What's going on...

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

I really didn't mean to take a break on the Friday Faithfuls...but there's just been stuff going on.

Easter, of course, puts a capital on Busy, even with no church costuming to do.  

But the real truth is...The Flute Player is moving to Florida in the immediate future and I have honestly been spending Fridays with her as much as possible.  Her hubby has been tapped to be the preschool lead at Berkley Chapel in Auburndale; he's going to be on the church staff.  It's a great opportunity...but it is a freaking 12 hour drive.  Oy.  So I've been hanging with her while we have the chance, because it's gonna be a minute until we see them again.  Like, quite possibly, Christmas.

Plus I have kinda been dragging through Jeremiah.  I've just gotten caught up in the narrative and failed utterly to skim through it fast.  Jeremiah is one of the most heartbreaking books in the Bible...God repeatedly calling the people to repentance to stave off the coming judgement, and they repeatedly refuse to even acknowledge the invitation.  

I see today in Jeremiah every time I venture in...

I may not get back to it for a week or two, but...it will pick back up.

He Is Risen!

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Christ is risen indeed!

The Garden Tomb, Jerusalem.

I hope you have had an opportunity to celebrate Resurrection Sunday!  

I think we celebrate Easter and kinda forget that, you know, Jesus actually did come out of the grave.  We have so much mythology in our culture...Greek, Roman, Norse...that I think it gets easy for us to, well, not exactly put the narrative of Jesus on that level, but yeah, put the miraculous of the narrative on that level.  2000 years later, it's easy to let the story of the Resurrection become a story instead of history.

If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith....And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins...If only for this life we have hope in Christ, then we are to be pitied more than all men. -- 1 Cor. 15:14, 16, 19, NIV 84

If it didn't happen, Christianity is a farce at the best and a tragic hoax at the worst.

But.  It really happened. We have eyewitness accounts. 

Two seasons of the year always leave me in awe...Christmas and Easter.  Because it overwhelms me to think he would actually leave his existence in glory to take on the existence of a human...but beyond that, being born as a human, growing up subject to humans, and walking amongst humans who refused to see Truth when it was standing in front of them.  And then to go beyond that and submitting to the arrest, trial, abuse, and crucifixion by those same blind stupid humans.  He didn't have to, you know.

But he did it.  Because that was the only way to reconcile mankind back to himself.  

Because he truly loves us.

Friday Faithfuls Two: Isaiah

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

So our little skim through the Bible looking for a 'verse of the week' brings us to the Major Prophets...and the book of Isaiah.

It takes a minute to skim through Isaiah, lol.#secondlongestbookinthebible

But it is full of truth that we all should know.  If you read one chapter a day, it will take you just a little over two months to read through the book of Isaiah...and if you don't already have a reading plan, or if you're looking for the next one...Isaiah is worth considering.

We basically have two interwoven themes...the judgment coming upon those who reject God and his commandments, and the promise of deliverance to those who are faithful.

It wasn't a very successful 'skim' through, lol...I kept stopping and reading.  So  it took longer than I had anticipated, lol.  I actually jotted down about 8 different passages that caught my eye and tugged at my spirit; some were warnings, some were promises...a smattering from both themes.  

I thought about listing them all, but finally decided on 43:1 - 3:

But now, this is what the LORD says -- he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.  When you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.  When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze."

The thing that struck me as I read this...God never said there would be no river to cross or fire to go through, but he did say that, as threatening as those things appear, they would do no critical harm.

Also...verse 1 opens the first episode of The Chosen.  You have seen at least some...right? ;-)

Something else that's worth a look.

Friday Faithfuls Two: Song of Solomon

 Posted  by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

I skimmed through Songs and found a verse that intrigued me...then discovered it was translated just differently enough in other translations to change what I thought it meant, so I pulled up the Blue Letter Bible site to check the interlinear/ Strong's dictionary and, whoa, that Hebrew is beyond my puny level of comprehension.  It has several untranslated Hebrew words that have no equivalent in English because they just indicate something about the structure of the sentence.

Anyway, over my  head on that one, so back to 1:1 for another skim through, lol. So I picked a verse that had been referenced by one of our associate pastors who spoke Sunday morning.

Who is this coming up from the desert leaning on her lover? -- SoS 8:5

He referenced it in a discussion of what happens when one wrestles through something with God...it leaves  a limp as a recognition that we cannot function on our own...we have to lean on Him...and he referenced SoS 8:5.

So many things happening on so many levels has convinced me that the root of the human nature is to insist on doing things independently of God, attempting to be self-sufficient, self-made, out from under God's authority and instruction, defying him in big ways and small ways in the process.

A humble limp,  a daily reminder of who God is...and who isn't God...is a small exchange to discover the privilege of leaning on the One Who Loves...me.

Sigh....

We must all update the computer at some time and this is the weekend for a new update for us.  

 We bought the computer on a Black Friday discount last November, lol, and it's been waiting for us to get around to doing the ugly process of uploading.  Which is now proceeding at something of a snail's pace.

I've already discovered that my bookmarks did not make the jump to to the new device.  Don't ask.

We've also had to upgrade the office subscription.  Gee, back in the day, it lived on the computer.   Then we had a home version that we all had access to. Now the rate is higher if more than account on the home computer is going to be using any office tools. (deliberately leaving off the name of the window company responsible).  Mayhap we should have just maintained one user and logged in/out of the browsers and such whenever we changed users.  Or maybe it's worth $50 a year to NOT have to do that...

Anyway, at least I have the work laptop that has a FEW of my most-used links identified, lol.

So that means I will be tracking down and resaving as many of my favorite hangouts as possible.  

And having to re-log in.  And re-verify.  And...and...

So, no regularly scheduled blog post today.  Hopefully I'll be back to normal next week.

Just an opportunity to exercise the fruit of patience....and a bit of kindness and forgiveness too, lol.

In view of the devastation others are facing, a few lost bookmarks is a ridiculous petty thing to complain about.

 

Friday Faithfuls Two: Ecclesiastes

 posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

 Ok, I know it's Saturday; better late than skipping the week, eh?  Yesterday straight up got away from me...

Or, you know, maybe I was subconsciously avoiding one of the gloomiest books in the whole Bible.  Written by Solomon in his later years, after he had tried to figure out What Life Is All About from a humanistic standpoint.

He failed.  He found everything...everything...to be a waste of time, with no real satisfaction.  Pleasure, wealth, influence, knowledge...all of it.

The verse that hit home this week is his conclusion.

Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter:  Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.  For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. -- Ecc. 12:13 -14.

Solomon kinda messed up on his 'fear God and keep his commandments' conclusion; he had pretty much abandoned the commandments of God in his search for satisfaction in life.  After starting off so well, with two personal visitations, he still did not seek his satisfaction in God but looked pretty much everywhere else...only to come back to it in his old age and realize that was where it would have been all along.

If we collectively took that lesson to heart there would be a lot less grief in the world...but it runs counter to everything the culture endorses. 

 

Friday Faithfuls Two: Proverbs

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Proverbs.  

How on EARTH does one select ONE Timely Verse from Proverbs, which is a collection of Timely Verses?

I know, I set myself this challenge so I shouldn't complain about it, lol.  

So... in my quick skim through Proverbs, I encountered several verses that I really  hadn't pondered before, and almost chose one of them...but in the end, I decided to go a foundational bit...

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.  -- Prov. 3: 5-6, NIV 84

This was the theme scripture for the high school girls class I taught back in the day, so it's pretty ingrained.  But it is SO counter-intuitive.

We want to figure things out.  We want to know the 'why' for everything.

But knowing the 'why' makes life a question of reason, not faith.  And there are some 'whys' that are absolutely beyond our comprehension.

God says...trust him, even if we can't imagine a legitimate 'why'.  Even if we don't see 'how'.  Even if it doesn't make sense.

Because he sees EVERYTHING.  From the beginning to the end.  He knows stuff we don't know...can't know.  Even if he told us, we wouldn't get it.

When the one who Knows Stuff says 'Trust me', it actually DOES make sense to acknowledge that I *don't*  Know Stuff and trust him.