money money money!

Being tax season, I’ve had more thoughts about money than usual. Question like, Where should I spend or invest this? How much should I commit to giving away to missions or ministry?  Should I set aside and create a savings  budget to later provide for my aging parents?  If I change to part-time work, how will that change all these things? Most importantly, what honors God and is the best stewardship of what He has put in my care. I re-read Tim Keller’s chapter in Counterfeit Gods: Money Changes Everything. I was deeply affected by his comment of how easily money becomes an idol- as it meets every deep idol of our heart- comfort, approval, power, or control.  Here are some fitting excerpts for this tax-money season.

Each deep idol- power, approval, comfort, or control—generates a different set of fears and a different set of hopes. “Surface idols are things such as money, our spouse, or children, through which our deep idols seek fulfillment... Some people want money as a way to control their world and life. Such people usually don’t spend much money and live modestly. They keep it all safely saved and invested, so they can feel completely secure in the world. Others want money for access to social circles and to make themselves beautiful and attractive. These people do spend money on themselves in lavish ways. ..In every way however, money idolatry enslaves and distorts lives…Deep idols have to be dealt with at the heart level. 

Jesus warms people far more often about greed than about sex, yet almost no on thinks they are guilty of it. Therefore we should all begin with a working hypothesis that “this could easily be a problem for me.”

Money can become a spiritual addiction, and like all addictions it hides its true proportions from its victims. 

So Lord, turn my eyes back to You as my source of comfort and security. Help me to see this money as belonging to You and give me wisdom and surrender to use it in ways that honor you.  Protect my heart from the deceitfulness of wealth and all it’s booby-traps along the way.

make space.

"Bring me the sacrifice of your precious time. This creates sacred space around you-- space permeated with My presence and My peace"

from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young.

The flowers were all growing in the wrong places and happily filled my yard and lawn. Sad to see the rest all go with the mowing but thankful to be able to put this sunshine in a jar on my table today. 

Firsts

Even if you want to forget, you often can't.... first time getting into a car accident. first autopsy. First time falling in love. first kiss and first heartbreak. first move away from home. first time delivering a slippery newborn baby. …even the first time eating passion fruit.

the other night, I delivered my first stillborn child into the world. He was only 20 wks old… the length of a large yam really, and if you didn't look carefully you would have thought he was a blood clot. When we lay him on his mothers belly in a clean towel, she stopped crying. she just caressed him. the room was silent. there were no words. 

jen and her most difficult patient of the day

She is afraid
She trembles when he yells at her
He towers over her
6 feet tall and unrelenting in his words
meant only for cutting.
She believes the accusations
For a moment only

And then she sees him
As through a looking glass
He carries years of pain
he has a wife and child
who suffer because he suffers
from an illness without cure.
He coughs up blood in the morning
Spiting out his anger
But in his heart
he is afraid.

Here are some small quotes that I want to remember from today.

Following Jesus is like a dice game. You put everything on one number and roll your dice.  That number is Jesus. If you are right, you've won it all. If it is wrong, you've lost everything.  If someone looked at your life, would you be all in?  --Bruce Randall

We are terrible friends to Jesus, but he is a wonderful friend to sinners. 
He suffered at the hands of his friends for his friends, because of His love. 

Are you glad the Bible records that Peter denied Jesus? I am. it gives me hope. This Peter, who Jesus said to "feed my sheep" to "follow me" and "upon this rock I will build my church". This Peter was a messy man, and we are messy as well. --pastor Jeremy


Also, regarding the love of God:

We each have our unmet needs. and we carry them around all day long like an empty cup. In one way or another we hold out that cup to the people in our lives and say, "Can someone please fill this?  Even a tablespoon would help!"

…

How do we "abide" in the love of God"?  We dwell no further from His side than the place we are most keenly aware of His great affection. Was it not the disciple who reclined against Christ Jesus who saw himself as the "beloved disciple?"? Place your year against the Savior so that when troubled times come, you may not know what will befall you, but you can hear the steady pulse of the boundless love of Him who holds you. -- Beth Moore


“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet." - Frederick Buechner

the disturbing truth.

A window into this week.

She looks so put together, volunteers with the PTA, attends a multiple Bible studies every week.  She told me she found her husband in bed with another woman. She refused to sleep with him for about a year and then he raped her. They are in the middle of divorce now.

He is a self made millionaire. Then he fell from a hot tub and 8 back surgeries later, he is still in chronic pain. daily takes pain and anxiety medication doses that would kill many people. He says he has been taken care of by the best doctors in the country but no one can help him.

He has terrible uncontrolled diabetes and can't afford his insulin. He works night shift from 9pm to 8am, then another day shift from 1-7pm. He sleeps 3 hours a day. He is struggling to support his family and his newly adopted grandchild.

She is newly married but in a marriage with "open relationships" with other people. She is a doctor. She says she is happy but can't stop crying when I pray for her.

He came to every prenatal appointment as I cared for his pregnant wife and delivered their second child. I care for his entire family and he always seemed so rational. Then I get a letter from a psychiatric hospital. He tried to kill his wife and children.  When interviewed he says, "I think about it often and there are many ways I could do it."




Oh Lord, you are the Savior, and I am not. You love these people.  You bring life out of ashes.  Teach me what to do with the disturbing truths these people carry to me. Teach me to roll them into your strong hands. It is too much for me. You are the Savior and I am not. 

When no one is looking, He still loves me.

I'm always convicted from the quote "Character is who you are when no one is looking" . If you could read my thoughts daily you would know how corrupt and deceitful my heart is and no one would be my friend anymore.  I am amazed that the only One who knows the depths and darkness of my heart, (much more than I do),  loves me . loves. me. loves this one.  I was eating dinner with a medical student yesterday and asked her, "What is the hardest part of the Gospel for you to believe?" She replied instantly, "That God loves me."

Oh, the glory of belonging to One who knows all your secrets and failures and LOVES you!..jealously, relentlessly, extravagantly. My friend told me that the Love of God is like an Ocean and we walk timidly along the shoreline, barely letting the waves run over our feet.  What would it take to learn to dive in completely?

Crystal, the messy girl.

I went for a long walk today. It's been a long time… the snow and the cold had lingered.  there seemed to be some days of breakthrough sunshine, a hint of spring, and then another snowfall covered it over again.  But today… there were purple and yellow flowers pushing through the dead grass! As I walked and stretched my hands over my head, I felt like God was saying, "Come away with Me… just be with me here.  I will give you more than what you are looking for in the promise of men.. stop being like the Israelites asking for a king when I am right HERE."

I remembered Crystal, from many years ago when I used to work in youth ministry. She was a messy girl, her father was a pot head, she ran away once and every thursday her hair was a different color, if she even showed up.   But every time there was an altar call, she came down.  I must have seen her walk the aisle 5 times.  It was tempting to think, "how long will it last this time before she runs away from everything again?"

I remember my friend telling me, "Jennifer, we don't know Crystal's heart, but every time she comes down that aisle, it's a good thing."

I see myself in Crystal. I keep falling down, and am ashamed to lift my face up at times. I run away and hide myself. But He relentlessly finds me in the cleft of the rocks.

Repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord… 

to be free...

Tonight, I was standing at his bedside. He was my age, with long black hair, his heart racing and body shaking. His father was an alcoholic, and he has been drinking 1 liter of vodka daily since he was 15 years old. He was withdrawing and we were giving him medications to help him do it safely because he said He wants to be free. I told him, "You're going to feel terrible for a couple of days. After your stay here you will be free from the risk of seizures and withdraw, but you will not be free from the cravings of the alcohol. We admitted you because you said you want to be quit for good. We could have sent you back home to treat yourself with more alcohol, but we have hope for you and want to help you with the first steps of freedom."

The drinking has ruined his life, estranged him from his children and his wife. He hates it and needs it at the same time.  He says he knows Jesus and the gospel,  but he has tried before to quit and failed over and over again.  He feels powerless to stop. 

I shared with him the story of the paralytic man dropped through the roof in front of Jesus.
The first thing Jesus said to him:  "Man, your sins are forgiven." 

what is harder, to forgive sins and or to say "Get up and walk?"

Jesus has the power to do both. 

I have hope for this alcoholic man although the road to recovery will not be easy and he cannot do this it alone. But God is the master of healing all things hopeless. He can make crippled legs walk again…for this man and for me as well.

Just look up...

turn my eyes Lord, turn my eyes...

real things...

Crisis Relief International (CRI) message:

•> > We lost the city of Queragosh. It fell to ISIS and they are beheading children systematically. This is the city we have been smuggling food to. ISIS has pushed back Kurdish Forces, and is within 10 minutes of where our CRI team is working. Thousands more fled into the city of Erbil last night. The UN evacuated its staff in Erbil. Our team is unmoved and will stay. Prayer cover needed!!!

That was written in August. Forward 7 months and here they are...

the first day of clinic. almost every other patient I saw cried. They had good reason. 

I have shed more shallow tears of late. Remembering these things helps me reign in the pity party . There are more real things worth pouring our lives and tears over…