published: A Big Dream

"A Big Dream," a short piece I wrote for the youth magazine DevoZine, is the featured "devo of the week" over at upperroom.org/devozine.

(I wouldn't have known that had I not Googled my name yesterday. Stalking oneself has never been easier, nor more interesting!)

small ones

Four years ago, on a beautiful night in late June, my sister Tabithah was born. (I assume it was a beautiful night. Chances are it was humid and very warm, but I know it was green, and it wasn't raining. In any case, the event made it beautiful.) I was twenty years old.

Taba and I will always have lockstep birthdays. She's four; I'm twenty-four. When she's twenty, I'll be forty. Recently she was playing at getting married. She wedding-walked into the living room, humming a wedding march to herself. Suddenly she stopped, turned, and with a twinkly-eyed little smile waved at me.

"Who are you getting married to?" I asked.

She named some fellow from a video she likes.

"And who are you waving at?"

She laughed at me. Little ones never bother to pretend they're not laughing at you. "You-oo!" she said.

I hope, when she does get married, that she waves at me on the way down the aisle.

Twenty years is a big spread between siblings, even if there are ten others to fill in the gap. Not many girls my age have a baby sister who's still well under four feet tall. It's a privilege--a gladsome joy--to have a small one in my life.

As I was working yesterday she came in and looked up at me with earnest blue eyes.

"Rachel, you know that song you teached me? Can you teach me again?"

So I did. Picked her up, set her on my lap, and sang the old spiritual "Down to the River to Pray" with her. My favourite verse is the one that highlights her lisp: "Oh sisters, let's go down/Down to the river to pray."

Sometimes I overlook the privilege I have--the chance to be a part of small ones' lives, to pick them up, to teach them, to be their "big girl." God give me grace to make the most of these years. Someday I hope we'll go down to the river of God's grace together, that we'll drink of His overflowing Spirit in a sisterhood that's deeper than any we can experience in purely earthly places. When we go, I want our quiver of memories to be already full. I want our attachment to be deep and real. I know I'm weaving the future now.

God honours small ones. God help me do the same.

saintly service

Then came he to Derbe and Lystra: and, behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, and believed; but his father was a Greek: Which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium. Him would Paul have to go forth with him."

Acts 16:1-3

Oh, Timothy: eternal ideal of the Christian youth. Is there a young believer on Earth who has never shared in Paul's admonition to you to "Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers"? History reports that Timothy made a good job of it. From his first mention in the Book of Acts he is "well-reported of." The Catholic Church venerates him as saint and martyr; church history calls him "the bishop of Ephesus"; the Greek Orthodox recognize him as an apostle.

Timothy's adventure began when Paul all but shanghaied him on his second missionary journey. But what did this shining example of discipleship actually do with his life?

He may have preached. We don't have a single recorded sermon to prove it.

Perhaps he founded churches. Again, we have no record of it.

Two pieces of Scripture bear his name, but Paul wrote them--not Timothy.

My favourite memoir of Timothy's life is found in Acts 19:22:

"So Paul sent into Macedonia two of them that ministered unto him, Timotheus and Erastus; but he himself stayed in Asia for a season."

Did you catch that? Timothy was "one of those"--he doesn't even get a special, separate mention--"that ministered unto Paul."

The glory of it.

Don't be fooled by the word "ministered." Modern English usage has spoiled it. "Minister" is not something you do from a pulpit. "Minister" is service. It's lugging Paul's bags around. It's making sure he gets his porridge in the morning. It's holding up a candle so Paul can get his letters written. It's trotting around the Roman Empire at the heels of an apostle, always in his shadow, just serving. Timothy did this for years.

Bishop of Ephesus, Orthodox apostle--here Timothy is something simpler and sweeter. Did I say he walked in Paul's shadow? No...the truth is he walked in Christ's pure light. Jesus Himself said, "He that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve."

If you desire to serve God, you who are young and searching for meaning, I encourage you to find a servant of God to serve. Receive a prophet; give a cup of cold water to a weary disciple. Hold up the candle. Cook the porridge. Love someone.

Paul's words are a beautiful benediction on the life of this young man who served him so faithfully for so many years.

"To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God, whom I serve... that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day; Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy."

II Timothy 1:2-4

Even so may you and I, as a community of servants, fill one another with joy.

Comforting Miracles

And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed.

And they brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted.

Acts 20:6-12

Many people in the church today have a sort of mania when it comes to miracles and spiritual experiences. We see them as signs of God's presence, of spiritual health, of something big happening. Conversely, if they're not present, we think there's a problem.

This is unfortunate. Miracles aren't the point. The point is salvation--the point is the great truth we've been caught up in, that God loves us and has sent His Son to die in our place; that we are reconciled to the Father and have access to Him.

In Troas, Paul raised a boy from the dead. It was the single greatest miracle of his life. And when he had done it, he went back upstairs, ate, finished his sermon, and left.

No revival meetings. No setting up camp; no building an altar. No worldwide announcements that the Spirit had broken out in Asia.

Instead, Acts tells us, the disciples in Troas were "not a little comforted" by the event.

In the KJV, "comfort" is a powerful word. To be comforted is to be reminded of the truth. It's assurance that the things you have believed really are true; that you're not going to wake up from this fairy tale. It's to be touched by the Spirit of God, just enough so that we can press on.

When Paul raised Eutychus from the dead, the miracle did not bring new truth, new spirituality, or a new dawn to Troas. It was just a reminder: a word from God saying "This is real." The Holy Spirit has been given, in part, to remind us of this. Jesus said, "The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (John 14:26).

My life has been full of comfort: little reminders, little miracles. The list of them grows with every passing year. No one will ever build a theology of revival around my comforts; I won't be canonized for them. But they're enough. Their message continually speaks to me.

This is real.

Inescapable God

"Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee."

Psalm 139:7-12

Throughout history, people who came to disbelieve in gods or spirits they had once venerated have literally torn down their idols... defaced the "images of the gods"... cut themselves loose from the relics of the past.

Today, many people in our postmodern world would like to escape the God of the Bible.

But how can we?

We could perhaps burn all of the Bibles in the world, remove every trace of Scriptural influence from Western speech and thought, and rewrite history.

But then there would be relationships. Father and son. Husband and wife. These things which so eloquently speak of Him. Still, this too we could destroy. We could blur gender lines. We could cheapen marriage. We could turn parents and children against each other.

We would walk outside, free of God in our homes, and be confronted with seas and stars and trees and wind and glorious nature.

Easy enough to deal with. We can level it. Poison it. Pollute it.

But then, having killed our life source to get away from its Creator, we might accidentally look in a mirror. And behind the guilty, sin-marred expression that looks back at us, there is a soul. An eternal spirit. A spark of imagination; the power of reason; the power to create or destroy.

We are the greatest evidence of God. No matter how we unravel ourselves, we can't be rid of Him.

If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

Inescapable God.

Yes and Amen: The Magnificent Power of "Yes"

This post presents the flipside to a previous one, entitled "Thou Shalt Not: The Staggering Importance of 'No'"

Parents must tell their children "no." To say ourselves nay sets us apart from every rabid coyote in the world. It makes us human.

Equally important, equally stunningly important, is "yes." If no makes us human, yes makes us like God.

Witness God's first recorded words: "And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light." From God's "let there be"--His first, incredible yes--we have come. Our earth has come. The heavens have come. "Yes" is creative power: it is all possibility, all adventure, all life.

The power to say yes is an oft-overlooked part of parenting. I am not a parent, and I see how this principle applies to every relationship in life. We all, sometimes, exercise this power in the lives of others. Yes, come in. Yes, talk with me. Yes, I'll hire you. Yes, I'll help you. Yes.

Still, it is parents who speak the first and most important yes's in the lives of their children. If most of us have done anything unusual or wonderful in our lives, chances are it was the yes of our parents that got the ball rolling. I wish I could help everyone see how amazing this is, what creative power we have in shaping lives. I wish we all understood the explosive joy, the growth, the energy latent in this word.

Don't misunderstand. I am not at all saying that you should say yes to everything. That's why parents are so important. They're older than their children; they have a bigger picture. Theirs is a yes of discernment. But when they give it, it opens such doors.

My brother wants to build a house when he's nineteen. (He's almost fifteen right now.) Maybe that goal will change. But we think it a worthy goal. A goal fit for a young man. If he works for it, he'll develop work habits and character and skills. Someday it will help him provide for a family. My parents have heard this goal, and they have said "yes." They'll help him however they can. Perhaps he can apprentice somewhere; perhaps he can get onto a construction crew in a couple of years. Right now he's got a paper route, so Mom and Dad encourage him to work hard at it, to be diligent and responsible no matter the weather or his feelings at the time, and even though on the surface Pennysavers don't have much to do with houses, the character he builds now will be there when he's nineteen. Attaining this yes means a lot of no's in the meantime--no, you can't quit; no, you can't be lazy; no, you can't allow yourself to be distracted. But as long as he knows where he's going, he'll take the no's for the stepping stones they are.

"Yes" can mean so many things. It can mean the formation of relationships that will impact generations. It can mean the difference between daydreaming and pursuit. The difference between excuses and passion. The difference between a life of fear and a life of adventure.

I don't know why we withhold "yes" sometimes. It's not always because we've discerned that yes would be a bad thing. Sometimes we do it because we're skeptical, or lazy, or just plain negative, or irritated over something. But it's such an important thing to say, especially if you have influence in someone's life. A life without "yes" will never be lived. Don't be the one who withholds it.

It's spring. Go outside and feel the sun and think "Let there be light."

Do something incredible today.

Say "yes."

there's magic in the dirt

Why, you may wonder, has Rachel posted a picture of four pots of dirt on her blog?

Ah, but you just think those are four pots of dirt. The truth is something much greater. Those four pots are an herb garden. They are glorious and green. They are healing for headaches and upset stomachs; they are salve to sore throats and aching lungs.

I forget that at times, and then I feel silly for lugging those four pots out into the sun so my herb garden can thrive, and for watering them every night and sometimes praying that my unproven thumb will prove green. But I'm right. There's magic in that dirt.

Have you ever heard a song that melted you or carried you away to some verdant, misty paradise? The song "Perfect Day" does that to me. Every note, every instrument, every word reaches deep into my heart and calls forth a response.

The other day I was typing and I heard my little sisters playing outside my bedroom door. In their story, Keturah was a fairy who sang instead of talking. She sang her whole story: where she had come from, why she had come, what she was searching for. It was rambling and warbly and a little off-key. But there was a seed in it. A storytelling seed, a musical seed, a calling-f0rth-response seed. Someday she's going to reach people with music.


Recently I sat down and faced a blank page. Pushing aside thoughts that I was wasting my time and couldn't possibly pull it off this time, I typed some letters. But they wouldn't stay letters, no, as letters will, they turned themselves into sentences and formed a paragraph. This is what they said:

It was raining in the fields. Cold rain. Taerith stretched out his arms and raised his head, letting the rain hit his face and run down the bridge of his nose. He opened his mouth and gulped convulsively as the liquid trickled into his throat. It was good of the sky, he thought, to give him water. He had been at work with the other men, harvesting late corn, but the rain had put an end to the work for now. The fields were nearly bare anyway. Water puddled around his boots--held together now with string and patches--and turned the trampled furrows to mud.

There's magic in those little ink blots. They're not just letters now, they're a story--a story of a man who is sent away from his family and forms a new one by laying down his freedom to serve a slave girl and a persecuted queen, to befriend an imprisoned priest and fight next to a half-blood warrior. (You can read what there is of that story here.)

Beginnings. Rarely do they resemble what we know, by faith and a sort of passionate instinct, they will become. Off-key ditties don't sound like symphonies. Jumbles of a's and b's and h's don't look like literature. Children don't look like mothers and fathers, prophets and servants, yet there's magic in them. God put something in them that will grow if it's tended, into something green and tall and beautiful.

Keep hauling your pots into the sun, watering the dirt, writing those words, playing that piano. Keep investing in the lives of your children and grandchildren and brothers and sisters and friends. What you sow, you shall reap.

what a day can do

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, a day on which millions of people remember that two thousand years ago a man rose from the dead.

Time runs quickly; days run together. Their significance is lost in a blur of years. But oh, what a day can do! What that day did, for all of us. Easter is not just a holiday without personal significance, it's at the intimate core of who I am and what my life is about.

Because of that day, I know God. Do you? Stop. Think about that. Because of Jesus' resurrection, the enmity that once existed between you and the Creator no longer does. It has been gloriously replaced. God has adopted me. God is my Father. I have access to Him, and I love Him... perhaps that is the greatest miracle of all.

Because of that day, I have eternal life. Life with my Father. With my elder Brother, Christ Jesus the Lord. Because of that day, all of life is invested with meaning and quiet delight. Days may blur together, but they're not meaningless. They're colourful threads in a tapestry God is weaving.

Because of that day, a community was born. An assembly of people from every culture, tribe, and nation, a community that has existed for centuries and is still one. A community which has never truly lost a single member, for God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. This community, this church, is so close that we sometimes refer to each other as "the Body." This is not a community that exists only in theory. They have been the most important people in the world to me. I have loved them. They have loved me. Because of that day.

Because of that day, hope.

Things are dark--hope.

The world is evil--hope.

People still die--hope.

Because of that day, hope. There is no darkness so great that hope does not eclipse it. Hope is not born of wishes or resolution that we will do our best. It's born in resurrection.

What has that day meant to you?

* * *

Read more devotional articles on LittleDozen.com.

Letters to a Samuel Generation is finished!

Letters to a Samuel Generation: The Collection is available! It's a beautiful hardbound book (blue cloth), weighing in at a very satisfying 216 pages. Becky did a gorgeous job with the layout. You can purchase it from Little Dozen or from Amazon.com.

The Blessing of Family

It's finished! Yes, Letters to a Samuel Generation: The Collection is finally available in hardcover. I'm excited. It can already be ordered from Amazon, and will be available from Little Dozen as soon as my sister gets home so we can set up the PayPal links ;).

In the meantime, I wanted to share the lone SamGen essay that didn't make the book. It was written in the early years, and looking back, it doesn't quite fit the discipleship theme that SamGen grew into. However, it was special to me when I wrote it and still is now. Without further ado:

Blessing

by Rachel Starr Thomson
originally written November 2001

Have you been to the movies lately?

Have you spent any time with teenagers?

Have you listened to the tone of the media?

If so, you may have noticed an alarming trend. Society believes, knowingly or not, that family is "uncool."

Youth leaders tell teens that their parents are out of touch, so they should come to their pastor if they have problems.

Older siblings spend oodles of energy trying to ditch their younger sisters and brothers in order to spend time at the mall, the movies, the bowling alley... anywhere where there are friends and no family.

Reunions, birthday celebrations, and Christmas get-togethers are seen as annoying obligations. And no amount of heartwarming, shallow movies about love and family seem to be able to offset the damage of this general slide away from family ties.

In church we hear about how curses are passed through the generations; at the therapist's we hear about how parents have permanently scarred their children and doomed them to life in and out of prisons, marriages, and happiness. This is probably true. But it is one side of the picture.

And as a product of the other side, I would like to protest.

Oh, my family has problems. We're human. But let me tell you about the blessings that have come through the generations.

When I was a little child, I had aunts and uncles around me constantly. I grew up feeling protected and loved. I didn't have to have anyone's constant attention. Just knowing they were there was security. About six years ago, my family moved away from our home in Canada and went to California, and I lost that shelter. Three months ago, I moved back home. A week ago I went to a cousin's thirteenth birthday party, and most of the aunts and uncles were there. And once again, I felt that shelter.

Every day, my paternal grandparents take a walk and pray for each of their grandchildren by name. Every day at evening devotions, my maternal grandparents ask the Lord to draw their children and grandchildren to Him. My walk with the Lord has been blessed in many unusual ways. And I don't have to wonder why. My mother, grandmothers, and aunts have taught me about being a woman, and more especially a lady. My uncles open doors for me. Uncle Stephen took me on my first date when I turned sixteen. Dad would take me out for coffee and ask about my needs and my interests every so often, just checking up on me. My cousins have taught me to lighten up and have fun, and to love people no matter what. My sisters and brothers have taught me to look for the good in people even when the bad is glaringly obvious. And when I've found the good, it's been beautifully, brilliantly, wonderful.

In my mother's Mennonite family tree, there are martyrs for Christ. In my father's Scottish history, there are preachers, pastors, and Sunday School teachers. For generations, there is prayer.

I have ten siblings to teach me about teamwork and growing up, eight aunts to giggle and trade stories with, four grandparents to show me what true priorities should be, six uncles to treat me like a princess, over forty cousins to laugh with, love with, and live with, and two parents to train me up in the way I should go. I am a product of generational blessings and generational grace. Have there been problems passed down? Yes. But I believe the good things outweigh the problems. To every one out there who thinks family isn't cool: Please, please, start building new relationships with those God has given you. Serve your sisters and brothers. Love your nieces and nephews. Pray for your children and grandchildren. It isn't ever too late to start.

a long and happy sigh of relief

The files for Letters to a Samuel Generation have gone to the printer. I hope to have the proof in hand by next week, after which the book will be available for sale.

Feels good.

what He deserves

Major Edit:

An anonymous commenter left a note saying that the story below is historically inaccurate. Accordingly, I spent about an hour this morning looking for reliable versions of it. A.C. was right, but the real story is not so far off.

A while back (think 1909), a fellow named J.E. Hutton wrote a history of the Moravian church which includes an account of this event. A little background: the Moravians were a group of Christians in what is now Czechoslovakia. They'd been around a goodly length of time, but in 1727 they experienced a revival under the leadership of Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf. Remarkably for his time, the good count took an interest in the masses of people outside of the western world who had not heard the gospel. He met a slave from the Danish-owned island of St. Thomas who told him that no one could minister to the slaves in the West Indies without first becoming slaves themselves.

The idea startled Zinzedorf's community, but it also gripped them. Two young men, a potter and carpenter named Leonard Dober and David Nitschmann, decided after prayer and drawing lots that they would go. They set out for Denmark, meeting discouragement at every turn, and there realized that they could not actually sell themselves into slavery. Nonetheless, they took ship to St. Thomas and helped found many churches there.

The Moravians were the first major Protestant missionary movement: Dober and Nitschmann beat even William Carey to the field. The watchword of the Moravian missionary movement was the phrase that so caught my attention when I first read the (skewered) version of this tale: "May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering."

I've left part of the original post below, as an interesting example of how prettified versions of stories are easily spread. Thanks for the tip, whoever you are!

* * *

"Have You Heard The One About the Two Moravians & The Slave Owner?"

In the 1700s two young Moravians heard of an island in the West Indies where an atheist British owner had 2,000 to 3,000 slaves. The owner had said, "No preacher, no clergyman will ever stay on this island. If he’s shipwrecked we’ll keep him in a separate house until he has to leave, but he’s never going to talk to any of us about God. I’m through with all that nonsense." Three thousand slaves from the jungles of Africa brought to an island in the Atlantic, and there to live and die without ever hearing of Christ. Two young Moravians heard about it and decided to do something about it. They sold themselves to the British planter and then used the money they received from the sale to pay their passage out to his island, because he refused even to transport them. The Moravians came from Herrnhutt to see these two lads off. They were in their early twenties and would never return again, for they had sold themselves into lifetime slavery, simply that as slaves they could be as Christians among these others. The families were there weeping for they knew they would never see them again. And they wondered why they were going and questioned the wisdom of it. The ship slowly left its pier on the river at Hamburg, heading out to the North Sea, carried with the tide. As the gap widened and the hawsers had been cast off and were being curled up there on the pier, the two young men looked shoreward. Finally one lad with his arm linked through the arm of his fellow raised his hand and shouted across the gap the last words that were ever heard from them: "May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering."

(story used by permission of the Parousia Network)

The Face of Love

The publication of Letters to a Samuel Generation is moving along. In anticipation, and in honour of Valentine's Day, I offer the following reflection of the true nature of love.

The Face of Love

by Rachel Starr Thomson
Excerpt from Letters to a Samuel Generation
Available March 2007 from Little Dozen Press
www.LittleDozen.com

There once lived a man whose name, earthly speaking, was Jesus.

Spiritually speaking, His name was Love.

Long ago, in the darkness of a distant age, Love looked far into the future. He went to His Father and said, “There is no other way. I will go to them. I will become one of them, and I will die for them.”

In that time, before the foundations of the earth, Love was slain because of us. Many years later, when His now-human feet felt the pull of gravity and walked on hot Israeli sand, He said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

He knew what He was talking about. In spirit He had made the sacrifice long ago. In body He now came to carry it out on earth, and He did. He allowed Himself to be delivered into the cruel hands of men and sacrificed. Even now His sacrifice stands accepted in the heavenlies, and we have only to make it our own in order to receive forgiveness and righteousness.

To us He left His Spirit, that we might live out His law and His legacy of love.

"This is my commandment, that ye love one another."
"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if you have love one for another.."
"Love your neighbour as yourself..."
"Love your enemies, and do good to them that persecute you..."
"Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength."

There are things we must understand about love if we want to follow His footsteps. For one thing, it is not the heady infatuation the world thinks it is. Love is deliberate. It is a choice. True, sometimes the choice is easy to make. A pair of beautiful eyes can coax us into it. A child's laughter sometimes causes our heart to overflow with it. A mother's careworn hands inspire it.
At other times, only the Spirit of God can bring it forth. Take Jesus' command to love our enemies, for example. No one ever “fell” in love with their persecutor. Jesus wasn't infatuated with the men whose hypocrisy and self-protection sent Him to the cross. His thoughts toward them were less than flowery—“Nest of vipers. White-washed tombs. Den of thieves”—such words are not the stuff of poetry and love letters. Yet He chose to love them. He prayed for their forgiveness on the cross.

Richard Wurmbrand, who endured fourteen years in prison in Communist Rumania, wrote of the choice Jesus made that day, to love His enemies actively and wholly:
“When Jesus was on the cross, darkness fell upon Him and on the countryside. Soon an earthquake was to follow. Jesus knew what was about to befall mankind because of His crucifixion. He saw in the darkness and the earthquake signs of God's judgment similar to what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah, and through His prayer He aborted the wrath of God. In that convulsion He became a lightning rod for us. God's wrath struck Him, and we the guilty were saved—all because He prayed.”

That prayer was a deliberate choice to love His enemies. It was an expression of the love that carried Him to the cross in the first place—the love that was His nature, His whole soul.
Not only is love deliberate, it is active. When Jesus told us to love our enemies, He also gave us instructions on how to do so:

"Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."
(Matt. 5:44)

Love is not a passive feeling over which we have no control. Love is action and choice. At times everything in us will stand behind the choice. At other times, our whole being will cry out against it. Yet obedience demands that we love no matter how hard or how easy the task. Love is the whole business of our lives as Christians.

What does love look like, practically speaking? It looks like Jesus. It looks like His work. Isaiah 58 beautifully describes a life that is given over to the business of love:

"Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out into thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

"Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward."
I have seen this kind of love in action before. I believe in God as I do because I know that His love is working in the world. I have been the hungry one who was fed by His people because they loved; the one who was clothed because they loved; the one who was given a roof over my head because they loved.

What does love look like?

It looks like a hug given to a difficult person because they are lonely and they need it.

It looks like the faithfulness of a mother who gives her life to husband and children.

It looks like laughter when things are going wrong.

It looks like unceasing prayer; for family, and for friends, and for missionaries, and for the lost, and for the hated, and for the outcasts, and for the prisoners, and for the enemy.

It looks like a drink of water to a thirsty man.

It looks like a loaf of bread to a starving child.

It looks like sacrifice.

It looks like hard work.

It looks like patience.

It looks like kindness.

It looks like humility.

It looks like Jesus.

We fear love, as we fear all things that are truly holy and heavenly. We fear it because it makes us vulnerable. It leaves us open to hurt. Of course it does. Isn't the Christian life about trusting God with all whole lives? Isn't it about tearing down our hardened walls and letting Him be our protector and judge? When we cease trying to protect ourselves and begin instead to give of ourselves, then we are beginning to walk the path of love.

Love recognizes that it needs others. In God's Kingdom there is no such thing as a lone wolf. God's great desire for us is that we might become one—and it is through our union, through our love, that the world will know that we are His. It is through our love that they will believe that our Lord lives and is in us.

Says George MacDonald, “We wrong those near us in being independent of them. God himself would not be happy without his Son. We ought to lean on each other, giving and receiving—not as weaklings but as lovers.”

The world needs lovers now as never before. Jesus Himself prophesied that in the iniquitous last days, the love of many would wax cold (Matt. 24:12). It is for us to keep love strong. It is for us to minister to the hungry, the cold, the outcast, and the lonely. It is for us to minister to our Lord by keeping the cords of love strong in His body.

The Wailing Aztecs, a Canadian folk band, once recorded a song which stated, “We don't need another love song. All we need is love.”

My brothers and sisters, it is up to us to write a love song with our lives. We cannot do it on our own power—the world is a place of hate and of selfishness, and it will always do its best to beat us down—but the Spirit of Love lives in us.

What does love like?

To the world, it looks like you.


Please feel free to pass this article along! It can be forwarded or republished online, in ezines, in church publications, and anywhere else you like. I do ask that you keep the author byline intact and include a link to www.LittleDozen.com.

where were YOU for Robbie Burns' Day?

I was at the Kildare House, a local pub, with Alexis, Becky, and Leah. We had British food and tea and stomped the table while Tartan Army, a local Celtic band, played rousing folk music and men wearing kilts and tam o'shanters sang along. My sisters, who did not order tea, filched mine with shocking regularity despite my protests. I drank very little of it, nor did I eat more than two pieces of the kidney in my steak and kidney fries. But the steak was good :).

After that we drove to Chapters just before it closed, and I used the gift card Deborah gave me for Christmas to buy three lovely hardbound books: a copy of Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby, and two small books of poetry by Christina Rossetti and William Blake.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

(from Blake's Auguries of Innocence)

On an entirely different note, I spent an hour or two fiddling with the page on LittleDozen.com which features all of my Samuel Generation articles, so the contents page now includes little quotes and descriptions and is hopefully much more accessible to the general browser. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Amazing Grace

I'm featuring a new article on www.LittleDozen.com entitled "Amazing Grace."

His voice is gentle as He asks, “Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?”

She raises her eyes, just a glimmer of hope beginning to warm her heart. “No one, Lord.”

And oh, so quietly He says words that cause the heavens to shiver, that cause all of creation to draw in its breath and gasp in astonishment. “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.”

Did you hear it? Did you hear what He said? “Neither do I condemn you!”

Do we understand that God does not wish to condemn us? That though His justice must demand the ultimate penalty for our sins, it breaks His heart to do so? This is why He died! In that moment on a dusty bit of Israeli earth, the Messiah proclaimed His heart and the reason for His coming! He threw His mantle of protection, the ransom of His blood, over the woman and set her free.

Read the whole article here.

new article featured on LittleDozen.com

"Safety and security are terribly important to us as human beings. I can't remember being born, but I imagine a baby is asking the same question as it enters the world... Is this safe?

"God built this instinct for safety into us for a reason. After all, if we didn't have it, we might have run ourselves off of the face of the earth a long time ago, jumping off cliffs because, well, it looked like fun at the time.

"At the same time, God gave us the will to deny that instinct for safety. He built other desires into us as well - desires for freedom, for growth, for new horizons. And that's a good thing, because He very rarely allows us to live in safety for long. It takes a crazy sort of courage to follow in the steps of the Lord; the same sort of courage it takes for a soldier to go into battle. Even if that soldier is guaranteed victory in the end, as we Christians are, there are no promises that the journey to the end will be a smooth one."

Read "A Question of Security" on www.LittleDozen.com.

Miracles

I was just posting more articles to LittleDozen.com, and I came across this one, written in 2002. This has been on my mind again lately... thought I'd share it with you.

Miracles
by Rachel Starr Thomson
www.LittleDozen.com

I was born into a Christian home, and so many of the words of Jesus are familiar to me. They're so familiar, in fact, that I often forget to listen to them. There's a great temptation to take for granted that which is most precious, only because God has blessed us with an abundance of it. Perhaps this is true for you, too.

I can quote many of Jesus' words in my sleep. “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.” “I have come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly.”

But recently I was reading a portion of the Bible, and I stumbled across some words of Jesus that were not written in red. I did not expect them to be there, and they took me by surprise. They are in a prophecy, in the Book of Isaiah:

“Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion” (Isa. 8:18).

In that one verse I gained a whole new perspective of what exactly God is doing with us. When we think of signs and wonders, we tend to think of flashy miracles and supernatural phenomena—the fire from heaven sort of things. We talk about the miracles that Jesus did as being signs and wonders, and we overlook something very important. Jesus himself was the real sign. Jesus was the real wonder.

I've heard a lot recently about how God is moving around the world to confirm His word through signs and wonders. Christians are seeing the sick healed, the demon possessed delivered, and even the dead raised. All of this is true, and we ought to give glory to God for it. But let us not forget that our lives, our daily walks, are the real signs and wonders to the world around us.

In the book God's Smuggler, Brother Andrew talks about working in a candy factory where he and a young Christian woman endured the mockery and contempt of a large staff of worldly, foul-mouthed young ladies. Together, the two Christians did their utmost to show love and respect to their co-workers. They prayed for them, talked kindly to them, and refused to lash out in anger. The result? One of the leaders among the factory workers was converted, and one by one the workers came to Christ. They started meeting together to pray and study the Bible, and in a place that had once been a haven of vanity, the praises of God began to ring out.

Nothing supernatural happened here, if what you're looking for is something scientifically inexplicable. Yet, the greatest miracle of all did take place—lives were changed. The sign and wonder that brought about the change was the patience and forgiveness of two young Christians.

You may not think that your efforts to serve God in the little things matter, but they do. God will see to it that your faithfulness is used for His glory. He calls us to serve Him in everything we do, cheerfully, with our whole hearts. This is not only for our benefit, but also that the world around us may understand that we have something they do not. Our attitudes, our words, and our actions, are for a sign and a wonder to those we interact with.

Not one of the apostles decided to follow Jesus because He did a miracle for them. They followed Him because He called, and in His life they saw a chance for something more. He was pure, and loving, and zealous for God in a way that they had never known. The chance to be with Him was a chance for a new life.

God does use miracles and supernatural happenings to bring people to Him, but He is more likely to draw someone through what they see in your life. If what people see when they look at you gives them hope, then they will seek the reason that you are the way you are.

Whatever trials you may be facing, remember that they are not for you alone—the way you come through them will speak volumes to those watching.

Is your marriage on shaky ground? Stand on God's word, and don't give up hope—you are for a sign and a wonder to a broken world around you. Are your children in rebellion? Stand on the Word of God. Pray. Stay faithful to the call of God on your life. You are for a sign and for a wonder in a world that has given up hope.

Teenagers, are you tempted to rebel against your parents and follow the crowd? You, too, are for a sign and a wonder. Don't cripple the rest of your generation by making their mistakes with them and taking away their only glimpse of something better. You are for a sign and a wonder to them, to show them a higher road.

Finally, are you living in a second-choice life, entangled in the consequences of bad choices made in the past? No one is in a better position then you are to show the world that they need not die where they have fallen. Cry out to God, and He will lift you up, higher then you could ever have thought possible. You, maybe more than anyone else, are for a sign and for a wonder to the house of Israel.

It is not easy to be a sign, because it means that you must be constantly under God's hand—to be changed, chastised, and purified. But every step of the way will be worth it. Every part of the journey, though you go through fire and water and back through again, will yield a reward.

Do not expect everyone to understand. When the Holy Spirit came down on Pentecost, people accused the disciples of being drunk. When Jesus cast out demons, the Pharisees claimed that He did so by the Prince of demons. When the Son of God bowed His head on the cross and died, onlookers laughed. Many were blind, and they could not see what was happening in front of them.

But some did. Some opened their eyes. And today, some are looking for a new life…

"Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion."

Thanksgiving As the Will of God

"Thanksgiving is one of the most powerful acts of faith we can possibly carry out. It is a grand announcement that our allegiance is fixed. It is a joyous defiance of Satan and all of his works. It is the singing of praises in prison that leads to the bursting of the prison doors (Acts 16:25). It is the simple reaching of a child to a Father who is there, and that Father has never failed to reach right back."

With Thanksgiving coming up, I thought I'd post an article that I originally wrote three years ago for Letters to a Samuel Generation. Whatever circumstances you may be in, I hope this article encourages you to embrace the will of God in this moment--that you give thanks.

Enjoy!

For This Is the Will of God

by Rachel Starr Thomson

"One act of thanksgiving made when things go wrong is worth a thousand when things go well."
- St. John of the Cross

At one time or another, we all find ourselves in circumstances beyond our control. Jobs are lost and once-stable finances reach a crisis point. Illness strikes. Churches lose sight of their vision and split into factions--and someone is always caught in the middle. Death comes.
And there is nothing we can do about it.

In crisis times, life becomes a complicated dance. We try to keep our feet in the path God has laid out for us, but His will isn't always clear. We are stepping in the dark. God is a god of light, and He does not keep us in the dark forever, but the fact remains that we often "see through a glass darkly." Things will become clear--later. For now, we are called to put our hand squarely in the Lord's and step into the mirk, believing that He will lead in the right direction. My problem is that I don't want to go where I can't see. I have a strong aversion to walking in faith. I want to know exactly what God is thinking and doing every second, so that not one of my own movements will be risky. I am a believer in the common misconception that if I know God's will, everything will go smoothly.

If you're doing a mirky dance of your own, I have one piece of good news for you. I don't know if God wants you to go east or west, spend money here or save it there, pray for recovery or for strength to be weak. Those things you must discover for yourself. Those are the minutae of God's will--the specific steps that will lead you in the right direction.

But there is a broader will of God, one that applies to you and to me no matter where we are, and it is that will that I want to share with you. It's written in the Bible, in black and white, where anyone can see it. Obedience to it in the dark times, I find, brings an amazing amount of light. In this article, I'm only going to deal with one aspect of this greater will of God, and I hope that it encourages you as it does me.

It is God's will that we give thanks.

I'm not telling you that you must go leaping and skipping, strewing flowers in your wake, when you feel more like laying down to die. God does not ask us to manufacture emotions where there are none. God's will is not necessarily that you feel thankful--it is that you give thanks. The giving of thanks is an act of obedience, a matter of the will. Anyone can do it. And because God is a merciful, loving God, who knows what it's like to feel despondent and helpless (if you doubt it, read the Gospel accounts of Gethsemane), our act of thanksgiving is often followed by joy and peace, which are gifts of the Father and do not come out of our own strength.

"In everything give thanks," Paul says, "for this is the will of God concerning you."

Something almost mystical happens when we give thanks in times of trouble. We proclaim to the world, to the devil, and to ourselves that God is still in control, that we are still His children, and that He is still blessing us--no matter what it may look like. The beauty of this is that it's true. He is in control. We are His children, and He is actively working everything for our good (Rom. 8:28).

When we choose to give thanks in a difficult situation, we choose to believe in God. We choose to believe in His promises. And because His promises are true, this choosing on our part brings light into darkness. Satan can do a great deal with a bitter heart. He can't do a thing with a heart that stubbornly insists on blessing God when the world seems to be falling apart.
Witness Job, whose own wife told him to "curse God and die." True, the Book of Job does not seem at first glance to be a shining example of thankfulness. Job spends much of the book lamenting. But on closer examination, the oldest piece of writing in the Bible reveals a heart that is dead-set on being thankful. True, Job is at a loss to find anything to bless God about in the ash heap where he sits. So, he looks for something he can be thankful for--and finds it in the past.
"The LORD gave," he says, and how many beautiful memories are involved in that word "gave!" "The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." (Job 1:21)

A remembrance of God's faithfulness in days gone by not only gives us something to thank Him for, it also reminds us that the same faithfulness is working now, and we will see the fruit of it in the future. As Job declares, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and he shall stand on the earth in the last day."

David also knew the secret of determined thankfulness. The shepherd king spent years on the run--from his king, from his conscience, from his son. Yet he continually exorts himself and his followers to bless the LORD. Psalm after psalm begins with an admonition to thankfulness. Here are the opening verses to Psalms 103-106:

"Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name."
"Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty."
"O give thanks unto the LORD; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people."
"Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever."

Thanksgiving is one of the most powerful acts of faith we can possibly carry out. It is a grand announcement that our allegiance is fixed. It is a joyous defiance of Satan and all of his works. It is the singing of praises in prison that leads to the bursting of the prison doors (Acts 16:25). It is the simple reaching of a child to a Father who is there, and that Father has never failed to reach right back.

Whatever circumstances you face today, or tomorrow; whatever decisions you now pray and mull over, do not forget the greater will of God.

Shout blessings in the desert caves that hide you from your enemies.

Sing praises in the prison cells where life has beaten and shackled you.

Remember His faithfulness on the ash heap; look to His promises when you are most in pain.

Give thanks, people of God.

And know that your Redeemer lives.

* * *

Read more devotional articles at www.LittleDozen.com, soon to be compiled as a hardbound book: Letters to a Samuel Generation: The Collection.

Thy Kingdom Come - Excerpt from "Heart to Heart"

Any view of Christianity as fire insurance or a feel-good morality tale is missing the reality of the kingdom. The kingdom of God is that place wherein God has His unhindered rule, and that place is in our hearts. "The kingdom of God is within you," Jesus told a listening crowd. And to live in accordance with His kingdom necessitates a total change of life. "Repent," Jesus told the people of Galilee, "and believe the gospel." Belief in the good news of the king's arrival in our world goes hand in hand with repentance: with a complete about-face in our way of being, an absolute surrender to God's rule and reign.

The fact is, the kingdom of God runs totally counter to anything we have learned growing up in the world. Jesus, the Servant-King, is the heart and center of His realm, and His character defines its laws and principles. There is no room in the kingdom for our self-serving games, our divisions and petty offenses. The King is love, and oneness, and grace. In the world, we preserved ourselves by fear and cunning; Jesus calls us to trust and childlikeness. In the world, we value possessions and position; in the kingdom, we value people and poverty of spirit.

In a sense, we who have repented and believed the gospel are outposts of heaven. We are a new and living world within an old and dying one. It is ours to walk in the light, to live as children of the day, to worship the True King and oppose the rebellious stewards who have tried to claim this realm for their own. To the darkness, we are the worst sort of traitors, because we dare to live eternal lives while the world tumbles ever nearer its ultimate destruction. The Bible speaks truly when it says that we are at enmity with the world. But at the same time, we are the world's hope: because we have not just been left here to wile away the hours until Christ returns. Rather, we have been left here as colonists with a mission: to preach, as Jesus and His disciples did, that the kingdom of God has come, and that if we will surrender ourselves to the King, God has promised to "deliver us from the power of darkness, and translate us into the kingdom of his dear Son."

* * *

I just finished putting a complete collection of chapter excerpts from Heart to Heart: Meeting With God in the Lord's Prayer up on Little Dozen. Come check it out!