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“I will give you something to cry about.” Have you ever heard or said that phrase? If you are a little younger, “suck it up buttercup,” may be more familiar. Either way, both of these notions go along with keeping your chin up and not whining. My mother hated whining with a purple-hulled passion. I learned early on that if I wanted something to happen, I either needed to bring my case before my momma and see if she would give me what I asked for, (and this was what usually happened) not ask, do what I wanted, and suffer the consequences. Either way, whining never made it better.  What brought all of this to my mind? Well, in my Bible reading, I came across John 11 and the story of the death of Lazarus. Jesus is out of town and the sisters send word to him that their brother Lazarus is ill. I love how these sisters are go getters. I always imagine Lazarus as being their baby brother, but I could be wrong. Jesus gets the message and tells his disciples that God will be glorified through what is going to happen.
Let that sink in a minute or two. I don’t know about you, but if I was reading this for the first time, I would do a double take. He is saying He loves them, but He sure doesn’t seem to be showing it. Of course, we know the story and how the miracle Jesus performs when he arrives at Bethany is one of His grandest. This, however, is a great place to insert that cliché: “it’s always darkest before the dawn.”
You want to talk about whining — I would have squalled and boo-hooed and pretty much pitched a fit. Martha, bless her heart, went out to meet Jesus when he got to town. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” The woman had guts, y’all, chastising Jesus. She followed this up with a statement that showed just how strong her faith was. “But I know that even now God will give You whatever You ask.” When it looked like all was lost, when she didn’t understand how the impossible could happen, she still had faith in Jesus. My momma would have liked Martha. Martha called it like she saw it. Later on, when they are at the tomb, practical Martha tells Jesus that Lazarus is stinking by now. Jesus tells Martha she’s going to see the glory of God, so then she gets her act together and gets the stone moved so Jesus can do what He came to do.
Anyway, here’s the application I’m pulling from this story. Jesus loves me, this I know. If I call on Him in the hard times and don’t see my burden lifted like I think it should be in my little finite mind, I should not whine and doubt. God, the creator of the heavens and earth, holds me in His almighty hand. He died to pay the price for my sins. With that kind of power and that kind of love, I need to have faith that His timing is perfect even when I cannot see the sun anywhere on the horizon. God’s plan may not be the easiest, most obvious plan, but it is the plan that will glorify Him. Romans 8:28 promises us that God works all things for the good of His children. I’m learning more and more to lean into that promise.
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Jesus places mud on the man’s eyes and tells him to go wash in the Pool of Siloam, which miraculously restores his sight. The reaction from the blind man, however, differs completely from the crippled man’s in chapter five. The pharisees find out about the miracle and ask the formerly blind man how he received his sight. He tells them what Jesus did and gets drawn into a debate over whether Jesus is from God.
Once again, Jesus returns to the scene and offers salvation to the person He has physically healed. The blind man’s response is so different from the crippled man’s. The blind man believes Jesus is who He claims and begins worshipping Him right there on the spot. The thing that jumps out at me about these two stories is that Jesus knew going into both situations how the men would react. He knew who would betray him to the ones plotting against Him. He knew who would become His follower. Even so, He healed them both, placed Himself in harm’s way for both of them by returning to offer salvation when He could have just kept going. He knew the outcome, but still did what the heavenly Father called Him to do. Wow!
Are you ever tempted to give up? To stop praying for them? To stop showing the love of Christ? Do you ever feel you’ve done all you can do?
God knows the outcome before going into the situation. That’s not our concern. Our job is to be faithful, to offer to others the gift that was offered to us. The gift that only Jesus can truly give. We are just delivering the message. God is giving the gift.
At the beginning of the week, I was on reading in John chapter five about the story of the crippled man by the pool. I have heard this story since I was in the church nursery. At this moment, I can see in my mind’s eye the picture that was on the wall in my children's Sunday school room depicting this scene. Today I want to go a little deeper and, as Paul Harvey would say, tell the rest of the story.  Jesus came to this pool, which had a reputation for healing, and spoke to a crippled man asking if he wanted to be made well. We all know this part. The man explained that he had no help to get into the pool, then Jesus told him to pick up his mat and walk. That’s where the preschool lesson stopped when I was young, but let’s keep going. When the man got up with his mat, the Jewish leaders questioned him about toting his mat on a Sabbath. They asked who healed him. The man said he didn’t know. He hadn’t asked Jesus who He was, and Jesus had disappeared in the crowd.
Jesus didn’t stop with the man's physical healing but intentionally came back and offered him spiritual healing. The other thing that sticks out is the way Jesus worded his sentence. In my suspicious mind, I wonder what this guy had been up to when Jesus found him. This is just me wondering, but it seems the guy may have had a less than glowing past. Then the kicker happens at the end of verse 15. After Jesus warned the man to change, this guy who had received a miracle that very day, a miracle that changed his life for the better, went and told the Jewish leaders who Jesus was. This guy basically went and turned Jesus in to the authorities who wanted to harm Jesus. Y’all... that’s cold. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
Jesus knew when He woke up that morning that this man at the pool would accept the physical healing and then not only refuse the gift of salvation, but betray him to the authorities seeking to harm him. Still, He went to the pool to heal the crippled man, then returned and found him again. Jesus set the example of serving the Father in all things.
The story of the crippled man by the pool is actually very sad, but I think it is a common one. We all want the physical improvements, but not the call for repentance. No one likes to be reprimanded, but our heavenly Father always wants what is best for us. We need to listen with humble and thankful hearts and be grateful that He found us and loves us enough to show us the best way . . . the best way in all areas of our lives.
I’m going to confess something here that got me through several services when my girls were little. Strategic sitting was a biggie, but even with that, the youngest (the CEO and Pinky’s mom) still often took my full attention . . . until I made the discovery of a lifetime. One Sunday when my youngest was two, she wore her first pair of big-girl, flesh-colored pantyhose. Back then, you could get these stockings in a size two.
The weekly game of ‘entertain myself without bringing down Mom’s wrath’ had begun. I watched out of the corner of my eye like a lion tamer, waiting for my young cub to roar and break free. After a minute or two of quiet stillness and total concentration on her legs, I couldn’t take it and had to see what was holding my daughter’s attention. She had found a tiny pick in her stockings and was working diligently and stealthily to make the pin size hole bigger without getting caught in the act. By the end of the service, the baby angel’s entire left calf was out of the hole she had quietly picked in that pair of $1.89 pantyhose. Y’all, that was the quietest, least stressful Sunday morning service I had been through in two years. Judge, if you will, but I thought the cost of a pair of stocking was a small price to pay for Sunday peace. Baby angel didn’t wear pantyhose every Sunday, but when she did, I knew I was in for a pleasant morning.  What is my point in this story? Well, you could draw many, I guess, but for me a couple of things are clear. Church is too important to let anything or anyone stop you from attending. Even your own sweet babies. In John 2:17, after Jesus took a whip and cleaned out the money changers from the temple, the disciples recalled that zeal for the God’s house consumed Jesus. It consumed Him so much that Jesus kept going back, even when he found the service lacking. Even when He found a demon sitting in the service with everyone else (Luke 4:31-44), even when he was rejected (Matthew 13:53-57). He kept going back and teaching the truth of God to the ones there. Jesus loved the church and as His children, we should, too. I will not let another person come between me and my time of gathering and worshipping my Savior.
My second point is that I can’t expect to get everything I need to grow as a Christian from one Sunday a week, especially like those distracting Sundays from days gone by. If those Sunday mornings had been all the time I had to commune with God, then I would have starved spiritually. I was having to multitask just to be on the pew. But guess what? I have a Bible. I have a Father who promises to listen when I pray. I have six other days that I can read about the Savior and come before Him in prayer. Sunday worship is like the cream cheese frosting on the red velvet cake. They go together. So Monday through Saturday I worship on my own, and Sunday I’m gonna be at church to worship with all the other believers. How about you?  Acts of service are one of the ways I show love to those around me. It’s so strange, but I am truly at my best when I am doing something for someone else. I think that’s why I’ve always loved being a nurse and why it has been so difficult for me to let it go. I think that’s why I love the story of Mary and Martha so much. You know the one from Luke 10:38-42? If not, take a minute to go read about these two sisters. The Bible doesn’t really specify, but I have always imagined Martha was the older of the two. The scriptures says the home was hers, and Martha seemed to be in charge of everything that was going on. As a younger sibling, (number six of seven kids) that sounds like the oldest to me. Me, and I think a few of my siblings closer to the caboose end of the family, always looked to the eldest of our brood to take charge of things where family gatherings were concerned. I was always happy to pitch in and help, but I knew I was never expected to be in charge of anything. Anyway, Martha invited Jesus and the disciples into her home and served them a meal. Did serving the Savior make her feel loved? I would think it should, but I don’t know. All I know is that in this text she seems to feel that her sister who is sitting at the feet of Jesus should be up helping her. Helping to carry the burden that Martha has put upon herself.
Y’all, this answer sort of punches me in the gut. I have so many good intentions, get so involved in so many things that I am often frazzled and worn to a pulp. Can you relate? I think most mothers and grandmothers can. It’s so easy to spread myself so thin that I don’t make time for the better . . . for sitting at the feet of Jesus. Then, like Martha, when I am stressed and strung out, I want to blame others for not jumping in and helping in a task that they were never called to fulfill.
So, if service is good, like we see it is, why is it that Mary chose better? Mary and Martha were in the presence of Jesus, but Martha was so distracted with her work, her serving, that she didn’t take time to sit at His feet and soak up the amazing gift of being near the Savior, of feeling his love. Martha’s work became an obligation, not an act of worship or an act of love. Galatians 5:13 reminds us to serve one another in love. I don’t think this is where Martha was.
Is the service I do for fellow Christians done as an offering to Christ, poured out in love? If not, why am I doing it? Would Jesus say well done, or would He tell me to choose better? Hmmm . . . after all, in Ephesians 2:10 it says we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. So, in the end, who chooses the good works I should be doing? Isn’t it God? If I am doing works that He hasn’t chosen, then who am I really doing them for? Are You A Yard Bird When I was growing up, we always had yard birds, what some folks now call free-range chickens. The newest title for these animals sounds so much more distinguished. I was not a fan of these animals for several reasons. One chief reason was that yard birds loved to walk across our front porch and . . . how can I put this delicately? Let’s just say that these animals needed to wear pampers. Anyway, because of their lack of bathroom decorum, I was assigned the daily job of dragging the hose from the pump house and hosing off the yard bird mess (literally), so our front porch wouldn’t look or smell like a chicken coop. Whoa to the bird who happened to be on the porch when I had the water hose on. I would kink the line, build up a little pressure, and blast the foul fowl back to the yard where it belonged. The birds never learned. They always came back, chasing a bug, singing their egg-laying songs, doing their business on our porch. They lived in their own little chicken world and didn’t care about anything else.  Sometimes I’m a yard bird. I run around in my own little world, meeting my needs, focusing on whatever is right in front of me and being completely content. Whatever happens, happens. Then, I look back at the day, or the week, or the decade and wonder what happened. Where did the time go? What kind of mark did I leave on the world around me? Was it just a messy trail that someone else had to clean up?  In 1Corinthians 9:26-27, Paul tells us not to run aimlessly, but to run with a goal, a goal for pleasing Christ. Do I run daily toward Christ and what pleases Him, or do I zig-zag like the chickens, chasing whatever fancy that flutters across my path? Do I even know if what I’m doing is pleasing to my heavenly Father?
Paul reminds us in Philippians 3:13-14 that even if yesterday was a zig-zag day, today doesn’t have to be. Today we can push toward Christ, run straight toward Him in every little activity we take on. How do we do that? Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us not to lean to our own understanding. This means we need to be in God’s Word. Bible study, praying for God’s will in our lives, asking ourselves in every situation, where is God in what I’m doing? I look at the life God has entrusted me with, the people He has graciously allowed me to interact with. Do I point them to Him in my actions, my words? Am I running with purpose? Is the purpose God’s purpose? If not, why not? He has given me life abundantly.
As I grew, made my way through school, found my own radio stations, discovered PBS television, I found many more types of music to love. I listened to the Eagles, the Beetles, Pavarotti, Bocelli (my favorite), U2, The Bee Gees, ABBA, ZZ Top, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles . . . you get the idea. If there was a melody, I was all in, loving it all. I heard the different instruments, adored how the voices blended and hit the notes, found joy in the rhythms and tempos. Then I met Mr. Wonderful. One day as I was listening to a song with a fabulous tempo, great blend of voices, amazing musical score, Mr. Wonderful asked me an eye-opening question that has changed the way I’ve listened to songs ever since. The question: Do the lyrics to that song honor God? Wham-bam-thank you ma’am. Why hadn’t I ever thought about this before? Why was singing lude lyrics set to pleasing music okay, when speaking these lyrics would make me cower in shame? Let’s just say I had an ahh-haa moment. I hadn’t paid attention to the words at all. I didn’t even know what I was saying when I sang the Italian opera I so enjoyed. Ouch. My toes were hurting. I tried to justify my wide array of song choices, some of them just plain ole raunchy, by telling myself I wasn’t hurting anyone, and what I listened to didn’t really affect me. Have you ever noticed that God’s word cuts through the bologna we serve ourselves—if we take the time to read it?
Some of the songs were fine with clean nice lyrics, but I wasn’t filtering my music at all. I listened to the good, the bad and the ugly all with the same gusto.
I would love to say that I turned away from the music whose lyrics were not pleasing to my Savior and never looked back, but I can’t. My prayer now is Psalm 141:3 “Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.” Have I stepped on your toes, because mine are bloody nubs.  I spent the entire day last Saturday getting my tax information together. Let me just say that if there was ever any doubt that I do not write for the money, I squashed it flat over the weekend. Once again, I put every little penny from my books back into the writing business. Praise the Lord. I stayed in the black and still put out a few novels. I know in my heart that this writing is a ministry. As long as I’m writing and putting out Christ honoring fiction, I’m doing what I am supposed to. I string along my words into whatever tale pops into my head, then use them to entertain and bring glory to God. But sometimes, like on the day I’m contemplating how many hours I have invested into this writing thing, and how little income it’s given back, I want to have a little pity-party. Even worse than that, I ask myself if this is really what God has called me to? I mean, what good am I actually doing for the kingdom? Isn’t there an easier, less time-consuming way to serve? Like hospice nursing? After all, I did that for years. I shared Christ in my job—and brought home a little bacon too.  In Genesis 7:13-16 we come to a climactic point in the story of Noah. After working on the ark and preaching to the masses for 120 long years, it was finally time to gather the converts from all of his labors and enter the ark. In the previous chapter, we watched Noah drop everything in his life and work non-stop for over a century, faithfully doing what God had told him to do. Finally, in these verses, on the day that the Lord appointed, how many converts besides Noah’s family followed him into the ark? You know the story. Zilch. Nada. A big goose-egg zero. Can you imagine the pity-party I could have thrown that day? Yes, I would have boo-hooed like a baby and even doubted what I had done with my life for the last hundred years. But not Noah. Noah was as steady as a rock, faithfully doing what God told him to do.
Another thing I love about this passage is how the Bible tells us that God closed the door. Noah completed that part of his ministry, and God took it from him. God closed that door and no one, including Noah, could have reopened it until God ordained it to happen. This really speaks to me. God knows the season of life I’m in. He knows I’m not the person I was ten years ago. He knows my weaknesses and my strengths just like He knows yours. Our job is simply to surrender to His will and stay the course. What should I conclude from this lesson? God didn’t call me to make money from my writing. He didn’t call me to be a popular writer. He called me to glorify Him with my words. He took care of my yesterday, and He will take care of my tomorrow. So today . . . today, I write. What has He called you to do today? |
KC HartAuthorJoin me in my study of God's Word as I strive to draw closer in my walk with Jesus and seek His daily plan for my life. Archives
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