Queenie-poo

A few days ago I was watching an old VeggieTales episode, Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen. In the story, which follows the Biblical story of Esther fairly closely (with a few Veggie-style touches), the king of Persia, who is apparently quite smitten with Esther (who has been selected to be his new queen via a hilarious talent show), is approached by her without her being called into his presence. Even for the queen, this is a crime punishable by... well, in the video it's punishable by banishment to the "Isle of Perpetual Tickling" (which if you ask me, might be a fate worse than death!) The king really wants Esther to like him, though, so he pardons her, saying "My little queenie-poo can visit me any time she wants!"

Okay, so maybe that's not an exact quote from the Bible story, but it got me thinking of something. In the VeggieTales video, the king spoke about Esther with a pet name, with some intimacy, showing that he cared very much about her and wanted to be close to her, even though it came off as a little bit clumsy. He didn't care about his reputation as the king; he just cared about Esther. It made me think of the desire that Jesus must feel toward His bride, the Church. He has given us permission.. actually, He has made the way and rolled out a red carpet... for us to approach the throne of God without fear of reprisal. Before Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross, people were terrified to see God, because they believed that His holiness would eradicate them completely (they were probably right). But by the blood of Jesus, we can spiritually come right into the presence of God and never have to wonder if we will survive the encounter. We won't die, because Jesus did.

Does God call us "Queenie-poo"? I kind of doubt it. :) But God does care for us with an intimacy that we cannot really understand, deserve, or fully return. So don't be afraid to enter His presence in prayer and in worship. You have already been spared and pardoned, and the King is calling your name!

Your Next Step

Last night at my church Pastor Orlando was talking about this being a time of change in the Church (not just my church, but the Church including all believers currently living on Earth). In fact, he told us to get a calendar and write the word "Change" on yesterday's date. This morning I was thinking about change and how confusing and scary it can be... with our recent church change we've had a firsthand taste of that. I got to thinking abotu walking in faith... how God promises that He will take care of the individual steps even as we plan out a course. So often we get stuck on one particular step, either because we don't listen for God's direction, or because we are fearful of taking that step. Faith isn't about knowing three steps ahead; faith is about taking the one step that God tells us to take, one at a time, into the dark (not dark as in evil, but dark as in not being able to see the next step), knowing that God will not leave us high and dry if we are truly following Him.

And I started praying for myself and for my family and friends and church, and then I prayed the same thing for everyone who reads this blog post, so you are included in my prayer from this morning. I prayed that God will reveal to me, and us, and you, your Next Step. Is it into ministry? Is it into business? Is it into a relationship of some kind, or into a physical move of living space? Overseas into the mission field, or across town into a very different mission field? Whatever it is, I pray that our Next Step will be made crystal-clear to us, and I also prayed that the Holy Spirit will encourage and empower us... provide the power and courage we need... to take that one next step. After that there will be another Next Step, but I'm praying for that one that happens NOW. The old Chinese proverb says that "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." Not a Bible Proverb, but true nonetheless... one step could be the one thing you need to get you moving in the direction God wants you to go. One step of faith will be the one thing that builds your confidence to take the next one. Soon you'll be able to look back behind you and see that you've walked miles and miles into God's will for you, and He has been faithful to you and taken you to a more incredible, amazing place than you ever thought possible.

And it all begins with the one step that you took today. I'm praying for you. Put on your walking shoes and take that step!

Diapers

Back when my son was around two or three years old, when they sang "Jesus Loves The Little Children" in his class in the nursery at church, they would always add a new verse: "Jesus died for all the children, all the children of the world..." and the rest was the same. I'm not much for reworking something that's been around a long time (ever hear someone who doesn't think he's still a "wretch" try to retrofit "Amazing Grace"? I have... whew! Not easy!) but I was OK with this change; after all, the point is to teach truths to children, and that's probably the greatest truth of all. And at least it fits into the melody. But apparently very small children have a somewhat myopic view of the world; one day I heard my boy singing it out loud and strong: "Jeee-sus dia-pered all the chiiiil-dren, aaaalll the chil-dren of the woooorld!" (Then again, come to think of it, Jesus came not to be served but to serve... and if he saw a baby who needed a diaper, gosh darn it, I believe he would have diapered that baby!)

Fast-forward to this morning. I was walking along, thinking about something I had done. Have you ever let something simmer on the inside of you until it spills out into the open? This was a sin of the heart, and nobody knew about it but me and God, but it had colored my perception of a friend and I needed cleansing. I started praying, telling God that even though I knew at the time that it was wrong, I willfully harbored those attitudes anyway, and I knew that sometimes there are consequences to our sinful actions even though we are forgiven, and would God forgive me for my sin, but also cleanse me so that my relationship with that person could be right again?

All of a sudden, I knew my prayer had been heard. I could sense that God had not only given me a gift of forgiveness, but also of a true perspective. I had been forgiven, but also made clean. I guess that's what 1 John 1:9 means when it says that not only will God forgive us our sin, but also cleanse us from unrighteousness! And then it hit me... I was a child of God that had made a mess all over myself, and I had been wiped clean, maybe had a little powder applied, and diapered with a fresh diaper! So, maybe Bible images in places like Ezekiel 16 and Luke 10 are a little less indelicate, but as a dad who deals with diapers on a fairly regular basis, I have to say, when I mess up and come to God for forgiveness, a new diapie does a lot more for me than a bandage full of oil and wine. Maybe Jesus DOES diaper all the children of the world!

Lenses

by Michael Jones

And there in my dream, I saw a table.
On the table was a swirling cloud,
Moving and changing,
Pulsing with energy,
And I knew it was my life.
Looking straight at it I could make out nothing.
It was constantly evolving,
Reorganizing,
Developing and dissolving,
With the details always just out of reach.

But next to my life were five viewers,
Hand-held like a detective's magnifier,
With lenses five different colors.
I knew in my dream that if I used them to view my life,
They would help me see the truth.

I picked up the rose-colored glass.

Through it, I saw my family and how much they love me.
I saw that I have been blessed with food to feed them and
Money to buy things for them.
I saw my good friends, my favorite movies,
My talents and my joys,
My happinesses and my comforts.
And I also saw my blissful, willful ignorance of poverty
Illness
Hunger
Violence
Need
And I put down the rose-colored glass.

Then I picked up the sepia-colored glass.

Through it I saw my childhood, with all its happy times.
Summers playing outside
Shooting water pistols
Playing games, bought and invented
But I couldn't see the sad and hard times I remembered.
No confusing homework
Snubs by girls
Loneliness
Fear of the monsters under the bed
It was comfortable but it was a lie, so I put down the sepia-colored glass.

Then I picked up the glass with the blue lens.

I could see the day my dog died
The day my grandmother died
The days my hope died
I saw report cards with bad grades
Myself crying at night and not knowing why
Favorite toys broken
Not getting the job
That miscarriage
The friend who cheated me
The associate who used me
The year without a job
The deep, dark vortex of depression
I couldn't live without happiness — I put down the blue glass.

I hoped for better luck with the glass with the crystal-clear lens.
The handle was white, and it cast a light of its own.
And when I looked at my life in that harsh light,
I saw it with a brutal
Crystal
Clarity.
I saw that I sometimes hate, even to the point of fury.
I saw that I desire, even to the point of covetousness and sometimes lust.
I saw that I am prideful and sometimes look at others with disdain.
I saw that my selfishness often overrides my generosity.
I dropped the lens like it had just come out of a fire.
It was then that I noticed that it was nicked and scratched
Like it had been used as a weapon
And the lens, though crystal-clear, was distorted
And the whole thing smelled of sulfur.

The last glass scared me a little bit.
The lens was transparent, but it was blood red.
The handle was wooden, with a cross-beam, almost like a sword hilt.
For some reason, it seemed to me
In my dream
That this lens would show me the WHOLE truth
Not the par
tial
tru
th
...like the others.
The pieces of the truth were terrible enough;
How awful would the WHOLE truth be?

But I picked up the blood-red lens.
The lens of The Whole Truth.
And what I saw astounded me.

I saw the things that bring joy to my life: the people who love me,
My talents and my joys,
My happinesses and my comforts.
I saw the happy times of my childhood and my adulthood,
And I also saw the sad and lonely times.
I saw deaths, physical and emotional.
I saw my gaping flaws of character
That cause me to fail time and again.
And I saw the deep, dark depression that sometimes seeks to consume me.

I saw all of those things.
But it was as though they were covered with blood,
Overpowered by blood,
Eradicated by blood.
Made irrelevant.
Ancient history that never happened.
The handle was not just the hilt of a sword;
It was also something else.
And as the blood dripped down from the crossbeams
And covered my pathetic attempt at leading a good life
I knew that I was being cleansed,
Forgiven,
Regenerated,
Revitalized,
Given another chance.

And I knew I would fail again.
And again.
And probably many more agains.
But I knew that the blood-red lens would not only show me the truth,
But it would change that truth
And make me whole.

And then I woke up
And closed my Bible
And how about that?
It was all true


Copyright ©2009 by Michael Jones

Bible Giveaway

Here's the blurb:

Logos Bible Software is celebrating the launch of their new online Bible by giving away 72 ultra-premium print Bibles at a rate of 12 per month for six months. The Bible giveaway is being held at Bible.Logos.com and you can get up to five different entries each month! After you enter, be sure to check out Logos and see how it can revolutionize your Bible study.

Now here's the backstory:

Logos really is giving away some beautiful Bibles, and one of the ways to enter to win is a blog post like this one. :) You'll also notice the search box on the right-hand side of this page... this will take you to the online Logos Bible search site, which includes the NIV, ESV, NLT, NKJV, and KJV translations, and that's just for starters... there are also a dozen MORE translations to look at, too. Check it out; it might be just the Bible site to help you out in your study!

I Thought I Was Over It

Once upon a time, I worked in the IT department at a fairly large Christian publishing company. I had made a move to that company at the urging of a friend from my previous job who had done the same thing and who said I would love it. He was right: I did love it! (And he got a recruitment bonus, so everybody won!) I enjoyed my work, I enjoyed my coworkers (some of whom I am still in touch with), and it was just an all-around fun place to work. One day I was chatting with my department manager, whom I had become pretty good friends with by that time, and we agreed that we hoped we could continue to work there until we were too old and had to retire!

Then 2001 happened.

There were several factors, I think, to what happened to me... the dot-com thing was coming to a head, and so the economy was suffering. The company had some financial struggles, and apparently some internal difficulties, most of which I didn't know about then and don't know about now and honestly hope to never know the details of. And then the September 11 attacks happened and the whole country went into an uproar. And because of some or all of those factors, the publishing company started selling off divisions and letting employees go.

For months I felt a target on my back. I was the Web site programmer, for goodness sakes. What's easier to outsource than Web design and programming? I just knew that I was going to be among the first to go... but it didn't happen that way. Maybe it was because I had a new baby (about a year and a half old by that time) and a newer mortgage (about 8 months old by that time) to feed, and my bosses knew it. Hopefully it was because the quality of my work was such that they hated to see me go. I wound up hanging on for several months, but eventually one day in November of 2001, I found myself loading a couple of boxes of my personal belongings into my car and driving away, unemployed.

I was optimistic at the time. I knew that companies were looking for seasonal help around that time of year, and I expected to at least be able to get some work in retail. And you know, that season and that next year were both scary and exciting. We saw God provide for us over and over... as soon as one source of income would dry up, another consulting job would turn up or another opportunity would present itself. I took some classes in database design that have served me well in my jobs since then. And we never even had to so much as get our cable TV turned off. All year I was incredibly optimistic. But by the end of 2002, my unemployment benefits were running out and I still didn't have a regular job, and I was starting to feel panicky. I stopped praying in faith and basically started to cry out to God in fear. I think I traumatized myself a bit in that couple of months. God was faithful, however, even though I had stopped walking on the water and started to sink, and He presented two permanent job situations to me at the same time! I took one of them, and the next three years there were a wonderful experience. (Why I'm not there now is another story, but it was a voluntary and amicable parting.)

Fast-forward to yesterday. I had occasion to pick something up at the same office building where the publishing company had been housed. I'm pretty sure I haven't been there since the day I was laid off. The parking lot has been changed up a bit, and the lobby has been heavily remodeled (it looks fabulous). As I walked into the same set of doors that I had walked out of with my boxes of stuff, though, I felt a strong sense of sadness. I love the job I'm at now, but I loved that job too... so many friends and so many happy memories. I didn't and don't feel a sense of rejection about the whole thing... just a sense of loss. When we left our long-time church recently I was reflecting on how whenever God is telling me to make a change of some kind, basically the current situation just starts to become more and more uncomfortable until I do what needs to be done. Maybe that's part of why I had that "target-on-the-back" feeling, I don't know. Maybe I should have left voluntarily, and if I had I wouldn't have had quite the sense of having something taken away from me.

But for whatever reason, yesterday as I entered the building I had once had an office in, even after the eight years in between I still felt the sting of loss. Thank God, He is good. Thank God He provided then and still provides now. Now our second child is roughly the age the first one was then. We still have the same mortgage. This is my third "permanent" job after the one I got laid off from. Even with all that, I guess there's still a little scar there. Maybe that hurt will never heal completely, I don't know. But I do know that I'm going to serve God no matter what, and one day it won't matter anymore anyway... I'll be with Jesus in Eternity, all hurts will be healed, and that day will be ancient, ancient history!

ScriptureMenu.com is moving!

I am moving the ScriptureMenu.com Web site to a new Web host. My other site, GuideToPetra.com, will be along for the ride as well. The hosting service where the site has always lived has some difficulties tech support-wise, and for the second time this month the site was taken down without warning because of what they cryptically call "resource abuse". I'm excited about the new host, APlus.net; after some pretty extensive research a few years ago I very nearly moved the sites over to APlus, but had a few difficulties that made it so much trouble to switch that I gave up trying. This time my old host has backed me into a corner; I've got to either move or resolve myself to them taking my sites down periodically without warning, so I have chosen to move.

A move of this kind is tricky because the two sites are heavily database-integrated, so it's not just a matter of moving a bunch of Web pages... it means getting all of the database stuff set up properly as well. It is likely to take a few days to complete the work, so please be very patient with me as I get things squared away. I've got all of the information; it's just getting all the dots connected so it all works. Imagine that I have an engine block, a gas tank, a carburetor, and an alternator, all sitting in my garage next to my car. I've got everything I need; I've just got to hook it all together.

I have a few design changes in mind as well; probably I'll get the sites working as they are first and then make the changes later, but don't be surprised if you see something new coming up soon!

Update: ScriptureMenu.com is back up! You'll have to really search hard to find the few things that aren't working again now. GuideToPetra.com is still not fit for human consumption yet, but I expect to have it back up within a day or two.