Winds of Change

Where I live in the Midwest, March is a time of change. The days are often filled with gusty winds ushering in the latest warm front or cold front. I’m never quite sure what the weather will bring from one day to the next. One day I may be outside luxuriating in a sunny, beautiful 65 degree-day, but 24 hours later I may be scuttling back inside with snow flurries dusting my hair.

Changeable March weather

Maybe you’re at a time in your life right now that is matching the March weather. Perhaps you feel like you’re being buffeted about by opposing forces that you can not control. Whether it’s your job, your health or a relationship that’s causing the upheaval, it’s an unsettling, even scary feeling. Well, fortunately, God does not leave us alone to weather these changes. He has given us a comforter who is, interestingly enough, compared to the wind. Acts 2 introduces the Holy Spirit in this way: “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting” (v. 2).

The Holy Spirit filled each believer and changed his or her life completely. It was through the Spirit’s power and guidance that the disciples were able to preach and heal and minister to others. And it is through the Spirit’s power that God also wants each one of us to live out our lives as well. If we let God’s Spirit guide us through the “winds of change” seasons in our lives, we can be assured that God will bring us through and grow us through every situation in our lives.

What’s God changing in your life right now? Let’s commit to praying about these changes and seeing how God wants to use them to change us. We’ll talk about this some more in the next post. Until then, pray on!

Rest in His Love

Rest in His Love

Jane VanOsdol

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

It had been a rough week. Friday rolled around and I could feel the exhaustion of a week settle in on me. My time had been filled with homeschooling the kids, cooking, keeping up with loads of laundry, teaching at the co-op and preparing my lesson for my Sunday School class. I still had to pack all of our clothes for a weekend trip to visit family. As the afternoon wore on, I felt progressively worse and a fever and chills set in. It quickly became apparent that I wasn’t going anywhere.

My husband decided to still take the kids to see their grandparents so thatI could stay home and rest. As my family was heading out the door, my six-year-old son came over to me with his sad face on and hugged me. “Mommy, I feel bad you’re gonna be here all by yourself. Won’t you be lonely?” he asked me. I assured Jesse I would be fine, actually feeling a little guilty over how excited I was becoming at having a whole weekend with nobody that I had to take care of but myself. It had been years since I’d spent a weekend by myself.

The door closed behind them and I heaved a sigh of relief. Silence. Now what to do? I decided before I felt any worse that I would make a quick trip out to grab a few library books by my favorite author and some soup from the deli so I didn’t have to cook.

I drug myself out the door and was back in an hour. Popping some Tylenol, I settled onto the couch with my blanket, pillows, pile of books and turned on the classical radio station. Bliss. I spent the entire weekend holed up in my house reading, listening to music, sleeping and praying.

It’s been 12 years since that weekend, but I still remember it and how God used it to recharge one tired, worn-out mamma and wife. As I am now going through another busy stage in my life, I am trying to learn how to rest in God’s love on a daily basis. What does that look like? For me, part of it means slowing down long enough so that I can enjoy God’s presence and give Him my full attention. I try to do that in the morning before I start my day. For me it also means taking a walk in a park or the woods. The quiet and the beauty of my surroundings seems to help me focus on God. Unless I do these things, I can’t hear Him or notice what He wants to teach me because my mind is too full with my own thoughts. Maybe you struggle with that too. Not much in our society encourages us to slow down, to cultivate quiet, to seek God. It’s time to change that.

As we go through the month of February, let’s practice resting in God’s love and letting Him refresh us from the burdens we carry every day. This may look a little different for each of us. That’s not important. What is important, is that we try to carve out some time to rest in Him and to listen to Him. Let’s pray for each other to find this time.

Prayer: Thank you Lord, that You give us rest for our souls. May we find and take the time to seek You out and just be … with You. Amen.

Seedtime and Harvest

Through my adult years, I’ve developed a love for gardening. There’s just something about watching a bare plot of grass transform into a flower-filled haven, alive with fluttering butterflies, birds and bees. Or you just can’t beat popping that first luscious cherry tomato still warm from the summer sun into your mouth.

When my children were little, I tried to get them interested in helping me tend the garden. They would plant a few seeds or help me transplant tender young plants into the ground for a few minutes, but soon their backs would hurt or they would be hot or their attention would wander to a more thrilling activity. And weeding? I never had any willing participants when it was time to take back control of the
garden from invaders! Even at harvest time, they weren’t too enthused to help gather the vegetables. Biting chiggers, mosquitos and “itchy grass”–from all the weeds!–sent them slinking off to more fun activities. But, they were sure happy to help eat our tomatoes or beans or lettuce.

You know, I guess we adults aren’t that much different than kids when it comes to our “spiritual crops.” Most of us love to celebrate when a hard-fought spiritual victory has been won–a drug addiction beaten, a troublesome teen sees the light, a friend decides to follow Christ, or a cancer goes into remission. But I wonder, how many more victories could we be a part of if we were willing to “sow more seeds, pick more weeds and water the crops”?

Our verse from Genesis today tells us that there is a seedtime and a harvesttime. I think the time part can be a problem for all of us. It takes time and effort to hold someone accountable for an addiction, to stick by a teenager who is in “rebel-mode,” to meet at the inner-city center and develop relationships with the kids, or to hold someone’s hand while they’re throwing up from chemo. It’s hard, it’s messy and tough love isn’t a lot of fun. But, isn’t that what Jesus calls us to? Being there in the seedtime will increase the chance that we’ll get to see some harvests. Sometimes we plant a seed that someone else gets to harvest, or we get to harvest the seed that someone else planted! However God works it out, let’s think about planting a seed in a life today.

Prayer: Dear Lord, thank you for the times of sowing and harvesting that make up the cycle of life. Show us where you want us to sow some seeds this month. Amen.

“While the earth remains Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat,Winter and summer,

And day and night

Shall not cease.”

Genesis 8:22

Life-Long Learners

“For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”

Life-Long Learners

Jane VanOsdol

We also needed to make sure we had our school supplies, book bags (there weren’t back packs in the 60s and 70s) and lunch boxes ready to go. After accumulating all of these things, I can remember being so excited that I could barely sleep the night before school started. Off I went the next morning, ready to see my friends and crack open my new books.

As we prepare to start the 2009-2010 school year, I think about the excitement with which I approached my learning as a child. I still love to learn new things at this stage of my life. I have taken several online classes and studied subjects on my own. Part of that love of learning extends to the Bible. Even though the Bible was written a long time ago, it is still just as applicable to life today as it was when it was written. Just as 2 + 2 will always =4, so, too, will the words of the Bible always = truth.

As we send our children back to school this year, let’s use this time to also send ourselves back to school and continue our education in God’s Word.

Finish Your Pie!

“That I may proclaim with the voice of Thanksgiving,

And tell of Your wondrous works.

Lord, I have loved the habitation of Your house,

And the place where your glory dwells.” Psalm 26:7-8

Finish Your Pie!

Jane VanOsdol

When my daughter was little, she and I loved to turn on the Christian radio station and sing away as we were in the kitchen getting lunch or cleaning around the house. One day Amber was singing the words to a song with such gusto that I just had to stop and listen to her. Her little face was beaming as she belted out the words to our current favorite song. The chorus went like this:

“Come, Lord Jesus, come and get your bride.”

However, what came out of Amber’s lips was something entirely different:

“Come, Lord Jesus, come and finish your pie!”

I could barely contain my laughter over her 3-year-old version of the lyrics. And you know, I think I could see Jesus laughing and nodding, and I bet He would have loved a piece of that pie too!

What my daughter taught me that day was that we just need to utterly, unashamedly worship God. The joy and thankfulness oozed out of her as she sang her heart out to God. She didn’t care if the words were right or wrong, she just knew she was singing with her mommy to Jesus.

I had to stop and thank God for the blessing of my daughter and the blessing of being able to sing praise songs with her. Though our house was little and certainly nothing in it matched nor was very fashionable, it was a holy house because the Lord’s glory was dwelling there in her song. That moment taught me to look for God’s blessings wherever we are, to be thankful for moments shared with loved ones and our Savior.

As we enter this month of Thanksgiving, I’d like us to go on a blessings hunt. Let’s open our eyes to all the things big and small that we have to be thankful for. Let’s dwell on those things, (add them to our list on our Thanksgiving Blog entry if you have time) and like Amber did, let’s proclaim God’s wondrous works with a voice of Thanksgiving. He’s listening.

Prayer: Lord, we just lift our voices to join the chorus around the world singing Your praises. Thank You for our innumerable blessings. Thank You for your love. May we never stop thanking You. Amen.

True Freedom

“Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” John 8:36

True Freedom

Jane VanOsdol

“You stay here, and I’ll be back in a few minutes,” my relative Max said to me as he went with the East German police into a building. It was the summer of 1980. I had just graduated from high school and was visiting relatives in Germany. Max had taken me into East Berlin to meet a friend of his, and we were trying to return back to the West side after a few day’s visit. An armed guard marched around and around the car as I waited for Max. I eyed the guard as I pondered the events of the last few days. Nothing in my life had prepared me for the palpable oppression and depression I experienced in East Berlin.

The moment we crossed the border, everything was drab and lifeless–the countryside, the buildings, even the people seemed gray and lifeless. I had even looked back behind us, trying to figure out what had happened in the last few feet to cause such a change. It slowly settled on me that this was the result of a government that robbed people of their basic freedoms. I had to guard every word that came out of my mouth–even inside our friend’s apartment–as I quickly learned the first day.

The minutes ticked by as I sat in the car. After 20 minutes I decided I had to go find him. I opened the door and started for the building, wondering what the guard would do. At that moment, Max flung open the office door and strode out, motioning me back into the car.

It wasn’t until we were on our way down the road that he spoke. Because I was an American, they made up some violation that Max had supposedly committed and assessed him a hefty fine. They pulled us over one more time and fined us again before we made it back to West Berlin.

Never before had I recognized the true worth of freedom in America. My eyes were suddenly opened to the value of my country compared to this stifling existence that I had lived for only a few days, that many others were trapped in forever.

Likewise, I came to recognize a few years later the ultimate gift of freedom given by Jesus. After I had spent a few miserable years wallowing in the drab gray prison of my own sinful ways, how could I not choose the One who came in, rescued me from myself and took me over the border into freedom?

Every July 4th reminds me anew of the blessing of my country. And every day lived with Jesus reminds me to be thankful for my freedom in Christ.

Prayer: Dear Lord, we thank You for the blessing of America. Help us not to take for granted what so many others have died for. Thank You for the ultimate sacrifice You made on the cross that freed us from our sins and reconciled us to You. Amen.