I remember a time when the temperature and the humidity were reported separately, and you had to do a mental calculation about how it would feel outside. Then a meteorologist developed something called the “Real Feel,” which is a combination of both numbers into one. Also known as the heat index, the “humiture,”and the “assessment of sultriness” (no, that is not a ratings system for Netflix Originals), the Real Feel is an indication of how quickly your mascara will melt in high temperatures/high humidity situations. This is not helping. Yesterday in Orlando, the Real Feel was 105. I didn’t need to know that. In fact, the minute I became aware, I fled to the air conditioning.

There is something about the reality of my circumstance vs. how I thought things were going that was immediately unpleasant. I didn’t feel nearly as hot before I read the Real Feel as I did the instant that number came up on Accuweather. 105!!! I’m turning into ash!

Paul has an interesting discussion with the people at Colossae on how things feel vs. how things really are. The new Christians there were struggling with the overlaying of human traditions, rules, and obstacles onto the reality of their new circumstance. Their reality was that they had all been redeemed by Christ and were living a new, free life in him. These layers of oppressive laws and practices by others only resulted in the heat index rising unnecessarily. The true measure of their situation was a new, cool, unburdened existence as part of the Body of Christ:

6-7 My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.

8-10 Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that’s not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don’t need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.

11-15 Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It’s not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you’re already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it’s an initiation ritual you’re after, you’ve already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.

16-17 So don’t put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days. All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ.

I love the instruction to “watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything.” Isn’t that a pretty perfect description of social media?And what passes for the “news”? All this arguing, all this vitriol! Honestly, have you ever changed somebody’s mind (or had yours changed) by exchanging hot words and humid barbs? Yeah, me neither.

So go and do what you’ve been taught! School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it. Some of us think we can’t start our lives of freedom and service until we understand it better; we want one more Bible Study before we sign up for a mission trip, another year of listening to sermons before we share our faith with someone, more time in Sunday School before we offer to teach the kids…..nope. Stop laying on a heaviness of ritual and hoop jumping and start living the life to which you’ve been called. The present reality of our circumstance is Christ crucified. That’s it. And with that, we can weather anything.

Pink sunset over Kitty Hawk Bay. Photo by Michelle Robertson.

A few months ago I was interviewed by a reporter from NPR on the subject of evacuating during a hurricane. Bizarre, right? She contacted the church and said that she would be in our area interviewing “community leaders” on the subject of mandatory vs. voluntary evacuations, and would I agree to be interviewed? I was so thrilled to know that NPR considers local pastors to be community leaders, that of course I said yes. She was interested in my congregation’s response to hurricane warnings and whether we shelter in place or flee.

I told her that I have observed my people “hunkering down” if their families have been here for generations, while folks like me, who moved here from another area, tend to evacuate. My interview won’t air until the next time a hurricane is headed our way, in which case I will probably never hear it, since I will either be 1. gone or 2. without electricity.

We are officially in hurricane season here on the Outer Banks, which will run through November 30th. The beauty of our daily surroundings on this little sand bar will go from unspeakable views to untenable conditions in a matter of hours. Everyone on the island will be faced with two choices. Hunkering down means not leaving your property and risking total destruction, flooding, loss of power for days, downed power lines, and possibly death. Evacuation means abandoning your property, bunking in with your inland relatives or paying for a hotel for an unforeseen number of days or weeks, the inconvenience of not being at home, and the possibility that you won’t be allowed back over the bridge for a very long period of time. That last thing is the most troublesome. Once you leave, the bridges close indefinitely, and you may not be able come home for days or weeks after the storm has passed. Not an easy choice. The stress is immeasurable.

Life often brings other kinds of stressful storms that bring us to the same decision point. Should I stay in this unhappy marriage, or flee? Should I do one more round of debilitating chemo, or stop here? Should I bail my addicted daughter out one more time, or walk away? Do I continue to engage my rebellious son, or stand firm on my house rules?

Hunkering down is a period of waiting something out. It requires patience, courage, a willingness to endure further damage before things are set right, and fortitude. Sometimes the only way something can ever be repaired is by refusing to give up.

Fleeing is a self-protective response to damage that is unstoppable. Fleeing can be the only way out when the winds and rising waters are sure to engulf you, pull you under, and not let go. Fleeing is a pro-active way of taking your life back and moving forward into a future with hope.

In either case, remember this:

Psalm 46: 1-11

1 God is our refuge and strength,

    a very present help in trouble.

2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,

    though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,

3 though its waters roar and foam,

    though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

    the holy habitation of the Most High.

5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;

    God will help her when morning dawns.

6 The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;

    he utters his voice, the earth melts.

7 The Lord of hosts is with us;

    the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

8 Come, behold the works of the Lord,

    how he has brought desolations on the earth.

9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;

    he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;

    he burns the chariots with fire.

10 “Be still, and know that I am God.

    I will be exalted among the nations,

    I will be exalted in the earth!”

11 The Lord of hosts is with us;

    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

So whether God leads you to hunker down in your storm, or evacuate to safety, do one thing: be still. Be still, and know that God is God. Be still and remember that Jesus once told a storm to stop raging. Be still and find his peace. Just BE STILL.

I have a fascination with people’s “famous last words”. I find it strangely interesting to see what people said as death approached, when the end is near. For example, Nostradamus predicted, “Tomorrow, at sunrise, I shall no longer be here.” He was right. (Well played, Nostradamus!) Composer Jean-Philippe Rameau objected to a song sung at his bedside. He said, “What the devil do you mean to sing to me, priest? You are out of tune.” Italian artist Raphael’s last word was simply: “Happy.” May we all be Raphaels.

In the last chapter of Matthew, Jesus was in his own “famous last words” phase, and said this to his disciples;

Matthew 28:18-20 The Message (MSG)

18-20 Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: “God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.”

There is so much awesomeness in this passage. Go and do. Go and teach. Go and offer baptism. Go and love. Just GO! And here is the whipped cream on the top of your cappuccino: Jesus will be with you wherever you go; every day, right up to the time you see his face upon your death. Every where, every day.

What it doesn’t say is stay.

It gives us no permission to stay glued to our pews, opening our mouths every Sunday like baby birds waiting for PastorMother to drop a digested morsel of theology in our throats. It doesn’t say stay in your homes every evening and get your Netflix binge on. It doesn’t say stay in your community and act like you don’t have any part in Jesus and his kingdom. It doesn’t say stay in your way of operating the church like it is still the 1950’s. (By the way, do you know what the seven last words of the church will be? “We’ve never done it that way before.”) No indeed, Christ’s final commission to us has absolutely no STAY in it. Just GO.

I know people who take this command so literally, they place themselves in prisons to share God’s love with the incarcerated. Others minister to families of those inmates by providing retreats especially designed for that need. I know people who left their homes and jobs to start seminaries in Venezuela, to establish orphanages in Liberia, to minister to street kids in Ukraine. These folks did one thing: they yielded. They yielded to the powerful call of God to GO.

Not all of us will receive such a call, but all of us have a call to share the Good News that is Jesus Christ. By our behaviors, our actions, our words and the things we post, we either draw people toward Jesus or send them scurrying back into the corners. Which will it be?

Let me show you something that you are doing right now that is sending scriptures all over the world. This is a report from the website where “At Water’s Edge” is hosted:

Australia?? Poland?? This is what happens when you share. People are reading Jesus all over the world.

So keep on sharing. Let’s let Jesus get the last word, and partner with him in making disciples of all nations. Let’s GO!

On one of my recent flights, a very disgruntled passenger was loudly complaining that she had been re-routed because of weather and she was MAD. She had requested a window seat on the flight she had originally booked, but she was given an aisle seat on the re-route. At first she refused to take her seat, blocking the aisle so that people had to try to get around her to board. She actually delayed our take-off with her nonsense. Then she rang her flight attendant call button and argued with a very polite flight attendant, who could do nothing because the flight was full and all the window seats were taken. The woman kept getting louder and louder, and all of us sitting near her were uncomfortable and embarrassed.

Finally, a second flight attendant came from the back and leaned over and spoke to the man who was seated at the window seat in the row behind her. He bent over the seats and said something to the man in a conspiratorial behind-the-hand way. The man looked up at the row signs and got a big grin and nodded “yes”. The flight attendant then told the obnoxious woman that the gentleman in the window seat behind her had graciously offered to trade seats. “Well, thank you mister, and no thanks to Delta!”, she harrumphed as they made the seat switch.

As I watched this exchange, I realized why the fellow was grinning. The agent at the woman’s departure airport who had handled her re-direct had upgraded her. The aisle seat was actually in Comfort Plus. Comfort Plus is an upgraded section in the first several rows behind First Class. This section has wider seats, more leg room, free movies and games, a snack basket with a variety of premium snacks, and free adult beverages. Naturally, Comfort Plus costs more. The row behind her, where he had been sitting, was the first row of Economy with none of these perks. So she got the window seat she had demanded….in Economy. The generous fellow got several free glasses of wine, lots of free snacks, and a much better seat, while the woman got what she deserved.

We live in a culture that is plagued with an Entitlement Disorder. It’s the 11th Plague. Moses thought he had it bad! Actually, his people suffered from Entitlement Disorder also. Remember what they said after God delivered them from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land? They complained, “at least we had something to eat in Egypt!” Entitlement Disorder has been with us for thousands of years.

People feel entitled to everything nowadays, and if they don’t get what they think they deserve, somebody has to pay. If we had a modern day beatitude, it would probably be, “Blessed are the aggressive, for they shall get what they want.” It is a push-to-the-front of the line mentality that goes against everything Christ calls us to be.

In the 10th Chapter of Mark, we see this unusual exchange between James, John and Jesus.

35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 36 And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” 37 And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 38 But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking.

42 So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so with you; whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

NOT SO WITH YOU. You are a part of me, and I came to be a servant. I came to serve, not to be served. The greatest of you will be the one who is the servant of all. The gentiles have authorities over them who report to authorities over them, but my Kingdom will have no chain of command. Why? Because mine is a Kingdom of love. And love doesn’t seek position, it SERVES.

As we begin a new week together, let’s covenant to put God’s agenda first. Find someone who needs the better chair and trade places. Seek out a place to let someone else go first. Hold a door open, let someone in front of you in traffic, volunteer at the food pantry, skip worship and go hold a baby in the nursery….(yes, I said skip worship)…put someone’s needs before your own. And may we do it all with a servant’s cheerful and generous heart! Don’t be a James or a John. Be a Jesus.

Sunset at the lake in Peachtree City, GA. Photo by Kathy Schumacher.

Word-Nerd alert! Today we are going to talk about phrases and colloquial expressions that take ahold of the public’s imagination and quickly become over-used. Some of these phrases are so prominent they find their way into the dictionary; some fall by the wayside and die a well-deserved death. (Aren’t you glad that everything isn’t “FIERCE” anymore? But it’s time for “literally” to go away. Like, literally.)

In one weekend, I heard the phrase “deep dive” about twenty times. I first noticed it while listening to a favorite podcast (Lou Mongello’s ‘Walt Disney World Radio’, an excellent insider’s information program done by a wonderfully enthusiastic recovering lawyer, who now devotes his career to helping people navigate all things Disney). Then I heard it several times while listening to NPR radio on the way to the airport. I heard it again on a news broadcast at the airport, then heard it from practically every speaker at the Orange Conference in Atlanta. There was so much deep diving, I got out of breath and nearly got the bends coming out of the weekend.

According to a delightful article on the Merriam Webster Dictionary’s website on “Words We are Watching” (who knew such a thing existed? My Word Nerd meter is registering a 10!), the phrase “Deep Dive” means this:

Deep dive has recently taken on the meaning of “a thorough examination of a subject or topic.” It currently is often found when describing a piece of journalism of a certain gravity or comprehensiveness.

Read it here

My prayer for these daily devotionals is that we would all have a chance to spend five minutes early in the day (or at bedtime…just make it decaf!) to have a cup of coffee, a moment of quiet, and a “deep dive” into God’s Word. I discovered during Lent that when I dove deep for forty days, I stayed a little deeper when I got out than I was when I got in. I think a lot of us just tickle our toes once a week or twice a month in the living water that is Christ, and hope that is enough. It isn’t.

This water we are navigating is LIFE. A full immersion baptism into the scriptures is what will get us through life’s crises and victories, life’s joys and sorrows, and is the only thing that can sustain us through diagnoses, divorce, destruction and death.

1 John 1:1-4 The Message (MSG)

“1 From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in—we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands. The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we’re telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us.

We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!”

This passage beautifully explains why we dive deep into God’s Word together here At Water’s Edge. I feel exactly the same way: my motive for writing is simply this; I want you to enjoy this, too. When we experience communion with with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and when we experience the Word of Life, it brings us JOY. And when we dive together, our joy is doubled.

Thank you for diving deep with me! I truly cherish every reader, and the time that we spend together every day.

Morning’s first light at Colington.

Have friends who need to take a swim? Just hit “share”, and the link will go out on your FaceBook or Twitter feed. Tell ’em to come on in…the water’s fine!

Her name was Janis, and she was truly one of the kindest, funniest, gentlest earth-angels I have ever known. For a brief period of wonderment we worked side by side on a church staff. She was our Children’s Director, and her vibrancy and love for her task still inspire me today. An Army wife, mother of two, and everybody’s favorite, Janis lit up the rooms of our lives with her presence. And then came the cancer.

Two months after she died, I finally had a chance to get away and process my grief. I lived outside Atlanta at the time, and naturally I fled to the Outer Banks for this purpose. It was March; a cold and windy and gray-on-gray kind of March where the ocean roars with huge pieces of foam that fly off the waves and stick to the houses.

I couldn’t find comfort anywhere. I walked the beach, sat in the house at night, got up at 4 AM to stare at the moon over the sound, but peace was elusive. I missed her so much, and the hole she left at the church gaped wide. I could not fathom how her children would negotiate their mother’s death. I had lost a best friend, and I was ANGRY.

When enough sleepless nights had taken their toll, I walked out to the ocean to deal with God. A Nor’easter had come in overnight, and the wind practically cut me in half. I walked up steps covered in two feet of sand and made my way to the top of a dune. And it was there that I shook my fist at God, yelling, crying, snot flying in the wind…it was raw, ugly, and it went on for hours. HOW DARE YOU TAKE HER FROM US.

Finally, FINALLY, the rage inside of me subsided. I was wrung out, poured out, emptied of all my wrath and self pity. And God looked down at what was left of me and said, “Are you done yet? ‘Cause I’m still here, and I’m still God.”

In the book of Job we see a fascinating study on suffering. The bottom line teaching from Job is that God is in steady control of all of life’s situations, and after we work through our emotional responses to things, God is still God.

Job 38:1-11

Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm.

He said: “Who is this that obscures my plans

    with words without knowledge?

Brace yourself like a man;

    I will question you,

    and you shall answer me.

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?

    Tell me, if you understand.

Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!

    Who stretched a measuring line across it?

On what were its footings set,

    or who laid its cornerstone—

while the morning stars sang together

    and all the angels shouted for joy?

“Who shut up the sea behind doors

    when it burst forth from the womb,

when I made the clouds its garment

    and wrapped it in thick darkness,

when I fixed limits for it

    and set its doors and bars in place,

when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;

    here is where your proud waves halt’?

And there it is. I don’t have to understand why God does what he does, but I do have to understand his sovereign goodness in my life. I will never be able to fathom his ways, but I can look to him as the author and perfector of my faith. Trying to find answers to the mind and workings of God is a fool’s task; but we can understand the HEART of God, and that is where our peace will be found.

In the end, we will all be together. In the end, eternity far outweighs the blink-of-the-eye span of earthly existence. In the end, God is God, and I am not.

If you are standing on a dune of despair and confusion today, take heart. God is with you in the storm, and everything that is happening is under his control. You may not understand why, but understand this: his love for you will never end. You are his, now and through infinity and beyond. Hang on. No storm lasts forever.

Photo by Michelle Robertson.

We have a family practice of asking each other, “What was your favorite part of vacation?” as we are driving back home. I remember asking our young children that question after a two week vacation here on the Outer Banks, when we lived in Atlanta. Everyone thought for a while and offered several favorites, but young Jamie was silent. Finally I asked her what her favorite part was, and she said in a cheerful and very innocent voice, “I think my favorite part was that the whole time, nobody told me to hurry up.”

Sweet Jesus in the morning. I can’t even begin to tell you how much that hurt. I was flooded with memories of the school year that just ended, and the numerous times EVERY DAY Jamie was told to HURRY UP. It still hurts. That simple statement in the car that summer changed me forever. Not to say I didn’t ever say it again, but I deliberately began to structure the morning in a way that wasn’t as hurried and rushed.

Have you ever had someone tell you the truth in a way that felt like taking a bullet straight to the heart?

Let’s talk about David for a moment. David was a very bored King. One day, he sees beautiful Bathsheba taking a shower on the roof of her house next door. Now, we have outdoor showers in most of the houses here on the Outer Banks, so outdoor showers don’t mess with our minds. But apparently Bathsheba’s didn’t have the required high walls around it like we have here, making it easy for David to enjoy the shower as much as Bathsheba did.

Though she was married to a soldier named Uriah, David summons her and takes her into his bed. Weeks later, she discovers she is pregnant, so David takes action and calls for Uriah to come home for a “conjugal visit”. (That’s a prison term: look it up.) But the faithful Uriah sleeps at the palace gate, protecting his King, and thus fails to conjugate the visit.

And so David sends poor Uriah to the front line of battle, where he is killed. And for a while, David thinks he has gotten away with it all. He was, after all, the King. And Kings think they can get away with things like lying, adultery, killings, and cover ups. But then comes Nathan.

Nathan is a prophet and a man of God’s choosing. He has been chosen to deliver a strong message of truth…a truth that David does not want to hear. But rather than hit it head on, Nathan tells a story of a horrible rich and privileged man; a man of great wealth, who owned lots and lots of animals. This man stole the only lamb of a poor man. The lamb was actually the beloved pet of the poor man, and the rich man took it and served it up for his guests’ dinner. (Sorry, vegans! It’s only a story!)

Hearing this truly awful story, King David rises up and denounces the rich man, and is incensed at the injustice:

2 Samuel 12:5-7 “Then David’s anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan, ‘As the LORD lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. He must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion.”

And Nathan replied to David, “You are the man.”

BAM. There it is. Suddenly David is confronted with having to OWN UP. It was him, stealing the precious wife of a faithful soldier. He was the man.

We all come to a moment when God brings us to a time of OWNING UP to some behavior or sin we have committed. Perhaps we have many occasions where we stand with our feet on the owning-up precipice. God confronts us with a truth, lays it out bare before us, and we have to decide what to do.

The reason we are brought to a place of owning up is to find peace. David owned up to his sins and repented, and thus David received God’s forgiveness.

Where is God calling you to own up today? Where has the truth been revealed to you about your actions or behavior? God calls us to many things: repentance, a greater compassion for others, to stop hiding something and own up to the truth, or even just to develop a deeper relationship with him…where do you see yourself in the story?

God wants us to own up so that we might be changed. We are invited to respond with an answer like David and say, “It’s Me. I did it. Forgive me”. Confession, repentance and then pardon…it’s the only way to have true peace. But first, ya gotta own it.

Photo by Jamie Haas Mathis, who was not in any hurry when she took it in a church in Vernazza, Italy.

It was a beautiful summer evening, and my daughter had just gotten home from a long shift at work. We changed into our PJ’s and had the movie and wine already picked out. Too hot to walk the dog, we decided to let her swim in the canal for some exercise before we settled in for the evening. Unfortunately, neither of us looked at the water level before throwing the toy in and watching her leap joyfully after it.

The winds had pushed sound water deep into the canals that day, and the water was almost up to the bottom of the docks, leaving no head room for a swimming dog. The dog ramp is on the opposite side of the dock, which means that Georgia has to swim under the dock to get to the ramp. Seeing that the water was so high, she refused. The next ten minutes were sheer terror. She became more and more exhausted, and we got more and more panicked as we tried to direct her back out into the canal to swim around the boat parked at the dock, so that she could access the ramp from the other side. She couldn’t see the ramp from that angle, so she wasn’t having it.

Finally my daughter jumped in and swam Georgia back to the side of the dock where I was lying flat, thinking we could push and pull her up. It should be noted that Georgia weighs 110 lbs and was in a full blown panic at this point. Jamie pushed, I pulled her collar, and at one point it was now Jamie going under for the third time. In that moment I made a “Sophie’s Choice” that if I could only save one, it would of course be the daughter. But at the last minute we succeeded, and got Georgia up on the dock.

We were shaking like leaves in a winter wind. Georgia shook the water off her fur and pranced over to the side of the dock where we throw the toy and looked back as though to say, “Again?”

We laugh about it now, but that feeling of sheer panic at watching both of them going under water has stayed with me to this day. I think most of us have an innate fear of drowning, and I can say without hesitation that water, even in its most placid form, terrifies me. So moving water, where you can’t touch the bottom and you can’t get out, is especially frightening for me.

I am sure there have been times in your life where you felt as though you were “going under”, and maybe for the third time. Marriages go under, finances go under, health goes under, relationships go under, and the list goes on. Every week in my office somebody sits on my couch and hopes for a life line to be cast out, and then hopes they have the strength to get a grip and hold on.

Next time you are nose-deep in water, read this:

Hebrews 6:18-20 We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us, in the order of Melchizedek.

This passage is a beautiful reminder that Jesus is your lifeline. He stands in the Holiest of Holies between you and God with the lifeline secured in his hands. Like the Old Testament high priest Melchizedek, who served early Jerusalem (‘Salem) as a King-Priest, Jesus has both the authority of a king to command the waves around you to CEASE, and the authority of the high priest to offer intercession and sacrifice on your behalf. His life line is anchored at the cross, where his life was given on the altar of eternity so that you could pull yourself out of deep water.

So get a grip. Get a grip on his promises. Get a grip on his Word. Get a grip on LIFE. Grab ahold of your lifeline with both hands….and never let go.

Photo credit Jamie Haas Mathis.

We are under siege from a small, non-biting coastal pest known as the Fuzzy Bill. These small, mosquito-like insects are attacking the Outer Banks in hordes with the passion and fury of White Walkers on a winter prowl. They are heartless, mindless and unstoppable. People are literally scooping up bucketfuls of these things from their pools and porches. Fuzzy Bills, also known as midges, love water and light, so you have to strategically race from the car to the front door in the evenings, making sure all of your party has arrived at the door together (just like at a restaurant) before you can open it and woooosh in as one body. Even with that tactic, you’ll get about 200 Fuzzies in the door with you. Vacationers are complaining that they can’t enjoy the decks of their rentals due to the proliferation of bugs.

And to add to the fun, midges attract spiders. Yes, spiders. When they descend in swarms, the spiders get super excited and emerge in your house to build large, sticky webs in hopes of catching a crunchy meal. There’s nothing better than annoying flying things that increase the spider population. Basically we just try to stay indoors with the lights off until they leave.

Usually I am not one to question the majesty of God’s creation, yet I wonder why the Fuzzy Bills even exist. They don’t pollinate flowers like the bee, they don’t add to our beauty like the firefly….why, God, WHY?

A little research gave me the answer. Midges are a very important part of the aquatic ecosystem. The larvae are laid in the water and exist off of marine debris, thus cleaning the water like a Britta filter. The adult midges provide food for fish and predatory aquatic insects. So these seemingly useless annoyances actually contribute to the cleanliness of our water and the health of our fish. And here on the Outer Banks, we live off of our water and our fishing industry.

Did you ever think that way about people? You probably know someone whose contribution to the world seems minimal. Perhaps they appear lazy, distant, or just unconnected. Yet like the Fuzzy Bill, that person just might turn out to have a purpose, and is useful in ways that aren’t as obvious to the naked eye.

Proverbs 20:5 says, “The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.” 

God always invites us to take a second look, and offer a second chance. He urges us out of our comfort zone to explore people who are off-putting from the outside, and to see them as he sees them. Even the most broken person has something to teach us about compassion and patience. The addicts, the criminals, the unrepentant, and the rest of the “not-us” people are precious to God, and thus should be precious to us.

I know a young woman who succumbed to heroin addiction. For years it was her master. Several attempts at rehab were unsuccessful. Her mother would reach out to me for prayer, and we prayed hard every time. This mother never saw her daughter as an hopeless addict. She saw her as a lost child of God. Eventually, finally, the daughter remembered her purpose, and rehab took hold. She now is a bright and shining star; she is a well sought after personal trainer, newly married, and has been clean and sober for four years. It would have been easy to have written her off, but her mother looked into her child’s deep waters, and believed she was called to a better purpose.

Who is God calling you to see in a different light today? Who needs a second chance? To see as God sees is a thing of beauty. To look deeper than surface appearances is to be Christ-like. Beauty might only be skin deep, but so is someone’s attitude. They may be hiding pain, depression, addiction, intense loneliness, a need for attention…you won’t know until you dive into their deep waters and seek to understand their heart. Give it a try and learn the why behind someone’s who. You just might be Jesus to someone today.

Dogs love walks. They may not like leashes, gentle leaders, other dogs on the street, or rules, but in general, dogs love walks. When I am walking Georgia, her intense focus on the task has almost pulled my arm out of the socket. We live in a cul-de-sac, so every single day we walk in the same direction. We may add a street at the end, but every day, twice a day, we walk the same street, pass the same houses, and greet the same neighbors. Yet Georgia walks with such gusto and purpose, it’s as though every walk is a new and exiting venture. And don’t try to talk to her when you’re walking; she is busy concentrating.

You’ve watched kids do the same thing. Give a kid a Lego project, and watch her tongue slip out of the side of her mouth as focus draws her in and the background activity fades away. The ability to tune-out in order to focus-in is a gift from God, and has brought us all through driver’s exams, final papers, graduation, scoring the touchdown, childbirth, accomplishing the big project at work, and has even saved our lives when the surgeon’s focus was accurate. Olympians, politicians and three year olds know the value of focusing.

But even the strongest among us can occasionally lose focus. Or maybe it’s a matter of shifting our focus to the wrong things. We can focus a lot of time, energy and attention to things around us that are not going carry us forward to the goal of being citizens of heaven. All day long our focus can shift to useless things like comparing ourselves to all those happy, beautiful (fake) families on Face Book, envying the coworker’s expensive car and wondering why you don’t have one, clicking on a friend’s vacation video, reading announcements of someone’s child who got straight A’s and won four school awards….all these things are focus-stealers that take you down wrong paths. Too much time on Instagram can lead to Instagrim, where you get caught in a sticky comparison trap that makes your vision blur. When you do that, you lose sight of what’s really important.

So what’s really important?

Seeking a relationship with the One who makes us beautiful and whole.

Building a partnership with the One who will transform our earthly bodies into glorious ones like his own.

Staying on the right track and living a life worthy of the cross.

Focusing on God, and letting the rest of it go. All of it.

Philippians 3:15-21

So let’s keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us. If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision – you’ll see it yet!

16 Now that we’re on the right track, let’s stay on it. 17 Stick with me, friends. Keep track of those you see running this same course, headed for this same goal. 18 There are many out there taking other paths, choosing other goals, and trying to get you to go along with them. I’ve warned you of them many times; sadly, I’m having to do it again. All they want is easy street. They hate Christ’s Cross.

19 But easy street is a dead-end street. Those who live there make their bellies their gods; belches are their praise; all they can think of is their appetites. 20 But there’s far more to life for us. We’re citizens of high heaven! We’re waiting the arrival of the Savior, the Master, Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our earthy bodies into glorious bodies like his own. He’ll make us beautiful and whole with the same powerful skill by which he is putting everything as it should be, under and around him.

Gracious and Loving God,

Help me to focus wholly on you today. May my eyes gaze only on your Word, may my ears hear only the whispering of your Holy Spirit, and may my heart be set only on doing your will. And please bless the dogs. AMEN

Photo by Sherri Henderson.