For a little history on Thanksgiving...

Here is a decent, short and interesting overview of the story of the Pilgrims and their voyage to the New World.

Seeking the more excellent way

I once happened to observe a short exchange in a church, many years ago, where one woman thought that another should be helping with a weekday kids program.

The first woman was overloaded with duties and also had young kids at home and a disability. The other had grown kids and yet wasn't helping. From all outside appearances, there was nothing to prevent her from helping. She didn't work. She had few demands on her time. What few knew was that she had an unbelieving husband at home resentful of her time at church.

I watched as the conflict escalated, in polite church fashion. Before long, each was whisking out her Christian credentials to win her point. One tithed and insinuated that the other didn't, the other prayed with the missionary prayer group, one helped in the nursery, the other taught for years, and so on.

It was an uncomfortable exchange and nothing good came of it. But it was an eye-opening experience because it showed what I might be tempted into when on the defensive.

How do we show our Christian credentials? Should we point to our works in the church, our prayer life, the number of Bible chapters we read each week? The prisoners we have visited or the grieving families we have comforted? Should we tally these up and be ready to produce the card at a moment's notice? We know that Christ confronted those who blew trumpets to announce, in public, their piety. No, no, no!

As a group, how do people know we are followers of Christ? By the big building we gather in? By the great kids programs? By the coolest services? By the best preaching? By the sheer numbers who attend? By the quality of our "product"? By the trendiest music? By our devotion to "excellence"? No, no, no. There is excellence, and then there is the "more excellent way."

By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if ye have love one to another-John 13:35. Yes, yes, yes!

Nothing else comes close, and if we lean on anything else and neglect love, everything else we lean on will come crashing down. Peter says Above all things, have fervent love for each other (I Peter 4:8). Above all things! We might think that running the most efficient ministry beats that, or being the most humble, or holding onto the best traditions, or being the most contemporary in presentation, or showing supreme devotion in our walk, or drawing the most unbelievers in, or sacrificing the most, or any of dozens of other almost-above-all things. But no. That’s not it. Those pursuits, good as they are, are less than loving one another.

So how do we do it? Galatians 5 gives a clue: By love, serve each other. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this: Love thy neighbor as thyself.

Just ask, and answer honestly: Would we want it done to us this way? If the answer is no, don't do it, don't say it, don't write it, don't spread it and certainly don't repeat it in defense.

We all know this stuff.

There is no steamrolling over others for the glory of God. There is no place for grasping for authority or using manipulation in the name of Christ. There is no using people. It doesn't glorify Him when you trample others, even for a good cause.

Directly after telling us to love our neighbors as ourselves, Paul warns: For if you bite and devour one another, be careful you don't consume each other. It's easy to do, even in defense, even when we think we're justified. Even when we think it will improve God's kingdom.

To be safe, I am going to read I Corinthians a few times over. Maybe more than a few times.

Good apples, bad apples

During a month of sickness, I watched as my apple tree dropped onto my lawn the best crop of apples it ever produced. I was too weak to harvest them, and my kids were overloaded with schoolwork and music activities. My husband was doing double duty as it was.

Each week, more apples ended up on the ground. I kept thinking I’d get well and be able to harvest them before they all went to waste, but every time I thought I was healing, I’d take a turn for the worse.

Finally, when just about every apple was on the ground, the weather turned warm and I had enough strength to gather from the ground as many decent apples as I could find.

I took a large laundry basket and a bucket -- and began to sort. Many apples were large this year. I would find some that were large and unblemished, and I quickly set them in the laundry basket. Others were split or pitted and I dumped them into the bucket.

Sometimes, I’d come to an apple that looked robust on the surface, only to turn it and find ants eating up the other side. Or I’d find one that looked firm and crisp but then I’d notice a very small hole and could see that just under the surface, it was rotting.

Occasionally, I’d find one that looked misshapen, and I’d be about to toss it into the bucket when I saw that, despite its odd shape, it was healthy and crisp. Into the basket it would go with the good apples. Sometimes an apple would have a mark, but it was only a surface scratch, and the apple was still quite fit for a pie.

As I sorted through the apples beneath my tree, I thought of Jesus’ parable in Matthew 13. The harvesters wanted to know if they should gather the weeds before the crop was grown, but Jesus says no. They might accidently uproot the good seed with the tares. He wants none lost. None. He says to wait; then, at harvest, they can first throw out the bad and then carefully choose the good.

He doesn’t want a single good apple lost in the rooting out of bad apples.

We are valuable to Him. So valuable that he won’t risk losing us in his haste to destroy the work of the wicked one. Even though bad and good grow together for a time, so much so that we sometimes question God: Didn’t you plant good seed? Why is there bad here? Even so, he allows his reputation to be held in question for producing the bad rather than destroy a single apple with potential for pie or apple strudel.

Secret Place of Thunder

I hid in that secret place of thunder today. Dealing with swine flu while trying to battle an invasion of ants in my kitchen this week. This after having helped my daughter's family move. I had a bout of insomnia and was pretty well depleted when my cold turned into what must be swine flu. The column I wrote about swine flu was rejected by my editors for fear of offending pork producers, so in the middle of the haze of illness, dizziness, chills, I was trying to pound out an alternative column. Then, my son got sick. Not my robust son, but my thin-as-a-pencil-barely-consuming-enough-calories-to-stay-alive-as-it-is son. When I was at the lowest of the low, fearing for my son's life, calling in sick to work, wondering if I would ever breathe normally again, I receive a phone call. A call from a friend. Not a Facebook friend who knew I was sick and down, but a friend whose spiritual life I have seen blossom in the last few years, in desert places. At the end of our conversation, she asked if I'd like to pray. It was like water in the desert, with a little rolling thunder and promise of more water. Only God speaking to an attuned ear could have reached me in the hopelessness of that moment. But when He did, my soul healed, even though my body is still sick. More thunder!

Rejoicing even in times of scarcity

Oh No! Snow!

Snow is not supposed to come this early. Leaves should fall before snow does. It's weird seeing layers of mostly green leaves on the ground, sprinkled with white. The leaves hardly had a chance to age and turn.

Yet, Proverbs takes the view that snow at time of harvest is refreshing. As the cold of snow in the time of harvest, so is a faithful messenger to them that send him: for he refresheth the soul of his masters. Prov. 25:13

I look out the window and try to be refreshed. Laurie has no problem with this. She was wishing for snow a month before it got here, right after school started. I kept telling her no. No! You don’t wish for early snow.

So when I watched her walk home from school today, I could see her head perk up as the snow began to fall. Instead of dragging her backpack, she was suddenly alert and eager. SNOW! That magical, mystical substance that drops from heaven.

As an adult, I resist early snow. I have not yet harvested my apples. My lawn was in bad need of mowing even before the tree dumped all its leaves at once this morning. And that was before this layer of snow on top. The snow only makes me think of what I have to do. It burdens me.

When we forget “all His benefits” it’s just like that. We get burdened with all we have to do. We look at the law and feel depressed. Instead we should be looking at “the perfect law of liberty” and be refreshed.

All His benefits! They are myriad! They come at us fifty at a time: big, gorgeous, sparkling, no two alike -- and we swipe them away, grumbling and complaining about the hassle of it all.

Time to look up in wonder and be refreshed!

Prayer: an animation from Laurie, 9

Laurie's animation