Robes, Rings, and Fattened Calves

 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate...’ The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’” Luke 15:22-30

I have been reading a great book by Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God. It is an in-depth study of the parable that Jesus told regarding a man who had two sons. We know it as The Prodigal Son but the Bible does not refer to it in that name. One son demands his inheritance, leaves home, squanders every cent on sinful living, and determines he will die if he doesn’t return home. The other son who faithfully and dutifully remained with their father has been picking up the slack no doubt. The days were long and hard as he carried the load for two people. Our passage tells the story of a humbled repenting son and a prideful resentful son. Truth is both sons were alienated from their father. We can find ourselves in both as we walk out our own journeys home. The younger son was physically separated while the elder son was emotionally separated. In the story the father had to go out and invite both of the sons in. The attitude of the elder son was anger. ‘He feels he has the right to tell the father how the robes, rings, and livestock (fattened calves) of the family should be deployed’ p. 44. 'If, like the elder brother, you believe that God ought to bless you and help you because you have worked so hard to obey him and be a good person, then Jesus may be your helper...but he is not your Savior’ p. 44.

How many times have we approached God reminding him of the things we have done for Him? The principles that we have upheld...the faith that we have placed in Him...the tithe that we offer Him. Are we no different than the elder son as secretly we judge all of the bad things that other people have done and keep account of our good deeds? Why do they get grace for being bad and we get nothing for being good? If we are honest, we probably can relate to the elder brother a little more than the wild rebel who is shockingly self-focused and sinful. 

The great news is that we all are living ‘east of Eden’ because of the fall of Adam and Eve. When we accepted Christ as Savior, we became adopted into the family of God. Even if we alienate ourselves from our Father, we still hold the position in the family. ‘Jesus will make the world our perfect home again. We will no longer be living ‘east of Eden,’ always wandering and never arriving. We will come, and the father will meet us and embrace us. And we will be brought into the feast’ p. 117.

Following the One

 “’Come, follow me,’ Jesus said...” Matthew 4:19

This morning as I was listening to a song about following Jesus, an image popped into my head. It was my dad up in front of me walking faster than I walked as a little girl. My 10 little steps probably made up 2 of his long strides. I can still remember asking a million times where were we going only for him to look over his shoulder telling me to just follow him. Whether it was in a store or a parking lot, I knew one thing...although I didn’t know where I was going, he certainly did.

Even as I grew into a teenager, there were times when he wanted me to follow him in the car. If for some reason we got separated, I knew that somewhere up ahead on the side of the road he would be pulled over watching for me. What a comfort and confidence I had in him whenever I followed.

A rush of fresh awareness and gratitude washed over me this morning as God used my father to remind me of this simple but easy-to-forget reminder. As we walk out our circumstances, we must keep in step with Jesus up ahead. We must lift our prayers asking Him, ‘Where are we going?’ Most importantly, we must wait and watch for Him to glance over His shoulder and remind us, ‘Come, just follow me.’

So many of us find ourselves waiting on something to happen in our circumstances ...the healing of a physical condition...the callback from a job interview...the reconciliation of a broken relationship...a mended heart from losing a loved one. In order to follow anyone, we must keep moving...we must keep the One we trust in our sights...we must listen for His direction and encouragement. The only way to leave a place is to move to the next one, and God did not leave us on our own to get there. Through Christ, we can follow Him and trust that if we keep moving forward, so will He. Otherwise, we just may lose Him in the crowd.

“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere” 2 Co 2:14.

The Uninvited One

“Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil.” Luke 7:36

I love this story where pride collides with humility...where despair and sin understand the need for engagement and a Savior...where the legalism of the host is trumped by the longing of the uninvited. No doubt there were many things on Simon’s mind when he orchestrated a dinner for a man named Jesus. The table had been set perfectly I’m sure...the lounging cushions arranged in an intentional way...the guest list pridefully chosen to showcase his guest. Meanwhile, word of this special dinner with this Jesus person echoes in the heart of this sinful woman. She lays her reputation aside and gathers her most precious belonging...her expensive perfume. She fully understands that she will be perceived as an uninvited guest, a party-crasher, and an outsider. I wonder how long she stood outside before she entered the home. How she must have longed for fellowship and acceptance of family instead of the isolation of bad choices? Did she have to muster up the courage or was she so desperate for a Savior that she bolted right in? She was about to exchange her loneliness for community with Jesus. She was about to join His circle instead of being an outsider looking in.

This beautifully painted picture resonates deep in my heart, soul, and spirit today. It nudged my memory of when our daughter was in an in-patient facility as a young teen. We were trying to help her navigate through wounded feelings she was presently experiencing. One day in family counseling (including her siblings) the counselor had us sit in a circle of chairs. She asked our daughter to take a chair and place it in the circle based on her feelings. As she approached the circle and picked up a chair, I figured she would place it next to me. Instead, she took a chair and walked out of the circle with it and placed it in a corner of the room and sat down. It broke my heart to think that she either didn’t want to be in our circle or didn’t feel loved and invited into it. We desperately wanted fellowship with her on the deepest levels. We wanted her to see that there was always an invitation and deep desire for us to love her, welcome her, and protect her.

And so does Jesus. He invites everyone to His table regardless if mankind excludes them. Don’t we all feel unworthy to approach Jesus at certain points of our lives? Sometimes wouldn’t we all rather withdraw and isolate instead of courageously approaching Jesus with our brokenness and sin? The woman who washed His feet, dried them with her hair, kissed them with her lips, and anointed them with her greatest gift was not only looking for forgiveness but was longing for a place next to Jesus of belonging and community.

When we come to Jesus in humility, we become the woman in Luke’s story. The uninvited one who becomes the exalted one...the uninvited one who becomes the honored one... the uninvited one who brings our chair back into the circle.

Reflecting God's Glory

“If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.  And the LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your desire with good things, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.” (RSV).

 

I have always loved pictures of Jesus meeting with Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration prior to his final days leading up to the cross.  I seemingly have painted a pretty picture of this meeting, relatively harmless and spiritually edifying.  But this morning I realize that my understanding was more of a childlike bedtime story.  God loaned His heavenly saints to Jesus to prepare Him for the suffering that would be His.  The Bible is silent on that sacred conversation between Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.  But I guarantee God wanted extra encouragement for Jesus to help Him understand that what was getting ready to occur was both the will and way to bring Jesus home as well as saving humanity.  Fully knowing that His son was getting ready to unimaginably suffer, He sent His finest messengers to strengthen Him...encourage Him...most likely sharing unknown things with Him.  I’ve never thought about the word transfiguration in any other way than a positive light.  Don’t get me wrong by that inference because with transfiguration comes the glory of God.  However, I discovered today that transfiguration always includes suffering. 

 

“The idea of transfiguration follows very naturally and logically from acceptance, gratitude, and offering.  If we receive the things that God wants to give us, if we thank Him for them and if we make those things an offering back to God, then this is what’s going to happen – transfiguration.” Suffering is Never for Nothing,Elisabeth Elliot, p.93.  This brings me to my original point.  Glory follows suffering when we accept the things we have in our lives that we don’t want and accept the things we don’t have in our lives that we desire.  Hopefully acceptance breeds gratitude for God walking us through it all, and we begin to offer our testimonies for the encouragement and benefit of others.  What follows our offering is God’s glory in us, through us, and surrounding us.  The three parts of suffering that will bring glory to God and God’s glory to us is acceptance, gratitude, and offering.

 

“If your faith rests in your idea of how God is supposed to answer your prayers, then that kind of faith is very shaky and is bound to be demolished when the storms of life hit.  But if your faith rests on the character of Him who is the eternal I AM, then that kind of faith is rugged and will endure” p. 93.

 

Jesus embodied the words of Isaiah 58:10-11 as an example of how we can triumphally walk through this life as an example for our circle of influence.  As we pour ourselves out from our suffering for the sake of helping others get through their suffering, we reflect the face of Jesus.

An Oatmeal Cookie Offering

“There’s a little boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But that’s a drop in the bucket for a crowd like this.” John 6:9

When I was a little girl, our mother always packed our lunches. Most of the time I knew what I would have for lunch. But occasionally, I would open that little brown bag with my name written on the front to discover something I had not expected...one of my favorite things being a Little Debbie Oatmeal Cookie! By the time lunch rolled around I couldn’t wait to sit with my friends and see what they had in their lunchbox. Sometimes we would swap things if we saw something we liked better. But I never wanted to offer my oatmeal cookie...it was just too difficult to give up.

When Jesus asked the disciples how they were going to feed all of the people who had come to hear Him, Andrew pointed out a little boy who had some food which may have fed a few people. Now John stays silent on the conversation between the boy with the lunch and the person who asked him for it. All we know is that one minute he had his lunch and the next he did not. What if he favored his loaves and fish just like I did my oatmeal cookies? Did he gladly give up something special for himself to benefit so many others?

Every single thing we have in this life is a gift from God, making it potential material for sacrifice. Some things given to us bring great joy while other things create deep suffering. Some of the greatest people who have influenced my life have been those who have suffered but have given of themselves to help others in their suffering. Our suffering cannot become our religion and our brokenness can only be healed by offering it up to Jesus. Elisabeth Elliot, author of Suffering Is Never for Nothing writes, ‘Let it go. Offer it up. A sacrifice. If my life is broken when given to Jesus, it may be because pieces will feed a multitude when a loaf would satisfy only a little boy. God took a little boy’s lunch and He turns it into something for the good of the world because that individual let it go.’ p. 83, 85.

Will we?

The See-saw of Faith

“For God so loved...that He gave His only son...” John 3:16a.

When I was a little girl there was a park in our town that had a see-saw. I don’t remember a time before that sunny day when I had ever gotten on one. Thankfully, I cannot remember who was on the other side of the see-saw when I was on it, but there was a group of kids with me. All I remember was the moment they jumped off when I was high in the air and my side came crashing to the ground. What a jolt! What a surge of pain up my back which left me sore, angry, and resentful. I had done nothing to deserve that but was having to experience it.

I read this morning that faith is the fulcrum of our moral and spiritual balance. ‘Think of a see-saw. The fulcrum is the point where the see-saw rests. And my moral and spiritual balance depends on that stability of faith,’ Suffering is Never for Nothing, Elisabeth Elliot, p. 45. When suffering is thrust upon us our lives crash to the ground sending an undeniable bolt of pain throughout our body...physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. It requires the very thing that we rarely have in order to bring our lives back into balance...acceptance. If faith is the fulcrum, then acceptance is the journey back to balance. ‘Acceptance...is the key to peace in this business of suffering...the crux of the whole matter is the cross of Jesus Christ. It is the best thing that ever happened in human history as well as the worst thing,’ pp 41-42. That suffering was a result of God’s deep love for you and me. The only way to avoid suffering is to avoid love. Would we have rather that God never blessed us with our loved ones to avoid the present suffering? Of course not, so what we are left with is the painful, messy, and overwhelming journey towards acceptance and peace. While our circumstances may be chaotic, ‘We’re not adrift in chaos. We’re held in the everlasting arms. And therefore, and this makes a difference, we can be at peace and we can accept. We can say yes, Lord, I’ll take it. I don’t like what You’re doing. I don’t understand it. But I will trust You,’ pp 44-45.

God will show us the next step in our journey towards the fulcrum of faith. Our footprints will be imprinted with peace and acceptance every little step we take but we must move...we must choose...we must believe.  Acceptance is not an evil word but a life-giving promise that God will use to bring us into His merciful healing and transcending peace. There is not one circumstance that any one person is enduring that is uncommon to mankind. We all will love those who God has blessed our lives with. We all will be called to live without those loved ones when God in His ultimate plan takes them home. That is God’s will for every one of us as believers and it's what we are destined for. I’m so grateful that there is more than this world and that I will one day live forever with every one whom I have loved and lost.

Rings of Life

“Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the LORD forever.” Psalm 23:6

Back in September, Bruce and I traveled to Portland, Oregon to visit his brother and sister-in-law. Crystal and I have always been close and I have considered her more of another sister than in-law. We had not been together for over a year and a half due to Covid and we were finally going to celebrate a joint 60th-birthday. When we got to their home, she handed me a small beautifully wrapped box. I opened it up to find a silver necklace that bore 6 interlocking rings, a ring for each decade for which I had lived. It will always be one of my favorite gifts. I began thinking this morning as I was playing with the rings hanging around my neck.

The first ring boasted of my birth into an amazing family of parents, grandparents, sisters, aunts, uncles, and a slew of cousins. It represented the unconditional love of family and the unmistakable faith in God in which I was raised.

The second ring held the memories of standing up in church and being confirmed in my own faith. It’s circle of silver held within it my precious friends from childhood to adulthood that God has placed in my life.

The third ring is probably one of my top two most precious rings. It is the ring of time in which I became a mother to 3 amazing children who love me, and wife to an amazing man who consistently and lovingly shares life with me. Within this ring, God blessed me with new friends along the way to share future rings with me which still continues to this day.

The fourth ring brought too much heartache to remember, coupled with horrible choices and decisions I made. But what was met with the horrible choices were mercy and forgiveness from those whom I let down. But I cannot despise the ring that showed me how to forgive and give grace to others with the same grace and forgiveness given to me by God.

The fifth ring is my very favorite and was a ring I never could have imagined. It is a ring that completely stopped me in my tracks and set my path in a different direction. A ring that ushered me into a living relationship with God who had been there every step of every ring. His love and comfort pulled me through the death of my sister and my dad, and an excruciating season as caregiver for my father-in-law with Alzheimers. Within this precious ring, God's blessings showered me with grandchildren discovering a love that I never could have imagined.

The sixth ring was filled with a focus on God’s kingdom and discovering the purposes He had for me from the time He formed me. He has given me amazing opportunities to share in His work despite my weaknesses and flaws. This ring blessed me with a new round of grandchildren.

I only have to consider the rings of my life to understand who has been with me through it all. Each ring matters because the times of suffering and joy are intertwined with each other and show the faithfulness of a loving Father. Just as these rings are layered in sterling silver, the rings of my life [and yours] have been layered in God’s love.

‘Christ is [and has been] the head of this home, the unseen guest at every meal, the silent listener to every conversation’ Suffering is Never for Nothing, Elisabeth Elliot, p. 3.