Full

I read an excellent poem printed in Devozine:

God fills
our cup full
and running over,
not so
we can boast 
or measure,
but so
we can spill over
into the lives
of others.

The imagery struck me...have you ever filled a bucket full to overflowing? The water rushes over the sides...not in precise measured amounts. You cannot control where it goes. It splashes wherever it wants. If we allow God to fill our cup to overflowing, think of the lives we will touch, lives beyond our control. How many others can we reach and refresh with God's life giving love?

I Am....

Beloved

There is a very loud, consistent and powerful message, coming to us from our world, that leads us to believe that we must prove our belovedness...by how we look, what we have, what we can accomplish, etc. It is unfortunate that we are so very slow to grasp the liberating truth of our origins. 

Life is a gift. We are each unique, we are known by name and are loved by the very One who fashioned us. Why is it we allow the "voice" of our world to drown out the "still, small Voice" of the One who loves us best?

Beloved

In the midst of the extreme, sometimes painful, reality in which many of us live, we must teach ourselves to continually reclaim the truth that we are God's chosen ones. Even if it "feels" like our world does not choose us. As long as we allow our choseness to be determined by everyone who surrounds us but God, we will be suffocated by the agenda of others.

If we are the chosen of God, how do we claim it? Live it? One step is to affirm ourselves daily with the words that Jesus heard from above..."You are my beloved. With you I am well pleased." 

God loves us wherever we are in our walk with Him. He needs no convincing. We speak these words to convince ourselves that this unbelievable, unimaginable gift is ours. Everyday.

In the house of God's love

"When we enter the household of God, we come to realize that the fragmentation of humanity and its agony grow from the false supposition that all human beings have to fight for their right to be appreciated and loved. In the house of God's love we come to see with new eyes and hear with new ears and thus recognize that all people, whatever their race, religion, sex, wealth, intelligence or background, belong to that same house. God's house has no dividing walls or closed doors. "I am the door", Jesus says, "Anyone who enters through me will be safe" (John 10:9). The more fully we enter into the house of love, the more clearly we see that we are there together with all humanity and that in and through Christ we are brothers and sisters, members of one family."

                                                                               Henri Nouwen

God is ever-greater

How small that is, with which we wrestle,
What wrestles with us, how immense;
Were we to let ourselves, the way things do,
Be conquered thus by the great storm-
We would become far-reaching and nameless.
What we triumph over is the small,
And the success itself makes us small.
The eternal and unexampled
Will not be bent by us.
This is the Angel, who appeared
To the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
When his opponent's sinews
In that contest stretch like metal,
He feels them under his fingers
Like strings making deep melodies.

Whomever this Angel overcame
(who so often declined the fight)
He walks erect and justified
And great from that hard hand
Which, as if sculpting, nestled round him.
Winning does not tempt him.
His growth is this: to be
Deeply defeated by the ever-greater One.
Excerpt from Ranier Maria Rilke, "The Man Watching," translated by Edward Snow in The Book of Images. 

God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand. If you understand, you have failed.
  St. Augustine

A sign

And if you're perspective is out of whack...

Perhaps you need a sign!

Perspective

If you cannot see God in your life,

Perhaps it's your perspective...

Clearing the path, to God

There's an old saying that tells us "the longest journey we ever undertake is between the head and the heart". The path to our hearts, is always cluttered and sometimes totally obscured. Like the seeds from the parable, weeds spring up way too easily and take over, if we do nothing to stop them. If we do not seek the truth and goodness that is God. The Apostle Paul reminds us..."what our head says we want, our actions contradict; what our hearts long for, our head refuses to attend to". We are blessed in the fact that God knows all about weeds and is a loving and tender gardener. It is His desire to clear the pathway. 

It is the very nature of man to seek love and knowledge so, therefore, it is the very nature of man to seek God. Knowledge without love cannot act and love without knowledge cannot know what is really good. Knowledge seeks the truth while God is ultimate truth. Love seeks good while God is infinite good. He is both truth and goodness.

His heart is waiting for ours to stop running, stop trying so hard, to stop focusing on externals. To just let go. When your days are filled with noise and the juggling of tasks and demands, when you face the daily decisions and stresses, when you face times of sorrow and despair remember He is in your head and in your heart.

A God with toes...

I have a God with toes. Isn't that amazing?

As I meditate, my own mother's heart begins to rev in high gear. I muse about the Babe of Bethlehem, born to Mother Mary and Joseph. I picture the delightful scene, where natural mother-love kisses the feet of her newborn. Oh yes! Kissing infant feet and lavishing love from head to toe! Of course, I'm only surmising here, but you get the picture; I can quickly recall my own joy in kissing and counting and adoring those "piggy toes" of my three children.

But these toes that I find in the chapel, once treasured by a young mother Mary, are now mature—and then I'm thinking of another woman.

Read the rest of this piece...

Angels and Archangels

I hope you've had the opportunity to watch the movie "Michael". While John Travolta's depiction of the Archangel may be a little irreverent at times, I'd like to think that it is a true showing of his nature. Michael
is an archangel in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic teachings. In Hebrew, Michael means "who is like God" (mi-who, ke-as or like, El-deity), which is traditionally interpreted as a rhetorical question: "Who is like God?" to imply that no one is like God. In this way, Michael is reinterpreted as a symbol of humility before God.

 In the Bible he is called "Prince of the first rank", an advocate of the Jews (Book of Daniel), a healer and protector (Book of Daniel) and as the leader of God's army (Book of Revelation).

One would hope that the writers of the movie had these things in mind when they wrote this scene:



as well as this one (dialogue in Italian)



Angels and Archangels do God's work, at His bidding and I for one am glad they do...

Google Images

I love checking out a friend of mines blog... Gavoweb. Gavin has been a great help in my years of Youth Ministry and is always available when I need him (thanks Gav!)...

He recently wrote a post concerning the Google Images of Faith...some of them include:

Worship

Baptism

Theology

Doctrine

These were added to whet your appetite...go check out the rest here...

Fare for the Soul

God be in your head, and in your understanding.
God be in your eyes, and in your looking.
God be in your mouth, and in speaking.
God be in your heart, and in your thinking.
God be at your end, and at your departing.
Sarum Liturgy, England 13th century

It goes along....

"the stakes for mankind have grown too high for any of us to engage our faith as if our understanding of God represents the only way God's presence may be known in the world." R. Kirby Godsey

This quote is from his new book "Is God a Christian?". I thought it interesting that I ran across this interview this morning considering the piece I wrote yesterday about the Bible. Add that to the book study I've been attending at church on "Love Wins" and it was too coincidental (and since I don't believe in coincidences) not to been mentioned.

I haven't read the book so I cannot give a review...suffice to say, I probably will read it...soon! The interview is certainly worth a few minutes of your time...

Worship and Prayer

A couple of videos from the people at Kore...they're short and worth your time!

Given

Being Given

Jesus is given to the world. He was chosen, blessed, and broken to be given. Jesus' life and death were a life and death for others. The Beloved Son of God, chosen from all eternity, was broken on the cross so that this one life could multiply and become food for people of all places and all times.

As God's beloved children we have to believe that our little lives, when lived as God's chosen and blessed children, are broken to be given to others. We too have to become bread for the world. When we live our brokenness under the blessing, our lives will continue to bear fruit from generation to generation. That is the story of the saints - they died, but they continue to be alive in the hearts of those who live after them - and it can be our story too.
Henri Nouwen

God is Love

"To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.

If therefore, I do anything or think anything or say anything or know anything that is not purely for the love of God, it cannot give me peace, or rest, or fulfillment, or joy.

To find love I must enter into the sanctuary where it is hidden, which is the mystery of God."

Thomas Merton

Daddy...

I ran across this and started not to watch...



As profound as this commercial is in and of itself, how much more so when you recall Matthew 7:11---"If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"

Snow Flakes

Many of us are "enjoying" winter weather much earlier than usual...snow in the mid-South in early December? Who ever heard of such! They say no two are the same...Behold the beauty of a snowflake by checking here

Math, Wow!

I am not one that is mathematically inclined but this is worth watching!