Back when I was a kid, I would hear the words of Jesus telling us to love our enemies and pray for those who hurt us and wonder . . . do I have enemies? Did the popular girls at school who seemed to be snearing at me all the time count as enemies? How about the teachers who kept insisting that I do my … Continue reading Making the Most of an Enemy
One day – hopefully soon – I will write a post which is all “God is great! He has lifted me from the pit!” but I’m not there just yet. And I’m guessing that more than a few of you aren’t either. I feel like I’m in that spot just after the darkest point of the night when hints of a coming sunrise lighten the … Continue reading Can God Do What He Says He Will?
“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate . . . even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.” ~ Luke 14:26 “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life of the ages.” ~ John 12:25 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, … Continue reading Hating Life
This is a post I don’t really want to write. It’s a bit too personal. It might make me sound like a crazy person. Not that I haven’t gotten too personal our outed myself as nuts many times before. But normally I would keep this one to myself. Except I’ve had several reminders in the last few days that many of you have been walking … Continue reading Laboring for Jesus
Many research telescopes have lenses made up of multiple mirrors. Each individual mirror must be pointed in exactly the right direction to focus the light they gather into a clear picture. By using many smaller mirrors, telescope lenses can be made much more economically and much larger than is possible with a single, large lens. The only drawback is that if one of the mirrors … Continue reading Why We Sin
I’ve been doing some pretty heavy-duty repenting lately. Like actually going to God and saying, “I reject and repent of this.” No, I hadn’t taken up drug use or prostitution or started walking around my yard naked or anything. Rather I had become a double minded man, er, woman.
What is a “double minded man”, you ask? James 1 explains the it and its dangers this way:
If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and they are unstable in everything they do. ~ James 1: 5-8
I suspect that all of us are double minded in some way or another, but what had happened in my case was this. First, as a teen I followed the instructions of scriptures and positively begged God for the gift of wisdom. Which like all such prayers is foolishness which is guaranteed to make you miserable. But Jesus said that we needed to pick up our crosses to follow him, so whatevs. And for a long time, I stood firm in the wisdom God gave me. Not perfectly, of course. But I knew what I knew from God and didn’t worry too much about results and wasn’t swayed by people’s disagreement or disapproval.
The problem is that when you are following God’s ways, it does have a tendency to put you into conflict with the world around you. People are totally fine with you having your crazy holy-roller ways right up to the point that it racks up costs in money or prestige or comfort. Then you are supposed to get practical and make smart decisions rather than just trusting on God to provide.
If a man mints many coins from one mould, they are all alike, but the Holy One, blessed be He, fashioned all men in the mould of the first man, and not one resembles the other. ~ Babylonian Talmud
I am not the first to say it, nor is this the first or last time I will say it, but one of the foundational errors of most Christian theology is that it begins with the fall of man rather than with our creation. When we start with the fall, we ground our identity and understanding of ourselves in sin and brokenness. And the Christian walk which comes out of this foundation is duly oriented to this sin and brokenness. But this is a grave error. The story of you and me and every human being ever doesn’t begin with the fall, but with an almost breath-taking premise: that we are made in the very image of God. This is reality. It is who we are. It is our true identity.
If we believe that we are defined by our sin and brokenness, then the claim that who we actually are is the very image of a mighty, loving God is absolutely scandalous. “Oh no,” we say, “I’m merely a sinner saved by grace. A lowly worm in whom there is no good thing. I am nothing and God is everything.” But go back and read your bible from the beginning. God’s purposes are clear and no where have they been changed or removed: “Let us make man in our own image.” If we are not in reality the very image of God, then God’s work has been destroyed, The enemy has stolen what belong to God and taken it for himself. God is not an all powerful, victorious God if we aren’t walking, talking, living, breathing images of God.
The problem we have – and which scripture makes clear – is that we do sin and others sin against us. Continue reading “Who Are We? (Your Answer is Probably Wrong)”
The man picked up the beautiful diamond and carried it out into the bright light of the sun. The diamond had not experienced the unfiltered light of the sun since that brief moment it was falling from the sky so long ago. Now the diamond found the intense light shining on it too much to bear. It was too bright and too hot after the cocoon of darkness the diamond has resided in for so long. Sensing the diamond’s distress, the man carried the diamond to a spot under a tree and set it down.
“You need to rest. Let the sun warm you and the breeze refresh you. Watch the animals and learn from them. The passing clouds will bring cleansing rains. There is nothing to fear here. And when you are ready, come and join me walking in the light.”
The diamond could hardly take in the man’s words. Without the muting of water or the covering of filth it was accustomed to, the words seemed to boom painfully loud. As had become its habit, the diamond panicked. Did the man really mean to leave it here alone, exposed to the dangers of the world around it? Did he not know that an animal might eat it as had happened before? That a great gust of wind could blow it away? Was he not worried that it might drown in the rain? And what was this nonsense about walking in the light? How can a lump go walking about like a man? Continue reading “The Diamond and The Bride – Pt 2”
Once there was a diamond dropped from the sky. As it fell, a large crow swept down and knocked the diamond off its course and into some water. The diamond landed on the soft bottom of the pond and panicked, “oh no! I don’t belong in the water! Some fish will see me and eat me and then all will be lost.” So the diamond began to gather moss to itself, in the hope that it would provide camouflage so it could remain hidden and unnoticed in its sad, watery home.
The moss grew on the diamond and soon small fish began to come nibble at it. Some days it seemed that the diamond could hardly gather moss around itself quickly enough to replace what was eaten away each day. Every day was filled with anxiety.
One day, while the little fish were nibbling away at the diamond’s mossy covering, a much larger fish came along. He dove in to take one of the little fish for a snack and swallowed the diamond in the process. The diamond again began to panic. “I don’t belong in a big fish! How will ever get out? At least before, I could spend my days in one comfortable spot. Who knows where this big fish will carry me off to?”
In desperation, the diamond began trying to get back out the way it had come in. Soon, it was lodged in the large fish’s throat, causing the fish great discomfort. As the fish thrashed about trying to dislodge the lump in its throat, it became unmindful and swam too near the surface. An eagle circling high above swooped down and grabbed hold of the fish, carrying it back to its high perch in a tree.
The diamond, who had been hoping only to be regurgitated back near where it had been taken from, sensed itself being lifted higher and higher. “Oh no! I knew that being eaten by a big fish was a disaster. Who knows where I am being carried off to. If only that crow hadn’t knocked me off course, none of this would have happened.” Continue reading “The Diamond and The Bride Pt 1”
In Trotter family lore, the years of 2010-2012 will go down as the time of the great breaking. Because everything we owned broke. In a relatively short period of time we had a TV, a VCR, three DVD players, two cars, 4 kitchen chairs, our refrigerator, dishwasher, dryer, washing machine, nearly all of our plates and glasses, a kindle, two laptops, a business and what little was left of our financial stability break. (I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things.) It got so bad that one day I went to take a drink of my coffee and the handle of the coffee mug I was using broke off in my hand. Seriously. We just started laughing about it after a while.
It was also the period when my marriage broke and my husband and I separated for about 7 months. So, lots of breaking.
When events pile up like that, it’s often not a coincidence. There’s a reason for it. (For the record, our house was only 7 years old and one of the laptops was just over a year old. This wasn’t simply a matter of things just getting worn out and breaking.) While we were separated my husband actually prayed about why everything we owned was breaking. He came back to me with what he believed he had been told. The reason things were breaking, he said, was because he had been the glue holding our material world together. When he left (or at least checked out), there was no glue left to keep everything from breaking.
When he told me that, almost without thinking, I blurted out, “but I don’t want broken shit that needs glue to keep it from falling apart!”
Now, glue has its uses. If nothing else, it can be a stop-gap to hold broken things together for a while longer. But it’s not a permanent solution. Things are always weaker at the spot where the glue is holding it together. And it can’t do anything to keep the next break in a different spot from happening. Duct tape may hold the world together, but eventually, broken things need replacing.
It seems to me that humanity has been depending on glue to hold everything together for a long time. We’re broken and our world is broken, so we just keep gobbing on the glue. We want money so it can hold everything together for us. We fight wars and each other, thinking that will preserve us. We lie and cut corners to cover the gaps between what is and what we need it to be. We lose our tempers, use intimidation and control others to keep them from tearing our world apart. We seek pleasure and comfort to fill in the breaks in our souls. We hold grudges and see others as enemies to shore up the weak spots where previous breaks have occurred. And we pass on the glue from generation to generation.
When God tells us to do something – not worry about money, not judge, love freely, give up our lives – we say “that’s nice” and go right on playing with our paste. Continue reading “Let’s Stop With the Glue Already!”
The Upside Down World 