Nonfiction – Page 10 – The Word Worker

Ruts

My husband and I love to go fourwheeler riding. Anyone who does any kind of off-road riding knows that trails develop because they have been driven over. Someone found a way through the woods or whatever terrain and others followed the tracks because the first person proved that path was passable. Enough vehicles pass that way and the dirt packs too hard for plants to grow, leaving an obvious dirt road. Dirt turns into mud, tires plow through it and dig channels, more tires follow the same channels because obviously the first guy didn’t sink there, and the ruts get deeper and deeper.

At first it seems so much safer and easier to follow the same path that everyone did before you, but eventually something else happens. The ruts get deeper while the ground between them stays the original height. The tires going through the ruts carry vehicles, and eventually while the tires could go through the ruts the vehicle frame can’t make it over that middle hump. It’s stuck. The tires keep spinning but the vehicle doesn’t move.

The only way a stuck vehicle is going anywhere is being pulled out by another vehicle. Sometimes the process of being pulled out breaks important parts on the bottom so the vehicle doesn’t run anymore. Suddenly using those established ruts became very expensive and caused a whole lot of trouble for more than one person. The problem is usually fixable, but going the easy established way isn’t easy anymore.

Sometimes life can be like that. It’s so much easier to just follow established paths without really paying attention. It’s what everyone else is doing, so why change anything? We don’t even notice we’re in the ruts until we’ve sunk ourselves so deep we can’t go forward or backward. When we finally manage to get out of the roubles we caused, often we are so broken we still can’t go anywhere and the need to heal consumes the time we could have used to reach our goals.

Don’t follow the ruts.

Follower of Jesus

Have you ever thought about the disciples of Christ as human beings? People just like you? Can you recognize the following descriptions based on what we know about them from scripture? Do you recognize yourself? Might Jesus have called you if you lived in first century Palestine?

A blue-collar worker, impulsive and outspoken, trying to support a family, never quite staying ahead of expenses, fed up with oppression and ready to fight for king and freedom
A blue-collar worker, lives with his brother, searching for more of God than religious leadership offered, ready to trust, focused on political freedom from oppression
A blue-collar worker, co-owner of a family business, hot-headed, loyal, ambitious, honest, deep thinker, likes things simple
Seeking more of God than religious leadership offered, a good friend, excited to follow God, eager to bring more people with him, focused on physical solutions to problems
A slow listener, loyal, skeptical, unshakeable once convinced
Ambitious, materialistic, black sheep of the family, considers God expendable compared to comfort and success, unsatisfied
Proud of ethnic heritage, fierce proponent of independence from oppressive political system, militant political activist, trained fighter, rigidly adherent to the religious system passed down from previous generations
Ambitious, selfish, lacking conviction, dishonest, disloyal, belatedly regretful of decisions, convinced of hopelessness
Naïve teenager, committed to future of poverty and hard work, rule follower, trusting, condemned by society
Possessed by multiple demons, outcast from society, unable to function, desperate
Housewife, hospitable, focused on making a good impression, respected in the community, constantly busy
Leader, teacher, rigidly adherent to religious structure, secretly conflicted, sincere, afraid of society, cautiously hopeful
Soldier, leader, loyal to the ruling political system, unaware of God, desperate for help
Classically educated, financially well off, militantly religious, respected by religious leadership, committed to serving God, murderer, hateful

Something about each of the above was changed by contact with Jesus, but not everything. Often what seems the worst traits became great strengths; other times, the worst traits became the catalyst for great service. What will you let Jesus do with you?

Peacemakers

“…through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood…” Colossians 1:20 CSB

“Don’t assume that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” Matthew 10:34-36

The longing for peace is inherent in the human soul, so much that world-wide events are often driven by it. National policy is weighed against it. Societal movements claim it as a mantra. Interpersonal relationships are changed by it. But only once has true peace ever existed in the physical realm. Even then, those who possessed it did not recognize or understand it, and in pursuit of something different destroyed it.

What some people understand as peace is the idea of sameness. There are no differences of opinion, no cultural differences, no physical differences, no disorder, no struggle of any kind. This is not peace, it is laziness. Others think peace means there are no standards at all, that every person in the world must cater to the opinions of every other person in the world, while never being the same as anyone else in any way. This is also not peace, it is selfishness.

True peace is far different. It is not dependent upon other human beings or on the physical realm at all. It is rare, a treasure difficult to find, and fearsome to behold. Christ came to make it, but not between men. As the verses above make very clear, humanity often reacts violently when confronted with it.

So what does a peacemaker do if not smooth over all humanity’s ills? What is peace if not the absence of trouble on earth?

Peace is reconnection with God, a healing of the breach torn between Him and His children. It can only be found in Him, by returning our will and understanding to He who gave it. His character becomes ours, His strength becomes our conviction, His unchangeable truth becomes our unwavering courage to stand against lies.

Peace does not prevent trouble; on the contrary, peace is a beacon to those controlled by the author of confusion and father of lies. Most will choose not to surrender their own will, but like Cain will resent the consequences and grow to hate those who have what they rejected. They will see a sword but not the dragon , and in their willing ignorance they will attack the defender while the dragon burns them alive.

Most will, but not all. Some will see the strength and courage and be drawn to it. They will rise from the carnage and chaos to stand, taking arrows of their own. Some will fall, but more will rise to continue to fight for peace.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.” Matthew 5:9-10 CSB

The School Closet

Homeschooling is such a fluid undertaking. Unlike in a traditional classroom, where teachers repeat roughly the same lesson plans and teach the same skills year after year, homeschooling goalposts shift constantly as children develop and learn. Although some families maintain special “schoolrooms,” most of us don’t have the space in our homes for such a thing, and with the deeper understanding of our children’s learning styles that comes from the time we are able to spend with them, many families like mine would find that confining learning to a single room would be difficult.

Instead, our homes fill up with random collections of paper, art tools, science kits, memory tools, and of course books. Where others cover their walls with carefully chosen decor, ours are hidden behind bookshelves and child-made art. The household linens share space in the hall closet with school supplies.

The bookshelf situation will be a project for another day, but today our school closet got a makeover. With middle school approaching and STEAM taking over the house, the supplies needed to be updated and reorganized. Paper needs are hovering in a weird transition between construction paper and graph paper. Crayons and markers grudgingly yield space to colored pencils and paintbrushes. Coloring books were purged to make way for an entirely new category of supplies, a box full of microscope, chemistry, and magnets.

And yes, we count board games as school. Don’t you?

Kingdom

Throughout history, people have defined themselves by physical boundaries. We have the God-given need to draw together for support, companionship, and productivity. Nations form based on common location, following leaders who either appeal to a common goal or claim power to exert their own desires on others. As goals change and leaders die, these boundaries change to create new nations, and new leaders rise along with them.

This is the nature of the nations of the earth. Like castles made of sand, the physical bonds chosen by humanity can be molded or erased at will. The waves of time, selfishness, and fear are capricious, and even the most elaborate of structures are not immune to their destructive power.

As humans we tend to cling to our castles in the sand. We work hard to build them, we put much of ourselves into them, we identify ourselves by them. This is not a bad thing, it is part of our nature. But because we do this, often we place far too much importance on human leaders and human systems. We begin to see humans as saviors, as gods to rescue us from ourselves. We insist that our systems of government are divinely favored, and that any opposition must be from the devil.

Only one physical nation ever had that distinction, and it’s time was divinely limited. When its purpose had been served, God Himself saw to its downfall. He spoke of its demise hundreds of times for hundreds of years before the fall, calling attention to the greater kingdom of which it was a part and which would only be clearly seen when it had dissolved.

The true kingdom, the only castle that can never be washed away, is not defined by boundaries on a map or by physical systems of government. The Law that governs it is not defined by laws encoded by humans. Its King will never die or be overthrown; He rules both life and death, and directs the footsteps of humans whether they will or no. The true kingdom is not and will never be a place; it is a bond between the heart of God and the hearts of those who recognize His eternal sovereignty.

The greatest of earthly leaders may possess that bond as well as the poorest citizen. The true kingdom is unique in that only within it will equality ever exist, yet it possesses greater diversity than any human system could ever achieve. Its citizens reside in every nation, it claims individuals from every culture and with every physical trait within human dna.

Unlike physical nations, its borders are immovable and unbreachable. The only way in is on the King’s Highway, and the road signs are planted in bedrock. Unlike earthly leaders, the King cannot be bribed or threatened. He simply IS. Unlike systems created by humans, its goals will never shift and no laws need ever be encoded. The King and the citizens are so closely bound that the citizens naturally embody the character of the King.

Because this kingdom is in the hearts of humans rather than defined by physical boundaries, every nation and every society is inevitably influenced by it. Nations and societies that seek that influence naturally encode systems that reflect its Law, and because the Law is the nature of the world God created those societies prosper. Nations and societies that seek to destroy that influence defy the Law of creation and inevitably fall. Sometimes, the former become the latter and fall; other times, the latter become the former and rise.

Whatever the sandcastle or the wave, the citizens of the kingdom have one responsibility. We must root ourselves in the bedrock and stand while sand and foam beat upon us and scour the beaches clean around us. We must become the foundation upon which the next castle may be built, the bulwark against the waves.

“All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like a flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” I Peter 1:24-25 CSB

Memories

My youngest turned five this week. It’s an odd feeling to realize my last baby is now officially school-age. I thought about trying to throw a big bash to mark such a momentous occasion, but with all the fullness of life we have going on right now that just wasn’t gong to happen. Fortunately she had other ideas.

Birthday traditions in our family are pretty simple. At first it was a matter of being newly married and poor, then having small children and poor. But then it became something so powerful and precious that we could not change it. At first it was a box mix cake decorated the best this unartistic mama could manage in the birthday kid’s favorite theme of the year. Five dollars worth of tablecloth and paper plates to match the cake. Family only. As the kids got older they started wanting to help with the cake, and the tradition evolved into me doing the baking and providing materials for a cake topper while they decorated the way they wanted. However the cakes might have looked to outsiders, to the kids they were birthday masterpieces.

This past December our tradition underwent a new evolution, one that is proving to be the most precious of all. My oldest learned to bake, and with that knowledge begged to make her younger sister’s cake from scratch. She baked, the birthday girl decorated. Today we had the third birthday since this new development. Our days of boxed cakes are over for good. My days of creating the magic are over; I’ve been relegated to the rank of supplier. Instead, I watch my children excitedly creating their own magic, working together to produce a vision of their own imagination. I get to watch them make unforgettable memories.

The Forgiven Debt

A man owed billions of dollars to his employer. As a minimum wage earner, his chances of paying off such an astronomical debt were nonexistent. His employer, in an attempt to recover at least some of his money under the laws of his country, decided to sell the man and his family as slaves and sell off the man’s property. The man begged for time, promising to pay the debt despite insurmountable odds. The employer, knowing the situation and having deep sympathy for the man’s plight, decided that even that great sum of money was not as important as the man’s life and decided to wipe that great debt from the books as if it had never happened.

The man’s future had been saved, and he should have recognized the enormous opportunity he had been given to start fresh with a new outlook on life. Instead, he assumed an overimportant, entitled attitude, physically assaulted a fellow minimum-wage employee who owed him a few thousand dollars, demanded that every penny be paid immediately. When the other employee could not and begged for time to pay the debt, this man furiously and unreasonably had the other jailed until he would agree to pay the full amount.

When the employer heard what had happened, he was furious. He had given this man a chance for a future that he could never have under the weight of his crushing debt, and instead of taking that chance, the man had taken it as a sign that he was better than others and entitled to whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it. The employer reinstated the debt, called the police, and had the man arrested for embezzlement. Instead of having a future, the man would now spend the rest of his life in jail, without the opportunity of repaying even the smallest portion of what he owed.

In the beginning God created a perfect world, setting humans born of his own breath as its crowning glory. Instead of appreciating this incredible gift, humans decided they needed more and destroyed God’s perfect creation. Much like a financial loan that accrues interest the more time goes by without full payment, humanity continued to pile sin upon sin on a debt far greater than any financial obligation we could ever accrue. Two thousand years ago, on a wooden cross covered in His own blood, God wiped that debt from the books as if it had never been.

What do we do with this incomprehensible gift? I fear that most of the world behaves like the employee in the story. Rather than recognizing what an opportunity has been given them to rise above the petty desires of this world, rather than gratefully passing on the relief from this crushing weight of spiritual embezzlement, they waste their liberty in abusing humanity and demanding what they feel entitled to have. No obligation in this world, no imaginable slight on earth, could possibly come close to the spiritual obligation cleared by the gift offered on that cross, yet we become petty tyrants rather than relinquish any claims on our fellow humans.

Selfishness did not produce the result the employee in the story desired. Rather than getting everything he wanted and thought he deserved, he lost the opportunity to have anything for the rest of his life, and died with the insurmountable debt marking his name. Selfishness will not serve us either. Our jail will not be a physical one, and will not end with the death of our bodies. We will be tortured for eternity, with our debt to our creator burned into our consciousness as a constant reminder of what we threw away. Why would we choose such a fate for the sake of temporary and unfulfilling gratification, when we have been gifted a future worth more than the entire universe, a future we could never achieve on our own? Why would we waste the gift of our forgiven debt?

Gathered

ecclesia – translated “church” in English language Bibles – a summoned assembly, a gathering of people for a purpose

“And I also say unto you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not over power it.” Matthew 16:18

“He will lift up a banner for the nations and gather the dispersed of Israel; he will collect the scattered of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” Is. 11:12

“Knowing their works and their thoughts, I have come to gather all nations and languages; they will come and see my glory.” Is. 66:18

“As for me, if I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself.” Jn. 12:32

“…you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God (the heavenly Jerusalem) to myriads of angels, a festive gathering, to the assembly of the firstborn whose names have been written in Heaven, to a Judge, who is God of all, to the spirits of righteous people made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which says better things than the blood of Abel.” Heb. 12:22-24

“Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as overseers, to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood.” Acts 20:28

“Greet one another with a holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you.” Rom. 16:16

“…all the churches of the saints…” 1 Cor. 14:33

“We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that was given to the churches of Macedonia…” 2 Cor. 8:1

“And he subjected everything under his feet and appointed him as head over everything for the church…” Eph. 1:22

The spiritual gathering that belongs to God is never named or given a title. It is simply described as being individuals in any place who are drawn into the common purpose of belonging to and serving God. In scripture, it is most often not even qualified, but simply referred to as the gathered (the church).

Folded Paper

What image comes to mind when you imagine a person who likes origami (the art of paper folding, in case someone doesn’t know)? I can tell you I did not envision my nine year old son’s face. I was wrong. I’m not even sure how he was exposed to the idea, but for about two weeks now he has been rapidly draining our supply of construction paper.

His usual approach to tasks is wildly haphazard. Impulsive is an understatement for his personality. This new interest in origami has shown me a side of him I have been desperately trying and failing to find. He used the search engine on the old phone our kids use as a tablet to find instructions for folding ideas he dreamed up, read them carefully, and followed each step with painstaking care and accuracy. On his own he realized that construction paper isn’t square like origami paper and carefully measured and cut to create his own squares. Our house is filling with paper dinosaurs and weapons.

As parents and teachers, often we have a tendency to pre-judge our children. Daydreamy, wild, stubborn, unfocused, the list of paper boxes we create continues. We wrap our own ideas and expectations around our children like bubble wrap in preparation to ship them off into the world we recognize, ensuring they can’t move or bounce around as if their value might go down for a few scuffs and bruises.

The truth is our children are not commodities to be packed into paper boxes and shipped in whatever direction we choose. They are beautiful, unique, and surprising souls, folding their own lives into the image they choose. Sometimes they will fold incorrectly and leave marks on the surface of their lives. Sometimes they will cut or fasten in the wrong place, leaving nicks and scrapes. Sometimes their delicate constructions will be dropped and stepped on and have to be reinflated and smoothed. Sometimes they will fashion themselves into many different forms before discovering the exact set of folds required for the structure they are meant to have. The finished product will have been wrinkled, folded, torn, stapled, taped, glued, and crushed, but without all of that, it could not be the unique masterpiece of a human soul.

The Undying Sacrifice

The sun crept over the hills, its deep shadows still heavy on the path to the tomb. The women bringing oils to preserve the body of their teacher halted transfixed by the sight of the seal rolled to the side and bright rays breeching the darkness within the cave. The broken body taken in grief from the cross and gently laid to rest behind that seal only two night before was gone, and as they turned in confusion the One who made use of that body stood before them, very much alive.

The ground around the temple still stank with the blood of the many Passover lambs blessed and slaughtered there only days before. The Levites still worked frantically to mend the great curtain dividing the seat of God’s mercy from the nation who awaited it. Two disciples struggled to quiet breath ragged from their headlong rush to see the empty tomb for themselves, only beginning to understand that they had stood beneath the shower of blood on the true seat of mercy as God offered Himself as the final Passover lamb.

As crowds flooded the city for the great festival of harvest, the friends of Jesus went home to Galilee. There the Living Sacrifice met them on the shore where they worked and waited for something they did not fully understand, and brought them back to the site of His Altar. There, in the garden where His first drops of blood spilled, He allowed them to see Him ascend like the smoke of the offering to His rightful place as the Receiver of the Offering.

As the sun rose on another festival morning, worshippers ascending the temple mount were drawn away from their dead sacrifices by the expression of God’s presence over a humble house within the city, where the friends of Jesus received the gift of His life. For the first time since Mt Sinai, God showed himself to His people in a new Holiest Place, the hearts of those who loved Him. For the first time since Mt Sinai, the temple stood empty as the Living Sacrifice blessed the beginning of a new harvest.

The tomb remains empty. The temple has long since been destroyed. The harvest continues. The undying Lamb still shows Himself every day to those willing to see the power of His presence and walk in the light of an eternal festival morning.