Teaching Point: Day - or maybe a week! - of Rest

This Sunday’s teaching: Genesis 2:1-3 (quote from a commentary): “When the Lord looked upon the completion of His creative work, He was moved with an emotion of deep delight and personal satisfaction. The phrase ‘it was very good’, Genesis 1:31, might be translated ‘completely perfect’. Everything in the universe from the smallest blade of grass to the largest star brought intense joy to His heart. The cosmos was harmonious and perfect with His beauty clothed upon it. The meaning of this passage is that God did rest from His work of creation; for the present He will refrain from creating anything new.”

I will be traveling to NW Indiana with my hubby & boys this weekend, visiting and celebrating Thanksgiving with my extended family. We leave Wednesday morning around 4 a.m. and will return Sunday evening. This is the first Sunday I’ve missed since early June and I confess it’s not easy for me to be gone. But it’s time I take a few days of rest from the work here so I can be renewed and refreshed upon returning. A day of rest is so important in the life of the believer.

I believe that as the Good Lord looks down upon you, His creation, He smiles and says, “Yes, it is very good!” Everything God creates is good and brings intense joy to He heart. He worked and worked and worked, for 6 days straight, then took a “day off” to enjoy all the beauty of His creation. Yes, it was completely perfect when He created it, and we are a far cry from being completely perfect today, but I thank God for His Gracious Son, Jesus Christ, who IS completely perfect, yet died with the weight of the world’s sin, my sin, upon Himself. The Bible teaches us that the Lord Jesus intercedes right now for us, an unholy people, to a Holy, Just, and Forgiving God.

I’ll be praying for each of you [my teachers & leaders] this week and especially Sunday morning, but I know God holds you all in the palm of His hand to care for you, love on you, and satisfy your every need. These children that come Sunday morning belong to Him…we’ve been entrusted with their care for just a few short hours (although it feels like a looooong morning!) each Sunday. Please don’t ever underestimate the difference you are making in the lives of these kids! I thank God for you, your supportive families, and the wonderful service you provide week after week, month after month.

Teaching Point: A Prepared Place

Genesis 2:8 says that God planted a garden in Eden. God created a beautiful park-like environment and there He put the man and woman he had formed. Lots of trees of varying types grew. Trees beautiful to the eye; trees with pleasing fruit to eat. Rivers ran through this garden so you can imagine the place being green, lush, rich, and vibrant! Vs. 15 says, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” God created the garden and put Adam in the garden, and Adam had a job to do…to work it and take care of it. In the Hebrew, this reads “to cultivate and care for it.” God is very specific in man’s location. You see, God purposefully places people where they will grow. Adam’s environment was planned and planted by the Lord…and so is yours!

Be blessed this week, my dear friends! God has created you in His own image and has placed you exactly where He wants you to be! God has a purpose for placing you here and now. What work has God given you to do in your home, church, community, and world? Take care of and cultivate the environment God has placed you in – with your husband, children, family, church, and community.

Before Jesus left this earth, he spoke to his followers these words: I am going to prepare a place for you. You cannot come now, but you will follow later. Jesus is now in heaven, sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and He has prepared a place for those who love Him and believe that He is God's one and only begotton Son! Just the like the Garden of Eden that was prepared for Adam and Eve, heaven has now been prepared for us.

“O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” Psalm 8

Semi-Homemade Cookie Sandwiches

Here's my version of a semi-homemade dessert:

1 package of Keebler Fudge Stripe cookies
1 jar of creamy peanut butter

Take two cookies. Spread peanut butter on one, top with the other to make a fudge stripe cookie sandwich, and eat.

Delicious!

As close as my own breath...

I heard a sister-in-the-Lord say once long ago: she prayed that God would be as close to her as her own breath. I've not forgotton these words over the years, as I wish that for myself - that God would be as close to me as my own breath...that I would FEEL Him and be aware of Him as I am my own breath!

I'm always a bit concientious about my breath. I keep peppermint gum nearby to cover the coffee breath that comes late in the morning. Who doesn't? The check-out lanes at any store are filled with all sorts of gum and mints to cover bad breath. Even Starbucks sells a breath-freshening mint. It's a part of life! In fact, I realized we've become so preoccupied with our breath when a friend offered me a mint one day. I paused, covered my mouth and said, "Do I need it?" She replied, "It's a mint, not a hint." Ok. Got it.

As I prepared for Sunday's teaching this week, I was again reminded of just how intimate breath is. This Sunday as the teacher's open God's Word and teach the children, the kids will learn that God breathed His own breath through the nostrils of Adam and brought him to life. Adam was just a life-less shape formed from the dust and mud of the ground, UNTIL God breathed life into Adam by breathing into Adams nostrils (Genesis 2:7). Using a Strong's Biblical dictionary, this verse can actually be read: "and Jehovah Elohim molded, as a potter, a human being from the powdered dust of the soil and puffed/inflated into his nose the puff or wind/vital breath of fresh, strong life and ruddy human being became a fresh, alive breathing creature." Wow! God's breath was so close to Adam it filled Adam's lungs and brought him to life. THAT's pretty close! It teaches me that only God's breath can bring to life those things that are life-less!

Read Ezekiel 37. Verse 5 says, "Thus says the LORD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live." And they did!

Jesus breathed. John 20:22, "And saying this, He breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit." The Holy Spirit is given by God and through the Bible has been called by many names: Counselor, Living Water, and many more. To me, here in this passage, I see the Holy Spirit as being, or coming from, the Lord Jesus. He breathed on His disciples and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." Now, the Holy Spirit didn't actually came into the disciples until Acts 2, but this act by the Lord Jesus Christ in John 20 shows me that God's breath equals the Holy Spirit. God's breath brought life to Adam. God's breath brought life to the dead, dry bones in Ezekiel. And God's breath brings life today, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Joyce Meyer says, "You may feel as if your life is no better than the dead, dry bones described by the prophet in Ezekiel 37:1-4. Your circumstances may be so dead that they stink. Your hope may seem lost, but God has a way out. As this passage continues, the prophet does as God instructs, and he sees God totally revive and bring breath and spirit back into what once were dead, dry bones (37:5-10). The same can happen to you. God can revive things that have been dry, brittle, and dead in your life."

As I am aware of my own breath, I pray that I also will be aware of God's breath - the Holy Spirit living within me. As I breathe each and every day, I pray that God will use me to be a source of life and encouragement to others who are hurting; to those who feel like the walking dead; to those who just are too tired, too weary, and too burdened by the trials and temptations of the world. May we all feel God's closeness, His breath, as close as our own breath.

"Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!" Psalm 150:6

Happy Birthday, #91!

Dear Grandpa:

I wish you a happy 91st birthday today - Saturday, November 8th!

Born in Joliet, Illinois in 1917. Who was president back in 1917? Were you born at home? Who was there to help take care of you and your mother, Great Grandma Buehler? How old were you when your parents divorced? Tell me the story again of the time when you were a hard working 8-year old, taking a bucket of water to the workers building a high bridge, tripping and falling? Somehow, praise God, you caught yourself on the side of the bridge before spiraling to the bottom of the pit where death awaited.

I see you in this picture, ducking so your photo won't be taken. That's not like you. You've never hidden from the camera. In fact, you've always been very photogenic, especially when Grandma was standing next to you. I actually have many pictures of you, but this one is the only one I could find on my laptop. Aunt Diane and Isaac are very handsome behind you, and Uncle Jack is busy at the grill. This familiar backyard in Crown Point, Indiana is full of green trees, geranium flowers, and many Buehler family members.

I have many fond thoughts of you and your home, Grandpa. As a child living in central Indiana with my family, I loved visiting you and Grandma, falling asleep as we travelled and waking up to see the telephone lines above the train tracks along Highway 231. That's when I knew we were almost there! I always cried when it was time to leave, but Grandma would give me a little bag of candy and I'd stop crying. Funny - chocolate still comforts me today when I'm sad. I loved the big back yard with all the tall trees. Loved walking through the tall grass and wild Black-eyed Susans, down the long path, to the pond where my dad would tell me stories of riding his horse, or ice skating on the frozen pond in the winter. I got stung in the eye by a bee when Tim and I and Brian (from next door) were messing around on the side of the garage too close to a bee hive. But the bees next door offered delicious honey for our toast, and honey candy for our sweet tooth. It was this same garage that burned down from lightening, taking the life of our station wagon, your truck, and the precious pet, Dutchess.

I fondly remember watching television at your home in the evenings. You'd finish your meal with a familiar dessert: jello topped with a little milk. Before letting me turn on the TV to watch the Donny & Marie Show, you'd make me have a bite of your jello & milk. Never been one of my favorites. But then you'd shower me with compliments telling me I was more beautiful than Marie Osmond, and I would grow up to be more successful than her. Although I was in a difficult transition at that time of going through puberty and losing my mother to cancer, you were the one who saw through the present and into the future. I haven't forgotten your encouragement!

You were so in love with Grandma and weren't shy to show it. What a wonderful example of love that endures. You gave Grandma a kiss when you woke up...when you left for work...when you came home...when you went to the store to buy some milk...when you got out of your leather recliner for any reason, you planted a kiss on Grandma and never complained about kissing those big lips with the Mary Kay orange lipstick.

You love oreos and milk; pot roast and potatoes; leftover chili and turkey salad; spaghetti and meatballs; late night popcorn and pepsi. You mastered the art of having heated political conversations then agreeing to disagree and parting as friends. You have always been financially generous, even paying for part of my wedding in 1987 when Greg and I didn't have any money.

One tradition we carry through today is playing games with our kids and extended family. When staying with you, I loved searching through the game closet and finding a familiar game we could all play together, sometimes staying up till midnight to finish the game. No television or electronics of any kind - just food, fun, family, and fellowship.

Coming to stay at your home as an adult with my own family has always been such a pleasant and comforting reminder of everything good. You're home has been the one place I could come home to where there was no strife, anger, or ugliness. Although the loss of Grandma still threatens me when I come through the door, I savor the familiar smells and sounds of your home that remind me of many precious memories!

Happy 91st Birthday, Grandpa! I love you! See you in a couple weeks for Thanksgiving!

November 4 - Election Day

I read an appropriate quote in my Barbara Johnson daily calendar today: "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday - but not nearly enough."

We have all been affected in some way over the past two years as we prepared for this 2008 Presidential election. We've all had conversations with our families, spouses, and dear friends. We have forwarded YouTube videos, cartoons, and letters from leaders we respect. We've seen the television commercials, watched news coverage, and maybe even some of us have had heated discussions with the other side as we passionately express why we will vote for the man we believe will be the best leader for America over the next four years.

We've worried about what will happen today - Election Day. But does that worry in any way help the results of this election?

God's Word says,

Psalm 75:6-7, "No one from the east or the west or from the desert can exalt a man. But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another."

This Election night, many of us will celebrate. Many others will be sullen and downcast. Us? We're having a party for five: grilled steaks, pasta with a mushroom and gorgonzola sauce, romaine salad, and apple pie for dessert. I've cast my vote already, as has Greg. Whatever happens tonight will be what God has allowed to happen. I'm not worried; I trust in God and God alone for my future and my family's future, no matter which candidate will be celebrating.

We live in a great country where this day, November 4, is a celebrated freedom we have been privileged to participate in for greater than 200 years. May God continue to bless these United States of America!