Techie update

I think I have solved the e-mail dilemma. Notice the e-mail logo at the right, which, when clicked, should start you on the e-mail process. It's more complicated than I expected, and here's where I got started on the process: http://blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-put-clickable-picture-in.html

His instructions aren't perfect but I figured them out and if you get stuck, e-mail me and I'll try to share more specifically what I did.

Friday Five: the Compassion of Jesus

Five instances of Jesus' tenderness to people:

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Matt 9:36

Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.

Matt 20:34

Jesus wept.

Then the Jews said,

"See how he loved him!"

John 11:35-36

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

2 Cor 8:9

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin.

Heb 4:15

Techno question

I'd like to add my e-mail address to the sidebar of this blog. I haven't figured out how to do it so that it will automatically open an e-mail compose window. Can you help me? This seems like it should be very easy but I'm stumped. Here's my e-mail to send instructions: sumballo@gmail.com Thank you in advance!

Nostalgia revisited

I’m not a real nostalgic person, although I’m re-thinking that position a little.

I learned to look ahead at my mother’s knee. She spent most of my childhood trying to forget that she’d hatched me.

Actually, that’s not true. She was a saint, persevering through those early years when I was the strong-willed child that Dr. Dobson warned – er, wrote – about. I knew at age 2 that I was more stubborn than she was. I eventually learned I was wrong but it took a while.

Once, when my three younger siblings were roaring about the house with lots of noise and flying objects, my mother sighed. “If only I’d just one….” Then she glanced at me. “But that would have been you.”

Another time, I confronted her: “If I was really that bad, why’d you have more kids?” She smiled, “I knew it couldn’t get any worse.”

When my first-born was a little tyke, I’d call her up. “Mom, she was dancing naked in a mud puddle today!” And my mother laughed and laughed. And laughed.

I thought I heard in her gasp, “Payback!” but I’m not sure about that.

I mean, I never danced naked in a mud puddle. I fed bobby pins to my baby brother instead. I asked Mom at age 7, “How come you don’t like me?” and she replied, “Oh, I like you OK. I don’t like the stuff you do.”

The reason I share this is because it’s important to my walk with Jesus. When I think I should polish up my Christian crown a little, I can look back. I didn’t start this life as a saint and it’s only by God’s incredible grace that I’m where I am.

I was in a black sludge-filled sewer pond when he reached out his hand and offered me a lift. It’s only when I remember who I was before Jesus, and who he is as my rescuer, that I’m a lot more humble and lot less about polishing any crowns.

So I’m not real nostalgic, except to remember my redemption. Then, humility is the order of the day.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

John 8:32

The Divine Warrior's victories

Happy Independence Day!

After God had swiftly wiped out the powerful army of the Pharaoh, Moses led the people of Israel in a joyous celebration of the victory. In the victory chant, they named God as warrior. The LORD is a warrior. (Ex 15:3)

The Divine Warrior theme is threaded throughout the Old Testament. Sometimes the victory was clearly God’s alone, like at the Red Sea or Jericho’s wall. Other times, he used people. Gideon and David both had to do more than watch, but their victories clearly belonged to God as well.

There was no doubt for ancient Hebrews that God was their warrior, winning battles for them. Often he freed them from the oppression of other nations. Their independence as a nation depended on God’s divine hand.

My daughter and I just re-watched the movie The Patriot with its rich landscapes and grisly war scenes. This patriot army of farmers had shortages of most everything except their fierce dedication to freedom. They gripped the idea that their Creator had given them inalienable rights (Here’s the complete text of the Declaration of Independence). It was impossible for this mottled group to defeat – or even slow – the proud and disciplined British troops. Yet the vision of freedom, of self-government, prodded them forward. Many died so that others could live in freedom.

We enjoy that heritage today, of freedom and democracy patterned on God’s provision. The cliché must be repeated: freedom isn’t free.

But as followers of Jesus, we can cut this another way. We can celebrate the victory of the Divine Warrior, when God honored the desire of a people to be free. Might we say that our independence as a nation depends on God’s divine hand?

I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously…

Ex 15:1

Dive in

Corn ears were rustling outside my bedroom window this morning. Baby goats were searching for their mamas and a pickup rumbled down the dusty road to check his irrigation water.

I’m a Colorado farm girl. That means that on my morning walk, when I see a freshly-mown alfalfa field studded with trussed-up round bales of hay, I rejoice in God’s grace. Watching a newborn calf stumble on rubbery legs as it searches for its mama and its first meal reminds me of hungering after God’s Word.

What it means is that the agricultural metaphors in the Bible make sense to me. I’ve handled sheep and watched wheat harvested.

My friend is a city girl. Recently we read Jesus’ words about his yoke (Matt. 11:29) and she was stumped. What was a yoke? How could it be easy? The agricultural analogy didn’t work as well for her, but she understood instantly many implications from the Good Samaritan story. She knew about muggings and gang attacks. She probably understood the Samaritan’s fear better than I did.

An analogy draws a comparison, assuming that if some things are similar, others are as well. The Bible is packed with them.

When God calls himself our heavenly father, he is comparing himself with an early father. We understand something about the nature of a father – his leadership, his care, his creative potency – and can apply what we know to what we don’t understand: the divine. It’s a limited analogy, of course, for no father is perfect like God is, and some don’t display the very traits that are complete in God.

All analogies are limited; none are absolute. But God has hardwired into us the ability to understand words and analogies. He created us for communication with him and he uses words to help us understand what is cannot be know through our natural senses. How do we describe God apart from analogies? Our descriptions are comparisons.

Many of the analogies in the Bible are drawn for the specific audience. Jesus used agricultural comparisons when he spoke to farmers. He shifted to legal comparisons when he spoke to scribes. Paul used philosophical terminology with the thinkers in Athens and terms of power when confronting the magicians and shamans in Ephesus.

Our challenge today is not to be limited to our own comparisons. My friend may not know what a yoke is, but she can learn. I may not fully comprehend the tensions of the Jews and Samaritans in the first century, but I can learn.

Unpacking the Bible takes effort. But if we know that it is God’s method of expressing his nature, we will get to work. Let’s dive in!

(Note: I am hoping that this article is the first of a weekly series about digging deeper into the Word. Please leave a comment or e-mail me if this would be helpful. I hope to discuss many tools we can use in unpacking Scripture and your input is very valuable.)

Dancing with the King

We danced last night. This is not unusual except we hadn’t before. We were at a wedding, the reception under the clear country stars and the music familiar. So we gave it a try, laughing at ourselves and remembering our last dance – in junior high school – and definitely not with each other.

After 17 years of marriage, there wasn’t a fear of stepping on each other’s toes. We’ve done that before. There was instead the freedom to remember the eighth grade embarrassments, the girlfriend he’d invited to the dance floor, the boys who hadn’t grown tall enough yet for me.

God created marriage before sin entered the world; it is not an idea flowing from the fall but flowing from the Creator. God’s original plan for union between a man and a woman involved two sinless people. Notice, however, that he did not nullify marriage once sin marred the Garden. Apparently it is possible to pursue a union involving two sinful people. (Whew)

Marriage is the supreme metaphor for the relationship between God and believer. In the Old Testament, idolatry was paralleled with adultery and, in the New Testament, believers are called the bride of Christ.

God makes covenants. He initiates them and he keeps them to a thousand generations. The covenant of marriage is a natural image of our relationship with God. The very idea of two becoming one is mysterious in reference to a man and woman, but even more mysterious when we think about joining our hearts to the Divine.

Marriage between a man and a woman is never perfect. There’s often stepping on toes. But it gives us a veiled image of the divine idea for union with God: one of love, covenant, provision, passion and uniting.

We are privileged to enjoy the metaphor of marriage – that dance with our spouse – and we plumb the image of dancing as bride of our Savior and our Lord. What a waltz!

I pledged myself to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine.

Ezek 16:8