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Bark on the Tree

 Q:  Many Christians look at the state of the church and say it’s dead, merely an institutional expression of the faith.

“What other church is there besides institutional? There’s nobody who doesn’t have problems with the church, because there’s sin in the church. But there’s no other place to be a Christian except the church. There’s sin in the local bank. There’s sin in the grocery stores. I really don’t understand this naiive criticism of the institution. I really don’t get it. bark (Small)

Frederick von Hugel said the institution of the church is like the bark on the tree. There’s no life in the bark. It’s dead wood. But it protects the life of the tree within. And the tree grows and grows and grows and grows. If you take the bark off, it’s prone to disease, dehydration, death.

So, yes, the church is dead but it protects something alive. And when you try to have a church without bark, it doesn’t last long. It disappears, gets sick, and it’s prone to all kinds of disease, heresy, and narcissism.

In my writing, I hope to recover a sense of the reality of congregation–what it is. It’s a gift of the Holy Spirit. Why are we always idealizing what the Holy Spirit doesn’t idealize? There’s no idealization of the church in the Bible–none. We’ve got two thousand years of history now. Why are we so dumb?”  ((Eugene Peterson, “Spirituality for All the Wrong Reasons” Christianity Today, March 2005))

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We Have One Precious Life

remote_tv (Small) It’s the “new” TV season.  Since for me, Fall no longer means an excitement about returning to school–new pencils, new notebooks and book bags, I find myself anticipating and being excited by the promise of new Television shows!  I watch the promos and try to figure if House is going to conflict with anything else I want to view.  I plan what will be taped for later and what I will watch now.  Then I begin to wonder:

What will happen with Meredith and McDreamy?

What will fill the void left by Gilmore Girls?

Will Kitty and the Senator get together?

How will I be able to enjoy Survivor China and attend Choir Practice and ESL too?

What’s up with this Gossip Girls?

Into the scheduling excitement of the new season and of planning my living around what is airing on the tube — I read this Piper devotion.  Well, for sure it made me turn ET right off last night!

“If all other variables are equal, your capacity to know God deeply will probably diminish in direct proportion to how much television you watch.  There are several reasons for this.  One is that television reflects American culture at its most trivial.  And a steady diet of triviality shrinks the soul. 

You get used to it.  It starts to seem normal…If you watch fifty TV ads each night, you may forget there is such a thing as wisdom.  TV seldom inspires great thoughts or great feelings with glimpses of great Truth.  God is the great, absolute, all shaping Reality.  If He gets any air time, He is treated as an opinion. 

There is no reverence.  No trembling.God and all He thinks about the world is missing.  Cut loose from God, everything goes down.  It isn’t just what TV does to us with its rivers of emptiness; it is what TV keeps us from doing.  Do you ever ask, “What could I accomplish that is truly worthwhile if I did not watch TV?” ((John Piper, Pierced By the Word, Multnomah Publishers 2003, 77-78.))

Do I really want to spend this one precious life passive in front of a screen rather than actively before the face of God? 

 “Your eye is a lamp, lighting up your whole body.  If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light.  Keep your eyes open, your lamp burning, so you don’t get musty and murky.  Keep your life as well-lighted as your best-lighted room.”  (Luke 11:33-36, The Message)

Lord, may this be a new season of love and devotion toward you!

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A Call to Persevere

Several months ago I posted a blog entitled “A Polished Arrow” highlighting the encouraging life of Helen Roseveare who was a medical missionary to the Congo.  This weekend she spoke at the Desiring God National Conference in Minneapolis.

You will be strengthened and blessed if you will take time to give a listen to this 80+ year old saint!

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Open My Eyes That I May See

May 4, 2004

Dear Friend,

DSC01495 (Small)There seems to be a new level of tiredness that has entered my spirit–we have lost two mamas and fired a third and are trying to operate the cottages with women who are not yet sure what their responsibilities are.  I am out of the house more than ever.  Jane, I find myself in open conversation with the Lord almost all the time.

Today as I walked between cottages rectifying misunderstandings with the aunties, I said, “Lord, If I was not sure that you are the lover of my soul and the one who is steering me around endless relational potholes today—I would be despairing.  MollyMilk (Small)As it is, you know my weakness–I am just bone tired and longing for rest.”  Later, I was checking on Molly who has a huge knot under her ear and is causing me some concern.  While carrying her, I tripped over a tricycle, I tried to protect her and made every bone in my body sore in the fall that we took.  She giggled like I was playing a game with her.  I am hoping I can get out of bed tomorrow but will take it as a gift from the Jesus who hears and answers if not! :-)  When Molly spent the night with us we took a picture of her that made us roll–it looks like a “Got Milk?” commercial!

May 5, 2004

I slept so hard last night until I have those sheet creases pressed into my skin this morning!  The children will be fascinated by them–they don’t miss a trick and ask about every bump and blemish on my body.  How are you this morning?  Today, I lead Mama Robinah and the aunties in a study of Gen. 13 & 14–the stories that involve Lot and the war between the 4 kings and the 5 kings.

DSC00563 (Small)Auntie Rose came to Bible study for the first time last week and her heart was so lifted.  She is the one who was working for us for a couple of months when we realized her eyesight was very bad.  She had asked for a Bible and Carolyn and I gave her one.  When she opened the pages and looked down, she asked,  “JjaJa, why are the words smeared?”  We got her some reading glasses and she was thrilled to see things that were not clear before.

At the end of Bible study, I asked if there were ways they wanted me to pray for them personally.  I mentioned that since we had just studied Abram’s plan to solve the problem of famine in his own strength — if they were facing any famines and needed prayer.  Rose who is the most self protective African woman I have ever met and one who does not like to show any type of inadequacy said with uncustomary excitement, “JjaJa, pray for me in having a desire to read the Bible.”  She went on to say,  “I was raised Catholic and was never taught this book. When I became a “born again” I heard how important it was to read the Bible.  I have always felt guilty that I don’t know it and when I try to read it I fall asleep.  I can never see the point of what I am reading.      But today, I have enjoyed this so much–I would never have gotten anything from the story if I had not been here to listen.  I feel like I have been asleep and am waking up.”

Jane pray that God gives her a great desire to know Him in His word–as we talked the other night, we both know it is a great gift to have a heart that loves the Scripture. DSC02757 (Small)That moment with Rose put more wind in my sails that I have tasted in some weeks.  She was in the Bible Study because she is filling in for Flavia who has abandoned her role as mama.

What a God we serve–I am so grateful for the privilege of serving these children. Oh friend, we have a God who is a Rock–He is truly my steadfast love, my stronghold and my deliverer–a strong fortress and shield–He is able to subdue the enemies within me and without–whom shall I fear today?  May you find Him a wonderful refuge–I will love hearing the new song that you will sing to Him.

In the steadfast love of the Lord

lissa

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Desires of the Heart

“Pop theologies baptize the longing of sinful hearts:health and wealth, significance and security, self-esteem, power to get what you want. But the heart Holy Spirit is in the business of changing what you want. Should you want what you ask for in the Lord’s Prayer? Yes and Amen!There are riches to be mined from the ground now trampled and mired by the modern jargon of “feelings.” Enter and dig! The Bible teaches that as you learn a simple and pure devotion to Christ, you will find your experience, emotions, beliefs and desires braided into a single unified strand. You will bear fruit in good works prepared beforehand by the One who is recreating you in his image.” ((David Powlison, Seeing With New Eyes, P & R Publishing 2003, 219.))

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Thirst Quencher

“The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.?  The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?  Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”  

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,  but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.  The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”  (John 4:9-15)

Sitting at a real well with real water present, Jesus engages the woman at the well in a conversation concerning “spiritual water.”  He calls what He has to offer a “gift of God” and describes its effect as the ultimate thirst quencher–an unending spring of life.  These verses came to mind yesterday as I sat in church and heard the Pastor, Harriss Ricks, describe the work of Christ’s Spirit in a similar way.

pond His vivid illustration began by having us consider ourselves when we were apart from Christ as being like a pond.  A pond is self-enclosed–individualistic. A pond is still, quiet and doesn’t really impact it’s surroundings much.  In fact, the nature of the pond is that it responds to the changes in the environment around it.  If it is dry and the sun shines too long and hard, the water level in the pond recedes and algae begins to grow.  The pond is left with stagnant, murky water.   The woman at the well had lived like a pond for years.  She was influenced by her environment–and the day she met Jesus — He knew she was stagnant and murky–He knew she was thirsty for something refreshing and reviving.  He offered her the deepest refreshment–Himself.stream

Rather than face life like a stagnant pond, Jesus casts a vision of a life that is more like a living stream.  A life that would indeed quench her deepest thirst.  A stream is constantly replenished with water–it receives and releases fresh water every moment so that it becomes a vivid demonstration of what it means to be alive.  Something that is moving, cascading, reviving, impacting everything that it touches.

Thinking about this word picture and the story in John, I remembered that this woman did indeed receive the Living Water and the first thing she did was to run to the people of her town to release the life giving water that she had received– the news that there was an ultimate thirst quencher–His name is Jesus.

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Sweet Reunion

robinahwilliam-custom.jpgWhile roaming YouTube videos from Uganda, Mike ran across this one of dear Mama Robinah’s boys’ cottage.  It was so great to see how the children had grown since we left.

Jovan in the white striped shirt still does not like to dance.  Charles in the dark blue shirt and pink sandals really does break loose!  I could see Samson tall and lean in the yellow polo and Robert in the yellow t-shirt missing his front teeth! How my heart soared to see how little William had grown when his face came front and center in the greyish white polo near the end of the song.  Best of all was to hear Mama Robinah’s strong voice praising again–that is an experience I have missed greatly.