of 2005, my faith is deepened. Countless times over the years I've experienced God and his providence, but I've also known the dark night. God, I've realized, is not just the friend who takes my hand, but also the great, majestic Creator who reigns forever.

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the town.
Not a sign of Baby Jesus was anywhere to be found.

The people were all busy with Christmas time chores
Like decorating, and baking, and shopping in stores

No one sang "Away in a manger, no crib for a bed.
Instead, they sang of Santa dressed-up in bright red.

Mama watched Martha Stewart, Papa drank beer from a tap.
As hour upon hour the presents they'd wrap

When what from the T.V. did they suddenly hear?
'Cept an ad.. which told of a big sale at Sears.

So away to the mall they all flew like a flash...
Buying things on credit.. and others with cash!

And, as they made their way home From their trip to the mall,
D id they think about Jesus? Oh, no ... not at all.

Their lives were so busy with their Christmas time thing
No time to remember Christ Jesus, the King.

There were presents to wrap and cookies to bake.
How could they stop and remember who died for their sake?

To pray to the Savior... they had no time to stop.
Because they needed more time to "Shop til they dropped!"

On Wal-mart! On K-mart! On Target! On Penney's!
On Hallmark! On Zales! A quick lunch at Denny's

From the big stores downtown to the stores at the mall
They would dash away, dash away, and visit them all!

And up on the roof, there arose such a clatter
As grandpa hung icicle lights up on his brand new step ladder.

He hung lights that would flash. He hung lights that would twirl.
But he never once prayed "Jesus... Light up the World".

Christ's eyes ... how they twinkle! Christ's Spirit ... how merry!
Christ's love .... how enormous! All our burdens... He'll carry!

So instead of being busy, overworked, and uptight
Let's put Christ back in CHRISTmas and enjoy some good nights!

Merry Christmas, To ALL

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater

The following article articulates some of my feelings regarding the church--as I read it I laughed, agreed,was grossed out (the man in the choir), was sad---sometimes we don't see the handwriting on the wall until it is too late.

Christianity Today, November 2005

In Praise of the Church Lady
God manages to use dubious characters to shape our lives.
by Mark Linville | posted 11/15/2005 09:00 a.m.


I was overchurched as a child. The prevailing ethic of our church community dictated that "every time the church doors are open you should be there." Whether our family actually succeeded in this, I am not sure. But, at any rate, my childhood memories are filled with those of my reluctant but compulsory attendance at more church gatherings than I thought I could bear.

What stands out in my boyhood memories is an assortment of odd characters. I can recall being sternly warned by one member not to eat snow because it had been poisoned by Nikita Khrushchev. An elder of the church adamantly maintained on more than one occasion that we had not "evoluted." A brigade of lay evangelists confronted devout Lutherans or Presbyterians—or even people who had been baptized in the right way but with the wrong idea—on their doorsteps, unblinkingly informing them that they were destined to be cast into the lake of fire unless they converted (i.e., joined our church). These guys made the Sanctified Brethren of Lake Wobegon look like Unitarians. There was Al, who, upon greeting you at the church door with a handshake, would inexplicably pull your hand up into his moist underarm. I learned quickly to enter church through the side door. There was Mr. Reed, an elderly man who sat in the choir, facing the congregation, and had the rather dispiriting habit of elaborately—even ceremoniously—hacking phlegm from his deepest recesses and then, predictably, leaning forward to spit it into the carpet in front of his seat.

We also had our share of hypocrites: the volunteer youth sponsor who, though recently married, attempted to seduce half of the teenage girls in the youth group; the other volunteer youth sponsor who succeeded in seducing another man's wife and running off with her. I can recall more than one occasion on which some of the churchmen traded racist jokes—featuring, of course, the n-word as a kind of verbal centerpiece. Then the minister took an inordinate interest in the contents of a skirt or two in the congregation and was soon seen loading a U-Haul bound for another state.

There was also the Church Lady, who, outfitted with horn-rimmed glasses and a flannelgraph lesson, taught my Sunday school classes. If every believer is graced with some spiritual gift, such as hospitality or encouragement, hers was the gift of disapproval. This woman never understood that good behavior in little boys did not entail their acting like little girls, so I am sure that her reprimands brought out the worst in me. I could never seem to escape the Church Lady as she was also perpetually involved in vacation Bible school, that bane of summer; a whole week of daylight stolen from the middle of a sandlot-baseball-playing boy's vacation. Under her direction, we pledged allegiance to the Bible ("God's Holy Word") and to the Christian flag ("and to the Savior for whose kingdom it stands"), drank green Kool-Aid from Dixie cups, and glued macaroni to plates to form crosses.

As a child, I was dragged involuntarily to a plethora of gatherings and placed under the authority of dubious characters, many of whom might have made interesting studies in abnormal psychology. Some of this is perhaps the stuff cited by members of Fundamentalists Anonymous, a support group for people who have finally escaped the clutches of the religious authorities of their childhood, but who are still nursing old wounds.

But this company of the strange, the judgmental, and the hypocritical—in cooperation, of course, with the not-so-strange nor hypocritical—managed somehow to do me the invaluable service of laying a solid foundation for the faith of my adult life. Indeed, these imperfect people instilled within me my basic worldview by the time I was 4 years old. That worldview has undergone a bit of fine-tuning since then, but by age 4, I had the deep conviction that there is a God who is supremely good and wise, that he created us out of love, and that he wishes for us to learn to love one another in the same way that he loves us. This early orientation on my proper place in the grand scheme of things has been a keel that has directed safe passage through a variety of intellectual and emotional crosscurrents.

I suspect that the Church Lady—who in my memory is more an amalgam of many people who had an early influence on me than an actual person—had something less than an articulate and carefully reasoned theology. I would not be surprised to learn that she harbored some religious beliefs that were downright silly. But she is yet another example of those crude earthen vessels in which God has placed his treasure, and which he is able to use for his good purposes. Everywhere I looked, it seemed, there were examples of people struggling to live lives of discipleship as best they understood it. In short, I grew up in the midst of a community of people who embraced essentially the same Christian worldview, however imperfectly, and I am the better for it.

In addition to this network of believers who shared the burden of directing my earliest steps, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was the sense that those authority figures beyond the church walls—schoolteachers, for example—were very much in league with my parents. But the winds have changed in our culture. The teachers in charge of our children may be more interested in dismantling their politically incorrect Christian convictions than encouraging them. And while I am not interested in joining a critique of today's children's cartoons for purportedly promoting the gay lifestyle, I do believe there is a cynical atmosphere that pervades many of the forms of entertainment to which today's children are exposed. It is the cynicism that marks our postmodern times and that promotes a sort of ironic detachment from any form of deep conviction and commitment. It is "hipness unto death." Our children are alive to it at earlier ages, with the result that the old loyalties can appear to them as quaint, hopelessly naïve, and easily parodied ("Sounds like The Waltons! Goodnight, John Boy!"). Thus the natural trusting innocence of childhood is lost.

The Church Lady is needed today more than ever. It would be the height of foolishness for us to expect to engender a robust faith in our children today without simply immersing them in a community of believing people as I was. There may be attempts within the home to instill faith and Christian virtues, but the prevailing winds of our culture are blowing strongly in the opposite direction. Young saplings are nearly certain to bend to and be shaped by those winds if not sheltered. And the only proven shelter is marked by a steeple.

Mark Linville is professor of philosophy at Atlanta Christian College.

MY PRAYER...
Holy Father, my Great Emancipator, you have freed me from sin, law, and death at the cost of your precious Son. I open my heart to you today to say I love you and want to thank you. Please accept the actions of my life, the words of my mouth, the thoughts of my mind, and the emotions of my heart today as my offering of thanks. Through Jesus my Sacrifice and your holy Son I pray. Amen.

Where am I? Trying to stay in the moment. I have a bad habit of always being somewhere other than where I am right now. Memories are good to look back on and use your experience from, dreams and goals are also important but I want to embrace the moment. This is where I am right now--take the time to get all that I can from it---this day, this hour will not come again.

Well this hour involves doing my bills and then going about the rest of my day. I may finally check out the zoo that is less than 10 minutes away.

Stay tuned

Discipleship is sometimes defined by being normal.

A woman in a small Arkansas community was a single mom with a frail baby. Her
neighbor would stop by every few days and keep the child so she could shop.
After some weeks her neighbor shared more than time; she shared her faith, and
the woman did what Matthew did. She followed Christ.

The friends of the young mother objected. "Do you know what those people
teach?" they contested.

"Here is what I know," she told them. "They held my baby."

I think Jesus likes that kind of answer, don't you?

We had a guest speaker on Sunday and the topic was fear and how it runs our lives. He was a very low key speaker but delivered a strong message.

The message I keep getting as I seek to draw closer to God is His holiness. To keep reading about His holiness.

Met with some ladies from church for dinner last night. Conversation was good but as usually the case it stayed superficial until it was almost time to go. We wound up staying afterwards in the lobby to talk some more.


Through the centuries, some of God's servants have faced the possibility of an agonizing death unless they renounced their faith. They knew that God could deliver them, but they also knew that in keeping with His own purposes He might not answer their pleas for supernatural help.

In the book of Daniel, three young Hebrew captives faced a life-and-death choice: Worship the king's gold image or be thrown into the fiery furnace. Their response was unhesitating: "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace." They added, "But if not, . . . we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up" (Daniel 3:17-18).

But if not! Those words challenge our allegiance. Suppose we face crippling disease. Suppose we are facing shameful disgrace. Suppose we are facing painful loss. We plead for God's intervention, yet in every threatening circumstance our plea should carry the proviso, "But if not!"

Is our attitude that of Jesus in Gethsemane? "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39).

Are we willing to endure whatever will glorify God and work out His holy purposes? —Vernon Grounds

They climbed the steep ascent of heaven
Through peril, toil, and pain:
O God, to us may grace be given
To follow in their train. —Heber

When conviction runs deep, courage rises to sustain it.

It is in God's Hands

The world was horrified when Chechen rebels massacred hundreds of people held hostage in a school in Beslan, Russia. Many of the victims were children, including six belonging to the two Totiev brothers, who are active in Christian ministry.

One of the brothers reacted in a way that most of us would have a hard time choosing. He said, "Yes, we have an irreplaceable loss, but we cannot take revenge." He believes what the Lord says, as recorded in Romans 12:19, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay."

Some of us have difficulty getting rid of bitterness about small slights, to say nothing of major offenses like this family faced. Totiev's attitude lets go of bitterness and doesn't seek revenge. It abhors what is evil (v.9), but doesn't repay evil for evil (v.17). What a difference there would be in marriages, families, churches, and in all our relationships if by the Holy Spirit's enablement we were filled with a Christlike attitude that puts in God's hands the injustices done to us.

Why not pause right now and search your heart. If there is any bitterness toward another or a desire for revenge, ask the Holy Spirit to help you not to be "overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (v.21). —Vernon Grounds

Search me, O God, and know my heart today!
Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts I pray.
See if there be some wicked way in me;
Cleanse me from every sin, and set me free. —Orr

Someday the scales of justice will be perfectly balanced.
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The weekend awaits....time to go to bed....Scruffy is already snoring.

Reverence

Good weekend. Retreat Friday-Saturday, Kelli in on Saturday evening--heat was not working so we started a fire and sat before it and listened to a tape from the retreat. Tape was good and the fact that we needed heat was even better--I love this time of year.
Church on Sunday-which I almost didn't go to--so glad I did. Sunday night we started the billard league--I really liked it. They play "9" ball which is different from what I played years ago ut it is fun.

Would have liked to sleep longer this morning.

Dentist tomorrow at 7:30AM!! Joy joy.


It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him.
--Deuteronomy 13:4
New International Version

THOUGHTS ABOUT TODAY'S VERSE...
So many people want us to follow their lead and obey their voice. But God has proved himself faithful and loving through the ages. In his might he is to be revered. But rather than seeing reverence as a "church thing," we are reminded by Moses it is a "life thing." We are to obey and keep his commandments, and we are to serve him and depend upon him in our daily lives. Rather than silence in the assembly, reverence is action to his glory!

MY PRAYER...
Holy and Righteous Father, help me take my worship outside the church building into my day to day life as I try to live what I sing, practice what I say, and pursue what I pray. In Jesus name. Amen.

Time

I have entirely too much time that I am not putting to good use. I procrastinate. There are things to be done but I need this extra push to get started.

Going to go to my Mom's this weekend.

Good morning world!