Spiritual Direction from the Master Shipwright

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference."

Re-framing, restructuring, recycling, re-purposing...

These are words I would not necessarily use when discussing the process of God's grace continually changing my life to conform more and more to his image. 

I have always clung tenaciously to the promise of God that I am a new and the old is gone.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: 

                                                    The old has gone, the new is here! 

2 Corinthians 5:17  

I've known for years that sanctification is a process but in the last few months I have been learning first-hand that the Holy Spirit is the Master Shipwright. He has crafted me into a new boat for new work. 

In my own eyes I was a Banks Dory; a flat-bottomed, slab-sided boat. She's stable, but only in the calmest of waters. The fishermen who used these boats off the shores where I live would put out from the Mother Ship daily and return each night, weather permitting. 

If the wind picked up, the fisherman would return with haste to the Mother Ship. Fishermen are a tough breed and if they don't work they don't get paid. Often the men would get caught out when the seas picked up. When they could not pull their oars against the maelstrom, their only hope was to lie in the bottom of the Dory and be still.   

When the fishing industry shifted, shipwrights in Massachusetts re-purposed the classic Banks Dory with a step in the bow, allowing it to access waters where no other boat could reach. Although highly functional it shares the instability of its cousin when it comes to rough water. A new purpose, a new name, a new design. The Dory became the Jon Boat.

The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. 

Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.”

Revelation 21:5 

We are flat-water boats with modifications. We were created for God and His purposes. We are here for His glory and His will. 

The disciples were Dories and made Jon Boats by the Holy Spirit. He changed the waters they worked, catching Gentiles, as well as Jews. They needed to be re-crafted by the Master Shipwright.

We are re-built it is in stages. If we try to launch ourselves while our hull is incomplete we will sink. We need to wait....

But regardless of  our hull design we are all at the will of the Wind...the Spirit of God. 

Do not fight it. Be still and know He is God. Sit down.... 

Are you fishing on our own power? Sit down and be still. 

Are you being made new? Stay in dry-dock and let Him work on you.  

Are you being called to new waters...go 

"Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen."

--Reinhold Niebuhr

sounds of healing

As a child I was enamored by Harry Houdini. He was my super-hero. 

Superman could fly, Spider man could shoot webs and Batman beat bad guys up, but Houdini was real. 

He would hang upside down in  a straitjacket over an abyss and escape unharmed. Nothing could hold him; jail cells, trucks, chains, water-tanks. 

Then one day I learned it was all fake. He would swallow keys, used rigged trunks and was an expert contortionist. 

But still, I believed, as did many others even today. 

Each year at the anniversary of death people gather to see if he can live up to his claim to escape death. Still they gather, still they wait. 

There is but one man who ever escaped death. Jesus of Nazareth.

His power in life came from simple spoken words; arise, walk, wake up. 

I like to think that Jesus heard the Fathers' voice in the tomb of Easter Day saying, "wake up son"

"Now he was back in Cana of Galilee, the place where he made the water into wine. Meanwhile in Capernaum, there was a certain official from the king’s court whose son was sick. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and asked that he come down and heal his son, who was on the brink of death. Jesus put him off: “Unless you people are dazzled by a miracle, you refuse to believe.”
But the court official wouldn’t be put off. “Come down! It’s life or death for my son.”
Jesus simply replied, “Go home. Your son lives.”
The man believed the bare word Jesus spoke and headed home. On his way back, his servants intercepted him and announced, “Your son lives!”
He asked them what time he began to get better. They said, “The fever broke yesterday afternoon at one o’clock.” The father knew that that was the very moment Jesus had said, “Your son lives.”
That clinched it. Not only he but his entire household believed. This was now the second sign Jesus gave after having come from Judea into Galilee."

John 4:46-54

Do you have faith in the one who can speak healing and life?

 

please make me naked and ashamed

"The two of them, the Man and his Wife, were naked, 

but they felt no shame."

Genesis 2:25

 I was struck by a meditation today by DA Carson on this verse on the second and third chapters of Genesis:

"WHAT A STRANGE WAY, we might think, to end this account of Creation: “The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Gen. 2:25). Hollywood would love it: what an excuse for sexual titillation if someone tries to place the scene on the big screen. We hurry on, chasing the narrative.

Yet the verse is strategically placed. It links the account of the creation of woman and the establishment of marriage (Gen 2:18-24) with the account of the Fall (Gen. 3). On the one hand, the Bible tells us that woman was taken from man, made by God to be “a helper suitable for him” (2:18), yet doubly one with him: she is bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh (2:24), the paradigm of marriages to come, of new homes and new families. On the other hand, in the next chapter we read of the Fall, the wretched rebellion that introduces death and the curse. Part of that account, as we glean from tomorrow’s reading, finds the man and the woman hiding from the presence of the Lord, because their rebellion opened their eyes to their nakedness (3:7, 10). Far from being unashamed, their instinct is to hide.

This was not how it was supposed to be. In the beginning, “the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” The sexual arena stands to the fore, of course; yet there is a symbol-laden depth to the pronouncement. It is a way of saying that there was no guilt; there was nothing to be ashamed of. This happy innocence meant openness, utter candor. There was nothing to hide, whether from God or from each other."

...and I was pulled back to a month or so ago reading an article in Huffingpost  proclaiming that Harvard was getting naked and celebrating their depravity:

"The expected go-ahead by the Committee on Student Life will entitle Munch to meet for lunch or dinner on campus, promote gatherings on school grounds and apply for grants from the school's Drug and Alcohol Peer Advisors organization, the paper said.

Once an informal gathering for like-minded individuals to discuss their proclivities in the bedroom without fear of being judged, Munch now has "institutional support" to provide reassurance for its members, its anonymous founder "Michael" said in the story.

There is historical precedent. The Iowa State University student government funded a bondage club in 2003, calling it a triumph for diversity, one publication reported.

Now S&M clubs are increasingly popular at elite institutions as "50 Shades Of Grey" climbed the bestseller list, the Observer said. Columbia, Tufts, MIT and Yale have them, though the story did not say whether they were officially recognized. Assault cases from within some groups have sprung up as well, the paper said."

It is sad indeed. We are no longer ashamed. We celebrate every kind of depravity.

On and on it goes on.

It is very sad indeed. What God made for Glory, we have turned to garbage.

But this too, can be redeemed.

If you too are tired of having to tell your kids to not look at the ads on TV during every show at all times, if you are disgusted by the porn behind the counter at the gas station, if you are cringing waiting for the day when your young daughter asks you about the billboards for strip clubs and "adult" videos and novelties than join me in prayer.

Lord, make us ashamed again. Please. We repent that we have allowed what you created for glory to be tossed in the gutter.

Oh Lord, make us ashamed at our sin. Make us wholly yours, so that we can be Holy and yours.

Lord, you made us very good. Please, help us to return as best we can, with your aid.

Lord, we pray for those who are caught without shame. Keep us from pride, for you created them as well. Show them your love, your power and your amnesty.