Holy Week 2019: Trust in the LORD! - Ps. 115

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

I am late with this post today...but I think I can squeak it in....


This Psalm points out something that I feel often...God, act, for your name's sake!  Bring glory to your name!  Don't let the heathen look at those who call your name and scoff, 'Where is your God?'

I look at situations and see SO MANY opportunities for God to show his might, his power.

But you know, the psalmist reminds us...God is in the heavens, and he does everything that pleases him.

Look at those folks who are scoffing, he says.  Their gods are wood and metal, made by men.  They can't do anything...and neither can the folks who put their trust in them.

But not so for those who put their trust in God.

Oh, Israel, trust in the LORD!  He is their help and their shield.  O house of Aaron, trust in the LORD! He is their help and their shield. You who fear the LORD,  trust in the LORD!  He is their help and their shield.

The LORD has remembered us; he will bless us; he will bless the house of Israel; he will bless the house of Aaron; he will bless those who fear the LORD, both the small and the great.  (vs. 9 - 13)

 
See what he did there?  The parallel thoughts?  Israel-house of Aaron- those who fear the Lord?  That emphasis will show up again.  The pagans don't have that kind of assurance.

We will bless the LORD from this time forth and forevermore.  Praise the LORD!

Holy Week 2019: Let the Earth Tremble - Ps. 114

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Let's see...what DID happen when Israel left Egypt?

Just off the top of my  head...

The Pillar of fire protected them from Pharaoh's  army
The wind blew all night and dried off the sea floor between walls of water
Bitter, undrinkable water was turned sweet and fresh
Manna appeared on the ground every morning
Water gushed from a rock
Quail dropped from the sky
The Mountain shook and thundered
The ground opened up and swallowed a bunch of rebels
A stick that had been dead and used for a walking staff suddenly flowered and produced almonds
The Jordan ceased flowing and dried up at flood stage

...I'm sure there's more that I'm not recollecting.

Nature itself came alongside the Hebrews as they journeyed from slavery, from 'a people of  a strange language' to the promise.

'Why?' the Psalmist asked.

Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob. - vs 7.

And [the Lord] said, 'My presence will go with you...' -- Ex. 33:14a

How could the earth itself not react to the very presence of the Creator who was accompanying His people?  Such a thing has not happened at any other time...not before or since.  God moving with and through and around and for His people, visible in the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud.

Yes, let the earth tremble.

Holy Week 2019: Hallelujah! - Ps.113

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Just out of curiosity, I googled 'The Hallel' and came across this recording:

ETA: HM.  The Youtube video icon was there when I hit post...dunno why it went away.  Here's the LINK

Very interesting! Listen and follow along in your favorite translation. This is the full text of the song sang at the opening of the Passover meal. There are several renditions recorded here, read by different readers.


I thought I'd take one Psalm each day of Holy Week and have a little look at it.  Just, you know, for focus.

So the first one up is Ps. 113.


It's just pure praise. 'Praise the LORD!' (in the recording, it's 'Hallelu Jah!')

Vs 1 - Who is to praise him...servants of the Lord

Vs 2 - 3  - When he is to be praised... from this moment throughout eternity...from sunrise to sunset

Vs 4 - 6  - Why he is to be praised ...He's above all nations, his glory is above the heavens; he is 
                 seated on high and looks down on the heavens and the earth; who else does that?

Vs. 7 - 9    What he has done that is praiseworthy...He raises the poor, lifts the needy, gives the barren
                woman her home and the joy of motherhood

Praise the Lord!

A Pause in the Busy

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

When you work in a church office, the holidays have a different impact on your life than the average church goer.

Logistics.  Plans.  How can we best facilitate folks who make a decision for Christ receiving encouragement and discipleship in their new journey?  How can we keep straight the dozens and dozens of folks who chose to be baptized in the massive baptism service two weeks later?

Nobody really cares about the numbers - and that is the truth - but we can't do any kind of meaningful follow up without some kind of tracking process.

Enter the data base admin.

That would be me.

As the church has grown and changed locations, what we used to do won't work.  So we need to tweak and adjust to accommodate growth.  It's a good problem to have, but it does need consideration and work.

And it's really, really easy to get consumed by the logistics and processes that are meant to help people...and lose sight of why we're doing it at all.

So this week, I got a bit of a blessing.  My friend Suzanne, who was my teaching leader years ago when I was going through Bible Study Fellowship,  has started doing monthly Bible studies.  She limits the size to fifteen...the number of ladies who can squeeze around the very large table at the venue she has found...and it's first come, first served on the sign ups.  This month's study was on the 4 cups of Passover...specifically, the four cups of the final Passover meal Jesus ate with his disciples, and I happened to see the sign up link shortly after she posted it.  It was during lunch and I hesitated, but then I decided I could just take a bit of a long lunch (the benefits of being a part-timer; my hours are somewhat flexible) and go, and I signed up.

I did not know how badly I needed to break away and take some time to focus on the whole point of the season. It was a wonderful, refreshing reminder of that last night and how it all played out.  Suzanne brings all the tools she learned in the years of leading the BSF class to her presentation and it's deep, provoking, and satisfying.

I did learn some things.  For one thing, the history of the  afikomen (I have referenced that before) wasn't quite how I had learned .... it appears that it was a much later addition to the meal, commemorating the Passover Lamb after the ritual sacrifices were no longer able to be done due to the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.  But...Jesus did the same thing with his bread that now happens with the afikomen; he broke it and everyone had a bit, and it was likely at the same place in the ritual of the evening...after the completion of the meal.    'Remember me when you eat this bread,' he said....and it is now eaten to remember the Passover Lamb.

Also, I learned that the meal began with singing psalms...specifically, Psalms 113-118, collectively known as 'The Hallel'...as a preparation of mind and spirit for the night.

Suzanne challenged us to spend some time in those Psalms during Holy Week, and I thought that was a great idea.

I am even going to try to blog it as I go.  We'll see if I can keep the Busy at bay enough to do coherent posts.

Oh, the Poor Neglected Beer Blog....

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi



I have thought often of posting in the past...month, gulp...but I have so many irons in the fire at the moment that I just couldn't capture the thoughts at the moment.

So I thought I'd give you a little update on something that started well over a year ago...

I am going to Israel at the end of next month.

Can I just pause a moment and let that sink in?  It just doesn't...compute....

It's another DIVE trip.  I went to the DIVE School back in 2014, when I was in a rather limbo spot.  It was an amazing week and was the first time I'd been away from home for that long without really feeling like I'd been gone forever. It went by so fast and I was getting so much poured into me that it felt like it existed outside of time.  And I got encouraged that I had songs to write.

So I came home with a personal challenge...there was a DIVE songwriting conference happening  about a year later, so I told myself if I could come up with one song a month in the next year I could go to that conference.

And I did it.  I had twelve songs on paper by the end of September 2015.  Some were pretty lame...er, needed more work...but there were two or three that I really thought had potential.  I went to the conference, shared the last song I wrote, really badly as 1)it's nearly outside of my vocal ability anyway and 2) it was a cappela and I need help staying in the same key and 3) I'm not accustomed to singing solo.  And the song, which I had such belief in, was judged 'dated'; someone said it sounded like an 80's rock opera.  ONE solitary person said she could imagine Jesus Culture doing it.  So it wasn't entirely shot down, lol, and there was an acknowledgement that there were some good phrases and word pictures in it.  But overall the result was, well, I can't sing good enough to share a song and I don't play an instrument and so, I need help.

I was encouraged to pick a few of the songs...maybe even just one...and share them with some folks on our ministry team at church.  Maybe even purchase some time from one of them in order to get a good critique on the song and some solid help in developing it.

But I'm not after writing songs for the Christian music industry; I wanted to write songs for our house.  What would be the point of investing money in a song that I'm not going to peddle elsewhere?  But I did share some of the songs with folks on our ministry team.

Crickets, y'all.  Crickets.

The songwriting, lacking any kind of demand on it, has kind of faded, although I have written one or two more and have bits and pieces of potential songs in my notebook.

But I was writing this thing on the blog about Transitions...and found myself wandering off into fictionalized versions of the stories.  I edited that out, well edited MOST of it out, of the posts and put it into files on the computer.

Then I started writing a piece about Sarah and Hagar.  I saw it as a two-woman play, with them each relating bits of their story in turn, but the rough story arc took on its own life and I'm not sure I have a play now.

And that's what I was working on in fall of 2017, when Rita announced she would take a tour group to Israel in May 2018.  I watched the promo video and thought, oh, in my dreams... and promptly forgot about it.  About 6 weeks later, in the choir room between services, one of the young ladies who had also been to Dive caught me. 'Are you going with Rita?' she asked.

Well, our head intercessor's first name is also Rita, so my immediate thought was that she was taking a group somewhere...maybe IHOP or something...but I hadn't heard about it.  Seeing my puzzled expression, my young friend added, 'To Israel?'

Oh, yeah.  That.  Ha, ha, I wish.

But it made me think and I came home and watched the promo video again.  And this time, when I watched it, Rita's vision of doing creative things rather than just jumping on the bus to go to the next spot hit me.  What if...I could stand where Abram stood looking over the Jordan Valley when he saw it full of sulpherous  smoke, wondering if Lot made it out alive?  Something jumped inside of me and I thought...this is my trip. And I signed up.

Well, it got postponed from last year to this year...but it's paid off, I have all my plane tickets and...it's going to happen.  The night before I purchased my tickets to get from the Rocket City to our departure point at JFK, I went through my DIVE cards again...the results of the prophetic exercise all DIVE classes do on Sunday.  I had forgotten the details of them, but there was one that had made us all laugh when I got it.

I quipped, 'Oh, maybe that's a date night w/ my hubby at PF Chang's,'  but the young lady that wrote that card caught me later and said, 'No.  I saw feet on the tarmac.  It's a trip.'

So after I booked the tickets I looked to see which continent Israel is considered to be in; the Middle East is 'Intracontinental' and is in Europe, Asia and Africa.  But Israel is considered to be in ...you guessed it...Asia.

So.  I'm going with no agenda, really, except to re-ignight the creative, which has fallen kind of asleep. And this is my prayer, which are the lyrics from the song I sang so badly at the songwriter's conference:

Can these dry bones live?  Can these dry bones live?
It's such a dismal sight -- bones all bleached and white
But the question comes to light, can they live?
Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord you know.

We prophesy to the dry bones, we prophesy to the dry bones
We prophesy, we prophesy, 
'Live, in Jesus' name! Live, in Jesus' name!  Live in Jesus' name!'
 Oh, oh, oh -- oh, oh, oh- oh, oh, oh, oh.

Can these dead dreams breathe?  Can these dead dreams breathe?
The spark has long grown cold, they're all stale and old
We have not been told, can they breathe?
Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord you know.

We prophesy to the dead dreams, We prophesy to the dead dreams
We prophesy, we prophesy, 
'Breathe, in Jesus' name!  Breathe, in Jesus' name!  Breathe, in Jesus' name!'
 Oh, oh, oh -- oh, oh, oh- oh, oh, oh, oh.

Can this mute hope sing?  Can this mute hope sing?
Its voice has long been gone, shutters closed and drawn
Forgotten every song, can it sing? 
Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord you know.

We prophesy to the mute hope, we prophesy to the mute hope
We prophesy, we prophesy,
'Sing, in Jesus' name!  Sing, in Jesus' name!  Sing, in Jesus' name!'
Oh, oh, oh -- oh, oh, oh- oh, oh, oh, oh.

We will live, we will breathe, we will hope in You
With Your life, Your breath, Your song!   (repeat ad lib)

Oh, oh, oh -- oh, oh, oh- oh, oh, oh, oh. 

Headcold Musings

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi.

So, sometimes, when I'm home with a bad case of the yukks (actually, I suspect it is a sinus infection and have an appointment in the morning), I overthink some things.

But I saw a photo posted on social media...it's not my picture, so I can't show it, but it was an image taken after the storms that ravaged southeastern Alabama Sunday.

It's a picture of a church.  The front wall...with pillars and steps and all...is still intact.

But the rest of the building is obliterated.

The person who took the photo took some comfort in the fact that the front of the church was still intact.

But that image froze my spirit.  Prophetic, I tell you, it's prophetic.

Front on, it looks like a church.

But walk through the door, and you are nowhere different from where you started.  Not a holy place. Not a sanctuary.  Just...more of the outside.

I have seen the word 'hate' thrown around a lot in reference to people who believe the church should be different than the outside, that being part of a church should mean following Jesus,  as he is recorded in the Bible, which is not the same as  following what one thinks Jesus would say or do now, based on what's popular and thought-well-of.

'Hate' is a negative word.  An aggressive word.  An obliterating word.

Which is not the position of people who feel that God has given us instructions on how we should live.  Who believe that people who claim to be followers of Jesus should take those instructions seriously.

Now, that's not to say that there are not people who have abused and overused and put their own spin on those instructions so that they end up being something entirely different than what was stated.  And that abuse has disenfranchised folks who should not have been disenfranchised.  It has covered over things that are downright criminal.  Fallen humans using a shroud of religion to advance their own agenda, not that of the kingdom.  So I get that anything that speaks of limits and boundaries and what is and is not acceptable might sound  like more of the same.

But it isn't.  There's just too much in Scripture that describes what it means to live as a follower of Christ.  I'm reading through Ephesians again as part of a class I'm teaching and, whoa, the whole second half of the book is about Christian lifestyle.   Just  a sample:

For of this you can be sure:  No immoral, impure or greedy person -- such a man is an idolater-- has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.  Let no one deceive you with empty words, because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them.   (Eph. 5: 5-7, NIV84).

Strong words.  But not hateful words.  Warning words.  But not threatening words. There is a difference.

Hate actively wishes destruction upon the hated.  To accuse someone of hatred where there is none is wrong.

A church with no walls is no church.  And I am not talking about buildings.  Walls are defining boundaries.  The intention is not to exclude what is without, but to guard what is within. And that is not hate, no matter what folks say about it.

Back to my kleenex box and hot tea....

Feeling a little Romans Chapter 7-ish

posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

We are all in this together...and ain't none of  us perfect.

Least of all, me.

So...whaddya do when you mess it up...again...

You own it.  Yes, I screwed up.  It was my fault.  I should/ should not have [whatever].

You make it right, if it's make-right-able.  Do what you can.  And if you can't...well, remember that one of God's promises is to repay.  You have to trust him...not to repay you, but to repay what you can't.

Learn from it.  What are the warning signs that could tip me off that I'm headed for that error again?  How can I stop before I trip over it...again?

Move on. Remember Romans 8:1 is next...Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are Christ Jesus. 

That's growth.  It's not pretty, and it's not fun.  It certainly encompasses confession and repentance. 

But, sooner or later...we all have to walk through it.

Some of us...more than once.

;-)