I am Ruth

Doom and despair.  That's how we are introduced to the story of Ruth and Naomi in the Bible.  I've always loved their story because of how it ends, but only in the last couple of years have I considered how their story started: displacement and grief.  Naomi was a foreigner living in Moab because there was famine and hunger in her homeland when she loses her husband and two sons to death's unrelenting knock.  She doesn't even have grandchildren yet!  What she does have are two daughters-in-law from the local culture, Orpah and Ruth.  When given the opportunity Orpah returned to her parents' home, but Ruth stayed with Naomi.

That is the moment in the story when I'm hooked!  I read breathlessly through their story to rush to the end where Ruth captures the heart of Boaz, the epitome of godly men, and they live their lives out together happily ever after in the lineage of Jesus.  It's a great story!  It's like Pride & Prejudice - I read it over and over again with the same anticipation for the moment that they realize at the time that they want to be together!

I can easily overlook the misery at the beginning of the story because I know the joyousness at the end of the story.  What knocked me off my feet was when I realized that Ruth didn't know the end of the story!  She endured all that grief, choose to leave her homeland to be a foreigner  in someone else's homeland, traversed they rocky ground along the endless length of the Dead Sea (which offers no nourishment to the body), and scaled the treacherous mountains from the lowest place on Earth up to Jerusalem.  She and Naomi, a grieving old woman, survived that arduous journey only to enter Bethlehem at the harvest time (spring), when the sun only gets higher and hotter day after day.  They were poor, travel weary, and alone.  Ruth bent under the sun and the scrutiny of gossiping critics day after day to provide for her mother-in-law.

Stop there.

Stop and appreciate the hardship that Ruth willingly endured.  Why?  She had no way of knowing that she would get a tiara, so to speak, in exchange for trial.  All she knew was the trial, the suffering.  So why did she submit to it?

Ruth had learned about faith in God. She didn't just learn that God exists and plays some kind of a role in the universe.  She learned about faith in God - that nonsensical absolute assurance that God is without a doubt active and interested in the world and in our lives so much so, in fact, that we dare not breathe without acknowledging his tender and powerful presence working all thins (including the doom and despair) together for the good of those who believe in him so that collectively we can give up our exhaustion for the glory of the One who loves us with an inseparable and unconditional grace-filled love kind of faith!

Deep breath...

When you learn that kind of faith the trial dims in comparison.  You can look above and beyond and cling to the One who is in absolute control.

That was the kind of faith that has moved all the great ones into great stories.  Not just Ruth and Naomi, but Noah, Abraham, David, Rahab, Peter, Paul, Corrie ten Boom, A.W. Tozer, and.... me?

All these people were still living by faith when they died.  They did not receive the things promised; they only saw and welcomed them from a distance.  And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.  People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have opportunity to return.  Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one.  Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God... Hebrews 11:13-16

I am Ruth.  I am a foreigner living among the Jewish people.  I do not know the end of my story here.  In fact this particular chapter of my story has a lot of conflict and discouragement in it.  I am Ruth.  I chose to endure trial because my faith is greater than my suffering.  I have no idea what God has called me to or for, only that he has called me.  I am Ruth.  I journey by faith, not knowing the end.

Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering... So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.  You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised... We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved. Hebrews 10:32, 35-36, 39

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:1-3

Mental Aperture f/1.8

I can relate to author Ann VonKamp, who relates that her tools of introspective focus are ink on a blank page and the lens of her camera.  In fact, in writing this I'm penning my thoughts on the first fresh page of a new notebook.  I can't tell you what a giddy joy this is!  I actually closed the door to mute the other sounds in the house so that I could revel in the feel of the ink slipping across the page and the sight of my heart taking shape.

My other favorite tool to study perspective in my life is my camera.  My dad taught me to love what a camera can see that human eyes can't.  What interferes with our eyesight is our mind.  Our minds are always adding subtext to what we see, and our minds are not always the most trustworthy source for unadulterated truth.

I know my mind, in particular, loves to overload my sight with details and stress about what everything I'm seeing implies.  You know, the violation of the command, "don't worry about tomorrow for tomorrow has enough trouble of it's own" (Matthew 6:34).  Yep... Jesus emphasizes that because he knows we're inclined to be that way.  I often have to remind myself that even with a tomorrow filled with plenty of trouble, his mercies are also new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23).  There is a day-to-day reality of spiritual living, and I'll come back to that idea a little later.

However, when I raise the viewfinder to my eye something profound happens: that overwhelming subtext of my mental taskmaster is temporarily short circuited!  I can only see that which fits in the frame of my camera.  My favorite thing to do is play with the depth of field (how much of the picture is in focus and how much of the picture is blurry).  I can focus my camera on the petals of a flower and not even notice the trash can behind it!  In photographic terms I'm talking about the aperture.  The more open the aperture is, the tighter the area of focus in your frame.  How I've come to think of it, though, is the smaller the f-stop, the smaller the area of focus (f/1.8 for a really blurry background versus f/22 for a sharp landscape shot where every detail is in focus).

I love f/1.8!  I wish my mind would work in f/1.8.  I strive for a mind that sees in f/1.8!  It's scriptural, actually.  The striving comes in in the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2), and the f/1.8 relates to where our focus in life is.

I started this week in Hebrews 3.  Right away there is this verse: Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the holy calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus.  Refocus that mental aperture to f/1.8 so that you can see the perspective God wants you to have.  Matthew 6: 33 reads, "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and everything else will be added to you."  Peter, bless his heart, had an f/1.8 focus when he got out of the boat and his eyes were focused on Jesus, but then his mind switched to an f/22 aperture and started looking around at the overwhelming context he found himself in and started to flounder, fall, and flail (Matthew 14:28-30).

Last week I went on a photography tour in the Negev with three of my friends.  We were in the Judean wilderness before sunrise, not knowing what dawn's light would reveal to us.  My first impression when I saw morning reaching around the landscape was, "Ugh. Empty brown hills and junky housing cluttering a landscape shot where I could superimpose a verse later."  What a laugh!  I was trying to spiritualize my f/22 corrupted mental subtext way of seeing things.  At any rate, I was there to take pictures, so I raised my camera to my right eye and my whole focus changed!  I started seeing those same ugly hills as being skillfully crafted.  The junky houses looked absolutely brilliant with the sun rays bursting out from behind them!  I noticed life in the barren landscape - small samples of vegetation persevering to survive.

I was at f/1.8.




And then something more amazing happened.  People started emerging from those junky houses and inviting us to come in.  It was a Bedouin family (the modern version of Abraham - desert dwellers without a permanent structure they call home), and the Bedouin are famous for their hospitality.  This family, even in their poverty, was no exception.

I kept my camera handy, but it was alternatively up or down (depending on how much tea or bread they put into my hands at the time).  I captured as much with my heart as I did on my SD card.  The Lord had already switched my mental aperture to f/1.8, and this is what I "captured":

• A face lined with struggle yet filled with joy. The matriarch of this family was actually from Bethlehem and had married into a Bedouin family.  She lived daily life always as a foreigner.  I can relate...
• Matted, tangled, dusty hair framing expressions of curiosity and wonder.  I'm sure the group of us in our Western clothing, fancy cameras, and strange language was quite the sight first thing on a Wednesday morning!
• Eyes dripping with grime and infection, like an alley cat we warn our innocent children not to touch.  I took pictures of the children with heartache, but their mothers melted with joy when they saw the images of their children on the back of my camera.

My camera's aperture setting of f/1.8 changed my focus.

It was this experience that was on my mind when I opened up Hebrews 3 this week.  Of course, as I mentioned earlier, it starts with an f/1.8 focus on Jesus.  Once we have the right focus we're told to hold on and hold firmly to our courage, our hope, and our confidence in our belief that we have accepted through faith.  Just to emphasize the importance of that, the writer of Hebrews poignantly illustrates that the Israelites had tried and tested God for forty years and still hardened their hearts.  For forty years they saw God's delivery, redemption, provision, and proof of his very nature being God, and the still did not have the faith to believe in him (vs. 7-9).

So resolve to "encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness" (vs. 13).  Something is actively trying to rend our courage, hope, and confidence - our f/1.8 perspective - from our grip, and that is sin's deceitfulness.  It's that deceitfulness that turns my world ugly and rewrites the subtext of what I see with my eyes.  It's the lies and unbelief that torques my mind's lens to a distorted focus.  My perspective of the world is alarmingly similar to the eyes of the Bedouin children - full of wonder and curiosity, but clouded with infection.

My camera and Hebrews remind me to reset my mental aperture, to fix my thoughts on Jesus and in so doing I will gain a whole new beautiful picture of what I previously determined was ugly, bothersome, discouraging, or even debilitating.  The key to holding firmly to my courage, hope, and confidence is to have some daily disciplines (discipline being the very act of holding on) that involve what my friend calls, one anothering:

If one anothering daily keeps our mental aperture from becoming out of focus, I want to do more one anothering:

• Encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 4:18, Hebrews 3:13).
• Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling (1 Peter 4:9).
• Be devoted to one another in love.  Honor one another above yourselves (Romans 12:10).
• As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17).
• As I (God) have loved you, so you must love one another (John 13:34).
• Do not deceive one another (Leviticus 19:11).
• Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God (Romans 15:7).
• Greet one another with a holy kiss (Romans 16:16, 2 Corinthians 13:12). ;)

While my camera helps me refocus my perspective of what is in front of me, imagine what all this one anothering can do to my perspective on life!

Where Did THAT Come From?!

I was coasting along, taking things one small punch at a time, absorbing upsetting news and a long list of complaints.  All.  Day.  Long.  Maybe absorbing isn't the right word...  I swallowed it all like a bothersome lump in my throat.  On top of that there were delays and a schedule to heed to.  The delays only reminded me of the failures of my system of control, and it all seemed to be unraveling at an alarming pace for me.  Those sour lumps I had swallowed suddenly started ejecting themselves from my stomach via word vomit.  And the word vomit was ugly.  It came with a stench and a punch (literally) and it was all directed at my failings.

Right away, as I'm confessing this, I see two truths clearly:

1) It is not my responsibility or in my strength to ingest the problems around me.  Rather than swallow the lump, I should have dissolved it by handing over the responsibility to the One who can do something about it.  Why didn't I take the time to pray and cast my burdens (1 Peter 5:6-8)?  Because it seemed small enough?  Insignificant?  I thought I could handle it and, honestly, I liked the high I was experiencing being able to cope - especially after being so fragile for so long.  But what is that other than pride?

2) What is in a person's heart comes out through their mouth (Matthew 15:18), and what came hurling forth from mine was nothing short of ugly.  How can the Holy Spirit give me such open eyes to see others with grace, and yet I'm so blind to myself?!  Something is really rotting in me... It's not just low self-esteem; my heart has turned a dark corner.

I had an ah-ha! moment later that day.  Some friends came over to watch a Beth Moore simulcast about grace.  This is the truth that left me "slack-jawed," as she put it: Realize that God being disappointed (especially in you) does not appear in Scriptures!  God is not disappointed in us!  Disappointment, by definition of the word, is an unmet expectation; it's a human malady.  God is omniscient.  He knows everything - past, present, and future - and can therefore not be surprised.  He knows every detail of your life, so how can He not know what you will do.  Now He is displeased by our lack of faith, but not disappointed.

That truth was so immediately freeing!  I know what happens in human relationships when someone is disappointed.  There is a break in communion.  There is a fracture of trust.  There is a separating of association.  The consequence in disappointment is to be removed for a period of time from the other person's grace or favor.  That's why disappointing someone you care about hurts so much, because you can't bear the shame of what you've done to your relationship with them.

That shame does not exist within your relationship with God because He is never disappointed in you!  You are always full-in with Him.  When you stumble or fall flat on your face with revealing skid marks across the bridge of your nose, He is not disappointed in you!  He stoops to pick you up with all tenderness (Psalm 113) and sits close to you to make sure you're all right, first of all, and then speaks with tenderness about what happened (Psalm 116).  His only goal is to restore you and to make His joy complete in you (Psalm 86)!

"This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence whenever our hearts condemn us.  For God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything" (1 John 3:19-20).

God, I implore You - TAKE THE UGLY FROM MY HEART!  Remove my blinders.  Cleanse me from the lies.  I want Your eyes for me!  I want to know - full-out-head-to-toe-live-out-loud-KNOW - how complete Your grace is for me.  Show me today and then never stop.  Please...

And So the Onion Peels

Culture has been described as an onion. Immediately you can determine the obvious things about a new culture: shape, color, smell (most definitely the smell), and how it differs from other cultures that are already familiar.  But many layers does an onion have, and there is always something to peel back and discover (and, to be honest, learning about the layers does sometimes bring tears to your eyes)!

This morning I examined another layer of culture I have peeled back since returning for my second term:

1) I now recognize accents in Hebrew that I didn't know were there my first term. For example,  there was a mom in the kindergarten that spoke English and Hebrew, and I thought she sounded perfect in both.  I have spoken with her twice this week and realized that she, in fact, has quite a strong Ethiopian accent!  It's a small victory for my progress in Hebrew; at least as far as my listening comprehension goes.

2) It is acceptable to stare at people while you walk by.  They will also stare at you.  It's a really strange experience because it's as though they are watching the news on a screen,  be it a television or computer or tablet.  They simply stare at you without reaction or acknowledgement that you exist in flesh and blood.  And when you stare back at them,  it's as though your staring into a TV camera; so of course you are looking in their direction, but it's not really them that you see. So the exchange of stares occur quite detached from any sort of definable interpersonal interaction.  We just stare completely void of any uncomfortable glancing away or nonverbal suggestion that the golden rule of interacting with strangers has been violated.

I wonder what else is in this layer?

Feasting on Joy

It is the last day of Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles), and I am in a reflective mood.

"Live in booths for seven days... do your descendants will know that I had Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 23:42-43)

"Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands... while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened...  We live by faith, not by sight.  We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body, and at home with the Lord.  So we make it our gal to please him, whether we are at home n the body or away from it." (2 Corinthians 5:1, 4, 7-9)

In regards to the sukkah (the booth)... This is the point:  All this, too, shall pass.  Hold lightly the things of this world - possessions, ability, achievements, disappointments, even grief - for all these things are temporary.  they will pass with our "earthly tent" and this world as we know it.  All these things will be replaced by joy (2 Cor. 5)!  Certainly the rituals of the daily grind happen in the sukkah like they do in the house - meals, gatherings, cleaning, rest... What sets it apart is the reminder that our surroundings (mind-numbing-and-at-the-same-time-overwhelming circumstances, day-in-and-day-out-life, never-quite-belonging-context, my-world-versus-your-world) are temporary, and in that context we are to find joy through thanksgiving.

Have you ever asked God, "Exactly what do you have in mind for me in this place?"  That question generally appears when you are in a place of seemingly aimless wandering.  You see God.  You don't doubt Him, but when you look around the immediate present of your life you realize that you are in a desolate and difficult place with no hope of purpose.  Isn't that the situation of the Israelites in the desert... for 40 years?!

And so enters the significance of Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles).

"... after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival of the Lord for seven days...  rejoice before the Lord for seven days..." (Leviticus 23:39-40)

"Be joyful at your Feast - you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites, the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns (ahem... EVERYONE).  For seven days celebrate the Feast to the Lord your God at the place the Lord will choose.  For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete." (Deuteronomy 16:14-15)

The whole concept of God choosing the place of worship is quite thought provoking.  The design of the tabernacle is to be assembled for atonement and thanksgiving wherever God has placed the worshiper.  It wasn't always on a mountaintop with a breathtaking view of the world around you.  Most times He calls for the tabernacle to be raised in the sweaty grit of suffocating reality... and to be joyous...  How can that be possible?

There is something in finishing a period of hard work - to stop and assess the work that has happened, and the blessings that God has brought therein.  Stop.  Take stock. Give thanks.  There is more than one kind of harvest. Seek the Lord for the ability to see it.  He promises that whoever seeks after Him will find (Matthew 7:7-8)!

Even beyond the grace of the immediate present, don't forget to cast your thoughts to the past.  What has God redeemed you from and for?  What were the miracles God has already done?  If you are nearsighted in this area, you will be short sighted for the future.  Look for God's hand in generations past, even.  Celebrate His work in others' lives.  Don't stop after one or two occasions of God's greatness - keep going!  After all, Sukkot is supposed to be a time of joy!  What more effective way to be filled with joy than to have your remembrances filled to overflowing with the goodness - the GREATNESS - of God?!

I do not...

We were sitting on my porch, my friend and I. She was reminiscing about a book she was reading (by Shauna Neiquist, I believe). A revolutionary thought had presented her with a pronounced freedom - to create a list of things that you are not. For example, "I am not a gardener," my friend admitted with a smile. "I'm not either," I jumped to agree! She looked at me doubtfully, because we were surrounded by my potted plants. I felt like I owed her, and everyone, an explanation.

I am not a gardener.

Marshall teases me mercilessly that I don't have a green thumb, and, in fact, he doubts that my thumb is even brown! So why do I have plants? Well, I love them for one thing! I just can't keep them alive or flourishing! That doesn't really answer the question, does it? Let's go back to the revolutionary idea of what I am not or do not do:

• I do not garden for therapy or stress relief.
• I do not garden for bragging rights.
• I do not garden because I'm naturally talented at it.

I do garden to remind myself to be diligent in spiritual disciplines.

I am not, by nature, prone to nourish plants nor myself. The plants are such a stark visual reminder of what happens when depraved of proper nourishment. The buds don't result in blooms, even though there is promise peeking shyly at you. The leaves dry up on the edges and become fragile and brittle. The dust settles on the leaves and the pests aren't bidden haste. All of these indications that my plants have not been nourished or cared for properly.

When I see my plants in this condition, it immediately provokes me to take an inventory of my spiritual disciplines.

There are shockingly similar indications for my spirit. There remain gifts that aren't stirred up, my capacity for grace and kindness shrivels up, and the lies of the enemy nest themselves inside my mind without any truth to eradicate them.

As a new creation, I need to be connected to the vine in order to flourish and bear fruit. I can't do that without nourishing myself regularly with the truth of the Living Water, and submitting myself to the care of the Lord. He knows best when to put me in the sun, when to prune my branches, when to add minerals to my soil, and when to protect me from damaging elements - because He is the one who created me!

I "know" that truth. It's one of the earliest Scriptural truths that I learned and there are countless songs about this truth. But unless I see something despairing for lack of proper nourishment, I can learn to live without nourishment. After all, the world gives me countless examples on how to live so! I become blind and numb to the fact that there is a fuller, deeper, more beautiful life available to me. So I am not a gardener, but I do garden.

That reminds me... I need to water my plants...

"It's the hardest thing ever!"

I'm beginning to discover why veterans of learning a second language were so realistic with us about language learning being the hardest thing you could ever do. I think it's hard for different reasons, depending on who you are.

For me the technical aspect of learning the language isn't the hardest thing I've ever done. I think finishing the mini-marathon (and yes, I only walked it) was much harder. Adjusting to another family culture after getting married was MUCH harder! I KNOW that maintaining discipline in certain areas of my life is THE hardest (by the way, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the sponsors of my chocolate love affair).

What makes language learning so hard for me? I think it's a combination of two things, or maybe it just boils down to one thing: emotional drain. I'm so exhausted at the end of the week from learning and remembering all the new material that I simply want to collapse at the end of the week. I don't have the spare energy to parent well or to communicate respectfully or lovingly to Marshall, much less get myself out of the apartment and practice my Hebrew on actual Israelis. Yet I know that I can't abandon those responsibilities. So I have to dig much deeper, because my personal supply of perseverance has been completely depleted.

Dig deeper? That just rang a bell! A.B. Simpson, founder of the C&MA, was keen on the deeper life - a deeper spiritual life that was constantly nourished by the filling of the Holy Spirit. "Your mercies are new every morning!" celebrated a famous psalmist. Oh that I would remember to rely on those mercies and so glorify His name because of endurance that defies human limitations!

The apostle Paul defined perseverance as the ability to keep your faith through a difficult situation, and at the end of that situation - to still be standing. That's where I would like to find myself at the end of the week - still standing (as opposed to draped over the loveseat buried beneath a cozy blanket that semi-effectively drowns out the sounds of reality).