Born of the Spirit

 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

John 3:8

So, I was thinking about the wind this morning.  I'm not seeing any outside my office window.  Not that I would actually see it.  But I would know it was there by the movement of the trees.  Even though I hear thunder, and the ground is wet from rain - apparently this is not a fast-moving thunderstorm - the leaves are only gently rustling.  No wind.  Barely a breeze.

Hmm...  Wind.  Prime factor for change.  Change on the earth's surface.  Change on structures.  Change on lives.  And you can't see it; you can only see the results of it.  Wind.

A few years ago, my husband and I went on a mission trip to Gautier, Mississippi.  You can look it up on a map, right on the Gulf Coast, at the mouth of the Pascalgoula River.  It's about 15 miles east of it's more famous neighbor, Biloxi, and about 100 miles from New Orleans.  Gautier was one of the many places to get hit by hurricane Katrina in 2005.  It was hit badly.  

On August 29, 2005 Gautier was one of many cities affected by Hurricane Katrina. Many of the coastal homes were either destroyed or flooded. Some of the houses along the coast were built on hills, leaving them with wind damage only. Homes built on the water were completely destroyed, occasionally leaving an intact slab. In a few cases the slabs were cracked in half. One home in particular was built on pylons 13 feet (4 m) above sea level and had the floor ripped out from underneath. Most of northern Gautier, above the railroad tracks, had some wind damage but largely remains intact.    

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautier,_Mississippi 

We certainly saw the results of the wind.  Our small group was kept busy re-roofing homes.  Homes that had lost those roofs during the 100 to 140 mph winds of Katrina's landfall. 

This scripture snagged me during my reading this morning.  Of course, there is so much more in this chapter of John - being reborn of the spirit and God so loved the world...  But none of that caught me like this little triad.  I didn't get hooked in a wide-eyed-God-is-amazing way, but rather in an I-am-a-little-confused-about-God's-purpose-sometimes way.  Jesus is so convincing that I almost missed the but wait moment.  

Here it is.  The wind blows wherever it pleases.  Yup.  No argument there.  You hear its sound - again, no argument... but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going - well....minor adjustments there for me.  See, I believe in the Bible AND science.  Science can measure wind speed AND direction with a handy dandy contraption called an anemometer.  It's almost like the paper windmills we made as kids - blow on them and they turn.  So, yeah, we know where it comes from and we know where it's going.  But...track back a little more - science says wind is caused by changes in air pressure and temperature.  And where do THOSE changes come from.  (Earth's rotation, water in the atmosphere, currents, distance from the sun, position of the moon and planets, and so on, and so on...)  I'm not scientist enough to track back much further, but I eventually come up against GOD.  Yup.  So I'm ok with minor adjustments - the end result is the same.

So here's the real kicker.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.  Huh?  Did I miss something?  Jesus was answering Nicodemus's question about being saved.  How?  Where?  What is done?  Jesus has already answered one way, with rebirth, not literal birth, but of the spirit.  Nicodemus still doesn't understand, so Jesus describes the vagrancies of the wind.  Then the simile.  The one that stops me - the vagrant wind is the Spirit?  Being saved by the Spirit causes us to be like the wind?  Vagrant, unpredictable, unreliable.  Connotations that are weighing just a little toward the negative, right?

So maybe I read it wrong.  The Holy Spirit descended on the disciples in a violent wind from heaven.  The breath of God is the breath of life for Adam, Job, Moses, Isaiah, and Ezekiel.  It is the wind of destruction for the enemies of King David.   And then there's Solomon.  

As you do not know the path of the wind,

or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,

so you cannot understand the work of God,

the Maker of all things.

Ecclesiastes 11:5

You have to love Solomon.  

The wind is not vagrant.  It is God's agent.  An agent of change.  Of life.  Of death.  Of purpose.   The wind is not unreliable.  It will come.  A change will come.  We live, we die, the only things we can control are our choices - our purpose.  Poor Nicodemus saw all the outward signs of Christ's teaching, and he wanted to be a part of the Kingdom;  but with his earthly eyes, his cause and effect mentality, his concrete facts and observations, he just didn't see the wind.   Yeah.  God is sovereign.  He is God.  And Jesus?  Amazing Grace.  The Holy Spirit.  Wind of change, breath of life.  Yeah - three in one.

Thank you God, for your patience with our questions and doubts.  Thank you for answers to questions.  Thank you for rebirth and holy change.

Linking with Teach Me Tuesdays, 

A Few Smudges

 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.   She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to 

what he said.   But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.  

She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me 

to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,  but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better,  

and it will not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:38-42

Fingerprints, handprints, and believe it or not, footprints.  Smudges on the computer desk, on the windows of the cabinets in the kitchen, on the glass tabletop, on the glossy finish of the floor.  Everywhere - little signs of life in this home.

I like those furniture polish commercials - spray, wipe, and voila - everything shines.  Everything glows.  Everything smells good.  I've tried them.  They don't quite work the same way for me as they do for the lovely advertisement housewives.  But they do smell good.

So, I'm sitting here thinking about those fingerprints.  Those handprints.  Those smudges.  I'm thinking about my daughter getting up in the morning and putting her hands on the cabinet doors to get the little plate she uses to microwave her lean pocket for breakfast.  I'm thinking about the way she pushes that microwave door closed and concentrates on pressing 2-0-0-start.  I'm thinking about the gathering she does - at her place at the kitchen table - the rest of her breakfast... getting into another cabinet for her vitamins, getting a yogurt from the fridge, and a spoon, finding some fruit.  I'm thinking about how she places her bottle of water just so on the placement so that it doesn't touch the glass of the table top beneath, but how her place is always the one with the most mess to clean.  So purposeful.  So precise.  So independent.

She makes our coffee at night.  I know.... night.  But the thing has a timer - which she sets - so that the coffee is freshly made when we come down in the morning.  Five o-clock at our house sounds like the donut commercial.  My daughter picks up her watch from the arm of the sofa, stares for just a second.  It's time to make the coffee.   Everyday.  Rain or shine.  Fingerprints all over the stainless steel.

She works at her desk in her room.  She has an old laptop computer with a replacement keyboard - mouse on the left.  If I leave her room alone, she eventually covers every flat surface with stacks of her papers - her work - old school worksheets she copies into a word document, workbooks and coloring books, yearbooks, old spiral notebooks filled with her printing, pictures, construction paper...  cards she's made with scissors, glue and glitter.  Underneath it all - fingerprints and dust.  I tell her she needs to clean her room and she looks up and smiles.  I like it that way, she says.  Purposeful.  Precise.  Independent.

I'll still clean up.  I'll still work to get rid of those smudges.  But I won't resent them.  I wouldn't trade those fingerprints of purpose and independence for a world of clean houses.  I just shake my head at the wonder of it - focusing on my daughter's abilities rather than her disabilities - realizing that she has left a very real fingerprint on my life.  On my heart.  Cleaning up a few smudges won't change that.

Heavenly Father, thank you for my girl and her fingerprints.  Not only in my house, but in my life.  You are an amazing God and full of surprises.  

Linked with Monday's Musings
Hear It On Sunday

Would I

Would I answer the call

If He were here?

Would I drop everything

And follow Him?

To know Him

To love Him

To walk and talk with Him

In the flesh

In the spirit

Would I?


Linking With Still Saturday

Fishing and Feeding His Flock

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Galatians 1:10

"I don't judge."

He said it over a campfire in the mountains of Arizona, hot chocolate steaming in the white, styrofoam cup held in both hands.  It was cold; the stars, the countless myriad stars, were spilled like precious gems across the depths of space above us.  Vault of heaven.  It took my breath away.

"I don't judge."  But you do, I thought.  Just by that statement, you do.  We were sitting at the picnic table - wood, shellacked and smooth, worn by weather and campers - not cold metal tubes.  Not modern.  Not new.  It had taken awhile to get the fire started because of the rain that afternoon.  Rain while we were fishing together.  Fishing for trout.  With marshmallows.

Funny what I remember.  Salmon eggs and marshmallows.  A double-hooked line.  Spaced about a foot and a half apart, a lead weight pressed on at the the bottom.  I would cast the whole contraption out - feel the bottom hit, tighten up the line - then wait.  I could picture it, the line diving from the surface of the lake, extending diagonally away from shore to that little pebble of split lead, resting on the bottom.  Between, floating in the rocky depths, one hook above and slightly in front of the other, dangling bait - those bright red and white buttons, hiding the point and barb, hiding the metal - dissolving into the water in an inviting cloud of yum.  Yum for the fish.  Yum for me.

If I kept my finger on the line, I could feel those first tentative nibbles, the tiny movement traveling in pulses.  I loved the timing - carefully pull the pole in closer and close my hand on the reel.  I imagined myself a fish at the bait.   Test - test - oh it's good.  Bite.  At the bite, I yanked back and started winding in.  At that instant I knew - I had it, or I didn't.  They fought hard, those trout.

And then, at the end of the day, the campfire.  Cleaning the catch, grilling it over the flames with a little butter and salt.  Oh, but it was delicious.  Flaky, melt-in-your-mouth, fresh.  Satisfying.  Then, the hot chocolate and solving the problems of the world, tall pines silhouetted against the bright, bright stars.

I tried to explain to him.  That he was.  That judging was the idea that something or someone was right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse - it was a choice.  That he was choosing NOT to.  That his choice was in the NOT; it was his judgement about judging.

Funny what I remember.

Because lately, I've been reading a lot about what it means to write Christian material, and create Christian art.  It's too saccharin sweet.  I read.  Life isn't all fluffy, and pretty, it's not all a Thomas Kinkade painting.  I read.  I would rather be considered a secular author, than wear the Christian label.  I read.  Zondervan wouldn't publish my work; it visits too many dark places.  I read.

Labels.  Judgement.  Better.  Worse.  Right.  Wrong.  Good.  Bad.

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; 

no one comes to the Father but through Me.

If you choose to write or create only part of the truth in this broken world - only the darkness and the squalor, only evil, only sadness, sickness, disaster - then yes, you belong in the secular world.  But when Jesus is in your heart, then He will show up in your work; glimmers of His light will shine through the brokenness - hope, redemption, grace, healing, faith, joy, love - the rest of the truth...  Own up.  You are a Christian.  You've been hooked.  You can't help but be changed by the Holy Spirit.   You are feeding His lambs.  You are taking care of His sheep.  Indeed, you are feeding His flock.

Father in Heaven, thank you for this new day.  Thank you for changing me, for changing my heart, for forgiving my wrongs.  Help me to live today to glorify you, to proclaim the name of your Son in my words, my actions, and my thoughts. 

Linking with Faith Filled Friday, and Fellowship Friday

The Man in the Ivory Tower

The angel answered, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. 

Luke 1:19

And here it is again - the unimaginable, the undefinable - that detail that throws my entire sense of reality right out the window.  Yes, I'm referring to the passage above.  It's in the tense.   I am.... I stand... I have been sent.  I guess it comes down to faith and belief and how you understand the stories in the Bible.  And now I'm about to hang my theological undergarments on the line - for all the neighbors to see...

I have a hard time with some of the arguments I hear in Christian theology:  creationists versus evolutionists, the actual existence of heaven and hell, the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin...  They seem to come mostly from reading the Bible literally, or allegorically, or metaphorically... Which in and of itself, I don't mind.  Where I get frustrated is when someone tells me that their understanding is the only way - when they tell me it's not an either/or; it's an IS.

I've been teaching fifth-grade math for the past six years.  I like math.  It's logical and sequential; the skills build; the pieces 'fit'.  I joke with my students sometimes.  Fifth-graders are fun; they're not quite sure whether to believe me when I tell them there's a guy in an ivory tower who spends all his time making up special vocabulary for math concepts, and that we just have to learn them because he's the big math boss.  And then sometimes I tell them the actual etymology of the math terms they need to know.  I think they like the idea of the guy in the ivory tower better - but they always look at me with those I-don't-quite-believe-you-because-you're-joking-with-me---right? eyes.  The concept of having some stranger, somewhere, dictate what you know and what you don't know - what you have to learn - makes them balk.   But why?  They raise their hands.  Why do I have to know this word?  this concept?  this skill?  I know I've been somewhat successful when one of them looks at me, with all of that fifth-grade wisdom and sincerity, and says It's that man in the ivory tower again, isn't it? 

So, sometimes, I feel like there's a man an ivory tower telling me how I'm supposed to read and understand the Bible.  The man with the IS seems to have a pretty narrow vision - almost like he's wearing those shields on his eyes like they put on horses to keep them from using their peripheral vision - blinders.

But God is so far beyond our understanding, that it makes sense to me He would be capable of a Bible that can be read in different ways and understood in different ways.  Theology 101.  Does it matter if the earth was created or evolved?  Does it change my belief and faith in God?  No.  My God is capable of doing both - along with countless other miracles we don't even know about - and he's capable of doing them all in the same time and place - or in countless other times and places - because HE IS GOD.

So, here it is again - the unimaginable, the undefinable - that detail that throws my entire sense of reality right out the window.  I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.   For so many reasons.  First, this angel of God is standing in the presence of Zechariah, husband to Elizabeth, father to John the Baptist.  An angel.  And not just any angel - but the angel Gabriel, one of God's highest ranking angels.  How often does that happen?  I looked it up - three times.  He visited Daniel to explain a dream.  He visited Zechariah to tell of John's impending birth.  He appeared to Mary, mother of Jesus.  

Do I believe this story?  Yes.  Not only is the angel speaking to Zechariah - he is at the same time, standing in the presence of God.  At the same time.  Imagine that!  See, I don't think God and his angels operate under our rules of logic and sequence.  They can't be defined by that man in the ivory tower.  And the man in the ivory tower, with his limited knowledge and vision of all that is God, couldn't make up the tense.  No one can be in two places at the same time.  Well - maybe angels, and well, yes, God....

See, even in the story of announcing the birth of John the Baptist, God has hidden a little message.  Just like Gabriel's presence is not an either/or - he exists in Zechariah's presence at the same time as he stands in God's - neither is our reading and understanding of Scripture.  It doesn't have to be a choice - a man-in-the-ivory-tower rule.  The Bible is God-breathed and God-inspired.  Sometimes literal.  Sometimes metaphor.  Sometimes allegory.  Always God.   Amazing, mind-bending, imagination-expanding.  Messages to us.  He must really love us to try so hard...

Father in Heaven, amazing that I can call you that, that I can address you in prayer and know that you hear me.  Thank you for your Son, Jesus, who took away our sins to make this communication possible.  Thank you for the gift of your book, your messages to us.  Thank you for your love.