Board the ALWAYS Train

The word “always” shimmers in  1 Corinthians 13:7 describing LOVE: “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 

ALWAYS is a solid state, an essence of God’s nature. He never deserts us even when our trust falters. Even when we wonder, “Where are you, God?”  Our faith informs us though that He is our Unseen Presence.

     

But our emotions can easily jump on a runaway train headed down a deep incline threatening to derail us. The plotting, devilish engineer, with his hell-bent destination, stokes the engines to wreck the trajectory of our lives and the lives of our family, friends, and yes, our nation.  

However and forever,  the Invisible Engineer of Love is  indestructible. Even if the train wrecks, we are rescued---always. And we re-board the train after God melds all the broken pieces back together. We travel life to live another day. Always, always, counting on God’s love and His nature which deserves our trust. 

     

His nature infuses ours, empowering us to persevere despite any train wreck in life.

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love." Saint Francis of Assisi 

Does God Swear?

You may be surprised by the answer but it’s true. God swears. 

In Genesis 22: 16-18 God speaks, “By Myself I have sworn,” declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your only son,  I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore…And through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”  

        

     God’s swearing  is not like our popular conception of ugly swearing. The word “swear” includes synonyms like solemn oath, vow, and promise.  In a court of law, we are familiar with taking an oath to tell the truth by placing a hand on the bible. And in the pages of the bible itself,  God makes it clear that He is a promise-keeping God. One of the best illustrations is God’s promises to Abraham through a series of events and interactions. God’s ancient vow to Abraham is profoundly filled in the modern Jewish state of Israel. Despite all odds. 

     An oath is considered weightier than a promise. It is solemn. God’s promise to Abraham transitioned into an oath, a vow, because God wanted to put an exclamation point on the unchangeable character of His purposes. He made a solemn declaration to keep His covenants with the Jewish people. It is amazing to then understand His pursuit and inclusion of us non-Jews who have been adopted into the promises. That the God of the universe would pursue us with His love, promises, and goodness is next to incomprehensible. 

     The author of Hebrews says that God's oath is a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul allowing us into the holy of holies. It is quite amazing to think that God swears an oath to us, His children.  In a court of law, we take an oath and swear on the Bible yet God in His own divine self swears by Himself. When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for Him to swear by, He swore by Himself, saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.” 

     And after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. God the Father goes out of His way to assure us of fulfilling His promises to those who trust and believe in Him. Repeatedly in scripture we read about His pursuit of His chosen people,  the Jews. Surely this is a hope and an anchor for the soul in the midst of the storms of life. With so much uncertainty in the world it's more important than ever. We don't know how suddenly any life can change in the twinkling of an eye, so we surely need a strong, unchangeable anchor for our souls. 

     Hebrews 6:17-20 "Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, He confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf." 

“God’s promises are like the stars; the darker the night the brighter they shine.” Author David Nicholas-Professor of History, Clemson University

TRANSFORMATION-Singing While Shackled

If we want to glean encouragement from a transformative moment, Acts 16: 23-37 is the place to go. Paul and Silas are highlighted as examples of hope during deprivation for counting on Jesus in terrible circumstances. The Roman prisons were notorious for their dark, windowless cells, their heavy chains, and scant food if any. Dungeons are usually underground. 

On this occasion, Paul and Silas suffered with beatings after prison guards stripped them. The guards threw them into the innermost cells and bound their feet in chains. Try to imagine the surprises among prisoners and guards to hear them singing while shackled and sitting in the middle of a darkness beyond dark. Frankly, I cannot imagine doing the same.

I’m guessing Paul and Silas sang the Psalms, until suddenly an earthquake hit throwing every prison bar open. The prisoners’ chains literally fell off, with no keys, and no guards unlocking them. The shock and amazement fell on the prisoners and the jailer awakening from his sleep.
When the jailer realized that all the prison bars opened, he unsheathed his sword to commit suicide since he anticipated that all the prisoners had escaped. Why would this guard attempt suicide? The Romans likely killed their jailers when prisoners escaped. 

However, Paul called out, “We’re all here. Don’t kill yourself.” The jailer asked a guard to bring a torch to verify what Paul shouted. When he saw the truth, he fell down in front of Paul and Silas and asked, “What must I do to be saved?”

The scripture passage does not tell us about all the previous interactions between Paul, Silas and their jailer. My guess; he was shocked first that they took their punishment in a brave, non-abusive way and then later heard them singing as he fell asleep. I’m sure that the jailer never met any prisoners like this duo! 

The story goes on to relate that Paul and Silas shared the good news of Jesus and how to enter a relationship with Him. His acceptance of Jesus is obvious when we read that the jailer washed Paul and Silas’ wounds. I wish the jailer’s name was known but we read that he took them to his family home, fed them, and the jailer’s family was baptized. Scripture relates that he and his family experienced joy. Later, the jailer was told by the authorities that they were to be released. 

The jailer experienced true transformation. Paul and Silas lived out their faith in a setting that was beyond awful. Their witness was transformative. The earthquake’s occurrence is interesting too. The iron doors of the cells sprang open, prisoners were released from chains, but the prison walls didn’t crumble around them. God enacted very specific results during the quake. The impact on the jailer led to his salvation and the salvation of his family.

While none of us might face earthquakes or imprisonment, are we living our lives as believers who bring hope to others even during problems that beset us? Recall some of your most precious moments of transformation. I pray that I-and every believer- will draw added ability with Jesus’ help to stand strong in adversity. Transformation is available to all of us with the help of His precious Holy Spirit.

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”  – Khalil Gibran

The Christmas Shepherds, Levitical Priests for Their Bethlehem Flocks

Shepherds and sheep hold a prominent place in the Bible. The most famous are the Christmas shepherds!  Is it possible that Mary birthed Jesus in a shepherd’s hospital near Bethlehem instead of an “inn with no room?” In Hebrew, Migdal Eder (Migdal-tower and Eder-flock) the Tower of the Flock stood on the road between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

 Migdal Eder no longer stands. However, the bible mentions Migdal Eder (or Edar) in two passages, Genesis 35:21 and Micah 4:8. Jewish sages writing in the Mishnah (Jewish Oral Tradition), confirm the existence of the Tower of the Flock. Also reinforced due to shepherds retelling stories around campfires for hundreds of years, a Byzantine monastery was built over Migdal Eder in the fourth century.

For millennia, shepherds were familiar with The Tower of the Flock. The Sadducees, in charge of Temple sacrifices, chose the Bethlehem shepherds who were experts in animal husbandry.  They considered them as Levitical Priests because the lambs they tended on the birthing floor of Migdal Eder were destined for Temple sacrifices. Exodus 12:5 mentions, “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year:” 

Migdal Eder was a two-level stone structure, allowing the Chief Shepherd to look out over the flock for predators.  (Photo-only an example.) At birthing time, shepherds led the ewes from the fields into the tower. The ancient veterinarians reached into the ewe’s womb to pull out the newborns, then snugly wrapped the lambs in swaddling cloths. If the lamb harmed its limbs at all, it would be rejected as a Temple sacrifice. Shepherds laid the lamb in a stone manger until it calmed down. Then they unwrapped the swaddling and let the lamb return to its mother for feeding.

When angels appeared to the shepherds in the Bethlehem fields, they immediately understood the directions in the glorious angelic birth announcement! “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."  Shepherds knew that  Bethlehem was the “town of David,” King David’s birthplace. As a shepherd boy, he was likely familiar with Migdal Eder too. We don’t know how far the shepherds ran to see the promised Messiah, but no GPS was needed. The Tower of the Flock was their ancient office.

The shepherds excitedly shared the magnificent news of Messiah’s birth to everyone in the vicinity. Imagine the astounding privilege they experienced seeing the angels and the Messiah in one night!

When lambs reached a year old, the shepherds herded thousands of them into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, called The Day of Lambs in ancient Jewish culture. The Temple Priests examined each lamb allowing only the perfect ones for sacrifices. Jesus Christ, Emanu-El, God with us, is the Perfect Passover Lamb and our Good Shepherd! How fitting that Jesus, possibly born in or near the Tower of the Flock, entered Jerusalem for His last Passover, this time with the parade of lambs destined for Temple sacrifices. Maybe the Bethlehem shepherds who beheld Jesus at His birth, marveled once again as He rode a donkey among the lambs. And He shall reign forever and ever!   Arlene Bridges Samuels

 

 

 

 

 

A True Story for a Sheep and for us. Unburdened!

 

Sheep walk along many word paths in books of the Bible; grazing, resting, sacrificed, or lost. Sheep are mentioned five-hundred times in scripture, more than any other animal. We ourselves are described as sheep. Psalm 23 is my favorite where the first verse proclaims, “The Lord is my Shepherd.”

I recently ran across an inspiring true story about Baarack, a lost sheep in Australia. Baarack was near death. He carried a heavy burden, a burden of wool. Barely walking, he foraged for bits of grass made even worse because the wool almost covered his eyes rendering him practically blind. And in the wildness of the woods, predators lurked.

Found by someone walking in the woods, he was in dreadful condition. Fortunately for Baarack, he was transported by pick-up truck to Edgar’s Mission Farm Sanctuary near Melbourne, Australia. Their wonderful work is a rescue operation for neglected or abandoned farm animals. Like kind shepherds to animals in need, the staff gently unloaded Baarack when he arrived.

After removing insects, leaves, and twigs from his matted fleece, they pulled out the shearing tool and began to cut away Baarack’s burden. When they finished shearing, they weighed the fleece. The scales registered seventy pounds! And the staff name for their rescued sheep is so clever, Baa-Rack! His before and after photos are an astonishing display of redemption.

Baarack’s story is our story. We carry burdens too heavy. Sometimes we are lost in the challenges of life that often render us hopeless. Then, we encounter Jesus, the Perfect sacrificial Lamb, the Eternal Rescuer, the One Whom God the Father sent two thousand years ago to redeem us. The One who chose to shed His blood on the cross, making way for the Holy Spirit to shear off the burdens that beset us.

Baarack’s new life began with the kind hands of the farm’s staff. When Jesus rescues us, Matthew 11:28-30 describes our new life: “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and MY BURDEN IS LIGHT.”

The Perfect Lamb’s blood covers us not with cumbersome burdens but with spiritual life abundant. Our world-blinded eyes are opened to another world, a world of hope. We feed at a table of love provided and guided by Jesus, our Good Shepherd Who rescues us from ourselves and from the predator of our souls.

Here are ways to follow and learn about Edgar’s Mission Farm Sanctuary www.edgarsmission.org.au @edgarsmission and on Facebook. With thanks to Edgar's Mission Farm Sanctuary in Australia for allowing me to tell Baarack's story and post his transformation!

Shalom: More than a Hello

I enjoy receiving the Dictionary.com “word of the day.” The word today is “ataraxia.” At first, it struck me as an unfriendly word, one that might have a meaning related to ill health or an attack of some kind. I was surprised to read the definition: “a state of freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety; tranquility.”

I looked into the word a little deeper and learned that its origin is from ancient Greece; a “lucid state of robust equanimity (I had to look this word up too. It means "composure"). The ancient Greeks used it to describe a status of freedom from distress and worry. Worry and distress are not strangers to me.

The expanded definition really got my attention when I read that it was a term used to “describe the ideal mental state for soldiers entering battle!” It is a mental condition important in troubled times.

As followers of Jesus and readers of the Bible we are familiar with the Hebrew word “Shalom.” It means completeness, soundness, welfare, peace. When I combined these words together, the Greek Ataraxia and the Hebrew Shalom, I opened 2 Corinthians 10:4 “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.”

I flipped over to Ephesians 6:10-18 which reminded me again that we too are soldiers! Living within troubled times in our nation and our world, we can discover our “ideal mental state for soldiers entering battle.” That mental state rests on having the right weapons, and knowing how to use them based on the Holy Spirit’s counsel and mental/emotional comfort when we face personal, national, or world challenges.

ATARAXIA is now a word I’m combining with SHALOM. Let’s reinvigorate these ideas as we face various battles surrounding us.

Messiah- The Master Designer

When I was a child, I grew up with a hammer in one hand and a staple gun in the other. My parents owned a professional parade float business called UNIVERSAL DECORATORS.

Our travels were not “universal” however we did travel all over the south of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s providing beautiful floats for festivals and for Christmas stretching from Virginia to Alabama. One newspaper described my Daddy as an “architect of dreams.”

My Mother told stories about boarding a train when I was a baby leaving from Raleigh, NC where I was born to meet up with Daddy. Each year, he furnished floats for the Hampton Watermelon Festival, one of the oldest, if not THE oldest festival in South Carolina which began in the 1940s. I always looked forward to that parade, among many others.

Growing up, we spent 2-3 weeks there every summer where my younger sister and I played and worked on the floats getting them ready for parade day.

It was a wonderful setting not only for our imaginations but to learn our parents’ dedicated, entrepreneurial work ethic early on. The Watermelon Festival was the biggest event of the year in that rural part of South Carolina and usually featured 25 of our floats.

My younger sister and I learned early to staple fringe, festooning, foil, and floral sheeting on floats featuring swans, toy houses, a little train with a caboose, and other fanciful themes. When boxes arrived by train from a Florida manufacturing company it was like Christmas to open the boxes and pull out the colorful materials.

That is when the staple guns went to work, affixing the bright decorations onto the wood and steel frame creating floats to delight the eyes of thousands of children and adults lined up expectantly along the parade route.

When parade time came we watched our beautiful floats lined up by the Parade Marshall, along with high school and military marching bands high stepping and playing popular songs. American flags waved in the breezes.

Our family experienced so many glorious moments, seeing our finished work, parade after hundreds of parades across the south, and knowing the happiness that Universal Decorators created for thousands of folks.

You may ask, what does decorating parade floats have to do with decorating our lives?

When Mother and Daddy designed a parade float, they began with architectural ideas and raw wood; unadorned, nails, and bolts set on top of a steel frame with a trailer tongue. Under their direction, their employees built a sturdy frame which had to withstand the rigors of the two-lane roads from town to town. (In those days, a South Carolina fourteen-year-old could get a daylight driver’s license. In the summers, I began pulling 25-foot floats for hundreds of miles practically the day I turned 14.)

The raw foundation took shape over days and weeks. Sometimes a nail didn’t go in straight, or a piece of wood was not correctly measured. The foundation had to be just right and sometimes changed or reworked.

In our early walk with the Lord, He begins with raw materials too, laying a foundation for our faith. Our Master Decorator often rearranges and/or changes our lives as needed. All the while He is "decorating" us inside with His Holy Spirit while He builds us into an outward reflection of His love.

Just like the sturdy underpinning of my parents’ pride and joy, their 1957 “Miss America” float, Jesus changes our lives into one of faith and purpose as part of His family. In His competent Hands, He lines us up on the personal route of our life’s journey encouraging us along the way to bless others as He has blessed us. However, sometimes life and faith are harrowing. Our lives turn a tough corner along the route, and we wonder, “Will I even scrape by.”

Gritting our teeth and praying, “God have mercy on me,” He pulls us through. No matter where your life’s parade is headed, stay on the route. And praise God when you make it!

1 Corinthians 3:10 “According to the grace of God, which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and Another is building on it. But each man [and woman]must be careful how he builds on it.” Apostle Paul