Sunshiny Memories

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This morning while I was trolling around the internet I was struck by something I totally forgot that I used to do when my son was little.

Since he’s now almost 15 years old there are lot of little things I used to do for him that have gone by the wayside, like tie his shoes, help him pack his backpack and encourage him to hold our cat who he was afraid of hurting when he picked him up.  Now there are some things that I would like to go by the wayside, like reminding him to do his homework, clean out his backpack and that his dirty clothes don’t grow legs and walk to the laundry room by themselves.

When I ran across Gillian Marchenko’s   Facebook post, I was reminded I used to sing to him when he was little and the song I always sung was, “You Are My Sunshine.” When I saw Gillian’s post it brought tears to my eyes because I never would have thought that particular memory would have dropped back to the furthest recesses of my mind. I was surprised that I had forgotten that particular memory because it was such a joyful thing for me, If you were to rate experiences and memories, those times when I sang that song to my son would have been painted with the bright golden warmth of the sun.

I wondered what else I may have forgotten that I might like to remember. Memory is a funny thing because many times we remember those things we don’t want to remember, but the things we would like to, we seem to forget like the joy of singing “You Are My Sunshine” to my son.

It seems to me we do the same with the Lord. We like to remind Him of things He’s promised us but seems to have forgotten to come through on, instead of joggling our memories so we see what joy He has brought to us, along with the ways He’s always fulfilled His promises to us in the past.

“Remember the wonders he has performed, his miracles, and the rulings he has given,” Psalm 105:5

 

Where’s Your Tent?

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Anyone who has had children, or is related to them in any way – which pretty much includes everyone – knows how important sports are to some young people. My son is one of those young people, he just loves to be involved in team sports.

Right now, track is the kingpin of our households little sports world. My son participates in a multitude of events, which means long stints of sitting in the bleachers for me as I wait for his  next event to begin.

Just this last Saturday, his school had an invitational where many different schools came to participate in the track and field events. It was amazing watching all the kids, some of them were so good they looked like gazelles as they jumped over the hurdles.

As spectators we’re always looking for our team. Unless you know all the kids on your team – not a common occurrence for me - usually the only way to tell who’s playing for who is by the color of their uniforms. Even that can get a little dicey when the schools have the same colors, so sometimes you’re reduced too trying to read their outfits as they sprint by at record speed. Not an easy feat, even on a good day.

Yet, there’s always one place where you know you will see the players from a particular team. That’s where they congregate underneath their tents, underneath their banners so to speak. These are engulfed in their colors, yet there’s no question as to which schools are which. As you look around you just know where each of the schools come from by looking at their banners even if they have the same colors.

It occurred to me that it’s not that different in everyday life. When all of us are up and about, moving around in our everyday lives, sometimes it’s hard to tell who we are and who we belong to. Yet, in those moments when we go to our home tents it’s very easy to tell who we belong to. There’s no mistaking whose tent belongs to whom.

In Isaiah, the prophet tells us that there will be no mistaking who the root of Jesse is because he will stand as a banner for those who seek Him. Like the tents and banners at my son’s track meet, He won’t be hidden but will, and is, seen like a banner held high to guide those back to where they belong, their home tent so to speak. The closer they get to their tent and when they are underneath it, there is no mistaking who they belong to.

The interesting thing with the kids is that if they stay close to their own tents and banners, you can see them going back and forth to their events so it makes it even easier to tell where they’re from. Which made me think, we should all be so close to our own banner of the Lord that there’s no mistaking where our home tent is, even when we’re going out to compete in the races set before us.

“On that day the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples. The natino will seek Him and His resting place will be glorious.” Isaiah 11:10

Is There A Hole In Your Pocket?

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Money closeup


Is money falling out a hole in your pocket?
By Pen Waggener (Flickr: Economic Landscape) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

 

Ever feel like all the money you make is falling out of a hole at the bottom of your wallet? I do, and I’d wager that many others do at this time as well. It’s as if on paper what we earn should be enough to cover everything, but when it comes to actually paying for things all those numbers on paper have evaporated into nowhere.

It’s such a strange thing. Stranger still is that this was just what was happening to those who had returned from the Babylonian capture all those years ago.

The Israelites had been carted off to Babylon after multiple warnings from the Lord. They spent 70 years there, then were released and those who wanted to go home could. They went home essentially to ruins, the ruins of their economy, the ruins of their houses, the ruins of what could have been their lives if their parents and grandparents had followed the Lord and stayed, and to the ruins of the temple of the Lord that many of them had never seen.

Ruins, they were living in ruins because of decision that had been made before they were even born. Then the word came that Kind Darius would let them rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and the temple of the Lord who they learned in the hard crucible of captivity was the one true god.

They worked to rebuild the ruins they found themselves in and yet according to the book of Haggia no matter how hard they worked they still weren’t able to make ends meet. Sound familiar? Like many of us, they looked good on paper, but when it came to actually making a living they were falling woefully short.

“The wage earner puts his wages into a bag with a hole in it,” the Lord said through Haggai when He was telling them to think carefully about the way they were living. The hole at the bottom of their bags plus the fact that they were planting a lot but harvesting little, eating but still hungry, clothed but still cold, leads me to believe they were working hard, but to no avail which means something else was amiss. Something they wouldn’t necessarily look at because when you’re so caught up in surviving, you don’t tend to look any other aspects of life than what’s the physical need.

The Lord told their two rulers, both the governor and the high priest – their physical and spiritual leaders – what the problem was. The people were too focused on rebuilding their own houses, and not focused on rebuilding the house of the Lord. In short, they were so focused on themselves and the predicament they were in that they weren’t even really seeing the Lord. They may have come home to ruins made by others, but their own decisions were keeping them in those ruins.

The people were putting the physical before the spiritual, instead of the other way around. If given the chance, we will always put the physical before the spiritual. This may be why the Lord many times uses the physical to get our attention, which is what He did to the returned exiles. He orchestrated the physical shortfall, because then the people were open to seeing what was really important. Him.

To their credit they did see. As soon as they heard the word of the Lord through Haggai that they needed to focus on rebuilding the temple, they went up to the hills and began gathering lumber. Just 23 days later, yes days, they began to work on rebuilding the second temple.

Yet, the holes at the bottom of their wallets seemed to persist. Even though this was the case, with the Lords encouragement that He was indeed with them, they continued to work on the temple.

Then the day came roughly seven months later when the Lord told them to reflect back on where they were before they began the rebuild. He reminded them that when someone gathered a grain heap of 20 measures when they came back to it was only 10 and when someone pressed 50 dips of wine when they came back it was only 20. He then goes on to tell them that although these circumstances had persisted, from then on things would change and He would bless them.

Seven months in to the rebuild He promises to change their physical circumstances. Not before they began rebuilding, but seven months in. Think about that. They began His work with no promise of a change in their physical circumstances, but because they knew on some level they needed to focus on the building of His house instead of their own, which is something that we all need to remember.

“The Lord of Hosts says this: ‘Think carefully about your ways.’”  Haggai 1:7a