Sunday Morning

I was unable to make it to church this morning, due to some rather severe stomach trouble. Lest you worry, I ate at On the Border yesterday afternoon, and became extremely ill shortly after. It hasn't all been resolved. I actually got ready to go, but then fumbled my mascara brush which left a large splotch of Dark Brown on the front of the only shirt that matched the pants I was wearing. I would have been late. And, from what I know now, I would have had to leave. Ahem. 'Nough said.

So, today is morning worship at home.

"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." - Colossians 2:8

Oswald Chambers had to say about this: Men pour themselves into creeds, and God has to blast them out of their prejudices before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.

Yesterday, THGGM and I framed four hymns. Two of his favorites, and two of mine. Each have lines in them that jump out at us.

From "Come Thou Fount" the line that resonates with me is 'Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love.' I realize that I am prone to wander. I feel it. Much to ponder there.

Isaiah 35:3,4 - "Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not."

To this Chambers says, "The weaker and feebler you are, the better. The one who has something to trust in is the last one to come anywhere near saying - "I will serve the Lord."

The other hymn I framed was "Immortal, Invisible". This line "All praise we would render, O help us to see, 'Tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee" is rich. Does it help you to think that there is another dimension that we cannot see? Right here, right now, the only thing keeping us from actually knowing that God is everywhere is that we were not meant to see Him yet?

That thought makes my hands weak and my knees feeble.

If pondering is a gift, it's one I have. I can ponder something for days at a time. Sometimes I have to reign it in. Last week a read a line from a favorite author who said something like 'Joy is my gift, not faith. I struggle with faith.' I'd like to get to know her, because I don't struggle with faith, I struggle with joy.

Doesn't it seem weird to live in a world filled with war, poverty, sickness, broken relationships and pain all of which will end eventually in death, yet somehow we are supposed to find joy in it? Oooo. Plenty of faith I have here, but joy comes to me in small increments that end in guilt because sometimes being joyful just seems wrong. But it isn't wrong. And there I struggle.

But not as someone who has no hope.

This reminds me of a song Daughter used to sing when she was very young. She had a friend named Joey, whom she adored. She would sing with much gusto and one wrong word, "I've got JOEY down in my heart, deep deep down in my heart!" THAT I understood. And, she sang it with such joy that it was obvious she had that too. But she didn't KNOW it.

Did you ever wonder if the gifts we have aren't for us to recognize? I'm rather sick of taking spiritual gift evaluations. But, I have 'pondered' the value of taking them for other people.

There are other people I would really like to get to know because of the 'gifts' they possess. Only they don't know it. Might that not be a good thing? If they did know it, wouldn't that cheapen it somehow?

I had a friend who delighted in telling anyone who would listen, and those merely trapped, exactly what her gift was and how she planned to use it on them. I still cringe at the very mention of her name. She thought the entire Christian world was just slow at catching on to what she had to offer, and put the blame of it's failure on all of us (you too, you just didn't know it). By trying to grab at her perceived gift, she obliterated it. Did YOU ever try to hold light?

Is maybe the 'light' that surrounds us, that we cannot see but other people can, our gift? If we 'saw' it, would it retreat, evaporate or at least diminish?

All of this pondering has reminded me a verses learned a long time ago.

"Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God." - Isaiah 50:10b.