Thanksgiving 2015

This Thanksgiving week has not turned out as planned. 

The plans were quite simple: take a week off work and spend the time in northern Virginia with our son, his wife and the grandchildren.

Instead, we are sitting in Phoenix.

I am recuperating from a medical intervention that the doctor tells me saved my life. Apparently some of my arteries were severely blocked and were about to shut down completely.

It has been observed by many saints that sometimes God puts in a place to get our attention. 

I am not sure all I am supposed to be learning in this spot beside the road. 

Here are a few gleanings to date:

Do not take life for granted. Each minute is a gift. Use it wisely.

Health is a measure not a static number or experience. Each of us has a measure of health; it is what we live with every day. While there might be some definition of optimum health in a medical text book; we all live within a measure of that optimum. It is okay to live within the measure we are given. I am grateful for the measure of health I have today.

Work will be there. This is difficult for a teutonic workaholic. When life's meaning is defined by productivity, it is a challenge to appreciate that the English poet, John Milton, who upon going blind wrote, "They also serve who only stand and wait." I confess I am still on page one of this lesson.

Relationships are all that matter. In the end it is who we love and who loves us that is the sum of life. I realized this during this past Sunday as our fellowship of Jesus’ followers gathered to celebrate new life in Christ as symbolized in baptism. What love flowed as we worshipped, participated in the rite of baptism and ate together. I am loved!

Have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Ronald Friesen © 2015

God, help!

Today, November 13, 2015, is a sad in the history of the world. This morning people woke up in Paris thinking going about their business, catching a cup of coffee at a sidewalk café with a friend or a lover, cheering on a soccer team, or taking in a concert. The last thing on the minds of Parisians this morning were any thoughts that their lives would be irrevocably changed by a indescribable reign of violence before nightfall.

For followers of Jesus, these scenes of death and violence are challenging. The Biblical record has given us a model of how to respond to events such as what we are seeing in Paris.

Here is the model provided by the Psalmist in the 13^th Psalm:

Introductory cry:

1

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

    How long will you hide your face from me?

2 

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

While our circumstances may not be the same as the citizens of Paris today, we have all said, “How long, Lord?” To cry out, “How long, Lord?” is not a cry of doubt, it is the cry of being human.

Petition:

3 

Look on me and answer, Lord my God.

    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,

This is a personal call to God to respond to the crisis. Notice the personal pronouns. Those who have a personal relationship with God can make this personal appeal.

Lament:

4 

and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”

    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

Do not be surprised that the enemy comes back and beats their chest and  boasts about their terrible deeds. Do not let their words anger you or frustrate you. There is no power in their words. They are empty boasts in the end. They will not have the last word.

Assertion of Confidence:

5 

But I trust in your unfailing love;

    my heart rejoices in your salvation.

The personal relationship out of which the petition flows now creates the foundation for a word of confidence in God. It is not a matter of the strength of the faith of the follower of Jesus, it is a matter of the character of God. It is God’s love and salvation that is the basis of the believer’s confidence.

Promise to Praise:

6 

I will sing the Lord’s praise,

    for he has been good to me.

In the end the follower of Jesus rejoices in God’s power and character. The goodness of God in the face of adversity is good news. What is the goodness we rejoice in? We know that the deaths of Parisians is not the end of the story. We know that the apparent victory of the evil doers is an empty victory because there is a greater Victor.

Ronald Friesen © 2015

No pain, no gain...

 I am living these verses for the last while:

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it (the thorn in the flesh) away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10).

 St. Paul and I have a similar problem: not all of our prayers get answered. If St. Paul was apparently unable to move heave to his side, who am I?

Unanswered prayers for deliverance is an opportunity for God to show up. If the irritant is removed, I and St. Paul will never learn the power of God in our lives. With St. Paul, I am learning that God’s power will only be realized in my weaknesses.

Spiritual growth is the fruit of spiritual struggles. No struggles; no growth. Followers of Jesus should want to mature in their faith, yet, many want maturity without the struggle. Invite the struggle and grow in the faith.

Ronald Friesen © 2015