Jewels From the Word

 

 Mama used to raise chickens and ducks. Oh, I loved those little babies in the incubator in the warm winter kitchen. The little ducks would flop around in the water, knowing instinctively that they should be swimming, while the baby chicks would do all they could to get away from the water, except to drink a little drop now and then. Somehow those chicks knew water would kill them, because they were not created to swim. Chicken feathers get wet and stringy, while the duck feathers shed the water.

What kills one lifts the other to his destiny. What wounds one heart until it cannot be healed rolls off another heart.

Instead of grieving over the troubles that come our way, the insults of those who don’t understand us, we can learn to face them head on and let them roll over us and down our backs and off us—like water off a duck’s back. Those things can’t hurt us when we act that way

 As James 1:2 NKJV says, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.” The word ‘count’ is a mathematic term. So maybe it isn’t ‘joy’ when it happens, but we can count it as ‘joy.’ Act like it is and call it ‘joy.’

The very thing that was sent to drown us will lift us up by our duck feathers and float us to our destiny. The human reaction is to defend ourselves, argue, fight, complain about the injustices that life brings us, but the spiritual action is to rejoice.

Decide in advance that you are going to act, not react. If you have a plan of action in advance, when those trials come your way, you will instinctively do what you plan to do.

Let the trials of life float you to your destiny.

I was standing in the laundry room rebooting my laundry, moving the laundry from the washer to the dryer, having no conscious thought, just working automatically, when the refrigerator shut off. Silence. Isn’t it funny that you never notice the refrigerator running until it shuts off?

I seldom have silence.

Usually the first thing I do when I walk in the door is turn on the TV. When I get up in the morning, I turn on the TV and the computer. Driving down the road, I have the radio or a CD playing. The kitchen TV has news on while I cook supper and do the dishes.

There is nothing wrong with watching the news and weather, keeping informed with what is going on in the world. It’s okay to check email, read the latest in the Internet, share words of encouragement and wisdom with friends.

However I wonder if we have lost the discipline of silence.  Are we afraid of our thoughts? If we had a few free minutes of every day to think, what would we think about?

Psalms 4:4 says “Meditate upon your bed and be still.” Psalms 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God.” Mark 4:39, Jesus said, “Peace, be still.”

We don’t have to wait till the middle of the night to be quiet. Find a place of perfect stillness, even if it is only within your own soul. In the midst of the storms of life, those people who have found stillness, quietness, peace with the Lord, will enter the place of rest.

“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. He (the Lord, the Most High) will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge.” Psalms 91:1, 4.

The Lord’s peace like a feather pillow will surround you with perfect stillness.

Daniel was one of four of the most prominent Jews in Babylon. He and the three Hebrew children—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—obeyed the law even in a foreign country where they had been carried captive. Through the lions’ den and the fiery furnace, they prevailed and were promoted by the king, with Daniel rising to rank right under the king himself.

 Daniel stayed loyal to his faith, yet served the king faithfully for many years. He kept the commandments of God, followed the guidelines of his religion, and studied the Torah and prophets.

One day while Daniel was reading the scroll of the prophet Jeremiah, he discovered that Jeremiah had foretold the captivity of the Jews in Babylon and had predicted right down to the very year when the captivity would be over, which was very soon. Then Daniel did the only thing he knew to do—he prayed.

The prayer of repentance in Daniel 9 is an example to us all. Daniel prayed, “We have sinned.  We have not obeyed Your voice. All Israel has transgressed Your law.”  Daniel identified himself with his people. Although he was probably the godliest man in the whole nation of Israel, he repented.  He repented for himself and for all of Israel as their representative.  Then he called on the God’s mercy. “O my God, incline Your ear, for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies.”

That is not the typical Christian’s prayer these days. What do we pray? “Lord, do you see those heathens who are killing unborn babies and promoting sex and violence? What are you going to do about it? We want justice. Get ‘em, God.”

  Let’s take a lesson from Daniel. Let’s repent for our nation including ourselves, even if we are not personally guilty of the sins that have been committed.

 “Father, have mercy on the United States. Forgive us for we have sinned.”

I have lived in Vinita, Oklahoma, all my life. I went off to college in Tulsa for one year but came home frequently on the weekends. Then I worked a year, commuting to junior college in Miami, Oklahoma, before marrying and moving to Okmulgee Tech school 100 miles away from home for two years.

Faithfully every two weeks, as much as finances would allow, we drove home to Vinita. After graduation, we both had jobs in Okmulgee so we stayed, but I returned home to give birth. I wouldn’t allow anyone but Donald Olson M.D. in Vinita to deliver my baby.

My body dwelt in Okmulgee temporarily for seven years. I even owned an almost-new mobile home there. I worked, shopped, had many friends there, but I really never lived in Okmulgee. After I was divorced, I moved back to Vinita, following the truck pulling my mobile home, containing all my worldly possessions.

 “Home is where the heart is.” Well, my heart was never in Okmulgee.

Many years ago my heart moved to heaven. I became a citizen of the Eternal City of God.  I took a citizenship test, signed my citizenship papers, was baptized into citizenship in the heavenly Family of God. I now belong to the great host of people who confess that we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth and we are seeking a homeland, the City of God whose Builder and Maker is God.

Revelation 21:10, 23-24  nkjv, “ And he [the angel] carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light.”

“For our citizenship is in heaven,” Paul said, in Philippians 3:20.

 Heaven is my permanent home but until I’m gone I’m perfectly satisfied to live my life here in Vinita, Oklahoma.

My mama had a lady friend who came to town about once a year and spent a few days with us. We kids had to carefully obey Mama when she was there because she expected strict obedience. She expected us to call her “ma’am.” We girls were given the privilege of combing her long silver hair. We sat at her feet and she quizzed us about Sunday School stories and Bible verses.

The one bright point in her visit was when she made pancakes. Her pancakes were pretty, never doughy inside, and she taught us how to cook them.

 We used an iron skillet, which must be hot enough, so she dripped water in the pan to test it. If it sizzled, she poured in her batter. She watched the bubbles on the pancake and when they popped, turned it over.

Here is the secret: don’t flip it again. Leave it alone, until it is done. If you bother it, you might as well throw the pancake in the trash, because you will have a flat, squashed piece of bread instead of a light, fluffy delicacy.

Jesus cooked. He fixed breakfast for His disciples on the shore of Galilee. Peter, James, John, and some of the other disciples went fishing after Jesus was raised from the dead. They fished all night but caught nothing. When morning came they saw Jesus on the shore.

Jesus had a fire going, with fish and pancakes cooking. “Come and eat breakfast.” I don’t know if Jesus gave cooking lessons, but being with Jesus was rubbing off on them. His disciples lived with Him for 3 1/2 years and then were filled with His Spirit.    

In Acts 4:13 the rulers of the Sanhedrin arrested Peter and John, but recognizing they were “uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.”

They looked and smelled like fishermen. They talked like common fishermen. Their mannerism betrayed their hometown. However what came out of their mouth was inspired by the Spirit of God.

Our life experiences have made us who we are today, including our cooking lessons. Jesus has been rubbing off on me during those times I have been spending with Him.

My college roommate and I are still close after all these years and when we visit each other, it is just like old times. Even though we are so very different from each other, what we have in common is our love for Jesus and His word.

She has the most beautiful dark curly hair. Back then she wore it long, down on her shoulders, and it was so glamorous. She is from Pennsylvania with a Hungarian heritage, dark coloring and dark eyes. She is an only child.

On the other hand, I am from Oklahoma with a English-German heritage, so I have fair skin with light freckles, very light brown hair with reddish hints and green eyes. I am one of 5 children.

When we were roommates that year, we did each other’s hair. She knelt by the ironing board as I carefully ironed all the curl out of her hair. She gave me a permanent to make my hair curly.

Isn’t it funny how we women want to change our looks? We are never satisfied with the way our hair behaves naturally, so we are always changing it. But times have changed and now my friend has accepted her curls and I wear mine fairly straight.

God created man and then said His creation was “very good.” Each individual is created in God’s image. How could He have imagined each of us?

We cannot take credit for our looks. God made us the way we are on purpose, so we must learn to value ourselves the way God does. He loves us enough that He gave His only Son for us.

Ephesians 1:4-6 KJV says, “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love…to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”

Because of Christ Jesus, we are “accepted in the Beloved,” beautiful just the way we are.