Rest

Return to your rest, O my soul,
For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
Ps. 116:7

Well friends and neighbors, my computer decided that it was time to take a rest. The Doctor of Data is dropping by this weekend to try and breathe life into Mr. Dell. Hope to be back to posting in about a week, so stay tuned. Think I'll recharge my batteries too. Find something to laugh at, and laugh heartily.

Mark
Prov. 17:22

Sign of the Times?

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.

The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

Isaiah 11:6-7


Not being any kind of expert on prophecy, I still had to wonder if Belle and Pepper (get it? "Bell-Pepper") might know something I don't know. Pepper-kitty 'chose' us about a year ago (who do you think fed her first?) and these two girls have been fast friends ever since. Belle, our 8 year old Golden and I have a date about every day after work, a neighborhood squirrel trail that keeps us both happy and healthy. I would highly recommend a pet to anyone, especially a homeless critter like Pep. Blessings!

Mark
Prov. 17:22
They do make my heart merry!

Snakes Alive!

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2

He threw his hand up quickly and I knew what that meant. Snake!
"Get my rifle, Mark," Bill said calmly as he climbed down off the tractor. I was following him on his 4-wheeler as we were coming out of the bottom pasture and up the sandy road. Bill dealt with the deadly serpent with a couple of quick shots to the head.

Bill is one of those rare individuals who can do just about anything he sets his mind to. Smart as a whip, he is a humble country man who I liked from the minute I met him. We have become fast friends and spend a good deal of time together during hunting season. He has been a great role model for SteveO, and I count it a real blessing to have him involved in his young life. My Mom attends church with his family, the type of folks who are the backbone of the goodness of the South. His work ethic shames me, as he will just show up at my folks' place with yard tools just to "keep busy". He can operate a chain saw and a pole saw like you use a knife and fork. While Bill was busy plowing the fields recently, I was busy taking pictures of the river. Ok, I did do some work. Last year, while planting our food plots I could barely lift a hammer, as I was recovering from a surgery. This year, I was hauling 50 lb bags of seed and fertilizer. At one point, I picked up a seed bag, threw it over my shoulder and began to thank God for my recovery and the great health that I now experience! Another "pray without ceasing" moment.

If you don’t like snakes don’t click on these links. We have a couple of rattlers in Alabama, the Eastern Diamondback and the Timber. The one Bill made short order of was a Timber Rattler, which I don’t see as often in the wild. As we always do, I was about to cut off the rattles as a souvenir, but decided to stomp the serpent’s head a few times to make sure he was dead. (A snake tends to "reflex" for a good while after he has assumed room temperature.) So I gave him two heels to the head, which looked like an IHOP pancake by then, and on the third stomp, he STRIKES at me! Bill chuckles as I start doing the Texas Two-step. Tells me he actually cut the head off of on of these jokers and the BODY struck at him!

We threw that mean, nasty thing on the bushog so I can show SteveO a Timber. He kept a safe distance from him, and told me that he doesn’t need to know what one looks like, if it crawls on its belly, it is going meet its demise. You might be thinking that we are upsetting the ecosystem, but I am more concerned with upsetting our nervous system. A friend of mine was bitten by a Diamondback and he had permanent nerve damage for the rest of his life, and suffered from depression and fibromyalgia. Human life over animal life all day long. No sympathy for the serpent.

*********************
These encumbrances in life. What a pain. Distractions, irritations, pesky problems that steal our time to "pray-talk" with our Master. Sin that so easily entangles us; our selfish acts that keep us from the eddy pool, that special place of fellowship with God. When we think we’ve licked ‘em, by stomping on their head, they reach up and strike at us again. I guess we will always be dealing with the distractions of life, as we all have bills to pay, stress to deal with, and discouragement to tackle. These things are constant.

The other constant, however, is His love for us and the need we have to worship Him and thank Him for the blessing in our lives. Although He loved them both, Jesus sure gave us a good example of this concept by comparing Mary to Martha. He is telling me to stomp those encumbrances with my feet by spending time at His feet!

The tempted, the anxious, the fearful, the discouraged may all find new hope and good cheer that our Heavenly Father is faithful. He will ever be true to His pledged word. The hard-pressed sons of the covenant may be sure that He will never remove His loving-kindness from them nor suffer His faithfulness to fail.

A.W. Tozer
The Knowledge of the Holy









Mark
Prov 17:22

The Enforcer

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor messengers, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things about to be, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Rom. 8:38-39

This is my backyard buddy. He was one of the first mature Ruby Throats to arrive this year, and in a perennial summer ritual, a mature male claims every feeder in the backyard and runs all the other birds crazy. I don’t know how he does it, but protecting six different feeders spread evenly throughout the backyard is no small job.

I started putting a couple of feeders outside my office windows a few years back and lo and behold, the same phenomenon. Another enforcer! Its funny, I can be involved in an important meeting and the participants will stop talking, mouths will fall open, and their eyes will flit from side to side. Even though I am facing away from the feeders, I can tell by the looks on their faces that Big Ruby is cutting up and smacking the young interlopers around!




"Wow, look at those hummingbirds!" someone will exclaim. There are times when co-workers will drop in for a short visit, drink a cup of coffee and gaze at the hummers.

I have enjoyed watching hummingbirds for years. The flight movements are like no other living thing on this planet, and I have read that a human body subjected to the G forces of starts, stops, turns and flips would not survive the first flight. Our season will peak in a few weeks and they will be making the long trip south. But for now, I will enjoy the show!

***********
The scripture from Romans above has always been one of my favorites. The spiritual analogy here is quite easy to see; like that dominant hummingbird and his feeders, the love of God, through Christ Jesus our Lord, keeps us, protects us, and is possessive of us over a host of enemies. Knowing He cares for us like this breathes life into Mike Yaconelli’s term "God’s annoying love". Our response should be the same: A desire to keep our lives free from those annoying juvenile hummingbirds and jealously pursue our relationship with Him!

Final thought:

All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are not secure because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us.

Eugene Peterson
A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

All praise to You, our Heavenly Enforcer!




Mark
Prov 17:22

Whammo!

Folly is joy to him who lacks sense, but a man of understanding walks straight. Prov 15:21













You know, when I come across family and friends who have read my blog, it seems like the attack of the killer armadillo always comes up as a favorite episode. So much for my spiritual insight. And being one who does not mind a little self-deprecating humor, I remember another incident down on the farm that knocked some sense out of me---and into me.

Our family farm is in a part of the state of Alabama known as the Wiregrass. It is called this because of a long, tough stalk-like grass that grows within the Southern Pine-Wiregrass Ecosystem of SE Alabama, SW Georgia, and north Florida. That is as technical as I will get. Let me say that the people of this region are quite unique and have a southern accent all their own. I can jump into it at anytime, actually that is about where my vernacular stays, and my Dad says that he could charge admission to all his relatives in Pittsburgh just to hear me talk. For instance, if you are from the Wiregrass, you would say, "I am from the War-grass."

The cattle in the "War-grass" seem to be as unique as the people. My Mom and Dad have a herd of Brangus beef cattle, a cross of a Brahman and an Angus. I remember one time a heifer (a girl cow to you city slickers), like the one in the picture, kicked me so hard on the inner thigh that I had an ugly purple bruise for a month (another close call-whew!). We had her in a head catcher giving her shots, and I walked behind her and WHAMMO! Of course, I got a lot of sympathy from the old man, "Boy!... Will you get out from behind that cow! You are stirring her up!" I got a little stirring myself, but this is not my story...

As I have mentioned, My Dad has an ability to attract rather interesting individuals. Recently, I was down at the farm and a couple of locals were buying a bull from my Dad. One feller begins to tell me just how ornery these ol’ Brangus can be.

"Me and the wife dang near give out a while back chasin’ one of them heifers around our place!" he said.

"Yeah? Tell me about it! I replied in my best War-grass.
My Dad knew what I was doing, the yarn was fixin' to be long and goofy.

"We couldn’t git that durn cow in the corral, so we figured we’d just chase her around with the 4-wheeler until she was tard. I tol' the wife to git on and brang the lasso. Well, we worked her all the way down to the river bottom and figured we had her cornered, so the wife, she gits off the 4-wheeler and starts swingin' the lasso, but you know wut happened!?’

"NO! Wut happened!?" I asked. ( My Dad is grinning, shaking his head.)

"That ol’ gal started pawing at the ground and snortin' and the next thing ya know, she’s fixin’ to act like we was in a bull fightin’ ring! I tol’ the wife to get the heck outta the way, I wuz gonna take care of some bidness. So the dang cow charges me and I fire up the 4-wheeler and head right fer her. She smashes her haid into the front gun rack the first time and the fender the second. That did it. After that, she wuz tuckered out and the wife threw a rope over her haid and we tied her to the 4 wheeler and took her on back."

"Man! I bet that 4 wheeler wuz messed UP!" My Dad must have been rolling his eyes by now.

"Naw, not too bad. The wife got a drill and we drilled some little holes in the plastic and got some war (wire) and stitched that fender back together. Looks good a new...."

Now that’s a wild heifer! What about the bulls? Actually, most of them have been pretty docile. We had one, I think it was Black Jack, who loved to have his head scratched. He would nod with approval anytime you put your hand between his eyes and scratched. He also loved it when you pushed on his head; he would push back with great power, and would always win, gently easing my hand and my body backward.

Sooo, I get the bright idea that I am going to put my head against his head, in one of those, "Hey y’all, watch this!" moves. Well, instead of the 'pushing game', old Black Jack decided that this was like a scratch and nodded with approval. WHAMMO! I might as well have run head long into an anvil. The nod resulted first in my teeth clacking together so hard I thought they were all broken. The next thing I felt was a major excruciation to my forehead and finally a visual of the Milky Way in broad daylight. I looked at my Dad, who was laughing, as far as I could tell, but the Big Dipper was in the way.

What an idiot. I tried my best "that didn’t hurt" routine, but the truth was, I needed some of that "war" to stitch my brain back together. Thank goodness this happened before SteveO was born, so he didn’t see it and I can attribute it to youthful indiscretion. Yeah, right. Early 30's?
*********************
As always, I will try to tie some spiritual lesson into my ramblings. This one is simple and to the point. There are two kinds of fools.

1. The "Hey y’all watch this!" kind of fool. This one ALWAYS gets an anvil to the head. Sadly, we have so much "watch this" stuff going on in American Christianity. There is a religious TV network that looks like the people and the sets are straight out of the movie "Cleopatra". When will we learn? The Bakkers, Swaggarts, etc got an anvil to the head, yet the trinket church chugs on! As I have stated many times before, Jesus said to not let the left hand know what the right was doing for a reason! Could it be so that God might be glorified?

2. The" fool for Christ’s sake" kind of fool. This is where I want to live. Someone so dependent on Him, and so independent of the world’s approval that I live in a place of love, laughter, and desperate need of a wise and loving God who covers a multitude personal tomfoolery.

I am sure I will continue my journey down the path of idiocy, but I have wisely figured one thing out. Jesus continues to walk beside me on that path, on that Emmaus Road, and for that I am grateful, knowing the lessons I have learned from my own mistakes will only help reduce future encounters with anvils! It might even help me throw a word of wisdom to a certain 15 year old. Like the Proverb above, here’s praying that we all walk straight!

Mark
Prov 17:22 (for sure!)

Broken is Good

John 11:32-36:
32Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died."
33When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled,
34and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see."
35Jesus wept.
36So the Jews were saying, "See how He loved him!"

A colleague of mine and I were chatting recently. He is a long time Christian friend and our conversation veered to the subject of Christian service. He felt that his ability to serve in the Kingdom was is direct relation to how he preceived his standing was before God.
"But I am a broken man."
25 years ago, my half cocked, arrogant answer would have been, "Don't say that!! You are the righteousness of Christ! Blah Blah Blah! No pity-party here brother!"

Instead, my words came out immediately: "Broken is good."

Bear with me as I make a comparison to my flower garden in front of our home. The picture above is what our lantana plants look like in full bloom. To the right is what they look like now. Not real pretty, huh? Well, here’s the deal. The lantana plants basically quit flowering. It happens every year in late summer; we have these large green plants with no flowers on them. I know that if I want to get a pretty autumn bloom out of them before I have to put them to bed for the winter, they must be pruned, broken, so to speak, back to a stalky looking rather ugly plant. I can predict with a great deal of certainty, that with a little love and Miracle Grow, I will have a pretty garden in about a month.

A couple of things here from a spiritual standpoint. The leafy plants were big, and green, but they bore no fruit. Do I walk around at times like a fruitless fig tree? All show, no go? Or maybe the other way around...Once the Lord does a little pruning job on me, do I sometimes think I am a worthless stalk, not spiritual enough to be of service to the Kingdom? Both ideas are wrong headed thinking.

As a friend of mine wrote recently, "One of the most damnable hellish lies we're told by religion is this that we're a hair's breadth away from condemnation, from failure and ostracizing by God." (JRJ) Now for some, that may be a radical statement. For me it is a beautiful truth.

It is interesting to me, in the day of men and women naming ministries after themselves, pushing people to the ground and claiming the power of the Holy Spirit, we have Jesus, our example, healing people and instructing them to tell no one! His whole earthy ministry was such a paradox to what I see in Amercian "Name it-Claim it" Religion, or "My denomination can beat up your denomination."

Again my friend JRJ:
"We constantly squabble over dead horses and it seems there’s little taste for guiding others to Jesus and to help them walk through life with a limp, or other impediment of some sort. Those who do, spread the Gospel–Good News of Grace."

Many times, Jesus' ministry was one of a brokeness, one that showed us that faith can only happen when ruled by compassion. Another friend wrote recently on a devotional blog referencing the raising of Lazurus from the dead (John 11:11-45):

"So, Jesus wept. THEN He raised Laz form the dead. But first He wept..with compassion! And it hit me...maybe the key to faith working is it has to be coupled with compassion...it is the compassion that gives the faith its power. Then faith is the train, and the compassion being the locomotive?" (S.O.)

Nice thought! Verse 35, the one kids want to use as their memory verse assignment, (Jesus wept) is actually such a strong statement in the context of this story that we all need to write it on our hearts! It appears to me that being a broken man, being a broken woman, is EXACTLY where He wants us to be. Ps. 51:17: The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. Think about your "heros" in the Bible. Now find one who wasn’t flawed, some with MAJOR flaws! Did these flaws prevent God from using them? No!

You see, brokeness points us to the cross, where He was broken for us, the cross points us to Christ, and Christ points us to compassion. Compassion is that big diesel engine that drives this wonderful life of faith that we were given at the cross!

I think, for once, my quick response to my friend was a timely one. Broken is good!

Wild flowers down on the farm

Mark

Prov 17:22

Water Colors

But just as it is written,
"Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.
1Cor. 2:9

"Well, since I’m up...I might as well get my walk in," I thought to myself on the last day of our beach vacation. " R&R is for sleeping in, what was I doing up at 5:30? No matter—Ipod charged, Sauconys laced,ok, lets go..."

30A is a wonderful stretch of beach road on the Florida Panhandle; the beach hamlets are all along this little two lane, but the best characteristic of this well traveled path is the bike/jogging lane that parallels the road through every locale, Seaside, Seagrove, Grayton Beach, and a number of other seaside resorts.

We love Seagrove, a sleepy hamlet that we discovered years ago. Overzealous developers built two multi-story condos, and the city fathers put a stop to that, no building can be over 4 stories now. If you could tear those two towers down, it would still have the same feel that it did when I was a kid when we played on Grayton Beach, a few miles down 30A.

A mile or so into my walk, I felt something tugging me to the left, drawing me down the public boardwalk to the beach. I have been around these beaches all of my life, but after leaning over the weather worn wooden rail gazing at the water, I began to worship God for His beautiful creation.

My thoughts went back to my childhood... as we neared the water, my brother, sister, and I would go into a great competition of anticipation, to be the one who would see the blue-green mass first. "There it is!" one of us would yell, in actuality, it was probably all at the same time. I’ll bet Mom and Pop were smiling in the front seat. What wonderful family times were spent at the Gulf!

The water that morning had this special color that is almost indescribable. I have been told that the emerald coloring has to do with the sugar white sand, as the reflection of the suns’s rays cause this most gallant of greens. And the sand... Yankees who see these beaches for the first time compare it to a freshly fallen snow. Because it is so white, it is never hot to the touch, but it will play havoc on your eyes with a brilliant reflection that makes sunglasses mandatory.

The dawn breakers were small, turning lazily in the shallows, much like Flipper and his friend off in the distance where the water changes to a peaceful shade of blue. The white foam blended nicely with the sand, partly soaking in, partly retreating slowly with the gentle undertow.

Can you"spell" the sound that the breakers make? I tried that morning, but started laughing to myself, because every time I thought I had it figured out phonetically, another one would slowly hit the shallows and the sound would change. As the sun peeked up over the horizon, splashing the surface with silver glitter, I swallowed hard.

"Thank you, Father for this moment," was my prayer. "I can’t even find the words to describe how I feel about this beautiful creation of Yours."

It was then that I heard that still, small voice saying, "There are colors that you have yet to see. There are sounds that you have yet to hear. Wait till you see what I have prepared for you in heaven."

It is no wonder John fell at His feet as a dead man after his description of the Alpha and Omega in the first chapter of Revelation. Take a few minutes and read that description of the Lord!

Getting up early while on vacation has its rewards. Sleeping in? Not so much. Thank you Lord, for waking me and searing this beautiful scene in my memory!

Mark

Prov 17:22

The Emmaus Road

And they said to on another, "Were not out hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?"
Luke 24:32

Read Luke 24:13-34

The Bible is full of journeys. The New Testament alone has several, a small sample: the vivid picture of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey, Paul’s epic conversion on the Road to Damascus, the horrifying seafaring journey in Acts 27, and my favorite, the Road to Emmaus.

It is this particular story that has birthed a revelation of the incredible grace of God, one that I always assented to mentally, but now have it burned in my heart. It is just so darn easy to fall into the trap of a "works salvation." Some may say that the grace which I cling to is "easy believism" of "cheap grace," on the contrary, it has now occurred to me that to throw myself on the mercy of God for His total work of Amazing Grace is a true act of humility.

Here is my interpretation of the events on the Emmaus Road in Luke 24:
The resurrected Christ comes upon two fellas and asks them what they are talking about. Cleopas replies, "Are you clueless? Don’t you know of all the happenings around here?"

The two men begin to give Jesus the cold hard facts, much like we do concerning our faith, and He finally calls them foolish men and slow of heart. He then begins to explain the living Scriptures and the two men are overwhelmed at His words and beg Him to stay and eat. They break bread, Jesus suddenly disappears and thus the most powerful part of the chapter, at least to me:

"Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?’

This is my Emmaus Road revelation:
Precisely as in Luke, He found me on this Road, not the other way around. John 15:16 states: You did not choose Me, but I chose you... Now before you think I am going to launch into a Calvinistic rant here, let me say, that the Gospel of Grace is a wonderful thing; it is an enigma surrounded by a mystery wrapped in a conundrum. The book of Joshua also states to "choose this day whom you will serve." Somewhere in all of this, I know it is He who found me, and because of that burning in my heart, it is also what I desire!

If His grace is as I believe, it is going to be hard to leave the road. David said, "One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life."(Ps 25:12) My walk on the Emmaus road has been at different paces; sometimes I am woefully behind, sometimes I am jumping out half cocked, too far ahead, and then there are those moments when I am breaking bread with the Master and my heart is burning within me.

The point is, I am always on the road! It is the security of knowing as the Psalmist said, "I have chosen the faithful way" yet, He even gives us that desire, for it is so true; "He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 1:6)

It has been a liberating revelation of the powerfully explosive yet gentle touch of Grace! It is with brutal honesty that I face this "works salvation" head-on and realize it is actually chalked full of a deadly sin: the Pride of Life that makes me think I can earn His love. As Brennan Manning so aptly states:

The Good News means that we can stop lying to ourselves. The sweet sound of amazing grace saves us from the necessity of self-deception...I don’t need to apply spiritual cosmetics to make myself presentable to Him.

Will you join me on the Road? Your heart will burn within you too!

Mark the Mad Hatter
Luke 24

The Grace Diet

And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.
2Cor. 12:9




My friend John made it Christmas in September, as I found two jewels on the front porch. One, the Ragamuffin Gospel, by Brennan Manning, had words that literally danced off the page and into my heart. As one who has been a "works salvation", little engine that could, "hope I will make it" believer, learning to walk in the complete understanding of His grace is a new and living thing. Here is what Mr. Manning has to say:

The bending of the mind by the powers of this world has twisted the gospel of grace into religious bondage and distorted the image of God into an eternal, small-minded bookkeeper. The Christian community resembles a Wall Street exchange of works wherein the elite are honored and the ordinary ignored. Love is stifled, freedom shackled, and self righteousness fastened. The institutional church has become a wounder of the healers rather than a healer of the wounders.

Lord, help me rediscover the simple grace that this young, naive believer experienced. My prayer is that the sufficiency of His grace would continue to satisfy me....and you!









Mark
Prov 17:22