Category: Faith

Posted on in Book quotes, Challenge, Faith, Focus, Just do it, Listen, Look, Praise, Prayer, Rest, Spiritual discipline, Spiritual growth, Yield

Why Meditate on Scripture?

https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/biblical-meditation/ has a terrific article well worth your time to read. Here is part of it: Meditating on the Scriptures is vital practice for maturing in the Christian life. As one anonymous writer said, “The Bible is not meant merely to inform but to transform.” Throughout history, godly leaders have commended the transforming effects of meditation. Consider this beautiful description by Thomas Brooks, a seventeenth-century church leader:

Remember that it is not hasty reading but serious meditation on holy and heavenly truths, that makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the mere touching of the flower by the bee that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time on the flower that draws out the sweet. It is not he that reads most but he that meditates most that will prove to be the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest Christian.

I used to tell some fellow Bible students that I was not impressed if they could recite all the books of the Bible, even if they could recite those books in backwards order. To me the best accomplishment was if one could LIVE a single verse. I cannot attempt to come close to living a verse if I am unaware of the heart of God towards me. I get closer by trying to understand Hesed, loving kindness, mercy, grace and compassion. All of that for each of us. Knowing I can not do anything to make God love me more. Knowing God will never choose to love me less, motivates me to want to become more like Jesus. I have gained this knowledge from reading the Word of God, sitting with those concepts over decades, trusting to believe this even about myself.

Have you tried meditation? The practice has gotten a bad name from Christians who are motivated by fear. Understand that this is sometime that God has called us to throughout the Bible. Do your own study on the concept. Practice it a few times. Then try it a few more times. Be still and listen for the voice of the Lord to your heart and soul. I think you might find this a way to stir your soul into a deeper walk.

For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands, 7 for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1: 6-7 NRSVUE

The love and care God has extended to me has changed me as a person.

35 You have given me the shield of your salvation,
    and your right hand supported me,
    and your gentleness made me great.
36 You gave a wide place for my steps under me,
    and my feet did not slip. Psalm 18:35-36 ESV

What has your meditation on the Word of God done for you? Have you learned more about the character of God? Have you allowed the Spirit of God to make changes in you? What might the future hold if you made it your practice to meditate upon the Word and upon the character of the Trinity? Are you willing to give it a try?

Read and then spend sixty seconds of quiet in the Presence of the Living God. Then two minutes. Then five. Move along to ten as you are able. It truly is a practice. Not something we accomplish and then stop.

Posted on in Aging, Book quotes, Faith, Yield, Challenge, Listen, Worship, Trust, Obedience

Silence

ABBA Poemen was right. “Whatever troubles you

can be overcome by silence.”

Have you tried this wisdom for yourself? Take your troubles. Set them down. Surround them with silence. Let things unfold without your words. If need be, muzzle that situation or yourself. Are you willing to put a shroud of silence over the situation? You remember in the movies how the house that was to be left for a time had all the furniture covered with sheets? Cover your troubles with silence and leave them in the hands of God. “Overcome by silence.”

What of our current world and silence? I do not mean we should not speak out against injustice. I mean do we approach God with endless words and ideas and solutions? Are we willing to let God be in charge and have us be the servants, wielding no power or influence. A willing servant of the mercy of God?

There are times I know I just talk too much.

The desert fathers and mothers warn us about too much talk and not enough action. Is that us?

A word from an anonymous Mother of Father of the desert: An Abba said, “There is no need for a lot of words. Human beings have plenty to say for themselves in these days, but it is deeds which are needed. This is what God wants, not mere words which bear no fruits.” (2-4th centuries A.D. sound like 2026)

Holding our tongue, stopping our words, is one major form of humbling ourselves.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James 4:10NIV

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.1 Peter 5:6 NRSVUE

But the Lord is in his holy temple;
    let all the earth keep silence before him! Habakkuk 2:20 NRSVUE

As I walk through the final few days of this Lenten season I am more aware than ever of my need to humble myself before the Lord. My need to keep silence. My heart longs to go to the Convent or some place where I would not need to speak for more than a few minutes.

One of my favorite artists, Brandon Lake, wrote in his song Gratitude,

“All my words fall short
I got nothing new
How could I express
All my gratitude?

I could sing these songs
As I often do
But every song must end
And You never do.”

Even that is using words. The wise old man who went to church everyday and just sat looking at the Christ was right. “I looks at Him and He looks at me.” That is what I need right now, and always.

Posted on in Aging, Challenge, Faith, Focus, Illness and Health, medical treatment, Music, Obedience, Prayer, Rest, Surrender, Yield

Strength

Walking with my neighbors who are so ill has brought me to a new place of asking the Lord for strength. On Monday she and I sat through 2 hours of appointments with 3 different medical and financial persons in the Oncology office. She has decided she will forego treatment. Her pancreatic cancer is Stage 3. Stage 4 is when it moves to any other organ. With treatment there is only a small percentage of a chance to prolong her life. The pain of her death will be brutal, but the treatment would be brutal also. She will turn 83 in a few months. Now she is praying for courage to tell her husband who is still hospitalized and desperately ill. She said when she saw him over the weekend his legs were like tree trunks. She did not know skin could stretch so far. She has watched his treatment and declared she does not want to become like him. By the time you read this she will likely have told him.

It was difficult to sit with her through those appointments and watch her make her decision. I was exhausted last evening. This morning I read several things about strength and finding strength. I am praying that as you read this writing you will be strengthened in your life.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. 16 I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14-19 NRSVUE

“Grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit.” Yes, please Lord God my Father.

Help me truly be rooted and grounded in love. Help that love to overflow to all those around me who are in need.

“According to the riches of Your glory”, grant this I pray. Help me abide in the love of Christ.

Are you weary today? Perhaps soaking in the above Scriptures and this song will help to sustain you.

I first heard this song at a retreat. In times like this it comes back to me.

On February 4 and March 23 the selections from Amy Carmichael in Edges of His Ways were both about strength. This morning the selection from Just One Thing by Rick Hanson, phd was entitled Find Strength. He wrote:

Strength comes in many forms, including endurance, losing on the little things in order to win on the big ones, and restraint. Inner strength is not all or nothing. You can build it, just like muscle. Appreciate how your strength empowers your caring, protectiveness, and love. Tell yourself that you are strong. That you can endure, persist, cope, and prevail. That you are strong enough to hold your experience in awareness without being over whelmed. That the winds of life can blow, and blow hard, but you are a deeply rooted tree, and winds just make you even stronger. And when they are done blowing, there you still stand. Offering shade and shelter, flowers and fruit. Strong and lasting.

I will with God’s help.

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in him.
8 They will be like a tree planted by the water
    that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
    its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
    and never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8

Happy are those
    who do not follow the advice of the wicked
or take the path that sinners tread
    or sit in the seat of scoffers,
2 but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law they meditate day and night.
3 They are like trees
    planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
    and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper. Psalm 1:1-3 NRSVUE

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
    his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint
    and strengthens the powerless.
30 Even youths will faint and be weary,
    and the young will fall exhausted,
31 but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:28-31 NRSVUE

Posted on in Amazing Creations, Art, Challenge, Faith, Joy, Look, Memories, Prayer, Traveling, Trust

Forward Day by Day

This appeared in Forward Day by Day devotional. We sent it to our friends in New Mexico. They took us to this church to see the wonder of the staircase. None of us took photos that day as the postcards were spectacular. The photos here are from online.

THURSDAY, March 19      SAINT JOSEPH

Luke 2:48b. Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.

There is a legend that Saint Joseph built a staircase here in New Mexico. In Santa Fe, the Sisters of Loretto built their chapel with the blessing of Archbishop Lamy. When it was nearing completion, they realized there was no way to access the choir loft. According to the story, the sisters prayed to Saint Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters, and a stranger appeared. Working only with simple hand tools, this man built a spiral staircase with incredible technical precision and beauty. Carpenters to this day regard the staircase with awe. The man reportedly vanished when the stairway was finished, never accepting his pay.

Did Saint Joseph build the staircase? Many have debated, but as in the case of Joseph’s appearance in the gospels, the details are few. The question of faith also plays a role in the telling of the story. Rather than saying “Saint Joseph built it,” the story relies on the connection between the prayer and the mystery carpenter who arrived. It isn’t certainty but rather faith that has us reach out to God in our need and see God’s action in response.

MOVING FORWARD: Where could you use less certainty and more faith?

“a carpenter appeared with only a hammer and carpenter’s square. He built what is now known as the Miraculous Staircase with simple tools, wooden pegs and a rare wood that is not native to the American Southwest.” https://www.lorettochapel.com/our-story

Isn’t it just lovely?!? I always remember that Jesus was a carpenter, too!

Posted on in Aging, Faith, Humor, Joy, Thanks

Ginger Snap Soup

For years I have enjoyed two ginger snaps with my morning coffee. To me it is a delicious way to begin the day! I dip a ginger snap in my coffee and enjoy the flavor on my tongue. I take a sip of coffee. I dip another ginger snap and repeat the process. I usually buy Stauffer’s. They brag about being made with real ginger. I can have a couple as they have no frosting and are not likely to send my glucose soaring.

Recently Bob visited Trader Joe’s market where he picked up a tub of their Triple Ginger Snaps. Theirs are made with crystallized ginger, ginger puree, and ground ginger. Yum! We have enjoyed them before. He was disappointed when we opened them and it looked as if they had been dropped multiple times during shipping from California. I told him my friends say the broken ones have only half the calories. We were both content to eat some broken pieces. Mind you, not all of them were broken!

On a recent morning I made my coffee and got out the cookie tin. I grabbed a ginger snap and dunked it in my coffee. 80% of it disappeared into the coffee! Oh NO!! I had forgotten about the shipping damage. It had not looked broken, but obviously was. I got a tablespoon out of the drawer thinking I could get out the piece. Nope it was gone.

When I got to the bottom of my coffee cup later in the morning I was laughing that I had created Ginger Snap soup!

Do you have a recipe for ginger snap soup as easy as mine? Not likely to serve it to anyone but me!

Dunker Styles

Guess the photo defines me as a gone too far dunker! I am more careful now with these maybe broken, but not showing their cracks ginger snaps!

Posted on in Amazing Creations, Beagle, Faith, Humor, Nature

Trying to Keep the Skunks Away

The skunks love to come through our back yard. Somehow their mighty bad fragrance drifts into our bedroom windows. It literally is enough to gag me. So I went in search of a solution.

Online it said they do not like unexpected noises or lights. Well, I figured getting a motion sensitive light was too expensive to begin with. Mom always said that hanging “tin pans” (or now aluminum pie tins) would repel critters.

Tin pans tend to rust and we simply do not use them much any more. Not even certain I could buy one if I wanted to. Maybe I could try an empty vegetable can? Aluminum pans though come with all kinds of tasty treats like fruit pies from the bakery or crumb crusts from Keebler. I have been collecting them.

I moved two small shepherd hooks close to our bedroom window. I put out aluminum pans on yarn strings. Bob saw they needed to be anchored there so he added a wooden clamp clothes pin. The winds have been strong and relentless lately. The yarn wraps around the hook. The wind has even blown a pan off the string a time or two. I refuse to surrender to the stench of skunk.

At first the clacking of the pans bothered me, but then I would remember their purpose. Eventually the sound just became a song the wind played for us. And I am happy to report we have only had one skunk (that we know of) stinking up the yard!

Someone mentioned that the skunk sprays because we have a dog. I have to say I do not agree as the dog is rarely even allowed into the back yard! She is more than likely sunbathing on the cordoned off deck if she is out back.

The winds are gusty again today. I have restrung a pan for the hook. As soon as I can get out without freezing or being blown away I will hang it up again.

Wind is in many places in Scripture. Psalm 104 says God walks upon the wings of the wind. In Job 38 God answered Job out of the whirlwind. And John 3:8 says

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Listen for the wind. Avoid the skunks. Rest in the power of the Almighty God.

Posted on in Collection of Quotes, Faith, Joy, Listen, Obedience, Poetry, Spiritual discipline, Spiritual growth, Writing Life

Poetry by L’Engle

Years ago I read so many books by this wonderful writer! She created novels and poetry and my she was prolific! She died in 2007 and we still miss her influence and insights.

For Lent, 1966 by Madeleine L’Engle

It is my Lent to break my Lent,
To eat when I would fast,
To know when slender strength is spent,
Take shelter from the blast
When I would run with wind and rain,
To sleep when I would watch.
It is my Lent to smile at pain
But not ignore its touch.

It is my Lent to listen well
When I would be alone,
To talk when I would rather dwell
In silence, turn from none
Who call on me, to try to see
That what is truly meant
Is not my choice. If Christ’s I’d be
It’s thus I’ll keep my Lent.

This poem was published in our church bulletin a week or so ago. Some complicated ideas and some simple. How have you been doing keeping Lent? Some write that it is like a few days after January 1 when they abandon their ideas of New Year resolutions. Have you been enabled to keep a holy Lent? Were you able to stop gossiping? Forego dessert? Do anything that drew you closer to God?

Have you given yourself to Christ in such a way that that you abandon your choices and do what the Spirit shows you to do?

Posted on in Art, Book quotes, Challenge, Faith, Praise, Prayer, Spiritual discipline, Spiritual growth, Surrender, Trust

Grip not Gripe

I frequently think of a quote about the grip of God upon me. Then I do not remember where I read it, saw it, foudn it ….grr. Well, I came across it again last week. I suppose I need to make a poster or 8 x 10 of it and just put it on my wall!

Amy Carmichael wrote in The Edges of His Ways, March 15,

She says Rotherham translates Ephesians 1:19 According to the energy of the grasp of His might. She goes on to write, “It is not my grip of Christ, but Christ’s grip of me: said an old Scotswoman long ago. This is a great word for anyone who feels futile, but it is also a great word for us all. And I think of Paul so conscious of the greatness of his power (power whose lightest touch could have snapped his chains) that he could describe that power in heaped-up words of wonder. Yet he was so utterly content in his prison – so unoffended – that his Lord could use him to write deathless letters like this. What a God and what a servant! And He, Who made him what he was, is our God, even ours.”

That just makes me sit and want to read it over and over until I am saturated with the truth from it. You can read her book at this site https://archive.org/details/edgesofhiswaysse0000carm/page/38/mode/2up. It is also available at Olive Tree Bible Study https://www.olivetree.com/store/product/16733?internal_source=store_search&internal_source_id=product_list

I wish I had known the old Scotswoman, don’t you? Thank goodness her understanding of our Lord is recorded.

I want to be as content as Paul, whatever my condition in life.

 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:11-13 NIV

Content – not prone to gripe. Gripe is complain with grumbling. Yuck. Is that me?

We have a neighbor couple who are both desperately ill and there is no cure for either of them. Walking with them reminds me of when Bob almost died in 2018. And it also reminds me that even though I have chronic pain and things that plague my health, I am okay. I am not dying. As Rick Hanson, phd teaches, “I am okay right now. ” Never have Bob and I both been deathly ill at the same time. Our neighbor man is hospitalized and so worried about his wife who is losing strength and is only visiting every other day now. He does not like being away from her but he is still too sick to go home.

Could you be content in a similar situation? Could having interaction with these two remind you not to gripe? We too often feel entitled to gripe and complain. Yet we live in the richest nation on earth. Though the politics in our country has gone outside the bounds of decency we have previously encountered, we have many of our freedoms in tact. Can we practice contentment for one day? One full week? Perhaps a month? Could we follow Paul and learn so much about our God that there would be no room in our life and in our mouth for complaining and grumbling?

Perhaps you might want it give it a try? Lent continues until April 5. Maybe these would help you draw closer to God. Each time you hear yourself out loud or in your mind complaining and grumbling, draw close to God and be still. It could work wonders for your soul. We mostly resist any message about ourselves having sin and needing to be cleansed. However, that is true about each and every one of us. None of us has a pure and blameless heart.

Abba Arsenius said, “If we seek God, he will appear to us. If we grasp him, he will stay with us.”

7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. James 4: 7-10 NRSVUE

Posted on in Faith, Listen, Memories, Poetry, Spiritual discipline, Spiritual growth, Writing Life

Mockingbird

I wrote this in 2018. Now we live in a different neighborhood and a mockingbird comes occasionally. I hope it does not take residence here and stays 3 blocks over!

Mockingbird © Molly Lin Dutina 18-4-12

A mockingbird has moved into the neighborhood
More specifically our lot
When I awoke this morning he was using
Everyone else’s songs from our rooftop
Mostly a good imitation 
Yet, when I hear the actual individual birds
I realized it was just imitation
Not the rich variations that the actual singers give

The woods are full of spring songs
Bird after bird seeking a mate
Singing and flitting through the branches
(Or racing) each other
To impress the perfect mate

Mocking bird is like the enemy in my ear
Repeating phrases of accusation 
Condemnation and insult
No fresh life-giving inspiration
Such as the Holy Spirit brings

I’d like to shoot at this bird to scare it off our property
As a child there was one who attacked whenever
We tried to hang up the laundry or take it down
Now it is just annoying and incessant
Yet there are likely lessons to learn here

Listen carefully
Do not assume every repeated phrase is from God
Just like the Sheriff will never call and 
ask you for money over the phone
God speaks in that still, small voice
Not the raucous jack-hammer of a mockingbird 
Try to be still in the cacophony of that chorus
Quiet your soul and rest in the peace of His Presence


 “And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying: ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ. For the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down-he who accuses them day and night before our God.’” Revelation 12:10

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.  1 Kings 19: 11 b-12

Quiet your soul and rest in His Presence.

Posted on in Book quotes, Challenge, Faith, Focus, Listen, Look, Obedience, Prayer, Spiritual growth, Yield

Everyone

Today on the Calm app they quoted H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something.

I often tell people, “Remember we are all broken. Some just hide it better than others.”

We are not so unalike. I was recently asked to read my poem Called Forth from the Cave to a group. The stanza “We’ve got to touch, we’re not so unalike,” keeps ringing through my soul.

I first learned of Ubuntu through the book about Joy from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dali Lama.

“Ubuntu is a deeply rooted African philosophy that embodies the interconnectedness of humanity. Originating from Southern Africa, the term comes from the Bantu languages, often expressed as “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu”—meaning “a person is a person through other people.” This guiding principle emphasizes community over individuality, recognizing that our identities and actions are shaped by our relationships and interactions.”

We are interconnected whether we recognize it or not. We are all human beings. I had a license plate frame made that reads, “We are humankind. Be both, human and kind.” As wars rage on and unrest grips our country as well as so many places around the world it is more important now than ever before to remember our human link to others. In high school speech class the instructor reminded us to look at our audience as we spoke and remember they put on their underwear the same way we do, one leg at a time.

I challenge you today to remember the above truths. We need each other. We each need kindness. There are many things we can do to practice kindness with one another, even total strangers. Remember, if you see someone without a smile today, give them one of yours!