At Water’s Edge

Life on God’s Terms

Posted on March 31, 2020 by Betsy

Toddlers are such unique creatures! Somewhere around age two to four, children move from being dependent babies to becoming individuals who are separate from their parents. This transition comes with independent thinking, resulting in children wanting to do things their way. Toddlerhood is all about trying to do life on their own terms…and it’s exhausting.

Our twin toddlers are in this stage right now, and the challenge is REAL. On any given day they refuse naps, are very particular about their clothing choices, insist on carrying their alligators all day, and will or won’t cooperate depending on their moods. Each day brings a new expression of stubborn independence.

I wonder if God ever looks at us doing the same thing and thinks to himself, “What a group of toddlers I created!” Thank God HE never gets exhausted.

Part of the challenge to “flatten the curve” of the pandemic is that some people refuse to give up freedoms they feel entitled to as part of living life on their own terms. This week a friend described watching a large group of teenagers doing “chicken fights” on the beach. It’s hard to practice social distancing on each other’s backs.

Doing life on God’s terms is always the better way. It involves asking God to move in and set up permanent residence. It requires us to give over our terms to receive the life he has promised:

Romans 8 (The Message)

^9-11But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him.

Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms.

It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself?

When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!

I love how this passage points out that if God has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. This is an important reminder to us in this moment. The call to obedience we experience as followers of God should have prepared us for this season of doing hard things for the greater good.

God is calling us to think more of each other than we think of ourselves. That means following all the social distancing guidelines and demanding that our kids do so as well.

These are hard days. This season will be long, and requires a lot of sacrifice. But we know that when we live life on God’s terms, we will not only experience God living and breathing in us, but we will be delivered from that dead life of living only for ourselves. God’s spirit dwelling in us guarantees it, and blesses it.

Spirit of the Living God, Fall Afresh! Photo by Lisa Cobb Lawrence

Waiting

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Betsy

Raise your hand if you like to wait! Yeah, me neither.

We all have different tolerance levels when it comes to waiting. I know someone with a very low tolerance for wanting in line. His tolerance is SO low, he actually mentally calculates how many people are in each check-out line at the store, selects the one he thinks is the fastest, changes lines if he spots one moving faster, and then…I’m being serious here…calculates where we WOULD have been if we had chosen a different line.

Nobody likes to wait.

In Psalm 130, the psalmist is also waiting. He describes his waiting period as being in the “depths.” He is crying out to be heard. He begs God to listen:

Psalm 130 (New King James Version)

Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord;
²Lord, hear my voice!
Let Your ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplications.

³If You, Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
⁴But there is forgiveness with You,
That You may be feared.

⁵I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
And in His word I do hope.
⁶My soul waits for the Lord
More than those who watch for the morning—
Yes, more than those who watch for the morning.

⁷O Israel, hope in the Lord;
For with the Lord there is mercy,
And with Him is abundant redemption.
⁸And He shall redeem Israel
From all his iniquities.

Truly, the entire world is waiting right now. We are waiting for this pandemic to be over. We are waiting for life to return to normal. We are waiting to be able to worship together, send our kids off to school, take a trip, have a nice dinner out, hug our grandchildren, and not wake up in the morning feeling afraid.

While we collectively watch for the morning, remember this: with the Lord, there is mercy. He is filled with forgiveness. With him is abundant redemption. He will redeem us. And in his Word, we do hope.

Because we are one day closer to the end of this thing.

Waiting for Morning by Michelle Robertson

The Sure Thing

Posted on March 27, 2020 by Betsy

Stadiums are closed. There will be no Olympics this year. We have learned that there IS crying in baseball…when it disappears. Movies and concerts are cancelled. Bars, clubs, and even Las Vegas are shut down. All of the world’s “sure things” aren’t so sure anymore.

A good friend asked me recently how I come up with things to write about every day. He wondered if I was worried that I would eventually not have anything to say. Does he KNOW me?? I am never at a loss for words! But my confidence is not in my own verbosity. My confidence is in the endless flow of messages that comes from the Word of God. I believe with my whole heart that the Bible has something to say about EVERYTHING.

That is a sure thing.

So imagine my delight when the scriptures assigned for this week included Psalm 40. I know for certain that the psalmist did NOT write this during a pandemic. But look at how applicable this is for where we are today:

Psalm 40: 5-10 (The Message)

Blessed are you who give yourselves over to God,
turn your backs on the world’s “sure thing,”
ignore what the world worships;

Indeed, everything we worshipped two months ago is gone for now. So in this time, we have an opportunity to discover God-wonders.

The world’s a huge stockpile
of God-wonders and God-thoughts.
Nothing and no one
comes close to you!

We can’t even attend church. Any attempt to “be religious” or “act pious” is out the window. Put away your Sunday hats, ladies. The expression of our faith can only come through our actions, words, and deeds.

⁶Doing something for you, bringing something to you—
    that’s not what you’re after.
Being religious, acting pious—
    that’s not what you’re asking for.
You’ve opened my ears
    so I can listen.

Our notions of everyday life have been altered, and we have been forced to adapt. Kids don’t go to school anymore. Parents don’t go to work outside the home for now. But God still invites us to come to his party and allow his Word to enter into our lives and become part of who we are.

^7-8So I answered, “I’m coming.
    I read in your letter what you wrote about me,
And I’m coming to the party
    you’re throwing for me.”
That’s when God’s Word entered my life,
    became part of my very being.

Pandemics are a time to relearn that God is the only sure thing we have. And when we relearn that, we have to go and tell it.

^9-10I’ve preached you to the whole congregation,
I’ve kept back nothing, God—you know that.
I didn’t keep the news of your ways
a secret, didn’t keep it to myself.

So here are your marching orders: tell it all. Tell people about how dependable God is. Don’t hold back! Share his love and truth.

I told it all, how dependable you are, how thorough.
I didn’t hold back pieces of love and truth
For myself alone. I told it all,
let the congregation know the whole story.

And let us remind one another that WE ARE ONE DAY CLOSER TO THE END OF THIS THING. And that’s a sure thing. Thanks be to God.

Sure Thing Sunrise by Michelle Robertson

Being the Runt

Posted on March 26, 2020 by Betsy

The Lectionary passage today takes us back to the time when a new king of Israel was to be selected from among the sons of Jesse. Samuel was in charge, and as he looked over the fine specimens standing in front of him, he assessed them by their height and physical appearance. Watch what happens:

1 Samuel 16 (The Message)

⁶When they arrived, Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought, “Here he is! God’s anointed!”

⁷But God told Samuel, “Looks aren’t everything. Don’t be impressed with his looks and stature. I’ve already eliminated him. God judges persons differently than humans do. Men and women look at the face; God looks into the heart.”

¹⁰Jesse presented his seven sons to Samuel. Samuel was blunt with Jesse, “God hasn’t chosen any of these.”

¹¹Then he asked Jesse, “Is this it? Are there no more sons?”

“Well, yes, there’s the runt. But he’s out tending the sheep.”

Samuel ordered Jesse, “Go get him. We’re not moving from this spot until he’s here.”

¹²Jesse sent for him. He was brought in, the very picture of health—bright-eyed, good-looking.

God said, “Up on your feet! Anoint him! This is the one.”

The runt, of course, was David, who is still thought of as one of Israel’s most powerful kings. And he wasn’t even in the running.

Have you ever felt like that?

I suspect that one of the greatest roots of sibling rivalry is feeling inadequate in comparison to one’s siblings. If your sisters and brothers are good-looking over-achievers, you may have grown up feeling like the runt of the family. I know a very accomplished third-born who, in his 50’s, was still comparing himself to his high-achieving older sister and brother and calling himself “the runt.”

Isn’t it good to know that there are no runts in the family of God?

This story reminds us that God sees all of our potential, beauty, and promise with no comparison to those around us. He sees us as uniquely designed in HIS image, and recognizes the value inherent in each of us….a value that he himself imparts to us, so we can trust that it is GOOD, just like the rest of his creation.

You matter to God. You are highly valued by him. You, indeed, are the apple of his eye!

So if you woke up this morning feeling a little inadequate, a little left out, or a little down, remember that God cherishes YOU. You are a child of God in a family that is runt-free. Thanks be to God!

Milk Dud the Runt by Welcome to Nature via Twitter

Changing “Forever”

Posted on March 25, 2020 by Betsy

It is kind of hard to write about anything being ”forever“ right now. My concept of forever has changed in the last two weeks. Here are some things I just assumed would always be available forever:

Unfettered air travel.

Disney World open whenever I wanted to go.

Lovely, perfumed ladies hugging me in church every Sunday.

Tuesday morning staff meetings with my peeps, laughing, drinking coffee, and dreaming God’s dreams.

Attending my college’s Alumni Association Council meetings on our beautiful campus.

Going out to any restaurant on any given night.

Kissing my husband.

That last one might seem strange, but we have enacted a quarantine protocol in my house. My husband is a commercial airline pilot, and so he is considered essential personnel. Even with the drastic cut-back of flights, planes are still flying, delivering medical personnel and equipment to where they are needed, ferrying essential cargo, and returning families to their homes from far away places.

When he returns from a trip, he comes directly into the house and we begin a quarantine for 14 days. He sleeps in a separate room, uses a separate bathroom, and does not enter the kitchen. (This part may grieve me the most!! He is a great cook.) We don’t touch the same door knobs or light switches, and I sanitize everything. He doesn’t even pet the dog, and we maintain a 6-foot separation at all times. For 14 days. When he gets called out to fly again, the 14-day protocol will start all over again.

Like all of you, my concept of forever has changed.

So what is really forever?

Psalm 23 (New King James Version)

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
²He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
³He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.

⁴Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

⁵You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
Forever.

Dwelling in the house of the Lord is the one FOREVER we can count on. God’s mercy is forever. God’s love is forever. God’s salvation is forever. And thank God, his forgiveness is forever.

So when things get back to normal and I can kiss the cook again, I know I will be forever grateful for the true and unchangeable forevers that we all can claim.

And guess what? We are one day closer to the end of this thing.

Yea, Though I Walk Through the Valley by Faye Gardner

Wake Up Call

Posted on March 24, 2020 by Betsy

See if this sounds at all familiar where you are. A family member blows up at another family member, and an onslaught of phone calls to the rest of the family ensues, each presenting their side of the encounter and trying to garner support.

A frustrated teenager slams her laptop closed and storms out of the kitchen because her younger siblings are chewing too loudly.

A friend gets angry, failing to recognize that the unreasonable response of his friend is because the guy is actually having a panic attack.

Overwhelmed spouses bicker to the point of silliness over kitchen duties.

Any time God’s children encounter a great deal of stress, we have two choices. We can let the situation bring out the worst in us, or we can take a deep breath and ask God to help us to be a light in the darkness.

The difference between the two choices is focus, intention, and a deep desire to do what pleases the Lord.

Ephesians 4 (New International Version)

⁸For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light ⁹(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) ¹⁰and find out what pleases the Lord.

¹¹Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. ¹²It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. ¹³But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. ¹⁴This is why it is said:

“Wake up, sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

What if this season of great stress is an opportunity for us to discover Christ’s light in a new and more visible way? What if this time could result in many more seeing and following his light?

And what is your part in it, if not to wake up and be the light?

These are challenging thoughts for challenging days. Listen, it never hurts to take that deep breath BEFORE you react, and ask God to use you as a light in someone else’s darkness. When this season finally turns into the next, won’t you want to look back at the many ways Christ shone through you?

Let us seize this opportunity to live as children of the light and do the things that please God the most. Let us reject the fruitless deeds of darkness and turn on the high beams of God’s mercy, grace, and HOPE in this dark time. I believe that people, like moths, are always attracted to the Light.

And guess what? Today, we are one day closer to the end of this thing.

Wake Up and Be the Light. By Michelle Robertson

Clear Lenses

Posted on March 23, 2020 by Betsy

Every contact lens wearer knows the joy of “new contacts day.“ Oh, the delight of opening that sterile, sealed container and slipping new, pristine contacts onto our weary eyeballs! The clarity, the comfort, the EASE!

For those of you who don’t wear them, contacts deteriorate with each wearing. I am supposed to change mine once a month, but with dust, eye makeup, and normal every day living, I don’t even make it three weeks before the need for new ones becomes overwhelming. And it’s shorter in pollen season! Dirty contacts hurt the eyes, compromise your eyesight, and are ineffective in their mission of correcting your vision.

Jesus has much to teach us about keeping our vision clear:

John 9 (The Message)

^1-2Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?”

^3-5Jesus said, “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world’s Light.”

Jesus chose to heal the man’s blindness as a testimony to God’s power. But the townspeople and Pharisees refused to see what was right before their eyes. The tried to claim the man was never actually blind. They even interrogated his parents. The real issue?

Jesus had healed the blind man on the sabbath, breaking the law. The Pharisees felt it was their privilege and their position to sit in judgement and ignore the miracle in front of them. In their spiritual blindness, they couldn’t see Jesus for who he was. They judged him according to their rules, and found him to be inadequate.

Have you ever been guilty of judging someone?

The reaction of the Pharisees reminds us that being judgmental is akin to leaving dirty contacts in our eyes and then looking in the mirror and not seeing our own flaws. That is how the Pharisees see things…through the dirty lens of bias and entitlement.

³⁹Jesus then said, “I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind.”

⁴⁰Some Pharisees overheard him and said, “Does that mean you’re calling us blind?”

⁴¹Jesus said, “If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you’re accountable for every fault and failure.”

Be careful of your own lenses. God calls us see our brother in the same way that he looks upon us: with the lens of mercy, grace, equality, and acceptance. With that clarity, we will learn to love as God loves, and accept one another as he accepts us. Lord, open our eyes!

No Time for Goodbye

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Betsy

A girl I love is a few months away from graduating from High School. We met a few weeks ago in the “before-time” at a local coffee shop and talked about colleges, scholarships, growing up, and life in general. The sun illuminated her strawberry blond hair as we sat at an outside table with not a care in the world. As I said, it was in The Before.

Now that we have arrived in The After, I can only see pictures of her on FaceBook. She just had her senior pictures taken. What I probably won’t get to see is her dressed in a cap and gown walking across the stage. I won’t see a hundred shots of her in her prom dress with her boyfriend in a matching tie. I won’t see beach pictures of her running in the waves on a rare day off from her summer restaurant job. And we had no time to say goodbye.

Teachers who miraculously scrambled to put their lessons online with one day‘s notice are just now allowing themselves to grieve the loss of being with their kids in person. Healthcare workers are having to quarantine themselves in their garages or at the hospital for fear of infecting their children at the end of work. My Alma Mater just announced that Spring Semester is over. The students moved out weeks ago, thinking they would be back after an extended Spring Break. Now it’s over, don’t come back. It was so unexpected, they had no time for goodbyes.

I miss my congregation so much it stings my eyes every time I think of them. I miss Miss Jean’s sweet bent-over hug. I miss Bonnie’s grin. I miss Jonny’s laughter. I MISS SINGING TOGETHER. God, I miss singing together. I miss them all. I didn’t know that the last time I saw them would be the last time I would see them. No time for goodbye.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus reminds us that we are blessed when we mourn:

Matthew 5 (The Message)

³“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

⁴“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

⁵“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

⁶“You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.

When everything you know and love gets stripped away, there is God. For such a time as this, we were made to seek him out for comfort and companionship. Blessings WILL happen in The After.

⁷“You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.

⁸“You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

This is especially poignant for The After. Being stuck inside allows us to get our inside world put right.

⁹“You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.

The After is a time of no goodbyes, but also a time of saying hello to a whole new set of blessings we never would have discovered in The Before. God is with us. We are with each other.

And the good news is, we are one day closer to the end of this thing. Thanks be to God.

Quenchable Thirst

Posted on March 19, 2020 by Betsy

Have you ever been thirsty? Like, really, really thirsty, where your mouth is sticking together for lack of hydration? If you’ve had surgery, you might remember that the first sensation upon coming out of anesthesia is thirst. Nurses are talking to you and giving you all kinds of instructions, and all you can think is “WHERE IS MY MOUNTAIN DEW, WOMAN??”

Our souls thirst in the same way. God created us with a “lack-mechanism” where we experience a pervasive feeling of lacking for something. C.S. Lewis once said that he created us with a hole in our hearts that only he can fill. God wants us to feel a need for him. This lack-mechanism prompts us to go out and find what we need to quench our soul-thirst.

Too often we try to quench it with worldly ”sody-pop.” The first bottle of empty sugar and fizz that we find is consumed in great quantities. Sometimes sody-pop comes in the form of alcohol or drugs. Sometimes it comes dressed in heels or the well-cut suit of someone we aren’t married to. Maybe it comes in the form of “retail therapy.” Often it comes through your screen as you greedily binge a full weekend away in a sugar coma of Netflix distraction. But it’s like your grandma told you…sody-pop is not good for you. It is too easy to get addicted to sugary fizz, and before you know it, months or years have passed since you had a good drink of real living water.

John 4 (The Message)

^4-6Jesus came into Sychar, a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon.

^7-8A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, “Would you give me a drink of water?” (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.)

⁹The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jews in those days wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritans.)

¹⁰Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.”

A couple of footnotes before we go on.

1. Jesus stopped his journey in a Samaritan village, a place where Jews such as himself were not welcome. He was in the middle of going somewhere else when this beautiful exchange happened.

2. It was noon. The village ladies all drew their water together in the early morning so that they could visit and gossip. This lady came alone at noon, indicating that she lived a life of too much sody-pop.

3. Jesus asked her to draw water for him with her bucket. Her bucket was unclean for a Jew. It would be like asking a coronavirus patient to share their glass of water with you.

^13-14Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”

¹⁵The woman said, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!”

The water that Jesus offered her that day, and offers us as well, is the gushing artesian spring of endless life. It is the forgiveness, hope, reconciliation, and peace that comes from finally finding that thing that satisfies our lack-mechanism, and we are sated for once and for all.

The water he offers is effervescent. It bubbles. It jumps from the glass and tickles your nose. It is so filled with joy that you can’t stop drinking it until you are full enough to never want sody-pop again.

So drink. Drink again and again and again. Drink in Jesus until your thirst is quenched. His well is deep and endless, so fill up your bucket and LIVE.

Endurance

Posted on March 18, 2020 by Betsy

Who remembers the television show Endurance? It was one of our favorite family programs. It was shown on the Discovery Kids cable network, and was a kind of “teenage Survivor” program. Kids would arrive on an exotic island and strategize and compete in physical and mental challenges for the ultimate prize of a trip to some amazing location like the Galápagos Islands. Through the season of challenges and hardships, a boy/girl team would eventually endure and take it all.

Life surely is a series of challenges and hardships, especially today. God calls us to endure it to obtain the prize that Jesus has already won for us. Take a look at this passage and note the progression of problems>trouble>endurance>character>hope:

Romans 5 (Common English Version)

Therefore, since we have been made righteous through his faithfulness, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ²We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand through him, and we boast in the hope of God’s glory. ³But not only that! We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, ⁴endurance produces character, and character produces hope. ⁵This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Hope never fails us. Paul once reminded us that faith, hope, and love endure. This passage promises us that the love of God has already been poured out in our hearts by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

⁶While we were still weak, at the right moment, Christ died for ungodly people. ⁷It isn’t often that someone will die for a righteous person, though maybe someone might dare to die for a good person. ⁸But God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

The worst thing that anyone could possibly endure is permanent and final separation from God. But this has been already been eliminated by Christ’s dying for us. This is how God showed his love for us! While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Love is the final product of endurance. Faith, hope, love, these three: but the greatest of these is love.

And so in love, we have separated ourselves from one another. In love, we aren’t gathering as a church or in communities so that our fragile members are protected. In love, we have canceled the world so that this hideous virus will end. In love, we submit to this new world order that will surely bear a price of loneliness, isolation, cabin fever, and stir-craziness to an extent we have never experienced before. But we do it, in love.

What to do? Go check on your neighbor (from 6 feet away.) Make a grocery run for an elderly friend (and leave it on their porch.) Call three people today who need to hear your voice. Do an online workout with your dog. Write a letter or send a card everyday until this is over.

READ A BOOK.

This season of endurance will surely produce character. I guarantee we will all look back at these weeks and months and realize we discovered new strengths in each other. And that newfound character will give birth to a new hope. We will realize how strong we are as individuals, families, communities, and as a nation. Life will never be the same because we will have endured something TOGETHER. Hang in there. And guess what? We are one day closer to the end of this thing.