after the locust, there will be a feast

“I’ll make up for the years of the locust,
    the great locust devastation—
Locusts savage, locusts deadly,
    fierce locusts, locusts of doom,
That great locust invasion
    I sent your way.
You’ll eat your fill of good food.
    You’ll be full of praises to your God" 
                                        Joel 2:25

I've had many seasons in my life when it seems as if everything good was being destroyed before my eyes and there was nothing I did to precipitate it, nor anything I could to stop it...

If you can relate read on, if not, read on so when it does...

To be honest, there are many times in my life when I baited disaster. I'll own up to it, but there have been long seasons of wasting and desolation. 

...but today I am in a season of harvest and redemption of what seems like the first half of my life. 

 
"God blessed Job’s later life even more than his earlier life. He ended up with fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand teams of oxen, and one thousand donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters. He named the first daughter Dove, the second, Cinnamon, and the third, Darkeyes. There was not a woman in that country as beautiful as Job’s daughters. Their father treated them as equals with their brothers, providing the same inheritance."
                                                                                             Job 42:12-15

It seems as if I have been given a bit of my inheritance NOW...which is fitting, as the Kingdom of God has broken in...

I once had a day-dream of the Great Banquet 
...(God often shows my heart things like this)

I was seated at a great table, under a huge blue sky, surrounded by people I knew well, but couldn't make out who they were...

we were all laughing, and smiling, and there was such joy!

The first course was served, and it was in cast-iron skillets...

I peered in, and it was fried locusts...
the ones that had eaten all the years of my life...

we feasted on them, they were turned to good. 

wait for it...with joy 

Compost for Christ

It's that time of year hear in New England when "leaf peepers" come out...

God does a grand thing...he turns the lights off just enough by tilting the angle of the earth, resulting in the heat of summer turning to the cool of fall...

He shows off with a massive mural across the hills.

The colors were always in the leaf, it's just that they were in full sun, doing their thing, and the new life was busy producing chlorophyll...the green simply covered what was there.

The fireworks can't last, so the leaves fall to the ground,
and die,
and all that they did becomes the launch pad for the next seedling.

God does this is us too...

But we have to be willing to fall from the tree.
Look;
"At about that same time Jesus left the house and sat on the beach. In no time at all a crowd gathered along the shoreline, forcing him to get into a boat. Using the boat as a pulpit, he addressed his congregation, telling stories.
“What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn’t put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.
“Are you listening to this? Really listening?”

God composts all the good and bad from our past lives, and plants his new in us. 
It was always there, waiting for us to drop. 

A life that has become dead wood for God is the only place his New Life can grow...

Sometimes, we try and plant on rocky soil, and places like that...

But the winds and rains come and mud slides take it all away. 

We can't produce the life, 
or even prepare the dirt. 

All we can do is let go, 
and let God. 

Compost for Christ. 
 

listen up

‘The Lord your God is with you,
    he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
    he will quiet you with his love,
    he will rejoice over you with singing’ (Zephaniah 3:17).

Most days, I want to bury my head under my pillow and stop the noise...

So many voices competing with the voice of God. Some days it's easy to hear him, others, not so much.

I'm learning to rest in the fact that simply because I intentionally work at being still means that God is speaking to me.

 "You're not in charge here. The Father who sent me is in charge. 

He draws people to me - that's the only way you'll ever come. 

Only then do I do my work, 

putting people together, 

setting them on their feet, 

ready for the End." 

                                     John 6:44

Can you hear him?

He is calling...sometimes a whisper

                             sometimes a scream

nevertheless, He is singing His delight over you today beloved.

New England is a magical place, but you need to be still to see the act.

Each year, God does his thing, and ushers in his grand act, and changes the landscape from green to a rainbow...

What grew bows down and leaves the stage, and Geese sound the trumpet as the curtain slowly rises...

This doesn't surprise God...but it always seems to catch us off guard.

Be bless the crisp air, and the sweet ciders and syrup, then curse the blanket that covers the spring flowers while they gather their scent from the decaying leaves under the billions of ice-diamonds.

Seasons come and go through us too...

listen for the trumpet, and greet it with joy.

let things die, God is aware.

An old leaf left on the branch will never turn green again...

let things fall. 

I am in a season of change, again.

I welcome it.

Restore our fortunes, Lord,
    like streams in the Negev. 

 Those who sow with tears
    will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
 
    carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
    carrying sheaves with them.
              Psalm 126:4-6

when the road ain't so winding....but it's long

"what would your school look like in heaven?"
......

"no lockers"...yeah, no one will steal stuff

"no school nurse"...yeah, no on will get sick

"no more fighting or arguing"

.....  and in my mind I add "no more lock down drills"

We had been reading our family devotional and I couldn't get past my own tears longing for Christ to return.

Most days, I simply can't walk any more....
all I see in front of me are miles and miles.

My feet ache,
my back is sore,
and i smell...

yet, I walk.

Others try to encourage me from the sidelines,
like they dowhen I run a marathon...

but they aren't running my race.

I can see the finish and I know the prize, so I keep running...
foot, foot, foot.

Sometimes I run, sometimes I walk, sometimes I have to stop...

but I keep moving.

He did it. He is worth it

 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
                                                  Hebrews 12:2 The Message

What are you leaving behind?

When I was a kid, I used to daydream like many others about what it would be like at my funeral...

would lots of folks come?
who would be there?
what would they say?

As I got older, I thought about legacy and leaving the world better than I when I showed up...

When God grabbed my life, things changed a bit.

I still struggle with wanting to be remembered and liked...

But the most important legacy I have in my life are my girls.

Now, I often daydream about a conversation they would have about me after I have died...

I hope it centers around how much I loved them, and Jesus, and their mom.

I hope it has a part about how they learned to love and respect all people because all people are made in the image of God.

I hope my love for Christ will show them the realness of God, and that He is true and alive.

What about you?

What are you hoping to leave here?

Seasons and beaches and the goodness of God

Man, does life fly...

That thing on my head is starting middle school next week...

The thing strapped to my wife starts forth grade.

...and I was walking the beach this morning while they slept, listing to a man of God share thoughts on other men of God who lived long ago.

I was encouraged and cut to the heart for the millionth time that Jesus was all-sufficient...and I found myself dropping to my knees in thanks and sorrow, asking for help to simply be who He wants me to be.

I wasn’t lamenting the fact that I wasn’t surfing because of the sharks...

Time does fly, and we change, and grow old.

Thankfully, God does not.

of broken teeth and death camp miracles

"Really, God, while this guy is extracting a broken tooth?"
"yep...."...

The Lord said to always be ready to talk about why you believe what you do...

That's not so you can be ready to walk around telling folks what you know. Being "ready" naturally implies that you there will be situations that come upon you when you least expect it.

Christian's tend to read this verse and think "I need to be able to answer all the questions when a person presses me with objections to the Bible"...but that's not it.

Here, read the verse in Eugene Petersen's "The Message" translation...

^"If with heart and soul you’re doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you’re still better off. Don’t give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. 

Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God." 1 Peter 3:15-18

Jesus was telling Peter what was coming down the pike:

1. You are going to suffer

2. Your going to be punished for doing good

It's gonna happen folks. 

You are going to suffer...

Don't believe me? Here, believe God..

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
                                                                                                                                       Matthew 5:10-11

Well, that doesn't sound like the "feeling blessed" life on Facebook...

No, when God says "blessed" he means that he is very near and working in and through you. 

So, when Paul wrote to Peter "be prepared", he was NOT saying "tell them all your Bible verses...he WAS saying "when you are in in the midst and after the suffering, tell them WHY you believe..

...and there I was, about to have a tooth extracted, when my dental guy started talking about his Rabbi (God sets up things so well)...who was spared in the death camp, only to meet the girl who saved his life later in CT and marry her (cue awe and tears)...when he says.."You know, I've always judged a person's belief when it holds up under suffering. He went through so much and still had faith"

He asked me how I started working in Africa, and I shared about a son who had died, and a drive to save babies, and a faith that still believed God is good...

What do we take away from this?

"Being prepared" means not so much to get your answers ready to convince others when you they take a breath and stop talking...but rather spending time in the presence of God,  so that you convince yourself of the Love and Truth of Him...so that WHEN you suffer in his place, those around you will think there is something to your faith...

That was God's plan...and what Jesus did. With his very last breath ...
Read it here

Wrapped up in Him...

God asks very little of us...actually, to simply do all we can to love Him with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength....

Oswald Chambers wrote years ago...
“All [else] we do is of so much scaffolding to God...”

Yes, we all have a plan and a purpose and are called to participate in God’s redemptive plan of salvation for the whole world....but it’s all to easy to get caught up in everyone elses’s plan.

Me, my plan is to love God, make some sandwiches, preach the Good News, and share some underwear.

I believe the plan is that others might see this, and give glory to God.

You can join me if you like.